Reading's history is interwoven with the stories of families like the Vachells, Knollys' and Kendricks. But one Vachell couple dominated seventeenth century Reading, giving funds to the poor, helping to preserve the historic minster and becoming involved in the political and military events of the town.
Sir Thomas Vachell was born in around 1560 to Walter Vachell, of Sulhampstead Bannister. In 1610, he inherited the estate of Coley, near Reading, from his uncle who was also named Thomas. This elder Thomas had lived out his last years at Ipsden, a village near Goring-on-Thames, and died on 3 May 1610. He is buried at St Mary's, Reading Minster, probably in the vault commemorated with a stone slab we see today.
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The younger Sir Thomas was hard-working and respected, and accumulated a great deal of wealth and status, but most notably through inheriting vast estates from family members. He granted a licence to inherit from his uncle, in addition to Coley, his other lands and properties in Burghfield, Shinfield, Tilehurst, Reading, Sulhampstead Abbot, Sulhampstead Bannister and Mapledurham. In 1611 he was bequeathed his brother's property in Burghfield, and in 1628 acquired property in Yorkshire. He always seemed grateful for this boost in prestige and income, and often remembered his uncle in later legal documents. He married three times. His first wife was Alice Brooke, his second Sarah Lane of Northampton and finally, his third wife was Lettice Knollys.
If the name rings a bell it is probably because of her more famous aunt of the same name, who triggered rage in Elizabeth I when she married the queen's favourite courtier and one-time possible husband, Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester. The Knollys' influence however goes back to the time of Henry VIII after they had gained lands in Reading after the Dissolution of the Monasteries and continued to exert a high level of influence over the town. The couple married on 23 September 1616 at St Laurence Church, a beautiful twelfth-century building near Reading's Market Place.
Thomas and Lettice seem to have had a happy marriage, although it was childless, as was all of Thomas' marriages. Therefore, Thomas approached his old age knowing he had no heirs left to leave his fortune to.
Sir Thomas turned to other members of his family that he could help. He urged his nephew Tanfield to marry, offering him a portfolio of lands if he tied the knot and settled down. Tanfield married Anne Cox, the daughter of a merchant family. His cousin Thomas also married, a match with Margaret Meverell, the daughter of Sir Thomas' own physician, and he gave them a hefty £1,000 on their wedding day along with the Manor of Upton.
In 1617 Sir Thomas had the family vault in the Minster built, renovating an area that was 'very ruinous and in great decay'. Thomas was allowed to 'have it att his proper charge to make and maynteyne ytt for ornament to the Church and for seates for hym and his family, and therein to errect and sett a tombe or seemely monument in memory of his unckle and ancestor from whom a greate part of his estate yemedlately descended, and likewise to make and maynteyne in or under the said ile a place for buriall for the said Sir Thomas Vachell and his posterity .... at a yearly charge of 20s. for the private, sole, and appropriate use of hym and his heyres for ever.' The vault was opened in 1862 during building work, and 17 coffins of the Vachell family were found there, individually labelled.
In the grant, Thomas was described as a parishioner of the church, and would have attended St Mary's for his daily worship and also lived close by. He was also involved in town business, in 1631 overseeing queries over the spending of funds from John Kendrick's will. Thomas would have known Kendrick, as they were both parishioners of the same church and prominent and wealthy residents of the town and council. In 1634 Thomas founded a set of almshouses in Castle Street for the benefit of six poor men. Made of brick, they were a set of tenements in one building with a common room at the centre. The residents went to the common room where one of them read prayers both morning and evening. Thomas allocated income from his lands in Shinfield to maintain the house. The almshouses were rebuilt after Thomas' death close by, after the first building became unstable. They can still be seen near the roundabout as Castle Street meets Castle Hill.
