13. Mrs Alice Thornton of East Newton: 1660-1707

 

East Newton Hall today  [By Roger Smith CC BY-SA 2.0]

Alice made her home among her husband's people and remained at East Newton for the rest of her days.  Her marriage had been one of convenience born out of family necessity.  Unfortunately, William's position and fortune turned out less than expected and he didn't manage their finances well, so that Alice's inheritance from her mother had to be used to rescue them.  And he wasn't the strong support that Mrs Wandesford must have wished for Alice, and often he was not much practical use, being frequently ailing and melancholic.  

But a very real love grew between him and Alice.  She was deeply grieved when he died aged forty-four on 17 September 1668.  He was, she wrote, 

a most dear and tender, virtuous and loving husband, which took part with me in all my sorrows and sufferings, comforted me in sadnesses.  We walked together in dear love and union.

And what happened to the others?

Her widowed brother-in-law Sir Thomas Danby had died aged 50 not long after Alice left Richmondshire.  He was in London at the time of his death in August 1660 and he was buried in the north choir aisle of York Minster.  

His heir was his eldest son Thomas Danby – he had gone to Dublin with Mrs Wandesford and had to leave in a hurry when the rebellion broke out.  Thomas married Margaret Eure in 1659, was MP for Malton and the first Mayor of Leeds.  He was killed in a sword fight in a London tavern in 1667.  The circumstances were murky.  Alice's great-grandson Thomas Comber recorded in his memoir of Lord Deputy Christopher Wandesford that in 1776 he was told by William Danby of Swinton that it was murder, carried out at the instigation of Thomas's wife Margaret. 

Thomas and Margaret had two sons.  The eldest boy, another Thomas, inherited the estates but died unmarried and was succeeded by his younger brother Christopher.  Christopher died a couple of years later from a fall from his horse while out hunting on Watlass moor.  Neither boy reached the age of 21.

So the Danby estates passed in 1683 to the boys' 50 year old uncle Christopher.  He was the younger of the boys who had been in Dublin with the Wandesfords.  

Christopher had gone out to Virginia in his twenties and there he had met and married – without his father's permission – Anne Colepepper.  Much later, Anne was to write an account of her marriage for her son Abstrupus and in it she described Christopher unflatteringly as an "imprudent weak husband".  Their marriage had caused a family rift and it was because of this, and money disputes with his brother Thomas, and especially because of great ill-feeling between Anne and her sister-in-law Margaret, that Christopher and Anne Danby were often with Alice and William Thornton.  This ended badly when Anne turned on Alice and began to spread malicious and unfounded gossip against her – which was the reason why Alice wrote her autobiography to vindicate herself.  

When Christopher inherited the estates, he turned them over to his son.  Abstrupus made money in the wool trade, sold off the outlying estates including Thorp Perrow and began the building of the mansion house at Swinton Park.  

Alice's troubled brother John had died before she was widowed.  He was aged 32 and MP for Richmond at the time of his death on 2 December 1666.  The poor man was often ill – his mental health had been uncertain ever since the death of his brother George.  Alice took comfort in the fact that, although he had been suffering badly with ague and violent fits of the stone, he had had the perfect use of his reason and understanding for the six months before his death.  He was buried at the parish church of Hoddesdon in Hertfordshire.

In 1683 Alice lost her beloved Aunt Norton.  Her father's sister Anne had always been a great comfort and support to her, going over to East Newton when Alice badly needed her and giving good advice by letter.  She died in 1683 at a great age – nearly 90 – and was buried in Richmond, where her husband Maulger had been buried ten years earlier.  They had suffered the loss of children in infancy, but the loss of their two eldest sons must have been particularly hard.

Their eldest son Edmund Norton – whose troop of dragoons was encountered by George Wandesford on Marston Moor – died of pleurisy in 1648 in York.  He had been married only the year before.  He was buried at the church of St Michael le Belfrey.  His younger brother William Norton was a barrister.  He was killed in an affray in a London tavern in December 1666 aged 39.  

When the malicious lies spread by Anne Danby reached the ears of Mrs Anne Norton in Richmond, she went straight to East Newton to support Alice.  And when she had to go home – where she made it her business to speak to various people who had believed the gossip and to put them straight – Alice wrote,

she sent my good friend Dafeny to be with me and comfort me, which she did much

Mrs Wandesford relied upon Dafeny Lightfoote, Alice's sister Catherine died in her arms, she was there at Mrs Wandesford's deathbed, and when Alice was so unwell that her mother would not let her breastfeed her new baby Elizabeth, Dafeny took on the duty of wet nurse until she herself fell pregnant.  

