Thomas Jermyn 1573-1644/5

Sir Thomas JERMYN 1573-1644/5

Biographical Note

Of Rushbrooke, Suffolk, the eldest son of the puritan Sir Robert Jermyn (1538/9-1614) of Rushbrooke Hall. Educated at Emmanuel College, Cambridge 1585. A soldier, he was a military follower of Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex. He travelled on Essex’s Cadiz expedition in 1596, to Ireland and the Azores in 1597, but avoided involvement in Essex’s rebellion in 1601. MP for Andover 1604, Suffolk 1614, Bury St Edmonds 1621-28. At court, he became vice-chamberlain to Queen Henrietta Maria in 1628. He first married Catherine, daughter of Henry Killigrew, and had five children with her; after her death he married Mary (d.1679), daughter of Edmund Barber, and had a further two children with her.

Books

An armorial stamp used by him is also found on a number of books given by his father, Sir Robert Jermyn (1538/9-1614) to Bury St Edmunds church library in 1595. In his brief will, all his books, along with his other "household stuff", were left to his wife Mary.

Sources

• Will of Sir Thomas Jermym, The National Archives PROB 11/192/274.
• British Armorial Bindings.
• MacCulloch, Diarmaid. "Jermyn, Sir Thomas (bap. 1573, d. 1644/5), soldier and courtier." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.
• Perkin, M. A directory of the parochial libraries of the Church of England. London, 2004, 164-5.