Thomas Wroth (politician, 16th century)
Encyclopedia
Sir Thomas Wroth was an English courtier and politician, a supporter of the Protestant Reformation
.
, and one of the commissioners appointed to inquire into Thomas Wolsey's possessions in 1529. He sat for Middlesex in the Reformation parliament (1529-1535), and died in 1536, leaving issue by his wife Jane, daughter of Sir Thomas Hawte, four sons and two daughters.
Thomas, the eldest son, was a ward of the king, and was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, but seems to have taken no degree, and in 1536 was admitted student of Gray's Inn
. On 4 October of that year, the right of his wardship and marriage was granted to Thomas Cromwell. In 1539 Sir Richard Rich
paid Cromwell three hundred marks for the right of disposing of Wroth in marriage, and then provided for his third daughter, Mary, by betrothing her to Wroth. Wroth was granted livery of his lands on 24 April 1540, and in that and the following year Rich secured for his daughter's husband the manors of Highbury
(forfeited by Cromwell) and of Beymondhall, Hertfordshire
, and lands in Cheshunt
, Wormley
, and Enfield
, belonging to various dissolved monasteries.
On 18 December 1544 Wroth was returned to parliament as one of the knights of the shire for Middlesex
, and in the following year, through Thomas Cranmer
's influence, it is said, was appointed gentleman of the chamber to Prince Edward
. He retained that post during Edward VI's reign, was knighted on 22 February 1546/7, and was one of the young king's principal favourites. In September 1547 he was sent to the Protector Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset
in Scotland with Edward's letters congratulating him on his victory at the Battle of Pinkie, and in July 1548 was one of the witnesses against Bishop Stephen Gardiner
for his sermon in St. Paul's Cathedral. He probably represented Middlesex in the parliament that sat from 1547 to 1552, but the returns are wanting. After Somerset's fall Wroth was on 15 October 1549 appointed one of the four principal gentlemen of the privy chamber, his fidelity to the Earl of Warwick
's interests being secured by doubling the ordinary salary of £50. On 24 July 1550 he was granted the manors of Bardfield, Chigwell
, and West Ham
in Essex
, and on 14 April 1551 he was made joint lord lieutenant with Paget of Middlesex. On 29 November following he was present at the disputation on the Sacrament held in William Cecil
's house.
Somerset's second fall brought Wroth further grants; on 22 January 1552, the day of the Protector's execution, he was sent to Sion House to report on the number and ages of the duke's sons, daughters, and servants, and on 7 June following was given a twenty-one years' lease of Sion. This he is said to have surrendered on an assurance that Edward designed it for some public charity. In 1552, and again in 1553, he was one of the commissioners for the lord-lieutenancy of Middlesex, and in February 1552/3 he was again knight of the shire for Middlesex in Edward's last parliament. He was not a member of the privy council, but was one of those whom Edward VI proposed in March 1551/2 to ‘call into commission,’ his name appearing on the committees of the council which were to execute penal laws and proclamations and to examine into the state of all the courts, especially the new courts of augmentations, first-fruits and tenths, and wards. In December 1552 he was placed on a further commission for the recovery of the king's debts, and in the same year was one of the ‘adventurers’ in the voyage to Morocco.
Wroth was until July 1553 in close attendance upon Edward VI, who is said to have died in his arms. He signed the king's letters patent limiting the crown to Lady Jane Grey
, but apparently took no overt part in Northumberland
's insurrection. He was sent to the Tower of London
on 27 July, but was soon released. In January 1554, however, when Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk
was meditating his second rising, Lord John Grey
had an interview with Wroth, and urged him to join. Gardiner proposed his arrest on the 27th, but Wroth escaped to the Continent. For this step he is said to have obtained royal licence, which was probably due to the intercession of his father-in-law, Lord Rich. He remained abroad during the rest of Mary's reign, principally at Strasburg
and Frankfurt
, supporting the Marian exiles
. Immediately on Elizabeth's accession he returned to England, and on 29 December 1558 was elected knight of the shire for Middlesex, which he again represented in the parliament of 1562–3. On 21 August 1559 he was appointed commissioner to visit the dioceses of Ely and Norwich. In June 1562 he was nominated a special commissioner to consult with the lord-deputy on the government of Ireland, but does not seem to have gone to Dublin till February 1564; he was recalled at his own request in August. In 1569 he was commissioner for musters in Middlesex and for the lord-lieutenancy of London, and on 1 September 1571 was sent to take an inventory of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
's goods in the Charterhouse. Wroth died on 9 October 1573.
