OPTHI 0KIVEIB81TT OF
^M
^.o
^t-
THE HISTORY
e Wim\ mis ^rmmar ScloffI
OF
SEDBBRGH,
YORKSHIRE.
BY A. E. P L A T T.
LONDON : LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. KENDAL: ATKINSON AND POLLITT.
MDCCCLXXYI. /V %
In reading this, will none, perchance, find pleasure.
But yet full oft a little vessel gaineth
The harbour safely, where is drowned in entering
A lofty ship, for she light load containeth.
GiAN Maria Filelfo, 1471.
^/ST
PREFACE.
Although, perhaps, so slight a sketch as this little work is hardly worthy of a Preface, I feel obliged to say a few words in explanation of my presumption in appearing in print at all. The History of our Parish and Grammar School was first written for the Sedbergh Magazine^ and is reprinted from that in an enlarged form ; and the idea of it was first suggested to me by the knowledge that there were numbers of papers, belonging to the Grammar School which few persons seemed to be acquainted with. These I have been allowed to read, and as (fortunately for my ignorance) they are almost all in English, I have compiled my History in great part from them. I should remark, that among these and other papers which have been kindly lent me, there are some which are imperfect and unintelligible for want of other papers to explain them, and these, though interesting in themselves, I have not been able to make use of.
I take this opportunity of offering my hearty thanks to those friends who have helped me by the loan of books, papers, and registers, and by information of various kinds ; and I hope my book may be interesting to the inhabitants of this, in my opinion, most beautiful valley, who will now learn, I flatter
IV PREFACE.
myself, in some cases for the first time, the part that old Sedbergh has played in the history of England. I conclude in the words of the historian of the heroes of Judaea : " And if I have done well, and as is befitting the story, it is that which I desired : but if slenderly and meanly, it is that which I could attain unto."
Sedbergh, September, 1875.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
SEDBERGH.
Chapter I.
Boundaries of the Parish of Sedbergh — Derivation of the Name — The
Church — Roger de Mowbray — Adam de Staveley — Stanley, Lord
Monteagle, Lord of the Manor — Suit of Mr. Strickland, of Sizergh —
Mr. Braithwaite Otway ... ... ... ... Page i
Chapter II. The Ecclesiastical Lords of Sedbergh — Cockersand Abbey — Jorvaulx Abbey — Andrew de Harcla — Geoffrey le Scrope — Coverham Abbey — List of Vicars — St. Agatha's Abbey, Richmond — Cultivation of Corn — The Pilgramage of Grace — Letter of Henry 8th — Adam de Sedbergh — 'List of Vicars of Trinity College — James Ritter to Lord Burghley — George Fox — Rejoicings in Dent after the Re- storation ... ... ... ... ... ... II
Chapter III.
Parish Accounts, 1 745 — Firbank — Petition for Justices of the Peace —
Parish Accounts — Collections in Dent — Mr. Jonathan Rose — His
Sermon at Penrith — Mr. Driffield — Parish Benefactors — Charity
School — Sunday School — The Book Club ... ... 21
Chapter IV.
Patricius de Bland — William de Bland — Light in the Church — Adam
Bland, of London — The Blands of Kippax — Of Virginia — Of Der-
riquin Castle, Ireland — The Rev. Miles Bland — The Otways — The
Washingtons — Extracts from Registers — Specimen of Dialect 32
THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
Chapter I. Dr. Roger Lupton — Slaying of Thomas Lupton — School House Garth — Lofthouse — Sir Harry Blomer — Dr. Lupton — His Endowments at Cambridge ... ... ... ... ... .. 41
VI CONTENTS.
Chapter II. Mr. Robert Hebblethwaite — Letter from Roger Ascham — John Bland — Indenture of Mr. Hebblethwaite and the Feoffees — Dissolution of Chantries — Record Office — The Rood Guild . . . Page 46
Chapter III. Edward 6th's Foundation — The Charter — Names of Farms 52
Chapter IV. Mr. Hebblethwaite — Lofthouse — Leases at Ilkley — The Governors Oath
— Mr. John Mayer, Master — Mr. Gilbert Nelson — His Character by Dr. Peter Barwick, by Mr. Sedgwick — His Death ... 59
Chapter V. Dr. John Barwick — Dr. Peter Barwick — Practise in London — His Character — John Barwick, Fellow of St. John's — Ejected — His Efforts on behalf of the King — His Ill-health — His Imprisonment in the Gate House — In the Tower — Visit of Mr. Otway — His Release ... ... ... ... ... ... 64
Chapter VI. Mr. Otway — His Birth — Fellow of St. John's College — Ejected from his Fellowship — His Marriages — Efforts for the King — Colonel Clobery and Colonel Redman — Mr. Otway's Journey to Scotland — Letter from Charles the 2nd — Mr. Barwick at Breda — His Preferment to the Deanery of Durham — Of St. Paul's — His Improvements there — Illness and Death — His Will — Epitaph ... ... 71
Chapter VII. Recommendation of Mr. Jackson — His Behaviour at Sedbergh — Law- suits — Petition Against Him to the College — The Triers — Letters
— The Commission for Ejecting Scandalous, etc. — Depositions of Witnesses from Sedbergh — From Garsdale ... . . 79
Chapter VIII. Mr. Jackson's Witnesses — State of Feeling in Sedbergh — George Fox — Mr. Jackson Ejected — Mr. Jackson's Remonstrance — Mr. George Otway — Appointment of Mr. Buchanan — Expenses of the Lawsuits
— Letter from R. J. — From Sir John Otway — From Mr. Holmes — Mr. Buchanan — His Marriage — His Children — Letter from Mr. Barker — Mr. Edward Fell, Master — Distant Tenants — Meeting of Governors — Mr. Fell's Marriage — Children — Death — Will — Mr. Wharton Elected by the Governors — Bishop's License ... 89
Chapter IX. Mr. Wharton's Marriage — His Children — Death of his Second Wife — Her Epitaph — His Third Marriage — List of Scholars — Table of Rents — Dictionary Money — Exhibition — Increase of the School ... in
CONTENTS. yii
Chapter X. Suit with Sir Thomas Hodgson — With Wilfrid Lawson — His Complaint
— Defence of the Governors and Mr. Wharton ... Page 1 19
Chapter XI. Complaint of Mr. Lawson — Answers of the Governors and Mr. Wharton
126
Chapter XII.
Defence continued — Suit Decided — Mr. Wharton's Resignation — Lord Fairfax's Letter — Mr. Dwyer — Dr. Saunders — Decree of Governors
— Dr. Saunders' Marriage — His Daughters — Mr. Eade's Commission
— Fines Granted to Dr. Saunders — His Death ... ... 137
Chapter XIIL
Mr. Broxholme — Lawsuit with him — His Release to the Governors —
His Death — Dr. Wynne Bateman — His Marriage — His Children —
Repairs of the School — Monument — Extract from Dr. Whitaker —
Allen's History of the County of York ... ... ... 148
Chapter XIV. Mr. Hull — The Dwelling-house — Mr. Hull's Incompetency — His Death
— Mr. Stevens — Decline of the School — Mr. Wilkinson — Improve- ment— His Death and Epitaph — Mr. Evans — Increase of the School
— His Resignation — Mr. Day — The Endowed Schools' Commission
— Mr. Heppenstall ... ... ... ... ... 157
Chapter XV. Benefactors to the School — Mr. Harrison — Mr. Sidgswicke — Mr. Wharton — Mr. Holme — Employment of Exhibition Money — Bishop Otway — Lady Elizabeth^ Hastings ... ... ... 182
GAR SD ALE.
Derivation of Name — St. Agatha's Abbey — Thomas de Staveley — Ralph Fitz Alan — Roger de Mowbray — William de Kendal — Petition to Sir Foulk Greville — His Reply — Lawsuits about the Manor of Gars- dale — The Civil Wars — Mr. Dawson — Mr. Inman ... 188
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
CHAPTER I.
