Thomas Tasburgh (c. 1553 – c. 1602), originally of South Elmham, Suffolk, afterwards of Hawridge and latterly of Beaconsfield and Twyford, Buckinghamshire, was a member of the English landed gentry, a magistrate, member of parliament, High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire, and officer of the Exchequer to Queen Elizabeth I.A.M. Mimardière and P.W. Hasler, 'Tasburgh, Thomas (c.1554-1602), of Hawridge; later of Beaconsfield, Bucks.', in P.W. Hasler (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603 (from Boydell and Brewer 1981), History of Parliament Online.
Although Thomas Tasburgh was not himself a Catholic recusant, his second marriage (to Jane WestA. Davidson, 'The second Mrs. Sheldon', Worcestershire Recusant 14 (December 1969), pp. 15-21.) brought him into a wide sphere of Catholic kinship and association, and some considerable debts. Jane's daughter Lettice, who married Thomas's nephew, John Tasburgh (V) of Flixton Hall, shaped the future Catholicism of the Tasburgh family.
Origins
The father of Thomas Tasburgh, John Tasburgh (III; c. 1495–1552) of Flixton, represented a family which took its name from the village of Tasburgh in south Norfolk, but, settling at St Peter South Elmham and at Flixton in north Suffolk and with mercantile interests in Norwich, became established by intermarriage with other gentry families.N. Evans, 'The Tasburghs of South Elmham: The Rise and Fall of a Suffolk Gentry Family', Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History, XXXIV Part 4 (1980), pp. 269-80 (Society's pdf). Thomas Tasburgh is discussed at pp. 273-74, and see pedigree p. 278. John (III) was the son of John Tasburgh (II; died 1509) and his wife, Olyve, daughter of John Everard of Cratfield and his wife, Margaret Bedyngfield, of Ditchingham.'Visitation of Suffolk (1561): Tasburgh of South Elmham', in W.C. Metcalfe (ed.), The Visitations of Suffolk made by Hervey (1561), Cooke (1577) and Raven (1612) (Editor, Exeter 1882), p. 71 (Internet Archive).'Everard' (first pedigree), in W. Rye, The Visitation of Norfolk Anno 1563, Harleian Society XXXII (London 1891), pp. 116-17 (Internet Archive).
In addition to his Everard cousins, by his maternal aunt Anne (or Agnes) Everard, John (III) became the nephew of Sir Edward Echyngham of Barsham in north Suffolk, and therefore the cousin of Anne Echyngham, wife of Sir Owen Hopton of Cockfield Hall, Yoxford, and of her sister Mary, wife of John Blennerhassett of Frenze and Barsham.S.H.A. Harvey, Denham Parish Registers, 1539–1850. With historical notes and notices (Paul & Mathew, Bury St Edmunds 1904), pp. 86-93 and pp. 198-200 (Internet Archive); Will of Dame Anne Echingham, widow of Barsham (PCC 1539, Cromwell quire).
John Tasburgh (III), who purchased the site of Flixton Priory and settled there, made two marriages, first (in 1524)'Conveyance of manor of Boyses', 13 January 1524, Suffolk Record Office (Lowestoft), Adair papers, ref HA12/B2/21/7 (Discovery Catalogue). to Alice Dybney of Garboldisham,'Garboldesham', in F. Blomefield, An Essay Towards a Topographical History of the County of Norfolk, Volume I: Giltcross Hundred (William Miller, London 1805), pp. 255-274, at p. 273, note 3 (Internet Archive). by whom he had sons John, Owen and William Tasburgh, and secondly to Elizabeth, daughter of John Davy of Norwich. Thomas Tasburgh was the son of this second marriage, and may have been born after the death of his father. He is not mentioned in his father's will (proved 1554),Will of John Tasburghe or Taseburgh (P.C.C. 1554, Tashe quire). but began in life at least at Flixton, where his mother Elizabeth (his father's sole executor) held the two manors of Flixton late Priory and Flixton Boyse as, or with, her jointure estate.Evans, 'The Tasburghs of South Elmham', at p. 271; citing Suffolk Record Office, ref. HA 12/BI/4/76.
As administrator, Elizabeth Tasburgh faced suits for her husband's debts,The National Archives (UK), King's Bench Plea Rolls (Error Cases, 2-3 Philip and Mary): Doughtie v Clovell, ref. KB27 no. 1187. View original at AALT, Imgs 0068 ff (fronts) and 0051 ff (dorses). and she soon remarried to Francis Clovell, Armiger, of Cloville Hall (Fullers) in West Hanningfield, Essex,'Fullers alias Cloville Hall', Survey of English Place-Names, The English Place-Name Society (Society webpage). and now of South Elmham. Clovell became embroiled in lawsuits with the family concerning the Flixton estates,The National Archives (UK): Chancery, Final decrees, Nicolls v Clovell, C78/14 no. 45 (1556): View original at AALT, Imgs 0063-64, re C 1/1371/31-32; Litigation, Alington v Clovell, ref C 3/4/20, C 3/2/74; Tasbrugh v Clovell, ref C 3/182/115; Everard v Clovell, ref. C 3/58/3; etc. and by early 1563 was dead: by 1565 Elizabeth was again remarried, to a gentleman of Norfolk who on behalf of Clovell's executor agreed that John Tasburgh should keep whatever goods belonging to Clovell remained in Suffolk.Evans, 'The Tasburghs of South Elmham', citing Suffolk Record Office (Lowestoft), Agreement, 15 May 1565, ref HA12/B2/7/5 (Discovery Catalogue). Evans calls him "Edward Moone": in the Catalogue he is "Edmond Move", of "Malby" (?Mautby, Maltby), Norfolk.
