Thomas Walysch, Wine Tester to Henry V
The church of St Mary the Virgin in Whitchurch is beautifully secluded and ancient, with worship there thought to date from the ninth century. Some of the areas of the church date to the tenth century. There are oak trees heavy with acorns and graves as you walk into the churchyard.
Inside, there is the brass monument of a couple who lived during the turn of the fifteenth century, Thomas Walysch and his wife. Sadly, Thomas' wife's name has not survived anywhere that I could find in the sources, and the brass itself has been broken up and relaid on a modern board. Thomas is depicted here in full armour, including his helmet, a sword and dagger, and a lion laying at his feet.
His wife is wearing draped clothing and a headdress of the early fifteenth century, although it was difficult to get a good look at her, as while Thomas' brass is clearly on display, his wife's monument next to him is hidden by a piano pushed up against the wall. This is the best photo I could get, peering the camera around the back of the piano.
The inscription, which is broken and only half of which survives, tells us a little about Thomas' life. Here's the wording, in Latin:
Hie jacet Thomas Walysch quondam valectus trayer . . . Ducis Lancastriae, Henrici quarti, quinti, et sexti Regum . . . dispositione et assignatione ante dicti Regis Henrici V.
Thomas was 'trayer', or wine-taster, to John of Gaunt Duke of Lancaster, Henry IV, Henry V and Henry VI, personally serving in the household of four royals. John of Gaunt died in 1399, so we can assume that Thomas' role began on or before this day, while Henry VI succeeded to the throne in 1422 meaning that he was in the royal household for at least twenty-three years. Some writers have assumed that as trayer, Thomas was to test wine to make sure it wasn't poisoned, before handing it to the king, the Latin word 'valectus' meaning health or healthful. It's likely though that it was responsible for regulating the quality of the wines. This also aligns with king's health - only the best wines would have reached the royal household, and any inferior barrels or ones that had gone bad would have been turned away by Walysch first, before being unpacked at the court.
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| Church of St Mary the Virgin, Whitchurch on Thames |
In trying to untangle some of Thomas' story, the nineteenth-century writer John Slatter noted that the role is set down in a document during the reign of Edward IV, later in the fifteenth century. In Edward's Liber Niger, his Book of the Royal Household, the role was given to one man, 'one yoman treyoure of the sellare which drawethe and delyveryth at the barre all the wynes for the Halle . . . other two groomes under the treyour to helpe him to drawe and bringe the vesselles with wynes to the barre. . . .' Other trayers have survived in the sources - Henry Fillongley, yeoman trayer to Edward IV, and Thomas Fisher, groom trayer of the royal cellar in 1485, on Henry VII's accession to the throne. Thomas Walysch would have known other men working in the royal household at the same time as him, such as John Mershe, butler of the royal cellar to Henry IV and Henry V, and John Ayscow, a servant of Henry IV's cellar in 1408.
Thomas' depiction in armour, and his wife in the fashionable high-status clothing of the day suggests that they were of the upper classes and lived comfortably. Slatter noted that the arms on the brass monument correspond to that of the Bonvilles in medieval England at this time, and so they may represent Thomas' ancestry or even his wife's. The Bonvilles were a well-known medieval family and were also prominent in the later century during the Wars of the Roses.
Evidence for their personal lives is scarce. The early-twentieth-century writer J. Godlee Rickman noted that Thomas was granted the Manor of Whitchurch by Henry V. In January 1410 he had been given ten marks each year from funds in the county of Devon by Henry V's father, Henry IV. In effort to find out more about the couple I looked through the Calendar of Patent Rolls between 1399 and 1461 and for any churchwardens' accounts for St Mary's that might survive. Neither turned up any more information, with accounts of the church surviving only from the eighteenth century. For now, the domestic and professional lives of Thomas and his wife are out of reach, but I will keep them in mind as I look through the documents. As always, you often stumble upon relevant facts when you're looking for something else!
From what we do know of Thomas and his wife, they lived in some level of comfort and had ties to the royal family through Thomas' work at court. He would have travelled with the court, overseeing the delivery of wines from overseas and liaising with merchants, officials and other servants at various royal homes and palaces. It's probable that the couple lived in Whitchurch on Thames, particularly as they were granted ownership of the manor of the village under Henry V, and most likely knew the parson of the church at that time, John Compton, who was presented to the parish in April 1413. While Thomas was working, his wife would have been fulfilling an active role in the local community. Medieval women were not simply reading illuminated manuscripts and counting out their jewels, but through documents like the Paston Letters of the fifteenth century we know they were acting on their husband's behalf in personal and professional business, managing households in their absence and overseeing the education and upbringing of any children they had. Thomas and his wife also lived during a difficult time in England. The nation was still recovering from the Black Death, which had reduced the population just half a century before. Politically, Richard II was removed from power and his cousin Henry IV crowned, marking the start of Lancastrian rule. As man and wife they would have listened with interest about Henry V's ambitions in France and his marriage to the French princess Katherine de Valois. Perhaps Thomas was even involved in procuring best quality wines for this occasion. The first years of the fifteenth century also sparked changes that eventually led to civil war under Henry VI and the birth of the Wars of the Roses and Thomas and his wife lived through this period. For now, their stories are just out of reach. If I find out more, I'll update here.
Liked this? You might also like The 1474 Inventory of Stonor Park, Henley on Thames and Sir John Davis, Elizabethan Traitor and Pangbourne Church.
Sources:
Calendar of Patent Rolls, via Hathitrust, Henry V 1413-1416 Volume 1.
Rickman, J. Godlee. A Village on the Thames. George Allen Unwin Ltd, London. 1926.
Slatter, John. Some Notes of the History of the Parish of Whitchurch, Oxon. E Stock, London, 1895.
Henry VII: November 1485, Part 2', in Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. Chris Given-Wilson, Paul Brand, Seymour Phillips, Mark Ormrod, Geoffrey Martin, Anne Curry, Rosemary Horrox (Woodbridge, 2005), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/november-1485-pt-2 [accessed 14 August 2025].
'Edward IV: October 1472, Second Roll', in Parliament Rolls of Medieval England, ed. Chris Given-Wilson, Paul Brand, Seymour Phillips, Mark Ormrod, Geoffrey Martin, Anne Curry, Rosemary Horrox (Woodbridge, 2005), British History Online https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/parliament-rolls-medieval/october-1472-second-roll [accessed 14 August 2025].
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