She had come to Mrs Wandesford's service as an unmarried girl – her surname was Carrall or Cassell (the Surtees edition differs from the Anselment edition).  She and George Lightfoote went with the family to Hipswell when they had to leave Kirklington and they married soon afterwards.  They were trusted, literate people – George was perhaps Mrs Wandesford's steward.  He was a witness to Mrs Wandesford's Will and Dafeny was there when the Will was made and when the inventory of Mrs Wandesford's goods was taken.  When Dafeny returned to Richmondshire, she too spoke to people of importance in the neighbourhood and put the record straight for Alice.  She was at East Newton in 1668 and was a witness at young Naly's marriage to Thomas Comber.  When she left, Alice gave her as a token of gratitude 

a young cow and calf to sustain her house, with other good things, which she had deserved for her faith and fidelity to me and my poor children, and sent her husband a bible and a pound of tobacco.

Alice's brother Sir Christopher – he had been one of the many gentlemen of Royalist families to be given a baronetcy in 1662 – died in London on 23 February 1686.  He was buried in the Wandesford chapel in the parish church at Kirklington.  Alice lived long enough to see her nephew Christopher made Baron Wandesford and Viscount Castlecomer.  

Three of Alice's nine children – Naly, Catherine and Robert – survived early childhood.  Alice's ninth and last child had been born at East Newton in November 1667 when she was 41.  She had suffered terribly in labour in the past and in this one she had never been so near to death.  The babe was a fortnight old when he died.  She lost her husband a year later when Naly was sixteen, Catherine twelve, and Robert only six.  

Alice had such high hopes for Robert's future.  She had managed to finance his studies at university – he had taken a degree at University College, Oxford and been a Fellow of Magdalen College.  In 1692, when he was rector of the parish of Boldon in County Durham, he died.  He was 30 years old and he had proposed and been accepted by a lady with a fortune of £2,800 only two months earlier – a match that his brother-in-law Thomas Comber had found for him.  He was buried in front of the second altar in the Chapel of Nine Altars in Durham Cathedral; Naly had a stone with a Latin inscription placed there to commemorate him. 

Catherine was married in 1682 to the Revd Thomas Purchase, who was first rector of Langton on Swale and then of Kirkby Wiske.  She was widowed in 1696 at the age of 40 after fourteen years of marriage and the birth of six children.  Two years later she married Robert Danby of Northallerton.

Naly had been married to the 23 year old Rev Thomas Comber in 1668 when she was a couple of months short of her fifteenth birthday.  The marriage wasn't made public for six months, so it may not have been consummated until then.  It seems likely that it was the poor health of both Naly's parents, the lack of people on whom Alice could rely for support, and the high opinion both she and William had of this young man that made them so anxious for the match.  He was eminent in theology and was made Dean of Durham.  He and Naly had four sons and two daughters; he died at the age of 54 in 1699.

Alice lived out her years of impoverished widowhood at East Newton.  She died aged nearly 80 in early 1707 and was buried beside her husband in Stonegrave Minster.  She was survived by her daughters and left her manuscripts to Naly.  

Stonegrave Minster

Next: 14. Epilogue: 1688

Footnote:

Naly's grandson – the son of her daughter Alice and Francis Blackburne of Richmond – was the Revd Francis Blackburne (1705-87).  A noted scholar, he was Archdeacon of Cleveland and Rector of Richmond.  His son, the Revd Francis Blackburne (1748-1816), was vicar of Hutton Rudby for six years from 1774.  During that time he married a local girl – Ann Rowntree, the daughter of Christopher Rowntree of Middleton-on-Leven.  

The Blackburnes' story is told here in The Revd Francis Blackburne (1748-1816) of Rudby-in-Cleveland.

9. Royalist disaster & private grief: 1645-7

On 14 June 1645, the New Model Army – Parliament's new national army – inflicted a decisive defeat on the Royalists at the Battle of Naseby in Northamptonshire.  It was a disaster for the King.  His army was shattered and his private papers had fallen into Parliament's hands.  They published them.  Now people could see that they had been right to fear that he planned to bring an army of Irish Catholics over to fight in England.  He was negotiating to do just that, and he was trying to get money and mercenaries from abroad.  

The last hopes were fading for the Royalists.  In Wensleydale, John Scrope had been holding Bolton Castle for the King.  It had been under siege since the autumn of 1644.  Now, although there was no chance of relief, the garrison held out until all their supplies had been eaten – including the horses and all the animals – and then they surrendered in November 1645.  Parliament ordered the castle to be slighted, and some of it was demolished. 

