Chapter 7

A Posh Poacher Snared in the Noose 1541

Thomas Fiennes, 9th Baron Dacre, made something of a habit of sending people to their deaths. In 1536, he had been present as one of the members of the jury at the trial of Anne Boleyn, Henry VIII’s second wife, on charges of adultery, incest and treason. Along with twenty-six other hand-picked ‘yes men’ he duly found the queen guilty and she was beheaded at the Tower of London on 19 May. Following the failed Pilgrimage of Grace, a northern uprising against Henry in the autumn of 1536, Dacre was again one of those trusted enough by the king to sit on a jury to condemn the rebel lords Darcy and Hussey to die. Again, in 1538, Dacre’s services were required to try the Marquess of Exeter for a rebellion in the West Country; Exeter went to the block later that year.

Like many of the men who played a part in condemning those who had incurred the king’s wrath during that dangerous era, Dacre must have occasionally wondered whether he might, one day, suffer a similar fate. After all, more nobles would be executed during Henry VIII’s reign than under any other monarch. Yet it is unlikely that Dacre ever imagined that a mere midnight jolly would see him locked up in the tower facing the ultimate penalty. For it was not high treason or political power games that would see him come a cropper, but a case of youthful high jinks leading to hapless murder.

Fiennes succeeded to his title in 1533 aged about seventeen. The family seat was the grand, fifteenth century brick-built Herstmonceux Castle in Sussex and Dacre owned property worth £1200 a year – a fortune at the time. In 1534, he was summoned to attend parliament and quickly became well known at court. Over the next few years, he established himself as one of Henry’s favourites, attending the christening of the future Edward VI. In 1537, he was chosen to help carry the canopy at the funeral of Jane Seymour, Henry’s third wife, when she died in October 1537. Dacre was also in a party that received Anne of Cleves in Rainham, Kent when Henry’s prospective new wife arrived in England in 1540.

Dacre may have been rubbing shoulders with the most important folk in the land and a married man, but he was still a typical twenty-something, prone to get involved in the odd caper. In 1537, his youthful antics got him into trouble with the second most important man in England, Thomas Cromwell. He had been forced to write an apologetic letter to Henry’s right-hand man: ‘I have received your lordship’s letters wherin I perceive your benevolence towards the frailness of my youth in considering that I was rather led by instigation of my accusers than of my mere mind of those unlawful acts, which I have long detested in secret. I perceive your lordship is desirous to have knowledge of all riotous hunters and shall exert myself to do you service therin.’

We don’t know the back story of the incident to which Dacre refers, but, given the fate that later befell him, its contents are extremely telling. The peer obviously had a penchant for prank poaching with his aristocratic pals. In 1541 one of these perilous late night escapades would end in disaster.

On 20 April, Dacre and thirteen of his associates met at Herstmonceux to conspire to hunt on the lands of Nicholas Pelham, another important Sussex landowner who owned the neighbouring estate at Laughton. They planned to take dogs and large nets with them to catch deer. According to a later hearing of local JPs, the 26-year old and his associates had then ‘bound themselves by oaths’ to kill anyone who might oppose them. On the night of 30 April they met again and divided into two groups, setting off for different parts of Pelham’s estate. According to Holinshed, Dacre’s group consisted of John Mauntell, John Frowdys, George Roydon, John Cheyne, Thomas Isley, Richard Middleton and John Goldwell. They went to a plot of land called Pykhaye in the parish of Hellingly. There they came across John Busebrygge, James Busebrygge and Richard Sumner, evidently some of Pelham’s employees and, fearing that they might be recognised by the trio, attacked them. Holinshed says: ‘there insued a fraie betwixt the said lord Dacres and his companie on the one partie, and the said John and James Busebrygge and Richard Sumner on the other.’ According to the coroner’s report the incident occurred between 8-10pm.

John Busebrygge ended up with a wound on the left side of his back though it’s not clear who inflicted the blow. Carried back to Pelham’s house, Laughton Place, he died from his injuries two days later. Dacre and his seven companions had fled the scene of the attack, but Pelham’s men had, indeed, recognised and reported them.

No doubt Dacre’s adventure was all meant to be a great wheeze, but it had gone tragically wrong and the authorities took a dim view. Deer stealing itself was a serious crime, but killing another gentleman’s servant in the process meant the local justices of the peace got involved. Dacre was taken into custody and imprisoned in the Tower of London. He was due to face a charge of murder at the Palace of Westminster but there was heated debate among the members of the Privy Council in the Star Chamber about the case. On 27 June, Sir William Paget, clerk to the Council, wrote that he had heard the lords arguing about whether, legally, this really was a case of wilful murder, as Dacre had not planned to kill Busebrygge. But they eventually agreed that his plea should be heard.

Dacre at first pleaded not guilty ‘declaring, with long circumstances that he intended no murder’ but he was subsequently persuaded to change this plea at the encouragement of some of some peers on the basis that some of the other men accused along with him had already confessed. Reluctantly, Dacre now refused his trial hoping to throw himself on the king’s mercy. The council meanwhile asked the king to pardon their fellow aristocrat. Earlier in Henry’s life this ploy might have worked. But by the 1540s Henry was growing ever more spiteful; he point blank refused and Dacre was promptly sentenced to death.

There was more humiliation to come. Dacre was scheduled to be beheaded on 29 June. But on the morning of his execution, as he was brought out of the Tower, a messenger suddenly arrived with a stay of execution. Dacre must have thought that finally he was to get a reprieve from the king. It was a cruel trick. In fact he was not to suffer the death of a noble, but of a common criminal – hanged at Tyburn. His end was merely delayed by a few hours. Holinshed tells us, ‘at three of the clocke in the same afternoon, he was brought forth of the tower and delivered to the sherrifs who led him on foote betwixt them unto Tiburne where he died.’ Edward Hall described how Dacre ‘was strangled as common murderers are and his body buried in the church of St Sepulchre.’ The diplomat Eustace Chapuys, wrote that Dacre ‘was hung from the most ignominious gibbet, and for the greater shame dragged through the streets to the place of execution, to the great pity of many people.’

So what of the rest of Dacre’s party? Mauntell, Frowdys and Roydon had all been brought to the court of the King’s Bench as well and been persuaded that it was in their best interests to plead guilty. It wasn’t. They were hanged on the same day as Dacre, but at another traditional place of execution, St Thomas-a-Watering, where the River Neckinger crossed the main route leading south east out of the city. Demonstrating Henry’s inconsistency during this period, Cheyne somehow managed to secure himself an early pardon while Goldwell, Isley and Middleton were pardoned later, in 1542, despite initially having been sentenced to death. The men in the second group who had been poaching that night merely faced fines.

Dacre’s family were stripped of titles and lands but financial provision was made for his wife Mary who married again and lived another thirty-five years. On the accession of Elizabeth, Dacre’s title and lands were restored to his son Gregory, who became the 10th Baron Dacre. Dacre’s daughter Margaret later became Baroness Dacre. She married an MP, had eleven children and set up home at Herstmonceux once again.