Armagil Waad (or Armigill Wade) (ca. 1511 – 20 June 1568) was a chief clerk of the Privy Council, servant of government and an English parliamentarian.
Early life
He is said to have been born at Kilnsey, Yorkshire, near Conistone, and his mother’s maiden name is given as Comyn. On the dissolution of the monasteries Kilnsey was granted to Sir Richard Gresham, to whom Armagil may have owed his introduction at court.
Waad was educated at Magdalen College, Oxford, whence he graduated B.A. on 23 January 1531-2. He is then said to have entered an inn of court, possibly the Middle Temple during the period for which the records are missing, or Gray’s Inn where he was later to build a chamber to which his descendants were admitted from 1565 onwards.
Career
Exploration
In 1536 he joined as an adventurer in Richard Hore’s voyage to North America; he sailed with Oliver Daubeney, ‘Mr. Joy, afterwards gentleman of the king’s chapel,’ and others in the Minion from Gravesend, towards the end of April. After about two months’ sailing they reached Cape Breton Island; they also visited Newfoundland and Penguin Island (now known as Funk Island). They steered a northerly course home, fell in with icebergs, though it was the middle of summer, and reached St Ives, Cornwall about the end of October. Waad is said to have written an account of this voyage, which was afterwards printed. No such work has been traced, and it is not in Hakluyt, which, however, contains an account of the voyage furnished by one of Waad’s companions, Thomas Butts, son of Sir William Butts. Sir William Waad’s description of his father as the first English explorer of America, subsequently paraphrased into ‘the English Columbus’ rests on this voyage. It has little justification. Waad has no more title to the name than his companions on the Minion, and infinitely less than the sixteen Englishmen who accompanied Sebastian Cabot, not to mention the possibility that were English sailors among Columbus’s crews.
Public service
After his return Waad seems to have entered the service of Henry VIII, probably as a messenger. In 1540, on the recommendation of Lord Maltravers, the lord deputy, Waad was promoted clerk of the council at Calais. He was promoted third clerk of the privy council in London at midsummer 1547, serving at first without a regular salary, though he was paid for special services, like arresting a Frenchman (probably Jean Ribauld) when he tried to escape to France. On 22 September 1547 he was elected member of parliament for Chipping Wycombe, and on 17 April 1548 began to draw a regular salary of fifty marks as third clerk of the council. Four years later he had risen to be chief clerk, in which capacity he was paid 50l. a year. In July 1550 he was employed as the channel of communication with the French and Spanish ambassadors, on 20 December 1551 he was ordered to make an inventory of Cuthbert Tunstall’s goods, in April 1552 he brought certain accusations against the Countess of Sussex and was himself instructed to examine her in the Tower, and on 31 May following he was commissioned to procure Paget’s signature to the articles against him.