KYRIEL, Sir Thomas

The Kyriel family had been settled in Kent since the early thirteenth century when Bertram de Criol had been warden of the Cinque Ports. They held the manors of Westenhanger near Hythe and Eynsford near Sevenoaks by knight service of the archbishop of Canterbury, and by the late fourteenth century had established their principal home at the latter of these two properties, although in 1413 a number of buildings at Eynsford were said to be in ruins. Our MP’s father, William, had been a mere infant when his own father, Sir Nicholas, had died in 1379, and played little part in the administration of Kent on attaining his majority, save for his appointment in 1411 to the county bench. This may suggest a connexion with Henry, prince of Wales, who headed this new commission of the peace and had been appointed warden of the Cinque Ports two years earlier. William died in 1413, aged only 34. In his inquisition post mortem the jurors noted that his mother, Elizabeth, was still alive, and in possession of the nearby manor of Stockbury as her jointure. The heir, Thomas, was then still a minor, aged 18, and it seems likely that he became a ward of the archbishop.10 E. Hasted, Kent ed. Drake, x. 68-73; CIPM, xv. 245; xx. 28. Knighted within the next four years, he may have served in Henry V’s military campaigns of 1415, perhaps even at the battle of Agincourt,11 Boke of Noblesse ed. Nichols, p. viii. and in 1417 he mustered at Portsdown in the retinue of the northern knight, Sir Gilbert Umfraville, for the major invasion of Normandy.12 E101/51/2. Kyriel returned to England by early 1420, when he received livery of the lands in Kent and Sussex previously held in dower and jointure by his grandmother (who had died in July the previous year). On 18 Oct. he was allowed to enter these notwithstanding the fact that the original grant had wrongly referred to her as ‘Isabel’.13 CPR, 1416-1422, p. 300.

Although Kyriel was appointed to the commission of the peace in Kent in the summer of 1424, he was first and foremost a soldier, and military matters engaged his attention. In August 1426 he took the musters of the earl of Warwick’s retinue en route for Normandy, and two years later did likewise with regard to the expeditionary force under the earl of Salisbury. Precisely when he himself crossed the Channel again is not documented, but in January 1429, at the head of a force of 400 men, he defeated the count of Clermont near Beauvais. That summer Cardinal Beaufort was empowered to raise a crusading army in England to put down the Hussite heresy in Bohemia, and Kyriel may well have been among the captains he recruited. The news of the breaking of the siege of Orléans and the English defeat at Patay led to the cardinal’s men being diverted to France, and it looks as if Kyriel joined the cardinal’s nephew Edmund Beaufort, count of Mortain (the newly-appointed lieutenant in Normandy), at the siege of Etrepagny that October, for when Beaufort was reappointed in December for a further three months’ service, he was listed among the 40 men-at-arms in his retinue. In January 1430 the decision was taken to detach Sir Thomas from the main army and send him, with 20 men-at-arms and 60 archers, to assist in besieging the strategically-important castle of Torcy. It is unclear whether he served with Beaufort at the siege of Chateau Gaillard between March and May (although he purchased letters of attorney for his affairs back in England in April), and he may have been in the army of Philip, duke of Burgundy, when he was captured near Guerbigny later in the year. Although his captivity did not last long, for in 1431, as captain of Beauvoisis castle, he was engaged in the suppression of rebellion in the pays de Caux,14 M.K. Jones, ‘The Beaufort Fam. and the War in France, 1421-1450’ (Bristol Univ. Ph.D. thesis, 1982), 74-76; DKR, xlviii. 274. his ransom did result in litigation, and later, in 1436, the Parlement of Paris heard a dispute over payments for the release of Kyriel and Matthew Gough, taken prisoner at the same time.15 English Suits Parlement of Paris (Cam. Soc. ser. 4, xxvi), 289.

