Bridging the past

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Now I like a good bridge. I was only half joking the other day when I said I wanted a picture of Coggeshall’s bridge. Some of the bricks in it date from the twelfth century – now I know there are lots of Roman bricks kicking around but you’ll have to admit that it’s quite impressive. So to is the Swarkstone Bridge that snakes across the Trent Valley and marks the furthest south that Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Jacobite army of 1745 managed to reach.

Today though I found a new bridge at Wansford near Peterborough. It lies on the old Great North Road, five miles south of Stamford. The road, a coaching route, using the Roman Ermine and Dere streets runs from London to Edinburgh. In 1929 it was replaced with a new road which became the A1.

The bridge at Wansford crosses the Nene. It’s likely that there has been one on or near this spot since Saxon times. In medieval times repairing the bridge would get you remission from your sins. Various sources identify the current twelve arch structure as dating from 1577 to 1600 or in other words before the Spanish Armada sailed and while Elizabeth I sat upon the throne. William Cecil crossed the bridge on his way home to Stamford. Further work was completed in 1795 to ease navigation problems and to repair flood damage.

What amazes me though is that this was the Great North Road and the bridge has always been a single track carriageway – the holdups must have been impressive on occasion. And before I forget – Celia Fiennes paid Wansford a visit and stayed at the Swan as the Haycock Coaching Inn was formerly known in 1698:

There was no gate to Peterborough town and as I passed ye Road I saw upon ye walls of ye ordinary peoples houses and walls of their out houses, ye Cow dung plaister’d up to drie in Cakes which they use for fireing, it’s a very offensive fewell, but ye Country people use Little Else in these parts. Wansford is five mile from Peterborough, where I passed over the
Bridge which Entered me into Northamptonshire, the town being part in that Shire which is towards London, ye other in Lincolnshire which a mile or two farther joyns with Rutlandshire at Stamford, which town stand in ye 3 Countyes, where I lay at “ye Swan in Wansford in England,” being a jest on a man making haye fell asleep on a heap of it, and a great storm washed ye hay and man into ye River and Carry’d him to ye Bridge, where he awoke and knew not where he was, Called to ye people in ye grounds and told them he lived in a place Called
Wansford in England which goes for a jest on ye men of Wansford to this Day.

It’s probably not surprising to discover that Daniel Defoe also stopped here but more eyebrow raising is the note on the Haycock Manor website that Mary Queen of Scots was lodged there on her way to Fotheringhay Castle.

Swadlincote Festival of Words

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Looking forward to being a guest at the Swadlincote Festival of Words this Saturday. Tickets still available.

https://www.swadlincotefestivalofwords.co.uk/programme#row-f-anM5LsyR

Captain Swing

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During the first years of the nineteenth century times were exceptionally tough for agricultural labourers. Land enclosures were common from the 1760s onwards and it meant that landless labourers lost rights of access. According to Hobsbawm there were 4,000 private acts of Parliament between 1760 and 1850 that enclosed much of England’s common land. Agricultural labourers became, largely, reliant on their wages to survive. But the introduction of threshing machines meant that they lost their livelihoods during the autumn and winter months as wheat no longer needed to be flailed by hand. And the tradition of being able to glean the fields also faltered at about this time. New fences also meant that it was no longer legal to catch game for the pot. Following as it did after the Napoleonic Wars there was a glut of labour in any event. Inevitably, many of England’s rural poor migrated to towns and cities in search of work and for those who remained there was a decline in wages.

Even worse, the price of corn remained artificially high thanks to assorted Corn Laws dating from 1815 to 1840 which attempted to keep the prices of the Napoleonic period (when an army needed to be supplied) which was in the interests of the landed gentry but gave little thought to the near starvation of ordinary people. Parish relief was minimal for agricultural labourers who could not keep a roof over their heads or feed their families. A riot at Coggeshall, near Colchester, saw the workhouse overseer’s windows broken in November 1830.

Resentment spilled over into unrest during the summer of 1830 in Kent and Sussex before spreading into East Anglia and the rest of southern England. Unrest was limited in the Midlands although there were incidents of machine destruction. Further north, near Carlisle large crowds rioted while hay ricks burned. The newspapers of the period concluded that the unrest was the work of Captain Swing. Eventually two weavers were charged with arson. There were also some disturbances in Yorkshire – but these were more likely to have been the product of other grievances that took advantage of the widespread unrest in the south.

