Family and Education

b. by 1513, 2nd but o. surv. s. of John Warren of Dover by Jane, da. of John Monninges of Swanton. m. Christian Close of Calais, at least 1s. suc. fa. 1547.2

Offices Held

Councilman and chamberlain, Dover 1547-8, jurat for every year for which records survive from Sept. 1551 to 1557, mayor 1548-9, 1549-50, 1557-8, 1574-5; bailiff to Yarmouth 1553.3

Biography

Thomas Warren, whose father and grandfather had both sat in Parliament for Dover, himself became an important local figure. He first represented the port at the Brotherhood in 1534 and is next heard of as clerk of call at the building of Sandgate castle in 1539. He appears to have played a leading part in the controversies in the port during the reigns of Edward VI and Mary, although the details have not survived. In June 1549 he arbitrated in a dispute between Thomas Portway and John Bodending.4

According to a local historian, Warren was elected mayor in September 1550 but removed from office by order of the Privy Council in January 1551 and replaced by Portway; in the Dover hundred court book, however, Portway appears as mayor on 17 Oct. 1550. On 24 May 1553 Warren was cited to appear, with Robert Nethersole, in a case brought against them by a widow, Anne White. When other writs were sent on 3 June and 13 Sept. the mayor returned that he was ‘not within our jurisdiction’, yet on 17 Sept. he was appointed canopy bearer at the coronation and two days later he was one of those who indemnified the port against the legal consequences of setting aside the parliamentary election of Thomas Colly and Portway two days before. In December 1553 Colly and Warren were each bound in £20 to keep the peace with one another and in January 1554 both were fined for misbehaviour before the mayor and jurats. A month later Warren and others appeared before the Privy Council to answer the charge that the port had given passive support to Wyatt’s rebellion. On 22 July 1554 Robert Nethersole was cited to answer certain charges made by Warren, who was himself summoned on 8 Sept. to answer further charges made by the widow White. In 1556 Warren and a Mr. Foxley were paid £11 as solicitors appointed by the port, probably in connexion with the new charter then granted. The last reference to Warren in the town books of Dover occurs on 21 Sept. 1577. He probably then retired to Ripple where he was living when he made his will on 11 Apr. 1591. It was proved on the following 16 June.5

The town books are missing for the early years of the reign of Edward VI but Warren’s attendance at the Parliament of 1547 can be followed in the municipal accounts. He and Joseph Beverley presented their account for 54 days’ attendance at the first session from 2 Nov. to 25 Dec. 1547, and for this they were allowed £10 16s. at a rate of 2s. a day each: they had also paid 4s. to the clerk of the crown for the return, 4s. to the serjeant for placing them and 5s. to the keeper of the door, and they themselves expected 10s. for ‘penning of a book concerning the passage’. In this accounting year Warren was paid £4 of what was due to him. On 23 Nov. 1548 he rode again to London to attend the second session which opened the next day: remaining there for 36 days, he arrived home on 26 Dec. He went back to London on 4 Jan. and stayed there for 70 days, arriving in Dover again on 16 Mar., two days after the session ended. For this attendance he received £10 12s., with a further payment of 34s.6d. outstanding from the year before. On 17 Dec. 1549 both Members came away from the third session which had opened on 4 Nov. and Beverley, who alone seems to have received wages for this session, went up again early in January. It was Beverley who set out first for the final session, leaving on 23 Jan. 1552, the day that it opened, and taking with them ‘our charter to go the Parliament’; Warren followed on 6 Feb. and after his return he was paid on 7 May for 64 days’ attendance, at the rate of 2s. a day, a total of £6 8s., with another 2s. for placing.6

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: Patricia Hyde

Notes

• 1. Hatfield 207.
• 2. Date of birth estimated from first reference. Vis. Kent (Harl. Soc. lxxv), 45; Chron. Calais (Cam. Soc. xxxv), 39.
• 3. Dover accts. 1547-58, ff. 34, 63, 92; hundred ct. bk. 1545-58, ff. 88, 116; Egerton 2094, f. 171; 2095, passim; Cinque Ports White and Black Bks. (Kent Arch. Soc. recs. br. xix), 240, 242, 248, 256, 300, 307.
• 4. Cinque Ports White and Black Bks. 218; LP Hen. VIII, xiv; Egerton 2093, f. 136.
• 5. J. Bavington Jones, Dover Annals, 244, 297; Dover hundred ct. bk. 1545-58, f. 192; accts. 1547-58, ff. 220v, 302; Egerton 2094, ff. 79, 89, 90v, 92, 95, 109v, 110, 223-4, 2095, f. 4; APC, iv. 393; Canterbury prob. reg. A48, f. 243.
• 6. Dover accts. 1547-58, ff. 53, 61, 85v, 114, 150v, 163-4.