Thomas Milner of Skutterskelfe: the life & times of a Tudor gentleman

Thomas Milner of Skutterskelfe, a gentleman of about sixty-four years of age, made his will on 28 June 1589, the year after the Spanish Armada.  He had inherited his mother's share of the estate of his grandfather, Thomas Lindley, including one-third of the manor of Skutterskelfe where he lived with his wife Frances Bate and their daughter Mary, aged twenty-one. 

He does not seem to have been suffering from ill health when he made his will – simply describing himself as "whole of mind and remembrance thanks be given to God" – and was possibly prompted to do so because of his extreme irritation at the behaviour of his wife's family over the estate of his father-in-law, who had recently died.  Thomas's will, after careful directions for his burial in All Saints' at Hutton Rudby and legacies to the church (with forthright comments about the current incumbent and his predecessors), proceeds with a bequest to his wife:

"my best breeding mare, my best nag to ride upon, with five of my best kine."

This is immediately followed by a confirmation that she is to have

"all such things as in right she ought in conscience to have and be answered of"

continuing, in a fling against his mother-in-law (for how could he leave his wife his father-in-law's goods?)

"either of mine, or of the goods of her father to whom she was executor, and got nothing thereby of things certainly known to be embezzled at the death of her father by her mother as may appear by a note [in] writing set down whereof she should have had a part, and got nothing through the greedy dealings of her [un]loving brethren, and the witness of some of no great honesty nor yet true feelings therein"

After this, he continues with the disposal of the residue of his estate to his wife and daughter, a legacy to the poor of the parish, and bequests and legacies to family, servants and godchildren.  His will, and the surscription set above his burial place in accordance with its provisions, provide us with valuable details of his family and a picture of gentry life in Cleveland in the sixteenth century.

The Roman Catholic population of Hutton Rudby, c1780 to 1830

After the Reformation, the mediaeval frescoes in Hutton Rudby parish church were whitewashed over and a wealthy parishioner left money in his Will for a pulpit to be installed, in accordance with the new Protestant emphasis on preaching.

Even so, in the late 16th century, Rudby was still known as one of the local centres of Catholicism and we know of two prominent Catholics in the parish: Sir John Ingilby and the Venerable Mary Ward.

Sir John Ingilby of Lawkland owned the manor of Rudby.  He was prosecuted for recusancy in 1604.  A labourer from Crathorne destroyed a seat in a close in Rudby which belonged to Sir John “on which the said John, an old man and lame, was wont to rest himself”. 

Mary Ward (1585-1645) lived in quietly in Rudby parish near the end of her life, after her many hard years of journeying in Europe and her struggle to found the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  In 1642, during the Civil Wars, she came back to her native Yorkshire and took refuge at Hutton Rudby with her Ingilby relatives.  During her time there, Mary prayed at the shrine of Our Lady at Mount Grace.

I think we can assume that she stayed in the old manor house of Rudby, which stood beside the river Leven.  (There is nothing of it to be seen today - only a field, across the road from the church).  In this obscure corner of the Ingilby estates it seems very unlikely that the family maintained another house that could be suitable for sheltering an elderly and infirm woman and her companions.

Hutton Rudby was, in those days, a very remote place and in early 1643 Mary decided that she must move to Heworth near York, in order to be in communication with friends and supporters.  She died there on 30 January 1645.  She was the foundress of the Bar Convent, York.

Apart from Sir John and Mary Ward, we know very little of Catholics living in the village - until the baptismal registers for St Mary's in Crathorne provide us with names for the period c1780 to 1830.