Tropenell, later of Great Chalfield, Neston, and Salisbury, was born about 1405, the son of Henry Tropenell and his wife, Edith, who was the daughter of Walter Roche.[1][2]
Augustus Pugin, in a chapter on Great Chalfield in his Examples of Gothic architecture, gives a pedigree of the Tropenell family stated to be taken from "a MS now in the possession of William Waldron, Esq." According to this, "long before the time that no mind renueth, and before the conquest" a Wiltshire knight named Sir Osbert Tropenell was lord of the whole lordship of Sapworth. Of his two sons, James and Walter, the second son, Walter, received lands in Sherston, Ivy Church, Whaddon and Combe, and married Catherine, the daughter of Sir William Percy, sister of Sir Harry Percy, lords of "Much Chaldefeld, otherwise called East Chaldefeld", having a son, Philip, and a daughter, Galiana. Philip married Isawde, daughter of Richard Cotell, of "Cotells Atteward, otherwise Little Atteward", and left two sons, Roger and John, dividing his land between them. Roger married Christian, daughter of Sir John Rous, lord of Immer, and their son John Tropenell married Agnes, daughter of James Lye, lord of Liniford. Their son Harry Tropenell, who married Edith, the daughter of Walter Roche, younger brother of Sir John Roche, of Bromham, was the father of Thomas Tropenell.[3]
Life
A common lawyer by profession, Tropenell turned himself into "a long-headed, thrifty business man" and was anxious to use his abilities to become a substantial landowner.[4] He spent most of his life in the south-west of England, especially in Wiltshire.[5]
He married firstly Agnes Ludlow, the widow of Thomas Bourton, who was cousin and heir of John Bourton the younger of Atworth.[1]
Lord Hungerford conveyed the manor of Hill Deverill to Tropenell and Agnes in December 1447.[2] He acquired the manor of Great Chalfield in 1454, after a legal challenge based on the marriage of his ancestor Walter Tropenell with Katharine, daughter of Sir William Percy,[6] and built Great Chalfield Manor.[5] During his life Tropenell acquired a large number of manors, not without battles along the way, and this prompted him to assemble his Tropenell Cartulary, compiled in the reign of Edward IV.[7]
Tropenell married secondly, probably in May 1456, his cousin Margaret, the second daughter of William Ludlow of Hill Deverill and the widow of John Erley, who in 1450–1451 was Member of Parliament for Ludgershall.[8]
While many others were troubled by having taken sides in the Wars of the Roses, Tropenell gave no mortal offence to either side, and in the reign of Richard III, about 1484, he even received a pardon from the new king, recorded as "Thomas Tropenelle of Chaldefeld in the Countie of Wiltshire Squier hathe a generalle pardonne."[9]
Tropenell died in 1488 holding Great Chalfield from the Duchy of Lancaster "as of the honour of Trowbridge.[10] He left the whole of his property to his son Christopher Tropenell, except for "one white bed" bequeathed to his daughter Mary. He was entombed in the chapel of the Blessed Mary at Corsham,[11] now the north chancel chapel of the Church of England parish church, where his large altar tomb, shared with his first wife, Agnes, survives.[12][13]
Likeness
A wall painting in the parlour of Great Chalfield Manor is traditionally claimed to be a portrait of Tropenell. Apparently of the right period, it shows a burly man wearing a gown trimmed with ermine and what may be a beaver hat, holding what appears to be a money bag.[14]
1 2 J. T. Driver, 'A Perilous, Covetous man: the career of Thomas Tropenell, Esq. (c. 1405–88)' in The Wiltshire archaeological and natural history magazine vol. 93 (2000), pp. 83–87
1 2 Anne Holt, History of Parliament, biographies of the members of the Commons house 1439–1509, vol. 1 (HMSO, 1938), p. 875
↑ Augustus Pugin, chapter 'A historical account of the Manor House and Church at Great Chalfield, Wiltshire' in Examples of Gothic architecture, pp. 37–40
1 2 Driver, op. cit.: "Thomas Tropenell esquire and lawyer appears to have spent most of his life in the south-west, especially in Wiltshire... his building of the fine manor house at Great Chalfield".
↑ John Silvester Davies, ed., The Tropenell cartulary: being the contents of an old Wiltshire muniment chest, vol. 1 (Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, 1908), p. xi: "Release from John Rous, lately of Baynton, younger brother of Will Rous, lord of Great Chalfield, to Thomas Tropenell &c. of all right and claim to the manor of Great Chalfield, 12 July 1454...
