TAUK, Thomas

Thomas was the great-grandson of Robert Tauk† (d.1401), who had represented Sussex in 1391.4 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 571-2; L. Fleming, Hist. Pagham, i. 141, 145-6. Besides Westhampnett on the outskirts of Chichester, the Tauks held the manors of Crimsham in Pagham and Todham in Easebourne, in the same county, as well as a moiety of that of West Tytherley on the border of Hampshire and Wiltshire; while through Robert’s marriage to the Overton heiress, Elizabeth Warrener, they had also acquired the Hampshire manor of East Dean and property at Romsey, Bishop’s Waltham and Southampton. These holdings, valued at well over £40 p.a., were inherited by Robert’s son Thomas (1380-1405), whose young heir, another Robert, was initially made a ward of the influential Sir John Pelham*. Robert came into more Hampshire property on the death of his great-grandfather Thomas Warrener,5 CIPM, xix. 15-16, 402; CFR, xiii. 1, 4-5, 15, 171, 245; xiv. 361. and during his minority several inquiries were held touching his inheritance, which tended to be consistently under-valued. He made proof of age in 1425,6 CIMisc. vii. 567; C138/61/68; C139/26/42; CCR, 1422-9, p. 230. and became a well-regarded figure in the locality, whose name was listed among the attestors to five of the parliamentary elections held in Sussex between 1427 and 1437.7 C219/13/5; 14/1, 3, 4; 15/1.

The Tauk family had long been connected with the Lords St. John, their feudal overlords at Westhampnett, and Robert was present when Thomas Poynings, Lord St. John, made his will at Halnaker in 1428.8 Reg. Chichele, ii. 390. Yet despite his standing in the locality, Robert fell into severe financial difficulties in the 1430s, and had to defend himself against suits for substantial debts.9 e.g. CP40/715, rot. 94d. In 1434 he leased three crofts known as ‘Le Honycroftes’ outside the north gate of Chichester to William Hore I*, but was subsequently bound by statute merchant to pay the lessee £20. When, in 1437 he found himself unable to fulfil this obligation he made over the crofts to his creditor, to whom a year later he also conveyed a house in North Street. At the same time he made a quitclaim to the lawyer William Sydney* and his heirs of his manor of Todham, and in 1439 he conveyed to Sydney and others his manor of West Tytherley and the advowson of East Tytherley, but without first procuring the necessary royal licence.10 W. Suss. RO, Chichester city archs. CHICTY/AY/54, 60, 85; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 419; CCR, 1435-41, p. 129; C145/309/2. Sydney obtained a pardon for the trespass in February following, and it may be that Robert had died in the meantime, for he is not recorded again.11 CPR, 1436-41, p. 388. In all probability he had sought to conceal from the Crown the minority of his son and heir, Thomas, the future MP. Inquiries conducted many years later, in 1501, hinted as much, when they revealed details of enfeoffments allegedly made by Robert Tauk and Sydney to the use of Robert and his heirs.12 CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 439, 440.

Thomas attained his majority before Trinity term 1445, when he brought a suit in the court of common pleas against Roger Bradbridge for wasting his inheritance. Four years later he entered further pleas against men from west Sussex. His coming of age was also marked by appointment as escheator later in 1449, and he attested his first parliamentary election at the shire court in Chichester in February 1453.13 CP40/738, rot. 479d, 754, rot. 56; C219/16/2. Nothing is known about his wife, save that her name was Elizabeth, and that in March 1460 she was asked to be godmother at Earnley church at the baptism of the grand-daughter of John Michelgrove* the former shire knight. Perhaps she belonged to that family.14 C140/54/66. Later that same year Tauk was returned to the Parliament summoned in the wake of the Yorkist victory at Northampton. Evidently he was regarded as a supporter of the new regime, for he was appointed to a commission to arrest Lancastrian rebels on 22 Mar. 1461, very shortly after Edward IV had been acclaimed King. Furthermore, four months later Edward granted him for life the office of bailiff of Burley in the New Forest. He was then described as the ‘King’s servant’, but precisely what he had done to deserve this reward is not recorded.15 CPR, 1461-7, p. 8.