While Edmund Beaufort’s initial command in Normandy ended in November 1431, and he returned to England in the King’s train in the following February, Kyriel remained in the duchy, as a member of the field army commanded by the earl of Arundel. Emerging as one of the leading English war captains, he led a retinue of 300 men in an attempt to recover Caux and Vimeux, and by that March he had been placed in charge of the garrison at Gisors. To this command were added the captaincies of the castles of Gournay and Gerberov a few months later – all of them posts which had previously been held by Beaufort. In July 1433 he received letters of protection from litigation in England for one year while in the retinue of the Regent of France, John, duke of Bedford. As captain of Gournay, he received extra money and men in the summer of 1435 for the defence of the pays de Caux against the rebellious populace.16 Bibliothèque Nationale, fr 26055/1769; 26059/2565, 2566; Actes de la Chancellerie, ii. 224; DKR, xlviii. 294. Bedford’s death in September of that year came at a critical time. Soon afterwards Gisors was lost to the Norman peasants assisted by French troops, but Kyriel was probably not present at the time, having entrusted the castle to a lieutenant. In fact, he was then almost certainly in Rouen, perhaps advising the council of Lords Talbot, Scales and Willoughby, who, as the senior English captains, had been entrusted with the defence of Normandy until a new governor should be appointed. In January 1436 Talbot and Kyriel led a successful sortie from Rouen against an attacking French force, while Scales defeated the enemy at Ry. These two actions saved the city from capture and marked the end of the uprising in the pays de Caux.17 A.J. Pollard, John Talbot, 23; Jones, 88. Monstrelet credits the victory to Kyriel ‘et aultres capitaines anglois’: Chron. d’Euguerran de Monstrelet ed. Douet L’Arq, v. 212. Kyriel sailed home not long afterwards, before returning to Normandy in the army of Richard, duke of York, whom the council in England appointed as the King’s lieutenant in the duchy that spring. On 1 Dec. 1436 he received letters of protection as a member of York’s retinue, and on the same day he was commissioned to requisition ships for his passage to France, although he remained in England long enough to witness the parliamentary election in Canterbury on 17 Dec.18 DKR, xlviii. 315-16; C219/15/1. In the meantime, on 18 Aug. he had received custody of the important fortress of Le Crotoy, an office he was still nominally holding in November, although he delegated his duties to his lieutenant, Richard Collom.19 E403/729, m. 2; E28/58/37. A year later, in November 1437, Kyriel and Talbot crossed the Somme river into Ponthieu and marched to Le Crotoy to break the Burgundian siege with soldiers from his garrison at Gournay. In the months that followed he continued to be actively engaged in the war, by re-victualling Montargis with Talbot in January 1438 and joining in the campaign to recover those places lost to the popular revolt. In June Talbot’s army marched north to recover Longueville, which overlooked the strategically-important port of Dieppe, and then moved westwards to the area around Harfleur. In July and August Talbot and Kyriel invested Harfleur, but their siege was abandoned after the capture of an English squadron of eight ships blockading the town by sea.20 Pollard, 22-23, 50.

While engaged in almost continuous service in Normandy during the 1430s, Kyriel still had the responsibilities and commitments of an English landowner. One of his most pressing concerns in the late 1420s had been to take possession of the manors of Sarrecourt and St. Laurence on the Isle of Thanet. These manors, together with property in Chislet, had been held of St. Augustine’s abbey, Canterbury, by his great-grandfather, Sir John Kyriel, and had descended to the latter’s grand-daughter, Joan, the wife of John Wykes, only to fall on Wykes’s death in 1416 to his young son by a second marriage. As the abbacy was then vacant, the custody of the boy and his property had escheated to the Crown. Sir Thomas intervened to challenge the title of the Wykes family, arguing successfully that the manors had been granted by Sir John Kyriel’s son John to his brother, Sir Nicholas (the MP’s grandfather), and that they should thus have descended to him. Kyriel enjoyed possession until May 1427 when John Wykes’s kinsman, Thomas Wykes†, secured a royal grant of custody, and it was not until Easter term 1430 that the latter’s executors appeared before the chancellor to restore the manors to him.21 CIPM, xxiii. 292; CPR, 1429-36, p. 109; C44/20/26; KB27/680, rex rot. 7; The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 922-4. Yet this was not the end of the matter. In October 1431 Kyriel was summoned to the Exchequer to render account for the profits of the manor of St. Laurence while it had been farmed out, and in Easter term 1437 he sued Robert Cappes, the former escheator of Kent and Middlesex, in the court of common pleas, alleging that Cappes had made a wrongful return into the Exchequer concerning an inquisition held into the ownership of Sarrecourt and thus defrauding Kyriel of the profits of the manor.22 E159/208, brevia Mich. rot. 8; 213, brevia Mich. rot. 15; CP40/705, rot. 201; 706, rot. 326.

