Stanhope, Michael, Sir (1508 -1552)

Sir Michael Stanhope was the second son of Sir Edward Stanhope (d.1511), and Avelina, daughter of Sir Gervase Clifton, of Clifton in Nottinghamshire. On the death of his elder brother Richard without male issue in January 1529, he succeeded to his fathers estate. Soon afterwards he entered the service of Henry VIII, and was of the Commission of the Peace for Nottinghamshire in 1537. He received Shelford Priory and Lenton Priory in Nottinghamshire at the dissolution of the monasteries. In 1542 he was appointed Lieutenant of Kingston upon Hull, and was concerned with the preparations for the wars in Scotland and in the Borders. He was Member of Parliament for Nottinghamshire 5 January 1545 and again 10 October 1547. He was knighted soon after the accession of Edward VI,. He was also Keeper of Windsor Park and Governor of Hull, but deprived of his offices and imprisoned in the Tower on the fall of Protector Somerset in 1549. He was released in 1550, but again sent to the Tower on 17 October 1551 on a charge of conspiring against Northumberland's life. Though it seems unlikely that he was guilty, he was condemned to be hanged, but the sentence was commuted and he was beheaded on Tower Hill 20 February 1552. He married Anne, daughter of Nicholas Rawson, of Aveley in Essex, and they had four sons, Sir Thomas, ancestor of the Earls of Chesterfield, John, 1st Baron Stanhope, and two Edwards, the younger of whom bequeathed books to Trinity College, Cambridge.