HUGHES, Thomas (d.1641), of Uxbridge, Mdx. and Blyth Spital, Notts.

Hughes’s great-grandfather entered Parliament as knight of the shire for Middlesex in 1542; but little else can be discovered of Hughes’s background and upbringing except that his father was convicted for recusancy in 1584. VCH Mdx. iv. 28; Mdx. County Recs. i. 150. He was elected to the third Jacobean Parliament for Appleby on the nomination of his aunt’s husband, the 4th earl of Cumberland (Francis Clifford*). CP, iii. 569. Hughes left no trace on the parliamentary records in 1621, but during the session he obtained admission to Gray’s Inn, giving his address as Uxbridge.

On his marriage in 1623, Hughes presumably leased Blyth Spital from Sir Gervase Clifton*, the husband of his cousin Frances Clifford. A few years later, after Frances died in childbirth, Hughes acted as sponsor at her daughter’s christening. VCH Notts. ii. 165; J. Raine, Blyth Par. 139. He was returned to the next two Parliaments, but again made no recorded contribution to the proceedings, even during the controversy surrounding the election of his cousin, Sir Thomas Wentworth*, in 1625. Wentworth Pprs. ed. J.P. Cooper (Cam. Soc. ser. 4. xii), 109, 228. Hughes dictated his will on 16 Nov. 1640, by which time he was ‘infirm of body’, leaving cash legacies including £100 to his ‘most dear and honoured lord’, Henry, Lord Clifford*, one of the overseers. With no children of his own, he made generous provision for his brother, and various members of the Clifford family received personal bequests, including Hughes’s bed, a white stallion, a falcon and a couple of his best spaniels. Notts. RO, will of Thomas Hughes, Aug. 1641. The last of the family to enter Parliament, he was buried at Blyth on 12 Aug. 1641, at a charge not exceeding £50, if his instructions were followed.