Thomas followed the example of his notable father and made a career in the law, albeit one of considerably less distinction. He first appears in the records in February 1441 when named to the quorum of a gaol delivery commission issued for Nottingham. Not long afterwards he was appointed to the recorder-ship of the borough. His father’s influence and the considerable holdings of the Babingtons within the town made him a natural choice. He is likely to have been in office by March 1446, when named on a royal commission to inquire into the repair of the Leen bridge (the fact that he sat as a commissioner with the mayor, John Plumptre*, a month later supports this supposition), although the first definitive reference to him as recorder dates from the following 26 Sept., when he sat with the borough j.p.s in the guildhall to hear an indictment laid against Thomas Staunton*. His election to represent the borough in Parliament in January 1447 and again in October 1450 marks the beginning of what was to become the frequent practice of the community returning its recorder.
Curiously, there is no unequivocal record of Babington holding property in his own right either within or outside Nottingham. Although his family had extensive holdings within the town – valued at over £20 p.a. in 1473 – the surviving sources do not suggest that any part of them had been settled on him. He does not appear in the town’s tax assessments of 1450-1, nor is there any certain record of his purchases in the surviving deeds or fines (although it is worth noting that the Nottinghamshire feet of fines are lost for the period between 1446 and 1464). It may be that a conveyance of April 1455 by which John Fossebrook granted a messuage and two gardens in Broad Marsh to him and William Gull, rector of St. Peter’s and a close friend of the Babingtons, records a purchase on the part of our MP, but he and Gull may simply have been standing as trustees or else he may have been acting for Gull as purchaser, a role he had performed on at least one previous occasion.
Babington’s high standing is also reflected in the range of his connexions outside the town. On 8 Nov. 1452 he appeared as a mainpernor in Chancery for William Neville of Rolleston (his sister’s son), Everard Digby* and Thomas Thurland when they sued out writs to enable them to plead pardons in the central courts. Soon after he found himself defending an action in Chancery as one of the feoffees of the recently-deceased Sir Henry Pierrepont*, and at about the same time he was one of those entrusted with the task of making the settlements attendant on a marriage alliance between the families of Chaworth and Zouche of Kirklington.
Babington’s career took a step forward with his nomination to the quorum of the county bench in June 1454, a few months before his father’s death, and his appointment in the following October as alnager of cloths for sale jointly with William Sadeler, a burgess of Nottingham. As a member of the quorum he played an active part on the bench. For example, on 6 Oct. 1455 he and his elder brother, William, who was also of the quorum, were among the j.p.s who sat at Nottingham, and, two days later, they both sat at Newark. Indeed, between October 1455 and July 1459 Thomas sat on 11 out of the 41 days on which the j.p.s met, a fair level of activity for one who was also on the borough peace commission.
It is difficult to make a judgement about Babington’s political sympathies during the civil war of 1459-61. His reappointment to the bench on 26 Nov. 1459, the same day as he attended the borough election to the Coventry Parliament, and his nomination to the commission of array in the following month imply that, like his elder brother William, he was trusted by the Lancastrian regime. By the same token his removal from the bench after the accession of Edward IV suggests that, again in common with his elder brother, he was distrusted by the Yorkists. This, however, is too straightforward an interpretation. It is not, for example, consistent with his appointment to a gaol delivery commission in July 1461 nor the recommitment to him, in the same month, of the alnage of cloth in the county, on this occasion with a royal official, Ralph Wolseley* (even though they lost the office to Edward Gower† in the following May).
Nonetheless, for whatever reason, the accession of Edward IV marked the end of Babington’s role in county administration and led to what appears to have been a period of more intense involvement in the affairs of Nottingham. At Easter 1462, during the prorogation of Parliament, he, together with his fellow MP Thomas Thurland and John Hunt†, travelled to Leicester, ‘pro exhibitione unius billae Domino Regi pro rewardo habendo villae’, presumably in respect of aid rendered to the Yorkists during the Towton campaign. Their mission, for which they were paid as much as £4 5s. 4d. in expenses, appears to have been successful for not only was the borough granted confirmation of its charters on 1 May but on 27 May it was awarded a reduction of the fee farm for 20 years.
