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Thomas Moyle MP (1488 - 1560)

Sir Thomas Moyle MP
Born in Chilham Parish, Kent, Englandmap
Ancestors ancestors
Brother of [half], and [half]
Husband of — married [date unknown] [location unknown]
Descendants descendants
Died at about age 72 in Eastwell Court, Eastwell, Kent, Englandmap
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Profile last modified | Created 21 Feb 2011
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Contents

Biography

Sir Thomas Moyle was a younger son, but the eventual heir, to John Moyle, of Eastwell (in Kent) from his second wife, Anne Darcy, daughter of Sir Robert Darcy of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, in Essex.[1]

He was Knighted on 24 January 1542 and Speaker in the House of Commons that year.[2] He probably started his career in Parliemant in 1539 but the records no longer exist. He failed to sit for Kent and initially won a seat for Rochester (in Kent) and then, in 1554, for the constituency of Lynn (town of Bishop’s Lynn).

He had no male heirs and in 1559 and 1560 he set about dividing his lands between his two daughters (Catherine and Anne) and coheirs, but the arrangements were still incomplete when on 1 Aug. 1560 he made his will. To his wife, Catherine Jorden, daughter of Edward Jorden of London, he left all the household goods in his house at Clerkenwell and all his lands there. The rest of his lands, in Devon, Kent and Somerset, he divided between Catherine, his elder daughter, who was married to Sir Thomas Finch, and Thomas Kempe, the son and heir of his daughter Amy (she is called Alice in History of the county of Kent[3]. His houses in Newgate, London, were to be divided among his grandchildren. He appointed as his executors his two sons-in-law, Sir Thomas Finch and Sir Thomas Kempe, and his servant Robert Barlee.

Thomas Moyle died on 2 Oct 1560 and the will was proved on the following 14 Nov..[4]

He married Catherine Jorden, daughter of Edward Jorden of London, and had two daughters:

  • Catherine Moyle, married Sir Thomas Finch in 1547, likely born c. 1525. He was the eldest surviving son of Sir William Finch, of the Moat, by his 1st wife Elizabeth Cromer, daughter of Sir James Cromer, and widow of Sir Richard Lovelace. Catherine is said to have died in Feb 1587.[5]
  • Anne (or Amy) Moyle, married Sir Thomas Kempe, 1st son of Sir William Kempe of Wye by Eleanor Browne, daughter and heiress of Robert Browne, as his second wife. The marriage occurring c. 1560 or shortly before. They had 7 sons.[6]
Name: Thomas /MOYLE/
Name Prefix: Sir
Source: #S994

Occupation

Occupation: Speaker of the House of Commons between 1542/3-1546.

