William Hill

Contents

Personal and Family Information

William was born before 1463, the son of Thomas Hill and Elizabeth Tylor. The place is not known.

He died after 1501. The place is not known.

Pedigree Chart (3 generations)


 

William Hill
(<1463->1501)

 

Thomas Hill
(c1440-1485)

 

Henricus [Harris] / [Hull] / Hill
(c1417-?)

 

John [Hull] / Hill
(c1392-?)

+
     
 
 
   

Sionett ap Howell
(c1417-?)

 

Meredith ap Howell
(c1492-?)

 
   

Morvydd verch Ieuan
(c1492-?)

 
   

Elizabeth Tylor
(c1440-1501)

 

UNKNOWN Tylor
(c1415-?)

   
 
 
     
 
 
     
 
   
 
 
     
 
 

Events

EventDateDetailsSourceMultimediaNotes
BirthBEF 1463
DeathAFT 1501

Notes

Note 1

!Source: THE RICARDIAN JOURNAL OF THE RICHARD III SOCIETY, ISSN 0048 8267 VOLUME XXXIII, 2023, YORKIST PEOPLE: Essays in Memory of Anne F. Sutton, Published by the Richard III Society, Edited by Caroline M. Barron and Christian Steer, Index by Heather Falvey, Published by the Richard III Society, © 2023 Richard III Society

https://www.academia.edu/106963908/Wardship_Wealth_and_Widows_in_Late_Fifteenth_Century_London?auto=download

Elizabeth Hille and Agnes Forster: the Long Widowhood,…,

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alderman’s wife and a lady mayoress, Elizabeth Hille would have been a very attractive

prospect on the London marriage market. Rather, she chose to remain in widowhood

for the sixteen years of life remaining to her and she took it upon herself to manage her

family’s affairs. As well as actively taking the lead in the execution of her husband’s civic

legacy [the establishment of a new conduit in Gracechurch Street and contributions

to the building of kitchens in the new Guildhall], Elizabeth is personally named in

notable transactions involving the moveable wealth and property left to Thomas’s

heirs, suggesting that she was directly involved in the management of the children’s

inheritance until their coming of age.67

Elizabeth and Thomas Hille had eight surviving children. The eldest, William, <<<<

was born before 1463 and at least seven others followed: sons Richard, Robert and

Edward, and four daughters; Elizabeth, Alice, Agnes and Joan. At the time of their

father’s death in 1485, all eight were alive with seven of them under-age.68 By the time

Thomas’s estate was settled in 1488, the children’s portion amounted to a combined

£1,885 12s. 4d. Elizabeth chose to pass the capital worth of the estate through the

civic trust process, but have it loaned back out to her. Like Elizabeth Denys before

her, this meant that it was she who was bound under a legal recognisance and financial

bond to return the sum of £1,885 12s. 4d. to her children upon their coming of age/

marriage with appropriately accrued interest. Her guarantors were family: her brother-

in-law, Ralph Tilney, now an alderman, her husband’s nephew and former apprentice,

John Hille, and her two eldest sons, William and Richard Hille, now both grocers.69 <<<<

There is nothing in the civic records to suggest that Elizabeth defaulted in any way on

the loan. Two daughters, Alice and Joan, had died while still underage and Elizabeth

oversaw the division of their portions [£300 each] amongst their surviving siblings

as well as paying out due money to the husbands of her two surviving daughters:

Agnes married John Croke, a draper, in 1490 and Elizabeth married Ralph Latham, a

goldsmith related to the Shaa family, in 1498.70

This personal approach is further reinforced by Elizabeth’s name appearing

specifically in property and land transactions concerning a feckless eldest son for

over a decade. William Hille was his father’s heir and inherited Thomas’s lands in <<<<

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67 Cal. Letter Bk, L, p. 280; The Great Chronicle, p. 320. For Elizabeth Hill and the Guildhall

legacy, see C.M. Barron, The Medieval Guildhall of London, London 1974, p. 120.

68 Richard had come of age by 1488 but Robert was only seven when his father died in 1485 and

Edward was younger. Of the girls, Alice and Joan were alive in 1485 but they had died in minority

by 1494 and 1498. Agnes and Elizabeth married, but not until 1490 and 1498 respectively.

