Place Name
Thomas Audley (about 1488 – April 30, 1544) was an ambitious Tudor lawyer who served with Cardinal Wolsey as part of Henry VIII’s retinue. In 1529, when Wolsey fell from the king’s favour Audley was made Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a position which owned the manorial rights to Enfield. He proved himself to be fiercely anti-Roman Catholic and backed Henry’s claims of treason and adultery against Anne Boleyn, freeing up the monarch to marry Anne’s maid, Jane Seymour. Such dogged loyalty was richly rewarded and, following the dissolution of the monasteries, in 1538 he was granted church lands, namely the Rectory of Enfield. In the same year he was created Baron Audley of Walden. The lands returned to the Crown on Audley’s death and were subsequently given to Trinity College, Cambridge.
