Information on John Golding and his family comes primarily from the introduction by Malcolm W. Wallace, Ph.D. to the 1906 edition of the 1577 book, Tragedie of Abraham’s Sacrifice, translated from the French by Arthur Golding.

In that introduction, Wallace states:

John Golding‘s first wife, Elizabeth, widow of Reginald Hamond of Ramsden Belhouse, was the daughter of Henry Stowe, Knt., and heiress of West Mailing in Kent. She died on December 26, 1527, leaving to John Golding four children — Thomas, William, Elizabeth, and Margaret. His second wife was Ursula, daughter and co-heir of William Merston of Horton, Surrey, by whom he had four sons — Henry, Arthur, George and Edward, and three daughters Mary, Dorothy and Frances.

John Golding became one of the auditors of the Exchequer, and the prominent position which several of his children came to occupy in later years was no doubt due in part to the father’s successful career. He died on November 28, 1547.

Sir Thomas Golding, John Golding‘s eldest son and heir, owned valuable lands in Essex, some of which he is said to have secured by questionable means while acting in his capacity of Commissioner for certifying the Chantry lands. He was Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1561, and of Essex alone in 1569. His wife was one of the daughters and co-heirs of Thomas Royden of Peckham in Kent, and had been previously married to Twisden.

Sir Thomas’ eldest sister, Margaret, married John de Vere, sixteenth Earl of Oxford, and about 1545 she became the mother of Edward, the seventeenth Earl, whose name is a familiar one to all students of Elizabethan literature. He was a great favourite of Queen Elizabeth, and the story of his insult to Sidney on the tennis court is well known, for when the Queen forbade the duel which had been arranged as a result of Sidney’s challenge to the Earl, the former withdrew to Wilton, and busied himself in composing the Arcadia. Edward de Vere died in 1604. His only sister, Mary, who had married Peregrine Bertie, Ford Willoughby of Eresby, and after his death, Charles Tyrrell, Esq., had died in 1568.

None of the other members of John Golding‘s numerous family attained to the high worldly place occupied by his eldest son and eldest daughter. William, the second son, married Elizabeth, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Edmund West of Comard, in Suffolk (she was the widow of John Bukenham, Esq.), and had two children — Edmund and Dorothy.

His from whom these facts are chiefly derived, makes no mention of the daughter, Mary. References to her are based on Hunter’s Chorus Vatum.