The next reference to Babington is both puzzling and revealing. In a letter, probably to be dated to 3 Dec. 1464 and seemingly jocular in tone, an anonymous correspondent urged John Paston* to ‘kepe yowr residens’ at Christmas ‘amonggis yowr confrerys of this holy Ordre [th]e Temple of Syon’, for, if he did not, ‘owre Maister Thomas Babyngton, maister and souerayn of owre Ordre’ would award against him ‘ryght sharp and hasty proces’. The meaning of this letter is unclear, but the most plausible interpretation is that ‘the Temple of Syon’ is a humorous description of Inner Temple, of which Paston is known to have been a member, and that the correspondent, intent himself on attending the Christmas revels at the Inn, was hoping that his friend Paston would do likewise. If this is so, then our MP was presumably the man in charge of organizing the festivities. His obvious qualifications as a lawyer and the standing in the profession of his famous father make it likely that he was a member of an inn of court. Further, his namesake and cousin, Thomas Babington† (d.1519) of Dethick (Derbyshire), was later a governor of Inner Temple, and it may be that the Babingtons had historic links there.
Babington’s apparent involvement in the affairs of Inner Temple at Christmas 1464 appears to have been an isolated instance. Almost all that is known of him relates to Nottingham, and soon after this Christmas he was involved in an episode of disorder there. On 22 Apr. 1465 a gang, headed by John Pierrepont, who although described as only a yeoman was from a leading Nottinghamshire family, came to ‘le Gaolehall’ where the county j.p.s were in session, and on the highway outside the hall assaulted two servants of our MP together with a servant of his brother William, who was one of the sitting j.p.s. A week later the assailants were indicted before our MP and the j.p.s of the town, and on 1 May the victims sued a series of civil actions in the court of King’s bench, our MP claiming damages of £20 for the loss of his servants’ service. Pierrepont and his 13 accomplices entered the plea of self-defence to the civil actions, and the cases, like so many others, dissolved into ineffectual process. The assailants were acting on the orders of Sir Henry Pierrepont† and the assaults were part of his dispute with the town over a mill on the river Leen which was, two years later, to be settled in the town’s favour by an arbitration award in which our MP was indirectly involved.
The brief resumption of Babington’s career in county administration with appointment as escheator during the Readeption may be taken to imply that he retained, or was thought to retain, Lancastrian sympathies. Nevertheless, he was not restored to the peace commission and the restoration of Henry VI coincided with his brother’s removal from the bench. Whatever his sympathies, however, he did serve in the Readeption Parliament. Evidence for his attendance is provided by the borough chamberlains’ account of 1470-1. He and John Hunt were paid £4 4s. each for their absence in London between 22 Nov. and 25 Dec. 1470 and between 20 Jan. and 18 Feb. 1471. The account omits to say that these payments were for attendance at Parliament, but there can be no doubt that this is to what they refer. Not only were they paid at the rate of 16d. per day, the standard payment the town made to its parliamentary representatives, but their departure from Nottingham took place four days before Parliament met, the time generally allowed for travel from the borough to Westminster. The omission of all reference to Parliament is to be explained by the fact that the account was compiled after Edward IV had retaken the throne.
Babington’s activities during the Readeption were not such as to compromise him on Edward IV’s return. The returning exile paused in Nottingham to rally his supporters late in March 1471, and on the following 18 May Babington contributed 11s. 8d. to furnish one man to the small contingent the town sent to Kent to aid the now restored monarch against the rebellion of the Bastard of Fauconberg. Early in the following July he accompanied the mayor, Robert English, and other leading townsmen to London. No doubt their purpose was to win some reward of royal patronage as recognition of the aid the community had rendered the King in his hour of need. But, despite various payments to the King’s attorney and others, the embassy appears to have come away empty handed. Babington’s reappointment to the escheatorship on 13 July 1471 is the last reference to him living.