Sir Maurice Denys (1516–1563) of Siston Court, near Bristol, Gloucestershire, and of St John's Street, Clerkenwell, Middlesex, was an English lawyer and property speculator during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, at which time he served as a "powerful figure at the Court of Augmentations".Sutton, p. 462 He served as a Member of Parliament for Malmesbury in Wiltshire and as Treasurer of Calais. He was the builder of Siston Court in Gloucestershire, which survives largely unaltered since his time. His excessive speculation and borrowing caused the ruination of the Siston branch of the Denys family.
Early life
Denys was the second son of Sir William Denys (died 1533) of Dyrham and Siston, both in Gloucestershire, a courtier of King Henry VIII, by his second wife Anne Berkeley, a daughter of Maurice Berkeley, de jure 3rd Baron Berkeley (1436–1506). His father’s first wife, whom he had married in about 1482 and who was short-lived, was Edith Twynyho, but she died young.She was a daughter of John Twynyho (died 1485), a rich cloth merchant of Cirencester, a member of parliament for Bristol in 1472-5 and in 1484, and sister-in-law to John Tame (died 1500), of Fairford, Glos., the business partner of John Twynyho. The marriage settlement is contained in a charter dated 21 Ed IV (1482) His father was a great-grandson of Sir Gilbert Denys (died 1422) of Waterton, Glamorgan, who had settled in Gloucestershire following his first marriage in 1379 to Margaret Corbet, heiress of Siston and had later married Margaret Russell, heiress of Dyrham, from whom all his children were descended.
Barrister Denys entered the Inner Temple in London, where he trained as a barrister. He was appointed Marshal (1542–44, 1546), Steward (1545–46) and Bencher (1547).
In 1537, King Henry VIII granted Denys the Receivership of the former Order of Saint John, suppressed in England during the Dissolution of the Monasteries. This considerable preferment may have been due to his eldest brother, Sir Walter Denys, having married Margaret Weston, a daughter of Sir Richard Weston, of Sutton Place, Surrey, the elder brother of Sir William Weston, the last Prior of the Order before its dissolution. Denys took up residence at St John's Gate, Clerkenwell, which had been the Order's headquarters, the chief residence there being the house by the Gate formerly occupied by Thomas Docwra, the last-but-one Prior. This had a great hall, a chapel, gardens and an orchard, and was later the residence of Lionel Cranfield, 1st Earl of Middlesex.'St John's Gate and St John's Lane ', in Survey of London: Volume 46, South and East Clerkenwell, ed. Philip Temple (London, 2008), pp. 142-163 Denys also resided at St John's Jerusalem, the Order’s former Commandery at Sutton-at-Hone in Kent. He continued as sole Receiver of the Order until 1544, and after that acted jointly with Thomas Poley.Stanley T. Bindoff, 'Denys, Sir Maurice', in The House of Commons: 1509-1558, vol. 2, pp. 31–33, 34-37
Denys later bought the ancestral Denys manor of Siston from his elder brother, Sir Walter, who had inherited it. This was perhaps in the year 1542, when his brother needed to obtain a Royal licence to sell him Kingston Russell,Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, vol. xvii, p. 443 and one of the brothers went on to build a new country house there, known as Siston Court. The evidence for Sir Maurice being the builder comes from a letter dated 1607 to Robert Cecil, 1st Earl of Salisbury from an agent offering him the property for sale, which is summarised in the Cecil Papers:
"Offers for sale the manor of Siston Glos., from Bath & from Bristol, heretofore the land of Sir Morris Dennis, present owner Mr Weeks. There is a new house of stone which cost £3,000 built by Dennis; a park which will keep 1,000 fallow deer & rich mines of coal which yield almost as great revenue as the land".Cecil Papers, vol. 19, p. 433. (124.72)
Siston was built at about the same time as two of Denys’s connections were also building nearby in Gloucestershire: Sir Nicholas Poyntz, the husband of his first cousin Jane Berkeley, at Newark Park near Wotton-Under-Edge, and Sir Richard Berkeley, his nephew at Stoke Park, Stoke Gifford. Denys borrowed heavily to buy not just Siston, but also other nearby estates, including Barton Regis, a former Royal manor in Kingswood Forest,Cecil Papers, vol. 24., 6/5/1609 a large part of the Forest itself, and Abson and Pucklechurch from the Earl of Pembroke, who had obtained Pucklechurch at the Dissolution, as well as other manors in Gloucestershire and other counties.
