FANSHAWE, Thomas I (1580-1631), of Jenkins and Barking, Essex and the Inner Temple, London

By the late sixteenth century the Fanshawes were already established as a clan of almost hereditary office-holders. Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 194-5. As a younger son Fanshawe trained as a lawyer at the Inner Temple. When his father died in 1601 his elder brother Henry succeeded to the latter’s Exchequer office, and Fanshawe took up Henry’s post as auditor of the Duchy of Lancaster’s lands north of the Trent. In 1606 he took out a lease of New Barnes, West Ham, near Jenkins in south-west Essex, but he continued to reside at the Temple. That same year he was called to the bar. C66/1692, 2372. By this time, however, he had decided against a career in the law, and instead became one of the most industrious civil servants of his day. The Jenkins estate, acquired by Fanshawe’s father in 1567, passed to Fanshawe upon his mother’s death in 1622. PROB 11/97, ff. 152-9; VCH Essex, v. 200.

Fanshawe was elected to the first Jacobean Parliament for the borough of Lancaster, a safe Duchy seat. His committees in the opening session of 1604 included those for bills to regulate watermen (9 May), relieve parishes infected with the plague (18 May), reform abuses of informers (1 June) and defray the charges of the Household (18 June). CJ, i. 204a, 213b, 230a, 241b. He was also among those appointed to prepare the conference on Bishop Thornborough’s book about the Union with Scotland (1 June). Ibid. 230a. He made his maiden speech on 25 May against the bill to confirm titles to encroachments on the royal forests ‘in respect of much assart land in the Duchy, which would all be taken from the Duchy to the Crown by this bill’. Ibid. 980b. As a member of the Lea valley sewers commission he was concerned to reduce flooding and to prevent obstruction by millers to barge traffic, and on 23 June took charge of a bill to confirm the bargees’ right of access to certain London quays and wharfs. Ibid. 997b.

In the second session Fanshawe claimed privilege after receiving a subpoena from Chancery (11 Feb. 1606). Ibid. 226b. He spoke twice in the debates on grievances, once to clarify the grant to Sir Roger Aston* of greenwax fines in the Duchy (9 Apr.), and once to defend the patent of (Sir) Henry Brouncker† for issues in all courts of law paid into the Exchequer above a certain sum (15 April). Bowyer Diary, 114, 127. He was among those appointed to consider the new impositions upon merchants (19 Mar.), charitable uses vested in corporations (19 Mar.), free trade (3 Apr.) and the attainder of the Gunpowder plotters (30 April). CJ, i. 287a, 292b, 303a. He also served on the committee for a private bill to enable his brother-in-law Sir Christopher Hatton* to sever the entail on his estate (4 April). Ibid. 293b. Outside Parliament, Fanshawe’s extraordinary services in making up schedules of Crown lands were commended by lord treasurer Dorset (Thomas Sackville†), who described him as a ‘careful and sincere’ servant to the king. HMC Hatfield, xix. 86-87; HMC Laing, i. 108. He was subsequently entrusted with negotiating the enfranchisement of copyholds in the honour of Clitheroe, which may have been responsible for reducing his activity in the third session. LR9/107; R. Hoyle, ‘Vain Projects: The Crown and its Copyholders in the Reign of Jas. I’, Eng. Rural Soc. 1500-1800 ed. J. Chartres and D. Hey, 86-101. His only committee was for a bill to confirm the alienation of a Crown manor in Gloucestershire (15 Dec. 1606), but towards the end of the session he was one of four Members appointed to take the accounts of the collection made for the Commons’ Benevolence. CJ, i. 330b, 381b. In the fourth session he was the first named to a committee to consider a bill for building gaols (16 Feb. 1610). Ibid. 394b. His chief official concern was the passage of bills to confirm copyhold tenures in the Duchy’s manors of Wakefield and Clitheroe, and he reported both bills on 6 Mar. 1610. Ibid. 403a, 406b, 407a. He was named to 11 other legislative committees, two of which were concerned with private bills for the estates of one of the Essex branches of the Mildmay family. Ibid. 397b, 417b.

