TRYGOTTE, Thomas

Although established at South Kirkby in the south of the West Riding of Yorkshire by the 1370s, the family of Trygotte was of at best modest standing. Yorks. Deeds, viii (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Ser. cii), 82. Thomas Trygotte’s father, John (who attested the Yorkshire election indenture of 1442) was variously styled a yeoman or franklin. C1/10/148; CPR, 1429-36, pp. 93, 433; 1436-41, p. 216. The family’s landholdings were concentrated in South Kirkby, and included the house known as ‘Panel Hall’ and lands known as ‘Brakynstorthez’, ‘Sym riddynges’, ‘Dolo riddyng’, ‘Dobriddynges’ and ‘Elmsall riddyng’. By his marriage, John acquired additional property in Stutton in the same county. KB27/616, rot. 61; CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 182.

John Trygotte’s son was the first of three successive Thomases to head the family, and while it is just possible that it was the second Thomas who represented Wootton Basset in 1453, on chronological grounds the older man is the more likely candidate. What seems certain is that he owed his election to the influence of the Neville family, perhaps by virtue of their tenure of the recently acquired earldom of Salisbury. At the time of Trygotte’s return, the Nevilles’ quarrel with their old rivals, the Percy earls of Northumberland and their cadets, was beginning to turn violent, and Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, and his sons may have thought it prudent to place their retainers in the Commons where possible. No direct link between Trygotte and the earl of Salisbury has been discovered, but after the earl’s death at the battle of Wakefield (not far from Trygotte’s home) he evidently formed an attachment to his second son, John Neville, Lord Montagu, from 1464 to 1470 earl of Northumberland, whom he served as his receiver-general. E13/151, rots. 84, 91; Aglionby mss, D AY1/146; Notts. RO, Foljambe of Osberton mss, DD/FJ/4/27/8.

It is probable that Trygotte remained in Neville service through the upheavals of 1469-71, but no evidence of his presence at the battle of Barnet, where Montagu met his death, has been discovered. Certainly, he rapidly made his peace with the victorious Edward IV, and secured a general pardon as early as 3 Sept. 1471. CPR, 1467-77, p. 304. In subsequent years Trygotte apparently maintained his contacts with former members of the Neville circle. Thus, in 1481 he was named among the arbiters of a dispute between Sir James Haryngton† and Sir James Danby and his wife Agnes over the title to a chantry at Farnley. Yorks. Deeds, x (Yorks. Arch. Soc. Rec. Ser. cxx), 65.

The date of Trygotte’s death has not been established but he was probably alive in 1489, when his son was still referred to as Thomas Trygotte ‘the younger’. Notts. RO, Savile of Rufford mss, DD/SR/27/2/7c. Probably at some point in the first half of the 1480s Trygotte had settled property in South Kirkby worth four marks p.a. on this son and his wife, Joan, the daughter of John Sotehill of Dewsbury. The son survived until 1504, having a year earlier married his own 17-year-old son, another Thomas, to Joan, the daughter and sole heiress of Robert Burton (d.1504) of High Burton (in Kirkburton), in return for a payment of 80 marks to the bride’s father. CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 741; iii. 182; CCR, 1500-9, no. 313; Test. Ebor. iv (Surtees Soc. liii), 171.