TROPENELL, Thomas

A lawyer known to posterity through the survival of his impressive cartulary and the sizeable manor-house he built at Great Chalfield, Tropenell rose from obscurity to prominence in the affairs of the gentry of Wiltshire by mastering the complex laws of inheritance, and by manipulating legal processes to establish his title to disputed land. For earlier biographies of Tropenell, see Oxf. DNB; J.T. Driver, ‘A “Perillous, Covetous Man”’, Wilts. Arch. Mag. xciii. 82-89. He deployed his expertise in opportunistic practices, bribing juries, preying on impecunious minor land-holders and, most likely, fabricating evidences. Not everything that Tropenell wrote in his cartulary may be accepted as factually correct, even when his documents are seemingly corroborated by records enrolled in the royal courts. Although he set down his purported antecedents, embellished with painted coats of arms of supposed ancestors, these pedigrees were probably made up to suit his purposes in promoting dubious claims to title. The historian might guess that he was related to Walter Tropenell, MP for Lyme Regis eight times in the late fourteenth century, The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 664. or to William Tropenell (d.1431), Henry V’s favoured serjeant of the robes, CPR, 1413-16, pp. 62, 147, 232; 1429-36, pp. 188, 223; E361/6, rots. 7, 10, 16d; E101/407/13, f. 17d; 408/14. William’s executors were his wid. Katherine and John Tropenell, prob. the London tailor who also resided at Sherston in Wilts.: CPR, 1408-13, pp. 132, 253, 327. John and his w. were still living at Sherston in 1437: Tropenell Cart. ii. 169-71. yet late in life Thomas himself did not see fit to record their achievements or to claim kinship to them. Nor is there any sign that he made use of William’s position at the royal court to gain preferment. Although he trumpeted that he had worn the ‘lyvereys of Kyng Harry the vjte and of Kyng Edward the iiijth’, Tropenell Cart. ii. 163-4. this was shallow boasting – there is no evidence that he was ever accorded a place in the Household or received fees and robes from either, or any, monarch.

Precisely how or where he received his training in the law remains a mystery, but without doubt it proved excellent schooling, enabling him to become well versed both in the procedures of the courts at Westminster and the exercise of justice in the localities. While still a novice in his chosen profession he was returned to the Parliament summoned to meet in September 1429, as a representative for the borough of Great Bedwyn. We may speculate about how he secured the seat. At that time he appears to have been living some distance away from Bedwyn, at Neston, and there is no record of any dealings between him and the burgesses. Rather, his election may have been promoted by Robert Long*, a well-established lawyer who was returned to this same Parliament as one of the knights for Wiltshire. Tropenell was to make several appearances in the 1430s as Long’s attorney in the Exchequer, and it seems likely that the experienced parliamentarian acted as a mentor to the younger man, both on his first entry to the Commons and on his introduction to the central courts. KB27/684, rot. 55; E159/210, recorda Mich. rot. 6d; 214, recorda Mich. rot. 19d; 215, recorda Mich. rot. 28d. Furthermore, being a trusted retainer of Walter, Lord Hungerford, currently the treasurer of England, Long may well have been responsible for introducing Tropenell to that peer’s circle, thereby initiating a commitment to the interests of Hungerford and his family which was to endure for the rest of his life. Tropenell’s membership of the Hungerford affinity was soon made clear. He attested the Wiltshire election of 1435, when Lord Hungerford’s younger son Sir Edmund* was one of those returned for the county, and at the hustings for the Parliament of 1437 he stood as a mainpernor for the attendance in the Commons of John Fortescue*, the future chief justice, at that time engaged as a feoffee of the baron’s estates. C219/14/5; 15/1. Shortly afterwards, Tropenell was named by Lord Walter as an attorney for delivery of seisin of the manor of Teffont to his daughter-in-law Margaret Botreaux (the wife of his son and heir Sir Robert Hungerford), so she might keep it for life. This marked the start of our MP’s attachment to this couple, for whom he acted six years later in their acquisition of other manors in Devon and Cornwall. Hungerford Cart. ii (Wilts. Rec. Soc. lx), 1464, 1469; Wilts. Hist. Centre, Earl of Radnor mss, 490/1502. Tropenell’s devotion to Lady Margaret was to last for over 40 years, until she died, and in the meantime he offered his services to her father-in-law, husband, children, grandchildren and great-grand-daughter – passing down five generations. For Lord Walter he facilitated the purchase in 1438 of the manors and advowsons of Immer, Wiltshire, and Folke, Dorset, CPR, 1436-41, pp. 144, 152; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 147-8; Wilts. Feet of Fines (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xli), 511. and in May 1439, no doubt on his patron’s instructions, he served on the jury at Trowbridge for the post mortem on Margery, widow of Sir William Moleyns†, the grandmother of the heiress to whom Hungerford married his grandson, Robert (who became Lord Moleyns jure uxoris). In November 1447 Lord Walter sent him to London to deliver to this same grandson an instalment of a gift of 100 marks. C139/94/52; SC6/1119/12.

