William Lok

Sir William Lok (1480 – 24 August 1550) was a gentleman usher to Henry VIII and a mercer, alderman, and sheriff of London.

During the course of his visits as a mercer to the annual markets in Antwerp and Bergen op Zoom in the Low Countries, he collected intelligence which he passed on to the King and his chief minister, Thomas Cromwell.

[4][5] His daughter, Rose Lok, later recounted how he pulled down a copy of the bull by which Pope Clement VII had excommunicated Henry VIII[1][4][5] for his marriage to his second wife, Anne Boleyn:[6] Of my father in Holinshed's Chronicle I find this story.

This curse was set up in the town of Dunkirk in Flanders, for the bringer thereof durst no nearer approach, where it was taken down by Mr Lok of London, mercer.

Now I, his daughter, Rose Throckmorton, widow, late wife of Simon Throckmorton, esquire, and first the wife of Anthony Hickman, a merchant of London, reading this of my father, have thought good to leave to my children this addition to it, that for that act the King gave him £100 a year, and made him a Gentleman of his Privy Chamber, and he was the King's mercer, and his Majesty vouchsafed to dine at his house.

On 10 October 1549, he was among those who escorted the Lord Protector, Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, to imprisonment in the Tower of London after his first fall from power.