MOYLE, Walter

Moyle came from a junior cadet branch of an old Cornish family, two members of which had sat in Parliament for Cornish boroughs in the reign of Henry IV. The Moyles were active in trade, including that based on the profitable tin industry of the south-west, but took sufficient interest in public affairs to find security for their neighbours at parliamentary elections and to stand surety for them in Chancery.22 Maclean, i. 278; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 801-2. Walter, himself a younger son, embarked on a career in the law and trained at Gray’s Inn. The date of his entry to this establishment is uncertain, but it has been suggested that he gave his first reading in about 1430, which indicates that he may have begun his education when Henry V was on the throne.23 Readings and Moots, i, p. xxxi. Consequently, he was still young and inexperienced when elected to his first two Parliaments for his home town of Bodmin. For much of his early career he resided in the town, and it was as ‘of Bodmin’ that he stood surety in the court of King’s bench for members of the Trethewy family and other Cornishmen in the mid 1430s.24 CP40/692, rot. 425; KB27/698, rex rot. 1; 706, rots. 124, fines 1. By this date he had already established himself as a lawyer of some repute, and at Easter 1434 he had been accredited in the court of common pleas as attorney for the earl of Devon, who was still a minor. In October 1439 John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, retained him as a member of his council at an annual fee of four marks.25 CP40/693, att. rot. 2d; E152/10/544, m. 3. Throughout these years Moyle remained firmly associated with Gray’s Inn, where in the spring of 1437 he gave his second reading on the statute of Merton.26 Readings and Moots i, p. xxxii. It may have been as a consequence of this continued activity in London that he established himself in the south-east, although the extent of his property in this early period of his life is as obscure as the chronology and process of its acquisition. Nevertheless, it was for another Cornish borough, Liskeard, that he was returned to Parliament for a third time, in 1442, on which occasion his putative kinsman Thomas Moyle is known to have been present at the Cornish shire elections at Launceston.27 C219/15/2.

Not long after the dissolution of this Parliament Moyle’s professional career began to advance rapidly. In July 1442 the city of London appointed him common serjeant, an office long a customary preserve of members of Gray’s Inn.28 The name of the common serjt. was recorded as ‘Richard Moyle of Gray’s Inn’, but as no such man is known to have attended the Inn around this time, it is probable that it was Walter who took the office: Guildhall Misc. ii. 384; Readings and Moots i, p. li. Indeed, Moyle was already a familiar figure in the city, having previously been employed in a professional capacity by several Londoners, such as the tailor Nicholas Tremayne and the grocer Henry Purchase*.29 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 277, 467; 1441-7, p. 146. He was not to hold the city office for long, for already he had attracted the Crown’s attention, and was consequently among a group of senior lawyers charged in February 1443 to take the coif, while later that year he was added to the quorum of the county bench in Kent. His subsequent career followed the common pattern of advancement. By September 1444 he was serving as a King’s serjeant-at-law, in which capacity he can be found acting in a variety of matters, such as the representation of the Crown’s interests at the south-western assizes, and other ad hoc duties on the authority of occasional writs of dedimus potestatem.30 KB27/742, rex rot. 34; C254/145/235-6. Three years later he commenced over two decades of service as an assize justice on the south-western circuit, and in 1449 and 1450 respectively he also became a j.p. in Somerset and Wiltshire. The latter year also saw a vast expansion of Moyle’s judicial activity when he was appointed to the first of a long string of regional commissions of oyer and terminer which were to occupy him for the rest of his professional life. The Crown’s call on his services intensified even further in 1451. Not only was he added to three more county benches in the south-west, but more importantly he was retained by the duchy of Lancaster as one of its serjeants.31 CPR, 1441-6, p. 371; Somerville, i. 451; E404/69/149; 70/2/37.

