Good Morning To You, My Gentle Friends,

Sir Thomas Heneage, Knight, was born in 1533, at Copt Hall, Epping, Essex, England, as the first son of Robert Heneage of Lincoln, by his second wife, Lucy Buckton.

Sir Thomas was educated at the Queens' College in Cambridge, in 1549.

Sir Thomas married firstly, Anne Pointz, the Daughter of Sir Michael Pointz, about 1555, in Gloucestershire, England. They had one daughter, Elizabeth Hennage, The Countess of Winchelsea.

Sir Thomas married secondly, Mary, The Daughter of Sir Anthony Browne, The First Viscount of Montagu, on October 17, of either 1594 or 1595. Mary was the Widow of Henry Wriothesley, The Second Earl of Southampton.

Sir Thomas s.p., Suc. Family July 27, 1556. He was Knighted on December 01, 1577. He was Steward, in the Manor of Hatfield in 1561; Gentleman of the Privy Chamber by 1565; Treasurer of the Chamber in 1570. J. P., Essex, Lincolnshire, ( Lindsey ), from about 1573, q. from about 1586; Joint Keeper of Records in the Tower of London in 1576; Deputy Lieutenant of Essex by 1585; Privy Councillor and Vice-Chamberlain on September 06, 1587; Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in 1590; Recorder In Colchester in 1590; High Steward in Hull in 1590, Salisbury in 1591, Winchester in 1592; and Ranger of Waltham Forest.

Sir Thomas Heneage's uncle, who was also Sir Thomas, was a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber and a friend of Henry VIII, who left him two hundred pounds. Heneage's father, Robert Heneage, Esquire, was a Duchy of Lancaster Official, with sufficient influence in Lincolnshire to get his son returned for Stamford in October of 1533. In this Parliament, Sir Thomas Heneage opposed a major government measure, and did not sit again in Parliament until Elizabeth's accession. In 1559, when his fther was dead, and the Stamford seats were pre-empted by Sir William Cecil, Heneage was returned for Arundel, presumably on the nomination of Henry Fitzalan, the Eighteenth Earl of Arundel, who was a personal friend at whose funeral he was a principal mourner. At the 1563election, he was returned for Boston, but was afterwards elected for the county when an unexpected vacancy arose. Thenceforth, he sat for Lincolnshire or Essex.

Little is known about Heneage's career before he entered the Queen's serice. He apparently left the University without taking a degree, and his Cambridge MA and Membrship of Gray[s Inn, Granted in 1564 and 1565, were honorary. He entered the Household, where his wife seems to have held some office, soon after Elizabeth's accession, and rapidly became so favoured a Courtier that by October of 1565, Sir William Cecil wrote that Leicester was growing jealous of his influence. However, his personal relations with Elizaeth, umlike Leicester's and Hatton's, appear to have occasioned no rumours, and his first wife, Anne, was a friend of the Queen.

Any early differences with Leicester were soon overcome, and the two men became friends. In 1571, Leicester thanked Elizabeth for her "special favour used in my behalf" in furthering some suit of Heneage's; and during Leicester's service in the Netherlands, when Heneage went over with messages from the Queen, Thomas Dudley wrote that "her Majesty could not have sent any gentleman of the court that loveth you more dearly".

Among Heneage's other intimates at Court were John Fortescue, whom he appointed Overseer to his Will, Philip Sidney, and Christopher Hatton. During the latter's temporary estrangement from Elizabeth in 1582, after a quarrel over Raleigh's growing influence, Heneage acted as a go-between, giving "tokens" from Hatton to the queen, reporting her reception of them, and doing all he could to restore amicable relations.

"Your knowledge of my love shall suffice. I trust ( he wrote to Hatton ), to satisfy you of my best endeavour to do that which may best content you . . . Water ( Raleigh's nickname ), hath been more welcome than were fit for so cold a season. But so Her Majesty find no hurt by it, I care the less, for I trust it shall make neither me nor my friend wet-shod . . ."

The longest period of Heneage's Court Service was spent in the Office of Treasurer of the Chamber, a post which he retained after becoming Vice-Chamberlain. There are numerous references to payments made to him for such diverse purposes as bringing messages from Ambassadors, decorating the Council Chamber with "boughs and flowers", and providing post horses. The wages of the companies of players who acted before the Queen, and of the bearwards and keepers of wild beasts, also came within his department, and warrants survive for the money "in new pence" which he set asside for "Her Highness's Maundy". He attended well over a hundred Council Meetings between 1587 and 1589, but thenceforth averaged only about fifty, and in some years considerably less. The gaps in his attendance at the Privy Council were sometimes caused by sickness, and sickness may have been the reason for some otherwise puzzling absences from his Parliamentary Duties. His letters, especially towards the end of his life, have a constant refrain of ill-health: "My long, weary and most painful sickness"; "I have had an extreme fit of the stone"; "Having recovered neither my legs or my stomach yet". During the 1593 Parliament he had to hand over to Sir William Cecil the leadership of a Delegation to the Lords concerning the subsidy ( on March 08th ), since he was {then at that very instant very sharply grieved and pained with his infirmity of the gout". On another occasion, "being brought in betwixt two of his men, when he was so troubled with the gout that he could neither go nor stand", he began a speech wtih "Mr. Speaker, I am fitter to cry than to speak".

Like his friend Hatton, Henage spent nearly all of his life in England. The knowledge of Continental Affairs which contemporaries ascribed to him must have been gained almost entirely as second-hand. However, in the spring and summer of 1586, he was in the Netherlands telling Leicester of the Queen's anger at Leicester's assuming the Title of Governor of the Netherlands. Although Heneage himself received an angry letter from Elizabeth for exceeding his instructions he was, on his return from thjis mission, which lasted from February to June, received with marked favour.

Heneage was an avid office-seeker, ready to use his influence with Elizabeth and with influencial statesman to override the claims of others. When the Keepership of the Tower Records, which he wanted for his younger brother, Michael, fell vacnt, he openly opposed the claim of Sir William Cordell, Master of the Rolls, to make the Appointment. A Joint Patent was finally granted to the Heneage Brothers, and Michael continued to hold the office after Thomas's death. Another post, this time temporary, was obtained by the elder Heneage, was that of Treasurer at War for the land forces raised to defend England against the Armada. When on April 06, 1590, Francis Walsingham, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, died, Heneage who since 1576 had been Steward of some of the Duch Lands in Essex, was one of several likely candidates. A week after Walsingham's death, Sir Gilbert Gerard reminded Burghley that legal business needed the speedy appointment of a new Chancellor. He had heard that Burghley was trying to persuade the Quueen to grant the office to Heneage, in the writer's opinion "a fit man". Elizabeth, however, refused to be hurried, and on May 03rd, Heneage himself wrote to Burghley, asking him to raise the matter again. Not until June was he finally granted the Office, receiving the fees from Easter. During the next three years, he was appointed to a number of special Commissions, including those for the trials of Sir John Perrot, Patrick O'Cullen and Dr. Lopez.


TO BE CONTINUED . . .