GRYGGE, Thomas (d.1494), of Holkham, Norf.

The medieval borough of Westbury consistently returned outsiders, rendering the identification of any one of its representatives precarious. The candidate suggested by Wedgwood may be ruled out, since he (the parson of Haccombe, Devon) was in holy orders: HP Biogs. ed. Wedgwood and Holt, 400; C1/12/24; 31/44-47; C47/9/14, m. 1. In the mid fifteenth century there were Grygge families in counties and regions as far apart as Cornwall, Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, East Anglia and Yorkshire. The Cornish Thomas Grygge, a contemporary of the MP, was probably a son or other kinsman of William Grygge who between 1438 and 1440 served as sub bailiff of Blackmoor stannary, parcel of the duchy of Cornw.: SC6/821/6, rot. 7d; KB27/714, rex rot. 20; 729, rex rot. 1; C1/81/43. While it is tempting to speculate whether the Westbury MP was an otherwise obscure kinsman of Richard Grygge* who represented Dover in the same Parliament of 1450, it seems more likely that he was the Norfolk gentleman of this name. No definite evidence of this man’s paternity has been established, but he may have been a son or other kinsman of John Grygge of Wells-next-the-Sea in Norfolk, who attested the parliamentary elections in that county in 1447 and 1450. C219/15/6, 16/1.

Grygge trained in the law, perhaps at London’s Middle Temple, of which he is known to have been a member in his later years. Baker, i. 119. Certainly, in 1489 he was able to quote ‘the lawe cyuyll’, when he wrote to Sir John Paston† to advise him of a threat to the earl of Oxford’s entitlement as admiral to half of a whale that had been taken off the shore at Thornham. Paston Letters ed. Davis, ii. 816. Little is known of the family’s landholdings, which were concentrated on the northern Norfolk coast, but at his death Grygge apparently resided in the manor of Hill Hall in Holkham, where he also held additional property as a tenant of Sir William Boleyn. He also possessed lands in the parishes of Stiffkey and Cockthorpe. CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1033; C1/262/87. Apparently an upwardly mobile gentleman, Thomas was concerned to expand his holdings. Thus, in 1479 he was in dispute with a local clergyman, Robert Arnold, son of the Cromer merchant Richard Arnold, who according to Grygge’s version of events agreed to grant him the remainder after his own death of his paternal inheritance of a tenement in Cromer, in return for the lawyer’s support against his father’s executors. Robert’s subsequent denial of this agreement saw the matter brought into Chancery. C1/52/73-75.

Few other details of Grygge’s career have to come to light. It is not clear in whose interest he was returned for Westbury in 1450, but his return was undoubtedly connected with the efforts of John Mowbray, duke of Norfolk, and Richard, duke of York, to see their supporters placed in that year’s Parliament. In October 1450 Norfolk and York agreed on their choice of candidates to be knights of the shire for Norfolk, and the other dominant magnate in the region, John de Vere, 12th earl of Oxford, evidently acquiesced in their decision. H. Kleineke, ‘East-Anglian Elections’, in The Fifteenth Cent. X ed. Kleineke, 169. No evidence to link Grygge to Mowbray has been discovered, and if he was already Oxford’s man (as he would be towards the end of his life), his patron may have been offered the Westbury seat as a consolation prize, after the two dukes had carved up the county seats between them.

Grygge’s complete failure to attract public appointment before 1485, when the 13th earl of Oxford was in the ascendant, supports the supposition that he was a de Vere client. In 1489 he described Oxford as ‘my lord’, although the multiplicity of offices then held by the earl makes it impossible to know how their connexion had come about. That same year he was also finally appointed to Crown office, albeit in the somewhat inauspicious capacity of a tax collector.

Grygge died on 12 Aug. 1494, leaving his 19-year-old son Aubrey as his heir. By his will he had instructed his executors to take the revenues of his lands for nine years after his death and to use them for the payment of his debts and charitable works. Subsequently, they were to fall to Aubrey and his male heirs, with remainder in default to the testator’s daughter Alice. On account of his minority, Aubrey did not gain control of his inheritance for several years, and even a decade after his father death was still engaged in litigation against the latter’s executors. CFR, xxii. 471, 505; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 1033; C1/262/87.