Lawyer and statesman Thomas Egerton, a scion of Cheshire, would become Sir Thomas Egerton (1540–1617), 1st Viscount Brackley, and Baron or Lord Ellesmere from 1603, a nobleman, diplomat, judge and statesman walking the corridors of power in late-Tudor and early-Stuart England.
We should be careful not to confuse him with Thomas Egerton, the publisher and bookseller (c.1750–1830), the politician Thomas Egerton, 1st Earl of Wilton (1749–1814), or indeed the Revd. Thomas Egerton (1809–47).
An illegitimate son of Sir Richard Egerton, and Alice Sparks from Bickerton, Thomas Egerton was born in Dodleston around 1540, towards the end of the fairly lengthy rule of Henry VIII, and would see off all the remaining Tudors, finally expiring during the reign of the first Stuart monarch, James VI/I. Dodleston, south-west of Chester, lies close to the Welsh border. Luckily for Thomas, he was acknowledged by his father’s family despite being born on the wrong side of the blanket, so would end up doing extremely well in life. Educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, from where he graduated in 1559, and Lincoln’s Inn, Egerton was called to the bar in 1572, effectively becoming a barrister. Able to acquire a large practice in Chancery, he became Solicitor-General in 1581. He’d been a Roman Catholic until 1570 but appears to have set this aside as his non-conformity with the Anglican religion was in danger of derailing his legal career. It was a wise move, as once Elizabeth I had seen him plead a case against the Crown, he was appointed Queen’s Council. As Solicitor-General, Egerton became a frequent legal advocate on behalf of the Crown as his career gathered pace.
He married Elizabeth Ravenscroft in 1576 and they had three children: soldier and politician Sir Thomas Egerton (1577–99) who represented Cheshire in the Commons and was killed in action during a campaign in Ireland; John Egerton, 1st Earl of Bridgewater (1579-1649), who was another politician whose induction as Lord-Lieutenant of Wales (1634) inspired John Milton’s Comus (a masque in honour of chastity) and Mary Egerton, who married Sir Francis Leigh, the barrister and MP. Egerton himself would be MP for Cheshire (1584–87).
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Egerton came to prominence later in the reign of Elizabeth I and held many high offices of state for Gloriana and her successor,
James VI/I. He was a confidant of both. Having participated in the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots (1586), which led to her execution the following year, he was appointed Attorney General (1592), then knighted the following year, before becoming Lord High Chancellor of England and Lord Keeper of the Great Seal for 21 years (both from 1596 until 1617), as well as a Privy Councillor at the same time and Lord High Treasurer (1613–14).
He married for a second time, following the death of his first wife, to another Elizabeth (Wolley), in October 1597, one of the Queen’s Ladies of the Privy Chamber.
Egerton bought Tatton Park in 1598, an estate that would remain in his family for three centuries, although he visited rarely, preferring to rent out the medieval Old Hall, which was the focal point of the estate. It was his grandson, John Egerton, who built the new hall that eventually morphed into today’s mansion house.
Egerton also hired John Donne (c.1571-1632), the poet of No Man Is an Island fame, around this time as a secretary. Donne secretly married the niece of his wife Elizabeth in 1601. Egerton, meanwhile, had married for a third time after the death of his second wife early in 1600. In October of that year, he wed Alice Spencer, whose first husband had been the 5th Earl of Derby. Indisposed to residing in Cheshire, Egerton bought himself another pile in Hertfordshire, Ashridge House, purchasing it from Elizabeth I and this would remain an Egerton home until the 19th century.
Egerton’s successor to those two concurrent offices – Lord High Chancellor and Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal – would be none other than Sir Francis Bacon, a man oft posited as the true scribe of some or all of Shakespeare’s plays. Egerton was a patron and friend of Bacon as well as a friend of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex (1566–1601), nevertheless taking part in Essex’s first trial (1600) following his disastrous Irish campaign, although it was a later trial (1601) after Essex’s rebellion, which saw him found guilty of high treason and executed.
Still keen to impress the Queen, Egerton bought himself another pile at Harefield where he entertained Elizabeth I in August 1602. The Virgin Queen would die in March 1603, aged 69, to be succeeded by the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, James VI of Scotland, who had become James I of England. Egerton was one of those honoured with escorting the new Queen, Anne of Denmark, on her journey down to Windsor Castle. Egerton was a willing supporter of James’s royal prerogative, which would have consequences during the reign of the King’s son, Charles I, whose insistence on his own royal prerogative would hasten the English Civil War.
Egerton died in 1617, aged around 76, and was buried in his old parish church of St Mary’s, Dodleston. It says something about the man that he chose to be buried here in these humble surroundings when his status warranted an interment in a setting such as Westminster Abbey or Old St Paul’s. He clearly felt an affinity with Cheshire and his roots. St Mary’s has another claim to fame as it was once the rectory of Canon Herbert Leigh-Mallory, the father of George Mallory, the Cheshire-born mountaineer who tried three times to tame Everest in the 1920s (Cheshire Life, July 2024). That Egerton’s life is still of interest is exemplified by the republication in 2022 of The Life of Thomas Egerton, Lord Chancellor of England,
a book written more than two centuries earlier by his descendant, Francis Henry Egerton (1756–1829)..
CHRONOLOGY
c.1540 – Thomas Egerton born in Dodleston, Cheshire.
1559 – Graduates from Brasenose College, Oxford.
1572 – Having studied law at Lincoln’s Inn, Egerton is called to the bar.
1576 – First marriage to Elizabeth Ravenscroft, which bestows three children.
1586 – Participates in the trial of Mary, Queen of Scots, who is executed the following year.
1596 – Egerton becomes Keeper of the Great Seal and Lord High Chancellor of England.
1597 – Second marriage to Elizabeth Wolley, one of the Queen’s Ladies of the Privy Chamber.
1598 – Acquires Tatton Park and rents out the Old Hall there.
1600 – Third and final marriage to Alice Spencer, who would outlive Egerton by two decades.
1617 – Death of Thomas Egerton (March 15) aged c.76.
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