GAUNTLETT, Roger (c.1573-1627), of Bulhall House, Salisbury, Wilts.

Gauntlett’s father, Richard, was elected a councillor at Salisbury in 1573 and served as mayor in 1594. His property, including land and tenements in Salisbury and neighbouring Fisherton Anger, passed to Gauntlett, a merchant dealing in silk and woollen cloth, at his death in 1610. PROB 11/115, f. 235; Two Sixteenth-Cent. Taxation Lists ed. G.D. Ramsay (Wilts. Rec. Soc. x), 64, 67; Mins. of Procs. in Sessions ed. H. Johnson (Wilts. Rec. Soc. iv), 133; Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, ff. 27v, 85v; G23/1/264, f. 1. By then, Gauntlett was an active member of the corporation, serving as mayor in 1607. During negotiations for renewal of the city charter in 1611, he travelled to London on at least three occasions, and he continued to lobby on behalf of the corporation thereafter, being voted travel expenses in 1618. Wilts. RO, G23/1/3, ff. 214, 260. This doubtless explains why he represented the borough in three parliaments, Ibid. ff. 239, 279v, 299v. although he left no trace on the records of any of the sessions in which he sat.

On 2 Apr. 1627 the Salisbury council minutes noted that Gauntlett was ill. Ibid. f. 334v. In his will, written on the same day, Gauntlett left £730 to his three eldest daughters and his wife a life interest his lands in Bemerton, which were then to pass to his eldest son Emmanuel, on condition that his five youngest sisters received £200 apiece on coming of age. His two other sons received £250 to purchase leasehold property, while the youngest, Roger, was left land and four houses in Salisbury. PROB 11/152, f. 91v. His widow later claimed that his estate, valued at £1,911, could not cover both his debts - he owed £500 to London merchants - and the bequests stipulated in the will. In 1631, having disbursed £2,483 to creditors and various family members, she sued Emmanuel for a share in the profits of two Wiltshire properties to enable her to clear her own mounting debts. C2/Chas.I/G5/55; 2/Chas.I/G53/57; 2/Chas.I/G66/8; 2/Chas.I/C70/2. Gauntlett’s grandson, John represented neighbouring Wilton in several Parliaments under William III.