In accounting for Tropenell’s election for Bath to the Parliament of February 1449, we should note that not only was his home at Neston situated just a few miles away from the city, but so too was the Hungerford seat at Farleigh Hungerford, where he spent a good deal of his time. By the date the Parliament met he was quite likely already acting as receiver-general for Lord Walter, for it seems that he took up this office a few months before the peer’s death, which occurred in August that year (shortly after the Parliament dissolved). The second Lord Hungerford, Robert, retained him in the exacting post. As receiver-general Tropenell was required to ride throughout the West Country supervising the administration of the Hungerford estates: in 1450-1 he was paid £4 to cover his expenses for a tour lasting six weeks; and for a similar journey in 1453-4 he took £6 10s. SC6/971/10, 12.

Tropenell provided many other services for his new lord, but not all of them fell strictly within the confines of the law. Allegedly, he played a key role in conspiracies to pervert justice and deliberately subverted juries on his master’s behalf. Such malpractice dated from before Lord Robert inherited his patrimony. It was to be asserted that Tropenell conspired with others at Shaftesbury in January 1448 to have Thomas Pole† of Salisbury indicted on a malicious trumped-up charge, by contending that on the previous 2 Nov. Pole had stolen 300 of Hungerford’s ewes, worth £20, from their pasture at Broad Chalke. Pole, having been indicted before Hungerford himself, sitting as a j.p., was imprisoned in the gaol at Old Sarum until May 1450, when James Butler, earl of Wiltshire, and other commissioners of oyer and terminer formally acquitted him. Even so, four more years elapsed before the wronged man was able to bring a plea against Tropenell and his fellow accusers. CP40/773, rot. 465. One of Tropenell’s co-defendants obtained a pardon of outlawry in 1458: CPR, 1452-61, p. 451. Meanwhile, in Hilary term 1450 the prominent Dorset landowner William Stafford* had commenced a suit in the common pleas against Hungerford and his son Lord Moleyns, together with their retainer Tropenell, for breaking his close at Beckington in Somerset, and de-pasturing crops worth £40. More seriously, Stafford accused Tropenell of arranging for a jury to be bribed to deliver an unjust verdict. He claimed that Robert Wotton* and other jurors who had been called to give their verdict at Beckington on 4 Oct. 1449 in a suit for trespass between Moleyns and Reynold Croke of Hazelbury next Box, had accepted varying amounts of money to find in Moleyns’ favour. Tropenell, as the embracer of the suit and a principal in the affair, was said to have personally received 40 marks and other gifts including an annuity for life of four marks, as well as food and drink worth £2. The staggering sums which Moleyns was said to have handed out (amounting in total to more than £110) imply that the charges had been trumped up, but the defendants’ agreement to negotiate may indicate that there was at least an element of truth in the accusation. CP40/756, rots. 215d, 370. Tropenell’s close association with the Hungerfords led to his appointment to ad hoc royal commissions, the first, dated 20 Sept. 1450, linking him with Lord Robert, his brother Sir Edmund and son Moleyns in the important task of arraying the King’s loyal subjects in Wiltshire to confront the rebels who had risen in the summer and murdered the bishop of Salisbury. CPR, 1446-52, pp. 434, 443.

The Hungerfords proved ready and ever willing to heap rewards on the man who succeeded in making himself indispensible in their affairs. In December 1447, before coming into his inheritance, Sir Robert had settled on Tropenell and his first wife lands and tenements in East and West Codford, of which he had earlier been a feoffee. Lady Margaret witnessed the grant, which her son Moleyns confirmed later. Tropenell Cart. ii. 104-7. By 1450 the lawyer was in receipt of an annual gift for life of a hogshead of red wine, worth 26s. 8d., and by 1453 he was being paid the dues of £7 6s. 8d. a year arising from the Hungerford property at Maiden Bradley. No doubt he also profited from his leasehold tenancy of four of his patrons’ Wiltshire manors, for which he paid a rent of £22. SC6/971/10, 12. In January 1453 Lord Robert arranged for his feoffees to grant a life-interest in the manor of East Harnham to Tropenell and whomsoever he happened to take as his next wife, and this was not only put into effect three years later (following Tropenell’s marriage to Margaret Erle), but then, in 1458, settled on him in tail. Finally, in January 1459 the peer granted him a rent of 20 marks p.a. from the manor of Rushall by Uphaven. Tropenell made sure that the lord’s heirs and other members of his family confirmed all these grants, with full legal ratification and formal record: Lord Moleyns was persuaded by his mother to acknowledge his late father’s grants in 1460; Lady Margaret herself not only endorsed them in January and August 1461, but also, for greater surety of the same, granted Tropenell in fee rents of 20 marks from two of her own manors in Somerset; and in the 1460s Tropenell secured confirmations from the next heir, (Sir) Thomas Hungerford*, and his sister Frideswide. He also made sure that certain of the deeds were officially enrolled in the records of the court of common pleas. Tropenell Cart. ii.198-205, 212-20.

