LEEDES, Thomas (aft. 1611–1644 or 1645), of Wappingthorne, Steyning, Suss.

Killed in action fighting for the king during the civil war, Leedes was an archetypal royalist – youthful, and probably inclined to Catholicism. During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries most of his family were Catholic exiles, while his father, Sir John Leedes*, who remained in England, was a minor courtier under James I, who fell from grace for his opposition to George Villiers, 1st duke of Buckingham. The estate which his father inherited was in a perilous financial condition, and it is likely that Thomas Leedes spent his early years somewhere other than at Wappingthorne, which had been leased to Sir William Goring† in an effort to pay off enormous debts. It is possible that the family lived at Petworth House, since Sir John Leedes, who in the early 1630s was part of the eclectic circle around Henry Percy, 3rd earl of Northumberland, had a chamber there.8Household Pprs. of Henry Percy, ed. G.R. Batho (Cam. Soc. 3rd ser. xciiii), 120, 157.

It was with the assistance of another member of Northumberland’s household, Christopher Lewkenor*, that Thomas Leedes was admitted (28 June 1637) to the Middle Temple, where he shared the chamber of Richard May, Lewkenor’s brother-in-law.9MTR ii. 857. Lewkenor may have been something of a mentor to Leedes, and their careers followed a similar trajectory during the early 1640s. Unlike Lewkenor, however, Leedes did not pursue a legal career, departing for the continent some time after 1 June 1638, when he was granted a licence to travel for three years. Leedes may have wished to visit his family, almost all of whom were living among the Jesuit community at Leuven (Louvain); the clause in his pass forbidding him from going to Rome, may have been formulaic, given his Catholic kin, and the flagrant way in which his uncles, both Jesuit priests, had flouted the same condition in passes granted to them years before.10PC2/49, f. 121. Leedes returned to England in 1640, and on 12 May relinquished his part of Richard May’s chamber at the Middle Temple in favour of Lewkenor’s son.11MTR ii. 892.

That autumn Sir John Leedes, who had sat in Parliament for his local borough of Steyning during the Short Parliament, apparently chose to stand down in favour of his son Thomas. In October Sir Thomas Farnefold* and Richard Sackville*, Lord Buckhurst, were elected on the interest of the latter’s father, Edward Sackville, 4th earl of Dorset, a trustee of Sir John Leedes’s estate. Lord Buckhurst was returned for two constituencies, however, and on 16 November opted to sit for East Grinstead, leaving Steyning open to Leedes, who on 15 February 1641 was provisionally allowed by the Commons to sit; subsequent investigation of his election evidently confirmed it.12CJ ii. 30, 86.

Notwithstanding his financial difficulties, in 1641 Sir John Leedes arranged a propitious match for his son, to a daughter of Sir Ambrose Browne*.13PROB11/283/516. Browne had been sheriff of Surrey and Sussex in 1624, had refused to contribute to the loans in 1621 and 1627, and (like Sir John) had failed to respond to the king’s request for money for his Scottish campaign in 1639; during the civil war he was a Presbyterian, and served on the Surrey county committee. The portion of £2,000 which he provided for his daughter probably explains why in 1644 Thomas Leedes’s estate was valued at £1,000, double that of his father.14C54/3466/3; CCAM 436.

Meanwhile, Leedes made very little visible contribution to parliamentary proceedings. He subscribed the Protestation on 3 May 1641, and took the covenant to support the earl of Essex as commander of parliamentary forces on 29 August 1642.15CJ ii. 133a, 741b. But these gestures, like his offer of £50 for the cause made on 4 October 1642, were hollow.16CJ ii. 792b. That, like his father, he was nominated on 6 August to the commission of array implies an expectation of loyalty to the king’s cause.17Northants. RO, FH133, unfol.

Unlike Sir John Leedes, who did not serve, but in common with his brother-in-law Adam Browne†, Leedes was soon active in the royalist camp. During the autumn he was embroiled in the attempt to secure for the king the important port of Chichester. A report of 21 November from William Cawley* to the Speaker of the Commons, William Lenthall*, describing the seizure of Chichester, revealed that Leedes was involved, as a captain of horse for Arundel rape.18HMC Portland, i. 72-3. Following the reading of Cawley’s letter in the House on 23 November, Leedes, like Christopher Lewkenor and the king’s other ‘chief agents’ at Chichester, was expelled from the Commons.19Add. 18777, f. 68v; CJ ii. 860b; Perfect Diurnall no. 24 (21-28 Nov. 1642), n.p. (E.242.27). There is no evidence, however, that Leedes was in the city in December, when it was besieged by Sir William Waller*, and he was not among the prisoners taken when it fell to Parliament.20Perfect Diurnall no. 29 (26 Dec. 1642-2 Jan. 1643), sig. Ee3 (E.244.32); Special Passages no. 21 (27 Dec. 1642-3 Jan. 1643), 277-8 (E.84.1); Kingdoms Weekly Intelligencer no. 1 (27 Dec. 1642-3 Jan. 1643), 6 (E.84.4). Leedes and Lewkenor were present in the king’s Parliament at Oxford on 27 January 1644.21Rushworth, Hist. Collections, iv. 573-4.

That July the estate which Leedes derived from his marriage was assessed for the Committee for Advance of Money* at £1,000, but no proceedings were taken.22CCAM 436. This was probably because of his premature death, which occurred when he was fighting on the king’s behalf near Oxford, some time before 12 September 1645, when the Commons ordered a new writ to be issued for the election of his replacement.23Vis. Yorks. 287; C231/6, p. 19; CJ iv. 272. Leedes apparently left no will, and his children predeceased him, although his father lived into the 1650s.