AjUuxJ. G^urt^ V BY THE SAME AUTHOR Demy Svo, Cloth. 328 pp. 8s. 6d. net. THE MAKING OF MODERN YORKSHIRE " Mr. Fletcher's knowledge of his county is sure and embracing, and he writes with freshness and enthusiasm." Observey. London : George Allen & Unwin Ltd Demy Svo, Cloth. 226 pp. 7/6 net. MEMORIALS OF A YORKSHIRE PARISH " Shows how attractive a village chronicle may be made by a good writer who cares to take pains." Spectator. London : John Lane Demy Svo, Cloth. 336 pp. 17/6 net. THE CISTERCIANS IN YORKSHIRE " An important contribution ... a thoroughly characteristic bit of romantic history ... a delightful book." Westminster Gazette. London : The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION BY J. S. FLETCHER LONDON : GEORGE ALLEN & UNWIN LTD. RUSKIN HOUSE, 40 MUSEUM STREET, W.C. i First published in igii [All rights reserved) CONTENTS I. NATHAN DRAKE II. SIR HENRY SLINGSBY III. THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX IV. HENRY JENKINS V. SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE . VI. SIR JOHN RERESBY VII THE HALIFAX PRELATES . VIII. THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX IX. OLIVER HEYWOOD . X. HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH Xli ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME . XII. OBADIAH WALKER . PAGE II 31 53 75 87 109 131 151 171 197 215 237 NATHAN DRAKE NATHAN DRAKE IN the twenty-third volume of the Yorkshire ArchcBological Journal there is a hst, care- fully compiled by the late Mr. J. W. Clay, of the Yorkshire gentry who took part on one side or the other in the Civil War of the seven- teenth century. It shows how the great Yorkshire families were divided in opinion. Fathers took one side ; sons another ; brothers were separated ; kinsmen went into opposite camps. Ferdinando, the second Lord Fairfax, was opposed by his brother-in-law. Sir George Wentworth ; Thomas, the third, fought with his cousin, Lord Belasyse, at Selby. The Saviles, the Stricklands, the Constables all split up ; Hutchinson of Wykeham disinherited his own son for adherence to the Royalist party ; Sir Richard Mauleverer, a staunch Royalist, was son of the Sir Thomas Mauleverer who was one of the six Yorkshire gentlemen who actually signed the warrant for the execution of Charles 11 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION the First ; Sir Hugh Cholmley, a turncoat, was besieged at Scarborough by his brother, Sir Henry. Mr. Clay's Ust shows, however, that most of the Yorkshire gentry followed the King ; the old, honoured names of Yorkshire are mostly on the King's side. Anne, Armytage, Ayscough, Belasyse, Calverley, Clapham, Constable, Conyers, Cooke, Danby, Eure, Gower, Hildyard, Ingram, Langdale, Lawson, Leigh, Mallory, Metham, Monckton, Nevile, Norton, Palmer, Pennyman, Pilkington, Portington, Ramsden, Reresby, Rockley, Savile, Scrope, Slingsby, Stapleton, Swale, Tancred, Tempest, Vavasour, Warton, Wentworth, Wortley, Wyvile, Yarborough — these were all King's men. There were honoured names on the other side — Alured, Beckwith, Bosvile, Bright, Chaloner, Cholmley, Constable, Danvers, Fairfax, Goodricke, Hotham, Lambert, Lister, Sheffield, Strickland, Thoresby, Wharton, Wilson — but the Parliament men were numerically weak in comparison with the Cavaliers. What they lacked in numbers, however, they certainly made up in moral strength ; the third Lord Fairfax, for example, was equal in point of influence to the combined effort of all his Royalist neighbours, perhaps because his Parliamentarian sympathies never passed beyond a fixed point. When it was determined to bring the King to trial, Fairfax 12 NATHAN DRAKE and fourteen other Yorkshiremen were included in the Hst of appointed judges ; Fairfax carefully kept aloof from any meeting of the tribunal ; so, too, did General Lambert, Colonel Overton, Francis Lawless, Godfrey Bosvile, James Chaloner, Sir Richard Darley, and Thomas Lister. John Anlaby made one appearance as Judge. Sir John Danvers, Sir Thomas Mauleverer, Sir WiUiam Constable, Sir John Bourchier, John Alured, and Thomas Chaloner were present when Bradshaw pronounced sentence, and all signed the warrant for the King's execution. And had these Yorkshire rebels not been dead — or, in the case of Thomas Chaloner, fled overseas — when Charles the Second came to the throne, they would have climbed the scaffold in myriads. Amongst the Royalist gentry Mr. Clay mentions one Samuel Drake, a Doctor of Divinity, who, after the downfall of the Commonwealth, became Vicar of Pontefract. But beyond mentioning his name he does not particularize Samuel's father, Nathan — a much more important person. Many of the men who took part in the Civil War committed their memories and impressions to paper : Fairfax wrote at least two import- ant memoranda ; Sir Henry SUngsby wrote a memoir; Captain John Hodgson, whom Carlyle calls " pudding-headed," thereby showing his ignorance of the West-Riding character and tem- 13 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION perament, set down his recollections of various doings : Sir Hugh Cholmley's experiences caused him to turn historian ; many lesser-known folk, anonymously, or under mere initials or fanci- ful pseudonyms, wrote pamphlets and tracts, now dear to the heart of the collector. But of all this contemporary, or nearly con- temporary, literature nothing is quite so good as the Diary which Nathan Drake kept during the siege of Pontefract Castle in 1644-45. His son, the Samuel included by Mr. Clay amongst his list of the Yorkshire Royalist Gentry, was in that siege, too : it was his share in the defence of Pontefract, no doubt, which got him his subsequent preferments. Nathan Drake, so far as we know, never got any prefer- ment ; he would appear to have been one of those modest men who are content to let duty be its own recompense. And all we know of him in connection with the siege which he chronicled is that he was one of a numerous body of Gentlemen Volunteers which held Pontefract for the King in the early days of the war ; that he had no military rank ; and that he never once mentions his own exploits throughout his account. Such biographical details as one may gain of him are scanty. He was born in or near Halifax, and baptized in that parish, in 1587 — the date of the baptism 14 NATHAN DRAKE is December 17th. He came of an old family of West Yorkshire yeomen, and is said to have had a small estate in the neighbourhood of Halifax, of which he was eventually deprived because of his adherence to the Royalist cause. His connection with Pontefract, with which town his family was afterwards so intimately associated, seems to have arisen through his marriage with Elizabeth Higgins, a native of the borough. There is no entry of the marriage in the Pontefract register, but it is believed to have been solemnized there. And he was either living in or near Pontefract in 1644 or he came to the town with the special intention of joining in the defence of the Castle against its Parlia- mentary besiegers. The sieges of Pontefract Castle during the Civil War are sometimes reckoned as two, sometimes as three ; they were two, if we reckon the first and second as one. In that case the first began on Christmas Day, 1644, was raised on March 6, 1645 ; began again a fortnight later, and came to an end on July 19th. The first half ended in favour of the defenders, who were ably commanded by Sir William Lowther ; the second resulted in their surrender to General Poyntz through failure of supplies. Drake was in the Castle from beginning to end ; whatever good he may or may not have been 15 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION as a military man, he was assuredly a close observer, and had a keen eye for small effects, and his Diary helps us to form a very realistic idea of what a seventeenth-century beleaguer- ment was like. Probably he only wrote it for his own amusement, or for the refreshing of his memory at some future period, or for the reading of his family circle. The original MS., a foolscap folio of thirty-two pages, written in double columns on both sides of the paper, with from sixty-five to seventy lines in each column, and enclosed in a wrapper made out of some legal document, bears a title which was inserted at a much later date by Francis Drake, first Fothergill Lecturer at Pontefract, himself the great-great-grandson of the Diarist, though he erroneously describes his kinsmanship as being a degree nearer : — 1644 A journal of the siege of Pontefract Castle, kept by Nathan Drake, a Gentleman Volunteer in it. I desire that this MS., in my Great Grand Fathers own Hand-Writing, may never go out of the family. Francis Drake. A copy of the Diary appears to have been made by this Francis Drake's grandfather, another Francis (the eldest son of Francis, son of Nathan, by his second marriage), who became 16 NATHAN DRAKE famous as the author of Eboracum, but it is neither accurate nor complete, and some portions of it were evidently written by a person who was unable to decipher the original. There is a facsimile of a portion of Nathan Drake's original manuscript in the late Richard Holmes's book, The Sieges of Pontefract Castle. In that work Holmes gives numerous extracts from the Diary. But in 1861 the entire work was published by the Surtees Society (Volume XXXVH), for whom it had been carefully edited by Mr. W. H. D. Longstaffe, and it is now well known to most students of North Country history. It shows that Nathan Drake possessed an orderly and precise mind, and had a great love of statistics. He gives first of all various small memoranda and tabulations, and a preface describing the events which took place between the battle of Marston Moor and the beginning of the siege. Then comes a summary of the losses on both sides. This is followed by a list of the Gentlemen Volunteers who took service in Pontefract Castle under Sir William Lowther. Another list gives the names of the Four Divisions of the Garrison ; another those of the Ten Aldermen of Pontefract who remained true to their Sovereign. Then comes a list of the Roman Catholic Gentlemen who fought for the King at Pontefract ; finally, with some other 17 B YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION memoranda, the Diarist tells us how many shot were played on the Castle by the enemy. And as to the actual nature and wording of the Diary, the following extracts, taken from the Surtees reprint, will give us an excellent idea : — 25 December 1644. Uppon Christmas Day, Ponte- fract Castle was beseeged and the towne taken that day by the beseegers, and the beseeged played 3 cannon against them. II January 16 1645. The enemy brought into the Markitt place in Pomfret 6 peese of cannon the same which had beene at Hemslay and Knaresbrough before, one carrying a bullitt of 42 li. weight, another 36 li., 2 other 24 li., a pese, and the least 9 li. We hearing they would plant them against Piper tower and be- twixt that and the Round tower where there was a hollow place all the way downe to the well, the gentle- men and souldyers fell all upon carrying of earth and rubbish and so filled up the place in a little space, and we rammed up the way that passes through Piper tower with earth 4 or 5 yeardes thick. Ill January 19 1645. 286 cannon. This Day, Sunday, about 9 of the clock was Piper tower beaten downe ther having been 78 shott made that morning before it fell, by which fall a breach was to be made into 18 NATHAN DRAKE the Castle wall and by which fall 2 brothers of the Halfpeny howse was killd and 3 or 4 much hurt but they are all againe since recovred and 27 of the beseegers men blowne up with their owne powder by a shott from the castle which hitt their match and so struck fire into the powder. IV April 6 1645. The enemy basely stayed all wine coming to the castle for serving of the Communion upon Easter Day, although Forbus (their Governor) (Colonel Forbes, the Parliamentary Commander) had graunted proteckton for the same, and one Browne of Wakefield said if it were for our damnation we should have it, but not for our salvation. But that day, being Easter Day (the 6th Aprill) which was prepared for the health of our soules, was prepared for the liberties of our bodyes, for, after sermond done at 11 of the clock the Governor gave strict command that all men should presently be in armes, which was as willingly done both with horse and foot. Then, after a little delibration, orders being agreed upon, Captin Washington and Captin Beale commanded the horse. Capt. Munro with musqueteers did sally out of Swillin- ton tower up into North-gate. Captin Flood with 50 musquteers sallyed forth of the Lower gate and so up by the Haulpeny howse and fell upon their trenches. Then there was 50 gentlemen volunteres whereof one haulph did second Munroe's musquetears and the other haulph Capt. Flood's. The gentlemen weare chosen out from the 4 colonells within the Castle, viz. : — Sr. Richard Hutton, 12 gentlemen commanded by Capt. Croft : Sir George Wintworth 10 commanded 19 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION by Leitnt. Warde : Sr. John Romsden lo, commanded by Capt. Benson ; and Sr. Jarvis Cuttler lo, commanded by Capt. Oglebie. These resolute spirittes (having received orders) cherefully passed upon their service, entred their trenches, gave a long and strong allarum, and returned with honour. Our cannonears allso plaid their parte bravelie and did good execution in the Markit place and other places in the towne. We killed in that sally 26 men or more, tooke one prisoner, and divers muskittes and swordes and drummes and we had 2 men killd and 2 men wounded and we shott 26 cannon wherewith is supposed could be no lesse than 100 men killd. But we lett them not rest then, for the same night, about 10 of the clock, Captin Smith, Capt. Ratcliffe, and Leiutenant Wheatlay, with 100 musquetears fell upon Northgate and so into the midle streats of the towne (above their trenches) gave fearce fire amongst them and did bloody execution for allmost one hower, where was very many of the beseegers killd, and we had but one man killd (his name was quartermr. Dawson) and one, a common souldger, was wounded, and we shott of 6 cannon then, where the enemyes powder was sett on fire at Mr. Lunnes and about 20 men burnt, but few of them likely to live. May II 1645. Sunday. We had 2 learned sermonds, the one by Doctor Bradlay, the other by Mr. Oley (as we have every Sunday 2). The Lord give us grace to follow them. We killd 2 of the enemyes from the Round tower. This day allso we had one of our men was looking out of a porthole on the Round tower 20 NATHAN DRAKE (a wright by trade) and seldom using to come thether, but he was shott thorow the arme, and though at a weekes end full of payne yet there is no signe of his death. We had allso a boy about 9 yeares of age (as he was getting of greene sawse without Swillington tower) was dangerously shott in the belly from their works at Munkhill. This night, also, a gentleman of ours was talking with one of the enemyes officers upon the Round tower, conditioning that neither side should shoot, but yett one of the enemies souldyers, contrary to conditions, shott in at the poarthole side, where the buUitt grased upon the side, and so hitt the gentleman upon the buckle of his girdle and burst it, but (praised be God) did not so much appeare as the very show of a hurt. VI May 24 1645. This morning about 3 a clock the enemy gave fire as though they would have entred the castle presently, upon what reasons we know not, unlesse they were greeved at the bonefires upon the Round tower that night, for they shott most at that place. About 10 a clock, a woman which was gathring of pott herbes was shott by the enemy into the thigh, but not dangerous of death. About that time our iron gunne shott once into the towne, but what execu- tion it did is not knowne. About 4 or 5 in the after- noone, 4 of our men went downe to the Low Church (where the enemy was) and as soon as the enemy espied, they fled all away but one (who was supposed to be a leiutenant). He stayd behind, and threw stones so fast that our men could not enter in of a good 21 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION time, but at length one Thorn. Lowther, a man who, if his judgment had beene according to his vallor, was as sufficient as most men, he boldly entred upon the leiutenant, and without one question had brought him along with him, had he not beene unfortunately shot by the enemy at that instant thorough the boane of his legg, which the enemy espying runne in all hast to catch him, but our men (with much labour) brought him offe into the Castle, where he had his legg presently cutt off, and now recovers very fast againe. VII June 5 1645. This morning there was a boy (who was prentice with Mr, Richard Stubbs, but now in the Castle) he went forth to get some grasse for the Castle's use (for the horseyes and cattell) but was shot thorow the arme and parte of the shoulder, but recovers pretty well againe, and walkes up and downe the Castle yeardes : and this day we killd an ensine of the enemies, and shott another man of theires, but they gott him into the workes. There was great shooting all this day, and towardes night Will, Ingrame shott the greate iron gunne 3 times into one of the enemies new works under Baghill, and was thought did very great execution. At the releeving of the watch the muskittes and forelockes on both sides spared not any powder, when we killd one of the enemyes men at the Primrose Close under Bagghill and shot another upon the topp of Baghill. This night the enemy stole some hides againe out of Peeter Redman tanpittes. 22 NATHAN DRAKE What Nathan Drake did with himself after the surrender in 1645 is not clear. He does not appear to have taken any part in the siege of 1648-49, made remarkable by the doings of Colonel John Morris, but there is some evidence that between the final capitulation and dis- mantling of the Castle and 1658 he was living on the outskirts of the old borough, at Spital Hardwick. On December 2, 1658, he made his will ; six days later he died. There is an entry in the Church Books of Pontefract : — Dec. 8th, 1658. Nathan Drake, yeoman, aged above 71, departed this life, and his corps was interred in the parish church of Pontefract, the nineth day of the same moneth. Fourteen years later his widow died and was laid beside him. From the marriage of Nathan Drake and Elizabeth Higgins arose a curious connection between the Drake family and the vicarage of Pontefract : — I. Samuel Drake, only son of Nathan, was born in 162 i. He became Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge, in his 17th year. He was deprived of his Fellowship on the outbreak of the Civil War. He took sides with the 28 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION King, and served in the siege of Newark. He was also present- — as one of the garrison — at the siege of Pontefract. Having been ordained, he exercised his ministry, under the Puritan regime, at South Kirkby, a few miles south of Pontefract. In the Lansdowne MSS., in the British Museum, in a report made for the Long Parliament, there is a reference to him. " South Kirkby. Mr. Sam. Drake, a painfull preaching minister, is Vic." His orders, however, appear to have been derived from episcopal authority. He married the daughter of one Abbott, some- time Town Clerk of Pontefract. He became Vicar of Pontefract in April 1661. He received the degree of D.D., from Cambridge University in 1662 — by Royal Letters Patent ; a reward, no doubt, for his own and his father's loyalty. In 1670 he became Prebendary of South- well, and was given the Rectory of Hands- worth, near Sheffield, a year later, holding it in conjunction with his Vicarage. He was also Rural Dean of Pontefract, He died in 1678, was buried in All Saints, Pontefract, and was at once succeeded as Vicar by his son, II. Francis Drake, who, if the baptismal 24 NATHAN DRAKE register of South Kirkby, where he was born, is correct, was at that time only 24 years of age. He, in 1688, was collated to the Prebendary of Warthill in York Minster. He died and was buried at Pontefract in 1713, and was succeeded as Vicar by his son, HI. John Drake, who was born at York in 1678 and baptized at St. Mary, Bishophill. He, too, was a Prebend of York Minster (Holme Archiepiscopi). He held the Rectory of Kirk Smeaton as well as the Vicarage of Pontefract. He died in 1742. Thus there were three Drakes who held the Vicarage of Pontefract in immediate succession. But there was a still further curious connection between the town and the family. Early in the seventeenth century there was living in Pontefract one Dr. Marmaduke Fothergill, a well-to-do man who owned a good deal of property which had once belonged to the Domini- cans. He was a High Churchman, a non-juror into the bargain, and he felt considerable scruples about his possession of these lands, once given to the Black Friars, on the site of whose convent his own house stood. And in 1716 he formally 25 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION conveyed his estate — or some of it — to the Archbishop of York, in trust to maintain a Catechist at Pontefract : the trust was not to come into being until his own and his widow's death. Fothergill himself died in 1731 ; the widow lived until 1753. By her will she nominated as the first catechist, or, as he came to be called, Fothergill Lecturer, I. Francis Drake, D.D. He was the grandson of Francis Drake, formerly Vicar ; the son of Francis Drake, M.D., of York, author of Eboracum. He was Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford. He was sometime Curate of Darrington, Vicar of Womersley, Vicar of St. Mary, Beverley, and Rector of Winestead in Holderness. He was succeeded in the Fothergill Lectureship by his son, IL Francis Drake, and he by his son, in. Francis Drake, who, in 1821 exchanged the Lectureship for the living of Frodingham, and thus terminated the connection between the Drake family and the parish of Ponte- fract which had existed for one hundred and sixty years. In Mr. W. H. D. Longstaffe's Introduction to the Surtees reprint of Nathan Drake's siege 26 NATHAN DRAKE journal there is a curious reference to the cele- brated Dr. Nathaniel Johnston, of Pontefract, from which it appears that the Drakes of later generations treasured a certain parchment memorandum, probably copied from an older one, inscribed as follows: — "Samuel Drake, Vicar of Pomfret. D.D. of St. John's College, Cambridge, created by a Royal deplomacy for his own and his father's loyalty to King Charles the First, and bravery in the sieges of Newark and Pomfret Castles : collated to a Prebendal Stall in the Metropolitical Church of York and Collegiate Church of Southwell ; died in the year 1679, being poisoned by his physician Dr. Johnson of Pomfret, for the sake of some valuable books in which he had privately and most vilainously inserted his name, and as impudently demanded, but (on the cheat being detected) he did not get them. . . ." Here is a mystery which will never be solved. Did Samuel Johnston poison Samuel Drake, or was he wrongfully accused by the Drake family ? Concerning Johnston there are many strange stories in the Pontefract chronicles. He was well known in the place in the last half of the seventeenth century. He is said to have embezzled £1,500 which had been collected, after the Restoration, for the purpose of effecting much needed repairs in All Saints' Church, to 27 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION the fabric of which great damage was done at the time of the siege. He figures a good deal in Ralph Thoresby's Diaries and correspondence, and both Thoresby and Abraham de la Pryme record that he died in very sad circumstances, having " been forced to skulk a great many years." His vast collections of manuscripts were advertised in the Gazette of March 27, 1707, and fortunately fell into the hands of the Frank family. Some of his treasures had doubtless been secured by unscrupulous means — but did he really poison Samuel Drake ? 28 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY II SIR HENRY SLINGSBY AT some time during Trinity Term, in 1703, two London booksellers, H. Play ford, of Temple Change, and G. Sawbridge, of Little Britain, published a re-issue of a work which had been selling extensively ever since the first days of the Restoration. Its title-page serves as a list of contents, showing its purpose, and indicating to what particular class of the community it appealed. England's Black Tribunal. Set forth in the Tryal of K. Charies I., by the pretended High Court of Justice in Westminster Hall, January 20, 1648-9. Together with His Majesties Speech on the Scaffold, Erected at Whitehall Gate. Tuesday, January 30, 1648-9. Also a perfect Relation of the Sufferings and Death of divers of the NobiUty and Gentry for their Loyalty to their King. With several of their Dying speeches, from the year 1642 to 1648, viz.. Earl of Strafford, Archbishop of Canterbury, Duke Hamilton, Earl of Holland, Lord Capel, Earl of Derby, Marquess of Montross, Colonel William Sybbald, Colonel Andrews, 31 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Colonel Penrudduck, Colonel Gerhard, Sir Henry Hyde, Sir H. Slingsby, Colonel Morris, Colonel Blackburn, Colonel Grove, Dr. Hewet. The Fourth Edition. To which is added. An Historical Preface, by a True Church Man. Octavo. Of the names here given, three belong to Yorkshiremen who had fought in the Civil War : Colonel Morris, indeed, had carried arms on both sides before he finally decided for the King and redeemed his character amongst the Cavaliers by his brilliant capture of Pontefract Castle. He is not particularly eminent, save for the feat ; as for Cornet Blackburn, he was a young clothier, of Almondbury, who escaped from Pontefract in Morris's company, when Morris was forced to yield the stronghold which he had taken by strategy : with Morris he was hanged — and possibly drawn and quartered — at York. These two men were, figuratively, of the rank and file, though their names appear in high company on the title-page of the old pamphlet. But Sir Henry Slingsby was a Yorkshireman of great note. He was said by his enemies to be a man of a long and melancholic face ; he certainly boasted a long and proud pedigree. Of the breed which can never, in any age, be anything but lo3^al, he was one of the first gentlemen of the county to stand for the King when Charles drew sword at Nottingham. He was much in 32 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY evidence in all the Yorkshire fighting : he was in the siege of York, and at Marston Moor, and afterwards in the West and in the Midlands ; he never consented to or intrigued with the Puritan rule ; he was drawn into what passed for con- spiracy against it, and Cromwell eventually put him to death for high treason. He died in com- fortable assurance with himself, being a good and convinced favourer of monarchy and Divine Right, and as he was the last of his sort to suffer under the Commonwealth, he may well be called the last of the old stock of Cavaliers. When the Cavalier leaders fled from Marston Moor in the evening of July 2, 1644, there was probably no idea in their minds that the fight in which they had just been worsted was the turning point of the Civil War, so far as Yorkshire was concerned. Rupert, most likely, had no realization of this fact as he made off to the West, though Newcastle may have guessed at it as he hurried to Scarborough and the Continent. But the Royalists who were left under Sir Thomas Glemham, in York itself, speedily became con- vinced that all was lost for the time being, and possibly for ever. There was nothing remaining to them but capitulation— on very favourable terms, thanks to the powerful Fairfax interest. The besieged were to march out, arms in hand, drums beating, colours flying ; nevertheless, 38 C YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION their thoughts were not cheerful. " Disconsolate we march," writes Sir Henry Slingsby, " forced to leave our country, unless we would apostate, not daring to see my own house, nor take a fare- well of my children, although we lay the first night at Hessay, within ten miles of it." He, and the other Royalists with him, went far away after that, wandering into the wild country beyond the Yorkshire dales, and, later, southward to the Midlands, and to Oxford ; some of them, Sir Henry also, fated to take part in the disaster of Naseby. And when they were gone out of York, passing through the lines of their conquerors, the conquerors themselves trooped into the city, and filled the Minster for a service of thanks- giving, conducted, in accordance with the Puritan forms, by one Robert Douglas, a Presbyterian minister. The Minster clergy, we may suppose, had fled to some convenient hole-and-corner, there to remain. For sixteen years York was to know no more of prelates, and nothing but sad news of princes. The favourers of the old ways stood by, helpless, while the Puritan innovators brought in their new system. In York all that savoured of monarchy, prelacy, and feudahsm was ruth- lessly swept away. The ancient ecclesiastical estabhshment disappeared. Archbishop John Wilhams, the Welshman, who had been translated 84 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY from Lincoln in 1641, had gone before this — hunted from his manor-house of Cawood by the younger Hotham, who came there one night in October, 1642, vowing to cut off the archiepiscopal head. John Scott, the Dean, was in the Uberties of the Court of King's Bench, a prisoner for debt. Stanhope, precentor, and Hodson, chan- cellor, were turned out, and soon went where there is no distinction between warring sects. The Minster itself was locked up, and its keys handed over to the Mayor. All over the city the clergy were bundled unceremoniously away from their rectories and vicarages. Four ofiicial preachers were appointed : two of them held forth in the Minster, two in All Saints' in Pavement. There was much talk of pulling down the Chapter House : the Fairfax influence, again, came in to prevent that piece of vandalism. Lord Fairfax, too, saved the library, as he had previously saved the Dodsworth papers and books, in some degree. But not even his strong will was powerful enough to restrain the Puritan hatred of ecclesiastical art. There was at this time a fine new organ in the Minster : it was taken down and sold —probably it was broken up for its materials. By August, 1645, the Chapter had ceased to exist as an administrative body, and its duties and powers were handed over to the city authorities. When Hodson, 85 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION as chancellor, made some show of resistance, he was speedily cowed into silence and acquies- cence by files of armed men. One Dossie was appointed sequestrator ; one of his first pro- ceedings was to sell the silver and brass, and the rich hangings. Hence the disappearance of the fine old monumental brasses, the great silver candlesticks ; in 1646 the font, the altar-canopies, and the organ lofts went, too. But, fortunately, Fairfax was able to keep up the repair and well- being of the mere fabric ; even his influence, how- ever, failed to preserve much of the ecclesiastical ornament in which York was so rich. Early in 1646 a great deal of the magnificent painted glass in the York parish churches was wantonly destroyed ; all the fonts were taken away ; the Thursday Market cross was dismantled, and its sculpture broken up ; any object which, to the Puritan mind, savoured of Popery, was reduced to dust. And by 1648 most of the city churches were without clergy, and given over to silence and desolation. Lord Fairfax was appointed Governor of York by the Parliament immediately after the surrender of the city by Sir Thomas Glemham, and, about a week later, the Corporation showed its pleasure at the appointment by presenting him with a tun of French wine and a butt of sack — in return for the love and affection he had shown to their 86 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY town and themselves. But the Puritan element took good care not to let Fairfax have too much of his own conciliating and accommodating way. In the following October the oath of the Solemn League and Covenant was tendered to the members of the civic body, and to the citizens, and threats were held out to all who showed signs of reluctance to take it. All the Royalist aldermen were turned out of office ; there were Puritan aldermen and a Puritan Mayor early in 1645. In the succeeding July the notorious York Committee came into existence, working in conjunction with similar bodies of the northern counties. It exercised in York and the surround- ing districts a power which was every whit as arbitrary and tyrannical as that shown since 1537 by the much-hated Council of the North. It governed men in matters of politics, religion, morals. No man might safely be other than a Puritan in morals, a Presbyterian in religion, a Parliamentarian in politics. To be a favourer of monarchy was to court death ; to show a hankering after bishops and liturgies was to qualify for the gaol ; to attempt the old pleasures was to run the risk of heavy fine. And as in York, so it was all over Yorkshire. The Puritan, having come into power, did everything in his own way. At Hull the great parish church of Holy Trinity was shared in equal divisions 37 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION between the Presbyterians and the Independents. The churchfolk were not allowed even a corner. In the four years between 1647 ^^^ 1651, property belonging to the see of York was sold to the amount of over sixty thousand pounds, and the money applied to anything but sacred purposes. Nothing was omitted in the process of proving to the people that the ancient regime was dead and buried. In 1650, when Oliver Cromwell visited York, there was not a sign of the old times in the place— even the Royal Arms had been taken down from Micklegate Bar. Old Cavaliers of the country-gentleman order, like Sir Henry Slingsby, doubtless looked on with amazement and perplexity as the Puritan spirit manifested itself in the destruction of castles, the pulling down of institutions, and the suppression of the old English love of sport. In nothing was that spirit so manifest as in the Puritan trick of making unlawful and sinful what until that age had rightly been considered good and innocent. Men might no longer attend horse-races nor go to the play ; it was unlawful to hunt, to dance, to hold festival around the Maypole ; a man must not be found in the ale-house after sunset ; he might not even go a-marketing on Saturday, lest he should merry- make, and unfit himself for attendance at public worship on Sunday. The Maypole around 38 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY which our poets and romanticists have woven so much legend and story was a chief object of Puritan aversion. Sir Aston Cokain, in his Small Poems of Divers Sorts, pubhshed in 1658, offers a curious reason for the Puritan disUke of the Maypole. The Zealots here are grown so ignorant That they mistake Wakes for some ancient Saint, They else would keep that Feast ; for though they all Would be called Saints here, none in heaven they call ; Besides, they May-Poles hate with all their soul, I think, because a Cardinal was a Pole. That the common folk— in other words, the vast majority of people — deeply resented the Puritan interference with the old custom, is amply proved by instances of the zest with which they returned to them after the Restoration. At Richmond, in Yorkshire, on the last three days of May, 1660, the townsfolk held high revel, demonstrating " their universal joy and satisfac- tion for the happy return of King Charles II., whom God was pleased to make the instrument of delivering this nation from Tyranny," and it is significant that the proceedings were shared in by the Sheriff and by the Bishop of Hereford, who had probably taken up his residence in that obscure corner of the country during the period of persecution. 