Of Sir Thomas Malory himself we know nothing more than can be inferred
by probable conjecture from his book. His name occurs in it three
times, and with the three variations of Malorye, Malory, and Maleore.
These variations are not singular, for the spelling of proper as well
as of common names was very much at the fancy of the writer; and we
know that Shakespeare, Marvell, and Pym, wrote their own names in
various forms. Sir Thomas Malory tells us that his book was ended in
the ninth year of the reign of Edward IV, or 1470 A.D.; and at that
time there was an old and important Yorkshire family of the name at
Hutton Coniers and High Studley, near Ripon; for Leland, early in the
next century, speaks of the ancestors of Malory[17], and in 1427 and
1472 the death or burial of two persons of the same name is recorded at
Ripon[18]. Andrew Mallorie of Middlesex _armiger_ is among the
contributors to the funds for defence against the Spanish Armada
(1588)[19]. At the beginning of the seventeenth century we find Sir
John Mallory of Studley, and son of Sir William Mallory, M.P. for
Thirsk and Ripon, and a subscriber to the second Virginia Charter[20]:
in 1622 Burton speaks of the pedigree, arms, and lands of Sir Thomas
Malory in Kirby-Malory, Winwick, Newbould, and Swinford in
Leicestershire[21]; and about the same time two scholars of the name
were elected to Winchester College[22]; and reasonable conjecture may
connect our author with these Malorys, although no links of actual
pedigree have been found.