Thomas Street (judge)

Baron Sir Thomas Street, MP, KB, JP (1625 – 8 March 1696) was an English judge and politician who became a Baron of the Exchequer in 1681. He represented Worcester in the House of Commons between 1659 and 1679. In 1667, he became the Mayor of Worcester, as his father had been before him. In 1677, he became the Chief Justice of Brecknock, Glamorgan and Radnor.^[1]

Following Monmouth's Rebellion in 1685, the Catholic King James II took to contravening the Test Act and began filling the military high-command with Catholics, leading to a confrontation with Parliament which took shape as the case of Godden v. Hales (1686), to be settled by the King's Bench where Sir Thomas was by then residing.^[2] Of the ten judges who composed the last King's Bench before the Glorious Revolution of 1688, Sir Thomas was the only one to rule against King James II's contravention of the Test Act in 1687, giving rise to his reputation and the Street family motto: Fideli Cum Fidelis ("Faithful Among the Faithless").^[3]