WYSE, Thomas

Wyse came from the junior branch of a substantial Devonshire family resident at Sydenham Damerel. His father had represented Bodmin in 1411 and 1422 and his uncle Oliver Wyse† had sat for Launceston in March 1416. Oliver had a son, also called Thomas, who died a minor before 1431, too young to have ever become active on the political stage.10 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 933-4. At some point before 1423 the later MP had married Margaret, the daughter and coheiress of Robert Brytte, who in that year also became coheiress of the lands of her distant cousin Otto Champernowne. Margaret’s sister Elizabeth was the wife of the rising lawyer and later chief justice John Fortescue*, with whom in 1422 Wyse had acted on behalf of one William Floyer (in securing an exemption from payment of a fine for Floyer’s marriage to the widow of Sir Walter Dauntsey). Wyse’s own holdings at this date (which he settled on two prominent feoffees, Thomas Carminowe* of Ashwater and Edward Burnebury* of Bosmaugan in 1427), included the manors of Stoke Damarel, Langabear, Stottiscombe, Lutton and Yealmpstone, as well as property in Legh Peverell (now Doddiscombsleigh).11 CP25(1)/46/80/44. They were increased even further when that same year Elizabeth Fortescue died childless, allowing Wyse and his wife to reunite her paternal inheritance.12 CFR, xv. 43, 320-1; CIPM, xxiii. 332; The Commons 1386-1421, iii. 109. Yet, the Brytte inheritance also brought its problems: by Easter 1443 the Wyses were engaged in a dispute with one of their tenants, John Harry, over the lands which he had previously held of Robert Brytte and was not prepared to hand over to the heirs. It is not clear that the quarrel was ever settled, and as late as 1478, long after Wyse’s death, Richard Harry, presumably John’s son, was pardoned for a trespass against him.13 CP40/729, rot. 130; 737, rot. 104; CPR, 1476-85, p. 83. Similarly, at an early date the couple quarrelled with Richard Denshyll over the manor of Wear Gifford, to which both sides claimed hereditary title.14 CP40/712, rots. 131d, 139d; 729, rot. 130; 737, rot. 104; 746, rot. 318.

Thomas was well qualified to see off these challenges, for like Fortescue he had received a legal training at the prestigious law school of Lincoln’s Inn. Before long, he found professional employment with some of the leading landowners in his native region. In 1427 he was named among the feoffees of Sir Thomas Beauchamp* of Whitelackington;15 CP25(1)/292/66/65, 66, 90; CCR, 1435-41, p. 100. two years later he joined Sir Thomas Carew, Philip Courtenay* of Powderham and John Dynham of Nutwell, three of the wealthiest men in Devon, in a recognizance for 300 marks to Sir Thomas Brooke*;16 CCR, 1422-29, p. 465. later in 1429, along with the sitting Devon MP John Bampfield*, he stood surety for the custodians of the alien priory of St James at Exeter;17 CFR, xv. 289. in May 1431, in association with the treasurer Walter, Lord Hungerford†, he acted as a feoffee of manors in Cambridgeshire formerly belonging to John Rickhill*;18 CCR, 1429-35, pp. 132-3, 223. while in July 1447 he was a mainpernor for (Sir) Edward Hull*’s farm of the cloth subsidy in Somerset.19 CFR, xvii. 202.

It may have been a combination of professional and personal contacts that saw Wyse elected to Parliament in 1427 as a Member for the Devon borough of Tavistock.20 SC6/829/29. He is not known to have had any previous connexion with the borough, but his home at Sydenham was only about four miles away and he must have been well known in the locality. While sitting in the Commons he was appointed to the important office of feodary of the earldom of Devon during the minority of the heir, Thomas Courtenay, at an annual fee of five marks. Familial ties with the Fortescues may have played a part in his promotion: the future chief justice had preceded Wyse in his Tavistock seat in four earlier Parliaments, and Fortescue’s father had served Earls Edward and Hugh as steward until the latter’s death in 1422. Nor was Wyse’s new appointment a sinecure. He was kept busy riding between Sydenham and the Courtenay honours of Plympton and Okehampton to attend the various courts held there, and on occasion he also had to undertake the longer journey to London. In his first year in office alone he ran up expenses of over £3.21 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 934; CPR, 1422-9, p. 457; SC6/828/2, 829/29; M. Cherry, ‘Crown and Political Community, Devon’ (Univ. of Wales, Swansea Ph.D. thesis, 1981), 54, 239. Evidently, his performance was deemed satisfactory, for in February 1429 the office of feodary and bailiff of the fees of the duchy of Lancaster in Devon and Cornwall, effective from Michaelmas 1428, was added to his responsibilities.

