TYRELL, William I

A younger son, Tyrell was from a wealthy and extremely well connected family. His father was a Speaker in three Parliaments and the wealthiest member of the Essex gentry in the mid 1430s. John Tyrell’s connexions were impressive, for he served several important magnates, including Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, as well as Henry VI, for whom he was an officer of the duchy of Lancaster, a councillor and treasurer of the Household.5 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 683-6. Among his friends was the influential Essex lawyer, Robert Darcy, whose daughter William married. Sir John settled lands in Norfolk and Suffolk on his son and his wife, including the manor of Gipping in the latter county and properties at Banham in Norfolk.6 R.M. Jeffs, ‘Later Med. Sheriff’ (Oxf. Univ. D.Phil. thesis, 1960), 330; CPR, 1441-6, p. 261. In due course the couple took up residence at Gipping although it was ‘of Banham’ that Tyrell stood surety for Henry Filongley* and William Cotton* in 1439.7 CFR, xvii. 101.

There is a lack of definite evidence for Tyrell predating the later 1430s. It is possible that he should be identified with the William Tyrell serving as a mounted man-at-arms at Arques under Sir John Montgomery* in March 1436, although the first certain reference to him is his appointment as steward of the duchy of Lancaster in Essex, Hertfordshire and other counties in the south-east of England in the following January.8 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, Fr. mss, 25773/106/5. But this soldier might have been his brother and namesake or another William Tyrell altogether. There was also a William Tyrell who served with John Tyrell, the MP’s father, in France in 1415: E101/45/13. J.S. Roskell, Speakers, 192, states that he was John’s son but it is much more likely that he was John’s yr. bro. of that name: G.A. Moriarty, ‘Early Tyrells’, New Eng. Hist. and Gen. Reg. cix. 26. He later shared the office with his elder brother Thomas. He, Thomas and their sibling, William Tyrell II, all joined the royal household, of which he was an esquire by the late 1430s.9 E101/408/25, f. 7. By then Tyrell was a follower of Sir James Butler, as were his associates Filongley and Cotton. The link with Butler led to embroilment in the politics of Cambridgeshire, where Sir James’s pretensions to dominance led to conflict with its leading magnate, John, Lord Tiptoft†, ironically an old friend of Tyrell’s late father. The quarrel manifested itself most notably in the county’s parliamentary election dispute of 1439.10 R. Virgoe, ‘Cambs. Election of 1439’, Bull. IHR, xlvi. 95-101. While there is no evidence that William had any involvement in that particular episode, he and Henry Filongley clashed with Tiptoft’s following soon afterwards. Early in January 1440, they headed a small group of Butler’s servants who went to Cambridge to make purveyance for their master’s household and other ‘disportez’. In Cambridge they were confronted by some 120 of Tiptoft’s men led by Thomas Lokton*, prompting them to send for support to the Butler residence at nearby Fulbourn. At that point two prominent clerics, Richard Caudray, dean of St. Martin-le-Grand, and John Tylney, vice-chancellor of Cambridge university, and the mayor of Cambridge intervened and both sides agreed to withdraw. This is not, however, a neutral account of events, since it was Butler’s response to a petition of complaint (now lost) that Tiptoft subsequently presented to the Council.11 Egerton Roll 8791. Following these controversies, Butler began to transfer his attentions to his estates in the West Country although Tyrell was again associated with him some years later.

In the wake of events in Cambridgeshire, the Crown found a more gainful outlet for Tyrell’s energies, appointing him to accompany the King’s secretary, Thomas Bekynton, later bishop of Bath and Wells, on an embassy to Gascony in the spring of 1442. The purpose of the mission was to enter negotiations with Jean, count of Armagnac, who had proposed a marriage between his daughter and Henry VI. Bekynton and his party reached Bordeaux in the summer of that year, and the city served as their base until they returned to England in February 1443. During their stay, they visited the constable of Bordeaux, Sir Robert Clifton*, on his deathbed, and Tyrell witnessed the will the knight made shortly before he died in September 1442.12 Corresp. Bekynton ed. Williams, ii. 195, 197, 199, 200, 202, 203, 226, 230, 231, 233, 236; Norf. RO, Norwich consist. ct., Reg. Wylby, ff. 128-9.

