Thrale/Thrall history

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At what precise time Robert Thrale the elder started to live at Sandridgebury in Sandridge parish, is not known with exactitude, but in 1522 he was established as a victualler to the Monastery of St. Albans¹ He was owed £7-13-4 during the time of the last abbot and John Killingsworth, administrator for the Lord Cardinal. He is mentioned with about one hundred other people.

The Monastery was the centre of the world both before and after the Dissolution as far as Robert was concerned as it was for his son Robert. Robert the elder had been besides victualler, a farmer tenant of the Monastery. Upon his death in 1538², he left the right to occupy half his farm to his wife Alice, and the other half to his son Robert. He mentions his grandchildren, and servant Alice Hall. He wished to be buried in the 'Medle Aley' of Sandridge Church and left legacies for the shrine at St. Albans and for a 'pryst to syre for the soule in the said Churche of Sandridge by the space of iii quarters of a yeare'.

Shortly after, from 1544 onwards, conflict commenced in Chancery with the Rowlatt family, and it was this family which had taken over more former monastic property than anyone else. Ralph Rowlatt was a goldsmith, banker and merchant of the Staple, like Richard Farmer with whom Michael Thrale back in Bedfordshire, had fought in Chancery. Ralph Rowlatt, upon his death in 1542, owned Gorhambury, the Pré, houses in Holywell Hill and Fishpool Street, all in St. Albans, the Manor of Sandridge and Napsbury and many other properties.

Ralph Rowlatt had several daughters, and among his son-in-laws were John Maynard, member of a family continually mentioned, Thomas Skipworth who bought the Grange Farm of the Abbey (now a petrol station), and another was a Jennings, to whose son he left the Manor of Sandridge and the mansion of Holywell House, and thus the future destinies of the Thrales were to be bound together through the centuries with these Lords of the Manor including of course, the formidable Sarah Jennings. Ralph Rowlatt also had two sons, Ralph the younger who was knighted and who sold Gorhambury to Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper to Queen Elizabeth, the other son being Amphibalus.

The Rowlatts, Ralph and his son, Sir Ralph, in their conflict with the Thrales, made the case³, in Chancery that before the Dissolution of the

Footnotes

1. Letters and Papers foreign and domestic Henry VIII Vol III page 1097.↩︎
2. Arch-deacon St Albans Reg, Kyngysbury Fo. 18.↩︎
3. Chancery Pro. C1/1055/135.↩︎