Between May and August 1611 Fanshawe toured the Duchy’s landholdings in the north, and in the autumn continued into the Midlands. He lodged at Lancaster for almost a week, although he was also entertained by several local gentlemen, including Sir Richard Molyneux I* and Sir Richard Houghton*. Fanshawe eventually overspent his budget of £200 by £23 13s., but as he later claimed to have raised £12,000 the additional outlay was evidently worthwhile. DL28/33/14A; Fanshawe, 235. On his appointment in 1612 as clerk of the Crown in the King’s Bench, Fanshawe passed on his Duchy office to his younger brother, William*. He nevertheless strove to maintain good relations with his former constituency, and in 1613 presented Lancaster corporation with an engraved silver-topped ebony mayor’s staff almost six feet long, and a ‘fine old mace’ weighing 37 ounces. W.O. Roper, Materials for Hist. of Lancaster (Chetham Soc. n.s. lxii), 317. His continued connection with the borough was sufficient to secure his re-election for Lancaster in 1614, when he served alongside his brother William as the borough’s senior Member. On 8 Apr. he was appointed to two general committees, for privileges and returns and the repeal or continuance of expiring statutes. CJ, i. 456b, 457a. He was named to attend the conference of 14 Apr. 1614 on the bill to settle the succession following the marriage of Princess Elizabeth to the Elector Palatine. Ibid. 465a. On the bill to relieve Crown tenants from the penalty of forfeiture for non-payment of rent the ‘Mr. Fanshaw’ who moved ‘that the tenants of the Duchy may be likewise provided for; who by this bill must either be without remedy or else sue in a court foreign to them’, was probably Thomas rather than William, since he was named to the committee (15 April). Ibid. 465b. However, it is impossible to determine which of the brothers reminded the House of the danger of impersonation following the second reading of a bill against false bail and was the first Member appointed to the committee (16 April). Ibid. 466b. In response to the disputed Cambridgeshire election a ‘Mr. Fanshaw’ was among those instructed on 19 Apr. to draft ‘a plain law to explain the election of knights and burgesses’. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 105-6. This too, was probably also Thomas, for as later parliaments were to show he was the more active of the two brothers.

Until this point Fanshawe had closely followed an official brief, but as the Commons turned its attention to religion he began to express a more personal interest in debates, having inherited strongly Calvinist beliefs from his father. On 20 Apr. he drew the House’s attention to the flouting of the recusancy laws, and alluded to ‘great men’s letters’, a reference, perhaps, to the crypto-Catholic earl of Northampton, who until recently had dominated the Privy Council. He moved for ‘some consultation for the safety of the king’s person, by reason of the increase of recusants’ because in King’s Bench those accused of recusancy ‘openly allege they may not be indicted, for they have the Council’s letters’ or ‘letters patent by dispensation’. Ibid. 114, 118, ‘Mr. Fanshaw’. On his motion it was resolved ‘to consider the defects of those laws’ in committee of the Whole House. In the debate of 7 May on a bill for the better observation of the Sabbath he moved to extend its provisions to the carrying trade and to enlarge the penalties for unlawful games. CJ, i. 476b, ‘Mr. Fanshaw’.

On 14 May Fanshawe was appointed to consider a bill to transfer inquisition records from the petty bag office to the Court of Wards (14 May). Ibid. 484a. He and his brother were subsequently among those Members instructed to ‘devise some course concerning the old debts’ (31 May). Ibid. 503a. In order to avert an immediate dissolution, and ‘for fear of Jesuits abroad’, Fanshawe proclaimed his agreement in the supply debate of 7 June to an immediate grant of one subsidy and two fifteenths, but to no avail. Procs. 1614 (Commons), 441, ‘Mr. Fanshawe’. After Parliament ended, the Inner Temple called Fanshawe to the bench, an exceptional honour for one who was neither a practitioner of the law nor a reader.

Fanshawe was relegated to Lancaster’s junior seat at the general election in December 1620, when the new chancellor of the Duchy, (Sir) Humphrey May*, took first place. Procedural matters were his main concern from the start. On 8 Feb. he declared that the judges had taken inadequate steps to curtail the disorderly conduct of Members’ pages, and two days later he called for the punishment of Sir John Leedes*, who had taken his seat without being sworn, ‘as one that hath come into the House not being chosen’. CJ, i. 513a, 517a. Fanshawe could not long avoid being drawn in to the Commons’ attack upon monopolies, a subject that touched upon his office. In the committee for grievances on 19 Feb. he was assured that the Commons was satisfied over his part in the enforcement of the alehouse patent, since ‘many thousand writs [had] gone out in his name without his privity’. CD 1621, vi. 252, 253, 259. He had ordered his clerks not to proceed against those who infringed the gold and silver thread monopoly, but the projector Sir Francis Mitchell ‘said he would have it, [in] spite of ten Fanshawes’ (a humorous exaggeration of the number of Fanshawe’s family who held office at the time). CJ, i. 542b, 617b. He was among those ordered to search the records in his office of proceedings arising from the gold and silver thread monopoly and the patent for licensing pedlars, having expressed concern that the committee for grievances had delegated the search to unworthy persons. Ibid. 550b; CD 1621, v. 311.

