Thomas Wroth (politician, 17th century)

For the courtier of Edward VI, see Thomas Wroth (politician, 16th century).
Sir Thomas Wroth
Born 1584
London
Died 11 July 1672
Petherton Park
Spouse(s) Margaret Rich
Parent(s) Thomas Wroth
Joanna Bulman

Sir Thomas Wroth (1584 – 11 July 1672) was an English author and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1628 and 1660.[1] He was active in colonial enterprises in North America. He was a strong republican in the Rump Parliament, but stopped short of regicide.

Life

Wroth was born in London, the eldest son of Thomas Wroth (died 1610) of the Inner Temple and of Blendon Hall, Bexley, Kent[2] and his wife Joanna Bulman, daughter of Thomas Bulman of London.[3] A grandson of Sir Thomas Wroth (1516–1573) and Mary Rich,[4] daughter of Chancellor Rich, he was baptized at St. Stephen's, Coleman Street, on 5 May 1584.[5] He matriculated as a commoner at Gloucester Hall, University of Oxford, on 1 July 1600, but was later associated with Broadgates Hall. He left the university without a degree, and in November 1606 was entered with his brother Peter Wroth as a student at the Inner Temple.[6] He was knighted on 14 October 1613, and, having inherited a considerable portion of his father's wealth, he purchased the Somerset estates of his cousin, Sir Robert Wroth (1575–1614), when they were sold to pay his debts. The chief of these were the manors of Newton and Petherton Park, of which his great-grandfather Robert had been appointed Forester by Henry VII,[7] and which his grandfather Sir Thomas had purchased from Edward VI in 1550.[8] Petherton Park became the seat of his branch of the family, and for the rest of his life Wroth was associated with Somerset politics.

In c.1614[9] Wroth married his widowed cousin Margaret Rich (c.1580-1635), to whom he became very devoted. She was a daughter of Richard Rich (d. 1598) (acknowledged son of Chancellor Rich) and his wife Jane Machell.[10] Wroth composed and published The Husband: a poem expressed in a Compleat Man at the time:[11] Richard Niccols included an epigram to her in his small 1614 collection Vertue's Encomium,[12] and over the next five years Wroth prepared his rhymed English translations from Book 2 of Virgil's Aeneid (with parallel Latin text), and with 100 epigrams of his own (Abortive of an Idle Hour), printed 1620.[13] The volume was dedicated to Robert Sidney, Lord Viscount Lisle.[14]

A marriage of Rich and Wroth families reinforced their interconnected histories of Protestant sympathy and Puritan patronage. Robert Sidney was a member of the Virginia Company, and Margaret's brother the colonial pioneer Sir Nathaniel Rich, and Wroth fully associated himself with colonial enterprise. He had been a subscriber to the Virginia Company in 1609. On 3 November 1620 he became a member of the Council For New England. He also became a member of the Bermuda Company in 1620, of the Virginia Company in 1621 and of the Eastland Company. From 1621 to 1624 he was a prominent member of the Warwick party of the Virginia Company, in opposition to Sir Edwin Sandys. He voted in favour of the surrender of the original charter in October 1623, and was one of those included in James I's new grant of 15 July 1624. Wroth was a J.P. for Somerset from 1624 to 1625. In domestic politics Wroth joined the opposition to the king, and in 1628 he was elected Member of Parliament for Bridgwater and sat until 1629, when King Charles began to rule without parliament for eleven years.

In September 1635 the government seized a letter which he had written to John Stoughton in which he lamented the condition of the church and hinted at resistance with blood.[15] A month later Dame Margaret died of a sudden fever at Petherton, leaving Wroth desolate: he wrote a memoir of her character for Sir Nathaniel Rich,[16] and published an Encomium for her ("She was the honour, comfort of my life"):[17] he never remarried. She was buried near her parents and daughter at St Stephen's, Coleman Street, and established a charity of sermons and gifts to the poor there, where John Goodwin was minister.[18] Nathaniel Rich died in the following year making bequests for the families of his sisters Jane Grimsditch and Anne Browne to emigrate to the Bermudas.[19] His nephew Nathaniel Rich, junr. became an active figure in the New Model Army.

