THOMAS, Mark (1615-62), of Rye, Suss.

Mark Thomas hailed from a minor branch of a Kentish family which had settled in Rye by the late sixteenth century and established themselves among its merchant community.17E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 139/93; Dunn MSS 2/54–6, 58; 4/2. In a small, poor and insular town like Rye, they quickly assumed a position of prominence. Mark’s father of the same name was elected a freeman of Rye in November 1609, becoming mayor in 1615, the first of seven occasions he held the post.18Holloway, Hist. Rye, 90, 209; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 149–51, 194; Vidler, New Hist. Rye, 160; E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/12, ff. 2, 3v, 5, 12v, 24, 26, 28, 43-67, 84-113, 290. He further cemented the family’s position in the upper echelons of the local community by means of an astute marriage. Martha Thomas’s first husband had been Thomas Hamon†, seven times mayor of Rye, and twice its representative at Westminster. Within three weeks of Hamon’s death in July 1607, Martha married Thomas Higgons, the mayor who replaced him, but within another 14 months Higgons too was dead. Despite allegations that she was a witch, Martha then married Thomas, her third husband in two and a half years, and the third who would act as mayor of Rye.19Vidler, New Hist. Rye, 67, 69, 70, 73; HP Commons 1558-1603; Add. 39466, f. 107. Thomas’s wealth is indicated by the fact that in 1634 he was assessed at £110 for the purposes of taxation, on which he paid £1 16s 8d. In 1617 he had extended the family estate, with the purchase of Tillingham manor.20E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/12, f. 106; Suss. manors ii. 439.

As the town’s representative, between 1613 and 1636 Thomas senior frequently attended meetings of the brotherhood of the Cinque Ports, the forum at which these ports transacted business with each other, and twice acted as its speaker.21Cal. White and Black Bks. Cinque Ports, 464, 470; CSP Dom. 1623-5, pp. 68, 88, 208. As mayor, in the late 1630s he received orders from the lord warden of the Cinque Ports (Theophilus Howard, 2nd earl of Suffolk), and from the secretary of state, Sir Francis Windebanke*. It was on Windebanke’s orders that Thomas arrested Oliver St John†, Lord St John of Bletso, en route for France.22CSP Dom. 1637, pp. 335, 348; 1638-9, pp. 166, 170. Whether this suggests real support for the court is doubtful, however. In January 1637 Thomas wrote to the bishop of Chichester (George Carleton) in defence of Rye’s godly preacher Christopher Blackwood, who later became a Baptist.23HMC 13th Rep. IV, 201. This, together with the fact that in 1633 he sent his son Mark to Emmanuel College, Cambridge, suggests that Thomas inclined to godly protestantism.

Mark Thomas junior did not complete his education at Emmanuel, but migrated to Trinity, from where he graduated BA in 1636. He had already gained a special admission to the Middle Temple (12 Nov. 1634), thanks to the influence of his cousin Richard Thomas, son of Alexander Thomas (d. 1657) of Lamberhurst, Kent, who later became a bencher.24MTR, ii. 828; PROB6/33, f. 258; E. Suss. RO, Dunn MS 4/6; SAS/CO/a/930-31; M. Temple Admiss. i. 130; Berry, Suss. Pedigrees, 216. But Mark was never called to the bar. In 1636 a settlement made by another uncle, Richard Thomas, provided him with a parcel of land called ‘King’s Field’ in Rye, although perhaps not until after the uncle died in 1652.25W. Suss. RO, Wiston MS 2248; E. Suss. RO, AMS 316; PROB11/239/190. This was some compensation for the fact that, at the death of his father three years later, Mark inherited only a small part of his father’s estate in Rye, while Tillingham passed to his elder brother, Richard.26Notes IPMs Suss., 224-5; PROB6/17, f. 34; E. Suss. RO, AMS 5729/79; Suss. Manors, ii. 439; Add. 5697, f. 109v; Suss. Arch. Coll. i. 135.

Thomas’s activity during the civil wars is not recorded. He appears to have been associated with two of the county’s most prominent political figures, and leading Independents and Rumpers, William Hay* and Harbert Morley* (whom he may have known at Emmanuel in the 1630s), as well as with their ward, John Fagge*. Thomas’s mother received a bequest from Fagge’s father in 1639, and in 1647 Thomas entered into an enfeoffment with Morley and Hay for the management of Fagge’s estates during his minority.27W. Suss. RO, Wiston MSS 5041, 2249-52, 4453; Cent. Kent. Stud. U455/M53. In the light of such connections, it comes as little surprise to find Thomas on 6 March 1650 signing the Engagement, one of the few indications of his political affiliations. On this occasion Thomas was recorded as living in King Street, Rye, although there is evidence that he also owned other property in the town.28Suss. Arch. Coll. xxxix. 21; E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 131/6.

