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| William Sharington | |
|---|---|
| Name | William Sharington |
| Birth date | c. 1495 |
| Death date | 1553 |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Courtier, administrator, Member of Parliament |
| Known for | Treasurer of Bristol, tenant of Lacock Abbey, involvement in embezzlement and counterfeiting |
William Sharington
William Sharington was an English courtier and administrator active during the Tudor reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI. He is chiefly remembered for his role as treasurer and deputy-warden at the important port of Bristol, his tenure as tenant and improver of Lacock Abbey, and for a notorious scandal involving embezzlement and counterfeiting that reached the Court of Star Chamber and attracted attention from leading figures such as Thomas Cromwell and John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. His career intersects with major Tudor processes including the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the early development of English minting and administration.
Sharington was born circa 1495 into a gentry family of Somerset or Wiltshire with connections to regional administrators and landholders. He married and established familial links with several notable families of the southwest, creating alliances with men who served in the House of Commons and held offices under the Tudor court. His kinship network included ties to local magistrates, merchants of Bristol, and figures associated with the dissolution and redistribution of monastic properties under Henry VIII.
By the late 1520s Sharington had become an important civic official in Bristol, holding the post of treasurer and acting as deputy-warden at the port, where he worked alongside prominent merchants, customs officials, and maritime regulators. His administration connected him with institutions such as the Exchequer and the regional offices charged with overseeing royal revenues from trade in the Irish Sea and the English Channel. In the 1530s he secured a lease of the former Augustinian house of Lacock Abbey following its suppression, undertaking building works and conversion that reflected contemporary tastes in domestic architecture. At Lacock he employed craftsmen and engaged with architects and surveyors tied to royal projects, integrating features familiar from Tudor manors and works associated with agents of Thomas Cromwell.
Sharington's acquisition of Lacock came amid the wider program of the Dissolution of the Monasteries overseen by Thomas Cromwell and executed by commissioners such as Richard Layton and John Tregonwell. As a beneficiary of monastic surrender, he exemplified the class of administrators and courtiers who converted ecclesiastical properties into secular residences and estates, participating in the redistribution of lands that also involved magnates like Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset and John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland. His activities reflect the intersection of local administration, royal favour, and the commercialisation of former church property that characterised the 1530s and 1540s.
While serving in financial offices at Bristol Sharington became embroiled in allegations of embezzlement and illicit coin production, crimes that attracted the attention of central authorities such as the Privy Council and the Court of Star Chamber. Accused of diverting customs receipts and attempting to mitigate fiscal shortfalls by producing base coinage, he was investigated in connection with the royal mints and officials including the Master of the Mint and agents tasked with securing the currency. The scandal led to his arrest and appearance before tribunals that counted among their business cases involving other disgraced figures from the Tudor administration. High-ranking actors, notably Thomas Cromwell prior to his fall and later John Dudley, played parts in the adjudication or mitigation of Sharington's case, which combined elements of fiscal malfeasance and politically sensitive threats to royal revenue.
Following prosecution Sharington managed to retain possession of Lacock and other holdings for a time, adapting his household and estate management to survive the repercussions. His later years saw continued involvement in local affairs in Wiltshire and Somerset, patronage of local clergy and artisans, and efforts to consolidate his family's position through land purchases and alliances. The survival of Lacock as a manorial seat under his hand evidences the capacity of Tudor-era officeholders to navigate royal displeasure and reconfigure wealth even after scandal touches, a pattern also visible in contemporaries like Sir Richard Rich and Rowland Taylor.
Historians regard Sharington as a representative figure of Tudor provincial administration whose career illuminates the complexities of fiscal management, patronage, and the redistribution of church lands under Henry VIII and his successors. Scholarship situates him alongside studies of the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the development of the English currency, and the functioning of regional ports like Bristol during a period of commercial expansion and centralisation. While older accounts often emphasised the moral failings of embezzlers, recent research uses archival materials—state papers, legal records, and estate surveys—to place Sharington within networks of power, patronage, and pragmatism that shaped mid-Tudor England. His estate at Lacock later became notable in cultural history through occupants and restorations that connect back to the Tudor transformation of ecclesiastical property.
Category:16th-century English people Category:Tudor administrators Category:People from Wiltshire