Sir Thomas Peniston

Sir Thomas Penyston, Bt
Born	c. 1591 Rochester
Died	c. 1644 Cornwell, Oxfordshire
Spouse(s)	Martha Temple 1611 Elizabeth Watson Anne Stonhouse
Parent(s)	Thomas Penistone Mary Sommer

Sir Thomas Penyston, 1st Baronet (1591 – 1644) was a 17th-century member of the gentry who received one of the first baronetcies. In 1637 he was sheriff of Oxfordshire and in 1640, he was a member of parliament for Westbury.

Sir Thomas Penistone was the eldest son of Thomas Penistone and Mary Sommer. His parents had married in 1590 at St Brides, Fleet Street. Thomas was a wealthy wool merchant living in Rochester, but with access to London. Mary belonged to a prominent Rochester family. They lived in the parish of St Margarets in a house that his mother had inherited from her father. Thomas had a younger brother and two younger sisters.

There is a surviving portrait of Thomas and his mother, which was painted in 1598. The portrait was painted by Robert Peake the elder, one of the country’s leading portrait painters. In Peake’s portrait,Thomas is standing beside his mother wearing a silver costume. She is wearing a brown dress with a large white ruff and an ornate necklace. Her hand rests on the shoulder of her seven-year-old son, The portrait is about three feet by two and in the top left hand corner, there is a representation of the coats of arms of both the Sommer and Penistone families. Thomas' portrait is now at Leeds Castle, in the "Henry VIII’s banqueting hall" and is illustrated and described in the guide book.

Thomas; father died around 1601 when his intensely religious will was proved. Thomas inherited the residue of his father’s estate. Thomas' mother, Mary received some money and also her jewels, including chains of gold and pearls together with a "greate dyamond" that had belonged to her father. She also received the various household effects that had previously belonged to her father. Thomas Penistone senior asked to be buried in the Cathedral at Rochester. At one time, there was a memorial there to him, but it was apparently destroyed during the Civil War.

In 1602, his mother married Sir Alexander Temple. The next few years saw the birth of two half-brothers (including James Temple the regicide) and a half-sister, but in 1607, his mother died. It is likely that she was buried in the cathedral at Rochester since a later visitor noted a memorial to her, although this no longer remains. Following his mother's death, his stepfather moved to Chadwell St Mary in Essex.

On 13 March 1606/7 he matriculated at Queen's College, Oxford (aged 15), receiving a BA degree from St Edmund Hall on 16 June 1609.

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