Sir Thomas DACRE
of Lanercost (Capt.)
Died: 17 Jul 1565
Buried: Parish
church of Lanercost
Father:
Thomas
DACRE (2º B. Gillesland/ 1º B. Greystoke)
Mother: ¿?Married 1: ¿?
Children:
1.
Thomas (Christopher) DACRE
2.
William DACRE
3. Anne DACRE
4. Alice DACRE
Associated with: Dau. HEWETT
Children:
5. John DACRE
Married 2: Eleanor DENTON
Married 3: Jane CARLISLE ABT 1565
Illegitimate son of Thomas, 2nd
Lord Dacre of Gillesland, by an
unidentified mistress. He was first recorded in 1529
as the apparently loyal servant of his half-brother William
Dacre,
the second baron's successor. He
appears to have been arrested as a suspected accessory to
William, Lord Dacre's
cross-border machinations. Lord Dacre, with his uncle
Sir Christopher, were imprisoned, accused of
treason by some Scots "of mean condition".
Dacre was committed to the Tower about 15
May 1534; he was acquitted 9 Jul 1534.
By 1535 he was serving as
a soldier in Ireland, subsequently returning to Cumberland as an associate of
Sir Thomas Wharton, whom the
crown was promoting in the north-west as a counterbalance to the Dacres of
Gillesland and the Cliffords.
Thomas Dacre's abilities were appreciated,
but he lacked the resources for office: in Sep 1537 the
Duke of Norfolk,
considering possible keepers for Tynedale, described Dacre as ‘a quick,
sharp man, brought up in practices of such wild people … but he is too poor to
serve in that office’.
The decisive change in Thomas Dacre's fortunes came
in 1542 at the Battle of Solway Moss. War broke out between
England and Scotland. James V being on the side of Rome, was unfavourable to his
uncle, Henry VIII, whose policy was to renew the claims made by Edward I
to superiority over the kingdom of Scotland. A Scottish army entered the West
Marches of England and was put to rout on 14 Nov 1542, by a few
hundred borderers under Sir Thomas Dacre, the Bastard, and Jack Musgrave of
Bewcastle. Sir Thomas Dacre was
rewarded in the following year by a grant, in
tail male, of some of the possessions of the dissolved Augustinian priory of Lanercost, a few miles south of Naworth, the principal residence of
Lord
Dacre. Thomas was thus ensconced as an agent of royal authority in the
Gillesland Dacres' backyard. In Dec 1545 he was granted a pension of
£20, and in either that year or 1547 he was knighted, while by 1552 he
was deputy warden of the west march and was granted Grinsdale, Farlam, Lazonby, Brampton and
Irthington. Perhaps he still lacked the means
to enable him to wield authority effectively, for in Jun that year he
successfully petitioned for the churches and estates formerly held by
the canons of Lanercost. Concentrated in Gilsland, but with outliers in
the west and centre of Cumberland, they had an estimated gross value of
just over £70; this may not have constituted riches, but the grant still
made Sir Thomas an important landowner.
The preamble to his first will, dated 9 May 1552, suggests that Sir
Thomas Dacre was protestant in religion, unlike his staunchly Catholic
kinsmen at Naworth. Not surprisingly he lost ground at the accession of
Queen Mary, but equally predictably he recovered it under
Elizabeth.
Bishop John Best had thought Sir Thomas suspect in religion, but that may only reflect
Best's ardent
evangelicalism. In 1559–60 he was sheriff of Cumberland. Moreover, he clearly hoped for
the backing of central government as he and his sons engaged in a series
of fierce quarrels with the Dacres of Naworth. In Oct 1559
Sir Ralph Sadler wrote to
Sir William Cecil in support of
Sir Thomas's elder son,
Christopher, allegedly persecuted by Lord Dacre with ‘som malyce and
greate extremyte’ in a dispute over hunting rights. A year later a hunting party from Naworth rampaged over
the Lanercost demesnes, and when Christopher remonstrated
Lord Dacre's
second son, Leonard, allegedly told him, ‘Thou arte a varlett and a
knave and I shall breake the payte’.
