Family and Education

b. 1530, 2nd s. of George Bromley of Hodnet, and bro. of George. educ. Oxf. BCL 1560; I. Temple. m. by 1560, Elizabeth, da. of Sir Adrian Fortescue of Shirburn, Oxon., 4s. inc. Henry^† 4da. Kntd. May 1579.1

Offices Held

Lent reader, I. Temple 1566, treasurer 1573-5.

Recorder, London 1566-9; solicitor-gen. 1569-79; PC Mar. 1579, ld. chancellor 1579-d.; dep. chancellor, Oxf. Univ. 1585.2

Biography

Thomas Bromley was the most eminent of a family of lawyers. He was in his 29th year when he was returned for Bridgnorth to the Parliament of 1558, but he had yet to finish his education and he had held no office. His election is thus to be attributed to his kinsfolk and colleagues. The sheriff, Richard Newport, was an Inner Templar who had married (Sir) Thomas Bromley I’s daughter; Bromley’s elder brother George, who had settled halfway between Wenlock and Bridgnorth, himself sat for Wenlock in 1558, and their mother’s family was widely connected in south-west Shropshire; and several of his relatives had served the council in the marches, which sometimes sat at Bridgnorth. By 1560 Bromley had married into the Fortescue family, and his career, which began to outstrip his brother’s, took him away from his native county, so that he never sat again for one of its boroughs. After ten years as solicitor-general and eight as lord chancellor, he died on 12 Apr. 1587.3

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Harding

Notes

• 1. Date of birth given in DNB. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxviii), 78; PCC 18 Spencer.
• 2. APC, xi. 68; E. Rosenberg, Leicester as a Patron of Letters, 133.
• 3. Foss, Judges, v. 463-6.