BYCONNELL, John

The manor of Bickenhall, half-way between Taunton and Ilminster, came by marriage in the late thirteenth century to the Norman family of Paveley, which later adopted the name Byconnell. In the early fifteenth century the family appears to have been of relatively modest means, as is suggested by the agreement made by our MP’s widowed mother in 1440 when she granted him and his brother Robert all the estate she had in land at Bickenhall in return for a rent of one mark a year, and the provision of fuel, food, clothing and her own chamber in their house for the rest of her life.13 HMC Wells, iii. 360. Yet the family cannot have lacked influential patrons, for John’s older brother, William, had gained an education at Oxford, obtaining the degrees of B.C.L. by 1432 and D.C.L. by 1439, and rose high in the Church. Not surprisingly, William’s first ecclesiastical living had been as vicar of Bickenhall (from 1425), but a number of rectories followed, he successively became canon of Wells, Exeter, Chichester, St. Paul’s, Salisbury and Lincoln, and from 1444 he held the office of chancellor of Wells cathedral. Meanwhile, he had become a protégé of Archbishop Chichele, whom he served as auditor of causes and as chancellor to him and his successor Archbishop Stafford in the years 1443 to 1447; and as Chichele’s trustee and executor he made an important contribution to the foundation of All Souls, Oxford, to which he himself bequeathed several books.14 Procs. Som. Arch. Soc. xl. 179-226; Biog. Reg. Univ. Oxf. ed. Emden, i. 330; Reg. Chichele, i. 256. William was accorded a tomb in the chapel of St. Martin in Wells cathedral, and his will, made on 3 Nov. 1448, reveals him to have been a wealthy benefactor. His mother, to whom he left an annuity of 40 marks and the sum of £20, was clearly in his thoughts, but it was about the future of his ‘poor brother’ John that he expressed most concern. Archbishop Stafford was bequeathed £20 to receive John into his service, friendship and favour; and Master Nicholas Carent, the dean of Wells, and his brother William Carent* were left a standing cup so they would bear in mind John’s poverty and assist him to acquire lands and possessions. Master Nicholas owed the testator £140, a sum which John was now to have to buy land for himself and his heirs, while another debt of £200, owed by the bishop of Winchester and Sir William Bonville*, was to be put to the same purpose. In addition, John was to receive £100 in ready money, three robes, four beds, linens, napery, various items of silver plate and gowns for his wife. John was entrusted with the executorship.15 Lambeth Palace Lib., Reg. Stafford, f. 167 (printed in Som. Med. Wills, 1501-30, pp. 347-52 and Procs. Som. Arch. Soc. xl. 191-207).

Byconnell put his brother’s legacies to good effect. Initially, in 1451, he bought an estate in Devon, consisting of some 500 acres near Ashprington, and he took up residence at Harberton, but he also purchased, in the winter of 1453, the manor and advowson of South Perott, on the border of Somerset and Dorset, and within the next 20 years he acquired the nearby manors of North Perrott and Pipplepen, on the Somerset side of the border.16 Dorset Feet of Fines (Dorset Recs. x), 376-7; Procs. Som. Arch. Soc. xl. 208, 210 (although this account wrongly assumes that the MPs of 1455 and 1472 were different individuals). The bulk of his acquisitions, in both the latter counties, took place in the 1470s after he had become established among the gentry.17 CCR, 1468-76, no. 999; Reg. Stillington (Som. Rec. Soc. lii), 750, 751; Som. Feet of Fines (ibid. xxii), 143; Dorset Feet of Fines, 410. The lawyer William Carent complied with the late churchman’s request by taking John under his wing. He helped the younger man with the transactions to acquire South Perott and was often associated with him subsequently. Indeed, their friendship was long lasting: Byconnell took as his second wife one of Carent’s kinswomen, and he was to remember this mentor in his will many years later. He completed his training in the law not long after his brother died, and quickly became someone whose advice was sought by many important landowners of the region. Among them were four earls, whose patronage had a marked effect on his career.

