HIGHGATE, Thomas (by 1533-76), of Hayes, Mdx.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Apr. 1554
1559
1563
1571

Family and Education

b. by 1533. m. by 1563, at least 1s. 1da.1

Offices Held

Servant of William Herbert I , 1st Earl of Pembroke; j.p. Mdx. 1569-?d.2

Biography

Thomas Highgate’s origin can only be guessed at: he may have been a younger son of his namesake who lived at Feering in Essex. A ‘Mr. Highgate’ fought under the Earl of Pembroke against Wyatt’s rebels, but Thomas Highgate is first identifiable as Pembroke’s servant in a warrant of 15 Sept. 1557; he then had command of 150 demi-lances, the earl’s personal following, in the campaign about Calais. He is the only Member for Devizes known to have been a dependant of Pembroke’s, although the earl had been constable and steward there since about 1545 and could have had a hand in the return of Sir George Howard in 1547. The election to the Parliament of April 1554 was also the sole occasion during the reign of Mary on which, contrary to the Queen’s known wishes, the town returned two nonresidents, a circumstance which is reflected in the insertion of the Members’ names in a different hand from that of the body of the indenture.3

Highgate remained in Pembroke’s service, being described as his steward when attending the earl’s funeral in 1570, and both the 1st and 2nd Earls returned him for their borough of Wilton. He died at Hayes on 15 Aug. 1576, leaving a 13 year-old son William and a daughter Anne who married Henry Duport.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: T. F.T. Baker

Notes

  • 1. Presumed to be of age at election. Mdx. Peds. (Harl. Soc. lxv), 87; C142/174/40.
  • 2. HMC Foljambe, 5; CPR, 1569-72, p. 226.
  • 3. Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 61; LP Hen. VIII, xxi; Lansd. 22, f. 51; Chron. Q. Jane and Q. Mary (Cam. Soc. xlviii), 188; HMC Foljambe, 5; C219/22/100.
  • 4. Wilts. Arch. Mag. xviii. 128; C142/174/40.