Sir Thomas Burgh succeeded to the title of 3rd Lord Burgh [E., 1529] on 10 September 1584, by writ. He was invested as a Knight of the Garter on 23 April 1593.
In February 1593, he was appointed as English Ambassador to Scotland. Burgh was met by Lord Seton and banqueted at Seton Palace.[3]James VI of Scotland was in the north and Burgh had to wait in Edinburgh until 14 March when he saw the king and discussed the risks of a Spanish invasion. On 18 March he had an audience with Anne of Denmark and received "ill grace both of words and looks".[4] Burgh and the resident diplomat Robert Bowes borrowed £300 sterling from three Edinburgh merchants, Robert Jousie, Thomas Foulis, and John Porterfield in order to reward potential supporters of English policy.[5]
On 18 April 1597, he was appointed Lord Deputy of Ireland but held the office only briefly, dying the same year.[2]
Burgh married Frances Vaughan, the only daughter of John Vaughan of Sutton-on-Derwent, Yorkshire, by Anne Pickering (daughter and heiress of Sir Christopher Pickering by his wife Jane Lewknor, and widow of Sir Francis Weston and Sir Henry Knyvett), by whom he had a son and four daughters:[6]
Elizabeth Burgh, married George Brooke, a younger son of William Brooke, 10th Baron Cobham, and had issue.[7] She married secondly John Byrd of Broxton and had issue.[1] She married thirdly Francis Reade,[6] 2nd son of Sir William Reade, of Osterley, Middlesex. There were no issue of her third marriage.[1]
Anne Burgh (died after 1 June 1641),[citation needed] who married Sir Drew Drury on 11 October 1604.[6]
Frances Burgh (died before 24 Nov 1618),[1] who married Francis Coppinger.[6]
On the death of Burgh's son, Robert, his baronies of Burgh, Strabolgi, and Cobham of Sterborough fell into abeyance between his sisters. 314 years later, on 5 May 1916, the abeyance was terminated in favour of Alexander Henry Leith, 5th Baron Burgh (1866–1926).[11]
^ abcGeorge Edward Cokayne. Complete peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, extant, extinct, or dormant, Volume 2, G. Bell & sons, 1889, pp. 76–77 (Google eBook)
^Annie I. Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1593-1595, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 65.
^Annie I. Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1593-1595, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 71.
^Annie I. Cameron, Calendar State Papers Scotland: 1593-1595, vol. 11 (Edinburgh, 1936), pp. 75–6.
^G. E. Cokayne; with Vicary Gibbs, H. A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors, The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed., 13 volumes in 14 (1910–1959; reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, U.K.: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000), volume II, p. 155
^Norman McClure, Letters of John Chamberlain, vol. 1 (Philadelphia, 1939), p. 489.
