Life

He was of a family settled at Madingley

Madingley

Madingley is a village near Coton and Dry Drayton on the western outskirts of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.Known as Madingelei in the Domesday Book, the village's name means "Woodland clearing of the family or followers of a man called Mada"....

 in Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire

Cambridgeshire is a county in England, bordering Lincolnshire to the north, Norfolk to the northeast, Suffolk to the east, Essex and Hertfordshire to the south, and Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire to the west...

, and was educated at Cambridge

Cambridge

The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...

. He was called to the bar at Gray's Inn

Gray's Inn

The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...

, and was reader there in 1517, 1527, and 1531. In 1520 he was elected recorder of Cambridge. His name appears frequently in the commission of the peace and commissions to collect subsidies for Cambridgeshire in the middle of the reign of Henry VIII. In 1526 and 1530 he was in the commission of gaol delivery for the town of Cambridge, and in 1529 in the commission to hear chancery causes, and was recommended by the lord chief justice in 1530 as among the best counsel of the day.

In 1532 he was in the commission of the peace for Huntingdonshire

Huntingdonshire

Huntingdonshire is a local government district of Cambridgeshire, covering the area around Huntingdon. Traditionally it is a county in its own right...

, and in 1534 in the commission of sewers for the same county. In 1531 he was appointed serjeant-at-law, and on 2 January 1535 was promoted to be king's serjeant. In 1536 he prosecuted the rebels in the west, and during the northern rebellion

Pilgrimage of Grace

The Pilgrimage of Grace was a popular rising in York, Yorkshire during 1536, in protest against Henry VIII's break with the Roman Catholic Church and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, as well as other specific political, social and economic grievances. It was done in action against Thomas Cromwell...

 was one of those appointed to reside in Cambridgeshire, and to be responsible for order there. In December 1540 he received a commission from the privy council to inquire into charges of sedition alleged against Thomas Goodrich

Thomas Goodrich

Thomas Goodrich was an English ecclesiastic and statesman.-Life:He was a son of Edward Goodrich of East Kirkby, Lincolnshire and brother of Henry Goodricke of Ribston Hall, North Yorkshire....

, bishop of Ely

Bishop of Ely

The Bishop of Ely is the Ordinary of the Church of England Diocese of Ely in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese roughly covers the county of Cambridgeshire , together with a section of north-west Norfolk and has its see in the City of Ely, Cambridgeshire, where the seat is located at the...

.

An act of parliament, 34–35 Hen. VIII, c. 24, was passed to confirm to him and his heirs the manor of Burlewas or Shyre in Cambridgeshire and lands at Madingley, subject to an annual charge for the payment of the knights of the shire, and in addition to this property it appears, from grants in the augmentation office, that he received portions of the church lands at Girton

Girton

Girton is a place name that could refer to:*Girton College, Cambridge*Girton, Cambridgeshire, England*Girton, Nottinghamshire, England*Girton High School, Mumbai, India...

 and Moor Barns, Madingley, Cambridgeshire. In 1539 he received as a result of the dissolution of the monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 the property later known as Anglesey Abbey

Anglesey Abbey

Anglesey Abbey is a country house, formerly a priory, in the village of Lode, 5 ½ miles northeast of Cambridge, England. The house and its grounds are owned by the National Trust and are open to the public as part of the Anglesey Abbey, Garden & Lode Mill property, although some parts remain...

. On 4 November 1545 he was knighted, was next day appointed a judge of the common pleas, and became a member of the council of the north

Council of the North

The Council of the North was an administrative body originally set up in 1484 by king Richard III of England, the third and last Yorkist monarch to hold the Crown of England; its intention was to improve government control and economic prosperity, to benefit the entire area of Northern England...

 in 1545. He died in October 1550, and was buried at St. Dunstan's, Fleet Street, London, on 18 October.