On 8 Feb. Fanshawe moved for the committal of a bill ‘against certain troublesome persons, commonly called relators, informers, and promoters’. CJ, i. 514b. Five days later he proposed ‘that all the lawyers of the House may reduce all the laws concerning clergy into one certain law’, and was appointed to the statutes committee for this purpose. Nicholas, Procs. 1621, i. 35-6, ‘Mr. Fanshaw’; CJ, i. 520a. Appointed to attend the conference of 16 Feb. on recusancy, he was among those instructed to draft bills to prevent recusants from benefiting from fraudulent inquisitions (2 March). CJ, i. 523a, 534a. As a verderer in Waltham Forest, he rose on 17 Mar. to speak on a bill to confirm the rights of commoners to pasture their sheep there, ‘for that there are such store of deer in the forest as other cattle cannot live there’, but he gave way to Sir Edward Coke, who damned the bill so effectively that it was not merely rejected but torn up. Nicholas, ii. 83, CJ, i. 560a. On 21 Mar. he reported the bill to naturalize Sir Francis Stewart*.CJ, i. 567b, ‘Mr. Fanshawe’. When the wife and daughter of the Catholic debtor Sir John Whitbrooke were unable to gain access to him in the Fleet, Fanshawe invited them to stay at his house, and ‘used some means with the lord chancellor Bacon’ on their behalf. CD 1621, ii. 83. He gave evidence to the Commons that the warden of the Fleet ‘bore a great spleen’ against the unfortunate Whitbrooke, who had been murdered by a fellow prisoner, and was named to the committee on the bill for the further reformation of jeofails (2 May). CJ, i. 602b. After the recess it was probably Thomas, rather than William, now Member for Clitheroe, who was among those ordered to consider bills for the abbreviation of Michaelmas term (20 Nov.), and the reform of intestacy proceedings (29 November). Ibid. 641a, 650b, both ‘Mr. Fanshaw’. On 28 Nov. he moved for the grant of a subsidy and two fifteenths, just as he had in 1614. CD 1621, vi. 208, ‘Mr. Fanshaw’. Two days later ‘Mr. Fanshaw’ argued that a measure against the export of wool, wool-fells, and fuller’s earth was ‘a very beneficial bill to the commonwealth, yet defective; for, being made felony, [it] hath no court or judges appointed to try it’. CJ, i. 653b.

