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LOVELL, Thomas (1388-1414), of Clevedon, Som.
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Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
bap. Ramsbury, Wilts. 23 Apr. 1388, s. and h. of Thomas Lovell (d.1401) by Joan, da. and coh. of Sir Thomas Hogshaw and gdda. and coh. of Sir Edmund Clevedon† of Clevedon. m. by Jan. 1410, Alice, da. of John Roger I* of Bridport, Dorset, 2da. Kntd. bef. Sept. 1414.
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Biography
By the partition of the estates of Lovell’s maternal grandfather made in the year of his birth, his parents acquired the manors of Milstead (Kent) and Milton by Bruton, along with a fourth part of Wanstrow and feudal services at Thorne Coffin (Somerset), properties which were estimated to be worth over £30 a year at the time of his father’s death in September 1401. Furthermore, in 1404, when his uncle, John Bluet, died, Lovell became heir to the other purparty of the Clevedon estates as well. During his minority the inheritance was assigned to Henry IV’s consort, Joan of Navarre, as part of her dower, Thomas’s guardianship devolving on John Roger, the wealthy Bridport merchant. It was in the latter’s presence that Thomas rendered proof of age in October 1409, and he took formal possession of his estates on 22 Nov. following.1 There can be little doubt that he owed his election for Bridport to the Parliament summoned to meet two months later entirely to his guardian’s influence in the borough, for he himself had no personal connexion with the burgesses. By then, too, he had already been married to Roger’s daughter. The terms of the marriage agreement are not clear, but they certainly involved the settlement on Lovell, his wife and their heirs, in November 1410, of Roger’s manor of Bryanston, and the conveyance by Lovell to his father-in-law of his manors of Clevedon and Wanstrow.2
Lovell’s career is otherwise surprisingly obscure. Nothing more is known of him beyond the fact that he was knighted before his death, which occurred on 12 Sept. 1414, at the early age of 26. He left two infant daughters, Agnes and Margaret, aged four and three. In 1432 their maternal grandfather allowed them to have Clevedon, but he retained possession of Wanstrow, Milton and Bryanston until his own death in 1441. Of the two heiresses, one married Thomas Wake† of Blisworth, Northamptonshire, and the other Sir Edward Hull†, KG.3