Walter Erle (died 1581)

[2]) of Colcombe in the parish of Colyton, of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth, both in Devon, and of Charborough in Dorset, England, was a courtier and servant of the Royal Household to two of the wives of King Henry VIII, namely Katherine Howard and Katherine Parr, and successively to his son King Edward VI[3] (1547–1553) and two daughters, Queen Mary I (1553–1558) and Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603) during their successive reigns.

He is known to have composed at least one work of church music, namely Ave Vulnus Lateris ("Hail, O Wound of the Side"), a short votive antiphon in honour of one of the Five Holy Wounds of Jesus,[4] his authorship of which is recorded in Peterhouse College manuscripts 471–474, held in the Cambridge University Library, comprising four partbooks from a set of five copied late in the reign of King Henry VIII, which contain seventy-two pieces of Latin church music.

[11] Erle returned to the inner circle of the royal court following the 6th and last marriage of Henry VIII to Katherine Parr (d.1548) on 12 July 1543, and became a Gentleman Waiter to that queen, as is evident from the final entry in a mid-1540s list of additions to the royal household's expenditure:[11] Following the death of King Henry VIII in 1547, Erle's career at court depended on Queen Katherine Parr (d.1548), the king's widow.

[13] Erle also had business dealings with the Lord Protector, from whom in 1548 he purchased a twenty-one-year lease on property in Ottery St Mary, Devon, including "the Warden's House" of the dissolved college there.

Following the death of his wife in 1548, and released from her restraining influence, Thomas Parr's "imprudence and recklessness now became increasingly manifest",[13] and Erle became caught up in his master's ambitious scheme of personal aggrandisement, which involved seizing control of his nephew the king.

In 1548 Thomas Seymour offered to Princess Mary, King Edward VI's eldest sister, the services of Erle to provide lessons on the virginal, and shortly afterwards Erle passed her a compromising letter from Thomas Seymour, which eventually was discovered and assisted in providing evidence of the latter's plot in 1549 against the young king, for which he was executed soon after.

Shortly afterwards he received various royal grants of land, including in 1552 the manor and advowson of Axmouth (in which parish was situated his wife's inheritance of Bindon), for an annual rent of £53 13s.

The earliest such list including his name is dated 4 November 1553, and is "signed by the Queen's hand", as follows:[14] In about 1554 Erle was promoted to the position of a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber.

[15] on New Year's Day 1556 Erle made a gift to Queen Mary of "a booke covered with blacke vellat of the Comentary of Warre, in Englishe".

[15] Following the death of Queen Mary in 1558, Erle now aged in his late-thirties, appears to have retired from court to concentrate on expanding and consolidating his landholdings in Devon and Dorset.

[16] The reversion of these properties and all his other assets and lands, including Charborough and the contents of his house, he left to his eldest son Thomas Erle, whom he required to pay the sum of £400 each to his two unmarried sisters Bridget and Mary, towards their marriage or maintenance.