Walter Erle (died 1581)


Walter Erle of Colcombe in the parish of Colyton, of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth, both in Devon, and of Charborough in Dorset, England, was a courtier and servant of the Royal Household to two of the wives of King Henry VIII, namely Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr, and successively to his son King Edward VI and two daughters, Queen Mary I and Queen Elizabeth I during their successive reigns.
According to Sandon his popularity as a royal courtier was in part due to his ability as a musician, particularly as a player of the virginal. He is known to have composed at least one work of church music, namely Ave Vulnus Lateris, a short votive antiphon in honour of one of the Five Holy Wounds of Jesus, his authorship of which is recorded in Peterhouse College manuscripts 471–474, held in the Cambridge University Library, comprising four partbooks from a set of five copied late in the reign of King Henry VIII, which contain seventy-two pieces of Latin church music. As a courtier-musician he well represents the ideal royal courtier described in The Courtier by Baldassare Castiglione and also in The Boke Named The Governour by Sir Thomas Elyot.
Although he was born into a minor gentry family of Devonshire, he founded a dynasty of substantial landed gentry that survives to the present day, his heir being the Conservative Member of Parliament Richard Grosvenor Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax, of Charborough House.

Origins

No record of Erle's birth survives, but circumstantial evidence suggests a birthdate between 1515 and 1520. He was the son of John III Erle of Cullompton in Devon, by his wife Thomasyn. Walter's grandfather was John II Erle of Cullompton, the second son of John I Erle of Ashburton, Devon.

Career as courtier

King Henry VIII

The earliest surviving document which mention Walter Erle is a list which appears to date from 1537–47, entitled The booke of Certayne of the Quenys Ordynary as yet to no place Appoynted, a list of 127 above-stairs members of a queen's existing household whose appointment to new positions is envisaged but not completed, in which Erle is named last among three Pagis of the Chamber Ordynary. Sandon deduced the queen in question to be Catherine Howard, the 5th wife of Henry VIII. Erle was thus a page in her service at the time of her downfall in November 1541 due to adultery. Erle however retained a position at court after Catherine's execution, having been transferred to the household of Edward Seymour, Earl of Hertford, the eldest brother of Queen Jane Seymour, the third wife of Henry VIII, and the future Lord Protector of England from 1547 until 1549 during the minority of his nephew, King Edward VI.
Erle is mentioned in Hertford's household accounts drawn up by his steward John Thynne, including on 30 June 1542 a payment of 40 shillings to Water Erley by my lady's comandement for a payre of virginalls, the lady in question being Anne Stanhope, Hertford's second wife. According to Sandon this reference to Erle is highly significant for several reasons, namely: it is the earliest dated reference to Erle in the orbit of the royal household; it is the earliest to link him with the Seymour family; it is—by several decades—the earliest to place him explicitly in a musical context and to associate him with a keyboard instrument; and it is the only known reference that spells his name in a manner identical with one of the spellings in the Peterhouse College manuscripts, in which his musical work Ave Vulnus Lateris is recorded.
Erle's continuing presence at court is suggested by a
payment of 40 shillings received by him in April 1543 from Princess Mary, after which the records concerning him are silent for several months.
Erle returned to the inner circle of the royal court following the 6th and last marriage of Henry VIII to Catherine Parr on 12 July 1543, and became a Gentleman Waiter to that queen, as is evident from the final entry in a mid-1540s list of additions to the royal household's expenditure:

King Edward VI

Following the death of King Henry VIII in 1547, Erle's career at court depended on Queen Catherine Parr, the king's widow. He became a member of her household, apparently due to his connection with the Seymour family, when three months after the king's death she remarried to Thomas Seymour, 1st Baron Seymour of Sudeley, Lord Admiral of England, the younger brother of Queen Jane Seymour, an uncle of King Edward VI and brother of Edward Seymour, 1st Duke of Somerset, Lord Protector of England. As former fellow courtiers to Henry VIII, Thomas Seymour was well-acquainted with Erle, whom he referred to in a letter to his wife as "my old friend". Furthermore, in 1544 Thomas Seymour had purchased from Erle various of the latter's speculative acquisitions of former monastic lands. Erle also had business dealings with the Lord Protector, from whom in 1548 he purchased a twenty-one-year lease on property in Ottery St Mary, Devon, including "the Warden's House" of the dissolved college there.
Following the death of his wife in 1548, and released from her restraining influence, Thomas Parr's "imprudence and recklessness now became increasingly manifest", and Erle became caught up in his master's ambitious scheme of personal aggrandisement, which involved seizing control of his nephew the king. In 1548 Thomas Seymour offered to Princess Mary, King Edward VI's eldest sister, the services of Erle to provide lessons on the virginal, and shortly afterwards Erle passed her a compromising letter from Thomas Seymour, which eventually was discovered and assisted in providing evidence of the latter's plot in 1549 against the young king, for which he was executed soon after. Erle's role in the conspiracy was wholly innocent and he suffered no penalty; however, he had lost his patron and was absent from court circles for another two years. During this period he appears to have resided at Colcombe House in Colyton, Devon, in which parish on 22 October 1549 he married Mary Wyke.
On 9 April 1551, with effect from the previous Christmas, he was appointed a Groom of the Privy Chamber to King Edward VI, at a yearly salary of £20. This was thus his first position as a direct servant of a monarch. Shortly afterwards he received various royal grants of land, including in 1552 the manor and advowson of Axmouth, for an annual rent of £53 13s. 6d, formerly part of the dower lands of Catherine Parr. In 1553 he was granted the reversion of the leaseholds of various ex-monastic property in Devon, including part of Dunkeswell Abbey.

