Peter Osborne (Keeper of the Privy Purse)

Peter Osborne, Esquire,[1] (1521–1592) was an English officer of state who was Keeper of the Privy Purse to King Edward VI, at a time when great constitutional changes affected the management of public finance.

[2][3] Of reformist sympathies in religion, his career was in abeyance during the reign of Queen Mary but regained momentum as Remembrancer in the Exchequer under Elizabeth, working usually to his marital kinsman Lord Burghley.

[7][8] Peter's elder brother was John Osborne, Gentleman, who had 3 sons and 3 daughters including Elizabeth, who married first Richard Bettenson of London, and secondly Archer Breame, of Halstead, Essex.

[14] Osborne matriculated a pensioner from King's College, Cambridge (according to Fuidge not so late as 1548, as Venn states[15]) but apparently did not graduate.

[21] Around midwinter 1551/52 he acted as Keeper of the Privy Purse to King Edward VI and in 1552–53 held the office of Remembrancer to the Lord-Treasurer in the Exchequer,[22] under the Lord Treasurer William Paulet, 1st Marquess of Winchester.

[23] The changing administration of public finance during the reign of Edward VI and the Protectorate of the Duke of Northumberland defined Osborne's role.

From January 1552 to May 1553 some £40,000 was directed into the king's privy coffers from the treasurers of the revenue courts to enable the Duke to manage fortifications, costs, loans and royal expenses.

[30] Osborne's instrumentality in Northumberland's processes of Reform, and his near association with figures such as John Cheke and Thomas Wroth who, with the accession of Queen Mary, soon went into exile abroad, made him unserviceable to the continuing duties of Lord Winchester, who maintained his own office.

[42] Sir Nicholas Throckmorton wrote to Queen Elizabeth on 18 November 1558 mentioning Osborne's readiness to serve her Majesty faithfully.

[49] These discussions failed, but under licensed German enterprise mines in Cumberland, Lancashire, Cornwall and Devon developed during the 1560s leading to the Company's incorporation in 1568.

[50] During 1561 Osborne exhausted himself on behalf of Sir Thomas Chamberlaine, in attempting to obtain payment of his expenses as diplomat in Spain.

[56] Edward Saxilby died in 1561, appointing Osborne overseer of his will and left him "all the bookes and writinges in a black buckeram bagg hanging uppon the walle behinde my Studdie".

[60][61][62] In 1566 he for some months invested in the development of the salt-refining industry on the river Tyne, but withdrew from it,[63] and in 1571 recommended to Lord Burghley the operations of the Flemish refugee Francis Franckard.

[65] He planned to publish a "Collection of all the Statutes, Letters Patent, Charters and Privileges subsequent to the Third of Henry III", but this did not appear.

[74] In 1567 Sir Thomas Wroth, who had been Gentleman to Edward VI and companion in exile of Sir John Cheke, made Osborne a Trustee (together with his Wroth and Rich relations) for the devise of Petherton Park, a role confirmed when he made Osborne an executor of his will in 1573, with personal custody of a strong chest to contain the accruing revenues for the performance of the will.

[84] The physician of St Bartholomew-the-Less, Timothie Bright, published his Treatise of Melancholy (the forerunner of Robert Burton's more famous work)[85] with a dedication to Osborne in 1586.

(sic)[87] The copy of Bright's Characterie (his system of shorthand published in 1588[88]) now in the Bodleian Library was Osborne's, and has his autograph on the title page.

[91] Jane had, meanwhile, remarried in 1576 to Principal Secretary Thomas Wilson (distinguished former student of John Cheke's circle, and near-contemporary of Osborne's at King's College), who died in 1581.

[101] A final decree in Chancery in the case begun in 1588 by Cornelius Avenant against Peter Osborne and Sir Rowland Hayward, as governors of the Company of Mineral and Battery Works, concerning shares in the wireworks at Tintern and other ironworks in Monmouthshire, Derbyshire, and at Isleworth, Middlesex, was not delivered until June 1593.

[106] By this indenture the manors of South Fambridge and of Latchingdon (or Purleigh) Barnes, and the White Hart in West Cheap, were placed in feoffment to the uses of Peter and Anne Osborne and their children.

Osborne addressed Hugh Broughton's application in 1590 to Lord Burghley for the Queen's warrant to visit foreign libraries.

[109] His memorial, which was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, ran: Petrus Osburne, Armiger, Rememorator Thezaurarii Scaccarii; vir probus et prudens, obiit 7. die Junii anno domini.

[110] (Peter Osborne, Armiger, Remembrancer of the Treasury's Exchequer; a man of integrity and prudence, he died on the 7th day of June AD 1592.