39 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION The account of the time shows how the temper of the people incHned to pageantry, and how eagerly they turned to the opportunities of release from oppression. A solemn equipage came into the old town, arranged in order : three Anticks with bagpipes, the Representative of a Lord, attended with Trumpets, four Pages, four Footmen, and fifty Attendants, all finely arrayed ; the representative of a Sheriff, with fifty Attendants in Livery ; the Bishop of Hereford with many Pages, Footmen, Chaplains, and Household Officers, duly Attended ; two Companies of Morrice Dancers, playing their parts " to the high satisfaction of all spectators " ; one who performed the part of the Goddess Diana, followed by Sixty Nymphs, richly adorned with Music ; Captains, Officers, and Three Companies of Footmen " in great magnificence " ; finally, Robin Hood, in scarlet, attended by Forty Bowmen, in Lincoln green. A brave sight ! —and as welcome as the May morning which witnessed it. Seemly and sober, too, it was, for after march- ing decently round the old market cross, the processionists entered the church, offered thanks- giving, and listened to a sermon, which done, "my Lord" — whoever he was— took one moiety of the pageant-makers home to dinner, while the Bishop, no less generous, " sumptuously 40 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY entertained " the other. Dinner over, there were May games, and morrice-dancing, and drinking of sack ; on this and the next two days the play of Robin Hood was shown, and the revels kept up, in presence of many thousands from the country adjacent, who were doubtless curiously thankful to feel liberty in the air, and to know that a man might, if he were so disposed, shake his leg round the Maypole without fear of being led off to the nearest parish stocks. With the pulling down of the Maypoles had gone hand-in-hand the destruction or partial demolition of the castles, strongholds, and fortified houses. Much of this work was done between Marston Moor and 1648 : after the execution of Charles I. in 1649 it was carried out in entirety, and with little loss of time : Pontefract Castle, for example, which was the last fortress to hold out, thanks to Colonel Morris and his small band, was in its full mediaeval strength when Lambert took possession of it for the Parliament, and within a few months was a mere mass of ruin. So, too, in the case of Knaresborough, intimately connected with Sir Henry Slingsby ; so, too, with Middleham and Helmsley, Skipton and Bolton, Wressle and Crayke, Sandall and Tickhill, and with the various manor-houses and halls which country gentlemen had at one time or another obtained 41 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION leave to fortify. Sir Henry, like all of his sort, saw the old things vanish, the old powers torn away. Also they saw— and felt— the grip of the new ordinance upon themselves and their like. They were not only to suffer for their loyalty to the Royalist cause, but to pay for it. Some of them, indeed, were not even permitted to pay— the Parliament settled with many by taking all they had, land and money. Sir Henry Slingsby himself was one of these ; he endeavoured to compound for his alleged offences, and was not allowed to do so. In his case, the Parliament refused his petition for a compounding made in July, 1646, and sold all his estates five years later. Out of his fellow Yorkshire Loyalists, the Parliament got con- siderable sums in the shape of compoundings and fines. There are particulars of the various amounts in the volumes called Yorkshire Com- position Papers, printed by the Yorkshire Archaeological Society — John Batt was fined ^^364 ; Sir Thomas Beaumont, £700 ; Sir Thomas Belasyse, £5,995 ; Henry Belasyse, £3,249 ; Henry Calverley, £1,515 ; Sir Hugh Cholmley, £850 ; Henry Clifford 5th Earl of Cumberland, £1,631 ; Sir Godfrey Copley, £1,366 ; Sir William Dalston, £3,700 ; Sir Thomas Danby, £4,780 ; Michael Fawkes, £360 ; Sir John Goodrick, £1,343 los. ; Sir Henry Griffith, £7,457 ; Henry Hildyard, 42 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY £4,660 ; Sir Thomas Ingram, £2,933 ; Sir John Kay, £500 ; Francis Lay ton, £736 12s. ; Sir Richard Mauleverer, £3,287 13s. 4d. ; Francis Nevile, £1,000 ; Gervase Nevile, £28 6s. 4d. ; Sir Edward Osborne, £1,649 '> Roger Portington, £1,715 ; Sir Walter Rudston, £878 los ; Sir Thomas Strickland, £186 los. ; Richard Tempest, £2,804 ; George Thweng, £906 ; Marmaduke Tunstall, £2,954 ; William Vavasour, £447 ; Sir George Wentworth, £4,702. These are but a few names, taken at random ; there was scarce a Yorkshire gentleman who escaped ; many suffered long terms of imprisonment ; several died in prison. Some lost all, or nearly all, they had, in defence of the King ; Sir John Wolsten- holme, of Nostell, is reputed to have lost a hundred thousand pounds ; Sir Marmaduke Langdale's loss is estimated at a hundred and sixty thousand. Of the immediate doings of these Cavaliers after the capitulation at York, Sir Henry Slingsby left some account in his memoirs. After leaving York and going westward — " not daring to see my own house" — he made his way to Kirkby Lonsdale, where he fell in with Sir Marmaduke Langdale and his troops of horse. He then steered a course to Cartmel and Furness, in Lancashire, where he stayed some time, later returning to Yorkshire in company with Sir 48 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION John Mainy. They had passages of arms with the enemy at Ingleton, and again at Bradford ; eventually, they reached Pontefract, and took part in a fight between Ferrybridge and Sherburn ; thence the}^ went south to Newark, and eventually to Oxford, having a stiff fight at Banbury, on the way. They joined the King's troops " at the general rendezvous on Bradwaysdown," whence they went into the Midlands— to take a hand in the great fight at Naseby, of which he says nothing save that " we lost our baggage, and the best part of our army." After Naseby he was wandering about for some time — he was at Hereford—" not much unlike York '* — and at Raglan Castle— " beautiful to behold"— and at Brecknock ; eventually he reached Welbeck, my lord of Newcastle's house, still garrisoned for the King. But he was soon in retreat again, and before long back at Oxford. There was no peace or security there ; wherever Charles went, he was followed by Poyntz. So they retreated to the Welsh mountains, concerning which Sir Henry tells a story of interest : — In some Welsh village, wherein Charies and his companions had found a moment's peace and rest, " when the King was at supper, eating a pullet, and a piece of cheese, the room without was full, but the men's stomachs were empty for want of meat ; the good wife, troubled with the continual calling upon 44 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY her for victuals, and having, it seems, but that one cheese, comes into the room where the King was, and very soberly asks if the King had done with the cheese, for that the gentlemen without desired it." There was no lasting rest to be had in Wales, and presently the King and his immediate following moved on to Chester. Sir Henry was at Charles's side at Chester when, from one of the towers of the city wall — a spot well known to present-day tourists — the King saw his troops defeated and Lord Lichfield slain. Matters began to come to the inevitable end. Charles, after a short staj^ went south, to Oxford ; " my Lord Digby, my Lord Cornwath, Sir Marmaduke Langdale, got into a boat after fleeing to the Scotch coast near Carlisle, which wafted them into the Isle of Man " ; and Slingsby himself went from Newark to his own house near Knares- borough, in disguise, managing things so well that ** scarce any in the house [knew] I was there." Then, after a month, he took forty pounds in gold and went back, still in disguise, to Newark, which he helped to defend until the siege growing very insistent, and the plague being " so hot amongst us," the Royalist garrison was forced to surrender. Thence Sir Henry accompanied Charles northward, to Topcliffe, where, upon the nth May, 1646, " I was com- 45 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION manded by the King to return home." Home he went, to Red House, where " I take myself to one room in my house, scarce known of by my servants, where I spend my days in great silence, scarce daring to speak, or walk, but with great heed, lest I be discovered." The authorities at York, however, got wind of the good gentleman's whereabouts, and they tried to make him take the oath of the Solemn League and Covenant. Take it he would not — the oath, he says, would make him renounce his allegiance ; the covenant, his religion. So he remains in semi-hiding at his house, not without some quiet, rustic compensation. " Since my coming home I did pare off the swarth, and did gravel that walk on the side of the west orchard, which Will Hinckes planted, and set the walk with trees on either side ; one of ash, the other of sicamore, and among them one oak planted in the year 1622. Thomas Adamson, my gardener, in the year 1646, at my coming home, set that ash which grows by the causey, as you go from the low stable to the inges : he also set that grove of sicamore by the green." Peaceful and pleasant occupations— but the rumours of evil reach him at Red House. He hears of the Scots selling the King ; he hears of the affair at Holmby, and of the imprisonment at Carisbrooke ; he hears of the doings in West- 46 SIR HENRY SLINGSBY minster Hall— and he brings his memoirs to an abrupt conclusion — " upon the 30th of January, 1648, I hear — Heu me ! Quid heu me ! Humana perpessi sumus." Of Sir Henry Slingsby's doings during the next few years, the records are slight. But certain facts come out. Nothing would induce him to subscribe to the Solemn League and Covenant. He was accordingly classed as a malignant, and not allowed to compound. His estates were sequestered. Yet he appears to have remained at Red House, and to have added to it, for he certainly built a new part of the mansion in 1652. But by 1656 he was in serious trouble with Cromwell, and the spring of that year found him in prison at Hull, in the care of Captain Waterhouse, whom he was later charged with endeavouring to corrupt. Eventually he, and Dr. Hewitt, a clergyman, and one Mordaunt, a kinsman of Lord Peterborough's, were brought to trial before the newly constituted High Court of Justice, charged with high treason. Here was shown Cromwell's contempt for established usage. Hallam writes of the Slingsby and Hewitt affair as the most flagrant of all the examples which can be adduced to show how little the usurper cared for just administration of the law, or for the rights and privileges supposed to be secured to every Englishman by the provisions of Magna Charta. 47 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Slingsby, Hewitt, and Mordaunt all strongly protested against the legality of the recently created Court, claimed a trial by jury, and appealed to various Acts of Parliament. White- locke. Commissioner of the Great Seal under Oliver Cromwell, and a legal authority of the highest standing, strongly advised the Protector to proceed against the three defendants " accord- ing to law," thereby implying that the new procedure was no law — " but," says Whitelocke himself, " his highness was too much in love with the new way" — which means, of course, his own way. The trial, accordingly proceeded. Mordaunt escaped conviction, greatly to Crom- well's surprise and anger, but there was no chance of failure to convict in the cases of the other two. It was pointed out, on Slingsby's behalf, that he had not been allowed to compound, that he had been deprived of liberty and property, and that never having renounced allegiance to the King, he was really in the position of a prisoner of war. All this was brushed aside : Cromwell— who had recently become related to Sir Henry by the marriage of his daughter, Mary, with Lord Fauconberg, Lady Slingsby's nephew— was re- solved on having the old and faithful Cavalier's blood — he was, as Carlyle remarks, " a very constant Royalist," which was ample ground for Cromwell's stern hatred of him and his like. 4S SIR HENRY SLINGSBY The fashion of the trial was much after that which characterized all trials of the Puritan regime, from that of the King to that of Colonel Morris — bullying and browbeating on the part of the so-called judges, accompanied by fiat refusal to listen to anything that the prisoner might desire to say, unless it pleased the tribunal to hear it. It could only have one end — and on Tuesday, June 8, 1658, the intercession of his own daughter and of her husband having had no effect on Cromwell, Sir Henry Slingsby was led to the block on Tower Hill, where, before kneeling down, he remarked that he was glad to die for being an honest man. They brought his body home to Yorkshire and laid it in the family chapel in Knaresborough Church, under a slab of stone which is alleged to have marked the grave of St. Robert of Knaresborough, thus — unconsciously, no doubt— making a curious link between a mediaeval saint and a very upright Cavalier gentleman. 49 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX Ill THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX ABOUT the time that Sir Henry SHngsby laid his head on the block, another and a more famous Yorkshireman was feeling that he had known enough of Oliver Cromwell. In August, 1658, Lord Fairfax met the usurper for the last time, and went away from him in anger. The occasion arose through Cromwell's arbitrary treatment of George Vilhers, the young Duke of Buckingham, who, about a year before, had married Fairfax's only daughter, Mary, at Bolton Percy. Buckingham had not been long in England when the marriage took place, but the Council, remembering his share in the campaign which terminated so disastrously at Worcester, had a jealous watch kept upon his movements. Proceedings against him were meditated soon after the marriage, and the rumour of them reached Fairfax, who en- deavoured to avert them. In the summer of 1658 the Duke and Duchess were living with 53 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Lord and Lady Fairfax at York House in the Strand ; on the 24th August, the Duke was suddenly apprehended as he returned from a visit to his sister, the Duchess of Richmond, at Cobham, and was carried off to the Tower. His father-in-law immediately repaired to White- hall and gained admittance to Cromwell, of whom he begged Buckingham's release. Crom- well refused his request. Fairfax's anger mani- fested itself in his action. His cousin, Brian Fairfax, who was with him, tells, in his Life of Buckingham, what followed. " He turned abruptly from the Protector in the gallery at Whitehall, cocking his hat, and throwing his cloak under his arm, as he used to do when he was angry." That was the last that he ever saw of Cromwell, for within the fortnight Crom- well was lying dead at Hampton Court Palace. But Fairfax's relations with the usurper had been strained, perhaps more than strained, for ten years, at this time. They came to the straining point, almost to a breaking point, over the question of the disposal of Charles the First. Fairfax had no share in the arrest of Charles at Holmby ; he was certainly an opponent of the policy which brought about the King's death. At a later period of his life he wrote an account of his own doings at the time of the Civil War, not for publication, but for the satisfaction of 54 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX himself and his successors. " I must needs say," he writes, in the opening sentences of his Short Memorials of Some Things to he Cleared during my Command in the Army, " my judg- ment was for the ParHament, as the King's and Kingdom's great and safest Council" — but his decision to fall in with the Parliamentarians by no means meant that he was a favourer of Crom- well's policy of deposition and regicide. Brian Fairfax, who eventually printed these memoranda, says of his famous cousin that he could never speak of Charles's fate without tears. Moreover, there was a rumour current about 1649 that Fairfax had actually meditated the King's release by force, and that Cromwell took active measures to prevent it. After Charles's death, Fairfax's relations with the Parliamen- tarians were undeniably strained and cool. He was elected to serve in the Parliament of 1654, but he never took his seat. It was an open secret that he strongly disapproved of Cromwell's appointment as Lord Protector ; it began to be rumoured that he was already in favour of a restoration of the monarchy. Contemporaries said of him that there were two sides to his character, that he was not as politician what he was as soldier. Whitelocke, who had many opportunities of observing him under varying conditions, said that Fairfax when " in great 55 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION employment " was "of as meek and humble carriage as ever I saw," and that in coancil he was a man of few words, whereas in battle he became " so highly transported " that he was then " more like a man distracted and furious." Whatever seeming difference there is in Fairfax, however, may be explained — up to the events of 1647 he appears to have been in perfect sympathy with Cromwell and the rest of the Parliamentarian leaders ; when he found that the Cromwellian policy involved the absolute down- fall of the monarchy and the King's death, he parted company with his old associates, and from 1648 onwards drifted further and further away from them. However feeble in council Fairfax may have been in the time to which Whitelocke refers, there was no feebleness in his actions, nor lack of energy in his words, when it became necessary to take some decisive step in 1660. The death of Cromwell had signalled the advent of a period of something very like anarchy. Richard Cromwell called a ParHament which met in January, 1659, ^^^ ^^^ dissolved three months later. The members of the Long Parliament came together again under their old Speaker, Lenthall, turned Richard out of the new-fangled hereditary Lord-Protectorship, and constituted a Council of State, under the presidency of Fairfax. 56 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX But Fairfax was too much concerned about the position of things in the North to leave York- shire. Royahst risings broke out in Lancashire and in Cheshire, and were suppressed by Lambert. Once more there were signs that the Army in- tended to assert its power. In October the princi- pal officers prevented the House of Commons from sitting, and formed a Government of their own under the title of the Committee of Safety. Here Monk, then in command of the army in Scotland, came actively into the arena. He declared for a free Parliament, and manifested active opposi- tion to the Committee. He was then on the northern bank of the Tweed, with 7,000 men ; Lambert, with 10,000, was sent North to join issue with him. Monk, through various agents, communicated with Fairfax ; the result of their negotiations was that Fairfax, though suffering severely from gout at the time, resolved to take the field and to oppose Lambert. The final arrangements between Monk and Fairfax were made by Brian Fairfax, who, in the last days of December, 1659, n^a-de his way through the enemy forces, posted between York and the border, to Coldstream, on the Tweed, with adventures that seem to belong more to romance than to history. He found Monk at last, and gave his message. Monk delivered his answer in a few words : " Tell Lord Fairfax," he said, 57 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION " that I will watch Lambert as a cat watches a mouse." Brian made his way back to Nun Appleton ; he had scarcely arrived when a message came from the Irish Brigade of Lambert's army to the effect that it was prepared to meet Lord Fairfax on Marston Moor. Thither Fairfax repaired next day, in spite of his illness. On his arrival a document was handed to him, in which the brigade demanded a Commonwealth and declared against government by any single person. Fairfax tore the pages in half before their faces, and turned to put himself at the head of his handful of troops, untrained Yorkshire- men, gathered from the neighbouring villages and farmsteads. But his resolute action produced a result on which he may have calculated. The Irish Brigade instantly came over, squad by squad, regiment by regiment, and Lambert, deserted, fled from the men who, an hour before, had followed his colours. This was on January 3rd ; on the nth Monk arrived in York. Next day Fairfax entertained him at Nun Appleton and plainly disclosed his own policy. There would be no peace in England, he said, but on the lines of a free Parliament and a restoration of the monarchy. Monk gave evasive, or, at any rate, unsatisfactory answers. Then Fairfax acted. An address, signed by the leading Yorkshire 58 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX gentlemen, was sent up to London by Brian Fairfax. It resulted in the calling of a free Parliament, which met in April, Fairfax being present as member for Yorkshire. Lords and Commons alike resolved on the Restoration, and a Commission, formed of six peers and twelve members of the House of Commons, with Fairfax at its head, was deputed to forthwith wait upon Charles the Second at The Hague, and to ask him to return to his country and people. Brian Fairfax says that his Majesty complimented the old General particularly, and showed him great courtesy and attention — all the same, Charles did not forget Fairfax's share in the Civil War, and the foolish and empty procedure of giving him a full pardon under the Great Seal was gone through. It was on a gift-horse from Fairfax's famous stud at Nun Appleton that Charles rode at his ensuing coronation, but Charles had no gifts of his own for the man who had done more than any other of his subjects to give his throne back to him. Monk, who at best was a bad lot, was created Duke of Albemarle ; Fairfax's young cousin, Edward Montague, got the Garter, and became that Earl of Sandwich of whom we hear so much from Pepys ; honours were thrown about freely, but none fell to Fairfax, who went quietly home to Nun Appleton, and was shortly sore exercised in mind by hearing 59 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION of the desecration of the graves of the regicides. This was Fairfax's final retirement to his country-house, but he had known a previous one during which he took httle share in the uneasy doings of the times. In June, 1650, he parted company with Cromwell over the question of the projected invasion of Scotland, and resigned his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the Forces of the Commonwealth ; thenceforward, until the matter of the Restoration brought him out again, ten years later, he lived in peace and retirement at Nun Appleton. The ParHament, for which he had done so much, treated him in 1650 pretty much as Charles the Second treated him in 1660. It voted him a pension of £4,000, more than once, but these repeated votes were mere mockeries, for he never received one penny of them, at any time. The estates of Helmsley in Yorkshire, and of York House in London, which were at a later period given him in lieu of the unpaid pension, he held in trust for their rightful owner, the Duke of Buckingham ; the proceeds of the seignory of the Isle of Man, voted to him by Parliament in 1651, he devoted to their proper purposes, paying the clergy their rightful dues, keeping up the schools, and sending her rents to the dispossessed owner. Lady Derby, who remarked that she had never received her 60 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX income from the Island so regularly as when it nominally belonged to Lord Fairfax. Of all the men of that time, none had cleaner hands than Fairfax. He was content with what he possessed of his own — his books, his curiosities, his famous stud of horses, his pleasure-grounds, his house. Nun Appleton, the building of which had been begun by his grandfather, was his especial delight. " It was," writes Markham in his Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, " a picturesque brick mansion, with stone copings, and a high, steep roof, and consisted of a centre and two wings at right angles, forming three sides of a square, facing to the north. The great hall or gallery occupied the centre, between the two wings. It was fifty yards long, and was adorned with thirty shields in wood, painted with the arms of the family. In the other rooms there were chimney-pieces of delicate marble of various colours, and many fine portraits on the walls. The central part of the house was surmounted by a cupola, and clustering chimneys rose over the two wings. A noble park, with splendid oak trees, and containing three hundred head of deer, stretched away to the north, while on the south side were the ruins of the old nunnery [a house of Cistercian nuns, founded in the reign of Stephen], the flower garden, and the low meadows called ings, extending to the 61 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION banks of the Wharf e." Here Fairfax was closely surrounded by relations, and by friends who were devotedly attached to him. His uncle, Henry Fairfax, father of Brian, was rector of Bolton Percy ; his sisters lived but a stone's- throw away. For two years — 1651-52 — Andrew Marvell was one of the family circle at Nun Appleton, as tutor to Fairfax's only daughter, Mary, upon whose education no pains were spared by her devoted father. The family appears to have been of a decidedly religious and pietistic turn of mind. Thoresby, the antiquary, became possessed of a collection of notes of sermons taken from the preachings of various divines and domestic chaplains by Lord Fairfax, Lady Fairfax, and their daughter. The great General's chief amusements and occupations in his retirement were almost entirely of a literary and scholarly nature. He was a great collector of antiquities in the shape of coins, medals, and engravings — most of his possessions of this sort came into Thoresby's hands later on. He was owner of some rare things in books. He had a wonderful copy of Gower's Confessio Amantis, which had belonged to his grandmother, that Isabel Thwaites who was so famous for her beauty ; he had rare copies of Chaucer, of Mandeville, of St. Jerome's works, and of Wychffe's Bible. All of these 62 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX he bequeathed, with other rarities, to the Bodleian Library. He was a great reader, and — considering his opportunities — a voluminous writer, chiefly in verse, which, it should be remembered, was not intended for publication. He wrote 170 epigrams, in couplets under the title Honey Drops. Another series of 155 couplets he called Vulgar Proverbs. He composed several hymns. He made numerous translations from Petrarch, with whose works he was intimately acquainted, having most of his life been thoroughly familiar with Italian, as he also was with French. He wrote two longer poems — "The Solitude" and " The Christian Warfare." He made a new complete metrical version of the Psalms of David, another of the Song of Solomon ; he similarly versified the songs of Moses, Deborah, Simeon, Hannah, and Hezekiah. He did a great deal of work in serious translation — five books on Roman Discipline, by Flavins Vegetius ; a History of the Church from the Time of our Saviour to the Reformation, and Mercurius Tris- megistus, with a commentary translated from the French. And, perhaps as a relief from these classical and literary studies, he also wrote a Treatise on the Breeding of Horses — on which subject he was, of course, a high authority, for his stud at Nun Appleton was, as it were, world- famous, wherever horses were talked of. 68 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Markham, in his biography of Lord Fairfax, gives some specimens of his subject's poetical work — the epigrammatic couplets are certainly characteristic of their author : — A proud man no man loves : the reason's this : That he loves no man that a proud man is. Good works thou must not so much live unto. As so to live that thou good works may do. To merit honour, and yet have it not. Is better than to have't and merit not. Better hazard credit, and conscience save. Than hazard conscience, and yet credit have. Virtue shows the greater grace Smiling from a beauteous face. Pardon give to every one. But to thyself allow none. During the last years of his life Fairfax's literary abilities v^^ere turned in a different direction. Until 1668 or 1669, he does not appear to have even set down anything in the form of recollections or accounts of his doings at the time of the Civil War. But about this period, as if to remind himself of what he had gone through and known, and with no intention 64 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX that it should ever be seen or read by any eye but his own, he wrote out his Short Memorial of the Northern Actions, which he followed up, a little later, with his Short Memorials of Some Things to he Cleared. The first gives his version and account of the campaigns in Yorkshire ; the second is in the nature of a personal explanation of the reasons which made him and his father take sides with the Parliament, and of his own doings in relation to the various affairs at Holmby, at Colchester, and at Whitehall. These manuscripts remained in possession of the Fairfax family, and were preserved in the library at Denton, until 1699, when Brian Fairfax, hearing that copies had been made and were about to be published, printed them, with a good deal of editing, in which he omitted many passages and altered others. Various editions of these memoirs have appeared, and there have been at least three from Yorkshire printing presses — one was issued at Leeds, in 1776 ; Hargrove of Knaresborough, published another in 1810 ; a third was printed at Bradford, by Abraham Holroyd, about 1865. Both appear in Professor Arber's English Garner (Stuart Tracts : 1603-93), where they are reprinted from the holograph, now Fairfax MS, 36, in the Bodleian Library. Between the Bodleian Library and the memory 65 E YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION of Lord Fairfax a bond exists which has a pecuUar interest for Yorkshiremen. To the Bodleian Library Fairfax, at his death, left his priceless collection of Dodsworth manuscripts, the original basis and material of the Monasticon AngUcanum, which had its origin in Dodsworth's labours — in the edition published in London during Trinity Term, 1682, Dodsworth's name comes first on the title-page. There would have been no Monasticon but for Dodsworth, and — as events proved — for Fairfax. And not the least of Fairfax's claims to lasting fame lies in the history of his relations with Dodsworth, and in the story of his salvation of the archives at York, and in his gift of the Dodsworth manu- scripts to the Bodleian Librar}^, where they may be seen bound up in one hundred and sixty big volumes. Roger Dodsworth, born at Newton Grange, in the parish of Oswaldkirk, near Helmsley, in 1585, was one of those Yorkshiremen — a numerous class in all ages of the county's history — who have a natural taste for the antique. He began his antiquarian researches at a very early age, and in the first half of the sixteenth century did much work amongst the records stored at York Minster, at the Tower of London, and in Sir Robert Cotton's collection at Skipworth. He appears to have enlisted Fairfax's sympathies 66 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX some time before the outbreak of the Civil War ; he was certainly being helped with money by Fairfax in 1641. At the time of the siege of York (1644) Dodsworth was busily engaged in transcribing documents and charters which had for some time past been stored in St. Mary's Tower, near the Minster. There, various Lords President of the Council of the North had stored the archives of the religious houses which had been suppressed a hundred years before ; there were also in the Tower vast collections of other historical documents. The besiegers laid a mine under St. Mary's Tower, and on Sunday, June 16, while service was being said in the Minster, the mine was exploded, and the Tower fell in ruins, its contents, of course, being buried in the rubbish. Here Fairfax's care of York manifested itself anew. He had already saved the fine carved porch of the old church of St. Nicholas, on the road to Heslington, and had also taken measures for the saving of the bells ; now he offered handsome rewards to any who would rescue documents from the wreck of the Tower. There Dodsworth himself and Charles Fairfax (author of the Analecta Fairfaxiana, and an enthusiastic antiquary) were already at work ; at work with them was one Tomson, a York man, who himself salved thirty bundles of papers. Dodsworth and 67 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Charles Fairfax managed to recover many more, amongst them the famous rhymed Charter which King iEthelstan had given to St. John of Beverley. But a vast quantity of priceless matter was lost, and it was a most fortunate thing that Dodsworth had practically completed his work of copying the originals when the catastrophe occurred. For some time before this, Fairfax had provided him with an annuity of forty pounds ; it was continued until 1654, when Dodsworth died, leaving the whole of his vast collection of manuscripts and documents to his patron. They remained at Nun Appleton until Fairfax's death in 1671, being at that time bound up in eighty-six volumes. By the terms of his will, made in 1667, he bequeathed them to the Bodleian Library, in company with other documents of his own collecting. They were not removed to Oxford until the summer of 1673, and according to a note in Markham's Life they got so much damaged by wet on their journey that Anthony a Wood, the antiquary, equally famous for his archaeological learning and his ineradicable habit of quarrelling with everybody, had to lay them out on the leads, and dry them in the sun and air, before they could be shelved. Amongst his books, his curiosities, and in his goings-in-and-out about his beautiful house and grounds, Fairfax passed a happy time during his 68 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX first period of retirement from war and politics. He had less of happiness during the second and final period. He was passionately fond of his daughter Mary, who had been with him, a mere child, in the fight at Selby [" My daughter, not above five years old, being carried before her maid, endured all this retreat on horseback " —the Short Memorial], and one may feel sure that when he gave her in marriage to the Duke of Buckingham he felt no misgivings, and that Buckingham's character and conduct at that time must have been all that so religiously minded and punctilious a man as Fairfax un- doubtedly was could desire. Buckingham, indeed, had come over from his retreat in France with a high reputation. But the Restoration wrought a change in him. Charles the Second made him Master of the Horse, and Lord-Lieutenant of Yorkshire. The first appointment kept him much about the Court. He became one of the most dissolute, reckless, and extravagant of the men of fashion of his time, and rich as he was, both in his own right and by his marriage with Mary Fairfax, he spent money at a rate which not even his estate could bear. For a time Brian Fairfax acted as his agent, and did all he could to check his money- wasting propensities, but to no purpose. There was no restraining Buckingham, who continued 69 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION his wild career until he was ruined, though it is by no means true, as Pope's well-known line suggests, that he died " in the worst inn's worst room," for he died in the best bedroom of the principal dwelling-house of Kirby Moorside, and not suddenly, but after three days' illness, in which he was attended by Brian Fairfax, Mr. Gibson, and the Earl of Arran. Buckingham certainly had the saving graces of kindness to his wife, and of sincere respect for her father, at whose death he composed a notable elegiac poem. But the marriage turned out anything but a source of pleasure or comfort to Fairfax, and his son-in-law's vagaries cost him many hours of anxiety and sorrow. His old friends began to die off, and in 1665 he lost his uncle, the Rector of Bolton Percy, and a little later, his wife, who, as the daughter of another great general. Lord Vere, had always been a fit helpmate to a man, who, fond of letters and of peaceful pursuits though he was, was essentially a soldier. And about this time he became much afflicted with gout, and began to suffer from his old and many wounds, and grew infirm, and unable to move about, so that they had to make a wheeled chair for him, which was carefully preserved by his successors, and was in existence in Yorkshire within comparatively recent times. Brian Fairfax has left us a picture of the old 70 THE THIRD LORD FAIRFAX man as he rested in this chair in his last days. " He sat Hke an old Roman, his manly counten- ance striking awe and reverence into all that beheld him, and yet mixed with so much modesty and meekness as no figure of a mortal man ever represented more." He died in November, 1671, and was buried by the side of his wife in the church at Bilbrough, where their altar-tomb still stands in the choir. 