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EYRE, Thomas (d.1628), of Salisbury, Wilts.
Available from Boydell and Brewer
Constituency
Dates
Family and Education
o.s. of Robert Eyre I of Salisbury by his 2nd w. Jane or Jean. m. Elizabeth (d.1612), da. of (?John) Rogers of Poole, Dorset, step-da. of Giles Estcourt of Salisbury, 8s. (3 d.v.p.) 4da.
Offices Held
One of the 24, Salisbury 1572, alderman, mayor 1587, treasurer 1597.1
Biography
Like other citizens, Eyre was involved in a dispute between the corporation and the bishop of Salisbury’s officers over subsidies. This began in 1593 and ended in 1595 in a Star Chamber suit which the corporation lost, Eyre with a number of other Salisbury aldermen being chosen by the corporation to make its submission before the court. On 14 Nov. 1597, soon after the beginning of the 1597 Parliament, he and his fellow MP received instructions from the corporation to prosecute ‘the matter of the poor money’. The following June he was authorized to procure a lease of John Eyre’s house in Castle Street, Salisbury, ‘to make a house of correction ... according to the statute’. He died in 1628, leaving a large family. His eldest son Robert (d.1638), a lawyer, married a daughter of John Still, bishop of Bath and Wells; the second, Giles (1572-1655), a country gentleman seated at Brickworth, was an opponent of James I and Charles I; Christopher (1578-1624), an East India merchant adventurer, became a common councilman of London; Thomas became mayor of Salisbury in 1610, and William, the youngest, was a Lincoln’s Inn lawyer. The eldest of Eyre’s four daughters married Giles Tooker, recorder of Salisbury.2