TYRINGHAM (TERRINGHAM), Sir Anthony (c.1548-1614), of Tyringham, Bucks.

Tyringham’s ancestors were in possession of the manor from which they derived their name, situated near Newport Pagnell in north Buckinghamshire, by 1209. They first represented Buckinghamshire in Parliament in 1295, and continued to be returned for their native county in the fourteenth century, but by the accession of James I no member of the family had sat for more than two centuries. VCH Bucks. iv. 482-5; OR; Lipscomb, iv. 373-5.

The resumption of the family’s parliamentary representation was probably due to its rising wealth, which came about thanks to more efficient estate management in the second half of the sixteenth century. Both Tyringham and his father Thomas were enclosers, CPR, 1575-8, p. 554; APC, 1596-7, pp. 437-8; J. Walter, ‘A "Rising of the People?" the Oxfordshire Rising of 1596’, P and P, cvii. 132, n. 144. and by allowing the church in the neighbouring parish of Filgrave to fall into disrepair they were able to pocket the income from two parishes while paying for the ministry of only one, that of Tyringham, where they also owned the living. W. Hastings Kelke ‘Desecrated Churches of Bucks’, Bucks. Recs. ii. 199-200; VCH Bucks. iv. 485. As a result of such parsimony Thomas was sufficiently prosperous to purchase additional land in Buckinghamshire, so that in 1595 Tyringham inherited extensive lands both in that county and in Bedfordshire. VCH Bucks. iv. 235, 329, 390; VCH Beds. iii. 77; C142/246/108.

In 1603 Tyringham was knighted at the home of Sir John Fortescue* who, in the following year, became the rival of his first cousin Sir Francis Goodwin* in the Buckinghamshire election. Lipscomb, i. 519. On 24 Apr. 1604, after the election had been quashed, Tyringham was one of a group of Buckinghamshire justices closely connected with Goodwin who were instructed by the privy councillor, Henry Howard, earl of Northampton, to inquire into Goodwin’s conduct. L.L. Peck, ‘Goodwin v. Fortescue: the local Context of Parlty. Controversy’, PH, iii. 49; Bodl., Rawl. D918, f. 35.

Tyringham had become connected with the Court following the appointment in 1603 of his eldest son, Thomas, as master of the privy buck hounds to James I, a keen hunter. J.P. Hore, Hist. of Royal Buckhounds, 114. He was probably an uncontroversial choice as knight of the shire for Buckinghamshire in the by-election occasioned by the expulsion, on 16 Feb. 1607, of Christopher Pigott for a virulently anti-Scottish speech. CJ, i. 336b. Returned on 18 Mar., he had evidently taken his seat by 6 May, when he was among those appointed to consider a petition from armourers and gun-makers. Ibid. 369b. He received two further committee appointments in the third session of the first Jacobean Parliament, concerning the bills to reform the church courts (16 May) and to restore in blood the children of Edward Windsor (18 May). Ibid. 374b. He made no recorded speeches. The following year his status as one of the leading figures of Buckinghamshire was confirmed when the new lord lieutenant, lord chancellor Ellesmere (Thomas Egerton†), appointed Tyringham one of his deputies.

In 1610 Tyringham received five committee appointments in the fourth session, three to consider public bills and two for private measures. He was the first Member named to the purveyance bill committee on 26 Feb., and was instructed to examine legislation against hawking out of season and the encouragement of cattle rearing (both on 17 April). Ibid. 398b. 400a, 418b, 447b. He played no recorded part in the poorly documented fifth session.

Tyringham described himself as ‘diseased in body’ when he made his will on 30 Dec. 1613, and, despite surviving until almost the end of the following year, was presumably too ill to seek election to the Addled Parliament. An unmarried daughter was left £1,500 for her portion, so long as she married a man of property. Tyringham died on 28 Dec. 1614 and was buried, according to his request, in Tyringham parish church. PROB 11/125, ff. 367-8; Lipscomb, iv. 376. His second son, Arthur, had represented Brackley in 1614, and his grandson, William, sat for Buckinghamshire after the Restoration.