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 1531/32. 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.
In April 1558 he was commissioned to command the Militia of the City of Exeter and neighbouring Hundreds of Devonshire.

Lands acquired

Marriages and children

He married twice; firstly, before 1506, to Anne, widow of Thomas Warley and of Thomas Wood of London.
He married, secondly, in 1524, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Angel Donne of London, and Anne Hawarden, of Cheshire, and widow of Thomas Murfyn, an alderman and former Lord Mayor of London. By March 1534 his stepdaughter, Frances Murfyn, had married, Thomas Cromwell's nephew, Richard. His wife's brother, Gabriel Donne, was 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.
By his second wife he had five sons and three daughters, including: