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Sir Edward Wynter or Wintour (born 1560, died 1619) was an English mariner and landowner who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1587 and 1601. He developed the iron workings around the family estates at Lydney in the Forest of Dean, which in his son's time were of importance to the Royalist cause. His marriage to Lady Anne Somerset produced a strongly Roman Catholic allegiance among his children.

Life

Wynter was the eldest son of Admiral Sir William Wynter of Lydney, Gloucestershire (died 1589) and his wife Mary Langton. He matriculated at Brasenose College, Oxford on 20 December 1577, aged 17 and was awarded BA on 28 January 1579. He was a student of the Inner Temple in 1579. In 1587, he was elected Member of Parliament for Newport. Wynter sailed to the Caribbean with Sir Francis Drake, setting out as Captain of the Aid in the voyage of 1585-1586, during which his brother Nicholas Wynter was lost.

In August 1588, Wynter served on board his father's ship against the Spanish Armada. In February 1589 his father died, and in that month Edward took his seat as MP for Gloucestershire. His father's will, naming Edward sole executor, was proved on 15 March 1588/89 by oath of his attorney. He succeeded his father to the estate which Sir William had built up since c.1560 around the manors and dependencies of Lydney. At about this time, Wynter killed Henry Walsh of Little Sodbury in a duel in Marylebone, for which he was granted a royal pardon.

Soon afterwards, having resolved to journey abroad, he was captured in 1589 and was sold as a prisoner to the Spanish ambassador in France, Bernardino de Mendoza. He was at first held in Amiens, but was soon afterwards transferred to the castle of Antwerp, for almost four years. During this period lawsuits were brought against him in England which he was unable to defend, except through appeal to members of the Council. He became a hostage against the release of Don Pedro de Valdes, General of the Andalusian squadron, who had been captured by the English at the time of the armada. Upon his release Wynter found he was expected to pay a large ransom for the release of Valdes, owing to the inequality of their condition.

As patron of Lydney church he presented Antony Stirrey, or Sterry, as vicar in 1594, who was instituted in August 1595 and remained in that living (as rector from 1603) until at least 1623. Stirrey, who had been rector of Abenhall since 1568, was also curate of Aylburton chapel at Lydney from 1612. Wynter was knighted in 1595, and on 11 August in that year he married Lady Anne Somerset, daughter of Edward Somerset, 4th Earl of Worcester.

An insight into Sir Edward's household at Lydney arises from an event which led to legal proceedings in Star Chamber in 1597. A young African man called Edward, Wynter's godson, referred to as "Swarthye" (i.e., black), held the relatively senior office of porter, with authority over many of the junior servants: he is one of a number of examples of Africans holding status in late Tudor English households. It is thought most likely that he was brought to England by Sir Edward from the expedition with Drake in 1585-86. In 1596, in the great hall of White Cross Manor at Lydney, at Wynter's instruction, he administered a whipping to an Englishman John Guye (who had been Wynter's steward and was thereupon discharged from service). Swarthye, who died in 1627, remained attached to the household.

Wynter was High Sheriff of Gloucestershire from November 1598 to December 1599. On 19 January 1601, he became Constable of St Briavels Castle and Keeper of the Forest of Dean on the death of the 2nd Earl of Pembroke. In letter in the Cecil Papers, Wynter refers to the Earl's demands that he should pay sureties for his own behaviour in this office. He was elected MP for Gloucestershire again in 1601. On 10 January 1609, he surrendered his posts as constable and keeper to the 3rd Earl of Pembroke.

Wynter's iron production in the Forest of Dean involved the felling of coppices and development of charcoal pits for fuel for smelting, in addition to open-cast quarrying or levelling for iron ore and for outcrops of coal. Wynter built his furnaces for the extraction of metal from ore (which required water-power to drive bellows) beside the stream that crosses the Lydney vale. In all these respects he met with the protests and reprisals of the Freeminers and Commoners of the Forest, who thought their customary rights were being taken away and the benefits redirected to private interest. In 1606/07 Wynter brought proceedings against a group of Commoners in Star Chamber, claiming that he had been the victim of malicious hostility whipped up against him. He purchased rights to timber from the Crown in 1611, but this led to several further disputes with the Commoners, who were concerned that they would have no wood left for their own use: he surrendered these rights in 1616.

