Sir Thomas Windsor, KB

Family and Education

b. by 1523, 2nd but 1st surv. s. of William Windsor, 2nd Lord Windsor, by 1st w. educ. M. Temple. m. 29 Nov. 1544, Dorothy, da. of William, 3rd Lord Dacre, 1da. KB 20 Feb. 1547.2

Offices Held

Feodary, duchy of Lancaster, Beds. and Bucks. in May 1544, in Feb. 1548.3

Biography

Thomas Windsor probably spent some time at the Middle Temple, where his father and grandfather had both been benchers, but the loss of the admission records for the period in question leaves this uncertain. He doubtless obtained the feodaryship of the duchy of Lancaster at the suit of his father, who held the office before him. His marriage late in 1544 to a daughter of Lord Dacre may mean that he took part in the Scottish campaign of the previous summer, in which Dacre had fought, and he was probably the Thomas Windsor who accompanied the embassy to France in 1546. With a number of other peers’ sons he was knighted at the coronation of Edward VI. At the court festivities at Christmas 1551, the last he was to see, he was one of the eight councillors to the lord of misrule, George Ferrers.4

It was death of Sir Anthony Lee in November 1549 which left vacant the knighthood of the shire filled by Windsor. His choice is not hard to explain. As a peer’s son he was a suitable colleague for young Francis Russell, he was doubtless favoured by the sheriff, Russell’s father-in-law Sir John St. John, and if the Earl of Warwick, newly come to power, interested himself in the matter he may have looked kindly on the grandson of the 1st Lord Windsor, his own father’s associate and brother-in-law. The election writ is dated 24 Dec. 1549 and the indenture 8 Jan. 1550, so that Windsor entered the House halfway through the third session. Nothing is known of the part which he played there.5

Windsor was a sick man when he drew up his will on 8 Nov. 1552 and he died in the following month. He is thought to have been buried at Bradenham: a year later his ‘month’s mind’ was held in the county with fitting pomp of heraldry. By his short will Windsor left to his wife his lease of Princes Risborough and that of Darlington, Durham, which he had obtained early in 1549: after her death they were to pass to his daughter and sole heir Anne. His executors, his wife and uncle Edmund Windsor, proved the will on 16 Jan. 1553.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: M. K. Dale

Notes

• 1. Did not serve for the full duration of the Parliament.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. CP, xii(2), 797.
• 3. Somerville, Duchy, i. 592.
• 4. HMC Bath, iv. 58-72 passim; LP Hen. VIII, xxi; Lit. Rems. Edw. VI, 382n.
• 5. C219/19/10.
• 6. PCC 1 Tashe; Machyn’s Diary (Cam. Soc. xlii), 29; CPR, 1563-6, pp. 150-1

Source: http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1509-1558/member/wi...