Thomas Hoo, Baron Hoo and Hastings

Mulbarton church, Norfolk, rebuilt by Sir William Hoo (died 1410)

The Hoo family in Norfolk

Thomas Hoo derived from the Hoo family which was seated at Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire, by 1245.[3] By the 1290s the marriage of Robert Hoo the elder to Beatrix brought him the manor of Knebworth, Hertfordshire[4] and other lands of the Andevill family:[5][6] his son the younger Robert married Hawise,[7] daughter of Fulk FitzWarin V (and widow of Ralph de Goushull[8]), whose son Thomas Hoo was great-grandfather of Lord Hoo and Hastings.

Sir Thomas Hoo married Isabel, daughter of John St Leger, in 1335: by this union the manor of Offley St Legers, Hertfordshire, came to the family.[9] They had connections with St Albans Abbey, to which they gave an altar-frontal cloth embroidered with the Hoo and St Leger arms, and were buried there.[10][11] Their son Sir William Hoo (1335–1410) married Alice, daughter and coheir of Thomas de St Omer (of Mulbarton, near Norwich in Norfolk) and his first wife Petronilla (Pernell) Malemayns (whose father Sir Nicholas de Malemayns, of Ockley, Surrey, outlived her and died in 1349).[12][13] Petronilla's sister Beatrice, wife of Otho II de Grandison, is commemorated at Ottery St Mary, Devon.

Sir Thomas de St. Omer was a Justice and Sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk.[14] His parents, Sir William and Dame Elizabeth de St. Omer, had earned the lifelong gratitude of King Edward III for their part in safeguarding the Black Prince and his sisters at a time of danger in their childhood.[15] They were seated both at Mulbarton, and at Britford near Salisbury, Wiltshire (where Alice was born[16]), adjacent to the royal palace at Clarendon. They were most likely the patrons of the "St Omer Psalter", an unfinished but sumptuous work of book-illumination of the 1330s-1340s. Images of the patron, in a tabard of the St. Omer arms, and his wife appear in the embellishments to the grand initial of the First Psalm.[17] At Sir Thomas de St Omer's death in 1364 there was no male heir, and so – through Alice – Mulbarton came to the Hoo inheritance.[18]

Blomefield stated that Sir William Hoo was responsible for rebuilding the tower and nave of Mulbarton church during the later fourteenth century. His 18th-century description mentions that glass in a north window of the chancel showed, to one side, Sir Thomas de St Omer with his lady and (his daughter) Alice, kneeling, with the arms of St Omer and Malemayns: and, on the opposing side, Sir William Hoo and (his wife) Alice, beneath the arms of Malemayns and St Omer. The Hoo arms appeared at the top of the window, and below was a prayer in Norman French: "Priez pur lez almez Monsieur Thomas Sentomieris et Dame Perinelle sa femme qui fit faire ceste fenestre".[19] Their daughter Dame Alice Hoo died in 1375[20] and she was buried at Mulbarton: the window therefore embodied the transition from St Omer to Hoo patronage. No recognizable parts of this survive among the fragments of medieval glass now re-set at Mulbarton.[21]

Sir William married secondly Eleanor, daughter of Sir John Wingfield of Letheringham, Suffolk.[22] He later served as captain of the castle of Oye in the Marches of Picardy,[23] and at his death in 1410, aged 75, was buried at Mulbarton beside Dame Alice. He was survived by his widow Dame Eleanor.

Parents of Lord Hoo and Hastings

Sir Thomas Hoo, son of Sir William and Dame Alice, was born around 1370, and married first, c. 1395, Eleanor de Felton (born c. 1361). She was the widow of Sir Robert de Ufford, de jure Lord Clavering (died c. 1393)),[24] and was the youngest of three daughters of Sir Thomas de Felton, Seneschal of Aquitaine, of Litcham, Norfolk (died 1381)[25] and his wife Joan (Walkfare). The son of Sir Thomas Hoo and Eleanor de Felton was the future Lord Hoo and Hastings, born c. 1396, who had three half-sisters on the Ufford side. His mother Eleanor died on 8 August 1400, and his father remarried to Elizabeth Echyngham (daughter of Sir William Echingham (died 1413–1414) of Etchingham, Sussex), who thus became stepmother to the child Thomas.[26]

