By this time, Alice's brother George, now aged 28, was reaching success in his endeavours to recover his sequestered estates and find a wife.
Their uncle William Wandesford had been working for some time on the first problem, which was made difficult by the shortage of funds, and he had hit upon the solution. A distant connection of the family, Richard Darley, was an influential man on the York Committee for Compounding with Delinquents and had promised his help in return for Alice's marriage to his nephew. Alice was now twenty-five and she had turned down better offers because, as her aunt had said to Captain Innes, she didn't want to marry. But her uncle said the alternative was ruin for the family and her mother was anxious for them all. A strange sort of persuasion, she thought, between a sword in one hand and a compliment in the other, but she knew the duty of a gentry daughter and William Thornton was a sober, religious man. She agreed.
Meanwhile, George had finally managed to negotiate a marriage contract with Eleanor, the eldest daughter of Sir John Lowther of Lowther Castle near Penrith.
On Easter Eve, 29 March 1651, a rift between George and his 23 year old brother Christopher was healed by Alice. George had become angry because a mischief-making servant had told him lies about Christopher. Christopher had been incensed at George believing them. The ill-feeling between them had grown to such a pitch of anger and animosity that neither of them would be able to take Holy Communion on Easter Sunday. Alice had taken things in hand. She calmed them down, entreating them to ask pardon of God and each other for all that had gone wrong between them. At last they were able to forgive each other freely and, in zeal and devotion, they were all able to receive the Holy Sacrament the next day. The memory was to be a great comfort to her.
Two days later, his quarrel with Christopher made up, his estates freed from sequestration and his marriage arranged, George was on his way to Richmond to discuss business with his uncle. Having spent the previous night at Harry Darcy's at nearby Colburn, he called in at Hipswell. Leaving his mother and sister after loving farewells and having knelt for his mother's blessing, he set off once more, telling his Irish footman James Brodrick to meet him in Richmond at two o'clock. And so he rode on towards the River Swale.
The Swale is a fast flowing river and in those days was especially liable to flash flooding. The floods fall, Alice said, down from the dales with a mighty mountainous force. She had been nearly caught out once or twice – once, when going between Hipswell and her aunt Norton's, the water had been only a little above the horse's fetlocks when she began to cross, but the flood came down with such speed that the water had risen to the middle of the girths before she reached safety. She was saved because she was only half the horse's length from the further bank by then – if she had been a couple more yards from safety, she would have met with disaster.
So when George rode by the family's little chapel on the top of the river bank and he saw that there was a wedding that day, he asked the people whether the Swale might be ridden. Yes, they said – there had been a flood but it had fallen and some of them had crossed the water that morning. So he wished them joy in their marriage and rode very slowly down the bank towards the wathplace, as fords were called in the dialect.
Two men on the other bank saw him going as carefully and slowly as foot could fall – and then they saw the flood come suddenly and mightily down. They ran to the river. But they could only see his horse swimming to the bank and shaking itself. They caught it by the bridle and they looked for the rider – no sign of him. They ran to Easby and to Richmond, crying the news and calling for help. The news came to Hipswell, a grievous and crushing blow, while great numbers flocked down to the river and began to search for George's body.
It was John Plummer, one of the men who had been called as a witness against him for his sequestration, who found him on the Wednesday, four miles downstream of Richmond in a pool near Catterick Bridge. They thought, from the fact that he was unmarked except for one bruise on his nose, that he had struck his face on some great stone – there were stones like that in abundance, Alice said, at that wathplace. He had been an excellent swimmer, but that hadn't saved him. They took his body up and laid it that night at Thomson's at Catterick Brigg, fearing that taking him to his mother's would only deepen her grief and perhaps endanger her life. The next day, the Richmondshire gentry accompanied the coach that took him to Kirklington to be buried inside the church near the tomb of his great-grandfather Sir Christopher.
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| St Michael's, Kirklington |
Charles II and the Scots invade England: 1651
So the shocked and grief-stricken Mrs Wandesford and her children will hardly have been paying attention when, in August, Charles II and his Scottish supporters invaded England and Cromwell's troops again marched through Yorkshire.
The town of Carlisle wouldn't let them enter and very few Englishmen were joining their army. Cromwell marched at speed from Perthshire to the River Tyne and from there – 20 miles a day in extreme heat, with the country people carrying the troops' arms and equipment – he reached Ferrybridge on 19 August.
The young king had decided to make for the Severn valley, where many had supported his father, but the people there did not welcome a Scottish invasion. On 6 September 1651, his army was routed by Cromwell and his fellow generals at the Battle of Worcester. The Scottish general David Leslie was captured and put in the Tower. Many of the fleeing Scots were killed by locals as they tried to reach the border. Around 10,000 prisoners were taken, most of them Scots, and they were sent to work draining the fens or shipped off to America. Charles was on the run for six weeks before he could escape to France – his experiences had taught him more about the people than his father had ever known.
Now Parliament's rule was secure and Scotland was under English military rule. Cromwell had already begun with massacres at Drogheda and Wexford to complete the final crushing of the Irish rebellion. After eleven dreadful years and an enormous death toll, Ireland would soon be subdued and very many more Protestant settlements created on land confiscated from Catholics.
Note
That was the end of the Third Civil War 1649-51
The World Turn'd Upside Down
When Christmas had been banned, a ballad called "The World Turn'd Upside Down" had appeared in print. Its refrain was
Yet let's be content, and the times lament, you see the world turn'd upside down
For many across the country, the Wandesfords included, the words must have seemed all too true.
Society had been turned upside down during the years of fighting. Gentlemen and nobles had found themselves fighting alongside artisans and working men. Ordinary men were driven by hunger into becoming soldiers and some found a chance at last of revenge for old grievances against the sort of men who had always had the upper hand. Revolt and new ideas were in the air.
There were new religious sects like the Quakers – George Fox, their founder, had made followers across the North and East Ridings – and there were Baptists among Parliamentarian leaders. There were political revolutionaries like the Levellers. There were religious radicals – sects like the Fifth Monarchists who believed Jesus was coming any moment to begin a thousand-year reign – and wandering self-proclaimed messiahs. Witch panics had broken out. Over 300 people were executed – most by strangling at the stake before burning – in Scotland in the space of eighteen months. The hysteria had spilled over into Berwick. Twenty had died in Newcastle. Matthew Hopkins, who called himself the Witchfinder General, was active in East Anglia, where about a hundred people were executed.
Note
For estimates of the death toll from battle and disease, see for example this Wikipedia entry
Next: 12. From Alice Wandesford's marriage to the return of the King: 1651-1660
