Tag Archives: Derby

Bonnie Prince Charlie from Carlisle to Derby and back again…what the papers thought.

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bonnie prince charlieI keep coming back to the Bonnie Prince probably because there is so much printed material available one way and another not to mention rather beautiful tableware and tall tales.  In the past it was assumed that regional newspapers of the period reflected a Londoncentric viewpoint.  This was what people wanted to read – with a side interest in the local crime rates, corresponding descriptions of executions and the occasional hideous accident.

In 1745 the press presented a very anti-Jacobite stance.  There were headlines like “No Popery” and “No Pretender.” The London Gazette helpfully announced Bonnie Prince Charlie’s landing in Scotland with a £30,00 reward for his capture whilst the Newcastle Courant, one of the oldest regional papers (I think) provided a sketch map of the Battle of Colloden.  The papers were so wholeheartedly Hanoverian that anything Scottish came almost to be regarded as a political and social threat to order and safety.  This was a viewpoint that would last for some time afterwards.  Harris’s article on Jacobitism identifies the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 as a news event of the kind with which we are all too familiar today – the papers ceased to report events they actively sort out scoops and battled one another to be first with a new angle or event.

1745 etchingSatirists made the point that the Jacobites were in league with the pope and being manipulated by the French.  This particular example is in the hands of the British Museum.  Another cartoon entitled The Highland Visitors depicts the Scots indulging in a spot of light plundering.  To be fair the satirists were more than happy to point a finger at General Cope when he arrived in Berwick with the news of his defeat following Prestonpans and in the aftermath  “Butcher Cumberland” was not presented in a warm or friendly light as this cartoon shows with Britannia weighing mercy and butchery:britannia weighing mercy and butchery

The figures involved were presented in tabloid dimensions.  This stereotyping was something that had grown out of the broadsheets and ballads of earlier centuries.  There is even an article on anti-Scottishness in political prints of the period and the use of prints to depict stereotypical Scots including the blue bonnet which the Young Pretender can be seen wearing at the start of this post.  Even more interestingly it was only in 1745 that tartan became synonymous with Scottishness as, I am sad to say, did being unwashed and eating oats.  Having said that the counter balance was the concept of Highland savagery – making the gentrified Hanoverians look somewhat sissy in contrast.  Bonnie Prince Charlie might have been the representative of popery, tyranny and chaos but he was also the brave “highland laddie” that grew from his extended tour of the Scottish Highlands.

But back to the papers of the day – The Northampton Mercury, as averse to the Derby Mercury, took the unprecedented steps of hiring couriers so that they could beat the London papers in reporting Bonnie Prince Charlie’s retreat from Derby.  It also arranged for the London Papers to be couriered to its offices by using four staging posts for speed. The modern age of newspapers had arrived.

As some of you are aware I teach some courses for the WEA – the Workers Educational Association. I shall be delivering a very short course at the beginning of September (Tuesday morning 4th and 11th) on the topic of the Jacobite Prince in Derby. The course reference is C2340279.

https://enrolonline.wea.org.uk/Online/CourseSearchResults.aspx

 

If you would like to attend please book via the WEA website or phone their office.

 

Barker, Hannah. (1999) Newspapers and English Society 1695-1855

Clarke, Bob. (2004) From Grub Street to Fleet Street: An Illustrated History of English Newspapers to 1899.

Harris, Bob. (1995) England’s Provincial Newspapers and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46. History 80.  5-21

Pentland, G 2011, ‘“We Speak for the Ready”: Images of Scots in Political Prints, 1707-1832’ Scottish Historical Review, vol 90, no. 1, pp. 64-95. DOI: 10.3366/shr.2011.0004

The Derbyshire Militia – facing Bonnie Prince Charlie in 1745

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blue plaque derbyI’ve hopped away from the English Civil War for a couple of days. I’m currently trying to find out what I can about the Derbyshire Blues. This was the regiment of militia raised by William Cavendish, the Third Duke of Devonshire, in 1745 in response to the arrival of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his prospective invasion of England.

