Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society – The De Tanys of Stapleford Tawney by L.R. Buttle, B.A.

The de Tanys of Stapleford Tawney

Taken from ‘Transactions of the Essex Archaeological Society. New Series., Volume 20 (1931), p.153-172.’

THE main interest in the village of Stapleford Tawney now lies in its name. Its distinguishing appellative is what our barbarous Essex tongue has made of the name of one of the most interesting families of mediaeval Essex - the de Tanys. Though interesting, the de Tanys are in no way remarkable; their history follows very closely that of most mediaeval families. They first rise to importance through marriage with an heiress, and later increase their possessions by the same means. They give of their lands to endow a monastery; they perform many of the lesser functions concerned with the administration of government. They live, quietly on the whole, on their manors, hunting their neighbours or hunting with them. It is only when some great cataclysm like the Barons’ wars shakes the countryside to its foundations that they emerge to play a part on a wider stage, and shine with a fitful gleam - and then ingloriously - in the pageant of national history.

Like so many other mediaeval families, they die out ignominiously, early deaths and unfruitful marriages standing in eloquent testimony to the health of the time. It is this “unremarkableness” of the family, however, which lends the study of its history, its value: the Middle Ages present few such characters as Geoffrey de Mandeville or Simon de Montfort; there are,

alas! many like the younger Richard de Tany.¹³ There is very little information accessible in print concerning the family. Morant, usually so helpful, only copies Dugdale, whose pedigree, though less faulty than many to be found in his pages, has numerous gaps and inaccuracies. The de Tanys played but a small part in the history of the time, and notices of them in contemporary annals and histories are few. They seem, too, to have aroused but slight interest among the antiquaries of a later age; even the late Dr. J.H . Round devoted but little attention to them m his published writings!¹⁴ The present paper, though based on careful research, is yet to be regarded as a pioneer effort - with indulgence. The object of its writer will be achieved if it elicits some additional information from its readers. The early history of the Tany family is obscure, and this paper does but little to clear it. It is included here merely in order to add some degree of completeness to this study. The only evidence available for its compilation consists of entries in the Pipe Rolls, and the Red Book of the Exchequer, and a few charters. From these the following pedigree may be constructed : its conclusions are substantially the same as those arrived at by Dugdale.

Roger, miles Johanuis filii Waleranni.
I
Maud = Hasculf de Tany, living in 1130.
I
Graeland, living in 1166.
I
Hasculf, living in 1180.
I
Gilbert = Emma, o.s.p.m. 1221.

The Roger, whose name appears first on the above pedigree, was a benefactor of the Abbey of Bermondsey, giving them the tithes of Fyfield in 1092. The gift is thus recorded in the annals of the abbey: 1092. Et etiam hoc anno Rogerus miles Johannis filii 'Valeranni, concedente eadem Johanne, dedit monasterio de Bermundeseis decimas de Fifhide quem donationem confirmaverunt Vvillelmus secundus et Henricus primus, reges Angliae. [[REF¹⁵]]

[Translated: 1092. And also this year Roger, son of John 'Valeran', with the consent of the same John, gave the monastery of Bermondsey tithes from Fifhide, a donation that was confirmed by William II and Henry I, kings of England.] He has generally been assumed to be a de Tany. The cautious Morant

16 does not definitely state this : he says, “I suppose, de Tany”; Mr. H. R. Luard, who edited the Annals of Bermondsey in the Rolls series, annotates the entry “Roger de Tany,” and, apart from the query of Dr. Round,¹⁷ this has always passed unchallenged. But the fact that the gift was confirmed and extended, not by Hasculf de Tany, but by his

wife Maud, leads one to suppose that Roger was not a de Tany at all; that Maud was his heiress, and that she carried the estates at Aveley and Fyfield in marriage to the de Tanys. This makes Hasculf the founder of the family and its fortunes. Dugdale¹⁸ implies that he was the son of that Robert de Tani who witnessed the foundation charter of Selby Abbey: chronology makes this unlikely. Clutterbuck¹⁹ assumes he was the son of Rainald who held the manor of Eastwick in Hertfordshire at the time of the Survey: this has no proof. He was certainly living in 1131 when he was engaged in litigation with Rualo d'Avranches and William de Bovill, finally making good his right to lands in Essex which Morant identifies as the manor of Great Leighs.²⁰ Both he and his son Graeland are mentioned in Geoffrey de Mandeville's charter from the Empress Maud,²¹ when Graeland's holding is described as being seven-and-a-half knight's fees.

