Tyndall (the original spelling, also Tyndale, "Tindol", Tyndal, Tindoll, Tindall, Tindal, Tindale, Tindle, Tindell, Tindill, and Tindel) is the name of an English family taken from the land they held as tenants in chief of the Kings of England and Scotland in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries: Tynedale, or the valley of the Tyne, in Northumberland. With origins in the ancient Anglo Saxon nobility of Northumbria, the Royal Scottish House of Dunkeld and the Anglo-Norman nobility, they have contributed courtiers, judges, writers, historians, sailors, airmen, scientists and philosophers to the history of England, Ireland and the new world. Two members of the family were offered, and declined, the throne of Bohemia in the 15th century and one of their number, William Tyndale, was the first modern translator of the Bible into English and one of the most important figures in the evolution of the modern language. The family is spread today throughout the British Isles and the English speaking world.
Origins
The first documented Lord of Tyndale, from which the Tyndall family derive their name, was Uchtred or Huctred Fitz Waltheof, who married Bethoc, daughter of Donald III, King of Scots from 1093 to 1099.Bain, Joseph, Calendar of Documents Relating to Scotland, (Edinburgh, 1889) vol. 2, p. xxYoung, Alan, Robert the Bruce's Rivals: The Comyns, 1213–1314, (East Linton, 1997), pp15 - His daughter Hextilda married Richard Comyn, and this connection served as the basis for John Comyn II of Badenoch to put forward a claim to the Scottish crown.
Barony of Tindale The earliest feudal records indicate that an Adam de Tindale was the feudal Baron of South Tyne-dale and of Langeley/Langley Castle, both in the county of Northumberland. Adam was succeeded by his son, Adam, who held the Barony during the reign of Richard I of England. He left two daughters, who became co-heirs to the Tindale Barony and to Langley Castle. The elder, Philippa, married Adam Nicholas de Bolteby and conveyed to her husband the Barony of South Tyne-dale. It passed through inheritance in the female line to the family of Lucy and, later, to the Earls of Northumberland. The Barony of Langley and its associated manor continue to modern times as an originally feudal Prescriptive Barony (not a Peerage), and an extensive series of baronial and manorial records are maintained in the National Archives (UK).
"Tindale" in the Peerage
The Parliamentary Barony, Baron Scott of Tindale in Northumberland, was created in 1663 for the ill-fated Duke of Monmouth, and 1st Duke of Buccleuch, James Scott, the illegitimate son of King Charles II. This title was put under attainder, upon his execution for treason in 1685, but later restored, together with the Earldom of Doncaster in 1743. There is, however, a legend that King James II did not have him executed but exiled to France, where he became known as the Man in the Iron Mask.Shaw, Samuel in 'Duke of Monmouth: Man in the Iron Mask' in Oxford Journals (Oxford, 1870) Vol s4-V, No 120.
Another Barony of Tyndale was created in 1688 as the junior title of the Radclyffe Earl of Derwentwater and in 1716 fell under attainder on his execution for treason for his part in the Jacobite rising of 1715.
From the Middle Ages to the early modern era The second son of the first Baron Adam de Tindale, Robert, settled at Tansover in Northamptonshire in the time of Edward I. Some of the (later) genealogies and secondary sources for the family from this period are written in English and use 'Tyndale', for the reasons posited above.Rudder, Samuel (1779) A New History of Gloucestershire, though the Nichols genealogy uses 'Tindale' for this period. The more contemporary 'Visitation of Essex' uses 'Tyndall', a spelling used below.
The first that is known of the family after their migration to Northamptonshire was the enlargement of their estates through marriage into the Deane family. The Deanes were, from the earliest generations, intimately connected with the Tyndall family. The elder son of Robert de Tyndall of Talsover married the heiress of that family and inherited the lands of Deane, which remained in the family for many generations.Burke, John (1838, London) Burke's Landed Gentry (1863) 'Tyndale of Haling'Nichols, JohnLiterary Anecdotes (18th century), Vol IX: 'Genealogy of the Family of Tindal of Northumberland, Devon & Essex' The Deane arms have been quartered with those of Tyndall ever since and were adopted as the only arms of the Tindal branch of the family from the 17th century (and can be seen, below, under the portrait of Rev Nicolas Tindal).Rapin de Thomas, Paul (trans by Nicolas Tindal) History of England: Portrait of Rev Nicolas Tindal in frontispiece of one volume, with arms of Deane and ancient crest of Tyndall
The Tyndalls at court Subsequent Tyndalls married well, inheriting the estates of Hockwald in Norfolk and Mapplestead Magna in Essex in marriages with heiresses of the de Montford and Fermor families. Several heads of the family were knighted and many appear to have been prominent at court. A William Tyndall was Lancaster Herald under King Edward IV. Sir William Tyndall of Hockwald and Deane was created Knight Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath on 29 November 1489, on the creation of Prince Arthur as Prince of Wales in the reign of Henry VII. He was a Herald of the King, first as Guisne Pursuivant and later as Rouge Dragon.Nichols genealogy
His son, Sir Thomas Tyndall, was admitted to the Order of the Bath following the coronation of Queen Anne. Through marriage to the Felstead family, he became co-heir to the Barony of Scales, the daughter of the last Baron Scales having died without issue. He shared this distinction with the then Earl of Oxford.Proceedings before the House of Lords Privileges Committee (1850s) relating to a claim for the Barony of Scales
The Tyndall Family and the Throne of Bohemia When King Richard II married Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, she brought with her cousin, Princess Margaret of Teschen, daughter of Przemyslaus I Noszak, Duke of Teschen in modern Silesia by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Bolesław, Duke of Koźle and Bytom. This lady married Sir Simon Bigod de Felbrigg in Essex, the standard bearer of Richard II and their daughter, Alana, married Sir William Tyndall of Deene.
