Descendants of Sir Richard Empson
RICHARD EMPSON
I would like to emerge from out of the electronic shadows and come out
as a lurker in Gen-medieval. For obvious reasons I am fascinated by Sir
Richard Empson one of Henry VII's 'New Men' - Chancellor of the Duchy of
Cornwall & President of the Council Learned in the Law.
He, together with Edmund Dudley undoubtedly hold major responsibility
for shaping the efficient executive (and collecting the fortune), that was
bequeathed to Henry VIII in 1509. History has however not been kind to these
'ravening wolves' and has judged Sir Richard particularly harshly. So be
it....
I am of course interested in learning all I can about Sir Richard, but I
am particularly keen to see if I can connect my own family line to his. For
some time I have been stuck at a marriage of a John Empson to Elizabeth
Huckin in Stonesfield, Oxfordshire in December 1602. I cannot get back
further than this.
Stonesfield is reasonably close to Towcester - and more particularly to
Easton Neston - in Northamptonshire where Sir Richard is presumed to have
grown up. While in later life Sir Richard lived in and around the court (he
resided near to Edmund Dudley in London Stone, Walbrook in the city), before
this time both he and his father before him practised law in and around
Towcester.
Not surprisingly, the books I have consulted concentrate upon Henry VII and
his son. Little seems to be known of Sir Richard although after his death
his son appears to have retrieved something of his father's status and
fortune. His widow remarried and his daughters also married well, but the
idea then that a branch of the family only three generations after Sir
Richard's execution, migrated to Oxfordshire is not at all unlikely.
The wider family probably went into a gradual decline and certainly the
Oxfordshire Empson have spiralled downward through three generations into
gentle penury through being stonemasons to foresters and ultimately Ag.
Labs.
Can anybody point me in the right direction for further research. Can
anybody suggest where I might be able to see a record of Sir Richard's trial
for treason.
Of course If any of you actually descend from families said to have been
ruined by the activities of Dudley and Empson I have to say that it is quite
obvious that they were only obeying orders......
Best wishes
Richard (Dick) Empson RJEM...@MSN.COM
From very cold Birmingham, West Midlands where it is trying to snow.
John Steele Gordon
> I would like to emerge from out of the electronic shadows and come out
> as a lurker in Gen-medieval. For obvious reasons I am fascinated by Sir
> Richard Empson one of Henry VII's 'New Men' - Chancellor of the Duchy of
> Cornwall & President of the Council Learned in the Law.
> He, together with Edmund Dudley undoubtedly hold major responsibility
> for shaping the efficient executive (and collecting the fortune), that was
> bequeathed to Henry VIII in 1509. History has however not been kind to these
> 'ravening wolves' and has judged Sir Richard particularly harshly. So be
> it....
I think they are generally regarded today as having been scapegoats. Henry VIII
whacked their heads off as a public relations gesture.
> I am of course interested in learning all I can about Sir Richard, but I
> am particularly keen to see if I can connect my own family line to his. For
> some time I have been stuck at a marriage of a John Empson to Elizabeth
> Huckin in Stonesfield, Oxfordshire in December 1602. I cannot get back
> further than this.
I know of four children for Sir Richard Empson. According to the Encyclopedia
Britannica, his eldest son was named Thomas and was restored to his father's
estates in 1513. His son John became a barrister at the Middle Temple. His
daughter Elizabeth married Sir Thomas Lucy of Charlecote, Warwickshire. His
daughter Anne married Robert Ingleton, grandson of Edward IV's Chancellor of the
Exchequer.
He was known as "the king of Northamptonshire" according to the EB, where he
emparked 430 acres of his manor at Easton-Neston in 1499.
> Can anybody point me in the right direction for further research. Can
> anybody suggest where I might be able to see a record of Sir Richard's trial
> for treason.
Sir Richard was tried in Northampton on a charge of "constructive treason."
According to my law dictionary, constructive treason is "Treason imputed to a
person by law from his conduct or course of actions, though his deeds taken
severally do not amount to actual treason." In other words, get enough parking
tickets and they hang you for constructive murder.