Wroth became Recorder of Bridgwater by 1636 and was a J.P again from 1636 to 1640. He served as Sheriff of Somerset from 1639 to 1640, and was therefore excluded from the Short Parliament. In February 1642 he delivered to Parliament a Petition on behalf of the people of Somerset for the removal of the Lords and Bishops responsible for the breach of privileges of Parliament,[20] which was published together with his speech on the occasion. In February 1646 Wroth was elected MP for Bridgwater as a recruiter to the Long Parliament, and on 3 January 1648 he moved the resolution that Charles I should be impeached and the kingdom settled without him.[21] He took the ‘engagement’ in 1649, and was one of the judges appointed to try the king, but he attended only one session. In June following he was thanked by parliament for suppressing the Levellers in Somerset.[22]

On 25 June 1653, he was made a commissioner for the government of the Bermudas and did not sit in the Barebones Parliament in 1653 or the First Protectorate Parliament of 1654. On 20 October 1656 was again returned as MP for Bridgwater in the Second Protectorate Parliament. He was re-elected in 1659 for the Third Protectorate Parliament. In 1660 he was elected for Bridgwater again in the Convention parliament.[5] At the Restoration, Wroth's petition for pardon was granted, but he was removed from the commission of the peace and was deprived of the Recordership in 1662. He lived in retirement until his death, aged 88, at Petherton Park on 11 July 1672. His will was proved on 24 August following.[23]

Family

In 1598 Margaret and her brother Nathaniel were with their mother at their father's deathbed at Leigh, Essex, attended by William Noyes, then 'minister of this place'.[24] Margaret was first married to Paul Bowdler, citizen and Draper of London (d.1610),[25] two of whose sisters, Judith and Anne, were the wives of Sir William Calley of Burderop, Chiseldon, Wiltshire, and Sir John Gore, Lord Mayor of London 1624-25, respectively.[26] Her daughter Anne Bowdler (d.1629), who died in her maidenhood, came of this marriage.[27]

Dame Margaret's niece Frances Grimsditch, her sister's daughter, was in waiting in the Wroth household, and at Margaret's death (14 October 1635) she made provision for the child's education.[28] Another sister Dame Elizabeth, widow of Sir John Morgan of Chilworth near Wonersh, Surrey (d. 1621),[29] and of the judge John Sotherton (d.1631),[30] died in 1632.[31]

Sir Thomas Wroth and Dame Margaret had no issue. His estates passed to the descendants of his brother Sir Peter Wroth and Dame Margaret (nėe Dering). Sir Peter's son Sir John Wroth, a royalist who fought at the battle of Newbury, was created baronet in 1660. He died in 1664, and therefore it was his son Sir John Wroth, 2nd baronet (died 1674), who inherited the estates.

