Sir Henry Bedingfeld

Sir Henry Bedingfeld (1505–1583), also spelled Bedingfield, of Oxburgh Hall, King's Lynn, Norfolk, was a Privy Councillor to King Edward VI and Queen Mary I, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and (in 1557) Vice-Chamberlain of the Household and Captain of the guards. With Sir Henry Jerningham he was among the principals who rallied to Mary's cause following the death of Edward VI in 1553 and helped to set her upon the throne. He was a senior figure in the kinship group of Catholic recusant landowning knights of Suffolk. Given responsibility for the custody of Mary I's half-sister Elizabeth when in the Tower of London and at Woodstock, his reputation has suffered from the repetition of claims of his severity towards her: however Queen Elizabeth was respectful towards him and continued to find service for him. Among the foremost Englishmen of his time, he occupied prominent and honourable positions and was of unquestioned loyalty. Family and education Sir Henry was the eldest of five sons of Sir Edmund Bedingfield (1479/80–1553) and his wife, Grace (died in or after 1553), the daughter of Henry Marney, 1st Baron Marney. His brothers were Francis, Anthony, Humphrey and Edmond, and his sisters were Elizabeth and Margaret. In February 1527/28, he was admitted to Lincoln's Inn. The Bedingfelds were closely connected to the ancient family of Beaupré, of Beaupré Hall, Outwell/Upwell, Norfolk. During the 1530s he married Katherine (died 1581), the daughter of Sir Roger Townshend of Raynham, Norfolk and his wife Amy Brewes, daughter and co-heiress of William de Brewse of Wenham Hall, Suffolk, and of Stinton Hall in Norfolk. In 1549 he was one of the many knights, esquires and gentlemen who assisted the Marquess of Northampton in putting down Kett's Rebellion at Norwich, where, with Sir Thomas Paston, Sir John Clere, Sir William Waldegrave and Sir Thomas Cornwallis, he was appointed to the defence of part of the city. By that date, or certainly by 1551, he had received knighthood.