Queen Mary I

On the accession of Queen Mary I in 1553, Erle retained a position as a servant of the Privy Chamber, although his exact role is unclear. This is evidenced by his inclusion on several livery lists allocating clothing to courtiers of the queen. The earliest such list including his name is dated 4 November 1553, and is "signed by the Queen's hand", as follows:

In about 1554 Erle was promoted to the position of a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber. on New Year's Day 1556 Erle made a gift to Queen Mary of "a booke covered with blacke vellat of the Comentary of Warre, in Englishe". On 3 July 1558 he was granted a licence to export English wheat to Spain.

Queen Elizabeth I and retirement

Following the death of Queen Mary in 1558, Erle now aged in his late-thirties, appears to have retired from court to concentrate on expanding and consolidating his landholdings in Devon and Dorset. His name does not appear in the lists of active servants of the next monarch Queen Elizabeth I, although he is still referred to as late as 1578 as "of the Queen’s privy chamber", perhaps in title only.

Career as musician

Little is known concerning Erle's career as a musician, an unusual career for a member of the landed gentry at that period. Indeed, Sandon states: "One might doubt that the connection between him and the composer of Ave Vulnus Lateris was anything more than a coincidence of names". It is clear that Erle was primarily a courtier and secondly a musician, unlike for example Philip van Wilder, a Flemish lutenist and composer who worked as a court musician circa 1520s-1550s, and then became a Gentleman of the Privy Chamber, and who is referred to in royal household accounts primarily as a musician. As Sandon states: "Where van Wilder deserved his position by virtue of his musical ability, Erle deserved his by his status and upbringing, his musical skill being a useful adjunct". However four pieces of evidence are given by Sandon which serve to confirm the courtier Walter Erle as a musician:
Sandon concludes, concerning the career of Erle:

Marriage and children

In November 1546 "an official letter was written to one of Walter’s relations in support of his intention to marry".
This proposed wife appears to have been his cousin Nicola Erle. The letter is listed in the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII as: A let to Nicolas Erle doughter and heire to John Erle deceased in the favour of Walter Erle the quenes servant for mariage preferred by Mr Dennye.
22 October 1549 at Colyton, he married Mary Wyke, the third of four daughters and co-heiresses of Richard Wyke of Bindon in the parish of Axmouth, Devon, three miles south-east of Colcombe. Richard Wyke was a great-grandson
of Roger Wyke , a Member of Parliament for Plympton Erle, Devon, in 1413, a younger son of William Wyke of North Wyke in the parish of South Tawton in Devon. Richard Wyke died without sons, leaving four daughters and co-heiresses. Mary's share of her paternal inheritance included Bindon and a moiety of her father's larger estate at Charborough in Dorset. Erle re-purchased the other moiety from Alice Wykes, Mary's elder sister, and made it his principal residence. By his wife he had children as follows:

Queen’s privy chamber".

Death, burial and will

He died shortly before 8 November 1581, the date of his burial at Morden. In his will was dated 4 January 1581 he bequeathed to his wife Mary £20 in cash, the income from the manor and parsonage of Axmouth, the income from four hundred sheep, six cows, six bullocks and six calves, and the use of the house at Bindon and its contents during her life. The reversion of these properties and all his other assets and lands, including Charborough and the contents of his house, he left to his eldest son Thomas Erle, whom he required to pay the sum of £400 each to his two unmarried sisters Bridget and Mary, towards their marriage or maintenance. To the parishes of Morden and Axmouth he left 40 shillings each, for the upkeep of the poor. The executor of his will was his son Thomas.