Henry Fanshawe (1569–1616)

Sir Henry Fanshawe (1569–1616), was an English Remembrancer of the exchequer and Member of Parliament.

Henry Fanshawe, baptised 15 August 1569, was the elder son of Thomas Fanshawe (remembrancer of the exchequer) by his first wife, Mary, daughter of Antony Bourchier and was thus a half-brother of Sir Thomas Fanshawe and William Fanshawe. In November 1586 he became a student of the Inner Temple. In 1601, on his father's death, he inherited Ware Park, a house in Warwick Lane, London, and a part of St. John's Wood, on condition that he should provide lodging with himself for his stepmother Joan and for his sisters and stepsisters until their marriage.

He succeeded to his father's office as remembrancer of the exchequer. According to the testimony of his daughter-in-law, Anne, wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, Queen Elizabeth described Henry Fanshawe as "the best officer of accounts she had, and a person of great integrity".

He was elected M.P. for Westbury, Wiltshire, 1 November 1588, and again in February 1592/3. He sat for Boroughbridge, Yorkshire, in the parliament summoned in the autumn of 1597. On 7 May 1603 he was knighted by King James I shortly after his coronation.

Sir Henry was also a member of the Virginia Company. As such he was one of the noblemen that signed the first and second charters of the new Colony of Virginia. He and his family also received several thousand acres of land as extra compensation for their investments and services. Sir Henry and his heirs, oddly enough, never were recorded as actually visiting their vast estates in the New World.

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