Thrale/Thrall history

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College.⁸

John Bostock suffered a breakdown in 1440 but was back as Abbot in 1451. After John of Wheathampstead there was all the excitement and hardships of the Wars of the Roses with its two battles of St. Albans both in and around the town, the later Thrales digging up cannon balls from Nomansland to put into their museum. As time passed the abbacies of Wallingford and Ramryge came and went, during which time John "Insomuch" , the schoolmaster printer, commenced one of the first printing presses in England, producing the famous "Book of St. Albans". One of the later Thrales was to represent John Insomuch in the 1948 Pageant of St. Albans. With Wallingford's death, the might of the Abbey went into decline and Ramryge faced the problems of bankruptcy. The Tudors had no place for monastries, and with Ramryge's death in 1519, the Abbacy was given to Cardinal Wolsey with Prior Catton as deputy. Wolsey died in disgrace in 1530, and the Abbacy passed to Catton who was well-known for giving preferences to people for personal gain, and was a pawn of the powerful Thomas Cromwell. He was finally deposed in 1538, but one wonders whether it was he who granted leases to Robert Thrale. It was in April 1538 that Richard Boreman, a native of Stevenage, took up his duties as forty first and last Abbot of the Great Benedictine Monastry of St. Albans which had dominated the religious, economic and social life of the neighbourhood for over 700 years. When the crippling taxation could no longer be paid, he surrendered all to the King, including the manor of Sandridge.

Whether there was a connection between Boreman and the two Roberts cannot be ascertained, but both had close connections with Stevenage, Boreman being a native of the town. The two Roberts had relatives in Stevenage as indicated in Star Chamber Proceedings of 1526⁹. During that year at a Court of the Manor of Sandridge, William Marshall, steward of the Manor, and Thomas Cade, surveyor of the Manor, and Robert Thrale the elder, farmer (one who rented the ownership) of the Manor, and Thomas Thrale the younger, enquired whether there were any bondmen belonging to the Manor. The Court was adjourned for three weeks so that the enquiries could be made. Representatives of the Manor went to the house of a Thomas Baker in St. Albans, but Robert Thrale accompanying them to keep the minutes as none of them could write. For this Robert was paid twelve pence. The report of this meeting or homage was read by the surveyor and later taken to the Court, held this time at St. Albans "under the ash within the Abbey" where it was

Footnotes

8. Eileen Roberts: St. Albans Abbey Magazine July 1972.↩︎
9. Star Chamber 2/8 ff 4-6 & 2/20/349.↩︎