Edmund Withypoll, Esquire,Contrary to many accounts, Edmund Withipoll never received knighthood, and styled himself 'Esquier' in his will of 1582. "Sir" Edmund Withipoll was his grandson and eventual heir. (1510/13 – 18 May 1582), of London, of Walthamstow, Essex, and of Ipswich, Suffolk, was an English merchant, money-lender, landowner, sheriff and politician, who established his family in his mother's native county of Suffolk,A.D.K. Hawkyard, 'Withypoll, Edmund (1510/13-82), of London; Walthamstow, Essex and Christchurch, Ipswich, Suff.', in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509–1558 (Boydell & Brewer 1982), History of Parliament online. and built Christchurch Mansion, a distinguished surviving Tudor house, as his Ipswich home.
Background and origins
Edmund Withypoll was a son of the Merchant Taylor and Merchant Adventurer Paul Withypoll and his wife Anne, daughter of Robert Curson of Brightwell, Suffolk,H. Miller, 'Withypoll, Paul (by 1485–1547), of London and Walthamstow, Essex', in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509–1558 (Boydell and Brewer, 1982). History of Parliament Online . whose cousin Sir Robert, Lord Curson, Papal Count, had a large double-courtyard mansion in Silent Street, Ipswich.Robert Curson of Brightwell was son of William (see T.N.A. Discovery Catalogue, item HD 1538/253/115 (Suffolk Record Office, Ipswich), 1468); Sir Robert is supposed son of Robert Curson of Blaxhall. J.M. Blatchly and B. Haward, 'Sir Robert, Lord Curson, soldier, courtier and spy, and his Ipswich mansion,' Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History XLI Part 3 (2007), pp. 335–49; also J.M. Blatchly, 'Curson, Sir Robert (c. 1460–1534/5), soldier and courtier', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Of a family of Shropshire origins, Paul Withypoll's father John, in partnership with the Thorne and Forster families, and they with George MonouxH. Miller, 'Monoux, George (by 1465–1544), of Bristol, Glos.; London and Walthamstow, Essex', in S.T. Bindoff (ed.), The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1509–1558 (Boydell & Brewer 1982). History of Parliament online . of Walthamstow, conducted substantial trade operations with Spain and Portugal out of Bristol.R.C.D. Baldwin, 'Thorne, Robert, the elder (c. 1460–1519), also including Robert Thorne the younger (1490–1532) and Nicholas Thorne (1496–1546)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Paul married in 1510, from which time he became settled in London, where Edmund and his brothers and sister Elizabeth were presumably born. Monoux was Sheriff of London in 1509–10 and Lord Mayor in 1514–15. The Thorne and Withypoll families were conspicuous collectors of precious objects:H. Dalton, Merchants and Explorers: Roger Barlow, Sebastian Cabot, and Networks of Atlantic Exchange 1500–1560 (Oxford University Press 2016); forthcoming, H. Dalton, 'Portraits, pearls, and things "wch are very straunge to owres": The Lost Collections of the Thorne/Withypoll Trading Syndicate, 1520–1550', in C.M. Anderson (ed.), Early Modern Merchants as Collectors (Routledge, London and New York, 2016). See Conference Abstracts, Ashmolean Museum, 15–16 June 2012, pp. 2–3. the Withypool Triptych, completed in 1514, survives as testimony of Paul Withypoll's patronage.Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery accession K 1394 ; the side panels, which include the Withypoll arms, are in collections of the National Gallery, accessions NG 646 and 647. See National Inventory of Continental European Paintings. Images: Photo by Lisa Radley in flickr.com. Bristol Museum and Art Gallery.
Paul Withypoll and the Thornes (one of whom, Robert the younger, married Paul's sister) maintained their association in London, and, from the later 1520s, in Walthamstow, where Withypoll became established. Active as assistant to the Merchant Adventurers,L. Lyell and F.D. Watney (eds), Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company 1453–1527 (Cambridge University Press 1936), p. 477-78 and passim. Paul was named for an alderman in 1527 but successfully made suit to be discharged.See Petition of 14 February 1535 for diminution of the expenses of the shrievalty, in J. Gairdner (ed.), Letters and Papers, Foreign and Domestic, Henry VIII Vol. 8, January–July 1535 (H.M.S.O., London 1885), p. 78, item 208. (British History Online. Retrieved 19 January 2017). He rose to be M.P. for the City of London in 1529–35, Master of the Merchant Taylors (1537/8) and again M.P. in 1545. In consideration of his great sagacity and discretion, in 1539 he received the honour (unique for a person unqualified) to be present at all Common Councils of the city and at the elections of the Mayors and Sheriffs.W. Maitland, The History and Survey of London from its Foundation to the Present Time, 2 vols (By Authority, T. Osborne, J. Shipton and J. Hodges, London 1756), I, p. 236, col. 2. His daughter Elizabeth, who died in 1537, became Elizabeth Lucar, the very accomplished wife of Emanuel Lucar, an esteemed Merchant Taylor. Lucar lived to 1573: having been imprisoned and fined by Queen Mary for his part in the acquittal of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton in 1554, he became Master of the Company in 1560,An account of Emanuel Lucar will be found in C.A. Bradford, 'Emanuel Lucar and St. Sepulchre, London', Transactions of the London and Middlesex Archaeological Society New Series VIII Part 1 (Bishopsgate Institute, London 1938), pp. 14–30, (pdf pp. 100–116). Pedigree in Moore Smith, The Family of Withypoll, p. 36. and was a contributor to the foundation of the Merchant Taylors' School.C.M. Clode, The Early History of the Guild of Merchant Taylors, II: The Lives (Harrison and Sons, London 1888), p. 159.
