GAUNSELL, Thomas (d.1500), of Middleton and Eston Hall in Wallington, Norf.

A family with holdings in Wallington, Middleton, and elsewhere in west Norfolk, Blomefield, vii. 410-11. the Gaunsells were members of the affinity of the Lords Scales, an immediate landed presence in that part of the county. Thomas was probably a ward of Thomas, Lord Scales, in his early years, since the parties to the contract for his marriage to Elizabeth Iwayn were that peer and her father. Hare mss, 2419. It is also likely that Gaunsell, who appears not to have held Crown office or achieved any distinction at the time of his election, owed his return for a Wiltshire borough to the partisan Parliament of 1459 to the patronage of Scales, then closely identified with the Court faction around Queen Margaret. It is worth noting that both his name and that of his fellow MP, Robert Booth*, a kinsman of the queen’s chancellor, Bishop Laurence Booth, were inserted over erasures on the schedule of Wiltshire borough Members accompanying the sheriff’s indenture, suggesting a fraudulent return. C219/16/5.

In the months of civil war that followed the Parliament, Scales remained a leading supporter of the Court and it was as one of the Lancastrian defenders of the Tower of London that he met his end in the late spring of 1460. If with his patron as a member of the Tower’s garrison, Gaunsell escaped with his life but his activities in the years of Edward IV’s first reign are largely obscure. Lord Scales’s heir was his only daughter, Elizabeth, wife of Anthony Wydeville. From a previously Lancastrian family, Wydeville became Edward IV’s brother-in-law in 1464, and it is possible that, like the Wydevilles, Gaunsell transferred his allegiance to the new dynasty. The Thomas Daniell for whom Gaunsell was a feoffee for property in Walpole in June 1466 was almost certainly the gentleman from nearby Walsoken of that name, rather than his far more prominent namesake, the former Lancastrian courtier Thomas Daniell*: CCR, 1461-8, p. 374.

Yet it is also possible that Thomas harboured a residual loyalty to the house of Lancaster which re-emerged following the restoration of Henry VI in the autumn of 1470. While there is some indication that he welcomed Henry’s return, the evidence for his attitude is based on the claims and counterclaims presented in Chancery in the context of an acrimonious quarrel with John Skelton III*, an old rival of his, which originated in a run of the mill dispute over various property rights. The following acct. of this quarrel is from C1/11/517; 43/284-90; 44/248-9. According to Skelton, Gaunsell had been an enthusiastic supporter of Henry VI who had joined the army that John de Vere, earl of Oxford, had raised in East Anglia before the battle of Barnet. Even after Edward IV’s victory at Tewkesbury, Skelton asserted, Gaunsell had sought to raise armed men in the Lancastrian cause and had spread false rumours that Edward was once more in flight. Furthermore, although he had subsequently secured a pardon from King Edward, he had sought to implicate Skelton and other west Norfolk landowners, including the abbot of West Dereham, the priors of Pentney, West Acre and Shouldham, Thomas Lovell† and Simon Blake†, in his treasonable activities by means of a forged bill of information.

Not surprisingly, Gaunsell denied much of this. Far from having served under the earl of Oxford, he claimed to have been raising men for Edward IV, until intercepted by Oxford’s retainers and forced by threats to join the army that de Vere had been assembling in King Henry’s name. This he had pretended to do in name only, intending all the while to join King Edward at the first opportunity. He had, however, made the mistake of disclosing his intentions to Skelton’s servant, Geoffrey Buntyng, a secret supporter of the Lancastrian cause who had betrayed him to members of the earl of Oxford’s council. As a result, he had been taken and brought to Coventry, where the Lancastrian lords under the earl of Warwick were gathering their strength. With the help of the earl of Warwick’s porter, and after abandoning his horse and harness, as well as agreeing to pay a ransom, he had eventually regained his freedom. By contrast, Buntyng had remained with Oxford and had taken part in the earl’s ill-fated intervention in the battle of Barnet. Gaunsell added that he had taken the precaution of suing out a pardon once Edward IV was secure on his throne but, while drinking in the house of the tailor John Stowe at Westminster, he had learnt from his host’s wife (like him a native of Norfolk) that he and other Norfolk men were to be denounced to the King as Lancastrians.

Unfortunately for Gaunsell, a London scrivener, John Bothe, came forward and confirmed Skelton’s claim about the bill of information, admitting that he had drawn up the forgery at the MP’s dictation. Skelton held the office of spigurnel of Chancery, so he was well placed to pursue his claims and the chancellor committed Gaunsell to the Fleet prison pending trial. By the autumn of 1472, however, he had evidently cleared his name and regained his freedom, for he attended the county elections on 21 Sept. in person, and set his seal to the sheriff’s indenture. It was not, however, until six years later, in 1478, that he was appointed to his only documented office, a commission of sewers in his native county.

Gaunsell made his will on 8 Sept. 1500, and died before the following 27 Nov. when probate was granted. His successor was his eldest son, John. In the will he sought burial near his father-in-law in the chapel of St. John in the abbey of West Dereham and directed his executors to sell his silver collar and a musk ball of silver, in order to pay for a Burwell stone for his grave. He left money to the churches of Wallington, Thorpeland and Fordham, to the poor and to the canons of West Dereham, whose brethren he asked to pray for his soul. Gaunsell also made careful settlements of lands on his wife and younger children, and provided for his old nurse, Joan, to receive food and drink for the rest of her life. For his executors, he named his wife, Ellen, and second son, Richard. In her own will of 23 Nov. 1504 Ellen requested burial in the abbey at West Dereham, to which she left an image of the Salutation of the Virgin. She probably survived for some years after making it, since probate was not granted until June 1507. Blomefield, vii. 411; Norwich consist. ct., Regs. Cage, f. 117, Ryxe, f. 431; C1/280/27.