Wikipedia:Today's featured article/April 7, 2017
the Pleydell family
Gabriel Pleydell was an English landowner and politician. Born before 1519 into a large, affluent family, he became a Member of Parliament for Wootton Bassett in 1553, close to his family estate at Midgehall in Wiltshire. His election to the Marlborough constituency two years later may have been made possible by his father's influential connections. He returned to the Wootton Bassett seat in 1563 at the request of Sir John Thynne, whom he had supported in a dispute over the Knighthood of the Shire in 1559. He was alleged to be one of the ringleaders of a plot to exile Queen Mary I of England, and made a contentious claim of parliamentary privilege after he was found guilty of this offence in 1555, an action which caused serious disagreement between the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Legal accusations for most of his political career and imprisonment in Fleet Prison and the Tower of London helped "confirm for Gabriel Pleydell a niche in parliamentary history", according to a modern historian. He died in 1590 or 1591. (Full article...)