The parish of Sedbergh is in the wapentake of Ewecross, and in the north-west corner of Yorkshire, the river Lune dividing it from Westmorland. The town Hes at the foot of Winder, a mountain whose summit is about 1,500 feet above the sea, in a wide valley, from which branch off Cautley, Garsdale, and Dent, all long narrow dales, of great romantic beauty. The parish also includes Howgill, a hamlet on the eastern bank of the Lune, which river divides Sedbergh from Kirkby Lonsdale parish, one of whose chapelries, Firbank, is on the opposite side of the river from Howgill. All these valleys have a river (or beck) running through them, the Sedbergh river, called the Rother, rising behind Wild Boar Fell, and running down Cautley, receives the streams from Garsdale and Dent,' and falls into the Lune about two-and-a-half miles below the town. The mountains surrounding Sedbergh are of various form and colour, and at all seasons of the year the country is exceedingly beautiful. There is very little corn, but the pastures are good, and a great quantity of butter is sent away to other places. In the town there are about 700 inhabitants, and a rather larger number scattered about the parish. The houses are built of the stone of the country, hardly ever of brick, and are almost invariably roofed with stone or slate. According to Dr. Whit- aker.(to whom I am indebted for most of my information), Sedbergh was, before the Norman conquest, part of the parish and deanery of Kirkby Lonsdale. He thinks that the name of the parish is derived from the common Saxon name of Sadda, whose berg or fortified hill, now called Castle Tower, is still to be seen. Mr. Phillips, in his book on Yorkshire, con- jectures that it is derived from the tribe of the Setantii, whose
B
1 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
port (Setantiorum Portus) is commonly supposed to have been the mouth of the Lune. The author of " Yorkshire Past and Present/' gives the broad or firm hill or fortress, as the meaning of Sedbergh, in the language of the Angles, who displaced the earlier inhabitants of Yorkshire, and founded the kingdom, afterwards the earldom, of Northumbria. I am unable to decide between these different opinions. Besides this berg, or fortress, there are near the town traces of a Roman encamp- ment. Sedbergh was formerly, as we learn from ancient charters, in Lonsdale, and was made a separate parish probably about the time of Henry I. (1100-1135), and soon after those parts of Lonsdale which are now in Westmorland and Lanca- shire were separated from the Eurewickshire (Yorkshire) of Doomsday Book ; but all the ten parishes in the deanery of Kirkby Lonsdale remained under the same diocesan, the Arch- bishop of York, and in the same archdeaconry (Richmond). The church of Kirkby was no doubt the original church of the valley, but there were many chapels in the distant parts of the parish, most likely on the sites of the churches which were afterwards built as they were required. The clergy who served these chapels were supported by the offerings of the faithful, as there was no glebe or portion of tithes set apart for them until the chapelry became a parish. In Doomsday Book Sedbergh was mentioned as dependent on the superior manor of Whit- tington, and, like the rest of this neighbourhood, was part of the king's lands. I cannot find any evidence as to whether this part of the county suffered in the general devastation of York- shire by William the Conqueror. Sedbergh Church, dedicated to St. Andrew, was probably built within a hundred years after the Conquest (1066), and from its peculiar architecture, which resembles that of most of the churches in Ewecross wapentake, it is supposed that the great Roger de Mowbray, " one of the most devout and munificent men of his age," must have had some hand in the building of it. It is built of the stone of the country, and now that the roughcast, which used to disfigure it, is removed, the outside is handsome. It has three bells, one of which at least must have been cast before the Reforma- tion, as in the inscription on it the title of Queen of Heaven is
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 3
given to the blessed Virgin Mary. The following is an exact copy of the sentences engraved upon the three bells : —
I. Haec campana ^acra fiat S^ritiitate '^t^isu
May this bell be blessed by the Holy Trinity. 2.
Coelorum ^te plaaat tibi ttx jsiontrjj ijste.
Christ the King of Heaven may this sound please Thee.
3-
(JTottcipiettjJ ^ pia Wtx%o coeltim rega.
Pious Virgin, Mother of Christ, Queen of Heaven.
One of these bells is unfortunately cracked. There is a centre and two side aisles, the arches and pillars being of various sizes and heights, most of the arches are round. There is no decoration of any kind in the church, but there are in some of the seats fragments of old oak carving, in all probability por- tions of a rood screen which existed within the memory of some now living. The altar steps are of black marble, and the font also, which is large and handsome. The church is much disfigured by a gallery and pews of various shapes and sizes, but there are many open seats of old, almost black, oak. There are no monuments earlier than the seventeenth century. In the churchyard formerly stood two old yew trees, which have been blown down within the last few years, and only a fragment of one is remaining. In former times the custom of burying in the church seems to have been very general. There was a cross standing in the Market Place adjoining the church- yard on the north, but the last remains of it, and the stone steps it stood on, were taken away some years since by private persons, and may now be seen used as gateposts to a farm- yard, some ten miles from their original position. To return, however, from the old church to its supposed founder or benefactor, Roger de Mowbray, Earl of Northumberland in 1 1 38. He was one of the barons who met to consult with Archbishop Thurstan on the defence of the country from the Scots, who invaded the north of England under their King David, claiming the earldom of Northumbria for their Prince,
B 2
4 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
whose wife was the daughter of the great Earl Waltheof, dispossessed and killed by the Conqueror. The " illustrious chiefs of England, by blood and race Normans ; before whom bold France trembles ; to whom fierce England has submitted ; under whom Apulia has been restored to her station ; and whose names are famous at Antioch and Jerusalem," as they were called by one of their leaders, assembled near Northaller- ton, under Walter d'Espec, and Thurstan, Archbishop of York, and Randolph, Bishop of Orkney, and there was fought the battle of the Standard (so called from a standard with a crucifix, which was fixed on a car, with the banners of St. Peter of York, St. John of Beverley, and St. Wilfred of Ripon), in which the Scots were completely defeated. Roger de Mowbray went twice to the Holy Land, and according to one account was taken prisoner on his second expedition by Saladin, died, and was buried in Palestine. He possessed, and his descendants after him, until the reign of Edward II., large estates in York- shire. The whole of the wapentake of Ewecross, from the north-western point of Craven to the border of Westmorland, was one of his baronies, and the chief seat of it was the Castle of Black Burton, in Lonsdale. The mesne lords of Sedbergh, Dent, and Staveley, were descended from Aykfirth, a noble Dane, who, in the days of Knut, the Danish King of England, was lord of Askrigg, Dent, and Sedbergh. Dr. Whitaker saw on an old stone cross, dug up in Lancaster churchyard, and of about the time of Knut, the names of four Danes of whom Aykfirth was one ', and he thinks this Aykfirth was probably the aforesaid lord of Sedbergh, from whom, and from his son Arkyl, descended two fines, one of which took the name of Thoresby, and the other that of Staveley. Of this family we hear of Adam, lord and baron of Staveley, Dent, and Sedbergh, who is supposed to have built Clapdale Castle, at Clapham, in the days of King John (1199-1216). There is an agreement extant between him and Wilfiam de Mowbray, dividing between them the rights of free chase, in which Mowbray, the chief lord, reserves to himself the stag and the hawk; while the mesne lord was only to chase the hare and (which was then a privilege) to destroy the wolf.
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 5
Adam de Staveley died 1225, and left a daughter and heiress, Alicia, who married Henry Fitz Ranulph, lord of Ravensworth. To him was granted in the 35th year of Henry HI. (1247) free manor in Sedbergh, Dent, and Garsdale, and in his family, afterwards called Fitzhugh, these manors remained down to Henry, Lord Fitzhugh, who died 1424, the second year of King Henry VI. ; but his son William, Lord Fitzhugh, does not appear to have held them. One of his family, Elizabeth, daughter of Henry, Lord Fitzhugh, fifth baron, married Sir William Parr, of Kendal, and their son, Sir Thomas Parr, was father of Catherine Parr, sixth wife of Henry VIII. Agnes Parr, the granddaughter of Sir William Parr and Elizabeth Fitzhugh, married Sir Thomas Strickland, of Sizergh. To whom the manors of Sedbergh, Dent, and Garsdale were granted after 1424 I do not know, but early in the reign of Henry VII., Edward Stanley was lord of one moiety of the manor of Sedbergh. This gentleman was the " stout Stanley " mentioned in Sir Walter Scott's " Marmion," who was told to
" charge with spur of fire, With Chester charge, and Lancashire, Full upon Scotland's central host, Or victory and England's lost."