Suggestions:
The Dictionary of National Biography. Out of date, of course, for bibliography
but always the place to start.
Articles by G. R. Elton and J. P. Cooper, in The Historical Journal, Vols. i,
ii, and iv (1958, 1959, 1961).
John Steele Gordon
Gordon Fisher
I have lots of stuff about Richard Empson in my database. There's a sample
below.
I show Richard as one of my 12th ggf, by way of his daughter Jane, who
married the John Pynchon who was grandfather of the the William Pynchon
(1590-1662) who migrated to New England in the Winthrop Fleet in 1630.
William had an interesting life, too. For one thing, he went back to
England in later life, after having made a fortune in the fur trade,
because some Massachusetts ministers condemned some theological writing of
his. William maintained that after the Restoration, things were more
liberal theologically in England than they were in Massachusetts.
Gordon Fisher gfi...@shentel.net
*************************************************************
NOTE: More notes under Sir Richard EMPSON +
See Appendix 25, Historians on Sir Richard Empson
"SIR RICHARD EMPSON. It is a pity to part them [see below for CATESBY],
seeing Empson may be called the Catesby to King Henry the Seventh, as
Catesby the Empson to King Richard the Third; both countrymen, eminent for
having, odious for their abusing, their skill in lsw; active for the
prince, injurious to the people. This Sir Richard was chancellor of the
duchy of Lancaster; and from a sieve-maker's son (at Towchester in this
county [Northamptonshire], where he was born) came to *sift* the estates of
the most wealthy men in England. (P) For King Henry the Seventh, vexed
that he had refused Columbus's proffer (whereby the West Indies, being
found out fortunately, fell to Ferdinand king of Spain) resolved to
discover Indies in England; and to this purpose, made Empson promoter
general, to press the penal statutes all over the land. (P) Empowered
hereby, this prowling knight did grind the faces of rich and poor, bringing
the grist thereof to the king, and keeping the toll thereof to himself,
whereby he advanced a vast estate, which now, with his name, is reduced to
nothing. He united the two houses of York and Lancaster in the king's
coffers, taking nonotice of parties or persons for their former good
services, but making all equally obnoxious to fines and forfeitures. But in
the beginning of the reign of King Henry the Eighth he was arraigned,
condemned, and beheaded, August the 17th, 1510. Say not that princes, if
sacrificing their minister to popular fury, will want persons faithfully to
serve them, seeing such exemplary justice will rather fright officers from
false-deserving them; for, in fine, no real profit can redound to the
sovereign which resulteth from the ruin of his subjects. (P) I must not
forget how there was an old man in Warwickshie, accounted very judicious in
judicial astrology, of whom Sir Richard Empson (then in his prime) did
scoffingly demand, "When the sun would change?" To whom the old man
replied, "Even when such a wicked lawyer as you go to heaven." But we
leave him to stand and fall to his own Master, and proceed."
--- Thomas Fuller, *The Worthies of England* (1662), edited & abridged
by John Freeman, London (George Allen & Unwin Lts), 1952, p 432-433. The
entry for Catesby: "WILLIAM CATESBY was born in this county
[Northamptonshire, where his family long flourished at Ashby St. Ledgers.
He was first advanced by William Lord Hastings, by whose countenance he
came to the notice, then favour, of Richard the Third, though ill requiting
it, when betraying him who caused his preferment. Take his character
(transcribing in this kind is safer than indicting) from an author above
exception. "This Catesby was a man well learned in the laws of this land;
and surely great pity it was that he had not more truth, or less wit." (P)
If any object that being neither lord chief justice, chief baron, nor any
writer on the law, he falleth not under my pen, by the charter of method
prefixed to this catalogue, know that, though formerly *none*, he was
eminently *all* officers, in every court of judicature, all the judges
shaking at his displeasure. Witness the libel which Colyngbourne made, and
which cost him his life for the same:
The Rat (1), and the Cat (2), and Lovell the Dog,
Do govern all England under the Hog (3).
