TYLER, Richard

Tyler’s origins are obscure, but he was established in Southwark by February 1405, and perhaps even as early as 1398 (when his address was given more generally as the county of Surrey. No certain evidence of his profession or trade has come to light, and he may simply have lived off the proceeds of his property, but the frequency with which he was employed as a feoffee, mainpernor or witness to property deeds may suggest that he possessed some knowledge of the law. He was active in this capacity by the final years of Richard II, initially in concert with a putative kinsman, Alan Tyler.3 CCR, 1396-9, pp. 397, 403-4. His early clients included local men, like William Milton and Thomas Spencer† (the scrivener and brothel-keeper) of Southwark and Richard Dulle of Wandesworth, or clerks, like John Peke and Hugh Cetur (suspected of intending to take his grievances to the court of Rome).4 CCR, 1402-5, pp. 480-1; 1405-9, pp. 352, 355, 357; 1409-13, p. 300; Chaucer Review, xlix. 399. No evidence of the extent of Tyler’s property has come to light (although he evidently held some land at least in Southwark), but he was a man of some substance, for in 1434 he was named among the Surrey gentry deemed of sufficient importance to take the general oath against maintenance, while two years later his annual income from lands in Surrey alone was assessed for tax purposes at some £15 16s.5 CP40/667, rot. 507; 759, cart. rot. 1; CPR, 1429-36, p. 380; Surr. Hist. Centre, Loseley mss, LM/1719.

Tyler was thus well qualified to represent his neighbours in Parliament, although during the autumn of 1422 he combined his duties in the Lower House with the pursuit of his private affairs in the Westminster law courts.6 CP40/647, rots. 25, 209d. He nevertheless now occupied a prominent position in the borough, and it is perhaps not surprising that the following summer he was marked out as the ringleader of the Southwark burgesses whom the London authorites, ever anxious to assert their authority over the settlement at the bridge foot, accused of ‘dishonestly obstructing the mayor in execution of his governorship of the said borough’. No details of what had occurred were recorded, but on the order of the Protector, the duke of Gloucester, and the King’s council on 18 June 1423 Tyler and 12 fellow burgesses had to appear before the mayor and aldermen of the City to seek a pardon.7 Corp. London RO, jnl. 2, f. 7. The incident evidently did Tyler’s reputation among his neighbours no harm, and although he did not serve in Parliament that autumn, he was returned again two years later, in 1425.

While Tyler, as far as it is possible to tell, played little part in public life, beyond his two documented spells in the Commons, he evidently enjoyed the confidence of his fellow townsmen. Among those who called upon his services until the early 1440s were middling Southwark men like Peter Swyft (himself a feoffee of Tyler’s property) and Thomas Palmer,8 CFR, xiv. 352; C1/24/147; CCR, 1447-54, p. 498. but also more important individuals, such as the coroner Adam Levelord*, the grocer Henry Purchase*, and the substantial landowner William Fowler.9 Corp. London RO, Bridge House deeds, H.37, 42; Misc. deeds, 138.2 N.S.; CCR, 1422-9, pp. 44-45; 1435-41, p. 468; 1441-7, p. 473; R. Monier-Williams, Recs. Tallow-Chandlers, 224, 226-8; C1/11/297. Others with whom he came into contact while performing these activities included many of the leading burgesses, among them William Kirton II* (son of his former parliamentary colleague William Kirton I*), William Redstone†, William Moyle I* and the Chancery clerk William Godyng*.10 Misc. deeds, 138.2 N.S.; Bridge House deeds, H.37; CCR, 1435-41, p. 467.

While Tyler does not appear to have been a quarrelsome man, occasional conflicts with his neighbours were perhaps unavoidable. Thus, in the spring of 1418 he quarreled with Agnes Norrys, a Southwark gentlewoman, over an unspecified trespass; in the autumn of 1423 he accused the Colnbrook gentleman Richard Bagot of an assault and the theft of goods worth £26; while four years later the target of his ire was the London barber Thomas Godewyn, whom he charged with an infringement of his Southwark property.11 CP40/629, rot. 137d; 651, rot. 146d; 667, rot. 507.

Tyler was still alive in February 1442, when he oversaw arrangements for the settlement of a life interest in his Southwark property on his second wife, Joan, but he died before the autumn of 1450, when his last living feoffee quitclaimed the property to Joan, who survived him.12 CP40/759, cart. rot. 1.