Hewett Osborne

Sir Hewett Osborne (1567-1599) was an English landowner and soldier who served in Ireland in the late sixteenth century. He owned lands at Kiveton in Yorkshire and Wales, but lived in Essex.

He was the son of Edward Osborne, a Lord Mayor of London and his wife Anne, the daughter of the merchant Sir William Hewett who had also served as Lord Mayor. He married Joyce Fleetwood, daughter of Thomas Fleetwood, Master of the Mint in the time of Henry VIII and his second wife Bridget Spring.

He studied law at the Inner Temple, then in 1590 enlisted for military service as a volunteer in Lord Willoughby's expedition to France to assist Henry IV. He subsequently took part in the successful Raid on Cadiz in 1596.^[1]

He accompanied the Earl of Essex in his Campaign in Ireland during Tyrone's Rebellion. Essex had him knighted for his services at Maynooth but he died the same year in a skirmish with the rebels. He was succeeded by his son Sir Edward Osborne, 1st Baronet. His grandson was Thomas Osborne, 1st Duke of Leeds, a leading figure in the early Tory Party in the reign of Charles II. His only daughter Alice married Christopher Wandesford, Lord Deputy of Ireland by whom she had several children, including Sir Christopher Wandesford, 1st Baronet, and the writer Alice Thornton.

References

Bibliography

• Waters, Robert Edmond Chester. Genealogical memoirs of the extinct family of Chester of Chicheley. Volume I.