General Notes

Note:
[5484] William Culpeper of Hunton and Wigsell, born a young
est son, was named
in his father's will (1514) as 'my sonne Willm,' with provi
sion to be
'founde to schole.' That this injunction was carried out an
d that he
was put through grammar school, and sent thence to London t
o reside at
either Barnard's or Staple Inn, may be deduced from his adm
ission to
Grays Inn in 1530 (Foster, fo. 423).
.
This would be the year he came of age, when the deaths of h
is two
elder brothers had already left him his father's heir. Thi
s appears
both from. the contemporary instrument (Harl. Charter, 7
6 H 12) which
confirmed to William as 'son and heir' of his father the di
spositions
of the will of Sir John in favor of Walter; and from his mo
ther's will
two years later.
.
It may be that William Culpeper began life as a practisin
g lawyer. The
earliest public record of him is not in itself inconsisten
t with such
an hypothesis. In 1538 he was included in the long list o
f gentlemen
enrolled as 'servants' to Henry VIII's servant Thomas Cromw
ell, then
Lord Privy Seal and at the dizzy height of his prosperity
; for he was
not part of the household, but one of those who were to att
end only
when called (L. & P. Henry V111, Xiii, pt. 2, p. 497). Th
e patronage
resulting from this service was part of the contemporary sp
oil of the
monasteries. He had a grant of an annuity charged on the pr
iory of
Christ Church at Canterbury, and on March io, 1538/9, the s
eizin of
the lands of the dissolved priory of Losenham, which his Au
cher
ancestor had founded (ibid., xiv, pt. I, p. 224; xx, Pt. I
, p. 324).
.
It is significant that in all these testimonies William app
ears only
in relation to Kent. In his grant of the priory of Losenha
m he is,
indeed, described as 'of Hunton,' while his second son wa
s listed at
Winchester College in 1553 (Kirby, Winchester Scholars, 188
8, p. 132)
by the same qualification. Thus it appears that on his marr
iage, which
took place in 1530 as appears from the record of the famil
y settlement
of that year, William established himself, not at Wigsell
, but in the
midst of the Kentish weald, on the river Beult near its jun
ction with
the Medway. This was an eminently agreeable place of reside
nce, but
Hunton was not a Culpeper lordship. It was vested in the Wy
atts of
Allington (Hasted, ii, 229), a family which, like the Culpe
pers, later
produced a Governor of Virginia.
.
In relation to the Wyatts, William Culpeper achieved also h
is next
appearance in a public record: for when, in January, 1540/1
, Sir
Thomas Wyatt, the poet, was involved in Cromwell's downfal
l and for
some weeks was held a prisoner in the Tower, William Culpep
er was, on
Wyatt's nomination, permitted by the Privy Council to hav
e the custody
of Allington Castle (L. & P. Henry V111, xvi, 229). He di
d not,
however, persistently follow their fortunes. Whether, unlik
e his
youthful kinsmen of Bedgebury and Aylesford, he remembere
d the check
his family had had in the reign of Edward II, whether he ha
d never
accepted the break with Rome (three of his sons were name
d for
saints), or whether it was merely his fortieth year which c
ounselled
prudence, William was loyal to Queen Mary's government in t
he crisis
of 1553 and did not follow the poet's son into 'Wyatt's reb
ellion.'
His record then was that of an active justice of the peace
; at first
in organizing police, and, after the danger had passed, cha
rged with
the custody of sequestered estates (Acts P. C., 1554-56) pp
. 70, 85).
.
In the course of this last duty William moved his residenc
e several
times, which explains why his third son, Martin, was entere
d at
Winchester (Kirby, supra) as 'of Barfriston' in east Kent
. It follows
that it was not until the very end of his life that Willia
m settled
down at Wigsell, where h