Summoned to attend the Lords in Parliament in his capacity as a serjeant, Moyle became similarly indispensible to the transaction of business. He was assigned substantial rewards for ‘divers matters done to the King’s profit’ in the Parliaments of 1447 and February 1449, and during the assembly of 1450 he received £4 by the hands of the duke of Somerset.32 E403/773, m. 10; 785, m. 14; 786, mm. 1, 5; E404/67/101; 68/176. In the Parliament of 1453-4 his advocacy was put to the test when the Lords dispatched him to the Commons, already restless after the arrest of their Speaker, Thomas Thorpe*, to expound the legal position regarding the election of a replacement.33 PROME, xii. 255-6; The Commons 1386-1421, i. 154. He clearly discharged this duty well, for alongside his fellow serjeant William Hyndeston* he was sent with the Protector, the duke of York, in the early summer of 1454 to pacify the north of England, in upheaval as a consequence of the quarrel of Henry Holand, duke of Exeter, with Ralph, Lord Cromwell, which had served to exacerbate the traditional rivalries of the Percy and Neville families in the region.34 P.A. Johnson, Duke Richard of York, 140-3; E403/798, m. 7.

Moyle’s neutrality in this and other major disputes of the period should not, however, be taken for granted, for the Crown was not alone in seeking his counsel. In about 1442 he had been retained by Humphrey, earl of Stafford (afterwards duke of Buckingham), and granted an annual fee of £2 from the Cornish manor of Caliland,35 C. Rawcliffe, Staffords, 158, 220, 238. while the following year John, Lord Fanhope, had nominated him a feoffee and an executor of his will.36 CPR, 1441-6, pp. 230, 268; E404/60/123, 232, 265; 66/213. This latter capacity had opened up further opportunities, both to be of service to the Crown by providing extensive loans from the testator’s estate,37 CPR, 1441-6, p. 273; E401/784, m. 15; 786, m. 12. and to develop new connexions among the nobility. Most notable among these was Lord Cromwell, another one of Fanhope’s executors. Moyle colluded in Cromwell’s acquisition of the Fanhope manor of Ampthill, despite a challenge to the latter’s title by Duke Henry of Exeter, whose father Moyle had served earlier in his career. Moyle clearly discharged himself well, for, in a clear expression of the former treasurer’s trust, he later also became one of Cromwell’s feoffees.38 CPR, 1441-6, p. 454; 1452-61, pp. 200, 341; 1477-85, p. 107; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 219, 222-3; 1468-76, nos. 911, 1173; C1/13/129, 134; S.J. Payling, ‘Ampthill Dispute’, EHR, civ. 885; E328/136. Nor was this the only occasion when Moyle became party to the potentially explosive land transactions of the nobility. At Michaelmas 1445 he headed a panel of feoffees on whom Robert, Lord Poynings, settled part of his estates with the intention that they should pass to his eldest surviving son, Robert Poynings*, rather than his common law heir, his grand-daughter Eleanor, who had married the heir to the earldom of Northumberland. Although the feoffees duly settled the lands on Robert within weeks of his father’s death, he nevertheless began proceedings against them in Chancery, the deceased Lord’s widow demanded her dower, and the dispute was soon further aggravated by the intervention of the Percys who staked their claim.39 C139/126/24; C1/17/346-7; CP25(1)/293/71/303; CCR, 1441-7, p. 435; Add. 39376, f. 47v; CP40/746, rot. 128d. The disputed estates included the manor of Eastwell in Kent, and despite the conflict over the inheritance it may be assumed that it was Moyle’s acquaintance with Lord Poynings and his Percy heirs which led him to settle there.40 R.H. D’Elboux, ‘Some Kentish Indents’, Archaeologia Cantiana, lix. 96.

