Editing Thomas Malory (section)

===Thomas Malory of Papworth St. Agnes===
{{Infobox person
| name          = Thomas Malory of Papworth St. Agnes
| birth_date    = 6 December 1425
| birth_place   = [[Shropshire]], England
| death_date    = {{circa}} September 1469
| death_place   = [[Huntingdonshire]]/[[Cambridgeshire]], England
}}

Shortly after Kittredge's original article on Malory of Newbold Revel, a second candidate was presented in an 1897 article in ''[[Athenaeum (British magazine)|Athenaeum]]''<ref>[https://archive.org/stream/p2athenaeum1897lond#page/352/mode/2up Athenaeum 11 September 1897], p. 353 in the July-December omnibus edition, accessed at Internet Archive, 11 December 2013.</ref> by A.T. Martin, who proposed that the author was Thomas Malory of Papworth St Agnes on the [[Huntingdonshire]]-[[Cambridgeshire]] border. Martin's argument was based on a will made at Papworth on 16 September 1469 and [[probate|proved]] at [[Lambeth Palace]] on 27 October the same year. This identification was taken seriously for some time by editors of Malory, including [[Alfred W. Pollard]], the noted bibliographer, who included it in his edition of Malory published in 1903.<ref>A.W. Pollard: [https://archive.org/stream/lemortedarthur00malorich#page/vi/mode/2up Le morte Darthur, p. vi], Macmillan, 1903.</ref>

This Thomas Malory was born on 6 December 1425 at [[Moreton Corbet Castle]], [[Shropshire]], the eldest son of Sir William Mallory, member of Parliament for Cambridgeshire, who had married Margaret, the widow of [[Robert Corbet (died 1420)|Robert Corbet]] of [[Moreton Corbet]].<ref>J.S. Roskell, L. Clark, C. Rawcliffe, History of Parliament Online, Ref Volumes: 1386–1421, [http://www.historyofparliamentonline.org/volume/1386-1421/member/corbet-robert-1383-1420 Corbet, Robert (1383–1420), of Moreton Corbet, Salop.] Author: L. S. Woodger. History of Parliament Trust, 1994, accessed 27 November 2013.</ref> Thomas inherited his father's estates in 1425 and was placed in the wardship of the King, initially as a minor, but later (for reasons unknown) remaining there until within four months of his death in 1469.

Richard R. Griffin later provided further support for this candidate in ''The Authorship Question Reconsidered''. Published after Matthews's book promoting the Hutton Conyers candidate (as described below), Griffin makes several arguments; most notably that the Papworth candidate's dialect would match that of ''Le Morte'' more closely than either of the other candidates. As detailed below, a leading dialect expert identified the language of ''Le Morte'' as being most characteristic of [[Lincolnshire]]. Griffith points out that while the current candidate lived in [[Shropshire]] as a child and on the Cambridgeshire-Huntingdonshire border in adulthood, both his father and grandfather were from Lincolnshire; and that neither of the other two major candidates had any known connection to Lincolnshire.<ref>Griffith, p.165</ref>

Little else is known of this Malory, apart from one peculiar incident discovered by William Matthews. A collection of Chancery proceedings includes a petition brought against Malory by Richard Kyd, parson of Papworth, claiming that Malory ambushed him on a November evening and took him from Papworth to [[Huntingdon]], and then to [[Bedford]] and on to [[Northampton]], all the while threatening his life and demanding that he either forfeit his church to Malory or give him 100 pounds. The outcome of this case is unknown, but it seems to indicate that this Malory was something other than an ordinary country gentleman.<ref name="LMD"/> However, while this candidate's father and several other close family members were knights, no clear evidence survives showing that this Malory was ever actually knighted.<ref name="Cooper p. xi">Cooper p. xi</ref>