Registers covering assorted business transacted by the Cámara de Castilla in 1574 refer to permission granted on March 4th of that year to three Englishmen to travel through Spain on their way to Flanders. Stated to be merchants, they were William Caston, Gilbert Tickbone (or perhaps Tichbone) and David Stradling.
The first two are enigmas but the latter gentleman may be the David Stradling of Glamorgan for whom, as indicated in the History of Parliament, Mary I's last parliament in 1558 'marked the beginning and the end of his public career'. One of Stradling's sisters seems to have been in the retinue of the Countess of Feria and another is mentioned in connexion with Louvain. Stradling seems to have settled abroad after the accession of the Protestant queen Elizabeth I; perhaps Caston and Tichbone followed suit.
SOURCES: Archivo General de Simancas, Cámara de Castilla, Relaciones, Book 18, P. 49 verso; S.T. Bindoff, The History of Parliament, I:393