in November 1564. He acquired wealth in the practice of the law, and settled at Blundenhall, Boxley
, Kent
, where he died in 1610. He married Joan
, second daughter and heir of John or Thomas Bulmer or Bulman, and left, besides other issue, Sir Thomas Wroth
(1584–1672) and Sir Peter Wroth (died 1644), a member of the Inner Temple and scholar, from whose collections John Collinson derived the account of the family printed in his Somerset, and whose grandson John eventually succeeded to the Somerset property.
Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation was a 16th-century split within Western Christianity initiated by Martin Luther, John Calvin and other early Protestants. The efforts of the self-described "reformers", who objected to the doctrines, rituals and ecclesiastical structure of the Roman Catholic Church, led...
.
Life
Robert Wroth, his father, was attorney of the duchy of LancasterDuchy of Lancaster
The Duchy of Lancaster is one of the two royal duchies in England, the other being the Duchy of Cornwall. It is held in trust for the Sovereign, and is used to provide income for the use of the British monarch...
, and one of the commissioners appointed to inquire into Thomas Wolsey's possessions in 1529. He sat for Middlesex in the Reformation parliament (1529-1535), and died in 1536, leaving issue by his wife Jane, daughter of Sir Thomas Hawte, four sons and two daughters.
Thomas, the eldest son, was a ward of the king, and was educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, but seems to have taken no degree, and in 1536 was admitted student of Gray's Inn
Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
. On 4 October of that year, the right of his wardship and marriage was granted to Thomas Cromwell. In 1539 Sir Richard Rich
Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich
Sir Richard Rich, 1st Baron Rich , was Lord Chancellor during the reign of King Edward VI of England. He was the founder of Felsted School with its associated alms houses in Essex in 1564....
paid Cromwell three hundred marks for the right of disposing of Wroth in marriage, and then provided for his third daughter, Mary, by betrothing her to Wroth. Wroth was granted livery of his lands on 24 April 1540, and in that and the following year Rich secured for his daughter's husband the manors of Highbury
Highbury
- Early Highbury :The area now known as Islington was part of the larger manor of Tolentone, which is mentioned in the Domesday Book. Tolentone was owned by Ranulf brother of Ilger and included all the areas north and east of Canonbury and Holloway Road. The manor house was situated by what is now...
(forfeited by Cromwell) and of Beymondhall, Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
, and lands in Cheshunt
Cheshunt
Cheshunt is a town in Hertfordshire, England with a population of around 52,000 according to the United Kingdom's 2001 Census. It is a dormitory town and part of the Greater London Urban Area and London commuter belt served by Cheshunt railway station...
, Wormley
Wormley
Wormley is a hamlet in Surrey, England. It is a dispersed hamlet largely consisting of a scattering of houses on the A283 Petworth Road between Witley and Chiddingfold and Combe Lane, a turning off the A283 where Witley station and further houses are situated...
, and Enfield
London Borough of Enfield
The London Borough of Enfield is the most northerly London borough and forms part of Outer London. It borders the London Boroughs of Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest...
, belonging to various dissolved monasteries.
