THURBARNE, Robert, of New Romney, Kent.

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

m. 1582, Hannah Stringer of Lydd, wid.

Offices Held

Jurat, New Romney, mayor 1587, 1594, 1602; brodhull rep. in at least the years 1586, 1587, 1594; bailiff to Yarmouth 1597.

Biography

Thurbarne first appears in local records in the early 1580s, when he was one of William Southland’s faction. The fact that he and Southland were both returned as Romney’s representatives to the 1586 Parliament is an indication of their control of the town’s affairs during that period. They could have sat on a committee (6 Mar. 1587) concerned with the importing of fish. Thurbarne was paid 4s. daily for his services at Westminster, but both Members ‘agreed to compound’ with Richard Williams, who was still pressing for payment for attending the previous Parliament.

Southland’s ‘confederacy’ as the Privy Council called it, came to an end in 1590, and several men, including Thurbarne, had to make written submissions, but his career continued at least up to 1601. His family continued to represent Cinque Ports in Parliament in the seventeenth century.

J. Cowper, Canterbury Mar. Lic. i. 414; Arch. Cant. xv. 284; xxvii. 52; Cinque Ports black bk. ff. 53, 54, 61, 76-7; D’Ewes, 412; T. Philipott, Villare Cantianum (1776), p. 52; New Romney ass. bk. f. 30; APC, xix. 5-8, 208.

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: M.R.P.

Notes