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Updated: June 4, 2025
It was perhaps in the hope of a son to whom he might leave his house and name that Thomas Paycocke married again a girl called Ann Cotton. She was the wife of his old age, 'Anne my good wif', and her presence must have made bright the beautiful house, silent and lonely since Margaret died.
Then the thriving villages emptied themselves, so that today we must needs re-create again from scattered traces and old buildings, and still older names, the once familiar figures of the East Anglian clothier and his swarm of busy workmen. Such a familiar figure was once old Thomas Paycocke, clothier, of Coggeshall in Essex, who died full of years and honour in 1518.
Thomas Paycocke left instructions in his will that he should be buried before St Katherine's altar, and made the following gifts to the church: 'Item, I bequeth to the high aulter of Coxhall Chirche in recompence of tithes and all oder thyngs forgoten, Summa iiij li.
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.
Other friends and employees of Thomas Paycocke also had their legacies. He leaves 6s. 8d. to Humphrey Stonor, 'somtyme my prentis'. We may see Humphrey Stonor, with sleepy eyes, making his way downstairs on a frosty morning, from those huge raftered attics, where perhaps the 'prentices used to sleep.
This kind of historical evidence will help us with Thomas Paycocke. His family brasses were set in the north aisle of the parish church of St Peter Ad Vincula.
Throughout the fifteenth century Coggeshall was an important centre, second only to the great towns of Norwich, Colchester, and Sudbury, and to this day its two inns are called the 'Woolpack' and the 'Fleece. We must, as I said, build up the portrait of Thomas Paycocke and his compeers from scattered traces; but happily such traces are common enough in many and many an English village, and in Coggeshall itself they lie ready to our hand.
This Thomas died about 1580, leaving only daughters, and after him, in 1584, died John Paycocke, sadly commemorated in the parish register as 'the last of his name in Coxall'. So the beautiful house passed out of the hands of the great family of clothiers who had held it for nearly a hundred years. Of Thomas Paycocke's personal character it is also possible to divine something from his will.
It stands there still, and looking upon it today, and thinking of Thomas Paycocke who once dwelt in it, do there not come to mind the famous words of Ecclesiasticus? Let us now praise famous men and our fathers that begat us. The Lord hath wrought great glory by them through His great power from the beginning...
It is a mark of the respect in which Thomas Paycocke was held in the countryside that he should have been made a brother by the Crutched Friars.
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