Six of these fees were in Aveley, or as the name appears in the Red Book, Auvilers.²² This Graeland is to be carefully distinguished from his less wealthy contemporary, of the same name, who holds only two fees, and who is always described on the Pipe Rolls by his patronymic, Graelaudus filius Gilberti de Tany.

23 Graeland confirmed his mother's gift of the church of Fyfield to Bermondsey, and his son Hasculf who succeeded him, amplified it. He obtained a release of the advowson, and in return confirmed to the monks two-thirds of the tithes from his demesne and undertook to give them an acre of land on which to build a tithe-barn, and to secure an annuity of forty shillings for them from the parson of Fyfield.²⁴ Later he purchased the soke in London belonging to Andrew Buckerel, the protracted payment by instalments to Andrew's widow, Idonea, appearing on the Pipe Rolls.²⁵ He was succeeded by his son Gilbert, who in 1195 paid a relief of 100l. for his holding of seven-and-a-half knight's fees.²⁶ He died in 1221 leaving a widow, Emma, who was given dower in Fyfield.²⁷ He left no male issue, and his wide possessions were divided between his heirs, who in the Pipe Roll of 1230 are named as Nicholas de Beauchamp and Stephen de Langeton; [[REF²⁸]] another heir, mentioned by Dugdale, Matilda, wife of Adam de Legh, had already sold her share in 1223.²⁹ Such is the meagre history of the main line of the elder branch: many others bearing the name of de Tany are to be found in the sources mentioned above, but it is impossible to fix their relation definitely with the main line.

Dr. Round linked up some of them in his edition of the Rotuli de Dominabus, 1185,³⁰ showing that Alizia de Tany was actually Alice, daughter and heiress of William Fitz Jocelin, and a de Tany only by marriage with Picot de Tany. Picot appears frequently on the Pipe Rolls of Henry II,³¹ and had a brother Peter. He gave his name to the manor of Picots in Ardleigh. There was Juliana de Tany, too, a mysterious figure even in her own day: she owed the Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire 73s. 4d. for several years; he could only write off the debt as a bad one, commenting that the lady was nowhere

to be found.³² With Gilbert, the elder branch died out; a few years later, a younger branch became prominent in Hertfordshire. They were seated at Eastwick, and were almost certainly descended from that Richard de Tany who in 1210-2 had held two fees in Eastwick and Bengeo.³³ It is with this branch of the family that this paper is mainly concerned. The first of the de Tany family found at Stapleford Tawney is Richard, who obtained the manor by his marriage with Margaret, daughter of William Fitz Richard, and heiress of the family which had held Stapleford since the days of Henry II. The marriage must have taken place sometime before 1240: their son and heir is described in 1270 as being thirty years of age.³⁴ Morant,³⁵ copying Dugdale, makes Richard the son of John de Tany who gave the manor of Theydon Bois to Waltham Abbey, and grandson of Sir Peter de Tany.

I can find no confirmation of this, and the Plea Rolls³⁶ give definite proof that he was the son, not the grandson of Sir Peter, to whose lands he succeeded in 1255. Sir Peter was possibly the son of that Richard who had held Eastwick in 1212. He had been Sheriff of Essex and Hertfordshire in 1236,³⁷ and been granted in the same year the custody of the castle of Hertford and of the honour of Boulogne.³⁸ He is frequently to be found on the King's business: in 1232 as one of the collectors of a fortieth³⁹; in 1236, taking the Assize at St. Albans,⁴⁰ and as late as 1251, visiting Essex “to enquire in the presence of the Keeper of the King's Pleas . .. touching the persons who by night burned the houses of Christiana de Plumberge (sic) in Little Bemfleet.”

41 He appears to have lived principally on his manor at Eastwick, and was probably buried there. In the tower of the modern church there is the Purbeck marble effigy of a knight, cross-legged, and clad in complete chain mail. Over this he wears a long surcoat and bears a long narrow shield, unfortunately without charges. Gough has described it as “of blue stone sharply cut, in a style superior to the generality of these figures,” and adds “I am not certain if there were not some raised letters on the edge of the tomb”.⁴² It dates from the middle of the thirteenth century and is unusually well preserved (pl. i.). Very likely it commemorates Sir Peter, whose death took place shortly before 1255, rather than, as has been suggested,⁴³ his son Richard, who was probably buried at Stapleford. For the first few years of his married life, little information is forthcoming about Richard de Tany.