71 HENRY JENKINS IV HENRY JENKINS ABOUT the time when controversy began to rage high between Conformist and non-Conformist, High Churchman and Low Churchman, and when fears of Popish intrigue were growing thickly around the ten-year-old court of Charles XL, there died in the north of Yorkshire an aged man who, if his own story was true, and if the traditions about him are to be credited, had known an age in which there was only one form of religion in all England. In the parish registers of Bolton-on-Swale, a small village of the North Riding, there is, under date December 9, 1670, the record of the death of Henry Jenkins. Seventy-three years later certain folk of the neighbourhood combined to erect in the churchyard a monument to Henry Jenkins's memory, and, in the church itself, a mural tablet, the epitaph on which was furnished by Dr. Thomas Chapman, Master of Magdalen 75 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION College, Cambridge. The epitaph is of the usual verbose style of that period : — " Blush not, marble, to secure from oblivion the memory of HENRY JENKINS: A person obscure in birth, but of a life truly memor- able ; for he was enriched with the goods of nature, if not of fortune, and happy in the duration if not variety of his enjoyments : and tho' the partial world despised and disregarded his low and humble state, the equal eye of providence beheld, and blessed it with a patriarch's health and length of days : to teach mistaken man, these blessings were entailed on tem- perance, or, a life of labour, and a mind at ease. He lived to the amazing age of 169." How far can the claim of this epitaph be substantiated ? It is such a claim as can be made on behalf of no other Englishman. If it is true, it means that Henry Jenkins, as a passive spectator, saw English history in the making in a degree which has not been granted to any other of his race. It means that he lived under the rule of nine sovereigns ; that he saw the national form of religion thrice changed ; that he witnessed the Dissolution of the Religious Houses and the destruction of the old Guild life ; that he saw the abolition of the monarchy and its restoration ; that he heard of the executions of Mary Queen 76 HENRY JENKINS of Scots, of Anne Boleyn, and of Katharine Howard as events of the day, and of the Great Fire and the Great Plague as events in progress ; that he saw his country under a Scottish invasion at one time and a Spanish king at another— had he been a scholar and kept a diary, no such diary as his would ever have been made by mortal man. If the tradition is true, he made one of the links in a chain which has lasted to this day. The late Wilfrid Ward, in a footnote in his Life of Cardinal Wiseman, mentions that Mr. Digby Best, " forerunner of the Tractarians at Oxford," who joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1791 and died in 1835, knew a Father Lawson (one of the Lawsons of North Yorkshire) whose uncle, Mr. Lawson, knew, in his boyhood, Henry Jenkins. One of Mr. Digby Best's Oxford friends was old Dr. Routh, sometime President of Magdalen College, Oxford, who was one hundred years old when he died in 1854. There must be men still living who remember Dr. Routh — therefore they knew a man who knew another man whose friend had spoken with a creditable witness who had seen Henry Jenkins in the flesh. Deeply interesting as that is, it goes no way towards establishing Henry Jenkins's age, except in one important particular. The Mr. Lawson who remembered Henry 77 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Jenkins used to relate that Henry Jenkins told him in person that he, Jenkins, remembered the last Abbot of Fountains. That, if true, shows that Henry Jenkins was at any rate grown up by 1540. According to his own statement and to tradition he was born at EUerton-on-Swale, a village near the Lawson family seat at Brough near Catterick, in 1500— unfortunately, before parish registers began to be kept, and if that is true, he was certainly one hundred and sixty-nine years old when he died. The fact that he had attained that age " appears," says a well-known Yorkshire writer, William Grainge, who paid considerable attention to the matter, "to be established beyond the reach of reasonable doubt." What are the proofs that this old, obscure labourer really did live to this extraordinary age ? They are many, and they are all of a considerable degree of respectability. In one of the early numbers of the Transactions of the Royal Society, Sir Tancred Robinson, M.D., F.R.S., physician to George I., and brother of Sir William Robinson, Bart., of Newby, in York- shire, definitely set forth Henry Jenkins's claim to be regarded as " the oldest man born on the ruins of the post-deluvian world," thereby using similar terms to those employed by Grainge, who, in his Biographical History, affirms that Jenkins 78 HENRY JENKINS " was the oldest man, of the post-deluvians, of whom we have any credible account." Robinson supported his claim by adducing the evidence of Mrs. Anne Savile, who was the daughter of John Savile, of Methley, a scion of the great Yorkshire family of Savile, and an ancestress of the Earls of Mexborough. Here is what Mrs. Anne Savile, a lady worthy of the greatest credence, says, as quoted by Robinson : — When I first came to Bolton [upon Swale] it was told me that there lived in that parish, a man near one hundred and fifty years old ; that he had sworn as a witness in a cause at York, to one hundred and twenty years, which the judge reproving him for, he said, he was butler at that time to the Lord Conyers ; and they told me it was reported his name was found in some old register of the Lord Conyers' menial servants. Being one day in my sister's kitchen, Henry Jenkins coming in to beg an alms, I had a mind to examine him : I told him he was an old man, who must soon expect to give an account to God of all he did or said ; and I desired him to tell me, very truly, how old he was ; on which he paused a little, and then said, to the best of his remembrance he was about one hundred and sixty-two, or, one hundred and sixty-three. I asked him what kings he remembered ? He said, Henry VHL I asked him what public thing he could longest remember ? He said, Flodden Field. I asked him whether the King was there ? He said, no ; he was in France, and the Earl of Surrey was General. I asked him how old he might be then ? He said, 79 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION between ten and twelve ; " for," says he, " I was sent to North- Allerton with a horse-load of arrows ; but they sent a bigger boy from thence to the army with them." I thought by these marks, I could find something in histories and, looking into an old chronicle, I found that Flodden Field was about one hundred and fifty-two years before, so that if he was ten or eleven years old [then] he must be one hundred and sixty-two, or one hundred and sixty-three, as he said, when I examined him. I found that bows and arrows were then used, and that the Earl he named was the General, and that King Henry VIII. was then at Tournay ; so that I don't know what to answer to the consistencies of these things, for Henry Jenkins was a poor man, and could neither write nor read. There were, also, four or five in the same parish that were reputed, all of them, to be one hundred years old, or within two or three years of it, and they all said he was an elderly man ever since they knew him, for he was born in another parish, and before any register was in churches, as it is said. He told me then, too, that he was butler to the Lord Conyers, and remembered the Abbot of Fountains Abbey very well, who used to drink a glass with his lord heartily, and that the Dissolution of the Monasteries he well remembered. Mrs. Anne Savile wrote out this statement for the benefit of Sir Richard Graham, of Norton Conyers, who copied it into his Household Book, and furnished another copy of it to Roger Gale, the antiquary, with a letter of his own (dated 80 HENRY JENKINS 1739-40), in which he mentions that he had heard his grandfather, another Sir Richard, say that in his time, when he was Sheriff, Henry Jenkins gave evidence in an action between Mr. How and Mrs. Wastell, of Ellerton. In this case, Jenkins certainly did give evidence, and his answers to the presiding judge have been preserved. He said that he could remember a hundred and twenty years back ; that he had been butler in his young days to Lord Conyers, of Hornby Castle ; that he well remembered Marmaduke Bradley, last Abbot of Fountains, visiting his master ; that he himself had often taken messages from Lord Conyers to Fountains Abbey, and that on these occasions the Abbot would order him a quarter of a yard of roast beef for his dinner [in monastic houses, meat was always served out by measure, instead of by weight] with a black jack of strong ale. One of the judges further questioning him, he answered that he recollected the Dissolution of the Religious Houses ver}^ perfectly, being between thirty and forty years of age at that time, and that great lamentation was made amongst the York- shire people, and the country all in a tumult. Asked if he remembered aught more, he said he very well remembered the Scotch wars and the fight at Flodden Field. And questioned as to what he did, at his advanced age for his 81 F YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION living, he replied that he worked at thatching and salmon-fishing, and, old as he was, could dub a hook with any man in the county. This action of How v. Wast ell was not the only one in which Henry Jenkins was called as a witness— a man of such extraordinary age, and of such good memory was, of course, invaluable as a witness in matters of right-of-way, fishing rights, customary payments, and the like. He was called to the Assizes at York in 1655 to give evidence in a right-of-way case, and he there swore that he remembered a way over the land in question as far back as 1540. He was bidden by the presiding Judge to have a care as to what he said, for two witnesses, each above eighty years old, had just testified to the contrary — as far as their own experience went. Henry Jenkins retorted that these venerables were but boys compared to himself, whereupon the Judge asked the two old men if they had any idea as to Jenkins's real age. They replied readily that they knew Henry Jenkins very well indeed, but had no conception of his age, for that he was a very old man when they were quite young. Two years later Henry Jenkins was again in the witness box at York, in a tithing case, brought by the Vicar of Catterick against William and Peter Mawbank, in respect of the Vicar's 82 HENRY JENKINS rights in tithes of lambs, wool, etc., and he deposed that to his knowledge, such tithes had been customarily paid for one hundred and twenty 3/ears. In April of the same year — 1667 — he gave evidence in another tithing matter, before a Commission issued out of the Court of Exchequer, which authorized George Wright, Joseph Chapman, John Barnett, and Richard Fawcett, gentlemen, to examine witnesses, as well for the defendant as for the plaintiff, in a tithe cause between Charles Anthony, Vicar of Catterick, and Calvert Smithson, owner and occupier of lands in Kipling, in the parish of Catterick. Amongst the depositions taken before this Commission, in the house of John Stairman at Catterick, April 15, 1667, was that of : — Henry Jenkins, of Ellerton upon Swale, labourer, aged one hundred and fifty-seven, or thereabouts, sworn and examined [who saith] " That he has known the parties seven years, and that the tithes of lambs, calves, wool, colts, chickens, goslings, pigs, apples, pears, plums, flax, hemp, fruit, and multure of mills [toll of grain or flour paid to the miller] were paid in kind by one Mr. Calvert [this was George Calvert, first Lord Baltimore], the owner of the Lordship or Manor of Kiphng to one Mr. Thriscroft [Vicar of Cat- terick, 1594-1603] above three-score years since, the Vicar of Catterick ; and was so paid in kind during the time of his the said Mr. Thriscroft's continuance ; and, after, the tithes of Kipling were paid in kind to 83 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION one Richard Fawcett, deceased, for many years to- gether as Vicar of Catterick [Fawcett was Vicar from 1603 to 1660] ; and that this deponent never knew of any customary tithes, paid by any of the owners, or occupiers, of the Lordship and Manor of Kipling, or any other of the towns or hamlets within the said parish of Catterick, but all such particulars named in the interrogatories were ever paid in kind to the Vicar there for the time being." Whatever may have been Henry Jenkins's exact age, it is impossible to doubt that he was a very, very old man when these events occurred. One of the most remarkable things recorded of him is that when he was, in his own opinion, quite one hundred and fifty years old, he used to swim in the Swale in any weather, and thought nothing of walking the forty miles between Catterick and York. 84 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE V SIR THOMAS GASGOIGNE WHEN Charles the First called upon his loyal subjects to help him against the Parliament, none responded so readily as the Roman Catholic gentlemen. In spite of the fact that the Penal Laws of Elizabeth and of James I. were still in force, and that Charles himself had given his royal assent to a peculiarly harsh and annoying measure in 1627 ; in spite, too, of the additional — and more pertinent — fact that they and their co-religionists were being constantly fined and imprisoned under these laws, the Roman Catholic noblemen and squires flocked to the King's banner without hesitation or delay, and willingly laid down their lives for the Stuart cause. Mr. Pollock, in his book. The Popish Plot, says, quoting Klopp's Der Fall des Hauses Stuart, that out of five hundred Cavalier gentlemen who fell in the Civil War, one-third, at least, were Roman Catholics. Nor were certain Roman Catholics 87 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION less loyal or helpful to Charles the Second, with whom it would have gone hard in the distressful days immediately following upon Worcester fight but for the assistance given him by the Giffards, the Penderels, and Father Hudleston. Never- theless, this loyalty and devotion stood Roman Catholics in no stead when Titus Oates, whom Mr. Seccombe rightly calls " the bloodiest villain since the world began," came forward in 1678 to poison men's minds with his infernal lies. The machinations of Oates, and the affair of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey, meant death to many honest and loyal English Roman Catholics, and disaster to those who escaped the scaffold. But the reign of Charles II. had been prolific in imaginary Popish plots ; the general temper of Protestant thought at that time was inclined to believe anything against a Papist ; folk who believed that the Great Fire of London originated in a Papist conspiracy would, of course, give credence to any rumour. In those days flourished an organized system for spreading these rumours. Its effect was to produce an impression that the country was being handed over to the Pope. " There was a suspicion," says Green, " that the whole armed force of the nation was in Catholic hands. The Duke of York . . . was in command of the Navy. Catholics had been placed as officers in the force 88 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE which was being raised for the war in Holland." " Hatred of Roman Catholicism," says Macaulay, referring to these rumours and suspicions, " had become one of the ruling passions of the com- munity, and was as strong in the ignorant and profane as in those who were Protestants from conviction." Little wonder, then, that the diaboHcal lies of Titus Gates, " one of the vile impostors who are always thrown to the surface at times of great public agitation," says Green of him, were readily believed, and that the murder of Sir Edmund Berry Godfrey was set down to the Jesuits. It seems almost incredible to us in these days that any man could possibly credit the farrago of nonsense which Gates and Bedloe put before the authorities. Newman sums it up concisely in one of his lectures : — The Pope and Propaganda had claimed possession of England ; and he had nominated the Jesuits to be his representatives here, and to hold the supreme power for him. All the offices of government had been filled up under the seal of this society, and all the dignities of the Protestant Church given away, in great measure, to Spaniards and other foreigners. The king had been condemned to death as a heretic. There had been a meeting of fifty Jesuits in London during the foregoing May, when the king's death was determined on. He was to be shot or to be poisoned. 89 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION The confessor of the French king had sent to London £10,000 as a reward for any one who would assassinate him ; a Spanish ecclesiastic had offered £10,000 more ; and the Prior of the Benedictines £6,000. The Queen's physician had been offered £10,000, and had asked £15,000 for the job, and had received an instalment of £5,000. Four Irish ruffians had been hired by the Jesuits at twenty guineas apiece to shoot the king at Windsor. Two others were also engaged, one at £1,500, the other, being a pious man, preferred to take out the money in masses, of which he was to receive 30,000. Another had been promised canoniza- tion and £500 if he was successful in the enterprise. There was a subscription going on among the Catholics all through England to collect sums for the same purpose. The Jesuits had determined to set fire to London, Southwark, and all the chief cities of the country. They were planning to set fire to all the shipping in the Thames. Twenty thousand Catholics were to rise in London in twenty-four hours' time, who, it was estimated, might cut the throats of 100,000 Protestants. The most eminent divines of the Estab- lishment were especially marked for assassination. Ten thousand men were to be landed from abroad in the North, and were to seize Hull ; and 20,000 or 30,000 religious men and pilgrims from Spain were to land in Wales. Well might Newman pause at the end of this passage and ask : "Is all this grave history ? " It is grave history that the telling of these preposterous fictions procured for Titus Oates the title of Saviour of his Country, a sumptuous 90 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE lodging in Whitehall, a bodyguard of armed men, and a pension of twelve hundred pounds a year. " What is your sport," said the frogs in the fable to the persecutor who was throwing stones at them, " is our destruction." The Papist- hunting game, which was very freely played in England in 1678-80, meant death, misery, ruin to thousands of innocent folk. Never, since the beginning of rehgious persecution in England — which we may date, in its active stages, from the Act "De Haeratico Comburendo," in the reign of Henry IV. — had there been such a time of fierce and relentless oppression. Mr. Pollock, in The Popish Plot (1903), gives us a graphic account of that time, of the substance of which we may here make a brief summary. It was the first time that the Penal Laws had really been put into force. The prisons were filled with Roman Catholics ; Roman Catholic houses were searched for arms ; the estates of the Roman Catholic gentlemen were confiscated. Eight Roman Catholic clergymen were executed under the 27th of Elizabeth, Cap. II. Five others died in prison. Thirty more were sentenced to death, and afterwards reprieved ; of these, sixteen died in gaol. The Roman Catholics of London who were not clapped in prison were driven outside the capital. Thirty thousand are reckoned to have fled. All Roman Catholic 91 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION books were hunted out, seized, and burnt. The belongings of Harcourt, Rector of the Jesuit College in London, his library, his papers, his furniture, were burnt in public. The private house of the Weld family in the Strand was sacked. Roman Catholic merchants were re- duced to bankruptcy ; lesser folk, shopkeepers and the like, were transformed, literally, into beggars. The only Roman Catholics in England who escaped some sort of persecution were Hudleston and the Penderels, whom the King had not forgotten, and now took under his special protection. Roman Catholics who were hurried to prison in town and country ahke had nothing to live on but what was given to them out of charity. All over the country numbers of Roman Catholic men, women, and children died of sheer starvation. The Roman Catholic clergy were hunted from one place to another like wild beasts. Even the lukewarm and the indifferent were not spared— many abjured their faith or took the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, but with Httle effect ; to be or to have been a Roman Catholic was sufficient for the persecutors. In spite of the King and his suspected sympathy with Popery, even the Court was ransacked for sharers in the Oates-born conspiracy. The Duchess Mazarin, who cared for nothing but gambUng and gallantry, was 92 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE accused. All the Royal Roman Catholic servants who could get away, fled to the Continent. The Duchess of York writing to her brother, said that it was impossible to conceive a hundredth part of the misery into which people were being plunged. " Hope itself," wrote Warner, the Jesuit, " is scarce left us." Meanwhile, Titus Gates, in his palatial lodging at Whitehall, waxed fat, and was exceeding merry under the sheltering care of those whose business it was to make the nation believe in him and his lies. It is curious that some modern writers still believe in Gates, or, at any rate, believe that there was some truth in his assertions. " Mr. Christie," remarks the late H. D. Traill, in his monograph on the first Earl of Shaftesbury, " after stating that Godfrey's having been mur- dered by the Roman Catholics was ' at the time the prevaihng belief,' goes so far as to add that ' it is still the most probable one.' " " I should have said," Traill continues, " that a belief in Gates's guilt was in every way the more probable of the two. The Roman Catholics had nothing whatever to gain by the murder. Gates everything. That there were Roman Catholics capable of committing the crime is only a matter of more or less probable conjecture. That Gates was capable of it, or of any other atrocity, is a matter of demonstrated fact." 93 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION But at the precise period under notice the guilt of Titus Oates had not been demonstrated, and his downfall was not in view, and the ter- rible whippings, from Aldgate to Newgate, from Newgate to Tyburn, the pilloryings, the finings, and the imprisonment which were in store for this arch impostor, were still in the future, and everybody believed in his solemn and unctuous denunciations. The persecution continued, and, as Mr. Pollock remarks, in no part of the country was it more bitter than in Yorkshire, where, when the Plot and its imaginary fantasies were born, piping hot, out of Oates's devilishly fertile imagination, Roman Catholics were still numerous. Many of the oldest families in Yorkshire belonged to the Roman Catholic faith, and there were also large numbers of folk of lesser degree, farmers, tradesmen, labourers, who, in spite of constant persecution of a minor sort, had clung faithfully to their religion. Since the Elizabethan days the persecution to which they had been subjected had usually taken the form of prosecu- tion for non-attendance at the services of the Established Church (the 23rd of Elizabeth, Cap. I., 1581, enacted that every person, being above the age of sixteen years, who forbore to attend church regularly, should forfeit to the Crown the sum of £20 monthly), and after the Restora- tion of Charles II. these prosecutions became 94 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE more frequent and were more vigorously con- ducted. Large numbers of Yorkshire Roman Catholics were presented to the Judges at York Assizes in March, 1664-5, as Popish recusants ; more were brought up in 1665-6 ; still more in 1669 ; there was a similar presentation in 1670. In July, 1680, several well-known Yorkshire folk of high standing were in York Castle for refusing the oaths— Sir John Lawson, Bart., Francis Osbaldeston, George Meynell, Francis Tunstall, Peter Middleton, Philip Constable, Esquires ; Mrs. Catharine Witham, and others, not of such high degree. In March, 1684-5, there were twenty-seven Roman Catholic prisoners, recusants, in Ouse Bridge gaol— a place which was partly under water when the river (tidal for a long way beyond York) rose ; amongst them were the Honourable Mary Fairfax, daughter-in-law of the Lord Fairfax of that period ; Mrs. Magdalene Metham ; Mrs. Catharine Lascelles ; one Elizabeth Clark, who was an old domestic of many years' service in the Constable family ; and three old Cavaliers, George Allen, Richard Snow, John Dawson, " soldiers in his late Majesty's, and present Majesty's father's, service." And there, also, were two lineal descendants of Sir Thomas More, Mistresses Mary and Margaret, " living in this county upon a farm of their mother's," and 95 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION apparently as steadfast in their defence of their faith as was their famous ancestor. The news of Gates's success, of his twelve- hundred-a-year pension, and of his luxurious quarters in Whitehall, doubtless spread quickly to Yorkshire, and made more than one adventurer begin to exercise his wits on the feasibility of following his example. One such man was there who saw his opportunity, and made haste to take it. He was one Robert Bolron, who has been called the Titus Gates of the North of England. Information about him can be had from certain contemporary pamphlets and publications, and from one in particular, entitled " An abstract of the accusation of Robert Bolron and Lawrence Maybury, servants, against their late master, Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Knight and Baronet of Barnbow, in Yorkshire, for High Treason, with his Trial and acquittal, February II, 1680. Fit error novissimus pejor priore. Printed for R. C., 1680." R. C. was either R. Chiswell or R. Cutler, or R. Clavell— all London booksellers of that period. But there is quite a literature around the names of Bolron and Maybury. In Hilary Term, 1680, appeared The Narrative of Lawrence Mowbray [Maybury], of Leeds, in the County of York, Gent, [the " gentle- man " was, in reality, a domestic servant], concerning the bloody Popish Conspiracy against the life of his 96 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE Sacred Majesty, the Government, and the Protestant ReHgion. Wherein is discovered : — i. His knowledge of the said design in the year 1676 ; with the Reasons why he concealed it so long. 2. How far Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Sir Miles Stapleton, etc., are engaged in the design of killing the King, and firing the Cities of London and York, for the more speedy setting uppermost the Popish Religion in England. 3. An account of the assemblings of many Popish Priests and Jesuites at F. Rishton's Chamber at Sir Thomas Gascoigne's house at Barmebowe ; with their Con- sultations and Determinations. With other consider- able matters relating to the Plot. Together with an account of the endeavours that were used to stifle his Evidence, by making an attempt upon his life at Leicester Fields. Price is." At the same time was issued " The Narrative of Robert Bolron, of Shippon- hall, Gent, [what Bolron's precise position in life was, we shall presently see], concerning the late Horrid Popish Plot and Conspiracy for the destruction of his £9 Majesty and the Protestant Religion. Wherein is contained : — i. His information upon Oath before his Majesty in Council, and before several justices of the Peace, of the said design ; and the means by which he arrived at the knowledge thereof. 2. Some par- ticular applications made to himself to assist those design'd in the murdering of his Majesty, the persons by whom such applications were made, and the reward promised. 