The unfortunate Edwin Orphan: 1832

In January 1832, a young man called Edwin Orphan came before the magistrates.  He had smashed windows in Guisborough parish church because, he explained, he needed a shelter.  He had no money and nowhere to sleep and he begged the magistrates earnestly to find him work.  They sentenced him under the Vagrancy Act to a month's imprisonment in the North Riding House of Correction – that is, Northallerton Gaol.

Edwin was aged 20, 5 feet 3 inches tall, with a ruddy complexion and brown hair and eyes.  His sightless right eye was turned outward and his nose, too, turned a little to the right.  He could read and write and had evidently received some education, and he came originally from Kent.  

He must have presented a forlorn spectacle when he came out of gaol because Mr William Shepherd, the Governor of the House of Correction, gave him three shillings as he left.  He couldn't find any work and that was all the money he had to live on.  He said he had been on the road for two years, mostly begging.

These were eventful times of disruption and change.  

Only two years earlier, riots had begun in Kent with the smashing of threshing machines.  Destruction and burning had spread across the south and east as farm labourers rioted in furious protest against low wages, harsh conditions and the mechanisation that was taking the bread from their mouths.  Letters threatening retribution for past wrongs or demanding money by menaces were sent to farmers, parsons and landowners; they were signed by "Captain Swing".  

By the beginning of 1832, a pandemic of Asiatic Cholera had been spreading across the country for several months.  This was a frightening new visitation.  Some Cleveland parishes, like Guisborough, had followed government directives and quickly taken measures to clear away dung heaps and the filth that flowed from privies, pigsties and cesspools – the "nuisances" that were to be found beside houses and along the streets of any early 19th century town or village.  Some villages – like Hutton Rudby – hadn't taken any action as yet.      

Meanwhile, political and public ferment were in the air as Lord Grey's reforming Whig ministry pushed ahead with parliamentary reform and a young Charles Dickens would very soon begin work as a parliamentary reporter – The Pickwick Papers was only four years in the future.

Edwin found his way to Stokesley, where he found a bed in Mr Fortune's lodging house.  The flax-spinning mill of Thomas Mease, the Methodist class leader and entrepreneur, was in full operation behind the High Street while work was underway on his New Mill beside the river, but Edwin turned his attention to Mr Fidler, whose house and water corn-mill stood on the eastern edge of the town.

Between 6 and 7 o'clock in the evening of 9 February, the miller left home to go into town.  As he passed a barn, Thomas Fidler thought he saw a man he knew standing there, so he went up to him to have a word.  He realised he was mistaken and didn't know the man at all so he remarked only that it was a fine night and went on his way.  Not long afterwards he was told that the man actually had a letter for him.  Meeting his servant Ann Garth in town, he sent her to find out.  Edwin Orphan hadn't moved from the spot.  She asked him if he had a letter for Mr Fidler?  He said yes, and he handed it to her.  Back at the mill, she gave it to Thomas Fidler junior.  He and his sister read it and, alarmed, sent it on to their father, who was still in town.  When Mr Fidler read it, he went to find the constables Mr Norton and Mr Hebden.  This is what the letter said:

Thursday, 9th Feb 32

Sir – The writer, being in want of the common necessaries of life, is compelled to adopt the alternative of demanding a sum of money from you, according to your ability.  Do not disregard this notice, for desperate extremity will be revenged upon society; and should you refuse your aid, your life may be taken, and your property destroyed by

SWING 

An answer is requested, directed, to A.B., Mr Fortune, Lodging-House, Stokesley, this day.
To Mr Thomas Fidler, miller, Stokesley

The constables immediately began to hunt for the man, searching every pub, beer shop and lodging house in Stokesley but could not find him.  They went back three times to Fortune's lodging-house, but he hadn't returned there.

At about 7 o'clock the next morning, Edwin Orphan went up to Constable Hebden and asked him if they had been searching for him last night?  Constable Hebden replied that they had been looking for the man who wrote the letter to Thomas Fidler and Edwin said, "I am the man who wrote the letter."  He told them he was nearly starved to death and had nowhere to go – and that at one point in their search they had actually touched his feet.

