Background
Palmer was the third son of Sir Henry Palmer of Wingham, Kent, by his wife Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Windebank of Guisnes, and was nephew of Sir Thomas Palmer (died 1553).
Palmer was the third son of Sir Henry Palmer of Wingham, Kent, by his wife Jane, daughter of Sir Richard Windebank of Guisnes, and was nephew of Sir Thomas Palmer (died 1553).
He was High Sheriff of Kent in 1595, and in the following year went on the expedition to Cadiz, when he was knighted. and created a baronet on 29 June 1621. He died on 2 January 1625-1626, aged 85, and was buried at Wingham. The ‘Travailer’ must be distinguished from Thomas Palmer or Palmar, a Roman Catholic scholar, who graduated Bachelor of Arts from Brasenose College, Oxford, in 1553, but who subsequently became a primary scholar of Saint John"s College, and was in 1563 appointed principal of Gloucester Hall.
He was a zealous catholic, and, after a steady refusal to conform, he had in 1564 to retire from his headship to his estates in Essex, where persecution is said to have followed him.
Wood describes him as an excellent orator, and ‘the best of his time for a Ciceronian style’.
He was a Member of the Parliament of England in 1586 and 1601 for Arundel.