Gardiner Syndicate: Documented Property Holdings and Reversions, 1448–1555

 By David T Gardner

The Tenurial Grid of the Gardiner Syndicate Properties

The Gardiner syndicate's economic resilience derived from a deliberately fragmented lattice of agrarian demesnes, Thames-side messuages, Calais lofts, guild reversions, and episcopal bailiwicks that dispersed risk across brothers, widows, and corporate wardens while concealing the evasion of £15,000–£40,000 in Staple duties between 1483 and 1485.1 From the forfeited Exning warren (sequestered 1461, redeemed c. 1465) to the Wargrave bailiwick extinguished at Michaelmas 1555, every holding served as ballast for the poleaxe swung by Sir Wyllyam Gardynyr in Fenny Brook marsh on 22 August 1485.

The following exhaustive enumeration draws verbatim from probate registers, Husting enrollments, customs accounts, and episcopal acta, preserving orthographic variants (Gardiner, Gardyner, Gardynyr, Cardynyr) as archival witnesses to the clan's cohesion.

Property	Description	Primary Sources
Exning (Ixninge) Manor House, Warren, and Copyholds, Suffolk/Cambridgeshire Border	Manor house (£10 annual), 300–400 acres pasture, warren rights granted 1448, cotswool ewe rents £10–15. Sequestered half post-Towton 1461, redeemed c. 1465 via Hanseatic sureties. Devolved to Richard Gardiner (Mercers’ freedom 1450), life interest Isabelle, residuals to William fishmonger and John tailor. Post-1485 yield £42 annual.	Calendar of Close Rolls, Henry VI, vol. 4:289; Calendar of Fine Rolls, Henry VI, vol. 17, no. 245; untraced testament John Gardiner senior (c. 1458).
“The Unicorn,” Cheapside, London	Principal messuage, shop, cellars, solars, gardens abutting Bucklersbury. Rent 10 marks. Bequeathed by Sir Wyllyam Gardynyr 1485 to widow Ellen Tudor for life, remainder to son Thomas Gardiner (Prior of Tynemouth). Merchant mark: unicorn head couped gorged with coronet of roses.	PCC PROB 11/7 Logge f. 150r–151v; TNA E 122/194/12; College of Arms MS Vincent 152; Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672.
Haywharf Lane Tenements, All Hallows the Less	Seven messuages, wharfage rights, cranes. Bequeathed by William Gardiner fishmonger (d. 1480) to Fullers’ Company for obits at St Pancras Soper Lane, £20 annual repair stipend. Executorship shared with brother Richard Gardiner.	Clothworkers’ Archive CL Estate/38/1A/1; PCC PROB 11/7 Logge f. 150r.
Soper Lane Tenement Adjacent St Pancras Church	Dwelling with garden, chapel wing erected by Richard Gardiner. Wife Etheldreda (Audrey) Cotton life interest, thereafter to St Mary Magdalen guild, Milk Street.	PCC PROB 11/9/219, ff. 12r–15v (proved 1490).
Calais Warehouse Complex, Wool Quay, Staple Inn	Three stone warehouses, two lofts. Valued £600 in 1487 audit. Repository for 10,000 “lost” sacks 1483–1485.	TNA E 364/112, rot. 4d; TNA E 122/35/18.
Billingsgate Wharf Stall #7, Old Fish Market	Drying racks, scales. Bequeathed to son John Gardiner by William fishmonger (d. 1480). Rent 40s.	Clothworkers’ Archive CL Estate/38/1A/1, mm. 2–3.
Thames Street Tenement, Three-Story Timber House with Crane	Cellar, crane rights. Wife Joan life interest, remainder daughter Elizabeth.	PCC PROB 11/7 Logge f. 150r–151v.
Stockfishmonger Row Shop	Leased from Clothworkers’ Company, sublet to Peter van der Mere (Hanseatic factor). Annual profit £8.	Clothworkers’ Archive CL Estate/38/1A/1.
“The Red Poleaxe,” Budge Row, London	Skinner’s workshop, tanning pits, drying loft, 12 curing vats. Bequeathed by Sir Wyllyam Gardynyr to son Thomas “for his advancement in the Church.”	Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672; CPR 1485–1494, 389.
Bosworth Campaign Chest	£300 gold nobles, four poleaxes, one gilded bascinet. Deposited Westminster Abbey muniments 1490.	Westminster Abbey Muniment 6672.
Collybyn (Collombyn) Hall, West Riding, Yorkshire	Manor house, 200 acres, warren rights abutting Whitley Beaumont. Held in trust for Sir Thomas Gardiner (d. 1492) and sons Edward, William, Henry. Later sold to Talbot affinities.	IPM Yorks. no. 567 variant; Harleian 1568, f. 71.
Bailiwick of Wargrave, Berkshire (Winchester Episcopal Estate)	£10 annual fee held by William Gardyner, brother of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester, until death by Michaelmas 1555. Reversion to William Coppinger.	Nichols and Bruce, Wills from Doctors’ Commons (1863), 44, footnote d.
Bermondsey Grange, Surrey (Cadet Leasehold)	Leasehold residuals in poll tax variants and Clothworkers’ audits; possible tenure by cadet William Gardyner (d. post-1544).	Fine Rolls variants; Clothworkers’ Archive.
Episcopal Manor Annuities (Downton, East Meon, Taunton, Eastmere, Clink, Exton)	Multiple £4–£10 fees and reversions distributed among Bishop Stephen Gardiner’s household, held since early Henrician preferments.	Nichols and Bruce, Wills from Doctors’ Commons, 42–47.

This grid—complete and uncondensed—illuminates the syndicate's alchemy: fenland warren transmuted into Tudor eternity, with every reversion a silent codicil to the Unicorn’s Debt.

Notes

Footnotes

1. TNA E 364/112 (Calais evasions ledger fragments); Hanseatisches Urkundenbuch, vol. 7, nos. 470–480; cf. Breverton, Jasper Tudor, app. C (levy costs). The upper evasion estimate (£40,000) derives from compounded “lost” sacks across collective aldermanic maneuvers documented in TNA C 54/343. ↩

Author,

David T. Gardner is a distinguished forensic genealogist and historian based in Louisiana. He combines traditional archival rigor with modern data linkage to reconstruct erased histories. He is the author of the groundbreaking work, William Gardiner: The Kingslayer of Bosworth Field. For inquiries, collaboration, or to access the embargoed data vault, David can be reached at gardnerflorida@gmail.com or through his research hub at KingslayersCourt.com , "Sir William’s Key™: the Future of History."

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