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M, #407937, b. before 1540, d. October 1591

William Tyndal was born before 1540.2 He was the son of Thomas Tyndal the elder and Anne Paston.2 He married Anne Jermyn in November 1556.1,2 He died in October 1591 at Boston, Lincolnshire, EnglandG.3,2
He matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge University, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, England, in 1548.2 His father had special leave from the Crown to convey to him by deed, dated 15th Nov. 3 & 4 Philip and Mary, the manor of Ilsington with lands extending into Wigenhale and Tylney). This must have been an absolute gift, for William Tyndall obtained license on 18th Sept. 1565 to alienate all these lands to Francis Southwell. It would appear, however, that lie did not by this sale forfeit his father's favour and confidence, for about 1570, Sir Thomas Tyndall, being then sixty-five years of age, conveyed the whole of his estates in Norfolk and the adjoining counties to his sons William and John, subject to his life interest therein. Sir Thomas died at the end of 1583, and his heir proceeded immediately to sell the whole of his inheritance. Accordingly by deed dated 20th Jan. 1383-4, and made between William Tyndall Esq. of Hockwold (son and heir apparent of Sir Thomas Tyndall Kt deceased) and John Tyndall Esq. of Lincoln's Inn, one of the younger sons of the said Sir Thomas Tyndall of the one part, and Sir William Paston Kt. of Paston, Norfolk, and Clement Paston Esq. of Oxnard, Norfolk, of the other part, the said William and John Tyndall sold to the said Sir William and Clement Paston, their heirs and assigns, all those manors and lands situate in the parishes of Hockwold, Wilton, Feltwell, Brandon, and Weting in Norfolk, and in Brandon and Lakenheath in Suffolk and in Cambridgeshire and in the Isle of Ely, which had lately belonged to Sir Thomas Tyndall Kt. deceased, and which had for thirteen years and which had been in the possession of the said William and John Tyndall. Thus passed away from the Tyndalls every acre of their ancient inheritance.

A certain air of romance is thrown round the unthrift and extravagance of the last Tyndall of Hockwold, by the tradition that lie was dazzled by the offer of the Crown of Bohemia. He was descended through the marriage of his ancestor with Alana Fellbrigge from the ancient monarchs of that kingdom, whose last male heir died in 1526, and was succeeded by his brother-in-law Ferdinand of Austria. The new dynasty soon became embroiled with their subjects on the score of religion, for the doctrines of the Reformers were eagerly accepted in Bohemia, and the encroachments of the Protestants on the rights and privileges of tile Church were with difficulty kept in check by the Catholic Emperors. They demanded an absolute equality with the Catholics, and were powerful enough to extort from the policy of Ferdinand and his successor the free exercise of their religion. But the Emperor Rudolph II. had been educated by the Jesuits, and could not endure to see the decrees of the Council of Treat daily violated by the toleration of heresy. In 1578 lie issued an imperial edict prohibiting Protestant worship within his dominions under the penalties of treason. The Brethren of the Bohemian Confession and called to the Diet, and the Estates of Bohemia solemnly protested against the revocation of liberties which they had long enjoyed ; but Rudolph was inexorable, and from this time Bohemia remained for generations in a state of chronic insurrection. Rudolph bad no children, and the election of a King of the Romans was expected with intense anxiety by both Catholics and Protestants.

The Electors were divided in religion, and three out of the seven had long been avowed adherents of the Reformed Faith. But in November 1582, Gebhard Truchsess, the Archbishop Elector of Cologne, astounded the world by renouncing the Catholic Faith and by marrying the beautiful Chanoine Agnes de Mansfeldt. He insisted on retaining his archbishopric as a secular Electorate, but his conversion was immediately followed by the anathema of the Pope and the ban of the Empire. The crisis was of the highest importance, for if Gebhard were allowed to retain his electoral vote the Protestant Electors would be in the majority, and the imperial crown of the Holy Roman Empire would be lost to Catholicism. His deprivation therefore became a trial of strength between the Protestant Princes and the Catholic Powers, and both parties strained every nerve to increase their influence.
The Estates of Bohemia had always maintained that the rights of the house of Austria were solely derived from election, and they seized this opportunity to throw off their allegiance. They declare(l the throne of Bohemia to be vacant, and sought for a Protestant candidate, round whom they could rally with some show of hereditary right. Their eyes were naturally turned towards England, for Queen Elizabeth was regarded as the bulwark of the Protestant cause and the determined foe of the house of Austria. There was a current rumour that some years back diplomatists had conversed with a Protestant knight in the English Court, who traced his descent from the ancient kings of Bohemia, and it was resolved to send a deputation to offer him the throne. The deputies carried with them, amongst other presents, a bed of state, with curtains richly embroidered with the insignia of Bohemian royalty; and when they found that Sir Thomas Tyndahe was an old man of eighty, who had long relinquished the management of his estates, they presented these royal ornaments with the offer of the crown to his son William, who was in the prime of life. But William Tyndall had no qualifications for time throne except his age and his pedigree, and when it was ascertained that no help was to be expected from the English Government, the Quixotic project of electing an Englishman without rank, resources, or talents was silently abandoned.

This does not sound a very probable story, although I have narrated the tradition in its most plausible form; and it is a suspicious circumstance that our authorities widely differ, as to which of the Tyndalls it was, to whom the crown was offered, for it is variously attributed to the great-grandfather, the father, and even the younger brother of William Tyndall. Sir Henry Spelman, the Norfolk antiquary (1562-1641), relates in the description of Feibrigge in his Icenia, the descent of Sir William Tyndall 1(3. from Margaret of Bohemia; and then goes on to say, that he was knighted at the creation of Arthur Prince of Wales (29th Nov. 1489), 'et jure Margaret Proavite sute Uturedem Regni Bohemitn den unciatum. Sic Heraldorum nostrorum Fasti; sic me puero fama celeln'is.'

On the other hand, a geographical quarto, published in London in 1630, under the title of Relations of the most famous Kingdomes and commonwealths thorowout the World, contains this passage at p. 276:
The kingdom of Bohemia is merely elective, although by force and faction now almost made hereditary to the house of Austria, which it seems it was not, when as within these two Ages that State made choice of one Mr. Tyndall, an English gentleman, father to Mr. Doctor Tyndall, Master of Queen's College in Cambridge, sending over their Ambassadors to him and hr them their presents, which story is famously known at Cambridge.'

Fuller, however, in his History of Cambridge, gives a different version of the story current in the University, for be says
·Dr. Humphrey Tyndall, Dean of Ely, of whom there passeth an improbable tradition. That in the reign of Queen Elizabeth he was proffered by a Protestant Party in Bohemia to be made King thereof Which he refused, alleging That lie had rather be Queen Elizabeth's subject than a forain Prince. However, because no smoak without some fire or heat at least, there is something in it, more than appears to every eye.'

Fuller is no mean authority for the Cambridge tradition of his day, for he was nephew to Dr. John Davenant who witnessed Dr. Tyndall's Will, and succeeded him in the Mastership of Queen's. His concluding sentence probably expresses the true state of the case, for there is contemporary evidence that some kind of offer of the crown was made to one of the Tyndalls, although it was probably of a less formal character than the tradition suggests. This evidence agrees with chronology in clearly indicating William Tyndall as the person selected for the throne, and it is remarkably supported by the passage in his Will, whereby lie specifically bequeaths to his brother, Sir ,John Tyndall, 'my bed caller the bed of Bohemia with all the furniture thereto belonging, and with the curtaynes also, as ye now standeth furnished.2'