3. The Project of the Popish party to erect a Nunnery at Dolebank, near Ripley, in York- shire, together with the names of some nuns actually designed for that employment, and taking the profession upon them ; as also an account of a certain Estate 97 G > YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION of 90 1 per annum given by Sir Thomas Gascoigne to the Nunnery for ever. 4. The names of the persons contributors to the design of killing the King, etc. Together with an account of the endeavours that were used by the Popish party to stifle his Evidence. Price IS." [Both these precious productions were printed for T. Simmons, at the Prince's Arms, and Jacob Sampson, next door to the Wonder Tavern, in Ludgate Street. But Trinity Term of the same year saw the publication of a work on the same subject which was neither the handiwork of Bolron nor of Maybury — a folio printed for Thomas Bassett and Samuel Heyrick, at the George, in Fleet Street, and at Gray's Inn Gate, in Holborn, wherein was set down the trial of Sir Thomas Gascoigne before the Right Honourable Sir William Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice, and the rest of the Judges of that Court — which trial ended, as has already been indicated, in the prisoner's favour.] It will have been perceived, from the wording of the two advertisements of Maybury 's and of Bolron's pamphlets, that these men were of the Titus Oates breed — liars of the first water. There was not one word of truth in the allegations made by either. They were despicable scoundrels, whose sole notion was to follow the example of Oates, and to make a nice penn}^ for themselves by accusing their betters of crime and treason. Like Oates, the}^ had a temporary success ; unlike Oates, they do not seem to have met with any severe retribution when their perfidy 98 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE was discovered. They succeeded in involving many honourable people in great trouble, in putting the county to vast expense, and in bringing one innocent man to the scaffold. The wonder in their case, as in that of Titus Gates, is that they found any one to believe them at the very beginning of things, for the bad and shady character of each was well known. According to well-established facts, Bolron, a man of low birth, was a native of Newcastle- on-T3me, and in his youth was apprenticed to a jeweller of Pye Corner, in London. He ran away from his master at some period of his apprenticeship, and enlisted into the Army, and as a soldier saw some service against the Dutch. But he eventually deserted— and in these matters of desertion and running away from his lawful employment, his earl}^ career closely resembles that of his prototype Gates, who either fled, or was summaril}^ dismissed, from his various curacies and chaplaincies, usually under disgraceful and suspicious circumstances. After his desertion of the Arm}^ Bolron seems to have made his way to the North of England again. There he got in touch with a man named Pepper, whom he asked to find him employment. Pepper appears to have had some acquaintance with Sir Thomas Gascoigne, an aged gentleman, a knight and baronet, of an old Yorkshire stock 99 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION which had given many illustrious men to the public service, and who, in addition to being a landowner, was also a proprietor of coal mines. Pepper knew that Sir Thomas wanted a manager for his mines, and he recommended Bolron. Sir Thomas engaged Bolron — probably taking Pepper's word for the stranger's honesty and good character. But Bolron had not been long in Sir Thomas's employ when he became guilty of peculations of a serious nature — he began, apparently from the very first, to cheat and rob his master. Sir Thomas discovered this — and let Bolron off on very easy terms. He " accepted of £i2 and two bonds of £48 each "—and Bolron was allowed to go without prosecution. But Bolron, being once gone, omitted to take up the bonds when they fell due —he also neglected to pay the rent of a farm which he had tenanted on the Gascoigne estate. Sir Thomas set his lawyer to work. And here, in the moment of his despera- tion, Bolron seems to have heard of the rich harvest which was being reaped by Titus Oates, and to have resolved to free himself of his obli- gations to Sir Thomas Gascoigne by denouncing the old man as a traitor. Bolron's first step was precisely that which had been taken by Titus Oates — he changed his form of religion. Up to that time, or, at any rate, while in the employ of Sir Thomas Gas- 100 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE coigne, he had passed as a Roman CathoHc. But now, seeing that Protestanism would pay him better, he proceeded to the holding of the West Riding Sessions, at Pontefract, and there declared himself a Protestant, and took the necessary oath before the justices. This done, he at once laid an information against his late employer and several other Yorkshire Roman Catholic gentlemen. The magistrates, better acquainted with Sir Thomas Gascoigne and the other accused persons than with Bolron, refused to act. But Bolron's information was of such a grave and serious nature, especially at that juncture, that they felt bound to take note of it, and to send a written statement of his charges to London, whither Bolron also repaired. On July 4, 1679, ^^ was taken before the Privy Council, Shaftesbury presiding. There he re- peated his charges, and added to them more circumstantial detail. The result was that the Privy Council immediately despatched a mes- senger to effect Sir Thomas Gascoigne's arrest, Bolron being ordered to accompany the bearer of the warrant. The arrest was made at Barnbow three days later. And now, to strengthen his case, Bolron brought in another witness, one Lawrence Maybury, or, as he is variously styled, Mowbray, who added his own to Bolron's lies. Maybury, like Bolron, had a bad record. He had 101 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION been in domestic service in Sir Thomas's house- hold — probably as a footman — and had suffered summary dismissal for his share in a robbery of money and jewels from a trunk. Whether these facts about the two informers were or became known to the authorities at the beginning of things is not clear — what is certain is that Bolron and Maybury between them accused Sir Thomas Gascoigne, Sir Walter Vavasour, Sir Francis Hungate, Sir Miles Stapleton, Dr. Peter Vavasour, Mr. John Middleton, Mr. Riddell, Mrs. Pressick, and Father Thweng, Sir Thomas's nephew, of compassing the King's murder. Sir Thomas Gascoigne was brought before the Court of King's Bench at Westminster, January 24, 1680. The judges were Lord Chief Justice Scroggs and Justices Dolben, Jones, and Pember- ton. Hallam says they were all men of " gross partiality." Pemberton in particular, he remarks — though " a more honest man in political matters, showed a remarkable intemperance and unfairness in all trials relating to Popery." Dolben was no better ; Jones, if anything, was still worse ; Scroggs's sentiments had been famous for years. But Sir Thomas was allowed a jury of York- shiremen — who were doubtless much edified by one observation made from the bench by Jones. " I do not say," he said to them, " that a Papist 102 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE is no witness ; a Papist is a witness, and he is a witness in a Papist cause, and for a Papist, but I must tell you that there is less credit to be given to a Papist." Here, however, certain evidence was adduced which does not seem to have been put before the Yorkshire magistrates or the Privy Council. It was proved by Sir Thomas Gascoigne's solicitor that the chief accuser, Bolron, never offered any evidence against Sir Thomas until he himself had been threatened with prosecution for his defalcations as colliery manager. Two Yorkshire justices proved that Bolron's original charge bore small resemblance to the more elaborate one now made. Numerous witnesses were brought forward to prove, unimpeachably, the personal character of Bolron and Maybury. There had been con- siderable difficulty in getting the last class of evidence — due to the partiality of the Judges. When the case was first called. Sir Thomas Gascoigne, then an old, very deaf, man of eighty-live years, was accompanied in the dock by his grand-daughter, Mrs. Ravenscroft, so that she might tell him what was being said. Mrs. Ravenscroft pleaded with Scroggs for an adjournment, to enable the family to bring certain necessary witnesses from France. Scroggs would only allow a fortnight. But the witnesses were fetched over— and the jury heard them as 103 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION they had also heard Bolron and Maybury. What resulted is told by Macaula}^ in a sentence : " An attempt was made by a knot of villains to bring home a charge of treason to Sir Thomas Gascoigne, an aged Roman Catholic baronet of Yorkshire ; but twelve of the best gentlemen of the West Riding, who knew his way of life, could not be convinced that their honest old acquaintance had hired cut-throats to murder the King, and, in spite of charges which did very little honour to the bench, found a verdict of ' not guilty.' " So Sir Thomas Gascoigne was free to go back, for his few remaining days of life, to his woods and meadows and his coal mines ; back to Yorkshire, too, were sent, for trial, the other folk who had been accused by the conspirators, Bolron and Maybury. One jury after another, at York Assizes, acquitted them — with one exception. Father Thweng was found guilty — on precisely the same evidence on which the others had been proved not guilty. At his trial— York, July 29, 1680— Dolben presided. Thweng pointed out that the evidence brought against him was in every respect and detail that on which the innocence of his fellow-accused had been established. "It is possible," retorted Dolben, " that you may be guilty and the rest innocent." The truth was, that the authorities 104 SIR THOMAS GASCOIGNE wanted, and would have, at least one victim. But there was so much indignation in Yorkshire at the result of Thweng's trial that Charles II. granted a respite — on August 4th. Thereupon, the anti-Papist faction murmured, protested, and threatened, and on October 23rd, Thweng was hanged, drawn, and quartered at York. His mangled remains were laid in St. Mary, Castlegate. 105 SIR JOHN RERESBY VI SIR JOHN RERESBY IN the middle and later period of Charles the Second's reign there was a very shrewd, knowing, and observant Yorkshireman much about the Court and in society in London, who, at the high tide of Titus Oates's fortunes, had a notable passage-at-arms with the impostor. " On the 26th [November, 1679] I dined," writes Sir John Reresby in his Memoirs, " with that excellent man Dr. Gunning, Bishop of Ely ; the famous Dr. Gates was of the company at table, and, flushed with the thoughts of running down the Duke of York, expressed himself of his highness and his family in terms that bespoke him a fool and something worse ; nor contented with this, but he must rail at the Queen, his mother, and her present Majesty. In this strain did he hurry on, while no soul dared to oppose him, for fear of being made a party of the plot ; till, no longer able to bear with the insolence of the man, I took him to task for that purpose, 109 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION that he flung out of the room with some heat. The Bishop told me that such was the general drift of his discourse that he had sometimes checked him for the indecency of his talk, but that, finding he had done it to no manner of purpose, he had desisted from any further effort to set bounds to his virulence." Reresb}^ doubtless, was emboldened to take Titus Oates to task on this occasion by the fact that not very long before this dinner at the Bishop's, the King himself had privately mentioned to him his own growing conviction that the evidence offered by the arch-con- spirators was of a lying nature. " Being on the 2ist with the King," he remarks, " his Majesty told me ' Bedloe was a rogue, and that he was satisfied he had given false evidence." The career of Sir John Reresby in the latter half of the seventeenth century has a special interest for Yorkshiremen, inasmuch as he was not only a great deal behind the scenes in London during the reign of Charles II., but held a highly important post in Yorkshire as Governor of York during the last years of that reign and the opening years of the succeeding one. Fortunately, in his Memoirs, and in his account of his Travels, he has left us plentiful information about himself and his doings, about the folk whom he knew, and the 110 SIR JOHN RERESBY affairs in which he took part. The Memoirs remained in manuscript until 1734, when they were pubUshed by Samuel Harding, in St. Martin's Lane, who put out a new edition in the following year. In 1813, Edward Jeffery, of Pall Mall, and J. Rodwell, of New Bond Street, published the Memoirs and Travels together, the Travels being printed from a manuscript believed to be in their author's own hand- writing, which had once belonged to Dr. Johnson's friend, Topham Beauclerk, and subsequently to a Hampshire gentleman, Christopher Hodges, of Bramdean. In 1875, Mr. James Cartwright, well known for his work at the Public Record Office, published another edition of the Memoirs, from the original manuscript ; in 1904, Mr. A. Pratt edited Travels and Memoirs, basing his volume on the 1813 edition. Of the earlier editions much use has been made by modern historians, for Reresby was a close and accurate observer of what he saw, and no diarist or chronicler of his period is more trustworthy^ According to his own account, Reresby was born " between seven and eight in the morning in the great chamber of Thrybergh Hall," on April 14, 1634. His folk sprang from Derby- shire, but they came into possession of the manor of Thrybergh, near Rotherham, as far back as the reign of Henry HI. His father was another 111 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Sir John Reresby, Baronet, in his time a fellow- commoner of Jesus College, Cambridge ; his mother was Frances, daughter of Edmund Yarburgh, of Snaith. Sir John Reresby the elder, according to his son's memoirs, was a lover of country sports, especially of hawking and of following his beagles, and he had a great passion for gardening— he further appears to have been somewhat disposed to the pleasures of the table, for he died of a surfeit of oysters in 1646, having just come home to Thrybergh from London, where he had been on some business relative to his debts, arising out of the Civil War. He was only thirty-five years of age, and he left six children, five boys and a girl ; he also left many debts for his widow to pay off, which she succeeded in doing by the time the new baronet had attained his fifteenth year. Soon after the father's death, the mother and children left Thrybergh for London, where Sir John, who, at eight years old, had become quite a proficient in the art of music, and was a notable performer on the violin, was sent to a school in Whitefriars, whence he proceeded to another in Enfield Chase. By the age of seventeen he was a good scholar in Greek, Latin, and French, and in 1651 he was entered at Trinity College, Cambridge. Later he was admitted to the study of law at Gray's Inn, where, according to his own account, 112 SIR JOHN RERESBY he divided his day between the acquisition of legal knowledge and " the exercises of music and dancing." With this mode of life, however, he became dissatisfied, and at the age of twenty he set out on his travels. " I left England," he writes, " in that unhappy time when honesty was reputed a crime, religion superstition, loyalty treason ; when subjects were governors, servants masters, and no gentle- man assured of anything he possessed ; the least jealousy of disaffection to the late erected Commonwealth being offence sufficient to en- danger the forfeiture of his estate, the only laws in force being those of the sword." He set off from Rye, in April, 1654, with Mr. Leach — " an expelled fellow of Maudlin College for his loyalty " — and crossed to Dieppe, travelling thence to Rouen, where in the steeple of the Cathedral he saw " the greatest bell in all France, betwixt ten and eleven yards in circuit." Thence he proceeded to Paris— " by the Messenger, who, according to the custom of that country, furnisheth passengers with meat, drink, lodging, carriage, and all other accommodation for so far as you contract to go with him, at a reasonable rate ; though not very cleanly, yet a convenient way of travelling for strangers." Paris he found " the largest, fairest, and most populous city of all those I have seen in Europe (London 113 H YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION not excepted), having twelve miles in compass, abounding with all things which can either render a town commodious or pleasant." He gives a full description of it as it was at that time, and some historical account of it and its inhabitants, not forgetting to mention that " it boasts itself as old as Rome." He further described the French King's Court and his Guard — Reresby, indeed, seems to have vigorously fol- lowed the practice, already set up by travelling gentlemen of that and the previous century, of making full notes of all he saw. But he did not remain long in Paris ; towards the end of that summer he " went for " Saumur, passing through Orleans, a city " about the bigness of York, but more populous," whence he took boat for Blois, being entertained on the way by the singing of his fellow-passengers, though he remarks that their voices " infected the air at the same time with wafts of garlic." He remained some time at Saumur, taking numerous excursions into the surrounding country, and visiting such places as Mons, Poitiers, and Angers. In 1656 he paid a visit to Brittany, and waited upon the Duke of Tremouille at Thouars, where he encountered great hospitality and kindness, the Duke having married his sister to an Englishman, the late Earl of Derby, and so having contracted an 114 SIR JOHN RERESBY affection for the English. Here Reresby parted with his companion Leach, who went homeward, while he himself set out for Lyons, on his way to Italy. In leaving French soil he sums up his impressions of the French, formed on a two years' acquaintance with them. " The women," he writes, " are rather subtle than chaste, interessed than virtuous ; a great itch to be well clad ; sometimes occasioning the neglect of one part to adorn the rest. In fine, the French are generally soon gained, and soon lost ; good compan}^ but bad friends ; unable to keep a secret, and had rather lay their hands on their swords for you than on their purse ; they have more of airy than solid, and attempt better than they perform, so that it may properly enough be said of them, as Tacitus said of the Britons in his time : * In deposcendis periculis eadem audacia ; in detractandis ubi advenere eadem formido.' '* Reresby, who now had " only an English boy " with him as companion, made his way towards Italy through Switzerland, tarrying at Geneva, Zurich, and at some smaller places. He makes few remarks about the Swiss, except that, at Geneva, " they are so severe against Romanists that they do not suffer them to abide there above three days without special licence," and that, in the same city, the authorities were 115 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION so particular about the presence of strangers that " they have searchers that inquire daily in all inns who they are that arrive, what is their religion, and how long they intend to stay." He appears to have been much impressed b}^ his first glimpse of Italy and Italian life, at Bergamo, Brescia, and Verona ; at Padua and Venice he made a lengthy stay, sometimes being in one city, sometimes in the other. He gives a good account of the University of Padua and its ten colleges, " very poorly endowed " ; of Venice, its history, and its customs, he writes with good knowledge, but with few remarks on the Venetians, except that in choosing men for high office " they have one laudable rule, never to reject a man for his poverty." In April, 1657, ^6 made an excursion from Venice into the Papal States, proceeding by way of Ferrara, Bologna, where he says he found 179 churches, and the Appenines. At Paris he abode some months, " taking a perfect account of certainly the finest court and city of Europe" — finally, on May 20, 1658, he was in London again, after four years' absence from his own country. Four months later died Oliver Cromwell: "one of the greatest and bravest men," writes Reresby, " had his cause been good, the world ever saw." But Reresby did not consider Oliver's cause to be good, and he dismisses the 116 SIR JOHN RERESBY departed Lord Protector with a phrase — " He was doubtless the deepest dissembler on earth." Now that he was safely home again, and the arch-enemy of all loyal gentlemen was dead, this Yorkshire squire, then twenty-four years of age, began to turn his attention to public affairs. However, before he could do anything he fell into a poor state of health, and had to return for a time to Paris. There he was in great favour with the Queen-Mother (widow of Charles I.), who welcomed his presence, she being alone save for her daughter, the Princess Henrietta Maria, who appears to have taken high delight in Reresby's company. "As I spoke the language of the country and danced pretty well, the young Princess, then about fifteen years of age, behaved towards me with all the civil freedom that might be ; she made me dance with her, play on the harpsichord to her in her Highness's chamber ; suffered me to wait on her as she walked in the garden, and sometimes to toss her in a swing between two trees, and, in fine, to be present in all her innocent diversions." He was one of a distinguished company at a grand ball which the Queen- Mother gave in Paris on hearing the happy news of her son, Charles H.'s restoration, on which occasion, though he had been ill, and 117 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION would have excused himself from dancing, he " took out the Cardinal's niece." In August, 1660, he was back in London, and was duly presented to Charles, who asked him many questions about his doings in Paris ; from this time forward Reresby was always much about the Court, being especially in favour with the Duke of York, afterwards James II., of whom he remarks that he was, at that period, at any rate a man upon whose word any one might fully depend. The Duke was certainly a good friend to Reresby, and in 1666 got him the coveted appointment of High Sheriff of Yorkshire— an honour which had its pecuniary advantages, though it also had its drawbacks. " The gaoler (at York) gave me," he writes, " £160 to have the custody of the gaol. I had the same sum presented me for the county court, and I made of the bailiwicks about £145, in all about £465 besides the profits of the seal, which made the whole near £1,200 ; but the charges of both assizes, salaries to officers, liveries and equipage, took off so much that I cannot say I saved clear £200, all charges considered." How- ever, an addition of even £200 a year to his means was welcome, for in 1665 he had married one Mistress Frances Browne, the daughter of William Browne, of York. There had been a chance of his marrying the celebrated Elizabeth Hamilton, 118 SIR JOHN RERESBY who subsequently married the Count de Gram- mont, and whom he had met, and somewhat favoured, in Paris, but, he remarks, " after the sight of Mistress Browne, I could not return to that application." His wife brought him £1,200 ; he himself, he says, had at the time of their marriage nothing but the rents of his estate at Thrybergh. Reresby's more active connection with his native county may be said to have begun when he was appointed Governor of York in 1682. In the period between his marriage and the appointment he seems to have divided his time between Thrybergh and London, though while he was High Sheriff he had a house in the Minster Yard at York, at any rate during Assize time. At Thrybergh he followed the ordinary pursuits of a country gentleman, improving his estate, indulging in field sports, discharging his duties as a justice of the peace — he says that in 1673 he had so much work as a magistrate that his clerk confessed that he himself " made above £40 that year of his place." In London he was much about the Court, seeing a great deal of the King, of whom he remarks that Charles's chief idea seemed to be to get as much rest and quiet as he could, and of the Duke of York, and of all the notable folk of the period. In 1675 he was elected Member of Parliament for Aldborough, 119 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION and took his seat in the House of Commons as one of the Court party. His devotion to that party, of course, brought its due reward — in 1682, on May loth, he entered upon his Governor- ship. He makes notes of his various appoint- ments and commissions at that time — he was Governor of York, Governor of BridUngton, Captain of a Troop of Horse of the West Riding, a Justice of the Peace for that Riding, and for the Liberty of St. Peter in the City of York, and for Westminster, and for Middlesex ; he was also Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding. He celebrated his access to his chief honour by keeping Christmas in great style at Thrybergh. On Christmas Eve he entertained " the poorer sort of my tenants " of Denby and Hooton, nineteen in number. On Christmas Day he feasted the poorer sort of Thrybergh, Mexborough, and Brinsford — twenty-six of them. On St. Stephen's Day he welcomed fifty-four farmers and tenants of Thrybergh, Rotherham, and Brins- ford, and on St. John's Day he gathered about him forty-five chief tenants of Mexborough, Hooton, and Denby. On December 30th, eighteen gentlemen and their wives, of the surrounding district, dined with him ; on January ist, sixteen more gentlemen ; on January 3rd, twenty gentlemen ; on January 4th, twelve clergymen of the neighbourhood ; on 120 SIR JOHN RERESBY January 6th, seven gentlemen and tradesmen of Rotherham. He entertained all these guests with music — " I had two violins and a bass from Doncaster that wore my livery, that played well for the country ; two bagpipes for the common people ; a trumpeter and a drummer. The expense of liquor, both of wine and others, was considerable, as well as of other provisions ; and my friends appeared well satisfied." Reresby's appointment as Governor of York was for life, but his actual tenancy of the office lasted only five years. He had a somewhat exciting, and certainly eventful time of it. He entered upon his duties fortified by advice from one of the wisest men of his age, his fellow- Yorkshireman, Sir George Savile, first Marquis of Halifax, who " gave me directions how to behave in the North, but they were such as in common political prudence must be here suppressed." Whatever Halifax's counsel was, Reresby had good need of it ; York, as he rightly observed, " had been more noted than most places in England for the height and viru- lence of faction." In some sense of the word, Reresby's appointment was an interference. He was virtually to supersede the city authorities. He had a Governor's guard of five hundred men, who garrisoned the Castle, the Bars, and the guard-houses. He was placed, as it were, above 121 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION the Lord Mayor— hence, his advent was regarded with no warmth by the civic authorities. Soon after his arrival he sought a conference with Alderman Ramsden, whom he calls " one of the most extraordinary of the whole fraternity," and so wrought upon him that Ramsden not only admitted the factiousness of the city fathers, but suggested to the Governor how matters might be improved— first by getting rid of Alderman Thompson, " a peevish, anti- monarchical fellow," who was next on the list for mayoral honours ; secondly, by choosing a new high steward, who might be the Duke of York, or the Marquis of Halifax ; and thirdly, to elect better Members of Parliament when opportunity offered. Matters, however, were not adjusted ; divisions between York and the Crown widened, and eventually Reresby, being in London, and meeting the King—" he asked me, leaning upon my arm, if I knew sufficient matter for bringing a quo warranto against their [the York Corporation's] Charter. I told his Majesty I did not, but would endeavour to inform myself ... to which his Majesty replied, * I only recommend it to you,' " It then turned out that Charles had recently given a recommenda- tion to a mountebank, and that this man, pro- ceeding to York, had been forbidden by the Lord Mayor to erect his stage within the city — 122 SIR JOHN RERESBY whereby the King felt himself slighted. A visit of the Lord Mayor to London made matters no better ; Charles told Reresby that he was afraid the Lord Mayor was " a bad man." Steps were taken to secure the quo warranto, and by its means Charles got the city's Charter into his hands, and kept a close grip on it until the end of his life. That soon came — on February y, 1685, Reresby got the news, by the mail which " came not in till four in the morning," that '* my great and good master " was dead. During that day Reresb}^ as Governor, the High Sheriff, and the Lord Mayor, proclaimed James H. — the proceedings being " transacted with all imaginable token of peace and joy, not only in York, but afterwards throughout the whole country, and, indeed, the whole kingdom." But there were still troublous times ahead — and at no great distance. Reresby, who seems to have been a sort of pupil in Halifax's school of politics, and was somewhat of a trimmer, anxiously desirous to conciliate conflicting factions, did his best to make peace between York and the Crown, setting himself to get the Charter back into the hands of its rightful owners. Unfortunately, almost as soon as the rejoicings — real or feigned — over James IL's accession were concluded, the York authorities became so contumacious that five aldermen 123 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION and several Common Council men were arrested, and clapped into prison at Hull. Reresby managed to get the matter adjusted, and by exercise of much ability and patience he succeeded in August, 1685, in getting James to grant a new Charter, which was duly brought to York in the same month and received by the authorities and citizens with wild rejoicing. Nevertheless, the factious feeling of the York folk was still there, and in January, 1686, it manifested itself in an unseemly fashion. Lady Strafford, daughter-in-law of the ill-fated minister of Charles I., died, and her body was brought to York, to be laid in the family vault of the Wentworths, in the Minster. Great crowds of people assembled. When the hearse appeared, it was seen that it was ornamented with a number of escutcheons. There was still a highly Puritan flavour in the temper of the York folk — the crowds rushed upon the hearse to tear the offensive emblems down. The struggle between attendants and populace extended into the Minster. Reresby 's soldiers were sent for ; in spite of his efforts and success about the Charter, neither he nor his guards were popular, and the affair developed into a free fight and riot, during which much damage was done and many dis- graceful scenes were enacted. But there was more damage to be done 124 SIR JOHN RERESBY shortly — to Reresby himself, and from an un- expected quarter. James II. had begun the machinations which ultimately — and before long —cost him and his house Crown and Throne. " On the 5th November [1687] " writes Reresby, " I received a letter from Father Lawson [brother of Henry Lawson, Esquire, of Brough, head of an old Catholic family] ... to give me notice, that the king having made him a grant of his house, the Manor of St. Mary's in York, for the honour of God and the good of his people, he expected from my much civility, that I would give him free and easy possession." This was the beginning of the end : Reresby, a far-seeing man, knew that the taking away of his official residence meant the virtual taking away of his Governorship. Yet he remained nominal Governor of York to the end of the reign in the following year ; he was even arrested, as Governor, by the No-Popery party under Danby ; he was still in legal occupancy of his post when James fled, and William III. succeeded. He was duly presented to William by the Marquis of Halifax, and assured the new sovereign of his loyalty, but little passed between them ; Reresby 's days as a Courtier were over. But he kept his careful, shrewd watch upon the course of events, and was not afraid of giving sound advice to Halifax, now Lord Privy Seal, 125 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION who had in other days given good counsel to him. " Lord Privy Seal doing me the honour of a visit this day . . . I . . . dealt very freely with him as to the apparent necessity of the times ; desired him to be cautious and circum- spect, and assured him I wished his safety and his family's, as much as my own. His lordship then observed, among other things, that the king used no arts ; to which I replied, ' that, in my opinion, some arts were necessary in our government.' ' I think so, too,' said he ; * we act a little too plainly.' I acquainted his lord- ship with some particulars which caused a murmuring in the town, and of some which aused the same in the country ; whereupon he said, * Come, Sir John ; we have wives and children, we must consider them, and not venture too far.' " It was upon this occasion that Halifax in- timated to Reresby that " if a change should happen " (the return and restoration of James II.), there would be a general pardon of all who had sworn allegiance to William. But James did not return, and Reresby went back to Yorkshire, most Hkely intending to live the life of a country gentleman on his estates at Thrybergh. He was in London, however, for the coronation of William and Mary, and was present at the solemnities — " not so complete as the two last " — 126 SIR'JOHN RERESBY and at the banquet which followed. He con- tinued his Memoirs up to within a very short time before his death, which took place suddenly, and his last entry shows him meditating a visit to the new King at Hampton Court, and a possible return on his own part to some service under him. He appears to have died — if the monument in the church at Thrybergh is correct in its dates — on May 12, 1689 ; his wife died ten years later, almost to a day. Their family consisted of five sons and four daughters. The eldest son, William, in spite of having had a wise and more than ordinarily able father, turned out a good-for-nothing and a waster ; he plunged into excesses, ruined the family fortunes, sold the estate, and is said to have ended a spendthrift career, baronet though he was, as a tapster in the Fleet Prison. With Sir Leonard Reresby, who died in August, 1748, the direct male line of the old house came to an end. 127 THE HALIFAX PRELATES I VII THE HALIFAX PRELATES SIR JOHN RERESBY makes no mention in his Memoirs of a curious scene which occurred in York somewhere about the time that he himself was a prisoner there, under the Earl of Danby : it may have taken place during his absence from the city on the parole which Danby granted him. That scene arose out of James II. 's foolish attempts to force his own religion on the York people. Earl}^ in August, 1688, there arrived in York Dr. James Smith, Roman Catholic Bishop of Callipolis, in partihus infidelium, and took up his residence at the Manor House, which Reresby had vacated in favour of Father Lawson. Dr. Smith was one of four Roman Catholic clergymen whom the King had nominated as Vicars Apostolic ; his appearance in York was taken by the alarmist faction to mean that James was about to appoint him to the Archbishopric, which had been vacant for the previous two 181 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION years, and this belief became accentuated when it was known that preparations were being made for the setting up of a Roman Catholic establish- ment at the Manor. But James fell, and William, landing at Torbay, was welcomed by Lamplugh, Bishop of Exeter, who was almost immediately rewarded by the newcomer with the vacant Archbishopric. Very soon after this. Dr. Smith was unwise enough to take part in a religious procession in the York streets, carrying his crozier, a beautiful piece of silver work which had been presented to him by Catharine of Braganza. He was at once attacked by the mob, the crozier wrested from him — some accounts say by the Earl of Danby himself— and he and his attendants obliged to flee. Dr. Smith left York soon afterwards, and was sheltered by the Tunstall family, at Wycliffe, near Richmond, until his death in 1710 ; as for the crozier, it was deposited in York Minster, where the curious may still see it. James H.'s experiences in relation with bishops, whether Roman Catholic or Anglican, were by no means of a pleasant or successful sort. One Yorkshireman there was of his time who, being elevated to the Episcopal Bench of the Established Church, joined with others of his brethren in vaUantly withstanding the King to his face— John Lake, who, like John Tillot- 132 THE HALIFAX PRELATES son, Archbishop of Canterbury, was a native of the parish of HaUfax. Lake, in addition to his associations by birth, has many other associa- tions with Yorkshire. He was the first Vicar of Leeds— the first of a very long and notable succession, ranging from himself to the present times — to become a bishop, and he was at one time one of the Canons of York. He had a varied, an interesting, and in some respects a strange career, and though he held three different bishoprics in the course of it, he will not gain so much ultimate fame from his ecclesiastical record as from the fact that he was one of the Seven Bishops who, by their brave stand against a tyrannical king, did so much to ensure the liberties of future generations of Englishmen. John Lake was born in the parish of Halifax, in 1623, and after being educated at a neighbour- ing Grammar school, was sent to Cambridge, being entered at St. John's College in his thirteenth yea-T. He had just taken his degree of B.A. when trouble arose at Cambridge between Royalist and Roundhead— chiefly caused, of course, by Puritan interference with University usages. The Earl of Manchester took upon himself the task of reforming the L"''niversity. Many Masters and Fellows of various colleges were summarily turned out for refusing to take the oath of the Solemn League and Covenant. 