No doubt he was also, accompanied by Yorkshire men "stern of mood," probably by some of the tenants of his manor here. He was son of Thomas Stanley, first Earl of Derby (who crowned Henry VII. on the field of Bosworth), and was made Lord Monteagle, the year after the battle of Flodden Field, by King Henry VIIL, in consideration of his braveiy, and because he had contributed by " extraordinary valour at the head of a body of archers " to the defeat of the Scots, from whom he won a commanding position on the field. He was also made a knight of the garter. " This nobleman's birth," says Banks, "his active childht)od, and martial spirit, had brought him early to Henry the Eighth's notice and company, and his aspiring manhood to his service. The camp was his school, and his learning was a pike and sword. Whenever his Majesty met him his greeting was, 'Ho, my soldier!' Twice did he and Sir John Wallop land, with only eight
6 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
hundred men, in the heart of France, and four times did he and Sir Thomas Lovel save Calais ; the first time by inteUigence, the second by stratagem, the third by valour and resolution, the fourth by hardship, patience, and industry." (See "Burke's Extinct Peerages.") He died in 1523, and was succeeded by his son, Thomas Stanley, who married Mary Brandon, daughter (by his second wife, Anne Browne) of Charles, Duke of Suffolk, the brother-in-law of Henry VI H., and left a son. Sir William Stanley, [who died in 1 581, when the barony of Monteagle devolved upon his only daughter, Elizabeth, who married Edward Parker, Lord Morley. Their son, William, was the Lord Monteagle, to whom was addressed the celebrated letter by which the Gunpowder Plot was discovered. This Right Honourable William Parker, I^ord Monteagle ''was (as appears from a statement made by Mr. Strickland, in a suit relating to the manor of Sedbergh) heretofore not only owner of severall customary tenements within the hamlets of Cautley and Dowbiggin, Frostra and Soulbank, Marthwaite, Howgill, and Bland, but seized in fee or of some other good estate of inheritance of and in the manor or lordshipp of Sedbergh aforesaid, as Chief Lord or Lord Paramount of the same." On the 13th of January, in the thirty-eighth year of the reign of Queen EHzabeth, Lord Monteagle, for the sum of 410/., "did grant, bargain, and sell unto John Corney, Henry Sawyer, and Richard Willan, and their heirs, severall tene- ments within the said hamlets, in the parish of Sedbergh aforesaid, together with all and singular houses, edifices, buildings, barnes, stables, orchards, gardens, lands, rents, reversions, suits, services, meadows, pastures, feedings, com- mons, common of pasture and turbary, woods, underwoods, waters, ways, easements, liberties, profits, emoluments, here- ditaments, and appurtenance^ whatsoever thereto belonging." The paper from which I quote the above particulars is my only authority for the history of the manor after the time of the Stanley of Flodden, and it is imperfect and very obscure. It is dated 1732, and is the answer of Thomas Strickland, Esq., of Sizergh, to the Bill of Complaint of James
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 7
Birkett, Simon Washington, and others. He admits that, in the tenth year of Queen Elizabeth, Richard Lowther and John Featherstonhalgh, Esqs., were mesne lords of a portion of the manor of Sedbergh, and that before that time courts had been held (in the thirty-eighth of Henry VIII. and first of Elizabeth) by, or in the names of. Sir John Lowther and Michael Featherstonhalgh, but considers that this did not furnish sufficient evidence that they were supreme lords of the manor. Mr. Strickland further states that in February, in the forty-third year of Queen Elizabeth, Roger Otway, Esq., of Middleton, Thomas Scryven, and Richard Theakstone granted and conveyed to Sir Thomas Strickland, Knight of the Bath, in consideration of 600/. paid by him, all the manor and lordship of Sedbergh, late in the possession of Lord Monteagle, with all rights and privileges belonging to it; and by a deed of the same date, Richard Theakstone con- veyed to Sir Thomas Strickland and his heirs " all that moiety and half part or portion of the manor of Sedbergh with the appurtenances, formerly part of the possessions in inheritance of Gregory Fiennes, Lord Dacres of the South, commonly called or known by the name or names of Scrope's Lands." These lands were probably named after Geoffrey le Scrope, the benefactor of Coverham Abbey, whose grandson, Stephen, possessed the manor of Sedbergh. Stephen's son, Henry, lost his head for conspiring against Henry V., and is best known from the mention of him by Shakespeare —
"But O!
What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,
Ingrateful, savage, and inhuman creature.
Thou, that did 'st bear the key of all my counsels.
That knewest the very bottom of my soul,
That almost might'st have coined me into gold,
Would'st thou have practised on me for thy use.
May it be possible that foreign hire
Could out of thee extract one spark of evil
That might annoy my finger ? 'tis so strange
That, though the truth of it stands off as gross
As black from white, my eye will scarcely see it. "
All his estates in Richniondshire were granted to Henry, Lord Fitzhugh, to hold while those lands should continue in the
S THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
king's hands, and some of them were afterwards granted him for Hfe. But in the 2nd Henry VI. all Sir Henry le Scrope's lands were granted to his brother Thomas, whose family became extinct in the male line in 151 7.
In this statement of Mr. Strickland's are many names of former landholders in Sedbergh. Sir Richard Shuttleworth, Knight, Ralph Featherstonhalgh, Esq., Richard Duckett, gentleman, Mr. Crackenthorpe, Sir Christopher Pickering, and others, who, or their successors, are said to have appeared at the courts held by Mr. Strickland's ancestors. He admitted that he could find no record of courts held by them between 1606 and 1652, but attributed the absence of evidence during this interval to the late unhappy civil wars, when Sir Robert and Sir Thomas Strickland, his great grandfather and grand- father, had been plundered and sequestrated, and their papers probably stolen or destroyed. For want of the statements of the other party to this suit, I have found it impossible to get a clear idea of the matter in dispute ; but it seems that there was a doubt whether Sir Thomas Strickland had or had not sold his rights to Sir Henry Widderington, Sir Nicholas Tempest, and Sir Francis Boynton, Knights, and Allen Chambre, gentle- man, and they, or some of them, had in turn sold them or part of them to other persons. Perhaps this Sir Henry Widdering- ton may have been descended from the Witherington of Chevy
Chase —
* ' Then stepped a gallant squire forth,
Witherington was his name, Who said, I wold not have it told,
To Henry our king, for shame That ere my captain fought on foot,
And I stood looking on. You be two earls, sayd Witherington,
And I a squire alone, I'll do my best that doe I may.
While I have power to stand ; While I have power to wield my sword
I'll fight with heart and hand. For Witherington needs must I wayle
As one in doleful dumps ; For, when his legs were smitten off,
He fought upon his stumps."
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 9
It was not denied that Sir Henry Widderington and Sir Nicholas Tempest had sold to Richard Willan and his heirs, on the 6th of February, 1616, a certain messuage and tenement then in his possession, of the yearly rent of 3^-. 3^., with all rights thereto belonging, to be holden of the chief lords ; but Mr. Strickland said he did not know of, or believe in, any other conveyances or grants said to have been made. The complain- ants accused the defendant (Mr. Strickland) of coming into the manor with " firearms or other arms, accompanied with numbers of papists or other persons," and threatening to " fill the gaol " of the county of York with the freeholders and in- habitants of the said manor ; all which he denied, except that in June, or July, 1734, he was going to view the slate quarries upon Baughall, and there being plenty of moor game there, " he, for his diversion, took a fowling-piece along with him to shoot some of the said game, and in his way thither stopped at a public-house in Sedbergh, and, fearing his gun was damp, let it off in the back -yard." On his part he said that the com- plainants were very many of them Quakers, and had a design to raise great sums of money, and weary him out by tedious and expensive suits, and " the defendant is rather induced so to believe for that he hath heard, and doubts not to prove some of the complainants have been so vain-glorious as to boast that he, this defendant, would never be able to stand it against ye united numbers and purse of such a wealthy body of people as they, the complainants were." On the 23rd of October, 1739, Mr. Strickland's steward and bailiff held a court leet and court baron in Sedbergh, at which many of the freeholders and inhabitants were presented and amerced for various offences done or pretended to be done ; and the steward and bailiff distrained for these amercements. Whereupon several of the inhabitants thinking themselves aggrieved, brought actions against Mr. Strickland and his agents, and recovered against the defendants in the assize held at York in 1740 and 1741 ; and Mr. Strickland finding that other actions were im- minent, paid costs of suits, and refunded various small sums of money which were claimed by the inhabitants in repayment of the value of their goods taken and sold. After this there was
10 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
another suit in which the parishioners were defended by Brai- thwaite Otway, Esq., of Ingmire Hall, the son of Sir John Otway. Mr. Otway won the cause, which he managed at his own expense, and the tenants of the manor erected a monu- ment to him in the church, " in his lifetime, but without his knowledge." Their gratitude is more to be commended than their taste, for the monument is remarkably ugly. It stands at the east end of the church, and must be eight or ten feet high ; having in the centre of it a small brass tablet, with the following inscription : — "In the year 1 744, gratitude obliged the parishioners of Sedbergh to erect this monument, in memory of Braithwaite Otway, Esq., their generous benefactor, whose singular humanity, beneficence, and integrity ought never to be forgotten. When Bluecaster was inclosed, with an intent to take it from them, and many impositions took place, he voluntarily defended their cause at his own expense, and with great assiduity recovered their rights and firmly established them in their ancient properties. A judicious and noble patriot of his country, a strenuous defender of the poor, and an ardent lover of justice ; a bright and shining example to the rich and potent, whose amiable conduct justly merits their imitation." In spite of the decisions in these two last-named suits, and another of the same kind, Mr. Strickland must have been suc- cessful in the end, for his descendant is Lord of the Manor of Sedbergh at this day. I find that a rent for Lofthouse was paid to Thomas Strickland, Esq., in 1656.
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. II
CHAPTER 11.
