THYNNE, Thomas I (bef.1566-1625), of Biddestone St. Nicholas, Wilts.

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

b. bef. 1566, 3rd s. of Sir John Thynne by his 1st w. and bro. of John. m. Ann or Dorothy, da. of Thomas Erneley of Brembridge, 2s. 3da., 1s. illegit.1

Offices Held

Biography

The identity of John Thynne’s co-burgess for Heytesbury in 1593 has been established by elimination. He could not have been John’s second cousin, Thomas of Deverell, who had died during the previous year; he could not have been John’s heir who was only 15; he was unlikely to have been that Thomas Thynne who held meadow in Little Stretton, presumably another kinsman, for this man, a grandfather, was to die during the following summer. But the Thomas Thynne who was John’s younger brother was neither too old nor too young and, allowing for fraternal influence, was a suitable candidate for election. The Heytesbury burgesses in this Parliament could have sat on a committee concerned with cloth, 15 Mar. 1593.2

In the pedigree printed by Hoare this Thomas Thynne is described as of Bilston, Staffordshire, but this is almost certainly a misreading of Bitston, one of the spellings of Biddestone current in the sixteenth century. The manor of Biddestone St. Nicholas certainly belonged to him, and he made no reference to any lands elsewhere in his will. He did not acquire the manor, with its lands, tenements and a portion of the tithes in Biddestone and Wraxall, until 1602. On the assessment for privy seal loans of 1611 he is rated at £20 (as compared with his brother John’s £100). He married, probably about the turn of the century, into a leading Wiltshire family, but not into the most eminent branch of it. Thomas Erneley, who acquired the manor of Brembridge (otherwise Brunbridge or Brembrigge) in 1578, left 13 children when he died in 1595; and one of the two unmarried daughters, Ann and Dorothy, with £100 apiece for a marriage portion, was Thomas Thynne’s future wife.3

He appears to have outlived her. In his will he made bequests to his heir Henry and his younger son Thomas, and left Tewins parsonage (near Wraxall) to Thomas Glanfield, his natural son. A ruby ring was to go to daughter Fauntleroy, and debts amounting to £600 at least, due from Sir John Chamberlaine, to his daughters Anne and Joan (wife of Edmund Pyke). He named Sir Thomas Thynne, his nephew, among his overseers.4

Thynne died 1625.5

Ref Volumes: 1558-1603

Author: Muriel Booth

Notes

  • 1. Wilts. Vis. Peds. (Harl. Soc. cv, cvi), 56, 193.
  • 2. Hoare, Wilts. Heytesbury, 60; PCC admons. 1592, f. 27; D’Ewes, 501.
  • 3. Bilson in Collins, Peerage, vi. 500; feet of fines, East. 44 Eliz.; Wilts. Arch. Mag. ii. 185; Hoare, Wilts. Westbury 36; PCC 58 Scott.
  • 4. PCC 69 Clarke.
  • 5. C142/245/1.