133 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION In the spring of 1644, sixty-three Fellows were ejected for refusing to attend upon the Earl when summoned. Some little time before this Cromwell had seized upon some of the University plate ; Manchester now appropriated more, lest it should be— as it certainly was meant to be — sent to the King, then at Oxford. In the winter of 1643 Manchester gave orders to one Dowsing to reform the churches and chapels of Cambridge by destroying any stone altar that was still in existence, removing to the body of the church any Holy Table which stood in the chancel, and breaking up all images, crosses, and pictures. The colleges suffered less than the parish churches, but it was only by special efforts that Whichcote, Provost of King's, contrived to save the glorious glass of the chapel. The Puritan rule was harsh and stringent. No stranger might enter the town without a permit from the Committee. Roundhead soldiers were quartered on the colleges. Roundhead soldiers used King's College Chapel as a drill hall. And Lake's college, St. John's, was used as a prison for all who were loyal to the King. Of such was Lake himself— he was a Cavalier in theory and practice all his life. He effected his escape from Cambridge at this juncture, made his way across country to Oxford, joined the army, and before long distinguished himself 134 THE HALIFAX PRELATES by the valour which he displayed in the defence — unavaiHng though it was— of Basing House. He afterwards saw active service in the operations around Wallingford Castle, and, altogether, was in the army about four years. He then retired from military life, and took holy orders, and about 1647 appears to have held a lectureship at the parish church of his birthplace. And after the Restoration he got a firmer hold on his native Yorkshire by being elected Vicar of Leeds. Dean Stephens, in his Memorials of the See of Chichester, says that there was great opposition to Lake's election. There was certainly at that time a Vicar of Leeds, Mr. Robinson, who had been turned out by the Puritan faction, but he was living at Swillington, just outside the town, and had no desire to return ; indeed, he strongly advised the electors to give their support to Lake, who was duly chosen and remained Vicar of Leeds until 1668, when he was appointed to St. Botolph's, Bishopsgate. That he after- wards visited his old Yorkshire parish is proved by an entry in Ralph Thoresby's Diary, recording a sermon by him in Leeds Parish Church in 1683. Meanwhile, he had left his London cure for the incumbency of Prestwich, in Cheshire. This was in 1670, in which year he was appointed Canon of York. In 1682 he became Bishop of 135 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Sodor and Man ; in 1684 he was translated to the see of Bristol, and in the following year he became Bishop of Chichester, the diocese with which his name is most closely and rightfully associated. But before he came to Chichester, Lake had experienced another taste of military, or of semi-military, life. When the Monmouth rising broke out in the Western counties. Lake was sent thither to do what he could to prevent the spread of disaffection amongst the Somerset and Devonshire gentry, and in the course of his labours and adventures he had a narrow escape of being captured by rebels. He entered upon quieter times at Chichester, but only for a brief period. In April, 1687, James II. put forth his famous declaration of liberty of conscience. On the surface, it looked to be a measure of wide and generous toleration, for it not only suspended all the harsh penal laws against Dissenters, Catholic and Protestant, but also abolished all oaths and tests. But its main design was at once seen through — the last clause plainly manifested the intention of the King to re- establish the Roman Catholic religion. Here and there the Declaration was received with satisfac- tion, but the vast majority of the people viewed it with suspicion. Before autumn of that year the King's intentions became evident, 136 THE HALIFAX PRELATES especially at Oxford, where he came to open difference with the authorities of Magdalen College, who strenuously, and in the end success- fully, resisted his efforts to enforce Roman Catho- lic domination. And in the following spring the non-compliance of the President and Fellows of Magdalen was succeeded by open defiance on the part of the primate, Bancroft, and six of the bishops. In May, 1688, an Order in Council required the reading of the Declaration in all churches during divine service. Bancroft summoned the bishops, and called a meeting of the more eminent of the London clergy, in addition. Several notable laymen were consulted — among them were John Evelyn, celebrated for his zealous attachment to the Church of England, and of great influence in Church matters, and the King's own brother-in-law. Lord Clarendon. It was decided not to obey the Order in Council, on the ground of its illegality, which was obvious. Matters rapidly became critical. May 20th had been fixed for the reading of the Declaration ; on the i8th. Archbishop Bancroft and seven of the bishops assembled at Lambeth, and six famous divines, amongst whom were Stillingfleet, Tillotson, and Sherlock, were called in as con- sultants. A series of resolutions was prepared, giving reasons for non-compliance with the Order. 137 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION This done, a petition was prepared for immediate presentation to the King. It set forth the grave and momentous nature of the Order, and declared that the petitioners could not " in prudence, honour, or conscience " make them- selves parties to its publication. To this petition Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury ; Lloyd, Bishop of St. Asaph ; Turner, Bishop of Ely ; Lake, Bishop of Chichester ; Ken, Bishop of Bath and Wells ; White, Bishop of Peterborough, and Trelawny, Bishop of Bristol, at once appended their signatures. All but Bancroft, who had been forbidden for some time to show himself at Court, then proceeded to Whitehall, and humbly presented the petition to the King. " This," said James, in obvious anger, " is rebellion. I did not expect such usage from the Church of England." " We will honour you, but we must fear God," replied Trelawny, and then repeated the words. " I will be obe3^ed," said the King. *' God's will be done," answered Trelawny, and the bishops withdrew. The news of the bishops' resistance and action spread everywhere. On the Sunday on which the Declaration was to be read, the churches were packed by excited congregations. In all London there were only four attempts made to read the dishked and obnoxious document. At Westminster Abbey, Sprat, Bishop of Rochester, 138 THE HALIFAX PRELATES who was also Dean of Westminster, began to read it— by the time he had finished he had no hearers but the choir and the boys of the adjacent school. In Oxford, the Declaration was not read in one church ; all over England it was scarcely read anywhere ; wherever it was read, the congregation rose in a body and trooped out of church. A week went by ; on the second Sunday the Declaration was still further ignored. Early in June, Sancroft and the other signatories to the petition were arrested, and sent to the Tower ; on June 29th they were brought before the Court of King's Bench. The trial lasted all day ; the jury passed the whole of the succeeding night in considering their verdict ; at ten o'clock next morning they returned a verdict of not guilty. All England went wild with enthusiasm, and a medal was struck to commemorate the bishops' vindication of the liberties of the nation. The popularity of the Seven Bishops, and the joy manifested at the result of their trial, was, however, not more because they had resisted what was, without doubt, an utter illegality on the part of James II. than that there was at that time, due, mainl}^, to the recent affair of the Popish Plot, a very strong anti-Roman Catholic feeling in the country. The famous, or infamous. Declaration had promised liberty of 139 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION conscience to all Dissenters, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, but Bancroft took special care to make it known that in resisting it he and his fellow-prelates had felt very tenderly towards their Protestant Nonconformist fellow-subjects, and that their main reasons were to prevent the spread and re-establishment of Popery. Toleration towards Quakers, Anabaptists, Brown- ists, men of the school of Bancroft were prepared to allow, if needs must be ; men of the Tillotson school were prepared not only to allow, but to welcome it. But toleration of Romanism was not to be permitted for one moment, nor in any degree. Nothing better proves the fierce and bitter hatred which was shown to Roman Catholics at this time than a study of the polemical literature which was then constantly pouring from the press. Here is a copy of the title-page of one such publication, selected at random from the Catalogue of Books Printed and Published at London in Easter Term, 1689 : — The Scarlet Whore, or The Wicked Abominations and horrid Cruelties of the Pope and Church of Rome displayed ; being a brief Relation of their bloody practices and Tortures inflicted on Protestants in all Countries. The original of the Spanish Inquisition ; the Massacres at Paris and in Ireland, and Bishop Usher's Prophesie thereof ; the Gunpowder Treason ; the Spanish Invasion, with their several Plots and 140 THE HALIFAX PRELATES Conspiracies to extirpate the Protestant Religion to this present time. Twelves. Price is. Printed for N. Crouch at the Bull in the Poultry. Stem as he had been in his defiance of James, Lake was equally stern in his refusal to acknow- ledge William of Orange. One of seven recusants in 1687, he was also one of seven non-jurors in 1689. Suspended from his episcopal duties, he retired to London, soon afterwards died, and was interred in his old church of St. Botolph. His chaplain, Robert Jenkins, who wrote his Life and published it in a quarto volume in 1690, says of him that he was of "an extraordinary courteous and generous temper, always affable and easy of access, free and cheerful in his con- versation, full of meekness and condescension." He says, too, that as Bishop of Chichester Lake " was always exceeding dear to the gentlemen of Sussex, who met him in several parts of his diocese with that respect which was wont to be paid to the primitive bishops ; and they were no less dear to him ; but his coming to them after his release from his trial was like the return from banishment of St. Athanasius or St. Chrysostom." The booksellers' catalogues of the period 1666-94 contain numerous references to Lake's more famous fellow-native of Halifax parish, John Tillotson, who, from the time of his 141 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION publication of the Rule of Faith, in the first- named year, until his death, kept the press busy with various books and pamphlets, and a number of sermons. Tillotson was essentially a churchman by profession ; his whole life was spent in matters ecclesiastic. The son of Robert Tillotson, who had some connection with the staple industry of Halifax as cloth or wool merchant, he was born at Old Haugh End, in the township of Sowerby, in the parish of Halifax, in 1630, in a house which stood on the side of the high-road leading from Hahfax to Rochdale. The family is said to have been of a strongly Calvinistic disposition, and his early Dissenting influences doubtless coloured the whole of Tillotson's career. First educated at Colne, in Lancashire, he was admitted as a pensioner at Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 1647. In 1650 he took his bachelor's degree, and in 1654 his master's, and was soon afterwards elected to a Fellowship. He was a curate in Hertfordshire about the time of the Restoration, and was then a holder of the prevalent Puritan views, but he conformed in 1662, when so many men of his school were ejected, and in 1666 — in which year he secured his Doctor of Divinity degree — he was made chaplain to Charles II., having between the Hertfordshire days and that year been incumbent of the Suffolk living of Kedding- 142 THE HALIFAX PRELATES ton and, in 1664, Preacher of Lincoln's Inn. Preferment in his case was steady. He was preferred to a Canonry of Canterbury in 1669 ; he became Dean of Canterbur}^ three years later ; in 1689 he exchanged his Canterbury deanery for that of St. Paul's, and in 1691 he succeeded the deprived Sancroft as Archbishop of Canterbury. In 1694 he died, and was buried in the City church of St. Lawrence Jewry, wherein he had constantly preached during the previous thirty years. Tillotson appears to have had several character- istics akin to those which distinguished Lake. He was a man of admittedly sincere piety. His personal charm was evidently great ; he im- pressed all who knew him with his kindliness and manifest candour. But their views as churchmen were of a widely different sort. Lake was a High Churchman ; Tillotson was essentially of the school which at a later date was rightly called Latitudinarian. He was always in close touch and sympathy with the Protestant Dissenters ; he was essentially anti-Papist ; he was for widening the Establishment in such a fashion that it would have lost its distinguishing marks had such policy as he favoured been carried out. But he was not a man to push any policy ; in all things he was a lover of peace and quietness. He " had the ambition," 143 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION says Milman, in his Annals, " of establishing in the weary, worn-out, distracted, perplexed mind and heart of England a Christianity of calm reason, of plain, practical English good sense." One of the most celebrated churchmen of his day, a most popular preacher, in spite of the utter lack of enthusiasm in his sermons, which Archdeacon Hutton calls " frigid moral essays," he was forced into his Archbishopric by William III., and as Archbishop he did nothing, never even once calling Convocation together during the three j^ears of his primacy. In him William found the Archbishop he wished for — a non-party man who would willingly have submitted to any reform of the Establishment and any alteration in its services. As ruler of the Church, Tillotson's performances are aptly summed up in Archdeacon Hutton's phrase — " His primacy had no history." And, as another Archdeacon — Sinclair — remarks, " He endeavoured to govern the Church by royal injunctions ; and in the disturbed condition of that time, and with such a king as William on the throne, no policy could have been more unfortunate." But the son of the Halifax clothier was a power in his time. In the days when London was famous for its preachers, Stillingfleet at 144 THE HALIFAX PRELATES St. Paul's, Sherlock at the Temple, Burnet at the Rolls Chapel, Tenison (his ultimate successor in the Archbishopric) at St. Martin's-in-the- Fields, Tillotson drew crowds to Lincoln's Inn and to St. Lawrence Jewry. His sermons were as much admired when read in print as when he delivered them from the pulpit. " I have often heard Dryden own with pleasure that if he had any talent for English prose it was owing to his having often read the writings of the great Archbishop Tillotson," wrote Congreve, another Yorkshireman, in his edition of Drvden's Plays ; and that Dryden's admiration was fully shared by a considerable number of people is proved by the eagerness of the booksellers to print anything which Tillotson cared to send to the press. Perhaps because of his latitudinarianism — or, as it may be otherwise termed, his eclecticism — Tillotson is a favourite with Macaulay. Macaulay takes him up at the Lincoln's Inn period and never lets us lose sight of him until his sudden death in 1694. He places him high among the eminent men who at that time distinguished the Church of England by their abilities and learning, and made " religion respectable, even in the most dissolute of Courts." He shows him to us as a convinced anti-Papist, in a passage which gives us a wonderfully clear notion of 145 K YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Tillotson's opinion on the most vexed question of that age. It was not only by the ignorant populace [writes Macaulay], it was not only by zealots in whom fanaticism had extinguished all reason and charity, that the Roman Catholic was regarded as a man the very tenderness of whose conscience might make him a false witness, an incendiary, or a murderer, as a man who, where his Church was concerned, shrank from no adversity and would be bound by no oath. If there were in that age two persons inclined by their judgment and by their temper to toleration, those persons were Tillotson and Locke. Yet Tillotson, whose indulgence for various kinds of schismatics and heretics brought on him the reproach of heterodoxy, told the House of Commons from the pulpit that it was their duty [a sermon preached by Tillotson to the Commons on (a significant date) November 5, 1678] to make effectual provision against the propagation of a religion more mischievous than irreligion itself, of a religion which demanded from its followers services directly opposed to the first principles of morahty. His temper, he truly said, was prone to lenity ; but his duty to the community forced him to be, in this one instance, severe. He declared that, in his judg- ment. Pagans who had never heard the name of Christ, and who were guided only by the light of nature, were more trustworthy members of civil society than men who had been formed in the schools of the Popish casuists. Plainly, the tendencies of Charles II. towards 146 THE HALIFAX PRELATES Roman Catholicism, and the treachery of James n. to the Church of England, to whose clergy, as Macaulay rightly says, he " owed his crown," would meet with no sj^mpathy from Tillotson, whose voice and pen were freely employed against Rome, as he understood Rome to be, to the last. But in the end of his days, Tillotson — who had none of the scruples of Lake and Ken, Turner and Frampton, nor of his own predecessor Bancroft — found a king who was absolutely of his own complexion and after his own heart. Between William of Orange and his first Archbishop of Canterbury there was not only perfect sympathy, but much personal affection. William, on his coming into the country, had pledged his word to be a good friend to the Protestant Dissenters. Tillotson, in his relations with the separated communities, was a man of an apparently boundless charity. In Tillotson, as Archdeacon Hutton remarks, William had found " the simplicity and sub- missiveness which he desired." The new king had no difficulties with Tillotson, and when the Primate was suddenly stricken down in the chapel at Whitehall, during divine service, to die before anything could be done for him, William's grief was great, and, for the cold- hearted man he was popularly supposed to be, evidently deep and sincere. It says much for 147 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Tillotson that William's sorrow was shared in by all classes of the community. In London he had always been popular, from the days in which folk flocked in large numbers to hear his sermons in the chapel of Lincoln's Inn, and in the City church of St. Lawrence Jewry. Now vast crowds assembled to do honour to his re- mains as they were carried from Westminster by way of Southwark and London Bridge, to be laid in the London church in the pulpit of which he had made his great reputation as a pulpit orator. Burnet, Macaulay tells us, preached the funeral sermon, and was so affected that he burst into tears in the middle of it ; his emotion was answered by loud cries of sorrow from the packed congrega- tion. At Whitehall, Queen Mary wept, too — even the iron-hearted William shed tears. And William did more— of a practical nature. Tillot- son had left nothing to his widow but his bundle of sermons. The King assigned her a pension of four hundred a year, and afterwards increased it to six, and he was so particular about its prompt payment that he took good care that the money passed through his own hands, direct to her, as each quarter day came round. 148 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX VIII THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX MR. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW, in writing about Mr. Chesterton's Short History of England, says of Lord Macaulay that after setting out to show how unimportant were kings and queens compared with Hodge and Tom, Dick and Harry, he " became obsessed with the insignificant proceedings of a Parlia- mentary dodger entitled Halifax, who, though too intelligent to be a good party man, was much less interesting than his merry monarch." This, even from Mr. Shaw, is scarcely a fair comparison ; it is given to very few men indeed to be one- half as interesting as Charles II. But, if Halifax's proceedings were insignificant, he himself was certainly not so. He came of a stock which yielded anything but insignificant men — so, at any rate, Yorkshiremen think. Miss Foxcroft, in her Life and Letters of Sir George Savile, First Marquis of Halifax, takes some pains to assure her readers of the estimation in which the Savile 151 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION family has been held for several centuries in its own county. She herself calls it " one of the most illustrious, if not the most illustrious, in the West Riding of the county of York." She supports this by the testimony of Whitaker, who spoke of the Savile breed as being " distinguished almost above every other in the public concerns of the county of York, as well as by the spirit and genius of its principals in several of the later descents." She calls in Whitaker's fellow-archaeologist, Hunter, to give his testimony— the Saviles, says Hunter, were always of such great and varied ability, eminent as scholars and lawyers, and of such energy and aptitude for business, that they filled great places in their own county, and were engaged influentially in the greater affairs of the nation. But no one knows better than a Yorkshireman all that is implied in the name of Savile. The various branches of this family are all over the county, and even outside it. In the old days there were Saviles of Thornhill, of Howley, of Copley, of Methley, of Bradley, of HuUenedge, of New Hall in Elland, of Haigh, of Watergate, of Blathroyd, of Wath, of Mex- borough— all sprung from some far-off original Savile, who, whether he came over with the Conqueror, or not till later, with Geoffrey Plan- 152 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX tagenet, had firmly settled himself in Yorkshire very early in the thirteenth century. Many a fine old parish church in Yorkshire is all the richer in interest because of its Savile tombs ; many a picturesque old country mansion still bears the Savile arms. In the old lists of the Sheriffs and Knights of the Shire, the name of Savile is always present, for hundreds of years. There was a connection with the Royal Family, by marriage, in Tudor times ; a link with the great house of Talbot about the same period, by the union of Lady Joan Savile with Sir Richard Hastings, brother of the Countess of Shrewsbury. In the second half of the sixteenth century, Sir John Savile, of Bradley, was a Baron of the Exchequer, and one of the most famous legal authorities in the country ; his brother, Sir Henry Savile, taught Greek to Queen Elizabeth, founded the professorships at Oxford which bear his name, and was Warden of Merton in 1585, and Provost of Eton eleven years later. Peerages began to come into the family as if they were to be had for the asking ; one becomes confused between Lord Savile of Howley and Lord Savile of Pontefract, and the various other Lords Savile. There was a Lord Savile who became Viscount Savile of Castlebar, and was later transformed into the Earl of Sussex ; the name of the present Earl of 153 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Mexborough is Savile ; there is a Baron Savile, of modern creation, but of the old stock ; more than one Savile peerage has become extinct, as have several of the direct lines of various branches of the family. To the pedigree-lover who has never seen the entire Savile pedigree, with all its ramifications, before, a first sight of it is as if one were an explorer suddenly afforded a bird's-eye view of a continent. As for the great Sir George Savile, first Marquis of Halifax, whom Mr. Shaw dismisses in a phrase, and Lord Macaulay went near venerating, he was the son of Sir William Savile, of Thornhill, who, in 1629, 3.t the age of 17, was married, in Thornhill Parish Church, to Anne, eldest daughter of Thomas, first Lord Coventry, then Keeper of the Great Seal. The future Marquis was born on November 11, 1633. His father died in February, 1643-44, leaving Lady Savile to bring up their children amidst all the horrors of the Civil War. Where, and by whom, the young baronet was educated, is unknown ; there is no record of his entrance at either Oxford or Cambridge. He had troublous times in his youth. Thornhill, accidentally set on fire when it was surrendered to Sir Henry Cholmeley, was burnt to the ground ; the Parliamentarians made strenuous efforts to entrap his mother because of her Royalist activities. Sir George 154 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX himself was suspected, and even directly accused, but he was never arrested, and in 1656 he married Dorothy, only daughter of the first Earl of Sunderland, a girl of 16, who brought him £10,000 as her marriage portion. He entered public life in 1659, being elected, with Mr. William Lowther, as Member for Pontefract in the Convention Parliament, which met on April 25th, and was dissolved on December 24th, after calling Charles II. back to his kingdom. This was all the acquaintance he ever had with the House of Commons. In January, 1667-68, he was summoned to the House of Lords as Baron Savile of EUand and Viscount Halifax. In the Lords he allied himself with the Reform party, and he was present at the debate, and took part in it, on the Roos Divorce Bill, at which Charles 11. attended in an informal fashion amusingly described in the Sandwich MSS. Monday, March 21, 1670. This morninge the King in person with his ordinary attendance and habitt (i.e., without sword, etc., robes, crowne, or regalioes or givinge any warninge) came into the house of Peeres (who were then turned into a Grand Committee of the whole house, my Ld. of Bridgewater on the Wool Sacke) and sate him downe in the chaire of state and spake to the house to this effect, viz. : — " My Lords, I am come amongst you to renew an ancient practice 155 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION of my Ancestors, which is to be present at your debates, and therefore desire to give noe interruption to your proceedings, but that you should goe on in your busi- nesse in the method I found you. And I pray you all to sitt downe and putt on your Hatts," and soe putting off his owne hatt the Lds. sate downe, and as the Kinge covered soe did they. Halifax was admitted of the Privy Council in 1672, and was shortly afterwards despatched on a diplomatic mission to France and the Low Countries. His mission, as a side-issue, produced a breach between him and his colleagues and he then joined the Opposition against the Romanist tendencies of the Government, this naturally leading to a breach in his relations with the Duke of York. Various matters led to his expulsion from the Privy Council in January, 1675-76, and for some time he was absent from Parliament. In 1670 he had lost his first wife, by whom he had several sons and daughters ; in the same year he had married again, his second wife being Gertrude, daughter of William Pierrepoint, of Thoresby, a famous Parliament man. While in retirement he seems to have given much thought and attention to the education of his children. But in 1679 he was in the thick of politics again, vigorously opposing his old enemy Danby, and taking his share of the investigations in the matter of 156 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX the Popish Plot, and in the same year he was recalled to the Privy Council, and began to exercise great influence in its deliberations. About this time Halifax refused the Vice- royalty of Ireland, and broke with Shaftesbury. He was chiefly instrumental in securing the passing of the Habeas Corpus Act, and was so much busied with affairs in Parliament that his health, further affected by the political troubles of the time, began to suffer, and he spent 1680 and part of 1681 in retirement, at Rufford, in the north-east corner of Nottinghamshire, which had become the family seat after the destruction of the old house at Thornhill. But in the last- named year he was back again in London and in the thick of the famous struggle over the Bill of Exclusion. He was violently attacked in the House of Commons, which voted an address to the King, begging him to remove Halifax from his Privy Council " for ever " ; Halifax offered to retire ; Charles refused his resignation, and Halifax then became principal Minister. Between 1682-84, the Duke of York was the chief controlling power, supported by Lord Hyde, and Halifax's influence waned, but at this period he was created Marquis of Halifax, and appointed Lord Privy Seal. He had differences with the Duke of York and with Monmouth, with Sunderland and with Hyde 157 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION at this time ; he showed great kindness to Lord Russell at his trial, and to Algernon Sydney when in the Tower ; he promised the release of Danby. But his own power was waning in these days — yet it suddenly revived, and on the death of Charles and accession of James, 1685 — he was made Lord President of the Council. Once more he fell, and was dismissed from office, and saw his name removed from the list of Privy Councillors, and until 1688 he was in retirement. But he was to the fore again at the trial of the Seven Bishops, and he led the applause which greeted the jury's momentous verdict. James was obliged to call him into Council again when the Revolution materialized, and he was commissioned to treat with WilHam. When James fled Halifax was appointed President of the Provisional Government ; eventually, as Speaker of the House of Lords, it fell to him to offer the Crown to William and Mary. Under their rule Halifax was made Lord Privy Seal— at his own suggestion —and once more he entered upon a brief and troubled career. He was hated by both political parties, the House of Commons was perpetually bitter and inimical towards him ; he was accused of intriguing with Tyrconnell against the King, his resignation was always being demanded, and though William 158 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX was in his favour, Halifax finally surrendered the Privy Seal in 1689. He spent the last years of his life in opposition, continuing his role of " Trimmer " to the last, and being once more removed from the Privy Council. On March 30, 1695, he made his last appearance in the House of Lords ; six days later he died, and April nth he was quietly buried in Westminster Abbey. There are certain contemporary opinions of Halifax which may be read with profit in company with Macaulay's well-known panegyric. Burnet, who was som.ething of a shrewd observer, and had many opportunities of closely watching the man between whom and himself there was at one time a very intimate friendship, affected later by Halifax's undisguised contempt of Burnet's performances in the House of Lords, after his elevation to the episcopal bench, left three separate estimates of him which, in essence, do not much vary. He says of Halifax in his History of his Own Times : — He was a man of a great and ready wit ; full of life, and very pleasant ; much turned to satire. He let his wit run much on matters of religion so that he passed for a bold and determined atheist, though he often protested to me he was not one ; and said, he believed there was not one in the world. If he had any scruples, they were not sought for, nor cherished 159 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION by him ; for he never read an atheistical book. . . . He was always talking of morality and friendship. He was punctual in all payments, and just in all his private dealings. But, with relation to the public, he went backwards and forwards, and changed sides so often that in conclusion no side trusted him. . . . He was out of measure vain and ambitious. The liveliness of his imagination was always too hard for his judgment. A severe jest was preferred by him to all arguments whatsoever. And he was endless in consultations [and] would study to raise the credit of his wit, though it made others call his judgment in question. . . . His heart was much set on raising his family. In another passage Burnet says : — His spirit was restless, and in spite of all his pretences to philosophy, he could not bear to be out of business. In a third — a variation of the second — he remarks that Halifax " studied to oppose everything, and to embroil matters all he could . . . his vivacity and judgment sunk much in his last years, as well as his reputation." The last passage bears marks of Burnet's prejudice against Halifax for his opposition to William. As regards what Burnet says of Hali- fax's attitude towards religion, a sketch of the Marquis, written by his chaplain, Mompesson, is of interest. " As for the Christian religion," he writes, " it was his Lordship's opinion that 160 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX all the wise men, law-givers, and philosophers in the world could never contrive such another, it being absolutely the best method and surest way to happiness." To Mompesson Halifax was a good deal of a hero. " His great talent," he says, " was the knowledge, his great quality the love of mankind. He was a censurer of vice, but very indulgent to mistakes. . . . Nothing so perplext in human affairs but he would disentangle ; nothing so dark but he would see into. . . . For my part, after a long and a very close study of his Lordship, I doubt the world, with all its plenty, has scarce showed such a man in a hundred ^'^ears. . . . There have not lived three score men of his Lordship's strong reaching natural parts since the beginning of it." Similarly high praise is accorded Halifax by Elkanah Settle, the poet, in his " Sacellum Apollinare : a funeral poem to the memory of that great statesman, George, Marquis of Halifax," of which two couplets, at any rate, redeem Settle from the charges which Pope laid to his account in the Dunciad : — In Power and Trust, through his whole Life's long Scene, Never did Honour wear a Hand more Clean. He stood a more than Second Pylades, Unshaken as Immutable Decrees. 161 L YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION These contemporary opinions, however, fall short of Macaulay, to whom Halifax was a very great man. Among the statesmen of that age (he writes) Hahfax was, in genius, the first. His intellect was fertile, subtle, and capacious. His polished, luminous, and animated eloquence, set off by the silver tones of his voice, was the delight of the House of Lords. His conversation overflowed with thought, fancy, and wit. His political tracts well deserve to be studied for their literary merit, and fully entitle him to a place among English classics. To the weight derived from talents so great and various he united all the influence which belongs to rank and ample possessions. Yet he was less successful in politics than many who enjoyed smaller advantages. Indeed, those intellectual pecu- liarities which make his writings valuable frequently impeded him in the contests of active life. For he always saw passing events, not in the point of view in which they commonly appear to one who bears a part in them, but in the point of view in which, after the lapse of many years, they appear to the philosophic historian. With such a turn of mind, he could not long continue to act cordially with any body of men. All the prejudices, all the exaggerations of both the great parties in the State moved his scorn. He despised the mean acts and unreasonable clamours of dema- gogues. He despised still more the doctrines of divine right and passive obedience. He sneered impartially at the bigotry of the Churchman and at the bigotry of the Puritan, He was equally unable to comprehend how any man should object to Saints' days and sur- 162 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX plices, and how any man should persecute any other man for objecting to them. In temper he was what, in our time, is called a Conservative, In theory he was a Republican. . . . He was the chief of those politicians whom the two great parties contemptuously called Trimmers. Instead of quarrelling with the nickname, he assumed it as a title of honour, and vindicated, with great vivacity, the dignity of the appellation. Everything good, he said, trims between extremes. In a note to this passage Macaulay observes that " it will be seen that I believe Halifax to have been the author or at least one of the authors of the Character of a Trimmer, which, for a time, went under the name of his kinsman, Sir William Coverley." What Macaulay believed as a pio'is opinion is now known to be a matter of fact. The first edition of the famous tract, a small quarto pamphlet of 43 pages published in 1688, bore on its title-page the words " By the Honourable Sir W. C," and the second and third editions had Sir William Coventry's name in full. But Halifax, according to Saviliana, owned its authorship to his friends, and, not being pleased with the faulty fashion in which the first editions had been printed (from corrupt MS. copies) took pains to correct the third with his own hand, though he still allowed his kins- man's name to appear on the title-page. It was 163 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION included in Halifax's Miscellanies, of which three editions appeared, in 1700, 1704, and 1717. Miss Foxcroft's version— in the Life and Works, 1898— is arrived at as the result of a comparison between the edition of 1697, the first and second editions, the Miscellanies version, and the Halifax MSS. But the Character, though Halifax's most notable contribution to literature, was not his only one. In 1687 appeared, anony- mously, his famous Letter to a Dissenter ; in the same year Matthew Gillifiower, in Westminster Hall, and James Partridge, at Charing Cross, published The Lady's New Year's Gift ; or Advice to a Daughter, stating in their Advertisement that it was the work of an unknown author. This work, written by Halifax for the benefit of his daughter Elizabeth, who married the third Earl of Chesterfield, had a very considerable sale. Then, in 1688, he published, also anony- mously. The Anatomy of an Equivalent— d. pamphlet dealing with the vexed question of the penal laws. And after his death, at one time or another, were printed, in various works, his numerous Maxims, Thoughts, Cautions, and Reflections— all of a very shrewd and wise nature. But the most humanly interesting of all Halifax's writings is, without doubt, his Character of Charles the Second, which was printed for J. and R. Tonson and S. Draper in the Strand 164 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX in 1750, and bore its author's full style and title on its title-page. It was then issued — the Maxims bound up with it — by consent of his grand-daughter, the Countess of Burlington, who supplied the necessar}^ manuscript. In this Halifax set down his impressions and opinions of Charles under six heads (i.) His Religion ; (ii.) His Dissimulation; (iii.) His Amours and Mistresses ; (iv.) His Conduct to his Mistresses ; (v.) His Wit and Conversation ; and (vi.) His Talents, Temper and Habits. And as to (i.) he says that the ill-bred famili- arity of the Scotch divines gave Charles a distate for Presbyterianism, and the English Churchmen whom he met in Paris during the days of his exile, a contempt for Anglicanism. "I conclude," he writes, " that when he (Charles) came into England, he was as certainly a Roman Catholic as that he was a man of pleasure." As to (ii.) he gives good and plausible reasons for Charles's habit of concealing and disguising his real thoughts. In. respect of (iii.) Halifax appears to have been of Mulgrave's opinion— that, in Charles's later years, at any rate, " there was as much of laziness as of love in all those hours he passed among his mistresses." But he lays stress on the influence of Louise de la Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth, who, he says, " was quite out of the definition of an ordinary mistress ; 165 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION the causes and the manner of her first being introduced were very different. A very peculiar distinction was spoken of, some extraordinary solemnities that might dignify, though not sanctify, her function. Her chamber was the true Cabinet Council. The King did always by his councils, as he did sometimes by his meals ; he sat down out of form with the Queen, but he supped below stairs." As to (iv.) Halifax sums Charles's conduct up in one sentence : " He lived with his Ministers as he did with his mistresses ; he used them, but he was not in love with them." And he supplements this by another : " He could as easily bear their being hanged as some of them could bear his being abused." As to (v.) he has a great deal to say about Charles's quickness of apprehension ; his aptitude to talk ; his broad allusions ; his fondness for telling stories (of which character- istic, Lord Ailesbur}^ who had been much in Charles's company, says that he had the great virtue of never telling the same tale twice), his ease and pleasantness in compan}^ his familiarity and affability, and his quickness in finding another man's weak spot. iVnd as to (vi.) he pays tribute to Charles's turn for mechanics and science ; to his very good memory ; and to his careful arrangement of his time (" he walked by his watch ") ; he tells of his habit 166 THE MARQUIS OF HALIFAX of bribing " Charles Stuart against the King " ; he speaks again of Charles's love of ease, but says that he was neither covetous nor illiberal ; he had no desire to be rich, and if he spent largely, it was because he was easy in letting his money go, and " the beggars of both sexes helped to empt}^ his cabinet." We get a very good idea of Charles the Second from these opinions and impressions, and they show that Sir George Savile, first Marquis of Hali- fax, if neither the very great man of Macaulay, nor the insignificant parliamentary dodger of Mr. Shaw, was, at any rate, a full sharer in a quality which is believed to be highly developed in all good Yorkshiremen — that of keeping a sharp eye on immediate surroundings and circum- stances. 1C7 I OLIVER HEYWOOD IX OLIVER HEYWOOD WHO would dream," asks Shaftesbury in his Characteristics, " that out of abundant Charity and Brotherly Love should come Steel, Fire, Gibbets, Rods, and such a sound and hearty application of these Remedys as should at once advance the worldly greatness of religious Pastors and the particular interest of private Souls, for which they are so charitably concerned ? " No one — of com- mon sense — would so dream, but persecution of a strong sort was afoot in the seventeenth century, and there was an even sounder and heartier application of the remedies which Shaftesbury particularizes during the reign of Charles the Second, and the time of Puritan tyranny immediately preceding it, than in the reigns of Henry the Eighth and his two daughters. The fire, the rack, and the headman's axe were not so much in evidence, perhaps, but 171 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION the oppressions which disfigured EngHsh history from 1642 to 1680, made up in quantity what they lacked in quahty. All parties shared in them. The Puritans turned out the Anglican clergy to beg their bread ; Anglicanism, under the aegis of the State, ejected the clergy inclined to Presbyterianism ; Puritans and Anglicans coalesced in hunting down the Roman Catholics, and in making the life of the Quaker almost unbearable ; what the Roman Catholics might have done had they even had the chance, it is impossible to conjecture ; as for the Quakers, whom their cousin-germans, the Puritans, burnt alive whenever a chance presented itself — even in that new land of so-called liberty across the Atlantic— it is hard to beheve, judging from their good and consistent history, that they would have burnt or interfered with any man. Explain it how one may, whether by saying that it was the mode, or by indulging in philosophic disquisitions on the whole theory of persecution as a branch of State economics, one cannot get away from the fact that despite the existence and influence of men like Locke and Halifax in the last half of the seventeenth century, religious persecution was as rampant, in the bad old way, as it had ever been, rather more than a hundred years before. Calamy, in his account of the North-Country 172 OLIVER HEYWOOD Nonconformists of that period, given in his Abridgment of Baxter's History of His Life and Times, says that the number of Yorkshire clergy ejected from their hvings under the Act of Uniformity, 1662, was one hundred and twenty-three, of whom seventy-six belonged to the West Riding. Amongst them, he remarks, were " many excellent men, profound scholars and eminent preachers." A notable example of the effect of the Act was seen at Sheffield, where Fisher, the vicar, and Hancock, Prime, and Bloom, his curates, not only refused com- pliance but suffered imprisonment, A curious instance of the straits to which some of the ejected clergy were put is afforded by certain entries in the churchwarden's accounts of the parish of Whitkirk, near Leeds, which seem to show that it was not an unusual practice to allow these dispossessed clerics to preach in the churches, and afterwards to beg. This, incidentally, seems to indicate that the con- forming clergy — or some of them — had con- siderable sympathy with the ejected, as indeed, men of the Tillotson school would have— Tillot- son himself once invited a dissenting minister, one Stretton, to occupy his pulpit, and got reprimanded by his bishop for doing so. And in the case of these Whitkirk entries, the in- cumbent of the living must have given his 173 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION consent— or the living must have been vacant at the time. April loth, 1670, — Given then by the neighbours to a poore mendicant minister, one Mr. John Rhodes who then preached here, and after sermon stood in the middle ile to receive the charity of the people, the summe of 12s. 3d. July 3rd, 1670. — Given then by the neighbours to a poor lame itinerary, one Mr. Walker, who then preached here, and after the sermon stood in the middle ile to receive the people's charity, which was 9s. 3d. July 30th, 1671.— Given then in the midle ile of the church by the neighbours to the aforenamed Mr. Walker, the mendicant itinerary, lame minister, who had been here severall times before, and did then preach, the summe of 6s. 3d. Of the life and career of one of these early Yorkshire Nonconformists, more fortunate than lame Mr. Walker and poor Mr. Rhodes, in that he was blessed with worldly goods of his own, and had no need to beg in "the midle ile " or elsewhere, we have considerable know- ledge, due to the care of his literary remains shown by a nineteenth-century admirer. There died a few years ago in the old-world village of Idle, near Bradford, one of those patient and persistent antiquaries whose labours are not properly appreciated in their own immediate circles, and whose fame rarely extends over a 174 OLIVER HEYWOOD wider radius. The late Horsfall Turner was born with that love of the antique which those to whom it has been given can never lose. He was for ever digging and delving, collecting and storing ; when he died he left amongst many other things, a truly vast mass of written and printed paper — old parchments, old manu- scripts, old magazines, old newspapers, broad- sheets, chap-books, election cartoons, what-not, put aside and treasured until all the barrows of Farringdon Road, and the penny boxes of St. Martin's Lane would not have contained their might}^ bulk. Out of this gathering a selection was made which has since been pur- chased, and presented to a Yorkshire Museum —antiquarian writers of the next two or three centuries will doubtless find in its odds and ends the materials for many books. But Horsfall Turner himself was the parent of many books. They were chiefly books of a local interest, but their writer had a certain spark of genius in him which gave to all his small volumes and slight pamphlets a salt and a flavour which appealed strongly to folk of like tastes, whether they dwelt in Idle or in London. He wrote a History of Haworth — a place which is, at least, as famous as Dor- chester, and perhaps rather more of a resort of pilgrims. He published a monumental work 175 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION entitled Biographia Halifaxiensis, and Halifax has a name in history. He issued a reprint of the Life of Captain fohn Hodgson, the Round- head soldier, originally published in 1806, under the editorship of Sir Walter Scott. In collabora- tion with Dr. Collyer, the one-time Ilkley black- smith who became a popular preacher in New York, he wrote a History of Ilkley, the Olicana of the Roman occupation. He was an authority on all matters relating to the Bronte sisters ; he was an intimate friend of Charlotte Bronte's great friend, Miss Nussey ; he set up in type a vast collection of letters written by Charlotte to her friend, which Miss Nussey entrusted to him ; he had a passage at arms with Mr. Clement Shorter on that matter, and he gives an account of it, and accounts of various other strange matters relating to the Brontes, in a curious pamphlet called Bronteana, which collec- tors of anything referring to the gifted sisters will some day prize. And, in addition to all these, and to many other volumes and pamphlets, he published between the years 1881 and 1885 the remarkable Autobiography, Event Book, and Diaries of a seventeenth-century man, Oliver Hey wood, one of the ejected clergy of 1662, whose name is still mighty amongst the sturdy Nonconformists of the Yorkshire and Lancashire border, and who, if neither a Pepys 176 OLIVER HEYWOOD nor an Evelyn, had a pretty trick of putting down in his journal a great many matters of interest to humanity. To a bookman this publication of Horsfall Turner's is something of a joy as well as a curiosity. One gathers from an inspection of certain pages in the fourth volume that it was published by subscription. Its editor, indeed, says as much in a foreword to that volume, and remarks, with a certain wistfulness, that the demand for such works is limited, and that he is likely to lose pecuniarily by his labours. There is a list of subscribers : it includes the names and styles of a duke, a marquis, and a baron, to say nothing of lesser dignitaries. It bears all the well-known signs of local pro- duction. The first two volumes were printed by one Bayes, of Brighouse ; the others by Harrison, of Bingley — it says much for both printers that they contrived to keep a distinct uniformity of type and style. The four volumes were bound by Harrison— sets of them made their appearance, somehow, in the cheaper second-hand bookshops of London a few years ago— they were to be bought from the barrows in Farringdon Road at some ridiculous price, a shilling or so. It may be that they can now be picked up somewhere for as many pence as there are volumes. Yet in literary value 177 M YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION they are worth a good many pounds, for Httle as Oliver Heywood is known, save amongst the descendants of the Northern folk, to whom he was as a prophet in Israel, his diaries afford a view of certain phases of seventeenth-century life which no student of that period can afford to neglect. Oliver Heywood himself was a remarkable man in more ways than one. He came of an old Lancashire family which had been established in the parish of Bolton-le-Moors since the time of Edward VI. Hunter, the archaeologist, pre- pared in 1802 a pedigree of this family which shows that its members did things ; they were travellers, soldiers, bankers, barristers. Oliver, the second son of Richard Heywood, yeoman, was born at Little Lever, in Lancashire, in 1629, and baptized at Bolton on March 15th of that year. He seems to have been privately educated, most likely in Lancashire, but he eventually proceeded to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he took his Bachelor's degree in due course. He was ordained at Bury in August, 1652, and soon afterwards became Curate of Coley, near Halifax. Ten years later, the Act of Uniformity drove him and many like-thinking clergy out of the Establishment, and for forty years he lived the life and underwent the trials of the Nonconformist ministers of those days. 178 OLIVER HEYWOOD In 1672 Charles the Second granted him a licence to preach, under the Declaration of Indulgence ; a facsimile of it, presenting the Royal signature, is given in the second of these volumes. It gives permission and licence to " Oliver Heywood, of ye Presbyterian Persua- sion to be a Teacher of the congregation allowed by Us in a Room or Roomes in the house of John Butterworth in ye parish of Hallifax," and " to teach in any other place licensed and allowed by us according to our said Declaration." Oliver Heywood, under this Royal favour, did preach and teach in a good many other places in his Nonconformist ministry of forty years ; he appears, indeed, to have anticipated John Wesley in looking upon the world as his parish, and he pursued the calling of itinerant in Yorkshire and Lancashire with zeal and energy, and was presumably at least as persistent a traveller and as good a horseman as the founder of the People called Methodists. Nevertheless, in spite of the Royal licence, Oliver Heywood was more than once laid by the heels. He spent the year 1685 in York Castle, a prisoner for conscience' sake (there were many other prisoners for conscience' sake, Roman Catholics and Quakers, there, or close by, in Ouse Bridge prison, at the same time), and he took his afflic- tion with a good spirit, as being part of a 179 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION necessary earthly experience. But incarceration within a gaol did not stop him from exercising his ministry, for be began to preach again as soon as he was released, and he continued to preach until his death in 1702. He died at his house in Northowram, a village near Halifax, in the May of that year, and was buried in the famous Holdsworth Chapel of Halifax Parish Church. Oliver Heywood was the quintessence of seven- teenth-century Nonconformity. Not Milton, not Marvell, not John Bunj^an, but such men as this sturdv old itinerant of the sombre border- country of Yorkshire and Lancashire represent the gulf which lay between those who stopped in and those who went out of the Church of England in the early days of the Restoration. Oliver Heywood was Presbyterian to his finger- tips ; he could not away with even a Dean or an Archdeacon ; a Prelate was to him very near to the Arch-Abomination. He doubtless wished that such a being as a Bishop had never been specifically mentioned in Holy Scripture ; he summoned all the learning that he had— and he was a scholar of great parts— to prove that St. Paul, when he spoke of Bishops, meant no more than a general manager of the ecclesias- tical affairs. The Proud Prelate, the Crafty Jesuit, the Pestilent Papist, were his bug-a- 180 OLIVER HEYW OOD booes all through life. Nevertheless, he had a decided if highly uncomfortable belief that England was doomed to subside once more into the embraces of the Scarlet Woman, and he spent a winter evening of the year 1680 in writing down a series of grave reasons for his conviction, some of which reasons are as quaint as they are curious : — 5. A grievous spirit of Dissension hath sprung up in many churches and among Christians, some mini- sters, of Nonconformists, that seemes to lay us under a necessity of scourage by a common enemy. 6. That strange spirit of delusion of the Quakers whose principles, practices, have issued from Rome and tend to it, its Popish points though in another dresse, greedily suckt in. 7. The Arminian doctrines abounding and encour- aged as the ready road to prefermt, several whereof directly tend to the establishment of Popery, as Free- will, gen. redemption, etc. g. Popish ceremonys maintained and made a bait- ment among protestants being left among us a pledge of the return of the rest of that treumperys and fopperys, 10. Popish officers of Prelates, deans, chapters, com- missarys, courts, chancellors, officials, their forms of absolution, ex-communications in Latin, all in the same words as in the Popish times will probably all goe together, as they rose together. 11. The vain old customs that people are fond of will not part with as times relating to Popish Masse, Chtmas, I abhorre it that so excellent a one as Cht. 181 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION and so abominable an idol as masse should be yoked togather, yet these are so rivetted in people that all goes togather. 17. A popish successor, active, very potent, rich, hitherto prevalent, and the utmost attempts of parliamt not being able to prevail agt him but all endeavours rendred frustraneous and exposed the actors to greater danger. 20. The great prevalence of papists of later times in these nations all places filled with them, it sd theres 18,000 popish priests and jesuites, and by their meetings, carriage, gifts and influence have infected many. 27. Gods preaching visibly from the heavens by a late astonishing comets, reports also of prodigious armys fighting, birds, armes, swords, 3 suns, etc., if true they are natural prognosicks if not moral tokens of a lying spirit prevailing in the world. 40. The strange an prodigious advancmt of all papists and popishly affected into all places of honour, trust, civil, military, ecclesiastical, their interest, influence by pretended holiness, wit their authority, armes, the power in garrisons, etc., speak us in the eye of reason galloping apace towards Rome. Three days later, however, he recovers his spirits, and under date January 27, 1680, he sets down a confident prediction : — I am persuaded the Lord will at last destroy the pope of Rome, and all the Anti-Christian Hierarchy, and pour out the rest of the vials upon that grand enemy of the church in these gospel times, and as he hath begun to destroy him with the breath of his 182 OLIVER HEYWOOD mouth by gospel preaching so by the brightnes of his coming he will by such instruments as he shall raise up still more confound him till Jie be quite consumed. But Oliver Heywood's diaries and memoranda are by no means confined to theology, con- troversy, and religious affairs. He was a man of many papers. He wrote an account of his family, which he believed to " spring from some younger brother of the House of Heywood of Hey wood, Esq., his seat betwixt Rachdale (Roch- dale) and Bury, for old Mr. Robert Heywood, a pious, reverend old gentleman and an excellent poet, was wont to call my father Cozen," and of those members of it with whom he was per- sonally acquainted he gives brief and graphic pen-pictures. There is John Heywood, " a tall proper man, red-haire very plain-hearted, of a loving nature " ; Josiah, " a pretty man, flaxen hair, exceeding witty " ; Thomas Crompton, " a man of stupendious memory " ; Alice Bradley, " something knotty and stubborn " ; Elizabeth Whitehead, " a pretty, sweet, desirable child " ; James Crompton, " a sweet, comely, witty youth " ; William Whitehead, " a non- such of his quality in the country." Also he wrote an autobiography, which Horsfall Turner found in a diminutive pocket-book, three inches by two, in the very smallest of Heywood's small autograph. In " my little black book 183 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION with clasps," he also wrote, in characters almost as small as the fine handwriting of Charlotte Bronte, a diary which began in March, 1665, when he was driven out from among his own people, and continued for two years. In another similar book he kept a record of events ; in another a further diary ; in " my book with the rough cover " more events and happenings ; in various forms he preserved a full and faithful record of his doings, his thoughts, his affairs until the time of his release from this bodily prison. One learns much of him, his mind, his outlook on men and things from these various papers and paper-books. He set down records of his personal adventures as faithfully as his contemporary Samuel Pepys ; he was particu- larly interested in all that went on about him. He chronicles a good deal of small beer, but it tastes sharp and good even after its long stay in the barrel. He loves to tell of comets ; of signs in the sky ; of plagues and distempers ; of tavern brawls ; of the ungodliness of cock- fighting squires ; of dealings in land and in property ; of strange manifestations of Provi- dence ; of people falling into wells ; and of extraordinary floods, frosts, and droughts. It is very evident that he was not a little super- stitious ; he firmly believed that folk are occa- sionally possessed of devils ; in spite of his 184 OLIVER HEYWOOD education and learning, he is as fond as any old woman of the dales and fells of talking about Gabriel Ratchets, Nighte-Whistlers, and Blazinge-Starrs. There is not a sudden death in his neighbourhood that he does not chronicle and improve upon, and not Pepys himself is more meticulous in setting forth the various events of many days of little change— but always with charm and quaintness. But we will let this good man tell a few of his own stories. Here is a sidelight on a Christian happening at the great house of Kirklees, that ancient Yorkshire manor-place wherein Robin Hood had breathed his last a few centuries earlier : — Sir John Armitage kept open house at Christmas, and being captain of a troop, he had too trumpetters, one whereof was a little low man, but exceeding fat, and there was a woman of equal stature, and fatness at Kirkleys that was a dame to some of their children, now it was the great delight of the lady A. and others in their mirth to set this couple dancing, wch they did, and they strove so long wch should continue longer that the woman fell down, and was carried to bed, and dyed within too days, and the man went home and he also dyed within a few days after that. Here is his account of a tragedy, concerning which he writes with unwonted moderation, seeing that in the last few Hues he hints that 185 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION the victim was certainly one of those bloody and deceitful men who shall not live out half their days : — Sir Francis Cob, a great man in the East Riding of Yorkshire, travelling to London about January 5, 1675, lay at a kinsman's house in Lincolnshire, one Mr. Marwood's, in his journey lying long in the morn- ing, his man went up to help him up, but he said he was not well, so intreat my uncle to excuse me for I shall not come to dinner to-day, so left him in his bed, when he was gone Sir Francis rose out of his bed, fell upon his own sword, wch went in at his belly and came out of his back, and was fallen dead on the floor, his man sth now that he had askt him to kill him 3 times — the occasion is thought to be the death of one old Mr. Kirk, of London, that had allowed him 500 a year, having little of his own, being in much debt, laid himself in the King's Bench — this man was the principal prosecutor of the poor men in the plot time, having imprisoned several, some whereof dyed by the hand of violence, viz., 22, others dyed of feaver, and other diseases, in York Castle, many whereof I knew and could mention. Sometimes he sets down particulars of State matters — here is his abstract of the famous Act of Parliament to which Pope's poor Narcissa objected so strongly on her death-bed : — Anno Regno Car. IL Regis Angliae Pricessimo : — At the Parlt. begun at Westminster 8 of May, 1661, by several prorogations, adjournments, continued till 15 186 OLIVER HEYWOOD of July, 1678 : An Act for Burying in Woollen. The former Act made in 18 year of Reign ineffectual for lessening the importation of linen from beyond sea, and incouragment of woollen and paper manufactures in this kingdom, but unobserved — repealed, this in force from August i, 1678, from thence no corpse must be interred in any shirt, shift, sheet, or shroud made or mingled with flax, hemp, silk, hair, gold or silver, or any stuff other than is made of sheeps wool, or be put into any coffin, lead, faced, with anything but made of sheeps wool only upon pain of forfeiture of 5 li. All persons in holy orders — keep a register of persons buryed in their precincts, one or more of the relations shall within 8 days after make affidavit under the hands and scales of two or more credible witnesses . . . that the persons was not buryed in linnen . . . persons dying of the plague are excepted. From August i, 78, judges of assizes, justices at sessions give this in charge : this act to be read the first Sunday after Barth-day for 7 years. Accounts of his neighbours' misdoings are multitudinous and circumstantial : — Last week, being the first week in feb., 1778-9, 6 young men of Halifax went to an ale house at the Pulenick and entered into a solemn vow and oath among themselves that they would drink till they were drunk, and he that was first dead drunk should pay for all the rest : the order they took in this dis- orderly match was to drink first a pennyworth of ale and another of brandy which they did, and when 3 or 4 of them were drunk and lay on the floor the other 187 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION two spread a sheet over them and fell a laughing, insulting over their drunk companions, one of these horrid conquerours was Daniel Greenwood's son, a child comparatively who had drunk 24 peny pots of ale and 24 penyworth of brandy, and yet its said that it was not discernable upon him that he had drunk anything, oh, astonishing thing ! Sometimes he notes an affair of interest to archaeologists : — On Wednesday, May 14, '78, there was a jury at Sowrby about some money that was found a year agoe in the field of John Ratcliff the one Ryly is land- lord, as the plowers were plowing pieces of silver came up, the plow-holder left the plow, gathered, he that followed scratched also, the plow-driver at last came to them, but got not his share, complained, now there striving. Lord of the Mannour expects a share they take but to 7 H value. J.B. bought 5 lis worth of it, being Roman Coyn, in their pence being 7d. ob. The jury swore witnesses, could make little of it. Anything of the following nature never escapes his attention : — Dr. Wastel of Wakefield on Thursday night, Oct. 2, '79, going up a pair of staires with a Tobacco-pipe in his mouth fell forward and struck the end of the pipe into his throat which stuck there and could never be got out, he lived in misery, could not speak but writ his mind, dyed on Munday, Oct. 6, '79. He was a very usefull phisitian, but strangely heterodox in 188 OLIVER HEYWOOD opinions, much given to disputations, a hand of god, he was too much addicted to tobacco. Here is a significant example of the fashion in which certain folk of that period passed their time : — Upon Monday, May 31, 1680, there was to begin a great cocking at Halifax, the place was on the back side of the Crosse, at Halifax, the inne is kept by Widow Mitchel where a cocking house is built that cost 32 li, many gentlemen came to it upon the Monday, that day was spent in appointing judges to sit and match the cocks which they did with great authority, on the tuesday the poorer sort of Halifax brought their cocks wch were to fight first, but Mr Tho. Thornhill sd. what had beggars to doe to fight their cocks among gentlemen upon wch Tho. Cockrofts son tript up his heels, so they fell to blows, and they took sides and all fought desperately a long while, Ab. Mitchell taking the poor mens part : at last Jo. Mitchel drew his rapier and swore he would run him through that struck another stroke, so they were quieted — then they fell to cocking, and the HaHfax cocks generally beat the gentlemens, then on the Wednesday, thursday, friday, the gentlemens cocks fought, abundance of money was lost and won — they drunk all night and were so high in swearing, ranting at the Crosse that they were heard far in the town. Ld. E., a scotch Lord, stood on horseback at T.C. door, swearing, ranting, calling for sack, making people drink, 100 were flocking about them, then rid des- perately along the Corn-market and light at Crosse, 189 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION stayd most of the week — many sth my authour, went home with heavy heads and empty purses ; in the night they drank and played at dice. J.M. stakt 15 half-crowns at a cast — its thought he lost 40 li. oh dreadful the same day there was a cocking at Denham Yate, Help, Lord. In a small manuscript book, inscribed, " Bought at Halifax, cost 6d., 1679," Oliver Hey wood set down a series of " Experiments and Reflections," to which he appended another series headed " Objects with Observations." In these he gives remarkable instances of punish- ment following speedily upon sin, of judgments lighting quickly upon haughty persons. His reflections on these matters show that the good man had no great belief in coincidence ; he saw Purpose, and Result, and Consequence too plainly to be seduced in that way. If a sinner drank too many pots at the ale-house, and " brak his legge " in stumbling homeward, the mishap was no accident, but an instant mani- festation of Divine Anger. When Nevinson, the notorious highwayman, was at last arrested and brought to justice, the old Adam of bigotry which was always strong in Oliver Heywood, broke out unreservedly in his observations on the ill-doer's fate. " Oh, what a difference is there," he exclaims, " betwixt the god we serve and the devil whom wicked men serve ! This 190 OLIVER HEYWOOD poor man at last found and confest that his Sabbath-breaking, drinking, lewd company, and bad courses had brought him to that shameful end, it's said he was a Papist, and had his pardon in his bosom ! " Pardons in their bosoms or no, Oliver Heywood would have very cheerfully hanged all the Papists in the country ; one is far from sure that he would have objected if their quarters had been stuck on pikes above the gates of that York in which he himself was imprisoned for conscience' sake. For the sturdy old Nonconformist suffered. Despite the elaborate licence which bears the autograph of " Charles R." at its head, and the signature of my Lord Secretary Arlington at its foot, his enemies rarely left him alone. The conforming clergy were always at him ; the magistrates kept a jealous eye on his doings ; the bailiffs and constables often darkened his door. He was scurvily treated. He had a love of books ; like many book-lovers, he kept lists of his treasures ; when he bought a book (and he bought many books, for he was a man of means), he set down its particulars and its price. One such list is printed in these volumes —a goodly list, including many fine works of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. At its foot the old man in after years wrote a sig- nificant and pregnant line, " These taken from 191 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION me for preaching the Gospel." Nevertheless, he endured, very faithfully and courageously to the end ; he even kept up his diary- making until within a day or two of his death. Always he remained cheerful, and of a lively spirit. But that is what one would expect to hear after looking upon the facsimile of an old copper-plate engraving of him which appears in one of these volumes. It is no lantern- jawed, melancholic, Praise-God-Barebones face that we look upon, but rather the face of a man who ought to have had at least a deanery. There he is, in his gown and his bands and his cap ; his venerable curls are neatly spread on either cheek of a full, round, something-plump face ; one can imagine that face looking over the top of a pulpit, but cannot conceive of its possessor as a tub-thumper. And if he had not possessed that little kink in his mentality which made him see scarlet whenever episcopacy was mentioned, Oliver Heywood would doubtless have worn a rochet, and added a mitre to those family arms of which he was no little vain. He was, however, a brave man, in that he abided mightily by his stern and sincere con- victions ; in any age, under any conditions, he would have been a good martyr, resisting even unto blood. Let us hope, then, that he has long enjoyed the delights of the Heavenly 192 OLIVER HEYWOOD Jerusalem on which he kept so firm a gaze, and has there made many eternal and surprising friendships with some of the Proud Prelates, Pestilent Papists, and Craftie and Subtile Jesuites whom he loathed so heartily, and inveighed against so thunderously, while he and they still wore the garment of what he was so fond of calling this Dunghille Fleshe. 