TALBOT, Sir Thomas (prob. by 1507/8-58), of Bashall, Yorks., Rishton and Lower Darwen, Lancs.

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. prob. 1507/8, 1st s. of Edmund Talbot of Bashall by Anne, da. of John Hart and sis. of Sir Percival Hart of Lullingstone, Kent. m. by 1533, Cecily, da. of William Venables of Kinderton, Cheshire, 1s. 1da., also 1s. illegit. suc. fa. 20 Feb. 1520. Kntd. 11 May 1544.2

Offices Held

Sheriff, Lancs. 1551-2; commr. chantries 1554, ?1555, to survey woods and game, Leagram park and Bowland forest 1555/56; steward, duchy of Lancaster, Blackburn hundred 1554-6, jt. 1556-d., master forester, Bowland 1554-6.3

Biography

Although Bashall is in Yorkshire, the Talbots of Bashall are said to have ‘inclined more to Lancashire than to Yorkshire’. They were related to the earls of Shrewsbury. After his father’s death Thomas Talbot’s mother married Sir James Stanley of Cross Hall, Lancashire, a union which later involved Talbot in the marital and extra-marital affairs of Ralph Rishton of Ponthalgh, Lancashire, which have been chosen to illustrate the view that ‘in practice, if not in theory, the early 16th century nobility was a polygamous society’. Rishton formed a connexion, perhaps amounting to marriage, with Talbot’s half-sister Anne Stanley, and Lady Stanley and her son Talbot combined to seize Anne and force her into a ‘marriage’ with John Rishton of Dunkenhalgh. His relationship to the Stanleys (Sir James was the uncle of Edward, 3rd Earl of Derby) may have helped to procure Talbot’s election as senior knight of the shire in 1558.4

Talbot had considerable experience in the field. In 1536 he joined the 3rd Earl of Derby with 16 men and in May 1544 was knighted by the Earl of Hertford at Leith. He held a command in Blackburn hundred in 1553, and in 1557 he again joined Derby, this time with 200 men. On 7 Oct. 1557 the 5th Earl of Shrewsbury wrote to Thomas Percy, 1st Earl of Northumberland, that he had sent Talbot with 200 or 300 men towards Berwick. He commended Talbot ‘as a well willing friend of mine, whom I have required to be at your lordship’s commandment’ and asked Northumberland ‘to be his good lord, and to favour him according to his worthiness, whom as soon as any man living, in case of need, I would have been right glad to have had about mine own person’.5

Talbot made his will in September 1557. He left Bashall and his Blackburn lease to his daughter Anne and leases which he held of Sir Ralph Assheton to his illegitimate son John. Anne Talbot married William Farrington (son of Sir Henry), whom Talbot made executor of his will. Talbot’s son and heir Henry, who was aged 25 and more at his father’s death, married Millicent, daughter of Sir John Holcroft, Talbot’s fellow-Member in 1558. Talbot died on 1 Aug. 1558, thus missing the second session of the Parliament. If, as is likely, his death was not reported until the House reassembled on 5 Nov., he was probably not replaced before the Queen’s death on 17 Nov. terminated the Parliament.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Alan Davidson

Notes

  • 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
  • 2. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s i.p.m. Chetham Soc. xcix. 150, but according to VCH Lancs. vi. 278 he was only three at his fa.’s death. Vis. Lancs. (Chetham Soc. xcviii), 40n; J. B. Watson, ‘Lancs. gentry 1529-58’ (London Univ. M.A. thesis, 1959), 492; LP Hen. VIII, xix.
  • 3. VCH Lancs. ii. 98; APC, vi. 365; Ducatus Lanc. iii. 189; Somerville, Duchy, i. 501, 508.
  • 4. Watson, 492; Chetham Soc. xcix. 150; ciii. pp. xxiv-xxix; VCH Lancs. vi. 278; Vis. Lancs. 33-34n; L. Stone, Crisis of the Aristocracy, 663.
  • 5. LP Hen. VIII, xi, xix; VCH Lancs. ii. 220; Strype, Eccles. Memorials, iii(2), 92; T. D. Whitaker, Whalley (3rd ed.), 547.
  • 6. Watson, 494; Preston RO, Farington of Worden Deeds 2419; Chetham Soc. li. 211-13.