GENT, William Northamptonshire lawyer.
Autograph document signed, a receipt for £40 from Nicholas Phipps, farmer of the parsonage of Licheborough [Litchborough, Northamptonshire], 30 November 1546. 1 page 4to (oblong, a little irregular in shape).

'Received of Nicholas Phipps fermer of the p[ar]sonage of Licheborough the xxxth day of november a[nn]o R[egni] R[egis] henrici octavi xxxviij to thuse of the Lady Ursula Knyghtley widow for a yerely pencion going of out of the saide p[ar]sonage of xxs by yere being due unto the saide Lady Ursula for twoo yeres endyd in the feast of the Annunciacion of our Lady last past.
Per me Will[ia]m Gent / manu p[ro]pria.'

Sir Edmund Knightley had been a lawyer, M.P. and commissioner for the suppression of monasteries (1536). 'Knightley made an impressive match with a woman younger than himself, for Ursula Vere, a sister and coheir of John 14th Earl of Oxford, was only 24 years of age on her brother's death in 1526 (S.T. Bindoff, House of Commons, 1509-1558,vol. II, 1982). Ursula was at that time already the widow of George Windsor, son of Sir Andrew Windsor, keeper of the wardrobe.
 Phipps, as 'farmer of the parsonage', would have been responsible for collecting and disbursing the revenues accruing from the rent of lands.
[No: 25784]