Sir Thomas Hoo the father distinguished himself by service at the Battle of Agincourt as Knight to Thomas Lord Camoys, commander of the left wing of the English army.[27] At much the same time he also became father of the younger Thomas Hoo, half-brother to Lord Hoo, who was born in 1416 and was associated with his brother in life and in posterity. In June 1420 Sir Thomas the father and two others were entrusted to ensure the safe passage of the Duke of Bourbon to France, and in the August following, Sir Thomas died at the ancestral home of Luton Hoo, Bedfordshire. The widowed Dame Elizabeth remarried to Sir Thomas Lewknor of Horsted Keynes (c. 1392–1452), as his second wife, and became the mother of his younger children.[28]

Thomas the elder son succeeded him, inheriting family estates including Luton Hoo, the St. Omer manor of Mulbarton in Norfolk, and that of Offley St Legers, Hertfordshire, which had descended to the St. Legers by inheritance from the De la Mare family around the end of the 12th century.[29]

The first marriage of Thomas Hoo belonged to the first years of his majority as heir of Hoo, before he received the honours and titles associated with Hastings. He married Elizabeth daughter of Nicholas Wychingham, Esquire (died 1433), of Witchingham in Norfolk,[30] and had by her one daughter, Anne, who was born c. 1424.

Thomas Hoo was Esquire of the Chamber to Thomas Beaufort, Duke of Exeter, and he probably went into France in 1419 as part of the Duke's retinue. In his master's will of 1426 he was left one of the Duke's coursers.[31] He was High Sheriff of Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire in 1430.[32] In 1431 he was one of the feoffees to the estates of William de la Pole, Earl of Suffolk.[33]

In 1435 he was deployed by Lord Talbot in suppressing a popular revolt in Normandy. The Normans of the Pays de Caux, heartened by the death of the Duke of Bedford (Regent of France), rose up, robbed many towns under English control, and captured Harfleur by assault, and other towns. Lord Talbot sent for Lord Hoo, Lord Scales and Sir Thomas Kyriell, who visited severe reprisals on that country, slaying more than five thousand people, burning the unfortified towns and villages, rounding up all the livestock and driving the rebellious inhabitants into Brittany.[34] In October 1435 Henry VI appointed Hoo to the office of Keeper of the Seals of France.[35] Hoo became Chancellor of France in 1443 after the death of Louis de Luxembourg, Bishop of Thérouanne[36]

In 1439 Hoo was in Lord Talbot's forces in the large expedition into France under Richard Duke of York, and was sent by his commander to the Captain at Mantes and to the Lieutenant at Pontoise, to strengthen the garrison of Vernon. He himself succeeded as Bailiff and Captain of Mantes in 1440 and 1441, until in November of the latter year replacing Neville, Lord Falconbridge as Captain of Verneuil and serving also as Master of Ostel. In January 1442 he went with François de Surienne to propose a scheme to capture the town and fortress of Gallardon: they were to pay for the men-at-arms and archers, and to provide 250 men each to the King's service, but if successful were to have command of the place and the division of the spoils, and Sir Thomas was to be reimbursed his expenses. By July 1442 the scheme had a successful outcome.[37]

In September 1442 he was appointed to the Embassy to negotiate peace with the French king, led by Richard Duke of York and Cardinal Louis (who was then in capacity as Chancellor of France).[38] He was in a renewed commission under the Earl of Suffolk, appointed in February 1444, which concluded a truce at Tours which lasted until 1450.[39][40] In the course of these negotiations the marriage between Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou was arranged by the Earl of Suffolk, and in July 1444 Thomas Hoo was appointed, and in August sent with Sir Robert Roos and the Garter King at Arms, to be in attendance upon Margaret[41] until her landing in England in April 1445, when the marriage was solemnized. During the intervening period she was espoused to the king by proxy in the person of the Duke of Suffolk.[42]

The second marriage of Sir Thomas Hoo belonged to the period of his service in Hastings and Normandy, when he became titled. He married Eleanor Welles (one of the four daughters of Lionel de Welles, 6th Baron Welles and Joan Waterton, daughter and heiress of Robert Waterton (c. 1360–1425)), and they had three daughters, Anne, Eleanor and Elizabeth. These daughters were born between 1447 and 1451, as their ages are given in their father's inquisition post mortem.[43] In November 1445 Leo Welles made a covenant with Sir Thomas and Eleanor, by which Thomas acknowledged Welles's right of gift, and Welles granted to them, and to their male heirs forever, the manors of Hoo, Mulbarton, Offley and Cokernho, and the advowsons of Mulbarton and Offley, with remainders (successively) to the male heirs of the body of Sir Thomas, or to Thomas Hoo his brother and to the male heirs of his body, or to the heirs of the body of Sir Thomas, or to the heirs of the body of Thomas Hoo, or (failing all these) finally to the right heirs of Sir Thomas. The lands brought by Sir Thomas to the marriage were thereby secured to the Hoo descent through either brother.[44] In 1447 Welles also remarried, to Margaret Beauchamp of Bletso.

