Family and Education

b. by 1508. educ. M. Temple, adm. 2 Feb. 1522.1

Offices Held

Biography

Thomas Hawes’s origin and parentage have not been traced, but there is little doubt that he was the ‘Thomas Hawgh’ admitted to the Middle Temple in 1522 and that he practised as an attorney in the common pleas during the late 1540s. Richard Brydges, who inherited the custodianship of Ludgershall and with it the nomination of the Members there, had himself entered the Middle Temple in 1518, and John Knight I, Hawes’s fellow-Member, not only belonged to the same inn but was Brydges’s close associate. Brydges had himself earlier sat for Ludgershall, but in 1545 he may have done so for Berkshire, thus leaving the Ludgershall seats available for his nominees. In 1559 Hawes was left armour by (Sir) Thomas Cawarden, who called him ‘my late servant’ and named him with Thomas Blagrave^† as supervisor of his will. Neither the nature nor the origin of Hawes’s employment by Cawarden is known, but Cawarden’s association with the Seymours and Blagrave’s work for the family suggest that in 1545 Hawes may have enjoyed Seymour support. It was perhaps through their association in the House that he came to advise John Thynne on legal matters; a business letter from him to Thynne in October 1562 is the last trace found of him. It is sufficient to distinguish him from the namesake who owned Bossomes inn in London and who died in 1560.2

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: S. R. Johnson

Notes

• 1. Date of birth estimated from education.
• 2. CP40/1140, r. 430; PCC 4, 43 Mellershe; Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 3, f. 73; C1/1281/39; Hist. of Innholders’ Co. 7.