GORE, Thomas II

The name of Gore was a common one in fifteenth-century Wiltshire, where at least two families of this name were established, one in the north of the county at Malmesbury and Alderton, and the other in the west near Trowbridge.2 An earlier Thomas Gore (perhaps the MP’s fa. or gdfa.) served as a Wilts. county coroner in Richard II’s reign, his replacement being ordered in 1404 on the grounds that he was ‘too sick and aged’ to carry out his duties: JUST2/203; CCR, 1402-5, p. 345. Equally, on chronological grounds it would seem that there was a second man, also resident at Great Hinton and thus probably the MP’s fa. or another kinsman, who attested the Wilts. election indentures of Apr. 1414 (as ‘of Fonthill’) and 1415, and was (as ‘of Hinton’) appointed a Wilts. tax collector in Dec. 1414 and Nov. 1415: C219/11/3, 6; CFR, xiv. 87, 122. The relationship of these different branches of the Gores has not been established, nor is it possible to be certain about Thomas’s place within the family pedigree. It seems likely that he came from the line of the family resident at Great Hinton in the parish of Steeple Ashton, to the west of Devizes, the borough he would represent in the Commons. In 1439, Thomas Gore of Hinton, then styled a gentleman, was sued for the sum of 20 marks by the Bradford-on-Avon skinner John Stone and his wife and son,3 CP40/715, rot. 30. and it was also probably he who in September 1429 had witnessed the settlement of a life interest in property at Honeybridge (in North Bradley) on Alice, the widow of William White of Bromham, with remainder to the justice William Westbury and his brother John†. The impressive line-up of witnesses, headed by the influential esquire Edmund Cheyne*, also included the lawyers Robert Long* and Thomas Hall II* (the former two of whom had a day earlier been chosen knights of the shire in the county court at Wilton).4 CCR, 1435-41, p. 229.

Gore is occasionally encountered serving on local juries at nearby Trowbridge, and must thus certainly be identified with the Thomas Gore of Lus Hill, who in 1434 was among those required by the Wiltshire commissioners to take the general oath not to maintain miscreants.5 CIPM, xxiii. 235, 506; CPR, 1429-36, p. 371. It was probably he who attested the Wiltshire election indenture of 1435, and he may also be the man who in 1442 found sureties for Thomas de la Pylle*, one of the MPs elected for Ludgershall.6 C219/14/5, 15/2. The extent of Thomas’s landed property, if any, has not been established, but he may have been a man of some substance, if it was he who in 1450-1 was assessed for tax purposes as possessing an annual income of £10. It was probably the same man who in April 1451 and September 1453 respectively witnessed grants of property to Robert, 2nd Lord Hungerford, and the rapacious lawyer Thomas Tropenell*.7 E179/196/118; Tropenell Cart. i. 131; ii. 30.