Remarks:
Thomas Baldwyn, b. in 1546, who, like his grandfather and uncle, spent many of his years within the circuit of a court, as agent to the Earl of Shrewsbury, then engaged in the dangerous office of guarding the Scottish queen. In Lodge's "Illustrations," vol.il. p. 234, is a letter signed " T. Bawdewyn," and directed to the Earl of Shrewsbury, 1 July, 1580. It Informs his lordship that Elizabeth is resolute against his going to Chatsworth with Queen Mary. In a room in Beauchamp's tower, in the Tower of London, were discovered, some years ago, a number of inscriptions, chiefly made with nails, and all of them the autographs of the unfortunate individuals who thus endeavoured to beguile for a time the tedious hours of confinement. Among them is one which runs thus :—
1585. Thomas Bawdewin. Juli.
As Vertl'e Maketh Life
So Bin Cawseth Deatu.
To which is added a representation of a pair of scales, evidently intimating the writer's confidence in his own integrity and desire to obtain justice. This person, there is no doubt, was the Thomas Baldwyn above mentioned. His epitaph, still remaining at Diddlebury, records his escape from the tea, the word, and the cruel tower. The issue of his confinement is supplied by a passage in the pedigree—" Thomas Bawdewin, Esq. of Diddlebury, by the privic counsell of Queen Elizabeth, appoynted as .... (here is a blank) for the affayres of Mary Queen of Scots and George, Earl of Salop, after three years imprisonment in the Tower, m. Bertran, (this should be Gertrude) dau. of Robert Corbett, Esq. of Stanwardine." After his liberation, he adopted a motto from the Psalmist, piously ascribing the event to a merciful Providence :— Per Dt ton meum tratuilio nunun. And it seems most probable, that, when released, he quitted the dangerous vortex of a court, and retired to his paternal estate in Corvedale, where he d. at a good old age. In Oct. 1614, and where his posterity continued, for five generations, until Richard Bawdewin sold the Diddlebury estate to Frederick Cornewall, Esq. capt. R.N., father of the late Bishop of Worcester.
Source:A genealogical and heraldic dictionary of the landed gentry of ..., Volume 1 By Sir Bernard Burke