Wentworth's first wife died without issue at Calais about 1554, and he married secondly, in 1555 or 1556, her cousin Anne or Agnes, daughter of Henry Wentworth of Mountnessing, Essex. She escaped from Calais in December 1557, and was imprisoned in the Fleet on 16 Aug. 1558 ‘for certein her offences,’ which were of a religious nature; on the 30th she made her submission to the council, and was sent to her mother's house in Essex. She died on 2 Sept., and was buried in Stepney church on 3 Sept. 1571 or 1576. Wentworth may have married a third time as on 9 Sept. 1589 William Borough [q. v.] married at Stepney a Lady Wentworth (Harl. MS. 6994, f. 104). By his second wife Wentworth had issue three children, two of whom were born before August 1558. The eldest, William, married on 26 Feb. 1581–2 Elizabeth, second daughter of William Cecil, lord Burghley. The wedding was characterised by much magnificence, but the bridegroom died of the plague at Burghley's house at Theobalds on 7 Nov. 1582 (Cal. Hatfield MSS. v. 70). His wife died, leaving no issue, in April 1583; her portrait, painted by Lucas de Heere, belongs to the Marquis of Salisbury (Cat. First Loan Exhib. No. 240). The second son, Henry (1558–1593), accordingly succeeded as third Baron Wentworth. He was father of Thomas Wentworth, fourth baron Wentworth of Nettlestead and first earl of Cleveland [q. v.]
[Davy's Suffolk Collections (Addit. MS. 19154); Rutton's Three Branches of the Wentworth Family, 1891, pp. 35–53; Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 484–5, and authorities there mentioned; Froude's Hist. of England; Cal. Hatfield MSS. vols. i. and ii.; Official Return of Members of Parl.; G. E. C[okayne]'s Complete Peerage.]
WENTWORTH, THOMAS (1568?–1628), lawyer, born in 1567 or 1568, was the third son of Peter Wentworth [q. v.] of Lillingstone Lovell in Oxfordshire (now in Buckinghamshire), by his second wife, Elizabeth, sister of Sir Francis Walsingham. He matriculated from University College, Oxford, on 30 Oct. 1584, entered Lincoln's Inn on 23 Oct. 1585, and was called to the bar in 1594. In September 1607 he was elected recorder of Oxford city, and in 1612 was appointed Lent reader at Lincoln's Inn. On 1 March 1603–4 he was returned to parliament for Oxford city, and retained his seat until his death.
Like his father, Thomas was an ardent parliamentarian, and in February 1606–7 he resisted the project of union between England and Scotland. In December 1610 James desired to punish him by imprisonment for his violent speeches, but was dissuaded by his council (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1603–1610, p. 649). In May 1614, on the occasion of a debate on impositions in the House of Commons, Wentworth roundly declared that ‘the just reward of the Spaniards' imposition was the loss of the Low Countries; and for France, that their late most exalting kings died like calves upon the butcher's knife’ (Court and Times of James I, 1848, p. 312; Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1611–18, p. 235, Addenda 1580–1625 p. 541). For these rash words he was imprisoned on the dissolution of parliament in June. John Chamberlain [q. v.], in a letter to Sir Dudley Carleton (Viscount Dorchester) [q. v.], states that Wentworth was thought simple rather than malicious, and that he was detained chiefly to satisfy the French ambassador (Court and Times of James I, pp. 322, 324, 326). In January 1621 Wentworth opposed the claim of the upper house to examine members of the lower house on oath in regard to the patent for gold and silver thread, and in December he strongly censured the project of the Spanish marriage. On this occasion James, incensed at the interference of the commons, wrote to the speaker commanding them not to meddle with mysteries of state. In the debate on this letter on 18 Dec. Wentworth boldly declared ‘that he never yet read of anything that was not fit for the consideration of a parliament.’ In March 1624, in a debate on supplies, he strongly advocated war with Spain in opposition to Sir George Chaworth, who wished to preserve the Spanish treaties (Cal. State Papers, Dom. 1623–1625, p. 197).
While Wentworth was throwing himself so strongly into the parliamentary opposition, he was involved by his office of recorder of Oxford city in serious differences with the university, arising chiefly from the desire of the citizens to establish an efficient night police in the city (Wood, Hist. and Antiq. of the Univ. of Oxford, ed. Gutch, ii. 299–304). His attitude in parliament probably increased his unpopularity with the strong loyalists of the university, and in 1611 he was discommonsed by order of the vice-chancellor ‘as a malicious and implacable fomentor of troubles’ (ib. ii. 308). He was only restored on his urgent entreaty on 30 April 1614 (ib. ii. 309–10). Returning to his former attitude of opposition, he incurred such peril that he was persuaded about 1620, by the solicitations of his friends, to retire to Henley. Soon afterwards, about 1623, John Whistler was appointed his