Kyriel does not seem to have married until in his forties, unless an earlier match has passed unrecorded. On 20 June 1437 he received licence to marry Cecily, widow of John Hill of Spaxton in Somerset and daughter of the important West Country landowner, John Stourton of Preston Plucknett. The details of the marriage contract are not known, but it may have been in negotiation during Kyriel’s time in England in the summer of the previous year and was perhaps engineered by the Beauforts, who had strong connexions with Cecily’s cousin, John Stourton II*, the future Lord Stourton. This was a good match: Cecily’s inheritance from her father consisted of six Somerset manors, as well as other lands in the shire, which in 1435 had been said to be worth over £38 p.a., and she also enjoyed dower lands in the south-west and in Berkshire from the Hill marriage.23 CPR, 1436-41, p. 59; C139/71/36; 90/6; C140/42/51.

In December 1439 Kyriel indented as lieutenant of Calais for seven years.24 CPR, 1436-41, p. 420; DKR, xlviii. 331. Since the resignation as captain of Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, in 1437, the defence of the town and marches had been in the hands of a number of soldiers of lesser rank. In some ways Kyriel’s appointment was no surprise, as he was one of the most experienced of English captains, but it is perhaps significant that he did not continue to serve with Talbot, who was engaged in the efforts to save the garrisons around Paris and in whose retinue he had received letters of protection in the previous June.25 DKR, xlviii. 328. In Calais he was involved in the routine administration of the Pale, including sending spies to report on the activities of the French and Burgundians. In June 1440 he received a grant of the farm which he and his wife paid at the Exchequer for the custody of the lands of his stepson John Hill III* during his minority to assist in the annual payment of 100 marks for spies promised in Kyriel’s indenture. He was also involved in extraordinary diplomacy: shortly after his appointment as lieutenant he negotiated for the inclusion of Gascony, Normandy and Calais in the recent Anglo-Flemish trade treaty, and that same June, along with the bishop of Rochester and other office-holders from the Calais garrison, he was empowered to negotiate a truce with the French and Burgundians. On 5 Nov. that year, Rochester, Kyriel and others were empowered to receive the oath of the duke of Orléans that he would work for peace between England and France on his release from his long captivity, a duty they carried out at Gravelines a week later.26 R.A. Griffiths, Hen. VI, 453-4; CPR, 1436-41, p. 420; E159/221, brevia Trin. rot. 9. Even though in February 1441 the earl of Stafford agreed to serve as captain of Calais, Kyriel kept his position there, serving as Stafford’s lieutenant, and in April he was once again appointed to treat for a truce with the French.27 PPC, v. 139-40; DKR, xlviii. 347. In June 1442, however, commissioners, led by the mayor of Calais, were appointed to inquire into grievances laid against Kyriel by a soldier in the garrison, and although the precise nature of these complaints and the outcome of the investigation are not known, on 28 Aug. the King’s council discharged him of his lieutenancy and Stafford was reappointed captain on new terms.28 PPC, v. 205, 208-9; DKR, xlviii. 353-5.

