Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Wentworth, Thomas (1613-1665)
WENTWORTH, Sir THOMAS, Baron Wentworth (1613–1665), eldest son, by his first wife, of Thomas Wentworth, fourth baron Wentworth of Nettlestead and first earl of Cleveland [q. v.], was born at Toddington, knighted on 2 Feb. 1625–6, and entered at Trinity College, Oxford, in 1628; in 1631 he was at The Hague, at the court of the Queen of Bohemia, who frequently mentions him in her letters (see Evelyn, Letters, passim). He was with his father at Berwick in 1640, and was in the same year returned to both the Short and Long parliaments; but on 25 Nov. 1640 was summoned to the upper house in his father's barony of Nettlestead. During the early part of the civil war (1642–5) he commanded a troop of horse, first under Charles, viscount Wilmot [q. v.], against whose dismissal he protested, and then under Lord Goring; was present at the battles of Cropredy Bridge and Newbury in 1644, and shared the revels and intrigues of Prince Charles's disastrous campaign in the west in 1645. In 1646, on Goring's flight to France, the chief command fell to Wentworth, who, according to Bulstrode (Memoirs, pp. 93–4, 149–53), ‘was not thought either of interest, experience, courage, or reputation enough for that trust.’ He was mainly responsible for the defeat and surrender at Torrington on 14 March 1646. He also presumed to talk ‘imperiously and disrespectfully’ to the prince; and, after being driven from his quarters at Ashburton, was placed as general of the horse under the chief command of Lord Hopton, with whom and the prince he eventually escaped to the Scilly Isles and Jersey. In 1649 he attended Charles to Paris, was with him in Scotland and at Worcester, and formed one of the council till the Restoration, being gentleman of the chamber and master of the ceremonies. His principal services were a diplomatic mission from Cologne to Denmark in 1653, and the organisation and command of the ‘royal regiment of guards’ in 1656, though he seems not to have been present at the battle of the Dunes in 1658. After the Restoration he retained this colonelcy, received 500l. from the king in November 1663, and died in his father's lifetime on 28 Feb. 1665. By his wife Philadelphia (d. 4 May 1696), daughter of Sir Ferdinando Carey, who was naturalised in 1662 and received a pension of 600l., very irregularly paid, he had an only child, Henrietta Maria Wentworth [q. v.], who succeeded his father in the barony. A portrait of Wentworth, painted in 1640, belongs to Mr. H. R. Clifton of Clifton Hall, Nottingham, and is reproduced in F. W. Hamilton's ‘Grenadier Guards.’ Lloyd credits him with ‘a very strong constitution and admirable parts for contrivance.’
[Authorities cited under Wentworth, Thomas, Earl of Cleveland, and F. W. Hamilton's Grenadier Guards, caps. i. and iii.]Dictionary of National Biography, Errata (1904), p.278
N.B.— f.e. stands for from end and l.l. for last line
| Page | Col. | Line | |
| 284 | i | 15 f.e. | Wentworth, Sir Thomas, Baron Wentworth: after expense. insert He died in his father's lifetime. |
| 10 f.e. | for succeeded him read succeeded his father |