[1][2] Nicholas Barham was called to the bar at Gray's Inn in 1542, became an 'ancient' of that society 24 May 1552, Lent reader in 1558, and was made serjeant-at-law in 1567, having previously (1562–3) been returned to parliament as member for Maidstone, of which town he also appears to have been recorder.
He is, however, so designated in papers relating to the trial of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, for high treason in conspiring with Mary, Queen of Scots to depose Elizabeth, in 1571–2.
When the duke, after the confession of the witness had been read, remarked that 'Banister was shrewdly cramped when he told that tale,’ Barham, who had been present at the examination, replied 'No more than you were.'
Jencks had spoken badly of dignities and kept away from church; the university authorities had him arrested and sent to London to undergo examination, and he was returned to Oxford to stand trial.
He was the owner of two estates, one of which, known as Bigons or Digons, he had acquired by grant from the crown in 1554, the former proprietor having been implicated in the insurrection of Sir Thomas Wyatt; the other, the manor of Chillington, he purchased about the same time.