William Tyndale in Gloucestershire

Trans. Bristol & Gloucestershire Archaeological Society 131 (2013), 189–198 William Tyndale in Gloucestershire By BRIAN BUXTON It has long been reckoned that ‘the father of the English Bible’ came of a Gloucestershire family and certainly he spent some months in the county around 1523, living in the household of Sir John Walsh at Little Sodbury. Curiously, though, for one who arguably may be considered the most significant figure of the Reformation in England, there are real mysteries surrounding periods of his life. It has seemed impossible to be sure where he fitted into the Tyndale family of Gloucestershire. Nor has there been any certainty as to his whereabouts between 1516 and 1523, prior to his appearance at Little Sodbury. The martyrologist John Foxe put him at Cambridge during these years, but more recently it has been suggested that he was in his home county. These two areas of uncertainty are the subject of this article. ‘Born upon the borders of Wales’ In 1712 Sir Robert Atkyns published his great work The Ancient and Present State of Glocestershire. In describing the parish of North Nibley he wrote of ‘William Tyndal, who was burnt in Flanders for his new translating the Bible, and was born in this place’. This identification of North Nibley as the birthplace was also made at about the same time by Chancellor Richard Parsons. Others have been led to consider Stinchcombe an alternative, so that in 2011 an estate agent marketing Melksham Court, Stinchcombe, felt able to write : ‘it is believed that William Tyndale … was born in Melksham Court’.1 Either North Nibley or Stinchcombe is usually considered to have been the most likely home of the family of William Tyndale, although most of those who have investigated his origins have not felt able to speak with the confidence of Atkyns, Parsons or the present day estate agent.2 There is only one source from the 16th century which makes some claim to have knowledge of Tyndale’s birthplace. Twelve years after his execution in Brussels a short paragraph about that event appeared under the year 1535/6 in the book commonly known as Hall’s Chronicles. This includes the sentence: ‘suche as best knewe him reported him to be a very sobre man, borne vpon the borders of Wales, and briought vp in the vniuersitie of Oxford and in life and conuersacion 1. Sir R. Atkyns, The Ancient and Present State of Glocestershire (London 1712: 2nd edn. unrevised 1768), 304; J. Fendley (ed.) Notes on the Diocese of Gloucester by Chancellor Richard Parsons (Glos. Rec. Series 19, BGAS 2005), 105. Parsons wrote of Nibley: ‘Tyndall the martyr born here and his family still remain at Hunt Court having about £100 per annum’. Sale particulars by Smith Gore estate agents, Stow-on-the-Wold, 2009. 2. Slimbridge has sometimes been named also. There appears no justification for this. One branch of the Tyndale family acquired drained marshland there for use as pasture shortly before William’s birth, but there is no suggestion that they lived there. Edward Tyndale, possible brother of William, acquired a lease on a property there, but not until 1516. 189-198_BGAS131_Buxton.indd 189 22/01/2014 15:27 190 BRIAN BUXTON vnreprouable’.3 It sounds as if Hall received information from some person or persons who had known Tyndale but who had only a vague idea as to his home area. Clearly ‘the borders of Wales’ is far from being a precise location. Tracing back through the centuries to discover how the tradition developed of Tyndale’s origins being in the Berkeley area of Gloucestershire proves a rather inconclusive exercise. After Hall’s Chronicles there does not seem to be any claim regarding his birthplace until the statements of Atkyns and Parsons early in the 18th century. It is clear that there was a tradition in the Tyndale family based at Hunts Court, North Nibley, associating William with that place. Those who favoured this belief would quote a pedigree relating to Hunts Court given in 1639 by John Smyth of Nibley, steward of the Berkeley estates. Smyth made no reference to William, but he did say that there was a ‘Hugh Tyndall als Hutchins’ married into the Hunt family and possessing Hunts Court c.1480. At first sight this would seem to show a possession of Hunts Court by Tyndales sufficiently early for it to have been the childhood home of William, whose birth is most commonly placed in either 1490/1 or 1494, but could be slightly earlier. However, what Smyth says conflicts with the documented evidence for the coming together of the Hunts Court estate with that of Melksham Court, Stinchcombe, by the marriage, probably in the first years of the 16th century, of an Alice Hunt, heiress of Hunts Court, with a Thomas Tyndale of Melksham Court. Also, in a clear error, Smyth gives Thomas’ father as John, rather than the recorded Richard.4 The mid 19th-century historian of the Bible in English Christopher Anderson was one of the first to suggest Stinchcombe as an alternative to Nibley, although he himself seemed reluctant to accept this idea.5 There are very clear records which show Tyndales living in Stinchcombe. By the fact of the execution in 1539 of the lord of the manor, Sir Adrian Fortescue, the manorial records of Stinchcombe came into the hands of the state and many still survive in the National Archives. In fact Fortescue only held this manor through marriage, but nevertheless those who cleared his papers on behalf of the Crown removed the Stinchcombe records. These have some references as far back as c.1400 and are more fully detailed from the late 15th century up to the 1530s.6 These records, mainly rentals and minutes of the manorial court, confirm the residence in Stinchcombe of various members not only of the Tyndale family but also of the Hychyns family, and with a few individuals who used both names. The Hychyns references are significant in view of the fact that William Tyndale seems to have called himself ‘William Hychyns’ when at Oxford 3. E. Halle, The Union of the Two Noble Houses of Lancaster and York (1548: Scolar Press, 1970, facsimile of the 2nd edn. of 1550) , ccxxvii. Halle died in 1547 and the work was then completed and published by the printer Richard Grafton. Hall was presumably the source of the identical statement made by John Foxe later in the century. 4. J. Smyth, The Berkeley Manuscripts: A Description of the Hundred of Berkeley in the County of Gloucester and of its Inhabitants, III (ed. J. Maclean , BGAS 1885), 284. For documents clarifying the descent of Melksham Court, see below for the Tyndales at Stinchcombe. Tyndale’s date of birth is unknown. The later date of 1494 was calculated primarily from information in the Oxford university records, whilst the earlier date of 1490/91, the one today more generally favoured, is derived from the fact that he should have been 24 when ordained priest in London in April 1515. He could have received a dispensation to be ordained at a younger age, but searches have found no evidence of such. There is also the possibility that he was older than the minimum age when ordained. 5. C. Anderson, The Annals of the English Bible, I (London 1845), 15ff. 6. The Stinchcombe manorial records are mainly catalogued at the National Archives under Special Collections (SC). I am grateful to Simon Neal, member of the Association of Genealogists and Researchers in Archives (www.agra.org.uk), who has produced for me translations of the relevant passages. 189-198_BGAS131_Buxton.indd 190 22/01/2014 15:27 WILLIAM TYNDALE IN GLOUCESTERSHIRE 191 and when ordained to the various orders of ministry, and later, in his publications, he sometimes used the name ‘William Tyndale otherwise called William Hychyns’.7 The earliest document, from c.1400, suggests that the Tyndale family were already based on an estate centred on the property known as Melksham Court and including a ‘toft and two acres of land formerly Holderes’ of both of which ‘John Tendale’ was the tenant.8 There is then a gap in the surviving records until 1478, when the existence of the two families, Tyndale and Hychyns, and some link between them, becomes clear. In a rental of that May it appears that the property and land which had been held by John Tendale had been divided. A Tebeta Hochyns was now tenant of Melksham, whilst a Richard Tyndale held the croft known as Holderscroft. In due course, although there are no dates in surviving records, it seems that Richard acquired Melksham as well and that the tenancy of both estates then passed down through his family. There is no evidence as to the relationship between Tebeta and Richard.9 Two sons of Richard, Thomas and William, then held the lands jointly. From 1507 to 1523 there are several rentals which contain this sentence, or similar: ‘Thomas Tyndale alias Huchyns and William Tyndale, his brother, jointly hold by indenture a tenement called Milkesham with a toft called Holdarse and pay per annum £4 17s. 8d.’.10 There were other members of the two families in surrounding areas. Tyndales held land in the Southend area of Stinchcombe and there are references to both families in Cam. However, the only surviving record of a William who could conceivably be the future ‘father of the English Bible’ is that of the William of Melksham Court.11 Probably the most assiduous searcher after Tyndale was B.W. Greenfield, who, after marrying into the Tyndale family, spent 30 years trawling every possible resource in days when archives were far less user-friendly than today and the internet was more than a century away.

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