Alice Wandesford in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

The next series of posts are set in the 17th century.  It is my retelling of the life of Alice Wandesford during the Wars of the Three Kingdoms – the much more accurate name now given to the English Civil War of the 1640s.  

Alice was a girl of the Yorkshire gentry, thirteen years old when the Wars began and thirty-four at the end of the republic and the restoration of the monarchy.  It was a time of tumultuous upheaval in which Britain was permanently changed and during those years the North Riding witnessed skirmishes, small battles, sieges, large armies, and military occupation.

Alice Wandesford (1626-1707) began to write about her life when she was 47 years old, to defend herself against slander following a disastrous rupture with a woman she had looked on as a friend.  Her work is known – and studied – as The Autobiography of Mrs Alice Thornton of East Newton.

She rewrote it and added to it and in all, she wrote four books.  In 1875, the Surtees Society published a composite version edited by Charles Jackson and this is available online for free on Google Books.  

The second of her books, thought for the last hundred years to be lost, was found in the Durham Cathedral Archives in 2019 by Dr Cordelia Beattie, a Senior Lecturer in Mediaeval History, University of Edinburgh.  Dr Beattie also found the fourth book among papers in private hands.  With luck, before long all four will be available in print and online.

I have used the Surtees edition and Raymond A Anselment's 2014 edition of My First Booke of My Life, available as an ebook.

I hope I've written an account which brings the times to life.  I decided not to use footnotes for that reason.  But I've used so many sources – these are the invaluable ones:

The Story of the Family of Wandesforde of Kirklington & Castlecomer ed. by Hardy Bertram McCall 1904.  It can be found here 

The BCW Project  

This is an endless source of information – Timelines, Biography, Military, and Church and State.  And there is plenty on Wikipedia.

For the Parliamentarians of Yorkshire: 
The Extent of support for Parliament in the Yorkshire during the early stages of the First Civil War by Andrew James Hopper (1999) here 

A guide not to be missed:
The First Great Civil War in the Tees Valley 1642-1646: A Guide by Robin Daniels and Phil Philo here

For Ireland:

This interview with Dr. Micheal Ó Siochrú by Cathal Brennan gives a very useful overview: here  

The personal and professional relationships between Thomas Wentworth, Earl of
Strafford and his closest advisors by Charlotte Kate Brownhill 2004: here 

The King's Peace and The King's War by C V Wedgewood

Perhaps before long the re-enactment socities will be able to hold events again – until then, and for a taste of the 17th century, why not watch the 2016 promotional video made by the Sealed Knot?  It's on youtube here 

A note about Richmondshire and the North Riding

Yorkshire was divided into three Ridings (thirdings): North, East and West.

For a map of the pre-1832 parishes of the North Riding, see here

The North Riding covered a smaller area than today's administrative area called North Yorkshire, which has a population of about 1.16 million.  (The population of England is nearly 67.9 million).

Richmondshire was the name given to the western part of the North Riding.  It contained the Borough of Richmond and the wapentakes of Gilling West; Gilling East; Hang West; Hang East; and Hallikeld.  See here.  Nowadays, Richmondshire is the name of a district council within the county council of North Yorkshire.  

(I've explained the part of the North Riding called Cleveland here)

Next post: 1. The Wandesfords of Kirklington