The Hungerfords also assisted their retainer in his long drawn-out process of expanding his landed holdings, notably by endorsing his acquisitions in Corsham, while Lady Margaret permitted her seal to be used in conveyances made in Tropenell’s interest. Ibid. i. 20-24, 81-82. Relations between the MP and his patrons became so intimate and interwoven that it is sometimes difficult to distinguish benefactor and beneficiary, although the historian is left with the strong impression that the wily lawyer was to a significant extent the mastermind in control of the Hungerfords’ affairs. They had much need of legal advice in a period of intense financial and political crisis which affected their interests for a period of over 20 years from the early 1450s. Following Lord Moleyns’ capture by the French after the English defeat at Castillon, Tropenell may have done sterling work in raising money for his ransom, yet at the same time he did not hesitate to take advantage of his employers’ difficulties when they were forced to mortgage their property.

While his heir was still held in captivity overseas, Lord Robert made Tropenell a feoffee of certain of his estates in March 1458, and in his brief will of 22 Apr. 1459 left him a personal bequest of a silver standing cup, with a cover inscribed with the Hungerford arms. The lord’s death on the following 18 May presented considerable problems for his widow and heirs, but Tropenell acted swiftly to protect their interests from unwanted intervention by the Crown. Although writs de diem clausit extremum were issued on 30 May to the escheators of nine counties, these were promptly cancelled, and in their place just six days later a special royal commission was set up to make inquiries about the estates of the deceased. Tropenell, listed among those appointed to it, took charge of the task with impressive speed. Hungerford Cart. ii. 1476, 1478, 1479; PCC 17 Stokton (PROB11/4, ff. 131v-133); CFR, xix. 213; CPR, 1452-61, p. 496. Accompanied only by John Benger*, and seizing the initiative from the eight other commissioners and five sheriffs appointed alongside them, he conducted inquisitions in Bath on 22 June, Honiton on 25 June and Chippenham on 29 June, successfully securing all but ‘nil’ returns from the juries on each occasion. The vast Hungerford estates found no mention in his submissions: in Wiltshire Lord Robert was said to have held only the advowsons of five chantries (all founded by his late father), together with that of Maiden Bradley priory and a few acres of land and other property worth just £9 p.a. Tropenell delivered the results in person at the Chancery on 11 July, C139/172/17. and on that very same day he got enrolled on the patent roll royal pardons for the absent heir (exonerating him from any intrusions and entries into his inheritance without due suit), for the late lord’s feoffees (for any ‘purchases’ of lands held in chief), and for himself and his fellow commissioner Benger (of all trespasses and offences contrary to statute, and any consequent penalties). CPR, 1452-61, p. 509. His prompt actions protected the widowed Lady Margaret and her son in France from Crown interference. On his return home in the following spring (1460), Moleyns, now third Lord Hungerford, confirmed his father’s feoffees (including Tropenell) in their possession of the bulk of his inheritance. CCR, 1454-61, p. 439. He had no choice: they had played a crucial part in funding his ransom from the French. Yet, unfortunately for his family, the new lord’s subsequent actions and unswerving commitment to the house of Lancaster were to lead to his attainder in Edward IV’s first Parliament 18 months later, and to his execution at Hexham in 1464.

