Walter Hungerford

Walter Hungerford, born in 1503, was the only child of Sir Edward Hungerford, who died in 1523, leaving Farleigh Hungerford Castle to Walter, who was just 20 years old at the time. He became a favourite attendant in Henry VIII’s household. He married three times, but it was the brutal treatment of his third wife that is most remembered.

He married Elizabeth, the daughter of Lord Hussey, in 1532. It was his father-in-law who recommended Walter to Henry VIII’s increasingly influential minister, Thomas Cromwell. The relationship with Cromwell would be very fruitful and beneficial to him. Cromwell bestowed upon Walter the title Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury and other grants and rewards, giving Walter power and influence.

His wife Elizabeth did not look so favourably upon her husband; he starved her, had her locked in a tower at Farleigh Hungerford, and was rumoured to have even tried to poison her on numerous occasions. She managed to smuggle out a letter to Cromwell describing her treatment and how she had resorted to drinking her own urine to survive.

Elizabeth begged Cromwell to bring divorce proceedings against her husband. In her letter, she alluded to unlawful and heinous acts and possibly homosexual activity. Cromwell chose to ignore this letter and continue to lavish praise on Hungerford. Walter Hungerford was in attendance at the baptism of Prince Edward, the funeral of Edward’s mother, Jane Seymour, and the reception held for Henry’s fourth wife, Anna of Cleves. He was an intricate part of the court, taking part in events and festivities while his wife languished in her prison tower. However, Hungerford’s fortunes changed dramatically in 1540. Cromwell was arrested for treason in June 1540, and anyone who had served him or been in his confidence was investigated. The Privy Council looked into the rumours surrounding Hungerford’s treatment of his wife. Hungerford was accused of the appalling neglect and abuse of his wife, employing a priest who had publicly denounced Henry VIII as a heretic, employing another priest, a ‘doctor," and a ‘witch" to predict when the king would die, and committing ‘unnatural acts’ outlawed by the ‘Buggery Act’. Hungerford was arrested in the summer of 1540. Court records cite that Walter Hungerford was

"Replete with innumerable, detestable, and abominable vices and wretchedness of living... and hath accustomably exercised, frequented, and used the abominable and detestable vice and sin of buggery with William Master, Thomas Smith, and other of his servants."

Walter Hungerford was b*headed on the same day as the man who elevated him, Thomas Cromwell, on Tower Hill on July 28, 1540. Their heads were mounted on spikes and displayed on London Bridge.

Hungerford was the only man accused of buggery to be executed in the Tudor period. There is some suggestion that this charge was added to humiliate him, as in the Tudor period, offences associated with sex were not a high priority, and there are few accounts of anyone being charged solely with the act of buggery.

Photo of the south-west tower where Elizabeth Hungerford was kept prisoner.

Sources:

Hungerford, Walter (1503-1540): Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 28, William Jerome Harrison

Sir Walter Hungerford of Farley, p.11 William John Hardy