Name John Killigrew Died 1605 | Role C.1557-1605 | |
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John Killigrew (c. 1557 – 1605) of Arwenack, near Falmouth in Cornwall, was three times MP for Penryn in 1584, 1586 and 1597, and Vice-Admiral of Cornwall and like his father and grandfather was Captain of Pendennis Castle (1584–98). He had notorious dealings with local pirates. Due to his father's debts and his own extravagance he died in poverty.
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Origins
He was the eldest son and heir of Sir John Killigrew (died 1584) of Arwenack, Captain of Pendennis Castle, MP for Lostwithiel 1563 and for Penryn in 1571 and 1572, (elder brother of Henry Killigrew (c. 1528 – 1603), MP and diplomat and of William Killigrew (died 1622), MP and Chamberlain of the Exchequer) by his wife Mary Wolverston, daughter of Philip Wolverston of Wolverston Hall, Suffolk.
Marriage and children
He married Dorothy Monck, a daughter of Sir Thomas Monk (1570–1627) of Potheridge, Merton, Devon, MP for Camelford in 1626, and a sister of George Monck, 1st Duke of Albemarle (1608–1670). By his wife he had six sons and four daughters, including:
In fiction
Killigrew is the central character in the historical novel The Grove of Eagles by Winston Graham. The narrator, his illegitimate son Maugan, gratefully acknowledges the kindness shown to him by his father, who raises him as one of the family: yet in the end he judges his father harshly as a weak, foolish, self-indulgent man who brought his family to ruin. He remembers his stepmother Dorothy with great affection and pity: by contrast he judges that his father's wretched last years, as he went in and out of a debtors' prison, were no worse a fate than he deserved.