Thomas Prestbury ( Thomas de Prestbury and Thomas Shrewsbury) was an English medieval Benedictine abbot and university Chancellor.
Origins Prestbury is thought to have been born in the mid-1340s. The estimate is based on the assumption that he was about 24 in 1370, the year of his ordination to the priesthood. There are many villages in England called Prestbury, but it is thought that of these the most likely place of birth would be Prestbury, Cheshire, near Macclesfield.
Monk and academic
Prestbury was ordained a subdeacon on 13 March 1367, marking the latest date he could have been admitted to Shrewsbury Abbey. He was made a deacon the following year on 3 June and a priest on 21 September 1370. He seems to have spent much of his early monastic career as a student.
The general chapter of the English Benedictines had decreed that all abbeys maintain two monks at Oxford University during the 13th century. To achieve this Shrewsbury Abbey deployed funding from Wrockwardine parish church, which had been granted to it by Roger Montgomery shortly after its establishment, as noted in the Domesday Book.Morris et al. Domesday text translation, SHR 4,1,1. at Hydra Digital Repository. In 1329 Edward III licensed the abbot to appropriate the church,Eyton, Antiquities, volume 9, p. 28. i.e. to take over the income stream of the benefice, essentially the tithes. In 1333, referring to the request of King Edward and Queen Philippa, the Pope issued a mandate confirming the abbey's appropriation, so long as enough was left over to support a perpetual vicar.Calendar of Papal Registers, Volume 2. Regesta 107: 1333-1334, 16 Kal. May. A late 15th century rent roll of the abbey shows the appropriation raising the reasonable sum of £17 6s. 8d. toward the support of two students, although the Valor Ecclesiasticus reckoned it at only £14. However, by that time it had long been customary to pay for only one, a fact bemoaned by critics of the abbey.Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, p. 60. Prestbury evidently made the best of this funding, as he is known to have become a master of theology.' It is not certain, however, that he was the Benedictine Thomas Scherusbury who was Chancellor of the University of Oxford in 1393-4: the identification is far from certain, although it appears as a fact in older sources, like Owen and Blakeway's History of Shrewsbury (1825).Owen and Blakeway, p. 121.
Throughout this period, the abbot at Shrewsbury was Nicholas Stevens, whose long incumbency from 1361 to 1399 enjoyed royal favour. A charter of Richard II, dated 10 February 1389, is said to be occasioned partly by "the sincere affection which we bear and have to Nicholas the abbot and for his merits." It is clear that the king had no such affection for Prestbury.
Election as Abbot
Prestbury was, as older and newer accounts agree, the Abbot of Shrewsbury Abbey from 1399 to 1426.Angold, et al. Houses of Benedictine monks: The Abbey of Shrewsbury: Abbots of Shrewsbury. The circumstances of his election show that he was in some way involved in the conflicts of the time, when Richard II's authority, and ultimately kingship, were challenged by Henry Bolingbroke, although his precise rôle remains mysterious. On 6 April 1399 the king wrote to Stevens ordering Prestbury's detention. To the abbot of Shrewsbury. Order at his peril, to deliver brother Thomas master of theology, one of the monks his fellows, to the abbot of Westminster to be kept in custody until further order.Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II, Volume 6, p. 468, Westminster 6 April. A further note to the abbot added that he was to hand over Prestbury to John Lowell, serjeant at arms, for transfer to Westminster Abbey.Calendar of Close Rolls, Richard II, Volume 6, p. 476, Westminster 6 April. At the same time arrangements were made with the abbot of Westminster to imprison Prestbury. To the abbot of Westminster. Order at his peril, for particular causes specially moving the king, to receive Thomas a monk of Shrewsbury Abbey from one who shall deliver him, and as he will answer it to keep him in safe custody in Westminster Abbey until further order. Presumably Abbot Stevens died some time in the summer. The next report of Prestbury's detention comes from Adam of Usk, an important supporter of Bolingbroke, who accompanied his army on its triumphal progress from Bristol to Chester.
Latin English Demum idem dux cum exercitu suo aput Herffordiam, secundo die Augustii, in palacio episcopi se hospitavit; et in crastino se versus Cestream movit, et in prioratu de Lempster pernoctavit. Et postea nocte proxima aput Lodelaw in castro regis, vino ibidem inhorriato non parcens, pernoctavit. Ubi presencium compilator ab eo et a domino Cantuariensi fratrem Thomam Prestburi, magistrum in theologia, ipsius contemporarium Oxonie, monachum de Salopia, tunc carceribus per regem Ricardum detentum, eo quod contra excessus suos quedam merito predicasset, ab huiusmodi carceribus liberari, et in abbatem monasterii sui erigi, optinuit. Demum per Salopiam transitus ibi per duos dies mansit; ubi fecit proclamari quod excercitus suus se ad Cestriam dirigeret, tamen populo et patrie parceret, eo quod per internuncios se sibi submiserant.Adam of Usk, p. 25-6. At length the duke came to Hereford with his host, on the second day of August, and lodged in the bishop's palace; and on the morrow he moved towards Chester, and passed the night in the priory of Leominster. The next night he spent at Ludlow, in the king's castle, not sparing the wine which was therein stored. At this place, I, who am now writing, obtained from the duke and from my lord of Canterbury the release of brother Thomas Prestbury, master in theology, a man of my day at Oxford and a monk of Shrewsbury, who was kept in prison by king Richard, for that he had righteously preached certain things against his follies; and I also got him promotion to the abbacy of his house. Then, passing through Shrewsbury, the duke tarried there two days; where he made proclamation that the host should march on Chester, but should spare the people and the country, because by mediation they had submitted themselves to him.Adam of Usk, p. 175.
