MERES, Thomas

Although Meres came from a long-established and wealthy Lincolnshire family, his parentage is uncertain. It is clear, however, that he succeeded John Meres† (d.c.1410) in a valuable estate centred on Aubourn in Kesteven and Kirton-in-Holland.5 John Meres was survived by his wife Margaret, who in 1412 had an annual rent of £16 from the manor of Aubourn: Feudal Aids, vi. 483. These lands significantly contributed to, if they did not wholly account for, his 1436 tax assessment of 100 marks, making him one of the richest Lincolnshire esquires.6 E179/136/198. Two other members of his fam. were also assessed: Philip Meres of Kirton-in-Holland and John Meres of Holbeach, who were probably his younger brothers, and each held land valued at £10 p.a. Philip served in France in 1417 and 1418 under Robert, Lord Willoughby of Eresby: E101/49/20, m. 4; 51/2, m. 15. He first appears in June 1415 when he was named among the feoffees of his Holland neighbour, Sir Robert Roos*, but his public career did not begin until the early 1420s. On 26 Oct. 1422 he was among those who attested the return of Roos and Sir John Gra* to Parliament, and in July 1426 he was appointed to his first commission of local government.7 CP40/618, rot. 547d; C219/13/1; CPR, 1422-9, p. 362. For the next three decades he was remarkably active in local affairs. Elected five times to Parliament, no other Lincolnshire MP of the period could match his record of administrative appointments. There was some slight but none the less significant chronological correlation between his elections and his nominations to local office. He was in office as escheator when elected to his first Parliament in August 1429. When first appointed to the Kesteven bench on 16 Feb. 1430 and when again nominated escheator on 5 Nov. 1433 he was sitting in the Commons. There may have been an element of cause and effect here with his presence in the Lower House serving to recommend him for appointment. But his pricking as sheriff on 8 Nov. 1436, three days after he had been elected to the Parliament of January 1437, can only have been an unfortunate coincidence, for it meant that he was both out of the county for part of his shrievalty, and, through no fault of his own, technically in breach of the ordinance which prohibited the return of sheriffs.

Meres, as befiting so active a local administrator, was a popular choice as a feoffee and executor, generally by other Lincolnshire gentry, such as, to name the most prominent of them, Roos, Philip Tilney of Boston and the Copledykes, but occasionally by others from further afield. In 1424, for example, he was named as a feoffee by the Nottinghamshire knight Sir Nicholas Strelley† and later acted as one of his executors.8 CCR, 1419-22, p. 46; 1468-76, 920; CP25(1)/145/159/37; CFR, xvii. 42-43; CAD, iii. C3355; Test. Ebor. ii (Surtees Soc. xxx), 4. But by far his most important association was with Ralph, Lord Cromwell. While he was not of the inner circle of the Cromwell affinity, he was certainly, from the late 1430s if not before, on its periphery.9 As early as 1429 he had been named as a feoffee by Cromwell’s servant John Fulnetby: CP25(1)/145/157/8. In the spring of 1437, when he was sitting in Parliament and Cromwell was treasurer, he was joined with two of the treasurer’s most intimate servants, William Stanlowe* and John Tamworth, in a royal grant of the keeping of the Lincolnshire lordship of Burwell, a grant intended, judging by subsequent events, as the prelude of the transfer of Burwell to Cromwell himself. A little over two years later, in July 1439, Meres acted as a mainpernor for Stanlowe, Tamworth and another of Cromwell’s intimates, John Tailboys*, when they were granted the keeping of the castle of Somerton.10 CFR, xvi. 323; xvii. 95; CPR, 1436-41, p. 65. Thereafter he appears as a witness in some of the deeds involving Cromwell’s many acquisitions and grants, and in January 1453 he was close enough to him to be named as one of his feoffees when Cromwell made a settlement in favour of his collegiate foundation at Tattershall.11 C143/451/38; E41/313, pp.12-14; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 17; Lincs. AO, Holywell mss, H71/26, 27; CPR, 1452-61, p. 161. It is likely, too, that his daughter Anne married Robert, son and heir of his near neighbour Humphrey Littlebury of Kirton-in-Holland, and that this marriage came about through the good offices of Lord Cromwell, in whose wardship the groom was in late 1430s.12 Lincs. Peds. ed. Maddison, 599; HMC De L’Isle and Dudley, i. 222. His putative yr. bro., Philip Meres, was one of Humphrey Littlebury’s executors: CP40/705, rot. 352d.

Although the main outlines of Meres’s career are clear his family connexions are difficult to determine. The name of the mother of his heir is unknown, but he evidently married in about 1438, as a second or later wife, Margaret, widow of Sir William Armine and Geoffrey Paynell.13 As our MP’s wife, she was admitted in 1455 to the guild of Corpus Christi in Boston, a guild into which Meres himself had been admitted in 1443: Harl. 4795, ff. 38v, 41v. This brought him both a significant addition to his wealth and new connexions. What she held by virtue of her first marriage is not known, but she and our MP made a presentation to the church of Silk Willoughby (near Sleaford), in the patronage of the Armines, in 1449. By virtue of her second, she had a life interest in in the manors of Boothby Pagnell (near Grantham) in Lincolnshire and Ryehill in the East Riding of Yorkshire.14 Lincs. AO, Reg. Lumley, f. 2d; Add. 6118, ff. 281, 285; E. Riding of Yorks. Archs. Chichester-Constable mss, DDCC/81/17. Meres’s second marriage was also the context for that of his son and heir, another Thomas, to Isabel, daughter of Sir Hugh Wrottesley of Wrottesley (Staffordshire), and the widow of his stepson, another Sir William Armine (d.c.1448).15 Lincs. Peds. 39. In the subsidy returns of 1451 the yr. Thomas was assessed as resident at Osgodby on an income of £10 p.a., no doubt from lands he held in his wife’s right: E179/276/44, m. 1. He was admitted to the Boston guild in 1466: Harl. 4795, f. 44v.

Among the uncertainties about Meres’s rather colourless career is his date of death. His career fades almost imperceptibly into that of his heir and namesake. As early as November 1446 he was referred to as ‘the elder’, and on 24 May 1460 father and son were together witnesses to a deed. The last commission to which he was appointed was dated 10 May 1461 and his son was still described as ‘the younger’ when named as a tax commissioner in July 1463. He was, however, certainly dead by Easter term 1467, when his widow appears as a defendant in a dispute over the Paynell inheritance. It was thus his son who was pricked as the Lincolnshire sheriff in November that year.16 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 566-7; CFR, xx. 100, 105, 209; CP40/823, rot. 58d. The family failed in the main male line on the death of Sir John Meres in 1736.17 For the later history of the fam.: E. Deacon, Fam. of Deacon, 280-346.