Sir Thomas Bromley (1530 – 11 April 1587) was a 16th-century lawyer, judge and politician who established himself in the mid-Tudor period and rose to prominence during the reign of Elizabeth I.

[10] This he clearly did, as he received the degree of Bachelor of Civil Law from Oxford University in 1560[11] He also rose at his Inn: by February 1563 he was a member of the parliament of the Inner Temple, like his brother George.

On 25 October 1573 Bromley was chosen to be Lent Reader for the following year but the honour was deferred until 1575 because of the pressure of parliamentary business, with Edmund Anderson standing in for him.

On 19 November a levy was imposed on all members clear immediate debts, graded according to status, with Bromley and his fellow-benchers paying 13s.

The High Sheriff of Shropshire had a considerable say in elections,[23] and in that year was Richard Newport, son-in-law of the chief justice Thomas Bromley and another Inner Templar.

The seat was in the gift of Henry FitzAlan, 19th Earl of Arundel,[26] a Shropshire landowner and the high steward of the borough, who was a friend and patron of Bromley.

[15] They were prominent Marian exiles who had entrusted much of their property to a lawyer, Walter Herenden of Gray's Inn, with the unwritten proviso that he return it when the persecution was over.

[32] Broke and Onslow, like other London recorders, had represented the City as MPs, but Parliament ordered Bromley to continue as MP for Guilford, as noted above.

However, Bromley played a notable part in 1571 trial of Thomas Howard, 4th Duke of Norfolk, suspected of collusion with the Northern Earls and of involvement in the Ridolfi plot.

[31] His only evidence of Norfolk's involvement in a plot to invade England and remove the queen was an alleged deciphered copy of a letter given to one Barker to deliver to the Duke.

Bromley was forced to resort to hearsay evidence: that a foreign ambassador in Flanders had heard about the plot and one of his servants had mentioned it to an unnamed English government minister.

None of the links in this chain of intelligence gathering was available to give evidence or face questioning but Bromley's allegations were accepted as having explicit royal warrant.

[35] The following year Bromley was one of those sent to Sheffield to lay charges before Mary, Queen of Scots,[15] with the aim of getting her to renounce her claim on both the English and Scottish thrones and to transfer her rights to her son, James.

[4] The queen had sent Burleigh and the Earl of Leicester, the main rivals for her attention, to York House, the Lord Keeper's residence, to collect the Great Seal of the Realm from Lady Bacon.

Bernardino de Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador reported home that Leicester and Hatton had recommended Bromley, hoping to use him as a supporter of the proposed marriage of the queen to Francis, Duke of Anjou,[15] who was sympathetic to the Huguenot cause.

Bromley was duly appointed both Keeper of the Great Seal and Lord Chancellor, over the head of Gerard, who was compensated two years later with the post of Master of the Rolls.

The defendant, Henry Shelley, who was successful, was a committed Protestant: the lessor of the plaintiff, Richard Shelly had been imprisoned as a Catholic the previous year.

Bromley was then instructed to tell the Commons to elect a new Speaker for themselves, with the admonition that they were not to "intermeddle with any matter touching her Majesty's person or estate, or Church government."

In 1580 he was licensed to import 200 packs of wool annually from Ireland,[4] an opportunity that reinforced his natural inclination to side with the Shropshire towns against the monopolistic claims of Chester.

[36] In 1582 he was able to use his influence with the queen to thwart attempts to shift production of cloth from Welsh wool back into Wales and to move the staple to Chester, winning the approbation of the merchants and municipalities of Shrewsbury and Oswestry, who had most to lose from the proposed changes.

In 1585 he obtained the right to grant licences for alnage, or supervision of the quality of woollen cloth – a position of mutual advantage for himself and his regional allies.

A major academic honour accorded to Bromley in 1585 was appointment as deputy chancellor[11] of Oxford University, in succession to the Earl of Leicester, who was embarking on his expedition to the Netherlands.

[15] Royal grants and purchases allowed Bromley to build up a significant property portfolio across his native Shropshire and the neighbouring counties of Worcestershire and Montgomeryshire.

The manor of Wick Episcopi, formerly an estate of the Bishop of Worcester, as the name suggests, certainly was granted to Thomas Bromley by the queen in 1586 and subsequently had a similar history.

In September 1586 Bromley was actively involved in the examination and trial of Anthony Babington and his associates,[55] whose conspiracy had aimed to assassinate Elizabeth and to enthrone Mary, with her knowledge.

It consisted of 36 of the 45 privy counsellors, judges and peers, who had been appointed to the commission and assembled on 11 November 1586 at Fotheringhay Castle, where Mary was imprisoned.

Bromley maintained personal respect towards Mary throughout the trial[45] but continued to insist that "neither her imprisonment nor her prerogative of Royal Majesty could exempt her from answering in this kingdom.

However, the real reasons for his execution remain mysterious and it is not at all clear that he was a religious conservative: in fact, his earlier period in favour had been because of his kinship to Anne Boleyn but he seems to have been on poor terms with Thomas Cromwell.

One of her brothers was John Fortescue of Salden, who had been in Princess Elizabeth's service during the reign of her Catholic sister, Mary I, and proved a pillar of the Elizabethan regime and a persistent parliamentarian, later becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer.

[64] Another brother, Thomas, seems to have negotiated Elizabeth's marriage with Bromley, purchasing part of the manor of Holt from Anthony Bourne to settle on her in 1578.