The Englefields and their Contribution to the Survival of the Faith in Berkshire, Wiltshire, Hampshire and Leicestershire

The original home of the family was at Englefield House (1) in the parish of Englefield, five and a half miles South-West of Reading. It had been in the family’s possession from at least as early as the middle of the twelfth century. When Elizabeth came to the throne it was the property of Sir Francis Englefield (2) who left the country, never to return, in April 1559, having settled Englefield on his brother John. John died in 1567 and was succeeded by his son Sir Francis Englefield, 1st Baronet, who survived to 1631, though his ownership of Englefield ceased in 1586 on its forfeiture to the Crown. This was the culminating act in a long dispute with the Crown which had begun with its sequestration in 1563.