On Thursday 5 April 1832 he came up before the North Riding Sessions at the Court House in Northallerton.  He was charged with having written and sent a letter to Mr Thomas Fidler, demanding money of him with menaces and without any reasonable or probable cause.  It was a serious charge, a felony charge.

After the case for the prosecution had been heard and the evidence of the Fidlers, Ann Garth and Constable Hebden had been given, Edwin Orphan was called to make his defence.

How startled the court must have been at his response – so striking a response that the newspapers, including several beyond Yorkshire, quoted it in their reports:

Before the minister of justice strikes the blow he is about to hurl at my liberty, I would say a few words, yet such an awe pervades my mind at addressing you, in the midst of such a concourse of people, that I fear lest I should give utterance to any expression offensive to your better cultivated minds.  I hope to guard against it, but should I fall into the error, condescend to pardon it, and impute the fault rather to my ignorance than my wish to be irreverent.

This is the second time I have been confined within the walls of a prison.  Some of you, gentlemen, are acquainted with the nature of my first offence; you know the motive that actuated me to commit that offence, and my wish, entreaty, and prayer, during that confinement; but either I was deemed unworthy of the boon I sought after, or no plan could be devised, whereby you might rescue the wretched object before you from that condition which compelled him to commit actions, which, under other and happier circumstances, his heart would abhor – his soul revolt at.

However, the expiration of my confinement arrived.  Mr Shepherd, whose kindness I shall long remember, gave me three shillings; with that solitary exception, I had but this prospect before me, either to beg my bread from door to door, as I have oft before done, or to throw myself at once upon the laws and justice of my country, for protection and support.  I well know the misery and privations that attend a vagrant's life; and I resolved, in preference, to take those steps which have led me to your tribunal.

Gentlemen, from my earliest recollection down to the present moment, I have been the victim of treachery, deceit, and fraud.  Man, base man! has laid the foundation of my utter ruin.  'Twas man's villainy that robbed me of a parent's care – that deprived me of that situation in life in which Providence was pleased to place me.  

To detail all the events of my life would be too tedious for you to bear with me, too painful for me to relate; let it suffice to say, that I am indebted to mendicants for all the miseries I have undergone, and have yet to suffer.  Yes, gentlemen, it was mendicants that robbed me of a parent's care.  I left them at an early age, and went to London, where I was without a friend, and fell among a lot of swindlers, whose dupe I became, and was educated by them, and made an instrument of their villainy.  They dragged me through all those scenes of life which the imagination of man could conceive, or wickedness devise.

But when the Almighty imparted reason and understanding, whereby I might discern between good and evil, I forsook the path of the wicked, and resolutely determined to follow that which was good.  I left my companions, and for two years have I travelled about the country, crying out of wrong, but no man regarded, – no eye spared – no heart pitied – no hand would rescue me from my forlorn condition, and place me in any honest calling, where I might live in humble credit to myself, and no disgrace to the community.  No, I was spurned and persecuted from town to town, as a vagrant and scamp; while misery, affliction, and privation, followed hard after me, and pursued me to the gates of the grave.

At length desperation seized me, infuriated madness took possession of my soul, and forced me into the commission of offences, for one of which I have suffered punishment; for the other I await your decision.

And for what are you going to punish?  Not for a propensity to vice – not for a depraved disposition, but because I am poor, wretched, and forlorn.  Methinks this is strange humanity – hard-hearted charity.  But I will not endeavour to extenuate the offence I have committed, nor will I plead in mitigation of the punishment you may think I deserve.  

All I fear is, that you will not punish me in a way that will deter me from committing similar, or worse offences in future.  What will it avail me, should you confine me a second time in your jail, and then turn me out as a dog, and worse than a dog?  Believe me, it will do no good; it will harden my heart against the laws of my country, which I would fain respect and love.  It will render me callous to the vicissitudes of fate, and when again liberated, I fear I should become a confirmed Ishmaelite, – my hand would be raised against society, and every honest man's hand against me.  Then in the name of society and justice, on behalf of my wretched self, – yea, I would ask you in the name of Almighty God, that you will either find me a settlement, or send me out of the country.

