William Drury (MP for Suffolk)


Sir William Drury was an English landowner and member of parliament. He was the father of Sir Robert Drury, patron of the poet John Donne.

Family

William Drury, born 8 March 1550, was the eldest son of Robert Drury, esquire, and Audrey Rich, the daughter of Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich, Lord Chancellor of England. He had three brothers and eight sisters:
Drury was educated at Groton school and Caius College, Cambridge. He probably entered Lincoln's Inn in 1569. He succeeded his father, Robert, in 1557 and his grandfather, Sir William Drury, in 1558, inheriting considerable land in Suffolk, including Hawstead Place, where in 1578 he entertained Queen Elizabeth I. He was knighted around the same time.
In 1581 he was elected MP for Castle Rising, Norfolk, in a by-election caused by the illness of Edward Flowerdew. His return was challenged at the beginning of the session but confirmed by Parliament. In 1584 he was elected knight of the shire for Suffolk, sitting until 1586.
Drury was a Justice of the Peace from about 1577, and was appointed High Sheriff of Suffolk for 1582. He became an Exchequer receiver for Essex, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and London in 1587, but had to flee to the continent when owing the Exchequer £5000. By 1588, through the influence of Lord Willoughby, then in command of English forces in the Low Countries, Drury had been appointed Governor of Bergen-op-Zoom in the Netherlands, which was threatened by the Spanish. After being replaced as Governor by Thomas Morgan, a more experienced soldier, he was sent as colonel over 1000 men under Lord Willoughby to the assistance of Henry IV of France. En route he quarreled with Sir John Borough over precedency, and a duel ensued in which Drury sustained a serious injury to his arm, losing first his hand to gangrene and then his arm by amputation. He died soon afterwards.
At his death Drury still owed the crown £3000. Much of his land was sold to pay the debt, all but £600 of which was eventually paid. He was buried at Hawstead, where a marble bust over his tomb depicts him in full armour. Drury had made his last will on 1 July 1587 prior to leaving England. It was proved on 4 June 1595.

Marriage and issue

Drury married Elizabeth Stafford, the daughter of Sir William Stafford of Chebsey, Staffordshire, and Dorothy Stafford, by whom he had two sons and four daughters: