- Excerpt from "Notices of an English Branch of the Malet Family", by Arthur Malet, published 1885, pp 58-60, appendix Z1-Z5:
SIR THOMAS MALET OF POYNTINGTON
Thomas Malet, the son of Malachi Malet and his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Richard Trevanion, was born about 1582. The Rev. F. Brown writes: "He was a member of the Middle Temple, called to the bar 1606, Reader 1626, appointed Solicitor-General to the Queen. Appointed Judge of the the King's Bench July 1st, 1641, and was then knighted. For not revealing to the House of Lords the petition of the Grand Jury of Kent against the ordinance of the Militia, and in support of the Book of Common Prayer, he was by the Lords committed to the Tower, March 18th, 1642, but released on a bond for £1000." Clarendon's account of these proceedings is annexed.* He went the May circuit that summer; and on refusing permission to some Members of Parliament to read certain votes of Parliament in Court (for which act he received the thanks of the King), was violently seized from the Bench at Kingston, and committed to the Tower, where he remained a prisoner for two years, till October, 1644, when he regained his liberty by exchange.** By an ordinance, November, 1645, he was disqualified as a Judge. His son Baldwin was killed in a skirmish with the Parliamentary troops not far from his father's house; the tradition is that he leapt a gate with all his armour on into the midst of the enemy and was killed, and that he was buried the next day for fear of the plague.
Two years after the restoration, though then seventy-eight years of age, he was replaced in his old seat in the King's Bench. He tried some of the regicides, and the King, on his petition on June 18th, 1663, dispensed with his further attendance on the Bench, continuing to him the title and salary of Judge. A Baronetcy was granted him, but he refrained from completing the fiat during the two remaining years of his life. An abstract of his will is annexed.***
Sir Thomas Malet married Jane, the daughter of Francis Mills.
Their children--
1. Sir John Malet.
2. Baldwin Malet, killed in a skirmish with Parliamentary troops. Inscription in Poyntington Church: "Baldwin Malet Sonne of Sir Thomas Malet died in the King's service 3rd of June, A.D. 1646, in the 20th year of his age."
3. Michael Malet, married Mary White of Fyfield, Berks;+ he was of the Middle Temple, London, and was elected Member of Parliament for Milborne Port, April 3rd, 1660.
4. Thomas Malet, a major in the army, married Sarah Goodwin of Wells; they had a son, Thomas Malet.
5. Alice Malet, died a spinster, 1661.++
6. Katherine Malet, married Thomas Chafe of Sherborne. His aunt, Pascha Chafe, married Thos. Risden, Historian of Devon. Their son, Thomas Chafe, married at Folke, Dorset, April 13th, 1662, Susanna, daughter of Edward Moleyns, Esq., eventually heiress of Westhall, in the parish of Folke. He died 1701, leaving many children.
7. Zenobia Malet.
8. Elizabeth Malet.
Sir Thomas Malet, under the will of Arthur Malet of St. Audries, was to succeed to that estate after the death of Arthur's widow, Joan. I can find no record of his ever having taken possession, but as he lived till 1666, and his granddaughter Anne was buried at St. Audries in 1655, he may have been in possession at that time, although it is not probable that he ever adopted it as his residence.
* Sir Thomas Malet's Committal to the Tower.
Extract from Clarendon's History of ye Rebellion, ann. 1642.
Oxford edition, 1849, Vol II, V. 52, p. 35.
About the same time, at the General Assizes of the County of Kent, the Justices of the Peace and principal gentlemen of that county prepared a Petition to be presented to the two Houses, with a desire that the Militia might not be otherwise exercised in that county than the known law permitted, and that the Book of Common Prayer established by law might observed. This communication was presented by many to their friends, and copies thereof sent abroad before the subscription was ready; whereupon the House of Peers took notice of it as tending to some commotion in Kent, and in the debate the Earl of Bristol having taken notice that he had seen a copy of it and had had some conference about it with Judge Malet, who was the Judge of Assize in Kent, and newly returned out of his Circuit, both the Earl and Judge for having but seen the Petition were presently committed to the Tower.
** Severities of the Parliamentarians.
Ibid. A.D. 1642. Oxford edition, 1849, Vol. II, V. 426, p. 291.
The other instance I think fit to mention is that of Judge Malet, who, as is before remembered, was committed to the Tower the last Lent for having seen a Petition prepared by the Good Jury of Kent for the countenance of the Book of Common Prayer and against the imposition of the Militia by ordinance without the Royal assent.
This Judge (being the Summer Circuit, and again Judge of Assize for those Counties) sitting at Maidstone under the Great Assize, some members of the Ho of Commons, under the style and title of a Committee of Parliament, came to the Bench, and producing some votes and orders and declarations of one or both Houses, required him in the name of Parliament to cause those papers (being on behalf of the Ordinance of Militia and against the Commission of Array) to be read. He told them "that he sat there by virtue of H.M.'s commission, and that he was authorised to do any thing comprised in those commissions, but had no authority to do any thing else; and therefore, there being no mention in either of his commissions of those papers or the publishing anything of that nature, he could not nor would do it." And so, finding less respect and submission than they expected, both to their persons and their business from the learned Judge, and that the whole County, at least the prime Gentlemen and the Grand Jury which represented the County, contemned both much more, the Committee returned the House with great exclamations against Mr. Justice Malet, "as the fomentor and protector of a malignant faction against the Parliament." And upon this charge a Troop of Horse was sent to attend an Officer, who came with a warrant from the Houses of some Committee (who, as Justice Malet being an assistant of the House of Peers could not regularly be summoned by any other authority) to Kingston, in Surrey, where the Judge was keeping the General Assizes for that County, and to the unspeakable dishonour of the public Justice of the Kingdom and the scandal of all ministers or lovers of Justice, in that violent manner took the Judge from the Bench and carried him Prisoner to Westminster, from whence by the two Houses he was committed to the Tower of London, where he remained for the space of two years without ever being charged with any particular crime, till he was redeemed by His Majesty by the exchange of another whose liberty they desired.
** 1644. House of Lords' MSS. Lords' Journal.
Petition of Sir Thomas Malet, Kt., one of the Justices of Court of King's Bench, now Prisoner in the Tower of London.
He thanks the House for their commiseration of him in allowing him to go about his exchange, and of his wife in allowing her to go into the country to their children. She, however, has denied herself this comfort, in order to stay with him during his imprisonment, which has lasted more than two years. He now prays she may be permitted to go with him.
*** Sir Thomas Malet, Knight, May 26, 1664. First, I commend my soule to God and my body to Christian burial. My house, with all my lands, tenements, and hereditaments in Poyntington, Somerset, I give and devise unto my good and loving wife Jane Malet, and I appoint her sole executrix to all the estate I have in or to any house or tenement in Stowell, Somerset; I give unto her all the rest of my lands, etc., I have within Somerset, Devon, and the city of Exeter or the suburbs thereof. I give and devise unto John Malet, my eldest son and heir apparent, £10; to my sister Ann Garrett--My daughter Chafe-- Baldwin and William, elder sons of John Malet. Thomas, son of my son Thomas Malet. £5. to my very loving friend Mr. Fox, the parson of Poyntington. By Lady Jane Malet, relict. Februray [sic] 2nd, 1665-6.
+ Visitation of Berks, p. 107.
++ Alice Malet, May 4th, 1661. My brother Michael sole executor. My brother Thomas Malet, my sister Katharine Chaiffe, my sister Elisabeth Malet, my brother John Malet, my sister Florentia Malet. My nephew Baldwin Malet to have a diamond ring, to be kept by my mother till he be of age--My mother Lady Malet-- My father Sir Thomas Malet, to wear a mourning ring. My sister Zenobia Malet, my nephew Thomas Chaiffe. Money to the poor of Sanford, where I was nursed, and of Poyntington, where I was born. May 8th, 1661.
Thomas Chafe, of Sherbourne, Dorset, Esq., June 22, 14 Charles II. My brother-in-law Michael Malet, of the Middle Temple, London, and Major Thomas Malet, of Poyntington, Somerset, overseers. My daughter Jane, etc. By Catherine Chafe, relict, November 12, 1662.
Thomas Chafe, son of Thomas Chafe, of Sherborne, by Katharine Malet, married at Folke, Dorset, April 13, 1662. Susanna daughter of Edward Moleyns, Esq., eventually heiress of Westhall, parish of Folke. He died 1701, leaving many children.
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