If as Usk claims, he himself approached both Bolingbroke and Archbishop Thomas Arundel to secure Prestbury's release, the circumstance of their passing through Shrewsbury would explain the speed of his election. The monks requested royal approval for their election of Prestbury, still addressing themselves to Richard, on 11 August. Royal approval, now in the hands of Bolingbroke himself, came less than a week later. Signification to J. bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, of the royal assent to the election of Thomas de Prestbury, monk of St Peter's, Shrewsbury, to be abbot of that house.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Richard II, Volume 6, p. 592, Chester, 17 August. After some delay, as he presumably need to be fetched from Westminster, Prestbury was admitted as abbot on 4 September 1399. The mandate to restore temporalities, accompanied by the writ de intendendo, instructing the tenants to transfer their loyalty to Prestbury, was issued from Westminster on 7 September.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Richard II, Volume 6, p. 594. As the abbots of Shrewsbury were tenants-in-chief of the king and had been summoned to parliament ever since the reign of Henry III,Owen and Blakeway, p. 32. Prestbury then had to attend parliament to deal with the business of deposing Richard II.
Abbot of Shrewsbury
In 1403 the turmoil following the change of régime became particularly acute at Shrewsbury, which was the scene of a major conflict between Henry IV and a coalition led by his former allies, the House of Percy. The Battle of Shrewsbury was waged on a site just to the north of the town and abbey: a location still called Battlefield. According to Thomas Walsingham, Prestbury and another cleric, a clerk of the Privy Seal, went on a peace mission to the rebels, offering Henry Hotspur "peace and pardon if he would refrain from opening" hostilities.Walsingham, p. 257. Walsingham attributes the failure of this effort to the deception of Hotspur's uncle, Thomas Percy, 1st Earl of Worcester. Earl Thomas was beheaded after the battle.Walsingham, p. 258. In December Prestbury was instructed to recover his head, on display at London Bridge, and have it buried in Shrewsbury Abbey with his body. The disorder, which included the depredations of Owain Glyndŵr's troops, was such that on 20 May 1405 the abbey was dispensed, during Prestbury's lifetime, from paying the tenths, a key royal tax, on its properties outside the Diocese of Lichfield because of the damage done by to its lands by Welsh rebels.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry IV, Volume 3, p. 22. On 5 December 1405 Prestbury was granted a licence for 20 marks to take into mortmain six properties in Shrewsbury with an annual value of 6 marks:Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry IV, Volume 3, p. 162. the first of a number of small acquisitions for the abbey.
The Victoria County History argues that the appointment of Prestbury as abbot after Richard II's imprisonment is "a circumstance suggesting that Prestbury favoured the Lancastrians."Angold, et al. Houses of Benedictine monks: The Abbey of Shrewsbury, note anchor 170. ODNB, however, concedes only that Prestbury became a firm supporter of Bolingbroke after he became king. Usk makes clear that Thomas Arundel's approval was significant in winning the support of the new régime for Prestbury and the most important centre of power in Shropshire was the Arundel affinity, centred on the Archbishop's nephew, Thomas FitzAlan, 12th Earl of Arundel, certainly the most important magnate in the region.Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe. Constituencies Shropshire
Although the precise scope of the Arundel affinity is unknown, it is known to have included at least half the Members of Parliament elected in Shropshire in the period 1386–1421. Prestbury made a few small acquisitions of property in Shrewsbury during his abbacy and one of them was a house known as "Ireland Hall." Royal permission to accept this burgage was sought in July 1407 by Prestbury and the convent of Shrewsbury Abbey.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry IV, Volume 3, p. 339, Westminster, 20 July 1407. The donors included four gentry members of the Arundel affinity, probably acting on the Earl's behalf:Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe. Members CORBET, Robert (1383-1420), of Moreton Corbet, Salop. Robert Corbet, his younger brother Roger, their aunt's husband John Darras and William Ryman of Sussex. Some of these were very violent men. Darras, an experienced soldier in the campaigns against Owain Glyndŵr,Roskell, Clark and Rawcliffe. Members DARRAS, John (c.1355-1408), of Sidbury and Neenton, Salop. died by his own hand the following year.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry IV, Volume 3, p. 485, Westminster, 30 March 1408. It was hard to avoid involvement with the Arundel affinity, even had Prestbury so desired. On 25 July 1407, a few days after the licence was granted for Ireland Hall, Prestbury was commissioned, along with the Earl of Arundel and two of his closest supporters, David Holbache and John Burley, to attend to the fortifications of Shrewsbury, using money from customs granted by Richard II.Calendar of Patent Rolls, Henry IV, Volume 3, p. 341.
Chancellor of Oxford