Thomas West, 1st Baron West
Thomas West, 1st Baron WestBiography
He was the only son of Sir Thomas West of Hempston Cauntelow in Devon, by his wife Alice FitzHerbert a sister and co-heiress of Sir Edmund FitzHerbert. Sir Thomas West had fought in the Battle of Crécy and the subsequent siege of Calais under the command of Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel. The younger Thomas almost certainly served alongside his father under King Richard II; one of them was in active service in Calais in 1386, the year of his father's death. A knight banneret, he served in Ireland with the Duke of Aumale in 1399, and attended Richard's young Queen Isabella of Valois homeward to Calais in 1401.
When West was seventeen, he and his mother and sister Eleanor were assaulted and robbed, by Nicholas Clifton, who carried his sister off; he was probably the same Nicholas Clifton who later married her.
West was knighted in 1399, and summoned to Parliament as Baron West in 1402, by which time he held the manor of Harby, Nottinghamshire. He inherited the manor of Newton Tony, Wiltshire, from his father, and the manors of Midsomer Norton, Somerset, and Hinton Martell, Dorset, from his mother. He was later granted joint custody of Beaulieu Abbey. He died in 1405 and was interred at Christchurch Priory, Dorset.Marriage and issue
West married, before 2 May 1384, Joan La Warre, widow of Ralph de Wilington of Sandhurst, Gloucestershire, and daughter of Roger la Warr, 3rd Baron De La Warr, and his second wife, Eleanor Mowbray, daughter of John de Mowbray, 3rd Baron Mowbray, by Joan of Lancaster, daughter of Henry, 3rd Earl of Lancaster. Joan la Warre was a half sister of John la Warr, 4th Baron De La Warr, and when he died without issue she became heiress to her younger half-brother, Thomas la Warr, 5th Baron De La Warr. They had three sons and a daughter:
- Thomas West, 2nd Baron West, who married, before 2 July 1406, Ida Saint Amand, daughter and co-heiress of Amaury de Saint Amand, 3rd Baron Saint Amand, by whom he had no surviving issue.
- Reginald West, 3rd Baron West, 6th Baron De La Warr.
- John West ,
- Joan West, who married firstly Richard Delabere, and secondly William Catesby.
