FANSHAWE, Henry I (c.1506-68), of London.

Hull normally returned to Parliament men associated with the borough, but the surname Fanshawe does not occur there in these years. No evidence supports the assumption that it was the Exchequer official who was returned at a by-election to the 1566 session of the 1563 Parliament, nor can any patron be suggested for him; the problem is made even more difficult by the fact that the identity of the high steward of Hull is also unknown at this date.

Of a minor Derbyshire family, the Exchequer Fanshawe made his way to London in the late 1520s, and possibly with the help of Sir Christopher More, obtained a clerkship in the Exchequer. When the reversion of the office of Queen’s remembrancer was granted to him in 1561 the patent mentioned ‘his good, true and faithful service’ to Henry VIII, Edward VI, Mary and Elizabeth. Gradually he prospered. He bought some of the lands of Beauchief abbey in 1547, and in the 1560s purchased land in Essex and Middlesex. In 1566 he obtained a lease of the parsonage of Dronfield, the parish in which he was born.

Fanshawe’s will was made on 1 Sept. 1567 and proved on 15 Nov, in the following year. In it he made arrangements for establishing a school at Dronfield, bequeathing the profits from his lands in Chesterfield, Dronfield, Eggington and Derby to this end. Shortly before his death he secured the reversion of his office in the Exchequer to his nephew Thomas Fanshawe. He was buried in St. Margaret’s, Barking, on 8 Nov. 1568.2Fanshawe, 4-5, 9-11, 13-14; CPR, 1560-3, pp. 100, 142, 304, 380; 1566-9, p. 95; PCC 21 Babington.