POYLE, Sir Thomas de la (1342-1401), of Hampton Poyle, Oxon.

The de la Poyles could trace their ownership of the manor of Hampton Poyle and of various properties in Surrey (at Guildford, Tongham and Cudworth in Newdigate), back to the 13th century. Sir Henry de la Poyle died overseas in December 1359, leaving Thomas, aged 17, as heir to these estates as well as to land in Chilton, Berkshire, although the young man’s mother (who afterwards married Sir John Perton) was to retain Hampton Poyle for several years as her jointure.CIPM, x. 622; VCH Surr. ii. 617; iii. 563; Peds. Plea Rolls ed. Wrottesley, 378-9; VCH Oxon. vi. 161, 165. B.H. Putnam in Sir Wm. Shareshull, 7, 159 made the incorrect assumption that the marriage of Elizabeth Shareshull to Sir John Perton took place before 1352. De la Poyle’s wardship was granted in June 1360 to Richard Stury, one of the King’s yeomen, and three years later Stury paid £20 for his ward’s marriage. However, nothing is heard of the activities of de la Poyle himself until the summer of 1377 when, on 14 Aug., while serving at sea in the retinue of Thomas of Woodstock, earl of Buckingham, he received the honour of knighthood. There is no record of further contact between him and this youngest of the King’s uncles, but his appointment as sheriff of Oxfordshire and Berkshire in December 1388, shortly after he had sat in the Cambridge Parliament dominated by Thomas of Woodstock and his fellow Lords Appellant, suggests that he had given them his support in the Commons; and ten years later, when Richard II was revenging himself against them, he saw fit to procure a royal pardon. De la Poyle was also known to John, Lord Lovell, for whom he witnessed deeds on occasion, and in 1391 he was placed on a commission of oyer and terminer when Lovell complained of assaults committed in north Oxfordshire. This was to be de la Poyle’s last royal commission even though he lived on ten years more. However, he was empanelled as a juror at Oxford castle in January 1400 when Sir Thomas Blount was condemned for plotting the death of Henry IV.CPR, 1358-61, pp. 437, 495; 1361-4, p. 400; E101/38/2; CCR, 1385-9, p. 297; C67/30 m. 18; E37/28.

De la Poyle died without issue on 19 Dec. 1401, and was succeeded by his brother, John. His widow, Katherine, apparently then married Reynold Barantyn, who had recently inherited the estates of his father, Thomas Barantyn, but she outlived her first husband by less than six years.C137/31/25, 57/3; CFR, xii. 156; O. Manning and W. Bray, Surr. i. 17.