Dr Thomas Wilson

Dr. Thomas Wilson, who dedicated his famous book, The Art of Rhetoric, to John Dudley, Earl of Warwick about whom you will read connected to most the major players in the Dale’s history. Wilson jointly held the office of Secretary of State with Sir Francis Walsingham whose daughter married firstly Sir Phillip Sydney and secondly Robert Devereaux, 2nd Earl of Essex, with whom Governor Dale was associated. Walsingham’s stepson was Christopher Carleill, another Marian exile, who was second-in-command on the Drake voyages, and commander of a young Lt. Thomas Gates and Edward Wynter. It was the Sydneys who passed Manton Manor and Tixover Manor indirectly to Roger Dale of Collyweston.

Wilson was first married to Admiral Wynter’s sister, and secondly married to Jane Empson. Empson’s daughter by an earlier marriage was married into the same Gates family from which Governor Thomas Gates was supposed to have originated. Thomas Wilson was born in 1525 at Strubby Manor in Lincolnshire. Strubby was one of the manors named by Thomas Dale of Alford in his will of 1571 and passed to his son Francis Dale while Legsby Manor passed to son Edward Dale. [More than a century later, 1681, there was also an Edward Dale still at Legsby, married to Anne Skepper of Mavis Enderby.]

John Wynter (died 1546) Lydney Manor Thomas Langton
| Agnes (Anne) Wynter = Dr. Thomas Wilson, Strubby Manor | Sir William Wynter = Mary Langton |
| Mary Wynter = Thomas Baynum
| Cicely Baynum = William Throckmorton, Clearwell Manor

We also examined Farlesthorpe Manor, another estate mentioned by Thomas Dale of Alford in his will of 1571. The 1588 will of John Spenluffe (Spendlove) of Farlesthorpe and Strubby was signed on April 4, 1588, and his brother was reported in 1562 to have been a servant of Sir Edward Dymoke, the same fellow that Thomas Wilson (Strubby) spent time with when he was finishing the previously mentioned book. We think it was his father, Sir Robert Dymoke, who negotiated the marriage contract between his stepdaughter and Thomas Mirfin, Lord Mayor of London, an ancestor of Sir Thomas Smythe, Treasurer of the Virginia Company. Spenluffe mentioned Lord Willoughby of Eresby (Peregrine Bertie) in his 1588 will, and was buried in Alford as was Thomas Dale seventeen years earlier. Had Spendluffe married the widow or daughter of Francis Dale to gain these manors?
From the website of the school at Alford: “When John Spendluffe died in 1588 he left lands at Farlesthorpe, Strubby, Cumberworth, Woodthorpe and Withern for the support of the School and these were the basis of the Foundation Trust from which the School still derives benefit.”
Dr. Thomas Wilson appeared to be linked in some undetermined fashion to Governor Thomas Dale – one niece married Thomas Baynum of Clearwell Manor (father-in-law of William Throckmorton, and another niece married William Cooke, the last overseer of the Governor Dale’s will.

John Wynter
Admiral William Wynter | | Agnes Wynter = Thomas Wilson of Strubby = (2) Jane Empson | | Elizabeth Empson = Thomas Lucy = (2) Dor. Arnold
| Mary Wynter = Thomas Baynum, Clearwell Manor | Joyce Lucy = William Cooke
| Cecily Baynum = William Throckmorton, Lady Dale’s brother

Dr. Wilson was a strong supporter of the Puritan cause: especially Henry of Navarre (Henry IV) of France who wrote personal letters of endorsement for both Wilson and Governor Thomas Dale. In 1560, with Elizabeth on the throne and the Earl of Leicester (brother of Wilson's late patron, John Dudley) in ascendancy at court, Wilson returned to London. He was soon appointed to remunerative and responsible positions in the government, and with a profile quite similar to the other Dale, Dr. Valentine Dale.