Members of the aristocracy apart,41 The most exalted of his clients was no less a man than Humphrey, duke of Gloucester: KB27/739, rot. 88. numerous lesser men, both from the south-west and south-east, employed Moyle as a feoffee, executor or legal counsel,42 CP25(1)/293/70/299; C253/35/278; C254/145/52, 56, 58, 79, 102, 127, 133, 266; 146/16, 83, 117, 135, 175, 283; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 71, 115, 428; 1454-61, p. 42. among them Henry Somer*, the former chancellor of the Exchequer, the execution of whose will led to controversy and extensive litigation.43 C44/29/5; 31/3; E159/231, brevia Easter rot. 3, Trin. rot. 2; 232, brevia Mich. rot. 11(ii)d. The citizens of London continued to turn to their former common serjeant, and the Londoners for whom he acted included the ironmonger John Hatherley* and the grocer John Ive.44 CCR, 1441-7, p. 311; Cal. P. and M. London, 1437-57, p. 178. Similarly, Moyle was employed by a number of corporations, including the city of Canterbury, which retained him as their counsel in 1448-9 at a fee of 20s., and the town of Lydd, which having retained him by 1446 continued to draw upon his professional services in later years, making him annual gifts of food and wine and on occasion paying him monetary rewards, as in October 1458, when the authorities gave him 6s. 8d. ‘thanking his labour that he did for the Town to the Lord of Canterbury’.45 Canterbury Cath. Archs., Canterbury city recs., chamberlains’ accts. 1445-1506, CCA-CC-F/A/2, f. 30; Lydd Recs. 118, 124, 125, 132, 140, 143, 155, 158, 166, 169, 170, 175, 178, 180, 187. During the Parliament of 1445, he was employed by Thomas Ingham* and Robert Toppe*, the MPs for Norwich, who sought to recover their city’s cancelled privileges.46 Norf. RO, Norwich city recs., NCR 7d. Moyle’s regular appearances in the royal courts on behalf of a variety of clients are well documented, and his expertise in the law is illustrated by his contributions to the legal discussions that took place.47 Yr. Bks. 21-32 Hen. VI (Reports del Cases en Ley, 1679), passim.

In view of his extensive legal experience and good service to the Crown it cannot have come as too much of a surprise when upon his return from the north with the duke of York in July 1454 Moyle was appointed one of the justices of the common bench. The significant status conferred by the office aside, it also carried substantial fees of 110 marks p.a., as well as annual robes worth £8 13s. 5¼d. In addition his extensive activity as a justice of oyer and terminer throughout the realm provided further royal rewards. This at least was the case in theory, but the fraught finances of Henry VI’s government meant that on more than one occasion Moyle’s expenses and rewards remained unpaid, pending reassignment.48 CPR, 1461-7, p. 14; E403/796, m. 3; 798, m. 7; 800, mm. 7, 8; 807, mm. 8, 10; 817, m. 7; 819, m. 3; E404/69/149d; 70/2/37; E159/226, brevia Mich. rot. 27d; 232, brevia Easter rot. 2. Although his advancement thus entailed a significant cut in his annual income, he had had longer than most of his contemporaries to amass wealth, for he was the last of the serjeants called in 1443 to be elevated to the judiciary. In recompense, his new office provided a notable increase in social standing, which was reflected in his regular employment by the more important men of the land. Not only did Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon, make him one of his principal feoffees,49 C140/22/48; C145/322/16; CPR, 1467-77, pp. 179, 181; CCR, 1454-61, p. 357-9; 1468-76, no. 209. but he was now retained and acted for landowners throughout southern England, including the powerful Cornishman Henry Bodrugan, who granted him an annual pension of 20s. from the manor of Pendryn,50 Cornw. RO, Edgcombe mss, ME571, 1837, m. 2d. a number of prominent Londoners, like the mercer Hugh Wyche* and the fishmonger Thomas Playstowe,51 E40/1861, 2625; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 212, 265, 450. and such members of the gentry as the yeoman of the Crown Alfred Corneburgh†, John Arundell of Lanherne, (Sir) John Wenlock*, Thomas Hoo II* and John Bamme*.52 E326/3325; CCR, 1454-61, pp. 46, 277, 312, 340, 495; 1461-8, p. 314; 1468-76, nos. 397, 602, 797, 1199; Corp. London RO, hr 185/19; 187/12. Yet, Moyle’s relations with his past and present clients were not uniformly good. In particular, towards the end of 1459 a bitter disagreement broke out between him and the men of Lydd. The dispute continued for more than five years, necessitated the King’s personal intervention and proved so costly that the townsmen were reduced to seeking assistance from Dover and Romney to meet the costs.53 Lydd Recs. 195, 196, 199, 200-4, 208, 211, 212, 303.

