Sir Thomas Twysden,
JUDGE,
Was the brother of the preceding, and born at Roydon Hall, East Peckham, in 1602. He was educated at Cambridge and at the Inner Temple, where he was called to the Bar in 1625. He soon acquired great reputation as an advocate, and was made a Sergeant by Cromwell, who, however, committed him to the Tower for his defence of Cony's case. At the Restoration, he was sworn in one of the Justices of the King's Bench, and knighted. He was esteemed as a sound lawyer and upright Judge, though somewhat passionate. The King made him a baronet in 1666, and he purchased the estate of East Mailing, where he died in 1683.
[See Wood's "Athenæ," Foss's "Judges," and "Hasted's Kent.]
Wat Tyler,
THE INSURGENT LEADER, temp. RICHARD II.
Is said to have been a man of Dartford, where he exercised the trade implied by his name, or, as some say, that of a blacksmith. The story of his rebellion is well known: how it commenced by his beating out the brains of the Collector of the poll tax; culminated in his assembly of 100,000 men on Blackheath, and his marching with them to London; and ended with his death at the hands of Sir William Walworth in Smithfield, 1381. After his death, his head was placed upon London Bridge; what became of his body is unknown.
[See "Hasted's Kent," "Archæologia Cantiana," vol. iii., and Histories of the period.]
