FERRERS, Edward (1524/27-64), of Baddesley Clinton, Warws.

Edward Ferrets was not yet in his ‘teens when his grandfather Sir Edward Ferrers died in 1535; three years later his wardship was granted to Elizabeth, widow of Sir Thomas Englefield and daughter of Sir Robert Throckmorton. Nothing is known of his education, although he may have studied at the Middle Temple, as did Englefield and many of the Throckmorton circle. He began his career at court when the Throckmortons were benefiting from their kinswoman Catherine Parr’s royal marriage; both he and George Throckmorton, who succeeded him as one of the Members for Warwick, attended the funerals of Edward VI and Mary as gentlemen pensioners. Ferrers took Mary’s side in July 1553, at least to the extent of avoiding service in Northumberland’s army. He entered into the remainder of his inheritance after the death of his grandmother in 1551 and he was of an age and standing to secure a seat in Mary’s first Parliament. (His uncle and namesake of Cock Bevington, in south Warwickshire, is unlikely to have taken precedence over him.) Unlike his fellow-Member Clement Throckmorton, Ferrers was not listed among those Members who ‘stood for the true religion’, that is, for Protestantism.3LP Hen. VIII, xiii; LC2/4/1, 2; E101/427/6, no 24, ex inf. W. J. Tighe; CPR, 1553, p. 413; Cam. Misc. ix(3), 8; VCH Warws. iii. 160.

His failure to play any further part in national or local affairs may find its explanation in the financial troubles which by 1561 had forced Ferrers to mortgage his lands. Two years later he and the mortgagees gave his brother-in-law Edward, 3rd Lord Windsor, the management of all his property in Warwickshire, five other counties and London for a period of 12 years, and it was at Windsor’s own house at Tardebigge in Worcestershire that Ferrers died on 10 or 11 Aug. 1564: he appears to have made no will.4Dugdale Soc. Occasional Pprs. xvi. 6-7; C142/141/10, 48.