Thomas Richard Fermor

Thomas married Lady Emmotte Hervey in 1475. Emmotte was born in 1455; died in 1485. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Anne Browne. Anne was born in 1485; died in 1582. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Notes:

Source: The History of Parliament: British Political, Social & Local History
http://www.histparl.ac.uk/volume/1509-1558/member/fermor-sir-john-1516-71
Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982

ConstituencyDates
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
Oct. 1553
NORTHAMPTONSHIRE
1555
Family and Education
b. by 1516, 1st s. of Richard Fermor, and bro. of Jerome† and Thomas. educ. I. Temple. m. by Nov. 1544, Maud, da. of Sir Nicholas Vaux, 1st Lord Vaux of Harrowden, 3s. 3da. suc. fa. 17 Nov. 1551. Kntd. 2 Oct. 1553.1

Offices Held
Keeper of woods within Rockingham forest, Northants. Apr. 1554; j.p. Northants. by 1556-64 or later; sheriff 1557-8.2

Biography
In common with his Vaux kin Fermor remained a Catholic and it was only under Mary that he cut any figure in public life. He probably took his stand for her during the brief conflict in Northamptonshire over the succession, as his brother-in-law Sir John Mordaunt did in East Anglia, and so earned the knighthood which he received on the morrow of the coronation. It was, too, his Protestant cousin (Sir) Nicholas Throckmorton whom he replaced as senior knight of the shire in the first Parliament of the reign; not surprisingly, he neither ‘stood for the true religion’ on this occasion against the government’s first measures towards restoring Catholicism nor opposed one of its bills in 1555. Brought on to the commission of the peace and granted several local offices, in the last year of the reign he was pricked sheriff: in this capacity he corresponded with the Privy Council about the surety to be taken from subsidy collectors. Under Elizabeth his religious conservatism told against him and he may have been removed from the bench after his inclusion, in the report of 1564 on the attitudes of the local justices, among ‘great letters [hinderers] of religion’.3

Fermor’s main interest throughout his life was his estates. These were augmented in 1556 by the Northamptonshire property of his uncle William Fermor, whose Oxfordshire lands, however, passed to Fermor’s younger brother Thomas. Fermor appears as an enterprising, indeed grasping, landowner. There had been trouble with neighbours over disputed property in Easton Neston before his father’s death, and when the matter went to arbitration he rejected the decision that he should retain the lands in question but give others in compensation, and persuaded his mother to refuse her consent. He was unscrupulous in his attempts to evict tenants of whom he disapproved, some of them probably because they had been given leases when the property was in the King’s hands. Early in Elizabeth’s reign he purchased the manor of Towcester, Northamptonshire, from Laurence Eaton, and other properties there of which one was later claimed by plaintiffs on the ground of defective title. At the same time as he acquired the hundred of Wimersley he broke the entail on his Dorset and Somerset lands in order to create life tenures. When his heir George married in 1570 Fermor conveyed his lands to William, 3rd Lord Vaux of Harrowden, Sir Walter Mildmay and others in order to entail the bulk of them and to make provision for his younger children. He died on to Dec. 1571 and was buried at Easton Neston. George Fermor had licence to enter on 17 June 1572.4

John married Lady Anne "Maud" de Vaux, Baroness Strange Hunstanton on 12 Dec 1541. Anne (daughter of Nicholas Vaux and Ann Green) was born on 21 May 1513 in Harrowden, Northamptonshire, England; died on 14 Apr 1569 in Middlesex, Harrowden, Northamptonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

George married Lady Mary Curzon on 12 Sep 1570. Mary (daughter of Sir Thomas Curzon, Esquire of Waterperry and Lady Agnes Ann Hussey) was born in 1550 in Addington, Buckinghamshire, England; died on 12 Oct 1628 in Easton Neston, Northamptonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Anne Cokayne. Anne (daughter of William Cokayne and Mary Carey) was born on 1 May 1604 in Rushton Hall, Leicestershire, England; died on 17 May 1668 in Northampton, Northamptonshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Jonathan Cope. Jonathan (son of Sir William Richard Cope, 2nd Baron of Hanwell and Lady Elizabeth Chaworth) was born in 1627 in Hanwell, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England; died in Oct 1670 in Ranton Abbey, Staffordshire, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Richard Blanchard. Richard (son of John Blanchard and Christian Woodley) was born in 1651 in Alton Pancras, Dorset, England; died about 1710. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]

Family/Spouse: Honor How. Honor (daughter of Thomas How and Mary White) was born in 1693 in Longbredy, Dorset, England; was christened on 9 May 1693 in Longbredy, Dorset, England; died about 1723 in Longbredy, Dorset, England. [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]