Sir Thomas Edmonds (1563 – 20 September 1639) was an English diplomat and politician who served under three successive monarchs, Queen Elizabeth I, Kings James I and Charles I, and occupied the office of Treasurer of the Royal Household from 1618 to 1639.
He was the fifth son of Thomas Edmonds (d.1604) of Plymouth in Devon and of Fowey in Cornwall (eldest son of Henry Edmunds of Salisbury in Wiltshire), Customer of Plymouth in 1564, by his first wife Joane de la Bere, a daughter of Anthony De la Bere of Sherborne in Dorset. [2]
He is said to have been introduced at court by another namesake, Sir Thomas Edmonds, Comptroller of the household to Queen Elizabeth I, where he received the rudiments of political education from Sir Francis Walsingham. He was a man of small stature but formidable character: people spoke of "the little man" with respect.
In 1592 the queen appointed Edmonds as her agent in France concerning the affairs of the king of Navarre and the Protestants, in which office he continued until 1596, when the queen appointed him her "secretary of the French tongue". He then returned to Paris in 1597. In 1597 he was elected as a Member of Parliament for Chippenham in Wiltshire, but as he was abroad the seat was occupied by a proxy. In 1600 he was the queen's ambassador at Brussels and one of the commissioners for the peace conference at Boulogne-sur-Mer. In 1601 he was appointed a clerk of the Privy Council, but returned to Paris as minister soon after. He was elected an MP for Liskeard, Cornwall, in 1601.
He was knighted by King James I at Greenwich Palace on 22 May 1603. [3] In 1604 he was sent as ambassador to Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor. Soon after, while still abroad, he was elected a Member of Parliament for Wilton in Wiltshire and was granted the reversion to the office of Clerk of the Crown. He returned to Brussels as ambassador in 1609, and from 1610 served as ambassador to France for seven years.
In 1616 he was appointed Comptroller of the Royal Household and in 1618 Treasurer of the Royal Household, a post he held until his death. He was elected as an MP for Bewdley in 1621, for Chichester in February 1624, for Oxford University, all in the first Parliament of King Charles I in 1625 and in 1628 for Penrhyn. [4] His final diplomatic service was to return as a special ambassador to France in 1629 to ratify a treaty.
On his return to England he retired to Albyns in Essex, a manor he had inherited from his wife, it was said he employed the architect Inigo Jones to rebuild the house. He died on 20 September 1639.
He married Magdalen Wood (died 1614), a daughter and co-heiress of Sir John Wood, Clerk of the Signet.
Their children included:
His second wife was Sara or Sarah Harington (1565-1628), a daughter of Sir James Harington of Exton and Lucy Sidney, and widow of Francis, Lord Hastings, Sir George Kingsmith, and Edward 11th Baron Zouche. Her portrait was painted by Isaac Oliver and by Cornelius Johnson. [5] The portraits by Johnson show her aged 63 wearing a large miniature case referring to Frederick V of the Palatinate with the Greek letter "phi". A similar miniature case was described in an inventory of a Scottish soldier. [6]
Sir John Popham of Wellington, Somerset, was Speaker of the House of Commons, Attorney General and Lord Chief Justice of England.
John Harington, 1st Baron Harington of Exton in Rutland, was an English courtier and politician.
Efford is an historic manor formerly in the parish of Eggbuckland, Devon, England. Today it has been absorbed by large, mostly post-World War II, eastern suburb of the city of Plymouth. It stands on high ground approximately 300 feet above the Laira estuary of the River Plym and provides views over long distances: to the north across Dartmoor, to the east and south-east across the South Hams. It consists predominantly of local authority and housing association properties. Before this land was built upon it was known as 'The Wilds of Efford', and was largely unspoilt countryside and marsh land. That a deer park may have been attached to the manor is suggested by the survival of the street name "Deer Park Drive".
Sir Edward Seymour, 1st Baronet of Berry Pomeroy, Devon, was Member of Parliament for Devon, twice High Sheriff of Devon and an Army Colonel.
Margaret Grey was a Cambro-Norman noblewoman, the daughter of Reginald Grey, 3rd Baron Grey de Ruthyn, a powerful Welsh Marcher Lord, who was the implacable enemy of Owain Glyndŵr.
Sir George Carey, JP, DL, of Cockington in the parish of Tor Mohun in Devon, England, was Lord Deputy of Ireland from May 1603 to February 1604.
Sir Richard Edgcumbe of Cotehele in the parish of Calstock in Cornwall, was an English courtier and Member of Parliament.
Sir Philip Courtenay of Powderham, Devon, was the senior member of a junior branch of the powerful Courtenay family, Earls of Devon.
Sir Thomas Wise, KB, of Sydenham in the parish of Marystow and of Mount Wise in the parish of Stoke Damerel in Devon, was Sheriff of Devon in 1612 and in 1621 served as a member of parliament for Bere Alston in Devon.
Sir Thomas Hele, 1st Baronet was a landowner from Devon and MP on various occasions from 1626 to 1670. A Royalist during the 1642 to 1646 First English Civil War, he raised a regiment of cavalry which served in the West Country and sat in the Oxford Parliament.
Sir Richard Strode of Newnham, Plympton St Mary, Devon and of Chalmington in Dorset, was a member of the Devonshire gentry who served as MP for Bere Alston in 1604, Bridport in 1626 and for Plympton Erle in 1640. He was by religion a puritan and towards the end of his life a baptist. During the Civil War he was a parliamentarian and raised a force of 3,000 dragoons.
Sir Edmund Fowell, 1st Baronet of Fowelscombe in the parish of Ugborough in Devon, was a Member of Parliament for Ashburton in Devon from 1640 to 1648.
Sir William Strode (1562–1637) of Newnham in the parish of Plympton St Mary, Devon, England, was a member of the Devon landed gentry, a military engineer and seven times a Member of Parliament elected for Devon in 1597 and 1624, for Plympton Erle in 1601, 1604, 1621 and 1625, and for Plymouth in 1614. He was High Sheriff of Devon from 1593 to 1594 and was knighted in 1598. In 1599 he was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of Devon. There is a monument to him in the parish church of Plympton St Mary.
Sir Hugh Pollard, 2nd Baronet was an English soldier and MP elected for Bere Alston in 1640, Callington in 1660, and Devon in 1661. He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War.
Sir Reginald Mohun, 1st Baronet of Boconnoc in Cornwall, was a prominent member of the gentry of Cornwall and an MP.
Henry Fownes Luttrell, of Dunster Castle, Somerset, was High Sheriff of Somerset from 1754 to 1755 and a Member of Parliament for the borough of Minehead from 1768 to 1774.
Sir William Cary (1437–1471) of Cockington and Clovelly in Devon was a member of the Devonshire gentry. He was beheaded after the defeat of the Lancastrians at the Battle of Tewkesbury in 1471.
Sir Clement Smith, son of Thomas Smith of Rivenhall, Essex, and Isabel, daughter of William Foster of Little Baddow, Essex, served as an administrator in the reign of Henry VIII and Edward VI. He was Lord Treasurer's Remembrancer in the Exchequer, and was twice MP for Maldon in Essex, in 1545 and 1547. He was knighted by Edward VI on 22 February 1547.
A customer is an archaic term for a government appointed official who is empowered to collect taxation in the form of customs duty in certain defined physical locations or jurisdictions.
Hams is an historic estate situated within the parish of Chudleigh in Devon. The surviving remnant of the former mansion house of the Hunt family, known as Hams Barton is a grade II* listed building, situated one mile north-east of the town of Chudleigh, near Kate Brook.
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