William Denys

Twynyho's relative[1] Ankaret (née Hawkeston) had been a servant of Isabel Neville, Duchess of Clarence (died 1476), daughter and co-heiress of Richard Nevill, Earl of Warwick (died 1471), whose death in childbirth had been blamed, by her husband George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence (executed 1478), on poisoning by Ankaret.

Clarence rapidly gave orders for her arrest, which was performed at Keyford, Frome, Somerset, the family home, on 12 April 1477, by Richard Hyde and Roger Strugge and 80 "riotous persons", whence she was taken to Bath, thence to Cirencester thence to Warwick, where she was tried before JPs at the guildhall and found guilty by a jury.

[citation needed] The marriage settlement appears to have concerned the Denys manors of Aust, Gloucestershire, of which they held a moiety, and Litton Cheney in Dorset.

The Inquisition post mortem of William's father Sir Walter Denys, dated 18 October 1505, relating to his lands in Dorset, states as follows:[9]

At about the time of William's appointment as an Esquire of the Body the King granted him the honour of the licence to empark 500 acres of Dyrham, which is to say to enclose the land with a wall or hedgebank and to establish a captive herd of deer within, with exclusive hunting rights.

This grant is witnessed by a charter on parchment, to which is affixed a rare example of a perfect great seal of Henry VIII, now hanging in a frame at Dyrham Park.

The charter is of exceptional interest as it is witnessed by men of the greatest importance in the state, who were at the King's side at that moment, at the Palace of Westminster.

The text of the document, translated from Latin is as follows:[12] "Henry by the grace of God King of England and France and Lord of Ireland sends greetings to his archbishops, bishops, abbotts, priors, dukes, marquises, earls, barons, judges, sheriffs, reeves, ministers and all our bailiffs and faithful subjects.

Let it be known that we, motivated by our especial grace and certain knowledge of him, have granted for us and our heirs to our faithful servant William Denys, Esquire of the Royal Body, to him, his heirs and assigns, the right to empark 500 acres of land, meadow, pasture and wood together with appurtenance at Le Worthy within the manor of Dereham in the county of Gloucestershire and enclose them with fences and hedges in order to make a park there.

Anne's father Maurice, during this Berkeley exile, had therefore been living at Thornbury, close to the Denys manors of Alveston and Earthcott Green.

Edmund Tame (died 1534), the son of the business partner of John Twynyho, Denys's first father-in-law, was also on the Gloucestershire list, but his name was subsequently struck out and replaced, possibly due to ill-health.

In a subsequent record Denys's name is shown as erased from the list of those attending the King, with the words "With the Queen" added, suggesting he had been transferred into the retinue of Katharine of Aragon.

[15] In 1520 Sir William and Lady Ann founded the "Guild of St. Denis" in the Church of St Peter, Dyrham, next to their manor house.

This later guild at Dyrham appears however to have been more akin to a chantry, endowed with revenues to fund the singing by priests of masses for the souls of the members.

The warden of Wynterborne or otherwise called Bradston Chantrie "md?” that the seid wardenage or chantrie with the whole possessions thereunto belonging or appertaining have been for the space of one whole yere past or ther about in the possession of one William Denys now occupying the same by what title they know not, who said unto them he hath the same of our sovereign lord the king's majestie".The Catalogue of Seals in the British Museum records the following entry: