Thomas Windebank

Thomas Windebank born about 1612, the eldest son of Sir Francis Windebank, (later Secretary of State to King Charles I).[1][2] He was intended to follow in his father's footsteps into the service of the Crown. He matriculated from St. John's College, Oxford, on 13 November 1629, aged 17, but did not graduate.[1]

In 1631 his father secured for him the reversion of a clerkship of the signet, and soon afterwards, he entered the service of Thomas Howard the Earl Marshal. In 1635–1636 he was travelling in Spain and Italy. By 1640 he was back in England and was M.P. for Wootton Basset in Wiltshire in the Short Parliament.[1][3] He took up his duties as Clerk of the Signet in 1641.[4]

He supported the Royalist cause in the English Civil War,[1] and was created a baronet on 25 November 1645.[5] He compounded on the Oxford articles.[6] After the Restoration, Windebank was clerk to the signet again from 1660 to 1674.[4]

He was married and left a son Francis, on whose death in 1719 the baronetcy became extinct.[1][5]

• Burke, John; Burke, Sir John Bernard (1838), A genealogical and heraldic history of the extinct and dormant baronetcies, Scott, Webster, and Geary, p. 573
• Sainty, J.C. (March 1999), Clerks of the Signet c.1539-1660 (Provisional list), Institute of Historical Research, University of London
• Williams, John (1836), Ancient & modern Denbigh: a descriptive history, Williams, p. 313
• Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. pp. 229–239.

Attribution

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Pollard, Albert Frederick (1900). "Windebank, Francis". In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 62. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 162–166.