Sir Thomas FITZHERBERT of Norbury, Padley and Hamstall Ridware

Born: 1514

Died: 2 Oct 1591, Tower of London, Middlesex, England

Father: Anthony FITZHERBERT of Norbury (Sir)

Mother: Maud COTTON

Married 2: Anne EYRE (b. 1516 - d. 1576) (dau. of Sir Arthur Eyre and Margaret Plumpton) 20 Oct 1535, Upper Padley, Derbyshire, England

The details in this biography come from the History of Parliament, a biographical dictionary of Members of the House of Commons.

Born 1513/14, 1st surv. son of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert of Norbury by Maud, dau. and coh. of Richard Cotton of Hamstall Ridware; bro. of William. Educ. G. Inn, adm. 1533. Married by Oct 1535, Anne, dau. of Arthur Eyre of Padley, s.p. Suc. fa. 26 May 1538. Kntd. 22 Feb 1547. J.p. Staffs 1540-7, q. 1554-62; sheriff 1543-4, 1554-5; commr. array, Derbys. 1546, relief, Staffs. 1550, goods of churches and fraternities 1553.

Anthony Fitzherbert, the eminent judge, inherited Norbury as a last surviving son in 1531, and Thomas succeeded him there seven years later. Norbury lies on the Staffordshire border and it was with that county, where he inherited Hamstall Ridware from his mother, that Fitzherbert was to be chiefly identified; his brother William was to marry into the leading Staffordshire family of Swynnerton.

It is possible that Sir Thomas Fitzherbert had earlier married Margaret Pole, the daughter of Sir Arthur Pole (d.1535), second son of Sir Richard Pole and Margaret Plantagenet, Countess of Salisbury, and brother of Cardinal Reginald Pole.

Anne Eyre had six siblings who died young, leaving her to succeed to the family estate; but their marriage produced no children.

Fitzherbert’s early years in public life did not foreshadow his later ostracism. His election to the last Henrician Parliament was a natural sequel to his first term as sheriff, and the knighthood and continued employment brought by the new reign implied that he was as capable of adjusting to change as his father had been. Retained on the Staffordshire bench under Mary, and again pricked sheriff, he neither reappeared in Parliament nor received any further mark of favour.

Sir Thomas Fitzherbert was accused of harbouring Anthony Babington at Derby, and of allowing Mass to be said at his house in 1586.

Yet his rejection of the Elizabethan settlement, and the subversive activities of some of his younger kinsmen, were to bring him 30 years of persecution, long spells of imprisonment and finally death in the Tower on 2 Oct 1591. He was succeeded by his nephew and namesake Thomas, a Member in 1593, who with Archbishop Whitgift’s consent destroyed his uncle’s will disinheriting him.

Sources:

Davidson, Alan: https://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/fitzherbert-thomas-151314-91

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