Note

N.D.B.: MOYLE, SIR THOMAS (d. 1560), speaker of the House of Commons, was third son of John Moyle, who in 1488 was one of those commissioned in Cornwall to raise archers for the king's expedition to Brittany (RYMER., Faedera, 1745, pt, v. vol. iii. p. 197). His mother was a daughter of Sir Robert Drury. Sir Walter Moyle [q.v.l was his grandfather. Thomas Moyle, like his grandfather, entered Gray's Inn, Probably before 1522, as in that year one of his name from Gray's Inn was surety to the extent of 100l. for George Nevill, third baron of Abergavenny [q. v.] He became Lent reader there in 1533. In 1537 the court of augmentations was erected to manage the vast property flowing in to the treasury on the suppression of the abbeys. Of this Moyle and Thomas, father of Sir Waiter Mildmay [q, v. i], were appointed receivers, each having 2001. fee and 201. diet. Moyle was afterwards promoted to the chancellorship of the same court. But the augmentation office was temporarily deprived of his services in the same year, 1537, when he was sent to Ireland on a special commission with St. Leger, Paulet. and Berners. He was also on 18 Oct. 1537 knighted. The work of the commission in Ireland was very important, as Lord Grey had made enemies of the English officials. Hence the selection of the experienced St. Leger in the work of trying to restore order (cf. BAGWELL, Ireland under the Tudors, i. 208 et seq.) Moyle returned to England at the end of the year, and soon made himself conspicuous as a zealous servant of Henry, rather after the manner of Audley. He enlarged his estates by securing monastic property, and soon became a rich and prominent official. In 1539 he was with Layton and Pollard in the west, and signed with them the letters from Glastonbury showing that they were trying to find hidden property in the abbey, and to collect evidence against Whiting, the abbot. The same year he was one of those appointed to receive Anne of Cleves on her arrival. Moyle was returned member for the county of Kent in 1542, and chosen speaker of the House of Commons. He addressed the king in an extraordinarily adulatory speech, but his tenure of office was made notable by the fact that he was said to be the first speaker who claimed the privilege of freedom of speech. The exact wording of his request is, however, uncertain. During his term of office the subject became prominent owing to Ferrar's case, in which Henry conciliated the commons. The king doubtless was glad to have a trusty servant in the chair, as during this session Catherine Howard and Lady Rochford were condemned. He was returned for Rochester in 1544, and in 1545 he was a commissioner for visiting Eastridge Hospital, Wiltshire. It is difficult to know the attitude he took up under Mary, but it seems that he proclaimed her queen (cf. Cal. State Papers, 1547-80, p. 59; STRYPE, Memorials, III. i. 476; Annals, I. i. 64; and especially Acts of the Privy Counccil, 1552-6, as against MANNNING, Lives of the Speakers, and BOASE, Collect. Cornub. p. 605), and was, like many of Henry's followers, a protestant only in a legal sense. On 20 Sept. 1553, and in March 1554, he was returned for Rochester, and on 20 Dec. 1554 was elected for both Chippenham and King's Lynn. It is hardly likely that he would have been elected so often if he had, as Manning suggests, avoided the parliaments of Mary. It Is also said that a prosecution against him was actually commenced when the death of the queen intervened. Moyle died at Eastwell Court, Kent, in 1560. He left two daughters: Katherine, who married Sir Thomas Finch, ancestor of the earls of Winchelsea, and Amy, who married Sir Thomas Kempe.
[Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, passim; Maclean's Hist. of Trigg Manor, i. 258; Dixon's Hist. MOYLE, SIR THOMAS (d. 1560), speaker of the House of Commons, was third son of John moyle, who in 1488 was one of those commissioned in Cornwall to raise archers for the king's expedition to Brittany (RYMER., Faedera, 1745, pt, v. vol. iii. p. 197). His mother was a daughter of Sir Robert Drury. Sir Walter Moyle [q.v.l was his grandfather. Thomas Moyle, like his grandfather, entered Gray's Inn, Probably before 1522, as in that year one of his name from Gray's Inn was surety to the extent of 100l. for George Nevill, third baron of Abergavenny [q. v.] He became Lent reader there in 1533. In 1537 the court of augmentations was erected to manage the vast property flowing in to the treasury on the suppression of the abbeys. Of this Moyle and Thomas, father of Sir Waiter Mildmay [q, v. i, were appointed receivers, each having 2001. fee and 201. diet. Moyle was afterwards promoted to the chancellorship of the same court. But the augmentation office was temporarily deprived of his services in the same year, 1537, when he was sent to Ireland on a special commission with St. Leger, Paulet. and Berners. He was also on 18 Oct. 1537 knighted. The work of the commission in Ireland was very important, as Lord Grey had made enemies of the English officials. Hence the selection of the experienced St. Leger in the work of trying to restore order (cf. BAGWELL, Ireland under the Tudors, i. 208 et seq.)
Moyle returned to England at the end of the year, and soon made himself conspicuous as a zealous servant of Henry, rather after the manner of Audley. He enlarged his estates by securing monastic property, and soon became a rich and prominent official. In 1539 he was with Layton and Pollard in the west, and signed with them the letters from Glastonbury showing that they were trying to find hidden property in the abbey, and to collect evidence against Whiting, the abbot. The same year he was one of those appointed to receive Anne of Cleves on her arrival. Moyle was returned member for the county of Kent in 1542, and chosen speaker of the House of Commons. He addressed the king in an extraordinarily adulatory speech, but his tenure of office was made notable by the fact that he was said to be the first speaker who claimed the privilege of freedom of speech. The exact wording of his request is, however, uncertain. During his term of oftice the subject became prominent owing to Ferrar's case, in which Henry conciliated the commons. The king doubtless was glad to have a trusty servant in the chair, as during this session Catherine Howard and Lady Rochford were condemned. He was returned for Rochester in 1544, and in 1545 he was a commissioner for visiting Eastridge Hospital, Wiltshire. It is difficult to know the attitude he took up under Mary, but it seems that he proclaimed her queen (cf. Cal. State Papers, 1547-80, p. 59; STRYPE, Memorials, III. i. 476; Annals, I. i. 64; and especially Acts of the Privy Counccil, 1552-6, as against MANNNING, Lives of the Speakers, and BOASE, Collect. Cornub. p. 605), and was, like many of Henry's followers, a protestant only in a legal sense. On 20 Sept. 1553, and in March 1554, he was returned for Rochester, and on 20 Dec. 1554 was elected for both Chippenham and King's Lynn. It is hardly likely that he would have been elected so often if he had, as Manning suggests, avoided the parliaments of Mary. It Is also said that a prosecution against him was actually commenced when the death of the queen intervened. Moyle died at Eastwell Court, Kent, in 1560. He left two daughters: Katherine, who married Sir Thomas Finch, ancestor of the earls of Winchelsea, and Amy, who married Sir Thomas Kempe.
[Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, passim; Maclean's Hist. of Trigg Manor, i. 258; Dixon's Hist. of the Church of England, ii. 278; Metcalfs' Knights; Trevelyan Papers (Camden Soc.), ii. 12 ; Chron. of Calais (Camden Soc.), p. 174; Narratives of the Reformation (Camden Soc.), p. 343; Rutland Papers (Camden Soc.), p. 75; Three Chapters of Suppression Letters (Camden Soc.), pp. 255 et seq.; Manning's Speakers of the House of Commons; Return of Members of Parliament; Strype's Memorials, III. i. 156, 476; Annals, I. i. 64; Whitgift, iii. 352; Appendix ii. 10th Rep. Dep. Keeper Publ. Records, p. 241; Fuller's Church Hist. of Engl., iii. 464.]