[Editor's footnote: (1) Ratcliffe [Sir Richard Ratcliffe, favourite of, and
loaded with honours by, Richard III. Killed at Bosworth 1485.] (2)
Catesby. (3) King Richard the Third, who gave a boar for his crest.
[Lovell is Francis, first Viscount Lovell, supporter of Richard III,
attainted by Henry VII after Bosworth. He fought for Lambert Simnel,
escaped and probably died of starvation in 1487.] The time of his
[Catesby's] death is uncertain; but because we fgind him not molested in
the reign of King Henry the Seventh (which, had he survived, surely had
happened) it is probable he died before his patron and preferrer, King
Richard the Third. [Editor's footnote: He was taken prisoner at Bosworth
and beheaded.] (p 432)
"Jane's father, Sir Richard Empson, was a statesman and lawyer, prominent
in public life during the reign of Henry VII, and was executed with Sir
Edmund Dudley in 1509."
---Donald Lines Jacobus and Edgar Francis Waterman, *Hale, House and
Related Families, Mainly of the Connecticut River Valley*, Hartford, CT
(Connecticut Historical Society) 1952, p. 722. See also note under
daughter JANE.
From Francis Bacon (*the* Francis Bacon), *King Henry the Seventh*, 1622
(edition by F J Levy, 1972, p 221-3: "At this time [about 1502] the King's
[Henry VII] estate was very prosperous: secured by the amity of Scotland;
strengthened by that of Spain; cherished by that of Burgundy; all domestic
troubles quenched; and all noise of war (like a thunder afar off) going
upon Italy. Wherefore nature, which many times is happily contained and
refrained by some bands of fortune, began to take place in the King;
carrying as with a strong tide) his affections and thoughts unto the
gathering and heaping up of treasure. And as Kings do more easily find
instruments for their will and humour than for their service and honour, he
had gotten for his purpose, or beyong his purpose, two instruments, Empson
and Dudley (whom the people esteemed as his horse-leeches and shearers)
bold men and careless of fame, and that took toll of their master's grist.
Dudley was of a good family, eloquent, and one that could put hateful
business into good language. But Empson, that was the son of a
sieve-maker, triumphed always upon the deed done; putting off all other
respects whatsoever. These two persons being lawyers in science and privy
councillors in authority, (as the corruption of the best things is the
worst) turned law and justice into wormwood and rapine. For first their
manner was to cause divers subjects to be indicted of sundry crimes, and so
far forth to proceed in form of law; but when the bills were found, then
presently to commit them; and nevertheless not to produce them in any
reasonable time to their answer, but to suffer them to languish long in
prison, and by sundry artificial devices and terrors to extort from them
great fines and ransoms, which they termed compositions and mitigations.
..... [3 paragraphs on the hateful methods of Dudley and Empson] .....
These and many other courses, fitter to be buried than repeated, they had
of preying upon the people; both like tame hawks for their master, and like
wild hawks for themselves; insomuch as they grew to great riches and
substance. But their principal working was upon penal laws, wherein they
spared none great or small; nor considered whether the law were possible or
impossible, in use or obsolete, but raked over all old and new statutes,
though many of them were made with intention rather of terror than of
rigous; having ever a rabble of promoters, questmongers, and leading jurors
at their command, so as they could have any thing found, either for fact or
valuation."
From Marie Louise Bruce, *The Making of Henry VIII*, 1977, p 206-7 (via
Jennie): "Henry VII had committed the ungentlemanly act of enforcing the
collection of royal dues, which had not been done so thoroughly and
successfully for many reigns. But he had little choice. An English king
was supposed to pay most of the expenses of government as well as of his
palaces out of his own revenues, which were made up of the proceeds of his
lands, of feudal dues, of justice and of customs duties. if he failed to
accomplish this nearly impossible task, he had to seek parliament's
permission for a special tax, a perilous procedure, since nothing spurred
th eEnglish to revolt more quickly than taxation. The trouble was that in
collecting his dues Henry VII relied on officers responsible to no one but
himself. Edmund Dudley, chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster, the best
known and most hated of these officers, were believed to be corrupt. And
although this has been called in question by modern historians, and it is
possible that they were merely loyal officers doing their job, the belief
in their guilt was general and seems to have been shared by young Henry.