In 1246 he did homage to the King for the lands held by him and his wife of the honour of Raleigh and paid a relief of 40l.⁴⁴ These lands included the manors of Stapleford, Elmstead, Great Stambridge, Chignall St. James and Latton. He seems to have left Eastwick and to have made his wife's chief manor at Stapleford his residence. He steadily improved his position, having obtained by fair means or foul - and considering his son's later conduct, one is bound to admit the alternative access to the royal ear, and a long series of grants of privileges followed.

The Forest of Essex surrounded him at Stapleford and must have claimed much of his attention: in 1253 he received a licence to hunt there with his own dogs-the hare, fox, cat and badger, and to carry them away.⁴⁵ This licence was renewed later, and given more definite form: he and his heirs may have eight harriers and twenty brachets to hunt in the forest when they will, saving the fence month and saving also the King's warrens and those of others.⁴⁶ At the same time he received exemption for life from being put on assizes. He also received, in 1253, a grant of free warren in his demesne lands in Elmstead and Great Stambridge, a grant subsequently extended to include all his demesne lands in Essex and Hertfordshire, provided that they were not within the King's Forest.⁴⁷ In 1264 further privileges were granted to him: after an Inquisition ad quod damnum held by Richard de Munfitchet, Steward of the Forest, he received licence to enclose with a dyke and hedge his wood of Stapleford Taney within the metes of the forest, together with five acres of his demesne land adjoining, and to make a park.⁴⁸ Three years previously, Peter de Tany, described as king's yeoman, and possibly Richard's brother, had had a similar licence to enclose a waste place on his demesne land at Theydon Bois “with a little dyke and a low hedge, so that the deer can get in and out,” and to assart it and bring it into cultivation.⁴⁹ Nor is the list yet complete.

On 15 April, 1253, Richard obtained a grant of a weekly market at Elmstead on Tuesday, and of a yearly fair there on the vigil, the feast, and the morrow of Trinity Sunday; of a weekly market at Eastwick and of a yearly fair there on the vigil, the feast, and the morrow of St. Botolph.⁵⁰ Neither of these fairs ever attained to the fame which surrounded the great fairs at Stourbridge or St. Ives, but to the villagers they gave wonderful opportunities of buying goods brought from abroad by foreign merchants which would otherwise have been wholly beyond their reach. In the wake of the merchants and packmen, too, came minstrels and tale-tellers only too ready to satisfy the demands of the village audience, sated with French story, for the heroic figures of English myth and history, for stories of Arthur and Tristan and the Holy Graal. So English language and English traditions revive: country villages like Elmstead and Eastwick played their part in the movement which gave England the Canterbury Tales.

Having so greatly enhanced his fortunes by marriage, de Tany was not unwilling to gain further benefits by the same means. Like his son later, he cast covetous eyes on the manors adjoining his own. By great good fortune, the heir to the large manor of Stanford and other wide estates was a minor – John, son of Richard de Rivers and heir of Lady Maud de Lucy⁵¹: the opportunity was too good a one to be missed. In 1255, therefore, de Tany made an agreement with the boy's guardian, Sir Philip Basset, granting him the manor and advowson of Great Stambridge for ten years at a nominal rental, in return for the right of marriage of the young heir and his sister. John is to marry de Tany's daughter, Mary; his sister, Matilda, is to marry one of de Tany's sons.⁵² Letters Patent inspecting and confirming the grant were obtained on 6 February,⁵³ and apparently the marriages took place.

John de Rivers remained throughout his life a close friend of his wife's family. All trouble, however, was not at an end: on Basset's death in 1271, de Tany's son, Ricbard, complained that the escheator hindered him from peaceful possession of the manor of Stambridge; the facts of the agreement were stated, but a full enquiry bad to be held before

de Tany secured recognition of his right of possession.⁵⁴ The fact that the elder Richard and Basset had been prominent supporters of opposite sides in the Barons' wars can hardly have rendered their relations pleasant, and Richard, no doubt, found it a matter of bad policy to quarrel with the sometime Justiciar of England. These were troublous times, too, in England, even in the heart of the Forest, and Essex was far from quiet. De Tany, as a prominent tenant-in-chief, was frequently called upon by the King to settle some dispute that bad arisen in the county: Richard de Baudreswell had been arrested at Colchester, although the King had already pardoned his outlawry for his flight for larceny; de Tany was ordered, with William de Grey, to do justice in the matter.

