Thomas Bromley

Sir Thomas Bromley (1530 – 11 April 1587) was a 16th-century lawyer, judge and politician who established himself in the mid-Tudor period and rose to prominence during the reign of Elizabeth I. He was successively Solicitor General and Lord Chancellor of England. He presided over the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots and died three months after her execution.

Thomas Bromley was born around 1530. He was the second son of^[1][2]

• George Bromley of
  Hodnet, close to Market Drayton in Shropshire
  , the son of William Bromley of Mitley and Beatrix Hill.
• Jane Lacon, daughter of Sir Thomas Lacon of Willey, Shropshire.

The Bromleys originated in

The family tree illustrates Thomas Bromley's relationship to the rest of the Bromley dynasty and to their main allies, the Hill, Corbet and Newport families.

Both Thomas Bromley and his elder brother, George, were trained in law and

the House at this present is greatly indebted and far behindhand, by reason whereof it is the worse served both of bread, drink, meat, and divers other things, for that the creditors are not in any reasonable and convenient time paid such sums of money as are due unto them for their wares.[19]

A butler was deputed to persecute members for their outstanding fees, on pain of physical exclusion from the premises, and a few months later, pleading inflation of food prices, the members were made chargeable for their actual consumption. Bromley continued in office the following year, listed as appearing at the parliament as treasurer.^[20] Financial reform continued, with the cook made chargeable for future losses of pewter dishes – a major expense in the past. Bromley's appointment for a third term was noted in November 1575.^[21]

• Colleagues and patrons
• 
  Effigy of Thomas Bromley, the chief justice, who left a small but useful annuity to support young Bromley's studies.
• 
  Portrait, claimed to be of Richard Onslow, a noted

  Puritan

  lawyer and Bromley's predecessor as recorder of London.
• 
  Sir Edmund Anderson, who stood in for Bromley during his final illness, as well as in Inner Temple matters.
• 
  The Earl of Arundel, a sponsor of Bromley's parliamentary career.
• 
  Sir Nicholas Bacon, long a friend and patron of Bromley and his predecessor as Lord Chancellor.

Bromley sat as a member of the Parliament of England three times, all fairly early in his career, before he achieved major promotion as a judge.^[4]

In 1558 Bromley was MP for the Shropshire borough of

In 1559 Bromley was returned to parliament by Wigan. This was dominated by the Duchy of Lancaster and the Earl of Derby.^[25] Although it is not known precisely how Bromley obtained the seat, the duchy too had a preference for lawyers. It generally secured the return of a member of the Gerard family, another gentry-lawyer dynasty, and Bromley's colleague on this occasion was William Gerard.

It is much clearer how Bromley came to be MP for

Through family influence as well as the patronage of

• Clients and friends
• 
  Sir William Cordell
• 
  Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon
• 
  Francis Russell, 2nd Earl of Bedford
• 
  Catherine, dowager Duchess of Suffolk
• 
  Sir Francis Drake
• 
  William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley

In 1566 Bromley was appointed recorder of the City of London in succession to Richard Onslow, who had become Solicitor General.^[27] This was a post occupied for a considerable period of the Mid-Tudor period by Shropshire lawyers: Robert Broke had held it for nine years.^[32] Broke and Onslow, like other London recorders, had represented the City as MPs, but Parliament ordered Bromley to continue as MP for Guilford, as noted above.

On 14 March 1569^[3] Bromley was appointed Solicitor General, again succeeding Onslow.^[15] The following year he was sent north to take part in the trials following the Revolt of the Northern Earls, which had been suppressed largely through the efforts of Hunsdon. He was greatly embarrassed by an accusation that he had helped Richard Dacres, an attainted rebel who was a distant relative.

However, Bromley played a notable part in 1571 trial of

On 26 April 1579 Bromley was appointed Lord Chancellor, although he had been made a Privy Counsellor as early as 11 March.^[15]

Bromley succeeded Sir Nicholas Bacon, who had died on 20 February 1579.^[38] Bacon had been Lord Keeper of the Great Seal and, on investiture, had been given all the powers of a Lord Chancellor,^[39] but never the office itself, probably because of his relatively humble origins.^[4] The queen had sent Burleigh and the Earl of Leicester, the main rivals for her attention, to York House, the Lord Keeper's residence, to collect the Great Seal of the Realm from Lady Bacon.^[38] The queen then took the seal into her own custody and gave it to Burleigh or Leicester alternately, with Walsingham substituted when Leicester was away.

