John Thynne (politician, around 1513)

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John Thynne. Portrait from 1566

Sir John Thynne (* 1512, 1513 or 1515 in Church Stretton , Shropshire ; † May 21, 1580 ) was an English nobleman and politician. He was the founder of the Thynne family , had presumably been elected to Parliament eight times and was a confidante of the Lord Protector Somerset . Above all, however, he is known as the builder of Longleat House , which the art historian John Summerson described as the first and perhaps most important structure of Elizabethan architecture .

origin

John Thynne was the eldest son of Thomas Thynne and Margaret Thynne, a daughter of Thomas Eynns (also Heynes or Eynes ) from Church Stretton. His father was a small yeoman from Church Stretton in Salop.

Rise in the service of Edward Seymour

Probably through his uncle William Thynne , who was given a leading position in the royal kitchen in 1526 and became Master of the Household in 1540 , John Thynne came to London. In 1535 he was part of the household of Thomas Vaux, 2nd Baron Vaux of Harrowden . After Vaux sold his office as governor of Jersey to Edward Seymour, Viscount Beauchamp , Thynne also switched to Seymour's service. Within a year he was promoted to Steward of the Household , administrator of Seymour's possessions. His further career was closely related to the rise of his employer, who was raised to Earl of Hertford in 1537 and as Lord Protector to Duke of Somerset in 1547 .

1538 Thynne had to lead a lawsuit against his former Lord Baron Vaux on behalf of Seymour over the rectory of Wilby , which Vaux claimed exclusively for himself. Through the favor of King Henry VIII , who married Seymour's sister Jane in 1536, the Seymours had risen to become the leading Wiltshire family . Thynne, who had previously had no connection to south-west England, was able to lease the rectorate of Clawton in Devon on April 11, 1539 for 21 years . A year later he bought the dissolved Longleat Priory from Sir John Horsey, with associated rights in Wiltshire and Somerset . Further, in the vicinity lying lands of Longleat awarded the king to Edward Seymour, who gave them on June 25, 1541 to Thynne. Thynne had acquired extensive land in the immediate vicinity of Seymour's Maiden Bradley estate.

In the final years of Henry VIII's reign, Thynne remained a close follower of Seymour, presumably taking part in the Battle of Solway Moss against Scottish troops in 1542 . In 1544 he accompanied Seymour on his renewed campaign to Scotland. He was knighted after the Battle of Pinkie Cleugh in 1547 . His main task, however, was not the service as a military, but the administration of Seymour's possessions and the support of Seymour in the exercise of his offices.

Edward Seymour, Thynne's longtime employer

Political career in Seymour's service

Presumably he was elected as a follower of Seymour as MP for Marlborough for the House of Commons in 1539 and 1542 , in the election of 1545 he was able to prevail with the help of Seymour against the competitor Andrew Baynton, who then replaced the previous second MP John Berwick . Thynnes employer was after the death of Henry VIII. 1547 for the underage Edward VI. , his nephew, raised as Lord Protector Regent of England and Duke of Somerset. Thynne continued to serve him in London. He became Freeman of the City in 1547 and a member of the Worshipful Company of Mercers , the cloth merchants' guild, which hoped to establish good contacts with the government. Two years later, Thynne married Christian Gresham, daughter of the cloth merchant and former Lord Mayor Sir Richard Gresham and sister of Sir Thomas Gresham . With that he married into the most powerful London merchant family. Perhaps with financial support from Gresham, Thynne was able to acquire lands in Gloucestershire , Herefordshire , Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in 1549 , for which he and Thomas Throckmorton (around 1516–1568) paid the handsome sum of £ 4,340. Presumably in 1547 he was again a member of Parliament, presumably because of the influence of the Lord Protector he sat in Parliament instead of one of the elected members of Salisbury . He was also the Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset from 1547 to 1548 and, given his duties as the Lord Protector's steward, he was unlikely to attend parliamentary sessions often.

Thynne's influence and relationship with his Lord Seymour, Duke of Somerset, is controversial. Contemporaries like Sir William Paget saw in him a gray eminence with a malevolent influence. According to today's assessment, however, he did not pursue any political goals, but worked hard to fulfill the numerous tasks that his employer assigned him. He also dealt with the new construction of Seymour's old house Wolf Hall at Great Bedwyn , which was rebuilt as Bedwyn Brail , but never completed. He was also probably involved in overseeing the construction of the old Somerset House in London. Around the same time, Thynne began, presumably according to his own plans, with the construction of Longleat, which burned down in 1567, only to be rebuilt afterwards.

Arrest and loss of office in the fall of Somerset

When Sommerset was overthrown and arrested in October 1549, Thynne was also arrested on October 13 and imprisoned in the Tower of London along with Somerset's advisors William Gray , Sir Thomas Smith , Sir Michael Stanhope and Edward Wolf . During interrogation on November 28th, he stated that he had disapproved of Somerset's lavish buildings in view of the financial situation of Somerset, but was unaware of the lord protector's corruption and abuse of office. He was placed in more rigorous custody in February 1550, but was provisionally released on April 17 for a month and finally pardoned on August 5. To this end, he got his confiscated property back, but he wanted to resign from his position as Somerset steward. Somerset itself was released in May 1550, but did not regain his office as Lord Protector. Thynne was still a Somerset henchman, but kept aloof from him at court. When Somerset was arrested again in October 1551, Thynne was in Wiltshire, but was arrested again on October 16, 1551 and returned to the Tower. However, his wife was allowed to continue living on his property and to visit him three months later, after Somerset's execution in January 1552. After he was released he, like the rest of Somerset's supporters, had to resign from all offices. He then retired to Longleat, where he helped John Berwick in the care of Edward Seymour, Seymour's disinherited son.