On 18 December 1544 Wroth was returned to parliament as one of the knights of the shire for Middlesex
Middlesex (UK Parliament constituency)
Middlesex is a former United Kingdom Parliamentary constituency. It was a constituency of the House of Commons of the Parliament of England then of the Parliament of Great Britain from 1707 to 1800 and of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801 to 1885....
, and in the following year, through Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer
Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...
's influence, it is said, was appointed gentleman of the chamber to Prince Edward
Edward VI of England
Edward VI was the King of England and Ireland from 28 January 1547 until his death. He was crowned on 20 February at the age of nine. The son of Henry VIII and Jane Seymour, Edward was the third monarch of the Tudor dynasty and England's first monarch who was raised as a Protestant...
. He retained that post during Edward VI's reign, was knighted on 22 February 1546/7, and was one of the young king's principal favourites. In September 1547 he was sent to the Protector Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset
Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, 1st Earl of Hertford, 1st Viscount Beauchamp of Hache, KG, Earl Marshal was Lord Protector of England in the period between the death of Henry VIII in 1547 and his own indictment in 1549....
in Scotland with Edward's letters congratulating him on his victory at the Battle of Pinkie, and in July 1548 was one of the witnesses against Bishop Stephen Gardiner
Stephen Gardiner
Stephen Gardiner was an English Roman Catholic bishop and politician during the English Reformation period who served as Lord Chancellor during the reign of Queen Mary I of England.-Early life:...
for his sermon in St. Paul's Cathedral. He probably represented Middlesex in the parliament that sat from 1547 to 1552, but the returns are wanting. After Somerset's fall Wroth was on 15 October 1549 appointed one of the four principal gentlemen of the privy chamber, his fidelity to the Earl of Warwick
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, KG was an English general, admiral, and politician, who led the government of the young King Edward VI from 1550 until 1553, and unsuccessfully tried to install Lady Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death...
's interests being secured by doubling the ordinary salary of £50. On 24 July 1550 he was granted the manors of Bardfield, Chigwell
Chigwell
Chigwell is a civil parish and town in the Epping Forest district of Essex. It is located 11.6 miles north east of Charing Cross. It is served by two London Underground stations and has a London area code.-Etymology:According to P. H...
, and West Ham
West Ham
West Ham is in the London Borough of Newham in London, England. In the west it is a post-industrial neighbourhood abutting the site of the London Olympic Park and in the east it is mostly residential, consisting of Victorian terraced housing interspersed with higher density post-War social housing...
in Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
, and on 14 April 1551 he was made joint lord lieutenant with Paget of Middlesex. On 29 November following he was present at the disputation on the Sacrament held in William Cecil
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley , KG was an English statesman, the chief advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State and Lord High Treasurer from 1572...
's house.
Somerset's second fall brought Wroth further grants; on 22 January 1552, the day of the Protector's execution, he was sent to Sion House to report on the number and ages of the duke's sons, daughters, and servants, and on 7 June following was given a twenty-one years' lease of Sion. This he is said to have surrendered on an assurance that Edward designed it for some public charity. In 1552, and again in 1553, he was one of the commissioners for the lord-lieutenancy of Middlesex, and in February 1552/3 he was again knight of the shire for Middlesex in Edward's last parliament. He was not a member of the privy council, but was one of those whom Edward VI proposed in March 1551/2 to ‘call into commission,’ his name appearing on the committees of the council which were to execute penal laws and proclamations and to examine into the state of all the courts, especially the new courts of augmentations, first-fruits and tenths, and wards. In December 1552 he was placed on a further commission for the recovery of the king's debts, and in the same year was one of the ‘adventurers’ in the voyage to Morocco.
Wroth was until July 1553 in close attendance upon Edward VI, who is said to have died in his arms. He signed the king's letters patent limiting the crown to Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey
Lady Jane Grey , also known as The Nine Days' Queen, was an English noblewoman who was de facto monarch of England from 10 July until 19 July 1553 and was subsequently executed...
