Walter Hungerford (Knight of Farley)

Sir Walter Hungerford of Farley (died c.1596) was an English landowner. In his lifetime he was popularly referred to as the "Knight of Farley" for his renowned sporting abilities. In his youth he recovered the lands forfeited by his father's attainder, and was favoured by Queen Mary, whose Maid of Honour, Anne Basset, was his first wife. In 1568 he sued his second wife, Anne (née Dormer), for divorce. He failed to prove the scandalous grounds he alleged against her, but chose to be imprisoned in the Fleet rather than support his wife or pay the costs awarded against him by the court.

Walter Hungerford was the only son of Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford of Heytesbury, and his first wife, Susan Danvers, daughter of Sir John Danvers of Dauntsey, Wiltshire, by the heiress Anne Stradling.

Hungerford succeeded his father on 28 July 1540. By an Act of Parliament in 1542 he was restored in blood, but did not immediately regain his father's title and lands. He was granted land by Edward VI in 1552, and in 1554 Queen Mary granted him the confiscated estate of Farleigh Hungerford, in Somerset, when the attainder on his father was reversed. He was knighted in the same year.

He was Sheriff of Wiltshire in 1557, 1572, 1581 and 1587.

Hungerford excelled at field sports, and "was present at the first recorded horse race in Wiltshire in 1585".

In 1568 he sued his second wife for divorce, alleging that she had tried to poison him some years earlier, and that she had committed adultery with William Darrell of Littlecote, Wiltshire, and had had a child by him.

Hungerford failed to prove the allegations in court, and subsequently spent three years in the Fleet Prison for his refusal to support his wife or to pay the £250 in costs awarded against him in the divorce suit. Two letters from Lady Hungerford, written in 1570, speak of her impoverished circumstances.