About a year after returning to England, Tyrell waited at the King’s command upon Giles, the younger brother of the duke of Brittany, who was visiting England. Exchequer records show that he attended Giles for 48 days, for which he received wages of £8.13 R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 342; E404/60/143; E403/757, m. 7. While Bekynton’s mission had proved abortive as far as a royal marriage was concerned, a match was contracted between the King and Margaret of Anjou not long afterwards. In November 1444 Tyrell returned to France, as a member of the expedition which escorted Margaret to England the following spring.14 Add. 23938, f. 5. The leader of the expedition was William de la Pole, marquess of Suffolk. It is possible that Tyrell, later a feed man of Suffolk’s widow, was already a de la Pole retainer at this date, although he continued to wear the livery of an esquire of the royal household until 1452 or later.15 E101/410/9.

A few months after accompanying Margaret to England, Tyrell was appointed sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk. During his term in the office he was sued in the Exchequer by two Norfolk husbandmen, who claimed that he had made a false return to a writ of trespass which the duke of Gloucester had brought against them.16 E13/144, rots. 34, 35d. Whatever the truth of the plaintiffs’ claims, there is no evidence that Tyrell had maintained his father’s links with the duke, who by this date was an opponent of the Court and of William de la Pole, the King’s chief minister. Within three months of his term as sheriff coming to an end, he was elected to the Parliament of 1447, where Gloucester was arrested. He did not have far to travel to take up his seat, since Parliament met at Bury St. Edmunds (only a dozen miles or so west of Gipping), well away from London where the duke enjoyed popular support. Just nine days before the assembly opened, he secured a royal pardon, although for what reason is unknown.17 C67/39, m. 1. Another Member of the Parliament was Tyrell’s putative brother-in-law and fellow Household man, Thomas Skargill*. Originally from Yorkshire, Skargill enjoyed a close relationship with the Tyrells after settling in Essex and he acted in land transactions and as a mainpernor on their behalf.18 CCR, 1441-7, p. 392; CFR, xix. 133. Tyrell helped Skargill in return, agreeing on one occasion to arbitrate in a dispute in the role of the latter’s ‘friend’.19 C1/17/331.

At the elections to the following Parliament Tyrell witnessed the return of the MPs for Essex, the county where the main interests of his family lay, and during his career he participated in land transactions and other affairs of the gentry there, just as he did in Suffolk.20 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 265, 398-9; C1/16/398; Add. Ch. 10469; CP25(1)/72/282/316, 322; 224/119/15; KB27/786, rot. 82d; CPR, 1452-61, p. 528. Despite his ties with Essex, he took part in subsequent parliamentary elections in Suffolk, the county where he served as an ad hoc commissioner and j.p. and where he helped to raise money for the defence of Calais in 1455.21 PPC, vi. 238. It is unclear whether it was he or his yr. bro. who was appointed to a comm. of oyer and terminer in Kent, Essex and Suff. in Sept. 1458: CPR, 1452-61, p. 488. He also served a term as escheator in Norfolk and Suffolk in the early 1450s, even though he had already occupied the more senior office of sheriff of those counties a few years earlier.

While Tyrell was escheator, the bishop of Winchester, William Waynflete, asked him to take custody on his behalf of a ward, Margery Pershut, a minor heiress from Hampshire (where the MP’s elder brother held lands). The reason for this request, and whether Tyrell was associated with the bishop in any other respects, is not known.22 Hants RO, Reg. Waynflete 1, f. 3**. Much more significant was his connexion with the de la Poles. After William de la Pole’s downfall and death in 1450, the de la Pole affinity in East Anglia rallied around his widow, Alice, the dowager duchess of Suffolk, and by 1453 she was paying Tyrell a substantial annual retainer of £10.23 Egerton Roll 8779. During the first half of the 1450s he and other de la Pole men were involved in disputes with followers of John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk. In 1453 he was among those obliged to find mainpernors to guarantee that he would keep the peace towards Mowbray’s cousin, John Howard*, and he himself stood surety that (Sir) Miles Stapleton* and others would do Howard no harm. In the same year he was on a jury which indicted a group of the duke of Norfolk’s retainers for planning to kill the de la Pole servant, John Ulveston*.24 KB9/118/1/36; 2/23, 25, 350, 351. In the mid 1450s Tyrell was also associating with his old patron, James Butler, by now earl of Wiltshire and strongly linked with the Court. Probably one of Butler’s feoffees in this period, he acted as a mainpernor for the earl’s brother, Thomas, in November 1459.25 CPR, 1452-61, p. 150; CFR, xix. 259.