I say, transport me from my native land, if nothing else can be done for me; for in it I am a misery and burden to myself – a pest and a nuisance wherever I approach.  If indeed you will do this for me, if you will hearken to my petition, and grant my request, in conclusion I will promise you this, – when the law of England is wreaking its vengeance on extreme misery, when the justice of my country is sporting with the pangs of the afflicted, then, even then, will I pour forth my fervent supplication to a throne of grace, that blessings may descend upon each individual of my country, far different to any I ever enjoyed: and that none of your posterity may suffer similar sorrows to those experienced by the unfortunate, afflicted, and friendless Orphan.

So the unfortunate Edwin had no "settlement", which was the basis of the old Poor Law and where a pauper could claim relief, and he couldn't conceive how he could escape the life of a vagrant and an outcast.  But the Jury wasn't in the job of giving him an occupation and he had admitted to the felony already.  

The sentence was a foregone conclusion and Edwin Orphan was found guilty.  But the Chairman of the Jury, after commenting upon the enormity of the offence, sentenced him to be transported, not for a term of years, but for life.  On hearing the sentence, Edwin collapsed in the dock – "evidently exhausted", one newspaper wrote,  "completely overpowered" wrote another.

If Edwin's impassioned speech sounds as though it was inspired by the stage, that isn't surprising – the authorities in New South Wales recorded Edwin's occupation as "Strolling Player" and it can only have been Edwin who gave them the information.  

Edwin's story is rather mysterious and leaves a lot of gaps.  Who were his parents?  What was the "situation in life" into which he had been born?  When he says "mendicants" does he really mean beggars or is he referring obliquely to a travelling theatre company?  Did he run away from home to go on the stage?  Or was he born into a theatre company and learn his eloquence, not through reading, but through acting?

Dickens knew very well the world that Edwin described and perhaps Edwin's sad story comes to life for us, nearly 190 years later, because it reminds us of Dickens' novels.  When Edwin speaks of the swindlers who used him as their dupe, we can't help but think of 'Oliver Twist', which Dickens began to write in 1836.  Edwin's dramatic speech seems to belong to 'Nicholas Nickleby' (1838) and the world of Vincent Crummles' theatre company.  But there was no kind author to give Edwin a happy ending.  No wonder the Nottingham Review, when it picked up the story, called it a "Singular Case of Misery and Misfortune".

A fortnight after his trial, Edwin was taken from Yorkshire to the prison ships.  On the Hulk Ganymede at Woolwich, it was noted that Northallerton Gaol reported his character as "Indifferent – consorted with vagrants".  On the Leviathan at Portsmouth, they recorded that he was healthy and of orderly conduct.

Convict ships in the East India Docks in 1851

On 23 July 1832, the Parmelia set sail for New South Wales.  Edwin was one of the 200 convicts on board.  They arrived on 16 November after four months at sea.  And so he achieved his wish – if he really did wish to be transported.  

In 1841 he applied for a Ticket of Leave, which would allow him to work for himself on certain conditions – he would have to stay in a specified area, report regularly to local authorities and, if at all possible, go to church on Sundays.  He was unsuccessful but he tried again seven years later and on 1 June 1848, after 16 years in the colony, his Ticket of Leave was granted.  And after that point I can find no more about him.

......

Back in Cleveland, Mr Thomas Fidler and his family continued at the mill for many more decades.  Fidler's Mill itself was demolished in 1983 in spite of strenuous efforts by the Stokesley Society.  They saved the mill wheel however, and that can be seen in the carpark near the bridge.

Mr William Shepherd had followed his father Thomas Shepherd in the post of governor at Northallerton.  Being a governor was a family occupation.  William had two brothers, James and Thomas.  In 1832 James was Governor of the Castle of York and Thomas was governor at Wakefield, having succeeded James to the post.  Thomas died of cholera not long after the Parmelia took Edwin Orphan from England.

When James retired because of ill health in 1840, the post of Governor of the Castle fell vacant.  The men who put themselves forward for election were: William Shepherd; Edward Shepherd, who was either William's son or his nephew; and the under-gaoler at the Castle, John Noble, who was married to William's sister.  John Noble was elected.  In 1842, when William's mother old Mrs Shepherd died, the notice inserted in the newspapers by the family proudly stated that her son-in-law was Governor of the Castle, her son William was governor at Northallerton and her grandsons were governors at Wakefield and Beverley.  