During this extremely troubled period, Lady Margaret depended heavily on Tropenell, who for a while continued to act as receiver-general of the Hungerford estates on her behalf. SC6/1054/5-7, 1119/14. She enlisted his help in making landed settlements for the marriage she arranged for the heir apparent, her grandson Thomas, and in their protracted struggle with Edward IV’s government to prevent the forfeiture of the estates by arguing the case before the King’s commissioners that the feoffees had never held them to the use of the attainted Moleyns. Hungerford Cart. i (Wilts. Rec. Soc. xlix), 361; CPR, 1461-7, p. 365; CIMisc. viii. 327-8. Tropenell did much to support his lady, by serving as a trustee of her inheritance in Cornwall (after the death of her father Lord Botreaux in 1462), and of her lands elsewhere, and as supervisor of courts held in her name in the south-west. CCR, 1461-8, p. 271; 1468-76, nos. 236-8, 247. He appeared as her co-defendant in suits for substantial debts brought in 1465 by Richard Quatermayns*, and helped her to cope with the consequences of the execution of Sir Thomas Hungerford, her grandson and heir, in January 1469. In return for his services in this regard she gave him a close called ‘Dodemanys’ and other properties in West Codford four months later. CP40/814, rot. 79; Tropenell Cart. ii. 121-3 (incorrectly calendared in CCR, 1468-76, no. 245). In the spring of 1472 Tropenell stood by her side as a witness both at the foundation of the almshouse she endowed at Heytesbury, and at the chapter house in Salisbury cathedral when she established a chantry in her late husband’s memory. Hungerford Cart. ii. 1426-8, 1435-6. Lady Margaret’s last gift to Tropenell came in September 1476 when she completed conveyances so that he might have the advowson of the church of Great Cheverell. Reg. Langton (Canterbury and York Soc. lxxiv), 133; Tropenell Cart. ii. 269-70. This was shortly after she had made her will, on 8 Aug. The wording of the will is revealing of the unquestioning trust she continued to place in Tropenell even after so many years. She left instructions that he and his co-feoffees should have ‘the hoole rule’ of the estates pertaining to her inheritance and jointure for a period of ten years after her death. If during that period he or the trusty John Mervyn died, or became so ill that they were unable to execute her will, she named four others to replace them. The trustees were to save harmless anyone still bound or charged for the ransom of Lord Moleyns, pay the debts of her late husband and herself, and execute Lord Robert’s will as well as her own. During the ten-year period Tropenell and the rest were to set aside 40 marks a year for the sustenance of her young heir, her great-grand-daughter Mary. R.C. Hoare, Modern Wilts. (Heytesbury), 95-103.

For close on four decades after sitting in the Commons in 1449, Tropenell had to tread a careful political line as his patrons, unwaveringly attached to the house of Lancaster since the mid fourteenth century, fell victim to the civil wars and the advent of the Yorkists. He became adroit at spotting when a judicious hint of support for those in power might serve to his personal advantage. While engaged in attempts to secure his title to Great Chalfield in September 1454 he listed the duke of York, then Protector, in a highly-distinguished body of feoffees, but this transaction would appear to have been a fiction: in his cartulary he later (although perhaps not until after the victory of Henry Tudor), obliterated York’s name. Then there is the curious introduction of York’s heir, Edward, earl of March, in Tropenell’s documentary narrative at a crucial time in August 1460, shortly after the Yorkist victory at Northampton – the implication being that he and the earl were then on amicable terms. In the mid 1460s Tropenell named the earl of Warwick as one of the feoffees of property he was purchasing in Salisbury. Warwick, surprised to be informed about his role, nevertheless made a formal release of the property to the lawyer as requested. Tropenell Cart. i. 164-6. Following the attainder of Lord Moleyns in 1461, Tropenell saw fit to make his peace with the Staffords, by engratiating himself with William Stafford’s son and heir (Sir) Humphrey Stafford IV*, Lord Stafford of Southwick, already a favourite of the new King Edward IV. In an early will made by Lord Humphrey in 1463 the lawyer was left £20 in return for forgiving the testator’s unspecified trespasses, Som. Med. Wills (Som. Rec. Soc. xvi), 198. and the peer showed himself willing to assist in lawsuits over the inheritance of Tropenell’s stepson, Richard Erle†, allegedly to the extent of illegal maintenance. Tropenell was always careful to obtain pardons from successive monarchs to gain protection from prosecution. The one granted him on 24 Aug. 1464 (after the execution of Lord Moleyns) was enrolled on the patent roll; another, of November 1468, coincided with Sir Thomas Hungerford’s arrest. During the Readeption of Henry VI he was briefly appointed to the Wiltshire bench (no doubt in recognition of the Hungerfords’ loyalty to the house of Lancaster), only to be removed when Edward IV recovered the throne. He purchased another pardon in December 1471, and two more, in March and November 1484, were sensibly acquired from Richard III, after the rebellion in which members of the Hungerford family had participated. CPR, 1461-7, p. 339; 1476-85, p. 499; C67/46, m. 19; 48, m. 30; 51, m. 18.

Tropenell began to compile his cartulary on 2 Nov. 1464, and made the final entry in September 1486. Its 978 folios sum up many years spent accumulating land and amassing title deeds. His sources included besides the contents of his muniment chests, court rolls and custumals of Corsham and accounts of the acts of the bishops of Salisbury, among the latter documents supporting the case of his contemporary, Bishop Beauchamp, against the mayor and citizens of Salisbury. Tropenell Cart. i. pp. x, xviii, xix; ii. 260. Meticulously laid out, the cartulary begins with a ‘Kalender’ of lordships and towns, in effect an order of contents. Paying immense attention to detail, Tropenell used pedigrees and public records to support his narrative, among them plea rolls of the central courts of King’s bench and common pleas, feet of fines and records of assizes of novel disseisin, often providing exact references as to where the records were located at Westminster. E13/144, Trin. rot. 3; CP40/775, cart. rots. 2, 2d.