Descendant of King Edward I. Sir Thomas Moyle was the Speaker of the House of Commons, he was knighted 18 Oct 1537. Speaker of the House of Commons

OF Eastwell, Kent; Believed to be the brother of Walter Moyle and son of Sir John Moyle.

Sir Thomas was Speaker of the House of Commons between 1542/3-1546.

He purchased Eastwell Manor from Sir Christopher Hales about 1550. (Source: Norman Moyle, 1999).

Sir Thomas was sent to Ireland by Henry VIII with Sir Anthony St. Leger and was knighted on 18 October 1537.

Chancellor of the Court of Augmentations

Family and Education b. by 1500, yr. s. but event. heir of John Moyle (d.1500) of Eastwell by 2nd w. Anne, da. of Sir Robert Darcy of Tolleshunt D’Arcy, Essex. educ. G. Inn. m. by 1528, Catherine, da. of Edward Jorden of London, 2da. Kntd. 16 Jan. 1542.3

Offices Held

Ancient, G. Inn 1528, Lent reader 1533, 1539.4

J.p. Kent 1537-d.; gen. surveyor, office of gen. surveyors 1537-42, ct. gen. surveyors of the King’s lands 1542-7, ct. augmentations 1547-54; commr. benevolence, Kent 1544/45, chantries 1546, contribution 1546, relief 1550, heresies 1552, 1556, Rochester bridge by 1557; sheriff, Kent 1556-7; warden, Rochester bridge by 1557.5

Speaker of House of Commons 1542.

