Sir Thomas White (25 March 1507 – 2 November 1566) was an English politician.[1][2][3]
Family
He was the eldest son of Robert White junr. of South Warnborough,[4] Hampshire (son of Robert White and Margaret Gaynesford[5]), and Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Thomas Englefield the elder.[6] He was almost 14 years old when his father died in 1521, and he became the ward of John Morys (Morris), who soon afterwards became Keeper of an episcopal park in Farnham, Surrey.[7] Thomas White married Agnes, the daughter of Robert White of Farnham. They had 14 sons and 6 daughters, but some of them died in childhood.[8] His sister Sybill married (as his first wife) Sir John White of Aldershot, Alderman and Lord Mayor of London,[9] brother of John White, the Marian Bishop of Lincoln (1554–1556) and Bishop of Winchester (1556–1559).
Career
Having studied law at the Inner Temple, he was treasurer of the bishopric of Winchester from 1538 to his death, and Keeper of Farnham Castle, Surrey from 1540 to death. He was elected Knight of the Shire for Hampshire seven times between 1547 and 1559. A strong Catholic, he was knighted at Westminster by the Earl of Arundel on 2 October 1553, the day after the coronation of Queen Mary I,[10] and served as a Master of Requests during Mary's reign from 1553 to 1558.
According to the inscription on their stone altar-tomb at South Warnborough, he died in London in 1566 and Dame Agnes died in Canterbury in January 1570–71.[11]
References
- ^ See Thomas White (disambiguation) for others of this period with whom he is not to be confused, especially Sir Thomas White (merchant), Lord Mayor of London 1553-1554.
- ^ H. Miller, 'White, Thomas II (1507-66), of South Warnborough, Hants.', in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558 (from Boydell and Brewer 1982), History of Parliament Online.
- ^ N.M. Fuidge, 'White, Sir Thomas (1507-66), of South Warnborough, Hants.', in P.W. Hasler (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603 (Boydell and Brewer 1981), History of Parliament online.
- ^ Sometimes called 'Swanborne' in the Heralds' Visitations.
- ^ Margaret Gaynesford was daughter of Nicholas Gaynesford, and not (as shown in the Hampshire Visitation), of John Gaynesford. cf. D. Richardson, 'Plantagenet Ancestry of Edward Rainsford (1609-1680) of Boston, Massachusetts', New England Historical and Genealogical Register 154 (2000), pp. 219-26. See Wills of Nicholas and Margaret Gaynesford (P.C.C. 1498, 1503 respectively).
- ^ W.H. Rylands (ed.), Pedigrees from the Visitation of Hampshire made by Thomas Benolt, anno 1530, &c., Harleian Society LXIV (1913), pp. 81-83, at p. 82 (Internet archive).
- ^ R.J.W. Swales, 'Morris, John (by 1500-40), of Syon Abbey, Mdx. and Farnham, Surr.', in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558 (from Boydell and Brewer 1982), History of Parliament online.
- ^ Memorial Inscription, South Warnborough.
- ^ Rylands, Visitation of Hampshire (1913), pp. 12-13.
- ^ J.G. Nichols, The Diary of Henry Machyn, Camden Society 1st Series XLII (1848), pp. 334-35 (Internet archive), citing College of Arms MS I.7, fol. 74.
- ^ W. Page (ed.), 'South Warnborough', in A History of the County of Hampshire Vol. 3 (London, 1908), pp. 378-82. (British History online accessed 12 October 2016).
- "Sir Thomas White, Master of Requests, died South Warnborough, Hants 2 Nov 1566". Retrieved 18 June 2013.