# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Fleetwood, William (1535?-1594)

​FLEETWOOD, WILLIAM (1535?–1594), recorder of London, son of Robert Fleetwood, third son of William Fleetwood of Hesketh in Lancashire, was born about 1535, and after being educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, which he left without a degree, was called to the bar of the Middle Temple. He became freeman by patrimony of the Merchant Taylors' Company of London on 21 June 1557; autumn reader of his inn on 21 May 1563; steward of the company's manor of Rushbrook in 1564, and counsel in their suit against the Clothworkers in 1565. In 1559 he was one of the commissioners to visit the dioceses of Oxford, Lincoln, Peterborough, Coventry, and Lichfield, and was elected M.P. for Lancaster to the first two parliaments of Elizabeth's reign, having previously sat for Marlborough in the last of Mary's parliaments. In 1568 he became ‘double reader in Lent’ to his inn. By the Earl of Leicester's influence he was elected (26 April 1571) recorder of London, and the same year was made a commissioner to inquire into the customs, besides being returned to parliament for the city of London (8 May 1572). As recorder he was famous for rigorously and successfully enforcing the laws against vagrants, mass-priests, and papists. In 1576 he was committed to the Fleet prison for a short time for breaking into the Portuguese ambassador's chapel under colour of the law against popish recusants. His own account of his action, dated 9 Nov., is printed in Strype's ‘Annals.’ In 1580 he was made serjeant-at-law, and in 1583 a commissioner for the reformation of abuses in printing. In the same year he drafted a scheme for housing the poor and preventing the plague in London by maintaining open spaces. On 27 April 1586 he was promised, but did not receive, the post of baron of the exchequer. He was re-elected M.P. for London in 1584, 1586, and 1588. In 1588 he reported, with the solicitor-general, as to proceedings to be taken against the jesuits, and in 1589 on the right of sanctuary for criminals attaching to St. Paul's churchyard. In 1591 the common council voted him a pension of 100l., whereupon he resigned his office. He was made queen's serjeant in 1592, and died at his house in Noble Street, Aldersgate, on 28 Feb. 1593–4. He had formerly lived at Bacon House, Foster Lane, and at his death owned an estate at Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, where he was buried. Fleetwood was a hard-working judge, and was disappointed at not receiving higher preferment. His connection with Leicester was insisted on by Leicester's enemies, and he is called ‘Leicester's mad Recorder’ in ‘Leicester's Commonwealth,’ but he was at the same time assiduous in cultivating Lord Burghley's favour. He was noted for his witty speeches, and his eloquence is eulogised by Thomas Newton in his ‘Encomia,’ 1589. He married Mariana, daughter of John Barley of Kingsey, Buckinghamshire, by whom he left a family. His elder son, Sir William, succeeded to Missenden, and the younger son, Sir Thomas, of the Middle Temple, was attorney to Henry, prince of Wales. One daughter (Cordelia) married Sir David Foulis [q. v.], and another (Elizabeth) Sir Thomas Chaloner (1561–1615) [q. v.] Fleetwood's works are: 1. ‘An Oration made at Guildhall before the Mayor, concerning the late attempts of the Queen's Maiesties evil seditious subjects,’ 15 Oct. 1571, 12mo. 2. ‘Annalium tam Regum Edwardi V, Ric. III, et Hen. VII quam Hen. VIII, titulorum ordine alphabetico digestorum Elenchus,’ 1579, 1597. 3. ‘A Table to the Reports of Edmund Plowden’ (in French), 1578, 1579, 1599. 4. ‘The Office of a Justice of the Peace,’ 1658, 8vo (posthumous). 5. Verses before Sir Thomas Chaloner's ‘De Republica Anglorum instauranda,’ 1579, and Lambarde's ‘Perambulation of Kent,’ 1576. Many of Fleetwood's works remain in manuscript. Among them are ‘Observacons sur Littleton’ (Harl. MS. 5225), besides four volumes of reports and law commonplaces (Harl. MS. 5153–6), and an imperfect but interesting ‘Itinerarium ad Windsor’ (Gent. Mag. 1857, i. 602). Wood saw in manuscript ‘Observations upon the Eyre of Pickering,’ and on Lambarde's ‘Archeion.’ In the preface to the ‘Office of a Justice’ Fleet​wood mentions a work by himself ‘De Pace Ecclesiæ,’ not otherwise known.
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