55 Lawlessness, however, was on the increase, and assumed such serious proportions, that in 1258, the Barons found it necessary to lake special measures. As a result, de Tany was appointed, with three other knights - Richard Filliol, Henry de Beauchamp, and Richard de Harlow - to enquire in Essex “touching excesses, trespasses and injuries committed there.”

56 The special function of the knights appointed in each county was to watch the sheriffs, these officials being everywhere regarded with much misgiving. Henry had vainly, in 1253, tried to sharpen their vigilance by holding them personally responsible for undetected robberies. At the same time, it was realised that they had great power in the counties, and their appointment, as will he shown later, when it touches de Tany more closely, was carefully watched by both parties. Sometimes the trouble met Richard at home. Two of his villagers at Stapleford, Ralf Faber and William de Hassend, brought their quarrels before the justices in 1248: Ralf was committed to "gayole."⁵⁷ Village feuds occasionally assumed serious proportions. Early in 1258, de Tany's manor-house was attacked and plundered, one man, probably one of his own servants, being killed. An enquiry was duly made, and one Peter le Juvene was arrested and imprisoned.

Later, it was alleged that he had been convicted on the evidence of people ill-disposed towards him and the case had to be investigated afresh, not by the Sheriff, but by Nicholas de Hadlo, specially appointed by the King.⁵⁸ The case aptly illustrates the contest which was constantly being fought in the thirteenth century between royal and feudal justice. Whatever the result of the investigation, it did little to redress de Tany's loss: less than a month afterwards, his park at Stapleford was entered and some of his deer stolen.⁵⁹ Robert de Brus, who will figure later in this paper, his neighbour at Theydon Mount, was appointed to enquire into the matter. In the meantime, England was rapidly drifting into civil war. Essex had the good fortune to be out of the line of march of any of the armies who fought for King or Barons, and the county as a whole remained loyal to the King.⁶⁰ Not so the de Tany family: following the example of his overlord at Eastwick, Baldwin Wake, Richard de Tany, the elder, and many of his relatives, took up arms on behalf of Simon de Montfort; the younger Richard de Tany, his son, sided with the King.

Though I have not been able to discover any indication that father and son met in battle, the difference in allegiance must have been a piquant element in family life at Stapleford. The elder Richard appears to have played a prominent part in the rebellion in Essex. As mentioned above, he was appointed as one of the four knights to watch the Sheriff there. The Oxford Parliament had also provided that special safeguards should surround the appointment of the Sheriff in future. He was to be selected by the Council from four men chosen in the county court : de Tany was so chosen

as Sheriff in 1259.

61 He continued in office until 1261, when Henry, his position strengthened, removed him and appointed Matthew de la Mare, at the same time ordering him to deliver the castles of Colchester and Hadleigh to his successor.⁶² He seems to have retained, or to have regained later, possession of Colchester: in 1264 he was ordered to deliver the castle to Nicholas le Espigornell.⁶³ The King's nominees were afterwards removed by the Council and de Tany resumed office in 1264 as custos, or guardian of the peace. Meanwhile, he had been one of the knights of the shire summoned by the provisional government in 1261 to St. Albans and later to London. In 1263, the King, also realising the importance of the position taken up by the Knights, summoned this assembly to Windsor to treat of matters touching the realm, Henry adding fearfully that he did not propose to infringe the Provisions of Oxford in any way.⁶⁴ Thither then, de Tany went, taking as directed, “the horses and arms which he had brought with him to London.” Little resulted from these parleys, however, and war broke out in 1263.

With the course of the war this paper is not concerned. Richard de Tany appears to have taken but small part in the actual fighting, but he was nonetheless an enthusiastic supporter of de Montfort's interests - and one suspects, of his own - in Essex. In order to raise the money necessary to carry on the war, special officials were appointed by the baronial party to collect contributions levied in each county. Their task, in a royalist county like Essex, was not an easy one, and de Tany found it necessary to use vigorous measures. Luke de Albiniaco, a plaintiff before the King in 1267,⁶⁵ refers to his methods in the following terms: ‘Richard de Tany came with letters of Hugh le Despenser, then Justiciar of England, and asked for an aid from the whole county for the use of Simon de Montfort; if he (Luke) refused it, Richard said he would seize all his goods. And the men of the hundred sent on their behalf seven men with the bailiff to make a fine for their hundred, and it so happened that Luke was one of them, for fear of the threats of Richard de Tany and lest he should lose his goods.

