Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Thorpe, John de
THORPE or THORP, JOHN de, Baron Thorpe (d. 1324), judge, apparently son of Robert de Thorpe of North Creak and Ashwell-Thorpe, Norfolk, by his wife Maud, came of a family of wealth and importance in Norfolk and Suffolk. He was summoned among the magnates to be at Portsmouth to join the king on his expedition to Gascony in 1293, was excepted from the general summons of military tenants in 1294, and after that date received special summonses to render service, as in 1301, 1309, and later years. He was a knight of the shire for Norfolk in the parliament of 1305, and in 1306 was a collector and assessor of the aid for Norfolk and Suffolk. He was a justice of trailbaston for Norfolk and Suffolk in 1307, and attended the first parliament of Edward II as a judge. On 11 June 1309 he received a special summons to parliament, and sat as a baron during the remainder of his life, though he continued a judge and served as a justice itinerant on divers occasions. He was appointed sheriff of Norfolk in 1315, and excused himself on the ground of want of health, but served the office in 1319. In 1316 he was certified as lord, or joint-lord, of nineteen manors in Norfolk and of Combs and Helmingham in Suffolk; one at least of them, Uphall in Norfolk, remained in his family until 1522. He was joined with Thomas, lord Bardolf, in 1322 as warden to guard the coast of Norfolk. He died on 16 May 1324. A writ of summons was by mistake addressed to him in 1325. His first wife, Agnes, died in 1299; his second, Alice, widow of Sir William de Mortimer of Norfolk, survived him. He was succeeded in his estates by his son Robert (see below), who received no summons to parliament; another son, George, also occurs during his father's lifetime.
Robert de Thorpe or Thorp (1294?–1330), judge, son of John, baron de Thorpe, was thirty years old at his father's death. He was a justice itinerant in 1321–3, and may perhaps be identified with the member for Northamptonshire in 1323. He was a justice itinerant in 1330, and died in that year. He married Beatrice, daughter of Sir Edmund de Hengrave of Suffolk, and left a son and heir, John, who died in his minority; and Sir Edmund de Thorpe. The latter was twenty-one in 1340, and was ancestor of Sir Edmund de Thorpe who died in 1417, leaving two daughters, coheiresses (Nicolas).
[Foss's Judges, iii. 306; Blomefield's Norfolk, i. 207, ii. 251, v. 143; Parl. Writs, i. 863, ii. 1503–5; Return of Members, i. 19, 69; Rot. Parl. i. 218, 301; Cal. Inquis. post mortem i. 310, ii. 30, 159; Nicolas's Hist. Peerage, ed. Courthope, p. 474.]