Description
Our Inspiration
A striking 1 strand necklace of all white 11-12mm baroque pearls set between etched gold plated tubes.
Sir Edmund Verney of Pendley
Sir Edmund Verney of Pendley, Hertfordshire was born in 1535, the son of Sir Ralph Verney and his wife Elizabeth Braye. He served as Sheriff of Hertfordshire in 1577 and 1589 and of Buckinghamshire in 1582.
Sir Edmund Verney of Pendley married three times. He had no children with his first wife, and following her death he married Audrey Gardiner. Their son, Sir Francis Verney was born in 1585. Audrey died in 1588 and Edmund married Mary Blakeney. Mary had already been married and widowed twice and had a daughter Ursula by her second husband. Sir Edmund and Mary’s son Edmund was born in January 1590.
In 1599 Sir Edmund’s 14-year-old son Francis married Ursula, Mary’s 12 year old daughter. Not long after on 11th Jan 1600 Sir Edmund Verney of Pendley died.
Unusually, he did not leave all of his estate to his eldest son, but obtained a Private Act of Parliament to allow him to divide his lands between his two sons. Sir Francis inherited land at Pendley, Tring and Quainton and Edmund the estate at Claydon as well as land at Mursley and Chalfont St Giles.
By 1608, Sir Edmund’s elder son Francis had separated from his wife and abandoned his inheritance, selling all his lands and reputedly finding a new life on the Barbary coast of North Africa as a pirate.
Sir Edmund’s younger son, Edmund, married Margaret Denton of Hillesden in 1612 and moved the family back to Claydon in 1620. He was King Charles I’s Standard Bearer and died at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642.
The portrait is believed to be by an artist of the British School and was painted in 1594, he is wearing black Court Dress with gold chains.