We will now turn from the civil to the ecclesiastical lords of Sedbergh, of whom there appear to have been at one thne or other at least four. In the year 1501, Sedbergh and Bland paid eight shillings to Cockersand Abbey in Lancashire ; but I do not know how long this payment had been going on, nor for how long a time Sedbergh paid to Jorvaulx Abbey seven- teen shillings and ninepence. It seems very likely that Roger de Mowbray, the great benefactor of Jorvaulx, might have given to that abbey some of his right over Sedbergh, but I have no evidence of this. It is known, however, from a deed of the time of Edward III., that in the reign of Edward II. (1307- 1327) the advowson of the Church of Sedbergh was in the hands of the king. It " was wont," we learn from this deed, " to be governed by two rectors, and a discreet man, the Arch- deacon of Richmond, in the Church of York, ordinary of the place, ' to whom belonged the institution and deprival of the said archdeaconry, and the power, as it is asserted, of uniting or appropriating." Whether these two rectors were descend- ants of the Lords de Mowbray and de Staveley is not stated, though it may very possibly have been so ; and I do not know how their rights passed into the hands of King Edward the II., who granted the advowson of Sedbergh, or a part of it, to Andrew de Harcla, who was made Earl of Carlisle, and had large estates granted to him in the north of England. He had successfully defended Carlisle against Robert Bruce, who be- sieged it in 131 5, and distinguished himself afterwards at the battle of Boroughbridge on the Ure, where the Earl of Lan- caster was in arms against the king, his cousin. Lancaster was taken prisoner, and afterwards executed, though he tried to bribe Sir Andrew de Harcla to let him escape. Unfortunately for himself and his country, Sir Andrew shortly afterwards ac- cepted bribes from the Scots, and especially made overtures to
12 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
*' one James Douglas, whereby the king, for lack of his assist- ance, was defeated in a battle near the Abbey of Biland, in Yorkshire." For these offences he was very justly executed, and his lands reverted to the crown, as appears from the following fact : — Edward the II., for good service, gave to Thomas and Alexander Fetherstonhalgh for three lives (the king's and two brothers) the land with belongings which was held by Andrew de Harcla, the king's late enemy, at Sedbergh-in-Lonsdale." In the year 1330, Edward the III. granted a mediety of the Church of Sedbergh to Geoffrey le Scrope, with three oxgangs of land and their appurtenances, " that the said Geoffrey may be able to give and assign them," the deed continues, "to our beloved in Christ, the abbot and convent of Coverham, to be had and to be held by the said abbot and convent of Coverham and their successors for certain charities and other pious expenses, yet so that the same Geoffrey and his heirs render to us and our heirs in behalf of the said abbot and convent of Coverham and their successors the services from the aforesaid land, with its appurtenances which is due and customary." This donation was made by the king and the baron in compassion for the miserable state of the monks of Coverham, "who," as the king says "by the frequent hostile inroads of the Scots and other events of adverse fortune have been devastated and ruined, and driven into debt to such an extent that there is much fear of the dispersion of the canons who serve God in that place, un- less assistance be speedily rendered by the protection of the faithful with a suitable remedy." The grant to the abbey was confirmed by the Pope, and Sedbergh remained under Cover- ham until the dissolution of the monasteries, the church being served by the clergy from thence, as the following list of vicars will shew. There was another vicar, not mentioned in that list. Brother T. Leytley, who was at Coverham in 1494. And I find among the papers belonging to the Grammar School a notice of " Richard Mydlam, present vicar of Sedbergh," who, in 1528, in conjunction with Christopher Hylton, abbot of Coverham, granted to Dr. Roger Lupton the ground on which he built his school, and a farm adjacent, called "Ye Loft- house."
THE HISTORY. OF SEDBERGH.
From Torre's Archdeaconry of Richfiiond,
n
|
Time of Institution. |
Vicars of ye Church. |
Patrons. |
Vacated. |
|
19 Ap., 1399 29 Mar., 1434 |
Do'nus John de Popelton Fr. Elyas de Boghland Fr. Cuth. de Rydmer Fr. John de Lynton Fr. John Warslawe |
Abbot and Convent of Coverham Do. Do. Do. Do. |
p'resig. p'niort. |
The following translation of a deed from the Coucher Book of St. Agatha's Abbey, Richmond (the fourth ecclesiastical foundation connected with the parish), probably concerns the other mediety of the church : — " To all, etc., Ralph Fitz Alan, greeting, Know ye that I have given, etc., to God and the Church of the Holy Agatha, and the canons of the same place, for ever, etc., whatever of right and patronage I and my ancestors had, etc., in the mediety of the Church of St. Andrew in Sedbergh ... for the love of God and the salvation of my soul and that of my wife, and for the souls of my successors and heirs ; wherefore I will that the aforesaid canons have and hold the right of the aforesaid patronage, with all things thereto belonging, for ever."
It is considered probable, by Dr. Whitaker, that this mediety was conveyed to Geoffrey le Scrope by the house of St. Agatha, of which he and his family were the patrons, and by him conveyed, as well as the other mediety, to Coverham Abbey. This abbey was founded by Ralph Fitzrobert, or rather, the monks were removed by him from their first habitation at Shainby, in the parish of Picthall, to the near neighbourhood of his own castle of Middleham, in 12 14. It had large possessions, but little is known of its history, except the facts which I have mentioned ; and that " there was good singing at Coverham " is stated by Leland. At the dis- solution the tithes of the rectory of Sedbergh were valued as follows: — Grain, 9/. los.) wool and lambs, 30/.; hay, 405-., which shews that no great quantity of grain was then grown in
14 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
the parish. " Yet about eighty years before," says Dr. Whitaker, " the burgesses of Richmond complained that their market was ruined by the increased cultivation of corn in this parish and neighbourhood ; for heretofore they said it ranked among its frequenters merchants and artificers, strangers and outsidefrs, and other tribes from different parts, used to come to the same town from the surrounding counties of Lancashire, Cumberland, and Westmorland, as bringers and carriers of grain and bread from the counties of Lancaster, Cumberland, and Westmorland, and the districts of Lunesdale, Craven, Dent, and Sedbergh, in which at that time there was not much corn grown; but that of late the inhabitants of these countries made the land of their wastes and moors fertile, producing more than was usual of wheat and other grain. '^ Besides the pa)rments made to these four abbeys, the Church of Sedbergh paid to the Archbishop of York (its diocesan until the bishopric of Chester was founded, after the Reforma- tion) twenty shillings ; to the Archdeacon of Richmond, forty shillings; and to the Prior of Connyside, twenty shillings. All these monasteries were dissolved and destroyed and their property seized, in the reign of Henry VIII., in consequence, as was asserted, of the misconduct of the monks ; but as their accusers were in many cases those who profited by their ruin, we may be allowed to think that these charges were, at least, exaggerated. So believed, we must suppose, the men of Westmorland, Cumberland, Richmondshire, Craven, Dent, and Sedbere, "who, to the number of 40,000, made, in the year 1535, the insurrection called the Pilgrimage of Grace." I give the account of this rebellion in the words of an old historian. "The King was suddenly informed of another insurrection in the north, and that their grievance was grounded upon the same points as those of Lincolnshire (who by their petition craved a reformation of those things which lately had been done and concluded against religious houses, and against the former and ancient government of the Church), and that the number of those rebels exceeded the number of 40,000 men, who termed themselves the Holy Pilgrims, who intended nothing but the estabUshing of true
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 1 5
feligion, and the reformation of great abuses which defaced the government of the Church. To encounter these men, and to correct their braine-sick purposes and foolish madnesse, the King appointed the two Dukes of Norfolke and of Suffolke, and some other lords, with a strong and well-appointed armie, to march against them with all speed. And the rebels (expressing much joy because they were to fight) came neer unto the dukes' armie, and before them expressed many signes and tokens of undaunted courage and desperate boldness. But in the night before the two armies intended to have joined together in handiestrokes, a little brooke which came betwixt them, and which with a drie foot might the day before have been passed over, grew so outrageously great and violent by the fall of immoderate and continuall showers of raine, that the armies could not meet as they determined. This miraculous pitie, and this mercifull compassion, which by Almighty God Himselfe was immediately extended towards His people for the preservation of their lives, so effectually wrought in the hearts and mindes of the two armies, that (upon the faithful promise of the two dukes that the King's free and ample pardon should remit and acquite them all) the rebels left the field, and quietly departed to their owne houses." This took place in the neighbourhood of Doncaster. The King kept the promise made by the dukes, but sent a severe letter of rebuke to the insurgents, of which Dr. Whitaker gives the following portion : — *' And here," said his Majesty, '' in this final point which ye our commons of Westmorland, Cumberland, Richmondshire, Craven, Dent, Sedbere, and other places that have been seduced into this insurrection, do desire. We verily think that the rest of all our whole commons of many countreys, to whom ye be in manner but a handful, will greatly disdain and not bear it, that ye take upon you to set order to us and them, and especially to us, being sovereign lord of you both. And that you (being rebels) would make them, as bearers and partakers of your mischief, willing them to take pardon for insurrections which they never minded, but, Hke true subjects, on the contrary have both with heart and deed been ready at our call to *
l6 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
defend us and themselves. And now, for our part, as to your demands, we let you wit that pardon of such things as you demand lyeth only in the will and pleasure of the prince ; but it seemeth by your lewd proclamations and safe conducts that there be among you which take upon them the parts of kings and counsellors, which neither by us, nor by the general consent of our realm, have been admitted to any such room. What arrogance is then in those wretches (he had before called them brutes and inexpert folk) to presume to raise you our subjects without commission under a coloured cloak of our wealth and in our name. Wherefore we let all you our said subjects again wit, that were it not that our princely heart . cannot reckon this your shameful insurrection and most ingrate and unnatural rebellion to be done of malice or rancour, but rather of a lightness given in manner by a haughty nature to a commonalty, and a wondrous sudden surreption of gentlemen, we must needs have executed another manner of punishment, than if you will humbly acknowledge your fault, and submit yourselves to our mercy, we intend to do, as by our proclama- tions we doubt not ye be informed." Thus peacefully ended this great rebellion which really seems to have been, as it professed to be, a religious movement, for the 40,000 men marched through the country, doing no harm to the people, and only vigorously besieging a few castles. The men of Sedbergh may have been moved to take so prominent a part in this contest by the fact that the last Abbot of Jorvaulx was a Sedbergh man, and one of those who joined the Pilgrimage of Grace, but to him their well-meant efforts brought nothing but harm, for he was taken up to London, and, after some imprisonment, was executed. His name, Adam de Sedbergh, is to be seen on the wall of a room in th« Tower of London, with the date 1537. The rectory of Sedbergh was given at the dissolution of monasteries to Trinity College, Cambridge, which was originally endowed by King Henry VIIL, and the presentation to the vicarage still belongs to the master and fellows of that great college. The list of their vicars is as follows : —
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. From the. Registry of Chester.
