Thomas Fanshawe, 2nd Viscount Fanshawe

Thomas Fanshawe, 2nd Viscount Fanshawe KB (1632–1674) was an Irish peer and Member of Parliament. He was born to Thomas Fanshawe, 1st Viscount Fanshawe by his second wife Elizabeth Cockayne, the daughter of Sir William Cockayne, who served as the Lord Mayor of London in 1619.

By the time Thomas was ten years old, the English Civil War had begun between Parliament and the King Charles I over whose authority took precedence over the other. As staunch Royalists, the Fanshawe family sent many members of the family, including Fanshawe's father, to fight for the king.

While his father was away, Thomas's uncle, Sir Simon Fanshawe, married the Katherine Walter, the widow of Knighton Ferrers, who was a wealthy neighboring landowner. As a result, Sir Simon gained custody of the dead gentleman's daughter, Katherine (d. 1660). To solidify a union between the two families, Sir Simon arranged for Katherine to marry Thomas in 1648. Thomas would afterwards go on to serve in the Second English Civil War. For his service to the new king, Charles II, he was created a Knight of the Bath upon the Restoration and became an active member of the new Cavalier Parliament for Hertford.

Upon his father's death in 1665, Sir Thomas succeeded his father in the Peerage of Ireland as the 2nd Viscount Fanshawe of Dromore and as King's Remembrancer of the Exchequer. During his political career, Lord Fanshawe served as Lord Lieutenant during the Second Anglo-Dutch War as well. Lord Fanshawe used this position to the utmost. As Lord Lieutenant, Lord Fanshawe sent to the gaol several men who were Parliamentarians during the English Civil War. When he was reproached by Sir Harbottle Grimston, Lord Fanshawe replied that Grimston 'has as deep a hand in the late horrid and bloody affair as any man' in bitter reference to the baronet's past and present Parliamentarian sympathies. Lord Clarendon later wrote to Grimston deploring the 'unwarrantable folly' of his old friend Fanshawe adding that his 'passion and animosity did the king no service'. Parliamentarians were not the only primary focus of Lord Fanshawe's "passion and animosity", however. In one of his only completely recorded speeches in the Parliament, he bitterly attacked and expressed his personal disdain for the Protestant Dissenters emphasizing their part in the rise of Oliver Cromwell, despite the fact that the Lord Protector was also one of Lord Fanshawe's distant relatives, and the dethronement and execution of the king. It begins as follows:

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