And they made a fine for the whole hundred in 10 marks, in order that they might remain in peace. They paid 5 marks of it, and Luke, like the other men of the hundred, paid his share.’ The baronial supporters did not always confine themselves to the collection of money; the manors of the royalists were everywhere plundered ruthlessly, and, in Essex, de Tany was the chief aggressor. The temptation was certainly a strong one. The wealthiest of all Henry's adherents, John Mansel, was a great Essex landowner, a man whose income was, according to the sarcastic Matthew Paris, 4,000 marks a year, ita ut temporibus nostris non est visus clericus ad tantam opulentium ascendisse [translated: It seems that in our times, no cleric has risen to such wealth.].⁶⁶ His manors were systematically plundered, although de Tany is not specifically mentioned as one of his aggressors. He was busy enough elsewhere. The following is a typical case.

Robert de Tateshale, the elder, alleged in 1267 that de Tany and Walter de Bibesworth had taken, despoiled and carried off, goods and chattels from his manor at Little Waltham, to their owner's great damage. The defendants were ordered to make good the loss from their own lands.⁶⁷

Other members of the family were equally zealous. Sir John de Grey alleged that Sir Luke de Tany and others had raided his manors at “Purle, Gibbecrake, Lefeyrs, Lathinden, Snorham, Acreflet and Fenbrigg”; in this case the defendants got off lightly.

68 The losses were not always so heavy. Isabella, countess of Albemarle, had her manor at Esyngton raided by Luke de Tany, but suffered nothing worse than the loss of "duos pullos” - and what can these be but chickens?

69 Sometimes this Luke de Tany played a deeper game: with his brother Peter, both Montfortians, he had, masquerading as a Royalist, attacked two of Henry's supporters, Stephen de Essewell and Thomas de Alba Monasterio, alleging that they were adherents of the Earl of Leicester.⁷⁰ This can scarcely be explained away as actuated by enthusiasm for their cause, and deserved to be punished: Peter de Tany lost his land in the Forest of Waltham,⁷¹ though both he and his brother Luke submitted and received the King's pardon “at the instance of Henry, son of the King of Almain," on 15 September,1266.⁷² The younger Richard de Tany had meantime thrown in his lot with the King, and early in 1266 he was empowered to receive into the King's safe conduct all who were against him in the late troubles, and who had come to make their peace; his brother-in-law, John de Rivers, being associated with him in this office.⁷³ It was indeed a bitter humiliation for the elder Richard to submit to his own son.

Perhaps this explains his delay in making his submission: no less than four promises⁷⁴ of safe conduct were issued to him between 2 April and 6 September, 1266, when, at the instance of Roger de Leyburn, the King remitted to him “his indignation and rancour of mind conceived towards him by occasion of trespasses which he was said to have done against him in time of the disturbance of the realm,” and pardoned him for those trespasses.⁷⁵ The pardon was renewed on 15 February of the following year, with the proviso that he should stand to the award of Kenilworth.⁷⁶ Submission might be unpleasant, but it was unquestionably the wisest course for de Tany to take; though his estate almost certainly suffered through his political sympathy, continued hostility could only have involved its complete loss. The Earl of Oxford, it may be noted, was another of the few prominent Montfortians who showed that their wisdom was greater than their enthusiasm by an early submission.

For the rest of his life de Tany lived in retirement, taking no further part in the now quietened political life of the time. His conscience, one may suppose, troubled him. In 1268, he and one Raynaldus de Tany, gave the monks of Bermondsey the manor of Bengeo, and confirmed the gift of the advowson which an ancestor, Raynaldus, had made in 1151.

77 It is unlikely that religious motives of a very high order were present: his imagination may have been perturbed by thoughts of the horrors of the Day of Doom, which caused him to reflect that a grant to a monastery was an excellent way of forestalling any unpleasant consequences to himself. Two years later, the old rebel died, the writ for the inquisition postmortem being dated 3 November, 1270.⁷⁸ His possessions included, besides the manor and advowson of Stapleford, the manor of

Chignall [St. James], the manor and advowson of Elmstead, the manor of Stambridge, and half-aknight's fee and a moiety of the advowson of Latton. His son, Sir Richard, thirty years of age, was his

heir. The younger Sir Richard did homage to the King on 17 December, 127079 and entered into possession of his inheritance. His political sympathy has already been mentioned: he appears to have been a valuable supporter of Henry and had been appointed in February, 1266, “to defend the parts of the counties of Essex and Hertford, as the King's enemies, especially in the former county, make congregations and conspiracies and perpetrate assaults and invasions to the destruction of those parts.” 80 Duties so arduous were of course rewarded: he was to have 20l. a year at the Exchequer until the King could provide for him in an equivalent of land,⁸¹ a great deal of which was at Henry's disposal, being the forfeited lands of the rebels. There were, however, plenty of claimants for favour and reward also, and the Chancery was in a state of unprecedented activity and consequent confusion. De Tany was forced to wait and saw the most coveted prizes disappearing.