In 1559 Sir Thomas undertook
ostentatious building works at Lanercost. The west
range of the monastic complex became the centre of an imposing residence,
with a great hall on its first floor and a four-storey tower at its west
end. Lit by large new windows, the hall was decorated within by high-quality
wall-paintings, dominated by a huge representation of the Dacre arms.
This show of independence notwithstanding, as long as Lord Dacre was
warden of the west march (1549–63) he was probably too strong for Sir
Thomas Dacre of Lanercost, who on 19 Jun 1561 was appointed marshal of
the garrison at Berwick. His sojourn there was unhappy, however, and he
complained bitterly of arrears of payment.
He married three times and left two sons, Christopher and William,
and a daughter, Anne, and also an illegitimate son, John, who served
with him at Berwick.
| Lady Jane Carlisle, the third wife of Sir Thomas, married
him late in her life. Prior to that, she had what has been described as a “liaison”
with Sir
John Lowther (b. 1488 - d. 1553), bearing him two daughters, Mabel
and Jane, and eventually serving as his executor
upon his death in 1553. Their relationship seems to have begun in the 1540s during his
tenure as constable of Carlisle Castle. Well after Lowther’s death, in about 1565, Jane became
wife of Thomas Dacre of Lanercost. Lady Jane Dacre seems
to have been wealthy in her own right, having inherited money and property from
both her Carlisle relations and Sir John Lowther. Born into a leading Carlisle
family, she inherited the Whitehall property on the city's Abbey Street.
In his will, drawn up on 3 Feb 1553, Lowther made Jane his
joint executor and residuary legatee, and it seems likely that at least
some of her valuables were given her by him. She had a sister, Elizabeth
(b. 1510- d. 1564), who
is sometimes said to have been the daughter of William Carlisle, 2nd
Lord Carlisle of Torthorald, Dumfrieshire, but Lord Carlisle was a Scot
and neither Jane nor Elizabeth are listed among his children. In Mar 1564/5, Jane traveled
to Scotland to attend the wedding of her nephew, John Sempill or Semple
(Elizabeth’s the legitimated son by Robert, 3rd lord Sempill, legitimized
after their 1546 marriage), to Mary Livingston,
Queen Mary’s lady in
waiting. The Queen called John Sempill “the Englishman” because he had
been born in the south to an English mother. It may be at this time that
Jane received the gift of a chain worth £60, possibly from
Mary Queen of
Scots herself. Jane was apparently
wealthy enough to live independently during the decade before her eventual
marriage, unusual for a gentlewoman of the sixteenth century. She is reputed to
have had a richly decorated house and a collection of paintings. Judging by Sir Thomas's
reference to her in his own will, referring to ‘the naturall love & good
will I bear & intend towards hir better advanciment & maintenance of hir
lyvinge hearafter durynge her lyffe naturall, justly & well at my hands
desarved’, his marriage to
her had been a happy one. |
Probably Lady Jane Carlisle |
Described as ‘old and weak’
in Jun 1563, he was probably glad to be replaced on 26 Feb 1564. Lord Dacre was no longer warden now, and later that year
Sir Thomas was again
appointed sheriff of Cumberland. He probably died on 17 Jul 1565, since
on that day his son Christopher succeeded him as sheriff, holding office
until 16 Nov following. Despite Sir Thomas's earlier claims of poverty, his
son William claimed in 1566 that his father had died possessed of goods
and chattels worth £1800.
Thomas Dacre first Will, in which mentioned Eleanor Denton
as his wife, was dated 9 May
1552. His second Will dated 7 Jul
1565, proved 12 Jun 1566 in York by his son Christopher, and in Carlisle by his widow
Jane Dacre, 26 Oct 1565.
After Sir Thomas
death, Jane was involved in a bitter lawsuit with one of Dacre’s sons by an earlier marriage. In the inventory of
Jane
Dacre's will, drawn up on 7 Jan 1575 and proved on 24 Mar
following, her goods (excluding debts) were valued at £394 2s.
10d.,
to which money, jewellery, and plate contributed just over £200. Her
house was amply, even richly, furnished, with two well-equipped kitchens.
The presence of ‘a byble in Englissh’ may indicate that she shared her
husband's religious position. But perhaps because of William Dacre's lawsuit
she made no mention of her husband's family in her will, and requested
burial not at Lanercost, but in St Mary's parish church in Carlisle.