Sir Thomas died at the age of 70, and was buried on 20 July 1638 in Reading Minster in the family vault he had built. A memorial service was also held on 30 August that year, with a procession organised from Coley to the church, made up of local dignitaries and Vachell family members. In his will, he bequeathed to his wife Lettice his 'hanginges, bedding, linen, brasse, pewter &c. in the house wherein I dwell att Coley'. She also received three quarters of his plate, making her a wealthy widow, suggesting that her later union with Hampden may have been a love match. The last quarter he bequeathed to Tanfield, his nephew. Thomas' will gives us a view of the couple's home in Coley, which also contained a coach and coach horses, corn and grain in barns, and 'hogs and poultry about my house'. Lettice had a chambermaid called Margaret, who was part of a network of other household servants, including Simon West and Thomas Nicholls who served Thomas. Vachell also gave significant sums of money to his nieces and nephews, and allocated funds 'to the poor of Reading'. He also never forgot where he had received his wealth. Signing off, he asked that his executors erect a tomb at St Mary's 'for myself, my wife and my deceased uncle Thomas Vachell Esq. who lieth buiyed in St. Marie's Church in Reading'.
Lettice's next husband, John Hampden, was present at the Siege of Reading in 1643, and he suffered wounds sustained in the fighting. He died soon after their marriage, on 24 June that year, and Lettice was widowed once more. The home she had shared with Sir Thomas in Coley was used in 1644 as Reading's headquarters during the Civil War, indicating her personal involvement in the Royalist war effort there. As far as I can find, she retained the house until her death, and must have given permission for it to be used in this way by the king. Lettice was at Coley when she made her will in 1665 and died the following March, suggesting she was ill and knew she was dying. She chose to be buried with her second husband John Hampden, again more evidence that theirs was a romantic union and not a strategic marriage. Her funeral took place on 29 March 1666 and her will reveals her wealth and the state in which she lived in her widowhood. An abstract of the document was published in the Quarterly Journal of the Berkshire Archaeological Society in 1893, and is as follows:
I, Leticia Vachell, alias Hampden, of Coley, widdow. I bequeath my body to the earth . . . to be buried at Hampden by my deare Husband; to my sister Anne Temple, £50; to my sister the lady Cecilia Knollys my ring with Foure dyamonds, which was given me for a Legacie by my Lady Pagett; to my niece Mrs. Margaret Hamond my Coach Horses, Coach Hamesse (&c.); unto my nephew Mr. Robert Hamond my sute of Hangings of Forrest worke which are in the Dineing Roome; unto my neece Mrs. Leticia Hamond, my Goddaughter my tablett of Gold, Enameld and set with Rubyes and Ophalls, wherin is the picture of my Aunt the Countess of Leicester, my gold Fanne, coache, 16 chayres all of needle worke belonging to the dining Room and the Turkey Carpet (&c.); to my grand-child Mrs. Elizabeth Hamond my dyamond lockett; to my grand-child Mary Hamond my dyamond Ring, which was given me by her grand-father Hampden; to my grand-child Letitia Hamond my wedding Ring... to my neece Durham my olive-coloured Bed; to my faithful pastor Mr. Christopher Fowler... to Leticia Thisdethwaite my Table Dyamond Ring which I bought of her mother'.
She had servants who accompanies her in her widowhood, among them John Bushnell who served in Lettice's household with his wife, Margaret. She also gave funds for the benefit of the parishes of Reading and for the poor of the town. Between them, Thomas and Lettice were benefactors to the church and to the poor, with Thomas ordering the almshouses to be built while they were man and wife. As such, Lettice would have known of the plans and likely assisted in some way organising their construction and supplying funds while Thomas was away. They lived comfortably, travelled by coach wherever they went and were well-known in the town's administration and local government. They were also well-connected, not only with people like John Kendrick and other important personalities of seventeenth-century Reading, but to the powerful Knollys family of Elizabethan England.
Interested in Tudor history? You might also like my second book, Power Couples of the Tudor Era, published by Pen and Sword Books, which explores the contributions couples made to their own times as well as how they influenced our own. Elizabeth I and Robert Dudley Earl of Leicester have their own chapter. Order your copy here.
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Source: Rev P.H. Ditchfield, The Quarterly Journal of the Berks Archaeological and Architectural Society, Volume 3. Charles Slaughter, London. 1893.
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