193 N HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH X HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH THAT sturdy old Nonconformist Oliver Heywood, who made such a figure in the Yorkshire religious life of his period, had no love for Quakers, and he was inclined, because of some extraordinary mental confusion of his own, to class them with Papists. But Oliver Heywood, though nominally " of the Presbyterian perswasion," was a seventeenth- century Puritan, and he had the seventeenth- century Puritan's hatred of any form of religion but his own. It seems a curious thing that the Puritans of that age, loudly clamorous for liberty for themselves, and even crossing the wide seas to obtain it, never manifested any disposition to give liberty to others. But their own attitude in religious matters is well summed up by one of themselves — " Toleration," said Oakes, " is the first-born of all abominations." And nothing better illustrates the tyrannical attitude of the Puritans of this period to all 197 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION outside their own pale than the Puritan pro- ceedings in the land to which they departed in search of full religious liberty. Mrs. Hemans, who was evidently not very well acquainted with New England history, wrote some verses about the Puritan Fathers in which are two lines that have been recited at Nonconformist meetings until the}^ have come to be believed in : — They have left unstained what there they found — Freedom to worship God ! So far from the Puritans who emigrated to America in the seventeenth century leaving freedom unstained there or elsewhere, they carried with them a persecuting spirit which would have done credit to Torquemada himself. Their understanding of freedom was that they were to please themselves, and to persecute every one who did not please them. It was no part of their religious polity to tolerate men who took a different view of Christianity from theirs. "It is toleration," said John Cotton, " that makes the world anti-Christian." " He that is wilhng to tolerate any unsound opinion," wrote Nathaniel Ward, " that his own may be tolerated, though never so sound, will, for a need, hang God's Bible at the Devil's girdle." Cotton, indeed, defended persecution —somewhat 198 HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH ingeniously —in his answer to Williams's book. The Bloody Tenent of Persecution It was not lawful, he argued, to persecute any " till after admonition once or twice," but when an offender had been so admonished —by the Puritan divines— and recanting not, was punished, then he was not persecuted for cause of con- science, but for sinning against his own con- science. And this sort of specious argument was doubtless in the minds of the Massachusetts Puritans who, having escaped the Anglican tyranny in England, proceeded to apply a tyranny of their own to other folk who had also sailed to America in search of religious liberty, and whom the Puritans formally describe in the legislative documents of the time as " a cursed set of hereticks which are commonly called Quakers." Mr. S. H. Cobb, in his book, The Rise of Religious Liberty in America, tells us how the Quakers of Massachusetts were treated by the Puritans in power. All Quakers coming into the colony, innocent of any other offence than that of arrival, were to be cast into gaol, whipped with twenty stripes, and put to hard work until they could either be banished or trans- ported. Any shipmaster bringing any Quaker into the colony was to be fined £ioo. Any householder entertaining or harbouring or con- 199 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION cealing or encouraging any Quaker was to be fined 40s. for every hour of his offence. A scale of fines, and enactments for whipping, mutilation, banishment, and even death, was set up, and vigorously enforced, and in 1659 four Quakers — William Robinson, Mary Dyer, William Leddra, and Marmaduke Stevenson — suffered martyrdom at the hands of the ver}/ men who had left England to seek religious liberty. Little wonder that an indignant Quaker, startled for once out of the prevalent gentle- ness of his sect, should say of the New England Puritan that he was " a man that hath a covetous and deceitful rotten heart ; lying lips, a smooth, fawning, flattering tongue ... a hypocrite." It is a good portrait— and there were many copies of it left in England. And if Mrs. Hemans had enjoyed more acquaintance with historical facts, she would have known that religious freedom was established in America, not by the Puritan Fathers whom she so glorified, but by the Roman Catholic colony of Maryland in 1649, under the second Lord Baltimore, a descendant of the old Yorkshire family of Calvert (the first instance in the world's history of the granting of complete liberty to all Christians — a colony, writes Mr. Cobb, wherein " Catholics found a secure asylum and Protestants were sheltered from Protestant intolerance,") and by 200 HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH the Quaker colony of Pennsylvania in 1682. Under strict Puritanism there was never any religious freedom of any sort, either in England or America. The Puritan party of the Com- monwealth was made up of Presbyterians, In- dependents, and Baptists, but the Presby- terian was something more than primus inter pares, and as Professor Bury remarks in his History of Freedom of Thought, he " regarded toleration as a work of the Devil," and but for Cromwell would have actively persecuted even the Independent, who was closest to him in matters theological and ecclesiastical. There was ample justification for John Milton's caustic line- New Presbyter is but old Priest writ large ! When Oliver Heywood was imprisoned in York Castle in 1685 there must have been many Quakers there who, like himself, were suffering for conscience' sake. The persecution of Quakers had been going on in Yorkshire for thirty years. Oliver Cromwell never lost an opportunity of proclaiming his large-minded- ness in matters religious, and he complained more than once that the House of Commons hampered him. " Every one desires to have liberty," he said, " but none will give it." Yet when, in February, 1655, he put forth a wordy 201 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION and frothy proclamation, informing the nation that the Gospel had now free course in its midst, he excepted Quakers and Ranters— who were to be handed over to the magistrates. Certainly, a little later, to do him justice, the Protector stepped in to effect the release of some Quakers who had been clapped into prison. That may have been because George Fox had been to see him— not to plead for mercy for himself and his fellow Quakers, but to admonish him, which task he performed faithfully, and, appa- rently without raising any resentment in Oliver. " He carried himself," says Fox, " with much moderation towards me. As people were coming in, he caught me by the hand, and, with tears in his eyes, said, ' Come again to my house, for if thou and I were but an hour a day together we should be nearer one to the other.' " Sir John Reresby says that Oliver could summon tears at will— but we will believe that they were genuine enough on this occasion, for he was a shrewd observer, and he knew that in George Fox, visionary though he was, he was standing before a true and a good man. Never- theless, Fox had sore times even after this, and matters were no better for him when Oliver and his Puritans had gone, and Charles and the Anglicans came back. Nowadays there is no member of the com- 202 HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH munity who does not honour and respect the Quakers— even an Anglican Bishop, Dr. Gore, in an episcopal charge, holds them up to the clergy of his diocese as something to be admired — but in those days Anglican and Puritan alike regarded them as little better than mad dogs. And George Fox passed a good many weary months in Scarborough Castle under Charles II., being brought there, from a similar imprison- ment at Lancaster, in 1665, and suffering much from cold and starvation, and the ill-treatment of his gaolers, before the King, hearing of what was going on, and becoming convinced that Fox was " more inclined against plots than for them," let him out. George Fox's imprisonment at Scarborough must have had some connection with the extra- ordinary series of prosecutions of Quakers which occurred in that town from 1650 to the end of the century, and was at its height at the very time that Oliver Heywood was imprisoned in York Castle. In Yorkshire, as elsewhere, the Quaker was an object of derision and the subject of much cruelty. Much was written against him ; more was preached. But in Scarborough, then a very small and obscure town, there was a S3^stematic persecution of the Quakers, which, from the available data, is somewhat hard to understand. The Quakers 203 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION had been established in Scarborough, as a small knot of folk meeting for a common purpose, for some years previous to 165 1, but in that year they seem to have been recognized as a formal " congregation," and had a meeting- house in Low Conduit Street, which they ex- changed, later on, for another in Carr Street. George Fox made various appearances at the Carr Street meeting, and until comparatively recent times, when Carr Street was merged in Eastborough, there was a gallery in the old place, bearing date 165 1, from which he is said to have addressed his fellow Friends. This Carr Street house was the property of one Peter Hodgson, who appears to have been a man of some considerable estate —whatever his religious views may have been previous to his joining the Quakers, it is certain that after he adopted their tenets he was cruelly persecuted by the town authorities. They began getting at Hodgson in a crafty and peculiar fashion. There was in Scarborough " an an- ciente order of ye bailiffs and comons of this towne in comon hall," whereby it was provided and enacted that any inhabitant of Scarborough who should " letten any house to any stranger to dwell in without ye approvement and consente of ye baliffes for the time being should forfeit and pay to the said baliffes . . . the sume of 204 HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH iiilb. vis. viiid. to bee levyed by way of dis- tresse." On September 4, 1650, Thomas Gill and W. Saunders, " baliffes," issued under their hands and seals of office a warrant against John Hodgson for that he, " notwithstanding he hathe had several tymes notice of ye said order, yet contrarye to the same and without ye approvement or consent of us the baliffes of Scarborough underwritten hathe demised or to ferme letten unto Robert Keld now in the towne being a stranger one house or tenement to dwell in." John Hodgson was, of course, of Peter Hodgson's family, and this was the bailiffs' method of persecution — a first step — and the house may have been, and probably was, the one in which the Quakers assembled. At any rate, under the warrant, those charged with its execution seized from John Hodgson " one silver boule and one silver beaker," and four men, who were paid sixteen shillings for their trouble, appraised the value of these articles at £'^ 15s. What happened to the Quaker community of Scarborough during the next ten years does not particularly appear in the Corporation records, but in 1660, the Restoration having taken place, the Hodgsons were again in trouble with the local magistrates. Under the King's Proclamation of January, 1660, prohibiting " all 205 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION unlawful and seditious meetings and conventicles under p'tence of religious worshipp," F. Gibson, of Welburn, presumably a North Riding magis- trate, gave on January i6th in that year a charge and command to all authorities to issue warrants to the several constables to " make or cause to be made diligent search from time to time in all and every place where any meet- ing or conventicles of Anabaptists, Quakers, or Fifth Monarchy men are called shall or may be presented," and to apprehend the assemblers. This charge seems to have been anticipated by the Scarborough magistrates, who appear to have had no difficulty in finding a couple of informers —one was Christopher Walton, a corporal of the garrison at the Castle ; the other was a townsman of some degree, Samuel Aram. As neither Walton nor Aram could write, they " made their marks " to their respective affidavits : — Christopher Walton being a corporal in ye garri- son of ye Castle of Scarboroughe, upon his corporate oath, saithe that yesterday he did see thirty people or thereabouts, men and women, meet together in ye house of Mr. Peter Hodgson, in Scarburg, and yt there was a woman speaking amongst them, who gave over speakinge as he came in, he being sent by order of ye garrison of the castle to make searche for such people : he saith yt he knowes not there many, 206 HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH but yt those men now brought to Mr. Bayliffe's were then among them. Jan. nth 1660. Samuelle Aram, alsoe upon his corporate oath, saith yt he was present wh ye saide corporall, and did see ye saide meeting, and yt there were there thirty people or thereabouts in ye house of ye said Peter Hodgson, mett together at ye tyme afrresd. Jan. loth 1660. There is a list of some of those who met at Peter Hodgson's house on this Sunday, January 10, 1660. Presumably, it is the list of those who were apprehended and carried to Mr. Bayliffe's. They were John Hodgson, William Hodgson, Thomas Besurclee, John Grayme, William Graytull, James Mason, Henry Sedgfield, Christopher Shepherd, John Horr, Robert Mellon, William Stevenson, Thomas Prenell — Peter him- self is not in this list, nevertheless he and most of his associates were in York Castle soon afterwards — prisoners. In this year, 1660, no fewer than five hundred and five Yorkshire Quakers were in York Castle, and there were also nine in the City Prison at York, nine at Scarborough, six at Ripon, and six at Hull. Many of these died in prison. And those who were discharged in 1661 only regained their liberty to be confronted with further persecu- tion—this time in the shape of pecuniary fine. On the 30th November, 1662, Mr. Bal. Hickson 207 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION and Mr. Bal. Kay " viewed and saw and ffound assembled att Willm Gradells house " (probably the William Graytull of the first list) a number of persons, who were promptly fined — Baker gives a list of them (which is only an abbreviated one) in his history of Scarborough, with the amounts of their fines. i i i i Mr.PeterHodgson 20 40 Ffrancis Beswick 20 40 Jos. Gryme .... 10 20 Thos. Storr 10 10 Wm. Gradhill . . . 15 30 Chr. Stephenson . 20 20 Ralph Hodgson . 15 30 James Hamson . . 20 20 Zachary Cockerell 20 20 Robt. Witham . . 20 20 Thomas Sedman 20 40 Wm. Hodgson . . 20 20 George Campling 20 20 Henry Sedgfield . 20 20 William Becke . . 20 20 Richd. Sedgfield . 20 20 Jno. Storr 20 20 John Carr 5 10 Nathaniel Wrench 5 10 John Shepherd . . 10 20 These are only twenty names out of the list of the men and women fined. These twenty, it will be observed, were made to pay an aggre- gate sum of £770. Out of them, Christopher Stephenson, was a mere apprentice — indentured to Thomas Loeson. That he withstood perse- cution and endured in his form of faith is proved by the fact that more than twenty years later he was presented to the justices as having formed one of an assemblage of Quakers in Scarborough on October 12, 1684. 208 HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH How long Peter Hodgson remained a prisoner for conscience' sake in York Castle it is difficult to say, but it is certain that he was steadily persecuted for his religious tenets for many years. He appears to have been a man of substance and property ; a m.erchant in corn, flour, and provisions ; he owned land in Scar- borough, and his house in Carr Street, where his fellow Quakers assembled, seems to have been one of the principal mansions of the old borough. He gave a piece of his land as a burial ground for the members of the Society of Friends, and during his time he must have paid out a lot of money in fines, and yielded up to the baihffs a great deal of portable pro- perty. In 1664 he was one of several Scar- borough residents who were prosecuted in the Ecclesiastical Courts for non-attendance upon the services of the Established Church, and was committed to York Castle, where he appears to have remained until 1669. Two of his fellow-prisoners died during their confinement. On his release, the persistent persecution of him continued : his goods were continually being seized and sold ; on one occasion out of fifty pounds' worth of household furniture taken by the bailiffs, not more than ten pounds' worth went to the sheriff in satisfaction, the remaining forty pounds being paid to informers. 209 O YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION There is a record of his being fined £26 in 1671 ; at the same time similarly heavy fines were inflicted on William Hodgson and Margaret Hodgson ; Sir John Legard, Baronet, and William Lawson, Esquire, being Bailiffs of Scarborough at that time. On May 29, 1670, Tymotheus Fford, Gentle- man, and Nicholas Saunders, Gentleman, being bailiffs, hearing that the Quakers, who had been forcibly kept out of their meeting-house, had assembled in the open street outside, went thither and dispersed them, subsequently grant- ing warrants against 12 of them for this con- tumacy. The persecution continued without a break until towards the end of the century, and, in a minor degree, until far into the next. There are numerous entries respecting legal proceedings against the Quakers in the records of the Scarborough Corporation. In 1683 one William Jarratt is ordered payment of " sixteene shillings for going a journey to a Justice of Peace beyond Leeds concernynge a Quaker that was a speaker at a late conventicle." In the following year, John Knowsley, first Mayor of Scarborough under the new charter of incor- poration granted by Charles II., with Trystram Ffysche, Timotheus Fford, Joh'es Craven, and Thomas Sedman, Aldermen, tried a large number of Quakers— many of the Hodgson family 210 HODGSON OF SCARBOROUGH amongst them — for holding meetings, with the usual results of fines, seizure of goods, and im- prisonment. Even after the accession of William and Mary, when there was some relaxation of the laws against sectaries, the Scarborough usage of a body which was certainly considerable and influential in the town, went on. In 1705, it was resolved in Common Council " that noe person commonlie called a Quaker . . . shall from henceforth be maide free of this Corpora- tion, unless he or they shalle taike the oathe " — which was precisely what no Quaker could conscientiously do. And the informer continued to reap a good harvest against Quakers in Scarborough for a hundred years after that, for every now and then the Quakers refused to pay Militia and Navy rates — whereupon the informer stepped in, process followed, and goods were seized and sold. In one such affair, as late as 1797, occurs the name of the ancestor of a well-known Scarborough family — in that year, in March, Mr, Rowntree had his goods sold to the value of £1 17s. iid. for refusing to pay Navy rate. So it was — until more light and better manners came. " I have not met with one kindly or sympathetic remark about them (the Quakers)," says Asliton, " in all my varied reading of these times." But in religion and morals those were bad and 21X YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION worthless times, and the Quakers, whatever their faults of extravagance in speech may have been — and they had many — were a stand- ing reproach in life and conduct to most of their fellow Christians. 212 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME XI ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME WHOEVER has wandered much amongst the villages of the south-east corner of Yorkshire, between Doncaster and the Lincolnshire border, must needs have been struck by the number of names of undoubtedly Dutch origin which are seen on the tombstones in the churchyards. Vandravant, Vanderpante, Van de Linde, Gelder, or Van Gelder, Smagge — which was Smaque — Vaneasebeck, Rysedale — which was Ruuysdaal — Preem — which was Priejm : these are only a few copied down in a notebook at random. Nor can any traveller who has already been in the Netherlands fail to notice in this flat land, intersected by many rivers, streams, and canals, a curious resemblance to the scenery of Holland, Belgium, and Flanders, heightened by the presence of windmills and of farmsteads built very much after the Dutch style, with high gables and long sloping roofs. He will observe, moreover, that in the principal 215 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION town of this district, Thorne, there is, at this very day, a Dutch colony, the members of which still cherish and retain the speech, habits, and customs, and, to a considerable extent, the dress, of their ancestors across the North Sea. These people, in fact, are descendants of the Dutch and Flemish colonists who came into England with Cornelius Vermuyden, three hundred years ago, to help in the drainage of the Cambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, and Yorkshire fens, and, completing their labours in Hatfield Chase and Thorne Waste, settled down on the acres they had last reclaimed from marsh and morass. Until Vermuyden, under royal licence from Charles I., drained it, and made it available for cultivation, Hatfield Chase was no more than a vast swamp, covering nearly two hundred thousand acres, and extending in a north- easterly direction from Doncaster to Goole, thence southward b}^ the line of the Trent, and a little into the neighbouring counties of Nottingham and Lincoln. Up to the fourteenth century it had belonged to the Warrennes, Earls of Surre}^ ; from them it passed, about the middle of the fourteenth century, to the Crown. From the very earliest times it appears to have been a remarkable preserve of game, fish, deer, and rare birds : one reads that Edward Baliol, 216 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME after his deposition from the Scottish throne and during his confinement as a royal prisoner in England, was concerned in the hunting of red deer, roe deer, and fallow deer and in the taking of various sorts of fish within the Chase and Park of Hatfield. There were swanneries there in Tudor times : they supplied swans and cygnets to the table of Henry VHI. When James I. came to the throne, the deer of Hatfield were reckoned a thousand in number, and his eldest son. Prince Henry, was present at a great hunting there not long before his death. In those days the Chase seems to have presented the appearance of a vast swamp, in which were isolated areas of woodland : Camden says that in his time he there saw river-islands floating in wide stretches of water, and Leland, who was journeying in the district during the preparation of his Itinerary, writes that he went about in a boat. In the midst of the Chase was at one time the cell of the hermit known as William of Lindeholme ; in Hatfield itself was an ancient manor-house, once the seat of the Warrennes, and reputed to be the birthplace of William, second son of Edward III., who died in infancy and was buried in York Minster. Here, too, was born Thomas Hat- field, the great Prince-Bishop of Durham, who rode to the French wars attended by fifty 217 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION knights and a hundred and sixty gentlemen at arms. Of Edward BaHol's connection with Hatfield, whereto he was sent after his surrender in January, 1536, there are some curious particu- lars given in Buchon's Froissart (quoted from Fordun) and by Rymer. The agreement between Edward HI. and Baliol, was that the Scottish king should abandon all his rights, real or supposed, and his duties as sovereign, and assume the condition of a private gentleman. He was to receive, in return, an annual pension of £2,000, which was to be paid quarterly, and his dwelling-place was to be at Hatfield, in Yorkshire. But in the original agreement there was no provision for sporting rights, and that Baliol turned poacher soon after he went to Hatfield is proved by a pardon granted to him by the King, which Rymer prints in full detail. " Know," it runs, " that whereas our dear cousin Edward Baliol at various times hunted and took 16 stags, 6 hinds, 8 staggards [a male red deer of the 14th year], 3 fawns, and 6 roedeer, in the park, and fished in the ponds of the said lordship and took 2 pike of 3j feet long, 3 of 3 feet, 20 of which some were 2j feet long, 20 of 2 feet, 50 young pike of which some were i| feet, and 6 of which some were i foot long ; and also 109 perch, roach, 218 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME trench, and skelys, and 6 breams and bremettes : we, listening to the supplication of the said Edward, have pardoned him." Hatfield Chase remained under the Old Forest Law until the beginning of the reign of Charles L, when its drainage was begun by Cornelius Vermuyden, who, with his Flemish assistants, had already drained the fens of Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. Abraham de la Pryme, in a paper which he contributed to Number 275 of the Philosophical Transactions, tells some- thing of what was done at the draining. These levels (he writes) were effectually dischased, drained, and reduced to arable and pasture land at the expense of above £40,000 by Sir Cornelius Ver- muiden, a Dutchman. . . . Some of the trees found here were chopped and squared, others bored through, and others half-split with large wooden wedges with stones therein, and broken axe-heads, somewhat re- sembling the figure of sacrificing axes ; and near a large root in the parish of Hatfield were found eight or nine coins of some of the Roman Emperors very much consumed and defaced. . . . Hazle nut sand acorns have been frequently found at the bottom of the soil of these levels, and fir-tree apples or cones in large quantities together. Of the peat dug in the Chase after the draining, a writer in the Gentleman' s Magazine of 1785, says that it was generally black, and when 219 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION dried and broken resembled pitch, and un- doubtedly contained a great quantity of bitu- men, while another kind varied from a very light to a very dark brown, not bituminous, but vegetable, and containing, on analysis, a certain amount of oil and salts. Abraham de la Pryme came of a family of Huguenots which appears to have arrived in the Hatfield district either with Vermuyden or very soon afterwards. There were many of these French and Flemish Huguenot families in the district, and on the neighbouring borders of Lincolnshire. Many of them had fled from their native countries of France and Flanders after the affair of St. Bartholomew's Day in 1572 ; more came with Vermuyden ; at a later date — 1685 — the revocation of the Edict of Nantes reinforced their numbers. That they were present in the Hatfield, Thorne, and Epworth districts in large numbers in Charles I.'s time is proved by the fact that a chapel was specially built for them at Belton, in the Isle of Axholme, wherein services were held in Dutch and in French. During the Civil War many of them were forced out of the district and made for Thorney : Dr. E. M. Sympson, in his book on Lincolnshire, says that one family has been traced from Hatfield Chase to Thorney, whence it spread to Fleet, 220 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME Crowland, Swineshead, Brothertoft, and Sutter- ton, which process of colonization was doubtless repeated in many other instances. But the greater number of these French and Flemish settlers remained in the Chase ; there the de la Pryme family certainly remained. The first de la Pryme came from Ypres, in Flanders — many of his ancestors had been Mayors of Ypres, calling themselves then Priejm or Priem. Abraham de la Pryme's father was one Matthias de la Pryme, of whom little is known save that he was born in 1641, that he married Sarah, daughter of Peter Smague, or Smagge, a French- man, and that he lived at Hatfield, where in 1671 his son Abraham, clergyman, antiquary, diarist, and Fellow of the Royal Society, was born. Matthias was evidently a man of some substance, for he could afford to send his son to the University of Cambridge. This was at Abraham's own express desire ; Matthias's notion was that the lad should go to Glasgow University and in due time become a Presby- terian minister. Abraham appears to have been something of a precocious youth. His tastes for antiquities and for diary-making developed at an early age ; at twelve he began writing Ephemeris Vita, a Diary of my Own Life, which he kept up until his early death. But he was already nineteen, when he was admitted a 221 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION pensioner of St. John's College, in April, 1690. One of his Cambridge contemporaries was Sir Isaac Newton, from the neighbouring county of Lincoln, who was at Trinity. At Cambridge, Abraham de la Pryme gave up a good deal of his time to natural history, chemistry, and to prying into what was then called magic. In 1693-94 he proceeded B.A., took orders in the Established Church, and became curate of Broughton, near Brigg, in Lincolnshire. Here he seriously began his topographical studies, and wrote many papers which were deemed sufficiently valuable to be printed in the Philo- sophical Transactions. In 1696 he gave up his curacy and removed himself to Hatfield, with the intention of writing its history. About this time be began his correspondence with Dr. Gale, the eminent antiquary, who was Dean of York ; he also began to correspond with Sir Hans Sloane on matters of natural history and strange occurrences. In 1698 he left Hatfield for Hull, having been appointed Curate and Divinity Reader of Holy Trinity, at that time locally called the High Church. He remained in Hull three years, and collected a mass of material for his history of the town. In 1701 the Duke of Devonshire presented him to the living of Thorne, and in the same year he was elected a Fellow of the Royal 222 ABRAHAIM DE LA PRYME Society. Three years later, while visiting the sick in his parish, he contracted a fever, from the effects of which he died, June 12, 1704. He was buried in Hatfield Church. In the ten years of his literar}^ life, Abraham de la Pryme laboured hard and constantly in the interests of his native county, and especially in chronicling the things of interest in his own neighbourhood. He left a mass of manuscript behind him. His History of Hatfield remained unfinished, but considerably advanced ; his History of Hull, also uncompleted, extended to two folio volumes — a copy of it is amongst the Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum. Another big volume of manuscript contained the histories of Ripon, of Selby, of Doncaster, and of the West Riding ; another, of Hedon and the East Riding ; a third, of York and the North Riding ; a fourth, of Beverley ; a fifth, of the Drainage of Hatfield Chase ; a sixth, of Winterton, a parish of great interest in the north of Lincolnshire. He contributed a great many papers to the Transactions of the Royal Society, on such various subjects as Water Spouts, Trees found underground in Hat- field Chase, Fossil Shells and Roman pavements discovered in Lincolnshire, and on Hydrophobia — the last, a particularly interesting paper. All these show great diligence, observation, and 223 YORKSHIRExMEN OF THE RESTORATION attention to the details of a subject : he was evidently one of those inquisitive observers whose eyes are ever open, and who think no particular insignificant. But to us of this age Abraham de la Pryme's most important and valuable work is his diary, which after remain- ing in manuscript for a hundred and sixty years was at last carefully edited and included by the Surtees Society in its invaluable series of publications in 1870. Beyond the fact that he began keeping some record of his doings in his twelfth yesLV, there is little in the diary that tells one of Abraham de la Pryme's early days. In 1684-85, however, he chronicles the death of Charles II. " He is mightily lamented by every one," he writes, " as well by his enemies as his friends ; and [I] heard a gentleman say that came from London, that the citty was in tears, and most of the towns through which he came." In that year he began his travels, going by way of Howden to Hull, and thence to Beverley ; in the following year he paid his first recorded visit to York. Beverley, he writes, is a " large, delicate town," but York evidently made little impression upon him. It is, he observes, " not very fine," though the Minster has " a majestick and awfull presence." In his twentieth year he went further afield, journeying to Cambridge 224 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME by way of Lincoln and Sleaford, and remarking as a result of his observation of these centres that " 'tis a strange thing that great towns should so decay and be eaten up with time," from which we may infer that in 1690 neither Sleaford nor Lincoln were very flourishing. Of the studies which, one supposes, formed the legitimate and primary object of his life at Cambridge, he sets down few particulars, but he takes pains to record that in his Freshman's year he got " by my own propper study, labour, and industry, knowledge of all herbs, trees, and simples ... so that I could know any herb at first sight " — no mean accomplishment. About this time, whatever he might be doing in the way of learning theology, he began to dabble in the pursuit of what he calls " magic," / and with such persistency as to call down on his head a lecture from his friend Edmund Bohun, who, he records, wrote him " a very kind, thou' a very severe letter," in which he exhorted him to desist from these pursuits, and further " laid a company of most black sins to my charge which he said I committed by darring to search in such forbidden things." Getting his bachelor's degree in 1694, Abra- ."