During the later 1650s Thomas began to play a more active part in local affairs. In November 1656 he subscribed to a petition directed by the mayor of Rye and others to the Committee for the Army, complaining of the town’s poverty and pleading for exemption from assessments, according to its charter.29E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/156/37. In June 1657 Thomas was nominated to a commission of charitable uses for Rye alongside Morley, Fagge, Hay, and other prominent county figures, and among a small minority who had not served in Parliament.30Holloway, Hist. Rye, 404-6.

In December 1658, with elections for Protector Richard Cromwell’s* Parliament in prospect, Morley and Fagge asked the mayor to hold the poll at Rye (one of their centres of influence) after the county election, due on 3 January 1659, so that they could stand for the town should they fail to be returned as knights of the shire. In the meantime they recommended Hay, who had represented the borough twice before, adding that if he were returned ‘with some honest and able gentleman of your parts’, it would ‘be a further encouragement both to him and us diligently to serve you’.31E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/157/7. Following their success at the county elections, on 6 January Fagge and Morley joined the usual large turnout at the Rye poll and helped return not only Hay, but also Thomas.32E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/157/5, 8; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 233; C219/48.

Having been elected, Thomas was promptly made a freeman and began to participate in negotiations between Rye and other south coast ports.33E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 1/14, f. 293; 47/159, unfol. The corporation was rarely behindhand in enlisting their burgesses at Westminster to gain relief for their local grievances, and the mayor wrote to Thomas in late February, for example, passing on a petition of the town’s fishermen, in the hope that he would use his best efforts with the commissioners of the navy and Admiralty.34E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/157/9. However, Thomas, who plausibly shared Morley’s hostility to the protectorate, made no impression on parliamentary proceedings.

When a new assembly was called in March 1660, Thomas stood little chance of returning to Parliament because the two burgess places in the Convention were taken by Hay and Morley, who were unable to secure county seats. By then Thomas was a jurat of Rye, and by June he had been elected mayor.35E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/163, unfol; HMC 13th Rep. IV, 235. In this role on 24 July he represented Rye at a meeting of the ‘brotherhood’ of the Cinque Ports, held at Hastings.36Cal. White and Black Bks. Cinque Ports, 507-9. In September joined his old friend Hay in organising the assessment for the disbanding of the army. Such was the town’s poverty that Thomas himself, with an estate worth £50 a year, was among the wealthiest inhabitants; he was assessed to pay £1 2s.37E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 82/82, 47/164/6; Suss. N. and Q. viii. 116-18. In addition to raising money from the townsmen, Thomas tried to secure repayment of money lent to troops quartered at Rye the previous year.38E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/164/6.

Thomas’s support for the restored monarchy is evident from his appointment in April 1661, alongside John Fagge, to help carry the king’s canopy at his coronation.39E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/164/25; Vidler, New Hist. Rye, 80. As mayor, Thomas oversaw elections to the Cavalier Parliament, which assembled that May. In a contest which resulted in the decisive return of Harbert Morley and Richard Spencer†, Thomas voted for the latter, a nominee of the duke of York, but not for Morley, suggesting that their association in the 1650s had been based on shared enmity to the protectorate rather than shared political beliefs of a more substantive nature.40E. Suss. RO, Rye MSS 47/164/12, 14, 20; 47/165, unfol.

In the remaining months of his life, Thomas was found representing the interests of his town, petitioning the duke of York regarding the plight of local fishermen, pleading for the incorporation of nearby land into the town, and handling ongoing negotiations in a dispute with the corporation of Tenterden over composition money.41E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 47/164/29, 31; 47/165, unfol. He was a party to a mortgage made in late July 1661 and a document regarding Peacock’s School from 21 August, but thereafter ceases to appear in official documentation.42E. Suss. RO, Rye MS 122/67; 113/4. He was replaced as mayor by Thomas Palmer before the new election was due, perhaps due to illness.43Vidler, Rye, 160. He was buried at Rye on 13 March 1662.44Add. 5697, f. 111. No will survives, and no further members of his family sat in Parliament.