HAYDOCK, Thomas (d.1452), of Greywell in Odiham, Hants.

The fact that Thomas named his illegitimate son Gilbert may suggest a relationship with Sir Gilbert Haydock, the Lancashire knight of the late fourteenth century, especially as no Hampshire origins for him have been discovered. It is likely that he was the Thomas Haydock appointed a commissioner for levying debts owing to the Crown in Cheshire in 1425, and to conduct inquiries in the same region of the north-west three years later. Trained as a lawyer, he was probably practising in the central courts by August 1426, when, in association with two Chancery officials and styled ‘gentleman’, he received from a London tailor a ‘gift’ of his goods and chattels. CCR, 1422-9, p. 377. There is the strong possibility that he was the ‘Haydock’ of Gray’s Inn, who spoke in learning exercises in the 1430s, but this remains unproven. No forename; identified in Readers and Readings (Selden Soc. supp. ser. xiii), 19, 545 as Thomas. This also suggests that he was the apprentice of law retained by the duchy of Lancaster from 1443 (albeit called John in R. Somerville, Duchy, i. 453). Precisely when Haydock settled in Hampshire is not known, although his path to prominence in the county began in 1431 when he succeeded Richard Wallop† not only as steward of the estates of Winchester College (an office rewarded with an annual fee of £5), N. and Q. ser. 12, i. 361-3. but also as a member of the quorum on the county bench.

Haydock purchased property in the locality piecemeal. In 1433 he and certain colleagues from Winchester College (apparently acting as his feoffees) acquired tenements and messuages in Rotherwick, Mattingley and Hartley Wintney from George Denton, the son and heir of a London mercer, who released him from all legal actions. Haydock later sued in Chancery for the return of a chest of muniments relating to the estate. CCR, 1429-35, p. 259; C1/10/262. By 1436 he was in possession of lands in Hampshire valued at £26 p.a. according to the subsidy assessments, E179/173/92. and to these he added in June 1439 the manor of Nether Burgate and the hundred of Fordingbridge, which he leased from William Bulkeley, on agreeing to pay him £20 every year in the church of St. Andrew in Holborn. Yet although the lease was supposed to run for 60 years it may not have continued after Bulkeley surrendered his title to Thomas Lekhull alias Rivers in 1442. CCR, 1435-41, p. 280; VCH Hants, iv. 570. The lawyer’s principal residence was at Greywell in the hundred of Odiham, to which he had a consignment of wine delivered in October 1443. Richard, Lord Strange of Knockin, granted him and his heirs a lease of the manor in tail in May 1444, along with land nearby, in return for a payment of £10 a year for 110 years, and thereafter at double that sum. VCH Hants, iv. 77; CCR, 1441-7, pp. 229-30; Brokage Bk. 1443-4, i (Soton. Rec. Ser. iv), 27.

Haydock’s position as steward of Winchester College necessitated his involvement in numerous transactions as the college increased its landed holdings, and led to close dealings with its warden, Robert Thurbern, successive bursars and the fellows. While completing certain of these transactions at the time of his only Parliament in 1442 he became acquainted with Henry VI’s secretary, the Wykhamist Thomas Bekynton. Both men were feoffees of the manor of Fernhill and a moiety of that of Allington, which in 1445, with licence from the King and from Richard Neville, earl of Salisbury, they granted in frank almoin to the college to find vesture for the choristers and to meet other charges in accordance with the will of the former steward, John Fromond (d.1420) of Sparsholt. Bekynton agreed to act as a feoffee of Greywell on Haydock’s behalf in 1444, as also did Master William Waynflete, the former headmaster of Winchester College, who was then provost of the King’s foundation at Eton. Haydock’s dealings with Bekynton and Waynflete continued throughout the 1440s and after the promotion of the former as bishop of Bath and Wells and the latter as bishop of Winchester. Winchester Coll. muns. 1539, 1542, 1546, 9606, 9609, 9618, 9620-1, 16288; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 367, 444. However, of perhaps greater significance in the context of his election to Parliament, had been his employment by Waynflete’s predecessor as bishop, Cardinal Henry Beaufort, whom he served on at least three occasions as justiciar at his court of pavilion for the duration of the St. Giles fair, held in September every year, for which he was paid a fee of £2 on each occasion. While the temporalities of Winchester were in the King’s hands in the summer of 1447, following Beaufort’s death and pending Waynflete’s consecration, Haydock took on the role of their steward. Waynflete was to engage him as justiciar again, in 1449 and 1450.