The main targets for the protesters were the hated threshing machines and the landowners who used them. Threatening letters were sent in the name of Captain Swing demanding that the machines be dismantled and that agricultural wages should be increased. Many of the machines were destroyed and that year hay ricks were put to the torch.

However, by the following year more than 2,000 people were brought to trial of whom nineteen were hanged and 481 or more, depending on the source, transported to Australia for daring to ask for enough wages to support themselves and their families.

Hobsbawm, Eric and Rudé, George. Captain Swing. (reprint 2001)

‘She-intelligencers’ – nothing so simple as spying

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Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle, Anthony van Dyck, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

If you haven’t read Nadine Akkerman’s work, Invisible Agents, I heartily recommend it. It covers the world of espionage and women during the seventeenth century in Britain. It has been suggested that successful female agents were few and far between – but Ackerman sets out to disprove the view.

One of the most famous intelligencers – was Lucy Hay, Countess of Carlisle. Born Lucy Percy, the daughter of the 9th Earl of Northumberland (the so-called Wizard Earl) and Dorothy Devereux – making her a descendent of Mary Boleyn. At the age of 18-years she married James Hay soon to become the Earl of Carlisle.

James was one of King James I’s Scottish favourites and a Groom of the Stool (Yes, he wiped the king’s bottom for him!). The Hays’ proximity to the Crown continued when Charles I ascended the throne, thanks in part to James’s assisting with the negotiations for Charles’ marriage to Henrietta Maria. It is thought that Lucy was the Duke of Buckingham’s mistress at this time as well as becoming one of the Queen’s ladies in waiting. At first Henrietta was not keen on Lucy’s presence – mainly because Lucy wasn’t a Catholic and because she was spying on the Queen on Buckingham’s behalf. Ultimately the two women became friends – although it was a relationship destined to be a rocky one on occasion.

In 1636 the Earl of Carlisle, who was twice Lucy’s age, died. The Duke of Buckingham had been assassinated in 1628 – so there she was an independent and glamorous widow. She took up with Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford – the new royal favourite. He also advised her on her Irish property. However, when Strafford was impeached by Parliament she distanced herself from the earl. In any event she had found a new beau- the Parliamentarian John Pym.

By the outbreak of the civil war in 1642 both the Royalists and the Parliamentarians thought that Lucy was their intelligencer. She had after all warned her lover, John Pym, about the king’s intentions to have him arrested. Henrietta believed that Lucy was cosying up to Parliamentarians like the earls of Warwick and Essex to spy on her behalf and they, in turn, believed that she was spying on the Royalists. Her house, it should be noted, was full of Royalists but it didn’t prevent her moving seamlessly between London and the Royal Court at Oxford.

Lucy would go on to raise funds for the Royalists and took messages to Henrietta when she was in France. In 1649 – shortly after the king’s execution, Lucy was arrested and carted off to the Tower. Somehow or other her jailors didn’t spot that she was writing letters to the new king, Charles II. She used her brother as a courier. Ultimately, eighteen months after her arrest, she was freed and continued her work as a royalist agent seeking the restoration of the monarchy.

Lucy died at the beginning of November 1660 but is remembered in fictional form today as Alexander Dumas’s Milady de Winter in The Three Musketeers.

Derbyshire in the English Civil War

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Predominantly Parliamentarian in sympathy, Derbyshire raised a regiment under the command of Sir John Gell of Hopton Hall and secured Derby in early December 1642. The Earl of Derbyshire went into exile and Chatsworth found itself being occupied by both sides at different times. The earl’s younger brother Charles Cavendish, would die in the Royalist cause.

Bolsover, the home of the earl’s cousin, William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle, also had a Royalist garrison although it was never besieged. Wingfield Manor was also garrisoned as well Tissington Hall in the Peak District and Barton Hall to the south of the county. Gell set about securing the property of Royalists in February 1643. He began with Elvaston Castle the home of his rival Sir John Stanhope who had died in 1638. At the time Stanhope’s widow, Mary, was in residence. Gell’s forces ransacked the manor, ruined her flower garden and defaced Sir John’s newly erected tomb before entering the family vault and repeatedly plunging their swords into the coffins it contained. The destruction of Mary’s flower garden was at Gell’s express orders – I’m not warming to the man whose own tomb can be viewed in Wirksworth Church. Not content with his work, Gell went on to raid Jacinth Sacheverell’s home at Morley and Sir John Coke’s property at Melbourne.

