HALL, Thomas II

Hall, one of the more active Somerset parliamentarians of the middle years of Henry VI’s reign, was probably a relation (perhaps even a son) of Richard Hall, a prominent citizen who served as master of Wells in 1419-20 and 1429-30 and who represented the city in the Commons in 1425 and 1426.3 There was also a contemporary namesake, one of the vicars choral of Wells cathedral: Reg. Bekynton, i (Som. Rec. Soc. xlix), nos. 8, 1654. No evidence of Thomas’s own admission to the freedom has been found, but it may have occurred not long before his first election to Parliament on Christmas eve 1430. Re-elected in the following year, Hall first assumed local office in the autumn of 1433, serving as constable of the peace for two successive years until the end of September 1435. He had not long left office before he was once more returned to the Commons, and he was again re-elected to the last Parliament of Henry VI’s minority. A final return for Wells followed in 1442. In that year, as on the occasion of Hall’s first spell in the Commons, his parliamentary colleague was a senior member of the Wells community. It may, however, be significant that in 1432, 1435 and 1437 the men elected alongside him were relative outsiders who owed their status in Wells above all to their connexion with Bishop Stafford of Bath and Wells. No concrete evidence of a similar tie between Hall and the episcopal see has been discovered, but his later return for Bath, the other cathedral city in the diocese, strongly suggests that he possessed such a connexion. Equally, it may have been on account of a link with the bishop that in August 1436 Hall was attacked in the streets of Wells by a group of men led by John Rewe senior and John Rewe junior, two local lawyers implicated in the distribution of counterfeit money, who less than a year later would lead a similar attack on the episcopal bailiff, Richard Mayne*.4 KB9/230B/229, 234; C1/45/31.

Otherwise, Hall seems to have played only a limited part in city life. He occasionally found sureties for citizens newly admitted to the freedom of Wells, but seems to have maintained more important connexions further afield.5 Wells City Chs. (Som. Rec. Soc. xlvi), 143, 145. Thus, in early 1438 he found sureties for John Benet, the farmer of the subsidy and alnage of cloth in Bristol,6 CFR, xvii. 36. and it may also have been he who ten years earlier had sued the Dunster mercer John Lotye for a debt of 18 marks.7 CPR, 1422-29, p. 442. Little is known of Hall’s relations with his neighbours at Wells, but in September 1443 he put a dispute with the merchant and future episcopal bailiff Thomas Horewode* (his fellow MP of 1442) to the arbitration of John Godwin alias Glasier*, William Vowell*, Peter Shetford* and Henry Selwood*.8 Wells convocation act bk. 1378-1450, p. 312.

Not long after his fifth Parliament Hall joined the ranks of the city’s council of 24, but he subsequently disappears from the records of Wells, and the focus of his interests may have shifted across the county to the vicinity of Bath.9 Ibid. 314. There, he had acquired by 1437, possibly by marriage, the manor of Freshford and the advowson of the parish church from the Petherton family.10 Reg. Stafford, i (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxi), no. 328; ii (Som. Rec. Soc. xxxii), no. 627; Reg. Bekynton, i. nos. 44, 1567; Feudal Aids, v. 378. Further ties among the regional gentry were forged by the marriage of Hall’s daughter, Edith, to a member of the Keynell family of Yatton in Wiltshire.11 CCR, 1447-54, p. 484; Som. Med. Wills, 175.

Hall made his will on 11 July 1457. He asked to be buried in the church of Freshford, to which he left a silver-gilt chalice and paten and a set of blue damask vestments. The church of Bradford (in the parish where he sometimes resided) was to receive a silver vessel, while lesser bequests went to the cathedral churches of Wells and Salisbury. Hall’s widow, Agnes, was to have a featherbed, while his daughter Edith Keynell was bequeathed a covered silver-gilt vessel, a dozen spoons and another bed. Legacies of gowns and smaller items of plate were assigned to various kinsmen and servants, including Robert, Edward and William Keynell. Hall’s son and heir, Nicholas, was left a silver-gilt goblet, a covered silver vessel with gilt borders and a horn with a ‘bugil’, harnessed with silver, and was appointed his father’s sole executor. Probate was granted on the following 9 Nov.12 Som. Med. Wills, 174-5.