Sir Thomas Moyle was a commissioner for Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

 in the dissolution of the monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

, and speaker

Speaker of the British House of Commons

The Speaker of the House of Commons is the presiding officer of the House of Commons, the United Kingdom's lower chamber of Parliament. The current Speaker is John Bercow, who was elected on 22 June 2009, following the resignation of Michael Martin...

 of the House of Commons in the Parliament of England

Parliament of England

The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England. In 1066, William of Normandy introduced a feudal system, by which he sought the advice of a council of tenants-in-chief and ecclesiastics before making laws...

 from 1542 to 1544.

Life

He was the fourth son of John Moyle (died 1500, born in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, MP for Bodmin

Bodmin (UK Parliament constituency)

Bodmin was the name of a parliamentary constituency in Cornwall from 1295 until 1983. Initially, it was a parliamentary borough, which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of England and later the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until the 1868 general...

 and Kentish, Cornish and Devon landowner) and Anne Darcy (his second wife, one of Sir Robert Darcy's daughters and heirs). By 1528, Thomas had followed his father's example and married an heiress, Katherine Jordeyne, one of the daughters of Edward Jordeyne (died 1514), a leading goldsmith at Cheapside

Cheapside

Cheapside is a street in the City of London that links Newgate Street with the junction of Queen Victoria Street and Mansion House Street. To the east is Mansion House, the Bank of England, and the major road junction above Bank tube station. To the west is St. Paul's Cathedral, St...

 with a manor

Manorialism

Manorialism, an essential element of feudal society, was the organizing principle of rural economy that originated in the villa system of the Late Roman Empire, was widely practiced in medieval western and parts of central Europe, and was slowly replaced by the advent of a money-based market...

 at Raynham

Raynham

Raynham is the name of multiple placesUnited States:*Raynham, Massachusetts**Raynham Center, Massachusetts*Raynham, North CarolinaUnited Kingdom:*Raynham, Norfolk**site of Raynham Hall...

 and employed at the mint

Royal Mint

The Royal Mint is the body permitted to manufacture, or mint, coins in the United Kingdom. The Mint originated over 1,100 years ago, but since 2009 it operates as Royal Mint Ltd, a company which has an exclusive contract with HM Treasury to supply all coinage for the UK...

 in the Tower of London

Tower of London

Her Majesty's Royal Palace and Fortress, more commonly known as the Tower of London, is a historic castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London, England. It lies within the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, separated from the eastern edge of the City of London by the open space...

.

He entered politics in 1542 as the Member of Parliament

Member of Parliament

A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...

 for Peterborough

Peterborough (UK Parliament constituency)

Peterborough is a borough constituency represented in the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, formally styled The Honourable the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled. It elects one Member of Parliament by the first past...

 and was elected Speaker of the House. He subsequently represented Rochester

Rochester (UK Parliament constituency)

Rochester was a parliamentary constituency in Kent. It returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of England from 1295 to 1707, then to the House of Commons of Great Britain from 1708 to 1800, and finally to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom from 1801...

 four times from 1545 to 1553 and King's Lynn

King's Lynn (UK Parliament constituency)

King's Lynn was a constituency in Norfolk, known as Lynn or Bishop's Lynn prior to 1537, which returned two Members of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom until 1885, and one member thereafter. Until 1918 it was a parliamentary borough, after which the name...

 in November 1554.

Moyle employed Richard Plantagenet

Richard Plantagenet (Richard of Eastwell)

Richard Plantagenet or Richard of Eastwell was a reclusive bricklayer who claimed to be a son of Richard III, the last Plantagenet King of England.-Life:...

 to build Eastwell Place and (according to family tradition recorded around 1720 in Desiderata Curiosa) listened to his claims to be son of Richard III

Richard III of England

Richard III was King of England for two years, from 1483 until his death in 1485 during the Battle of Bosworth Field. He was the last king of the House of York and the last of the Plantagenet dynasty...

 and allowed him to live in the grounds until his death in 1550.

Descendents

Moyle made his will on 1 August 1560, leaving his wife property at Clerkenwell and his grandchildren houses in Newgate. Also leaving some land and an endowment to Eastwell parish for an almshouse, he split the remainder of his estates (in Kent, Surrey, Middlesex, Devon, and Somerset) between his daughter Amy's widower Thomas Kempe and his daughter Katherine. Katherine's husband was Sir Thomas Finch, and the couple's children were the ancestors of the earls of Winchilsea and Nottingham

Earl of Winchilsea

Earl of Winchilsea and Earl of Nottingham are two titles in the Peerage of England held by the Finch family that have been united under a single holder since 1729. The Finch family is believed to be descended from Henry FitzHerbert, Lord Chamberlain to King Henry I . The name change came in the...

. (He also left £6 13s. 4d. to Clement Norton, a former vicar of Faversham who had, like Moyle, joined in the 1543 anti-evangelical prebendaries' plot

Prebendaries' Plot

The Prebendaries' Plot was an attempt made by religious conservatives in England to oust Thomas Cranmer from office as archbishop of Canterbury. The events took place in 1543 and saw Cranmer formally accused of being a heretic...

 to overthrow Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer

Thomas Cranmer was a leader of the English Reformation and Archbishop of Canterbury during the reigns of Henry VIII, Edward VI and, for a short time, Mary I. He helped build a favourable case for Henry's divorce from Catherine of Aragon which resulted in the separation of the English Church from...

 as Archbishop of Canterbury

Archbishop of Canterbury

The Archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and principal leader of the Church of England, the symbolic head of the worldwide Anglican Communion, and the diocesan bishop of the Diocese of Canterbury. In his role as head of the Anglican Communion, the archbishop leads the third largest group...

.)

External links

• Thomas Moyle's entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography