William MARKHAM of Okley

Born: BEF 1533

Died: 1570/1, Little Oakley, Northamptonshire, England

Father: John MARKHAM of Cotham (Sir Knight)

Married 1: ¿?

Children:

1. Isabel MARKHAM

Married 2: Elizabeth MONTAGUE

Children:

2. Anne MARKHAM

The details in this biography come from the History of Parliament, a biographical dictionary of Members of the House of Commons.

Born by 1533, son of Sir John Markham by his third wife, Anne, dau. and coh. of Sir John Strelley of Strelley, Notts. Educ. ?St. John’s, Camb. matric. 1549. Married 1567, Elizabeth (d. 1569), dau. of Sir Edward Montague of Boughton, Northants., wid. of Richard Cave of Little Oakley, at least 1da.

William Markham was an executor of his father’s will of 1559, under which he and his brother Thomas, with a friend and a servant, were entrusted with lands in East Markham and Tuxford for 20 years for the payment of debts and legacies. Markham himself received the lease of Thoroton church in Nottinghamshire, and some (unspecified) lands there and in Lincolnshire.

Markham was to play no part in local government, either in his native county or in Northamptonshire, where he settled after his marriage to the widow of Richard Cave of Little Oakley, a nephew of Sir Ambrose Cave. He may have seen military service at Berwick in and after 1557 his brother Thomas was there between 1558 and 1560’but his only known incursion into state affairs is as a Member of the Parliament of Nov 1554. His return for Nottingham he must have owed to his father, who had himself sat for the borough at least twice under Henry VIII, and his brother Thomas had done so at the beginning of Mary’s reign.

By his will of 19 Jul 1570 Markham asked to be buried with such ceremony as his overseers thought fitting. He left all his lands in Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire, and his ‘goods, chattels, plate and jewels’, to his only child and heir Anne, whom he named sole executrix, with remainder to his brother Thomas. He appointed his brother Thomas and his brothers-in-law Sir Edward Montague and John Harington, overseers of his will and guardians of his daughter, who would not be free to marry without their consent; to Montague he bequeathed his best armour, to his brother ‘all the residue’ of his armour and to Harington two of his horses. Markham was buried in the chancel of Little Oakley church, where he had provided for a monument and tomb ‘in colour and scriptures’ which was never executed. The will was proved on 12 Jul 1571. Anne Markham was to marry Nicholas Timperley of Hintlesham in Suffolk.

Sources:

MARKHAM, William (by 1533-70/71), of Little Oakley, Northants.

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