Thomas de Thelwall (died
1382
Year 1382 ( MCCCLXXXII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Julian calendar.
Events
January–December
* January 20 – Princess Anne of Bohemia, a daughter of the late Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor, becomes the Queen ...
) was an English
judge
A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...
and Crown official who spent part of his career in
Ireland
Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...
, where he held office as
Master of the Rolls in Ireland
The Master of the Rolls in Ireland was a senior judicial office in the Irish Chancery under English and British rule, and was equivalent to the Master of the Rolls in the English Chancery. Originally called the Keeper of the Rolls, he was respon ...
and Clerk to the
Privy Council of Ireland
His or Her Majesty's Privy Council in Ireland, commonly called the Privy Council of Ireland, Irish Privy Council, or in earlier centuries the Irish Council, was the institution within the Dublin Castle administration which exercised formal executi ...
. He was
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster
The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster is a ministerial office in the Government of the United Kingdom. Excluding the prime minister, the chancellor is the highest ranking minister in the Cabinet Office, immediately after the prime minister ...
1377–78.
Little is known of his early life; his surname suggests that he was a native of
Thelwall
Thelwall is a suburban village in the civil parish of Grappenhall and Thelwall, in the Warrington district, in the ceremonial county of Cheshire, England. It is close to the Lymm junction of the M6 motorway.
History
A fortified village was e ...
,
Cheshire
Cheshire ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in North West England. It is bordered by Merseyside to the north-west, Greater Manchester to the north-east, Derbyshire to the east, Staffordshire to the south-east, and Shrop ...
. He is first heard of as a Clerk in the Royal
Chancery
Chancery may refer to:
Offices and administration
* Court of Chancery, the chief court of equity in England and Wales until 1873
** Equity (law), also called chancery, the body of jurisprudence originating in the Court of Chancery
** Courts of e ...
in about 1360. He is always called "Clerk" in the official records. He became parish priest of
Polebrook
Polebrook is a village in Northamptonshire, England. The population (including Armston) at the 2011 census was 478.
History
There is evidence that Polebrook as a settlement dates back to 400 BC, where the village consisted of many farms. The fa ...
in
Northamptonshire
Northamptonshire ( ; abbreviated Northants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. It is bordered by Leicestershire, Rutland and Lincolnshire to the north, Cambridgeshire to the east, Bedfordshi ...
in 1361.
[Ball, F. Elrington ''The Judges in Ireland 1221-1921'' John Murray London 1926 Vol.1 p.87] In that year he acknowledged payment of 4
shillings
The shilling is a historical coin, and the name of a unit of modern currencies formerly used in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, other British Commonwealth countries and Ireland, where they were generally equivalent to 12 pence ...
from Henry Averynge of
Flintham
Flintham is a village and civil parish in the Rushcliffe district in Nottinghamshire, 7 miles (11 km) from Newark-on-Trent and opposite RAF Syerston on the A46. It had a population of 597 at the 2011 census, estimated at 586 in 2019, and ...
,
Nottinghamshire
Nottinghamshire (; abbreviated ''Notts.'') is a ceremonial county in the East Midlands of England. The county is bordered by South Yorkshire to the north-west, Lincolnshire to the east, Leicestershire to the south, and Derbyshire to the west. Th ...
, as part payment of a debt of £4 which Henry admitted was owing to him.
In 1369 he accompanied Sir
William de Windsor
Sir William de Windsor, Baron Windsor (–1384) was an English administrator who served as King's Lieutenant in Ireland.
Origins
William was the son of Sir Alexander de Windsor of Grayrigg, Westmorland, and of Elizabeth (died August 1349), ...
, the new
Lord Lieutenant
A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility ov ...
, to Ireland; he became Master of the Rolls in 1372, at a fee of £20, and a
prebendary
A prebendary is a member of the Catholic Church, Catholic or Anglicanism , Anglican clergy, a form of canon (priest) , canon with a role in the administration of a cathedral or collegiate church. When attending services, prebendaries sit in part ...
of
St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin
Saint Patrick's Cathedral () in Dublin, Ireland is the national cathedral of the Church of Ireland. Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, Christ Church Cathedral, also a Church of Ireland cathedral in Dublin, is designated as the local cathedral of ...