 

There had been an act to permit the raising of militia at the beginning of the eighteenth century which required regular renewal but this had lapsed when it was not renewed in 1735. In theory this meant that all the Lord Lieutenants of counties who raised regiments against the Jacobites were in breach of the law not that this stopped King George II’s ministers from approving the need for them on the 5th September 1745. George II was in Hanover and so Parliament could not sit until he returned so even though letters were sent out to Lords Lieutenant on the 13th they weren’t acting entirely within the bounds of legality. As a consequence the Militia Act of 1745 passed through parliament into law in one day. The Act stated that at any time up to the 30 November 1746, the militia could be called for active service, with each soldier to be provided with a month’s pay, advanced locally and repaid within six months. Any regiment of militia would be liable to serve throughout the country – although in Derbyshire there was a stipulation that none of its militia should be expected to march more than ten miles outside the county boundaries. So essentially, think of the militia as a proto-type home guard.

 

The problem seems to have been that the militia despite their pay and in many cases their new uniforms were not the kind of men that the Lords Lieutenant might have hoped for. In Carlisle men deserted in droves when they are required to defend the walls and in Lancashire despite their new coats, hats and shoes the militia took itself off to Liverpool before decamping in the direction of Warrington to destroy bridges. Beckett reveals that the militia were so ineffective that the Jacobites gave them the code name “small beer” although he does note that they were much more effective during the Jacobite retreat in that they harried stragglers and sought to slow the Highlanders by felling trees across various roads.

William-Cavendish-3rd-Duke-of-Devonshire.jpg

In Derbyshire the Duke of Devonshire, a Whig supporter of the Hanoverians was also the Lord Lieutenant of the county. He had just returned from duties in Ireland where he had been Lord Lieutenant for six years. It was his job to raise the militia. On the 28th September there was a meeting in the George Inn on Irongate in Derby:

“to consider of such measures as are fit to be taken for the support of the Royal Person and government of H. M. King George, and our happy constitution in Church and State, at a time when rebellion is carrying on in favour of a Popish Pretender.”

As a result of the discussion a regiment of five hundred men was formed. One hundred and twenty of them had been paid for by the duke himself. Overall command of the regiment was to be given to the Duke of Devonshire with the Marquis of Hartington and Sir Nathaniel Curzon taking charge of one company each with the two county MPs taking the jobs of colonels of the regiment. The minutes of the meeting revealed the initial idea was that the men should be divided amongst Derbyshire’s market towns – Ashbourne was to have fifty men as was Bakewell whilst Chesterfield and Derby were to have a hundred men each.   Sir Nathaniel Curzon, Sir Robert Burdett, Sir Henry Harpur, Littleton Poyntz Meynell, William Cotton, German Pole, Edward Munday, Richard Harpur, Philip Gell were signatories to the document and in excess of £6000 was raised by subscription for the formation of the militia.

George InnA second meeting at the George, or the King’s Head as it became as the Jacobites drew closer was also recorded in the Derby Mercury.  It turns out that the Duke not only summoned the gentry of the county to discuss the need for a militia but that he wined and dined them as well.  Even so when commissions were sent out it was reported that some  were turned down.

The Derbyshire Blues were a nattily dressed bunch in blue serge coats, white breeches, black buckled shoes and tricorn hats sporting an orange cockade. In London it was arranged for armaments to be sent from The Tower to Derbyshire in two waggons.

On the 19th November, by which time the Jacobites had captured Carlisle, Lord Lonsdale, the Lord Lieutenant of Cumberland, wrote to the Due of Devonshire saying that he had heard from Penrith to the effect that the Jacobites were coming with an army of 8,000 men and where was the English army under the command of Sir John Ligionier? Lonsdale was concerned that his message had got lost en route and hoped that the duke could correspond with the army based at Lichfield more effectively. Ligionier was unwell and he was about to be replaced by George II’s son, the Duke of Cumberland.

 

As December approached the panic seems to have grown, trees were felled to form a blockade on the road between Buxton and Ashbourne; letters were written about the dangers of local Catholics who found themselves unable to own a horse worth more than £5.00 and forbidden to travel far from their own doorsteps. By the 3rd of December folk who could leave Derby did so.

