The Honourable Thomas Hungate
Arms of Hungate of Saxton: Gules, a chevron engrailed between three hounds sejant, Argent
Member of Parliament for Maldon
In office 1554–1554
Preceded by	Anthony Browne
Succeeded by	Anthony Browne
Member of Parliament for Lancaster
In office 1555–1555
Preceded by	Richard Weston
Succeeded by	William Rice
Member of Parliament for Newport Iuxta Launceston
In office 1558–1558
Preceded by	William Stourton
Succeeded by	Richard Grenville
Personal details
Born	c. 1516
Died	1579 (aged 62–63)
Resting place	All Saints' church, Saxton 53°49′34″N 1°16′43″W / 53.826°N 1.27872°W / 53.826; -1.27872
Spouse	Isabel Metham
Children	William Hungate Thomas Hungate
Parents	William Hungate Alice Gower

Thomas Hungate (c. 1516 – 1579) of Saxton, North Yorkshire, was an English politician. He was a Member of the Parliament of England (MP) for the seat of Maldon in 1554, Lancaster in 1555 and Newport Iuxta Launceston in 1558.^[1]

Hungate was born about 1516, the third son of William Hungate (d. 1547) of Saxton and Alice Gower, daughter of Sir William Gower of Stittenham, Yorkshire.^[1][2]

He married Isabel Metham, daughter of Sir Thomas Metham of Metham, with whom he had two sons:^[1]

• William Hungate^[3]
• Thomas Hungate^[3]

Hungate was a servant of Sir Anthony Browne by 1535; avener to Queen Jane Seymour by 1537, to Anne of Cleves and Catherine Parr; commissioner of sewers, for Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire and Yorkshire in 1545; member of the household of Princess Mary by 1551 to 1553; forester, Galtres, Yorkshire from 1554 to 1572; esquire of the body by September, 1554 to 1558.^[1][6][7]

In July 1553 Princess Mary wrote to the Privy Council from Kenninghall, demanding that it renounce Jane Grey and recognize her as queen, as her father's will decreed.^[8][9][10]

Mary sent her servant, Thomas Hungate, to deliver her letters to the Council in London. Hungate, who had "eagerly offered himself for this task, despite is danger", hurried to London where he "bravely delivered the queen's commands to Northumberland and the other noblemen and gave them her letters."^[8][11]

Hungate arrived on 10 July, while the Council was in session, with letters from Kenninghall dated the day before. The Duke of Northumberland told him that at his age, he should have had more sense. He was immediately sent to the Tower of London.^[9]

He received no preferment during the reign of Elizabeth I.^[1]

His wife and sons had died before he made his will which was dated 16 April 1578.^[1] The supervisors of his will, in which he left legacies to a number of relations, were Anthony Browne, 1st Viscount Montagu, Sir William Cordell and Thomas Radclyffe, 3rd Earl of Sussex; Cordell and Sussex were to share an annuity of £20 "for the great goodness heretofore I have found and for the great goodness I hope hereafter mine shall find at their hands". He died in 1579 and was buried in the Hungate quire of Saxton church.^[1][2]

• Coros, D. F. (1982). "Hungate, Thomas (by 1516-79), of Saxton, Yorks". In Bindoff, S. T. (ed.). The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-1558 – via The History of Parliament Online.
• Glover, Robert; Saint-George, Richard (1875). Foster, Joseph (ed.). The Visitation of Yorkshire, Made in the Years 1584/5, by Robert Glover, Somerset Herald; to which is Added the Subsequent Visitation Made in 1612, by Richard St. George, Norroy King of Arms, with Several Additional Pedigrees, Including "The Arms Taken Out of Churches and Houses at Yorkshire Visitation, 1584/5," "Sir William Fayrfax' Booke of Arms," and Other Heraldic Lists, with Copious Indices. London: Privately printed for the editor. p. 114. OCLC 1403155103.
• Hearn, Karen (1995). Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England, 1530-1630. London: Tate Publishing. pp. 66–67. ISBN 9781854371690. OCLC 33952678.
• Ives, Eric (2011). Lady Jane Grey: A Tudor Mystery. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 191, 228. ISBN 978-14443-5018-0.
• MacCulloch, Diarmaid, ed. (1984). "Vita Mariae Angliae Reginae of Robert Wingfield of Brantham". Camden Miscellany XXVIII. Camden fourth series. Vol. 29. Edited and translated by Diarmaid MacCulloch. London: Royal Historical Society. pp. 181–301. ISBN 0-86193-101-7.
• Madden, Frederick (1831). Privy Purse Expenses of the Princess Mary, Daughter of King Henry the Eighth, Afterwards Queen Mary: With a Memoir of the Princess, and Notes. London: William Pickering. p. 158. OCLC 65256667.
• Wheater, W. (1882). The History of the Parishes of Sherburn and Cawood, with Notices of, Wistow, Saxton, Towton, &c (2nd ed.). London: Longmans, Green & Co. pp. 45–46.
• Whitelock, Anna (2009). Mary Tudor: Princess, Bastard, Queen. New York: Random House. p. 177. ISBN 978-1-4000-6609-4.
• Whitelock, Anna; MacCulloch, Diarmaid (June 2007). "Princess Mary's Household and the Succession Crisis, July 1553". The Historical Journal. 50 (2): 265–287. doi:10.1017/S0018246X07006061. JSTOR 4140130.

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• HUNGATE, Thomas (by 1516-79), of Saxton, Yorks. in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509-155, ed. S.T. Bindoff, 1982.