THORNBURY, Richard

This MP is to be distinguished from his namesake, the son and heir of the Hertfordshire knight, Sir Philip Thornbury*. That Richard died ‘ex morbo pestilenciali’ in 1458; CP25(1)/91/117/181; KB29/88, rot. 11d. the MP survived well beyond that date. The latter was rather the brother of John Thornbury and was probably a cousin of Sir Philip. Nothing is known of his early life, but in about 1434 he married the widow of the influential Rochester man, John Gillingham. He may have owed this match to his brother John, who shortly before had through his own marriage acquired a life interest in the manor of Ospringe, some 20 miles from Rochester. The two brothers were certainly on close terms: in December 1433 Richard and another brother, William, later vicar of Faversham, were named as John’s attorneys to take seisin of that manor; and in February 1435 Richard conveyed two messuages and 16 acres of land in Rochester, the property of his wife, to his two brothers. CP40/705, rot. 202d; E159/210, commissiones, Mich. d; CP25(1)/115/309/382.

Richard’s marriage explains his election to the Parliament of 1435 for Rochester, which his wife’s late husband had represented in the previous two assemblies. C219/14/5. He was, however, not destined to make his career in Rochester, for he was probably already established as a draper in London. When, in Michaelmas term 1438, he was sued with his wife for a debt contracted by Gillingham, he was described as ‘of London, draper’, and soon thereafter there is evidence to show that he was established in the Drapers’ Company. In July 1439 William Knight, the son of another London draper, Stephen, was apprenticed to him. CP40/711, rot. 13d; Cal. Letter Bk. London K, 223. Yet little can be discovered about Thornbury’s commercial activities, and he makes only intermittent appearances in the records. For evidence of his commercial activities: CP40/754, rots. 316d, 350. On 26 Mar. 1441 he made a gift of goods and chattels to a baron of the Exchequer, William Fallan, and a draper, William Thurston; and in June 1446 he was named as a feoffee by Edward North of Middlesex in a property called Le Belle super le Hoop in the parish of St. Andrew by the Wardrobe. On 20 June 1449 he made another conveyance of his own goods, on this occasion to his two brothers and three London drapers; and in March 1452 he joined his brother William in alienating their interests in five tenements in the parish of St. John the Baptist upon Walbrook to a London gentleman, Richard Peverell. Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, p. 165; Corp. London RO, hr 176/27; 180/40-42, 44; CCR, 1447-54, p. 133.

Thereafter, even this modest record of Thornbury’s life diminishes, yet he lived into the 1480s surviving both his brothers. In his will of 10 April 1473 his brother John bequeathed to him, along with various other items, a silver cup that had once been the property of John’s son-in-law, (Sir) William Tyrell II*; and in a will made on 7 Dec. 1480 his other brother, William, the long-serving vicar of Faversham, named him as his executor. Richard made his own will on 25 May 1488, endowing masses for his parents, his two brothers, his two wives, both named Joan, and John’s three wives. PCC 14 Wattys (PROB11/6, ff. 91v-92v); Archaelogia Cantiana, xi. 30; Davis, 80.