Early in 1454 Byconnell served on a jury empanelled for an assize of novel disseisin in Devon of concern to the family of the chief justice, John Fortescue*,18 JUST1/199/13. although there is no evidence that he ever formed a close association with him. Nor is there any definite sign that Archbishop Stafford (who was now dead) had furthered his career as requested by Dr. William, although Byconnell’s later connexions with the Staffords and their kin suggest that he may well have done so. His earliest patron of note was James Butler, earl of Wiltshire and Ormond, who had become a landowner of substance in Dorset through his marriage to the archbishop’s great-niece, Avice, daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Stafford*. The link had been forged by November 1454, when Byconnell stood surety at the Exchequer for the earl’s retainer Henry Filongley*,19 CFR, xix. 115. and on the following 21 Mar. the earl as newly-appointed treasurer of England signed a warrant appointing him controller of customs in London. He was still holding the office when, following the Yorkist victory at St. Albans two months later,20 CPR, 1452-61, p. 239. It is possible that he was the John Bykenhull appointed under clerk of the receipt at an unknown date, and removed by Oct. 1460: PRO List ‘Exchequer Offs.’, 214; E36/266, f. 49. he was returned to the Parliament summoned to meet in July, as a representative for the Dorset borough of Shaftesbury. The borough was situated several miles from his home at South Perott, and there is nothing to indicate that he was a familiar figure there. However, the borough often elected members of the legal profession, and Byconnell had probably come to the burgesses’ notice as a rising lawyer, who, furthermore, was a protégé of William Carent, the steward of the estates of Shaftesbury abbey. Nothing is known about his activities in the Commons, but while he was up at Westminster for the two later sessions of the Parliament (in the winter of 1455-6), he was called to the common pleas to answer Walter Reynell*, a former shire knight for Devon, for the return of an obligation.21 CP40/779, rot. 171; 780, rot. 123d.

After the Lancastrian court regained control of government in the autumn of 1456, Byconnell was appointed to another royal office, that of escheator of Devon and Cornwall. His association with the earl of Wiltshire continued during his term, for he became the earl’s co-feoffee of the disputed Dorset manor of Bradepole and the hundreds of Redhove and Beaminster.22 CCR, 1454-61, p. 213; Dorset Feet of Fines, 384. Furthermore, the earl supported him in a lawsuit in Michaelmas term 1457 in which Byconnell brought a plea against Chief Justice Fortescue and his wife for the manor of Cameley in Somerset. The suit was probably collusive, and Byconnell recovered seisin.23 CP40/787, rot. 376. Byconnell’s appointment to a commission of inquiry in April 1459 regarding felonies committed against the prior of Montacute saw him named in association not only with the earl of Wiltshire but also with Thomas Courtenay, earl of Devon,24 CPR, 1452-61, p. 496. and around this time the latter named him among the feoffees of his estates.25 CIMisc. viii. 375.

Byconnell’s growing stature in the locality is further indicated by his appearance as a witness to the electoral indentures to the Parliament of 1460 drawn up in both Somerset and Dorset. That he was not overtly committed politically is indicated by the way he weathered the change of regime which followed in the winter of 1460-1, despite his links with the earls of Wiltshire and Devon, who were both beheaded by the victorious Yorkists after the battle of Towton. He long remembered Earl James, and in his will made 40 years later asked that prayers be said for his soul. Yet the Yorkist regime regarded him favourably, and in July 1461 Edward IV appointed him steward of the royal manors once belonging to Sir Matthew Gournay, for an annual fee of £5.26 CPR, 1461-7, p. 23. Even so, his links with attainted Lancastrians may have laid him open to suspicion, and he prudently took out a pardon in April 1462.27 C67/45, m. 20, described as of South Perrott, former escheator and late of London. The Courtenay earl of Devon had been attainted in Edward IV’s first Parliament, and Byconnell, having been appointed a commissioner to survey the earl’s landed possessions in April 1465, duly held public inquiries, at which his feoffeeship of some of these estates was noted.28 CIMisc. viii. 267, 329, 375; C140/22/48. A substantial part of the Courtenay inheritance was granted to the King’s friend Humphrey Stafford IV*, Lord Stafford of Southwick, who was himself to be created earl of Devon four years later, and Byconnell became his feoffee too, being entrusted with various of Stafford’s holdings in Cornwall, Dorset and Somerset to perform his will. This led to his involvement in a number of lawsuits after Earl Humphrey was killed in 1469. Byconnell and his co-feoffees were required to right the manifold wrongs done by the deceased to the abbots of Glastonbury,29 C140/32/30; C1/38/214, 67/327-8. and Tavistock. The latter claimed that Stafford had asked the feoffees to pay him back the £100 taken from him ‘by sinister means’, but they refused, asserting that Stafford’s heirs had dispossessed them of the property entrusted to them. Indeed, they became engaged in suits in the King’s bench with one of these heirs, Thomas Strangeways†, as a consequence.30 KB27/892, rots. 3, 4d; 894/1, rot. 4. As a Stafford feoffee Byconnell was one of several patrons of the churches of Farnborough and Middle Chinnock over the next 20 years.31 Reg. Stillington, 193, 242, 370, 713, 829, 882. He was still dealing with this estate as late as 1487: CCR, 1485-1500, no. 362.

