Thomas Yale

Queen's college, University of Cambridge

Thomas Yale was born in 1525 or 1526 to David Lloyd ap Ellis of Plas-yn-Yale, Denbigh. His brother, Roger Lloyd ap Ellis of Brynglas, was Secretary to Cardinal Wolsey; the owner of Hampton Court Palace and England's most powerful man, next to King Henry VIII, as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, and was married to Katherine, a daughter of William ap Griffith Vychan, Lord of Kymmer-yn-Edeirnion and Baron of Edeirnion.[1][2][3] 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.[4] 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 the Chancellor, John Fuller, 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.

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.[5] 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.[6] He was created Legum Doctor. 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.[7] (Matthew Parker was 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).[8][9][10]

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.

Canterbury Cathedral UK from the south-west

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.

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.[11] 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 represented to Grindal the need of reforms in the Court of Audience. 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.[12] He died in November or December 1577. He married Joanna (died 12 September 1587), daughter of Nicholas Waleron.

Lambeth Palace, London

As a member of the household of the Archbishop of Canterbury, Matthew Parker, he lived at Lambeth Palace in London.[13][14][15]

For many years Yale was an ecclesiastical High Commissioner to Elizabeth Tudor at the Court of High Commission. 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.[16][17] 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).

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: "Yale, Thomas". Dictionary of National Biography. London: Smith, Elder & Co. 1885–1900.