Wyse was not re-elected for either Tavistock or another constituency in 1429, although he attested the shire elections of that year. He returned to Parliament in 1432, by this time having attained sufficient standing to sit as knight of the shire. Now, however, there was a hiatus in his public career. By 1435 he had relinquished both of his posts as feodary, and he may have gone to fight in France, for in 1436 he was granted letters of attorney as about to go overseas, perhaps as a member of the earl of Devon’s retinue on the duke of Gloucester’s expedition for the relief of Calais.22 DKR, xlviii. 312. It may also have been he who in the following year was serving in the garrison of Conches under Edward Hull,23 Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, fr 25774/1249. There are several other instances of men of this name serving in Normandy between 1429 and 1443, but none of them can be reconciled with what else is known of the MP’s career with any degree of certainty. but even if so he returned to England by the autumn of 1438, when he was appointed escheator of Devon and Cornwall. His conduct in office was not free from controversy. Charged with the unlawful seizure of the livestock of one Robert Lytyll at Swimbridge in March 1439, he justified himself by claiming that Lytyll was an outlaw – but was unable to produce the record of the alleged outlawry in court.24 E13/141, rot. 29. Around the same time, Wyse’s father died. Now a landholder of considerable substance, Thomas was distrained for knighthood, but failed to pay a fine, claiming not to have been notified by the sheriff of Devon, James Chudleigh*.25 E13/141, rot. 16.

Whether on account of his possible service at the siege of Calais, or by other means, Wyse had now come to the attention of the court, and before long he joined the ranks of the esquires of Henry VI’s chamber.26 E101/409/9, f. 36d. He was very much a working member of the royal household: in December 1440 he brought news to Westminster of the wreck of an Irish ship off the Devon coast, and was rewarded with the ship’s cargo of horses, except for six of the best which were reserved for the royal stables. (The resultant litigation with the owners of the horses, Irish merchants who claimed that their ship had been driven by a storm into the harbour of Dartmouth, where Wyse had simply seized the beasts, was only settled in 1446.)27 CPR, 1436-41, p. 484; CCR, 1441-7, p. 438; C1/45/25; 71/54; E159/219, brevia Mich. rot. 4. In November 1444 Wyse drew expenses incurred on various journeys to Cornwall on the King’s business,28 E404/61/106; E403/759, m. 13; 769, m. 4. while at the same time preparing to join the entourage of William de la Pole, marquess of Suffolk, about to travel to France to escort Margaret of Anjou to her new home. He drew 2s. per day in wages for himself and a yeoman.29 Add. 23,938, f. 14v. Wyse continued to wear the livery of a King’s esquire for at least seven years longer.30 E101/409/11, f. 38; 16, f. 34; 410/1, f. 30; 3, f. 30v; 6, f. 39v; 9, f. 42v.

Wyse maintained important contacts in the south-west throughout the 1440s. He was retained by the citizens of Exeter, who in 1442 paid him 13s. 4d. for his advice on how to refuse to make a loan to the Crown, and who four years later admitted him to the freedom of the city as a reward for his good counsel, while the summer of 1445 saw him acting as a mainpernor for Nicholas, Baron Carew.31 Devon RO, Exeter city recs., receivers’ accts. 20-21 Hen. VI, m. 2; Exeter Freemen ed. Rowe and Jackson, 50; CCR, 1441-7, p. 311. In July 1446 Wyse was granted letters of protection, ostensibly while going abroad in the retinue of Sir Richard Vernon*, the treasurer of Calais, but it is uncertain whether he ever set out for the continent, and the letters may simply have been intended as a ruse to fend off litigation at home.32 C76/128, m. 4. He certainly had need of protection in the courts for by this date he had become embroiled in a protracted quarrel with John Lematon*, a royal official of Northumbrian origins. In February 1446 the dispute had been submitted to the arbitration of a panel of prominent mediators, headed by Adam Moleyns, bishop of Chichester. Lematon and Wyse were each bound in £1,000 to accept the panel’s award, but these undertakings had to be renewed in July (a week after Wyse sought protection).33 CCR, 1441-7, pp. 375, 391-2, 401-2. In October Wyse sued out a writ in King’s bench, alleging that on 3 Aug. in the previous year Lematon and a kinsman had gone to Bere Ferrers in Devon, stole from him 300 ‘bolles de Lydwore’ worth £100, and threatened his servants and tenants there and at Tavistock. When the suit came to pleadings he claimed damages of £2,000.34 KB27/746, rot. 134. The stolen goods would seem to have been the produce of west-country mines, and the quarrel had apparently arisen from Wyse’s employment by Cardinal Beaufort, the farmer of the royal gold and silver mines in Devon and Cornwall, to deliver bullion to the Exchequer, while Lematon was engaged by the marquess of Suffolk to receive on his behalf a fifteenth part of the mines’ profits, which had been granted to his lord in 1444.35 E403/765, m. 11; CPR, 1441-6, p. 334. It seems unlikely, in these circumstances, that Wyse owed his return to the Parliament of 1447 to the patronage of a court dominated by Suffolk.36 It may be significant that the sheriff was his kinsman by marriage, Henry Fortescue†: C219/15/4. By July 1448, John Trevelyan*, another courtier, of Cornish origins, had joined in the quarrel, and it was then that Wyse capitulated: he undertook to pay Lematon £200 in four annual instalments of £50 each.37 CCR, 1447-54, pp. 69, 72, 77. Probably also connected with Wyse’s undefined role in the administration of the mines in the south-west was another dispute, in the early 1450s, between him and the influential Roger Champernowne*, who in September 1451 was commissioned to seize on the King’s behalf all precious metals mined in the realm. In settlement of a bond for £80, Wyse claimed to have sent Champernowne 300 ‘bolles’ of silver ore on the payment date, which alone were worth over £100 and should have more than settled any claim his opponent might have.38 CP40/758, rot. 294; C1/16/300.