During the 1460s Byconnell’s services as a lawyer were engaged by other landowners too. He was asked to arbitrate in the dispute between the cousins John Carent* (the son and heir of his earliest mentor), and William Stourton*, Lord Stourton, over possession of the former Chideock estates,32 C1/43/258. and he was one of those to whom William Oliver I*, the Bridport merchant, entrusted his goods and chattels in 1463.33 CAD, vi. C4383. In 1465 William Zouche, shortly to be summoned to Parliament as Lord Zouche, appointed him chief steward of his courts in Devon, with an annuity of five marks,34 C140/30/53. and as a feoffee of the lands of the Somerset landowner and esquire Alexander de la Lynde he was a defendant in a suit in Chancery brought by Lynde’s widow, and exercised the patronage of the church of Sevenhampton St. Michael.35 C1/31/128; Reg. Stillington, 169, 190, 299. Similarly, he made a presentation to the church of Brimpton, as a feoffee for Joan, widow of John Sydenham*.36 Reg. Stillington, 221. Together with William Carent he was a trustee of the lands of Henry Horsey esquire, and it was specifically in this capacity that the two of them purchased pardons in October 1468.37 C67/46, m.21.

The government in Edward IV’s first reign made full use of Byconnell as a hard-working commissioner, and in 1468 he was placed on the Devon bench as a member of the quorum. His exclusion from royal service at the time of the Readeption and return to it after Edward resumed the throne in the spring of 1471 is an indication of where his loyalties were deemed to lie. Byconnell was elected as knight of the shire for Somerset on 28 Sept. 1472, but probably through an administrative oversight four weeks after the Parliament assembled he was pricked as sheriff of the joint bailiwick of Somerset and Dorset. He must have been absent at Westminster instead of fulfilling his duties as sheriff on several occasions, perhaps for 17 weeks altogether. At the close of the Parliament, which after five sessions finally ended in March 1475, he obtained a writ de expensis for 312 days service and eight days spent travelling, which amounted to £64. Curiously, he failed to deliver the writ to the sheriff of Somerset until 20 June 1476, and the latter, William Collingbourne, refused to pay the sum due. Furthermore, although Byconnell brought a plea in the Exchequer in May 1477, the matter was still not resolved late in 1479.38 E13/162, rot. 1. We can only speculate on the cause of the delay. The sheriff in 1475, at the time of the dissolution of the Parliament, was Giles Daubeney†, who shortly after the final session ended sailed for France with the King’s army. Byconnell, a feoffee of Daubeney’s estates,39 CPR, 1467-77, p. 533. mustered the force assembled at Weymouth, and perhaps accompanied Daubeney overseas. They were to become close friends.

While the Parliament of 1472-5 was in progress, Byconnell performed a number of legal services for various clients. He relinquished his rights in lands in Middlesex formerly belonging to the Staffords; he was associated with his fellow MP Sir John Willoughby† as a feoffee of the manor of Lake in Wiltshire; and in February 1475 he gave up his fiduciary interest in Newhall in Boreham, Essex, only to be immediately re-enfeoffed of the same by Thomas Ormond, the younger brother of his former lord the earl of Wiltshire.40 CCR, 1468-76, no. 1002; CPR, 1494-1509, p. 78; C146/1104; CAD, iv. A6165, 7005, 7701; v. A12280, 13118; E41/29. Also in the course of the Parliament he continued to look after the interests of Katherine, daughter and coheir of the late Sir John Chideock* and widow of William Stafford* (d.1450) and (Sir) John Arundell (d.1473) of Lanherne. As a feoffee of the former Chideock estates Byconnell had earlier helped Arundell pay the fine of 6,000 marks imposed on him by Edward IV, as well as his other debts and marriage-portions for his daughters. The support which Byconnell offered to Katherine, as wife and widow, proved to be constant for many years. He helped negotiate the terms for her third marriage, to (Sir) Roger Lewknor* (d.1478), offered her advice in her disputes with her stepson, and agreed to be supervisor of her will, made in 1479. Subsequently, he was subject to suits in Chancery for payment of her debts.41 CCR, 1468-76, no. 1385; 1476-85, no. 474; CIPM Hen. VII, i. 181, 183; C1/56/268; Cornw. RO, Arundell mss, AR20/30, 21/7; C1/61/123, 205/70, 241/8. Katherine left him an annuity of five marks: Arundell mss, AR21/6. Byconnell assisted other widows, too, such as Cardinal Beaufort’s natural daughter Joan, widow of Sir Edward Stradling,42 C140/75/52. and Lady Hungerford,43 KB9/345/82. and for his good counsel he received an annual fee of 20s. from John Newburgh II* of East Lulworth, at least from 1474 to 1483.44 SC6/1243/1-8. In these years he not infrequently came into contact with John Morton, bishop of Ely, whom he named among the feoffees of his estates and with whom in May 1480 he purchased a royal licence to found a chantry in the parish church of Yeovil, Somerset, where prayers would be said for them both as well as for the King and queen.45 CPR, 1476-85, p. 201.

