Although he had attained his majority at the death of his father, he did not get full possession of the earldom until four years later, when he was girt with the Sword of Knighthood. This took place at Gloucester where the King was spending Whitsuntide.
He was also known as Thomas de Henry. He inherited his uncle"s (Henry Doctorate"Oili) Oxfordshire estate and owned the Manor of Bewdley, Worcester and rendered service for it, of a fully equipped archer for twenty days, as often as there was war against the Welsh. In 1241, he paid one hundred and eighty marks scutage in order that he might be excused attendance on the King in the expedition to Gascony.
This was in excess of the sum due from him.
The following year he paid a further one hundred and twenty marks. At the coronation of Eleanor of Provence, the Queen Consort of Henry III, on the 26 June 1236 he bore the third Sword of State, claiming that it was his hereditary right to do southern
Amongst Ela"s benefactions were grants to the monks at Reading, Berkshire, the Canons of Osney, Oxfordshire, Street Sepulchre"s, Warwick, the grey friars in London, and the Nuns of Godstow, Oxford. In 1295, she gave land to the University of Oxford, from which a certain amount of the income was to be paid to the fellows of Merton College that they might perform masses for her soul.
