HAWLEY, Thomas

Hawley was a junior scion of a family which dominated the parliamentary representation of Dartmouth in the early fifteenth century. His kinsman John Hawley* sat in 12 Parliaments between 1410 and 1432, and John’s synonymous father (who had held the mayoralty of Dartmouth on no fewer than ten separate occasions), had been returned four times in the late fourteenth century. The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 328-9. It thus seems probable that Thomas also owed his election to Parliament to the family’s standing in the town, rather than to any outside intervention. His own career was considerably less distinguished than those of his kinsmen. At the time of his election he may have been attached to the household of John Hawley, for whom he appeared as a mainpernor in a dispute with the Dartmouth merchant Thomas Buk in November 1430, while their opponent fielded such distinguished lawyers as Nicholas Radford*, John Fortescue* and John Wolston*. CCR, 1429-35, pp. 103-4. Like his kinsmen before him, Thomas evidently had maritime interests, and around the time of his return to Parliament he was among a group of men charged with the taking of a great ship called Le Seint Julien of Porsal in Brittany and its cargo. CCR, 1429-35, pp. 117-18.