Another associate of Tyrell’s in the later years of Henry VI’s reign was a fellow Household man, Robert Whittingham II*. In May 1455 he and Whittingham acquired from the Crown the farm of several manors in west Norfolk which had belonged to the late Sir John Clifton, a distant cousin of the former constable of Bordeaux.26 CFR, xix. 133. Like other members of the Household, Tyrell was elected to the Parliament of 1459, the partisan assembly which attainted the Yorkist lords. Several weeks after its dissolution, he was one of the gentry in Suffolk ordered to organize resistance to one of York’s allies, the earl of Warwick. In the event, Warwick and the earl of March defeated a royal army at the battle of Northampton the following summer, and the Yorkists seized control of the government. Despite Tyrell’s associations with the Lancastrian Crown, his patron, Alice de la Pole, included him among those whom in the following autumn she asked the duke of York to consider for the shrievalty of Norfolk and Suffolk.27 Paston Letters ed. Davis, ii. 210. She made her request through her son, John, duke of Suffolk, and his wife, who had married one of York’s daughters, but in the event none of her candidates became sheriff. Notwithstanding the tenurial links between the Tyrells and York,28 R. Horrox, Ric. III, 77. the MP’s political sympathies for the Lancastrian cause counted against his serving a second term in that office.

Following the accession of Edward IV, Tyrell lost his place on the Suffolk bench and the duchy of Lancaster office, and he did not long survive the change of dynasty. Edward’s hold on the kingdom was far from secure at the beginning of his reign, and there were rumours of conspiracies involving prominent supporters of Henry VI and their foreign allies during the winter of 1461-2. It was said that Margaret of Anjou had assumed the leadership of a great pan-national league dedicated to restoring her husband to the throne. This was certainly a wild exaggeration but by early 1462 the new government probably had good reason to suspect a serious plot. It instituted commissions of oyer and terminer to investigate trespasses and treasons throughout the country and on 12 Feb. John de Vere, earl of Oxford, and his eldest son, Aubrey, along with Sir Thomas Tuddenham*, John Clopton, John Montgomery* and Tyrell were arrested in Essex and brought to the Tower of London. A contemporary chronicler refers to those arrested with the earl as his ‘feed men’. According to one account, the prisoners had communicated with Henry VI and his queen, saying that they would join Edward IV on his campaign against the Lancastrian rebels in the north of England and then kill him when an opportunity presented itself, only to be betrayed to the Yorkist King by their conscience-stricken messenger. Another, perhaps more reliable, version states that Oxford had arranged with Margaret of Anjou for the duke of Somerset to land with a Lancastrian army on the Essex coast. Whatever the case, all of the arrested men, save Clopton, were charged with high treason and convicted before John Tiptoft, earl of Worcester, constable of England and son of Lord Tiptoft. Aubrey de Vere was beheaded on Tower Hill on 20 Feb., and his execution was followed by those of Tuddenham, Montgomery and Tyrell on the 23rd and of Oxford three days later. Their bodies were buried in the church of the Austin friars in London but it is likely that their heads were publicly displayed on London Bridge.29 C.L. Scofield, Edw. IV, i. 231-2; Gt. Chron. London ed. Thomas and Thornley, 198; Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xxviii), 162-3.

In spite of his conviction for treason, Tyrell was not attainted. Ironically, custody of his lands and his eldest son, James, still a minor, passed to the dowager duchess of York in her capacity as his feudal superior but, within a fortnight of his death, she sold them to his widow, Margaret, and her feoffees for £50.30 Add. Ch. 16564. Margaret was still alive in November 1468, when the Pope granted her a plenary indulgence.31 CPL, xii. 615. It is not known when she died, but she was probably buried in the so-called ‘Abbot’s tomb’ in Stowmarket church.32 Vis. Suff. i. (Harl. Soc. n.s. ii), 107. James Tyrell, who became a leading servant of Richard III (he is alleged by some to have murdered the King’s nephews, the ‘princes in the Tower’), shared his father’s fate, since he too was beheaded on Tower Hill, for treason against Henry VII, in 1502.