Hello everyone, this is my third posting asking about people who owned land in Great Horwood between 1400 and 1600 but didn't live there. This time I am hoping that someone will know something about a north Bucks family called COWLEY, or sometimes COVERLEY. Several men of this family, mostly lawyers, were associated with the Colyer family about whom I posted last week. The first was a JOHN COWLEY, who between 1471 and his death in 1486 was the absentee owner of 2 messuages and 2 yardlands (one of them freehold) in Great Horwood. At his death he left them to Henry Colyer the elder, whose wife Margaret was probably related to him (perhaps even was his daughter). He may be the John Cowley of Quainton whose will was proved in the PCC in 1486, but I haven't looked at that will yet. Thereafter, between 1500 and 1530, the Cowleys appear in the Great Horwood records only as trustees and guardians of the Colyer family. One was THOMAS COWLEY, who in 1502-1504 was a trustee of Henry Colyer the elder's will, executor of his wife Margaret's will (in which she refers to Thomas as her cousin) and guardian of their children. He was a clerk and a Master of the Court of Chancery. His will, which was proved in the PCC in 1510, is mostly concerned with the Colyer family's affairs and does not give much personal information, but it does mention property in Pightesley and Coryscombe (which the calendar says are in Northants and Dorset) so for him, as for many of these families I am posting about, the law seems to have been the route to wealth and position. Also mentioned briefly in records from 1500-1510 are Alexander Cowley (a brother of the lawyer Thomas), William Cowley, gent and John Cowley, clerk. The last to appear is RICHARD COWLEY, who was trustee of several Colyer properties in Great Horwood in the 1520s - I suspect he was the Richard Cowley who was assessed in the 1522 Muster Roll on £10 worth of goods in Preston Bisset (which parish includes the hamlet of Cowley, from where the family presumably took its name). As always I hope that someone may be able to point me towards information about these Cowleys in the world outside Great Horwood. Ideally information about their social and economic standing and activities, but purely genealogical data will also be received gratefully. And of course if they are anyone's ancestors then I'll be happy to supply what information I have about their history in Great Horwood in return (in fact generally I can do this for anyone whose ancestors lived in Great Horwood before 1600). Thanks very much, Matt Tompkins Centre for English Local History University of Leicester 5 Salisbury Road Leicester LE1 7QR