The reason for the delay was probably the internal debate and manoeuvring over the succession. Gilbert Gerard had been made Attorney General in 1559, immediately after the queen's coronation, and there is a tradition that he had been her lawyer during the reign of Mary.

In 1581 Bromley played an important part in securing a judgment in Shelley's Case, which was for centuries a leading case in property law,^[36] although now superseded by legislation. Although the judgment was generally accepted, along with Bromley's part in it, the immediate motivation for it was political.^[15] The roots of the case went back more than 30 years: Sir William Shelley, the purchaser of the estates at issue had died in 1549. The queen instructed Bromley to assemble the judges to make a definite ruling. The defendant, Henry Shelley, who was successful, was a committed Protestant: the lessor of the plaintiff, Richard Shelly had been imprisoned as a Catholic the previous year.

The 1582 case of

Bromley was called upon to settle a number of important parliamentary matters. In 1581, Richard Broughton, one of the members for Stafford, informed Parliament that his colleague, probably Thomas Purslow,^[46] had been indicted for a felony. Bromley wrote to the Commons, claiming that he had been pressured to issue a writ for a by-election.^[4] This he refused to do unless and until the member was convicted – a decision that was welcomed by the Commons.^[15]

On 16 January the following year, representatives of the Commons approached Bromley for advice because the

In 1582 the queen consulted Bromley about her proposed marriage to the Duke of Anjou,^[15] which he and the Leicester faction now opposed. Bromley stressed that Parliament would expect the queen to settle the succession question if she married a Catholic, which she was reluctant to do.

Bromley had reached the peak of his power and influence and reaped both prestige and wealth, not all of it from judicial sources. In 1580 he was licensed to import 200 packs of wool annually from Ireland,

A major academic honour accorded to Bromley in 1585 was appointment as deputy chancellor[11] of Oxford University, in succession to the Earl of Leicester, who was embarking on his expedition to the Netherlands.^[15]

Royal grants and purchases allowed Bromley to build up a significant property portfolio across his native Shropshire and the neighbouring counties of

In the 1580s came another spate of plots against the regime, centred on Mary, Queen of Scots. Henry Percy, 8th Earl of Northumberland was arrested in the aftermath of the Throckmorton Plot of 1583 on suspicion of complicity^[15] but later released. After contacting the French ambassador, he was rearrested and imprisoned in the Tower of London, where he was found dead in his cell on 21 June 1585.^[36] Three days later a commission of inquiry in the form of a meeting of peers in the Star Chamber. Bromley announced that Northumberland had committed suicide after participating in a conspiracy, although suspicions remained that he had been murdered.

On 23 November 1585 Parliament was convened specifically to confront the issue of the Scottish queen.^[54] There were legal difficulties inherent in trying Mary before the House of Lords, as she was not an English peeress, and an ordinary criminal trial would lead to political difficulties abroad. Bromley announced at the opening a bill to provide for the trial of Mary, using a special court of at least 24 peers and privy counsellors. This soon passed into law.

In September 1586 Bromley was actively involved in the examination and trial of Anthony Babington and his associates,^[55] whose conspiracy had aimed to assassinate Elizabeth and to enthrone Mary, with her knowledge. The following month, after the execution of the plotters, Bromley moved to convene a court to try Mary herself.

As Lord Chancellor, it was Bromley who presided over the court which tried Mary, Queen of Scots. It consisted of 36 of the 45 privy counsellors, judges and peers, who had been appointed to the commission and assembled on 11 November 1586 at

He then outlined the case to the House of Lords and both houses resolved to petition the queen for immediate execution.[59] The address was delivered by Bromley and Elizabeth assented, although she did not actually sign the death warrant until 1 February 1587,^[60] after much hesitation. Bromley appended the Great Seal and the warrant was entrusted to William Davison. Even then it took a small secret Privy Council meeting under Burleigh to make the decision for action and Davison was held responsible by the queen.

Mary, queen of Scots, was executed at Fotheringhay on 7 February 1587. When Parliament assembled eight days later, Bromley was too ill to attend and his place was taken by Edmund Anderson.^[15] He died on 12 April at the age of 57 and was buried in Westminster Abbey on 2 May.

