Sir Thomas Heneage (b. before 1482, d. 1553) was Cardinal Wolsey’s gentleman usher at Hampton Court, and then courtier to Henry VIII.
In 1519 he acquired an estate in East Molesey and erected a mansion to be near Hampton Court. When Wolsey fell from power Heneage retained his post in Henry’s privy chamber and was one of the few courtiers present when Henry married Anne Boleyn on 25th January 1533.
By the 1540s he headed the privy chamber at all official functions, such as the reception of Anne of Cleves, and Henry’s marriage to Katherine Parr.
In 1554 Heneage married Anne Poyntz, daughter of Sir Nicholas Poyntz and Joan Berkeley. Was this where the name of our very own pub in Walton Road came from? We cannot be sure, but it looks possible. In 1866 a Mr Francis Bowry, a cab proprietor, living in Pemberton Road, opened a new public house. After many attempts to get a licence he received help form dowager Lady Clinton of Molesey Park.
He was so grateful that he wanted to call the pub, The Clinton Arms. Her family however hated the thought of their name being associated with a pub, so she offered up her maiden name, Poyntz. Was Lady Clinton a descendent of Sir Thomas and Anne Poyntz?
In 1555 Heneage’s father gave him and his wife Anne the site of Legbourne priory with extensive lands in Lincolnshire, and on the father’s death in the following year Heneage succeeded to property in Yorkshire and to the leasehold house in Lincoln in which his uncle George and his father had lived.
He was to enjoy the favour of Elizabeth, under whom he attained high office at court and in government. After becoming a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber around 1565, she flirted with him, making her favourite, Robert Dudley 1st Earl of Leicester extremely jealous He died on 17 October 1594 and is buried in St Pauls.