William stayed at Northallerton for the rest of his career.  He had been kind to Edwin Orphan in giving him three shillings, but the prison under William Shepherd did not have a good reputation at all.  The 'Northallerton Hell' was the name given to it by the Chartists (see The Treadmills of Northallerton)

William retired to Whitby where he died at home at Normanby Terrace in 1867, aged 80.

Notes

For more on the cholera pandemic 1832, see Chapter 11. 1832: The year of the Cholera

For more stories of transportation and convict life, see 
Hard labour & transportation to Tasmania: Northallerton, April 1841 
William Orton, forger of Hutton Rudby 

and
Hutton Rudby 1876 to 1877: the Albion Sailcloth Mill

Henry Savile Clarke of Guisborough & Lewis Carroll's Alice

A few years ago I wrote about Henry Savile Clarke of Guisborough (1841-93), who produced the first stage musical of Lewis Carroll's Alice.

Phoebe Carlo 1887

Over a series of blogposts, I told the story of Henry Savile Clarke, his artist wife Helen (also from Guisborough) and their daughters Clara the novelist, Maggie the beautiful "skirt-dancer", and Kitty the society beauty.  They moved in high artistic circles, knew Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley and died young and rather tragically.

The Lewis Carroll Resources website gives an amazingly full account of Savile Clarke's production, with the rave reviews, details of the parts and performers and even links to the original music (you can listen to 1941 recordings of some of the songs on youtube).

And for the history of the surprising career of young Phoebe Carlo, the first child actress to play the part of Alice, go to Clare Imholtz' article in December 2020 edition of The Carrollian.

Phoebe in the photographs of the time doesn't really suit our ideas of a child star and we might think they can't possibly do her justice.  She was Lewis Carroll's choice (readers today might find the descriptions of his interest in her a little unsettling) and she was a terrific hit, the reviewers commenting on her vivacity, drollery and wonderful ability.  

She had a remarkable and rather mysterious life after she left the stage.  She won a 'Smartest Lady' competition in 1903, was described by the Chicago Tribune as "famous for her smart dresses and graceful carriage", and was, Clare Imholtz writes, "a walking advertisement for diamonds"!

The Eland family of Hutton Rudby

 I've just made a correction and added extra information to the entry on the Elands in People of Hutton Rudby in the C18/19: Easby to Emerson (my blogpost of 22 March 2013).

I particularly like the portrait of a child by John Shenton Eland and the Eland connection to the Wall Street Journal – many thanks to Gill Whitehouse for this! 

14. Epilogue: 1688

Alice had lived through many changes in her long life – and the restoration of King Charles II in 1661 wasn't the last of the political convulsions that she saw.  Charles II had no legitimate children, so when he died in 1685 it was his Catholic brother James who came to the throne.  His brief reign went downhill quickly.  

James II

Seven influential Protestants wrote to the Protestant prince William of Orange – who was James' nephew and married to his daughter Mary – inviting him to invade and promising they would rise in support.  One of the seven was Alice's first cousin Thomas Osborne, Lord Danby.  

He was the boy who survived the roof collapse in York in 1638 because he was looking for his cat under the table.  He had a long and chequered career as a stateman – he was impeached twice.  He had led the government of Charles II during the 1670s and been made Earl of Danby in 1674.  He was a fierce opponent of Catholics and Nonconformists, and a keen supporter of an alliance with the Dutch Republic.  In fact, he had negotiated the marriage of William of Orange with Charles II's niece Mary in spite of her father's opposition.  But he didn't have a talent for friendship.  Pale, lean and sickly looking, he needed his government position to make money and he stayed in power by corruption.  People said he was proud, ambitious, false, revengeful and greedy.  He had been brought down in 1678 and ended up in the Tower of London for five years.  But he was back in the House of Lords for 1688.

Thomas Osborne
1st Duke of Leeds (1632-1712)

William of Orange landed at Brixham in Devon with a large army on Guy Fawkes' Day 1688.  Lord Danby kept his word.  As William began to advance east, Lord Danby and his men – including Henry Belasyse, the son of Sir Richard Belasyse of Potto – took York and Hull.  (Lord Danby's reward was to be made Marquess of Carmarthen in 1689 and Duke of Leeds in 1694).