On the eve of the 1624 general election Fanshawe was sworn in as surveyor-general to the duchy of Cornwall, with a seat on Prince Charles’ Council. R.E. Ruigh, Parl. of 1624, p. 64. Despite the opportunity this might have afforded him to sit for one of the constituencies under the latter’s control, Fanshawe chose to resume his accustomed place at Lancaster. However, the restoration of Hertford as a parliamentary borough, brought about through the efforts of the Prince’s Council during this Parliament, benefited Fanshawe’s nephew (Sir) Thomas II, who was elected on 17 May 1624. HALS, Hertford bor. recs. 23/10. Fanshawe’s appointments included the committee for privileges (23 Feb.) and committees for bills to prevent the holding of inquisitions in secret (8 Mar.), to enable creditors to recover debts from estates under attainder (10 Mar.) and to relieve patentees, tenants and farmers under the Duchy or the Crown (10 March). CJ, i. 671b, ‘Mr. Fanshaw’, 681a, 731a. When John Pym described the election of a known papist, Sir Thomas Gerrard, 2nd bt., as an act of contempt on the part of Liverpool, Fanshawe followed the official Court line rather than his instincts, and urged the House to ‘forbear sending for any of the town till we have examined the party’. ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 62v. With Sir Thomas Posthumous Hoby and Sir Henry Spiller he searched the recusancy records for Gerrard’s conviction, but failed to find it. CJ, i. 735b. ‘Mr. Fanshaw’. He was also among those ordered to examine Gerrard’s servant, and recommended his discharge. Ibid. 686a. ‘Mr. Fanshaw’. On the revived Michaelmas term bill, he moved on 15 Mar. ‘that the prothonotaries and other experienced officers may, by authority of the committee, be sent for and conferred with’, and was voted into the chair. Ibid. 686b, 691b. On 17 Mar. he successfully moved the recommittal of the bill for the liberty of the subject, pointing out that in the Courts of Admiralty and the Earl Marshal there was ‘nothing more usual than to have habeas corpus’, and was added to the committee.Ibid. 738b. ‘Mr. Fanshaw’. In connection with the Bletchingley election dispute he informed the House that the rector had criticized the committee for privileges in a sermon (22 March). Ibid. 745b. ‘Mr. Fanshaw’. The same day he was named to the committees for the explanatory bankruptcy bill and the bill against scandalous and unworthy ministers. Ibid. 744b, 746a. On 23 Mar., at the report stage of the bill to limit the use of certiorari and supersedeas writs issued by King’s Bench, he claimed that fewer of these writs had been passed ‘in his time than before’. Ibid. 747a. However, as his salary was fixed at only £10 p.a., for which he was obliged to attend all the pleas of the Crown, he pleaded that ‘there may be some consideration had of the officers of the Crown office, for that the benefit of these writs is almost all the profit they have to bear out the great charge which they are at’. He added that it was not his intention to speak against the bill, as he hoped ‘much good’ would come of it, ‘which yet he much doubts’. ‘Spring 1624’, pp. 155-6. When the bill finally passed, the king took a personal interest in securing him adequate compensation. CSP Dom. 1623-5, p. 260. Fanshawe was appointed to the committee for the bill to confirm Lady Dudley’s sale of Kenilworth Castle to the prince (23 Mar.) and to attend conferences on recusancy (3 Apr.) and monopolies (7 April). CJ, i. 747a, ‘Mr. Fanshaw’, 754a, 757b. He was also among those ordered to discover the projectors of the new imposition on wines and sugar (9 Apr.), and to examine abuses of purveyance by Sir Simon Harvey (1 May). Ibid. 696a, 760b. He spoke several times in the committee for grievances on 10 Apr. against lord treasurer Middlesex (Sir Lionel Cranfield*), asserting that he had no right in law to any part of the great farm of the customs, and asking whether Sir Philip Carey* had acted as his feoffee; he also produced a list of witnesses against the earl, who were summoned to attend. ‘Nicholas 1624’, f. 139v; ‘Holland 1624’, ii. ff. 5-5v; CJ, i. 692a. He and his brother were both appointed on 30 Apr. to consider an Essex estate bill promoted by Sir Richard Smythe* on behalf of his daughter, who had married the heir of Sir John Morice*; the bill evidently concerned Fanshawe closely, for he took the chair and reported back to the House on 4 May. CJ, i. 694b, 697b.

After the prorogation Fanshawe travelled down to Dorset to prepare the enclosure and partition of Gillingham forest, assuring the tenants in a speech at the town hall that ‘he came not to do any man wrong or like a moth to eat up any man’s estate’. Hutchins, iii. 649; E134/11 Chas.I/Mich. 23. He was rewarded for his services with a knighthood. Fanshawe’s responsibilities increased when the office of surveyor-general to the Crown was revived for him in the new reign, and he undertook an extensive programme of deforestation and improvement. G.E. Aylmer, King’s Servants 139. He was appointed a deputy lieutenant of Essex by the 5th earl of Sussex in May 1625, but was rejected by the other joint lord lieutenant, the 2nd earl of Warwick (Sir Robert Rich*) in September, and not reinstated for a year. Maynard Ltcy. Bk. 1608-39, i. 80, 93, 141; CSP Dom. 1625-6, p. 150.

Re-elected for Lancaster to the first Caroline Parliament, Fanshawe again defended his own office. When it was alleged that writs of certiorari discouraged the conviction of recusants by increasing the cost of prosecution he assured the grand committee for religion that they were ‘very sparingly granted out of the King’s Bench’, though ‘some have come of late out of Chancery under the great seal’ (23 June 1625). Procs. 1625, p. 231; HMC Lords, n.s. xi. 204. He was named to the committees to regulate the assignment of debts in the Exchequer (23 June), the holding of secret inquisitions (24 June), benefit of clergy (25 June) and the procurement of judicial offices for rewards (29 June). Procs. 1625, pp. 229, 238, 246, 269. As a Lancashire burgess he was appointed to the Macclesfield tenants bill committee on 26 June, but attended only the first of its two meetings. C.R. Kyle ‘Attendance Lists’, PPE 1604-48 ed. Kyle, 228. In an official capacity he was named to the committee for a bill to enable the Crown to make leases of duchy of Cornwall lands, which he reported on 7 July. CJ, i. 806a. Fanshawe was appointed to attend a conference to consider the petitions of prisoners in the Fleet for writs of habeas corpus because of the danger from the plague; but in the Commons he described the proposal as ‘a mere escape’ and contrary to law. He therefore urged the House ‘to recommend it back to the Lords to do what may be done by law and to consider what were done the last great plague’. Procs. 1625, p. 363. At Oxford he was appointed to the committee for a bill for taking accounts on oath from those responsible for all general and public taxes, rates and collections (6 August). CJ, i. 811a. He opposed a petty larceny bill because it inflicted punishment before indictment, and was chosen to attend the conference of 8 Aug. on religion. Ibid. 811a, 812a.

