Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/176

 158 DE LA WARR X. 1570. I. William West, nephew and h. mate, being s. and h. of Sir George West, of Warbleton, Sussex, by Eliza- beth, 1st da. and coh. of Sir Robert Morton, of Lechlade, co. Gloucester, which George was 3rd son (2nd s. by the 2nd wife) of the 8th Lord, and one of the yr. brothers, of the half blood, of the 9th and last Lord. He was b. before 1520, and sue. his father Sep. 1538. Having been adopted as heir by his uncle, the last Lord (to the exclusion, apparently of the issue of that Lord's next br.. Sir Owen West, whose death s.p.m., did not take place till 1 551), he " being not content to stay till his uncle's natural death, prepared poison to dispatch him quickly,"('') and was consequently, by Act of Pari. I Feb. (1549/50) 4 Edw. VI, disabled from all honours. (*>) He was found guilty of being in the plot of Apr. 1556, against Queen Mary.('') In July 1557 he was Capt. in the Army at the siege of St. Quintin in Picardy; on 10 Apr. 1563 he was restored in blood; in Nov. 1569 (under arms and quarterings of West) is an M.I. giving the date of his death as 18 July 1551 and naming his wife Mary {Idem, vol. iv, p. 414). Courthope says that "Sir Adrian Poynings considered that his issue had, in right of their mother, a right to the Barony, and in the 9 Eliz. 1567 a case was prepared in which that claim was urged; but the heralds of that day, upon what principle it is impossible now to say, were of a different opinion." In Banks' Bar. Angl., vol. i, p. 191, the following con- jecture is given: "It is said that Sir A. P. was an alien horn, which may account for the passing over her t.e. Lady Poynings'] interest to the next male line." See Pike's Conit. Hist, of the House of Lords, where this matter is ably dealt with. See also Round's Peerage and Pedigree, vol. i, p. 56 et sqq. G.E.C. and V.G. C) Dugdale. C") It is difficult to understand, as J. H. Round observes {Peerage and Pedigree, vol. i, pp. 57-8), why William should have tried to poison his uncle Thomas when his uncle Sir Owen West, and not he, was the next heir. The following chart (taken from Round, ut supra, p. 56) illustrates the point. Elizabeth Mortimer=Thomas (West) Lord la Warre, d. I 525==Eleanor Copley. I i I — 1 1 Thomas (West) Eleanor. Dorothy. Sir Owen West, Sir George Leonard Lord la Warre, a*. 1551. West, </. 1 538. West. </. 1554. == = (i) Sir Adrian Poynings = Mary = (2) Sir Richard Rogers. Anne. William West. V.G. {^) "Tewsday the 30th June [1556] William West, esquier, callinge himselfe De la Ware was arraigned at the Guylde Hall in London for treason. But in the be- ginninge of his arreignment he would not aunswere to his name of William West esquire, but as Lord De la Ware and to be tried by his pieres, which the judges there with the heraldes proved he was no lorde, because he was never created nor made a lorde by any writt to the Parlement nor had anye patent to shewe for his creation; wherefore that plee would not serve, and so had like to have judgment without triall, but at last he aunswered to the name of William West esquire, and so was tried by 12 men, and condemned of treason, as consentinge to Henry Dudley and his adherents; and so had judgment as a traytor." (Wriothesley's Chronicle). V.G.