By November that year Chatsworth, Wingerworth and Staveley, all Royalist locations, were garrisoned by Parliamentarian troops as was Wingfield Manor. In December, Newcastle’s Royalists laid siege to Mary Queen of Scots former prison and on 19 December the Parliamentarian garrison there surrendered.

It was at about the same time that the Royalists garrisoned Tissington Hall, then the home of William FitzHerbert. Colonel Eyre was able to garrison Chatsworth, the Parliamentarians having withdrawn, as well as his own home at Hassop. It meant that the Royalists looked more secure in Derbyshire than they had since the beginning of the conflict. Unfortunately for them, Newcastle, withdrew into Yorkshire to counter the Scottish invasion into England in January 1644.

In July, Gell besieged Wingfield Manor but when he discovered that Colonel Eyre (the Royalist from Hassop who incidentally was at Marston Moor) was intent on raising the siege he sent men, commanded by Major Saunders, to shadow their movements. It meant that when Saunders saw at opportunity at Boylestone he was able to surround the colonel’s men in the church where they spent the night and capture them.

Even so, without artillery it would be impossible to capture Wingfield and it was only when Gell arranged for some cannon to be sent from Sheffield that he was able to capture it. Staveley Hall had already surrendered as had Bolsover Castle.

With key positions secured, Gell returned his attention to other Royalist homes in the area. One of his targets was Barton Blount just three miles from Tutbury. However, Sir John’s own career was coming to an end. King Charles’ surrender in May 1646 members the gentry who had been at war returned home and began to challenge Gell’s position and, after an acrimonious election, complaints about Gell arrived in London.

And as an aside – the lady whose flower garden had been destroyed at the start of the war – Mary Radcliffe, the widow of Sir John Stanhope — she was married to Gell in 1644. It was an unlikely match and it appears Gell wanted to get his hands on her money. They were separated four years later. He took her children, from her first marriage, to court claiming that Mary had secretly set up a trust so that Gell could not get his hands her £1000 per year income.

Mary Radcliffe. William Larkin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

And it just goes to show that a peruse of the Internet can reveal some unlikely finds. it appears that Mary, having separated from her unpleasant spouse (and Sir John Stanhope was described as choleric – so neither marriage sounds particularly comfortable) moved to London and the newly fashionable area of Covent Garden. She died there in 1653.

Mary Radcliffe’s shoes – Kerry Taylor auctions 2015

The Great Picture, Lady Anne Clifford

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The Great Picture, Lady Anne Clifford By Attributed to Jan van Belcamp (1610-1653) – http://www.abbothall.org.uk/sites/default/files/Abbot%20Hall%20Art%20Gallery/documents/AH-Great-Picture-Large.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41649100

The image on the left depicts Lady Anne Clifford, aged 15, with pictures of her governess Mrs Anne Taylor, or Taylour, and her tutor, the poet, Samuel Daniel. She studied Ovid, Chaucer and Cervantes Don Quixote. The latter was published in two parts in 1605 and 1615.

The middle picture portrays George Clifford, Earl of Cumberland as well as Anne’s mother, Lady Margaret Russell and Anne’s two short lived older brothers, Francis and Robert, who died before they were breeched- hence the long dresses. The four images on the wall behind depict George’s sisters, Lady Frances Clifford, Baroness Wharton and Lady Margaret Clifford, Countess of Derby. In addition there are images of Lady Anne Russell, Countess of Warwick and Lady Elizabeth Russell, Countess of Bath.

The final image, on the right hand side, portrays Lady Anne Clifford, aged 56-years, and images of her two husbands – the earls of Dorset and Pembroke.

Baroness Wharton was married to Philip Wharton – named after his godfather who just so happened to be Philip II of Spain. He was born in 1555. He narrowly avoided bankruptcy when he entertained James I. Frances died in 1592.

I’ve blogged about the Countess of Derby previously. Lady Anne Clifford’s grandfather, Henry Clifford, 2nd Earl of Cumberland was married to Lady Eleanor Brandon, the daughter of Henry VIII’s sister Mary, prior to his union with Anne Dacre, who was Lady Anne Clifford’s grandmother. It meant that Anne’s aunt had a claim to the throne. Prior to the death of Edward VI, the Duke of Northumberland attempted to arrange a marriage for Margaret Clifford that would bolster his position but in the event she was married following the accession of Mary I to the 4th Earl of Derby – Henry Stanley. In 1579 she was arrested for seeking a prediction regarding Elizabeth I’s death. Predicting the death of a monarch let alone plotting to kill one was a serious crime. The countess’s doctor was executed and she lived under house arrest. She died in 1596, never having been returned to royal favour.