It has already been related that, through the Felbriggs, the Tyndalls came to be co-heirs to the Barony of Scales with the Earls of Oxford. However, a more regal dignity descended through Margaret of Teschen when the House of Luxemburg died out with the death of Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor and King of Bohemia (1368–1437) and Sir William Tyndall became one of the heirs to the elective throne of Bohemia. John Nichols relates that a delegation of Bohemian boyars were sent to England to offer him the throne but that he refused, the Habsburgs succeeding to a throne they held (with one interruption) until 1918.
There was an oral tradition at the University of Cambridge that Humphrey Tyndall, brother of Sir John Tyndall of Mapplestead and uncle (or great uncle) of the eminent deist Dr Matthew Tindal, was again offered the throne by the Protestant party in Bohemia in 1620. This Humphrey was Dean of Ely and president of Queens' College, Cambridge and vice-chancellor of Cambridge University.History and Antiquities of the Cathedral Church of Ely, p 229Website of Queens' College, Cambridge Humphrey refused, saying that "he had rather be Queen Elizabeth's subject than a foreign Prince",Quote taken from the brass plaque adjacent to Humphrey Tyndale's gravestone at Ely Cathedral leading to the ill-fated Frederick V, Elector Palatine (married to Elizabeth, daughter of James I) becoming King for a year – a development that was a principal cause of the thirty years war. However, Humphrey Tyndall died in 1614.
William Tyndale The most eminent member of the family, William Tyndale (c. 1494 – 1536), was the first translator of the Bible into modern English. His great work was also one of the first vernacular Bibles to be derived from the primary Hebrew and Greek texts. Its effect on the English church was electrifying, leading to thousands of Bibles being smuggled into England; Tyndale's individual contribution to the linguistic development of the modern English language perhaps ranks as second only to that of Shakespeare. Aside from his life work, Tyndale was a prodigious pamphleteer, propounding a Protestant agenda that was significantly more radical than that of his protector, Martin Luther. His radicalism, prodigious output and written battles with Thomas More eventually led to his capture near Antwerp, after which he was burnt at the stake as a heretic. He is regarded as a martyr in the Church of England and his death is commemorated in the Book of Common Prayer.
Born in Gloucestershire, William Tyndale is known to have been the brother of Edward Tyndale of Pull Court, Gloucestershire, receiver to the lands of Lord Berkeley based on the 1533 letter of Bishop Stokesley of London. However, all that can be surmised from data available is that William was related to Richard Tyndale and Tabitha Hitchins of Melksham Court and had brothers John and Edward the confessor, the Receiver of Berkley, but most certainly was NOT of the line of Tyndale of Hockwold. (Although Edward Tyndale is recorded in two genealogies as having been the 'brother of Sir William de Tyndall of Deane and Hockwold' but that William died after 1542 so they were in error on the relationship with that William (but suggesting that he was connected to this branch of the family somehow),Nichols, John Literary Anecdotes, Vol XI (18th century)Burke's Landed Gentry (19th century editions) "Tyndale of Haling" that myth was broken and the suggestion dismissed in "The Memoirs of the extinct family of Chesters of Chicheley" as well as in The Genealogy of the Family of Tyndale (by B. W. Greenfield, 1843) and The Biography of William Tyndale.)William Tindale bio by Demaus p22-23
Ralph Dundas Tindal, a Napoleonic and later Dutch Baron General (Deventer, 24 February 1773,The Nobilities of Europe, by the Marquis de Ruvigny, published by Melville and Company, London, 1910 (page 412). – Zeist, 4 August 1834) served in the Netherlands military, and in French service. His father (whose family was of Scottish origin) had emigrated to Holland and had also served in Dutch service. Whilst in French imperial service, Ralph Dundas Tindal was created Baron de Tindal on 12 April 1813 by the French Emperor Napoleon (Bonaparte). Later he joined Dutch forces and became lieutenant-general in the infantry, and on 8 July 1815, King William I of the Netherlands bestowed a knightly order on him, the Willems-Orde. On 16 September 1815 he was raised in the Dutch nobility, again with the title baron.
The Tindal/Tindal-Carill-Worsley family
Derivation The senior branch of the English Tyndall family, last seated at Mapplestead Magna in the 17th century, died out in the direct male line in the 17th century and in the female line over a hundred years later. The senior English branch is thus the Tindal (now Tindal-Carill-Worsley) family, whose history is related in the 1973 volume of Burke's Landed Gentry. This family derived from Rev John Tindal, rector of Bere Ferris, Devon, in the mid-17th century, said (in the Nichols genealogy) to have been the younger son of Sir John Tyndall of Mapplestead, the brother of Dean Humphrey Tyndall, president of Queens' College, Cambridge.