Biography In July 1537 Moyle was appointed, with three others, to go to Ireland to re-establish order after the Geraldine rebellion and to secure the passage through the Irish Parliament of a number of Acts, already drawn up, which they were to take with them: the commissioners left for Ireland in August 1537 and were away at least ten months. In the year following his return Moyle was made a general surveyor of crown lands, retaining the office in the courts of general surveyors and of augmentations as they were in turn created: the work involved many tours of inspection, in 1539 to Reading and Glastonbury, whence he sent up a book of accusations of treason against the abbot, in 1541 to Calais and Guisnes and in 1546 to the Boulonnais. On the accession of Edward VI he was commissioned with Sir Richard Rich and (Sir) Richard Southwell to compound with those who were eligible for knighthood.6

Moyle’s parliamentary career can be traced from 1542, but as he was to be chosen Speaker of that Parliament it is likely that he had sat in its precursor of 1539, for which the names of borough Members are nearly all lost: the supposition receives support from the appearance of Moyle’s name in the preamble to the Act for changing the custom of gavelkind (31 Hen. VIII, c.3) passed in the second session of this Parliament. His constituency in 1542 also remains unknown and cannot be guessed at with any confidence. If he had wanted, or been expected, to achieve the Speaker’s customary status of knight of the shire, the county for him to turn to would have been his native one of Kent, but he was not elected for that shire. Of the alternatives, another shire or a borough in Kent or elsewhere, there is reason to prefer a shire, in that if Moyle had begun by sitting for a borough he would probably have been by-elected for Kent in place of the junior knight, Sir Thomas Wyatt I, who died before the end of 1542 but who was replaced by Sir John Guildford.7

Knighted and chosen Speaker when the Commons assembled, Moyle was presented on 20 Jan. 1542. He made the customary protestation of unworthiness and was answered, on behalf of the King, by Chancellor Audley, himself a former Speaker: Moyle, he declared, had served the King at home and abroad without ever wanting diligence or dexterity, and the King would not allow him to decline the office to which he had been elected. Moyle then delivered his oration in which, after praising the King, he made a request for freedom of speech and another for freedom of access to the King. To the first request the chancellor replied that the King would not deny Members honestam dicendi libertatem. This petition, the first to be recorded in the Lords Journal, was not a new one: it had been made in 1523 by Moyle’s most famous predecessor. Yet this Parliament was to see an extension of the privileges of the Commons in a different direction. When George Ferrers, Member for Plymouth, was arrested for debt and released not by a writ of privileges from the chancellor but by the serjeant-at-arms of the Lower House ‘without writ, only by show of his mace, which was his warrant’, this assertion of the Commons’ right to secure this freedom from arrest in civil suits was a landmark in constitutional law and a monument to Moyle’s Speakership.8

Moyle’s leading role in the prebendaries’ plot against Archbishop Cranmer in 1547 seems to have had no effect on his career. In four out of the next five Parliaments he sat for Rochester. It was a city which often elected court nominees and Moyle, whose main property lay some 30 miles away, probably enjoyed official support there. Whether his absence from the Parliament of March 1553 implies that such support was not forthcoming from the Duke of Northumberland, under whose aegis it was called, it is hard to say, for Moyle, despite his religious conservatism, is not known to have had any strong political allegiance during these faction-ridden years. His professional usefulness in the Commons is shown by the committal to him of six bills during the session of 1548-9, including those for uses upon fines and recoveries and for process and orders of the common law. In what was to prove his last Parliament Moyle sat for Lynn. His translation from Rochester is the more striking in that he was also returned for Chippenham. His election at Lynn was presumably the work of a kinsman and former colleague as a general surveyor, (Sir) Richard Southwell, who on this occasion obtained his own return as one of the knights for Norfolk: Southwell’s brother Robert had thrice represented Lynn in Henrician Parliaments. At Chippenham Moyle almost certainly relied on his official links with Wiltshire to procure election and, when he chose to sit for Lynn, it was probably he who introduced his replacement Cyriak Petyt to the borough: the royal forests in the neighbourhood of Chippenham had been administered by the courts where Moyle held his surveyorships, and since 1539 he had been the recipient of an annuity worth over £50 payable by the sheriff of the county.9

Moyle was one of the Members who quitted this Parliament without leave before its dissolution and for this offence he was informed against in the King’s bench in Easter term 1555 and repeatedly summoned to appear: to these demands three successive sheriffs of Kent, the last being Moyle himself, made no return, but his own successor distrained him three times, at Michaelmas 1557 3s.4d., and at Trinity and Easter 1558 6s.8d. and 3s.4d., before the death of the Queen brought the proceedings to an end.10

