Walter Hungerford was born in 1503 at Heytesbury, Wiltshire, the only child of Sir Edward Hungerford of Farleigh Hungerford, Somerset, and his first wife, Jane Zouche, daughter of John, Lord Zouche of Harringworth. Hungerford was nineteen years old at his father's death in 1522, and soon afterwards appears as squire of the body to Henry VIII. In 1529 he was granted permission to alienate part of his large estates. On 20 August 1532 John Hussey, 1st Baron Hussey of Sleaford, whose daughter, Elizabeth, was Hungerford's third wife, wrote to Sir Thomas Cromwell stating that Hungerford wished to be introduced to him. A little later Hussey informed Cromwell that Hungerford desired to be sheriff of Wiltshire, a desire which was gratified in 1533. Hungerford proved useful to Cromwell in Wiltshire, and in June 1535 Cromwell made a memorandum that Hungerford ought to be rewarded for his well-doing. On 8 June 1536 he was summoned to parliament as Lord Hungerford of Heytesbury. In 1540 he, together with his chaplain, a Wiltshire clergyman named William Bird, Rector of Fittleton and Vicar of Bradford, who was suspected of sympathising with the pilgrims of grace of the north of England, was attainted by act of parliament. Hungerford was charged with employing Bird in his house as chaplain, knowing him to be a traitor; with ordering another chaplain, Hugh Wood, and one Dr. Maudlin to practise conjuring to determine the king's length of life, and his chances of victory over the northern rebels; and finally with committing offences forbidden by the Buggery Act 1533. He was beheaded at Tower Hill on 28 July 1540, along with his patron Cromwell. It has been stated that before his execution Hungerford "seemed so unquiet that many judged him rather in a frenzy than otherwise."
Mary Hungerford, who married firstly Thomas Baker, esquire, and secondly Thomas Shaa.
He married thirdly, in October 1532, Elizabeth Hussey, daughter of John Hussey, 1st Baron Hussey of Sleaford, and his second wife, Anne Grey, daughter of George Grey, 2nd Earl of Kent, by his second wife, Katherine Herbert, daughter of William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke, by Anne Devereux. Hungerford's treatment of his third wife was remarkable for its brutality. In an appeal for protection which she addressed to Thomas Cromwell in about 1536, she asserted that he kept her incarcerated at Farleigh for three or four years, made some fruitless attempts to divorce her, and endeavoured on several occasions to poison her. There were no children from the marriage. After Hungerford's execution, she became the second wife of Sir Robert Throckmorton.
