Nicholas Poyntz
Encyclopedia
Hans Holbein the Younger
Hans Holbein the Younger was a German artist and printmaker who worked in a Northern Renaissance style. He is best known as one of the greatest portraitists of the 16th century. He also produced religious art, satire and Reformation propaganda, and made a significant contribution to the history...
in the Royal Collection and an oil portrait after the same artist based on the drawing in the National Portrait Gallery, London. One further portrait also exists after Holbein.
He was the eldest son of Sir Anthony Poyntz (1480?–1533), vice-admiral, and his first wife Elizabeth Huddefield. He married Joan, daughter of Thomas Berkeley, 5th Baron Berkeley(d.1533).
On Saturday 21 August 1535, Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn
Anne Boleyn ;c.1501/1507 – 19 May 1536) was Queen of England from 1533 to 1536 as the second wife of Henry VIII of England and Marquess of Pembroke in her own right. Henry's marriage to Anne, and her subsequent execution, made her a key figure in the political and religious upheaval that was the...
visited Nicholas Poyntz at Acton Court
Acton Court
Acton Court is a recently restored Tudor house on Latteridge Lane, Iron Acton, South Gloucestershire, England.The Poyntz family owned the property from 1364 until 1680. Nicholas Poyntz added the East Wing onto the existing moated manor house shortly before 1535. Construction took about 9 months...
, Iron Acton
Iron Acton
Iron Acton is a village and civil parish in South Gloucestershire, England. The village is about west of Yate and about northeast of the centre of Bristol. The B4058 road used to pass through the village but now by-passes it just to the north....
, Gloucestershire. Poyntz had built a special new lodging for his royal guests which still survives. It contained three first floor state rooms and one of these still has painted decoration by an artist of the Tudor court. These state rooms connected to the older house by a covered walkway called a 'pentice.' Archaeological excavations found fragments of precious Venetian glass and maiolica which Nicholas probably bought for the visit. The evidence of lengthy preparations by Nicholas at Acton shows that Henry's progress in the west of England was planned in advance.
In 1538 and 1544 he served as High Sheriff of Gloucestershire
High Sheriff of Gloucestershire
This is a list of High Sheriffs of Gloucestershire.The High Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the High Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most of the responsibilities associated with the post have been transferred...
and in 1547 represented Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire (UK Parliament constituency)
The constituency of Gloucestershire was a UK Parliamentary constituency. After it was abolished under the 1832 Electoral Reform Act, two new constituencies, West Gloucestershire and East Gloucestershire, were created....
in Parliament as Knight of the Shire.
Between 1544 and 1556 Poyntz built as a hunting lodge Newark Park
Newark Park
Newark Park is a Grade I listed country house of Tudor origins located near the village of Ozleworth, Wotton-under-Edge, Gloucestershire. The house sits in an estate of at the southern end of the Cotswold escarpment with views down the Severn Valley to the Severn Estuary...
, near the village of Ozleworth
Ozleworth
Ozleworth is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, approximately south of Gloucester. It lies in the Cotswolds, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.-History:...
, Wotton-under-Edge
Wotton-under-Edge
Wotton-under-Edge is a market town within the Stroud district of Gloucestershire, England. Located near the southern end of the Cotswolds, the Cotswold Way long-distance footpath passes through the town. Standing on the B4058 Wotton is about from the M5 motorway. The nearest railway station is...
, Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn, and the entire Forest of Dean....
. This was built at about the same time as nearby Siston Court
Siston
Siston is a small village in South Gloucestershire, England east of Bristol Castle, ancient centre of Bristol, recorded historically as Syston, Sistone, Syton, Sytone and Systun etc. The village lies at the confluence of the two sources of the Siston Brook, a tributary of the River Avon...
was being built by Sir Maurice Denys
Maurice Denys
Sir Maurice Denys was an English lawyer in London, a property speculator during the Dissolution of the Monasteries, during which period he served as a "powerful figure at the Court of Augmentations", a Member of Parliament for Malmesbury in Wiltshire, Treasurer of Calais and the builder of Siston...
(d.1563), first cousin of Poyntz's wife Jane Berkeley.
During the war of the Rough Wooing, Nicholas commanded the warship the Great Galley. In May 1544 the Earl of Hertford
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Viscount Beauchamp of Hache, KG, Earl Marshal was Lord Protector of England in the period between the death of Henry VIII in 1547 and his own indictment in 1549....
sent Nicolas to burn Kinghorn and other towns in Fife.
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