Worst of all, the manor of Theydon Mount, adjoining his own at Stapleford, and formerly the property of the rebel, Robert de Sutton, was given not to him but to Robert de Brus. It was more than he could bear and he set to work to get it by fair means or foul. De Brus's charter was granted and dated 29 October; de Tany turned up with a charter dated 26 October,⁸² and on the strength of it turned him out. De Brus refused to acquiesce, and the case came before the Justices coram Rege. The two charters were cited and their elates examined. Which was the valid one? De Brus urged his claims; de Tany insisted on the validity of his charter. The story gradually came out. The Chancellor had no knowledge of de Tany's charter; none of his clerks had ever written it. On the other band, it was indubitably sealed and the only explanation of that he could offer was this: "at the time when the King granted out lands to a great horde of knights and he himself gave orders to his clerks to make out charters for each in accordance with Walter de Helyon's roll, Richard's charter might have got pushed in with the others to be sealed, so that he sealed it unknowingly and under deception.” So the Chancellor cleared himself: but where had the charter come from?

John le Faukener, who was responsible for sending out all charters, supplied the answer and exposed Richard's devices completely. He had, he said, questioned John le Kirkby, who had a list of the charters granted, and who at first protested his ignorance, but later revealed the whole business. Richard had come to him, said Kirkby, after de Brus was in seisin of Theydon, and had said, “Theydon is a pretty manor and lies next to mine at Stapleford; it would suit me nicely and I’ll go and ask the King to give it to me.” 83 Learning that this was impossible, as the King had already given it to de Brus, Richard had sworn that he should never have it: Certe, nunquam illud habebit [translated: Sure, you will never have it]. One is safe in guessing the rest. He had had a surreptitious charter of prior date drawn up, bribed Walter de Helyon to admit it, and had almost succeeded in carrying off the spoil.

This revelation of de Tany's unscrupulousness did not, however, damage his position with the King, who in 1268, appointed him governor of Hadleigh Castle,⁸⁴ but it must have greatly pleased his father. One is inclined to think that their reconciliation was never complete. Soon after his father's death, Richard is found consider ably in debt. To Master Elias, son of Master Moses, a Jew of London, he owes 140 marks in 1274;

85 he owes Geoffrey Mereth “le Tayiiur” 27l in 1292;⁸⁶ the Bishop of Bath and Wells 15l. in

1281, and the Abbot of St. John's at Colchester, 30 marks in 1288;

87 What is the explanation? Had his father, leaving his revenge to the last, cut him off with the proverbial shilling? Such a supposition is certainly strengthened by the fact that he also sold much of his property. The advowson of Stambridge and a house there went to Sir John de Lovetot in 1278;⁸⁸ the manor and advowson of Chignall went to Thomas de Wayland in 1284.⁸⁹ Latton also was sold. An alternative explanation is that the younger Richard found his means very straitened because of the heavy burden laid on the estates in the shape of fines and forfeitures incurred by his father. Life at Stapleford was uneventful, but presently there came through the Forest rumours of the energetic administration of the new King. On his return from the East in 1274, Edward had ordered a general enquiry into the misconduct of local government officials and the usurpation or misuse of franchises by the magnates.

The commissioners visited de Tany at Eastwick, and were satisfied with his charter for the fair and his charter of free warren.⁹⁰ When they came to Stapleford the tale was different; here he claimed to hold the assize of bread and ale and the view of frankpledge, but was unable to produce any charter confirming those rights, pleading instead immemorial usage. This was of no avail and he was ordered to seek judgment of the King .⁹¹ He inherited his father's love of the chase, and on occasion seems to have found it too strong to be resisted, and the King's venison suffered in consequence. However, he seems to have got off lightly. The Justices in Eyre for the Pleas of the Forest in Essex fined him nine marks in 1279, but he was pardoned and the fine remitted later in the same year.⁹² In 1292, it was alleged that he had connived at the nocturnal expedition of his steward, who with Sir John de Tracy and others had entered the Forest at night on 14 September, 1285, “with bows and arrows, nets and mastiffs, and hunted through the whole night and stretched their nets and took wild animals.”

