# Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Hungerford, Anthony (d.1657)

​HUNGERFORD, ANTHONY (d. 1657), royalist, son, by his second marriage, of Sir Anthony Hungerford (1564-1627) [q.v.], and half-brother of Sir Edward Hungerford (1596-1648) [q.v.], was elected in 1640 to both the Short and Long parliaments as member for Malmesbury. As a royalist he sat in the king's parliament at Oxford during its first session—December 1643 to March 1644 (cf. Hist. MSS. Comm. 6th Rep. 161). He was heavily fined for his delinquency by the Long parliament, and was committed to the Tower of London in 1644 (cf. Lloyd, Memoires, p. 691). He was apparently at liberty in October 1644. According to a statement which he drew up in 1646, to excuse himself from paying the fine imposed on him, he never took up arms for the king: went after the battle of Edgehill to his house in Black Bourton, Oxfordshire; was carried thence by a troop of the king's horse to the 'assembly' at Oxford, where he gave no vote against the parliament, and soon after returning home, purposely rode to the parliamentary camp at Burford, where he was taken prisoner. His fine was reduced, but he was still unable to pay it, and in 1648 orders were given for the seizure of his estate. In December 1652 Cromwell wrote a sympathetic note to him (Carlyle, Cromwell, p. 216). He succeeded to Farleigh Castle in 1653 as heir of his half-brother Edward. There he died on 18 Aug. 1657 (Le Neve, Monumenta, ii. 52), and he was buried in Black Bourton Church on 15 Sept. following (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1654, p.53). He married Rachel (d. January 1679-80), daughter of Rice Jones of Astall, Oxfordshire, by whom he had twelve children. His heir was his son Edward (1632-1711) [q.v.] A second son, called Colonel Anthony Hungerford, entered Nicolas's service as a secret agent in England, in the royalist interest, in 1655 (cf. ib. 1655-6, pp. 79, &c.), in the hope, it is said, of obtaining his elder brother's estate. He died on 7 June 1703, in his sixty-ninth year, and was buried in the Hungerford chapel of Bourton Church, where his monument is preserved (Notes and Queries, 4th ser. vi. 499).
Another Colonel Anthony Hungerford (d. 1657), a parliamentarian, may possibly have been brother or half-brother of the royalist Anthony, for the Hungerfords often gave the same Christian name to more than one of their children. In September 1646 he pressed for a commission as governor of the parliamentarian garrison at Stoke, and for an appointment as major of the standing companies in Shropshire. Subsequently the parliament seems to have accepted his services, and sent him to Ireland, where he landed on 30 April 1647. He was colonel of a regiment at Drogheda in 1648. In 1650, after being seriously wounded in battle in Ireland, he returned to England, where he busied himself in 'discovering' papists' and other delinquents' estates. In July 1652 the council of state granted him 100l. to enable him to return to Ireland (Cal.State Papers, Dom.1651-2, p. 610). He was in 1653 a prisoner for debt in the 'upper bench' in London, and petitioned parliament for payment of his commission as a delator. According to a certificate from Sir John Danvers, he was 'of most honest and religious conversation, very free from the common vices of swearing, drunkenness, &c.,and most valiant and faithful' in the service of the parliament. He obtained leave to return to Ireland, but on 28 March 1654 his regiment was disbanded, and he himself was left in urgent need. A weekly pension of 20s. was granted him by the council of state on 17 April 1655 (ib. 1655, p. 128). He died on 9 June 1657 (Thurloe, State Papers, vi. 594.) In 1658 his widow, Chrisagon, petitioned Cromwell for relief.
W. J. H-y.