Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Blount, Charles (d.1545)
BLOUNT, CHARLES, fifth Lord Mountjoy (d. 1545), was the eldest son of William Blount, fourth Lord Mountjoy [q. v.], by his second Wife, Alice Kehel. His father on the recommendation of Erasmus, brought Peter Vulcanius from Germany to be his tutor, and Andreas Hyperius also assisted in his education. Erasmus showed a warm interest in his studies, and by way of encouragement dedicated to him a new edition of his 'Adagia,' publishcd in 1529, and his edition of 'Livy ' (1535; the dedicatory epistle is dated 1 March 1531). In his early days Blount served as page to Queen Catherine. He succeeded to the title of Lord Mountjoy on 11is father's death in 1534, and regularly attended court in great state. In 1544 he commanded part of the force sent to the north of France, and was present with Henry VIII at the siege of Boulogne. According to Naunton, he much reduced his trimony by 'his excess in the action at Bull;' (Fragm. Regalia, ed. Arher, p. 56). He died in the following year, and was buried in St. Mary's Church, Aldermary, London. Before leaving for France in 1544 he made a will (proved 19 Dec. 1545) directing that the monument erected to his memory should be inscribed with some awkward English verses written by himself. He bequeathed 20 marks per annum to establish a lectureship in the parish of Westhury, Wiltshire.
Like his father, Charles was a patron of learning. Leland addressed to him on two occasions eulogistic Latin verses (Collectunea, v. 109). Roger Aseham, whose services he endeavoured in vain to secure as his children's tutor, called his house ' the home of the Muses] and re etted that he should divide his attention gliietween literature and the business of the court (Aschami Epistolæ, xix. xx. ed. Giles). Henry Bennet of Calais [q. v.] praises him in similar terms in the dedicatory epistle of his 'Life of Œcolampadius' (1561), addressed to his son James.
He married Anne, daughter of Robert, Lord Willoughby de Broke, by Dorothy Grey, who became is father's second wife, and by her had three sons and one daughter; A younger son, Francis, who travelled in Turkey and was living in 1593, was a friend of Dr. John Dee (Dee's Diary, Camd. Soc. 445). His eldest son, James, became sixth Lord Mountjoy, was made a knight of the Bath at the coronation of Queen Mary (29 Sept. 1553); was lord-lieutenant of Dorsetshire in 1559; was one of the commissioners who tried the Duke of Norfolk (1572), and spent the fortune of his family in the pursuit of alchemy. Sir William Cecil encouraged him in the manufacture of alum and copperas between 1566 and 1572 (Cal. Dom. State Papers, 1566–72). He died in 1581 (Nicolas's Sir Christopher Hatton, p. 209). He married Catherine, daughter of Sir Thomas Leigh, of St. Oswald, Yorkshire, by whom he had three sons—William, Charles [q. v.], and probably Christopher [q. v.] William, born about 1561, followed his father's pursuits, became seventh Lord Mountjoy, and died without issue in 1594. Two letters of his to Sir Edward Stradling, dated 1577, one of which proves him to have had literary tastes, are printed in the ‘Stradling Correspondence,’ 1840, pp. 46–8.
[Sir Alexander Croke's Genealogical History of the Croke family, surnamed Le Blount, ii. 222–7; Erasmi Epistolæ, ed. Le Clerc, cols. 1176, 1233, 1304, 1358, 1373; Knight's Life of Erasmus; Brewer's Letters and Papers of Henry VIII; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabrigienses, i. 88; Dugdale's Baronage, 521.]