James' support collapsed and William and Mary became joint rulers of England and Scotland.  But the Catholic Irish stood out for James and for two and a half years, until William secured victory over James, Ireland was once again submerged in bloody conflict.  

The war in Ireland ended in October 1691.  The three kingdoms were now under a constitutional monarchy and Ireland would be dominated by a Protestant élite for the two centuries that followed.

William of Orange
(William III of England) (1650-1702) 

Note 

These events are known as the Glorious Revolution and the Williamite War.

For sources of this series of blogposts, see Alice Wandesford in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms

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.

12. From Alice Wandesford's marriage to the return of the King: 1651-1660

At Hipswell, 23 year old Christopher Wandesford was now head of the family.  He followed the custom of the time – there was a contract of marriage to fulfil and he took his brother's place.  So, on 30 September 1651 at Lowther, Christopher married the 18 year old Eleanor Lowther.  The result for Alice, John and their mother was years of trouble over money, to their lasting detriment.  Christopher, Alice said, was of too good a nature and too inexperienced to realise how he was being manipulated by his new father-in-law Sir John Lowther into denying them their money under their father's Will.  

Alice's brother John was now seventeen.  A pious, learned and quick-witted boy, sweet and affectionate in nature, he had been at Christ's College, Cambridge for two years.  Now, partly from grief at George's death and partly from the grief he felt because Christopher was refusing to pay him his annuity, he fell into a deep melancholy that, said Alice, took away the use of his understanding.  He had to leave Cambridge without taking his degree.  

Over the following years, with infinite care and pains, Mrs Wandesford nursed him back to health but he was very liable to relapses, so she was very anxious when he was persuaded to go and live in London.  Luckily she was able to secure for him the help and care of Dr Bathurst, whose renown had grown since the days when he had treated Christopher – indeed, he had become Oliver Cromwell's physician.  

Meanwhile, Mrs Wandesford grew increasingly anxious to see her daughter married and she really had nobody to advise her – how she must have wished for her brother Sir Edward Osborne.  On the whole, she still wanted the match with William Thornton, even though she was disobliging several wealthy neighbours who had also approached her – Colonel Anstruther and Colonel Darcy, son of Lord Darcy, among them.  And she had her doubts about the real value of Mr Thornton's estate. 

Alice was now 25.  She really wanted to stay single and felt that the money left her by her father should be quite enough for her to be comfortable and useful.  But she also didn't want to disobey her mother and she had been willing to marry Mr Thornton so as to help the family discharge the sequestration.  

Now she had to decide whether to go ahead with the marriage or not.  It was a hard choice and it wasn't just a question of money.  On the one hand and very much in his favour, William Thornton was a quiet, decent man, esteemed in his own neighbourhood.  He was not debauched and irreligious, like so many men that she knew.  (She doesn't say whether these included Colonel Anstruther and Colonel Darcy).  On the other hand, his religious background was not at all like her own.  His half-sisters were all Catholics – strict papists, Alice said – while the other part of his family were strong Presbyterians and Parliamentarians.  

Alice spoke to him frankly.  She said that she was of the true protestant Church of England and they would be miserable together if he wasn't of the same faith.  He was seriously troubled at this, but then he declared that he shared her opinion.  He wanted bishops – suitably reformed – back and he too wanted a King.  And she could bring the children up in her faith entirely as she wished.  And so she decided that the money was of less importance and she would accept his offer.

At last the marriage contract was negotiated and on 15 December 1651 at Hipswell Hall, Mrs Wandesford gave her daughter in marriage to 27 year old William Thornton of East Newton, which lies a little east of Oswaldkirk and about 5 miles SSW of Helmsley.  

Mr Syddall, the vicar of Catterick, took the marriage service.  Alice's brother John was there, and so was her uncle Mauger Norton of St Nicholas, and their kinsman John Dodsworth of Thornton Watlass Hall near Masham, whose son Timothy had been a confidential servant to her father in Dublin.  William Thornton's uncle Francis Darley had come to be a witness from his estates at Buttercrambe, eight miles north-east of York.  Six of her mother's servants saw Alice married, and she listed them: Dafeny Lightfoote, in whose arms her sister Catherine had died; Ralfe Ianson, who was with her when she escaped drowning in the Swale; George Lightfoote; Robert Webster; Martha Richison; and Robert Loftus the elder.

