PENYSTON, Sir Thomas (c.1591-?1644), of Cogges and Cornwell, Oxon.

Although they traced their ancestry back to an eleventh century Cornish landowner, the Penystons appear never to have sustained a link with any one county for a prolonged period; nor did they habitually hold public office.16Burke Dorm. and Extinct Baronetcies, 404. Their landed connection with Oxfordshire seems to date from the reign of Henry VIII. Thomas Penyston (d. 1566) leased the manor of Dean, just south of Chipping Norton and near the Gloucestershire border, from 1535.17M.D. Lobel, A Hist. of Dean and Chalford (Oxon. Rec. Soc., xvii), 75-6, 155. His grandson, also Thomas, who in 1571 briefly acquired the reversion of the manor of Woodstock was ‘an active and troublesome figure’ who found himself taken to court by the borough.18VCH Oxon. xii. 381, 400, 429, 433-4; Oxon RO, DIL/V/a/2. He had additional short-term interests at Adderbury and Eynsham, while by 1599 he was farming the royal manors of Leigh and Barngrange in Sussex.19E133/9/1388; VCH Oxon. xii. 120; Oxon RO, DIL/IX/a/2. Great-grandson Thomas, a barrister of the Inner Temple, married in July 1590 the heiress of one of the six clerks in chancery, thereby bringing into the family land in the south east, but he died in 1601.20Al. Ox.; CB; St Bride, Fleet Street, London par. reg; PROB11/98/189.

His heir, yet another Thomas, the future MP, spent his childhood primarily in Rochester, Kent, where his mother had property. Following her marriage to Sir Alexander Temple and especially after her death in 1607, young Penyston was brought into the orbit of the Temples of Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire, who also had Kentish connections.21Vis. of Kent 1619 (Harl. Soc. xliii), 21; Arch. Cant. xi. 5, 8; ‘Sir Peter Temple’, Oxford DNB. Having matriculated at Oxford that year, Thomas may have stayed to graduate before entering the Inner Temple from Clement’s Inn in 1609.22Al. Ox.; I. Temple database. Shortly afterwards, however, and still a minor, he contracted two marriages in rapid succession, first to Anne Stonehouse and secondly in July 1611 to Sir Alexander’s niece, Martha, one of the daughters of Sir Thomas Temple and his Kentish-born wife Hester Sandys. It is likely to have been at least partly through the agency of the Temples that Thomas regained the estate at Leigh and that in 1612, like his father-in-law, he was made a baronet.23CB; E.F. Gay, ‘The Temples of Stowe’, HLQ ii. 399-438. There is evidence that the older man, who was in financial difficulties, was exploiting Penyston’s resources to gain credit in London.24Gay, ‘Temples of Stowe’, 427.

At some point Penyston acquired a more elevated patron when he joined the retinue of Richard Sackville, 3rd earl of Dorset.25Aubrey, Brief Lives ed. O. Lawson Dick (1982), 276. In the course of a series of transactions involving land in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Sussex, in 1617 Penyston, described as being of Edmonton, Middlesex, sold Leigh to the earl and obtained an £800 annuity.26Norf. RO, MC 84/402, 698 x 1; E. Suss. RO, ASH L 1571; SAS/D125, 129, 130; AMS 315. It was probably before this that Martha Penyston, who had no children with Thomas, became Dorset’s mistress. According to Anne (Clifford), countess of Dorset, it was only in the summer of 1619 that visits by the Penystons to Knole gave rise to public scandal, but the liaison produced two daughters before the earl met Lady Penyston for the last time that November at her mother’s lodgings in the Strand.27The Diary of Anne Clifford 1616-1619 ed. K.O. Acheson (1995), 112, 116, 119; R.T. Spence, Lady Anne Clifford (1997), 86. Two months later she died of smallpox.28CB; MI, Stowe, Bucks; Letters of John Chamberlain ed. N. E. McClure (1939), ii. 248.

Her death seems to have prompted Penyston to sell off his remaining interests in Sussex and to re-engage with his Oxfordshire roots.29Oxon RO, Mor. XXIV/4; E. Suss. RO, SAS/D144. His third marriage, probably soon after 1624, was to Elizabeth, widow of Sir William Pope of Cogges, near Witney. This he made his main home, giving plate to the church in 1628, but from an unknown date he also owned an estate further north at Cornwell on the Gloucestershire border.30VCH Oxon. xii. 60, 72. He engaged in a variety of trusteeships and land transactions which suggest close relations with the network of south midlands gentry to which the Temple connection had given him access, but his step-son Thomas Pope (who in 1631 became 2nd earl of Downe) later complained of maltreatment.31C104/266; Oxon. RO, DIL/IV/f/6b; Coventry Docquets, 388, 647; Warws RO, CR0457/10/24, 25; CP; Gay, ‘Temples of Stowe’.

