MORANT, Thomas, of Worcs.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

s. of John Morant of Stoulton, Worcs. by Margaret, da. of Walter Hodyngton of Huddington.

Offices Held

J.p. Worcs. 4 Dec. 1417-c. July 1420.

Commr. of array, Worcs. Mar. 1419.

Biography

Morant’s father was occasionally described as ‘of Stoulton’, and is also known to have held property in Newbold-on-Stour in the same county, but the family evidently derived only a small income from land. In 1390 the manor of Huddington was entailed on Morant’s maternal uncle, the lawyer Thomas Hodyngton*, and his issue, with contingent remainders to our MP’s half-brother, Thomas Besford, and to himself, but he was never to obtain possession. He decided to follow Hodyngton in his profession, and in about 1398 he was linked to another young lawyer when his sister Elizabeth married William Wollashull*. His father, who was of the affinity of Thomas Beauchamp, earl of Warwick, was appointed by the earl as deputy sheriff of Worcestershire in 1400.1

Morant’s career was brief and uneventful. Like his father, his uncle and his brother-in-law, he became one of the circle of legal advisors and retainers surrounding the Beauchamp earls of Warwick, and in the year of his first return to Parliament he received from Earl Richard a fee of £1 6s.8d.for his services as an apprentice-at-law. During the session (in which his fellow Member was his brother-in-law, Wollashull) he was appointed as a j.p. in Worcestershire, and he is known to have subsequently taken an active role at local sessions. On the occasion of his second election, in 1419, his mainpernors were Wollashull and John Washbourne*, yet another member of the Beauchamp circle.2 Morant is not recorded thereafter, and it seems likely that he died young.

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

  • 1. CAD, iii. D616; VCH Worcs. iii. 49; iv. 72; T. Habington, Surv. Worcs. (Worcs. Hist. Soc. 1896-9), ii. 250.
  • 2. B.H. Putnam, Treatises on J.P.s, 65; Egerton Roll 8773; C219/12/3.