Simon Lowe alias Fyfield
Simon Lowe alias Fyfield (by 1522–1578) was a wealthy English merchant tailor in London and a landowner in several counties. He briefly served as a Member of Parliament for two different boroughs.
Life and career
- Lowe owned property on London Bridge from 1536 and lived there in 1576.
- He was Warden of the Merchant Taylors' Company in 1549–50 and later became Master of the company during Mary I's reign.
- He served as MP for Stafford in October 1553 and for New Shoreham in November 1554.
- Lowe helped in the acquittal of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton in 1554, a verdict that led to fines and imprisonment for the jurors.
- He attended the funeral of Maurice Griffith, Bishop of Rochester, in 1558 and, with Sir William Petre and Sir William Garrard, acted as an executor of Griffith’s will. He also contributed to the founding of Friars School, Bangor.
- He appeared in a recusants list in 1577 but was buried at St Magnus-the-Martyr in London on 6 February 1578. His monument is noted by Stow.
Family
- Simon Lowe married Margaret Lacy (daughter of Christopher Lacy of Brearley, Yorkshire) by 1550. They had several children:
- Timothy Lowe (eldest son, died 1617): educated at Christ Church, Oxford; knighted in 1603 at the coronation of James I.
- Thomas Lowe (second son, 1550–1623): Master of the Haberdashers' Company; Sheriff of London in 1595/96; Lord Mayor of London in 1604/05; MP for London.
- John Lowe (youngest son, 1553–1586): started as a Protestant minister, became a Catholic priest, studied in Douay and Rome, and was executed at Tyburn in 1586. He was beatified in 1987 as one of the eighty-five English and Welsh martyrs.
- Anne Lowe (daughter): married John Aldersley of Spurstow Hall; their daughter Elizabeth became Baroness Coventry by her second marriage.
Simon Lowe’s life shows the connections between commerce, city governance, and religious tension in 16th-century England.
This page was last edited on 27 January 2026, at 21:17 (CET).