Initial Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I - Crown Grant of 1573 of the manor of Epping to Sir Thomas

Sir Thomas Heneage (died 1595) received this grant of land in Epping and many other favours from his Queen. He was a much trusted man. He was 'Treasurer at War' or paymaster of the forces raised in July 1588 to resist the Spanish Armada. The accounts he submitted are extant.¹⁰ Four regiments of 'footemen' are listed from Suffolk, Essex, London and Kent making very likely 4,000 in total. The Captain General, who was the Earl of Leicester, received the highest rate of pay at £6 per day, while the lowest rank listed of footmen, halberdiers and tipstaffs each received 8d. per day. Preachers, secretaries, trumpeters, surgeons and drummers were included. The sum total of the charge appears to have been xxvjm ccclxxv li. xv s. ix d., (£26,375 - 15s - 9d). For such services during that testing time Sir Thomas Heneage was given the Armada jewel, with a likeness of the Queen on the obverse side and a representation of Noah's Ark on the reverse with the legend Per Vndas Aevas Tranqvila, or 'on troubled waters calm'.

Many valuable grants of land were made by the Queen to Sir Thomas Heneage, chiefly in Essex. On 13 August 1564 she had given him the reversion of the estate of Copthall, where he subsequently built an elaborate mansion from the designs of John Thorpe. In November 1570 the Queen had induced the town of Colchester to grant him Kingswood Heath. Sir Thomas Heneage was M.P. for Essex from 1585 until his death.

Initial Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I