Interestingly William Blythe was awarded a coat of Arms in 1485 before Henry Tudor won the Battle of Bosworth but the coat of arms was still confirmed. After Henry married Elisabeth of York in 1486, his second action was to declare himself king retroactively from the day before Bosworth Field. This meant that anyone who had fought for Richard against him would be guilty of treason. Thus, Henry could legally confiscate the lands and property of Richard III while restoring his own. However, he spared Richard’s nephew and designated heir, the Earl of Lincoln. He also created Margaret Plantagenet, a Yorkist heiress, Countess of Salisbury sui juris. He took great care not to address the baronage, or summon Parliament, until after his coronation. At the same time, he almost immediately afterwards issued an edict that any gentleman who swore fealty to him would, notwithstanding any previous attainder, be secure in his property and person.
After the war of the Roses out of 64 peers only 32 were left and Henry was in no hurry to replace them. He granted office to infant children leaving the real work to be done by deputy wardens who were knights or even gentlemen. And also quite a number of yeomen like William became gentlemen presumably for a small fee to help the royal coffers or maybe as a way of mustering an army when necessary for the king or a bit of both. The words of William’s award are interesting.
To all true Christian people etc. I John More otherwise called Norroy, principall herauld and kinge of arms of the North part of this realm send due and humble recommendations etc. Equitie, will and reason ordayneth etc. And therefore I sayd kinge of armes etc. Assertayned that William Blythe of Norton in the Countie of Derby hath continued in virtue etc. And for ye remembrance of his gentleness virtue and ability etc by the vertue of myne office, I the said kinge of arms have devysed, ordained and assigned unto and for the sayd William Blythe for him and his posteritie ye arms hereafter following, that is to say he beareth ermine, three roebucks gules, armed or and also his crest a roebucks head as aforesaid, rased of three points in a wreath ermine and gules, a garland of lorel about his necke, graunted to the sayd William to have and to hold the same armes and creast etc. In witness whereof I sayd kinge of arms have sette to my seal of sign manuell at London on the 27th day of February, the first year of the raignue of our Soveraigne Lord King Henry the Seventh.
The words “in remembrance of his gentleness virtue and ability” makes me wonder if perhaps that William like many before him was a clerk, a lawyer or accountant, to an important person, possibly even Royal? There were earlier Blythes in John of Gaunts household, a clerk to King Edward l, a composer of religious music in the kings household but no obvious connections at the time of William’s award.
Later the Blythe family married into some important families such as Hastings, Neville, Saville, and Bosville but that was in future generations.
William had married Saffrey Austin half sister of Thomas Rotherham. Thomas may have sponsored his nephews John and Geoffrey Blythe to Eton and then to Cambridge.
Thomas Rotherham was born into a Yorkshire gentry family, educated at a local grammar school, then to Eton, and Kings College Cambridge. Thomas was elected a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, in 1444. He held various ecclesiastical livings in the 1450s and 1460s and took a degree at Oxford in 1463. In the late 1450s, he became chaplain to John de VERE. After her marriage to Edward IV in 1464, Elizabeth Woodville became Rotherham’s patron, and she was likely responsible for his appointment as keeper of the royal privy seal in 1467. Rotherham went on diplomatic missions to Burgundy and France, and became bishop of Rochester in 1468. He did not support Henry VI, and in the spring of 1471 warned Edward IV, who was then returning from exile to reclaim his Crown, not to attempt a landing.
In March 1472, Edward promoted Rotherham to the bishopric of Lincoln, and in 1474 the king appointed him chancellor of England. Like many of Edward IV’s bishops, Rotherham was a man of humble origins who was promoted to high church office because of his loyalty to the king and his usefulness in secular government. Rotherham accompanied Edward on the French expedition of 1475 and was one of the English lords who received a large pension from LOUIS XI of France. Said to be skilled in managing Parliament, Rotherham opened the tense 1478 session that condemned the king’s brother, George Plantagenet, duke of Clarence. In 1480, Rotherham became archbishop of York.
On Edward’s death in April 1483, Rotherham’s connections with the queen made him suspect in the eyes of Richard, duke of Gloucester, who believed the Woodville family was seeking to deprive him of the regency. Rotherham intensified the duke’s mistrust by surrendering the Great Seal of England, , to the queen after fear of Gloucester drove her to Sanctuary at Westminster in early May 1483. Thinking better of this act, Rotherham quickly recovered the Great Seal, but on 10 May Gloucester, now acting as protector for Edward V, replaced the archbishop as chancellor with Bishop John Russell. On 13 June, Gloucester arrested Rotherham, along with William Hastings, Lord Hastings, and other likely opponents, at a Council meeting held in the Tower of London. Although released shortly after an appeal from Cambridge University, which he served as chancellor, Rotherham took little further part in government, either during Richard III’s reign or during the reign of Henry VII. Noted in later life as a prominent benefactor of the English universities, Rotherham died in 1500.
It would seem unlikely Thomas Rotherham helped William Blythe get his coat of arms as he was out of favour at the time, and Williams 2 sons John and Geoffrey were not yet bishops. John was a mere archdeacon and Geoffrey had just started Kings College Cambridge. There was Richard Restwold, William’s son in law. Richard was a lawyer, sheriff of Wiltshire and lawyer to the Earl of Shrewsbury and the Earl of Salisbury. Richard married an un-named daughter but both daughter and son in law were dead by 1475. The other important marriages in the Blythe family seem to have been made after William was awarded the coat of arms. In fact all the obvious upward mobility of the Blythe family happened after the award of the coat of arms. After the award their daughter Elisabeth married George Wasteneys of Yeadon, in Nottinghamshire. George had a substantial estate. William’s son Thomas married Alice Skellowes ( Skelley) and joined Blythe lands nearby with hers to form large estates around Barnby Dunn, and Richard married Katherine of Birchett, adding her estate to Blythe lands in Coal Aston, Norton and Dronfield. But all that was to come so who sponsored William for the coat of arms?
Bishops House 