Sir Thomas Lucy (1583/86 – 8 December 1640) of

Charlecote Park Charlecote Park () is a grand 16th-century country house, surrounded by its own deer park, on the banks of the River Avon in Charlecote near Wellesbourne, about east of Stratford-upon-Avon and south of Warwick in Warwickshire, England. It h ...

, Warwickshire was an English politician who sat in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the Bicameralism, bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of ...

at various times between 1614 and 1640.

Early life

Lucy was the eldest surviving son of Thomas Lucy of Charlecote Park and his wife Constance Kingsmill, the daughter of Sir Richard Kingsmill of High Clere, Hampshire. John Burke ''A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain, Volume 3''"> John Burke ''A genealogical and heraldic history of the commoners of Great Britain, Volume 3''
/ref> His grandfather Sir Thomas Lucy was an MP and is noted for prosecuting

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

although there is little evidence to support this claim.

Career

In 1614, Lucy was elected Member of Parliament for

Warwickshire Warwickshire (; abbreviated Warks) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in the West Midlands (region), West Midlands of England. It is bordered by Staffordshire and Leicestershire to the north, Northamptonshire to the east, Ox ...

. He held the seat through several elections until 1629 when King Charles decided to rule without parliament. He was

High Sheriff of Warwickshire This is a list of sheriffs and high sheriffs of the English county of Warwickshire. The Sheriff is the oldest secular office under the Crown. Formerly the Sheriff was the principal law enforcement officer in the county but over the centuries most ...

in 1632. In April 1640, he was re-elected MP for Warwickshire in the

Short Parliament The Short Parliament was a Parliament of England that was summoned by King Charles I of England on 20 February 1640 and sat from 13 April to 5 May 1640. It was so called because of its short session of only three weeks. After 11 years of per ...

. In November 1640 he was elected MP for

Warwick Warwick ( ) is a market town, civil parish and the county town of Warwickshire in the Warwick District in England, adjacent to the River Avon, Warwickshire, River Avon. It is south of Coventry, and south-east of Birmingham. It is adjoined wit ...

in the

Long Parliament The Long Parliament was an Parliament of England, English Parliament which lasted from 1640 until 1660, making it the longest-lasting Parliament in English and British history. It followed the fiasco of the Short Parliament, which had convened f ...

but died in December. Charlecote - Thomas Lucy III

Lucy died after falling from his horse and was buried at St Leonard's Church, Charlecote.Article by Richard Cust. It was said of him that "his tables were ever open to the learned and his gates never fast to the poor".

Family life

Lucy married

Alice Spencer Alice Spencer, Countess of Derby (4 May 1559 – 23 January 1637) was an English noblewoman from the Spencer family and noted patron of the arts. Poet Edmund Spenser represented her as "Amaryllis" in his eclogue '' Colin Clouts Come Home Again ...

, daughter of Thomas Spencer of Claverden, Warwickshire. Alice was described as an archetypal gentlewoman, known for her charity and piety. They had twelve children, six sons and six daughters, including * Sir Fulke Lucy * Richard Lucy * Constance Lucy, who married firstly Sir William Spencer and secondly Sir Edward Smith,

Chief Justice of the Irish Common Pleas The chief justice of the Common Pleas for Ireland was the presiding judge of the Court of Common Pleas in Ireland, which was known in its early years as the Court of Common Bench, or simply as "the Bench", or "the Dublin bench". It was one of the ...

.Richard Cust, ‘Lucy, Alice, Lady Lucy (c.1594–1648)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 200
accessed 25 Nov 2015
/ref>

References

, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Lucy, Thomas 1580s births 1640 deaths English MPs 1614 English MPs 1621–1622 English MPs 1624–1625 English MPs 1625 English MPs 1626 English MPs 1628–1629 English MPs 1640 (April) English MPs 1640–1648 High sheriffs of Warwickshire