In April 1558 Moyle was said to be too ill to take part in the defence of Kent, but he lived to sue out the general pardon from Elizabeth which, among other things, consigned his parliamentary ‘secession’ to oblivion. In 1559 and 1560 he set about dividing his lands between his two daughters and coheirs, but the arrangements were still incomplete when on 1 Aug. 1560 he made his will. To his wife he left all the household stuff in his house at Clerkenwell and all his lands there. The rest of his lands, in Devon, Kent and Somerset, he divided between Catherine, his elder daughter, who was married to Sir Thomas Finch†, and Thomas Kempe, the son and heir of his daughter Amy. His houses in Newgate, London, were to be divided among his grandchildren. He also provided generously for his parish, notably in a gift of land and an endowment of £7 13s.2d. a year for an almshouse. He appointed as his executors his two sons-in-law, Sir Thomas Finch and Sir Thomas Kempe†, and his servant Robert Barlee. Moyle died on 2 Oct. 1560 and the will was proved on the following 14 Nov.11

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558 Author: Helen Miller Notes 1. LJ, i. 167. 2. Hatfield 207. 3. Date of birth estimated from father’s death. CIPM Hen. VII , ii. 246, 422; Vis. Kent. (Harl. Soc. lxxv), 13; City of London RO, Guildhall, jnl. 13, f. 51; LP Hn. VIII, iii; DNB. 4. Dugdale, Origines Juridiciales, 292. 5. LP Hen. VIII, xii-xxi; W. C. Richardson, Ct. Augmentations, 78, 155; Elton, Tudor Rev. in Govt. 240; Rep. R. Comm. of 1552 (Archs. of Brit. Hist. and Culture iii), 9, 75; CPR, 1550-3, p. 355, 355; 1553, p. 355; 1555-7, pp. 24, 368. 6. LP Hen. VIII, xii-xiv, xvi, xx-xxi; Richardson, Tudor Chamber Admin. 487-9; Ct. Augmentations, passim; Elton, Policy and Police, 319-20. 7. DNB and OR citing Index 16763 wrongly suppose Kent to have been his constituency. 8. LJ, i. 167; Tudor Studies ed. Seton Watson, 267-8; J. R. Tanner, Tudor Constitutional Docs. 578-83; Elton, Tudor Constitution, 267-70; H. H. Leonard, ‘Ferrers’ case: a note’, Bull. IHR, xlii. 230-4. 9. LP Hen. VIII, xiv, xviii; CJ, i. 5-6, 8. 10. KB27/1176, 29/188 rot. 48v. 11. CSP Dom. 1601-3, Add. 1547-65, p. 473; CPR, 1558-60, pp. 11, 135, 238, 373, 380; PCC 55 Mellershe; C142/129/26, 131/178

Alt birth details - 1480, Bodmin Cornwall

Sources

  1. History of Parliament Online - Thomas Moyle
  2. History of Parliament Online - Thomas Moyle
  3. The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent: Volume 7 (Canterbury, 1798), pp. 398-412. British History Online; Eastwell, Kent.
  4. History of Parliament Online - Thomas Moyle
  5. History of Parliament Online Sir Thomas Finch
  6. History of Parliement Online Sir Thomas Kempe
  • familytreemaker.genealogy.com/users/y/a/r/Rebecca--Yarosh/WEBSITE-0001/UHP-0978.html (broken link and not on archive.org 6 September 2023)


Acknowledgments

  • This person was created through the import of Acrossthepond.ged on 21 February 2011.
  • WikiTree profile Moyle-67 created through the import of Steele Family Tree.ged on Jun 7, 2011 by Jeff Steele.
  • WikiTree profile Moyle-217 created through the import of Stough Family Tree.ged on Nov 1, 2011 by Lindsay Coleman.




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Moyle-599 and Moyle-28 appear to represent the same person because: similar birth, same death date, same mother
posted by SJ Baty
Hi

Just added back daughter, Amy, who was married to Sir Thomas Kempe, and accidentally removed during a merge.