Sir Thomas Le Strange by Hans Holbein the Younger

Sir Thomas Le Strange (1494–1545) of Hunstanton, Norfolk, born in 1494, son of Robert le Strange (d. 1511), sixth in descent from Hamo le Strange, brother of John le Strange, 6th Baron of Knockyn, was Esquire of the Body to Henry VIII, and attended the King when he went to the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520; he was knighted by Henry at Whitehall in 1529, and served as High Sheriff of Norfolk in 1532.[1]

Extracts from the Household Accounts kept at Hunstanton in the time of Sir Thomas and his successor, from 1519 to 1578, were published in the Archæologia in 1833. Sir Thomas was in attendance on Anne Boleyn at her coronation in 1533, her father, Sir Thomas Boleyn, being a Norfolk neighbour, who is mentioned repeatedly in the above accounts as a visitor at Hunstanton. In 1536 Sir Thomas Le Strange was appointed to attend on the King's person during the Pilgrimage of Grace, and to bring fifty men with him; in July of that year, he was placed on the commission to inquire into the revenues of the wealthy abbey of Walsingham, near his own Norfolk estate. It is to his credit that, though a personal friend of the King, and employed on business connected with the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Sir Thomas does not appear to have used his influence at court to secure for himself any church lands whatever. His picture, by Holbein, hung at Hunstanton Hall in 1893, according to his descendant Hamon le Strange, and a pencil sketch of him is among the Holbein drawings at Windsor;[2] both these were exhibited at the Tudor Exhibition in 1890.[1]

In the 1530s he retired to his native Norfolk, where he earned a prosperous living from sheep farming.[2]

Sir Thomas Le Strange died on 16 January 1545, and was buried at Hunstanton.[1]

Family

He was the son of the abovementioned Robert le Strange, and Margaret, daughter and one of the heirs of Thomas le Strange of Walton in Warwick, Esq.[3] His paternal grandparents were Henry Le Strange (died after 1483[4]) of Hunstanton and Katherine Drury, a daughter of Roger Drury of Hawstead in Suffolk.[5] After Henry Le Strange's death, Katherine married secondly as his second wife Sir Robert Radcliffe of Hunstanton.[4]

Sir Thomas Le Strange's sister Katherine (d.1564[6]) married 1) Sir Hugh Hastings of Elsing in Norfolk, knight;[3] and 2) Thomas Gawdy (d.1556), Serjeant-at-law.[7] His sister Elizabeth (d.1536[8]) married John Wotton of Tudenham in Norfolk, Esq.,[3] the brother of Henry Wotton.[9][10] Sir Thomas Le Strange refers to him as "my brother Wotton" in his household accounts.[11] As Elizabeth's widower John married secondly Mary, daughter of George Neville, 5th Baron Bergavenny, and widow of Thomas Fiennes, lord Dacre of the South. The son of Elizabeth and John Wotton, also called John, had a daughter: Anne Wotton, who married Bassingbourne Gawdy,[12] the son of her great-aunt Katherine's last husband.

He married Anne Vaux, daughter of Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden and his first wife Elizabeth Fitzhugh.[1][3] The marriage took place in 1501, when she was seven and he was ten.[13] Anne was a uterine sister to Sir Thomas Parr, father of Katherine Parr, sixth queen of King Henry VIII.

In 1519, when Anne gave birth to her third or fourth child at Hunstanton, her own mother was dead and her mother-in-law had remarried and moved away, leaving it to two of her husband’s aunts, Elizabeth Radcliffe, Lady Woodhouse (the daughter of Sir Thomas’s grandmother by her second husband) and Anne Banyard, to attend her for the three weeks leading up to the birth.[13]

Sir Thomas Le Strange, Portrait Sketch at Windsor, by Hans Holbein the Younger

Children of Sir Thomas Le Strange and Anne Vaux:

References

  1. 1 2 3 4  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Le Strange, Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  2. 1 2 "Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/8-1543) - Sir Thomas Lestrange (c.1490-1545)". www.rct.uk. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Rye, Walter; Hervey, William; Cooke, Clarenceux; Raven, John. The visitacion [i.e., visitation] of Norfolk, made and taken by William Hervey, Clarencieux King of Arms, anno 1563, enlarged with another visitacion [sic] made by Clarenceux Cook : with many other descents, and also the vissitation [sic] made. Family History Library. p. 272.
  4. 1 2 Colin Richmond, The Paston Family in the Fifteenth Century: Endings (Manchester, 2000), p. 20 fn. 6.
  5. ↑ Rye, Walter; Hervey, William; Cooke, Clarenceux; Raven, John. The visitacion [i.e., visitation] of Norfolk, made and taken by William Hervey, Clarencieux King of Arms, anno 1563, enlarged with another visitacion [sic] made by Clarenceux Cook : with many other descents, and also the vissitation [sic] made. Family History Library. pp. 271–272.
  6. ↑ "CatalogueRef: NCC will register Knightes 355. Title: Hastings, alias Gawdy, Katharine, Dame, of Elsing, Gressenhall, etc. Date: 1564. Description: Will. Level: Item. Repository: Norfolk Record Office". Published by FamilySearch here.
  7. ↑ "GAWDY, Thomas I (by 1509-56), of Shotesham and Redenhall, Norf. | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 2021-12-07.
  8. ↑ "Hundred of Giltcross: West-Herling | British History Online". www.british-history.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-12-09. in 1536 his wife died; after which he married a daughter of Nevill Lord Abergavenny, widow of Lord D'Acres
  9. ↑  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Wotton, Henry". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.
  10. ↑ "Hundred of Giltcross: West-Herling". An Essay Towards A Topographical History of the County of Norfolk: Volume 1. British History Online. 1805. Retrieved 2022-10-16. Public Domain This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  11. ↑ Archaeologia, or, Miscellaneous tracts relating to antiquity (PDF). Vol. 25. Society of Antiquaries of London. 1834. p. 500.
  12. ↑ Walpole Society (Great Britain) (1913). The volume of the Walpole Society. Robarts - University of Toronto. Glasgow [etc.] p. 25.
  13. 1 2 Emerson, Kathy Lynn (2020-10-11). A Who's Who of Tudor Women. Kathy Lynn Emerson. pp. Entry for ‘Anne Vaux (1494–1548+)’.
  14. ↑ "LESTRANGE (STRANGE), Sir Nicholas (by 1517-80), of Hunstanton, Norf. | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
  15. ↑ Inquisition Post Mortem of John le Strange held at Norwich 25 Oct 1518 - Exchequer Series
  16. ↑ Goodsall, Robert H. (1958). The Astleys of Maidstone. Vol. Archaeologia Cantiana 72. Maidstone. pp. 1–17, [face p. 6.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  17. ↑ Dashwood, G.H. (ed.). The Visitation of Norfolk in the year 1563, taken by William Harvey, Clarenceux King of Arms: Volume 1 (PDF). Norwich. p. 64.
  18. ↑ "LESTRANGE (STRANGE), Richard (b. by 1526), of Hunstanton and King's Lynn, Norf.; later of Kilkenny, Ireland. | History of Parliament Online". www.historyofparliamentonline.org. Retrieved 2020-09-30.
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