Ultimately, Thynne got off lightly and was still a rich man despite his losses and fines. After the fall of Somerset, however, he now had numerous open enemies. Sir Henry Long and Sir William Sharington from Wiltshire accused him of disregarding their rights, Charles Stourton as the nephew of the new ruler John Dudley was his enemy and even former supporters of Somerset like William Paget now saw him as their opponent. However, he also had friends in London as well as William Cecil and William Paulet, 1st Marquess of Winchester . He himself supported John Berwick in the care of Edward Seymour , Somerset's disinherited minor son.

Political isolation under Queen Maria

When Thynne's opponent John Dudley, who had been promoted to Duke of Northumberland, convened a new parliament for March 1553, he waived a renewed candidacy. At the request of Queen Maria , he proclaimed her queen in July 1553 in Warminster , where he was the steward. With this he snubbed Baron Stourton, who as Queen's lieutenant of Wiltshire claimed the right for himself. The dispute was not finally settled as Stourton was executed for murder in 1557. Thynne did not run for parliament even during Mary's reign and remained excluded from public office because of his known sympathy for Protestantism, but was officially pardoned by the Queen on October 13, 1553. Thynne remained in contact with the Seymour family, who received their lands back from Queen Maria. Unlike many other nobles in south-west England, he was not involved in any of the conspiracies against Mary, but was in regular contact with Princess Elisabeth through Sir Thomas Parry .

Thynne's life's work at Longleat House

Renewed political career under Elisabeth I.

With the Seymour family's political influence shattered in south-west England and the family heir having just come of age, Thynne now intended to become an independent force in western Wiltshire itself. When Queen Elizabeth convened her first parliament for 1559, he did not join the remaining magnate, William Herbert, 1st Earl of Pembroke . So he was able to surprise his opponents and prevail in the election in Wiltshire against Sir George Penruddock , the steward of Pembroke. With this he fought for political priority in the county at the beginning of the reign of the new queen.

With this unauthorized procedure he had continued a long smoldering argument with the Earl of Pembroke. Because of the ongoing dispute, Thynne had to answer personally before the Privy Council in 1564 . In the general election of 1563, he could not hope that Pembroke would tolerate his position, so he could be happy to be elected as MP for Great Bedwyn, which was still under the Seymour family's sphere of influence. Young Edwards Seymour had fallen out of favor with the Queen for his unauthorized marriage, but as a former steward of the Duke of Somerset, Thynne was likely to have good contacts and was elected as a result. Thynne regained some influence as Queen Elizabeth reinstated his sympathetic William Cecil , Thomas Smith and other Somerset supporters, and the influence of his brother-in-law Thomas Gresham continued to secure him power and income in London. Nevertheless, Thynne no longer played a major political role during the reign of Elizabeth I. The 1st Earl of Pembroke died in 1570, Thynne had better relations with his son Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke , so that he was re-elected as MP for Wiltshire in 1571. However, he did not succeed in holding this position permanently, so he ran in the next election for Borough Heytesbury , where he himself had influence.

Thynne was a conscientious MP who served on numerous committees. He valued his work as a member of parliament as a symbol of his position in Wiltshire, and he used the parliaments to maintain his contacts in London. In 1570 he served as sheriff of Wiltshire, in addition he administered his lands and ran extensive cattle breeding. Above all, he devoted himself from 1547 to the construction of the manor house of Longleat, where the Queen visited him in August 1574. The construction of the mansion became his life's work, on which he worked for 37 years. He himself contributed to the construction with a draft, which was largely designed by the French master builder Alan Maynard from 1563 and by the Englishman Robert Smythson from 1568 . Numerous artisans who had worked in Longleat spread their experience in South West and even throughout England, spreading the Elizabethan style of architecture.

Marriage and offspring

Thynne had been married at least twice and had a total of eleven children from the two marriages. From his marriage to Christian Gresham in 1549 he had three sons and three daughters, including:

After the death of his first wife, he married Dorothy Wroughton, daughter of Sir William Wroughton of Broad Hinton , Wiltshire , in 1566 or 1567 . He had five sons with her, including Charles Thynne .

His funerary memorial is in Longbridge Deverill Church. His widow married Sir Carew Ralegh of Downton for the second time. He inherited his eldest son, John, to whom he bequeathed extensive estates in Wiltshire, Somerset, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, London, Bristol and Westminster. His descendants from his first marriage were raised to baronet in 1641, in 1682 to Viscounts Weymouth and in 1789 to Marquess of Bath .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ John Summerson: Architecture in Britain, 1530-1830 , Yale University Press, New Haven 1993. ISBN 0-300-05886-1 , p. 60
  2. ^ History of Parliament Online: The TFT Baker: THYNNE, John (1512 / 13-80), of London and Longleat, Wilts. Retrieved September 19, 2015 .
personal data
SURNAME Thynne, John
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Thynne, Sir John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION English nobleman and politician
DATE OF BIRTH between 1512 and 1515
PLACE OF BIRTH Church Stretton , Shropshire
DATE OF DEATH May 21, 1580