William Fitzwilliam, Earl of Southampton, and Knight of the Garter, descended from a very ancient and powerful northern family, and was the second of the two sons of Sir Thomas Fitzwilliam, of Aldwarke in Yorkshire, Knight, and Lucy, daughter and co-heiress of John Neville, Marquis Mountacute. Some short time before the death of his elder brother, who was slain at Flodden-field, he was introduced at the Court of Henry VIII. who appointed him one of the Esquires for the body, which office was confirmed to him for life, by a patent dated 1513. The fashion of that day requiring that a courtier's education should be finished in a campaign against France, Fitzwilliam accordingly obtained some respectable situation in the fleet which sailed thither in the following year, and received a severe wound in an action near Brest, where, as well as at the siege of Tournay, he gave such proofs of his gallantry and discretion, that Henry, at his return, conferred the honour of Knighthood upon him, and made him Vice-Admiral, in which character he commanded the squadron which attended the King to Boulogne in 1523.