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ROYNON, Walter (by 1529-64 or later), of Chichester, Suss.
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
b. by 1529.1
Offices Held
Biography
Walter Roynon’s origins are unknown. The only established family of the name lived in Somerset, and the ‘Chilchester’, Hampshire, from which the first of them to appear in the family pedigree is said to have come was probably Silchester. Roynon’s Somerset contemporary John Roynon, fifth in descent from their ancestor, was a well connected servant of Princess Elizabeth.2
In 1550 Roynon, described as of Chichester, gentleman, paid Robert Trigges £56 for a lease of the mansion house of Waltham prebend, late of Bosham collegiate church, and it was as citizens and residents of Chichester that Roynon and John Digons were returned to Mary’s third Parliament. The city had elected nominees of the 12th Earl of Arundel to the three preceding ones and the reversion to local men might be seen as an acceptance of the Queen’s request both in that respect and in the matter of religion, for the return certified that the Members would answer for Chichester in all matters concerning ‘the honour of God’. Roynon, although not Digons, was to quit the Parliament without leave before its dissolution and to be prosecuted for this dereliction in the King’s bench. When he failed to appear he was distrained 40s. in Michaelmas term 1555, but in Trinity 1556 he asked for a day to be appointed for his answer. No further process is recorded.3
Roynon was still living in Chiches ter in June 1564 when he leased a tenement and garden there from the cathedral chapter, but no later trace of him has been found.4