John Tame

[7] It is stated by Neale (1846) that the captured ship was carrying a beautiful set of twenty-eight stained-glass windows, intended for a present to the Pope and that Tame brought the glass, and the workmen who were accompanying it, to England, and in order to display it fittingly, decided to rebuild the parish church at Fairford "on a plan of costly magnificence, suited to the beautiful windows which he intended thus to consecrate to God.

In 1479 John Tame, together with the Cirencester lawyer and clothier John Twynyho (d.1485), had obtained a lease of the demesne of the manor of Fairford from King Henry VII, to whom the manor had temporarily reverted during the minority of Edward Plantagenet (1475-1499) (later 17th Earl of Warwick), son of George, 1st Duke of Clarence, 1st Earl of Warwick (d. 1478) by his wife, the heiress of Fairford, Isabel Neville.

John Tame's business headquarters were at Cirencester,[2] and his great wealth derived from the production and sale of wool, which came from his vast flocks of sheep for the grazing of which he secured large tracts of land.

[7] By his will dated 1497 he assigned £240 to found a chantry in Fairford Church but later used the money to buy land in Castle Eaton, Wiltshire, for its endowment.

[15] John Tame is buried in Fairford Church in a chest tomb on the north side of the chancel (the most usual burial-place for a founder).

On the ledger stone on top of the chest tomb are various monumental brasses, set into the slab, the main ones showing John Tame and his wife standing facing each other.