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The house subsequently passed, it is not quite clear at what date, into the hands of another family of clothiers, the Buxtons, who had intermarried with the Paycockes some time before 1537. Thomas was seventeen when his father died and lived until 1647, also carrying on business as a clothier, and the house was certainly in his possession.
The middle class liked some show for its money; but again it was the ostentation without the vulgarity of wealth. Looking upon his beautiful house, or worshipping beside his family tombs, with the merchant's mark on the brasses, in St Katherine's aisle, Thomas Paycocke must often have blessed the noble industry which supported him. The wills of the Paycockes tell the same story.
The merchant mark of the Paycockes, an ermine tail, looking like a two-stemmed clover leaf, is to be found on the carved beams of the chimney, on the breastsummers of the fire-places, and set in the midst of the strip of carving along the front of the house. Thomas marked his bales of cloth thus, and what other armorial bearings did he need?
See Power, The Paycockes of Coggeshall, pp. 33-4. Quoted in Lipson, Introd. to the Econ. Hist, of England , I, p. 421. Quoted ibid., p. 417. On John Winchcomb see Power, op. cit., pp. 17-18; and Lipson, op. cit., p. 419. Deloney's Works, ed. F.C. Mann, pp. 20-1. Ibid., p. 22. Quoted in C.L. Powell, Eng. Domestic Relations, 1487-1563 , p. 27.
One of the Paycockes had probably built the north aisle, where the altar was dedicated to St Katherine, and all the Paycocke tombs lay there.
His piety is shown also in his bequests to the churches of Bradwell, Pattiswick, and Markshall, parishes adjacent to Coggeshall, and to Stoke Nayland, Clare, Poslingford, Ovington, and Beauchamp St Pauls, over the Essex order, in the district from which the Paycockes originally came. But his greatest care was naturally for Coggeshall Church.
The bride Margaret, who was somewhat after this merry fashion brought home to Coggeshall, came from Clare, the ancient home of the Coggeshall Paycockes.
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