CAREW, Thomas (1526/27-64), of Antony, Cornw. and St. Giles in the Fields, Mdx.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. 1526/27, 1st s. of Sir Wymond Carew, and ?bro. of Roger. educ. St. John’s, Camb. matric. Sept. 1548; I. Temple, adm. 10 Feb. 1550. m. settlement 5 Sept. 1554, Elizabeth, da. of (Sir) Richard Edgecombe of Mount Edgcumbe and Cotehele, Cornw., 3s. inc. George and Richard 1da. suc. fa. 22 Aug. 1549.2

Offices Held

Reeve, duchy of Cornw., Fordington, Dorset by 1558-d.3

Biography

Thomas Carew had an uncle and namesake on whose behalf (Sir) Walter Mildmay wrote to (Sir) John Thynne on 1 Sept. 1549 and who may have been the gentleman belonging to the household of Anne of Cleves; Sir Wymond Carew had been the ex-Queen’s receiver-general until his transference to Catherine Parr’s service in 1543. Among other bearers of the name were a Devon kinsman educated at the Middle Temple who died at Haccombe in 1586 after 20 years’ service on the bench, and a captain of Hurst castle in Hampshire early in Elizabeth’s reign. Carew is first glimpsed in 1542 when his father asked John Gates to ‘have my brother [Sir Anthony] Denny in remembrance to my lord of Canterbury for my son’. Although Cranmer is not known to have done anything for him, Denny sent Carew to his own former college at Cambridge; Carew’s time there was cut short by his father’s death and was followed by his special admission to the Inner Temple. He owed his return to the Parliament of 1555 to his father-in-law, who was steward of Plymouth, and if he did not forgo wages they were doubtless reduced by his domicile in St. Giles in the Fields. Unlike his fellow-Member John Young he did not join the opposition led by Sir Anthony Kingston against one of the government’s measures, the ‘Mr. Carye’ on the list concerned being Henry Carey. Before his death on 12 Feb. 1564 Carew sold much of the property bought by his father outside Devon and Cornwall, presumably to pay for his purchase of the manor of Sheviock in Cornwall from Sir Walter Mildmay. An epitaph written by his son Richard, the antiquary, survives in a later copy at Antony.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Roger Virgoe

Notes

  • 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
  • 2. Aged 37 at death, F. E. Halliday, Richard Carew of Antony, 17. Vis. Devon, ed. Vivian, 139; Vis. Cornw. ed. Vivian, 10; C142/89/98, 93/23; Wards 7/10/23.
  • 3. Duchy Cornw. RO, 131-7 passim.
  • 4. Bath mss, Thynne pprs. 2, f. 131; E117/69/48; 179/69/52, 71, 74; APC, ii. 81; Lansd. 14(44), f. 109; Cam. Misc. ix(3), 54; LP Hen. VIII, iv, xv, xvii, xx; CPR, 1549-51, p. 63; 1550-3, p. 232; 1553, pp. 273, 373; 1554-5, pp. 13, 228; 1557-8, p. 205; 1558-60, pp. 197, 373; 1560-3, pp. 391, 392, 418, 420, 463, 581; 1563-6, pp. 91, 124-5; NRA 5960, p. 228; Antony House, Torpoint, Cornw. CZ/EE/1 ex inf. P. L. Hull.