EYLOVE, Thomas, of Bletchingley, Surr.

Eylove was a member of the family of that name which had strong links with the town of Horsham in Sussex and with the nearby settlement of Slinfold, where certain lands and tenements, commonly known as ‘Eyloves’, were in their hands well into the fifteenth century. Bodl. Chs. Suss. 212, 214-16, 221. Thomas was probably a son of Roger, from whom he seems to have inherited lands in and around Bletchingley in Surrey, including a messuage, 24 acres of arable land and four acres of meadow which he and his wife conveyed to feoffees in the summer of 1420, perhaps shortly after their marriage. U. Lambert, Blechingley, 410. The couple came into possession of two more parcels of land in the neighbourhood, called ‘Le Hyde’ and ‘Saryslond’, and Thomas was also a tenant of property known as Prestwell and Goddesdon, which formed part of the manor of Pendell, belonging to William Uvedale II*. Surr. Hist. Centre, 87/1/2B; Lambert, 205, 288, 290; VCH Surr. iv. 259.

Eylove’s appearance in Henry VI’s first Parliament was a reflection not only of his standing in Bletchingley itself, but also of his developing links with the estate staff of Humphrey, earl of Stafford, the young lord of the manor and borough. It was probably around this time that he was appointed as the earl’s beadle there, a post that he seems to have been holding as early as June 1423 when he headed the jurors at Bletchingley at the inquisition post mortem on the earl’s uncle Sir Hugh Stafford, Lord Bourgchier. His term of office may have ended in the following year, but he held it for another term in the 1430s. Little is recorded of Eylove thereafter, but he again served as a juror at Bletchingley in June 1439, this time at the post mortem on the Middlesex lawyer Robert Warner*. CIPM, xxii. 100-1; xxv. 162. He was still alive in 1453 when he and his wife conveyed ‘Le Hyde’ and ‘Saryslond’ to John Ellingbridge*. CP25(1)/232/74/4.

Almost all subsequent references appear to concern another Thomas, possibly this MP’s son, whose career was initially centred on Horsham, maintaining the family’s strong connexion with that town. It was probably Thomas the younger who was forced to petition Chancery in the late 1450s when accused of assault after a confrontation in Horsham with a brewer from London. C1/29/441; Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 275. See also C1/33/201 (from the early 1460s). In 1459 he was sued with others from Bletchingley by their lord, Humphrey, now duke of Buckingham, for unjustly withholding the sum of £2, a suit which was to be pursued by the duke’s receiver William Hextall* after Buckingham’s death. CP40/795, rot. 234; 809, rot. 235d. In 1462 Thomas himself successfully brought a plea against Richard Davy to whom three years earlier he had leased a messuage and 86 acres of land at Bletchingley for an annual rent of seven marks. He alleged that Davy had wasted his inheritance by damaging the property and cutting down trees. CP40/802, rot. 422. In later years he acquired property in Southwark and London, but in 1479 he fell into ‘great necessity and danger’ due to arrears in the rent he owed the dowager duchess of Buckingham, and being ‘troubyllouse and unstabyll’ found it difficult to find anyone prepared to lend him any money. C67/49, m. 7; C1/62/351-4.