William Haute

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: of Waddenhall, Kent, England
• Alternate birth: 1390
• Alternate death: Between 20 Sep 1462 and 4 Oct 1462

Notes:

Knight of the shire for Kent, 1419, 1429-30, and 1450-51. Sheriff of Kent, 16 Nov 1420 to 1 May 1422.

A Sir William Hawte of Bishopsbourne, Kent (d. 1497) is accredited with three musical compositions: two settings of Bendicamus Domino (Magdalen College, Cambridge MS Pepys 1236) and a Stella celi extirpavit for three voices in B.L. MS Additional 5665 (the Ritson MS). It is unclear that this Sir William was a son of the William Haute of this entry. Grove Music Online, the digital descendant of the magisterial Grove Dictionary of Music, makes this claim, but shows no proof, and the William shown by Walter Goodwin Davis as son of this entry's William appears to have died before his father. It seems extremely probable, though, that the two Williams were close relatives. Carole M. Meale's article "The Manuscripts and Early Audience of the Middle English Prose Merlin" (in The Changing Face of Arthurian Romance: Essays on Arthurian Prose Romances in Memory of Cedric E. Pickford ed. Alison Adams, Armel H. Diverres, Karen Stern, and Kenneth Varty, D. S. Brewer, 1986) includes an overview of Haute family interests in literature: "[T]he unique surviving manuscript copy of the English translation of Christine de Pizan's Livre du Corps de Policie, CUL MS Kk. 1.5, bears the arms of the family on its opening page, as an integral part of the decoration. The translation has recently been attributed to Anthony Wydville and, taking into account the kinship of the Hautes and the Wydvilles, it may be no coincidence that the volume was in the possession of the former family. Arthurian literature, too, was associated in the late fifteenth century with the Hawtes; the well-known and beautifully produced volume of the French Vulgate romances, now B.L. MS Royal 14.E.III, was given to Elizabeth Wydville by 'Alyanor Haute,' neice to Sir Richard Roos, the presumed translator of Alain Chartier's poem La Belle Dame sans Merci and wife of the Richard Hawte who was executed with Anthony Wydville in 1483, who in turn is perhaps to be identified as the brother of the composer, Sir William." Finally, according to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, among the grandchildren of the William Haute of this entry was a churchman named Henry Haute (1474-1508), who at the time of his sudden death was working on a French translation of works by Erasmus and Pico della Mirandola.

From the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography:

William Haute [...] enjoyed the reputation of a capable soldier: he served in the duke of Gloucester's retinue for the Agincourt campaign in 1415, and he was appointed to his first two commissions of array in 1419 and 1420. He was also elected MP [for Kent] in 1419, and was appointed to the county bench in 1424, as well as serving a term as sheriff in 1420–21.

William Haute's first marriage, to Margaret Berwyk, brought property in Berkshire, Somerset, and Buckinghamshire, but it was his second marriage, to Joan, daughter of Richard Woodville of Maidstone, in 1429, which laid the foundations for the family's significance in a wider sphere, by allying his family with that of a future queen of England. Woodville, who was captain of Calais, where William was serving when the marriage was contracted, was father of Richard Woodville, first Earl Rivers, and grandfather of Queen Elizabeth (née Elizabeth Woodville). The settlement suggests that William was very eager for this alliance with an up-and-coming family, even going so far as to disinherit his daughter from his first marriage. Later the same year he was again elected to parliament for Kent. He served with his father-in-law in France from 1434, and was among Woodville's executors in 1441. Simultaneously, he maintained links with members of Humphrey of Gloucester's circle, men like Geoffrey Louther, Gloucester's lieutenant as warden of the Cinque Ports, with whom he sat as MP in 1432. In April 1450 he was a Kentish commissioner of array, and was among those pardoned in July, in the immediate aftermath of the Cade rising, but he is unlikely to have sided with the rebels. In 1460 Haute was commissioned to resist the Yorkist earls, but he joined them after their landing in Kent. Although he was appointed to a Yorkist commission of array in January 1461, he was by then too old to play a significant part in the new regime. His will is notable for its mention of a number of religious relics, including the stone on which the archangel Gabriel stood during the annunciation. Haute was buried in the Austin Friary at Canterbury, next to his wives.

From the History of Parliament:

Apart from suggesting a man of deep piety, his will, made on 9 May [1462], is chiefly remarkable for its bequests of relics, which included a part of the stone on which stood the archangel Gabriel when he appeared to the Virgin Mary (now donated as a base for the statue of the Virgin in Bishopsbourne church), some of St. Bartholomew’s bones (given to Waltham church) and a piece of St. Katherine’s hair shirt, together with one of St. Nicholas’s bones, given to the Austin friars, who were also to receive the rest of Haute’s relics after his eldest son’s death.

William married Joan Woodville after 18 Jul 1429 in Calais, France. Joan (daughter of Richard Wydevill and Joan Bittlesgate) died before 1462; was buried in Austin Friars, Canterbury, Kent, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Robert Baynton. Robert (son of John Baynton and Joan) was born about 1439; died before 6 Oct 1472. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

"In 1504 he obtained a reversal of the attainder of his father, with a restoration in blood and inheritance, and thus recovered his father's lands." [Royal Ancestry]

Family/Spouse: Joan Digges. Joan (daughter of Thomas Digges) died before 31 Oct 1516. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Other Events and Attributes:

• Alternate birth: Bef 1495
• Alternate birth: Abt 1495

Notes:

A courtier and survivor at the court of Henry VIII, perhaps best described as a combination of Littlefinger and the Vicar of Bray.

Sheriff of Wiltshire, 1522-23. Esquire of the body to Henry VIII by 1522. Knight of the shire for Wiltshire, 1529 and 1539. Burgess for Wilton in 1542.

"[H]e was an astute courtier who served in the royal household (he was vice-chamberlain to all save the first of Henry VIII's wives) and on military expeditions to the Scottish borders and France, as well as in local affairs. He sat in the parliaments of 1529 and 1539 as a knight of the shire for Wiltshire, and in that of 1542 as a burgess for Wilton. Probably during his association with Thomas Cromwell he began the family tradition of strong protestantism, and at the dissolution he gained much former monastic land in and near Wiltshire, especially the site of Stanley Abbey and sixteen of its manors. He built an imposing manor house at Bromham, which was said to be almost as large as the king's new court at Whitehall, and which remained the family's chief residence until demolished during the civil war. [Oxford Dictionary of National Biography]

Edward married Isabel Leigh about 18 Jan 1532. Isabel (daughter of Ralph Leigh and Joyce Culpeper) died on 16 Feb 1573. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]