Besides his employment by the Crown as a j.p., Haydock was regularly appointed to ad hoc local commissions (frequently as one of the quorum), and from 1437 until his death he served as steward of the royal lordship of Odiham. His legal expertise was also valued when it came to settling intransigent disputes. Often chosen as an arbiter, in 1431 he had mediated in a quarrel between Sir Henry Hussey* and the abbot of Durford (Sussex) regarding title to a heath next to the abbey and rights to hold a fair; and in 1434 he was asked by the prior of St. Swithun’s, Winchester, to arbitrate in his suit against the authorities at Southampton over the imposition of tolls, a matter which was not easily resolved and required Haydock’s attention for more than three years. Further from home, he was ‘indifferently chosen’ to help resolve a dispute over land in North and South Mimms on the border of Hertfordshire and Middlesex in 1441, and he was one of a body of ten men, headed by (Sir) John Lisle II*, who in 1447 ruled on a partition of land in Kingsclere between William Warbleton* and William Fauconer. CCR, 1429-35, pp. 122, 160; 1435-41, p. 486; Reg. Common Seal (Hants Rec. Ser. ii), nos. 235, 239; Winchester Coll. mun. 12417.

Naturally enough, Haydock was often called upon to be a feoffee, performing this task for John Feriby*, the controller of the Household, and his wife the heiress Margery Berners, with respect to her manor of West Horsley in Surrey, CPR, 1429-36, p. 265; CAD, iii. B4038; CCR, 1441-7, p. 32. and for Robert Dingley† (d.1456) of Wolverton. Hants RO, Chute (Vyne) mss, 697-8. John Uvedale* asked him to be a trustee of property in Southwick and of the manor of Brownwich in Titchfield, in the case of the former in association with Reynold, Lord de la Warre, with whom Haydock obtained royal licence to convey Uvedale’s land to Southwick priory in 1439. On other occasions he witnessed deeds on Lord Reynold’s behalf. Hants RO, Daly mss, 29-34; Add. Ch. 40277; CCR, 1435-41, p. 63; CPR, 1436-41, p. 343. Even before he formally took on the lease of Greywell he had forged links with Lord Strange of Knockin: deeds relating to the Strange estates in Shropshire, Wales and Berkshire were acknowledged by Haydock at Lord Richard’s seat at Colham in Middlesex in 1440; and he was to act as a feoffee for Strange’s widow ten years later. CCR, 1435-41, p. 359; CPR, 1446-52, p. 311. Dealings in property in Hampshire brought him into contact with John Stafford, bishop of Bath and Wells and later archbishop of Canterbury, CP25(1)/207/33/23; CCR, 1454-61, p. 102; Magdalen Coll. Oxf., Somborne Regis deeds, A3. and Stafford’s kinsman the duke of Buckingham employed him as steward of his estates in the county. Whether any of these contacts with prelates (Cardinal Beaufort in particular), duke or barons had any bearing on his election to Parliament is impossible to tell, but even if so it is significant that although he attested the Hampshire elections held at Winchester on six occasions between 1432 and 1450, his own return to the Commons was not repeated. C219/14/3-5; 15/1, 7; 16/1.

A final concord of 1448 may throw some light on Haydock’s family. Four messuages and land at Charlton in Dorset were settled on Walter Panter and his wife Alice for term of their lives, rendering Haydock £1 a year, with remainder to John Grey and Alice his wife and the latter’s issue, the premises to revert to the lawyer and his heirs in default of Alice Grey’s line. It may be that the latter was one of Haydock’s daughters, to each of whom he left 100 marks for her marriage. Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 367-8; C1/33/243. His heir at Greywell was his son John (educated as a commoner at Winchester from 1433 to 1435), who became a member of Gray’s Inn; while in the MP’s lifetime his illegitimate son, Gilbert, became a fellow of University College, Oxford, and graduated as a Doctor of Theology. Gilbert rose after his father’s death to be a canon of St. Stephen’s chapel, Westminster, and a personal chaplain to Henry VI. Baker, i. 843; Winchester Coll. muns. typscript list of commoners ed. Leach, 24; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, ii. 893-4. Gilbert, by then ‘sacre theologie professor’, bequeathed the huge sum of 600 marks to Whittington College, where he was residing at the time of his death in 1481: PCC 13 Logge (PROB11/7, f. 98). It looks as if Haydock died shortly before 8 Feb. 1452, when his place on the Hampshire bench (as one of the quorum) was taken by Thomas Welles*, who also succeeded him as steward of the estates of Winchester College. However, it was not until September following that his royal stewardship of Odiham was granted to another. Thomas Brown, who married one of his daughters, later petitioned the chancellor, claiming that Haydock’s widow and executrix had handed over only £60 of his wife’s marriage portion, leaving ten marks still owing. CPR, 1452-61, p. 15; C1/33/243.