Following his removal from office in Calais, Kyriel was soon back in France, having mustered at Portsdown on 17 July 1443 as one of the leading captains in the expeditionary force to Normandy led by John Beaufort, earl of Somerset, who was now married to his wife’s cousin. By this stage of his career Kyriel’s reputation was known across Europe: the Burgundian chronicler, Jehan de Waurin, described him as ‘ung moult vaillant chevallier’.29 E101/54/5; J. de Waurin, Receuil de Croniques (Rolls Ser. xxxix), iv. 329. Recruiting the army had proved difficult and the musters had been delayed by a month, but Kyriel’s retinue, of 99 men-at-arms and 136 archers, was one of the largest and demonstrated his commitment to safeguarding the Lancastrian possessions in Normandy and his close connexion with the Beauforts.30 DKR, xlviii. 357. After landing at Cherbourg in early August, Somerset’s army marched down through Brittany, Anjou and Maine, raiding the countryside and creating a great deal of consternation among the French, who attacked too hastily, without waiting for reinforcements, and were defeated by a force led by Matthew Gough near Pouancé. Abandoning a siege of that town, Somerset went on to capture the Breton stronghold of La Guerche, thereby causing a diplomatic incident back in England for which he was later forced to make restitution. The army remained in the field until December (capturing the French-held castle of Beaumont-sur-Sarthe in Maine), but its effectiveness was hampered by its commander’s refusal to communicate with the duke of York, then lieutenant-general of Normandy. With no more funds to pay the soldiers’ wages, Somerset’s army disbanded and pillaged the countryside. Somerset returned to England in disgrace and died in May 1444.31 Patronage, Crown and Provinces ed. Griffiths, 79-97.

His commander’s disgrace may have impacted upon Kyriel. If doubts over his conduct as lieutenant of Calais had led to his dismissal from that office, then more serious questions soon arose over his earlier conduct in Normandy during the late 1430s. In November 1446 a commission was appointed, led by Bishop Stillington of Bath and Wells and Ralph, Lord Cromwell, to investigate claims of peculation while Kyriel had been captain of Gisors. Between 1436 and 1444 John, Lord Talbot, in his capacity as marshal of France, had made a judgement against him in a case brought by several former members of his garrison. The sentence had been passed to Viscount Beaumont for execution in his capacity as constable of England, whereupon Kyriel had appealed to the King and the matter had been investigated by commissioners led by Adam Moleyns, bishop of Chichester. The involvement of Moleyns, who had also accused York of similar wrongdoing, suggests that the charges against Kyriel were part of a wider inquiry into corruption in Normandy in the autumn of 1446. Like York, Kyriel doubtless saw this as a slur on his ‘worshepe’ and the appointment of the new commission to determine the matter in November marked his successful attempt to convince the King that there had been irregularities in Moleyns’s handling of the investigation. Indeed, the new commission was noteworthy for the inclusion of some of Kyriel’s friends: the London merchant Philip Malpas* had acted with Kyriel as a feoffee of lands in Kent, while Bishop Stillington was linked to his wife’s kinsmen.32 CPR, 1446-52, pp. 6-7; CP40/780, rot. 339; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 484-5.

Kyriel’s return to England in the wake of Somerset’s expedition of 1443 marked the beginning of over six years absence from Normandy and the French war. Back in Kent he retained his association with the Beauforts, and in November 1446 he acted with Edmund Beaufort, now marquess of Dorset, and Richard Waller in a dispute over the manor of St. Nicholas on the Isle of Thanet.33 CCR, 1441-7, p. 441. He soon became embroiled in further litigation regarding his own property dealings, in which he employed some of the military tactics he had used overseas. The most prolonged dispute centred on an assize of novel disseisin taken in Lent 1446 concerning land in Rolvenden and Benenden. In the following Michaelmas term Kyriel and three others sued Robert Bernys of Hawkhurst, the lawyer Thomas Pittlesdon of Tenterden and the London mercer, John Harowe*, for £1,000, alleging that they had unlawfully maintained the other parties in the assize, John and Margery Brenchley. The defendants alleged that Kyriel had packed the jury in the assize, and had illegally entered the property at the head of a force of 200 men. In reply the plaintiffs detailed the sums of money that Bernys and his co-defendants had given to the jurors at the assize to return a favourable verdict, and how they had retaliated with a raid on Kyriel’s manor of Westenhanger, allegedly stealing five horses. The property in question had been the inheritance of Brenchley’s mother, Agnes, from whom Kyriel claimed to have purchased it. According to a later Chancery petition, he had been ‘grevously sued and vexed’ by the Brenchleys and compelled to relinquish possession. Moreover, obligations he had made for the payment of £100 to Agnes had been retained by her feoffees after he had paid the purchase price.34 CP40/743, rot. 124; KB27/748, rex rot. 1d; C1/6/103, 279; 7/188, 327; 16/454; C4/3/34. It is likely that Kyriel’s war service had also put an extreme pressure on his finances: in November 1437, for example, he had contracted a debt of 500 marks to the lawyer, Thomas Bodulgate*,35 CCR, 1435-41, p. 166. and his lawsuits of the 1430s and 1440s may have arisen from his efforts to expand his property holding in Kent to meet the demands of war. Another case saw him pitched against Sir Henry Percy (from 1446 Lord Poynings) and his wife, Eleanor Poynings, who had inherited part of the manor of Westenhanger and other former Kyriel lands as descendent of a marriage contract between the Poynings and Kyriel families long before, in Edward I’s reign. In Easter term 1449 Kyriel successfully challenged their title to the manor of Eastwell in Kenardington near Ashford, claiming that it had been given to his ancestor, Sir John Kyriel (d.1377), around the time of the division of the Kyriel estates in the early fourteenth century.36 CP40/753, rot. 326d; Hasted, x. 69-70; Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, vi. 255. He also acquired two manors in the rape of Hastings in Suss., by knight service from another war captain, Thomas Hoo I*, Lord Hoo: SC11/658.

