Wentworth of Emsall
Thomas Wentworth, First Baron Wentworth of Nettleshead (1501–1551), was descended from an ancient Yorkshire family, two branches of which were settled at Wentworth-Woodhouse, and North Elmsall. Thomas Wentworth, the Earl of Strafford , belonged to the former branch.
Roger Wentworth (d 1452), younger son of John Wentworth of North Elmsall, Yorkshire, acquired the manor of Nettlestead, Suffolk, in right of his wife Margery (1397–1478), daughter of Sir Philip Despenser and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Robert de Tiptoft, last baron Tiptoft of the first creation and lord of the manor of Nettlestead. Roger Wentworth's younger son, Henry (d 1482), was by his first wife ancestor of the Wentworths of Gosfield, Essex, and by his second wife of the Wentworths of Lillingstone Lovell, Oxfordshire; to the latter branch belonged Paul Wentworth , Peter Wentworth (1530?–1596) , and Sir Peter Wentworth (1592–1675) . Roger's elder son, Sir Philip, was father of Sir Henry Wentworth (d 1499), whose daughter Margery (d 1550) married Sir John Seymour (d 1536) of Wolfhall, and was mother of Queen Jane Seymour, of Protector Somerset, and grandmother of Edward VI.
Sir Henry Wentworth's son, Sir Richard Wentworth (d 1528), was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk in 1509 and 1517, was knighted in 1512, served at the Battle of Spurs in 1513, was present at the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520, and died on 17 Oct. 1528. He married Anne, daughter of Sir James Tyrrell , the supposed murderer of the princes in the Tower, and was father of Thomas(1501–1551).
Thomas Wentworth, served through the Duke of Suffolk's expedition into France in 1523, and was knighted in the October of this year along with his cousin, Edward Seymour, laterafterwards Duke of Somerset. In 1527 he was a member of the household of Henry VIII's sister Mary, and on 17 October. 1528 succeeded his father at Nettlestead. He was returned as knight of the shire to the ‘Reformation’ parliament. In December, 1529 he was raised to the peerage as Baron Wentworth.
In May 1536 he was one of the peers who tried and condemned Anne Boleyn, and in December 1539 he was sent to Calais to receive Anne of Cleves. He was further rewarded by being appointed one of the six lords to attend on Edward VI, and on 2 February, 1549–50, when Warwick deprived the catholic peers of their offices, Wentworth succeeded Arundel as Lord Chamberlain of the household. He held the manors of Stepney and Hackney.
Wentworth married, about 1520, Margaret, elder daughter of Sir Adrian Fortescue, by his first wife, granddaughter and heir of John Neville, Marquis of Montagu. Sir Anthony Fortescue and Sir John Fortescue (1531?–1607) were her half-brothers, and Elizabeth, the wife of Sir Thomas Bromley (1530–1587) , was half-sister.
Her daughters by Wentworth married equally well; Jane (d 1614) became the wife of Henry, baron Cheney of Toddington; Margaret of first John, baron Williams of Thame, secondly Sir William Drury, and thirdly Sir James Crofts; and Dorothy of first Paul Withypole (d 1579), secondly Martin Frobisher [q.v.] , and thirdly Sir John Savile of Methley . Of the sons, Thomas succeeded as second baron, and John and James were lost with the Greyhound in March 1562–1563. Wentworth had issue sixteen children in all.
Thomas Wentworth died on 3 March 1550, and was buried in Westminster Abbey
Source:Oxford DNB
