Kirby [the parish in which he lived] could not have written this without a twinge." Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revel was born to Sir John Malory of Winwick, Northamptonshire, who had served as a Justice of the Peace in Warwickshire and as a Member of Parliament, and Lady Phillipa Malory, heiress of Newbold. He was knighted before 8 October 1441, became a professional soldier, and served under Henry Beauchamp, 1st Duke of Warwick. While it is not recorded how he became distinguished, he acted as an elector in Northamptonshire. However, in 1443 he and accomplice Eustace Barnaby were accused of attacking, kidnapping, and stealing 40 pounds' worth of goods from Thomas Smythe, though nothing came of this charge. He married a woman named Elizabeth Walsh, with whom he had at least one son, named Robert, and possibly one or two other children. Despite the criminal charges against him, he seems to have remained in good standing with his peers because in that same year, Malory was elected by the men of Warwickshire to Parliament to serve as a knight of the shire for the rest of 1443, and was appointed to a royal commission charged with the distribution of money to impoverished towns in Warwickshire. In 1449–50, he was returned as member of Parliament for Great Bedwyn, a seat controlled by the Duke of Buckingham. Malory's status changed abruptly in 1451 when he was accused of ambushing the Duke of Buckingham, Humphrey Stafford, a prominent Lancastrian in the Wars of the Roses, along with 26 other men sometime in 1450. The accusation was never proved. Later in 1451, he was accused of extorting 100 shillings from Margaret King and William Hales of Monks Kirby, and then of committing the same crime against John Mylner for 20 shillings. He was also accused of breaking into the house of Hugh Smyth of Monks Kirby in 1450, stealing 40 pounds' worth of goods and raping Smyth's wife, and with attacking her again in Coventry eight weeks later. At this period, a charge of rape could also apply to some acts of consensual sex and some nonsexual crimes; several scholars have suggested that the accusation did not refer to rape as it is now defined. However, P.J.C. Field's analysis of the specific Latin terminology of the charges concludes that they were intended to refer to actual rapes. On 15 March 1451, Malory and