That very day Alice fell suddenly ill with violent vomiting and sickness.  She thought it might have been because she took cold the night before, when she stayed up late to make her preparations for the wedding, but her mother thought it was because she had also washed her feet – quite the wrong time of year for such a procedure.  She made a full recovery and seven weeks later she conceived.

For the first weeks, before the babe quickened in her womb and she could feel it moving, she was very poorly but afterwards she was strong and healthy.  So when she was seven months pregnant, she was content to go with her husband to visit his family and friends.  

At the end of their visit, they set off from Mr Thornton's estate at East Newton to Osgodby Hall at Thirkleby, the home of his brother-in-law Sir William Ayscough.  William Thornton had been advised to take the road across the moors from Sproxton towards Hambleton.  He hadn't been warned that they would come to the top of Sutton Bank and that Alice would have to clamber down it herself – it was about a mile, Alice said, steep down.  Perhaps the path for horses was too steep and dangerous for them to be able to carry riders and especially a heavily-pregnant pillion passenger.  

Narrow steps were cut into the steep bank, but Alice was so big with child that she could hardly find a footing.  She had only her maid to help her – everyone else had gone on ahead – and her maid was having difficulty herself.  Each step strained Alice a great deal.  At last she was safe at the bottom, tired, hot and weary, feeling unwell, and troubled with pain.  She was troubled with pains all the way home and within a fortnight was in a desperate fever and was ill for some time.  The babe within her finally grew so weak that all movement stopped.  On 27 August 1652 her baby daughter was born, and died within the hour before they could get a clergyman to baptise her.  She was buried that night at Easby church beside the River Swale.

And this was the beginning of many griefs and joys for Alice.  She loved her children deeply, breastfed them joyously and looked after them lovingly – but she lost six children at birth or in infancy and only three grew to adulthood.  Her accounts of their illnesses and deaths are heart-rending.

Death & Change: 1651-1660

The first eight years of Alice's marriage were spent at Hipswell Hall with Mrs Wandesford, while extensive building work was being done to the old family manor house of the Thorntons at East Newton.  

So Alice and William were at Hipswell when in 1653 Parliament appointed Oliver Cromwell to be Lord Protector of the Commonwealth for life – he was king in all but name and he was addressed as Your Highness.  

Oliver Cromwell

They were at Hipswell in 1655 when, after failed uprisings by English and Scottish Royalists, Cromwell put England under martial law to bring about a godly, righteous country.  His Rule of the Major-Generals meant a repressive regime of high taxation and moral improvement – no horse racing, stage plays, fairs, cock-fighting, bear-baiting, no drunkenness, sexual licence, blasphemy or swearing.  It last fifteen unpopular months.  

The 1650s passed and everyday life went on.  During those years, Alice bore five children – four daughters and a son.  Only two of her daughters, Alice – who was always known as Naly (which must be pronounced Nallie, like Allie today) – and Katherine survived.  And through these difficult years, she found great comfort in the presence of her beloved mother, who was truly generous to them.  

Mrs Wandesford was a notable housewife.  She kept within her means but she still managed to achieve, Alice said, a noble, handsome manner of living.  She paid all Alice and William's expenses – christenings, burials, nurses, men servants and maids – and she bore the cost of entertaining and welcoming their friends as well as her own.  

She also took care of their medical bills.  These included a trip to Copgrove, a few miles south-west of Boroughbridge, to see if immersions in St Mungo's Well would cure Alice's baby Betty of the rickets.  Sadly, the holy well had no effect and at the beginning of September 1656 little Betty died.  She was, Alice wrote, aged one year, six months and twenty-one days.  She was buried the same day at Catterick by Mr Syddall.  He was buried there himself sixteen months later, having died of a malignant consumption before his fiftieth birthday. 

New upheavals in the country followed Oliver Cromwell's death on 3 September 1658.  Now his son Richard was Lord Protector.  1659 was a year of chaos.  Tumbledown Dick, as people called Richard, couldn't keep the Puritan factions together.  Who would seize control of power?  The country was gripped by uncertainty and fear.

