27 Facts About William Wynter

William Wynter was an admiral and principal officer of the Council of the Marine under Queen Elizabeth I of England and served the crown during the Anglo-Spanish War.

William Wynter was returned four times to parliament in Elizabeth's time.

William Wynter's mother was Alice, daughter of William Tirrey of Cork, Ireland.

William Wynter took part in the 260 ship expedition of 1544, which burned Leith and Edinburgh, and in 1545 he served in Lord Lisle's channel fleet.

Gonson held his post until his death in 1577, and William Wynter his until 1589, so that this partnership was a constant feature of the naval administration through the third quarter of the sixteenth century.

In 1557, William Wynter was appointed Master of Navy Ordnance, a post he held along with the Surveyorship for the rest of his life.

At about this time William Wynter married Mary Langton, one of the daughters of the London merchant Thomas Langton, citizen and Skinner and his wife Mary Matthew of Colchester.

Edward Wynter, eldest son of William and Mary, was born in 1560.

William Wynter commanded a fleet to guard against French landings in Scotland in 1559, while diplomatic efforts were made to negotiate sending an English army to aid the Scottish Protestants.

William Wynter was to avoid battle, pretending he came up-river by chance without any official commission.

At Coldingham bay, William Wynter paused to send a copy of his log, which survives, to London.

William Wynter was observed by Lord John Stewart, Commendator of Coldingham, a half-brother of Mary, Queen of Scots.

William Wynter's blockade was immediately effective in preventing communication by sea from Edinburgh to the French garrison at Dunbar Castle.

At first, the French had thought that William Wynter's fleet were French ships bringing more troops, and their response was to send these boats loaded with munition for Henri Cleutin who was advancing on St Andrews.

William Wynter claimed that the Lords of the Congregation had revealed advance knowledge of Wynter's mission and were in communication with him.

William Wynter's Lyon had captured a Breton ship, the Marie Babuilduc which had carried a cargo of grain belonging to the King of France, and this was used as transport by William Wynter.

William Wynter continued to harass shipping and then supported the English army brought in by the Treaty of Berwick to the Siege of Leith.

William Wynter burnt seven ships under d'Elbouf; not only that, all supplies were cut off from France.

William Wynter kept up a naval bombardment of the town.

In 1572 Hawkins and George William Wynter were among those commissioned to clear the seas of pirates and freebooters.

Hawkins immediately made for himself an enemy of Sir William Wynter, presenting Lord Burghley with detailed accusations of mismanagement and corruption throughout the Admiralty, and portraying Wynter as the senior figure responsible.

In 1578 William Bourne dedicated to Wynter his book called The Treasure for Traveilers, a work concerning the use of the astrolabe and other instruments, the calculation of distances by latitude and longitude, the measuring of superficies and solid bodies, the measuring of the weight of ships in the water, and considerations of the natural causes affecting coastal topography and land formation.

In 1571, during the first of the Desmond Rebellions one of William Wynter's ships was seized at Kinsale by James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, the Irish rebel.

William Wynter joined the main fleet of Lord Howard off Calais and proposed the fire-ship plan to drive the Spaniards from their anchorage.

William Wynter requested to be buried in the chapel which he had recently made at Lydney church.

William Wynter's wife had pre-deceased him, but her mother, Dame Mary Judd, survived until 1602.

William Wynter married Mary Langton, daughter of Thomas and Mary Langton.