Family and Education

s. and h. of John Hat of Semley, Wilts. m. by 1401, Edith.

Offices Held

Constable, Shaftesbury Mich. 1393-4, 1405-6; mayor 1403-4, 1409-10.2

Biography

In 1390 Hat’s father formally relinquished to Robert Fovent* any claims he might have made to lands in Combe, Charlton and Donhead St. Mary, Wiltshire, about two miles from Shaftesbury. Thomas witnessed the document and later himself confirmed Fovent’s title to the estate.3 Although the Hat family came from Semley, Thomas had settled in Shaftesbury by the spring of 1390, when he was a member of the jury which gave evidence to royal commissioners regarding the possessions of St. Anne’s chantry in the conventual church, and from that year on he witnessed several deeds recording the transfer of property in the town.4 In May 1401 he leased out his close (‘Esthayes’) in St. James’s parish for eight years, but only as a quit rent of one red rose. He held office as constable and, more important, as mayor of Shaftesbury for at least two terms, in each case before his first known return to Parliament. Whether he had continued to occupy land in Wiltshire is not clear, but on 30 Oct. 1414, at the time of his election to Parliament for Shaftesbury, he attended the elections of the knights of the shire and burgesses of Wiltshire, held at Wilton. He was again at Wilton for the elections in 1420, but in 1422 and 1432 he travelled instead to the shire court at Dorchester to report the names of the parliamentary burgesses chosen by Shaftesbury. He is last recorded in April 1432 carrying out this assignment.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: L. S. Woodger

Notes

• 1. But the name of John Newburgh†, junior, was written over an erasure in the schedule accompanying the indenture of return.
• 2. Egerton 3135 ff. 36v, 81v; Harl. Chs. 78D 16, 79B 25.
• 3. Egerton 3135 ff. 107v-8.
• 4. C145/245/11; Egerton 3135, ff. 37v, 59; Harl. Ch. 79E 51; Shaftesbury Recs. ed. Mayo, 76, 77.
• 5. Shaftesbury Recs. 76 (D 16); C219/11/5, 12/4, 13/1, 14/3.