Bromley's demise is often attributed to strain of the trial and the responsibility of ordering the execution of a monarch,^[36][29] and to his apprehension at Elizabeth's response to the execution.^[60] However, this corresponds to no specific illness, but it is a recurring motif found in accounts of other 16th-century judges, like Richard Morgan.^[61] Foss gave no explanation of Bromley's death^[45] and more recent sources do not speculate. He was not a young man by the standards of the time: his namesake and cousin, the chief justice, died probably at a slightly earlier age.^[10]

Bromley married, by 1560 at latest,

Elizabeth Fortescue was one of the offspring of Sir Adrian's second marriage, to Anne Rede. One of her brothers was John Fortescue of Salden, who had been in Princess Elizabeth's service during the reign of her Catholic sister, Mary I, and proved a pillar of the Elizabethan regime and a persistent parliamentarian, later becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer.^[63] Her brother Anthony Fortescue, on the other hand, actually was a Catholic conspirator, closely involved with the Pole family.^[64] Another brother, Thomas, seems to have negotiated Elizabeth's marriage with Bromley, purchasing part of the manor of Holt from Anthony Bourne to settle on her in 1578.^[52]

Bromley and Elizabeth had four sons and four daughters.^[4] Of these:

• Sir Henry Bromley, the eldest son and heir, and a politician of at least regional importance, married Elizabeth Pelham. Their son,

• Thomas Bromley, was an MP of the early 17th century.

• Elizabeth Bromley married
  Oliver Cromwell, uncle of the Lord Protector
• Anne Bromley married Richard Corbet, son of Reginald Corbet (a distinguished judge) by his wife Alice Gratewood niece and heiress of Sir Rowland Hill; their son:

• Presbyterian leader regionally during the English Civil War
  .

• Meriel Bromley married John Lyttelton. They were the ancestors of the Lyttelton Baronets and Barons Lyttelton
  .

• Bindoff, S.T., ed. (1982). The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 10 March 2014.

• John Lord Campbell (1868). Lives of the Lord Chancellors and Keepers of the Great Seal of England, 5th edition, Volume II. John Murray, London. Accessed 26 March 2014 at Internet Archive.
• Chambers, John (1817). A General History of Malvern. London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and Brown. Retrieved 4 January 2010.
•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bromley, Sir Thomas". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 633.
• Cokayne, George E. (1902). Complete Baronetage, Volume II
  . W. Pollard, Exeter. Retrieved 10 April 2014.

• Kathy Lynn Emerson (2008–14). "A Who's Who of Tudor Women". Wives and Daughters: The Women of Sixteenth Century England. Retrieved 1 April 2014.
• Fortescue, George Knottesford (1889). "Fortescue, Adrian" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 20. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Fortescue, George Knottesford (1889). "Fortescue, Anthony" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 20. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Edward Foss (1857). The Judges of England, with Sketches of their Lives, Volume 5. Longman. Retrieved 26 March 2014.

• Joseph Foster, ed. (1891). "Braly-Bruer". Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 26 March 2014.
• George Grazebrook and
  Clarenceux king of arms. With additions from the pedigrees of Shropshire gentry taken by the heralds in the years 1569 and 1584, and other sources, Harleian Society. Accessed 26 March 2014 at Internet Archive
  .
• John Hamilton, John Andrew (1886). "Bromley, Thomas (1530-1587)" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 6. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
• Hasler, P.W., ed. (1981). The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1558-1603. Boydell and Brewer. Retrieved 26 March 2014.

• A History of the County of Worcester: volume 3. Institute of Historical Research. 1913. Retrieved 1 April 2014.

• Frederick Andrew Inderwick (editor) (1896). A Calendar of the Inner Temple Records, Volume 1
  , Inner Temple. Accessed 26 March 2014 at Internet Archive.
• Jones, N.G. "Bromley, Sir Thomas (c.1530–1587)".
  doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/3513. (Subscription or UK public library membership
  required.)
• Walter C. Metcalfe (1883). The visitation of the county of Worcester begun by Thomas May, Chester, and Gregory King, Rouge dragon, in Trinity vacacon, 1682, and finished by Henry Dethick, Richmond, and the said Rouge dragon, pursuivant, in Trinity vacacon, 1683, by virtue of several deputacons from Sir Henry St. George, Clarenceux kinge of armes. With additions by the late Sir Thomas Phillipps, bart. William Pollard, Exeter. Accessed 3 April 2014 at Internet Archive.
• Page, William; Willis-Bund, J.W. (1913). A History of the County of Worcester: volume 4. Institute of Historical Research. Retrieved 3 April 2014.