Edward Turner’s place of residence was in the centre of the city. The house in which he lived and died, stood in that part of the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, which was then called Stayngate, but is now known as Saint Helen’s Square. This and an adjoining mansion occupied by Lady Beckwith (the widow of Sir Leonard Beckwith, Knight, one of the Council of the North), and several other houses situate in the adjacent streets, were his property. Some of them he had most probably inherited from his father.
In the year 1562, when the corporation of York contemplated making him sheriff, Edward Turner was a married man, and the father of a family. The earliest register book of the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, which commences in the year 1568, records the baptism of two of his younger children: “Lucy Turner, daughter of Edward Turner, gentleman,” was baptized on the 24th of February, 1569, and a son, named Edward, on the 12th of August, 1570. Another son, named Martin, of whom he speaks in his will as his youngest son, must have been born a very short time before the death of his mother, an event which is thus entered in the same register:—“Mistris Turner, wife of Edward Turner, gentleman, buried 13th June, 1571.” I have found no clue whatever to the discovery of the name of this lady, or of any other particulars relating to her.
A few months after the usual period of mourning had passed, the widowed husband took unto himself a second wife. On the 22nd of September, 1572, “Mr. Edward Turner and Mrs. Jane Fale” were married at the church of the parish of Saint Michael le Belfrey, in York. Mrs. Jane Fale was the widow of Mr. Thomas Fale, who for more than twenty years was town-clerk of York, and died in the month of March, 1571.
In the year 1573, Mr. Turner purchased of William Wentworth, of Killingwicke, a plot of ground near to his own residence, which had been the churchyard of the demolished church of Saint Wilfred.[9]
Of thirty householders of the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, who, in the year 1574, were assessed to the relief of the poor, Edward Turner paid the highest rate. The amount, when compared with modern experience, seems ridiculously small: it was no more than fourpence. But this was in the very infancy of poor-rates, and, with one or two exceptions, the aldermen of the city were the only persons who contributed so large a sum as sixpence.
A few years later, Mr. Turner had to lament the loss of his early friend and patron, Mr. Secretary Eymis. He died on the 19th of August, 1578; and in his last will we find a token, although it be but a slight one, of his regard for the person who had so long shared his official labours.
During his long tenure of the influential and lucrative office of Secretary to the Court at York, Mr. Eymis had accumulated great wealth. He appears to have participated largely in the distribution by the crown of the ecclesiastical property in Yorkshire which was confiscated at the Reformation. His estate at Heslington, near York, where he built for his own residence a stately mansion, consisted chiefly of lands which had belonged to the Hospital of Saint Leonard and the Priory of Saint Andrew, two of the religious houses at York. He had possessed himself of the estates belonging to a collegiate foundation at Lowthorpe in the East Riding. He was lessee under the church of York of the prebend of Bugthorpe in the same riding, and owner of the manors of Bugthorpe and other adjacent places; and he had obtained a grant from the crown of the tithes of Clifton, near York, which belonged to the rectory of Saint Olave in Marygate. He must have been remarkable for the state and splendour of his domestic establishment, having a house in the Minster Close at York, and another in the Savoy at London; and two country houses, one at Bugthorpe, and the other at Heslington.[10]
The last will of Mr. Eymis was executed on the first day of the year in which he died. In this document the name of Edward Turner occurs twice: first, in his disposal of a house and close of land, without Monk Bar, York, which he states that he had purchased of “Edward Turner, gentilman”; and secondly, in a bequest of which I must speak more at length. The testator gives a life interest in nearly the whole of his estates to his wife Elizabeth; but he does this by means of numerous separate devises, intailing the various parts of his property, after her death, upon his nephews, Thomas Eymis, William Eymis, Richard Eymis, John Eymis, William Thynne, and Sir John Thynne, Knight,[11] varying the order of succession, and introducing into some of the limitations the names of the younger sons of his nephew, Sir John Thynne, and his brother-in-law, Sir Henry Neville, Knight, and of two or three other persons, of whom Edward Turner is one.
The tithes of Clifton, which the testator states that he held for a term of years by a grant from the Queen, he gives, after the death of his wife, to five of his nephews for their lives successively; and if they all die before the expiration of such term of years, he bequeaths the same tithes to “Edward Turner, gentilman, and his assigns, during the residue of the years then to come, if he live so long;” and if not, then “to my friend Robert Man, gentilman,” in a similar manner, with the ultimate bequest to “Henry Pulleyne, my servant.” The will was proved at York, on the 20th of March, 1578-9, by the testator’s widow, Elizabeth Eymis, the residuary legatee and sole executor.[12]
Mr. Edward Turner did not long survive his patron and superior in office, Mr. Secretary Eymis. He died in the month of December, 1580, and was buried in the church of the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate, of which he had been for many years one of the principal inhabitants. A few weeks before his death he executed his last will. It is dated the 27th of November, 1580, and was proved by Lancelot Turner, the eldest son and one of the executors, on the 31st of January, 1581. After the usual pious introduction, the testator, who describes himself “Edward Turner, of the cittie of Yorke,” without any addition, gives to his wife, Jane, for her life, all such lands, &c., as she had already set forth for her jointure. He then proceeds to make the following disposition of his real estate:—