HORDE, Thomas (1625-1715), of Cote, Bampton, Oxon.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Oct. 1679

Family and Education

b. 26 July 1625, 1st s. of Sir Thomas Horde of Cote by 1st w. Frances, da. of Sir Thomas Gardiner of Peckham, Surr. m. (1) by 1653, Barbara (d. 12 Aug. 1671), da. of Charles Trinder of Holwell, Oxon., wid. of William Rainton of Shilton, Berks., 5s. (4 d.v.p.) 7da.; (2) 22 Sept. 1673, Susannah (d. 12 Aug. 1680), da. of Sir Erasmus de la Fontaine of Kirby Bellars, Leics., 2da.; (3) bef. 1686, Mary (d.1717), da. of Jonathan Barford of Tooley Park, Leics., wid. of Paul Castelman of Coberley, Glos., s.p. suc. fa. 1663.1

Offices Held

Commr. for assessment, Oxon. Jan. 1660-80, Berks. 1679-80, Berks. and Oxon. 1689-90, militia, Oxon. Mar. 1660; j.p. Oxon. Mar. 1660-80, Feb. 1688-?d. Berks. 1689-?d.; freeman, Oxford Sept. 1660; dep. lt. Oxon. Feb. 1688-1702.2

Biography

Horde claimed descent from a Shropshire family which first sent Members to Parliament in 1391. His great-grandfather, a London merchant, purchased Cote manor in 1553. The family took no known part in the Civil Wars; but Horde apparently came under suspicion in 1659 when a letter of his to Lord Falkland (Henry Carey) was submitted for examination.3

Horde was a neighbour of (Sir) William Coventry, who obtained for one of his younger sons a post in the dockyard at Chatham, and may have contributed to his political education, though they differed over exclusion. Horde did not stand in February 1679, but he was returned at the top of the poll for the county at the contested election of August. In January 1680 he supported the petition for the meeting of the second Exclusion Parliament and was removed from local office. He made no speeches, but was moderately active as a committeeman, serving on four committees, including those to inquire into abhorring and to repeal the Corporations Act. Re-elected with Shaftesbury’s approval after a lengthy poll, he was totally inactive in 1681. He lost his seat in 1685, and on Monmouth’s invasion he was imprisoned for a time in Oxford Castle. He was presumably a Whig collaborator, being appointed to local office in February 1688. Again unsuccessful for the county in 1689 and for the city in 1690, he seems then to have retired from politics. His estate brought him in £648 p.a. about this time, and his investments another £500 or more. Although Wood described him as ‘a most ill-natured man and of no religion’, his will was markedly Protestant in tone, and he endowed charities for the benefit of debtors imprisoned in Oxford, including provision for an Anglican chaplain, for clothing the poor on his estate, and for teaching 20 poor children ‘to read English until they can perfectly read the Bible’. He died on 6 Nov. 1715 and was buried at Bampton, the sole member of the Oxfordshire line to sit in Parliament.4

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Authors: Leonard Naylor / Geoffrey Jaggar

Notes

  • 1. A. H. Hord, Hord Fam. 26-28, 37-38; Par. Colls. (Oxf. Rec. Soc. ii), 18; Top. and Gen. i. 36; PCC 73 Fox; Vis. Glos. ed. Fenwick and Metcalfe, 37.
  • 2. Oxford Council Acts (Oxf. Hist. Soc. xcv), 267.
  • 3. Top. and Gen. i. 35-36, ii. 519; CSP Dom. 1659-60, p. 242.
  • 4. Gent. Mag. n.s. xxxii. 594; Wood’s Life and Times (Oxf. Hist. Soc. xxi), 476, 519, 544; (xxvi), 136, 145, 325; Bodl. Locke mss, CT/76; PCC 73 Fox; J. A. Giles, Hist. Bampton, pp. xciv-xcv; Hord, 26.