Richard died in 1500 and his will refers to deceased brothers as well as his two sisters: Cal. Letter

Bk, L, p. 249; CIPM Henry VII, ii, p. 299; CCR 1500-09, p. 24.

69 Cal. Letter Bk, L, pp. 234, 237, 249.

70 Cal. Letter Bk, L, p. 249. It has been suggested that Agnes Hille was the widow of a William

Chester when she married John Croke. It is probable, however, that John had a first wife, also

named Agnes, who was Chester’s widow. Croke claimed Agnes Hille’s patrimony from Elizabeth

in 1490, upon their marriage. Had she been a widow this would have been claimed by her first

husband. See K. Lacey, ‘Margaret Croke [d.1491]’ in Medieval London Widows, pp. 143–64.

THE RICARDIAN VOLUME XXXIII, 2023

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Huntingdon and Essex, as well as numerous London properties.71 William, however, <<<<

appears to have been somewhat inept at managing his affairs. In 1487, he gave up the

rights of ownership of six of the properties in St Pancras, left to him in his father’s

will, ‘to Elizabeth’s use, for £300 paid by her’.72 This was probably driven by a need

to find ready cash. Elizabeth seems to have given William the money although he did <<<<

not transfer the messuages into her name. Four years later, those same properties had

to be recovered by means of a court transaction by Edward Underwood, a clerk, who

was acting on behalf of Elizabeth Hille. William had got into financial trouble. Earlier <<<<

in the same year, in February 1491, a legal memorandum written in the Close Rolls,

recorded that William owed his mother and brother, Richard, £880 for ‘ready money’ <<<<

delivered to him by them at various times. He entered into a recognisance to pay the

sum back and, in part payment, signed over all the merchandise held in the shops and

cellars his mother was allowing him to occupy and assigned her all debts due to him

in business transactions.73 In 1494, at Elizabeth’s request, he was made to give up the

properties in St Pancras once more, this time under a guarantee that he would do as

he was asked.74

To safeguard the other children’s inheritances, Elizabeth stripped William of any <<<<

property-holding and wrote him out of any further inheritance by a series of recorded

deeds. In the same year that she recovered the London properties from William, her <<<<

clerk, Edward Underwood, had recovered on her behalf, property in Gloucester and

Oxford that had descended to her upon the deaths of her brothers and brothers’

heirs. The 1494 transaction records that the property was to pass, after her death,

to Elizabeth’s sons, Richard, Robert, Edward and William successively – William <<<<

being placed last after his three younger brothers.75 At the same time, probably as part

of the debt owed, the land in Huntingdon and Essex which William had inherited <<<<

from his father was transferred out of William’s hands to Richard. When Richard <<<<

died in 1500, he devised his father’s lands to his widow for life, with remainder to

his brothers Robert and Edward: William, although still alive, was not mentioned <<<<

at all in Richard’s will.76 At Elizabeth’s own death in 1501, her third son, Robert, is

named as heir to the Gloucester property [as laid down in the deed of 1494] and, in

Elizabeth’s will, she devised all the family’s London properties to her youngest son,

Edward. William is mentioned with a minor bequest but comes at the end of a long <<<<

list, behind children, grandchildren, godchildren, friends, priests and even a member

of Elizabeth’s household.77

71 CIPM Henry VII, i, p. 120; Keene and Harding, Gazetteer, pp. 294–8, 782–90.

72 Keene and Harding, Gazetteer, pp. 782–90.

73 CCR 1485-1500, p. 152.

74 Keene and Harding, Gazetteer, pp. 782–90.

75 The inheritance was originally recorded in 1488, but it was not until 1494 that Elizabeth,

acting through Underwood, secured it: CPR 1485-94, p. 221; CCR, 1485-1500, p. 217.

76 CCR 1500-09, p. 45.

77 CIPM Hen VII, ii, p. 487; TNA, PROB 11/12/397; CCR 1500-09, p. 24.

Wardship, Wealth and Widows in Late Fifteenth Century London