.
[ Otway-Ruthven describes him in 1374 as Clerk to the Irish Privy Council, one of the first men to have held this office.][Otway-Ruthven A.J. ''History of Medieval Ireland'' Reprinted Barnes and Noble 1993 p.151] The Patent Roll
The patent rolls (Latin: ''Rotuli litterarum patentium'') are a series of administrative records compiled in the English, British and United Kingdom Chancery, running from 1201 to the present day.
Description
The patent rolls comprise a registe ...
records an extra payment of 5 marks to Thelwall in 1372 for carrying the Rolls and other memorials of the Irish Chancery
The Court of Chancery was a court which exercised equitable jurisdiction in Ireland until its abolition as part of the reform of the court system in 1877. It was the court in which the Lord Chancellor of Ireland presided. Its final sitting place ...
to the Lord Deputy of Ireland
The Lord Deputy was the representative of the monarch and head of the Irish executive (government), executive under English rule, during the Lordship of Ireland and then the Kingdom of Ireland. He deputised prior to 1523 for the Viceroy of Ireland ...
and the Council at Cork
"Cork" or "CORK" may refer to:
Materials
* Cork (material), an impermeable buoyant plant product
** Stopper (plug), or "cork", a cylindrical or conical object used to seal a container
*** Wine cork an item to seal or reseal wine
Places Ireland
* ...
.[Smyth, Constantine Joseph ''Chronicle of the Law Officers of Ireland'' London Butterworths 1839 p.51]
He returned to England in about 1375. In that year he became one of several co-tenants of the castle of Egremont, Cumbria
Egremont is a market town and civil parish in the Cumberland (unitary authority), Cumberland district of Cumbria, England. It is situated just outside the Lake District National Park, south of Whitehaven and on the River Ehen. The parish also ...
, formerly held by Walter Fitzwalter, 3rd Baron Fitzwalter (died 1386), together with Lord Fitzwalter's other lands in Cumbria.[''Calendar of Close Rolls 49 Edward III''] This was by operation of statute merchant
Statute merchant () and statute staple are two old forms of security, long obsolete in English practice, though references to them still occur in some modern statutes.
The former security was first created by the Statute of Merchants 1283, o ...
, an early and now obsolete form of security for a loan
In finance, a loan is the tender of money by one party to another with an agreement to pay it back. The recipient, or borrower, incurs a debt and is usually required to pay interest for the use of the money.
The document evidencing the deb ...
? not dissimilar to a modern mortgage
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners t ...
. Lord Fitzwalter had borrowed 1,000 marks from Thomas and his fellow tenants
A leasehold estate is an ownership of a temporary right to hold land or property in which a lessee or a tenant has rights of real property by some form of title from a lessor or landlord. Although a tenant does hold rights to real property, a lea ...
.[ However it seems that the real beneficiary of the statute merchant, in this case, was Sir William de Windsor's wife ]Alice Perrers
Alice de Salisbury, also known as Alice de Windsor (circa 1348 –1400/1401) was a mistress of King Edward III of England. As a result of his patronage, she became the wealthiest and most influential woman in the country. She was widely de ...
, the notoriously rapacious mistress of King Edward III
Edward III (13 November 1312 – 21 June 1377), also known as Edward of Windsor before his accession, was King of England from January 1327 until his death in 1377. He is noted for his military success and for restoring royal authority after t ...
, who as a woman of her time was obliged to act through male agents.[ As a senior royal official, and a colleague of her husband, Thomas no doubt knew Alice personally. The other tenants seem also to have been royal clerks: Hugh de Cottingham was possibly a relative of Thomas de Cottingham (died 1370), another former Master of the Rolls in Ireland.][The castle soon passed to the ]Earl of Northumberland
The title of Earl of Northumberland has been created several times in the Peerage of England and of Great Britain, succeeding the title Earl of Northumbria. Its most famous holders are the House of Percy (''alias'' Perci), who were the most po ...
.
Thelwall was appointed Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1377, but held office for only a year. He is thought to have died in 1382.[
]
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thelwall, Thomas de
Chancellors of the Duchy of Lancaster
People from Cheshire
1382 deaths
Year of birth unknown
Masters of the Rolls in Ireland