page_title: Walter Mildmay
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Walter Mildmay / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Apethorpe Palace Northamptonshire. JONES' VIEW OF THE SEATS... DATE - January 1st 1829
context_page_description: Sir Walter Mildmay was a statesman who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer to Queen Elizabeth I, and founded Emmanuel College, Cambridge.
context_section_description: Mildmay was educated at Christ's College, Cambridge, but apparently failed to take his degree. He later became a student of law at Gray's Inn (1546), and there obtained some employment under his father in the Court of Augmentations. When the Court of Augmentation was reconstituted, about 1545, Mildmay was made one of its two surveyors-general. During Edward VI's reign, Mildmay extended his official connection. On 22 February 1546-7 he was knighted, and on 14 September prepared, along with three others, an inventory of the late King's wardrobe. Sixteen days later he was appointed a Commissioner to report upon the Crown revenues. In 1548 he acted on commissions for the sale of lands (March) and for the maintenance of such grammar schools as had belonged to the dissolved chantries. After the Duke of Somerset's arrest he was ordered by the Privy Council on 12 November 1549, to examine the royal palace at Westminster, which had been in the Duke's custody, and on 8 March 1550–1 to take charge of the Duke's property at Syon House.
  For his services he received many grants of land in Gloucestershire and Berkshire, some of which he exchanged for manors in Oxfordshire and Northamptonshire; other grants of land in Cornwall, Essex and London soon followed. He fixed his country residence at Apethorpe Palace, Northamptonshire, which was granted to him in 1552, and was confirmed to him in 1556. When in London he lived in the parish of St Bartholomew-the-Great.
  Mildmay soon proved himself a skilful financier. In 1550 he was directed, together with the Earl of Warwick and Sir William Herbert, to examine the accounts of the King's mints, and in 1551 superintended the establishment of a new mint at York. In December 1551 he was a Commissioner to inspect the Courts which controlled the Crown lands.
  On 2 January 1552 he was commissioned to levy the King's debts;
  On 21 November to settle with the Crown accountants the effect of a fall in the value of money;
  In December to audit the funds belonging to the king's officers; and
  In that and the next year he superintended the receipt by the crown of plate, jewels, bells, and the like surrendered by dissolved monasteries or chantries.
  Mildmay was elected MP for Lostwithiel in 1545, for Lewes in 1547 and Maldon on 1 March 1553, and then for Peterborough on 5 October 1553. Although he was a convinced Calvinist, Queen Mary's accession did not appreciably depress his fortunes, and before her death he was employed on Government business. On 9 January 1558 he was appointed treasurer of the forces sent to the relief of Calais and was chosen as knight of the shire to represent Northamptonshire in the parliament meeting in January 1557; after this he represented that constituency eight times until his death.
  Under Queen Elizabeth, with whom he regularly exchanged New-Year's gifts, his influence steadily grew. On her accession he was at once made treasurer of her household, and was appointed a member of a small committee of ways and means to supply the empty exchequer. He was soon employed in preparing a census of the farms of the royal revenues (22 December 1558), in examining Queen Mary's grants of land, in compounding with those who refused knighthood (28 March 1559), in directing the issue of a new coinage (29 October 1560), and in selling crown lands (May 1563).
  On 21 April 1566 Sir Richard Sackville, the chancellor of the exchequer, died, and Mildmay was appointed as his replacement; he was also made auditor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Occupied in the duties of his offices until his death, he concerned himself little with general politics. As the brother-in-law of Francis Walsingham and the friend of Lord Burghley, he was, however, always heard with attention in the Privy Council, the Star Chamber, and in Parliament. He used what influence he possessed to shield the Puritans from the attacks of the bishops, and often urged the Queen to intervene on behalf of the Protestants in the Low Countries In his speeches in Parliament he argued that a liberal grant of subsidies placed the government under an obliga
caption: Apethorpe Palace, depicted in 1829, acquired by Mildmay in 1552
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