TAILBOYES, Anthony (d.1584), of Skirmington, co. Dur.

Descended from the baronial family, the Tailboys of Kyme, Lincolnshire, Tailboyes himself, like his eldest brother Robert, was an ecclesiastical lawyer and an official of the bishopric of Durham. When the dean of Durham, William Whittingham, died in 1597 he made Tailboyes one of the trustees of his property. These connexions of Anthony and Robert Tailboyes suggest puritan religious views, yet they were closely connected with Thomas Norton, who was executed for his part in the rebellion of 1569: Ralph Tailboyes received a grant of Norton’s lands, which he later transferred to Thomas Norton the younger, while Anthony married his widow and probably had charge of the education of his son. Moreover, the William Tailboyes who was a confidential servant of Thomas Percy, the gunpowder conspirator, may well have been the brother of Robert and Anthony.

Tailboyes probably owed his return for Aldborough to the influence of the 2nd Lord Eure, a member of the council in the north, whose son referred to Robert Tailboyes as ‘my friend and kinsman’. He died intestate in 1584. Administration was granted to Ralph and William Tailboyes—presumably his father and his brother—in November of that year. His widow was still living in 1606.1Surtees, Hist. Durham, iii. 345, 382, 382 n; Depositions (Surtees Soc. xxi), 293-5; SP12/121; APC, xxvi. 138-9, 231, 318-19; HMC Hatfield, vi. 411-13; Wills and Inventories (Surtees Soc. xxxviii), 17-18; CSP Dom. 1595-7, p. 281; 1603-10, pp. 260, 272, 286; 1611-18, pp. 365, 406; Neale, Commons, 228-9; Border Pprs.ii. 193, 457, 460.