In the second Caroline Parliament Fanshawe resumed his seat at Lancaster, and through his longstanding Duchy connections arranged for his nephew (Sir) Thomas II to sit for Preston. The latter had recently been knighted, and consequently it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between him and Fanshawe in the parliamentary sources. One of the first matters to gain Fanshawe’s attention was the election of the Scottish courtier George Kirke for Clitheroe, which borough had been represented by Fanshawe’s brother, William, since 1621. On 18 Feb. Fanshawe objected that Kirke was an unnaturalized alien, and successfully moved for a new writ. Ibid. 821b. However, the seat was eventually taken by another of Fanshawe’s nephews, Christopher Hatton. Fanshawe was appointed on 14 Feb. to consider bills to restrain the export of ordnance, and to preserve ecclesiastical patronage. Ibid. 819b. On the revived bill against secret inquisitions, in which he had been involved in the last two parliaments, he proposed ‘that the parties may have notice given to themselves, or left at their places of abode’, and was named to the committee (14 February). Ibid. 819a. He was appointed to attend the conference of 7 Mar. on the international situation. Ibid. 832a. He was the first Member named to consider a bill for setting prisoners to work and instructing them in religion (8 Mar.), and was also appointed to a committee to restrict the number of clerical magistrates (10 March). Ibid. 832b, 834a. On 14 Mar. he moved ‘for a course to be taken for the preservation of timber for shipping, the laws in force [being] defective in this kind’. His proposal that ‘three or four lawyers and as many gentlemen may be appointed ... to pen a bill for that purpose’ was accepted, and he was the first to be named. Ibid. 836a; Procs. 1626, ii. 283. Either Fanshawe or his nephew was added to the committee for the revived bill against abuse of the Exchequer procedure for private debts (14 Mar.), a measure which they had both been appointed to consider in the previous Parliament, and later the same day Fanshawe was named to another to consider a bill for the better ordering of the office of clerk of the market. CJ, i. 836b. On receipt of the king’s message of 20 Mar., Fanshawe moved that the House should immediately resolve itself into a grand committee for supply. Procs. 1626, ii. 321. In response to Sir John Eliot’s accusation that Buckingham was the cause of the increase of recusancy in the north, Fanshawe, erroneously identified in Bulstrode Whitelocke’s diary as ‘Sir George’, countered that ‘it cannot be fixed upon any particular man’ (24 March). Ibid. ii. 358. Nevertheless he could not avoid testifying to Eliot’s sub-committee on 21 Apr. about the sale of the office of lord treasurer to Viscount Mandeville (Sir Henry Montagu). Ibid. iii. 41. Reminding the House that the subsidy commissioners in the last reign had been instructed to raise yields to the levels of 1563, he was among those appointed to draft an address for rectifying and augmenting the revenue (26 April). Ibid. iii. 75. When (Sir) Nathaniel Rich produced evidence on 4 May that Buckingham had knelt to adore the sacrament in Spain, Fanshawe proposed to administer the oath of allegiance before the witness was admitted. Ibid. iii. 158. On 9 May he attempted to speak against the commitment of Buckingham, but gave way to John Selden. Ibid. iii. 203. In the debate on grievances of 25 May he complained that the patent for purveyance of hawks’ meat, never heard of until recently, was mostly used to provide poultry for the falconers themselves, and so was named to the committee. Ibid. iii. 333; CJ, i. 864b. He offered to waive his fees if John More II* would enter a disclaimer of his rights under the salt patent in the King’s Bench office. Procs. 1626, iii. 334. At the end of the debate he was appointed to the select committee to pen and order the grievances. He argued in favour of the subsidy bill on 12 June. If the king had demanded supply ‘for his own private occasions’, he declared, ‘I should not have moved to forward it’, but since it was ‘for the maintenance of the wars whereto so great sums are necessary, and that the time is so precious’, he urged the Commons to pass its grant ‘without any further delay’. Besides, ‘our religion is at stake, and I am glad to hear that the Arminians shall be by proclamation cried down. Since it is the first time the king has promised us, let us give him his request, and God’s blessing go with it’. Ibid. iii. 424. However, the Commons was resolved not to finalize the grant of subsidies until their grievances had been redressed, and three days later the session was dissolved.

