TORELL, John

John was born at the home of his great-uncle, John Tyrell*, in 1423, the eldest son of Thomas Torell, C139/120/51. and heir to estates worth perhaps as much as £150 p.a. Nothing is recorded of his whereabouts for several years. Under the provisions of the will his father made shortly before his death in March 1443, he received various items of silver plate, and, more importantly, he also inherited the bulk of Thomas’s lands. Even though his two younger brothers were to divide between them the family holdings in Sussex, the interests of its main line were protected by limiting their tenure to their lifetimes. John’s inheritance, situated mainly in Essex, included the manor of ‘Torell’ in Little Thurrock, held by grand serjeanty of the office of naperer at coronations. PCC 15, 16 Rous (PROB11/1, ff. 116, 120); C139/110/40. Immediately after Thomas Torell’s death the Crown sold John’s wardship and marriage to Thomas Brown III*, the second prothonotary in the court of common pleas, who was prepared to pay as much as £200 for the marriage and an annual sum for the wardship, despite the fact that John was only about 18 months short of reaching his majority. CFR, xvii. 260; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 166, 169. Given the value of John’s marriage, it is surprising that the family name of his wife is not known for certain. The possibility that she was his guardian’s daughter cannot be excluded, yet she was not expressly mentioned in Brown’s will of 1454. At that date Torell owed the testator £60. Guildhall Lib. London, commissary ct. will, 9171/5, f. 124v. In Vis. Essex (Harl. Soc. xiii), 116 his wife is confused with his daughter-in-law, Emma (d.1491), da. and event. coh. of Sir Humphrey Starkey (d.1486): CIPM Hen. VII, i. 195, 859, 1165.

Before he came of age, in Easter term 1444 Torell had been named in a final concord as a co-feoffee with Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, and Cardinal Kemp whereby certain manors in Essex were settled in tail on the daughters of the late serjeant-at-law, Thomas Rolf. Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 34. It may be that like Rolf and his guardian Brown he was intended for the legal profession, but if so he failed to shine in the law-courts. He made proof of age in October that year, and the escheator of Essex was ordered to give him seisin of his inheritance shortly afterwards. C139/120/51; CCR, 1441-7, p. 241. Styled ‘gentleman’, in the following March Torell stood surety at the Exchequer for John Whytyng, a London lawyer on amicable terms with his former guardian, and later on, in 1448, he, Brown and Whityng were associated in an enfeoffment of lands in St. Osyths, Essex, and the manor of Oakley, Kent, made by William St. Cler. CFR, xvii. 309-10; E159/225, commissiones Easter; Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 43. Surprisingly little is recorded about Torell’s private affairs. In 1444 his tenure of the manor of Berners Roding in Essex, which had been purchased by his grandfather, had been contested by the heiress of the Berners family, Margery, and her second husband Sir John Bourgchier, but eight years later an agreement was reached between the parties whereby Torell and his wife appear to have recovered it. P. Morant, Essex, ii. 474-5; Essex Feet of Fines, iv. 45.

Torell attested the Essex elections to the Parliament of February 1449, when his kinsman (Sir) Thomas Tyrell* was one of those elected. He himself, though still in his twenties and with no experience of office to commend him, was returned to the next Parliament, which met in November. He had no known connexion with the Dorset borough of Bridport or with any of its burgesses, and how his election came about remains a mystery. As an outsider he was by no means unique in Bridport’s representative history between 1447 and 1460, for only one of its MPs in that period was a local man. Nor was he the only one of its MPs to hail from Essex, for another, Thomas Skargill*, had been returned for Bridport in February 1449, and Robert Spencer* followed suit in 1453. Yet while an explanation for the elections of Skargill and Spencer may be found in their positions as servants of the Crown, Torell’s remains inexplicable. Perhaps the key was his relationship to Sir Thomas Tyrell, who was closely associated with the royal court and at the close of the Parliament was to be appointed as one of the four treasurers and receivers of the special subsidy granted by the Commons. Torell was to be associated with this kinsman in June 1452, as a feoffee of land in his native county, CPR, 1446-52, p. 377; Essex RO, deeds, D/DHf/T41/121. and it was there that he continued to reside.

Later that year Torell served on his first ad hoc commission, to survey the effects of floods. A pardon he took out in November referred to him as ‘esquire’, C67/40, m. 10. and although his income and standing among the gentry qualified him for knighthood he chose not to change his rank, and was later distrained for refusing the honour. Torell attested the parliamentary indentures for Essex once more in 1455, endorsing the election of Sir Thomas Tyrell’s younger brother, William Tyrell II*, who had sat with him in the Commons of 1449-50. It seems likely that in the civil war of 1459-61 he followed the lead of his kinsmen the Tyrells in supporting the house of Lancaster, and he was placed with Sir Thomas and William on the Essex commission of array appointed in December 1459 to defend the realm against the forces of the attainted Yorkists. CPR, 1452-61, p. 558. There is no indication that he officiated as naperer at the coronation of Edward IV, as his tenure of the manor in Little Thurrock required him to do. Indeed, there is no further record of him until 1463, when he was placed on the commission to assess contributions to a highly unpopular tax. He again attested the Essex elections in May 1467.

Torell died on 20 July 1468, leaving as his heir his son Henry (b.c.1445). C140/27/10. A little more about him is revealed in a petition sent to Chancery shortly afterwards by a London brewer named Richard Rose. Rose reported that Torell had owed him £70, and in order to pay this debt had agreed that he might take the profits from his manor of ‘Torell’s’ in West Thurrok for a term of years. Since Torell’s wife, Elizabeth, had a jointure in the manor, Torell had promised that if he died before the debt was paid, his feoffees of the manor of Willingale Doe would make estate of that manor to Elizabeth to compensate her for her loss of jointure. Accordingly, the feoffees of ‘Torell’s’ leased it to Rose for seven years, and the relevant title deeds were placed in the keeping of Sir Thomas Tyrell, on condition that he would hand them to Rose if and as soon as John Torell died and Elizabeth was given Willingale. However, the feoffees of Willingale failed to transfer the manor to Elizabeth as arranged, and Tyrell had accordingly refused to hand over the deeds to Rose. C1/44/196. Torell’s son Henry also inherited the Sussex estates of the family (which were settled, along with more in Essex, on him and his wife Emma Starkey in 1474). He died in 1480, leaving as his heir an infant son, Humphrey, whose wardship was granted to his grandfather Humphrey Starkey, serjeant-at-law and later j.c.p. CFR, xxi. nos. 563-4; C140/77/82; CPR, 1476-85, p. 238; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 195, 859, 1165.