Sir Thomas Thorpe (died 1461) was Speaker of the

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from 8 March 1453 until 16 February 1454. He worked as a clerk in the royal Exchequer, reaching a position of Third

Baron of the Exchequer The Barons of the Exchequer, or ''barones scaccarii'', were the judges of the English court known as the Exchequer of Pleas. The Barons consisted of a Chief Baron of the Exchequer and several puisne (''inferior'') barons. When Robert Shute was a ...

in 1452.Sir John Sainty (comp.) ''The Judges of England, 1272-1990: a list of the judges of the Superior courts'' (Selden Society: Supplementary Series 1993, 10), 118. His parliamentary career began in October 1449 when he was elected junior

knight of the shire Knight of the shire ( la, milites comitatus) was the formal title for a member of parliament (MP) representing a county constituency in the British House of Commons, from its origins in the medieval Parliament of England until the Redistributio ...

(MP) of

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with Thomas Tresham. He was later knight of the shire for

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and was elected Speaker for the first part of the 19th Parliament of

King Henry VI Henry VI (6 December 1421 – 21 May 1471) was King of England and Lord of Ireland from 1422 to 1461 and again from 1470 to 1471, and disputed King of France from 1422 to 1453. The only child of Henry V, he succeeded to the English throne a ...

in 1453. In 1454 he was imprisoned in the Fleet Prison for falsely confiscating property of the Duke of York and was replaced as Speaker by Sir Thomas Charlton, the House of Commons having failed to secure his release. In 1455 he became

Chancellor of the Exchequer The chancellor of the Exchequer, often abbreviated to chancellor, is a senior minister of the Crown within the Government of the United Kingdom, and head of His Majesty's Treasury. As one of the four Great Offices of State, the Chancellor is ...

but his enemy the Duke of York accused him of intercepting messages to the King which might have prevented the Battle of St Albans and Thorpe was stripped of all his public offices. On his return to favour in 1457 he was made keeper of the privy wardrobe in the Tower of London for life and in 1458 was appointed Second

, serving until 1460. At the parliament of 1459 he gained his revenge on the Duke of York by helping to draw up the bill of attainder declaring York and his leading followers to be traitors. In 1460 he was captured after the Battle of Northampton and brought back to London as a prisoner and once more stripped of his offices. He escaped from prison, but was recaptured and sent to the Tower. He escaped a second time but on 17 February 1461 was caught in Harringay by a London mob and summarily beheaded. He had married Joan and was succeeded by his son and heir Roger. Some sources may give the dates of his Speakership as being between 1452 and 1453 as, at the time, the new year did not begin in England until a date in March. The dates given above are on the basis of the year starting on 1 January.

References

* *''The Office of Speaker'', by Philip Laundy (Cassell & Company, 1964)
Parliament and politics in late medieval England, Volume 2 p. 175 et seq By John Smith Roskell
1461 deaths English MPs November 1449 Speakers of the House of Commons of England Year of birth unknown Barons of the Exchequer Knights Bachelor English MPs 1459 English MPs 1453 English MPs 1450 {{15thC-England-MP-stub