By August 1659, Alice's mother and husband were getting very alarmed by her health.  On the doctor's advice, William took Alice to Scarborough Spa to drink the waters.  The cure worked – which was very fortunate as, after a month, a message came from Hipswell.  Mrs Wandesford was very poorly with her old ailment, the stone, and she wanted Alice home.  So they set off back, stopping at Crathorne on the way to see William's half-sister Margaret, who had married Ralph Crathorne of Crathorne – that side of William's family were all Catholics, as were the Crathornes.  There, to Alice's joy, a servant from Hipswell met them with the news that Mrs Wandesford was much recovered.  The good news was followed by the realisation that she was pregnant again, and her husband and mother began to hope that this time it might be a son.

But on 17 November 1659 Mrs Wandesford fell ill.  They tried all the remedies that they could.  They managed to relieve a pain in her side with poultices of fried oats, butter and chopped camomile, but her condition grew more distressing and she grew steadily weaker.  

On Thursday 8 December, she sent for Alice, William and the children so that she could bless them and say goodbye.  Alice was about five months pregnant.  She was distraught at seeing her mother in such terrible suffering and she couldn't bear to lose her.  They had been companions through so many trials and griefs and she had been able to rely on her mother's strength and support all her life.  Mrs Wandesford said to her, 

Dear child, why will you not be willing to part with me to God?  Has he not lent me to be a comfort to you long enough?  

And she urged Alice to let her go.  

You never have been disobedient to me in all your life – I pray thee obey me in this.  

She blessed them and Alice took "the saddest last leave of my dear and honoured mother as ever a child did."  

Two days later, Mrs Wandesford saw her sister-in-law Anne Norton and her husband Mauger.  There had always been a strict league of affection and friendship, Alice remembered, between the two women.  Now they said their last goodbye.  She commended her children to the care of Mauger Norton and she died later that day, Saturday 10 December 1659.  Dafeny Lightfoote had been beside her through her illness and was among those who were with her at the end.

On the Tuesday, her body was carried out of the house by Conyers, Lord Darcy and Conyers together with his son Colonel Darcy and son-in-law Sir Christopher Wyvill and other kinsmen of the Wandesford family.  Then her tenants took her from Hipswell Green to Catterick, where nine of the neighbouring clergy, men chosen in advance by Mrs Wandesford herself, carried her into the parish church.  After the service and sermon, they laid her in her grave in the south aisle, which was the Hipswell aisle, and a charitable dole was distributed among a very great number of the poor inside the church and at the door.

St Anne's, Catterick.  [By Alison Stamp CC BY-SA 2.0]

Alice and her daughter Naly later had a blue marble slab laid in Catterick church to mark Mrs Wandesford's resting place; it was destroyed in a 19th century restoration.  

Charles II returns & Alice leaves Richmondshire: 1660

By the time of Mrs Wandesford's funeral, the political chaos meant that there was hardly anybody to mind if nine Anglican clergymen officiated at a funeral in Catterick.  General George Monck, the commander of Scotland, had already crossed the border into Northumberland and made his HQ at Coldstream.  And all people wanted was for the uncertainty to stop. 

General George Monck (1608-70)

On New Year's Day 1660, Monck marched his army south.  Within three months, he was in secret negotiation with Charles II in his exile and on 25 May 1660 Charles landed at Dover.  On 29 May – his thirtieth birthday – he entered London to great rejoicing.  To everyone's relief and to the joy of Royalists, the chaotic uncertainty of the last months had ended.  

Charles II in coronation robes

After Mrs Wandesford's death, Alice and William stayed on at Hipswell Hall for a while, kept there by bitter winter weather and Alice's weak and grieving state.  

In March, they took her to her Aunt Norton's at St Nicholas, and in April her baby was born there, after a hard labour.  He was a pretty babe and suckling well but then grew ill and restless and red round spots like smallpox appeared on his face.  He died at a fortnight old and was buried in the same grave at Easby as his eldest sister, Alice's first child. 

On 10 June 1660, when Alice was strong again, she and William and their two little girls left St Nicholas to move to a house that William owned in Oswaldkirk.  And so she left Richmondshire, her own dear country and dear friends and relations, parting from them with a sad heart.

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

11. The wars come to an end: 1651

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.

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