Sir Thomas Green, Lord of Greens Norton

Sir Thomas Green (c.1461 – 9 November 1506) was Lord of Greens Norton, Northamptonshire, England. He was the son of Sir Thomas Greene (VI), Lord of Greens Norton, and Matilda Throckmorton. He is best known for being the father of Maud Green and grandfather to queen consort Katherine Parr and the last male heir to the Lordship of Greens Norton. He received Boughton, Greens Norton, and large monetary grants through his inheritance upon the death of his father.

Sir Thomas' traits were that of any man of the time. He was conservative in religion, quarrelsome, conniving, and was one to take the law into his own hands. Sir Thomas was sent to the Tower of London due to trumped up charges of treason and died there in 1506. The last of his line, Thomas left two motherless daughters who would share the inheritance of their father.

Sir Thomas Green and Joan Fogge had two children, both daughters:

1. Maud Green (6 April 1492 – 1 December 1531),[6] married Sir Thomas Parr, son of William Parr, 1st Baron Parr of Kendal and Lady Elizabeth FitzHugh.
2. Anne Green (c.1489-before 14 May 1523), who would go on to marry the second husband of the before mentioned, Lady Elizabeth FitzHugh, Sir Nicholas Vaux (later created Baron Vaux). Their eldest son, Sir Thomas, would succeed as Baron.

This line of Green's was buried at St. Bartholomew's Church in Greens Norton, Northamptonshire, England. The family lived at Greens Norton from the fourteenth century up until the death of Sir Thomas in 1506. As Sir Thomas had two female co-heiresses, his estates passed through marriage to the Parr and Vaux families.

"An inquisition post mortem taken on 13 March 1507 found that Green had died seised of the keepership of Whittlewood Forest and the manors of Norton Davy, Boughton, Little Brampton, Pysford, Great Houghton and Great Doddington, and 30 messuages, 600 acres of land, 300 acres of meadow, 1000 acres of pasture, £20 rent and 200 acres of wood in Norton Davy, Boughton, Little Brampton, Pysford, Great Houghton, Great Doddington, Sewell, Potcote, Higham Parva alias Cold Higham, and Middleton, and that his heirs were his two daughters, Anne Greene, aged 17 years and more, and Maud Green, aged 13 years and more.

Excerpts and Sources

“By 1503, Oliver Turner had become one of the yeoman of the crown and Chamber serving at the Tower of London, and was evidently in direct charge of this corps,… Other payments [to him] in 1506, included £4s.8d. ‘for certain things bought by the said Oliver for the king’s grace’, a reward of 20s., and 20d. for the burial of Sir Thomas Green.”
Source: Hewerdine, A. (2012) The Yeomen of the Guard and the Early Tudors The Formation of a Royal Bodyguard. London: I.B.Tauris. Available at: GoogleBooks.

“Arrested, Bergavenny was brought to London and locked in the Tower. So were two others alleged to have dined with Suffolk in the days before his flight in August 1501: Thomas Grey, marquis of Dorset and Sir Thomas Green…. Green, already sick when he was arrested, died in the Tower on 5 November.”
Source: Penn, T. (2011) “This Day Came de la Pole,” in Winter King: Henry VII and the Dawn of Tudor England. New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 231. Available at: GoogleBooks.

"Fortune favoured Thomas Parr in his search for a suitable heiress. The opportunity that came his way was brought about by the death in the Tower of London in 1506 of Sir Thomas Green, a landowner from Northamptonshire whose curmudgeonly nature had led to charges of treason against Henry VII. The accusations may well have been unjustified. It was a time when disputes with neighbours were commonplace and frequently turned violent. Recourse to law to settle differences kept the legal profession busy. The blustering Sir Thomas had clearly miscalculated the effect of his aggressive behaviour and his health failed during his captivity. He left behind him to orphan daughters, Anne and Matilda, heiresses to considerable wealth and an. Uncertain future. Within a year of her father’s death Thomas Parr purchased the wardship and marriage of the younger girl, fifteen-year-old Matilda, known as Maud. In 1508, he married her and, at about the same time, his stepfather Nicholas Vaux, by then himself a widower, married Maud’s sister, Anne. This arrangement may appear calculated and no doubt it was, but it also brough happiness and security to the Green sisters, whose children grew up and were educated together in the close family relationship that Thomas Parr had enjoyed as a child. Though several generations, the intricate ties of their cousins and half-siblings would underpin the social standing of the Parr and Vaux families in Tudor England.”
Source: Porter, L. (2010) “The Courtiers and the White Rose,” in Katherine the Queen: The Remarkable Life of Katherine Parr, the Last Wife of Henty VIII. New York: St. Martin’s Press, p. 17. Available at: GoogleBooks.

“The last sir Thomas Green died in 22 Hen. 7 (1506), leaving his two daughters and coheiresses, Anne, aged seventeen years, and Matilda, or Maud, aged thirteen years, to inherit one of the most considerable estates in the county. “During the minority of these Ladies, the Hundred and Manor of Norton, with the Advowedson of the church, the rangership of Whittlewood forest, and the rest of Sir Thomas Green’s estate, were claimed by the bishop of Winchester, Sir Giles Daubeney, Sir Charles Somerset, and some others; but when the cause should have been tried, the demandants making default, judgement was given in favour of the defendants.” This claim , I apprehend, related only to the wardship of the minors….”
Source: Baker, G. (1837-1841) “Norton Hundred,” in The History and Antiquities of the County of Northampton. London: John Bowyer Nichols & Son and John Rodwell, p. 60. Available at: GoogleBooks.

“While the Parrs had steadily increased their status and wealth over the years, it was Catherine’s grandfather, William, who brought the family to national prominence. William Parr was a close associate of King Edward IV,… it is doubtless through the king’s influence that William was able to make an advantageous marriage with Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of Lord Fitzhugh….
“Elizabeth Fitzhugh died in 1507 and Sir Nichola Vaux set about looking for opportunities for himself and his elder stepson. The two men’s interests fell on the young sisters, Anne and Matilda, or Maud, Green, the heiresses of a neighbouring landowner, Sir Thomas Green of Green’s Norton. In 1507, Thomas Parr was twenty-nine years old and his stepfather considerably older, but both married the teenage sisters, with Vaux taking Anne, the elder sister, and Thomas the younger, Maud. Sir Thomas Green had died in 1506, leaving his daughters wealthy. Both marriages were happy, and the two couples remained closer to each other with the Parrs residing in Northamptonshire when they were not at court….”
Source: Norton, E. (2011) Catherine Parr: Wife, Widow, Mother Survivor, the Story of the Last Queen of Henry VIII. Gloucestershire, UK: Amberley Publishing. Available at: GoogleBooks.

“It was in 1508, the last full year of Henry VII’s reign, that Thomas [Parr] married for the second time, his first wife having died. The new Mistress Parr was Maud Green, who came from another clan with court connections. Her family closet, however, was not without its skeletons. They were of the ancient Yorkist stock, connected by marriage to the Woodvilles, Edwards IV’s in-laws, and had been members of the court. In 1506, Maud’s father, Sir Thomas Green, was among a group of alleged Yorkist conspirators taken to the Tower. Though exonerated by a commission of inquiry, Sir Thomas died in captivity.
"At the time of their marriage, Thomas Parr was about twenty-five and his bride sixteen. They were firmly ensconced in the royal household and, in 1509, they were among those of his father’s servants whom the new, athletic, fun-loving king chose to retain. Determined to make his court the most glittering in Christendom, Henry VIII soon made various additions to his entourage, including a resplendent body of personal guards – the Gentlemen Pensioners – to attend him on ceremonial occasions. Thomas Parr was created master of this body. He was also knighted and appointed High Sheriff of Northamptonshire (1509) and Lincolnshire (1510). Maud Parr was not overlooked in the handing out of honours. One of Henry’s first decisions was to marry his dead brother’s widow, Catherine of Aragon, An enhanced entourage had to be created for the new queen, and Maud became a lady-in-waiting."
Source: Wilson, D. (1018) “A Studious Young Lady,” in The Queen and the Heretic: How Two Women Changed the Reigion of England. Oxford, England: Lion Hudson Ltd., pp. 3–4. Available at: Google Books.

“Maud, or Matilda, Green, daughter of Sir Thomas Green and Joan Fogge, was also the granddaughter of Lady Joan Fogge, one of five ladies-in-waiting to her first cousin, queen consort Elizabeth Woodville. After the death of Maud Green’s father in 1506 when she was 14, the wardship of Maud and her older sister Anne were acquired by Nicholas Vaux, 1st Baron Vaux of Harrowden, the second husband of Elizabeth Fitzhugh, and his stepson Thomas Parr from Lady Fitzhugh’s first marriage to Sir William Parr of Kendall. Maud’s sister Anne married Lord Vaux, and Maud Green later married Thomas Parr. Their marriage was successful; after Henry’s accession in 1509, she followed in her grandmother’s footsteps and became a lady in waiting to Queen Catherine of Aragon, while her husband Thomas was created Knight of the Bath and given significant Property along with the cancellation of any debts. “
Source: Levin, C., Bertolet, A. R. and Carney, J. E. (eds.) (2017) A Biographical Encyclopedia: Early Modern Englishwomen; Exemplary Lives and Memorable Acts, 1500-1650. eBook. New York: Routledge. Available at: GoogleBooks.

Sitherwood, F. G. (1929) “The Family in England,” in Throckmorton Family History: Being the Records of the Throckmortons in the United States of America with Cognate Branches, Emigrant Ancestors Located at Salem, Massachusetts, 1630, and in Gloucester County, Virginia, 1660. Bloomington, IL, USA: Pantagraph Print & Stationery, p. 38. Available at: Archive.org.

Northamptonshire Past and Present. (1999). United Kingdom: Northamptonshire Record Society.
GoogleBooks, p. 7.

James, S. (2014) “The Parrs of Kendal,” in Catherine Parr: Henry VIII’s Last Love. Stroud, England: History Press, pp. 14–20. Available at: GoogleBooks.

Hume, David Esq. (1812) “Henry VIII,” in The History of England from the Invasion of Julius Cæsar to the Revolution in 1688. London: Cadell & Davies, pp. 392–393. Available at: GoogleBooks.

Cokayne, G. E. (ed.) (1895) “Paganell to Putney,” in Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct, or Dormant. London: George Bell & Sons, p. 216. Available at: GoogleBooks.

Links

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Thomas_Green
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greens_Norton
• http://thepeerage.com/p10765.htm#i107649
• https://tudorqueen6.com/tag/joan-fogge/