Capt. Thomas Keyes, MP, of St. Radigund's

KEYS, Thomas (by 1524-71), of St. Radigund's, near Dover, Kent.

Family and Education

b. by 1524, 1st s. of Richard Keys of St. Radigund’s by Mildred, da. of Sir John Scott of Smeeth. m. (1) by 1545, at least 1s. 1da.; (2) 1565, Mary, da. of Henry Grey, 3rd Marquess of Dorset. suc. fa. 1545/46.1

Offices Held

Capt. Sandgate castle 1546-d.; serjeant porter by 1558-65.2

Biography

By his father’s will, made on 15 Nov. 1545 and proved 13 months later, Thomas Keys was given lodging for himself, his wife and his servants in the dissolved house of St. Radigund’s during his mother’s lifetime, and after her death the lease of that property as well as his father’s house at Lewisham, Kent. At the same time Keys succeeded to his father’s captaincy of Sandgate castle, with the command of an under captain, eight gunners, six soldiers and two porters; his service there was to be rewarded ten years later by an annuity of £40.3

Keys owed his seat in the Parliament of November 1554 to his friendship with the lord warden of the Cinque Ports, Sir Thomas Cheyne, who had Keys’s name entered on the return; among the warden’s other nominees on this occasion was Keys’s cousin Nicholas Crispe. Crispe and Keys were both found absent without leave when the House was called early in 1555. For this dereliction they were prosecuted in the King’s bench in Easter term 1555 but without being further proceeded against for three years: both were then distrained for non-appearance, of 2s. in Easter term, 5s. in Trinity and 3s.4d. in Michaelmas, before the Queen’s death brought the cases to an end. Strangely enough, it was while he was ignoring the court’s summons that Keys was appointed serjeant porter of the palace of Westminster: Cheyne also evidently bore him no grudge, for in 1558 he was to be left £40 in the warden’s will.4

Unscathed by this episode, Keys was soon to invite disaster. In 1565 he took as his second wife Lady Mary Grey, who as a granddaughter of Henry VIII’s sister was in the line of succession to the throne. The marriage took place secretly, in Keys’s chamber by the watergate at Westminster, and the Queen took it ‘much to heart’. Keys was sent to the Fleet and the Privy Council, in the hope of finding the marriage void, interrogated all the parties and referred the legal issue to Bishop Grindal, who found no reason for annulment. Despite his pleas for release and complaints of his treatment in the Fleet, Keys was kept there until 1568 and even then was not allowed to see his wife. He stayed first at Lewisham and then at Sandgate, whence in 1570 he appealed to Archbishop Parker to entreat the Queen to end his punishment and reunite him with his wife. This she would never concede, but in all other respects Keys became a free man. In February 1571 he ‘made means for himself’ to be re-elected to Parliament for Hythe: the townsmen put his name up to the lord warden, the 10th Lord Cobham, but with no great conviction, and he was not returned.5

Keys died early in September 1571. The news was broken to his wife by Sir Thomas Gresham, in whose custody she was living, and she at once besought the Queen to give her the care of Keys’s children by his first marriage. She died in 1578.6

Notes

• 1. Romney assessment bk. 1492-1516, f. 162; Add. 34150, f. 136.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from age at fa.’s i.p.m., C142/44/102. Fam. Min. Gent. (Harl. Soc. xl), 1301-3; J. R. Scott, Mems. Scott Fam. of Scot’s Hall, 252 table; Hall, Chron. 524.
• 3.Statutes, iii. 83, 114, 168; LP Hen. VIII, ii-iv.
• 4. Hall, 524.
• 5.LP Hen. VIII, i, iii, vi; Chron. Calais (Cam. Soc. xxxv), 15, 16, 34; C142/55/107.

family

When Thomas KEYS married Mary GREY, he was already a widower with a grown-up family. Details of his 1st marriage are proving entirely elusive, but there is some evidence of several of the children of it:

• 1. Thomas KEYES, poss b ca 1550; granted administration of his father's etstate, 24 Sep 1571; said to have married at Canterbury, 1572, Joan CLARKE, with issue a son Richard KEYES, b 3 Jan 1574, a Captain in the Army.
• 2. Isabel KEYES. She is widely believed to have married William ST LEGER, the disinherited eldest son of Sir Anthony ST LEGER, of Ulcombe, Kent, Lord Deputy of Ireland, with issue a son Warham ST LEGER, & a daur Anne ST LEGER, the 1st wife of Sir Robert PIGOTT of Dysart in the Queen's Co, Ireland. But the dates suggest this spouse of William ST LEGER was perhaps older, & may have instead been Thomas KEYES' sister, rather than his daughter.

From The Sergeant-Porter: Thomas KEYES.

"An unhappy chance, and Monstrous..." observed Sir William CECIL.

"... I'll have no little bastard KEYES laying claims to my throne," raged Queen Elizabeth, among a host of her usual oaths.

The date was August 1564.

The occasion was the marriage, in secret, under Elizabeth's nose, in the Watergate apartments in Whitehall Palace, at 9.00 p.m. on 10 Aug 1564, between her cousin, the Lady Mary GREY, one of the maids-of-honour at Court, and the Sergeant-Porter, Thomas KEYES.

Elizabeth's anger was raised by the fact that Mary had been named by Henry VIII, in his will, in the order of succession.

CECIL's observation was more prosaic - KEYES is said to have stood 6ft 8in tall in stockinged feet, with a girth to match; and the diminutive Mary, who appears to have suffered a severe form of spinal curvature which left her looking "almost a dwarf" [D.N.B.] & in the eyes of the Spanish Ambassador, "... little, crook-backed, & very ugly." [C.S.P. Spanish Series.].

The court regarded the match as ludicrous.

Mary was confined to house arrest, and KEYES was dispatched to the Fleet Prison. He was eventually released, in 1568, but ordered to live "quietly" at his residence in Lewisham. He died in early Sep 1571, having taken no further part in Court affairs.

References

1. http://www.thepeerage.com/p10766.htm#i107656