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DE GREY, Thomas (1680-1765), of Merton, Norf.
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Biography Detail
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Family and Education
bap. 13 Aug. 1680, 1st surv. s. of William de Grey† of Merton by Elizabeth, da. of Thomas Bedingfield of Darsham, Suff. and coh. of her bro. Thomas. educ. Bury St. Edmunds g.s.; St. John’s, Camb. 1697. m. settlement 10 Sept. 1706, Elizabeth (with £4,500), da. of William Windham of Felbrigg, Norf., sis. of Ashe Windham*, William Windham† and Joseph Windham Ashe†, 3s. (1 d.v.p.) 2da. suc. fa. 1687.1
Offices Held
Freeman, King’s Lynn 1712.2
Biography
De Grey’s marriage into the Wyndham family connected him with several of the leading Whigs in Norfolk, and may have been what drew him to the Whig side in politics, his father having been a Tory. However, his wife’s family had little to do with his putting up at Thetford in 1708. De Grey relied partly on his own interest in the town: his family seat was only ten miles away and his father had represented Thetford in James II’s Parliament. He also enjoyed the support of the Duke of Grafton. When Ashe Windham’s anxious mother reproached her son for countenancing such a risky enterprise Windham replied,
I take my brother Grey to be of an age and sense not to want advice in the conduct of his life, and I take him to have been entirely his own governor in this matter . . . You desire to know whether he is like to succeed; for my part I cannot judge, but the peer thinks he will certainly. I was in hopes your ladyship would have acquitted me, after knowing I had not the least knowledge of it, till after ’twas past recovery. If any disaster had happened upon their being in town purely, then I might have owned your ladyship had had a shrewd guess; but I cannot upon this unexpensive, reasonable desire of serving his country.
De Grey and his Whig partner Robert Baylis* were returned, defeating two Tories, but Windham was probably wrong about the cost, for Thetford’s voters were venal, and their price was high. In a list of the new Parliament de Grey was classed as a Whig. An unimportant back-bencher, he wrote on 3 Mar. 1709 to a Norfolk correspondent:
both Houses joined yesterday in an address to the Queen, of, I think, a very extraordinary nature, as to some parts of it particularly. They have desired her that she will not make peace with the King of France till he has acknowledged her title to these kingdoms and the succession of them in the Protestant line as they are by us established, and till he had banished the Prince of Wales out of his dominions and consented to have the fortifications and harbour of Dunkirk demolished and destroyed . . . What was the occasion of the address or whether there be a secret in it or not I cannot tell you.
He was listed in 1709 as a supporter of the naturalization of the Palatines, and in 1710 as having voted for the impeachment of Dr Sacheverell, although on 8 Feb. 1710 he had been granted a fortnight’s leave of absence. He did not seek re-election in 1710, possibly because of the expense, and in 1713 resisted a proposal by Robert Walpole II* that he stand for the county with Ashe Windham. In 1715, in more favourable circumstances, he agreed to be put up by Lord Townshend, Windham’s cousin and close friend, on the Whig interest. De Grey was described as a Whig in the Worsley list and in another comparative analysis of the two Parliaments; a third list, however, noted him as a Tory. De Grey was buried on 18 Dec. 1765, at Merton.3