There are signs that Byconnell did not waver in his loyalty to Edward IV. He was placed on the Somerset bench in 1479, and besides his ad hoc commissions for the Crown he was also employed by the council of the prince of Wales, notably as an arbiter in actions concerning the abbot of Tavistock brought before it in 1481.46 CCR, 1476-85, no. 822. The commission of the peace for Somerset issued in the name of Edward V in April 1483 listed Byconnell as a member of the quorum, as during his father’s reign, and although he was removed from the quorum by Richard III in the following December, he was reinstated in February 1484. Yet the fact that he saw fit to take out pardons at that time and again in May,47 C67/51, mm. 12, 24. may indicate his growing uneasiness with Richard’s rule. Two of his close friends had just been attainted in Parliament for their rebellion against the King – Sir Thomas Arundell (son of his patron Lady Katherine Arundell) and the latter’s brother-in-law (Sir) Giles Daubeney – and his links with Bishop Morton, who like Arundell and Daubeney fled to Brittany to ally himself with Henry, earl of Richmond, must also have predisposed him to welcome Richmond’s invading army when it marched through England in August 1485. Whether he joined his friends at Henry’s side at Bosworth cannot now be established, but there is a strong probability that he did take up arms for the invader. He was knighted either on the field or very soon afterwards, and could call himself ‘Sir John’ by 4 Oct., more than three weeks before Henry’s coronation.48 Metcalfe, 11; Dugdale, viii. 1510. Procs. Som. Arch. Soc. xl. 210 states that he was knighted on the battlefield, but there is no evidence that this was the case. Significantly, another of his close associates, Sir William Courtenay, attained knighthood at about the same time.49 CPR, 1485-94, p. 382; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 865.

Byconnell’s motives for rebelling against Richard III cannot now be guessed, but his friendships with Daubeney and Arundell were almost certainly a decisive factor, and significance should also be attached to the fact that Henry VII’s mother was lady of his manor of North Perrott. The new regime employed him as a j.p. in Somerset, and he may even have sometimes attended meetings of the King’s council, for in November 1488 ‘Bignell’ appeared among the councillors.50 Sel. Cases Council Hen. VII (Selden Soc. lxxv), 19, 20. Byconnell is known to have sat in Parliament again in 1491, this time as a knight of the shire for Dorset, and it is possible that he was elected on other occasions too, although as none of the electoral returns for Henry VII’s Parliaments have survived this cannot now be established with certainty. He demonstrated his support for the King with his purse, by making a loan to the Crown of £50,51 E179/265/32, f. 50; E36/14, p. 308. and in a military capacity by joining the ‘great companie of noble men, knightes and esquires’ who accompanied him on his march to Taunton in September 1497 to do battle with Perkin Warbeck and his Cornish army (which in the event was abandoned by its leader when Warbeck fled to sanctuary at Beaulieu).52 R. Grafton, Chron. (1809 edn.), ii. 214. Perhaps as a belated reward for this and other services, in July 1498 he shared in a grant of the wardship and marriage of John Huntley.53 CPR, 1494-1509, pp. 135-6. Huntley came of age after Byconnell’s death: CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 540.

