WILCOTES, Thomas

That Wilcotes was an illegitimate son is strongly suggested by the arrangements made by his father for the disposal of his estates in 1422. Although Thomas was left certain lands and tenements in Tetbury and Charlton in Gloucestershire and Evesham in Worcestershire, he received only a reversionary interest in his father’s principal manors of Great Tew, Dean, and Upper and Lower Chalford, which were instead to be inherited by John’s daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, then aged about four and two years respectively. Had he been of legitimate birth, Thomas would have stood to inherit Great Tew under the terms of an entail of 1398.1 Hist. Dean and Chalford (Oxon. Rec. Soc. xvii), 109-112; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 863. The payment of John’s debts and the fulfilment of his last wishes caused his descendants great problems, and as late as 1438 Dean and Chalford were held by his creditor John Feriby*, who, according to the terms of John Wilcotes’s will, had also been allowed first refusal on the sale of the manor of Heythrop.2 Hist. Dean and Chalford, 111-14; VCH Oxon. xi. 134. It was not until 1444 that John Wilcotes’s widow, Elizabeth, obtained confirmation of her life interest in Dean and Chalford, and only after she had filed suits in Chancery against two of her late husband’s feoffees. Following these proceedings a grant of 16 Dec. the same year settled the manors on Elizabeth and her third husband, Sir Richard Walkstead, with remainder to Margaret Wilcotes, by then the only surviving daughter, and her issue. As before, the manors were to pass to Thomas in the event of Margaret’s death without issue.3 Hist. Dean and Chalford, 114-15.

Little is known of Thomas’s early life, but it seems that he sought to forge for himself a career on the battlefields of France. To this end, he indentured to join the force sailing to Aquitaine under the command of John Holand, earl of Huntingdon, in 1439, and two years later he concluded a similar agreement to serve under the newly appointed lieutenant of France, Richard, duke of York, in the retinue of Sir William Oldhall*.4 E101/53/22, m. 1; 53/33, m. 5. Wilcotes’s time in France was not altogether a happy one, for he fell into French captivity. It is not known when he was released, but, not long after his return his prospects were transformed by the childless death of his last surviving half-sister, Margaret. He now stood heir to his father’s lands under the feoffment of 1444. Threatened by the rival and illegitimate claim of Henry Raynsford, widower of his half-sister, Elizabeth, he ‘declared the said feoffment publicly’ in the towns of Chalford and Dean ‘in due and peaceful manner, according to legal requirement and equity to give notice that the estate in reversion belonged to him and his heirs’. The date of this declaration is unknown, but was made in or before April. 1449. His father’s widow, now widowed again after the death of Walkstead, then conveyed her interest in the manors of Dean and Chalford to him in return for an annual rent of £20. Only the manor and advowson of Heythrop, which had previously been conveyed to Margaret’s husband John Ashfield (d.1455) to pay debts owed by the late John Wilcotes, now remained out of his hands.5 CIMisc. viii. 215; Hist. Dean and Chalford, 114, 116-17.

Wilcotes, despite his illegitimacy, was now an important man and in a position to exploit some of the ties established by his father, most notably with the Stafford family. In November 1449 he was returned to Parliament for the Surrey borough of Bletchingley, almost certainly at the instigation of Humphrey, duke of Buckingham, to whom the lordship of the borough pertained.6 The Commons 1386-1422, iv. 861. He put his time as an MP to good use. On 7 June at Leicester, where Parliament was meeting for its third and final session, Walter Kebell, one of his father’s feoffees, made a declaration repudiating Raynsford’s claim and supporting his own. Later, in May 1452, he enlisted the support of the ducal retinue to protect his recently-acquired estates: in May 1452 he conveyed Dean and Chalford to two groups of prominent trustees, both of which were headed by Buckingham and his half-brothers Thomas Bourgchier, then bishop of Ely, and John, Lord Berners, as well as John, Lord Lovell, and Sir Robert Harcourt*.7 Hist. Dean and Chalford, 117-18, 119-22.

Relatively little else is recorded of Wilcotes’s career during the 1450s and 1460s. Although he maintained links with the Bourgchiers, standing surety in the Exchequer for Lord Berners in November 1462, he never matched his father’s prominence, and failed ever to attract appointment to Crown office. Nor was he much sought after as a feoffee or witness to property transactions. Indeed, at some point before 1465 he was sued in Chancery by one Alice Alkerton over his failure to release land at Shorthampton, Chilston and elsewhere to her.8 CFR, xx. 36, 43; C1/27/208. His marriage to Eleanor, whose parentage has not been discovered, had taken place by January 1463 when she was granted in jointure lands in Chalford, Enstone and elsewhere in Oxfordshire.9 Hist. Dean and Chalford, 121.

By the late 1460s Wilcotes had made the decision to use his property at Chalford to endow Oriel College, Oxford. An agreement to this effect was eventually drawn up on 10 Nov. 1471, under the terms of which Oriel would receive the manor from trustees, in return for various pious works. Wilcotes agreed to enfeoff John Carpenter, bishop of Worcester, and others on the understanding that he should have the issues and profits during his lifetime and that on his death they should make an estate to Oriel. The college, for its part, undertook to find a chaplain to celebrate mass daily in its chapel for the souls of John Wilcotes and his wives and daughters, and also for the souls of Thomas and his wife Eleanor. The couple were also singled out for remembrance at services held at the parish church at Great Tew, where Thomas’s father lay. The college also agreed to fund Wilcotes’s obit in Spelsbury church.10 Statutes of the Colleges of Oxford ed. Bond, i. 31. By the end of the year Wilcotes had carried out his side of the agreement, for on 13 Dec. he conveyed the manor of Over Chalford to Carpenter and the other feoffees. On 2 Jan. following, an indenture was drawn up which confirmed his life interest in the manor, and the intention to convey it to Oriel after his death. By a further indenture, sealed a month later, he settled his manor of Dean on his wife for her lifetime.11 Hist. Dean and Chalford, 123-5.

Wilcotes died on 15 Mar. 1472 and was buried in the church at Great Tew, where a memorial brass styled him ‘Thomas Wylcotes de Deyne, generosus’.12 C140/40/13. Eleanor, who married John Hay of Spelsbury, continued the process of conveying Wilcotes’s manors to feoffees, in preparation for their eventual passage to Oriel College. Even so, it took until 1482 before Wilcotes’s arrangements could be completed.13 Statutes of the Colleges, i. 25; Oxf. Hist. Soc. lxxxv. 5n; Hist. Dean and Chalford, 67, 128, 133, 136-7; CPR, 1476-85, pp. 306-7.