Thomas Hoo, Baron Hoo and Hastings

Arms of Sir Thomas Hoo, 1st Baron Hoo and Hastings, KG

Thomas Hoo, 1st Baron Hoo and Hastings KG (c. 1396–1455) was a Knight of the Garter and English courtier.

Thomas was the son of Sir Thomas Hoo (ca. 1370 – Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, 23 August 1420) and wife (m. 1395) Eleanor de Felton (Litcham, Norfolk, 1378 – 8 August 1400). He succeeded his father in 1420, inheriting the family's ancestral home of Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire as well as Mulbarton, Norfolk and other estates. He fought for Henry VI of England in France, and for his services was made, first Keeper of the Seals, then Chancellor of France. In 1439, he was granted the castle, lordship and honour of Hastings, and in 1445 elected Knight of the Garter. Two years later he was created Baron of Hoo and Hastings.

Lord Hoo died 13 February 1454/5. The barony of Hoo and Hastings become extinct at his death, and his properties passed to his four daughters and his half-brother, Sir Thomas Hoo, born 1416 to his father's second wife, Elizabeth de Etchyngham. The brothers are interred together in the Dacre Tomb at Herstmonceux All Saints Church in Sussex.

Marriages and issue

Thomas Hoo married (1st) before 1 July 1428, Elizabeth Wychingham, daughter of Nicholas Wychingham, esquire, of Wichingham, Norfolk, by whom he had a daughter, Anne Hoo (born c.1424), who married Sir Geoffrey Boleyn, mercer and Lord Mayor of London.^[1]

He married (2nd) before 1445 Eleanor Welles, daughter of Lionel de Welles, 6th Baron Welles, and his first wife, Joan Waterton, by whom he had three daughters:^[1]

• Anne Hoo, who married (1st) Roger Copley, Esquire (d. before 1488), Citizen and mercer of London, Roughey in Horsham, Sussex, by whom she had three sons and six daughters; (2nd) William Greystoke, Gentleman (living 1498), of London and St. Olave, Southwark, Surrey, and (3rd) Sir Thomas Fiennes.^[2]
• Eleanor Hoo, who married James Carew of Beddington.
• Elizabeth Hoo, who married firstly Thomas Masingbeard, and secondly Sir John Devenish.^[2]

In popular culture

Hoo makes a cameo appearance in the first few chapters of Harry Turtledove's alternate history novel Opening Atlantis. His purpose in the story is so that settlers in a fictitious continent, halfway between Europe and America, can found a city named Hooville after him. As the book was released around the Holiday season, this may be a humorous literary allusion to How the Grinch Stole Christmas!.

Notes

1. Richardson IV 2011, pp. 305-11.
2. Richardson IV 2011, p. 311.

References

• Cokayne, George Edward (1949). The Complete Peerage, edited by Geoffrey H. White. XI. London: St. Catherine Press. p. 51.
• Cokayne, George Edward (1945). The Complete Peerage, edited by H.A. Doubleday. X. London: St. Catherine Press. pp. 137–142.
• Hughes, Jonathan (2007). "Boleyn, Thomas, earl of Wiltshire and earl of Ormond (1476/7–1539), courtier and nobleman". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 March 2011. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Ives, E.W. (2004). "Anne (Anne Boleyn) (c.1500–1536), queen of England, second consort of Henry VIII". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Retrieved 17 March 2011. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)
• Richardson, Douglas (2004). Everingham, Kimball G., ed. Plantagenet Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. Baltimore, Maryland: Genealogical Publishing Company Inc. pp. 179–180.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G., ed. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families. IV (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. pp. 320–1. ISBN 1460992709. Retrieved 14 September 2013.
• Weir, Alison (1991). The Six Wives of Henry VIII. New York: Grove Weidenfeld. p. 145.
• British History Online - Offley St. Ledgers
• Kelly’s Directory of Bedfordshire, 1885 – Luton