Bolton Castle

By then Sir Thomas Danby and Lady Danby were back in their own house at Thorpe Perrow.  His estates had been seized by the Sequestration Committee because he had fought for the King, but in each county there was a Committee for Compounding with Delinquents, which could let the men have their lands back if they pledged never to fight against Parliament again and if they paid a fine – a useful way for the new government to raise money.  Sir Thomas's fine was heavy, but by 1645 he had paid up and he and Catherine were at home again.  

She was now expecting her sixteenth child.  Ten of her babies had lived to be baptised but the others were stillborn, Alice remembered, from frights caused by fire in her chamber, by falls and other accidents.  She had been married at the age of fifteen and she was now thirty.  Tender-hearted and sweet-natured, she was badly grieved by the war and the state of the country and she dreaded to think what the future might hold.  She had been left during the war to manage the estate and household while her husband was away in the King's service and only able to come back rarely and she had missed him badly.  She had been vexed and troubled by the many alarms and difficulties caused by the presence of the Scots soldiers quartered on her.  She had been very unwell during this pregnancy and now she went into labour earlier than she expected.  She couldn't get her old midwife because she was in Richmond, which was shut up by the plague.  And the baby was a breech presentation, coming – as Alice said – double into this world.  

At last she was delivered of a fine boy after a long and very hard labour.  He was named Francis after Alice's little godson, his elder brother who had died that summer of smallpox.  Catherine was in dreadful pain, unable to sleep or eat.  The women of her family came to her.  Her sister-in-law Lady Armitage and her aunt Mrs Norton had been with her when Alice came to take their place.  Catherine was making her preparations for the good death which was of such paramount importance at the time, praying for her family and for peace in England, and entrusting her children to her husband's care.  After a week, Alice's grief for Catherine was such that she became ill herself.  Mrs Wandesford came with her careful young servant Dafeny Lightfoote and sent Alice home.  

Catherine loved Dafeny dearly and now Dafeny was always with her.  At last, with her head on Dafeny's breast, she said, "I am going to God, my God now."  Dafeny spoke to her bracingly, saying she hoped God would spare her to bring her children up.  "How can that be," said Catherine, "for I find my heart and vitals all decayed and gone.  No.  I desire to be dissolved and to be with Christ, which is best of all."  She died on 20 September 1645 about a month after giving birth and was buried at Masham two days later.  Her funeral was held at night, according to Alice's recollection, because the Parliamentarian and Scots soldiers would not let a sermon be preached.

On the other side of the country, the Wandesfords' friends in Chester were in trouble.  

Though the Battle of Naseby had left the King with no realistic chance of winning, the fighting continued across the kingdoms.  In parts of the West Country, the Midlands and Wales, men grew so weary of the plundering, ill-disciplined troops that they banded together to try to keep both armies out.  

Chester was still held for the King and had been under siege, off and on, for a year.  In September 1645, as Catherine Danby's life drew to a close, the city found itself under a new assault.  This time, the siege was total and it lasted until February 1646.  By the time the Royalist commander Lord Byron was finally persuaded by the Mayor to surrender, the poor were dying of hunger.  The loss of life, the damage and destruction had been huge.  After the siege was over, plague swept through the city, taking a fearful toll of the starved and homeless poor.  Alice and her mother were profoundly grateful that they had escaped.

Lord Byron (1599-1652)

The King, the Scots and the cancellation of Christmas: 1646-7

Oxford had been the King's capital city since 1642.  The University was on his side – the townspeople were not.  He had returned there in November 1645, hoping to begin again with a new campaign in the spring, but his plans fell through.  Parliamentary troops besieged the city – and then they discovered to their amazement that the King had escaped.   On 27 April 1646, with his hair cut short, wearing drab clothes and a false beard, he had slipped out of Oxford with two companions.  

He had been in secret negotiations for a separate peace with the Scots, but his arrival at their camp outside the siege of Newark took them completely by surprise.  The Scottish general in charge was David Leslie, the man to whom Mrs Wandesford had gone for help against Captain Innes.  Now he needed to get the King away at once to the Scots garrison at Newcastle.  So the King ordered the reluctant Royalist commander of Newark to surrender so that the Scottish army could leave.  On 8 May the Scots broke camp and set off north with the King. 

They kept him as an open prisoner in Newe House, a mansion with extensive grounds inside Newcastle's city walls.