 

The militia paraded, moved into position to guard Swarkestone Bridge and then at ten in the evening scarpered to Mansfield via Nottingham before deciding that it was still too close to the Jacobites having sent a scout to find out if they had yet left Derby and decamping to Retford – which is not exactly on a direct route to London but was much closer to Marshall Wade who was then in Doncaster! Part of the reason for their reluctance to encounter the Jacobites was that they believed that the prince’s army was considerably larger than it really was. Rumour suggested somewhere in the region of 9,000 men when actually the army was closer to 4,000. Even if they had known the true number it is hard to imagine what five hundred part-time soldiers could possibly have done against the highlanders in an unwalled city aside from getting themselves slaughtered.

 

After the whole affair was over a satire purporting to be a chronicle of the “mighty acts of Devonshire” was published – presumably by a Jacobite sympathiser or by a forerunner of Jimmy Perry.  Very sensibly the author chose a pseudonym “Nathan Ben Shaddai.” He wrote it in the manner of an Old Testament reading.  The militia are seen arguing about where is safest for them and then go to Nottingham via the village of Borrows-Ash where “they make war on the poultry” and drank “much strong drink” before departing “forgetting to pay.” During the course of their flight a certain Captain Lowe does not emerge particularly heroically and having consumed rather a lot of intoxicating liquor the regiment confuses a herd of cows with the Jacobites. The chronicle descends into farce when one of the drummers leaves his drum on the road in the confusion and a Lieutenant accidentally rode his horse over it causing even more chaos not to mention a soiling of the aforementioned  white breeches.

 

Beckett, Fredrick, William. (1991)The Amateur Military Tradition, 1558-1945. Manchester: Manchester University Press

Lord, Evelyn and  Money, David. (2004) The Stuarts Secret Army: English Jacobites 1689-1752. London: Pearson

Riding, Jacqueline. A New History of the ’45 Rebellion.  London: Bloomsbury

Stone, Brian. (2015). Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Highland Army in Derby. Cromford: Scarthin Books.

https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/The_Chronicle_of_the_Derbyshire_Regiment.html?id=HLmDAQAACAAJ&redir_esc=y

Image of the Duke of Devonshire from the National Portrait Gallery Collection.

 

 

 

 

 

The Jacobite advance.

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bonnie prince chalrie derby38.JPGAs the Jacobites marched south via Lancaster the Hanoverians in the form of the Lancashire Militia and the Liverpool Blues marched into action – which meant breaking bridges.  The bridge over the Mersey at Warrington was demolished as were several others but by the time the order came to demolish the bridge at Stockport it was too late.  The Blues hurried off to join the garrison at Chester and Liverpudlians heaved a sigh of collective relief as the Jacobites headed for Manchester and Manchester’s magistrates promptly left.  There was something of an exodus prior to their arrival.  Such was the state of concern that Oates records that families packed their belongings and their families onboard boats in Liverpool ready to sail in the event of the army turning its attention in their direction.  Not everyone felt the same about the Stuart cause apparently two fiddlers played the Jacobites into Preston – though Preston a town with a reputation of jacobite sympathies didn’t offer up many in the way of recruits.

Once they arrived in Manchester on the 29th November 1745 the Jacobites set about having the bridge at Crossford repaired, food to be foraged for and Prince Charles declared regent.

The perennial problem of recruitment remained. Eight men had joined in Preston.  At Ormskirk the story was a bit different in that there was more popular support but it appeared that although Prince Charles had well wishers none wished to pick up a weapon in his cause.  This was disappointing as Lancashire had the reputation for being Catholic in outlook.  Oates observes that there was little correspondence between the Catholic Church in England and the Stuart court, ironically based in Rome, as the Stuarts didn’t wish the English to think of them as being a Catholic faction.  Ultimately a Manchester Regiment of Jacobites was formed. Charles took this as a good sign – his officers felt that two hundred men didn’t constitute a popular uprising nor for that matter did they come solely from Manchester.  They came from all over the north of England. They were in the command of Colonel Francis Towneley who had seen service in the French army.  The regiment was inspected on the 30th November.  When Towneley was tried for treason in London in 1746 he claimed that as a veteran of the french army he should be treated as a prisoner of war.  His plea was not admitted.

