Cholmondeley or Cholmley, Sir Hugh 1513-1596, military commander, was descended from a family which, from the time of the Conqueror, had held the lordship of Cholmondeley in the hundred of Broxton, Cheshire. He was the eldest son of Richard Cholmondeley and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Randle Brereton of Malpas. In 1542 he accompanied the Duke of Norfolk in his expedition to Scotland, and for his conduct was knighted by Henry VIII at Leith. In 1557, with a hundred men raised at his own expense, he joined the Earl of Derby in his expedition against the Scots on their invasion of England. He was five times high sheriff of Cheshire, and also for several times sheriff of Flintshire, as well as for many years one of the two only deputy-lieutenants of Cheshire. During the absence of Sir Henry Sidney, lord-lieutenant of Ireland, he acted as vice-president of the marches. He died 6 Jan. 1596-7, in the eighty-third year of his age, and was buried in the church at Malpas, where there is a monument with his effigies. His wife, Mary [qv.], and his eldest son, Robert [qv.], are separately noticed.

Sources:
     Dugdale's Baronage, ii. 474
     Strype's Memoirs, pp. 443-5
     Fuller's Worthies of England
     Collins's Peerage (ed. 1812), iv. 24-5
     Lodge's Peerage of Ireland (Archdall), v. 62-3
     State Papers, Henry VIII and Elizabeth
     Ormerod's Cheshire
     Earwaker's East Cheshire.

Contributor: T. F. H. [Thomas Finlayson Henderson]

Published: 1887