Marriage On 3 February 1545, Denys married Elizabeth Statham (died 1572), the widow of Nicholas Statham (died 1538), a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers. Her family name is not known. Statham had been admitted to the Mercers' Company in 1512 as an apprentice of Robert Imber. He served as one of the four wardens of the company in 1532, as Second House Warden. In 1535 he is recorded as having shipped, together with his son-in-law Vincent Randall, 349 Kerseys to Sinxen Mart as part of a company of 114 cloth shippers.Anne Sutton, p. 412, note 9 His will dated 1538 was "sparse" and "suggests a sombre support of the new ways" according to Anne Sutton.Anne Sutton, p. 392 He did not, as had previously been common among Roman Catholics, mention the Virgin Mary or his parish. His main bequest was of 500 marks to be lent to "the moost honnest, towarde and thryving yonge men"Anne Sutton, pp. 461-2, note 111 of the Mercers' Company. The interest therefrom, stipulated at 25 marks per annum, was directed to the use of St Bartholomew's Hospital "where the king's grace will thereto appoint and give licence". This was then a common way of making a religious bequest indirectly, at the politically sensitive time of the Reformation, after the abolition of the chantries. If his main bequest should have been disapproved, he provided that instead one hundred poor people of the City of London should be given black gowns. He left several small bequests. Elizabeth was his residuary legatee and sole executrix. The execution of Statham's bequest, however, seems to have been blocked by Elizabeth's new husband, Denys, and the money was not released until 1550, after Denys himself had been admitted gratis to the Mercers' CompanySutton, Anne F., The Mercery of London: Trade, Goods and People, 1130-1578, Aldershot, 2005, p. 548, short biog. of Nicholas Statham; p. 392, his will; p. 462, Denys admitted to Mercers At Brook Place, Sutton-at-Hone, Denys had previously built a great house for Statham.Ireland, William Henry. England's Topographer: or a New & Complete History of the County of Kent, 1830 The name "Brook Place" may have been its name after Statham's time, in recognition of the locally important family of George Brooke, 9th Baron Cobham. This house was later renamed "Sutton Place", partially demolished, and covered in white stucco. On his marriage to Elizabeth Statham, Denys gained possession of Brook Place, although following Denys's death it was inherited by Elizabeth's daughter, from her previous marriage,Ireland, W. H., A New & Complete History of the Co. of Kent, London, 1830. Vol. 4, Sutton, pp. 368-373 who had married the Mercer Vincent Randall, who became Master of the Mercers' Company in 1574. Elizabeth is known to have been an active supporter of the new Protestant religion, of the unorthodox Evangelical variety.Sutton, Anne F. The Mercery of London: Trade, Goods and People, 1130-1578, Aldershot, 2005, p. 548, short biog. of Nicholas Statham She had entertained at her house on the corner of Milk Street (rented from the Mercers)The house on milk Street had been let to Nicholas Statham. In 1550, when the tenant was Hugh Edwards, the Mercers' Company sold the house to Sir John Gresham. Sutton, Anne, p. 526 Hugh Latimer (martyred 1555), Robert Barnes, Thomas Garret and William Jerome, (martyred together in 1540) and other evangelicals, and in 1540 had been indicted under the first enquiry under the Six Articles to abolish "diversity in opinions". Bishop Bonner chaired the commission, which included at least 5 mercers: John Alen, Ralph Warren, Richard and John Gresham and Michael Dormer and Guy Crafford, the lawyer and grandson-in-law of