An adversary in a lawsuit referred to Tropenell as always ‘called a perillous covetouse man’, Tropenell Cart. ii. 39. and there is no doubting his highly acquisitive nature. Although he saw fit to construct a pedigree for himself going back to ‘before the Conquest’ (in fact, beginning in Henry I’s reign), claiming descent from the Percy family in order to stake his claim to their properties, it would appear that little or nothing actually fell to him by inheritance. Ibid. i. pp. x, xi. But he was far from clear about the Percy succession at West Chalfield, propounding five variants of their ped.: ibid. i. 281, 294, 404-5; Wilts. Arch. Mag. xxxvii. 586-8. He transcribed several deeds relating to so-called Tropenell lands at Sherston and Kington, yet there is no evidence that he ever possessed them. His parents are named with regard to ‘Lyngevers’ in Chicklade, and Henry Tropenell appears as a feoffee in a deed relating to lands in East Codford in 1413: Tropenell Cart. ii. 80, 87. By contrast, and surprisingly, he omitted to record how he acquired his interests at Neston, which is where he lived for much of his career and where, by 1453, he completed the rebuilding of the manor-house. Ibid. i. pp. xxv, 11, 12. His earliest certain acquisitions came through marriage to Agnes, probably a member of the Chamberlain family, who had inherited lands in ‘Chevenhope’, Gloucestershire, and Luckington, Wiltshire, together with the manor of East Coulston. These she had taken to her first husband, Thomas Burton, and her holdings in Coulston appear to have descended to another Thomas Burton (probably her son), who was lord of Luckington by 1442. C1/6/22; VCH Wilts. viii. 235. Tropenell made a settlement of the manor and advowson of Luckington on Thomas and his son William in 1450-1, probably after Agnes’s death: Wilts. Feet of Fines, 594. The Burtons themselves held property in Bourton, Gloucestershire, and at Atteward Magna (that is, the manor of Atworth in Bradford-on-Avon) and Lokerigge in Wiltshire, and these dower lands and jointure added to her attractions. Tropenell set his sights on the recently-widowed Agnes early in 1431, and by 1 June their marriage had been agreed: the widow placed her lands in Bourton in the hands of feoffees, including Tropenell, with remainder to his heirs, and on 12 Dec., after he married her, he paid homage to the abbot of Evesham for the same. Six years later he then set about arranging for the Burton lands in Atworth, Lokerigge and Bourton to be settled on him and Agnes and their issue, thereby excluding the rightful heirs. Tropenell Cart. i. 116, 122-3, 125, 139-40. When single, Agnes had instructed feoffees to sell the reversion of the manor of Atworth, to fall in after her death, only to petition the chancellor against them when they failed to hand over the £40 paid by the purchaser, Robert Long (Tropenell’s putative mentor). The transaction led to conflict between her husband and Long. The latter alleged in 1444 that ten years earlier Tropenell had maliciously taken away the seal attached to the document (recording Agnes’ conveyance to the trustees) kept at Long’s house at Wraxall, and he followed this up a year later with accusations that the Tropenells had committed wastes on his ‘inheritance’, to the damage of £100. In turn they accused Long of wrongfully taking deeds relating to the estate. C1/11/542; CP25(1)/257/62; VCH Wilts. vii. 17-18; CP40/734, rot. 333; 738, rots. 112, 120, 120d.

The couple also, in 1439, obtained leases for 20 years from Sir Miles Stapleton of two hills, ‘Comyn Down’ and ‘Lambdown’, situated within Stapleton’s manor of East Codford. This caused trouble with Reynold Croke, who in Hilary term 1449 (when Tropenell was up at Westminster for his second Parliament) alleged that Tropenell and his servants had stolen 160 ewes at ‘Comyn Down’ in the previous June and 300 more at ‘Lambdown’ two months later. CP40/752, rots. 437, 439. Tropenell countered the accusation in 1450 by claiming that Croke had de-pastured his grass, to the value of 40 marks, and followed this up with a writ of trespass in King’s bench in 1452. CP40/756, rot. 89d; KB27/763, rot. 60. The quarrel no doubt fuelled the disputes between Croke and Lord Moleyns, already noted above, and casts a different light on the allegations of embracery made in that regard. Perhaps the whole confrontation had emerged from Tropenell’s attempts to promote his own interests.

