HAY, Thomas de la

As a young man, Thomas de la Hay was one of several gentry of south-west Herefordshire who, in the late 1390s, conducted a campaign of oppression against their neighbour, Dore Abbey. According to a lengthy petition presented to Richard II and his council by the abbot, Jordan Bikeleswade, two particular offences were attributed to our MP: on 22 Apr. 1398 he had destroyed the abbey’s grange at Godway (in Peterchuch) and taken away all its timber and stones; and on various occasions between February 1396 and August 1398 he had removed a total of 22 great oaks from the abbey’s woodland at nearby Treville. The precise context of these alleged offences is unknown, but there can be little doubt that they related to the bitter dispute over the abbacy between Bikeleswade and John Holland. At the time of the alleged offences the former appears to have successfully ousted the latter, and it is a reasonable speculation that de la Hay and others were acting in Holland’s support.4 SC8/213/10624; Definitive Hist. of Dore Abbey ed. Shoesmith and Richardson, 27.

More evidence survives of de la Hay’s private affairs than is detailed in the earlier biography. In 1406 he entered into agreements with his childless neighbour, Sir John Chandos†, for the purchase, in remainder, of Sir John’s manors of Fownhope and Wellington. The agreement made allowance for the remote possibility that Chandos would have legitimate issue – his chance of doing so depended on his wife’s death and his own remarriage – and this added an element of complexity. On 13 Dec. two separate indentures were sealed. By the first, it was agreed that if Sir John had male issue within the next ten years, he was to pay de la Hay 400 marks for a release from the latter’s feoffees of the manor of Wellington, and if he had male issue after that term, he was to pay 500 marks. Alternatively, if he chose not to make a cash payment, he was to convey a moiety of the manor of Fownhope to our MP, provided that that manor should prove to be un-entailed. The second indenture related to the conditional sale of this manor: if Chandos had no issue, male or female, within the term of ten years, then de la Hay was to pay him 300 marks for estate in a moiety of the manor after the deaths of Chandos and his wife Philippa, and another Herefordshire esquire, William Walwyn, was to pay Chandos the same sum for estate in the other moiety on the same terms.5 Herefs. RO, Urishay Estate mss, W85/3; Hereford Cathedral Archs., 2695A.

These represented considerable financial undertakings on de la Hay’s part, and he helped to finance them through the marriage of his young son and heir, Richard. On 18 May 1407 he entered into a contract for Richard’s marriage to Clemence, daughter of Stephen White, a Herefordshire lawyer who had recently died. The portion was set at 200 marks, bequeathed to the bride in her father’s will; in return, our MP undertook to settle on the couple in fee tail the manor of Throllokeshope (in Peterchurch) and land in Hinton, valued at £10 p.a., together with an annual rent of five marks to be paid after the death of his mother, Margaret. This jointure was to remain in the hands of de la Hay until the couple were old enough to set up household on their own, when he was to pay them £20 to buy ‘necessaries p[ur] lo[ur] meson a eux besoignable’. The contract also made reference to the purchase from Chandos: when estate in the manors of Fownhope and Wellington came into his hands, he was to ensure that Richard came into such an estate that the bride might enjoy dower in them. If Richard should die before consummation then his younger brother, John, was to be substituted.6 Urishay Estate mss, W85/5.

In June 1421 de la Hay’s feoffees, headed by Richard de la Mare*, settled the manor of Arkstone on him for life, with successive remainders to his eldest son by his first wife, Richard and Richard’s full sister, Anne, in fee tail. This settlement strongly implies that these were his only surviving issue by his first wife and that this manor had been settled on their late mother in jointure. Richard’s childless death thus posed a problem of succession, which was addressed by a further settlement made in 1438. The manor of Urishay, which, with Arkstone, was the family’s principal property, and the neighbouring manors of Throllokeshope and Wellbrook, were settled on our MP for life with successive remainders to his son, Urian, in tail-male, and his own male issue. Should his male issue fail, the property was to pass to the heirs male of Thomas de la Hay of Hentland, described as our MP’s son. Clearly this younger Thomas was illegitimate, and one of purposes of the settlement was to give his claims of inheritance preference over those of our MP’s heirs general, presumably represented by his daughter Anne.7 Ibid. W85/4; CIPM, xxv. 415; CCR, 1435-41, pp. 320-1.

When de la Hay was elected to his last Parliament – at the hustings held on 16 Dec. 1430 – an appeal of mayhem was pending against him and his sons, Richard and the illegitimate Thomas, in the court of King’s bench. While an MP de la Hay appeared personally to deny the charge and he was duly acquitted before the justices of assize at Hereford on 10 Mar. 1432.8 C219/14/2; KB27/678, rots. 43d, 107; 679, rot. 37. The younger Thomas was constantly involved in episodes of disorder: KB27/608, rot. 10d; 678, rot. 107; C1/7/51; 12/161.