THORESBY, Henry

Probably the son of John Thoresby, mayor of Lynn in the mid 1420s,10 Hillen, i. 222. Thoresby was a merchant who exported woollen cloth, imported wine and dealt in grain.11 E122/96/35, mm. 2, 3, 5, 6; C.E. Moreton, Townshends, 8. Of sufficient importance to swear the oath to keep the peace administered throughout the country in 1434, early in his career he was a feoffee of John Wodehouse*, one of the Lancastrian dynasty’s most prominent followers in East Anglia.12 CPR, 1429-36, p. 406; 1436-41, p. 385. Thoresby also forged links with another, albeit far less important, landed family, securing a match for his daughter Beatrice with John Fincham of Fincham, west Norfolk, in November 1445.13 Hare mss, 957, 2017-18.

As far as the evidence goes, Thoresby’s election in 1430 as a chamberlain of Lynn marked the start of his career as an office-holder in the borough. Before the end of the decade, he began the first of his three terms as mayor. During this initial term in that office, he was involved in selecting Lynn’s MPs for the Parliament of 1439, nominating the first four of the 12 electors in his capacity as mayor.14 KL/C 7/3, f. 114v. Following his second term in the mayoralty, Thoresby became embroiled in a quarrel with another burgess, Thomas Tulyot. Tulyot alleged that he had suffered ‘great injury’ at the hands of Thoresby while he was mayor, prompting the latter to accuse him of malicious slander. In August 1447 a borough assembly decided that Tulyot had not in fact suffered any injury, although they ordered that the two men should submit their differences to arbitration.15 Ibid. f. 236. Like many of those burgesses who served as mayor, Thoresby also held office as alderman of Lynn’s leading guild, that of the Holy Trinity. Normally this was an appointment for life, although he came to exercise it in two separate terms. During the first, the guild completed the purchase of a water-mill at South Lynn from Thomas, Lord Scales, an important acquisition which followed several years of negotiations between the peer on the one hand and various burgesses, including Thoresby, on the other.16 King’s Lynn chamberlains’ acct., 1444-5, KL/C 39/55; KL/C 7/3, f. 200v; Blomefield, viii. 503; CP25(1)/170/190/222; CPR, 1446-52, p. 125. Although by far the most important of Lynn’s guilds, the Trinity guild was not the only such institution of which Thoresby was a member, since he also joined that of Corpus Christi.17 King’s Lynn treasurers’ acct., Corpus Christi guild, 1439-1440, KL/C 57/25.

Within five months of completing his second term as mayor, Thoresby was returned to his first Parliament. The Parliament of 1445 did not dissolve until April the following year, and he and his fellow burgess, Thomas Burgh*, spent 225 days attending and travelling to and from Westminster, from where they returned home between sessions.18 KL/C 7/3, f. 199v. One of their tasks was to recover a sum of 20 marks which the borough had lent the Crown, and in February 1446 the mayor sent them a tally issued to the corporation when the loan was made.19 Ibid. f. 214. Thoresby and Burgh also sat together in the Commons of 1450, perhaps because the electors of Lynn considered that they had worked well together in the earlier assembly. Thoresby’s final Parliament, that of 1455 was not the last to which he was elected, for in June 1461 he and William Caus† were elected to represent the borough in Edward IV’s first Parliament. In the event, this assembly was twice postponed and he was not chosen at either of the fresh elections held in Lynn after these postponements.20 KL/C 7/4, pp. 159, 162, 167.

While all three of his Parliaments sat at Westminster, Thoresby also travelled to London at other times on borough business. In October 1444, for example, he and Burgh rode to London to meet Lynn’s feudal lord, the bishop of Norwich, and some 14 years later he and Henry Bermyngeham* attended at least two meetings of the King’s council to discuss commercial and naval affairs.21 King’s Lynn translation of hall bk., 1422-9, 1450, KL/C 7/29, p. 324; KL/C 7/3, f. 194; KL/C 7/4, pp. 107, 108, 116; chamberlains’ acct., 1446-7, KL/C 39/56. Thoresby also participated in meetings with the bishop of Norwich on other occasions, to discuss Lynn’s toll booth and other matters of concern for the town.22 KL/C 7/3, ff. 155v, 157, 224, 228v. Another important figure with whom the MP came into contact was the duke of Norfolk: in early 1441 he and fellow burgesses rode to Norwich to treat with the duke over a loan the King was requesting from the borough.23 Ibid. ff. 127v, 135v, 136. Thoresby also helped to raise loans which the corporation itself imposed on Lynn’s inhabitants, since in 1446 he was among those assigned to ask the local guilds for contributions towards the costs of receiving the King, who came to the town that year.24 Ibid. ff. 217v, 225. Thirteen years later, the corporation sent him to speak with Lord Scales – unlike the duke of Norfolk a prominent Lancastrian – about royal demands for troops.25 KL/C 7/4, p. 127. The threat of disorder was a particular concern for Lynn at the end of Henry VI’s reign, and he helped to site guns for the borough’s defence in January 1461.26 Ibid. p. 145.

Although he lived to see Edward IV seize the throne and was still active at Lynn in mid 1461, Thoresby was no longer alderman of the Trinity guild or a member of the 24 by the autumn of the following year. Whether he had died in the meantime is impossible to tell, although he was certainly no longer alive at the beginning of 1468. By then William Dunton had begun a lawsuit at Westminster against the MP’s executors, his widow Margaret and son Robert, seeking the return of a couple of bonds delivered to Thoresby at Hadleigh, Suffolk, in September 1457. In one of the securities, the Norfolk esquire, Richard Croppell, had bound himself to Dunton in £40; in the other, Dunton had obliged himself in the same amount to Croppell. It would appear these were bonds of arbitration, entrusted to Thoresby for safe-keeping and perhaps connected with a dispute of the mid 1450s between Croppell and the Duntons of Hadleigh over property at Lynn.27 CP40/827 rot. 154; CFR, xv. 113, xvii.7; CCR, 1454-61, p. 397; KL/C 7/4, pp. 82, 83.

Admitted to the freedom of Lynn in 1457,28 KL/C 7/4, p. 85. Robert Thoresby was one of at least two surviving sons, for he had a sibling named Thomas. Perhaps the elder of the two brothers,29 Robert purchased his burgess status; the eldest sons of burgesses were admitted to the franchise by reason of their birth. Thomas was a sheep-farmer with lands in West Lynn, Fincham, Dersingham and elsewhere in Norfolk and in Northamptonshire as well. While he is likely to have inherited some of the holdings in the former county, it is probable that he acquired his properties in Northampstonshire from the estate of the deceased William Pilton alias Reynold*.30 C1/66/449; Hillen, i. 222-3; PCC 1 Wattys (PROB11/6, ff. 3v-4), 34 Bennett. As for Robert, he had probably inherited his manors at Ashwicken and Hillington in west Norfolk from their father. The MP, who had certainly held a small plot of land at Gaywood in that part of the county, had taken part in a transaction involving the Hillington property in 1434 and had been described as ‘of Ashwicken’ as well as Lynn in royal pardons of 1455 and 1458.31 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 367; CP40/779, rot. 339d; CPR, 1429-36, p. 345; C67/41, m. 8; 42, m. 19.

What little evidence there is for Henry Thoresby’s property in Lynn itself shows that he lived in a house facing St. Margaret’s church. He appears to have carried out his business in the Damgate (now Norfolk Street), so he probably held property there as well. It is possible that it was he, rather than one of his descendants, who built the magnificent tomb chapel in St. Margaret’s dedicated to St. Stephen but popularly known as ‘Thoresby’s chapel’.32 Hillen, i. 222-3.