The Jacobites left Manchester with their new recruits on the 1st of December 1745.  They continued south via Macclesfield and Leek where they arrived on 3rd December- it is said that the Jacobites sharpened their swords on the tombstones of St Edward’s Church. The vicar’s wife either died from fright or gave the prince a flea in his ear depending on which story you chose to believe.From there it was a hop, skip and a jump to Ashbourne and Derby.

Meanwhile Cumberland decided that the prince was heading for Wales based on a feint that Lord George Murray made at Congleton so marched his forces from Lichfield to Stone south of Stoke where he waited to give battle – and was presumably very irritated when it didn’t happen. Murray’s manoeuvre meant that the Jacobites were able to march into Derby unopposed on 4th December with between six  and nine thousand men depending on the source.  The newly formed Derbyshire regiment commanded by the Duke of Devonshire having decided that discretion was the better part of valour and scarpered to Retford.  Bonnie Prince Charlie feeling that he was on a roll made arrangements for the capture of Swarkestone Bridge which was the only one crossing the Trent between Burton and Nottingham.

There was a meeting in Exeter House on the 5th December.  There are 125 miles between Derby and London – another week would have seen the army in England’s capital. However, it was decided that the army would return to Scotland  as it risked being surrounded with Wade and Cumberland’s men coming around behind them and another force to their south.  There was also the lack of support from the English for the Jacobite cause and in addition to which the Scots were a bit restive about the fact that the french were supposed to be offering assistance and so far there had been not so much as a hint of french boots on the ground.   Lord George Murray was very clear as to his concerns.

The final straw may have come in the form of Dudley Bradstreet who presented himself in Derby as a Jacobite but who was really a spy working for Cumberland – he “let slip’ that there were 9,000 men in Northampton on the Hanoverian side.  There weren’t but there wasn’t any way of checking.

So on the 6th of December Ashbourne once again played host to Bonnie Prince Charlie and his very cross army because whilst the officers didn’t fancy being pinned on three sides the men themselves were keen for a fight.

Oates, Jonathan D. (2006) The Jacobite Invasion of 1745 in Northwest England. Lancaster: lancaster University

 

Mr Shore – husband of Edward IV’s mistress

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jane-shoreNot a snappy title I know but this post is about who it says on the can!  I keep coming back to Jane Shore (double click to open my previous post in a new window). On this occasion I have a day school of Edward IV coming up and have been reading Margaret Crosland’s Life and Legend of Jane Shore by way of preparation as Jane Shore was the merriest of his mistresses. The lady with the large necklace in the picture next to this paragraph is an assumed portrait of Jane.  Victorian compositions tend to show her suitably draped in a sheet doing public penance for her harlotry!

 

Edward IV’s mistress was, of course, Jane Shore, immortalised by Sir Thomas More’s sympathetic portrayal.  She was baptised Elizabeth Lambert. Popular history has her husband down as Matthew Shore – goldsmith. Interestingly Thomas More does not identify Shore’s first name or his profession.

Scrub out Matthew Shore- goldsmith for the time being.  Replace him with William Shore – mercer.  John Lambert, Jane’s father was a mercer and William turns up often in the Mercers’ Company accounts. Let’s face it the link makes much more sense.

William was born in Derby in the mid 1430s making him fifteen or so years older than Jane (i.e. twice her age when they married).  It is suggested that his father may have been Robert Shore a churchwarden for All Hallows, Derby.  Crosland notes the extent to which the Shores donated items to the church which draws on Sutton’s research.  His parents managed to marry their daughter, apparently their only other child, into a local gentry family, the Agards, and have William apprenticed in London. Sutton notes that Richard Claver an eminent member of the Mercers’ Company had family links with Derby. In any event young William was apprenticed, experienced the full rigours of life as apprentice and journeyman before entering the Mercers’ Company in 1459 at the latest.  William travelled extensively it appears and struck a deal with John Lambert that acquired him a bride.

Crosland next finds the couple in the Court of Arches near the church of St Mary-le-Bow. The job of this court was to check degrees of consanguinity and clarify legal issues before marriage took place. Really and truly, Crosland explains, Jane Shore had no business being there as she was already married and the court could make no judgement on her case.

