WELD, Thomas (d. 1664), of Wymondham, Norf.

This MP’s grandfather, John Weld, was admitted as a freeman of Norwich in 1558.14Millican, Reg. Freemen Norwich, 72. The claim that the family was related to the Welds of Bracon Ash is plausible but unsubstantiated.15Blomefield, Norf. v. 87. The MP’s father, Thomas senior, married well and prospered as an attorney at Wymondham. In 1621 he was described as ‘an attorney at the common law’ with a ‘great practice’, who had purchased lands worth £400 a year, as well as gaining other lands worth £300 a year through his wife. The only local resident who rivalled him in wealth was the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir Thomas Richardson†.16W. Hudson, ‘Assessment of the hundred of Forehoe, Norf. in 1621’, Norf. Arch. xxi. 287, 291.

After a period at Corpus Christi, Cambridge, Weld perhaps then went on to Thavies Inn, one of the inns of chancery, where his father was an ancient.17Al. Cant.; LI Black Bks. ii. 268. He certainly attended Lincoln’s Inn, where he was called to the bar in 1625.18LI Black Bks. ii. 258. By 1641 Weld had achieved sufficient professional eminence for his colleagues at Lincoln’s Inn to promote him to the bench.19LI Black Bks. ii. 359.

By his second marriage he became a brother-in-law of Sir John Palgrave*.20Vis. Norf. 1664, ii. 154, 237. In the mid-1630s he and his family were probably living in Norwich in the parish of St Mary in the Marsh, where two of his sons were baptised in 1634 and 1636.21Holley, Observations, 75. Meanwhile, he got into a dispute with the vicar of Wymondham, Joshua Meene. In 1635 Meene complained to Archbishop William Laud that Weld was refusing to relinquish half an acre that belonged to him as glebe land. Laud appointed two justices of the peace (including John Buxton*) and two of the local clergymen to investigate.22CSP Dom. 1635, p. 115. While it is not impossible that this was evidence of religious discontent on Weld’s part, this could have been no more than a minor dispute between neighbours.

Weld’s exact role in Norfolk during the civil war is not clear. He certainly sided with Parliament and was soon appointed by Parliament to the major local commissions, including those for assessment and sequestration. He was also a member of the county standing committee.23A. and O. But he also kept up his legal work. In 1647, on the death of Sir John Hobart*, 2nd bt. he became one of the feoffees in whom ownership of the Hobart estates was vested.24PROB11/202/65.

By 1650 Weld was an active member of the Norfolk commission of the peace.25Norf. QSOB, 19, 20, 22. That local experience, together with his legal talents, was then put to use by the government in a more prominent assignment. In December 1650 he and Thomas Edgar* were appointed by the council of state as the two counsels to manage the trials of those who had taken part in the recent Norfolk uprising.26CSP Dom. 1650, p. 466. When the high court of justice convened at Norwich on 21 December, Weld presented the charges against the prisoners before the presiding judge, John Bradshawe*. ‘The prisoners at the bar’, he declared

are bold rebels that had measured us out for destruction, and numbered the good people of this very city for the sword. I cannot pretend to rhetoric enough to express their crimes; should I attempt it, I should wrong myself much, your lordship more, but the cause most of all. I shall therefore pray justice against them; that justice which exalts a nation: ʼTis virtus architectonica, which not only builds but repairs a land. And if justice may run down like water, it may (by goodness of God) meet with the stream of blood which hath been already spilt and stop it.27Original Letters, ed. Nickolls, 38.

About a year later the benchers of Lincoln’s Inn asked him to deliver the Lent readings for 1652.28LI Black Bks. ii. 393. This was an attempt to revive those lectures after a decade in abeyance, but, for some reason, Weld failed to give them.29J.H. Baker, Readers and Readings in the Inns of Court and Chancery (Selden Soc. xiii.), 141. Two years later he did serve as the inn’s treasurer.30LI Black Bks. ii. 401, iii. 439 In October 1653 he was one of the nine judges for poor prisoners appointed for Norfolk by the Nominated Parliament.31A. and O.

Weld stood for Parliament for the first time in 1654. In the Norfolk poll he secured third place with 1,753 votes and so gained one of the ten county seats.32R. Temple, ‘A 1654 protectorate parliamentary election return’, Cromwelliana, ser. 2, iii. 58. (Given Weld’s links with the Hobarts, it is suggestive that Sir John Hobart*, 3rd bt. took the second place.) When Parliament assembled, Weld, like most of the other Norfolk MPs, probably hesitated to take oath recognising the authority of the lord protector.33Burton’s Diary, i. pp. xxxv-xxxvi. But, having taken it, he was then able to resume his seat. His known activities thereafter at Westminster were limited. On 15 September, presumably reflecting his own personal experience in that role in Norfolk, he was included on the committee to investigate the judges for poor prisoners.34CJ vii. 368a. His only other committee appointment was on 5 October, when he was named to the committee to reform the jurisdiction of the court of chancery.35CJ vii. 374a.

Weld did not stand for re-election in 1656.36Norf. Arch. i. 67. However, at least one person saw him as potentially willing to assist those critical of the government. On 7 August, shortly before the various Norfolk elections, one of his kinsmen, Thomas Butvant, sent 24 books to Weld asking that they be circulated to voters.37TSP v. 298. Although those books remain unidentified, they may well have been copies of the republican pamphlet, Englands Remembrancers, calling for the election of MPs opposed to the protectorate, which was circulating widely at this time.38Englands Remembrancers ([1656], E.884.5); J. Peacey, Print and Public Politics (Cambridge, 2013), 203-4. The books received by Weld were certainly said to be of ‘dangerous consequence’. But instead of distributing them, he lost no time in passing them on to the county committee.39TSP v. 298.

The Restoration ended Weld’s political career. He ceased to be appointed to the Norfolk assessment commissions and by the autumn of 1660 he had been removed from the commission of the peace. Although this may indicate that he was out of sympathy with the restored monarchy, a more immediate reason may have been ill-health. Since 1658 the benchers of Lincoln’s Inn had three times attempted to persuade him to revive their Lent readings, without success.40LI Black Bks. ii. 422, 432; iii. 4. When he was ordered again in November 1661, he asked to be excused on health grounds. The benchers accepted this but asked him to surrender his chambers.41LI Black Bks. iii. 12, 13-14, 16-17, 19 William Prynne* delivered the readings instead.42Baker, Readers and Readings, 141. Weld wrote to the benchers again in November 1662 apologising for his continued failure to undertake the readings because of ‘his long sickness, sharp pains, and great and constant infirmities of body’.43LI Black Bks. iii. 21. Within three months Nicholas Pedley* had taken possession of his vacated chambers.44LI Black Bks. iii. 25.

Weld died in mid-1664 and was buried at Wymondham on 21 June.45Wymondham par. reg. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Thomas.46Vis. Norf. 1664, ii. 238. A grandson, Edward Weld, was an alderman of Norwich from 1722 until his death in 1746.47Index to Norwich City Officers, pp. xxxi, 163; Blomefield, Norf. v. 87.