He was the eldest son of Sir Henry Strangways of Melbury Sampford, Dorset by his first wife Dorothy Arundell, a daughter of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne in Cornwall, Sheriff of Cornwall in 1443, Vice-Admiral of Cornwall, by his second wife Catherine Chiddocke, a daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Chiddocke of Dorset and widow of William Stafford of Frome. Sir Henry Strangways survived his first wife and remarried to the widow of William Browning, lord of the manor of Melbury Sampford, which manor thereby became a possession and the principal seat of his descendants from his first marriage.
He succeeded his father in 1504 and was knighted in 1514. He was made an Esquire of the body by 1509. He also was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Dorset in 1509 for life, for Somerset from 1514 to 1521 and for the western circuit in 1540. He was Sheriff of Somerset and Sheriff of Dorset for 1512–13, 1517–18, 1524–25, 1533–34 and 1541–42 and a Member of Parliament for Dorset in 1529 and 1539. He took part in the French campaign of 1514 and was part of the contingent of English knights with Henry VIII at the Field of Cloth of Gold in 1520 and at the reception of Charles V at Canterbury in May 1522. He was also on campaign in France in 1523 and appointed Vice-Admiral of Dorset from c. 1526 to 1536. Following the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1543 he acquired Abbotsbury Abbey in Dorset, together with the manors of Abbotsbury and East Elworth, for which he paid nearly £2,000.
Marriage and issue
He married Joan Mordaunt, a daughter of Sir John Mordaunt of Turvey, Bedfordshire, MP, by whom he had a son and two daughters, including:
He died in 1546 and was buried at Melbury Sampford. He was succeeded by his grandson Sir Giles Strangways. Surviving in Melbury Sampford Church under the south arch is his monument, a chest tomb with canopy beneath which lies a recumbent effigy of a fully armed knight with his hands together in prayer. It was made about a century before to commemorate a member of the Brouning family but has been altered to form the monument of Sir Giles Strangways. The knight's helm displays the grasshopper crest of Brouning. Around the side of the top edge of the chest tomb is a brass fillet inscribed in Latin as follows:
Which may be translated as:. An almost identical monument survives in the same church, under the north arch, of William Brouning/Browning, former lord of the manor, and Katherine Dru and Alice Burton his wives, erected by Alice in 1467.