17
|
Time of Institution. |
Vicars of the Church. |
Patrons. |
Cause of Vacancy. |
|
1554 |
Thomas Atkinson |
Trinity College, Cambridge |
|
|
3d Sept., 1579 |
Egid Wiginton |
Do. |
|
|
30 Aug., 1585 |
Adam Colclough Edward Hampton |
The Crown |
|
|
2iSept.,i6io |
George Harrison |
Trinity College |
Death of E.H. |
|
1613 |
Joseph Wybarne |
Do. |
|
|
1615 |
Benjamin Hinton |
Do. |
Death of J. W. |
|
1624 |
Robert Cademan |
Do. |
Res. of B. H. |
|
1637 |
Thomas Briscoe |
Do. |
Res. of R. C. |
|
1660 |
Leonard Burton |
Do. |
Death of T. B. |
|
1682 |
Jonathan Rose |
Do. |
D. of L. B. |
|
1727 |
Thomas Lambert, A. M. |
Do. |
D. of J. R. |
|
1741 |
Joseph Driffield, A.B. |
Do. |
Cess, of T. L. |
|
1746 |
Wynne Bateman |
Do. |
Deprivation of J. D. |
|
1754 |
John Meryett |
Do. |
|
|
1764 |
Marwood Place, B.D. |
Do. |
D. of J. M. |
|
1766 |
William Gawthropp |
Do. |
Cess, of M. P. |
|
1798 |
Daniel Mitford Peacock |
Do. |
D. of W. G. |
|
1840 |
William Riddell |
Do. |
D. of D. M. P. |
|
1841 |
George Piatt |
Do. |
Cess, of W. R. |
I am glad to be able to give a pleasing picture of the in- habitants of our valley some years later, taken from a letter addressed by James Ritter to Lord Burghley, and dated September 20th, 1589; it is quoted by the late Professor Sedgwick. This is Mr. Rittefs own account of himself : — " I was born in Kent, brought up in Northamptonshire, dwell in Yorkshire, and am often conversant with the people of Kendal."
James Ritter to Lord Burghley.
" I cannot satisfie myself in duty to my country unless I de- lyver over to your honerable lordship the discoveries I fynd of the particularities of this countrie from tyme to tyme. In the which thinking myself skilful enough, I dedicated my last endeavours therein to your good lordship, by an accident
since I know more In the execution of this office
very lately, I passed thro the people of two great dales, the
l8 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
one called Dent or Danett, as some say ; and so lyke, when the Danes were dryven to any shyft, to be their resting ; as your lordship's lands of Tanfield, sometimes called Danefield, where yet remayne extensies of their encamping. The other greater part is called Sedbar. A thing worth noting I shall recount to your lordship. In this Sedbar the vycar could present to me only four disordered persons, — which I bound to good abear- ing as barrators — that haunted alehouses, the great fault of this country, and were daily fighting, quarrelling, and disquiet- ing this good people. In Dent only one was brought before me, for very undutiful parties to his father. This is. notable amongst so many hundredth householders. Now your lordship cpmeth to the marvel ; no justice of the peace is resident within thirty myles of them in their county. ... A head constable they have, which, if he did anything amongst them touching his office, I fear me it wold fall out worse for their government. In one parish no gentelman; in the other, two, and those very mean. These people situate amongst the wild mountains and savage fells are generally affected to religion, quiett, and indus- trious ; equall with Hallyfax in this, excelling them in civility and temper of lyfe, as well in abstaining from drinke as from other excesses. These people are as they term themselves customary tenants, and greatly addicted to raise and maintain customs. They have no courts kept these many years past. I had much to do to make them knowe the high authority of Parliaments, which they thought could not cutt off any custom, no not for reformation of any offence. But before all, this custom of quiett and industrious life I willed them to keep, and so penall statutes cannot touch them."
It will be seen in the History of the School what was the disposition of some of the inhabitants of Sedbergh during the civil wars. I do not know that any of them actually fought on either side, and indeed all I can learn of the parish during those years is from the journal of George Fox, from which I have made the following extracts : —
" 1652. — Here (in Wensleydale) the Lord opened unto me, and let me see a great people in white raiment by a river side, coming to the I^ord. The place that I saw them in was between
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. I9
Wentzerdale and Sedbergh. I went also through Grysedale and several other of those dales in which some were convinced. In Dent many were convinced also. From Major Bousfield's I came to Richard Robinson's, and declared thel everlasting truth to him. The next day I went to a meeting at^*Justice Benson's, where met a people that were separated from the publick worship. This was the place that I had seen, where a people came forth in white raiment. A large meeting it was ; the people were generally convinced and continue a large meeting still of friends near Sedbergh, which was then first gathered. . . . The same week (early in the year) there was a great fair, at which servants used to be hired. I went and declared the day of the Lord through the fair. After I had done so, I went into the steeple house yard, and many of the people of the fair came to me, with abundance of priests and professors. There I declared the everlasting truth of the Lord and the Word of Life for several hours. ... At last a captain said * Why will you not go into the church ? This is not a fit place to preach in.' I told him I denied their Church.
"1652. — I wrote also to Burton, priest of Sedbergh.
*' 1663. — It was upon me to go to John Blaykling's, in Sedbergh, to be at the meeting there, which is large, and a precious people there is.
1679, January. — Next day John Blaykling came to Thomas Cam's (of Camsghyll, to bring me to his house at Drawell, in Sedbergh, in Yorkshire ; whither I went with him, visiting friends by the way. I staid at Drawell two or three nights, having meetings there, and thereabouts, for while I was there the men's and women's meetings were held, which were very large and precious. The first day following I had a meeting at Brigflats, to which most of the friends from the several meetings round, with a great concourse of other people, came ; it was thought there were five or six hundred people."
This is all I know of the history during those evil days of religious and civil discord, and the picture is in melancholy contrast to the one given by Mr. Ritter " In great Eliza's golden time." In Dent there were great rejoicings on the Rushbearing (St. Bartholomew's Day) after the Restoration,
c 2
20 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
and a pageant was exhibited, in which, among other characters, " Oliver and Bradshaw, RebelUon, and War," were represented, all decked by times with vizards on, and strange deformities ; and Bradshaw had his tongue run through with a red hot iron ; and Rebellion was hanged on a gibbet in the Market Place. Then came Peace and Plenty, and Diana with her nymphs, all with coronets on their heads, each of which made a several speech in verses of their loyalty to the king."
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 21
CHAPTER HI.
There is nothing in later years to connect Sedbergh with the general history of England, except a few notices in the parish papers. In 1727, i/. was expended by order at the proclama- tion of King George the Second, and in 1735 the following sums were paid by the parish : —
To a soldier ...
To six sea men
To a sea man...
To 4 soldiers at sundry times
To 10 soldiers
To a soldier and his wife . . .
To 8 sea men...
s. D.
I o
1 6 o I
2 o
3 6 o 8 2 o
In 1736, two shillings were paid for keeping four French passengers all night, and in the next year many soldiers and sailors passed through Sedbergh, some with wives, and were relieved.
It would appear that in 1727, a woman could be boarded for a shilling a week. In 1724 are the following entries : —
s. D. Stocks mending ... ... ... 3 6
To Richard Backhus for taking care of the dook- ) ^
ing stoole ... ... )
Towards the repairing the cross ... ...10
The stocks were repaired again in 1 731 at a cost of 3^?., again in 1788 for IS. 6d.
In 1743 there was a journey to Skipton to return Papists, which cost o/. 6s. 8d.
In the Firbank registers there is an account in 1746 of the expenses in equipping men to resist the Scotch invasion, which is as follows : —
(This levy of men was of course for Westmorland.)
22
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
DISBURSED IN RAISING AND EQUIPPING THE TRAIN- BAND MEN FOR FOURTEEN DAYS.
£ To two new Scabbards ... . . . o
To belts ... ... ... ... o
To carthrages, etc. ... ... ... o
To one packet of powder ... . . . o
To lead and ball ... ... . . . o
To spent at Kendal ... ... . . . o
To a belt yt would not fit, and dressing ye swords o
o o o
4 o I o o o o o o o
To ribbands, etc.
To eight dinners
To muster money
fTo twenty-eight days two trainband men
To carriage of money ...
To a gun...
To ye carriage of two guns
To trainband men for eight days ...
To Ed. Atkinson's cropp
To trainband men
To three acquittances ...
To Jno. Moore's gun ...
To one Halbert
|
s. |
D. |
|
.. 2 |
O |
|
... 4 |
6 |
|
... 4 |
I |
|
•• 5 |
o |
|
... 7 |
o |
There seem to have been no men equipped at Sedbergh, and the only entries which can concern " the '45 " are as follows : —
Expenses about Yorkshire contribution
To powder and ball
To expenses about more contributions
To journey to Settle with press warrants twice
To carrying soldiers to Kirby
Though I have failed to find any written record of the fact, tradition says that some Highlanders came through Sedbergh, and some of the Duke of Cumberland's army also. There are two old cannons set up on end against different houses in the town, which may possibly have been left at this period.
