Sir Thomas Aylesbury, 1st Baronet

Sir Thomas Aylesbury, 1st Baronet (1576–1657) was an English civil servant, Surveyor of the Navy from 1628 and jointly Master of the Mint from 1635, and a patron of mathematical learning. He was the great-grand father of two British Queens, Anne and Mary II.

He was born in London in 1576, the second son of William Aylesbury and Anne Poole, his wife. From Westminster School Aylesbury passed in 1598 to Christ Church, Oxford, where he took the degrees of B.A. and M.A. in 1602 and 1605 respectively.

On leaving college he was appointed secretary to Charles Howard, 1st Earl of Nottingham, lord high admiral of England. He was continued in the post by George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham, Nottingham's successor (1619), who befriended him actively, procuring for him the additional offices of one of the masters of requests with, from 19 April 1627, the title of baronet. He was Surveyor of the Navy from 1628 for four years, and naval commissioner inspecting the fleet at Portsmouth in 1630 with Phineas Pett.

In 1635 Aylesbury, jointly with Ralph Freeman, formed a commission exercising the powers of the Master of the Mint. This came about by the exclusion from the position of Robert Harley, in favour of the previous incumbent Randal Cranfield, who then died suddenly.

In 1642 he was, as a steady royalist, stripped of his fortune and places, and on the death of the king retired with his family to Antwerp. He moved in 1652 to Breda, and there died in 1657 at the age of 81. He had one son, William Aylesbury, and a daughter, Frances, who married Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, by whom she became the mother of Anne Hyde, first wife of King James II of England. It is through Anne Hyde that he became the great-grandfather of her two daughters, the Queens Mary and Anne.

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