Death and issue

Wynter died on 3 March 1619. He had the following children:

• Edward Wynter (died in childhood)
• Sir John Wynter (c.1600-1676), ironmaster. An ardent catholic and royalist. On 15 March 1627 he paid for 4000 cords of wood to be felled in the Forest of Dean.
• Robert Wynter
• William Wynter
• Edward Wynter. Edward Wintour and Frederick Wintour were said in 1635 to have gone in person as gentleman adventurers to Lord Baltimore's plantation of Maryland, a haven for English Roman Catholics of which they were among the original founders.
• Henry Frederick Wynter
• Elizabeth Wynter, married Richard Monington of Sarnesfield, Herefordshire.
• Anne Wynter (1597-1676), married Benedict Hall (c. 1582-1660) of High Meadow, Newland, Gloucestershire: among their daughters were
  • Cecilia Hall (1625-1651) and
  • Catherine Hall (1634-1692, abbess 1673-77) who together entered the Benedictine Abbey of Our Lady of Consolation at Cambrai (Artois) in 1646. Their mother also retired there in 1675 and is buried with them there.
• Marie Winter (1604-1630) was received into the English Monastery of the Assumption of Our Blessed Lady, in Brussels, as a Benedictine nun on 15 August 1618.

It was a younger Sir Edward Winter (1621/22-1686) who became an administrator for the East India Company.