Career Edmund was educated by the humanist scholar Thomas Lupset, who taught him Latin, and who in 1529 (while staying at Wolsey's palace at The More, Hertfordshire) wrote in the form of a letter dedicated to Withypoll An Exhortation to Yonge Men (published 1535).Miller, 'Withypoll, Paul', History of Parliament online.Thomas Lupset, An Exhortation to yonge men, perswadinge them to walke in the pathe way that leadeth to honeste and goodnes. Written to a frend of his by T. Lupsete, Londoner. B.L. (T. Berthelet, Londini 1535). See Bonhams, Sale 1 April 2008 (Book Collection of John and Monica Lawson), Lot 565. This remarkable text gives many insights into the character of the young man.Text in E.M. Nugent, The Thought and Culture of the English Renaissance. An Anthology of Tudor Prose, 1481–1555 (Cambridge University Press, 1956), pp. 82-88 (Google).
In around 1535 Edmund married Elizabeth, youngest daughter of Thomas Hynde, prominent MercerHynde was Warden of the Mercers in 1513/4 and 1523/4, see Lyell and Watney, Acts of Court of the Mercers' Company, passim. and Merchant Adventurer of London, and his wife Margaret (daughter of the Mercer William Browne, Lord Mayor of London 1507–08A.B. Beavan, The Aldermen of the City of London Temp. Henry III to 1912 (Corporation of the City of London, 1913), II, p. 20. Some relationships described in this work are unreliable.): Hynde, who died in 1529, had provided for a dowry of 200 marks for his daughter.Will of Thomas Hynde, Mercer of London (P.C.C. 1529). The eldest son and heir, Paul Withypoll, was born around 1536, and others followed in close succession.
In 1540 Edmund purchased lands at Withypole, Shropshire, from his uncle John Withypoll. In 1544 he apparently accompanied the King's expedition at Boulogne: a beautiful manuscript folio of the Letters of Cicero, now in Canterbury Cathedral Library, carries his inscription noting that he took it from the Church of Our Lady at "Bulleyn" in September of that year.(W. Clarke), Repertorium Bibliographicum: or, Some Account of the Most Celebrated British Libraries, Vol. I (William Clarke, London 1819), p. 125. With his father, in 1544 Edmund purchased the fee of the manor of Mark at Walthamstow, and briefly held that of Walthamstow Tony.'Walthamstow: Manors', in W.R. Powell (ed.), A History of the County of Essex, Vol. 6 (V.C.H., London 1973), pp. 253–63 (British History Online. Retrieved 14 April 2017).
In the following year father and son together purchased the manor of Christchurch at Ipswich, including the site and the possessions of the dissolved Priory of the Holy Trinity, Ipswich. Upon Paul's death in 1547 (he was buried in St Lawrence Pountney), Edmund succeeded as heir and began the building of "Withipoll Howse" (as he named it in his will of 1582Will of Edmund Withipoll, written 1.v.1582 (P.C.C. 1582).), the building now known as "Christchurch Mansion". The date 1549 appears on a stone bearing a Latin motto above the porch of the Mansion. The adjacent church of St Margaret's, Ipswich, soon became the family's habitual place of baptism, marriage and burial, commencing with his son Peter, who was baptised there on 20 March 1549.Moore Smith, The Family of Withypoll, p. 45.
Withypoll soon ran into difficulties over his development. He was alleged to have demolished a priest's house and a churchyard wall, to have plundered materials from a church window, and to have denied access to the churchyard, and was ordered to pay arrears owing to parishioners.D.H. Allen, Ipswich Borough Archives, 1255–1835: A Catalogue, Suffolk Records Society XLIII (Boydell Press, Woodbridge 2000), p. 14, item C/1/6/3. Edmund is described as "gent., of Gwipiswiche" in deeds of 1554 granting the rental of his properties of the Bear and the Dolphin Taverns, in Southwark.'VI: Abstract of sundry deeds relating to houses in the parishes of St. Saviour and St. Olave' (etc), Collectanea Topographica et Genealogica V (J.B. Nichols and Sons, London 1838), p. 45ff, nos. 2, 3 & 4.. He was elected a member of parliament (MP) for Ipswich in 1558. He sat on the bench as a Justice of the Peace for Suffolk from 1561 to his death and was appointed High Sheriff of Suffolk for 1570–71.
In 1567 Withypoll confronted the Town BailiffsUnder King John's Charter of 1200, the Borough of Ipswich elected two Bailiffs and twelve Portmen to lead its Council assembly. R. Malster, A History of Ipswich (Phillimore & Co. Ltd., Chichester 2000), pp. 20–21, and p. 68. over their attendance at the "Holy Trinity Fair" (granted to the Priory by Henry II) held annually in Tuddenham Road beside Christchurch. He objected that it had been customary to lodge the town's ceremonial maces with the Priory for the fair's duration, which in default of their having done, he advised them not to attend. The Councilmen instructed the Bailiffs (as Clerks of the Market, and Justices of the Peace) to disregard his message, and Withypoll blocked various highways and opposed their entry. He brought a suit in Star Chamber, which the Bailiffs and Commonalty resolved to defend and oppose fully, at the town's expense. Loans were sought from the Portmen, councilmen and burgesses, and scot and lot was imposed upon the householders to raise £200 for the town's debts and for this suit, upon pain of distraint, seizure of property, disfranchisement and imprisonment for default of payment.W.H. Richardson (ed.), The Annalls of Ipswche. The Lawes, Customes and Governmt of the Same. Collected... by Nathll Bacon (S.H. Cowell, Ipswich 1884), pp. 277–81.The National Archives, Discovery Catalogue, items STAC 5/W9/38; STAC 5/W11/10; STAC 5/W26/40; STAC 2/20/178.