John Tasburgh (IV), the eldest of Thomas's half-brothers, had meanwhile held his first manorial court at Flixton and, following Elizabeth's death by 1567, paid to Thomas an annuity of 20 marks as from October 1568.Suffolk Record Office (Lowestoft Branch), 'Grant of annuity', ref. HA12/B2/18/20 (Discovery Catalogue). Thomas was educated at Gray's Inn in London.
First marriage Tasburgh first married Dorothy (née Kitson) (1531–1577), who was the daughter of Sir Thomas Kitson (1485–1540) (builder of Hengrave Hall, Suffolk) by his second wife, Margaret Donnington, and was the widow of Sir Thomas Pakington (died 2 June 1571) of Hampton Lovett, Worcestershire.A.I. Suckling, in his History and Antiquities of the County of Suffolk, 2 vols (John Weale, London 1846-1848), I, pp. 198-99 (Internet Archive), is misled by the 1569 Worcestershire Visitation, for "Pakington", where by a generational slip Tasburgh marries Alice (Baldwin).
Tasburgh thus became the stepfather of Sir John Pakington (1549–1625), called "Lusty Pakington", a favourite in the royal court, though being in fact slightly younger than him. Dorothy Pakington gained notoriety in 1572, after her first husband's death, for assuming his authority as "lord and owner of the town of Aylesbury" to appoint the town's two burgesses by her own writ.G. Lipscomb, History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham, 3 vols (J. & W. Robins, London 1847), II, p. 8, note 8 (Internet Archive). Tasburgh acquired Hawridge in Buckinghamshire as the result of a conveyance by Thomas Penyston to John Wolmer and John Davy in 1574, preliminary to its alienation to himself and to his wife Dorothy.'Parishes: Hawridge', in W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of Buckingham, Vol. 3 (London 1925), 367-69 (British History Online), citing Feet of Fines, Buckinghamshire, Hilary and Easter 16 Elizabeth, Trinity 17 Elizabeth, and Michaelmas 18 Elizabeth; Common Pleas D. Enr., Easter 16 Elizabeth, and Easter 17 Elizabeth. There was no surviving issue of this marriage.Evans, 'The Tasburghs of South Elmham', attributes a son John to this marriage.
Dame Dorothy made a will, with her husband's permission, dated 30 April 1577.Will of Dame Dorothy Packington, widow of Hawridge, Buckinghamshire (P.C.C. 1577, Daughtry quire). She was buried at Hawridge, where her memorial was a stone ledger slab with heraldic escutcheons and a brass plate memorial inscription. Only one of the three escutcheons survives, which shows the heraldry for Dorothy's parents, Kitson (dexter) impaling a quartering for Donnington (sinister).B. Webber, 'Recorded Ledgerstones: Hawridge, St Mary, Ledgerstone 3A and 3B', Ledgerstone Survey of England and Wales. The inscription reads:
"Here lyeth buried the body of Dame Dorothie Pakyngton, A daughter of Sr Thomas Kytson late of London knight who was the wyfe first of Sr Thomas Pakyngton knyght, and last of Thomas Tasburgh Esquier, She lyved very vertuously and departed this lyfe, a mooste faythfull and godly Christian, the 2de of Maye, when she had lyved xlvj yeares and vij monethes, Anno dni. 1577."Memorial Inscription, Hawridge.
Following the death of his first wife, Tasburgh served as a Justice of the Peace for Buckinghamshire from 1579 and was pricked High Sheriff of Buckinghamshire for 1581–82. He was elected a Member of Parliament for Aylesbury in 1584 and 1586, and for Buckinghamshire in 1588.
Second marriage He married secondly, on 16 January 1587/88 at Twyford, Buckinghamshire, Jane West, daughter of William West, 1st Baron De La Warr, and widow successively of Thomas Wenman (or Waynman), Esquire of Thame Park, Oxfordshire and Twyford (died 1577), and of James Cressy of Beaconsfield (died 1581).W.H. Rylands (ed.), Pedigrees from the Visitation of Hampshire, 1530, 1575, 1622 and 1634, Harleian Society LXIV (1913), pp. 58-59 (Internet Archive).C.H. Cooper, 'XXVII. On Agnes Lady Wenman, translator of Zonaras', Antiquarian Communications, Cambridge Antiquarian Society (16 November 1863), pp. 327-30 (Internet Archive). Tasburgh's friend and kinsman Sir John Pakington is said to have been one of the few people present at the wedding. The Wenmans were Catholic sympathizers: Thomas Wenman's mother was the eldest daughter of Lord Williams of Thame (c. 1500–1559). It is told that Cressy was a retainer to Lord De La Warr and sought to marry Jane, but her father forbade the marriage: Cressy went abroad and was converted to Catholicism, and when he returned he married her as a widow and converted her.A. Hamilton (ed.), The Chronicle of the Augustinian Canonesses Regular of Louvain, 1548-1625 (Sands & Co., London 1904), pp. 253-54. Jane brought offspring from both of her previous marriages, but for Tasburgh his second marriage was again without issue.'iv. Jane West', in D. Richardson, ed. K.G. Everingham, Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families, 4 vols, 2nd Edn (Salt Lake City, 2011), IV, p. 325 (Google).The understanding that Thomas Tasburgh made two marriages corrects the erroneous statement in the Victoria County History that Jane was married to a second, younger Thomas Tasburgh: 'Parishes: Hawridge', in W. Page (ed.), A History of the County of Buckingham, Vol. 3 (London 1925), 367-69 (British History Online).