In 1740 Dr. Saunders, master of the Grammar School, was one of the justices of the peace for the West Riding, but in 1 79 1 there were no acting justices within the east and west
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 25
division of Staincliffe and Ewecross, a district of upwards of 150 miles in circumference ; and it is shown in a petition to the Duke of Norfolk, then Lord Lieutenant, that ''the said divisions consist of 85 townships, and from the increase of inhabitants by reason of the extension of trade in the cotton and worsted manufactories, the penal laws are in a great measure disregarded and the offenders against them suffered to escape, or at least to go with impunity, to the great encouragement of others disposed to offend in like manner. That from the most remote part of the said divisions to the nearest acting justice for the said Riding is a distance of 50 miles. That there are several gentlemen within the said divisions who are now in the commission of the peace, but who have never acted or qualified and decline so to do. That there are several other gentlemen who have come to reside within the said divisions whose names are not inserted in the commission of the peace, and who would serve as was supposed by the petitioners. These are the names from this parish, " John Upton, of Ingmire Hall ; Richard Willan, of Hill ; Miles Mason, of Sedbergh ; Richard Sedgwick, of Dent ; William Gawthrop, of Sedbergh ; Christopher Hull, of same ; and Dr. Oliver."
These names and others not of this parish, were sent from Sedbergh by Mr. Davis (attorney at law), to a Mr. Joseph Dixon, of Whitehaven, who shortly afterwards wTote to say that many of the names mentioned had been put into the new commission of the peace ; but how many of these were from Sedbergh I am unable to say. There are some curious items in the parish expenses concerning birds and beasts of prey. In one year I find: "To an otter head, is.;" in another: "23 foulmart's heads, 3^-. 10^. ; 29 doup heads, y. 3^. ; 54 doup heads, 4J". 6d. , 35 foulmart's at 2d., ^s. lod.'' The doup, I am informed, is otherwise called the carrion crow. Between Easter 1807, and Easter 1808, 11 ravens were killed and IS. lod. given for their heads, and in 181 1 and 181 2 three fox's heads cost i/. In 1784 the church warden's expenses include extensive repairs and alterations in the church, and it was at this time, I conclude, that the lead was removed from the roof and the old beams whose rests are still to be seen, taken away.
24 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
The expenses were 195/. iis. 2^d., and lead, old timbers, and freestone sold for 195/. i8j". 5^.; out of this sum 181/. os. 6\d. was for lead.
Nine shillings was paid in 1745 for repairing the little school, and both it and the church were roughcast and whitewashed in 18 1 7-1 8 "by order of his Lordship." New doors were made at the same time, and a new green Communion cloth.
In 1795 a silk hood was bought, and in the same year there was a fast day ; also is. 6d. was paid for ale to ringers (which it was agreed should not be allowed in future). The only vic- tories I know of in this year for which the bells were likely to have rung, were the taking of the Cape of Good Hope and Ceylon.
In 1821-22 the Book of Homilies for the Church of England, costing 12s. 6^., was bought, and a new Prayer Book, costing 2/. 2 J"., the next year. The musical part of the service was not altogether neglected, for a singing master was paid i/. 7^-. od. in 1803-4.
Again in 1819-20, George Temple was paid for singing 2/. IIJ-. 6d., and the next year a new pitch-pipe was bought for the church.
In 1736, 6s. 2d. was collected by a brief for Milton, and Ts. Sd. for Llanarmon, and these are the only notices of collections which I have found amongst the Sedbergh registers.
In Dent was collected on the 19th of June, 1686, towards the relief of the French Protestants (who had left France in great numbers in consequence of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685), 5/. 7^. id. ; and in 1701, 15^-. gd. was col-, lected towards the repair of the Cathedral of Chester, and two shillings towards the repair of a house burnt at Ametside. So it seems that the greater the distance of the object, the greater was the sympathy felt.
I have not discovered that the vicars of Sedbergh have been remarkable in any way, except Mr. Jonathan Rose, who was vicar from 1682 to 1727. He seems to have been a very active governor of the school, and must have built or rebuilt part of the vicarage house, for a stone bearing the inscription J. R. 168 — the rest broken off, has been found recently in the kitchen
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 25
chimney. He seems to have been of some renown as a preacher, for there is extant a little book containing two printed sermons of his, " On the mutual Love between Christ and His Church," from Cant, ii., 6 — "My beloved is mine and I am his. He feedeth among the lilies." The book has the following dedication : —
"To the Reverend Dr. Todd, the Reverend Mr. Stubbs, and the inhabitants of the town and parish of Penrith, in the county of Cumberland.
" Dearly Beloved !
" When I had the Favour of Coming up in Your Large, Beautiful, New-built Church (June 21, 1724), I had intended these Two Sermons for your Entertainment, being willing to ease the Worthy Vicar and Curate for both Parts of the Day. But because you had several Gentlemen of the Clergy with you that Day I preached only in the Forenoon, which occasioned my Discourse from the Pulpit to consist of some Parts of the One, and some of the Other ; so that You had neither of them entire. To supply which* Defect and pursue my first Intentions towards You I have sent them both to the Press, that those of You that please may read at Leisure what you had not the designed Opportunity of hearing.
" From your humble Servant
" And Hearty Well-Wisher,
"J. Rose."
This Httle book was pubHshed in 1725, at York. (" Printed by Thomas Gent, in Coffee-House Yard, over against the Star, in Stone-Gate,") the worthy old gentleman being then 71. He is buried in the chancel in Sedbergh Church, and the following Latin quotation is on a stone over his grave : — "Deus dabit his quoque finem," (God will give an end also to these things). He was buried June 13th, 1727.
It will be noticed that Mr. Joseph Driffield, the vicar from 1 741 to 1746, was deprived of the living. I do not know for what offence, but I find that during his tenure the vicarage
26 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
house and gardens were let to Mr. Broxholme, the master of the Grammar School, from midsummer 1742, at 5/. per annum. At Mayday 1745, they were let to James Trotter for one year at 2/. ^s. o^., afterwards to the same person at 3/. ^s. od. to May- day 1747. I have also seen an undated and unsigned paper concerning the sequestration of the living, which I am inclined to place in the same period. In the time of this vicar there was a mill called Milnthorp Mill, which paid to him certain dues.
I will now give a short account of the benefactors of the parish and Grammar School, beginning with the following memoranda, which are written at the end of an old book of registers, whose entries date from 1686 to 1727, during which period Jonathan Rose was vicar, and John Brackan for part of the time curate, of Sedbergh. Throughout this book the new year begins on the 25 th of March instead of the ist of January : —
"November ye 5th, Anno Domini 1697. — The same day was given a red pulpitt cushion by Dr. Charles Otway, of Ingmer Hall, properly to ye use of Sedbergh Church for ever."
" February 13th, 1700. — Then was given a booke call'd ye History of ye Bible, by Mr. Edward Speight, to ye use of Sedbergh Church for ever." (This book was found to have been much ill used and defaced, and was consequently removed for safe keeping to the vicarage, where it now is.)
" March 12th, 1700. — Then was given a large table cloath for ye Communion Table, coloured white, by Dr. Charles Otway, to ye use of Sedbergh Church for ever; with two napkins of the same sort afterwards."
" March ye 26th, 1702. — Then was received thirty pounds, being ye gift of Mr. Edward Speight, of London, born att Scroghouse, in Sedbergh, given to ye poor of Sedbergh, to be divided by ye vicar and churchwardens every Lord's Day in peny wheat loaves."
"That in ye year 1703 John Ffawcett, of Gateside, in Ffrostrow, deceased, did by his last will give to ye poor of Sool- bank and Ffrostrow, tenn shillings yearly for ever, and ye same to be divided by ye churchwarden and overseer in peny wheat
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 2^
loaves to ye poor within ye said hamlett, upon St. John's Day in Xtmas. And ye same to be continued yearly for ever as above said."
"That in ye year 1704 Dr. Otway gave to Sedbergh Church one silver salver, and ye same to continue to ye use aforesaid for ever."
" That Charles Atkinson, of Borrad, gave a velvett bier cloth, mark'd thus, ' C. A., 1720,' to the use of Sedbergh for ever."
" Our present vicar, Mr. Rose, aged 71, been vicar now 43 years, did on May 12 have put into the Ratha, at the waters meeting below Straight Bridge, one hundred live crevices (cray- fish ?), and this day a parcel more above Milthorp Bridge, for a fund to breed of. Witness my hand, August 4, 1725, Jonathan Rose, vicar, Sedbergh."
Besides these, the benefactors to the parish (not including those to the Grammar School, who will be mentioned later) have been many, as appears from the books of the old governors of the school.
In 1 614, Francis Harrison, of the Stone Hall, left 50/. to the poor of Sedbergh, the interest to be distributed yearly by the governors.
Mr. John Robinson, of Kendal, bequeathed by his last will, in 1708, 100/. to the poor of Sedbergh, of which the interest was to be distributed yearly by the governors. He had for several previous years sent 5/. for the same purpose.