Newe House, see Tyne & Wear Museums blog

From there – when he wasn't playing golf – the King plotted.  He carried on negotiations with both the Scots and the Parliamentarians, trying to exploit the divisions between them, and he intrigued with his exiled Queen, trying to get troops from Ireland and France.  He didn't succeed in any of it.  

The war was over and the Scots were negotiating with Parliament for payment towards the arrears of wages owed to their troops, after which they would leave England.  Abandoning hope of coming to an agreement with the King, the Scots handed him over to Parliament in January 1647.  

Parliamentarian troops took over his custody and the Scots marched out of Newcastle, with the fishwives pelting them and shouting "Judas" because they thought the Scots had sold the King.

In February 1647, Parliamentarian troops appeared in the North Riding, travelling south with the King.  The road lay through Northallerton and they stopped the night there at the house of the Metcalfe family, opposite the parish church.  The grief of people like the Wandesfords can be imagined – for them he was, as Alice said, a holy, pious prince who fought God's battles against his enemies, a nursing father to his three kingdoms.  

The Porch House, Northallerton: where Charles I stayed in 1647

The next grief to strike Alice's poor mother was the loss of her brother Sir Edward Osborne.  In spite of his own cares and sorrows, he had been a constant support to his widowed sister.  He had spent heavily in the King's service and been obliged to pay a large fine to get back his sequestered estates.  He had retired to live quietly at Kiveton with his second wife Ann, never ceasing to grieve for his son Edward, killed in the roof collapse at York in 1638.  It was because of some excellent melons from his gardens at Thorpe Salvin Hall and Kiveton, Alice said, that he was taken ill.  He ate a little too much – the melons were too cold for him – and he was thrown into a vomiting and diarrhoea that exhausted him past recovery.  He died a few days later on 9 September 1647 to the great distress of his family, and was buried in the chancel of Harthill church.  He was fifty-one.

While the grieving Mrs Wandesford was running her household and providing for her children like the skilful housewife that she was – Alice remembered her careful huswifery – constant in her charitable works and always remembering the needs of the newly homeless clergymen and their families who would appear at her door, Parliament was running the country.  This wasn't to everyone's liking.  

Parliament was proving highly efficient at collecting taxes – revenue much needed for the Army, which was getting worryingly radical and deeply involved in politics – and hard times under the King's rule were beginning to fade from memory.  Not everyone greeted the destruction of paintings, statues and decorations in their parish church with joy.  Theatres had been closed since 1642.  And now Christmas was cancelled.  

The English loved Christmas.  The church services were only part of it – all classes in England celebrated the twelve days with food and drink, parties and revels, while the Presbyterian Scots had banned Christmas several years earlier because it was Catholic, superstitious, not mentioned in the Bible and led only to drunkenness and debauchery.  Parliament had established a new pattern for public worship and the Feasts of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun were banned.  No more sinful behaviour to bring down God's wrath upon the kingdom – the recent war showed where that had led.  No special church services, everyone to go to work, shops to be open, no hanging up the holly and the ivy, and absolutely no partying.   

The ban probably hardly mattered to the family at Hipswell, in mourning for Sir Edward Osborne.  Tucked away in Catterick, and careful not to draw hostile attention, Mr Syddall was still able to celebrate Holy Communion for them and a quietly held Christmas service could go unnoticed.  But in Kirklington, under the eye of the Presbyterian minister Mr Nesbit, the villagers will have missed their Christmas service and the only safe way to entertain friends in anything like the proper style would be after dark, secretly, fairly quietly and behind closed doors.

News would come to the Wandesfords that in some places across the country there had been riots over the ban.  Armed force was needed to stop the partying in Kent, where the usual Christmas football game was played in Canterbury, and in Westminster the churchwardens of St Margaret's were arrested for failing to stop a Christmas day service.

And at intervals news came of the King.  

First he was held by Parliament, then he was taken by the radicals of the Army.  Then he escaped.  And then, like his grandmother Mary, Queen of Scots, when she thought she would find a friendly refuge with Elizabeth of England, Charles made a fatal misjudgment of character.  He didn't go to Berwick and the support of the Scots.  He went to the Isle of Wight, thinking the governor would protect him and help him get to France.  Instead, he found himself imprisoned at Carisbrooke Castle.  

Notes

This period of the wars is called the English Civil War 1642-46

The Tyne & Wear Museums blog has more pictures of the Newe House, which was later known as Anderson Place.  It stood just off Pilgrim Street.

Sir Edward Osborne's gauntlets, said to have been worn by him in the war, are on display in Harthill church; his helmet was stolen in the 20th century.  See here 

Next: 10. The Man of Blood & the English Republic: 1648-1650