Fanshawe spent the summer of 1627 on a tour of Yorkshire ‘about His Majesty’s service’ reviewing the copyholds on various Crown lands. LR9/107. He also took an active part in collecting the Forced Loan.R. Cust, Forced Loan, 145-6, 281. In 1628 he stood for Essex as a Court candidate in conjunction with Sir Thomas Edmondes*. Relying on their interest in Waltham forest, they ‘privately procured the writ for Essex, and the sheriff to come to Stratford; but the country, having intelligences from London, came in so fast that they dared not trust them, and so were dismissed without doing anything’ as John Cayworth reported on 7 February. HMC Buccleuch, iii. 324; Cust, 311. Fanshawe’s seat at Lancaster was safe, however, and he was returned for the seventh time. Once again it is impossible to differentiate him from his nephew (Sir) Thomas II, who sat for Hertford, but given his level of activity in previous parliaments it seems likely that most of the speeches made by Sir Thomas Fanshawe were by him. Fanshawe described the Five Knights’ case on 25 Mar. 1628 as ‘the greatest cause that ever was in question’, but declared that it had been fairly argued and decided. CD 1628, ii. 100. Explaining the King’s Bench procedure three days later, he promised ‘I will give all the help I can that they that desire may have precedents’. Ibid. ii. 181. On the committal of (Sir) Henry Stanhope* he assured the House on 5 May that ‘there are precedents in the King’s Bench that they have in parliament time bound Members of this House to the peace by command of this House’. Ibid. iii. 258. Together with Selden, William Hakewill and Edward Littleton, he was ordered to undertake a search, but could produce only a single example. Ibid. iii. 316; CJ, i. 892a. He was appointed to the committee on the bill against begging of forfeitures before attainder (14 May). CJ, i. 897b. When the Stannary Court was under attack on 28 May he said: ‘in the King’s Bench there are daily complaints against this court; no habeas corpus or prohibitions are ever obeyed there’. CD 1628, iv. 6. His main interest, other than office-related business, was religion; he was among those to whom the bill for better maintenance of the clergy was remitted, and on 12 May he was added to the committee for the presentment of recusants. CJ, i. 893a, 896b. He desired ‘that care might be taken in the universities to prevent Arminianism’ (6 June). CD 1628, iv. 157. His last committee was on 20 June ‘to view and dispose the businesses of this House’ including the complaints about composition for knighthood. CJ, i. 916a. In the 1629 session, during the debate on the acquittal of several Roman Catholic priests, he moved to send for the indictment (16 February). CD 1629, p. 216.

As steward of the Crown manor of Barking Abbey since 1612, Fanshawe had been responsible for maintaining a substantial estate adjoining his own property in Essex, and had carried out expensive repairs to Dagenham bridge in 1620 and to the highway from Ilford to Blackwall in 1626. SC6/Jas.I/1683, unfol.; APC, 1626, p. 26. He was rewarded in 1628 when he negotiated to purchase the manorial rights of Barking, reputedly worth £1,200 a year, upon a mortgage for £3,000, a favourable deal that could only have been achieved by taking advantage of his office.VCH Essex, v. 192; J.E. Oxley, Barking Vestry Mins. 1; CSP Dom. 1627-8, pp. 185, 578, 1628-9, pp. 49, 165; Aylmer, 163-4. He had paid just the first instalment of £1,500 when he died, intestate, in his chambers in the Temple on 17 Dec. 1631. He was buried at Barking. Crisp, vi. 150. His Essex landholdings passed to his only surviving son Thomas†, though the inhabitants of Barking complained to Parliament in 1640 that the Fanshawes had by ‘corrupt dealings and undue practices’ deliberately undervalued the estate even at the full purchase price, the residue of which remained unpaid, and petitioned for the manor to be ‘resumed for His Majesty’s advantage’. E192/1/2. Thomas succeeded his father as clerk of the Crown in King’s Bench, and sat for Lancaster in the Long Parliament until disabled as a royalist.