^aam -de la Pryme left Cambridge and magic behind him and went homeward to Hatfield, itraveUing through the Eastern Midlands so that 225 p YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION he might do a Httle sight-seeing in the old towns. Harborough [Market Harborough, in Leicestershire] he found " a very fine, stately magnificent market town " ; Leicester, " a large, open town " ; Derby, " mightily well situated, and adorned with many good and stately build- ings." His faculties of observation come out in this period of travel. He noted at one place "a leaden pump" — evidently a great novelty; at Lord Chaworth's park, near Annesley, in Nottinghamshire, he saw sheep which had four instead of two horns. But in the same year he turns from chronicling his impressions of places to setting down opinions about people. " Old Richard Baxter is dead," he writes, " the great and famous preacher up of reformation and puritanism. To give the divel his due . . . this Baxter was a man ... of great virtue, piety, and holiness of life, but exceedingly pas- sionate, and so fond of his own opinions and affections that he could not abide to hear them contradicted . . . the older he grew he was the more peevish, and became mightily enthu- siastical, conceited, and dogmatical." A little later he turns to chronicling mere gossip — about folk in high places. " They have a characteristic saying here," he sets down in 1694, " of the King, Queen, and her brother and sister : — 226 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME King William thinks all, Queen Mary talks all, Prince George drinks all. And Princess Anne eats all." Although he had been ordained soon after taking his degree, Abraham de la Pryme did not mount a pulpit until 1695. " Yesterday," he writes, " I preached at Bramwith, about two miles hence ; it was the first sermon that ever I preached." He says nothing of his text, nor of his sermon, nor whether it was liked or not — his antiquarian mind was elsewhere. " I observed in that little church," he proceeds, ** that there lys about ten or twelve Knights Templars or monks." Soon after this he an- nounces his entrance into the sphere of regular clerical work. " I agreed with Mr. Hammersley, minister of Roxby, to be his curate at Broughton in this shire. [Lincolnshire.] He ask'd me what I would have a year. I told him no more than others [Abraham de la Pryme was a man of some inherited means], viz., £30 per annum, out of which I gave £10 a year for my table." In the very next entry in his diary he mentions that at a certain neighbouring farmstead the swineherd's place is worth more than £30 a year, or, exceeding the value of his curacy, " by reason that they keep such a vast company of swine." During this curacy in Lincolnshire 227 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION he kept eyes and ears open, recording the results in his book. He appears to have been a good hand at getting recollections and reminiscences out of the people he met. " Yesterday," he writes on one occasion, " I was with an ingenious old man who had been a great Royalist in King Charles the First's days. Amongst other very observable things that he told me ... he says that they had a dog in their troup that every night had letters put betwixt his neck and his collar, which was made long on purpose, and that he would have gone to any garrison or place they told him off within 20 miles round about." Another old gentleman told him a story of Oliver Cromwell. According to this informant, " the Lord Protector's custom was when anything was proposed to him in debate or council to say to those who proposed it, * Wait a bit, wait a bit ; Fll go and consult the Lord,' after which said he would go apart and pray, and, if he liked not the proposition, would return to his consultors and announce, * The Lord will not have it ! ' " Nothing was too trifling for Abraham de la Pryme to set down in his diary. During his residence in Lincolnshire he records a variety of interesting, curious, and quaint matters and occurrences. He writes about certain well- digging operations in which he took a keen 228 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME interest ; he chronicles the violence and effects of the storms which swept over the county, and did much damage. He sets down particulars of the information which had been given him about the newly discovered Spaw at Knares- borough, concerning which numerous physicians were just then publishing explanatory pamphlets. He mentions that King William has just been on a visit to Lincoln, and that although great festivities had been prepared for him, his Majesty could take nothing but a porringer of milk, he having drunk too heavily at Sir John Brownlow's house the night before. He records the presence in his neighbourhood of young crows at Christmas, and adds that he thinks there is no bad omen in it. He says that at Caistor Fair there was nothing but gold to be had — there was no silver in the place. He jots down the price of wool and of barley in 1696— wool was igs. a stone, barley 22s. a quarter. About this time he was much exercised about clipped money — which is little wonder, considering that, as Macaulay observes, " the silver coin, which was then the standard coin of the realm, was in a state at which the boldest and most enlightened statesmen stood aghast." But he had pleasanter things to re- cord than Christmas crows and clipped coin. He writes of a visit to Mr. Nevil, of Winterton, 229 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION who showed him a large manuscript History of England, " writ by one of his ancestors in 1577 " ; also a book of heraldry, in a vast folio " as big as a Church Bible," which was all the more interesting because it had been made by the famous Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln. [This must, surely, have been one of the volumes mentioned by Izaak Walton in his Life of Sanderson: — "Though he would not be always loaden with these knotty points and distinctions, yet the study of old records, genealogies, and heraldry were a recreation so pleasing, that he would say they gave rest to his mind. Of the last of which I have seen two volumes."] And during this Lincolnshire residence, he en- countered a Norwegian gentleman, and had much pleasant and entertaining discourse with him about Norway : what seems to have most impressed him was hearing that the Norwegians were Lutherans, and that if any man dared to preach any other than Lutheran doctrine in that country, he was immediately beheaded. Abraham de la Pryme only held his Lincoln- shire curacy until i6g6 ; then he resigned it, and went home for a while to his native Hatfield, where in that December he chronicled the coming and effects of a truly terrible storm of snow which lasted from the 17th to the 20th, and produced the most awful flood ever known 230 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME in that neighbourhood, and a monetary loss which he sets down at no less than one million pounds. That winter, too, he notes the custom of the farmers of the South-East of Yorkshire to feed their sheep at that period of the year on holly leaves and bark ; they planted smooth- leaved holly, he says, all over their farms — which probably accounts for the plentifulness of the holly tree in that district to this day. But he was not left long to observe and chronicle in the quietude of Hatfield. Mr. Banks, a very worthy and estimable clergyman, rector of the " High Church " [Holy Trinity] at Hull wanted a Reader, and, hearing much of Abra- ham's abilities and character, enticed him to accept the vacancy. He was still but a deacon, so he went to York to get himself ordained priest. His account of this transaction is as naive as it is eminently characteristic of the times. The Archbishop's chaplain, he writes, asked him a question or two in the Greek Testament, and one or two more in Cicero's Epistles : the Archbishop himself asked a few more in divinity ; after which, he proceeds — and evidently much to his liking — the Arch- bishop " fell to talking of antiquitys," and asked him if he happened to have any old coins in his pocket. We may be sure that Abraham had many old coins in his pocket, and that they 231 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION were quickly produced for the prelate's inspection. The whole business of his ordination as priest, he mentions, cost him eleven shilHngs. Settled down at Hull as curate and Reader in Divinity in the great Church of the Market Place, he began collecting his materials for a history of Hull, and at the same time entered upon a pleasant correspondence with numerous men of note at that day and famous ever since. One was Dr. Gale, the learned Dean of York, to whom in his first letter he sent a collection of eleven old Roman coins, which had been found at Alburrow (Alkborough), in Lincolnshire, and with whom he afterwards corresponded on such matters as old manuscripts, monuments, tumuli, inscriptions, and folk-lore. He kept up a correspondence with other antiquaries on like subjects. And he began to correspond with the great Sir Hans Sloane, to whom he sent a very long, curious, and particular account of the madness of an unfortunate dog of his acquaintance, with an equally minute descrip- tion of the results following on its biting of a man ; with Sir Hans he also exchanged remarks on shells, petrified fish, jelly shot from stars, frog-spawn, fungi, trees, water-spouts ; indeed, on any natural history subject that occurred. His subjects were always many and various — the last entry in his diary is a copy of a letter 232 ABRAHAM DE LA PRYME to Ralph Thoresby, written from Thome, in January, 1703-4, in reference to the history of one Roger Portington, a Cavalier. That Abraham de la Pryme was greatly esteemed by those best qualified to judge of his personality and character is proved by the certificate of recommendation drawn up by some of his acquaintance, when, during his Hull curacy, he made application for the living of Finningley, a village near Hatfield, on the exact border line of Lincolnshire. He failed in his application, but he was consoled for his disappointment by being presented to the quiet living of Thorne, where, had all gone well with him, he might reasonably have expected to spend a long life in the preparation of many big books. But he was a good parson, as well as an indefatigable antiquary, and his death, at the early age of thirty-three, was the result of his devotion to his duty. Those folk of this day who would see something of his actual handiwork will find his History of Hatfield in the Lansdowne MSS.— some three hundred folio pages, all written in his neat, precise, legible handwriting. 233 OBADIAH WALKER XII OBADIAH WALKER MACAULAY, in writing about the dis- pensations employed under James II. for the purpose of enabHng Roman Catholics to hold ecclesiastical preferment in the Church of England, is particularly severe in his remarks upon two men of that time, Edward Sclater and Obadiah Walker. Sclater, who appears to have been akin to Simon Aleyn, the notorious vicar of Bray, who managed to retain his living during the troublous times of the Reformation, and changed his opinions twice within a few weeks, was a person of no great note, and was, no doubt, the wretch that Macaulay says he was. But Obadiah Walker, whose conduct, says Macaulay, was scarcely less infamous than that of Sclater, was a man of more consequence. Macaulay's account of him is founded on Gutch's Collectanea Curiosa, or Dodd's Church History, or Wood's Athenae Oxonienses, and on 287 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION certain passages in the Ellis Correspondence, and some extracts from the Commons Journals of 1689. He sums up Walker's career in a characteristic paragraph — " He was an aged priest of the Church of England, and was well known in the University of Oxford as a man of learning. He had in the late reign been suspected of leaning towards Popery, but had outwardly conformed to the established religion, and had at length been chosen Master of Uni- versity College. Soon after the accession of James, Walker determined to throw off the dis- guise which he had hitherto worn. He absented himself from the public worship of the Church of England, and, with some fdlows and under- graduates whom he had perverted, heard mass daily in his own apartments. One of the first acts performed by the new Solicitor-General (Thomas Powis, * an insignificant man, who had no qualification for high employment except servility ') was to draw up an instrument which authorized Walker and his proselytes to hold their benefices, notwithstanding their apostasy. Builders were immediately employed to turn two sets of rooms into an oratory. In a few weeks the Roman Catholic rites were publicly performed in University College. A Jesuit was quartered there as chaplain. A press was established there under royal licence for the 238 OBADIAH WALKER printing of Roman Catholic tracts. During two years and a half, Walker continued to make war on Protestantism with all the rancour of a renegade : but when fortune turned he showed that he wanted the courage of a martyr. He was brought to the bar of the House of Commons to answer for his conduct, and was base enough to protest that he had never changed his religion, that he had never cordially approved of the doctrines of the Church of Rome, and that he had never tried to bring any other person within the pale of that Church. It was hardly worth while," concludes Macaulay, " to violate the most sacred obligations of law and of plighted faith, for the purpose of making such converts as these." Save for his reference to him as " a man of learning," Macaulay does small justice to Obadiah Walker in the foregoing passage. Nor is his account of him wholl}'' correct. He communi- cates the impression that Walker was actually tried at the bar of the House of Commons — the Commons had no power to try him, and he was never brought to the bar ; what really happened was that he was brought before a Committee of the House and asked to explain his conduct in relation to certain charges. As to his conduct being " infamous," it was no more infamous than the conduct of any man 239 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION who conscientiously substitutes one form of religion for another, and if he continued to hold his Oxford preferments after his change of religion it must be remembered that he had Royal warrant and encouragement, and that there seemed at least some prospect of a general change in the national order of things. But apart from his dealings in religious matters Obadiah Walker was a highly notable person of his day, and a man of whose attainments York- shiremen have a good right to be proud. One of those Yorkshiremen whose lives are chiefly spent outside the county, he kept his native place in remembrance to the end, for he left his books to the folk of Worsborough —an ancient village which still retains much of its old-world pleasantness in the very heart of the coal-fields. It is stated in the Dictionary of National Biography that Obadiah Walker was born at Darfield, but Wilkinson, the historian of Wors- borough, discovered the entry of his baptism and proved that he was born at Worsborough in 1616. The old chapel-of-ease of Worsborough, originally an aisleless Traditional church, and still full of interesting monuments of the Rockley, Edmunds, and Elmhirst famihes, was a daughter church to Darfield, but that Worsborough itself must have been a place of some importance in the sixteenth century seems to be proved by 240 OBADIAH WALKER the fact that a Grammar School was founded there in the time of Edward VI. At this Obadiah Walker was doubtless educated. In 1633 he matriculated at Oxford ; in 1635, though not yet twenty years of age, he was Fellow of University College ; a little later he is heard of as being a very successful tutor. In 1644 when Charles I. and his court were established at Oxford, Obadiah Walker had the honour of preaching before the King, and was rewarded with the Degree of Bachelor of Divinity. Three years later the Commonwealth Parliament turned him out of his Fellowship, and — like many another churchman of that time — he wandered away from his college to pick up a precarious living wherever he could turn his teaching abilities to account. He appears to have gone abroad ; there is some evidence that he went to Italy ; what is certain is that for twelve years after the execution of the King, he was away from Oxford. But when Charles II. was restored to his throne, Obadiah was restored to his Fellowship at University College, and in 1665 he was olfered the Mastership, and declined it — to accept it, on election, eleven years later. It was as Master of University College that Obadiah Walker chiefly attained notoriety. His Popish tendencies began to be talked of as 241 Q YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION early as 1678 ; in that year they were the subject of severe criticism in the House of Commons. On the accession of James H. he was summoned to London to consult with the King as to the chances of Romanism in the University of Oxford ; in Oxford itself his doings excited great derision ; he was openly insulted in the streets, and scurrilous songs, representing him as knave rather than fool were sung about the colleges. In 1686 he set up a private printing press in Oxford, and began to issue Popish books— these are the productions to which Macaulay alludes. And in 1688, not so long before his Popish master was obliged to flee the country, he appears in the character of a convert maker, evidently acting upon instruc- tions. One notable instance of his work in this direction is before us in his correspondence with his old pupil, Dr. Radchffe, another York- shireman, whom James earnestty desired to have on his side. In 1677 Dr. Radcliffe, " wealth continuing to flow in upon him with very plenti- ful streams," says his biographer of 1715 (Curll's Second Edition, at the Dial and Bible, in Fleet Street), spent a goodly sum in presenting a magnificent east window to the chapel of Uni- versity College, whereat he had been educated, under Walker, and in the following year, " some time before the Bishops were sent to the Tower 242 OBADIAH WALKER and matters were carrying on towards the introduction of Popery," the King set one Saunders, a Dominican, to the task of Radcliffe's conversion. Saunders had no luck — RadcHffe replied that *' If the King would be graciously pleased to let him jog on in the ways he had been bred up in, during this life, he would run the risque of incurring the penalties they threaten'd him with, in that which was to come." Thereupon, says Radcliffe's biographer, " Mr. Walker had orders, from above, to write to him, which he did several times ; not only setting before him the great advantages he would receive hereafter by his admission into the pale of the Romish Church, but the benefits that would attend him in this life." He then gives Walker's letter to RadcUffe, written from University College, May 22, 1688, and RadcHffe's answer, sent from Bow Street, Covent Garden, three days later : they are such excellent specimens of the style and characteristics of their writers that they will always be well worth consideration and many re-printings. Worthy Sir (writes Walker to Radcliffe). Were it possible for me to bring you to a true sense of your unhappy condition, in pinning your faith upon a few modern authorities of no credit, I should grudge no pains of producing more and more instances, which 243 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION inspired writers and the Fathers of the Church, abound with. But since a man of your excellent parts, and great knowledge in things that concern the health of the body, that is only to endure for a moment, thinks it of his weight to consult the welfare of your soul, whose pains and whose pleasures must be equally everlasting ; give me leave to tell you, from a heart full of grief for your unwillingness to be convicted, that I have left nothing unattem.pted to absolve mine in relation to the argument you are so willing to drop the pursuit of. You bid me read Dr. Tillotson upon the Real Presence, with his Answer to Mr. Sergeant's Rule of Faith : I have done both, with the greatest impartiality, and find no other impression from them than what fixes me in the profession of that faith which, I bless God, after so many years of adhering to a contrary persuasion, I have, through His great mercy, embraced. I have entreated you to do the same, by authors whose judgments have ever been had in remembrance, and whose determination must be infallible, from the Holy Spirit that conducted them ; and you send me word, " the duties of your profession tend your studies another way, and that you have neither leisure nor inclination to turn over pages, that have no value in them, but their antiquity." This is, indeed, somewhat unkind ; but the good- ness you always receive me with, on every other occasion, and the regard you have always shown, and say you will further show, to the Foundation which I have been thought fit, howsoever unworthy, to preside over, engages me to make you as little uneasy as possible. I shall therefore, pursuant to your desire, dismiss the matter, which I could willingly 244 OBADIAH WALKER wish to hold longer in debate, on account of the reasons before-mentioned ; and since you seem ardently, to desire a mutual correspondence as to other affairs, continue to oblige you, in fulfilling every request you shall make to me. In the meantime, be assured, that I shall be incessant in my prayers to the Great God above, and to the Blessed Virgin, for her inter- cession with the Lamb that died for the sins of the world, that you may be enlightened, and see the things that belong to the peace of your immortal soul ; who am, in all respects, worthy sir, your most obliged and most humble servant, O. Walker. Sir (replies Radcliffe to Walker), I should be in as unhappy a condition in this life, as you fear I shall be in the next, were I to be treated as a turn-coat ; and must tell you, that I can be serious no longer, while you endeavour to make me believe what, I am apt to think, you give no credit to yourself : Fathers, and Councils, and antique Authorities, may have their influence in their proper places ; but should any of them all, though covered with dust 1,400 years ago, tell me, that the bottle I am now drinking with some of your acquaintance, is a wheel-barrow, and the glass in my hand a salamander, I should ask leave to dissent from them all. You mistake my temper, in being of an opinion that I am otherwise byass'd, than the generality of mankind are. I had one of your new convert's poems in my hands just now ; you will know them to be Mr. Dryden's, and on what account they are written, at first sight. Four of the best lines and most apropos, run thus : 245 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION By Education most have been misled, So they believe, because they so were bred : The Priest continues what the Nurse began. And so the Child imposes on the Man. You may be given to understand, from him, that having been bred up a Protestant at Wakefield, and sent from them in that persuasion to Oxford, where, during my continuance, I had no relish for absurdities, I intend not to change principles and turn Papist in London. The advantages which you propose to me, may be very great, for all that I know ; God Almighty can do very much, and so can the King, but you'll pardon me, if I cease to speak like a phy- sician for once, and, with an air of gravity, am very apprehensive that I may anger the one, in being too complaisant to the other. You cannot call this pin- ning my faith to any man's sleeve ; those that know me, are too well apprised of a quite contrary tendency. As I never flattered a man myself, so 'tis my firm resolution never to be wheedled out of my real senti- ments, which are, that since it has been my good fortune to be educated according to the usage of the Church of England, established by law, I shall never make myself so unhappy, as to shame my teachers and instructors, by departing from what I have imbibed from them. Yet, though I shall never be brought over to confide in your doctrines, no one breathing can have a greater esteem for your conversation, by letter or word of mouth than. Sir, your most affec- tionate and faithful servant, John Radcliffe. There vi^as another Yorkshireman of that age, 246 OBADIAH WALKER a much more bigoted Protestant than the famous doctor ever was, who was equally de- lighted to maintain a correspondence with Obadiah Walker, even when he had fallen into disgrace and been degraded by the University authorities. As far back as 1678 Ralph Thoresby had furnished Walker, through the notorious and doubtful-charactered Dr. Nathaniel John- ston, of Pontefract, with some ancient Saxon coins, which were designed for reproduction in Walker's Latin translation of Spelman's King Alfred, published at Oxford in the year just named. Fifteen years later Walker was en- trusted with the writing of the chapter on coins in Gibson's edition of Camden's Britannia, and Thoresby again made him a further offer of help — referred to in the following letter from Walker, who by this time was nearly eighty years of age. August 2yth, 1693. My ill-health will beg pardon for my incivility in not speedier returning to your most obliging letter. The infirmities of old age press eagerly upon me ; yet so that I sometimes get a little respite. I return you my humble thanks for your kind offer of the perusal of your coins ; might it be done without in- convenience, I would entreat the sight of what ancient British, or what Roman concerning Britain, as also those of the Saxons, which I did not peruse in the edition of the History of King Alfred. 247 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Your Runic ones will also be useful to us : I value most those which have faces upon them, the reverses being generally of the governors of the minting-places, or the names of the mint-masters ; which is also the like in those of ancient Gallia and France : the reason might be that their evil coining might be known and punished, but this renders their reverses not so con- siderable as those of the Romans. If that description of coins and medals be thought worthy of a second impression, I will take the confidence to beg your assistance, because we shall then add the description also of particular coins. Thoresby sent his coins for Walker's examina- tion through Awnsham Churchill, the publisher of Gibson's Camden, and was heartily thanked by all concerned for his trouble. But that he suffered the usual fate of all antiquaries who lend out their treasures is shown by an entry in his diary, under date June lo, 1694 : — Received a kind visit from Mr. Bright Dixon (the Duke of Leeds his Chaplain) who brought my coins from the editors of Camden's Britannia, the examining of which, and concern for the loss and exchange of several, took up forenoon. One at least of the missing coins was dis- covered and restored by Walker himself, through Gibson, who, a little later, earnestly pressed Thoresby to pay a visit to the South. This he did in the following spring, and in May, 1695, 248 OBADIAH WALKER called, in company with Churchill, with whom he had just been to see Rymer, the antiquary and compiler of Feeder a, upon " poor old Mr. Obadiah Walker," of whom Thoresby remarks that he was " an ingenious and obliging person, whose misfortune or mistake rather that occa- sioned it, I am sorry for." This, of course, is Thoresby's way of referring to Walker's per- version to Popery — a system of which Thoresby cherished a deep horror. That he was not averse, however, to cultivating the old man's company is shown by the fact that next day, taking his brother with him, he again called upon Walker, and, says he, " the courteous old gentleman walked with us to the Temple, and introduced us to the ingenious Mr. Charlton's museum, who showed us a noble collection of Roman coins." According to Thoresby, Walker was at this time living under the name of Williams, and " at Covent Garden." Various writers have stated that the old man, after being deprived of his degrees and his Mastership, spent his last days in poverty. But there is no indication from Thoresby that Walker was in particularly indigent circumstances when he saw him, and " at Covent Garden " probably refers to Dr. Radcliffe's roof in Bow Street. For the great physician's biographer expressly states that Rad- 249 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION cliffe made full provision for Walker : according to him Radcliffe was " a constant Friend and Benefactor to this great man : For tho' he could not be induced to adhere to his (Walker's) Opinion in Matters of Religion, he would always abide by his Determination in Points of Learning ; and out of a generous Sense of the Pressure Mr, Walker labour'd under, on Account of his Non-compliance with the Governors that were set over us, by the late King James his Abdi- cation, from the time of his first coming to London after the Scene of Affairs were chang'd in Oxford, gave him the Allowance of a very handsome Competency, to the Day of his Death ; not even holding himself to supply him to his latest breath, but contributing largely to his Funeral Expenses, that he might be conducted honourably to his Grave, in Pancras Churchyard, where he was privately interred ; and some years after, a very decent Monument was erected to his Memory with this modest Inscription, and the two first letters of his name, O. W., in a Cypher. PER BONAM FAMAM, ET PER INFAMIAM." What did "poor old Mr. Obadiah Walker," thus furtively laid to rest in St. Pancras, and getting no more recognition than a bit of stone 250 OBADIAH WALKER carven with his bare initials and an unusual inscription, really do in his long life ? He was certainly a great scholar. He was Master of University College — the very oldest college in the foremost English University. He was held in high estimation by many great men of the day. That little matter of a change in religious opinions, which brought down Macaulay's Clap- ham-like condemnation, reduced him to poverty, and caused him to die in obscurity ; had it happened a hundred and fifty years later, he would have figured as one of " a band of dis- tinguished converts," been regarded with mighty and overmuch interest, and perhaps have died a Prince of the Church. Maybe, to be sure, he was not quite a Newman, and he was certainly not a Manning, but he did things of which his fellow Yorkshiremen may be proud. Nobody reads his books nowadays, yet he wrote many good books. In 1659 he published Some Instructions Concerning the Art of Oratory. In 1672 came out his Of Education, Especially of Young Gentlemen ; it was published by Henry Brome, in St. Paul's Churchyard, in octavo, price half a crown ; whoever will turn to Professor Arber's Term Catalogues, 1668- 1709, will find that this work was frequently reprinted, and so evidently held in high repute in those days. In 1673 appeared his Artis 251 YORKSHIREMEN OF THE RESTORATION Rationis in three books ; in 1674 Paraphrases and Annotations of the Epistles of St. Paul. He wrote a work on Optic Glasses in 1679, and in the following year issued a well-known tract on The Benefits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ to Mankind — five years later he published a Life of Christ. In 1691 came out his Instructions in the Art of Grammar ; in 1692 his Greek and Roman History Illustrated hy Coins and Medals. We have already seen that he helped Dr. Gibson in his editions of Camden's Britannia ; it is probable that he did a great deal more literary work, all particulars of which have been lost ; in Arber's big pages, for instance, there are references to him which require a lot of careful research. He was one of the many to whom the author- ship of the highly popular Whole Duty of Man was attributed : Thomas Hearne, the Oxford antiquary, has a good deal to say on this point in relation to both Obadiah Walker and his friend Abraham Woodhead : nowadays, it is pretty well established that the real author was neither Walker nor Woodhead, nor Henry More, nor Lady Pakington, nor Archbishop Sterne, nor Baron Samuel von Pufendorf, but was, without doubt, Richard Allestree, who in that case should be more celebrated than he is, seeing that his book for some fifty or sixty 252 OBADIAH WALKER years was the most popular volume in England. But Obadiah Walker may have had some know- ledge of the authorship, so, too, may Abraham Woodhead, some of whose tracts and pamphlets Walker printed and published at the private press which James II. allowed him to set up in Oxford. Those tracts — the forerunners of the Romanizing literature which began to be so evident after 1832 — are now scarce, and highly prized by collectors ; many of them were given by the late Sir Thomas Brooke to the library of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, and it is not the least feature in the interest attaching to them that some, at any rate, of these were printed by the " courteous old gentleman " whom Thoresby was proud to know, whom Macaulay styled " infamous," about whom the Oxford undergraduates sang scurrilous songs, and whom John Radcliffe laid, almost secretly, to rest in an obscure corner of a London churchyard. 253 Printed in Great Britain by UNWIN BROTHERS, UMITED WOKING AND LONDON London Trees The Outer Circle thoma^s^'burke Author of* Nights in Town," " Limehouse Nights," etc. Cr. Svo. ys. 6J. net. This is again a London book, but in it the author discovers a different London from that of "Nights in Town" and "Out and About." 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