FLEMING, Sir Thomas I (1544-1613), of Lincoln’s Inn, London and North Stoneham, nr. Southampton, Hants.

Fleming was born on the Isle of Wight, and inherited property at both Newport and on the mainland at Winchester. Woodward and Wilks, Hants, ii. 110. Sir John Oglander*, who disliked him, recalled that Fleming’s father ‘sold small wares’ in Newport; but despite these humble beginnings Fleming trained as a lawyer, and owed his early advancement to Sir Francis Walsingham†, the high steward of Winchester, who secured his appointment as the town’s recorder. Atkinson, 92. After becoming Queen Elizabeth’s solicitor general he maintained close links with his native county, purchasing North Stoneham, four miles from Southampton, in 1600. VCH Hants, iii. 479. He also held property in the town, and was appointed recorder of Southampton, a post he felt obliged to resign at James’s accession on the ground of his preoccupation with ‘services and employments about the king’s affairs’. Soton Assembly Bks. 1602-8, pp. 13-14. He nevertheless remained on good terms with the corporation, and was re-elected as Southampton’s senior Member for the first Stuart Parliament. Soton Ct. Leet Recs. 1603-24, pt. 3, ed. F.J.C. Hearnshaw (Soton Rec. Soc. i), 432.

Fleming was appointed early in the first session to the committee for privileges and returns (22 Mar. 1604), and to investigate the grievances propounded by Sir Robert Wroth I* (23 March). CJ, i. 149b, 151a. He was among the experienced Members chosen to investigate the Buckinghamshire election (27 Mar.), to consider a bill to disable outlaws from the Commons (31 Mar.), and to interrogate Buckinghamshire’s sheriff (2 April). Ibid. 156b, 157a, 160a, b, 161a. He was also named to two conferences on the Union with Scotland (14 Apr., 4 May). Ibid. 172a, 199a. He approved the bill to appoint Union commissioners as drafted on 21 May, and the following day was instructed to help resolve the doubts and differences raised by Sir Herbert Croft*. Ibid. 222b, 976b. In the wake of the arrest of Sir Thomas Shirley I* for debt, Fleming was named on 26 Apr. to the committee for a bill to relieve creditors whose debtors had been freed by Parliament, but on 10 May he agreed with Francis Moore that a new bill was required to secure Shirley’s creditors. Ibid. 185a, 968b. He assured the House on 14 May that the king had commanded the warden of the Fleet on his allegiance to obey the Commons’ serjeant-at-arms and release Shirley. Ibid. 972a.

On 23 May Fleming defended the Speaker for delivering to the king a petition from a printer against the bishop of London, on the grounds that it contained charges of treason. Ibid. 978b. As a member of the committee (3 May), he opposed the assarts bill at its third reading on 25 May on the grounds that it was prejudicial to the bishop of Winchester. His request to be heard in this debate ‘in respect of the place he held under the king’ drew from both Sir Francis Bacon and Richard Martin the retort that all Members were equally the king’s counsellors. Ibid. 197b, 226a, 980b. On 2 June Fleming was ordered to take care of the Tunnage and Poundage bill. Ibid. 984b. In a debate on the import of Catholic books, he claimed on 6 June that to his knowledge many printers were of that faith. He also recited ‘many inconveniences in the abuse of printing’, and was named to the committee subsequently appointed. Ibid. 233b, 986b. As the representative of a sea port he was appointed to the committee for the free trade bill (24 Apr.), which measure he supported at its third reading on 6 June as ‘very good and necessary’, with minor amendments. Ibid. 183b, 987b. He attacked the great London Companies for monopolizing trade to the detriment of the outports, claiming that ‘few or none carry cloth in any port towns; almost all in London’. The clothiers, he added, also suffered by having to wait six months for payment or accept a discount. He complained on 23 June of the drafting of the bill to restrain weirs in navigable rivers, but was not named to the committee. Ibid. 245a, 997a. On 6 July, the penultimate day of the session, he supported a bill to annex certain lands inalienably to the Crown, asserting that it would strengthen the monarchy while safeguarding the subject’s rights. Ibid. 252a, 1002a.

As a member of the revived Spanish Company, Fleming tried to secure the free admission of several Southampton merchants as soon as the new charter had been granted in June 1605, although all but one of his requests were refused. Spanish Co. pp. xli, 21, 61. Fleming’s subsequent appointment as chief baron of the Exchequer ended his Commons career, the House resolving on 9 Nov. 1605 that his office precluded his further membership. CJ, i. 257a. In his place he supported his son and heir Sir Thomas Fleming II, who was duly returned at a by-election. He continued to take an interest in the affairs of Southampton, receiving regular gifts of claret and madeira in return for his services. Soton Mayor’s Bk. ed. W.J. Connor (Soton Rec. Ser. xxi), 63, 96, 111; Soton Assembly Bks. 1609-10 ed. Horrocks (Soton Rec. Soc. xxi), 37-8, 75; Soton Assembly Bks. 1611-14, ed. Horrocks (Soton Rec. Soc. xxiv), 26, 50. As chief baron, Fleming presided over the trial of the Gunpowder plotters. After giving judgment in Michaelmas term 1606 for the Crown in Bate’s case, the great precedent that supported James’s right to take impositions, he was promoted to become lord chief justice of King’s Bench. In 1608 he procured a charter for his native town of Newport, where he still occasionally resided. Oglander Mems. 23, 107. He continued to invest in property in the Isle of Wight, acquiring the lease of Carisbrooke Priory in 1606, and the advowson and rectory of Arreston, and various manors nearby, in 1609-10. VCH Hants, v. 150, 151, 229.

Fleming died on 7 Aug. 1613 and was buried at North Stoneham under an elaborate monument containing his effigy. Add. 5836, f. 144v. His terse will, drawn up some three years earlier, and omitting any religious preamble, gave his personal property at North Stoneham to his wife and his extensive lands in the Isle of Wight and elsewhere to his eldest son, whom he appointed sole executor. PROB 11/122, f. 199v. Sir John Oglander* later wrote that ‘during his prosperity he carried himself (not remembering whence he came) not only to those gentlemen which by reason of their age were in former time his betters, but also to all of the younger sort, very haughty and scornful’. I.o.W. RO, OG/AA/16. Nevertheless, Sir Edward Coke*, who staunchly opposed Fleming’s exalted view of the prerogative, conceded that he had discharged all his offices ‘with great judgment, integrity and discretion’ and that ‘he well deserved the goodwill of all that knew him, because he was of a sociable and placable nature and disposition’. Coke, 10th Rep. 1, 34. His portrait by an unknown artist, dated 1596, is held by the National Portrait Gallery.