STANLAWE, Thomas

Stanlawe was elected to the Parliament of 1447 as a servant of the Percys. He is almost certainly to be identified with the ‘Thomas Stanlawe, junior’, who on 16 Feb. 1454 was appointed by the earl of Northumberland as clerk of his Cumberland mines at a daily wage of 3d., and with the ‘Thomas Stanley’, who on 24 Nov. 1455 sued out a general pardon as ‘late of Prior Hall, gentleman, alias Stanlowe, late of Carlisle, alias Stanlawe of Keswick, alias Stanlee of Cockermouth’, a pardon perhaps necessitated by his presence in the Percy retinue at the first battle of St. Albans. His designation as ‘junior’ shows that he had an older namesake at the time of the 1447 Parliament, but his Percy connexion makes it much more likely that he rather than his namesake was the MP, particularly as the two knights of the shire for Cumberland, John Pennington* and William Martindale*, were also Percy adherents.2 J.M.W. Bean, Estates Percy Fam. 28; C67/41, m. 13; C219/15/4.

The Stanlawe family were of some modest standing, established since the mid-fourteenth century at Dalegarth in the south of Cumberland. Nicholas Stanlawe, who was probably the MP’s grandfather, was among those Cumberland men considered important enough to be required to take the parliamentary oath of 1434 not to maintain peace-breakers, and, in 1436, was assessed on an annual income of £8 in the county’s subsidy returns.3 Reg. Priory St. Bees (Surtees Soc. cxxvi), 332n.; CPR, 1429-36, p. 383; E179/90/26. The elder Thomas, who was probably our MP’s father, attested the county’s election return in 1435 and was a juror at the inquisition post mortem of Sir William Leigh* in 1439.4 C219/14/5; CIPM, xxv. 250.

There is no direct evidence to connect the family with Carlisle before the election of the younger Thomas, but it is suggestive that, in 1428, the elder Thomas was a juror at the inquisition post mortem taken on the death of Elizabeth, wife of William Denton, a prominent citizen of Carlisle.5 CIPM, xxiii. 4. The alias ‘of Prior Hall’ assigned to our MP in 1455 is also suggestive, for the manor of Prior Hall was owned by the cathedral priory of Carlisle. In short, the MP probably had a connexion with the city before his election. If he did not, he later acquired one: on 11 Sept. 1457 he farmed from the Crown various waste places in the city and the multure of Upperby in the parish of St. Cuthbert there, calling, to do so, on the surety of two of the leading citizens, John Denton and John Blennerhasset*. Later, in May 1460, he was described as a gentleman of the city when he offered surety to a local esquire, William Lancaster, keeper of property in the forest of Inglewood forfeited by Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury.6 CFR, xix. 202. He lost the farm in Nov. 1460, when the Yorkists were in control of govt.: ibid. 286.

The next reference also connects Stanlawe with the city. Described as ‘once of Carlisle, gentleman’, he was among those attainted in the first Parliament of Edward IV’s reign for fighting on the Lancastrian side at the battle of Towton on 29 Mar. 1461. He did not long survive thereafter. On 25 May 1463, despite his attainder, a writ of diem clausit extremum was issued in respect of his estates in Cumberland, probably because he was a tenant of the Percys, whose lands were then in royal hands. Unfortunately, the relevant inquisition was either not taken or no longer survives.7 CFR, xix. 264; xx. 94; PROME, xiii. 43-44. Yet an inquisition was taken in March 1465, probably prompted by Denton, his surety in 1457, who hoped to gain a grant of his lands. The jurors returned that he had forfeited four tenements in Crosthwaite, not far from the Percy stronghold of Cockermouth, but that these had remained in the hands of his widow, Cecily. Denton personally delivered the inquisition into Chancery and then petitioned the King for a grant of the estates of our MP, whom he rather grandly described as ‘your great enemy in Cumberland’. His labours went unrewarded.8 CIMisc. viii. 304; Cumbria RO, Carlisle, Lonsdale mss, D/Lons/L/Deeds/5/1/Denton.