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I note that a number of the entries on various internet geanological sites say that Thomas More III (b.1538), the grandson of Sir Thomas More, married Martha Brooke the daughter of Robert Brooke of Madeley in Shropshire, and Dorothy Gateacre. They say further that the son of Thomas More and Martha Brooke was Thomas William More, and that he married Margaret Whale of Southwold, Suffolk, England.
I have to say that, on all the evidence that I have been able to find, there is no truth in these statements.
I have a large amount of information on the family of Sir Thomas More (from whom I am descended) and on the Brooke family. On the Brooke family this includes a copy of a manuscript with a history of the Brooke family from Shropshire Records, and two pedigrees - one from the Visitations of Shropshire in 1623 and the other undated, but probably from the early 1900's.
What I can establish as fact is the following:
Robert Brooke (d.1558) is buried in the Church of All Saints, Claverley, Shropshire. This is where the family originally came from and where they lived before Henry VIII sold them Madeley Court on 23 July 1544. There is a large tomb in the church which depicts John and his wives surrounded by their children with their baptismal dates.
It turns out that Robert Brooke of Claverley and Madeley married three times:
His first wife was Anne, widow of Nicholas Hurleston and daughter of Francis Waring of Shropshire. By her he had two children: Mary (bpt. 1536) and Valentine (bpt. 1538).
His second wife was Elizabeth Waring, daughter of Francis Waring and sister of Anne. By her he had John, b. 1539.
His third wife was Dorothy Gateacre, daughter of William Gateacre. By her he had fourteen children, the first bpt. 1541 and the last bpt. 1556. One of the children was Martha. She was bpt. 9 Sept 1545.
Both pedigrees, and the history, say that Martha married Christopher Digon. No children are recorded. Had there been a second marriage (e.g. to Thomas More III) it would have been noted in Visitations of Shropshire in 1623.
There is a connection between the Brooke family and the More family, but that is through Mary Brooke (1608-1683), the daughter of Sir Basil Brooke (1576-1646), the grandson of Robert Brooke and Elizabeth Waring via their son John.
Mary Brooke married Thomas More (1607-1660), and they had nine children.
Regarding Thomas More III:
He was born on Tuesday 2 July 1538. The event was recorded in Thomas More’s "Book of Hours" which had been given to John More II (Thomas III’s father)
In one of the pedigrees in my possession, Thomas III is said to have had 3 sons - but the name of his wife is not recorded. The 3 sons were: Thomas (whose descendants are said to have gone to America), Cyprian and Constantine. All three children were all alive in England in 1606 when they where allocated money from the will of their uncle (Thomas II). At that time Thomas III was described as deceased - which if why the pedigrees say "died bef.1606". The actual year of his death is not known.
Nowhere is Thomas III’s son called Thomas William and none of the More children at that time were babtised with two first names.
From my research evidence is emerging that Thomas and Cyprian were baptised at Mitcham, Surrey - Cyprian in 1567 and Thomas in 1569 - but my work is continuing on this.
On the question of the marriage of a Thomas William More to Margaret Whale of Southwold: There is no mention of a Whale family in the Parish Registers of Southwold, of which I have a copy.
The ancestors of current churchwarden of Southwold was vicar of Southwold in the 1640s around the time a Rev.Youngs left there for Salem with a number of his parishioners. There was a Thomas Moore, son of Thomas and Anne .... Moore, born in England c.1615, who married Martha Youngs at Southwold, England. This Thomas Moore went to Southold L.I. in 1650 and his wife Martha and 6 children followed him in 1651. He died at Sothold, L.I., in 1691.
Although there was this family, and a number of others with the name More/Moor in Southwold in the early 1600s there has, I understand never been any suggestion that they were related to the family of Sir Thomas.
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