WEST, Thomas (1577-1618)

The De La Warr peerage was a barony by writ dating back to 1299. The original male line became extinct on the death of the 5th baron, Thomas De La Warr, in 1427, when the title passed to Reynold West, 3rd Lord West, the son of Thomas’ half-sister, Joan.13 Ibid. 463-4; CP, xii. pt. 2, pp. 520-1. In the early sixteenth century the De La Warr estates lay predominantly in Sussex. However, in 1540 Thomas West, 9th Lord De La Warr, was persuaded by Henry VIII to exchange a significant portion of his lands for the site of the former monastery of Wherwell in Hampshire, with adjacent properties, and this subsequently became the family’s principal seat.14 LP Hen. VIII, 1540, p. 176; VCH Hants, iv. 411. Having no children of his own, the 9th Lord adopted as his heir his nephew, William. However, William subsequently attempted to poison his uncle and was therefore barred from succeeding to the title by act of Parliament (1550), which specified that the bulk of the De La Warr estate was to descend to William’s male heirs instead.15 M.A.R. Graves, House of Lords in the Parls. of Edward VI and Mary I, 11; PROB 11/37, ff. 98-100; CP, iv. 158. On the 9th Lord De La Warr’s death in 1554, the barony fell into abeyance. William West was restored in blood in 1569 and the following year was created Baron De La Warr by letters patent. This title was regarded as a new peerage, being ranked as the most junior of the baronies. However, after William’s death in 1595, Thomas West, this peer’s father, claimed the precedence of the old De La Warr barony, which was granted in 1597.16 CP, iv. 157-60.

Although his estates were extensive, the 9th Lord was known for his generous hospitality and, perhaps as a result, he suffered significant financial difficulties.17 Diary of Henry Machyn ed. J.G. Nichols (Cam. Soc. xlii), 71; Graves, 20. The subsequent vicissitudes of the estate can have done little to improve the family’s fortunes. After inheriting the peerage, De La Warr’s father was obliged to sell off the remaining Sussex properties, so that by the time of his death the estates were largely confined to the area around Wherwell.18 Suss. Manors ed. E.H.W. Dunkin (Suss. Rec. Soc. xx), 358; C2/Jas.I/S26/26; C142/273/85. In addition, De La Warr compounded his misfortunes by rashly involving himself in the rising of Robert Devereux^†, 2nd earl of Essex in 1601, for which he was fined 1,000 marks.19 HMC Hatfield, xi. 214. As his father lay dying on 25 Mar. 1602,20 C142/273/85. CP, iv. 160 erroneously states that his father died on the 24th. the 25-year-old De La Warr wrote to Sir Robert Cecil^* (subsequently 1st earl of Salisbury) complaining that he was likely to inherit ‘a very broken estate’. However, his request to be allowed to succeed his father as one of the chamberlains of the Exchequer was refused.21 HMC Hatfield, xii. 84; Sainty, Officers of the Exch. 18.

In March 1603 De La Warr signed the proclamation recognizing the accession of James I.22 Stuart Royal Proclamations I: Jas. I ed. J.F. Larkin and P.L. Hughes, 3. Although he had inherited no significant property in Sussex, he was still closely linked with the gentry of that county through his father-in-law, Sir Thomas Shirley^‡ and his brother-in-law, Herbert Pelham^‡. It was undoubtedly these connections, together with his evident puritanism, that induced him to join Shirley and Pelham in signing a petition promoted in that county later in 1603 against the ‘hot urging of ceremonies’ and in favour of further reformation.23 T.W.W. Smart, ‘Extracts from the Mss of Samuel Jeake’, Suss. Arch. Colls. ix. 46-7.

When the first Jacobean Parliament convened in March 1604, De La Warr was appointed by the crown one of the triers of petitions from Gascony.24 LJ, ii. 264b. Recorded as present at three quarters of the sittings of the 1604 session (53 of 71), he may also have attended on a further occasion, 11 Apr., when he was named to a committee but omitted from the attendance record.25 Ibid. 275a. However, De La Warr was named to only eight of the 70 committees appointed by the Lords that session. Two were for conferences with the Commons, one concerning the Union and the other purveyance.26 Ibid. 284a, 290b. The remaining six were legislative, and included two measures concerning his father-in-law Sir Thomas Shirley, who had been imprisoned for debt despite having been elected to the Commons.27 Ibid. 272a, 284b, 295b. De La Warr provided a channel of communication between Shirley and Cecil while the latter attempted to resolve the case.28 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 71-2. During the Parliament De La Warr provided shelter for Anthony Erbury, a radical puritan minister who tried to promote a bill to attaint Richard Bancroft^*, bishop of London, for protecting anti-Jesuit Roman Catholics.29 W.H. Curtis, ‘William Jones: Puritan Printer and Propagandist’, The Library (ser. 5), xix. 41-2; SP14/8/23. On 26 May he also helped introduce to the House Edward Neville, recently restored as 8th or 1st Lord Abergavenny.30 LJ, ii. 307a.