Since the 1430s Wyse had apparently maintained links with the Courtenay earl of Devon, although scarcely a hint of this survives in the records,39 CCR, 1435-41, pp. 48-49. and the strength of their connexion does not become clear until he was returned to Parliament for the fourth time, in October 1450. That year had witnessed immense social upheaval, the murder of a number of the King’s ministers, widespread disorder as soldiers returned from France following the loss of Normandy, and rebellion throughout the south-east. Earl Thomas, choosing to support Richard, duke of York, in mounting a challenge to the King’s new chief minister, the duke of Somerset, arrived at the Parliament with large numbers of armed men – perhaps with Wyse among them, for as later events were to show the earl could be confident that he would do his bidding. Whether this support was actively demonstrated in the Commons by Wyse and his fellow MP William Hyndeston* is impossible to know, but Wyse at least made his position clear in the following autumn. Whatever York’s motives may have been, his ally the earl was primarily concerned with settling old scores with his arch rival, the recently ennobled Lord Bonville*, and the latter’s patron at court, James Butler, earl of Wiltshire. To this end, in September 1451 Courtenay assembled a large force, said to be 5 or 6,000 strong, with which to confront his enemies. Wyse, as one of the earl’s leading servants, played an important part in recruiting fighting men and marshalling the comital host as it marched from Devon into Somerset. There, it laid siege to Bonville in Taunton castle. In subsequent months, Wyse suffered the consequences of his involvement in this blatant breach of the peace. Along with others of the Courtenay affinity he was indicted in January 1452 at the sessions held at Ilchester, but before judgement could be given against him in King’s bench he secured a royal pardon for his offences, on 22 June.40 KB27/765, rex rot. 9; C67/40, mm. 15, 24. There is nothing to show whether in February he joined the army which the earl and York assembled at Dartford. Wyse was removed from the county bench, never to be reinstated, but in the course of 1453 he was once again included in judicial and other ad hoc commissions in his locality.41 E159/230, commissiones Mich. rot. 1; C66/476, m. 10d.

Wyse sensibly avoided taking up arms in the earl of Devon’s cause in 1455, when Courtenay sought to settle his score with Bonville once and for all. Nevertheless, the later 1450s were a troubled time in his career. In June 1457 a group of men headed by one James Radeclyf, clerk, was said to have stolen a valuable breviary worth as much as £10 from him at Northlew, and about the same time he was engaged in legal battles over unspecified trespasses with a number of men from Saltash who were said to have illicitly entered his property and taken a ship of his from Kenn.42 KB27/782, rot. 20; 783, rot. 2; 784, rot. 55d; 785, rots. 3d, 4d; 786, rot. 2, 4, 5d; 787, rots. 2, 2d, 4; 789, rot. 15. In the course of 1458 he also came into conflict with Richard Joce†, the under sheriff of Devon and a servant of Richard Neville, earl of Warwick, over a debt of £14. Joce claimed to have lent the sum in question to Wyse, who, for his part, maintained that he had sealed the bond merely as surety for the appearance in King’s bench of William Cokeworthy of Exeter. Within a few years, and perhaps as a result of political ascendancy of the Nevilles, Wyse changed his story, and claimed to have sealed the bond under duress while being kept in prison by Joce.43 CP40/813, rot. 111; 814, rot. 226d; 829, rot. 58. In spite of such troubles, Wyse was evidently trusted by the court party which began to close ranks in the aftermath of the failed love-day of March 1458. After the flight of the Yorkist lords in the autumn of 1459, he was included in the commission to array the men of Devon against a possible invasion by the exiles in Calais, and in the first days of June 1460, just weeks before the invasion force actually landed, he was among those commissioned to investigate and try criminal activity throughout the south-west.

