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Sir John Danvers (1540–1594)

Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, was the son of Sylvester Danvers and Elizabeth Morduant b.1518). He married Elizabeth Neville (1550-1630), fourth daughter and coheiress of John Nevill, 4th Lord Latimer of Danby Castle, Yorkshire. They had ten children:

1. Charles
2. Henry
3. John(b1585-1655) who married Grace Hewet
4. Elizabeth
5. Eleanor who married Sir Thomas Walmesley. Their daughter Ann Walmsley was the second wife of Sir Edward Osborne of Kiveton (1596-1647)
6. Lucy
7. Anne
8. Catherine
9. Mary
10. Dorothy

Sir John Danvers (1585-1655),, politician was third and youngest son of Sir John Danvers by Elizabeth (Neville). Danvers as a young man travelled to France and Italy. He had akeen interest in gardens and architecture.

He married three times.

• Magdalen Herbert, widow of Richard Herbert, and mother of ten children; she was twice his age. Close friends noted that despite the age difference, their married life was a happy one until Magdalen died in 1627. At an equally youthful age Danvers acquired a fine garden and house at Chelsea: the former he furnished sumptuously and curiously, and the latter he laid out after the Italian manner. His house, called Danvers House, adjoined the mansion, once the home of Sir Thomas More, which was known in the seventeenth century as Buckingham and also as Beaufort House. Danvers never occupied Beaufort House. Danvers House was pulled down in 1696 to make room for Danvers Street.
• On 10th July 1628, a year after the death of his first wife,and aged 40, he married Elizabeth (b 1604), daughter of the late Ambrose Dauntsey, and granddaughter of Sir John Dauntsey. Through this marriage he came into possession of the estate of Lavington, Wiltshire, where he laid out gardens even more elaborately than at Chelsea. Freely indulging his extravagant tastes, Danvers soon fell into debt. He lost his second wife, by whom he had several children, on 9 July 1636.
• Danvers married a third time at Chelsea, on 6th January, 1648/9, his wife being Grace Hewett, and he had by her a son, John, born 10th August 1650.

Danvers was knighted by James I, and under Charles I became a gentleman of the privy chamber. He was M.P. for Arundel in 1610, for Montgomery in 1614, for Oxford University in 1621, and for Newport, Isle of Wight in 1624.

He was engaged in mercantile transactions, and showed early jealousy of the pretensions of the crown. In 1624 he learned that the government were contemplating a seizure of the papers of the Virginia Company. With Edward Collingwood, the secretary, he had the whole of the records copied out and entrusted them to Lord Southampton, a family friend, who deposited them at his house at Titchfield, Hampshire.

Danvers was re-elected M.P. for Oxford University on 16 April 1625, and again on 17 January, 1625-6 and 20 Feb. 1627-8.

Danvers soon fell into debt, and from 1630 to 1640 was struggling with creditors. He refused to contribute to the expenses of the King's expedition to Scotland in 1639, and was returned to the Short parliament by Oxford University for a fifth time. In 1642 he took up arms for the parliament, and was granted a colonel's commission, but played no prominent part in military affairs.

His brother Henry, Lord Danby, an enthusiastic royalist, died early in 1644, and left his property to his sister Lady Gargrave. Still in pecuniary difficulties, Danvers resisted this disposition of his brother's property, and his influence with the parliamentary majority led the House of Commons to pass a resolution declaring that he was deprived of his brother's estate 'for his affection and adhering to the parliament' (14 June 1644), and that Danvers's eldest son Henry was entitled to the property.

He was ordered by the parliament to receive the Dutch ambassadors late in 1644, and on 10 Oct. 1645 was returned to the house as member for Malmesbury. He took little part in the proceedings of the house, but was appointed a member of the commission nominated to try the king in January 1649. He was only twice absent from the meetings of the commission, and signed the death-warrant. In February of the same year Danvers was given a seat on the council of state, which he retained till the council's dissolution in 1653.

His family by his second wife consisted of:

• Henry (b1633), who inherited much of his uncle Henry's property, and died before his father in November 1654, when Thomas Fuller is stated to have preached the funeral sermon
• Charles, who died in infancy
• Elizabeth (b 1 May 1629), who married Robert Wright, alias Villiers, alias Danvers, Viscount Purbeck
• Mary, who died in infancy.