Thomas West, 1st Baron West

He was the only son of Sir Thomas West (1321–3 September 1386[3]) of Hempston Cauntelow in Devon (named after its lords the Cantilupe family whose heiress Eleanor de Cantelowe married Sir Thomas West (1251–1344)), by his wife Alice FitzHerbert (died 1395), a sister and co-heiress of Sir Edmund FitzHerbert, both children of Sir Reynold Fitzherbert of Midsomer Norton, Somerset, members of the venerable Winchester family.

[4] Sir Thomas West (d.1386) had fought in the Battle of Crécy and the subsequent siege of Calais under the command of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel.

A knight banneret, he served in Ireland with the Duke of Aumale in 1399, and attended Richard's young Queen Isabella of Valois homeward to Calais in 1401.

When West was seventeen, he and his mother and sister Eleanor were assaulted and robbed, by Sir Nicholas de Clifton, who carried his sister off; he was probably the same Nicholas de Clifton who later married her.

[5][6] West married, before 2 May 1384, Joan La Warre, widow of Ralph de Wilington (d. 16 August 1382) of Sandhurst, Gloucestershire, and daughter of Roger la Warr, 3rd Baron De La Warr (d. 27 August 1370),[7] and his second wife, Eleanor Mowbray, daughter of John de Mowbray, 3rd Baron Mowbray, by Joan of Lancaster, daughter of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster.