Walter Leveson
Sir Walter Leveson (1550 – 20 October 1602)[1][failed verification] was an Elizabethan Member of Parliament and a Shropshire and Staffordshire landowner who was ruined by involvement in piracy and mental illness.
His wardship was sold to Sir Francis Knollys, whose wife, Catherine Carey, was a cousin of Queen Elizabeth, and who made a fortune from similar royal grants.
After a long dispute, he managed to recover possession of Leegomery, near Wellington, Shropshire from his sister Elizabeth and her husband, William Sheldon.
This was especially so in the Weald Moors, a large, extra-parochial area, stretching west of Lilleshall, where tenants in all the surrounding manors had common grazing rights.
In 1582 George Talbot, 6th Earl of Shrewsbury, who was lord of Wrockwardine, sold his interest in the moor to Leveson for a perpetual rent.
Leveson constantly needed ready cash to keep his creditors at bay, and one way of realising the future value of his estates was to sell leases.
He resorted to this strategy also at Weald Moor, selling leases for three lives to his tenants so long as they agreed to maintain the infrastructure of roads, bridges and watercourses.
In 1592 he granted 13 leases at Donnington Wood on a single day, this time mainly for short terms, allowing the tenant to clear the enclosed areas for pasture.
However, he was in partnership with his brothers-in-law, Vincent and Richard Corbet, to exploit the industrial wealth, so he reserved the right to the timber, underwood and minerals.
This was a notable record for the period,[13] when landowners in the region were generally reluctant to devote too much time to political business, which could be expensive.
Walter's father-in-law, the able and energetic Sir Andrew Corbet, had been vice-president of the powerful Council of Wales and the Marches.
[15] As he could no longer depend even on his family and in-laws to support him, he quit Shropshire for Newcastle, his local borough, where, as lord of Trentham, he could exercise unrivalled influence.
The vast change in Leveson's fortunes began with a complaint in December 1587 that his men had seized goods from Danish vessels at a port in Norway.
Denmark–Norway was a single entity held together by a personal union of crowns at this time, and although correspondence about the case is always said to emanate from Christian IV of Denmark, he was actually a minor, and power resided in a regency council until 1596.
The delicate situation in Denmark, and the importance of the country as part of an alliance of Protestant powers, made it imperative that the English authorities respond rapidly and in an exemplary manner.
The Admiralty court ordered Leveson to pay compensation of £2300, a vast sum, and committed him to prison pending payment.
He came to terms with his creditor, and on 25 August 1588 a letter in King Christian's name – but signed by the governors Kaas, Munck, Rosenkrantz, and Valckendorff – was received by the English ambassador in Copenhagen: Leveson was out of prison in time to take part in the elections of 7 November 1588.
There were clearly other letters from Denmark, and as late as March 1590 a draft reply from England made the point that "Sir Walter Leweson, knight, hath been apprehended for payment to be made unto Paulson the Dane" and that "John Paulson complains against Sir Walter Leweson, now in prison, from whom if so much might be paid as would deliver the poor man from prison it would be some satisfaction.
"[23] He died in the Fleet on 20 October 1602, leaving large debts to his son and heir, Richard, who outlived him by less than three years and was often out of the country.