There were also paid informers, mainly royal officers, but including some
laymen too. Prince Henry was used to the sight of these unromantic
characters rubbing shoulders with the furs and velvets of nobles and rich
merchants in the palace corridors. He knew that they were on their way to
give information against some unlucky citizen to 'the council learned in
the law', the department largely under the control of Dudley and Empson,
which dealt with royal debt-collecting."
From Neville Williams, *Henry VII*, 1973, p 188-9 (via Jennie): "The
[financial] system worked extremely well form the King's [Henry VII] point
of view, for he knew months ahead the amount of money that should be coming
into the Chamber and could plan his budget. (P) In his last years, he
could do very well without the aid of Parliamentary grants, for besides the
increased efficiency in exploiting his prerogative rights, the King took
his cut from the increasing volume of foreign trade through customs duties.
When his financial system was at its height, there was naturally a ground
swell of discontent, and immediately upon his death his successor was
forced to bow to popular pressure for the trial fo the two men who had
operated his fiscal machine, 'the ravening wolves' Empson and Dudley. (P)
Both lawyers by training, they had become prominent members of the Council
Learned in the Law, with Sir Richard Empson as "Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, President of that tribunal from 1505. A fresh examination of
their activities suggests that these were no different in kind from the
work performed earlier in the reign by Morton and Bray, and, like these
good churchmen, the 'upstarts' worked within the law, for they were legal
experts. Posterity has remembered Empson and Dudley with 'ignominy' simply
because of their success. Like other royal servants living largely on
fees, they took their pickings from clients who sought the King's favour
through them, yet they knew better than to try to cheat Henry. They lived
next door to each other near London Stone in Walbrook Ward in the City, and
even this was counted against them. To achieve their tasks of calling in
Henry's dues they employed informers, which wrankled with men brought up on
the virtues of tax avaoidance, evasions even. Dudley's account book shows
that he achieved the incredible feat of netting #65,361 [pounds] for the
King in the financial year 1506-7. Of course, it became a talking-point
that Thomas Kneysworth [sic], Lord Mayor of London, and his two sherifs
were heavily fined for misdemeanors and that the Earl of Northumberland was
ordered to pay #10,000 for abducting a royal ward, though most of this
latter fine was to be remitted. It was the wealthy and high-ranking men
who 'suffered most' as the chroniclers put it, for unlike the poor they had
the means to pay. The backlash came with the demise of the Crown and a
penitent Edmund Dudley, deprived of the protection of the master for whom
he had worked so faithfully, could only admit that Henry VII had lost the
hearts of his subjects by his insatiable greed for gold. (P) In these
final years of the reign, several 'over-mighty' subjects were being
controlled by suspended fines and made to enter recognisances for crippling
sums to ensure their good behaviour. It was almost as if Henry VII
'governed by recognisance', one recent historian has remarked. Henry had
cowed the baronage by remorseless manipulation of his fiscal rights. Men
tied to his purse-strings bided their time and immediately on his son's
accession persuaded him to act. Empson and Dudley were put in the Tower,
great enquiries were set afoot into injustice and peculation, and even the
new King's warrants which cancelled so many of the hated recognisances and
bonds spoke of the activities of his financial agents 'against law, right
and consciouce to the evident overburdening and danger of our late father's
soul'. The first Tudor, in re-establishing royal power and a strong
administration, had pressed much too hard, and it is a matter of conjecture
if, had he lived, he could have continued to maintain the pressure without
risking overthrow. It would have been a vicious spiral, for Henry had set
out to make himself solvent as the surest way of being able to keep his
throne."
