Gabriel Blike

He was the son of Peter Blike of Astley, Shropshire and his wife Mary.^[1] He was associated with the Dudleys by 1555, when he acted as executor to Jane Dudley, Duchess of Northumberland.^[2]

It was through the influence of Robert Dudley, 1st Earl of Leicester the Blike was selected to represent Cirencester in the parliament of 1571.^[1] He was a justice of the peace for Gloucestershire from 1573.^[1] He became a principal burgess of Tewkesbury in 1574 around the time Leicester obtained a charter for the town^[3] and subsequently served as under-steward to the earl.^[1] In a later Star Chamber case it was alleged that John Bullingham owed his position as Bishop of Gloucester in 1581 to Blike's promotion of him to Leicester as a candidate and that Bullingham subsequently paid him an annuity as a reward.^[1] He appears to have also been keeper of Cornbury Park, Oxfordshire in the 1580s.^[4]

A grant of administration was granted to his widow in March 1592.^[1]

He married Mary, daughter of Sir Rowland Morton of Twyning, Gloucestershire and his second wife Sibill.^[5] Their only daughter Sibill married Francis, son of Simon Clare of Ludlow in 1572^[6] and died three years later from the complications of childbirth.^[7]