Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 1.djvu/398

 348 COMPLETE PEERAGE audley CO. Gloucester, and of Thornbury, co. Hereford. He d. between Nov. 1325, and Mar. 1325/6, probably while still a prisoner. No trace can be found of the pardon which he is sometimes said to have received, and any peerage which he may be held to have possessed, may be treated as having h&en forfeited hy attainder. (") His widow was living 1336. AUDLEY OR ALDITHLEY James Audley, or Aldithley, is asserted by Dugdale C*) to have been " of this family also " and to have " had summons to Pari., after the eldest branch went off with daughters and heirs, from 8 Hen. V (1420-21) until 33 Hen. VI (1454-55) inclusive. " There can, however, be no doubt that this is the same person as " James (Tuchet), vth Lord Audley, " above named, who was sum. from 8 Hen. V to 33 Hen. VI by writs directed " Jacobo de Audley. " AUDLEY OF WALDEN BARONY. I. Thomas Audley, s. of Geoffrey A., of Earls Colne, J Essex, was b. there 1488, is presumed to have been ed. ^■^ at Magd. Coll., Cambridge, and was admitted in 1516a Burgess of Colchester, where he became Town Clerk. ^^^' Barrister (Inner Temple) and Autumn Reader, 1526 ; M.P. for Essex, 1529-32 ; Speaker of the House of Commons, Nov. 1529, when the first attack was made on the Papal power (°) ; Attorney for the Duchy of Lancaster, 1530; King's Sergeant, 14 Nov. 1531 ; Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations ; Lord Keeper, 30 May 1532, when he C) Sir James Audley, of Stratton Audley, his s. and h., naturally never took any steps to obtain a sum. to Pari., being quite unaware that future ages would ascribe to a writ of summons the virtue of conferring an hereditary peerage. He was styled " of Gloucestershire, " and served in Gascony in 1324, and in Scotland in 1327. He d. s.p. legit., shortly before I Mar. 1333/4. ^y his mistress Eve, formerly wife of his cousin, Thomas Audley (see utite, page 339) he was father of two illegit. sons, vix., Sir Peter Audley, who d. s.p. 1359, and the celebrated Sir James Audley, K.G. 1344, Governor of Aquitaine and Seneschal of Poitou ; one of the Founders of that most noble Order. (See Beltz's Memoriah of the Garter, p. 83, and Coll. Top. et Gen., vol. vii, p. 51, and p. 52 note " z. ") The latter was the hero of the battle of Poitiers (1356). He d. s.p. 1369, at his estate of Fontenay le Comte in Poitou, and was bur. at Poitiers, when the issue of Sir James, the elder (his father), appears to have become extinct, as the family estates in Oxon and co. Gloucester passed to the family of Stafford in right of descent from Hugh Audley, the younger (Earl of Gloucester), br. of the elder, and uncle of the younger. Sir James. See "Audley," Barony, 1317. V.G. C')Vol. i, p. 751. C^) The statement in Diet. Nat. Biog. that Audley succeeded Sir Thomas More in 1529 as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, is altogether erroneous. William Fitzwilliam was More's successor in that office, which Audley never held. V.G.