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What is clear from all the evidence is that the early
ARGALL families, both in the east and west, were relatively wealthy (by medieval
standards) because of the numbers of Wills, litigation and Church documents that
survive which include the ARGALL name. The earliest linked pedigree in
London originates with one John Argall
whose family owned property in St Keverne
in the 15th Century.
These 15th Century families also appear to be linked to the Church, in the
days when that organisation was a very powerful force in controlling all aspects
of civil affairs. The ARGALL family seemed to have had a role in
serving the Church, as lawyers, clerics and as administrators. John had
moved to London, towards the end of the 15th Century. By 1480, he
was living in his own house in the grounds of Lambeth Palace in London, which
was and still is the official residence of the Archbishops of Canterbury – the
primate of all England, for whom John worked. How he got there is
less clear but, if he was born in Cornwall, he may have been educated at the
famous Glasney theological college at Penryn, in Cornwall, which was reasonably
close to St Keverne. He was promoted through the Church to work in
London.
Between the years 1485 and 1500, John was involved in
litigation over property he owned in a place called Treglosek (which was – and
still is – located in St Keverne Parish) in Cornwall, and petitioned the
Archbishop of Canterbury over the matter. John had married in
London, probably for the second time, in about 1499 to one Emme Butcher
(Botcher), a widow who was living in Lambeth where John
worked. Because they were relatively old when they married, John and
Emme Argall had only one child together: Thomas Argall, who was born at their home in
Lambeth in 1500. Emme, however, had an elder son, also called
John, from her first marriage, and it is possible that John had children from
his first marriage as several ARGALL families are recorded in London by the
mid–16th century. In Emme’s Will of 1522, she also left a bequest to
a priest called William Argall, who may well have been a close relative of John,
if not his brother.
Like his father before him, Thomas Argall also became a Church Lawyer
eventually becoming very wealthy and influential. He is first
recorded in 1522 as a Proctor proving Wills for their Executors. He
is also recorded as coming from a prominent Cornish family, and this fact is
important in linking him to Cornwall. Thomas had first married in
Kent when young, but his first wife died very soon after – possibly in
childbirth. He then married for a second time Margaret Tallakarne
(or Tolcarne) in London around 1536; Margaret came from
Cambrose in Cornwall and was the daughter of John Tallakarne by his first wife
Jane Braye. John Tallakarne was a business associate of Thomas, and
was the son of Stephen (also called Geoffrey) Tallakarne who had been killed, or
had died, whilst on the King’s business at Exeter in 1549 during the Prayer
Book Rebellion. The Tallakarnes were also another wealthy and influential
family coming from the same (Kerrier) area in Cornwall. John and
Thomas were close enough in age to remain friends and business partners
throughout the rest of their lives.
Thomas was almost certainly educated in London, and had worked for the
Winchester Diocese as a young man, and was in the employ of Archbishop Wareham
in London by 1522. He became known to the Royal Court and is
recorded there in 1525 when he was employed as a private clerk to John Barrett,
esquire. (John Barrett had been the Registrar of the Prerogative
Court of Canterbury since 1502). Thomas was later a Notary Public during
Henry VIII’s divorce proceedings against Catherine of Aragon in 1533, and the
nullification of Anne of Cleves’ marriage in 1540. With each new
involvement, his rise in prominence increased. By 1537, he was Clerk
to Thomas Cromwell, Chancellor of England. Thomas became
deeply involved in dissolving the chantries under Henry VIII and, later, in
levying fines on the supporters of Wyatt’s rebellion in Queen Mary’s
reign. He seemed to survive the changing politics of the time, and
had gained a Royal Pardon from Edward VI on 22nd January 1549, (though for what
is not clear). He became Registrar of the Prerogative Court of
Canterbury himself, and held many other appointments, which enabled him to
increase his personal wealth.