Moyle invested at least some of the wealth he amassed by his professional activity in the purchase of a landed estate in Kent.54 CP25(1)/117/333/78. As a younger son he had not inherited any of his father’s lands, but he had nevertheless been able to acquire valuable holdings in the West Country through his marriage to Margaret, eldest daughter and coheiress of John Luccombe of Lostwithiel. Although Luccombe’s own holdings were limited, Margaret eventually succeeded to a share in the estates of her maternal grandfather, William Graunt, and through her paternal grandmother Margery, sister of Ralph Kayl†, to part of those of her cousin William, son of Robert Kayl†. The extent and value of the Graunt estates in Stevenstone, St. Giles and ‘Sebhanger’ in Devon is obscure, but the Kayl lands encompassed the Cornish manors of Ethy (in St. Winnow), ‘Penmena’, ‘Kaylensov’, ‘Tolgoys’, ‘Fenton’ and ‘Rescarlyk’, some 100 messuages, 1,600 acres of land, and rents amounting to £20 p.a. in the county, and Moyle himself later claimed them to be of an annual value of £100. Yet the acquisition of these estates was fraught with difficulty, for Graunt’s sole surviving feoffee, William Whitefeld*, refused to transfer the lands of which he was seised to the heirs, and the quest for seisin of the Kayl lands proved even more aggravating, for although Moyle himself was one of the feoffees entrusted with the task of ensuring the smooth passage of the estate to its heirs, his co-feoffees, the prominent lawyers John Trevelyan* and his brother-in-law Thomas Tregarthen*, had other ideas and sought to divert the revenue to their own use. The matter was further complicated by the survival of William Kayl’s widow, Philippa, who had married John Carminowe, and laid claim to part of the estate as her rightful dower. Litigation over the inheritance dragged on throughout the 1460s, and just as all external challenges had been successfully seen off, the coheirs began to squabble among themselves, Moyle and his wife accusing their nephew John Devyok† of cheating them of their share of the revenues and wasting the lands by felling large numbers of oak trees.55 C1/26/3; 29/288; 31/119, 138; 38/204; 215/39-44; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 509; CAD, iv. A9997.

By contrast with his insecure grasp on his wife’s distant lands, the prospect of purchasing property of his own in the south-east within easy reach of the royal courts at Westminster must have seemed an appealing one to Moyle. Yet, many of the purchases he made proved themselves to be problematic, either as a consequence of the vendors’ questionable titles, or even because of Moyle’s lack of time to devote to such matters. Thus even one of his earliest acquisitions, 18 acres of land in Boughton Aluph, bought from John Grey for the sum of 100 nobles in about 1454, resulted in litigation in Chancery, when John, son of Grey’s feoffee Edward Guildford*, refused to transfer the holdings.56 C1/21/10. Conversely, in the second half of the 1460s Moyle agreed a sale of lands with the London mercer Thomas Muschamp and the agreement was recorded in a pair of indentures, while as security for payment of the purchase price Moyle sealed an obligation for £40. On completion of the transaction the indentures were cancelled by the breaking of their seals, but under the pressure of his official duties Moyle seems to have forgotten about the obligation, which Muschamp promptly used to bring a suit for debt, taking the opportunity of Moyle’s absence from Westminster while holding the south-western autumn assizes to have him attached.57 C1/72/80. Nor was this the only occasion on which one of Walter’s frequent absences caused him problems. In about 1462 his brother-in-law, William Rosmodres, had become one of the executors of another kinsman, Otto Trenewith, who had left only a single under-age daughter as his heir. For ‘grete love and allians’ the executors had in turn agreed to marry the girl to Henry, son of a third kinsman, Thomas Luccombe junior. As Henry was also still under age, his father had been reluctant to burden himself with his son’s child-wife, and the girl had consequently been entrusted to Moyle’s household for nurture. Yet, when Henry unexpectedly died a minor, Thomas Luccombe realized the imminent danger of letting the Trenewith inheritance slip from his grasp. Without hesitation he gathered his servants and rode to Moyle’s house in Kent, where he found the judge’s wife at home alone. Luccombe proceeded to tell the gullible Margaret Moyle that the girl’s mother was sick and lying in peril of death, offered to take the child to see her and promised to return her to the custody of her father’s executors. However, having gained control of the child, he took her back to Cornwall, where he concealed her from her kinsfolk, with the intention of ultimately marrying her himself, should this prove necessary to secure her property.58 C1/20/154; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 649.

