William Drury

Sir William Drury
Sir William Drury
Born	2 October 1527 Hawstead, Suffolk
Died	13 October 1579 Waterford, Munster
Spouse(s)	Margaret Wentworth
Children	Jane Drury Anne Drury Elizabeth Drury
Parent(s)	Sir Robert Drury, Elizabeth Brudenell

Sir William Drury (2 October 1527 – 13 October 1579) was the son of Sir Robert Drury (c.1503–1577) the grandson of Sir Robert Drury (c.1456–2 March 1535), Speaker of the House of Commons, and the nephew of Sir William Drury. He was an English statesman and soldier.

William Drury, born at Hawstead in Suffolk on 2 October 1527, was the third son of Sir Robert Drury (c.1503–1577) of Hedgerley, Buckinghamshire, and Elizabeth Brudenell, the daughter of Edmund Brudenell of Chalfont St Peter, Buckinghamshire. He was the grandson of another Sir Robert Drury (c.1456–2 March 1535), Speaker of the House of Commons in 1495. He was a brother of Sir Robert Drury (1525–1593) and Sir Drue Drury (1531/2–1617).

Drury was educated at Gonville College, Cambridge. Fighting in France, Drury was taken prisoner in 1544; then after his release, he helped Lord Russell, afterwards Earl of Bedford, to quell a rising in Devonshire in 1549, but he did not come to the front until the reign of Elizabeth I.

In 1554 he sat as Member of Parliament for Chipping Wycombe. In 1559, he was sent to Edinburgh to report on the condition of Scottish politics, and five years later he became Marshal and deputy-governor of Berwick-upon-Tweed. He was a close observer of the affairs of Mary, Queen of Scots, and her house-arrest in Loch Leven Castle, and was in constant communication with Lord Burghley and wrote to him on 3 April 1568 regarding her escape from that place on 25 March about which he gave a full account. Again in Scotland in January 1570, it is interesting to note that the regent James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, was proceeding to keep an appointment with Drury in Linlithgow when he was mortally wounded, and it was probably intended to murder the English envoy also.