Robert Strelley (by 1518 – 23 January 1554), of Great Bowden, Leicestershire, was an English politician, soldier, and courtier to Mary I of England.John Harwood Hill, History of Market Harborough (Leicester, 1875), p. 5.
He was a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Leicestershire in October 1553.
Strelley fought with Thomas Howard, 3rd Duke of Norfolk at the siege of Montreuil in 1544, and in Scotland, probably at the battle of Pinkie. He was a gentleman in the household of Princess Mary by 1549,David Loades, Mary Tudor (Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 353. He was with her at Kenninghall, where Mary I made him a member of her Privy Council,Dale Hoak, 'Mary I's Privy Council', Revolution reassessed: revisions in the history of Tudor government and administration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), pp. 96, 114. and at Framlingham Castle in July 1553, where she mustered an army of supporters. Robert Wingfield listed him, as a man "whose family was not obscure", in a catalogue of Mary's supporters.George W. Marshall, Genealogist, 4 (London, 1880), p. 193, citation of grant or augmentation of arms to Robert Strelley.Anna Whitelock, 'Woman, Warrior, Queen?', in Alice Hunt & Anna Whitelock, Tudor Queenship: The Reigns of Mary and Elizabeth (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), p. 175.Anna Whitelock & Diarmaid MacCulloch, 'Princess Mary's Household and the Succession Crisis, July 1553', The Historical Journal, 50:2 (June 2007), p. 277: Diarmaid MacCulloch, 'Vita Mariae Reginae of Robert Wingfield', Camden Miscellany, XXVIII (London, 1987), pp. 204, 252: Dale Hoak, 'Mary I's Privy Council', Revolution reassessed: revisions in the history of Tudor government and administration (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), p. 96.
Robert Strelley served as a Chamberlain of the Exchequer from 1553 until his death the following year.David Loades, Mary Tudor (Basil Blackwell, 1989), p. 191. In 1548, he married Frideswide Knight, Frideswide Strelley was a daughter of John or Leonard Knight, of South Duffield in the parish of Hemingbrough, and his wife Isabella Langholme.Sarah Duncan, 'Frideswide Knight Strelley', in Carole Levin, Anna Riehl Bertolet, Jo Eldridge Carney, A Biographical Encyclopedia of Early Modern Englishwomen (Routledge, 2017), p. 483. Edward VI gave the couple property and a fee-farm rent income from the lands of Egglestone Abbey.Christpher Clarkson, The History of Richmond, in the County of York (Richmond, 1814), p. 209: Calendar of Patent Rolls, Edward VI, 1548–1549 (London, 1924), p. 127.
Strelley came from an extended family, and was a son either of Sir Nicholas Strelley of Linby or Sir Nicholas Strelley of Strelley.House of Commons, 1509-1558, p. 398. His will mentions a brother, also called Robert Strelley, who was a goldsmith in London, and two more brothers, John Strelley of London and Robert Strelley of Tirlington, a sister Joan Porter, a nephew William Saville, and a niece Elizabeth Stubbs. His property passed initially to his wife, Frideswide Strelley, and then by entail to the various relations named in the will.Charles Kerry, 'Notes to the Pedigree of the Strelleys', Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, XIV (January 1892), pp. 85–87
Robert Strelley made his will in January 1554. Among the executors were Susan Clarencieux, who also a witness, and Richard Freeston, cofferer of the Queen's household. He died on 23 January 1554.Calendar of Patent Rolls, 1555–1557 (London, 1938), pp. 265–270.
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