Leicestershire, though there was a John Pickerell, who owned some land at Leicester in 1492, and who may possibly have been connected with the Norfolk family.
The Will of John Pickerell of Dichborough, dated the 1st of November, 1554, was proved on February 9th, 1555 by Edmund Brudenell, proxy for the relict and executrix. The Testator gave all his lands tenements houses and orchards within the city of Norwich to his wife Cecily for life, and for her jointure of 40 marks a year he gave her £400 in money, and a debt owing to him of £500 (200 marks of which were to be paid on the marriage of their daughter Suzanne). And he left his wife all his furniture and horses, etc., (with one or two exceptions), and all his debts and his lands called "Dicheborowe and Rassall" with their appurtenances in Norfolk; and, after giving his son Richard £40 and his daughter, the wife of Francis Bolton, £20, "to be paid to them on the recovery of my debts owing by the Queen's Majesty," the Testator left the residue to Cecily his wife, and appointed her sole executrix.
Cecilia Pickerell was thus a woman of considerable means, and she became a large investor in the lands of dissolved chantries. It is possible that the debt owing by the Crown, which is referred to in John Pickerell's Will, may have been discharged from this source. No less than three Royal Grants were made to Mrs. Pickerell within two years : the first in the third year of Elizabeth; the next in the February of the fifth year, and the third in the June of the same year.
The Leicester Recorder approached Mrs. Pickerell perhaps after her first grant in 1560-1, and made a bargain with her that in her next batch of investments she should include the premises of the Leicester Corpus Christi Guild Hall, and re-sell them to him at a fixed price. The negotiations may have been carried out, if one may hazard the conjecture, through Mrs. Pickerell's proxy, Edmund Brudenell, who had proved her husband's will. Brudenell is not a Norfolk name, and Edmund Brudenell was probably one of the Brudenells of Staunton Wyville or Staunton Brudenell, in the county of Leicester. There were at that time at least three members of the family who bore the Christian name
60
