Constituency Dates
Dunheved []1The indenture (C219/20/28) is mutilated so that of the first Member’s name only ‘Will’m Kemth’ survives.
Family and Education
b. by 1532, prob. s. of John Ley of Kempthorne in Clawton, Devon, prob. bro. of alias Kempthorn I" class="involume">John Ley alias Kempthorn I. m. Anne.2Presumed to be of age at election. Vis. Cornw. ed. Vivian, 288; St.Ch.5/B5/9.
Offices Held

Commr. i.p.m. Cornw. 1570, Devon 1574.3CPR, 1569–72, p. 33; 1572–5, p. 439.

Address
Main residence: Cornw.
biography text

William Ley ‘gentleman’ was probably a younger brother of John Ley, the duchy official with whom he was chosen as senior Member for Dunheved in the second Parliament of Edward VI, and may have owed his single experience of the House to the relationship. Little trace of Ley has been found apart from his service at Westminster and his appointment to minor commissions in the southwest. In later life he and several others brought an action in the Star Chamber against Humphrey and John Borlase for ejecting them on 4 Sept. 1577 from some property at Jacobstow, Cornwall, but its outcome is not known.4St.Ch.5/B5/9.

Author
J.J.G.
Volume
Commons 1509-1558
Alternative Surnames
KEMPTHORN
Notes
  • 1. The indenture (C219/20/28) is mutilated so that of the first Member’s name only ‘Will’m Kemth’ survives.
  • 2. Presumed to be of age at election. Vis. Cornw. ed. Vivian, 288; St.Ch.5/B5/9.
  • 3. CPR, 1569–72, p. 33; 1572–5, p. 439.
  • 4. St.Ch.5/B5/9.