Thomas Yale

Thomas Yale (1525/6–1577) was the Chancellor, Vicar general and Official Principal of the Head of the Church of England : Matthew Parker, 1st Archbishop of Canterbury, and later on, of Edmund Grindal, 2nd Archbishop of Canterbury, during the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. He was also Dean of the Arches, and High Commissioner to Queen Elizabeth Tudor at the Court of High Commission.

Early life

Dr. Thomas Yale was born in 1525 or 1526 to David Lloyd ap Ellis of Plas-yn-Yale, son of Baron Ellis ap Griffith, member of the Royal House of Mathrafal. This Ellis was a cousin of the Tudors, and a grandson of Lord Tudur ap Gruffudd, brother of Owen Glendower, the last native Prince of Wales. Thomas's brother, Roger Lloyd Yale ap Ellis of Brynglas, was Secretary to Cardinal Wolsey, along with Thomas Cromwell, and was married to Katherine, a daughter of William ap Griffith Vychan, Baron of Edeirnion and Lord of Kymmer-yn-Edeirnion. Cardinal Wolsey was the King's chief minister, the owner of Hampton Court Palace, and England's most powerful man, next to King Henry VIII, as Lord High Chancellor, and played a major role in the English Reformation.

Another brother, John Wynn (Yale), the ancestor of the Yale family of America and Wales, was the father of Dr. David Yale of Erddig Park, Chancellor of Chester, who married Frances Lloyd, daughter of Judge John Lloyd, a board member of the University of Oxford and cofounder with Queen Elizabeth I of a protestant college at Oxford. David Yale became the great-grandfather of Governor Elihu Yale who gave his name to Yale University.
His son, Thomas Yale Sr., was the father of the Yales who emigrated to America with the Eaton family, and was cousin of Francis Willughby of Wollaton Hall. David Yale was also the uncle of Elizabeth Weston, daughter of Knight Simon Weston, who became the wife of Robert Ridgeway, 2nd Earl of Londonderry, and sister-in-law of Sir Francis Willoughby, son of Sir Percival Willoughby.

Career

Thomas Yale graduated B.A. at Cambridge University in 1542–3, and was elected a Fellow, member of the governing body of Queen's College of the University of Cambridge about 1544. He commenced M.A. in 1546, and filled the office of bursar to his college from 1549 to 1551. He was one of the Proctors of the University for the year commencing Michaelmas 1552, but resigned before the expiration of his term of office. In 1554 he was appointed Commissary of the Diocese of Ely under Chancellor John Fuller (college head), and in 1555 he was Keeper of the Spiritualities of the Diocese of Bangor during the vacancy after the death of Arthur Bulkeley, Bishop of Bangor. In that year he subscribed the Roman Catholic articles imposed upon all graduates of the University.

During the reign of Queen Mary I, in November 1556, his name occurs in the commission for the suppression of heresy within the Diocese of Ely, and he assisted in the search for heretical books during the visitation of the University by Cardinal Pole's delegates. In January 1556–7 he was among those empowered by the Senate to reform the composition for the election of Proctors and to revise the University statutes. He was created Doctor of Laws in 1557, and admitted an advocate of the Court of Arches on 26 April 1559. In the same year he and four other leading civilians subscribed an opinion that the commission issued by Queen Elizabeth Tudor for the consecration of Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, as the new Head of the Anglican Church, was legally valid. Matthew Parker was previously the Chaplain of Elizabeth during her childhood and her mother, Queen Anne Boleyn. When Anne was arrested, he promised her that he would take care of the spiritual well being of her daughter, as she was going to be executed for treason. He later became the Chaplain of Elizabeth's father, King Henry VIII.

On 25 March 1560, Yale was admitted to the Prebend of Offley in Lichfield Cathedral. In the same year he became Rector of Leverington in the Isle of Ely, and was one of the Archiepiscopal commissioners for visiting the churches and Dioceses of Canterbury, Rochester, and Peterborough. On 24 April 1561 the Archbishop commissioned him and Vice-Chancellor, Walter Wright to visit the church, city, and Diocese of Oxford.

Judge

On 28 June 1561 he was constituted for life Judge of the Court of Audience, Official Principal, Chancellor, and Vicar general to the 1st Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, and in the same year obtained the Rectory of Llantrisant, Anglesey. In 1562 he became Chancellor of the Diocese of Bangor, and in May, was commissioned by Matthew Parker, the Archbishop, to visit All Souls and Merton College at Oxford. In 1563 he was on a commission to visit the Diocese of Ely.

On 7 July 1564 he was instituted to the Prebend of Vaynoll in the Diocese of St Asaph. In 1566 he was one of the Masters in Ordinary of the Court of Chancery, and was placed on a commission to visit the Diocese of Bangor. In 1567 he was appointed Dean of the Arches, a post which he resigned in 1573, and was one of the Commissioners for the visitation of the church and Diocese of Norwich. By a patent confirmed on 15 July 1571 he was constituted Joint-Keeper of the Prerogative court.

Later life

Thomas Yale married in 1561 Joanna (died 12 September 1587), daughter of Nicholas Waleron. Joanna was previously married to ambassador Simon Heynes, who was one of those who invalidated the marriage of Henry VIII with Anne of Cleves, and charged for treason Sir Thomas Wyatt. She was then secondly married to the Archbishop of York, William May, who was the President of Queen's College and brother of the Bishop of Carlisle, John May.

On Parker's death in 1575, Thomas acted as one of his executors. Matthew Parker's successor, the 2nd Archbishop of Canterbury, Edmund Grindal, the new Head of the Anglican Church, also appointed him Chancellor, Vicar general, Official Principal and Judge of his audience. On 23 April 1576 he was placed on a commission for repressing religious malcontents. On 2 May he and Nicholas Robinson, Bishop of Bangor, were empowered by Grindal to visit on his behalf the Diocese of Bangor, and on 17 August he and Gilbert Berkeley, Bishop of Bath and Wells, were similarly commissioned to visit the church at Wells. In the same year, Yale and Dr. William Aubrey represented to Grindal the need of reforms in the Court of Chancery. On Grindal's suspension in June 1577, Yale discharged his judicial duties for him and governed the whole Province of Canterbury, continuing to act until November, when he fell ill. He died in either November or December,1577.

Residence

As a member of the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, he lived at Lambeth Palace in London.

Works

For many years, Yale was an ecclesiastical High Commissioner to Elizabeth Tudor at the Court of High Commission, assuming the role of Ambassador. As one of the leaders of the Anglican Church, he was featured along with Queen Elizabeth, the Archbishop Matthew Parker, the Chief minister Lord Burghley, of Burghley House, the Earl of Leicester Robert Dudley, of Kenilworth Castle, and many others, in the correspondence letters of Matthew Parker as they were governing the Church of England during the Elizabethan Religious Settlement. Some manuscript extracts by him entitled ‘Collecta ex Registro Archiepiscoporum Cantuar.’ are preserved among the Cottonian manuscripts (Cleopatra F. i. 267), and were printed in John Strype's ''Life of Parker'', iii. 177–82. A statement of his case in a controversy for precedency with Bartholomew Clerke is among the Petyt manuscripts in the library of the Inner Temple. An elegy on Yale by Peter Leigh is preserved in the British Museum (Addit. MS. 26737, f. 43).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yale, Thomas
1520s births
1577 deaths
16th-century English educators
Alumni of the University of Cambridge
Fellows of Queens' College, Cambridge