Joan, Lady Bradbury. The worth of Elizabeth was then assessed at over £500. In her will dated 1572PROB 11/27, folio 174, will of Elizabeth Denys she left several charitable bequests, to be distributed by the Dean of St Paul's, designed to encourage the new religion by funding poor scholars at the universities. She also left a bequest to Christ's Hospital. These bequests were opposed by her son-in-law, Randall, but were upheld by the probate court.Sutton, Anne, op.cit. p. 548; p. 392, note 75 re. bequest; PROB 11/56 folios 25-26 & 235v-36 for upholding of her wishes
On 8 May 1544, shortly before her marriage to Denys, Elizabeth had acquired lands in Great Sankey, Warrington, Cheshire, from Sir Thomas Boteler, who very soon thereafter "made a forcible entry upon and a tortious possession of a messuage and lands in Sankey" on account of which he was sued, before the end of 1544, in the joint names of Elizabeth and Maurice Denys. The couple then sold their Sankey lands to Denys's brother-in-law Walter Bucler, who on 1 January 1547 exchanged them with the king for other lands in Sankey.Beaumont, William. Annals of the Lords of Warrington, 1872, Part 2
Acquires Wye College In 1546 Denys acquired Wye College, Kent, from Walter Buckler, who had been granted it by the crown following the Dissolution. Buckler was secretary to Queen Katherine Parr and the second husband of Katherine Denys, Maurice's sister, whose first husband had been Edmund Tame II (died 1544) of Fairford, Gloucestershire, grandson of the great wool merchant John Tame. Buckler’s licence to alienate, dated at Westminster 25 December 1546, is recorded in the Patent Rolls: "Walter Bucler to Maurice Denys and Elizabeth his wife. Mansion, etc., of the late College of Wye, Kent, manors of Perycourte and Surrenden, rectory of Promhill, pensions of 33s. 4d. out of Westwell rectory, 10s. out of Hothefield rectory and 8s. out of Estwell rectory, and all lands in Wye, Wydtheston, Nacolt, Henxsell, Goodmesham, Crondale, Charter Magna, Bethersden, Postlyng, Westbury and Promhill, Kent, which belonged to Wye College.Patent Rolls, 38 Henry VIII (25 December 1546, Westminster, part 12, membrane 45); Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII, Volume 21 Part 2: September 1546-January 1547 (1910), pp. 203-248
On 22 February 1547, two days after the coronation of King Edward VI, Denys was knighted, and in the same year he became a bencher of the Inner Temple and a Justice of the Peace for Gloucestershire and Kent, as well as being elected to the House of Commons as a Member of Parliament for Malmesbury in Wiltshire. Also in 1547, he sold some of his land in Clerkenwell to Sir Edward North (later 1st Baron North), who in 1545 following the Dissolution had acquired the nearby London Charterhouse and made it his London mansion. In May 1548 he sold the manor of Surrenden to Sir Anthony Aucher (d. 1558), of Otterden in Kent, a commissioner for that county, whose burial place in Bishopsbourne Church in Kent records as follows: "Sr. Anthony AUCHER, Knt. Mareschall of Callice; Governr. of Guisnes; Master of the Jewel House, in Times of HENRY YE EIGHT. EDWARD YE SIXT, and QUEEN MARY. Slayn at ye Loss of Callice"
The Feet of Fines for Middlesex contain the following entry for 1547, the first year of the reign of Edward VI:
"Sir Edward North, knight, Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations, and Alice his wife and Sir Maurice Denys and Elizabeth his wife. Premises and a chapel called Pardon Chapel, in the parish of Clerkenwell. Trinity, Anno 1". London and Middlesex Fines: Edward VI, A Calendar to the Feet of Fines for London & Middlesex: volume 2: Henry VII - 12 Elizabeth (1893), pp. 68-86