Yet it transpires that Jane, a comely wench, had a problem.  Her duty as a wife was to beget children – but it takes two to tango as they say in Halifax. Sadly for Jane, Mr Shore wasn’t interested in tangoes or indeed any other aspect of physical married life.  Jane kept returning to the Court of Arches trying to have her marriage annulled.  The case as it is presented is simple – she has been married for three years but the marriage had not been consummated. This apparently was the legal requirement for the dissolution of the marriage but the Court of Arches could merely shrug its shoulders and say it was none of their business.

Realistically someone of Jane’s station couldn’t expect to pay the prohibitive costs involved in taking the case to Rome where such matters were discussed.

Somewhat surprisingly then Jane was granted a divorce by Pope  Sixtus IV on the 4th March 1476. Desmond Seward and Margaret Crosland surmise that someone with a bit of clout and a lot of money had taken an interest in Jane’s plight…quite possibly Edward IV.

Interestingly William Shore also received communication from the Yorkist king.  In 1476 he was in receipt of letters of protection and he doesn’t turn up in London’s records until 1484.  It looks as though William left the country immediately after his marriage was terminated and didn’t feel it prudent to return until after Edward’s demise.

slabsclopton_smallWilliam Shore or Schower died in 1495 and is buried in Scropton in Derbyshire.  Scropton lies on land once owned by the Agard family. His monument is still available to view should one feel the urge. History even provides his will which is transcribed in the Sutton article which shows that he maintained his links with Derby both during his life and after his death.

Crosland, Margaret. (2006) The Life and Legend of Jane Shore. Stroud: Sutton Publishing

Seward, Desmond. (1995) The Wars of the Roses and the Lives and Five Men and Women of the Fifteenth Century.  Constable

Sutton, Anne F  (1986) “William Shore, Merchant of London and Derby” Derbyshire Archeological Journal Vol 106 pp 127-39 distributed by York: Archaeology Data Service (distributor) (doi:10.5284/1018074).http://archaeologydataservice.ac.uk/archiveDS/archiveDownload?t=arch-2300-1/dissemination/pdf/106/DAJ_v106_1986_127-139.pdf

King’s Mead Priory, Derby

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DSC_0491The Benedictine nunnery of King’s Mead in Derby dedicated to the Virgin Mary was the only Benedictine foundation in Derbyshire and its inhabitants were initially under the spiritual and temporal guidance of the abbot of Darley Abbey – an Augustinian foundation.  History reveals that in the twelfth century there was a warden who acted as chaplain to the nuns as well as looking after the nuns’ business affairs. The nunnery grew its land holdings over the next hundred or so years so that it included three mills at Oddebrook. One of the reasons that this may have occurs was because Henry III gave the nuns twelve acres of land. Because the king had shown an interest it is possible that more donors followed suit in an effort to win favour. Equally donors such as Lancelin Fitzlancelin and his wife Avice who gave land and animals to the nunnery in 1230 or Henry de Doniston and his wife Eleanor could expect a shorter term in Pergatory after their deaths because the nuns would be expected to hold them in their prayers as a result of the land transaction.

 

By 1250 the nuns of King’s Mead and the abbot of Darley Dale were out of sorts with one another. It was decided that the nuns should go their own way and that the abbot of Darley Dale would cease interfering with their business. The land holdings of both organisations were perused and a division occurred.  The nuns were required to give some land to Darley Abbey but it was at this time that the church and living of St Werburgh in Derby along with other agricultural land was signed over to the nuns.

The pattern is similar to countless other monastic foundations across the country, so too are the difficulties that befell the nuns. Sadly they ended up so deeply in debt due to cattle morrain that by 1327 that they had to ask the king for protection as they were not able to offer hospitality to visitors to Derby. This raises an interesting question. Who exactly were the nuns petitioning? Edward II reigned from 1284 until 1327 but he was forced by his wife Isabella of France and her lover Roger Mortimer to hand over his crown to his son, Edward, in January 1327 before being whisked off to Berkeley Castle where he died on the 21st September 1327 (if history is to be believed) due to an unfortunate accident with a hot poker. The petition must therefore have been addressed to King Edward III but realistically it was Mortimer who was in charge at this point in proceedings.

 

Things looked as though they were improving with the appointment of a new prioress, Joan Touchet, and custodians who could make the books balance. However the priory was still struggling seven years later. Joan was still in charge in 1349 but she died that year. It was the year of the Black Death.

