William Fitzwilliam Third Earl of Milton
From "How The City Has Changed" by H.F. Tebbs (1975), a collection of articles originally written in the Peterborough Standard (predecessor to the Herald and Post).
The Manor house which had been a grange of the Abbey was bought by William Fitzwilliam as his home in 1578. It included 286 acres of land which had to supply his household beyond paying its own expenses.
William was a courtier with some duties under Queen Elizabeth as a Gentleman Pensioner of the household and as Member for Peterborough in the Parliaments of 1573, 1584/5 and 1586/7. His wife Winnifred, was the daughter of Sir Walter Mildmay the financial wizard of the age who designed the Queen's new mint and re-organised the coinage to replace that which had become very debased.
Dogsthorpe had always been a sheep and cattle raising farm. It had good grazing and grew enough good hay to keep calves in the winter. After 1603 when William retired from court, sheep also became more profitable and he seems to have concentrated the area on sheep farming.
His son, who became the 1st Baron Fitzwilliam, overspent and had to sell the farm in 1633."
However information from the
National Archives give William's dates as 1526 to 1599, and gives more information about his roles as Lord Justice in the early 1560s and Lord Deputy, 1571-1575 and 1588-1594.
There is much more information about the early Fitzwilliams at
WentworthVillage.net/history.shtml this confirms the dates 1526 - 1599. His son also William Fitzwilliam (4th Earl) died in 1615, both are buried at Marholm, Peterborough. This website has the dates for the next generation (5th Earl) as 1620 - 1634, the family tree shows the father dying in 1615 and the son being born in 1620! The son William Fitzwilliam was the first Baron Fitzwilliam of Liffer Co. Donegal, quite an acheivement for someone who supposedly only lived 14 years.
I subsequently found via Google Book Search "Promotions to the Peerage 1620", which states "By patent dated Westminster, December 1, William Fitzwilliam, of Milton, Northamptonshire, Esquire, was created Lord Fitzwilliam of Liffer, alias Lifford, in the County of Donegal, in the Peerage of Ireland." Which suggests 1620 was the date of his peerage, not his birth.
From
Peterborough City Council website I learnt that "After 1618, and for the next three or four generations, the family's income came from less lucrative sources, principally the agricultural management of their estates, especially grazing sheep on enclosed land, and from rents from their tenants." and "Gaynes Park,an estate in Essex, was sold in 1636". Which appears to support H.F. Tebbs reason for Dosthorpe Manor being sold.
The Fitzwilliams were at
Northborough Manor just 5 miles down the road from 1502 to 1572. This website also has details of dress at this time.
From "Chapters from the Agrarian History of englan and Wales, 1500 - 1750"
Demand for cloth in the late sixteenth century was much lower than it had been pre 1550. Many large landowners reduced the size of their flocks.
"In Northamptonshire the Fitzwilliams were leasing out whole manors in 1549, and by 1576, at the latest, even the home farm at Milton had ceased to support sheep. Subsequently a comparitively small number were kept on the family's newly acquired estate at Dogsthorpe, a hamlet of Peterborough."