Nicholas L'Estrange

Sir Nicholas le Strange (1 January 1511 – 19 February 1580) of Hunstanton, Norfolk, was an English Member of Parliament (MP) who held significant lands and offices in Norfolk.

Biography
The eldest son of Sir Thomas Le Strange, he succeeded his father in 1545 and was knighted in 1547. His mother was Anne, a daughter of Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden and half-sister of Sir Thomas Parr, making Nicholas a cousin to Catherine Parr, the sixth queen of King Henry VIII. He had a brother, Richard Lestrange, who was also a Norfolk MP.

He was appointed a Justice of the Peace for Norfolk for 1538–1547, 1558/59–1571 and from 1579 for life, and High Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk for 1548–49. He was appointed as steward of the manors of the Duchess of Richmond in 1546, and also Chamberlain to the Duke of Norfolk. On 15 September 1549 he wrote to William Cecil, the king's attorney, denying any sympathy with Kett's rebellion. In March 1552, during the reign of Edward VI, le Strange succeeded Sir Walter Buckler as chamberlain to Princess Elizabeth's household at Hatfield, Hertfordshire.

Almost certainly at the Duke of Norfolk's nomination, he was elected MP for the County of Norfolk in the Parliament of 1547, for King's Lynn in 1555 and Castle Rising in 1558, 1559, 1563 and 1571. (His brother, Richard Lestrange, also sat as an MP for boroughs under the Duke of Norfolk's influence in 1559 and 1563.) He was not elected to Parliament again after Norfolk's fall in 1572. In May 1571 he conveyed his estates to his eldest son, Hamon, and moved to King's Lynn.

He married twice: firstly, in 1528, to Eleanor, daughter of William Fitzwilliam of Milton, Northamptonshire, with whom he had three sons and two daughters and, secondly, in 1546, Katherine, the daughter of John Hyde of Hyde, Dorset and widow of Nicholas Mynn of Great Fransham, Norfolk. He was buried 19 February 1580 at Sedgeford, Norfolk. Sir Hamon le Strange (1583–1654), also an MP, was a descendant of this Nicholas through his son Hamon, who died soon after him, and his grandson Nicholas (buried 1592).