From the same, p 261-2: "Edmund Dudley, a man of forty-two, belonged to
the great family of that name. Made a Privy Councillor in 1485, he was
Speaker of the House of Commons and a clever orator, especially in debate,
but his severity in executing the King's stiff and despotic financial
demands made him hated. (P) Sir Richard Empson, who shared his
unpopularity for the same reason, was a Towcester man, a trained lawyer,
and Speaker of the Commons in 1491, knighted in 1504. He and Dudley threw
men into prison until they had paid the sums demanded of them, and were
said to summon men to appear before them not in a court of law, but in
private houses, where they were condemned without genuine trial,
irrespective of whether their offences affected the Crown or the Council.
(P) A lack of scruple marked the work of these men, who were quick to see
that if money could not be extracted from the wealthy by legitimate
taxation, it could be extraced by fines. Informers were found to report
offences, at first of no great moment, then, as rapacity in both respects
increased, grave. Whether the accusations were true or not, the offenders
were at once called before a magistrate, and unless they attended the
hearing, convicted without any chance to defend themselves, their property
being forfeited to the King and themselves consigned to the nearest jail.
(P) As the victims often lived a long way from the court concerned, they
frequently knew nothing of either charge or verdict until apprehended. 'Men
thus condemned were marked for the future as outlaws, that is, deprived of
every civil right which the law gives to man.' Freeholders with land worth
$40 were expected to become knights. Enormous sums had to be paid to the
Crown by its wards when they were twenty-one. Many old laws which had
passed from men's minds were dug up, and those who had broken them heavily
fined. (P) In fact, full advantage was now taken of the law of 1496 which
allowed judges and magistrates to act on the accusation of private persons.
The informers 'in their greed for money, paid too little heed to their
duty, to their own danger, or to humanity, although they were often
admonished by persons of importance that they should act with more
moderation'. (P) Thus, in amounts ranging from $50 to $10,000, money
flowed into the King's treasury, and it would be absurd to suggest that he
did not know how it had been obtained. As he grew older he succunbed to
one of the vices of monarchy and old age --- avarice. He accumulated cash
as a bee honey. In comparison to many earlier kings he himself was
moderate in tastes and habits. It was primarily for his son, and for that
perpetual yearning to foung a Tudor dynasty, that he heaped coin upon coin.
He knew it could not come to pass and endure unless underpinned and
buttressed by massive accumulations of fold and jewels. (P) Yet he was not
wholly unrelenting, for in August, 1504, men who considered themselves
unjustly convicted were allows to appeal within two years, and assured of
fair treatment. This promise was nevertheless largely ignored by Empson
and Dudley, who were doubtless lining their own pockets as well as the
King's. Polydore had no doubts about Henry's motive. He wrote: 'certain
it is that the prince, so moderate himself, did not rob his subjects above
measure, he who left his Kingdom in every respect in the greatest
prosperity'."
From the same, p 299: "By this time the news that he [Henry VII] was dying
had been transmitted to every Court in Europe. The King himself was aware
now that his days were being dealt out one by one like a pack of cards, and
made his will on the 30th March [1509]. (P) In it he bade his son be
prudent and avoid war. Asking to be laid beside his wife, he remitted all
debts below #2 owed to him by those imprisoned in London, and is said to
have repented the exactions of his ministers, Empson and Dudley, expressing
a wish that their severity might be tempered by his son, though he himself
had done nothing to this effect during his lifetime. He now wished the
money unfairly extracted to be refunded."
Gordon Fisher
>Dear Wise Ones.
> I would like to emerge from out of the electronic shadows and come out
>as a lurker in Gen-medieval. For obvious reasons I am fascinated by Sir
>Richard Empson one of Henry VII's 'New Men' - Chancellor of the Duchy of
>Cornwall & President of the Council Learned in the Law.
> He, together with Edmund Dudley undoubtedly hold major responsibility
>for shaping the efficient executive (and collecting the fortune), that was
>bequeathed to Henry VIII in 1509. History has however not been kind to these
>'ravening wolves' and has judged Sir Richard particularly harshly. So be
>it....