The governors held a meeting on August 21st, 1700, when it was "voted and unanimously agreed by them. That no persons of ye Church of England that are of scandalous or irregular lives, or that are not frequenters of the Church service and sacraments, shall for ye future receive any part of, or have any share in ye distribution of any charitable alms deposited with ye governors for ye use and benefit of ye poor of ye parish of Sedbergh. Witnesse our hands, — Charles Otway, Jonathan Rose, James Bland, Christo. Comey, John Fawcett, John Warde, Henry Holme, Chris. Gawthropp, Simon Wash- ington, James Ridding, Wm. Corney." (James Richardson and Thomas Bowland also left money for the poor).
28 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
John Mackereth, of Cautley, and Ann Mackereth, of HoUin Hill, in Cautley, are thus celebrated by their epitaph —
** Full seventy pounds these two did leave, Chiefly unto the poor, To be distributed yearly, Till time shall be no more. "
Charles Atkinson, of Borrad (1728), James Cock, of Cautley (1723), James Rowcroft, John Hadwin, of Middleton Head, in Middleton, all left various sums, to be given in doles.
May 8, 1778, Leonard Croft, of Catholes, in Marthwaite, left 60/. to the governors, the interest to be spent in bread to be given on Sunday afternoons to poor persons attending the services in ye church.
June, 18 14, Mr. Wm. Warrinan, of Carhead, gave to the governors for the poor of Sedbergh not receiving township re- lief his quit rents in Sedbergh, amounting to i/. os. 2d. per ann.
In 1823 the Rev. Benjamin Holmes, of Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, left 500/. to be distributed to ye poor on St. Thomas's Day.
Mr. Duke Holmes left to the governors 60/. to apply the annual produce for the poor of Sedbergh ; to William Gaw- throp and James Shaw 50/., to be applied for the poor of Soolbank and Frostrow, and 16/. to the minister and church- wardens for a piece of communion plate, and 60/. for an exhi- bition for a poor scholar born in Sedbergh, going to S. John's, Cambridge. There is no date to these bequests.
Lastly, should be mentioned Thomas Palmer, Esq., who in his lifetime founded and endowed a hospital in Sedbergh for six widows.
It will be seen by this list that the poor in our parish have not been neglected in past times, neither are they now ; but I abstain from mentioning the names of persons still living, who have been benefactors also.
Mr. Richard Holme, of Lowther, clerk, gave to the gover- nors 100/. for the foundation of a Charity School for the bene- fit of the poor children of the parish, and in 1734 William Richardson demanded the whole produce of it, insisting that it
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 29
was appropriated to the " little school at the end of the church for a perpetual augmentation of his sallary. A representation was therefore drawn up and sent to the said Mr. Holme how the annual produce had been disposed of since the time the principal was given which was to the schooling of twelve boys and twelve girls at two different schools." Mr. Holme replied that he had no intention of appropriating it to this little school in particular, but that the governors were to use their discretion in the matter. I conclude that it was to the girl's school that Margaret Cowperthwaite, school dame, belonged. She was buried March 22nd, 1720.
The following account, from a paper which was lent me, may be welcome to those who are interested in Sunday schools : —
" Two Sunday schools — one for boys, the other for girls — having been estabHshed at Sedbergh, in the West Riding of Yorkshire, on the 21st of August, 1803, and the following sums subscribed for their maintenance, a general meeting of the subscribers was held at the Duke's Head, in Sedbergh, on the 12th of November, 1803, and the following regulations and appointments agreed upon, viz. : —
1. The number of scholars not to exceed seventy in all, nor thirty-eight at either school.
2. Each subscriber to have the privilege of sending one scholar for every seven shillings subscribed; taking care, however, to provide every scholar (so sent) with a ticket of admission, mentioning the name of the scholar and by whom
. admitted.
3. Every subscriber of half a guinea to be a visitor.
4. A committee of subscribers to hold a monthly meeting, for the purpose of ordering books, conferring rewards, and expelling scholars ; the said meeting to be held at the monthly meeting of the Sedbergh Book Club.
5. Any three or more subscribers present at such meeting to constitute such committee.
6. Scholars distinguishing themselves by regularity of be- haviour, or by their progress in learning ; as also those who may have absented themselves thrice from either morning or
$0 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGtt.
afternoon attendance in the course of six months, or been guilty of gross misbehaviour, to be represented by the master or mistress at such monthly meeting,
7. Those scholars whom the committee may deem to have wilfully so absented themselves without sufficient cause, or to be incorrigible, to be expelled.
8. In the case of any scholar being so expelled, and the sub- scriber, by whom he or she was originally admitted, neglecting to admit another in his or her stead before the ensuing monthly meeting, the committee to have authority to fill up the vacancy in the name of such subscriber.
9. The school hours to be from nine o'clock in the morning till morning service, and from one o'clock in the afternoon till evening service ; the scholars to be taken constantly from school to church, both morning and afternoon, by the master and mistress.
10. The children not to be taught writing or accounts.
11. The schoolmaster to be allowed a salary of five guineas per annum : the mistress three guineas per annum.
12. Robert Butterwith to be master; Mary Garnet to be mistress ; Rev. D. M. Peacock to be treasurer.
13. A general meeting of the subscribers to be held annually, on the third Monday in July, at the Duke's Head, for the pur- pose of auditing the treasurer's account, paying in their subscrip- tions for the ensuing year, and making such new appointments and regulations as they may deem necessary.
|
SUBSCRIPTIONS TO THE SEDBERGH SUNDAY SCHOOLS. |
||
|
£ s. |
D. |
|
|
J. Upton, Esq. |
-. 3 3 |
0 |
|
Mrs. Upton |
... 2 2 |
0 |
|
Richard Willan, Esq. ... |
... I I |
0 |
|
Rev. D. M. Peacock ... |
... I I |
0 |
|
Mrs. Peacock |
... I I |
0 |
|
Mrs. Heys |
... I I |
0 |
|
Messrs. de Graves, Dickinson, & Co. |
•• 3 3 |
0 |
|
Rev. W. Stephens ... |
... I I |
0 |
|
Mrs. Stephens |
... I I |
0 |
|
Mr. Davis... |
... 2 2 |
0 |
|
Mr. Dawson |
... 0 15 |
0 |
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 3 1
Peter Garforth, Esq. ...
Mrs. Garforth
Messrs. Garforth and Sedgwick, a donation of 5
Mrs. Hull...
Mr. Fawcett
Mr. Foster
Miss Foster
28 II 6
Amongst the other institutions of the place, the book club, established more than 150 years ago, ought to have honourable mention.
|
I |
I |
0 |
|
I |
I |
0 |
|
^5 |
5 |
0 |
|
0 |
10 |
6 |
|
I |
I |
0 |
|
I |
I |
0 |
|
, I |
I |
0 |
32 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
CHAPTER IV.
I HAVE before mentioned various noblemen and gentlemen who have been connected with our town and parish in different ways, but I must now say a few words on the subject of some families who have been resident here. Of these the earliest was the Bland or Blaund family, of the hamlet of Bland. Thoresby, in the " Ducatus Leodicusis," says they took their name from the hamlet. They are first mentioned, I believe, in 1333, when Patricius de Bland, or Blound, was one of the gentlemen appointed to command the miUtary array in the wapentake of Ewecross, and to levy ten men at arms and a hundred footmen, or archers, in an expedition against the Scots. The Bland coat of arms, granted at a very early period, bears three arrows, and perhaps their archers' bows were cut from the old yew trees, whose last remnant will soon dis- appear from the Sedbergh churchyard. Most of my readers, I suppose, will know that the archers of England were the terror of her enemies, in consequence of the great size and strength of their bows, as well as from the skill of those who used them. Sir Walter Scott describes the effect produced by the sight of a band of archers on the Northern Scots : —
*' Envy with their wonder rose,
To see such well appointed foes ;
Such length of shafts, such mighty bows,
So huge, that many simply thought
But for a vaunt such weapons wrought ;
And little deemed their force to feel
Through links of mail, and plates of steel. "
The Borderer, on the other hand,
" Looked on at first with careless eye, Nor marvelled aught ; well taught to know The form and force of English bow."
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 33
It may have been the duty of Patricius de Bland to guard the narrow part of Lunedale, for I find that Lancaster was burnt by the Scots (except the Castle) in 1322 and 1389, before and after his time.