Later that year Cecil, by now Viscount Cranborne, visited De La Warr’s home.31 HMC Hatfield, xvi. 343. This may have encouraged the latter to repeat his earlier attempt to gain Cranborne’s help in solving his financial problems. Writing to Cranborne on 12 Dec. he described himself as ‘the poorest baron of this kingdom’ and complained that

my late ancestors, through the error of improvidence, have wasted the revenues of their house and left me heir to a bare title, spoiled of all means that should maintain the honour of nobility: so I am neither fit to give attendance at the court, nor able to hold any proportionable fashion with men of mine own rank; but am forced either to live obscurely or among men of vulgar note, a mean[s] to bring nobility into contempt.32 Hatfield House, CP108/21.

The following year De La Warr’s lands in Wherwell and adjacent parishes were seized for a bond that De La Warr’s grandfather had given to the crown. However, this may have been a device, supported by Cranborne, now 1st earl of Salisbury, to secure the estate from creditors, as the premises were granted to Sir John Crofts^†, De La Warr’s brother-in-law.33 VCH Hants, iv. 412; HP Commons, 1558-1603, i. 675.

During the 1605-6 session De La Warr’s attendance fell to only 38 sittings out of 85 (45 per cent). On 7 Mar. the lord chancellor, Thomas Egerton^*, Lord Ellesmere (later Viscount Brackley) informed the House that De La Warr, who had not attended since the beginning of the month, had ‘upon some urgent occasion … gone into the country’.34 LJ, ii. 389b. Although De La Warr returned to the chamber on 13 Mar., he missed a further five sittings in late March and early April, and failed to resume his seat after the Easter recess until 26 May, the penultimate day of the session.

De La Warr’s lower attendance rate did not translate into fewer committee appointments. He was named to 13 of the 72 established during the session, of which nine were legislative. De La Warr may have taken a particular interest in the bill to confirm letters patent assuring land to Thomas Pelham^‡, as the latter was cousin to his brother-in-law, Herbert Pelham.35 Ibid. 380b. In addition, he was instructed to attend two conferences with the Commons, one concerning religion and the other on purveyance, free trade and the Union.36 Ibid. 411a, 413a; Bowyer Diary, 116-17.

De La Warr’s attendance deteriorated further in the 1606-7 session when he was recorded as present at just 41 per cent of the sittings (43 out of 106). He took an extended Christmas break, missing the last three sittings before the recess and the first three after. He also missed all but one of the 23 sittings between 5 Mar. and 27 Apr., a further 14 between 20 May and 13 June and the final nine sittings before the prorogation on 4 July. He was named to only seven out of 41 committees, all to consider legislation. As a puritan he may have been particularly interested in the measure to prevent the execution of ecclesiastical canons without statutory confirmation.37 LJ, ii. 503a.

In June 1608 Salisbury wrote to De La Warr demanding that he settle his debts, a condition, perhaps, of the 1605 deal. After waiting nearly a month, De La Warr responded claiming that ‘all or the most’ of his father and grandfather’s debts had been paid off by selling the family estates and that he intended to ‘to take present order’ for the payment of whatever he himself had borrowed. He also stated that he had sold his family’s London residence in Whitefriars to Henry Danvers^*, 1st Lord Danvers (later earl of Danby) ‘long since’.38 SP14/35/24. It was presumably his continued financial problems which caused De La Warr to seek employment with the Virginia Company which, the following year, appointed him governor of the colony.39 Brown, 239.

It had originally been intended that De La Warr should leave for America in early 1609 but his departure was delayed until the following year.40 Ibid. 317, 324. Consequently, he was still in England when Parliament reconvened in February 1610. He was present in the Lords on the 14th, when he was appointed to attend the conference with the Commons at which Salisbury first outlined the crisis in the crown’s finances which subsequently led to the Great Contract.41 LJ, ii. 550b. He returned to the House the following day but thereafter absented himself until the 24th, although he attended a sermon preached by William Crashawe to the Virginia Company at Stationers’ Hall on 21 February. On 27 Feb. De La Warr and the rest of the committee appointed on 14 Feb. were instructed to confer with the Commons about Dr John Cowell’s controversial book entitled the Interpreter, although he is not recorded as having attended the Lords that day. Indeed the only further occasion when he was recorded as present was 6 March. On 1 April he set sail from Cowes for Virginia with three ships and 150 soldiers and settlers, having left his proxy with Salisbury.42 Ibid. 548b, 557b; Brown, 288, 402-3; Recs. Virg. Co. iii. 25.