Tropenell’s second marriage was to a daughter of William Ludlow of Ludgershall, a man whose local status and wealth derived from his position at the Lancastrian court as an official in the King’s cellars. The lawyer took great pride in the alliance, making sure that the arms of his wife’s family were displayed in the Tropenell chapel in Great Chalfield church; and heraldic devices relating to the Ludlows can still be seen in the manor-house nearby. Through this match he acquired a reversionary interest in property in Salisbury and its neighbourhood, Wilts. Arch. Mag. xciii. 86; Tropenell Cart. i. 152-3, 232-3; Wilts. Feet of Fines, 627-8. as well as his wife’s dower from her previous husband, John Erle. Tropenell, who took a close interest in the affairs of his stepson, Richard Erle, strenuously promoted his claims to lands once belonging to his great-great-uncle Sir William Sturmy*, chief among which were the manor of Stitchcombe and holdings in Marlborough and Burbage. On his stepfather’s initiative Richard placed the disputed estate in the hands of feoffees, headed by Lord Stafford of Southwick and Sir Thomas Hungerford and including Tropenell himself. This influential body contended at an assize held in 1466 that Richard Seymour* had wrongfully dispossessed them, but Seymour asserted that the estate had belonged to his late father (Sir) John Seymour I* (as pertaining to his substantial inheritance from his grandfather Sturmy). True to form, Tropenell hired a jury, which he primed to deliver a verdict set out in a written bill; the jurors obediently found that Seymour had ejected Stafford and the rest, and assessed substantial damages and costs against him. Appealing to the chancellor, Seymour alleged that Erle had made the enfeoffment in order to gain maintenance, that the jury had been arrayed by ‘steryng and namyng’ of Tropenell, and were of his affinity, and that Tropenell had paid ‘grete rewardes of money’ to them and the sheriff. KB27/836, rot. 72; C1/31/197-201. In another lawsuit, a year later, Erle and his stepfather were accused by John Kirkby of dispossessing him of property on the Wiltshire border with Hampshire. C66/519, rot. 19d.

Tropenell’s efforts to obtain certain properties in Chicklade and Hindon are fully documented in his cartulary. He wrote that as a consequence of the ‘controversies and discords’ between him and Richard Page of Warminster over the same he was at one stage, in late 1453, kept ‘fast in prison at London ... and never like to come out, and there condempned in a teynt’. In a petition addressed to the earl of Salisbury as chancellor (between April 1454 and March 1455), he asked for a writ of dedimus potestatem to be sent to the Lords Hungerford and Stourton*, Sir Edmund Hungerford, Gilbert Kymer, the dean of Salisbury, and two justices of assize to hear the testimony of certain ‘indifferent persons’, who because of their sickness and great age could not come to the Chancery to bear witness to the truth. The writ was eventually issued in August 1455. Although not all of the witnesses were uncritical of Tropenell and his modus operandi, he nevertheless recorded everything they said in full. While contending that Page used bribery, threats and deception to obtain the lands, C1/24/128, 128B; Tropenell Cart. ii. 32-54. he himself employed every possible device to achieve his ends. A year later he placed his goods and chattels in the hands of Lord Hungerford, his father-in-law Ludlow and others, at the same time conveying to them and more well-wishers two of the disputed messuages. CP40/785, cart. rot. 2. The quarrel took on a new dimension when Page allegedly disseised Tropenell ‘by the myght, mayntenaunce and supportacion’ of the earl of Wiltshire, and Tropenell sought and won the support of Edward, earl of March, after the earl’s ‘comyng home into England’ (in the summer of 1460) – or more likely he tried to show this was so by inserting in his cartulary forged letters from the earl along with fraudulent deeds dated that August. In the end he successfully got Page imprisoned in a local gaol, and then, in 1463, in the Fleet; while a writ authorizing Tropenell’s recovery of the disputed land, and lawful possession of half of Page’s property in Warminster, followed a ruling in King’s bench the following spring. Tropenell Cart. ii. 63-67, 73; CP40/799, rot. 129. See also the plea of debt brought against Page, for £20, in Hil. term 1461: CP40/800, rot. 159d.

