Thomas Denys


Sir Thomas Denys of Holcombe Burnell, near Exeter, Devon, was a prominent lawyer who served as Sheriff of Devon nine times between 1507/8 to 1553/4 and as MP for Devon. He acquired large estates in Devon at the Dissolution of the Monasteries.

Origins

He was the son and heir of Sir Thomas Denys of Holcombe Burnell by his wife Janera Loveday, daughter of Philip Loveday of Sneston in Suffolk.

Career

He served twice as Recorder of Exeter, 1514–1544 and September 1551 to his death. Sir Thomas is notorious as having supervised in Exeter, in his capacity as Sheriff of Devon or as Recorder of Exeter, the burning at the stake of the Protestant martyr Thomas Benet in January 1531/2. The burning took place outside the eastern side of the city walls, near the Livery Dole where in 1592 his son Sir Robert Dennis commenced the building of an almshouse, possibly an act of atonement for his father's action.

Lands acquired

He married twice, firstly before 1506, to Anne Wood, widow of Thomas Warley and of Thomas Wood of London.
His second marriage was in 1524 to Elizabeth Donne, a daughter of Sir Angel Donne, by his wife Anne Hawarden, of Cheshire, and widow of Thomas Murfyn, an alderman and former Lord Mayor of London. Elizabeth's brother was Gabriel Donne, the last Abbot of Buckfast Abbey in Devon, who in 1539 on the Dissolution of the Monasteries surrendered his abbey to Sir William Petre, as agent for King Henry VIII and was rewarded with a large annual pension of £120. The site of the abbey was granted by the king to Dennis, the Abbot's brother-in-law.
His eldest son was Sir Robert Denys, MP for Devon in 1555 and Sheriff of Devon, who acquired the manor of Bicton, on the other side of Exeter to Holcombe Burnell. It is likely that the Easter Sepulchre in the church is his tomb and monument.