Thomas West, 1st Baron West

Thomas West, 1st Baron West (1365 – 19 April 1405)^[1]

Biography

West was the only son of Sir Thomas West (died 3 September 1386),^[2] of de Hampton Cantilupe (1312–1386), and Alice FitzHerbert (died 1395) the sister and co-heiress of Sir Edmund FitzHerbert. ^{[lower-alpha 1]} The younger Thomas almost certainly served alongside his father under Richard II; one of them was in active service in Calais in 1386, the year of his father's death. A knight banneret, he served in Ireland with the Duke of Aumale in 1399, and attended Richard's young Queen Isabella homeward to Calais in 1401.

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

West was knighted in 1399, and summoned to Parliament as Lord West in 1402, by which time he held the manor of Harby, Nottinghamshire. He inherited the manor of Newton Tony, Wiltshire, from his father, and the manors of Midsomer Norton, Somerset, and Hinton Martell, Dorset, from his mother. He was later granted joint custody of Beaulieu Abbey. He died in 1405 and was interred at Christchurch Priory, Dorset.^[3]

Marriage and issue

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),^[4] 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.^[4][5] Joan la Warre was a half sister of John la Warr, 4th Baron De La Warr, and when he died without issue she became heiress to her younger half-brother, Thomas la Warr, 5th Baron De La Warr. They had three sons and a daughter:^[1][5]

• Thomas (d. 29 or 30 September 1416), who married, before 2 July 1406, Ida Saint Amand (6 May 1392  – before 6 November 1416), daughter and co-heiress of Amaury de Saint Amand, 3rd Baron Saint Amand, by whom he had no surviving issue.^[1]
• Reginald.^[6]
• John^[1] (died c.1393),
• Joan, who married firstly Richard Delabere, and secondly William Catesby.^[1]

Notes

1. Sir Thomas West the elder had fought in the Battle of Crécy and the subsequent siege of Calais under the command of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel.

1. Richardson IV 2011, p. 317.
2. Richardson IV 2011, p. 316.
3. Richardson IV 2011, p. 317 notes West left a will date 8 April 1405
4. Richardson II 2011, p. 581.
5. Cokayne 1916, pp. 145–6.
6. Richardson IV 2011, pp. 317–18.

References

• Cokayne, George Edward (1916). The Complete Peerage, edited by H.A. Doubleday IV. London: St. Catherine Press. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G., ed. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families II (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. ISBN 1449966381.
• Richardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G., ed. Magna Carta Ancestry: A Study in Colonial and Medieval Families IV (2nd ed.). Salt Lake City. pp. 316–17. ISBN 1460992709.