NEWMAN, Thomas

More may be added to the earlier biography. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 828.

Newman appeared as an attorney at the assizes held at Salisbury in 1416 and 1417. JUST1/1531, rots. 45, 46. In August 1423, shortly before his third Parliament, he was engaged in a similar capacity to deliver seisin of the manor of Great Durnford (on the Avon to the north of the city), formerly held by Sir John Blaket†, to feoffees. Hungerford Cart. ii (Wilts. Rec. Soc. lx), 1195. Although he was recorded as an attorney in the court of common pleas during the period of his parliamentary service, he does not seem to have pursued a career in the central courts later in Henry VI’s reign. However, in the Easter term of 1428 he joined the prior of St. Margaret’s priory near Marlborough in bringing a plea against a Buckinghamshire parson for a debt of £20, so it may be the case that he had been retained by the prior as his legal counsel. CP40/669, rot. 18d. He was then described as ‘of Marlborough’, although the location and extent of his property in the town is not recorded. It is unlikely that he was the man of this name who in the 1440s lived at Etchilhampton (several miles to the south-west of Marlborough), and together with his wife Isabel leased lands and tenements there in 1449: Som. Archs., Walker-Heneage mss, DD\WHb/1357; Wilts. Hist. Centre, Money-Kyrle mss, 1720/276.