 

After this time the nunnery seems to have ticked along without cause for concern. A possible reason for this could well have been the charter from Henry IV granting the nuns payment of one hundred shillings every year from the town of Nottingham. Another reason could well have been the fact that it was Derbyshire’s only nunnery so it had the monopoly on educating the daughters of Derbyshire’s leading lights.

 

Things start to look uncertain for King’s Mead with the reign of Henry VI. The County History reveals the tale of the abbot of Burton demanding the back payment of twenty-one years rent. The prioress, a lady called Isabel de Stanley wasn’t having any of it:

 

Wenes these churles to overlede me or sue the law agayne me ? They shall not be so hardy but they shall avye upon their bodies and be nailed with arrowes; for I am a gentlewoman comen of the greatest of Lancashire and Cheshire; and that they shall know right well.

 

With hind sight, it may have been a bit of a foolish thing for the abbot of Burton to do though he can’t have known that Henry VI would end up murdered in the Tower or that the only Lancastrian claimant left standing would be the  step son of one Thomas Stanley. The name Stanley should be ringing bells by now! The prioress was related to Thomas Stanley who just so happened to be Margaret Beaufort’s husband and she of course just so happened to be Henry Tudor’s mother…

 

Not that being cosy with the Tudors was something that would serve future prioresses of King’s Mead very well. The Valor Ecclesiasticus of 1535, identifies Joan Curzon as prioress and gives the annual value of King’s Mead as £18 6s. 2d. and that the priory was in debt. The nuns of King’s Mead had already had a bit of a shock before the arrival of the visitors. The year before a fake visitor called James Billingford, who claimed to be the queen’s cousin arrived to inspect the barns. He was shown to be a fraud but it wasn’t long before Layton and Legh, Cromwell’s unfunny double act, arrived to poke into King’s Mead’s shady corners. They found nothing apart from a fragment of Thomas of Canterbury’s shirt which was venerated by the pregnant ladies of Derby. Interestingly, despite being the only nunnery in Derbyshire King’s Mead was not given a stay of execution. Perhaps the Prioress didn’t know that Cromwell was open to financial gifts or perhaps the sisters couldn’t afford to pay. In any event the nunnery was suppressed in 1536.

 

In 1541 the site fell into the ownership of the Fifth Earl of Shrewsbury and by the nineteenth century nothing remained apart from the name Nun Street.

 

 

 

Sir John Gell – Parliamentarian

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Sir_John_Gell_original.jpgOne of the things I like about the summer is the opportunity to get sidetracked, which is exactly what I’ve done in this post. I mentioned in my last post that Sir John Gell besieged Royalists holed up in Lichfield Cathedral in March 1643. John Gell was born at Hopton Hall, near Wirksworth in Derbyshire. Hopton Hall today is known for its snowdrops, its roses and its undulating crinklecrankle garden walls.

The Gells were a wealthy family with their flocks of sheep and lead mines. John was born in 1593. Shortly after John’s birth his father died and his mother Millicent, pregnant with John’s brother Thomas, married John Curzon of Kedleston Hall. In addition to John’s younger brother Millicent also provided a half-brother rather confusingly also called John. Gell raised at Kedleston followed the career path of a young gentleman of his era. He went to university but did not take a degree. He married into the local gentry and then proceeded to create a family and get a reputation for womanizing. He is recorded as saying that he never meddled with women unless they were handsome! No one thought to ask his wife her opinion on the subject nor did it seem to interfere with Gell’s Presbyterianism.

 

Our story really starts in 1635 when Gell was appointed sheriff of Derbyshire and given the unpleasant task of collecting Charles I’s ship money. This tax was usually raised in coastal locations to build, outfit and crew ships to fend off pirates….there isn’t much call for sea-going vessels in Derbyshire which rather explains why Charles I’s little wheeze to raise taxes without having to call a Parliament caused consternation across the country. Gell collected the money in Derbyshire rather enthusiastically. It caused huge resentment not least when Sir John Stanhope was charged twenty-four pounds ship money which he refused to pay. Stanhope happened to be the brother of the Earl of Chesterfield. This together with some earlier cause for dislike resulted in a long-standing feud between Gell with Sir John Stanhope and his brother the earl of Chesterfield.

