Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Moyle, Thomas
MOYLE, Sir THOMAS (d. 1560), speaker of the House of Commons, was third son of John Moyle, who in 1488 was one of those commissioned in Cornwall to raise archers for the king's expedition to Brittany (Rymer, Fœdera, 1745, pt. v. vol. iii. p. 197). His mother was a daughter of Sir Robert Drury. Sir Walter Moyle [q. v.] was his grandfather. Thomas Moyle, like his grandfather, entered Gray's Inn, probably before 1522, as in that year one of his name from Gray's Inn was surety to the extent of 100l. for George Nevill, third baron of Abergavenny [q. v.] He became Lent reader there in 1533. In 1537 the court of augmentations was erected to manage the vast property flowing in to the treasury on the suppression of the abbeys. Of this Moyle and Thomas, father of Sir Walter Mildmay [q. v.], were appointed receivers, each having 200l. fee and 20l. diet. Moyle was afterwards promoted to the chancellorship of the same court. But the augmentation office was temporarily deprived of his services in the same year, 1537, when he was sent to Ireland on a special commission with St. Leger, Paulet, and Berners. He was also on 18 Oct. 1537 knighted. The work of the commission in Ireland was very important, as Lord Grey had made enemies of the English officials. Hence the selection of the experienced St. Leger in the work of trying to restore order (cf. {sc|Bagwell}}, Ireland under the Tudors, i. 208 et seq.)
Moyle returned to England at the end of the year, and soon made himself conspicuous as a zealous servant of Henry, rather after the manner of Audley. He enlarged his estates by securing monastic property, and soon became a rich and prominent official. In 1539 he was with Layton and Pollard in the west, and signed with them the letters from Glastonbury showing that they were trying to find hidden property in the abbey, and to collect evidence against Whiting, the abbot. The same year he was one of those appointed to receive Anne of Cleves on her arrival. Moyle was returned member for the county of Kent in 1542, and chosen speaker of the House of Commons. He addressed the king in an extraordinarily adulatory speech, but his tenure of office was made notable by the fact that he was said to be the first speaker who claimed the privilege of freedom of speech. The exact wording of his request is, however, uncertain. During his term of office the subject became prominent owing to Ferrar's case, in which Henry conciliated the commons. The king doubtless was glad to have a trusty servant in the chair, as during this session Catherine Howard and Lady Rochford were condemned. He was returned for Rochester in 1544, and in 1545 he was a commissioner for visiting Eastridge Hospital, Wiltshire. It is difficult to know the attitude he took up under Mary, but it seems probable that he supported her (cf. Cal. State Papers, 1547-80, p. 59 ; Strype, Memorials, in. i. 476 ; Annals, I. i. 64 ; and especially Acts of the Privy Council, 1552-6, as against Manning, Lives of the Speakers, and Boase, Collect. Cornub. p. 605), and was, like many of Henry's followers, a protestant only in a legal sense. On 20 Sept. 1553, and in March 1554, he was returned for Rochester, and on 20 Dec. 1554 was elected for both Chippenham and King's Lynn. It is hardly likely that he would have been elected so often if he had, as Manning suggests, avoided the parliaments of Mary. It is also said that a prosecution against him was actually commenced when the death of the queen intervened. Moyle died at Eastwell Court, Kent, in 1560. He left two daughters : Katherine, who married Sir Thomas Finch, ancestor of; the earls of Winchelsea, and Amy, who married Sir Thomas Kempe.
[Letters and Papers of Henry VIII, passim; Maclean's Hist. of Trigg Minor, i. 278; Dixon's Hist. of the Church of England, ii. 278; Metcalfe's Knights; Trevelyan Papers (Camden Soc.), ii. 12; Chron. of Calais (Camden Soc.), p. 174; Narratives of the Reformation (Camden Soc.), p. 343; Rutland Papers (Camden Soc.), p. 75; Three Chapters of Suppression Letters (Camden Soc.), pp. 255 et seq.; Manning's Speakers of the House of Commons; Return of Members of Parliament; Strype's Memorials, iii. i. 156, 476; Annals, i. i. 64; Whitgift, iii. 352; Appendix ii. 10th Rep. Dep.-Keeper Publ. Records, p. 241; Fuller's Church Hist. of Engl., iii. 464.]