[3] Nicholas Thorne would therefore have finished his training around 1517 and been eligible to become a freeman on Bristol, able to set up his own firm in the town and vote in municipal elections.

In 1526 Thorne had cloth and soap sent from Andalusia to delivered to Santa Cruz in Tenerife, with orders to bring back orchil, sugar and kid skins.

[7] When Henry VIII stayed in his manor at Thornbury in August 1535, Nicholas Thorne was one of three members of Bristol's Common Council who were chosen to visit him, presenting the king with 'ten fat oxen and 40 sheep towards his hospitality' as well as gold and a silver cup.

'[9]Around 1535, Thorne petitioned Henry VIII in relation to his 250-ton ship, the Saviour of Bristol, which was then the port's greatest vessel.

[12] In 1539, the Saviour was conscripted into the navy to defend England against a feared invasion by France and Spain following the excommunication of Henry VIII by the Pope in December 1538.

On 10 April 1539, Thorne reported to Thomas Cromwell, the King's chief minister, that the Saviour was ready to depart Bristol to join the English fleet at Portsmouth ‘with flags and streamers of your Lordship’s colours and arms’.

[16] The ledger of the Bristol merchant, John Smythe, contains numerous references to his commercial dealings of with Nicholas Thorne in the 1540s.

[17] The ledger reveals that in 1540, Thorne, Smythe and a number of other Bristol merchants established a company to import woad dye from the Azores.

[18] The ledger also shows that both Thorne and Smythe, along with many other Bristol merchants were involved in smuggling, illicitly exporting 'prohibited wares' such as foodstuff and leather from England to Spain.

[20] In the Lay Subsidy rolls of 1545, Nicholas Thorne, along with John Smythe, were assessed as the richest citizens of Bristol, each of whom were to pay £15 to the Crown.

The surviving painting of Nicholas Thorne now hanging in Bristol Grammar School, along with a similar one of his brother, Robert, are both copies produced in 1624 from originals borrowed from a Wiltshire family.