93 The King harboured no ill-will, however, and in 1296, though busy with the Scottish expedition, found time to order the Justice of the Forest to give him twelve bucks out of the Forest of Essex.⁹⁴ Edward had also employed him on minor judicial business: in 1291 he was appointed justice for gaol delivery at Colchester,⁹⁵ though his conduct of affairs aroused comment and one of his decisions was reversed in 1294. [[REF⁹⁶]]

Occasionally, too, Edward's demands took him further afield. Engaged in the conquest of Wales, the King summoned his tenants in chief to help him. In 1277, Richard de Tany was ordered to appear in person at the muster at Worcester on 1 July. A similar summons came for him in 1282 and was repealed two months later, on 2 August. He was more fortunate than his more famous kinsman, Luke de Tany, who had been summoned on 17 May. Luke, who had been Constable of Tickhill and Knaresborough, Justice of the Forest south of the Trent, Papal Chaplain and Seneschal of Gascony, the last an extremely important position previously held by Simon de Montfort, was defeated and drowned in November 1282, in an attempt to subdue Anglesey.⁹⁷ '

Richard returned home, but Edward's war with France and the threat of war from Scotland, soon involved him in further duties. The coast of the Eastern Counties was judged to be liable to attack, and measures had to be taken to secure its safety. On 14 November 1295, de Tany was therefore appointed custos of the sea shores in Essex and all men were ordered to assist him.⁹⁸ His active life, however, was drawing to a close, and like his father he wished to do what he could to ensure the repose of his soul. In 1286, he received the Royal licence to alienate in mortmain to St. John's Abbey at Colchester, an estate in Benfleet, Nevenden and Bowers Gifford, consisting of 260 acres of land, 9 acres of meadow, 14 acres of pasture, and 100 acres of marsh and 3s. 6d. rent.⁹⁹ The Abbot promised in return to find a monk chaplain to celebrate divine service in his church at the altar of the Holy Martyrs for the souls of Richard, and for his ancestors and heirs.¹⁰⁰ His death occurred in 1296.

His inquisition postmortem¹⁰¹ is undated, but the date may be calculated fairly closely. He was alive on 21 April, when the King's gift of bucks was made to him; he was dead before 1 June, when the escheat or was ordered to take his lands into the King's hand.¹⁰² His diminished estate comprised in Essex only the manors of Stapleford and Elmstead and four acres of meadow in Lambourne. His manor at Stapleford included 6o acres of foreign wood in the forest, “which is a loss to the lord because he assigned a tenant to the keeping of the wood which used to render him 4s. 6d. yearly for his land, but now renders nothing.” By his wife, Julian, he left a son, Roger, born in 1278. He succeeded to his father's estates on coming of age in 1299, after taking the usual oath of homage to the King.¹⁰³ Roger lived but a short time to enjoy his inheritance.

In 1301 he was summoned to perform military service in person against the Scots, the muster being at Berwick-on-Tweed on 24 June.¹⁰⁴ Whether he obeyed and caught there the disease which caused his death two months later, or whether he was already too ill to go, is a moot point. He

died on 24 August 1301,¹⁰⁵ leaving a son, Laurence, aged two, as his heir, and a daughter, Margaret, only a few months old. He had but a fortnight previously completed the arrangements by which he disposed of certain rights in the manor of Cockayne in Elmstead to Benedict de Cokefield.¹⁰⁶ Apart from this he left the estate as he had found it.

His widow, Joan, was given dower on 1 November of the same year,¹⁰⁷ taking the usual oath not to remarry without the King's consent, and her infant son became a ward of the King. Her life, too, was a

short one: she was dead before 24 March 1308, when the escheator was ordered to take her lands into the King's band.¹⁰⁸ She was, it would seem, a woman of considerable property: from now onwards there are careful accounts on the Fine Rolls¹⁰⁹ of the lands of her young son, and these include lands at Bromley and Boxted not previously in the possession of the family. Laurence was destined never to attain his majority: he died in October 1317.¹¹⁰ Besides the manors of Elmstead, Stapleford and Eastwick, be held also lands in Thorndon, Boxted and Bradwell, and some rights remaining in the manor of Cockayne. The place of his burial is not known with certainty, but there is a strong probability that it was at Elmstead. It has already been suggested¹¹¹ that the oak effigy lying on the east windowsill of the south chapel commemorates him.

