KEMPSTON, Thomas II, of Ipswich, Suff.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Dec. 1421

Family and Education

Offices Held

J.p. Ipswich 11 July 1424-Feb. 1428.

Biography

In June 1412 Kempston was granted, by mainprise of John Horkesley (then bailiff of Ipswich) and of Robert Palgrave of Suffolk, the custody of crown land in Mildenhall and Barrow, for an annual rent of 16s.8d. It seems likely that he was related to Palgrave, for he stood surety for him at the Exchequer in February 1414 and, later that year, was also party to a transaction whereby the manor and advowson of Gunton, Suffolk, were settled on him and his wife in tail-male. Meanwhile, he had attested the indenture of election for the shire to the Parliament of 1413 (May). In August 1417, simply described as ‘of Suffolk’, he provided securities under penalty of £100 for the appearance in Chancery of Thomas Mollesley of Walsall, Staffordshire. This and similar activities suggest that he may have been a lawyer.1

Kempston was admitted to the freedom of Ipswich on 31 July 1421. He is not recorded as paying the usual fee of 40s., and it may be that he had agreed instead to serve in the next Parliament without wages. (This was possibly the sole reason for his admission.) In 1423 he was again party to the Suffolk elections to Parliament.2 At that time he was associated with the lawyer Robert Darcy* of Maldon, the clerk of the common pleas, as co-feoffee of property at Dansey (Essex) and West Tofts (Norfolk), on behalf of Robert Hunt and his wife Katherine. The latter was a niece of Richard Baynard* of Messing, another lawyer and the Speaker in Kempston’s only Parliament. In the spring of 1424 he was party to transactions relating to a manor in Ardleigh (Essex). In February 1427 Kempston once more appeared as a surety, this time at the Exchequer. He is last recorded in 1436 when engaged in further settlements relating to the manor of Gunton.3

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: K.N. Houghton

Notes

  • 1. CFR, xiii. 240; xiv. 58; CP25(1)224/113/12; C219/11/1; CCR, 1413-19, p. 435.
  • 2. Add. 30158, f. 3v; C219/13/2.
  • 3. Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 3; CFR, xv. 165; CP25(1)224/116/26.