HENEAGE, Thomas (1581-1641), of Gray’s Inn, London and Battersea, Surr.

Heneage came from a Lincolnshire family high in favour with the Tudors. His uncle, Sir Thomas, first sat in Parliament for Stamford under Queen Mary, and as vice-chamberlain to her successor was able to leave a vast fortune to the countess of Winchilsea, the mother of John Finch I* and his brothers. His father achieved less distinction, though he sat in four Elizabethan parliaments. Conspicuous for piety and learning, he left Heneage £100 to buy his own wardship, but did not expect him to take much interest in his library.4PROB 11/97, f. 20v; HP Commons 1558-1603, sub Heneage, Michael. The nearest Heneage himself came to office was as reversioner to his brother-in-law Ralph Gill, keeper of the lions and leopards in the Tower.5CSP Dom. 1603-10, p. 249; Coll. Top. et Gen.. viii. 280.

It may have been Heneage who, in 1620, arranged the marriage of John Finch I to Mary, daughter of Thomas Walker, chief usher of the Exchequer, as Mary was the granddaughter of Heneage’s paternal aunt, Margaret.6Lincs. Peds. (Harl. Soc. li), 482. Heneage was certainly a party to the Finch family settlement of 1622.7PROB 11/158, f. 88v. The only evidence for Heneage’s election to Parliament in 1629 is his appointment on 12 Feb. to the committee for a private bill concerning lands in Essex, in which county he leased some property from the Crown.8CJ, i. 929a; C66/1943/1. It is not known for certain which constituency he represented, as several seats had been vacated since the third Caroline Parliament met, but the likeliest is Winchelsea: Heneage’s kinsman Sir William Twysden had represented the borough on the Finch interest till his death on 8 Jan.,9Twysden’s wife, Anne, was the daughter of Heneage’s first cousin, Elizabeth, whose father was Sir Thomas Heneage and whose husband was Sir Moyle Finch†. and Heneage’s sister-in-law was the widow of a Winchelsea jurat, Thomas Egleston*.10Vis. Bucks. 132.

Heneage was named in 1632 as a family trustee in Lady Winchilsea’s will, at which time he was described as being of Gray’s Inn.11PROB 11/165, f. 180. For evidence of his activity as a trustee, see Cal. of Docquets of Ld. Kpr. Coventry 1625-40 ed. J. Broadway, R. Cust and S.K. Roberts (L. and I. Soc. spec. ser. xxxvi), 674. He drew up his own will ‘in good health’ on 10 June 1640, in which he required a funeral ‘with as little charge as may conveniently be’. By his own admission his son Michael was left ‘very meanly provided for’ during the lifetime of Michael’s mother, Dame Bridget, whose jointure lands were worth £130 p.a., and he was anxious to increase his daughter’s modest portion of £600 by the sale of his house in Battersea.12PROB 11/187, f. 8v; Som. RO, DD/WHb/2488. He died in August 1641. No later member of the family entered Parliament.