Edward Echyngham
[1] From 1485 the presence of the Howard Dukes of Norfolk was felt directly along the Barsham reach of the River Waveney from their possession of Bungay Castle.
[11] In 1461 Richard Echyngham bequeathed Barsham Hall (with the advowson) to John, his son by Jane Picot,[12] leaving a lifetime tenure of "The Knyghtes Chambyr" at the west end of the Hall to his mother, Dame Margaret, and the beds from the great chamber on the east side, and from the lesser chamber, to his widow Elizabeth (Jernegan[13]), John's stepmother.
[14] Barsham church (its east front flushwork and tracery showing the Echyngham fretty heraldry) and its rectory stand on rising land overlooking the Waveney valley from the south.
[27] After Knyvet and Carew were lost with the Regent in August 1512, in September Echyngham was appointed to captain The Lizard, with Sir Weston Browne in The Great Bark and others, to keep the seas northerly for the winter.
Three days later the navy was attacked by 6 French galleys and 4 foysts, which then made up to White Sand Bay north of Le Conquet.
The captains having chosen Lord Ferrers to lead them, Wulstan Brown sent Echyngham and Harper (John Baptist of Harwich) back to "Hampton" (i.e. Southampton) "for to wafte the vytlers unto them".
Echyngham, who met with William Gonson beyond Portland, having brought victuallers wrote to Wolsey on 5 May from Hampton: his letter reported eye-witness accounts, and spoke of the resolute leadership needed for further action against the enemy.
[32] Remaining with the Second new Spaniard, Echyngham was named in mid-May to join a further enterprise to distress the French navy, and, with his 100 men, among those to land with the Lord Lisle.
[33] Forces were gathered at Hampton, and Bishop Fox reported on 8 June that "Delabere and Ichyngham, Rote with his company and some of Lord Howard's folk departed to-day with a good wind".
[42] Sir Edmund Bedingfield senior, the builder of Oxburgh Hall, Norfolk (which he had licence to crenellate in 1482[43]), had died in January 1496–97:[44] Marie Bedingfield is named in the 1487 will of Margaret's mother, Dame Agnes Scott (widow of Sir John Scott, Marshal of Calais (died 1485)[45]), among the children of "my daughter Bedyngfeld".
[46] The date of Echyngham's first marriage is uncertain, but by 1515 Osborne Ichyngham, apparently his son, though possibly illegitimate, had emerged as the confidential agent and messenger of Sir Thomas Spinelly, English Resident Ambassador in the Netherlands.
[48] Echyngham had a dwelling in Ipswich, mentioned in his will, where his Wingfield kinsmen possessed one of the principal residences: between the Waveney and Orwell lay the entire sea-coast of Suffolk.
In April 1517 Echyngham's uncle Sir Richard Wingfield, as Lord Deputy of Calais 1513–1519, prepared notices for Wolsey (Ipswich's most famous son) for the means of conveying men to take possession of Thérouanne, where the French king was attempting to establish a garrison.
He proposed that men should be gathered in Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex, to take shipping at Orwell Haven for Calais under the guise of artificers bound for Tournai; he further desired that Sir Edward Echyngham should have their conveyance, under the Deputy.
Ann, daughter of John Everard of Cratfield and his wife Margaret Bedingfield (of a branch of that family seated at Ditchingham), had first married Edward Lewknor of Kingston Buci near Brighton, Sussex.
[40] A table tomb set against, and partly into, the north wall of the chancel of Barsham church is evidently that of Sir Edward Echyngham.
It is one of an important recognized series of East Anglian tombs made up of ornamental terracotta panels in Italianate style,[65] a fashion which was expressed also in architectural details during the 1520s and 1530s.
[40] By 1540 Osborne was in Ireland, where he acquired estates, which after his death in 1546 descended to his elder sons, while his youngest inherited his English lands.
[71] Bequests to the Everards and to Richard Lewknor follow, and he asks that the old usage and custime of the "dole" should be kept up by which every man, woman and childe who should attend the five masses of requiem to be sung in St Katheryn's chapel should return to the manor place and should receive every one of them two red herrings, a white herring and a temse loaf (made from sifted flour), and something to drink: and those that serve them should have their dinner for their trouble, and this dole was to "continue and endure for evermore".
[73] As to the two daughters, the coheirs, of Sir Edward, according to a letter of Anthony Rous of Dennington[74] to Thomas Cromwell, Good Friday 1539, the elder (then about 16), Anne Echyngham, was sent to her kinsman Richard Wharton, Bailey of Bungay, and arrangements (not fulfilled) were being made for her marriage to "Mr Hogon's eldest son".