The process whereby Tropenell acquired the manor of Great Chalfield was complicated and extremely protracted. Discussed by J. S. Davies, ‘Manor and Church of Great Chalfield’, Trans. Bristol and Glos. Arch. Soc. xxiii. 193-261; VCH Wilts. vii. 60-61. Claiming his title through descent from a daughter of Sir William Percy (fl.1260), he began his campaign in 1437 with the purchase from his presumed kinsman William Rous of a contingent remainder in the manor. As part of the arrangement the manors of Imber and Folke were to be sold at Tropenell’s behest (resulting, as we have seen, in their sale to Lord Hungerford). Having acquired a lease of Great Chalfield, Tropenell went on the offensive by accusing Rous of assaulting him and Rous’s brother John† of breaking his closes, CP40/724, rots. 247, 352; 768, rot. 61; C1/11/428. saw off another claimant, Thomas Beverley, and in 1447 obtained a renewal of the lease from Rous’s feoffees. Wilts. Feet of Fines, 577; CCR, 1441-7, p. 463. Rous, denigrated by Tropenell as a lecherous adulterer who profligately sold all his woods and houses, died in 1452 without legitimate issue, whereupon Tropenell evicted his widow, Isabel, from the property and persuaded her to sell her title. On 1 Sept. 1454 she agreed to make him as secure an estate in law ‘as can be devysed by the seid Thomas Tropenell and his lerned counsell’ within three months, whereupon Tropenell would pay her £103 in instalments, and an annuity of £5 for life. CP40/775, cart. rot. 2; Tropenell Cart. i. 333, 337, 340; Wilts. Feet of Fines, 610. Four years later Tropenell enfeoffed Lord Hungerford and others of the manor; but another claimant, Joan Beaushyn (Rous’s aunt), entered the estate and seized his cattle, and although Tropenell obtained a judgement in his favour in February 1459, Joan and her son William forced their way in again. In July Tropenell recovered the manor at an assize of novel disseisin, and even though he bought out Beverley once more in 1467 he was never free of anxiety: in 1482 he submitted his evidences to three well-known fellows of Lincoln’s Inn, for their counsel. For suits against the Beverleys and Beaushyns: CP40/792, rot. 109; 794, rot. 368; C241/246/25; KB27/774, rot. 70d.

Obsessed with title deeds and always concerned about whether they might be ‘forged and fals’, Tropenell collected them avidly from several of his acquaintances, such as William Haukessok*. Edward Basyng* sent him ten documents, noting in a letter that if there was anything else he and his wife might do for Tropenell ‘ye shall fynde us both redy, at your cost, at all tymes’. Money had already been offered: Basyng concluded, ‘as touchyng to the xs. I pray you to delyver to my servant’. Tropenell’s father-in-law, Ludlow, was reluctant to part with certain original deeds, since they also referred to his own manor at Hill Deverill; he would only allow the lawyer to copy them. Tropenell Cart. i. 132-3, 375-8; ii. 109, 134. The MP was also anxious to get his deeds enrolled among the public records. In Michaelmas term 1449 he visited the court of common pleas to sue John Dunston for theft of a pyx containing muniments relating to East Codford, which he had entrusted to him on the previous 3 Mar. (while his Parliament was in progress). He catalogued all the records concerned, which he later also wrote down in his cartulary. What he neglected to say in court was that Dunston was employed as his steward; because the defendant came on the first day of pleadings, and Tropenell ‘recovered’ his property, the suit was promptly dismissed sine die. Clearly, Tropenell’s purpose had been to strengthen his title by having his deeds registered on the plea roll. Ibid. ii. 95-101, 104-7; CP40/755, rots. 313-15.

Tropenell frequently consulted the records at Westminster. For instance, while asserting his claim to the constableship of Trowbridge castle he searched the book of Exchequer precedents known as the Testa de Nevill, dating from Edward I’s reign, and familiarity with the processes of the Chancery enabled him to achieve ‘cleerness’ in his suits. Tropenell Cart. i. 272; ii. 300-1. Then too, he furthered his ends by making a late entry into Lincoln’s Inn, involving in his affairs lawyers of distinction, such as Richard Chokke, serjeant-at-law, and Thomas Young II*, and seeking counsel ‘at London at the tavern called the Cardynal’s hatte without Newgate, wich is a place accustomed for lernyd men of the lawe to comen maters concernyng ye lawe for thasurans of men’s titles’. Ibid. 333-6; ii. 266, 288; Davies, 222.

To achieve his ambitions Tropenell was prepared to grease many palms, persuading legitimate claimants to part with their titles ‘for a large somme of money’. The income needed to do so was derived not only from the profits of land and the fees given him by the Hungerfords, but also from the lucrative trade in wool. Tropenell called himself a ‘merchant’ in a statute staple of 1452, and a suit in Chancery refers to him selling a consignment of wool worth 160 marks. Presumably this had been grown on the downs where his lands lay. Tropenell Cart. i. 44-45; ii. 28; C1/45/353. Sheep-rustling figured in several of his lawsuits. In one such, brought in the Exchequer of pleas in 1472, he sued Sir Laurence Raynford for a forcible entry into his closes at Neston, West Codford and Chalfield in April 1470 (when Raynford was sheriff of Wiltshire), and the theft of a flock of 1,000 ewes and 700 lambs. The items of plate and jewels (said to be worth £132), and the 354 marks in cash allegedly taken away at the same time, provide some indication of the lawyer’s wealth, if these figures are to be believed. E13/157, rots. 76, 78, 80d. Of course, Tropenell did not reveal his true worth to the assessors of the tax on income from land, levied in 1451: they listed his revenues as just £22 p.a. Nor were the jurors at his post mortem much better informed. However, following the death of his eldest son the Tropenell estates in Wiltshire alone were held to be worth over £111. E179/196/118; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 351; ii. 682, 754, 756, 783.