The Countess of Bath was the second wife of William Bourchier, 3rd Earl of Bath. The marriage was about power in Devon. At the time the Earl of Bedford, who was Elizabeth, Anne and Margaret’s father was the county’s Lord Lieutenant as well as an important landholder in the region. She died in March 1604/1605 (depending on which calendar you’re using).

Ripon Cathedral

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My first attempt at intaglio printing using the inside of a tetra pack – I’m very happy with it! The gothic west front – as typified by its narrow lancet windows- is considered one of the best of its kind in the country.

Knole and Lady Anne Clifford

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In 1609, Lady Anne Clifford married Richard Sackville who became the 3rd Earl of Dorset the same year. They were the same age, with Anne being 19-years at the time of the marriage and Richard being 20. But the union was not a success. Richard had expensive tastes as well as mistresses and something of a gambling problem. Anne wrote that the ground steadied beneath her feet when her husband left the country to complete his education. Lady Anne Clifford, on the other hand, was determined to win her Westmorland inheritance as her father’s only legitimate child. Sackville was more interested in the money which was offered to Anne as an alternative. Supporters of the earl, of whom King James I was one, thought that Anne ought to be obedient to her husband’s wishes. Her lack of compliance saw Richard deny her access to their eldest child, Margaret, for a time. In the end Richard received £20,000 despite Anne’s continued objections. Her husband considered her ‘devoid of reason.’

Anne kept a diary of her life, in part to keep track of her legal battles and her claim to the Clifford estates. She thought that it would be a useful document if she had to go to court. Her diaries from Knole make sad reading as it is clear that she lived in self imposed isolation much of the time. As well as her writing she also completed needlework. Although, it is evident that she got on well with many of her staff. There is mention of her playing backgammon with the steward for instance. There is also evidence of Anne ensuring that she fulfilled her duty as the mistress of Knole. She lists the whole household in 1623 and arranged her notes according to their place in the Great Hall which makes fascinating reading, not least because it lists the nursery staff among the 100 or so servants. Among the number was Grace Robinson described as a ‘blackamoor’ who was seated at the table with the laundry staff. The Sackville family were linked to the trade in slaves, the 4th Earl – Richard’s brother- was Governor of the Somers Island Company . However, it is unclear whether Grace was a paid servant or someone who had been trafficked into forced labour.

What makes her diary sad is she records living with a ‘discontented heart’ but putting on a brave face. I’m not entirely sure that a brave face was what most women would put on these days if their husband openly brought their mistress to live in the family home as Sackville did when he moved Lady Martha Penistone in to Knole. Sir Thomas Penistone, Lady Penistone’s husband was among the earl’s retinue of thirty gentlemen. Each of them received £50 a year. Martha died from smallpox in 1620, about a year after becoming the earl’s mistress.

For Anne, the grandeur of Knole was nothing compared to the castles that she felt should be hers in the north of England. Sackville died in March 1624. Anne Clifford recorded in her diary that news of her husband’s death came at a time when her two daughters both had small pox, as did she. One of her first actions after Richard’s death was to buy the wardship of her daughters, Margaret and Isabella, from the king. Their other three children had died in infancy.

The earldom of Dorset passed to Richard’s brother, Edward. The fourth earl was forced to sell some of his family’s land to pay his brother’s debts but he rose at court as Queen Henrietta Maria’s chamberlain. He fought on the side of the royalists during the English Civil War but his wife Mary Curzon of Croxhall in Derbyshire who had served as governess for the royal family remained in London to care for Princess Elizabeth and her brother Henry, Duke of Gloucester. her payment from Parliament ensured that Knole remained in the Sackville family. She died in 1645 having been asked to be relieved of her employment and she received a funeral in Westminster Abbey- making her another remarkable woman of the 17th century.

Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset Attributed to William Larkin, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Loving the gold lace pompoms on his shoes – shoe roses and heels were two ways that you could express your wealth and status. I don’t suppose the gold work embroidery on his stockings downplayed his position in society either. In fact I rather suspect the whole outfit would be described as among the extravagances that led to the earl having to mortgage Knole in order to pay his debts.