Reportedly absent ‘at the Bath’ during the heralds’ visitation of Oxfordshire in 1634, Penyston was given ‘a new warning’.32Vis. Oxon 1634. (Harl. Soc. v), 335. He was among several county gentry who refused to pay Ship Money in 1636.33CSP Dom. 1636-7, p. 210. It was possibly partly in retribution for this that he was pricked as sheriff the following year.34Coventry Docquets, 368. By November 1637 he was signing orders for collection of the tax, but despite assuring secretary of state Edward Nicholas that he had taken considerable pains to oversee personally details of the rating and to convene meetings in various towns, five months later he claimed to have received nothing. He expressed a particular concern for the poor, afflicted by high grain prices, and sought to rectify inequitable assessments.35CSP Dom. 1637, p. 511; 1637-8, pp. 265-6, 273, 303, 333. In May the situation eased, and money began to come in, although Penyston delayed sending it to London and apparently displeased the king further by his tardiness in replacing verderers in Woodstock park.36CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 394, 420. On 19 June he alleged that he had already paid over £1,200 to the treasurer of the navy, the total so far received, and subsequently he indignantly rebutted accusations of neglect.37CSP Dom. 1637-8, pp. 520, 566. Like his predecessors, however, he was pursued for arrears after his tenure of office had ended. In September 1639 he was still pleading for more time, offering illness among his staff as an excuse for tardiness.38CSP Dom. 1639, pp. 129, 492.

The circumstances of Penyston’s election on 2 April 1640 for Westbury, on the Wiltshire/Somerset border, is obscure as he had no discernible personal connection.39C219/42, pt ii , no. 67. In the early seventeenth century the borough had been represented by members of the family of the Leys earls of Marlborough, lords of the manor, but this had just been acquired by Henry Danvers, 1st earl of Danby.40VCH Wilts. viii. 150, 185. Danby shared with his brother Sir John Danvers* interests both in Wiltshire and Oxfordshire and moderate opposition to Ship Money, while Penyston may have also been noticed by Sir John because of the latter’s Virginia Company links with the Somers and Sandys families. A combination of personal, familial and political factors may have been in play.

Once at Westminster alongside John Ashe*, the Somerset clothier whose stance in relation to the trials of the local cloth industry had doubtless given him a higher profile in Westbury, Penyston made very little visible contribution to proceedings. His sole nomination – to the privileges committee – was somewhat surprising given his lack of previous parliamentary experience.41CJ ii. 4a. He made no recorded speeches.

There are a few signs of public activity once the Short Parliament had ended. Like other Oxfordshire gentlemen who had been less than co-operative over Ship Money, Penyston was made a commissioner for the relief of the army in the north, and in August the town clerk of Woodstock sought his services at local sessions.42SR; Woodstock Chamberlains’ Accts 1609–50, 187. But he was not elected to the Long Parliament. In February 1641 the earl of Downe petitioned the Lords that during his minority his stepfather Penyston and his guardian John Dutton* exploited his estates, wreaking long-term damage by such activities as felling timber, and had coerced him into an unhappy marriage (in 1638) with Dutton’s daughter.43PA, Main Pprs. 4 Feb. 1641. The upshot is unclear. In November 1641 Penyston was belatedly placed on the Oxfordshire commission of the peace. The fact that he was omitted again in June 1642 in company with Philip Herbert*, 4th earl of Pembroke, William Fiennes, 1st Viscount Saye and Sele, and other gentlemen including John D’Oyly* and Bulstrode Whitelocke* suggests that he was considered disaffected at that date.44C231/5, pp. 487, 528. However, there is no sign of his having aligned with either side on the outbreak of war. In his brief will, drawn up on 17 September, he described himself as of Cornwell and named his wife (who survived until 1685) as his executrix. It was proved at Oxford in May 1644, perhaps some months after his death, and again in 1647 by his half-brother and ‘chief creditor’, James Temple*.45PROB10/641/162, ff. 328-9; PROB11/201/153; Cornwell par. reg. At this juncture Penyston’s son Thomas (d. 1674), second baronet, was still a minor. Neither he nor his two surviving sons sat in Parliament and with the death of the younger, Fairmeadow, in 1705 the baronetcy became extinct.46CB; Vis. Oxon 1669 and 1675 (Harl. Soc. n.s. xii), 24-5.