CHURCH, Thomas (b.c.1520), of Hereford.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603, ed. P.W. Hasler, 1981
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

Offices Held

Common councilman, Hereford by 1564, mayor 1563-4, 1586-7, alderman and j.p. by 1569.

Biography

Church, who was granted leave of absence from the Commons on 13 Mar. 1559, was a typical burgess of this independent borough. He owned property, some of it formerly belonging to a Hereford cathedral chantry, in the parish of St. Nicholas, and was living in the city by 1557, when he was required to provide a bed with furnishings for the visit of the president and councillors in the marches of Wales. Early in his civic career he was fined 20s. for incivility to the mayor, and about 1573 a glover, Robert Jones, complained in the mayor’s court that Church had begun a suit against him in Queen’s bench, contrary to his freeman’s oath not to bring fellow freemen before ‘foreign’ courts. Church promised to discontinue the case. He was listed by the bishop of Hereford in 1564 among those ‘deemed no favourers’ to Elizabethan church settlement, but as he sat in Parliament in 1571 and retained his local offices, he probably took the oath of supremacy. The latest likely reference found to him is on a local subsidy list in 1590 or 1591, when he was assessed on £10 10s. in goods.

St. Ch. 5/G20/15; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 324; Cam. Misc. ix(3), p. 15; Harl. 2141, f. seq.; J. Price, Hereford, 257-8; J. Duncomb, Herefs. i. 367; CJ, i. 57; CPR, 1550-3, p. 252; Hereford recs. sack 5, bdle. 6, no. 9; sack 8a, bdle. 17, no. 4; sack 9, bdle. 1, no. 2.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes