Sir Thomas Stanhope of Shelford
May 2006 Meeting Report
Guest Speaker - Pam Priestland
The picture which Pam Priestland presented of Sir Thomas was that of an irascible, contentiouss and litigious man. His life-story is dominated by a sequence of persanal quarrels, legal disputes and unhappy relationships.
Thomas was the eldest of eight surviving children. He was only twelve yeras old when his father, Sir Michael Stanhope, was executed in 1552. (It was Sir Michael who had acquired Shelford in Henry VIII's time.) For the rest of his life he was determined that his family would regain and then maintain their lost status. Nevertheless, he was often at odds with his wife (the heiress Margaret Port of Etwall in Derbyshire) and two of his sons (John and Edward).
To enforce his authority as a landowner, Sir Thomas frequently turned to courts such as Star Chamber and Chancery. Over a period of thirty years he quarrelledwith the Fletchers of Stoke Bardolph, the Willoughbys of Wollaton, the Zopuches of Codnor (resulting in a riot in Derby in 1577), and the Molyneux, Sacheverell, Kniveton and Markham families.
His most bitter foe was Gilbert Talbot, 7th Earl of Shrewsbury. The Earl's wife claimed that Sir Thomas' wickedness had caused him to become "more ugly in shape and the ugliest toad in the world". She hoped that "all the plagues and miseries " would befall him and that he would "be damned perpetually in hell-fire". The climax of the quarrel came at Easter 1593 when the Earl's tenants and servants attacked Sir Thomas' weir on the River Trent.
In the difficult religious and political world of Queen Elizabeth's reign it is hardly surprising that the government became alarmed at the frequent disputes in the provinces which could undermine the nation's stability.
In 1596 Sir Thomas died in debt, partly caused by the cost of re-building his house in Shelford. Whether he was a victim or villain we shall leave to the reader to decide. In the long run however, his family's status rose. His grandson became the 1st Earl of Chesterfield - a title found in local public house signs to this day.
His house still stands - but much changed from the former days of Shelford Manor - along the road running parallel to the river between Shelford and Gunthorpe Bridge.