WENLOCK, Sir Thomas

A surprisingly obscure figure, Wenlock was the eldest son of a Shropshire man who had settled in Bedfordshire. From his father, who probably died soon after 1415,3 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 807. he succeeded to lands in Luton, and from his mother, a local heiress, to a couple of manors at Houghton Conquest and Upper Stondon. These estates were valued at no more than £24 p.a. in 1412,4 Feudal Aids, vi. 396. but it is possible that he added to them by purchasing lands on both sides of the English Channel.

In October 1415, having crossed the Channel on Henry V’s first expedition to France, Wenlock fought at Agincourt, where he and William Ludsopp* took several prisoners.5 E159/211, recorda Mich. rot. 27, Trin. rots. 10, 11. In all likelihood they were at the battle as members of the retinue of Sir John Cornwall, one of the commanders of the English vanguard.6 A.C. Reeves, Lancastrian Englishmen, 154. Like the Wenlocks, Cornwall had connexions with both Shropshire and Bedfordshire, and he too acquired a manor at Houghton Conquest.7 VCH Beds. iii. 292. Wenlock’s links with the knight predated Agincourt, since he had stood surety for Cornwall and his wife (the sister of Henry IV) when the King granted them the keeping of the confiscated English estates of the French abbey of Fécamp in October 1413.8 CPR, 1413-16, p. 101. It was with Cornwall that Wenlock returned to France on Henry V’s expedition of 1417.9 E101/51/2. Knighted before the end of the decade, he seems to have served continuously there until his patron went to England in early 1421 to attend the queen’s coronation. Probably Wenlock returned home with Cornwall, since on 31 May that year he acquired royal letters of protection prior to accompanying his master to France.10 DKR, xliv. 628. In the same month he and Ludsopp stood surety when the Crown granted Cornwall the wardship of John Arundel, heir to the earldom of Arundel.11 CFR, xiv. 420. On 15 June Sir John and his men, including Wenlock’s younger brother John, mustered at Sandwich before taking ship across the Channel.12 E101/50/1. In the following October they joined the siege of Meaux, where Cornwall’s son and namesake was killed. Sir John returned to England not long afterwards. Apparently sickened by war, he was not to campaign again in France until 1436.13 Reeves, 168.

It is likely that Wenlock’s own military career ended at Meaux, since he sat for Bedfordshire in the first four Parliaments of Henry VI’s reign and is not known to have returned to France after the dissolution of the last of these assemblies in June 1426. Although he had spent much of the previous seven years abroad and never played any part in the administration of his home county, he must have benefited from the support of his patron each time he stood for Parliament, not least in 1422 when Cornwall headed the list of attestors. Wenlock again stood surety for his master while a Member of the following Parliament, for he was one of Cornwall’s mainpernors when Sir John received a royal grant relating to the inheritance of the young John Arundel in December 1423.14 CFR, xv. 63-64. Two years later, five months after the dissolution of his penultimate Parliament, Wenlock and others went to the guildhall in London, to seek the enrolment in the City’s records of writings relating to the ransoming of Cornwall’s stepson, John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, from France.15 Cal. P. and M. London, 1413-37, pp. 182-4. Returned to the Commons for the last time in the following month, Wenlock was still alive in July 1428 but had died by June the following year when the escheator in Bedfordshire was ordered to hold an inquisition for his lands.16 Feudal Aids, i. 46; CFR, xv. 237. Neither his will nor his inquisition post mortem survives but he cannot have left any children since he was succeeded by his brother, the future Lord Wenlock. He was probably buried in his family’s chapel in the parish church of St. Mary, Luton.17 There is no evidence that the MP married, although it has been suggested that a brass (now disappeared) in the Wenlock chapel at Luton related to him and an otherwise unknown wife: VCH Beds. ii. 372.