The most important transactions regarding Tropenell’s estates were completed in September 1458 when he enfeoffed the second Lord Hungerford and Dean Kymer among others of manors and lands in Wiltshire, Gloucestershire, Dorset and Hampshire, which the surviving feoffees returned to him in March 1462. A year later he placed his goods and chattels in the hands of two of his sons, Humphrey and Christopher, his father-in-law Ludlow, and two of Ludlow’s other sons-in-law, William Sandys and John Norwood, Tropenell Cart. i. 369-71, 407-8; CCR, 1461-8, p. 156. while in other conveyances, made in the 1470s, he enlisted the support of Sir Richard Beauchamp†, the serjeants-at-law John Catesby and Thomas Tremayle†, the King’s attorney William Huddesfield†, and the warden of New College, Oxford. Tropenell Cart. ii. 209-20, 222-3. Tropenell obtained from Sir Walter Hungerford† on 12 Sept. 1486 confirmation of grants made to him by Sir Walter’s forebears, this being the last document he recorded in his cartulary. Yet his final service to the Hungerfords had yet to be performed, for in the following February he agreed to be among Sir Walter’s nominees who were to take £160 from the profits of his lands to pay his debts and the expenses of a journey to Rome undertaken at Henry VII’s command, and on 28 Oct. 1487, just a few days before his own death, he was named among the patrons of the Hungerford living at Mildenhall. Ibid. 142-4, 259-60; CCR, 1485-1500, nos. 160, 163; Reg. Langton, 133.

Tropenell had bought a quarry at Hazelbury near Box and in the late 1460s used its stone to rebuild the manor-house at Great Chalfield which yet stands. A wall painting is possibly a caricature of Tropenell himself. To Great Chalfield church, which stands north-east of the house, he added a south chapel similarly decorated with murals and separated from the nave by a screen embellished with arms depicting his claim to descend from the Percy family and his marriage to Margaret Ludlow. Yet it was not there that he chose to be interred. In his will, made on 5 Nov. 1487, he asked to be buried in the chapel dedicated to the Blessed Virgin in the parish church at Corsham, which he had had rebuilt, in a tomb constructed for him and Margaret, who predeceased him. To this chapel he left three sets of vestments embroidered with his arms, two silk altar cloths, lavish silver ornaments and a missal covered in red goatskin. Provision was made of an annual stipend of ten marks for a priest to pray there for the souls of the testator and his wife and selected members of the Hungerford family: the first two lords (Walter and Robert), Lady Margaret and Sir Thomas. As well as requesting other religious services, Tropenell asked that 1,000 masses be sung for him immediately after his death. Of his four children two, Humphrey and Anne, were already dead, but he left Mary (afterwards married to Walter Cervington) a costly bed with all its hangings, and the residue of his estate passed to Christopher, his surviving son and heir, who was named as an executor along with Robert Baynard* and Robert Lye†. Tropenell was later said to have died on 31 Jan. 1488, but this is probably an error for a writ de diem clausit extremum had issued from Chancery on the previous 22 Nov. PCC 7 Milles (PROB11/8, ff. 56v-57); CFR, xxii. no. 152; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 351.

One of the MP’s final actions was typical of the man. In 1486 he transferred to Christopher (who had joined him as a member of Lincoln’s Inn), an annual rent from lands in Chicklade, which he said he held by ‘gift’ of Sir Thomas Milborne. Yet Milborne told a different story. In a petition to the chancellor he stated that at Michaelmas 1483 he had mortgaged a messuage and appurtenances in Chicklade to Tropenell on condition that if he or his heirs paid the lawyer £20 at the following feast of St. Andrew (30 Nov.) the property would be returned. In the event, before the due date he had been banished from England by Richard III, and on his return home, after Henry VII had seized the throne, Tropenell and his son refused to accept the money and give him back his property. L. Inn Adm. 22; CCR, 1485-1500, no. 209; C1/150/65. Christopher lived on until 1504. He asked to be buried at Corsham in ‘my faders chambre of our lady’, and next to his tomb. PCC 6 Holgrave (PROB11/14, ff. 41-42); CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 682.

The MP’s immense pride in his achievements may be seen in the coats of arms, associating him with the families of Percy, Rous, Roches and Ludlow, depicted in his cartulary and proudly displayed by the griffons sculpted on the roof of his house. Tropenell Cart. ii. 274-5, 276-7. At the same time his badge, a double yoke, and motto, ‘Le jong tyra belement’, would have us regard him as a hard-working beast of burden.