, but apparently took no overt part in Northumberland
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland
John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, KG was an English general, admiral, and politician, who led the government of the young King Edward VI from 1550 until 1553, and unsuccessfully tried to install Lady Jane Grey on the English throne after the King's death...
's insurrection. He was sent to the Tower of London
Tower of London
Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...
on 27 July, but was soon released. In January 1554, however, when Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk
Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk
Henry Grey, 1st Duke of Suffolk, 3rd Marquess of Dorset, KG was an English nobleman of the Tudor period and the father of Lady Jane Grey.-Henry VIII's reign:...
was meditating his second rising, Lord John Grey
Lord John Grey
John William Grey is a recurring secondary character in the Outlander series and the protagonist of his own series, both of which are written by Diana Gabaldon....
had an interview with Wroth, and urged him to join. Gardiner proposed his arrest on the 27th, but Wroth escaped to the Continent. For this step he is said to have obtained royal licence, which was probably due to the intercession of his father-in-law, Lord Rich. He remained abroad during the rest of Mary's reign, principally at Strasburg
Strasburg
-Places:*Strasbourg, a city in Alsace *Straßburg, Austria, in Carinthia*Strasburg, Germany, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania*the former name of Brodnica, became Polish after World War I*Strassburg, the German name for Aiud, Alba...
and Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...
, supporting the Marian exiles
Marian exiles
The Marian Exiles were English Calvinist Protestants who fled to the continent during the reign of Queen Mary I.-Exile communities:According to English historian John Strype, more than 800 Protestants fled to the continent, mainly to the Low Countries, Germany, Switzerland, and France, and joined...
. Immediately on Elizabeth's accession he returned to England, and on 29 December 1558 was elected knight of the shire for Middlesex, which he again represented in the parliament of 1562–3. On 21 August 1559 he was appointed commissioner to visit the dioceses of Ely and Norwich. In June 1562 he was nominated a special commissioner to consult with the lord-deputy on the government of Ireland, but does not seem to have gone to Dublin till February 1564; he was recalled at his own request in August. In 1569 he was commissioner for musters in Middlesex and for the lord-lieutenancy of London, and on 1 September 1571 was sent to take an inventory of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk
Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, KG, Earl Marshal was an English nobleman.Norfolk was the son of the poet Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey. He was taught as a child by John Foxe, the Protestant martyrologist, who remained a lifelong recipient of Norfolk's patronage...
's goods in the Charterhouse. Wroth died on 9 October 1573.
Family
He left issue by his wife Mary Rich six or seven sons and three or four daughters. The eldest son, Sir Robert Wroth, succeeded him. The second son, Thomas, was admitted student of the Inner TempleInner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
in November 1564. He acquired wealth in the practice of the law, and settled at Blundenhall, Boxley
Boxley
The large village and civil parish of Boxley in the Maidstone District of Kent, England lies below the slope of the North Downs, four miles NE of Maidstone town...
, Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, where he died in 1610. He married Joan
Joan Bulmer
Joan Bulmer was an English gentlewoman during the reign of Henry VIII. She grew up in the household of Agnes Howard, Dowager Duchess of Norfolk and there became a close friend of the Dowager Duchess' step-granddaughter, Catherine Howard, who went on to become Henry VIII's fifth wife.She was the...
, second daughter and heir of John or Thomas Bulmer or Bulman, and left, besides other issue, Sir Thomas Wroth
Thomas Wroth (politician, 17th century)
Sir Thomas Wroth was an English parliamentarian and author.-Life:The eldest son of Thomas Wroth and grandson of Sir Thomas Wroth , he was born in London, and baptised at St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, on 5 May 1584. He matriculated as a commoner at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, on 1 July 1600, but was...
(1584–1672) and Sir Peter Wroth (died 1644), a member of the Inner Temple and scholar, from whose collections John Collinson derived the account of the family printed in his Somerset, and whose grandson John eventually succeeded to the Somerset property.