>am particularly keen to see if I can connect my own family line to his. For
>some time I have been stuck at a marriage of a John Empson to Elizabeth
>Huckin in Stonesfield, Oxfordshire in December 1602. I cannot get back
>further than this.
>Easton Neston - in Northamptonshire where Sir Richard is presumed to have
>grown up. While in later life Sir Richard lived in and around the court (he
>resided near to Edmund Dudley in London Stone, Walbrook in the city), before
>this time both he and his father before him practised law in and around
>Towcester.
>
>Not surprisingly, the books I have consulted concentrate upon Henry VII and
>his son. Little seems to be known of Sir Richard although after his death
>his son appears to have retrieved something of his father's status and
>fortune. His widow remarried and his daughters also married well, but the
>idea then that a branch of the family only three generations after Sir
>Richard's execution, migrated to Oxfordshire is not at all unlikely.
>The wider family probably went into a gradual decline and certainly the
>Oxfordshire Empson have spiralled downward through three generations into
>gentle penury through being stonemasons to foresters and ultimately Ag.
>Labs.
>
>anybody suggest where I might be able to see a record of Sir Richard's trial
>for treason.
>
>ruined by the activities of Dudley and Empson I have to say that it is quite
>obvious that they were only obeying orders......
>
>Best wishes
>
>Richard (Dick) Empson RJEM...@MSN.COM
>
>>From very cold Birmingham, West Midlands where it is trying to snow.
>
>
>
I've sent some stuff already about Richard Empson as a reply to a message
with subject line "John Steele Gordon". I subsequently came across these
two messages, amid a mass of other material I have about Richard which is
historical rather than genealogical. Note that John Steele Gordon appears
in the second message dated 30 Nov 1997 (or should I say "John Steele
Gordon"?).
Gordon Fisher gfi...@shentel.net
Newsgroups: soc.genealogy.medieval
Date: Tue, 21 Jan 1997 09:40:00 -0500
Reply-To: Medieval Genealogy Discussion List <GEN-ME...@MAIL.EWORLD.COM>
Sender: Medieval Genealogy Discussion List <GEN-ME...@MAIL.EWORLD.COM>
From: Dave Utzinger <U...@AOL.COM>
Subject: Re: EMPSON
Comments: To: ward...@flnet.com
To: GEN-ME...@MAIL.EWORLD.COM
In a message dated 97-01-20 19:10:03 EST, you write:
<< am searching for info. on Elizabeth Empson who married Joshua Wright
(1633-1695) probably in Yorkshire, England.
Please let me know if yoiu see a connection. I would like to exchange
information. Thank you.
Richard Ward
>>
Hi Richard: Here's my EMPSON data
Generation No. 1
1. SIR RICHARD1 EMPSON was born in of Northamptonshire, and died 15-Aug-1510
in London, ENG (beheaded).
Notes
Was beheaded at London on Tower-hill, Aug 15, 1510, in the early part of the
reign of Henry VIII.
Children of Sir EMPSON are:
2. i. ELIZABETH2 EMPSON.
ii. JANE EMPSON, m. JOHN PYNCHON.
iii. MARY EMPSON, m. EDWARD BULSTRODE.
Generation No. 2
2. ELIZABETH2 EMPSON (SIR RICHARD1). She married SIR THOMAS LUCY.
Child of Elizabeth EMPSON and Sir LUCY is:
3. i. BARBARA3 LUCY, b. Abt 1496, Charlecote, Warwick, ENG.
Generation No. 3
3. BARBARA3 LUCY (ELIZABETH2 EMPSON, SIR RICHARD1) was born Abt 1496 in
Charlecote, Warwick, ENG. She married RICHARD TRACY, son of Sir TRACY and
Margaret THROCKMORTON.