Mary Sidney, Countess of Pembroke – the paradox of early modern women

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I’ve encountered Mary Sidney on several occasions in the past few years. She was the sister of Sir Philip Sidney, their mother was born Mary Dudley, the sister of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Mary, the wife of Sir Henry Sidney, was one of Queen Elizabeth I’s favourite ladies. Sir Henry who was raised alongside Prince Edward, his father being the prince’s chamberlain and his mother the prince’s governess. It’s easy to see how the pair were married to one another – the Sidneys were already close to Edward VI and Dudley, who later became the Duke of Northumberland, wanted to ensure their support.

Henry and May had seven children. Mary was the fifth child, born in 1561. Her eldest sister, Margaret, died while she was still a toddler in 1558. Elizabeth died when Mary was just six, while Ambrosia who was only a year older than Mary died in 1575. Mary’s youngest brother, Thomas, also died at a young age.

All of them were raised at Penshurst in Kent, at Ludlow Castle in Wales and Ticknell Palace near Bewdley. They also travelled to Dublin. It was while they were there that Elizabeth died. When Mary was three, her 10-year-old brother, Philip, was sent to Shrewsbury School where he remained for the next four years before continuing his education at Oxford University. Having finished his studies there, Philip was granted a licence to travel for two years in order to improve his knowledge of foreign language.

For Mary education, of the humanist kind enjoyed by Elizabeth I, meant a proficiency in French and Italian. She was also taught Latin, music and needlework. They were essential skills for a young woman who might find herself in Elizabeth’s court.

By the time Philip returned home in 1575, following Ambrosia’s death, Mary and her mother were residing at Elizabeth’s court. It was an opportunity for her to acquire court polish and for her parents to make her a good match. The good offices of the queen and of the Earl of Leicester gave the Sidneys an advantage in securing a union with the Herbert family in 1577. It was another factor in making a daughter’s education arrangements. It was essential that a young woman should meet the expectations of the family into which she might marry. Manners and conduct were consequently an important part of education. Girls were expected to be respectful and modest.

After her marriage to Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke (becoming his third wife) who was more than two decades older than her, she was responsible for the good management of his estates as well as providing him with a family of four children. Much of her surviving writing is business correspondence. It’s a reminder that while women were regarded as having roles within the private rather than pubic sphere, that as representatives of their husbands, their influence could be wide ranging. Somehow, as well as entertaining the queen, running a household and managing her husband’s estates, she managed to find time to have a chemistry laboratory at Wilton House where she developed medicines and invisible ink.

More important, she created the Wilton Circle of poets that included the likes of Edmund Spenser and Ben Johnson. She would receive more dedications than any other woman of non royal status. And she wrote her own work -unusual in publishing under her own name- but avoiding criticism by focusing on religion, translations, elegies and works of praise. It helped that her that she was the sister of Sir Philip Sidney. Her story of patronage began after his death when she encouraged authors to publish works written in his praise. It seems that she wrote throughout her life thereafter but most of what exists today dates from the 1590s. it is likely that much of what she wrote has been lost to history. There was a fire at Wilton during the seventeenth century and also at Baynard’s Castle which was another of her homes.

In short, Mary Sidney is a perfect example of the paradox that many early modern women became. On one hand they were expected to be obedient wives, interested in the domestic and the religious but on the other they were business women, patrons of the arts and like Mary, on occasion, able to demonstrate their intellect and achieve remarkable things.

A Little History of Nottinghamshire

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I’m not sure what happened to December – other than the usual! And now having started physio on my shoulder I’m back at the keyboard which is probably just as well, because as ever in January I’m running behind.

Currently this year I have a talk in February in Nottingham at Waterstones on the evening of Thursday 26th February on the subject of Nottinghamshire. If you’re interested please follow the link to the Waterstones page.

https://www.waterstones.com/events/the-little-history-of-nottinghamshire-an-evening-with-julia-a-hickey/nottingham

Hopefully by the end of today I will have my first Zoom class for 2026 set up. It’s going to be on the subject of remarkable women of the Seventeenth Century – Lady Anne Clifford, Christina Duchess of Devonshire, Lady Mary Vere and her daughters, Aphra Benn, Brilliana Harley, Lady Jane Cavendish, Mary Somerset, Duchess of Beaufort are among the women that spring to mind as well as Lady Ann Middleton from York and Mary Ward who became a Poor Clare. I will also be covering Lucy Hutchinson who wrote an account of her husband’s life and, less well known, Alice Thornton a northern diarist. In fact there are rather a lot of remarkable seventeenth century women when I come to think about it, I just need to martial the dates and organise them into some kind of order.