KECHE, Thomas

There is a possibility that the MP was the Thomas Keche appointed to collect parliamentary subsidies in Berkshire in 1410, but if so he moved across the county border to settle in Marlborough by November 1412.3 C146/2381. His property holdings in the town are not recorded, and although his wife Isabel held tenements and shops in Winchester Street, Salisbury, by the gift of her former husband Stephen Broune, these buildings were sold in 1422 to pay for prayers for Broune’s soul.4 Salisbury Domesday bk. G23/1/214, f. 75v.

Keche was well regarded in Marlborough, where he was chosen to be mayor for at least two terms. During the first, in February 1422, he witnessed a grant made by Sir William Sturmy*, one of the most important commoners in Wiltshire and currently chief steward of the estates in the region held by Henry IV’s widow Joan of Navarre.5 CCR, 1422-9, p. 195. Elected by the borough to the Parliament of 1425, he entered the Commons alongside Robert Erle*, Sturmy’s nephew and right-hand man. Sir William’s influence may also be seen in Marlborough’s return to the next Parliament, summoned to Leicester in 1426, of John Bird*, a close associate of his in an official and private capacity. At the election Keche came forward to offer sureties on Bird’s behalf.6 C219/13/4.

In 1427 Keche was asked to be a feoffee of property in Kingston Blount, Oxfordshire, acquired by the Wiltshire lawyer, Nicholas Wotton II*, who had represented Marlborough in the Parliament of 1422, assembled just after the end of Keche’s first mayoralty.7 CAD, vi. C4374. It seems likely that he was mayor again in April 1430 (that is, for the term 1429-30), for he was then the person from Marlborough to whom the Exchequer assigned the sum of £8, in repayment of a loan the burgesses had made to the Crown,8 CPR, 1429-36, p. 61; E401/724, m. 2; E403/695, m. 1. and he was certainly mayor in 1430-1. Keche served as a juror at the inquisition post mortem held in the town in October 1434, following the death of Elizabeth, daughter and coheir of (Sir) Richard Hankford*.9 C139/65/40. He is last recorded in December 1436, as mainpernor for John Woodford*, returned for Marlborough to the Parliament summoned to meet in the following month.10 C219/13/4; 15/1.