Sir Thomas Banastre Knight of the Garter

  Information about this person:

• Background Information. ⁷²⁰
Sir Thomas Banastre, K.G., married Agnes, duaghter of Sir Adam de Hoghton, by his wife, Ellen Venables.

~ County Families of Lancashire and Cheshire, p. 393

• Background Information. ⁸²⁷
Thomas Banastre was a minor at the time of his father, Sir Adam Banastre's death. His wardship and marriage was given by the Earl of Lancaster, in 1344, to Sir Adam de Hoghton [Dods. MSS. cxlix, fol. 44]. Thomas son of Sir Adam Banastre appeared as a plaintiff in 1365. He purchased Thorp in 1369 [Final Conc. ii, 177]. Thomas was made a knight in 1360 and was elected a Knight of the Gater in 1375. He was lost at sea on 16 Dec 1379.

~VCH: The History of Lancaster, Vol. VI, pp. 102-108, footnote (14)

• Background Information. ¹³⁸
Sir Thomas Banastre received his knighthood in 1360, from Edward III, when, being with the monarch at Bourg la Reine, within two leagues of Paris, and Sir Walter Manny having been permitted to make a chevauchée as far as the barriers of the capital, he was ordered to accompany him. In 1366, he attended the Black Prince on his expedition into Spain, and was in the battle of Najara. He followed, in 1369, the earls of Cambridge and Pembroke, into Aquitaine, with a reinforcement on occassion of the appeal of Gascon nobles to the king of France, in the parliament of Paris, against the fouage, or hearth-money, imposed by the prince of Wales. He was taken prisoner in a skirmish before Perigneus in 1370; and exchanged for messire Caponnel de Capounat, who had been imprisoned at Agen for having been the bearer of the summons to Edward upon the appear of the Gascoigners. For his fidelity and valor, Sir Thomas Banastre was rewarded with admission to the Order of the Garter in 1375.

About the sixth of December in 1379, the king of England dispatched a force of two hundred men-at-arms and four hundred archers to aid the duke of Brittany under the command of John Arundel. Sir Thomas Banastre was among those who died when their ship struck rocks in the Irish Channel.

Sir Thomas Banastre married, before 1355, Agnes, daughter of Sir Adam de Houghton (son of Sir Richard de Houghton, by Sibilla, sister of Henry de Lee). Their son and heir, Edward Banastre, was a minor at his father's death, and died shortly afterwards, leaving an only daughter named Constance, his heir, who became the wife of William the son of Sir Richard de Balderstone, Knight. William de Balderstone died in 1407, leaving issue by Constance Banastre (who died before her husband), Richard de Balderstone, their heir, who upon attaining his majority, had livery, 18 Mar 1422, of the same lands which had been held by Sir Thomas Banastre and his son Edward. Richard died in 1459, leaving his wife Joan, a son William and two daughters, Ellen the wife of Thomas Radcliff of Wimmersely, and Elizabeth, the wife of John Osbalderston.

~ Memorials of the Order of the Garter, pp. 205-210

Thomas married Agnes de Houghton, daughter of Sir Adam de Houghton Knight and Unknown.¹³⁸