References

  1. ↑ G. Yerby and P. Hunneyball, 'Wrothe, Sir Thomas (1584-1672), of Petherton Park, Som.', in A. Thrush and J.P Ferris, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629 (Cambridge University Press, 2010). Read here
  2. ↑ E. Hasted, 'Bexley', The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent, Vol. 2 (Canterbury, 1797), pp. 162-183, at p. 170. (British History Online accessed 8 June 2016). Sometimes misquoted as 'Blundon Hall, Boxley'.
  3. ↑ W. Berry, County Genealogies: Pedigrees of the Families in the County of Sussex (Sherwood, Gilbert and Piper, London 1830), p. 361.
  4. ↑ The marriage is shown in W.C. Metcalfe, The Visitations of Essex in 1552, 1558, 1570, 1612 and 1634; to which are added miscellaneous Essex pedigrees, (etc)., Part 1, Harleian Society, Vol. XIII (London 1878), p. 276-77. Also in R. Hovenden (ed.), The Visitation of Kent taken in the years 1619-1621 by John Philipot (&c.), Harleian Society, Vol. XLII (1898), Additional Pedigrees: De Haut, pp. 212-14, at p. 214.
  5. 1 2 History of Parliament Online (1660-1690) - Wroth, Thomas.
  6. ↑ Date 'Alumni Oxonienses, 1500-1714: Woodall-Wyvill', Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714 (1891), pp. 1674-1697. accessed: 09 May 2012
  7. ↑ J. Collinson, The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset, 3 Vols (Dilly, Robinson, Longman & Payne, London/Fletcher, Oxford 1791), III, pp. 62-69.
  8. ↑ A.P. Baggs and M.C. Siraut, 'North Petherton: Manors and other estates', in R.W. Dunning and C.R. Elrington, A History of the County of Somerset Vol. 6, Andersfield, Cannington, and North Petherton Hundreds (Bridgwater and Neighbouring Parishes), (London, 1992), pp. 283-300 and pp. 300-306. (British History Online accessed 8 June 2016).
  9. ↑ In 1635 the marriage had lasted 21 years, see Wroth's Encomium listed below.
  10. ↑ Jane Machell (a daughter of John Machell, Sheriff of London 1555-56) married 'Richard Riches' at St Mary Aldermary, City of London in 1574. J.L. Chester, The Parish Registers of St Mary Aldermary, Harleian Society, Registers Vol. V (London 1880), p. 5.
  11. ↑ Sir Thomas Wroth, The Husband: a poem expressed in a Compleat Man (London: Printed for Lawrence Lisle, 1614).
  12. ↑ (Richard Niccols), Vertue's Encomium: or, The Image of Honour. Honor Virtutis Praemium (London, printed by William Stansby, 1614), in T. Park (comp. & ed.), Contents of the Harleian Miscellany, New Edition, Vol X, 2nd Supplementary Volume, (White and Cochrane/John Murray, London 1813), pp. 1-11, at p. 10. It has been mistakenly referred to as her epitaph.
  13. ↑ Sir T. Wrothe, The Destruction of Troy: or the Acts of Æneas, translated out of the Second Booke of the Æneads of Virgill ... With the Latine verse on the one side, and the English verse on the other ... as also a Centurie of Epigrams and a Motto upon the Creede (Printed by T.D(awson) and are to be sold by Nicholas Bourne, London 1620). 10 sheets in quarto.
  14. ↑ P. Bliss (ed.), Athenae Oxonienses and The Fasti by Anthony a Wood, New Edition Vol. III (Rivington, &c., London 1817), pp. 514-15.
  15. ↑ P.S. Seaver, 'Stoughton, John (bap. 1593, d. 1639), Church of England clergyman', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
  16. ↑ Duke of Manchester, Court and Society from Elizabeth to Anne, edited from the papers at Kimbolton, 2 vols (Hurst & Blackett, London 1864), I, pp. 343-48.
  17. ↑ Sir Thomas Wrothe his Sad Encomion, upon his dearest Consort, Dame Margaret Wrothe : Who died of a fever at Petherton Parke, in the countie of Somerset, about midnight of the 14. day of October, 1635. And was buried in the parish church of St. Stephen, in Coleman Street, London, the 11. of November, next ensuing (London : Printed [by Elizabeth Purslowe] for Henry Seile, 1635).
  18. ↑ 'Dame Margaret Wroth's Charity', Report from Commissioners: Charities in England and Wales (4) Session 21 April-23 November 1820, Vol. V (Commissioners, 1820) p. 148.
  19. ↑ Will of Sir Nathaniel Riche of Dalham, Suffolk (P.C.C. 1636). H.F. Waters, Genealogical Gleanings in England, Vol II (New England Historic Genealogical Society, Boston 1901), pp 871-74.
  20. ↑ A speech spoken by Sr. Thomas Wroth knight, in the honourable House of Commons: vpon his delivery of a petition from the knights, gentlemen, and freeholders of the county of Somerset. February 25. 1642. Together with the petition of the said county then delivered (London: Printed for H.S., 1642), see Text Creation Partnership/University of Oxford Text Archive
  21. ↑ Cobbett's Parliamentary History of England Vol. III 1642-1660 (R. Bagshaw, London 1808), p. 833.
  22. ↑ M. Noble, The Lives of the English Regicides, and other Commissioners of the Pretended High Court of Justice, 2 Vols (John Stockdale, London 1798), II, p. 339-40.
  23. ↑ Will of Sir Thomas Wroth of Petherton Park, North Petherton, Somerset (P.C.C. 1672).
  24. ↑ Will of Richard Rich of Leigh, gentleman, Essex Record Office D/ABW 32/91.
  25. ↑ Will of Paul Bowdler, Merchant of London (P.C.C. 1611).
  26. ↑ 'The Society's MSS. Chiseldon, etc. (continued)', Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Magazine No. XCIV, Vol. XXXI (Devizes, December 1900), pp. 173-79.
  27. ↑ Will of Anne Bowdler of London (P.C.C. 1629).
  28. ↑ Court and Society, p. 345. Will of Lady Margaret Wroth, London Metropolitan Archives MS 9172/43 (1635).
  29. ↑ Will of Sir John Morgan of Chilworth (P.C.C. 1621). Genealogical Gleanings in England, II, p. 871.
  30. ↑ E. Foss, The Judges of England, with Sketches of their Lives, Vol. VI 1603-1660 (Longman, Brown, Green, Longmans and Roberts, London 1857) pp. 364-65. Sotherton married Elizabeth Morgan, St Martin Vintry, 26 March 1622.
  31. ↑ Will of Dame Elizabethe Morgan (P.C.C. 1633), written for her by a cousin and neighbour in his own authorial person. Abstract in Genealogical Gleanings in England II, p. 871. Her identification as Elizabeth née Cook (A. McConnell (revised), 'Sotherton, John (1562–1631), judge', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) is a mistake for an earlier wife of John Sotherton's. (Chancery Final Decrees C78/144 no. 5, date 15 June, 3 James I, i.e. 1605.)
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