Sir Thomas PARR [6559] ¹⁵⁵²

   FamilySearch ID: G7YG-61K.

  General Notes:

PARR, Sir THOMAS (1407[1]-64); of Kendal Castle.

M.P. CUMBERLAND 1429-30 ; WESTMORLAND 1435 ; CUMBERLAND 1445-6 ; WESTMORLAND 1449 (1), 1450-1, 1455-6.

Yorkist.

Son and heir of John de Par of the same (d. 1408). In 1413 the custody of Thomas, son and heir of John de Par and Agnes was transferred, together with the custody of his lands, to Sir Thomas Tunstall of Thurland, Lancashire, for 200 marks; and the heir Thomas married Tunstall's daughter Alice, and had Sir William M.P. (1434-83), Sir John M.P. (1438-75), and Thomas slain at Barnet.

On 29 Sept. 1429 the sheriff, Christopher Moresby, Knt., ". . . after that Sir William Legh and Thomas de la More had been duly elected Knights of the Shire, procured one Thomas Parre and the saide Thomas de la More to be declared duly elected." A commission was therefore appointed, and the justices taking the assizes in Cumberland were to enquire as to whether Parr had been duly returned.[2] Their answer is not known; but he was escheator of Cumberland and Westmorland 1429-30; J.P. Westmorland, 8 July 1432 to 28 Nov. 1439;[3] knighted 1430/2; and under-sheriff of Westmorland, 22 Nov. 1435 to 1 Nov. 1446 if not earlier;[4] on Westmorland commissions from 1437 onwards.

In 1435/43 Henry Bellingham, esq., sued Sir Thomas Parr, the sheriff, for an attack on Bellingham's house at Barnoldshead [Burneside], Westmorland.[5] This was the beginning of the trouble with Bellingham. On 14 Mar. 1446 Thomas Parr, on his way down to the House of Commons, was assaulted by Robert and Thomas Bellingham. He petitioned in the same Parliament, where he is called knight of the shire for Cumberland; and an Act was passed determining that the assailants should appear before the Court of the King's Bench or be attainted of felony; but apparently the affair was settled out of court for in the Parliament of 1449 (I) the Bellingham's petitioned for repeal of the Act.[6]

Pardoned after St. Albans, Oct. 1455, and Jan. 1458, where he is described as of Kirby in Kendal. In 1459 he joined Salisbury and went south with the Yorkists to the battle of Blore Heath and on to Ludford; attainted 1459;[7] and, according to Worcester (Annates 775), he was killed at the battle of Wakefield, 30 Dec. 1460. His inquisition, however, states that he died 24 Nov. 1464, when William Parr Knt., aged 30, was his son and heir; lands\emdash Cumberland and Westmorland.

Footnotes:
[1] Proof of age, 1428, 6 Hen VI.

[2] Calendar of Patent Rolls (1429), pp. 40-1

[3] He took to farm in 1438 all Bedford's lands in Westmorland and Lancashire for £25 a year; this fee farm rent of £25 was granted in 1441 to Ayscough, Justice of the Bench, and the farm came to and end and was granted elsewhere in 1450.

[4] Dictionary of National Biography, article Sir Wm. Parr.

[5] Early Chancery Proceedings, 10/83.

[6] Rotten Parliament, v. 168. Sir Thomas Parr's petition is embodied in the 1449 (I) petition of the Bellinghams. There is also an Act given for 1445 (Rot. Parl., v. 111) safeguarding M.P.s against similar outrages.

[7] Ibid, v. 349.

Source: History of Parliament, Biographies of the Members of the Commons House 1439-1509 by Colonel The Right Honourable Josiah C. Wedgwood, D.S.O., M.P. in collaboration with Anne D. Holt, M.A., London, His Majesty's Stationery Office, 1936, p. 662.

  Noted events in his life were:

1. Parliament: MP, in 1435, in , , Westmorland, England. ¹⁵⁵⁴

2. He worked as a Sheriff of Westmorland, Escheator of Cumberland & Westmorland on an unknown date. ¹⁵⁵⁴

3. He worked as an Escheator of Cumberland & Westmorland on an unknown date. ¹⁵⁵⁴

Thomas married Alice TUNSTALL [6560] [MRIN: 5410], daughter of Sir Thomas TUNSTALL [6572] and Isabel HARINGTON [6573], in 1420 in Thurland Castle, Lancashire, England.¹⁵⁵⁴ (Alice TUNSTALL [6560] was born about 1405 in Tunstall, Lancashire, England,¹⁵⁵² died in 1490 in , , Westmorland, England ¹⁵⁵² and was buried about 1490 in England ¹⁵⁵².)