In Henry VII’s reign Byconnell continued to be greatly in demand as a feoffee. His commitments in this respect are too numerous to list here, but of special note were his links with Sir Thomas Arundell, who on his deathbed in October 1485 referred to him as a ‘trusty man’ and ‘my frende’, and placed him in the responsible role of guiding and governing his children, arranging their marriages and in all matters constantly assisting his widow and his mother-in-law, Lady Joan Dynham. Named as an executor, he was to have an annuity of five marks over and above the fee given him ‘of old tyme’ by the testator’s parents. Byconnell long continued in the role of trustee of the Arundell estates,54 Som. Med. Wills, 256-7; Arundell mss, AR20/32, 33. and was party to the arrangements for the marriage of Arundell’s daughter Eleanor to young Nicholas St. Loe, and to settlements made when her brother Sir John Arundell contracted to marry Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Grey, marquess of Dorset.55 CIPM Hen. VII, iii. 563; CCR, 1485-1500, no. 945. Their uncle John, Lord Dynham, the treasurer of England, gave him a pension, too, which was paid in 1489-90.56 Arundell mss, AR2/881. Of signal importance were Byconnell’s continuing links with another member of this extended family, (Sir) Giles Daubeney, who became one of Henry VII’s leading courtiers, councillors and military commanders and in 1486 was created Baron Daubeney. Byconnell was so close to Sir Giles as to stipulate on 12 Oct. 1485 that after his death his lands in Devon should pass to him in tail-male, provided that he and his heirs would undertake to support a scholar at Oxford university in perpetuity.57 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 865. Byconnell’s long association with Thomas Ormond, now earl of Ormond, continued too.58 CAD, ii. C2550; iv. A7784, 7786, 7787, 7789; v. A12306, 12309, 12312; CCR, 1485-1500, no. 168. At Ormond’s request he and Sir William Hody† conveyed manors in Somerset and Dorset to the earl’s former sister-in-law Eleanor Beaufort (widow of James, earl of Wiltshire), to hold for her lifetime; they were party to payments to Eleanor of 80 marks p.a., for which receipts survive for the years 1488 to 1500. Also acting on Ormond’s behalf, in 1489 they recovered part of his inheritance from the earl of Northumberland.59 E314/33, no. 32; C146/913, 1145, 1170; SP46/183/83, 87, 101, 122; CAD, v. A13601; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 524, 525; CPR, 1494-1509, pp. 257, 277. In a final concord made in 1494 Byconnell and his wife confirmed Ormond’s title to extensive estates in the West Country,60 CP25(1)/294/79/43. and one of the manors which he held to Ormond’s use was sold two years later to his co-feoffee and friend John Morton, now a cardinal and archbishop of Canterbury.61 CCR, 1485-1500, no. 948.

Shortly after the beginning of Henry VII’s reign Byconnell had taken a second wife, Elizabeth, a daughter of Sir Richard Chokke the judge, and widow of John Seymour, who died on 5 Oct. 1485 in the lifetime of his father Sir Thomas Seymour (d.1489).62 Som. Med. Wills 1501-30, pp. 72-74; VCH Wilts. viii. 150. The marriage had taken place by April 1488 when Byconnell was mentioned in the will of John Chokke as his ‘brother’,63 Som. Med. Wills, 274-5. With Richard Chokke he was a co-tenant of Long Ashton, Som. bef. Nov. 1487: C67/53, m. 28. and as a feoffee of the estates belonging to the inheritance of his stepson William Seymour he subsequently defended the latter’s interests in the law-courts.64 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 464, 537; ii. 793, 834. Elizabeth brought to the marriage her jointure in three Seymour manors and 740 acres of land in Somerset, and the manor of Westbury in Wiltshire, worth over £21 p.a.65 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 837, 841. Byconnell was no doubt able to safeguard these properties in 1492, when he was instructed to inquire by jury what lands Elizabeth’s former husband had held, and when two years later he was a commissioner to make inquiries about the landed holdings of her kinswoman, another Elizabeth Chokke.66 CPR, 1485-94, pp. 400, 478.

Before this second marriage Byconnell had failed to produce any surviving children, and perhaps as a consequence his thoughts had turned to religious endowments and plans to spend his money on good works. In February 1483 he obtained a licence to grant in mortmain the manor of Mere, Somerset, and land nearby up to the value of £9 p.a. to the dean and chapter of Wells. This may have been connected with his late brother’s bequests or with his own proposed chantry foundation.67 CPR, 1476-85, p. 337. Perhaps the traumatic events of the autumn of 1485 spurred him on to make further arrangements for the welfare of his soul. These demonstrate Byconnell’s interest in education, which was made manifest as he came to old age. As we have seen, in October 1485 he entrusted his Devon property to his friend Daubeney to provide a scholarship at Oxford. At the very same time he gave a substantial benefaction to the Franciscans of Dorchester, undertaking to build water-mills on the river Frome near the friary to raise revenues for their support. In return the friars recognized him as a founder of their house, promised to pray for him regularly, and undertook that part of the income from his endowment should always be employed for the education of boys brought into the order. The boys were to be called ‘Biconyll’s Friars’.68 Procs. Som. Arch. Soc. xl. 210; Dugdale, viii. 1510; VCH Dorset, ii. 94. His plans for additional funding of scholars at Oxford expanded, perhaps inspired by the experience of his older brother at the university. By 1490 he was known at Oxford as a potential donor of money: he was one of those to whom the university wrote in that year asking for help to repair its church of St. Mary the Virgin.69 Epistolae Academicae Oxon. ii (Oxf. Historical Soc. xxvi), 574. But the full extent of his intentions was not revealed until he made his will.