"The Hours of Thomas, Lord Hoo"

Important insights into the life and character of Lord Hoo are preserved in a Book of Hours which was made for him around 1444, probably as a gift for his wife Eleanor. It is a French production of 293 folios on vellum, made in Rouen, includes 28 colourful miniatures of religious subjects, and the text, which is of the Sarum Use and employs English, French and Latin, is decorated throughout with ornamental margins. All but one of the miniatures are by one artist, known (from this book) as the "Hoo Master", of which about half are devotional scenes and half narrative subjects. They include patron images (identifiable by heraldry): Lord Hoo prays to the Holy Trinity, a little preceding a scene of the disembowelling of St Erasmus, suggesting that he may have suffered from intestinal troubles. Dame Eleanor prays to the Virgin and Child, and wears a high butterfly headdress, and the arms of Hoo impaling Welles upon her kirtle: just after this, images of St Leonard and St Hildevert (Bishop of Meaux, died c. 680) are inserted, suggesting that she may have been afflicted by mental weakness or epilepsy.[45]

The volume's extensive texts include a unique collection of prayers of an anxious and penitent nature, possibly exemplifying episodes or responsibilities in Lord Hoo's own life. The inserted image of St Hildevert is the odd one out, being the work of the "Talbot Master" who illustrated the great "Shrewsbury Book" given by Lord Talbot to Margaret of Anjou as a wedding gift, a book which (conversely) includes one miniature by the "Hoo Master". Both artists (of whom the "Hoo Master" was notably more sophisticated in technique) were probably miniaturists of the Parisian school who had moved to work at Rouen. Other books illustrated by these artists exist, but the involvement of Lord Talbot and Lord Hoo in the wooing of Margaret d'Anjou reflect the context in which these two commissions were placed.[46]

In June 1443 Hoo, "the King's knight", was awarded £40 a year for life, out of the revenues of Norfolk, "for many great and toilsome services in the wars in France, no small time".[47] On July 19 1445[48] he was granted the castle, lordship, barony and honour of Hastings,[49] and in that year was elected and in 1446 installed to the Order of the Garter.[50] He forthwith released Sir Roger Fiennes personally, and his manor of Herstmonceux in manorial duty, from feudal services due to the honour of Hastings (excepting fealty), renewing the awards made by his antecessor Sir John Pelham.[51]

In June 1448 he was created Lord Hoo and Hastings:

"Grant to Thomas Hoo in tail male, for good service in England, France and Normandy, of the title of Baron of Hoo and Hastynges, which lordship of Hoo is in the county of Bedford and the lordship of Hastynges is in the county of Sussex, and grant that he and his heirs enjoy all such rights as other barons of the realm."[52][53]

The Receiver-General's accounts for that year show a payment to him of one thousand livres tournois, as Chancellor of Normandy, for a journey which he made into England in November.[54]

In 1449 his term as Chancellor of the Duchy of Normandy concluded, and he returned to England where he was regularly summoned to Parliament until the time of his death. In 1450 his friend and patron the Duke of Suffolk was killed by a hostile mob. Hoo himself faced a commission of inquiry in 1450–51 upon complaints that he had failed to pay the soldiery of France and Normandy under his authority.[55]

Image of Lord Hoo and Hastings set in the Dacre tomb at Herstmonceux

The Lordship of Hoo and Hastings became extinct at the death of Lord Hoo, which occurred on 13 February 1454/5. He dated his will 12 February 33 Henry VI, making provision of £20 per annum for a chantry of two monks singing perpetually for himself and his ancestors at the altar of St Benignus (a Burgundian saint) at Battle Abbey.

