Sir William Whorwood (c.1500 – 28 May 1545) was a landowner in Staffordshire and the neighbouring counties, a distinguished lawyer, and a politician in the reign of Henry VIII.
[1] Within two years he was acting as receiver of monies for the serjeants-at-law, the elite group of lawyers who monopolised work in the central courts.
He handled the funeral accounts of Sir Thomas Lovell in 1524 and three years later was advising Anne Rede, niece of William Warham, the Archbishop of Canterbury on her jointure.
The bishop's bailiff simply filled in the election return or indenture and handed it to the High Sheriff of Wiltshire.
[2] The bishop in commendam at the time was Thomas Wolsey, formerly the king's senior counsellor, but his career had entered its final crisis.
Five of the six seats controlled by Winchester were taken by senior legal figures,[1] including Whorwood's colleague at Downton, Nicholas Hare and Thomas Cromwell at Taunton.
In 1533 his name appeared on a list drawn up by Cromwell and thought to be the names of the principal members opposed to the Statute in Restraint of Appeals However, he seems to have been generally cooperative with royal policy, and certainly showed no scruples in profiting from the Dissolution of the Lesser Monasteries Act, which helped secure gentry support for the English Reformation.
Whorwood's family seem to have been settled at the southern edge of Staffordshire for about a century before his birth, although his remoter ancestors are unknown.
The family estate at Compton, just west of Kinver, was referred to as la Horewode alias le Halowes.
[4] He also acquired various estates elsewhere, including the reversion of White Ladies Priory, a dissolved Augustinian convent in Shropshire.