Thomas, himself, still retained connections in Cornwall. On 29
October 1542, Thomas was listed as owning the living of “Crewenne” (Crowan)
Rectory in Cornwall but failing to seal the ownership. This rectory
eventually was leased by Justinian Tallakarne, Thomas’s brother–in–law, who was
by then the Governor of St. Mawes Castle, and who later had bought the manor of
St Keverne from the Earl of Bedford in 1560. St Keverne and its
local district was clearly home territory to these families.
Thomas, himself, with his increasing wealth, bought
several estates during his lifetime including the East Sutton estate in Kent in
1546 and Low Hall in Walthamstow, Essex, which remained in the Argall family and
its heirs until 1741. Thomas continued in official positions until
he died in Bermondsey, London on 15th August 1563 and was buried in the church
of St Faith in the Virgin, in the shadows of St Paul's cathedral. He was succeeded as head of
the family by his eldest son and heir, Richard
Argall
, who had followed his father into the legal
profession and had inherited his considerable wealth, as well as the estate at
East Sutton where he then lived and in which he eventually died in 1588.
During the 16th and 17th Centuries, this particular
ARGALL family extended its estates all over southern England, including Essex,
Middlesex, Buckinghamshire and other Counties; they also had property in
London. One of Richard Argall’s brothers, Rowland, acted as a courier, carrying
despatches to the Secretary of State, Sir Francis Walsingham, from Sir Nicholas
Malbbye in Ireland. Rowland briefly established a branch of the
family in Ireland where he became Secretary of the Council of Connaught and to
the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (the Earl of Sussex). Another
brother was John Argall, who became a
priest, and was the parson of Halesworth in Suffolk; John died in
1606. Yet another brother was Lawrence Argall, who succeeded his father as
the Registrar of the Prerogative Court of Canterbury from his father’s death in
1563 until his own death in 1585. Laurence eventually moved to Suffolk,
where he also married twice; although he had two wives, and had children by
each, no lines have descended from him. There were two younger brothers,
Gabriel and Edmund, both of whom died unmarried. There was also one
daughter, Anne
.
Richard Argall had married twice: firstly, to Joan
Marten who came from a famous Kentish family but who seemed to have died soon
afterwards, and, for a second time in 1568, to Mary Scott, a daughter of Sir Reginald Scott
of Scott’s Hall in Kent, and a descendant of King David I of
Scotland. Richard was the father of Sir Samuel Argall
who was involved in the abduction of the
Powhattan princess known as Pocahontas
in the Virginia Colony in 1613, and who
later became Lieutenant Governor of the Colony in 1617 and Admiral of the
adjacent ocean. Samuel Argall did not come from Cornwall; he was
born at the family’s estate at East Sutton in Kent, which had passed to his
father, Richard Argall, on the death of the latter’s father in 1563.
Richard Argall, himself and his second wife Mary, had 11 children
in all; two of their sons were knighted: Sir Samuel Argall (referred to
above), and Sir Reginald Argall who was knighted by King James I on
17 August 1606. (Reginald’s knighthood had been purchased when King James 1 was
raising money in the early years of his reign). Another of Richard’s
sons, John, was also a lawyer who was one of those named in the Charter of New
England in 1620 who were entrusted by King James I with the planting, ruling, ordering,
and governing of New–England, in America. John had owned property in
the Colony of Virginia and paid many visits to there; he seemed to have
benefited enormously from the Wills of his various brothers, all of whom he
outlived, and his sister.
The link between this wealthy strand in the East and those ARGALLs in
Cornwall is yet to be fully established, but the families increasingly developed
quite separately. However, the wealth of those in the East was
dissipated amongst this strand of the family as time progressed, and much was
lost in the payment of fines to the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell
because of their continuing Royalist sympathies in the aftermath of the English
Civil War.
This family gradually descended in social status and in numbers until it
finally "daughtered out" during the mid–19th Century. By 1855 the
name disappears from documents there and the name is now extinct in East
Anglia.
Ian Argall © 2006 - 2008
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