MYND (MYN), Thomas (1510-77), of Isleworth, Mdx. and London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. 8 July 1510, 2nd s. of Richard Mynd of Myndtown, Salop by 2nd w. Ankeret, da. of John Leighton of Church Stretton, Salop. m. Anne, ?da. of Martin Dockwra of Thatcham, Berks., s.p.1

Offices Held

Biography

The Mynd family took its name from Myndtown, where it seems to have been established since at least the 14th century. It was there that Thomas Mynd was born. His mother also came of an ancient line, while his uncle and aunt, John and Elizabeth Mynd, are said to have married into the Plowdens, another old Shropshire family, probably an aunt and uncle of Edmund Plowden, who moved to Berkshire and sat for Wallingford in Mary’s first Parliament. Plowden Hall is only two miles from Myndtown, and just as the Englefield connexion had probably secured Edmund Plowden a seat in Berkshire, so Plowden may in turn have drawn Mynd in the same direction. Alternatively, or in addition, Mynd’s appearance in Berkshire may have been due to his marriage: his wife, if correctly identified as the daughter, unmarried at her father’s death in 1534, of Martin Dockwra, was the sister of Edmund Dockwra.2

Mynd became a feoffee for two Berkshire manors of Sir Humphrey Forster of Aldermaston in 1550, the year when Plowden acquired a stewardship in the same county. His life before that date is obscure: it presumably had not included education at an inn of court, since on 7 May 1553 he paid 53s.4d. for a special admission to the Inner Temple. He is not known to have bought property in Berkshire but in his will he refers to his having moved his residence to London some time after the death of Sir John Pollard in 1557. Pollard, who was twice Speaker under Mary, lived hear Wallingford at Nuneham Courtnay, and he may well have helped to procure Mynd’s return to Parliament. Both through Plowden, Pollard’s legal associate and friend, and directly—he acted as an executor for Pollard—Mynd could count on the Speaker’s favour. He would not have done so, however, unless he had been at least a reputed Catholic, a religious position which might also explain why, after sitting in Mary’s last two Parliaments and Elizabeth’s first one, he was not to be returned again. The reason for his arrest during his first Parliament at the instance of one ‘Tussard’ or Tusser (possibly Andrew Tusser or Clement Tusser, the former a colleague of Edmund Plowden) is unknown, but on 20 Nov. 1555 the House reacted to this breach of privilege by ordering Tusser to pay the serjeant’s expenses and to withdraw the action.3

Mynd died on 7 Feb. 1577 and was buried in the church of St. Faith by St. Paul’s, perhaps his parish church.4

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: T. F.T. Baker

Notes

  • 1. Date of birth from MI, W. Dugdale, St. Paul’s (1658), 120. Vis. Salop (Harl. Soc. xxix), 370; PCC 6 Daughtry.
  • 2. R. W. Eyton, Salop, ix. 273; H. Owen and J. B. Blakeway, Shrewsbury, ii. 123; S. Barfield, Thatcham, ii. 250-1.
  • 3. CPR, 1549-51, p. 201; 1553, p. 272; 1555-7, pp. 214, 333; Cal. I. T. Recs. i. 169; CJ, i. 44.
  • 4. Dugdale, 120.