Carew belonged to an old and distinguished family of Norman descent with strong Irish as well as English connexions. He was a kinsman of the influential Devonshire Carews, although his immediate ancestors lived in Berkshire and it was only during his father’s lifetime that the extensive Surrey estates which made up over half his inheritance were acquired. Nicholas Carew the elder played a prominent part in county society, representing Surrey twice in Parliament and serving on many local commissions. His main interests lay, however, at Court. He rose to become keeper of the privy seal in 1371; and his last years were largely given over to his duties as a feoffee and executor of Edward III.
Sir Thomas de la Mare
†, settled his manor of Aldermaston upon various members of the Carew family for life. Nicholas’s wife, Isabel, the daughter of Alice de la Mare of Delamers in Hertfordshire, was quite probably related to Sir Thomas; and it was certainly through her that Carew established a connexion with John Ludwick who became her stepfather during the 1380s. Meanwhile, from 1377 onwards, the young Nicholas Carew was a party to the numerous enfeoffments of property made by and for his father, so that on the latter’s death, in 1390, he gained undisputed possession of a substantial inheritance, most of which came to him through his mother, Lucy Willoughby, whose first husband, Sir Thomas Huscarle, left her his Berkshire and Surrey estates. Thus, by the date of his first return to Parliament, our Member enjoyed a landed income of at least £91 a year (and probably far more), derived from the manors of Beddington, Huscarle, Norbury, Carshalton, Woodmansterne, Carews in Warlingham and Nutfield, together with land in Hoe, Chesham, Sanderstead, Horne, Burstow, Mitcham, Coulsdon and Bensham, Surrey; from property in Gravesend and the manors of Stoke in Hoo and Maytham, Kent (although revenues from Stoke had been set aside for the upkeep of a chantry); and from Great Purley, Fulscot and Charlton in Wantage, as well as tenements in Tullwick and other parts of Berkshire.
John Gaynesford
†, thus creating an impressive jointure for his widow. Her interests were indeed considerable, for by 1428 the Carews had obtained seisin of the manor of Studham in Berkshire as well as further holdings near their home at Beddington. They are also known to have become landowners in Hertfordshire at some point before 1420, possibly acquiring the property in and around King’s Langley and King’s Walden which Nicholas Carew the younger held some 15 years later.
Unlike his father, Carew never played a prominent part in national affairs, although he was active as a crown servant in the south east for almost 30 years of his life. He was occasionally called upon to perform the duties of a mainpernor and feoffee-to-uses while his father was alive, but it was not until the latter’s death that he became really involved in the local community. His administrative career began with his appointment as sheriff of Surrey and Sussex, and from then onwards he served regularly on royal commissions as well as sitting on the bench. In January 1393 he was rewarded with a grant of the farm of the manor of Croham in Croydon, for which he paid 40s. a year. We do not know why Carew and John Bonet bound themselves to pay 200 marks to Thomas Ickham and others in the following November, but the transaction may well have concerned Carew’s extensive dealings in the property market.
Notwithstanding the fact that he sat in the two Parliaments of 1397 and was a commissioner for the confiscation of the lands of the Lords Appellant of 1388, Carew’s sympathies were sufficiently Lancastrian for him to find favour with the recently crowned Henry IV. He began a second term as sheriff in November 1400 - having already been re-appointed to the Sussex bench - and went on to become escheator of Surrey and Sussex. In October 1402 he was approached for a ‘benevolence’; and soon afterwards the Crown requested a personal contribution of 200 marks towards the cost of coastal defence. His support for the new regime also found practical expression in a loan of £100 which he advanced in July 1406, and recovered in the following year. No more money was borrowed from him by the government until June 1417, when he lent £40 towards Henry V’s second invasion of France. Carew was, meanwhile, chosen to represent Surrey at the great councils of 1401 and 1403, and it is clear that he was then regarded as one of the leading gentry of the shire. No doubt because of his social position, he was able to establish many influential connexions. He often acted as a mainpernor in Chancery and at the Exchequer, most notably for his fellow MPs, John Gravesend, the above-mentioned John Ludwick and the latter’s friend, John Durham (in 1399), and Henry Beaufort, bishop of Winchester (in 1420).
Although he remained on the Surrey bench until a few months before his death, Carew may otherwise be said to have retired from public life in about 1420. He and John Clipsham helped settle a local property dispute at the beginning of the year, but apart from his attendance at the elections held in Guildford for the Parliament of May 1421, he had little else to do with government at any level. In April 1423 he was given custody of part of the manor of Burton Stacey in Hampshire, perhaps as a final reward for years of loyal service to the Crown.