Hugh Denys
Margaret's second husband Sir Thomas Borough was on the victorious Yorkist side at Hexham so possibly witnessed the beheading of his wife's stepbrother.
Mary's cousin Edmund de Ros, heir of her beheaded uncle Thomas, was restored in his barony by Henry VII on his accession in 1485, and resided possibly quite close to the Denys's at Elsinges, Enfield, Middlesex.
The duties in the earliest days of this ancient post involved assisting the king in the performance in a decorous manner of his bodily function of excretion.
Arrangements would have to be made for the custody of the stool itself (the word derives from Old English & Norse stul, signifying "chair", or piece of furniture for sitting on), provision of a suitable room for the use thereof, with curtains, hangings being provided.
By the reign of Henry VII, as exemplified in the person of Hugh Denys, the Groom of the Stool was a substantial man, from the gentry, married to an aristocratic wife, who died owning at least four manors (although possibly not all beneficially as will be discussed below).
The Tudor historian David Starkey describes this system, and Denys's role in it, as follows:In 1493 Henry VII had broken with tradition and set up a new department of the Royal Household.
In the Pardon Roll of Henry VIII, of 16 March c. 1510, Hugh Denys is described as "Esquire of the Body, Gauger in Bristol, one of the Ushers at the Receipt of the Exchequer, Ulnager in Counties Oxford and Berks., Grocer and Garbler (sic) of London".
(Exchequer: Treasury of the receipt: Miscellaneous Books E 36/211) Money is recorded having been paid by the Queen to Hugh Denys, reimbursing him for paying a deliveryman, or possibly their maker come in person, for a pair of clavichords, a form of early keyboard instrument capable of dynamics (i.e. playing loud and soft through striking the strings directly via a metal tangent), thought to be amongst the earliest imported into England.
[26] Mary Denys was one of many to obtain a warrant for stuff for gowns, coats, etc., for particular persons, all courtiers and members of the Royal Household for the coronation of Henry VIII and Catherine.
[27] Towards the end of his life, and of the king's, when the Privy Chamber financial system was in operation, Hugh Denys purchased interests in several manors, in some possibly as a bare trustee for another beneficial owner.
The steward had only to redirect the stream of net profits to the new owner, as companies alter their dividend payments today to the bank accounts of new shareholders.
Hence the Groom of the Stool was the perfect candidate to control the operation, as a man of discretion, an intimate companion of the king, long in his confidence, probably without strong personal ambition,[29] therefore trustworthy.
Hugh Denys's former manor became the site of the neo-classical Georgian mansion of Osterley Park, the parkland of which is still a pristine and undeveloped island within the suburbs of the Metropolis, being situated under the busy elevated section of the M4 Motorway approaching the Capital.
[36] Elizabeth made an unfortunate marriage, as the second wife of a future notorious South-Sea Bubble bankrupt, Sir Alexander Cuming of Culter, in Aberdeen, 1st Baronet.
His son by his first marriage was an extraordinary character, Sir Alexander Cuming, 2nd Baronet, whose mystical and powerful persona induced the Cherokee Indians to make him their Co-Emperor and to treat him as a living deity.
He applied to King George III to formalise his title and give him funding, promising to win the Cherokees' loyalty against the French in the War of Independence, yet was rejected as an eccentric.
His 10 feoffees were as follows and included some of Henry VII's close financial officers and courtiers: Edward Dudley, Roger Lupton (Clerk, Provost of Eton College, Canon of Windsor, later Master in Chancery.
The list of feoffees clearly demonstrates that these persons were close to royal power; so, once again, it is possible that this transaction was an investment of Privy Purse funds.
1507-8 A Corrody was an annual charge on its income, originally a voucher issued by a Priory to pay board and lodging of founders while visiting, later monetised and used by kings as transferable pensions.
[41] This Corrody had originally been monetised at 5 marks per annum, when granted by Henry VII in 1486 to his servant William Martyn, possibly Denys's predecessor.
[42] Denys died on 9 October 1511 and was buried at Sheen Priory, next to his former royal master's Palace of Richmond, just 3 miles (4.8 km) SE and across the Thames from his manor of Osterley.
[43] Extract: I will that all such persons as now have been feoffed to my use of and in my manors of Osterley, Wyke, Portepele(Portpool), called Greysynte(Gray's Inn), lands & tenements in the Co. of Middlesex, that they be of them seized to the use of me, my heirs and assigns unto such time as the Prior & Convent of the Charterhouse at Sheen in Co. Surrey have obtained of the King's grace sufficient licence for the amortisement (alienation?)
Denys had foreseen the delay experienced by his feoffees in receiving a licence to alienate, and had made in his will specific provisions for the disposition of the income generated pending the transfer to Sheen.
The priests were to be resident and hold no other benefices, were to receive 9 marks a year and free fuel and were to pray for the souls of King Henry VII, John Somerset and Hugh Denys.
It appears that Syon Abbey were attracted by the prospect of acquiring the two nearby manors, while distant Gray's Inn could serve no function in their plans.
The charter effecting the transfer from Sheen to Syon is an elaborate illuminated manuscript "An Indenture, a book with indented covers is preserved in the Augmentation Office.
It was John's son Hugh Denys of Pucklechurch, perhaps named after his generous great uncle, who made application to Parliament to procure an Act which would effect a resettlement of the then defunct Sheen bequest onto Magdalene College, Cambridge, then being refounded(in 1542).
Esq", its true authorship being discovered in 1811 from an entry in the records of the Stationer's Company in London, dated 1613, in which his publisher had entered his name as John "Dennys", by which spelling he has become immortalized in the literary world.
The poem is in imitation of Virgil's Georgics, and is replete with cryptic classical and biblical references designed to delight the educated Elizabethan reader.
It is certain that John Dennys must have studied very deeply at a university somewhere and it is likely that it was at Magdalene, due to the family connection, that the author of "The Secrets of Angling" learned his art.