By the autumn of 1449 the situation in Normandy had become critical. In September, as soon as Charles VII had made his intentions towards the duchy clear, moves were afoot in England to recruit an army to relieve the beleaguered garrisons. Plans for armies led by Richard Grey, Lord Powis, Sir Robert de Vere* and William Zouche* failed to materialize, but indentures had been made with individual captains and on 24 Sept. Kyriel agreed to serve for six months with 29 men-at-arms and 300 archers. Nevertheless, a month later the lieutenant-general of Normandy, Edmund Beaufort, now duke of Somerset, was forced to abandon Rouen.37 E101/71/4/927. On 4 Dec., in the absence of anyone else willing to serve, Kyriel was appointed commander of an expeditionary army consisting of some 3,400 men (with his personal retinue increased to 99 men-at-arms and 300 archers). The army mustered at Portsmouth ten days later, but its departure was delayed for another three months, and it did not sail for Normandy until the second quarter’s wages were paid on 9 Mar. 1450.38 E403/777, mm. 6, 14; E404/66/92. Kyriel was at Southampton on 26 Dec. 1449, when the burgesses gave him wine at the house of William Soper*: Southampton City Archs., Soton. recs. SC5/1/7, f. 6. By the time Kyriel landed at Cherbourg on 15 Mar., both Harfleur and Honfleur had fallen and the English presence in Normandy was reduced to Cherbourg and the towns of Caen, Bayeux, Vire, Domfront and Falaise. Instead of making for Caen, Kyriel first laid siege to the town of Valognes, which blocked the way to the rest of the Contentin peninsula. Somerset sent reinforcements to him in the form of contingents from the lower Norman garrisons led by Gough, de Vere and Sir Henry Norbury*, and Valognes fell on 27 Mar. Kyriel’s army, now numbering some 5,000 men, began to march towards Caen, only to be intercepted by a French force led by the count of Clermont at the village of Formigny on the road from Carentan to Bayeux on 15 Apr. The English, in traditional fashion, drew up behind sharpened stakes, but Clermont opened a withering fire upon them with two culverins. Unable to withstand this assault, Kyriel ordered his men to leave their defensive positions and capture the guns, which they succeeded in doing, but at that moment Clermont’s force, which was outnumbered by as many as 2,000, was saved by the timely arrival of Arthur, count of Richemont, whose cavalry charged into the English ranks. The result was a massacre: between 2,000 and 3,764 English were killed and between 900 and 1,400 captured, including Kyriel himself, Norbury and (Sir) William Herbert*.39 Narratives of Expulsion of English ed. Stevenson, 171-92, 330-38.

