TIRWHIT, Sir William

More may be added to the earlier biography.7 The Commons 1386-1421, iv. 630-2.

Tirwhit supplemented his wealth by his marriage to the thrice-widowed Cecily Deincourt.8 CP40/700, rot. 25d. The marriage was particularly valuable because Cecily had a life interest in nearly all the lands of her third husband, William Newport, principally the manors of Furneux Pelham in Hertfordshire and Barn Hall in Essex.9 CIPM, xxiv. 216-17. Less happily for him, her claim to dower in her first husband Robert Purcell’s manors of Drayton Parslow and neighbouring Mursley in Buckinghamshire were contested. On 18 July 1436 the lawless Shropshire knight, Sir Richard Lacon*, who had a claim to the manors through his mother, made a forcible entry, so depriving Cecily of her dower. A month later two Buckinghamshire j.p.s., Andrew Sperlyng* and Thomas Rokes II*, acting under the statute of riots, succeeded in having the occupiers removed, but litigation continued with Sir Richard bringing an action of trespass against Tirwhit and Cecily.10 KB9/228/2/50; KB27/702, rot. 36d.

Another threat to Cecily’s possession came from the common-law heir, Purcell’s grandson, Robert Spicer. On 29 Feb. 1440, in an assize of novel disseisin taken at Aylesbury, Tirwhit and his wife won damages of as much as £210 against him for disseising her of her dower lands. Although, however, the legal tide appeared to be running in their favour, they were soon faced with another difficulty. In the following Michaelmas term no less a person than Humphrey, earl of Stafford, brought an action of decies tantum against the assize jurors, asserting that they had taken bribes from the Tirwhits.11 JUST1/1545, rot. 8; CP40/717, rot. 328; 719, rot. 238d. The outcome of this series of actions is unknown, although Cecily probably retained her dower while the inheritable title was contested between the Lacons and Spicers, with the latter supported by the earl of Stafford. However this may be, this series of actions gives the colour of truth to the claim made by Tirwhit, before royal loan commissioners in 1442, that he was unable to lend because he had ‘so greet pleyse for lande’ with their attendant costs.12 E34/1B/196.

Tirwhit’s marriage to Cecily occasioned two others: his eldest son, Adam, married as his second wife Newport’s daughter, Elizabeth; and his daughter, Margaret, married Newport’s son, George.13 J.E. Cussans, Herts. (Edwinstree), 148-9. Adam’s first wife is said to have been a da. of the northern baronial family of Lumley: R.P. Tyrwhitt, Notices of Fam. of Tyrwhitt, 14. No proof has been found, but it is suggestive that in May 1428, at the Tirwhit manor of Kettleby, Thomas Lumley entered bonds in £100 to our MP: CP40/684, rot. 329. He was the son of the soldier, Sir John Lumley, killed at the battle of Baugé in Mar. 1421, and there is nothing inherently unlikely about a marriage between Sir William’s heir and Sir John’s da. arising out of the mutual military service of their fathers. After Tirwhit’s death Cecily married for a fifth time to Richard Booth, one of the famous Lancashire family. On 6 June 1453 she and Booth brought a writ of dower for a third of the Tirwhits’ Yorkshire manors of Grovehill and Beswick. She made her will on 18 Feb. 1477, requesting burial alongside her third husband, William Newport, at Pelham Furneux. In her later years she appears to have lived in Ipswich.14 CP40/772, rot. 127; 864, rot. 564; Tyrwhitt, 94.

There is little else to add to the earlier biography. It was probably as a reward for his service in France that, on 31 July 1423, Sir William was granted the stewardship of the duchy of Lancaster lordship at Belchford in Lindsey at a fee of £10 p.a.15 Lansd. 207A, f. 177v. On 13 May 1437, shortly after his term of office as sheriff of Yorkshire, Richard, duke of York, sued him in the Exchequer of pleas for his alleged failure to pay the £100 annuity the duke enjoyed from the issues of that county. Such claims help explain why, at the end of his shrievalty, Sir William had petitioned for a pardon of account in £140 – £60 more than was usually granted to the sheriffs of Yorkshire.16 E13/140, rot. 36; SC8/181/9007.