Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour
Thomas Arundell, 1st Baron Arundell of Wardour (c. 1560 – 7 November 1639) was an English nobleman. He was the second son of Sir Mathew Arundell of Wardour Castle in Wiltshire, a member of the ancient family of Arundells in Cornwall, and of Margaret, daughter of Sir Henry Villoughby.
Arundell was knighted at the coronation of Anne Boleyn in 1533 after having served as Sheriff of Dorsetshire from 1531 to 1532. He also served Cardinal Wolsey as a gentleman of the Privy Chamber. Henry VIII granted him a church at Trescoe of the Scilly Isles in 1545. In 1579 he was personally recommended by Queen Elizabeth to the emperor Rudolph II.
He was appointed in 1535 to the commission for the suppression of religious houses, wherein he made his fortune breaking up the monasteries, transferring their lands and profits to foreign hands.
In 1550 he and his brother were placed in the Tower of London, suspected of involvement with an uprising in Cornwall, where he had recently been appointed receiver-general of the Duchy of Cornwall. Again a victim of politics, he was returned to the tower the very year of his release in 1551, this time relating to the disgrace of Protector Somerset in the early years of Edward VI.
He greatly distinguished himself while serving with the imperial troops against the Turks in Hungary, and at the siege of August 13th 1595, he captured the enemies banner with his own hand.
He was a created a count of the Holy Roman Empire by Rudolph II in December 1595, and returned to England after suffering shipwreck and barely preserving his life in January 1596. His assumption of the foreign title created great jealousy among the English peers, who were wont to give little courtesy to foreign nobles, and he thereby incurred the resentment of his father, who objected to his superior rank and promptly disinherited him.
The queen, moreover, was seriously displeased, declared that "as chaste wives should have no glances but for their own spouses, so should faithful subjects keep their eyes at home and not gaze upon foreign crowns", and committed him to the Fleet immediately on his arrival, while she addressed a long letter of remonstrance on the subject to the emperor.
Thomas Arundell remained under arrest till April, when he was liberated after an examination. That very month, April 1597, however, he was again confined, but declared innocent of any charge save that of practicing to contrive the justification of his vain title with ministers beyond the seas.
In December he was liberated and placed under the care of his father, but next year he was again arrested and accused of a conspiracy against the government. His petitions for a license to undertake an expedition by sea, wherein he declared his end could be "an honor which some base minds call ambition", were refused, but in 1599 he was apparently again restored to favor.
On 4 May 1605 he again fell under suspicion at the time of the Gunpowder Plot.
He was finally brought to trial, acquitted of treason but sentenced to be hanged nonetheless. Luckily, the sentence was commuted to a mere beheading, which was carried out the same day that Sir Ralph Vane (who had stood by his side in trial), Sir Miles Partridge, and Sir Miles Stanhope were likewise executed.
Drawn largely from the eleventh edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica, published in 1911.
External links
Categories: Peers | 1560 births | 1639 deaths