Hello everyone, this is my second posting about early 16th century tenants of the manor of Great Horwood. As I explained before (in a posting about Henry Wattes, gent, of Winslow), I'm studying the people who owned land in Great Horwood between 1400 and 1600, and I'm hoping that other list members may be able to tell me something about certain absentee landowners who had land in the village but didn't live there. This posting is about the Colyer family, who began as peasants in Great Horwood but moved up and out in the late 15th century. The first to leave Great Horwood was HENRY COLYER, probably born around 1430-40, died 1501. Though his father William had begun as a mere peasant husbandman, Henry somehow acquired a legal education and became a lawyer. By the time he died he owned land in Buckingham, Tingewick, Padbury and Brackley as well as Great Horwood, and appears in one record as a gentleman (said to be of Hogshaw, though he doesn't seem to have owned any land there). His will and that of his wife Margaret (died 1503) were proved in the PCC, and an Inquisition post Mortem was held into his properties. He was succeeded by two sons, HENRY COLYER (died c1510) and RICHARD COLYER (still living 1526). He left them a sizeable estate in the village, of five farms and six cottages, which the younger Henry passed on to his brother Richard intact, but which Richard broke up and sold off in the 1520s. I know of the younger Henry and Richard only from the Great Horwood records, but I don't believe they lived in the village, and suspect that they were living as minor gentry somewhere else (Richard does not appear in the 1522 Muster Roll anywhere in Bucks, however). The Colyers disappear from the Great Horwood records after 1529. Henry junior died unmarried, I think, but Richard had a wife Alice and they were both still living when they sold off the last of their Great Horwood properties. There was a third brother, Bartholomew (mentioned just twice, in 1502) and a sister Agnes, who married a London goldsmith called EDWARD HATCOMBE. They seem sometimes to have used a relative, RICHARD COWLEY, as a trustee. I hope that someone may be able to point me towards some information about any of these Colyers in the world outside Great Horwood. Ideally information about their social and economic activities and standing, but even purely genealogical data would be gratefully received. 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 who has ancestors in Great Horwood before 1600). Thanks very much, Matt Tompkins Centre for English Local History University of Leicester 5 Salisbury Road Leicester LE1 7QR