↑ Eric William Ives, The common lawyers of pre-Reformation England, (1983) p. 298
↑ R. Horrox and P. W. Hammond (ed.), BL Harleian Manuscript 433 (Richard III Society), vol. 1 (1979), 'Register of Grants for the Reigns of Edward V and Richard III', p. 230
↑ Great Chalfield, in R. B. Pugh and Elizabeth Crittall (editors), A History of the County of Wiltshire: Volume 7Bradford hundred (1953) online at british-history.ac.uk
↑ A handbook for travellers in Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire (pub. John Murray, 1859), p. 14
↑ Anthony Emery, Greater Medieval Houses of England and Wales, 1300–1500: Southern England (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 573
↑ Thomas Moule, Heraldry of fish: Notices of the principal families bearing fish in their arms (J. Van Voorst, 1842), pp. 95–96
Related Research Articles
Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of WestmorlandEarl Marshal, was an English nobleman of the House of Neville.
Sir John Seymour, Knight banneret was an English soldier and a courtier who served both Henry VII and Henry VIII. Born into a prominent gentry family, he is best known as the father of Henry VIII's third wife, Jane Seymour, and hence grandfather of king Edward VI of England.
Great Chalfield Manor is an English country house at Great Chalfield, about 2.5 miles (4 km) northeast of the town of Bradford on Avon in the west of the county of Wiltshire.
Walter Hungerford, 1st Baron Hungerford was an English knight and landowner, from 1400 to 1414 a Member of the House of Commons, of which he became Speaker, then was an Admiral and peer.
Scrope is the name of an old English family of Norman origin that first came into prominence in the 14th century. The family has held the noble titles of Baron Scrope of Masham, Baron Scrope of Bolton, and for a brief time, the Earl of Wiltshire.
Ernle was the surname of an English gentry or landed family descended from the lords of the manor of Earnley in Sussex who derived their surname from the name of the place where their estates lay.
Henry Frederick Thynne, 3rd Marquess of Bath, styled Lord Henry Thynne until January 1837 and Viscount Weymouth between January and March 1837, was a British naval commander and politician.
William Bardolf, 4th Baron Bardolf and 3rd Baron Damory of Wormegay, Norfolk, was an extensive landowner in Norfolk, Lincolnshire, Suffolk and Surrey. He was the son of John Bardolf, 3rd Baron Bardolf and Elizabeth Damory, suo jure 2nd Baroness Damory. His maternal grandparents were Sir Roger Damory, Lord Damory and Lady Elizabeth de Clare, a granddaughter of King Edward I. In 1372, Bardolf had livery of his lands from the Crown - See.
This is a list of the sheriffs and high sheriffs of Wiltshire.
Sir John Thynne was the steward to Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, and a member of parliament. He was the builder of Longleat House, and his descendants became Marquesses of Bath.
Sir Walter Beauchamp was an English lawyer who was Speaker of the House of Commons of England between March and May 1416.
Sir Thomas Fairfax was an owner of Gilling Castle, near Gilling East, North Riding of Yorkshire, England.
Great Chalfield, also sometimes called by its Latin name of Chalfield Magna, formerly East Chalfield and anciently Much Chaldefield, is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Atworth, in west Wiltshire, England. Its nearest towns are Melksham, about 3 miles (4.8 km) away to the northeast, and Bradford-on-Avon, at about the same distance to the southwest.
The Tropenell Cartulary is an English medieval manuscript cartulary compiled for Thomas Tropenell, a Wiltshire landowner, in the 15th century.
Brook in the parish of Heywood, north of Westbury in Wiltshire, England, is an historic estate. It was the seat of Robert Willoughby, 1st Baron Willoughby de Broke, KG, an important supporter of King Henry VII, whose title unusually incorporates the name of his seat, in order to differentiate him from his ancestors Barons Willoughby of Eresby, seated at Eresby Manor near Spilsby in Lincolnshire. A medieval wing survives of the mansion house known as Brook Hall, a Grade I listed building which stands near the Biss Brook.
John Eyre was an English politician.
John Rous, of Baynton in Edington, Wiltshire, was a member of the English landed gentry, who fought at Agincourt in 1415, and served one term as a Member of Parliament for Wiltshire in 1420.
Henry de la River of Tormarton in Gloucestershire was a Member (MP) of the Parliament of England for Gloucestershire in 1394.
John Twynyho of Cirencester, Bristol and Lechlade, all in Gloucestershire, was a lawyer and wealthy wool merchant who served as Recorder of Bristol, as a Member of Parliament for Bristol in Gloucestershire in 1472-5 and in 1484 and for the prestigious county seat Gloucestershire in 1476. In 1478 he was Attorney General to Lord Edward (the future King Edward V, eldest son and heir of King Edward IV.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
