Thomas Thursby (d.1543)
Thomas Thursby (1487–1543) of Ashwicken was a notorious land encloser in Norfolk in the 1510s–1540s. Life. He was the son of Thomas Thursby (d.1510), merchant, three times Mayor of King's Lynn and the founder and benefactor of Thoresby College. The great wealth inherited to him by his father enabled him to amass large tracts of arable land, which he then enclosed, turning out the landless peasants who had hereto lived there. It also meant a serious threat against their livelihood, the common ground previously having been available to grazing for the livestock of everyone. "The Norfolk  Heritage" writes about one of these villages, Holt:"This is the site of the medieval village of Holt, which disappeared when the landlord, the notorious Thomas Thursby, enclosed the land and converted it to pasture for his sheep. Holt was the only Norfolk village recorded in the Commission of Inquiry in 1517 as being totally depopulated in this way." His dealings were part of an inquest which took place in 1517, he was sued in the Court of Requests by the inhabitants of Middleton in 1540, and a case was made against him in 1549, years after was he was long  dead, for enclosing the salt fen that had always been common to Middleton, but also used by Runcton, West Winch, Setchey and Hardwick. K.J. Allison writes in "The Sheep-Corn Husbandry of Norfolk in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries" of the tenant of the "notorious" Thomas Thursby that he "converted their holdings to sheep pasture, evicted them from their dwellings, deprived them of their commons, and pulled down their houses in numerous villages, and also mentions the lost villages, including four that are now deserted." Land holdings. He inherited Mintlyn, Geyton Thorp, Gayton, Congham and Rydon from his father. In  a tax assessment of 1524 Thomas Thursby, Esq. is listed as the wealthiest landowner in Gayton. There is a reference in the record of a lawsuit in the Court of Star Chamber during the reign of Henry VIII to Thomas Thursby's ‘mansion place’ in Gayton. The manors of Rustons and Redehall, moiety of manor of Bawdsey and all possessions in Gayton, Gaytonthorpe, Congham, Rydon, Bawsey, Walton and Rysing was settled on his wife-to-be Anne Knyvett in their marriage settlement of 31 May 1527. The manor of Rysyng was in the hands of the Crown as part of  the duchy of Cornwall, but had been let in 1516 for twenty-one years to Thomas Thursby, of Bishop's Lynne, for 50/. The manors of Rustons and Redehall and possessions Gayton, Gaytonthorpe and Rydon were inherited by his son Edmund. Thomas Thursbye of Gayton, esquire, alias of Lynn, merchant, was involved in a suit with Juliana, the widow of Sir Robert Norwich (d.1535), Chief Justice of the Common Pleas in 1538–1544. Before 31 May 1527 Thomas Thursby bought the manor of Ashwicken. Ashwicken had previously belonged to another branch of the Thursby family, the grandson of his uncle Robert  Thursby, his cousin also named Thomas Thursby (1498–1532). The Dispute of the Salt Fen. After the dissolution the Haveless lands were bought by Thomas Thoresby, presumably on 23 August 1540, and he came into conflict with the men of Middleton over the ownership of Salt Fen situated between Middleton and Haveless. He is described as a country gentleman. This dispute was not isolated. He was accused before the Star Chamber in 1535 of attacks on Adam and Ann Foster of Gayton in a dispute over lands and similarly in 1537 for assaults on Nicholas Gurling of Grimston. Edmund Beaupré of  the Beauprés of Beaupré Hall was the guardian of Thomas Thursby's relative Edward Thursby of Doreward's Hall during his minority from 1541. Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire. He may have been the Thomas Thursby of Caxton, Cambridgeshire who was Sheriff of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire for a year from 9 November 1513. By 1509, Caxton was held by the sisters Margaret née Burgoyne (d.1529), wife of George Heveningham (d.1530), and Elizabeth Burgoyne, wife of Thomas Thursby. His first cousin once removed by the same name would in 1513 have been a boy of 15, and therefore unlikely to have  been sheriff. Like with Ashwicken, it is possible that this Thomas Thursby (d.1543) bought Caxton from his relatives. It is found again as the property of the grandson of this Thomas Thursby (d.1543) also called Thomas Thursby (d.1633) in 1578. Marriage. He married Anne Knyvett, lady in waiting to Queen Katherine of Aragon. Marriage preparations were under way 31 May 1527. Anne Knyvett was the daughter of Sir Thomas Knyvett and his wife Muriel, widow of John Grey, 2nd Viscount Lisle, and daughter of Thomas Howard, 2nd Duke of Norfolk and Elizabeth Tilney. She was the sister of Sir Edmund  Knyvett and a first cousin of Anne Boleyn and Katherine Howard. Through her mother's first marriage Anne Knyvett was also the sister of Elizabeth Grey, Viscountess Lisle, who was at one time betrothed to Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk. After Thomas Thursby's death in 1543, Anne Knyvett remarried by license dated 26 January 1543/4 to Henry Spelman, the son of Sir John Spelman (d.1546) and the father of Sir Henry Spelman and of Erasmus Spelman, whose son Henry went to Virginia. Children. Children of Thomas Thursby: Death. Thursby died some time between 24 October 1543, when he  wrote his will, and the following 13 February when it was proved.