KYNNERSLEY, Thomas (d.1391), of London and Carshalton, Surr.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1386-1421, ed. J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe., 1993
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Sept. 1388

Family and Education

m. Alice, 4da.1

Offices Held

J.p. Surr. 28 June 1390-d.

Biography

The Kynnersley family took its name from a small manor near Carshalton, where they had settled by the early 13th century, if not before, and it was in this part of Surrey that Thomas Kynnersley held most of his estates. He also owned a tenement in the London parish of St. Martin in the Vintry, which was occupied in 1363 by Bartholomew Kynnersley, who was perhaps his father. Although a fairly affluent man with many influential local connexions, he none the less remains a shadowy figure about whom little documentary evidence has survived save in his capacity as a witness and feoffee-to-uses. He is first mentioned in March 1372, when he attested the first of a long series of deeds for members of the Carew family, whose manor of Beddington lay near his home, and with whom he remained on close terms until his death.2 Meanwhile, in August 1372, Kynnersley received royal letters of protection pending his departure overseas as a retainer of John of Gaunt. During the next ten years he also became associated with Richard, Lord Poynings, whom he would have accompanied to France in 1382 had not the proposed expedition been cancelled. From this date onwards he was closely involved in Poynings’s property transactions, so that by the latter’s death in May 1387 a substantial part of his estates had been conveyed to him in trust. Kynnersley subsequently helped to protect the interests of Lord Poynings’s young son and heir, Robert, being present as his ‘attorney and friend’ in the following November when an assignment of dower was made to the widowed Lady Poynings.3

Among the prominent local figures who enlisted Kynnersley’s services as a trustee or a witness to deeds were Ralph Cuddington*, Hugh Quecche* and Nicholas Davy. It was with Davy that the MP made an exchange of property in Carshalton at some point before April 1381. His will suggests that he purchased other land in Wallington, and part of these various holdings were leased by him to Merton priory towards the end of his life. In December 1384 he and other local men appeared as plaintiffs in a case of trespass, but this is the only known occasion on which he went to law.4

Kynnersley died in the autumn of 1391, just over a year after his appointment to the local bench. He was buried at the church of All Saints, Carshalton. To his widow, Alice, he left an annuity of 20 marks from his estates in Surrey and London, while his four daughters shared bequests worth over £66. His two brothers, Richard and Edmund, and his wards, the four children of Richard Walkestede, were also remembered in his will. His executors, among whom was the Middlesex shire knight, Godfrey atte Perry*, were arraigned by his younger daughter, Isabel, on an assize of novel disseisin at Guildford in 1395, although the case may well have been collusive. The widowed Alice Kynnersley apparently survived until 1412, if not longer, as she was then taxed on an income of 40s. p.a. from property in London.5

Ref Volumes: 1386-1421

Author: C.R.

Notes

Variant: Kenardisle.

  • 1. PCC 2 Rous.
  • 2. Ibid.; VCH Surr. iv. 184; Add. Chs. 22874, 23141, 23145, 23150-1, 23155, 23395, 23398; CCR, 1360-4, p. 540; 1369-74, pp. 427, 465; 1374-7, p. 74; 1377-81, pp. 320, 466, 471; 1389-92, p. 293.
  • 3. Reg. Gaunt 1371-5, no. 34; CPR, 1381-5, p. 99; CCR, 1381-5, pp. 220, 238, 244, 249; 1385-9, pp. 343, 351, 355; CIPM, xvi. 611, 612, 615, 623.
  • 4. CCR, 1374-7, p. 549; 1377-81, p. 129; 1381-5, pp. 103, 594; 1385-9, p. 421; Add. Chs. 23395-8, 5606; PCC 2 Rous; Recs. Merton Priory ed. Heales, 280.
  • 5. PCC 2 Rous; JUST 1/1503 rot. 77; Arch. Jnl. xliv. 78.