Children of Barbara LUCY and Richard TRACY are:
4. i. SIR PAUL4 TRACY, b. Bef 1549, Stanway, GLS, ENG; d. 1626,
GLS, ENG.
ii. HESTER TRACY, b. 1549, Stanway, GLS, ENG; m. ROLAND SMARTE.
5. iii. NATHANIEL TRACY, b. 1551, Stanway, GLS, ENG; d. Bef 1623.
iv. SUSAN TRACY, b. 1553, Stanway, GLS, ENG; m. (1) EDWARD
BARKER; m. (2)
SIR HENRY BILLINGSLEY.
v. JUDITH TRACY, b. 1555, Stanway, GLS, ENG; m. FRANCIS
THROGMORTON.
vi. SAMUEL TRACY, b. 1592, Stanway, GLS, ENG.
Additions, corrections, proofs, disproofs always WELCOME.
Always optimistic--Dave
Resent-Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 17:21:10 -0800 (PST)
Date: Sun, 30 Nov 1997 20:21:14 -0500
From: Adrian Channing <ACha...@compuserve.com>
Subject: Sir Thomas Bodley
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John Steele Gordon wrote;
> Sir Thomas Bodley (1545-1613) founded the Bodleian Library at Oxford. He
> was born at Exeter on March 2nd, 1545.
>
> Does anyone have his ancestry?
>
> I am descended from an Elizabeth Bodley, born abt 1494. She married
> William Tyrrell of Ockendon, Essex. Her father was Thomas Bodley, born
> abt 1460. He married ----------Leech, born abt 1465.
>
> I am wondering (alright, alright, I'm hoping) that she is of the same
> family.
>From "The Tyrells of England" by O F Brown (Published by Phillimore & Co,
UK 1982)
Jane dau. of Robert Ingleton by Anne dau. of Sir Richard Empson (Hy VIII
most hated tax-gatherer) was born in 1502, her father died in 1503 and she
was made a ward of he g-f Richard Empson. When he was executed in 1510 she
was put in the wardship of George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury who assigned
the wardship to John Bradbury of London and James Bodley of Walden, Essex.
"He was presumably a son of the Thomas Bodley whose daughter, Elizabeth,
had married William Tyrell of Ockendon, as Jane was given in marriage by
James Bodley to Humphrey Tyrell, the son of William and Elizabeth, c. 1517
(V.C.H. Buckinghamshire gives "by 1517". James Bodley was grandfather of
Thomas Bodley, 1545-1613, the founder of the Bodleian Library at Oxford).
It is noted in 1518: "Humphrey son and heir apparent of William Tirell of
South Wokyngdon, Essex, granted livery of the lands of his wife Joan[sic]
who is daughter and heiress of Robert son of George and Sibilla Yngleton".
(Letters and Papers, Henry VIII, Vol II, pt 2, No. 4404)"
So it looks as though your hopes are (presumably) realized,
Regards,
Adrian Channing (Surrey, UK) ACha...@CompuServe.Com
thelad...@gmail.com
Many individuals show Jane Empson who married John Pynchon & then Thomas Wilson as the daughter of Sir Richard Empson who was beheaded at the behest of Henry VIII, however this is impossible. Much is known about Sir Richard including the fact that he was beheaded in 1510. Jane was not born until 1534, which means that either her mother was pregnant for 24 years or that there is no way Jane is the daughter of Sir Richard, the latter being a more likely scenario. Her oldest son was born in 1560 which is reasonable with her birth being in 1534, but not in 1510/1511.
Sir Richard did actually have 4 daughters, one of whom was named was Joan, not Jane. She married Henry Sothill who was an attorney general for Henry VII, after he died she married Sir William Pierrepont.
I am also a direct descendent of Jane Empson. It would be interesting to see if there is a direct connection there.
As for Richard Empson, yes, Sir Richard & Sir Dudley were definitely scapegoats, Henry VIII didn't want to admit that they were only doing their job as given to them by his father, it was easier for his to get rid of them, and being a king with the power of life & death he certainly was one bloody king. I mean, after all, how many of his wives did he get rid of?
Judith Clark