Gabriel Pleydell

Gabriel Pleydell

Gabriel Pleydell was a Member of Parliament for the Wootton Bassett and Marlborough constituencies in the Parliament of England. He is perhaps best known for his contentious claim of parliamentary privilege after he was found guilty of this offence in 1555. Allegations include forced expulsion of residents from a country manor, forcible entry into and seizure of goods from a private property, unlawfully protecting convicts from justice, forging documents for his own benefit, and illegal hunting.

About Gabriel Pleydell in brief

Summary Gabriel PleydellGabriel Pleydell was a Member of Parliament for the Wootton Bassett and Marlborough constituencies in the Parliament of England. He was born before 1519 into a large, affluent family. His political and personal life is marked by legal controversy. Allegations include forced expulsion of residents from a country manor, forcible entry into and seizure of goods from a private property, unlawfully protecting convicts from justice, forging documents for his own benefit, and illegal hunting. He is alleged to be one of the ringleaders of a plot to exile Queen Mary of England, and is perhaps best known for his contentious claim of parliamentary privilege after he was found guilty of this offence in 1555. He died between 19 December 1590 and 3 February 1591. Surviving records note that his returning to Parliament solely by his Christian name, deemed unusual to identify him outright, were deemed to have been a success by the House of Commons in March 1552. He married Anne Stockes, a daughter of Henry Stockes of Sussex, by whom he had two surviving children: Gabriel is the principal ancestor of the PleyDells of Milborne St Andrew, later removed to Whatcombe, both in Dorset. His younger brother was John Pley dell, Member for Cricklade in 1593. Contained within this lineage was Edmund Morton Plydell, a Member for Dorchester from 1722 to 1723 and for Dorset from 1727 until 1747.

His own father, Edmund Pley Dell, similarly served as a Member. from December 1710 until 1715. He inherited the lease on the family estate of Midgehall in Wiltshire in 1561 and his assets facilitated a seat in Parliament in 1562. Although he had not yet yet yet been a wealthy landholder, he had inherited the land and property surrounding the manor on which he lived. He replaced William Garrard for just 30 days in Parliament until a dissolution of Parliament in March 30, 1552, when he replaced him with William Garrardson. He had been given a 95-year lease of the MidgeHall estate in Lydiard Tregoze by the Abbott of Stanley Abbey in 1534. His father entrusted him in 1549 with tenancy of a manor house at West Ilsley, Berkshire and in September 1553 a sublease of theMidgehall estate. When his mother died in 1567, Gabriel unsuccessfully challenged his mother’s will despite inheriting tenancy of the estate. He later became a farmer in Chipping Faringdon, Oxfordshire, and died around 1559. His son, William, was a farmer and landowner in Coleshill, Berkshire—now Oxfordshire—and Agnes Reason. He was the sixth of nine children, he was the fourth son of wealthy tenant farmer William Pleyeld, and his younger brother, John, a farmer. He also had a son, Edmund, who served as Member from 1720 until 1727.