Edward IV’s accession and the execution of the earl of Devon (the son of Wyse’s old patron, with whom he had formed an association in the final months of Henry VI’s reign), left Wyse, like other members of the Courtenay affinity, bereft of a master.44 CFR, xix. 265; xx. 21. Although he came to terms with the new rulers at least formally, and in 1462 sued out a royal pardon, public office eluded him for some time, and he continued to clash with his neighbours.45 C67/45, m. 20. For instance, at some point before 1465 he came into conflict over the ownership of a house in Exeter: C1/27/496. Eventually entrusted by the new rulers with an investigation into the forfeited property of the executed Lancastrian Sir Baldwin Fulford (whose daughter Thomasina had married Wyse’s younger brother John),46 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 934. Their descendants were eventually to become earls of Bedford: CP, ii. 74. he took the opportunity to join forces with Sir Baldwin’s son and heir, Sir Thomas, in an attack on John Staplehill, to whom the Fulford property had been granted in 1461. Wyse was said to have sent 80 men to assist the heir in sacking Staplehill’s house at Donsford, where the assailants not only beat and wounded Staplehill’s servants and bound them hand and foot, but were alleged to have threatened his wife to such a degree that she nearly died of fright.47 C1/31/492. He carried out this comm. on 1 and 3 Oct. 1464: C140/3/31, mm. 3-5.

Furthermore, Wyse now also clashed with his wife’s kinsman by marriage, Martin Fortescue, and his wife Elizabeth, the only daughter and heir of his old opponent Richard Denshyll, over possession of the manor of Lamerton, two miles north-east of Sydenham. Martin was the only son of the chief justice’s second marriage, but their tenuous kinship mattered little to Wyse. Fortescue complained that although Elizabeth had rightfully inherited Lamerton from her father, Wyse and his brother John had come with a great number of armed men, expelled them and kept them out by patrolling the vicinity on horseback every day. They were indicted at the next session of the peace, but in spite of a judgement in Fortescue’s favour, the Wyses had retained the property and all but killed one of his servants.48 C1/31/465; C66/512, m. 15d.

At this late stage in life Wyse married a second time, taking as his new wife the widowed Isabel Whitelegh. Her late husband’s lands had been placed in the custody of the abbot of Tavistock during the minority of his heir, and Wyse and his wife were forced to sue for a third of the manors of Compton Giffard and Egg Buckland as her dower in the court of common pleas. In the event, the abbot proved no very formidable opponent and readily agreed to negotiate.49 CP40/826, rot. 135.

Henry VI’s Readeption in the autumn of 1470 might have brought Wyse to renewed prominence, not least because his first wife’s brother-in-law, Fortescue, had served as chancellor in exile to Margaret of Anjou, but in view of his advancing years he may have thought it prudent not to commit himself, and was certainly quick to secure a pardon from the restored Edward IV in December 1471. In the course of 1470-1 he (or a namesake) was in receipt of gifts of wine from the town authorities of Launceston (which had made him similar gifts 20 years previously), and it may therefore have been he who was commissioned to deliver the gaol at Launceston in December 1473.50 Cornw. RO, Launceston bor. recs., B/Laus/139, m. 5; 147, m. 2; C67/48, m. 33; C66/532, m. 14d. In view of the proximity of Buckland abbey to his residence, it is also likely that he was the Thomas Wyse who was commissioned to remove an occupying force from the house in April of that year. But Wyse’s health may have been failing by this date, for he was dead by May 1474, when a writ of diem clausit extremum bearing his name was issued to the escheator of Devon and Cornwall.51 CFR, xxi. no. 226. Wyse was succeeded by his son John, who only survived his father by about a year, leaving his own 13-year-old son Oliver as the next heir to the family estates.52 No inq. post mortem survives for Thomas, and John’s relationship to him is only suggested by the descent of Margaret Brytte’s lands to John and his descendants (C140/51/5; 83/20; C142/56/18).