Meanwhile, Moyle had continued to play his part as a legal officer in the Upper House of Parliament, serving as a trier of Gascon petitions in the assemblies of 1459 and 1460. The newly-crowned Edward IV confirmed his appointment to the common bench without hesitation, and Moyle returned as a trier to the new King’s first Parliament in 1461.59 PROME, xii. 453, 513; xiii. 10; CPR, 1461-7, p. 14. Like its Lancastrian predecessor the new administration valued Moyle’s legal expertise highly, and although he was not showered with grants of lands or rewards, he was knighted along with four of his colleagues of the bench on the eve of the coronation of the new queen, Elizabeth Wydeville, in the spring of 1465.60 Letters and Pprs. Illust. Wars of English, ii. [784]. The slowed pace of legal business consequent on the outbreak of open civil war in the spring of 1461 had provided the judges and clerks of the Westminster courts with a rare opportunity to pursue their own interests.61 M. Hastings, Ct. Common Pleas, 11; CP40/802, rot. 6. This state of affairs was not to last. Soon Moyle was once more without respite hearing cases and taking depositions both in the common pleas and in the shires.62 CCR, 1461-8, pp. 231, 234; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 5; C261/11/19; KB27/827, rot. 53d; Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/158, mm. 1, 2; Stonor Letters, i (Cam. Soc. ser. 3, xxix), 82, 84; C254/150/18, 61; 151/110. Part of his private practice was by this stage being taken care of by kinsmen, including John Moyle† of Bake, and a suit over the detention of muniments relating to the manor of Trewalle, granted to them by Oliver Tregasowe*, was more than likely collusive.63 CP40/825, rot. 106; 826, rot. 117. However, before too long the realm was once more in political turmoil. The King’s brother, George, duke of Clarence, and the earl of Warwick grew increasingly dissatisfied with his rule, and at the end of the decade rose in open rebellion, which culminated in the restoration of Henry VI in the autumn of 1470. Moyle soon came to terms with the changed circumstances, and as a man elevated to the common bench in King Henry’s first reign could count on the returned Lancastrians’ trust. He was confirmed in his judicial appointments.64 CPR, 1467-77, pp. 227, 229; CCR, 1468-76, no. 585; C261/11/8. The towns he visited in the course of his duties may have been reassured to see the restored regime represented by a familiar face, and the gifts of bread and wine which Moyle received from the burgesses of Launceston during the Lent assizes of 1471 were probably characteristic of the reception he met with elsewhere on his circuit.65 Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/147, mm. 1, 2. Yet by this time the Lancastrian fortunes were already waning and within weeks Edward IV was back on the throne of England. Although all the judges had continued in office at Westminster after the return of Henry VI, Moyle seems to have been viewed with particular suspicion by the restored Yorkists. He was dismissed from all judicial appointments on King Edward’s return, and although in December he secured a general pardon in return for a quitclaim of all actions to the King, this cost him dearly. Along with other Kentishmen he had to enter into obligations for gifts (obligacionibus de dono) to the King totaling 250 marks and he was forced to withdraw almost entirely into private life.66 CCR, 1468-76, no. 829; C67/48, m. 24; E405/54, rot. 3.