Kyriel’s involvement in the Hundred Years War thus ended ignominiously in French captivity. Even so, it looks as if he released quite quickly (before the summer), and obligations taken for the payment of his ransom. In recognition of his commitment to the English cause, the Crown stepped in to settle his debt. In August 1451 he was granted the 5,000 salus due to the King from the duke of Orléans, and in the following Michaelmas term the chamberlains of the Exchequer paid his outstanding arrears from his time as lieutenant of Calais and a gift of £15 to his wife.40 DKR, xlviii. 388; E403/786, m. 3. The payment of his ransom was not the only problem Kyriel faced in the wake of the 1450 expedition. Two years earlier he had been sued in the King’s bench for breaking the closes at Bonnington belonging to William Kenotte*, who had taken the opportunity to bring a bill against Kyriel who was then a prisoner in the Marshalsea.41 KB27/747, rots. 30, 89. On 18 Apr. 1450, three days after his capture at Formingy, letters of protection from legal process were granted to him, and these were duly pleaded in King’s bench in that Easter term.42 KB27/754, rot. 39d.

Following his return from France Kyriel did not play any role in the public affairs of his native county until July 1455 when, at Rochester, he was elected as one of the knights of the shire for Kent. This election was later the subject of a lawsuit: it was claimed that the sheriff, Sir John Cheyne II*, had erased the name of Richard Culpepper‡, replacing it with that of (Sir) Gervase Clifton*. Kyriel himself was not mentioned in the suit, but his election alongside Clifton made sense. Both men had personal experience of the serious problems then facing the garrison at Calais, and Clifton and Cheyne, respectively treasurer and victualler, were keen to settle the financial arrangements for the garrison in the forthcoming Parliament. The shire knights for Kent probably played a part in the establishment of a parliamentary committee to discuss Calais affairs.43 C219/16/3; E13/146, rots. 11, 36, 43, 46d; PROME, xii. 337-8. On his return from Parliament, Kyriel was appointed in June 1456 to a commission to inquire into treasons committed in Kent and Sussex by followers of John Percy, a tailor from Erith who had risen in rebellion in an attempt to reignite memories of Cade’s revolt, and in August he was appointed to a commission of array, perhaps evidence of continuing discontent in the county. His importance within Kent was confirmed when he replaced Richard Witherton as deputy warden of the Cinque Ports and lieutenant of Dover castle, probably early in 1457. He was ideally placed to hold this important position. Besides his earlier connexion with the warden, Humphrey Stafford, now duke of Buckingham (which he had maintained throughout the early 1450s), his manor-house at Westenhanger was only a few miles away from the Port of Hythe, and he had enjoyed the liberty of that Port and acted as one of its patrons for several years.44 KB27/783, rot. 70d; E. Kent Archs., Hythe recs., jurats’ acct. bks. 1441-56 H1055, f. 100; 1458-65, H1019, ff. 75, 78v; E179/229/139; 234/4; CCR, 1447-54, pp. 484-5. Soon after taking office Kyriel’s military skills were needed once more. Rumours of a French descent on the Kent coast were rife and in May 1457 Kyriel was appointed to oversee the installation of watches and beacons. Then, on 28 Aug., a fleet from Honfleur commanded by the seneschal of Normandy, Pierre de Brézé, raided Sandwich, burning part of the town and killing its mayor. Kyriel quickly organized a force from the Cinque Ports and the surrounding countryside and on the following day drove the French back to their ships, causing de Brézé to lose 120 men in the ensuing fight. In the aftermath of the raid, Kyriel was also responsible for reordering the defences of the Kent coast.45 English Chron. 1377-1461 ed. Marx, 75; Six Town Chrons. ed. Flenley, 110-1; Three 15th Cent. Chrons. (Cam. Soc. ser. 2, xxviii), 170-1; Griffiths, 815-16; E. Kent Archs., New Romney recs., assmt. bk. 1448-1526, NR/FAc 3, f. 33.

