TOMAYS, William

It is possible that this MP originated from Great Wilbraham, some seven miles east of Cambridge. During the early 1440s, a William Tomays of that parish was caught up in an episode that appears to have arisen from the rivalry between two local magnates, John, Lord Tiptoft†, and Sir James Butler, afterwards earl of Wiltshire and Ormond. On 22 Feb. 1441, a group of j.p.s. headed by Sir Nicholas Styuecle* took an indictment for murder against Henry Brokesby, a resident of Butler’s manor of Fulbourn and from a family closely connected with the Butlers. Brokesby countered with litigation in the common pleas, claiming that the indictment arose out of a conspiracy at Bromsgrove, Worcestershire, between Tiptoft, Styuecle, Everard Digby* and many others, including William Tomays of Great Wilbraham, ‘yeoman’, the previous November.2 CP40/727, rot. 600; Year Bk. Hil. 21 Hen. VI, pl. 12, Mich. 22 Hen. VI, pl. 5 (Reports del Cases en Ley, 1679). At the end of the same decade, William Tomays, probably the Great Wilbraham man, participated as a feoffee in the conveyance of lands in Brinkley, like Great Wilbraham also located to the east of Cambridge.3 CPR, 1441-6, p. 329; 1446-52, pp. 301-2.

If, however, the subject of this biography was another William Tomays, his election to the Parliament of 1449 is the first definite evidence for him. In the following year, the MP began action at Westminster against two yeomen from Boxworth, Cambridgeshire, and another from Suffolk over alleged debts, suing as ‘of Cambridge’ rather than Great Wilbraham.4 CP40/758, rot. 296. He served at least three terms as a bailiff of the town. In May 1462, during the third of these terms, Thomas Grey† sued him and his fellow bailiffs in the Exchequer for £13 6s. 5½d., the arrears of an annuity of £40, assigned to the income of their borough, that the King had granted to Grey for life.5 E13/148, rot. 8. Tomays was still alive in February 1465, when he gave evidence to an inquiry instituted by the borough authorities to resolve a controversy concerning the local guild of St. Mary.6 J.A.F. Williams, ‘A Medieval Squabble’, Cambridge Antiq. Soc. Procs. liv. 111.