 

Gell became a baronet in January 1642 presumably for his efficient way with the collection of taxes but supported Parliament on the outbreak of civil war when the king raised his standard in Nottingham that same year. It might be possible that it wasn’t religion that caused Gell to side with Parliament, or his connection with Parliamentarian inclined Derby (as a general rule of thumb, to which there are exceptions, towns tended to be more Parliamentarian in outlook whilst the countryside was more Royalist). What else could it be? Well, it could have been concern that Parliament might have wanted a word about those pesky ship taxes or it could have been the fact that the Stanhopes declared for the king – and Gell, if you recall, did not like the Stanhopes one little bit.

 

Gell threw himself into his new role when he was commissioned by the Earl of Essex to secure Derbyshire for Parliament. He went to Hull where he took charge of a company of London volunteers. They returned with Gell to Derby which became a center for infantry and cavalry regiments. Unfortunately, Derby had no castle or walls. It was Gell who ordered the construction of defensive earthworks.

 

One of the first things that Gell did was to order the siege of Bretbey House – it was owned by Philip Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield. More famously he also besieged Wingfield Manor but by then he had settled his squabble with Stanhope. Lord Chesterfield took Lichfield for the king in 1643. Gell and his men joined Lord Brooke there in March. Brooke was killed early in the siege so Gell took over command and when the Royalists surrendered a few days later, the rank and file were permitted to leave without their weapons but Philip Stanhope, Lord Chesterfield was dispatched to London in chains where he remained in captivity until his death in 1656.

 

Many of the Royalists who were allowed to march away from Lichfield sought a new army to join. They made for Stafford which was at that time in Royalist hands under the command of the earl of Northampton.  Gell joined forces with Sir William Bereton of Cheshire. The resulting battle at Hopton Heath near Stafford which has nothing to do with Hopton in Derbyshire was indecisive but the Earl of Northampton was killed.

 

Gell now did something that would earn him the lasting enmity of Charles I. Gell asked for the artillery that he had lost at Hopton Heath to be returned. He also asked the earl’s son for the money that Gell had laid out to have the earl embalmed. Both requests were declined. In response, Gell who had removed the earl’s body from the battlefield had Northampton’s body paraded through the streets of Derby before it was buried.

 

The following year, and after the death of his first wife in October 1644, he married Mary Stanhope, the widow Sir John Stanhope. The marriage was swiftly dissolved. Your guess is as good as mine as to whether that was a match made in Heaven.

 

Gell seems to have become a steadily more  loose canon after 1644. He appointed his friends and family to important positions; allowed his troops to plunder and ignored Fairfax’s order that his troops should join with Fairfax at Naseby. His actions were so suspicious that Parliament believed that Gell was thinking of changing his allegiance. This thought was probably also voiced the following year at the siege of Tutbury Castle when Gell offered different, and rather more lenient, surrender terms than those offered by his fellow commander – Bereton who you will recall had been with Gell at the Battle of Hopton Heath.

 

Rather bizarrely Gell tried to gain a pardon for his role in the war from Charles I during his imprisonment at Carisbrooke Castle by offering to lend him £900 in gold.  In 1650, he was found guilty of plotting against the Commonwealth. Charles II planned to return to his kingdom via Scotland but wanted to be sure of having an army to command.  His council wanted to ensure that parliament didn’t know where the king was going to pop up.   Blank commissions were sent secretly to England with a view to raising divisions of men but the Commonwealth tracked many of these commissions and in so doing unearthed more than one royalist sympathiser. Gell was lucky not to be hanged like the unfortunate Dr Lewen who was found with several of these commissions. Instead, Gell was imprisoned in the Tower of London until 1652 when he was freed. He lived in London rather than returning to Derbyshire.

 

Charles II pardoned him for his role in the civil war and granted him a position at court, where he remained until his death in October 1671. His body was returned to Derbyshire. He is buried in Wirksworth.

 

 

Brighton, Trevor (2004) Sir John Gell. Oxford DNB.

Stone, Brian (1992) Derbyshire in the Civil War. Cromford: Scarthin Books