The raid on Sandwich became something of a cause celebre in England in the late 1450s and, particularly for the inhabitants of east Kent, supplied evidence of the Lancastrian regime’s failure to provide for the safe-guard of the realm. It may also have contributed to the growing popularity in the Ports of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick and captain of Calais. Yet there is nothing at this time to suggest that Kyriel had formed an attachment to Warwick and the other Yorkist lords. In May 1458 he was appointed once more to the Kentish commission of the peace; two months later he was appointed to inquire into an act of piracy carried out by Warwick’s ships against Hanseatic vessels from Lübeck, and in September he was a member of a commission of oyer and terminer appointed to investigate acts of piracy. He remained loyal when open hostilities broke out between Lancaster and York in September 1459. Whether the decision to do so was due to his long-standing Beaufort connexions or his position as deputy to the duke of Buckingham remains unclear. On 9 Oct. Henry Beaufort, duke of Somerset, was appointed captain of Calais in Warwick’s place, although he was unable to gain entry to the town itself; on 6 Dec. Kyriel was ordered to arrest Warwick’s ships in the Kentish ports, and four days later he was among those named to muster the retinue of Lord Rivers at Sandwich before its proposed mission to secure Calais for the Crown. The Lancastrian plans were thwarted, however, by the daring raid launched against Sandwich from Calais by John Dynham, which resulted in the capture of Rivers in January. Kyriel was appointed to two commissions of array in Kent that month to resist the Yorkist invaders, and his continued loyalty to the Crown was demonstrated by his assignment to muster the duke of Exeter’s men going to sea on 8 May and Osbert Mountford’s retinue on 23 May en route to provide reinforcements to Somerset’s beleaguered force at Guînes.

On 26 June 1460 the Yorkist earls, Warwick, Salisbury and March, landed at Sandwich and eight days later entered London in triumph. The duke of Buckingham, Kyriel’s superior as warden of the Cinque Ports, fell at Northampton defending his King on 10 July. Precisely when in this rapid sequence of events Kyriel threw his hand in with the Yorkists is unclear. He may have sympathized with their stated outrage at the loss of English territories in France, and the contrast of the reputations of Henry V and Duke Humphrey of Gloucester with the achievements of the present regime struck a chord generally in Kent and with old soldiers, like Kyriel, in particular. The prominence of his son-in-law, John Fogg†, in the Yorkist camp may also have been a factor in Kyriel’s decision. On 20 Sept. that year at Canterbury he was elected as knight of the shire, along with that stalwart Yorkist supporter, Robert Horne*, to the Parliament summoned to meet at Westminster on the following 7 Oct.46 C219/16/6. His activities at the Parliament, which witnessed the duke of York’s claim to the throne made explicit, are not known, but he continued to be employed as lieutenant to the warden of the Cinque Ports, an office which may already have been bestowed on Warwick. Around that time Kyriel was elected to the Garter in a belated recognition of his ‘prowesse of knyghthode’, and his standing in the eyes of the Yorkist regime was revealed by his appointment, on 11 Jan. 1461, shortly after York’s death at Wakefield, to a commission empowered to arrest Lancastrians in 12 counties in the Midlands and south-east. Three days later he was rewarded for his support with a grant of the lucrative wardship of his wife’s nephew, Giles Daubeney†.47 CPR, 1452-61, p. 641; Hasted, viii. 71, 407; PROME, xiii. 42-44.

Kyriel was never to be installed as a Garter knight. On 17 Feb. he was with the army led by Warwick which met the northern levies under Queen Margaret at St. Albans, only for their men, outnumbered and weakened by the treachery of another Kentish captain, to be overwhelmed. Kyriel and Sir William Bonville*, Lord Bonville, had been given the task of guarding the King, who they had taken with them from London, and after the battle the two men refused to flee and were taken prisoner by the victors. According to a later account, presented in the first Parliament of Edward IV’s reign, Henry VI had promised the two ‘feith and assurans under kynges word, procedyng from his mouth, to kepe and defend theym there from all hurt, joupardie and perell’, but at the insistence of the queen, the duke of Exeter and the earl of Devon both were condemned to death for treason, with the young Prince Henry pronouncing the sentence, ‘and after that tyrannyously heded, with grete violence, withoute processe of lawe or any pitee, contrary to [King Henry’s] seid feith and promysse, abhomynable in the heryng of all Christen prynces’.48 English Chron. 98; PROME, xiii. 42-44. Kyriel’s service to the house of York was not forgotten and in February 1462 the Crown granted the vicar of Ashford the profits of property in Essex and Sussex formerly belonging to the alien priory of Ogburne to provide prayers for his soul as well as those of the duke of York, the earls of Rutland and Salisbury and Robert Horne.49 CPR, 1461-7, p. 76.

