Henry Elsynge (Clerk of the Parliaments)

Henry Elsynge (less often Elsyng or Elsing) (bap. 1577–1635) was a British parliamentary officer in the reigns of James I and Charles I. He served as Keeper of the Records in the Tower of London jointly with Robert Bowyer from 1604 to 1612, and was named to the office of Clerk of the Parliaments in 1621.

He is known for his treatise The Manner of Holding Parliaments in England, or, Modus tenendi parliamentum apud Anglos,.

He is sometimes referred to as Henry Elsynge the elder to distinguish him from his son, also called Henry Elsynge (1606–1656).

Henry Elsynge was probably born in 1577. He was baptised 21 August of that year at St Dunstan-in-the-West, London. He was the eldest son of Henry Elsynge (d. 1582) and his wife Frances, daughter of Edmund Browne. Both Elsynge's father and Edmund Browne were Merchant Taylors in the parish of St Dunstan-in-the-West. In 1584, Elsynge's widowed mother Frances married Henry Knyvett, the older half-brother of Robert Bowyer who would be Elsynge's mentor and partner throughout his career.

Elsynge attended St Albans School and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, where he was recorded as pensioner as of 14 October 1597. He left Cambridge without a degree and entered the Middle Temple on 19 February 1597 to study the law. He was called to the bar on 19 April 1605.

On 12 July 1600, Elsynge married Blanche, daughter of Richard Highgate or Hyett and niece of Robert Bowyer. They had two sons, of whom the elder Henry Elsynge (1606–1656) would serve as Clerk of the House of Commons from 1639 to 1649. Blanche died in 1612, and Elsynge married as his second wife Jane, daughter of Richard Hardy of Dorset. They had four sons and one daughter.

...
Wikipedia