References

1. ^ M.R.P., 'Wynter, Edward (c.1560-1619), of Lydney, Glos.', in P.W. Hasler (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603 (from Boydell and Brewer 1981), History of Parliament online.
2. A.P. Baggs and A.R.J. Jurica, 'Lydney: Manors and other estates', in A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, the Forest of Dean, ed. C.R.J. Currie and N.M. Herbert (V.C.H., London 1996), pp. 46-84 (British History Online, accessed 21 April 2021).
3. ^ 'Wynter. Pedigree No. 1 and No. 2', in J. Macleane and W.C. Heane (eds), The Visitation of the County of Gloucester taken in the year 1623, (&c.), Harleian Society XXI (1885), pp. 271-78, at p. 273 (Internet Archive).
4. 'Winter, (Sir) Edward (Wynter)', in J. Foster (ed.), Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714 (Oxford 1891), pp. 1654-74 (British History Online, accessed 19 June 2023).
5. ^ W.R. Williams, Parliamentary History of the County of Gloucester (Author, Hereford 1898), pp. 47-48 (Internet Archive).
6. M.F. Keeler (ed.), Sir Francis Drake's West Indian Voyage, 1585-86, The Hakluyt Society (London 1981), p. 280, p. 299-300, and passim (Google Preview).
7. 'Letter from Edward Wynter to Sir Francis Walsyngham. 24 August 1588', in 'Proceedings of the Central Committee, September 10 1845', Journal of the British Archaeological Association I (London 1846), pp. 309-46, at pp. 321-23 (Google).
8. Will of Sir William Wynter of Lydney, Gloucestershire (P.C.C. 1589, Leicester quire).
9. Baggs and Jurica, 'Lydney: Manors and other estates', V.C.H. Gloucester V (1996), pp. 46-84, at note 355 (British History Online), citing The National Archives (UK), 'Inquisitions post mortem (Chancery), Gloucestershire: Winter, Sir William (17 November 1589-16 November 1590),' ref. C 142/227/204 (Discovery Catalogue).
10. ^ '4. Edward Swarthye, the Porter', in M. Kaufmann, Black Tudors: The Untold Story (Simon and Schuster, 2017), pp. 90 ff (Google Preview).
11. 'Sir Robert Cecil and Sir John Wolley to Edward Wynter. 22 April 1593', and 'Edward Wynter to Sir Robert Cecil and Sir John Wolley. 14 May 1593', in Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Most Hon. the Marquis of Salisbury, at Hatfield House, Part IV (Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts, HMSO 1892), pp. 302-03, pp. 313-14 (Google).
12. J. Strype, Annals of the Reformation and Establishment of Religion, New Edition (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1824), III Part 2, pp. 38-40 (Google). Letter misdated 1588, recte 8 July 1592.
13. J. James, 'DCCCLXXXVI. Notes on Lydney and its dependencies', Gloucestershire Notes and Queries: An Illustrated Quarterly II (Wm. Kent & Co., London 1884), pp. 493-505, at p. 501 (Google).
14. Clergy of the Church of England database, ref CCEd Location display 9418.
15. Clergy of the Church of England database, ref CCEd Person ID 134377.
16. C. Elrington, 'List of Sheriffs of Gloucestershire', in Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 128 (2010), pp. 207–227 (Society's pdf), at p. 216.
17. Baggs and Jurica, 'Lydney: Manors and other estates', V.C.H. Gloucester V (1996), pp. 46-84, at note 357 (British History Online), citing Gloucester Record Office D 421/E 3, and C.E. Hart, Royal Forest. A History of Deans Woods As Producers of Timber (Clarendon Press, Oxford 1966), p. 86.
18. 'Sir Edward Wynter to the Lord Admiral and Sir Robert Cecil. 6 February' (attributed date 1595/96), in 'Cecil Papers: February 1596, 1-15', in R.A. Roberts (ed.), Calendar of the Cecil Papers in Hatfield House, Vol. VI: 1596 (HMSO, London 1895), pp. 43-58 (British History Online, accessed 18 June 2023). ?Date endorsement possibly incorrect.
19. A.P. Baggs and A.R.J. Jurica, 'Forest of Dean: Industry', in C.R.J. Currie and N.M. Herbert (eds), A History of the County of Gloucester, Vol. 5: Bledisloe Hundred, St. Briavels Hundred, the Forest of Dean (V.C.H., London 1996), pp. 326-354 (British History Online, accessed 22 June 2023).
20. ^ 'Winter', in H.G. Nicholls, The Personalities of the Forest of Dean (John Murray, London 1863), pp. 112-27, at pp. 113-17 (Google): citing Lansdowne MSS, No. 166/94 (British Library Archive search), fols. 340, 344, 346.
21. cf. The National Archives (UK), Wyntour v Cachmay ref. STAC 8/303/7 (Discovery Catalogue).
22. S. Sandall, '"They call their neighbours cowards for not assisting them": Custom, neighbourliness and popular resistance in early modern England', in B.C. Kane and S. Sandall (eds), The Experience of Neighbourhood in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, Studies in Medieval History and Culture (Routledge, Abingdon/New York 2022), pp. 88-104 (Google preview).
23. See also S. Sandall, Custom and Popular Memory in the Forest of Dean, c.1550-1832 (Scholars' Press, 2013).
24. The National Archives (UK), Exchequer: Surrender by Sir Edward Wyntour of Lydney, ref. E 214/809 (Discovery Catalogue).
25. Baggs and Jurica, 'Lydney: Manors and other estates', V.C.H. Gloucester V (1996), pp. 46-84, at note 358 (British History Online), citing The National Archives (UK), 'Inquisitions post mortem (Chancery), Gloucestershire: Winter, Sir Edward (24 March 1619-23 March 1620),' ref. C 142/378/147 (Discovery Catalogue).
26. ^ 'Winter of Lidney', in T.F.P. Fenwick and W.C. Metcalfe (eds), The Visitation of the County of Gloucester, begun by Thomas May, Chester, and Gregory King, Rouge Dragon, in Trinity Vacacon 1682, and finished by Henry Dethick (for Mr. Fenwick, Exeter 1884), at pp. 205-06 (Hathi Trust).
27. (T. Cecil, engraver), A Relation of Maryland together with a map of the countrey, the conditions of plantation, his Majesties charter to the Lord Baltemore, translated into English (William Peasley, London 1635), at p. 56 (Umich/eebo).
28. E.D. Neill, The Founders of Maryland as Portrayed in Manuscripts, Provincial Records and Early Documents (J. Munsell, Albany 1876), at p. 49 and p. 64 (Umich/eebo).
29. For Hall's monumental inscription, see J. Fendley (ed.), Notes on the Diocese of Gloucester by Chancellor Richard Parsons, Gloucestershire Records Series 19 (Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society, 2005), at p. 179 (Google snippett).
30. ^ C. Heywood, ed. J. Gillow, 'Records of the Abbey of Our Lady of Consolation at Cambrai, 1620-1793', Catholic Records Society Vol. 13: Miscellanea VIII (London 1913), pp. 1-85, at p. 47, p. 80 and p. 84. Reader at issuu.com.
31. J.S. Hansom (ed.), 'III. The Register Book of Professions, etc., of the English Benedictine nuns at Brussels and Winchester, now at East Bergholt, 1598-1856', Catholic Record Society, Vol. 14: Miscellanea IX (London 1914), pp. 174-203, at p. 184. Reader at issuu.com.
32. I.B. Watson, 'Winter, Sir Edward (1621/2–1686)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (OUP 2004). Online edition 2008.

• 1560 births
• Alumni of Brasenose College, Oxford
• Members of the Inner Temple
• High sheriffs of Gloucestershire
• English MPs 1586–1587
• English MPs 1589
• English MPs 1601