Edward Zouch


Sir Edward Zouch of Woking, Courtier to King James and King Charles I, masque actor, and Knight Marshall of the King's Household
He was the son of Sir Willam Zouch or Zouche, his mother's name in not known.

Career

In 1612 he married Dorothea Silking or Dorothy Silken, a Danish gentlewoman in the bedchamber of Anne of Denmark from Güstrow. The queen gave her and her sister Jyngell Silken gifts of clothes as a mark of favour. In 1635 Reverend George Garrard, who had been at court in the household of Prince Henry, recalled that Silken was a "homely woman" and Zouch had married her for her money.
From 1609 to 1618 Zouch was involved in glass-making, especially at Vauxhall glassworks. He built a glasshouse at Lambeth with Louis Thelwall, fuelled by Scottish coal, which was inspected by Sir George More and Sir Edmund Bowyer In July 1613. He sold his interest to Sir Robert Mansell, whose wife Elizabeth Roper had also been in the household of Anne of Denmark.
John Aubrey recorded a story that Zouch had obtained the patent for glass-making at the expense of William Robson, by making the king laugh with this verse;
In 1613 Zouch sent the lawyer James Whitelocke a doe from Woking as a Christmas present. The King sent a present of silver plate worth £150 to the christening of his son James in 1615.
As a gentleman of the Privy Chamber, Zouch attended the king in his visit to Scotland in 1617. and was made a burgess of the guild of Aberdeen.
In 1618 he acted with other courtiers at Theobalds led by Sir John Finet in an interlude featuring "Tom of Bedlam the Tinker" intended to amuse the king who was suffering from gout. In October 1618 he bought the Knight Marshallship from Sir Thomas Vavasour for £3000 with the aid of a gift of £1500 from the king.
Anne Clifford noted that Zouch was responsible at the queen's funeral for the burial of Anne of Denmark in the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey at 7 o'clock at night on 13 May 1619.
In 1620 he was appointed keeper of Woking Palace and built a house nearby called Hoe Bridge Place with a free-standing tower.
On 5 August Zouch acted in a comedy for the king at Salisbury in character as a "bearward" or keeper of bears, probably in "the house of Mr Sadler". On 28 August 1620 Zouch wrote to his cousin Lord Zouch of Odiham that he intended to offer King James and Prince Charles more mirth in their forthcoming visit to Woking than the Bishop of Winchester would at Farnham, with masques every night. This approach was a success for Zouch, John Chamberlain reported "Yet hard as the world goes, Sir Edward Zouch, knight marshall, hath Oking with another lordship adjoining to it, in all better than £500 a year, lately given him in fee-farme for masking and fooling." These theatricals were recorded in Anthony Weldon's satirical account of James's court; "Zouch his part to sing bawdy songs, and tell bawdy tales, Finet's to compose these songs.
In November 1620 Zouch was given the manors of Woking, Bagshot, and Chobham, with the proviso that he should return the service of carrying the first dish to the king's table and pay £100. He was also Forester of Woking.
After an inventory of the late queen's silver plate at Denmark House was taken in 1621, the Zouches were asked to supply a shortfall worth £492-19s., including a gold casting bottle engraved with the queen's arms. Zouch successfully claimed that a warrant signed by Dorothea Silking was a forgery, because she could not write her name. At least three examples of Dorothea's signature survive today.
In 1630 Zouch sued Sir William Bulstrode and his wife, the widow of the goldsmith and member of Parliament Henry Banister, for jewels which he had pawned in 1624, but it was discovered that Zouch had sold them to Banister in 1626.
Zouch donated a panelled oak gallery to St Peter's Church in Old Woking in 1622, his name is painted across its architrave.
In 1625 he cousin Edward, Lord Zouche, bequeathed Bramshill House to him, "he being of my blood and the son of him I loved best in my life, except the Lord Gray of Wilton."
He died on 7 June 1634. There is a Latin memorial inscription to Zouch placed by his wife in St Peters Church at Old Woking, noting his court position as "Marescalli Aulici", or "Marshall of the Household".
After his death an inventory was taken of Bramshill House, where the library contained 250 books and "certain mathematical instruments". His son James sold Bramshill in 1637 and his furniture was valued at £2762-5s-3d.
James Zouch married Beatrice Annesley in 1637, and after his death she married Sir John Lloyd of Woking and Forest, while their son was still an infant, and she married for the third time, Sir Thomas Smith of Hill Hall, Essex, according to a law case heard before the Lord Chancellor in 1669. The mother and son in the case were noted to be related to Arthur Annesley, 1st Earl of Anglesey. The case was brought by a creditor of Sir Edward Zouch called Gilpen, against his grandson or heirs. The case papers contain a copy of Edward Zouch's will and the inventory of goods at Bramshill.

Family

Edward Zouch and Dorothea Silking had the following children;