Giles Thorndon

Giles Thorndon (c.1388-1477) was an English- born official of the Crown, noted for his long and loyal service to the House of Lancaster and for his troubled career as Lord Treasurer of Ireland.

Early career

He was born in Newcastle-upon-Tyne shortly before 1390.^[1] Little seems to be known of his family; there is no evidence of a family link to Roger Thornton, the long serving Mayor of Newcastle.

By his own later account he entered the household of the future King Henry V in 1404, when he would have been in his teens.^[2] He continued to serve the prince as King and remained in the household of Henry VI. For several years he was sewer, a senior household official with responsibility for overseeing the kitchens. From household duties he was promoted to Crown service; in 1434 he became constable of Dublin Castle and Wicklow Castle, and for a time was also entrusted with Cardigan Castle.^[3] In 1437 he became Lord Treasurer of Ireland.

Ireland: the Butler-Talbot feud

Irish politics for more than twenty years was dominated by the feud between James Butler, 4th Earl of Ormonde, the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, and Richard Talbot, Archbishop of Dublin and Lord Chancellor of Ireland, backed by his brother John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury. As the feud grew more bitter, virtually all Irish Crown officials were forced to declare themselves as supporters of the Butler or the Talbot faction.^[4]

Thorndon in his early years seems to have tried to act as mediator. In 1442 he produced a memorandum on the state of Irish affairs, based as he noted on his thirty-eight years as a Crown servant.^[5] He made some effort to be impartial, stressing that there were faults on both sides: what mattered was the result, that impartial justice could not be obtained if the interests of either faction were involved, that Exchequer officials were not levying Crown debts, and that lavish grants had greatly depleted the Crown revenues.^[6] He proposed a number of remedies, including strengthening his own office and ensuring that the Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer was a trained lawyer.^[7]

In 1443 the feud seemed to be dying down, but in 1444 it flared up again.^[8] The immediate cause seems to have been Thorndon's refusal to reappoint William Chevir, a key ally of Ormonde, as his deputy. Thorndon now abandoned any effort to mediate and declared himself firmly on the Talbot side, producing a string of complaints against Ormonde and Chevir, covering a wide range of instances of corruption, bribery, maladministration, and disobedience to the Crown.^[9] Ormonde responded by calling a meeting of the Council at Drogheda, where he declared that Thorndon's office was deemed to have been vacated, and accused him of treasonable dealings with Thomas FitzGerald, Prior of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem at Kilmainham.^[10]

Thorndon and the Prior fled to England where they charged Ormonde with treason, and rather oddly with necromancy, but the Privy Council, which was mainly concerned to end the feud, was unsympathetic. No action was taken against Ormonde, and Thorndon did not return to Ireland.^[11]

Last years

Despite his unhappy experience of Ireland, it was felt that Thorndon had acquired useful knowledge of the country: in 1458 he was confirmed in office as Treasurer.^[12] Unsurprisingly he preferred to appoint a deputy to act in his place. He retired to Northumberland in 1460, shortly before the downfall of the dynasty he had served so long.The new regime, which was generally in favour of reconciliation, left him in peace: whether he maintained contacts with the exiled Henry VI or his Queen, Margaret of Anjou is unknown. During the brief Readeption of Henry VI he seems to have played no part, probably because of his great age. He died in August 1477, aged almost ninety.^[13]

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