By the time De La Warr arrived in the Chesapeake in early June the existing settlers, having endured a winter’s siege by the native American Powhatans, had abandoned Jamestown and were about to return to England. His arrival saved the colony and the men he brought with him enabled counter-attacks to be launched against the Powhatans and the building of new forts.43 Brown, 401, 413-15, 618; J.F. Fausz, ‘An “Abundance of Blood Shed on Both Sides”: England’s First Indian War’, Virg. Mag. of Hist. and Biog. xcviii. 27-36. However, he soon fell ill, initially of a ‘hot and violent ague’ but followed by ‘the flux’, ‘cramp’, ‘gout’ and ‘scurvy’. The following March he left Virginia hoping that ‘wholesome baths’ in the West Indies would restore him to health, but contrary winds forced his ship to the Azores, from where he returned to England, arriving back in London on 21 June 1611.44 Narratives of Early Virg. ed. L. G. Tyler, 210-11, 301; Brown, 476-7.

His sudden departure from Virginia caused alarm among the colony’s backers in England and led De La Warr to paint a rosy picture of the prospects for the future of the plantation in a hastily written tract, which was registered at Stationers’ Hall on 6 July.45 HMC Downshire, iii. 85, 106; Brown, 477, 494-5. He remained formally governor of the colony, and there were reports that he would return there the following year, but these proved unfounded. Meanwhile the settlers named Delaware Bay in his honour.46 Brown, 554. Continued poor health seems to have kept him in England, although this did not prevent him from participating in Prince Henry’s funeral in December 1612.47 E. H[owes], Abridgement of the English Chronicle (1618), 556; J. Nichols, Progs. of Jas. I, ii. 497.

De La Warr was still in England when Parliament met again in 1614, and so attended 19 of the 29 sittings of the Lords. He was one of the lords present in the Commons on 27 May when Richard Martin^‡ spoke as counsel for the Virginia Company. Unsurprisingly, De La Warr and his fellow peers were furious when Martin proceeded to attack the Commons for their behaviour during the Parliament.48 Procs. 1614 (Commons), 277, 279; Chamberlain Letters ed. N.E. McClure, i. 351. De La Warr received no committee appointments and made only one recorded speech, on 23 May, when he argued unsuccessfully that it was unnecessary for the Lords to consult the judges before hearing the Commons’ case against impositions. His stance suggests that on this issue his sympathies lay with the lower House.49 W. Petyt, Jus Parliamentarium (1739), 343.

In 1616 De La Warr and his wife were instrumental in introducing Pocahontas to the English court.50 Narratives of Early Virg. 237, 329. In January 1618 he caused a minor diplomatic incident when, appointed to receive ambassadors from Russia, he arrived late.51 Finetti Philoxenis (1656), 46. By then the Virginia Company, responding to a rising tide of criticism directed against Sir Samuel Argall, who had been governing the colony in De La Warr’s absence, were eager for the baron to return to America. He therefore made preparations for his departure, having first secured a fresh injection of funds the previous December from, among others Edward La Zouche^*, 11th Lord Zouche.52 S.R. Gardiner, Hist. of Eng. iii. 159; Recs. Virg. Co. iii. 77. De La Warr hired the Neptune and recruited more than 150 settlers, with whom he set sail for Virginia at the beginning of April 1618.53 H[owes], 556; C2/Jas.I/A9/10.

Reaching the Azores, De La Warr was feasted by the local governor, but shortly after his departure he and many of the English who had attended the feast quickly sickened and died, creating the suspicion that they had been poisoned. His body was brought to Virginia, where it was buried.54 Narratives of Early Virg. 331; ‘Camden Diary’ (1691), 32; Chamberlain Letters, ii. 170; P.W. Coldham, ‘Voyage of the Neptune to Virg.’, Virg. Mag. of Hist. and Biog. lxxxvii. 32. His only surviving son Henry^*, who was not yet 15, succeeded him as 4th Lord De La Warr. In September 1619 his widow was granted an annuity of £500 in consideration of her husband’s services in Virginia. She took out letters of administration for his goods on 1 July 1620.55 C142/373/77; CSP Dom. 1619-23, p. 77; PROB 6/10, f. 72.