The reversion of his manors of Wartling, Bucksteep (in Warbleton) and Broksmele (Burwash) was held by his stepmother Lady Lewkenor for life, but his feoffees were to make up a parcel of lands worth £20 a year for his brother Thomas Hoo (1416–1486), and the overplus, after the deduction of his funeral and testamentary charges, was to revert to his widow Dame Eleanor for life. Lord Hoo looked to her father Lord Welles to make an estate of lands and manors worth £100 per annum for Dame Eleanor: or, if he refused, brother Thomas was to sue Lord Welles by Statute Staple for £1000.[56]

The Rape of Hastings was to be sold, his brother having first refusal to buy it. From the proceeds the daughters of his second marriage, Anne,[57] Elizabeth and Alianor, were to have 1000 marks for their marriage portions in equal shares, if they were ruled in their choice of spouse by Dame Eleanor and brother Thomas, whom he appointed his executors. Various annuities were made out of his manors of Offley (Hertfordshire), Mulberton (Norfolk) and Hoo (Bedfordshire).[58]

The Hoo figures set in the Dacre tomb at Herstmonceux

Dame Eleanor and brother Thomas renounced administration, which was granted instead to Richard Lewknor in December 1455.[59] Lewknor complained that Sir John Pelham's feoffees for the Rape of Hastings, Sir John Wenlock (of Someries, adjacent to Luton Hoo), Sir Thomas Tuddenham, Thomas Hoo 'squier' and John Haydon, were refusing to sell it and so impeding the performance of the will.[60] Thomas Hoo objected that he had attempted to purchase the Rape of Hastings (as appointed in the will) for £1,400 but was unable to obtain a sure estate in it, but had himself freely paid the marriage portions of Lord Hoo's three daughters.[61] By inquests held in 1455[62] and 1458[63] it was found that the Rape of Hastings was held not of the Crown but of the gift of Sir John Pelham, and in 1461 it was sold by the feoffees to William, Lord Hastings,[64] and was confirmed to him by patent of 1462.[65]

The brothers Thomas and Thomas are believed to be represented by the two recumbent effigies now on the Dacre Tomb at All Saints Church, Herstmonceux, Sussex.[66] In its final form the tomb ostensibly commemorated Thomas Fiennes, 8th Baron Dacre (d. 1534) and his son Sir Thomas Fiennes (d. 1528), but the figures themselves were apparently brought from Battle Abbey (?following its sale in 1539), where they had formed part of an older monument to the brothers Hoo.[67] During restoration of the monument this was confirmed by underlying evidence of the heraldry of the tabards, and by the presence of a knightly Garter (mostly removed) appropriate to Lord Hoo but not to these Fiennes. The evidences for this are expertly described by the restorer.[68] The heraldry of the Hoo family and its antecedents is understood from surviving seals and from manuscript sources formerly in the custody of Sir Francis Carew of Beddington, Surrey and of Jonathan Keate, Bart.[69][70]

The heraldry worn by the figures of the tomb was interpreted lastly by Wilfrid Scott-Giles, Fitzalan Pursuivant Extraordinary. The tabard of Lord Hoo and Hastings shows quarterly sable and argent (for Hoo), quartered with azure, a fess between six cross-crosslets or (for St Omer), with, on an escutcheon of pretence, azure, fretty argent, a chief gules (for St Ledger). (This is the same as in the patron image in the "Hours of Lord Hoo".)

The tabard of the younger Thomas Hoo shows the arms of Hoo quartered with a bearing depicting a lion rampant, with a chief, with the arms of St Omer on the escutcheon of pretence. This lion was formerly taken to be the arms of Welles (or a lion rampant double queued sable):[71] which, however, if so, should have lions with two tails, and would allude to the marriage of the elder brother, not relevant to the younger Thomas Hoo.

The learned Herald suggests instead, that the Lord Hoo may have quartered his arms with those of an extinct family of Hastange or Hastings (azure, a chief gules, over all a lion rampant or) when becoming Lord Hoo and Hastings, and that this coat, with an escutcheon of pretence for St Omer, was depicted for the younger Thomas Hoo on this monument to denote his association with the Lordship of Hastings. The monument has been repainted to represent this interpretation.[72]

However this problem is older than the riddle of the tomb figures. The lion rampant, with a single tail but without the chief, is quartered with Hoo, with escutcheon of pretence for St Omer, in the original seal of Thomas Hoo the younger attached to his feoffment of 1481, and also recorded as having been appended to his own testification of his pedigree.[73] In the same way, the armorial roll seen by Sir Henry Chauncy before 1700, which had descended in the Carew family, concluded in its third membrane with the arms of Hoo impaled with Welles, "but" (wrote Sir Henry), "the Coat is mistaken, for the Lyon should be with a double Tayl".[74]

A canopied tomb at Horsham is also claimed to represent a member of the Hoo family.