Sir Thomas Wroth (c. 1518 – 9 October 1573) was an English courtier, landowner and politician, a supporter of the Protestant Reformation and a prominent figure among the Marian exiles.
[12][13] (Jane was the widow of Thomas Goodere of Monken Hadley, Middlesex, by whom she had children including Francis, politician,[14] and Anne, wife of Sir George Penruddock of Ivychurch, Wiltshire.)
[25] Cromwell sold the marriage in 1539 to Sir Richard Rich for three hundred marks, who provided for his third daughter, Mary, by arranging her betrothal to Thomas.
[26] Wroth was granted livery of his lands on 24 April 1540, and in that and the following year Rich secured for his daughter's husband the manors of Highbury (forfeited by Cromwell) and Enfield, and of Beymondhall (i.e. Beaumond Hall)[27] at Cheshunt, with its manorial appurtenances in Wormley in Hertfordshire,[28] belonging to various dissolved monasteries.
On 18 December 1544 Wroth was returned to parliament as one of the knights of the shire for Middlesex, and in the following year, reputedly through Thomas Cranmer's influence, was appointed Gentleman-Usher of the Privy Chamber to Prince Edward.
After Somerset's fall Wroth was on 15 October 1549 appointed one of the four principal gentlemen of the privy chamber, his fidelity to the Earl of Warwick's interests being secured by doubling the ordinary salary of £50.
[53] He was one of the adventurers (investors) in the 1552 Second voyage to Barbary (Morocco), led by Thomas Wyndham, which traded for three months at Santa Cruz de Tenerife.
[54] He was also among the investors in the first voyages of Sir Hugh Willoughby and Richard Chancellor in search of a north-east passage to Cathay: his name appears among the incorporated founders of the Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands listed in Mary's charter of February 1554/55, though already then living abroad in exile.
The following day Mary issued orders to William Paget for the leading exiles (Sir Thomas Wroth heading the list of nine names) to be summoned immediately to England, "all excuses, delayes, lettes, hindrances and other occasions happening to you whatsoever utterly sett ap[ar]te", to appear before the King and Queen and privy council on the last day of October to answer such matters as may be objected against them, not failing upon their faith or allegiance.
As Lewknor lay attainted and condemned in the Tower awaiting execution or pardon, Wroth in Strasbourg evaded the unwelcome missive and its unhappy bearer[69] and instead obtained right of residence there.
In Paris in November 1556 he gave information to Mary's ambassador at Poissy, Dr Nicholas Wotton, of French designs to exploit Dudley to subvert the allegiance of the English lieutenant at Hampnes near Calais.
Wotton at once sent him to Sir William Petre in England, bearing ciphered letters commending his loyal intentions and showing that Dudley, hearing of Oliver's petition, had men lying in wait to kill him.
[74] Thomas Wroth, having sent greetings to John Calvin through his friend François Hotman in November 1556,[75] renewed his residency at Strasbourg on 1 September 1557, on the grounds that he could not return to England for reasons of religion.
[78] Lawrence Humphrey (an English theologian who had also remained abroad) dedicated to Wroth his lengthy treatise On Translation, Interpretatio Linguarum,[79] at the suggestion of Edwin Sandys and Sir Francis Walsingham.
He soon sought a constat or exemplification as patentee in his life office of Waltham Forest, which Lord Rich had for his part surrendered and Mary had regranted to the recusant Sir Edward Waldegrave during Wroth's exile.
In June 1562 he was nominated a special commissioner (with which Sir Nicholas Arnold and Sir W. Dixie were associated[87]) to consult with the Lord Deputy of Ireland, Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex, on the government of Ireland, and in particular to mediate in the bitter feud between Sussex and his colleague John Parker, but does not seem to have gone to Dublin (where he made reports upon church reform) until February 1564; he was recalled at his own request in August.
He was assigned to the inquiry into the Papal Bull of Excommunication Regnans in Excelsis against Elizabeth posted in London in 1570, and tasked with the delivery of John Felton[90] to the Lieutenant of the Tower for torture.
In May 1573[93] Wroth in person made a legal claim to the unpaid arrears of an annuity of £20 in respect of his appointment by Patent of Henry VIII[94] as Gentleman-Usher of the Privy Chamber to Prince Edward,[95] none of which he had ever received.
[97] John Ludham, vicar of Wethersfield, Essex, 1570–1613,[98] dedicated his work The Course of Christianity (1579),[99] a translation of the De Sacrae Scripturae Lectione ac Meditatione Quotidiana of Andreas Hyperius,[100] to Lady Mary Wroth, Sir Thomas's widow.