William Honnyng

[7] Half way through the reign of Edward VI, competition for power between the leading Councillors, as "Protestant" and "Catholic" factions vied for control over the boy king.

Honnyng played a peripheral role in these clashes, for example helping with the arrest and subsequent prosecution of Bishop Gardiner,[8] and acting as the Privy Council's messenger during the coup that toppled the Lord Protector Somerset in October 1549.

[11] With the fall of Wriothesley, Honnyng was unprotected, and was arrested by Sir Anthony Wingfield on 30 January 1550 for seeking to embezzle away the judicial papers relating to Gardiner's case.

[14] But a month later his old patron Wriothesley was dead, "amidst rumours of suicide",[15] and Honnyng had lost his job on the Privy Council.

[20] At that time Gray's Inn was a fashionable place for noblemen and country gentlemen to send their sons, even though some 90% would not actually be called to the Bar.

[22] In 1566 Honnyng was appointed to the Suffolk Commission of Sewers (responsible for sea and river defences, and maintaining the Fennland drainage system).