Apart from the strong support afforded by the date of the figure, there are two additional reasons for holding this view. The figure is obviously intended to represent a young man - a fact at once apparent in the accompanying photograph, reproduced by kind permission from the Report of the Historical Monuments Commission:

112 Laurence de Tany was eighteen years old. Again, the church, rebuilt early in the fourteenth century, is dedicated to St. Laurence and St. Anne, an unusual combination. A fanciful, but not unreasonable supposition, is that the existing church was built to commemorate the young Laurence by his widow or sister, who added his patron saint to the dedication and had his effigy carved to place in it. The de Tany lands, on Laurence's death, passed to

his sister Margaret,¹¹³ then sixteen years old, who carried them in marriage to her husband, John de Drokensford. His widow Margaret, afterwards re-married to Sir Thomas Weston, was assigned dower, a detailed account of this being recorded on the Close Rolls.¹¹⁴ She was given lands in Thorndon, Boxted and Cockayne, of the total annual value of 45 shillings; the advowson of the church at Elmstead as dower of her husband's advowsons, and also a messuage in Elmstead of the yearly value of 2 shillings, 360 acres of land there worth 6l. a year, 10 acres of meadow worth 20 shillings a year, 30 acres of wood of the yearly value of 5 shillings; the pleas and perquisites of the court with the view of frankpledge worth 20 shillings; the boon-works of ten molmen in that town of the yearly value of 27 shillings; 6l. 3s. 1⁄4d. of rent there; and a third of the manor of Eastwick of the yearly value of 26l. 19s. 0d.

The last is given in considerable detail, and enables one to reconstruct a manor house of the fourteenth century. With but slight alterations it would serve for a survey of many an English farmhouse of today. There were assigned to her a third of the chief messuage at Eastwick and of the gardens there, “which third is of the yearly value of 8d., to wit, a bakehouse called the new bakehouse . . . and a house called the dairy with two doors ... and a plot of land before these two houses extending thence to the corner of the porch of the Great Hall and to the corners of the kitchen and the garden enclosure; and a new stable with two doors within the inner gate of the manor and with a porch over the doors . . . and a third of the barn ... and a third of a cowhouse ... and a small house near the gate on the east. The inner and outer gates of the manor and the plot of land extending from the outer gate to the inner gate in length, and from the gate of the enclosure of the barn to the garden behind the kitchen and stable in breadth, and the plot of land from the inner gate of the manor to the plot before the gatehouse and dairy ... shall remain in common, so that she shall have free ingress and egress.” Carefully stated portions of the gardens were also allotted to her.¹¹⁵ It need occasion no surprise that a widow so richly dowered was soon re-married.

With Laurence de Tany's death in 1317, the main male line of the de Tanys bad come to an end. There were many other branches of the family in Essex and Hertfordshire,¹¹⁶ but I have found it impossible to fix their relationship to the main stem : they are for the most part mere names, the only record of which is in some isolated deed. The family has left singularly few traces of its importance, even of its existence. A homestead moat, an addition to the name of an obscure village, perhaps a church, two effigies widely separated and of doubtful identity - these are all that the county can show to attest one of the most powerful thirteenth-century families. See illustration

[[REF¹¹⁷]]

Note: Sir Peter was possibly the son of this Richard who held Eastwick and Bengeo in 1212,¹¹⁸ and who is probably identical with that Richard de Tanei who had held a quarter of a knight's fee at Berden in 1197.¹¹⁹ This land he had quitclaimed to John de Rochford; it had previously been the subject of litigation, Richard appearing in the case, as printed by the Pipe Roll Society,

120 as Richard “de Tanet.” He had also a lengthy suit concerning land at Chelse, co. Herts.¹²¹ In 1194, he sued the Abbot of Bourne for the right of presentation to the church at Eastwick,¹²² this being the first time that the family is mentioned there. In this suit, he is described as “son of Reginald.” Bearing in mind the misspelling already mentioned, there can be little doubt but that this Reginald is identical with that Reginald “de Tanet,”' who in 1176-8 paid five marks pro foresta in Essex and Hertfordshire.¹²³ It is just possible that he is also the Raynold or Reginald who gave the church of Bengeo to the monks of Bermondsey in 1151,¹²⁴ and whom Dugdale makes the son of Hasculf the elder. This would link up the two branches of the family; but it rests too much on supposition, and too little on fact, to be stated positively.¹²⁵