The Sussex returns to Edward IV’s first Parliament, which assembled on 4 Nov. 1461, do not survive, but a suit brought two years later in the Exchequer of pleas shows that Tauk was re-elected alongside John Wood III*, a much more prominent figure who had served with him on the commission appointed in March. The two men reported that they had been elected in the shire court on 21 Oct., and a writ for payment of their wages at the customary rate of 2s. a day each for the 49 days of the session and four days spent travelling to and from Westminster had been sent to the sheriff Walter Denys on 7 May 1462. Denys had failed to pay them. After considerable delay, the barons eventually awarded Tauk £15 12s. in the summer of 1467.16 E13/149, rots. 40, 41, 44; Parliamentarians at Law ed. Kleineke, 381-2. In the meantime, he had been removed from his office in the New Forest, for reasons which are not explained. He apparently remained loyal to Edward IV during the Readeption, for on 22 Mar. 1471 the government of the restored Henry VI issued a commission for his arrest, demanding that he be brought before the King’s Council.17 CPR, 1467-77, p. 252; C219/17/1, 2, 3.

During the 1470s a member of Tauk’s family fell into disgrace. This was Agnes Tauk, perhaps the MP’s sister, who was prioress of the Benedictine nunnery at Easebourne. On 23 May 1478 the new bishop of Chichester, Edward Story, having heard unfavourable reports about standards of behaviour at the priory, and in order that the correction of abuses might cause the least public scandal and offence to her kinsmen, held a meeting in his palace chapel preliminary to making a formal visitation. In Thomas Tauk’s presence, an instrument was drawn up providing for the resignation of Agnes’s authority should the bishop so demand. Story’s findings when he visited the priory two months later were damning. Not only was it discovered that two of the nuns had absconded with men, but the prioress herself was reported to have given birth to one or two children in her youth, and her relations were said to pay visits to the priory for weeks at a time, where they feasted on the best food, leaving the worst for the nuns.18 Suss. Arch. Collns. ix. 14-19; VCH Suss. ii. 84-85. There was, however, no direct censure of Tauk himself.

When appointed to a royal commission in May 1484, Tauk was called ‘the elder’; and he was similarly styled in a general pardon granted to him by Richard III on the following 30 Dec. His son William also sued out a pardon at that time. The fact that two other members of the family found favour with Henry VII strongly suggests that the Tauks supported Henry at the time of his triumph at Bosworth. As early in the reign as February 1486 Thomas Tauk ‘the younger’, with his older namesake standing surety for him, obtained the farm of land in Bosham near their home, while even earlier Edward Tauk, perhaps another son of our MP, was granted the office of bailiff of the lordship of Warblington, Hampshire, and keeping of the park there during the minority of the duke of Clarence’s heir. Edward married the widow of the former Exchequer official Thomas Pound*, and died early in 1493, that is shortly before the MP,19 CPR, 1476-85, pp. 398, 503; 1485-94, pp. 27, 184, 431; CFR, xxii. no. 62. whose death occurred on 14 June that year. William, aged at least 40, was his son and heir.20 CIPM Hen. VII, i. 921; ii. 439, 440; Fleming, 145-6. Suss. Arch. Collns. lxxxvi. 130, suggests that the MP founded the chantry in St. Mary’s hospital in Chichester which was known in the 16th cent. as ‘Talk’s chantry’. In fact the advowson of the chantry had been in the family’s possession as early as 1356: Suss. Feet of Fines (Suss. Rec. Soc. xxiii), 2169. The male line of the Tauk family ended with William’s death at the close of December 1504. He left two infant daughters as his heirs.21 PCC 25 Holgrave (PROB11/14, f. 199); CIPM Hen. VII, ii. 804; iii. 824. Another Thomas Tauk made his will on 10 June 1496, requesting burial in St. Mary’s church outside Southampton: PCC 24 Dogett (PROB11/9, f. 189).