TORELL, Thomas

A family which held the hereditary position of naperer at royal coronations, the Torells had owned lands in Essex since the twelfth century or earlier.7 VCH Essex, viii. 64. Born and baptized at Downham, Thomas was just ten years of age when his father, Richard Torell, died on 11 Nov. 1405. His inheritance was far from insubstantial, for it consisted of manors and other lands at Little and West Thurrock, Shellow Bowells and elsewhere in Essex, two manors at Bepton in west Sussex, the manor of ‘Bertrammes’ in Standon, Hertfordshire, and holdings in the parish of All Hallows the Less, London.8 CIPM, xvii. 558-61; xviii. 1037-40. (Later, in the mid 1430s, Thomas was reckoned to enjoy a landed income of £150 p.a.)9 H.L. Gray, ‘Incomes from Land in Eng. in 1436’, EHR, xlix. 634. Four days after Richard Torell’s death, the King granted the boy’s wardship to his mother-in-law, Joan de Bohun, countess of Hereford (from whom the Torells held their manor at Shellow Bowells) and several associates, including her retainers, Sir Gerard Braybrooke† and Sir William Marney†, although Thomas’s mother, Alice, was permitted her dower rights.10 CFR, xii. 306; CCR, 1405-9, pp. 27-28; CIPM, xx. 697. In March 1406 the King granted the keeping of the two thirds of the manor at Little Thurrock which were not in Alice’s hands, along with Thomas’s marriage, to Roger Haldenby, clerk, and John Bray of Felstead. This new arrangement was made with the consent of the countess and her fellow grantees, so it is likely that Haldenby and Bray were acting on her behalf.11 CFR, xiii. 27-28; CPR, 1405-8, p. 183.

Thomas took delivery of his inheritance in September 1417, a year after reaching his majority.12 CCR,1413-19, pp. 406, 409; CIPM, xx. 841. Shortly afterwards, he also took possession of the manor at Standon, which had never come into his guardians’ hands. Formerly it had belonged to the Marchalls, the family of his maternal grandmother, Elizabeth, and it had passed into the custody of Sir Robert Litton†, executor of Robert Marchall, following the latter’s death in 1403. In 1410 and again in 1417 it was the subject of inquisitions held before the escheator in Hertfordshire, and it was after the second of these inquiries that the Crown awarded seisin to the young man.13 CIPM, xviii. 1040; xx. 708. As it happened, Thomas did not retain Standon, since he sold it to Ralph Astley* nearly 20 years later.14 CP25(1)/91/113/81; VCH Herts. iii. 361.

During his early adulthood Thomas saw military service in France. In May 1421 he agreed to serve Henry V there for six months with two men-at-arms and six mounted archers.15 E101/70/6/736; DKR, xliv. 624. It is possible that while with the royal army he became a comrade-in-arms of Sir Henry Noon, whose widow he married not long after Noon’s death in the spring of 1422.16 The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 843. Through the marriage, he took temporary possession of the Noon estate in Norfolk and Suffolk, lands which in due course passed to Sir Henry’s son and namesake.17 Feudal Aids, iii. 558, 560, 586, 587; F. Blomefield, Norf. i. 115, 118; v. 205, 296; CCR, 1429-35, p. 209. Thomas and Katherine spent at least part of their early married life in the household of his maternal uncle, John Tyrell, at East Horndon, where John, their eldest son, was born in October 1423.18 CIPM, xxvi. 351. Thomas began his career as an office-holder four years later when he was appointed sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire, and in 1429 he was elected to the first of his three Parliaments alongside his uncle, John Tyrell, an experienced parliamentarian and former Speaker. In February 1432 Torell stood surety for Joan de Bohun’s grand-daughter, Anne, dowager countess of Stafford, and others, including her son, Henry Bourgchier, the future earl of Essex.19 CFR, xvi. 83-84.

Although he had served a term as sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in the later 1420s, Torell did not serve on an ad hoc commission before the mid 1430s, and he became a j.p. only after his last Parliament. Personal affairs loomed large in his later years, for his wife appointed him her executor before she died in 1437. Following her death, he was also active as the administrator of the goods and chattels of her previous husband: presumably these had passed into his hands because Katherine had been the executrix or administrator of Sir Henry Noon. In this period he may also still have been active as the executor of John Lancaster*, who had held lands in the vicinity of the Noon manor at Shelfanger, even though Lancaster had died as long ago as 1424.20 C67/38, m. 24; E368/211, rot. 65.

Torell himself died on 11 Mar. 1443,21 CIPM, xxvi. 75-76. having made his will just three days earlier. He sought burial in the parish church of St. Christopher at Willingale Doe where both his father and late wife already lay, and he ordered marble gravestones for them as well as himself. For the benefit of his soul and those of his parents and wife, he provided for a priest to sing masses in St. Christopher’s for three years, asking that one of his household chaplains, Henry Skeet, should fill this position. He left various items of plate to his eldest son and heir, John, and awarded marriage portions of 300 marks to each of his daughters, Anne and Elizabeth. Torell left the bulk of his lands to John while also providing for his younger sons, Thomas and Richard, between whom he divided his holdings in Sussex. He nevertheless stipulated that the Sussex lands were to revert to John or his heirs after their deaths. He also instructed his feoffees, headed by Edmund, Lord Grey of Ruthin, to grant a like estate for life in his manor at North Weald to his ‘brother’, Henry Litton. Torell appointed four executors, his stepson Henry Noon, Thomas Dayrell, Henry Skeet and another chaplain of his household, John Fyn, and he asked John Doreward (the son and namesake of a former Speaker), his cousin Thomas Tyrell* and Richard Alrede to supervise their work.22 PCC 15, 16 Rous. The exact relationship between the MP and Litton has not been established. As requested, he was buried in St. Christopher’s, where his brass (depicting him in armour) still survives.23 Add. 32490, O. 30. After his death the Crown sold the wardship of John Torell, then about two years short of his majority, to Thomas Brown III*, a prothonotary of the court of common pleas, who paid £200 for it.24 CIPM, xxvi. 75-76; CFR, xvii. 260; CPR, 1441-6, pp. 166, 169. The last Torell in the main line was Humphrey Torell, who died in 1544.25 CFR, xx. 215; xxi. nos. 563-4; VCH Essex, iv. 145; viii. 64.