In January 1501 the aged and ailing Byconnell was unable to come into Chancery in response to a sub poena,70 C1/241/8. and, nearing the end of his life, that spring he completed the foundation of two chantries in Wells cathedral.71 HMC Wells, ii. 161, 178. In his will, made on 13 Aug., he arranged for 2,000 masses to be said immediately after his death and at the cost of nearly £17 for the souls of himself, his family and his former patrons. His widow, Elizabeth, was left £100 in money, £100-worth of plate, and all their household furnishings, and she was well provided for in the codicil he made two days later, to dispose of his real property. This stipulated that provided she remained single Elizabeth was to keep all his lands, using the profits to support five scholars learning the ‘law dyvyne’ every year at Oxford, so they might teach Christian people (each scholar to have an income of four marks a year, or five if that proved insufficient). Byconnell’s manors and advowsons of South Perrott, North Perrott and Pipplepen were to remain after Elizabeth’s death to her son Sir William Seymour for his lifetime, so that he would help poor people as much as was in his power and support two scholars at Oxford; then to pass to Lord Daubeney and Henry his son for their lives; with further remainders in tail-male to the lines of Seymour and Daubeney. Specifed lands in Somerset were to be conveyed to persons of substance nominated by the ‘sovereign’ of the place where Byconnell was buried, to provide a daily mass in perpetuity for himself, his two wives, his parents, his other benefactors and the late Cardinal Morton, with the residue set aside to fund scholars at Oxford ‘lernyng of divinitie’.72 Som. Med. Wills 1501-30, 6-9.

Byconnell was later said to have died on 23 Aug. although the writ de diem clausit extremum had been issued two days earlier.73 CFR, xx. no. 691; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 683. His place of burial had not been stipulated in his will, but it was fixed on Glastonbury abbey shortly afterwards, and he was entombed in a small chapel leading off the south side of the choir of the Lady chapel.74 J. Leland, Itins. ed. Toulmin Smith, i. 289; iii. 116. Byconnell’s executors and feoffees moved swiftly to carry out his last wishes. Grants of land to the yearly value of £52 were made to Glastonbury before February 1502,75 CPR, 1494-1509, p. 275. and by the time his dying widow made her last testament on 30 June 1504 she could assert that she had diligently performed his will in ‘mortisyng’ lands to the abbot and convent, as in everything else. She gave the abbey additional bequests, including £20 towards building the Lady chapel, and £10 to the chapel ‘late bielded’ by Byconnell and herself. Her son Sir William Seymour had died in the previous year, so the chief beneficiaries were his widow and daughter Jane, now heir to the Seymour lands. Yet Elizabeth shared our MP’s interest in education, and extended his brief by providing ten marks a year for five children to be taught at grammar school to prepare them for university. The family friend Lord Daubeney, named as one of the supervisors of the will, was left 40 marks.76 Som. Med. Wills 1501-30, 49-50, 72-74; Procs. Som. Arch. Soc. xxxix. 35-42; CFR, xxii. no. 789; CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 793, 834, 837, 841. For Seymour’s death, see CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 715, 743. In accordance with Byconnell’s arrangements, Daubeney now also took possession of his estates, not only in Devon but also in Somerset and Dorset, as Sir William Seymour had died without male issue. The Byconnell heir under common law, an obscure kinsman called John Brympton, aged 40, was left with nothing.77 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 865; CCR, 1500-9, nos. 448, 513. Yet many other, younger men were to benefit from the scholarships Byconnell funded at Oxford. Precisely when the abbot of Glastonbury started appointing and paying the Byconnell exhibitioners is not clear, although the scheme was certainly in operation by 1535, by which date £33 6s. 8d. a year provided for the exhibition of ten scholars studying at the university. They lived in Hart Hall, which belonged to Exeter College.78 N. Orme, ‘Byconyll Exhibitions at Oxf.’, Oxoniensia, lv. 115-21.