One of Kyriel’s two daughters had survived to adulthood, and she, Alice, the wife of John Fogg, was then still alive. The new King confirmed to her mother, Sir Thomas’s widow Cecily, the grant of the Daubeney wardship, in April 1461,50 CPR, 1461-7, pp. 6, 299. and Cecily outlived her husband by nearly 12 years. In her will, dated 14 Apr. 1472, she asked to be buried in Westenhanger church and made provision for her soul there and in a number of other churches where the Kyriels held property, as well as in the Minories in London. Goods and jewels belonging to her brother-in-law, John Kyriel (now Sir Thomas’s heir) were to be returned to him, and she also left John the sum of £52 16s. 4d. which she had received from his property in Sandwich.51 John had made a gift of goods and chattels to his sister-in-law in September 1450 and these had later been placed in the custody of the abbot of St. Augustine’s. Their return was delayed, however, as Cecily appears to have lent some of the plate to Scott ‘beyng destitute of money ayenst the Jorney and ffeld in the North Cuntrey’. Scott had, in turn, pawned the plate to Master John Stokes, an Exchequer official. The return of John Kyriel’s goods resulted in litigation in Chancery soon after Cecily’s death: C1/48/306. After making small gifts to her servants, she instructed that the remainder of her household goods at Westenhanger were to go to ‘John Kyriel, junior, bastard’, who may have been her late husband’s illegitimate son.52 In 1469 this John Kyriel was in possession of the family’s property in the rape of Hastings: SC11/658. Another illegit. son may have fought and been executed alongside Sir Thomas at St. Albans: Waurin, v. 330. Cecily asked the monks of St. Augustine’s, Canterbury, to pray for the souls of her husbands and of her three sons and three daughters (of whom only two daughters were fathered by Kyriel). Her executors included such influential figures as Sir John Scott†, John Cheyne† and the local lawyer, Roger Brent†, each of whom received five marks for their troubles. Moreover, the executors were placed under the supervision of George Neville, archbishop of York. She died before 27 Apr., but probate was not granted until over a year later, on 16 July 1473. The surviving inquisitions post mortem dealt with her properties in Cornwall, Berkshire, Devon and Somerset, which she had received in dower from the Hill marriage. No mention was made of the Kyriel properties in Kent and it seems likely that these had been settled on Sir Thomas’s brother before her death.53 PCC 3 Wattys; C140/42/51.

John Kyriel, who had long been a servant of the Beaufort family, had served under his brother in France, where he endured 22 years in captivity, although he eventually returned to Kent and in 1460 followed in Sir Thomas’s footsteps in supporting the Yorkist earls.54 Jones, 244; CCR, 1476-85, no. 1013; CFR, xxi. no. 668; J. Leland, Itin. ed. Toulmin Smith, iv. 34, 43-44. On Edward IV’s accession he was rewarded with a position as one of his yeomen of the chamber.55 E101/411/13, f. 37; 15, f. 23v; 412/2, f. 37. In 1469 he mistakenly chose to support the earl of Warwick, and it is not clear what happened to him following Edward IV’s victory in 1471. On his death in 1483 his widow, Elizabeth, married Sir Ralph Assheton†, a Yorkshire knight and one of Richard III’s henchmen who eventually took possession of the manor of Westenhanger and other Kyriel properties. He became vice-constable of England in October that year.56 Hythe jurats’ acct. 1467-84, H1058, f. 28; C67/44, m. 7; 53 m. 12. John’s wife was Elizabeth Chichele (d.1499), gt.-niece of Archbishop Chichele: Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, vi. 257-8. For Asshton see R. Horrox, Ric. III, 175; Oxf. DNB.