While on occasion Moyle still served as a feoffee or witness to one or other of his neighbours, for the last decade of his life he chiefly concerned himself with putting his own affairs in order.67 CP25(1)/117/337/186; Arch. Cant. lxxiv. 39. Thus, at the Cornish assizes in March 1472 he was suing the Bodmin yeoman Walter Donne over three houses and a garden in the town, as well as other holdings at Pengelly,68 KB9/332/23, 24. around the same time he was at pains to secure his title to lands in ‘Trevabon’ which he held from his wife’s kinsman, Thomas Luccombe,69 CP40/845, rot. 385. and not long after he was once more embroiled in litigation over lands he had purchased, when in 1474 William Pette, surviving feoffee of one Thomas Pette who had sold 21 acres of land in Molash (Kent) to him refused to hand the disputed property over. The quarrel continued for some time, and after Moyle had procured a writ of sub poena against Pette to force him to give the lands up, the latter arranged for a collusive suit in the court of common pleas by associates of his, who forced him to surrender the disputed acres to them by a writ of cessavit, thereby depriving Moyle of any common law remedy.70 C1/54/253; 66/125. Similarly, it was in these years that Moyle squabbled with Richard Fortescue* of Ermington, whose daughter Anne had married his kinsman, John Moyle of Bake. Fortescue and Sir Walter were joint owners of 26 acres of wood in ‘Dreynys’ in Cornwall, but as Moyle lived far away in Kent, the day-to-day management of the property seems to have fallen to his co-proprietor. Nevertheless, Sir Walter had taken enough of an interest in the woodland to be aware of the market price that any sale thereof might command, and had warned his partner not to sell the lease of the property. Fortescue had nevertheless proceeded to arrange a bargain with various buyers, and to Moyle’s annoyance had accepted a price that fell short of what might have been accepted by no less than 10s. p.a.71 C1/58/238; C140/76/60.

Moyle also had to make provision for his children. His eldest son, John, received in 1474 the manors of Stevenstone (Devon) and Broad Fenton (Cornwall), as well as over 2,000 acres of land, part of his maternal inheritance, probably on the occasion of his marriage to Katherine, daughter of Sir John Arundell of Lanherne and widow of Sir Walter Courtenay.72 Crown and People ed. Petre, 204; CP25(1)/294/76/96; E405/58, rot. 5. This was Sir Walter, son of (Sir) Hugh Courtenay* of Bocconoc, rather than Sir Walter Courtenay† of the Powderham line of the fam.: J.S.Vivian, Vis. Devon, 245; PCC 24 Marche (PROB11/2A). It may have been on his instructions that John granted his brother Richard an annual rent of four marks from holdings in Sheepwash, Bankland (in Coldrige) and Great Torrington.73 E150/149/2; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 422. Moyle made his will on 11 Dec. 1479. He asked to be buried in the chancel of the parish church of Eastwell, which his feoffees were to endow with a nearby field in recompense for an annual rent of 2lb. of wax that he had failed to pay during his lifetime. He settled his lands in Biddenden, Staplehurst and Smarden on his wife, and made a number of charitable bequests to Eastwell church, but left all other provisions to his executors. Moyle was dead by 16 May 1480, when a writ of diem clausit extremum was sent to the escheator of Kent, and his will was proved at the end of July.74 Test. Vestusta ed. Nicolas, i. 349-50; CFR, xxi. 562; D’Elboux, 99. His widow survived until 1492. In her will she asked to be buried next to Sir Walter. Apart from a number of small bequests to her children and grandchildren, she left a few legacies to the churches of Eastwell and Charing, including the price of a vestment for the chaplain of the Burleigh chantry in the latter church. A marble tomb still in the chancel of Eastwell church has now lost its brasses, but may perhaps be identified as the funeral monument of Judge Moyle and his wife.75 CFR, xxii. 367; D’Elboux, 96, 97, 99-100.

It was probably Sir Walter’s kinsman John Moyle of Bake rather than his elder son John who followed in his footsteps in representing Bodmin in Parliament in 1467, but several decades later the judge’s grandson, John’s fourth son Thomas†, rose to greater prominence in the Commons, being chosen Speaker in 1542.76 The Commons 1509-58, ii. 642-3; Maclean, i. 278.