Also, "William de Bland (of Bland, in Lunesdale) did good service to King Edward the III. in his wars in France, in the company of the Earl of Richmond (John of Gaunt), and had a pardon for the death of John del Vale, as the Privy Seal attests, dated the 4th of June, in the 34th year of that King's reign of England, and 21st of France." Next we hear that "Richard (Wilkynson) de Blande (of Blande), together with John Todde and John Whytehqde, both of Sedbergh in Lonesdale, was pardoned for the death of John Stokedale, of 'Midelton in Lonesdale, killed the 2d of the King's reign, as the Privy Seal manifests, dated 7 Jul., 5th Richard II." The name is variously spelt in old records, therefore I have no doubt that the following statement, preserved in the Record Office, relates to this family : —
" A light in the seyd parishe (Sedbergh) wyth a some of money mayntayned. The same was founded by one Henry Blownd, to have contynuance for and wyth (an illegible word) the seyd some of money for the mayntenance thereof remain- ing in the hands of Thomson and Bryan, yeomen,"
The name of Bland occurs frequently in the registers of the church and among the lists of governors of the school, and one of the family is mentioned, not very favourably, by Roger Ascham (see page 46). The family is said to have spread from Sedbergh to the neighbouring parish of Orton, and from thence all over England. One of them, Adam Bland, of London, skinner, the son of Roger Bland, of Orton, was made free ot the City of London, 4th Edward VI., 1550, and was Sergeant Pelletier to Queen Elizabeth (1563). This worthy was the ancestor of numerous branches, but their pedigree has been given in other books — Thoresby's " Ducatus Leodiensis," Carlyle's " History of the Blands," &c. — so I will only men- tion a few of the more remarkable members of the family.
In the eighteenth year of Charles the I., Thomas Bland, of Kippax, near Leeds, was created a baronet, and a Sir John
D
34 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
Bland, of the same place was remarkable for having been longer member of Parliament than perhaps any of his age in England. There is a very important branch of this family in Virginia, descended from Adam, the Sergeant Pelletier. They first emigrated about 1645. The present lineal representative of the family is, I am informed, Mr. John Boiling Bland, descended also from the Boilings, of Boiling Hall, in Yorkshire. (The first Boiling who went to America, married, in 1675, J^iie Rolph, granddaughter of the Princess Pocahontas, who married Mr. Rolph, one of the early settlers who went out with Captain Smith, and the descendant of this Mr. Boiling married a Bland.) The first of the Bland family who went to America built a church, court house, and prison at his own expense, for the benefit of the colony. There is a parish in Virginia called Blandford, where there is a ruined church, old for America, and now deserted. One of the Blands of this parish was Colonel Theodoric, who was very active in the revolutionary war, an3 a great friend of General Washington. But to return to those nearer home. There was a family of Blands near Cambridge, said to be descended from Adam Bland, of London, one of whom was grandmother to Lord Nelson. But a branch more immediately interesting to the inhabitants of Sedbergh »is the one settled at Derriquin Castle, Ireland. I quote Carlyle's account of their ancestor, the Rev. James Bland, the " son of John Bland, of the parish of Sedbergh, a descendant of the old family stock which had flourished for centuries in the West Riding of the County of York. He was educated at that ancient Grammar School under Mr. Wharton, from whence he went to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he was, admitted on the 3rd of May, 1684, and took his bachelor's degree in 1687. He appears to have been chaplain to Henry, Lord Viscount Sidney, and to have accompanied his lordship to Ireland in 1692, when he took upon him the lord-lieutenancy of that kingdom. He was appointed to the vicarage of Kil- larney, and was successively archdeacon of Aghadoe and dean of Ardfert on the 23rd February, 1727, both of which dignities are in the presentation of the Crown. He married Lucy, the eldest daughter of Sir Francis Brewster, alderman of Dublin.
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 35
In the church of Killarney is a monument to his daughter, and also a bell, with the inscription " Dulce sonat Blandus Amor, Feb. 25th, 1708," giving a kind of punning reference to the name of Bland. This makes it probable that the donor, was the Rev. James Bland, son of John Bland, of Sedbergh, vicar of Killarney. His eldest son, the Rev. Francis Bland, and his grandson, the Rev. James Francis Bland, were vicars of Kil- larney also. The last died 1785. Another member of the family was General Humphrey Bland, commander-in-chief in Scotland, and governor of Gibraltar, who married the Hon. Elizabeth Dalrymple, daughter of Lord Stair. To come down to more recent times — the Rev. Miles Bland was second wrangler in 1808 ; the senior wrangler being Mr. Bickersteth, afterwards Lord Langdale ; the third Mr. Blomfield, afterwards Bishop of London ; and the fourth the late Professor Sedgwick, (who was a native of Dent, and educated at Sedbergh School). Mr. Miles Bland was the author of " Elements of Hydro- statics," &c., and was prebendary of Wells. I will not attempt to enter into the intermarriages of this very large family, as they have been given elsewhere, and would fill much larger volumes than mine.
The most important part of Sir John Otway's life is given in the History of the School, but though Sedbergh cannot claim him as a native (he was born at Beckside Hall, in Middleton), he spent much time, and died, and was buried here ; he must therefore be included amongst our note-worthy persons. His father, Mr. Roger Otway, possessed Ingmire Hall, and there are many persons of the same surname mentioned in the registers of the church. A daughter of Mr. Roger Otway was baptised July 27, 1622, and a son, Edward, in September the same year. His son George was baptised January 23rd, 1625. In this entry Mr. Otway is described as of Middleton. A daughter, Elizabeth, was buried July, 1634; Mr. Roger Otway, of Ingmyre, Feb. 12, 1648; and his wife, Mrs. Anne Otway, March 27, 1652. Mr. John Otway had a daughter Margaret baptised March 5, 1658, who died the next year, and another of the same name in 1663, so he was then residing here. He was twice married ; first to Mary Rigg, of Winchester, who was
D 2
36 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
the mother of — i, John, who died unmarried; 2, Charles Otway, LL.D., many years fellow of St. John College, Cam- bridge, where he died ; 3, Anne, married into Ireland ; 4, Mary, married to Posthiimus Wharton, master of the Grammar School, who left two daughters — Mary, married to John Cawthorne, Esq., March 4, 1708; and Margaret, married to Samuel Saunders, D.D., also master of the school. Mrs. Mary Otway was buried June nth, 1659, and Mr. Otway married, secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of John Braithwaite, of Ambleside, gentleman. Their children were — i, Braithwaite;
2, Elizabeth, (baptised June 24, 1662, and married to
Byram. I conclude he was the Mr. John Byram who was living at "Ingmergh" in 1683, '84, and '85, and had three children, Elizabeth, John, and Satnuel, baptised in those
years); 3, Margaret, baptised 1663, who married Fother-
gill ; 4, Catherine, baptised Sept. 22, 1664, and married to John Upton, Esq. None of these ladies, except Mr. Wharton's daughter Mary, the wife of Mr. Cawthorne, seem to have been married in Sedbergh Church. I do not know when Mr. Otway was knighted. His burial is entered thus, " Sir John Otway, Knight, of Ingmergh Hall, in Marthwaite, Chancellor of Dur- ham, was buried Oct. 17th, 1693."
A white marble monument in the chancel bears the following inscription : —
" In pious memory of the worshipful Sir John Otway, Knt., Vice-Chancellor of the Dutchy of Lancaster, and Chancellor of the County Palatine of Durham, late one of the readers of Gray's Inn, and one of his Majesty King Charles the 2nd's counsel learned in the law, to whom he was very instrumental in his happy restoration. He lived much beloved, and died much lamented, the 15th of October, 1693, in the 74th year of his age. In memory of him his sorrowful lady hath caused this monument to be erected."
His eldest son, Dr. Charles Otway, was for some years (as Sir John had been) one of the governors of the school ; and so also was Braithwaite, the second son, who was a fellow commoner of St. John's College, and afterwards student in Gray's Inn. His benevolence to the parish has been mentioned
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 37
before, but it should be added that he gave a sun-dial to the church, which is still to be seen on the south porch. He died unmarried, and his property passed to his sister Catherine, whose descendant is the present possessor of Ingmire Hall. It appears from Nicholson and Burns's History of Westmorland that John Upton, of Ingmire Hall, Esq., the grandson of Mrs. Catherine, was member for the county of Westmorland in 1761. This history is incorrect in one particular, for it states that Dr. Charles Otway died before his father, whereas he was really one of the governors of the school for some years after Sir John's death.
These are the only families of whom I have been able to find out anything of consequence, but there is another name which perhaps ought to be mentioned. It may not be generally known that the first emigrants of the Washington family in America were John and Lawrence, two brothers, who went out, with their wives, about 1655, and it is not to this day known with certainty from what part of England they came. Until recently it was believed that they came from Northamptonshire, but a flaw has been discovered in the genealogy which connects them with the family there. Sedbergh is mentioned (among many other places) as likely to have been the birthplace of Lawrence and John Washington (the latter being the great grandfather of the American general) but I have failed to find their names, though there seem to have been two families of Washington, one living in the town of Sedbergh and the other at Gateside, in Howgill.
There is a flat tombstone at the east end of the church in the churchyard, with the following dates and initials : —
|
1564 |
1582 |
|
s. w. |
H. W. |
|
1630 |
S. W. |
|
s.w. |
1659 |
|
D. W. |
1653 |
|
A. W. |
1637 |
|
E. W. |
1663 |
and one with the name and date partly erased.
^S THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
There are also more modern tombstones, of which the outer surface has almost peeled off, but enough remains to show that they belonged to the ancient family of Washingtons, of Gate- side, in Howgill. It seems to me quite certain that the emi- grants did not come from Sedbergh, if the evidence of registers is to count for anything ; the only cause for doubt being that Simon Washington had a son baptised in 1630, whose name is torn off. It may, from the size of the lost piece, have been John, but it cannot have been Lawrence ; neither do I find in the Sedbergh registers the name of Mary Washington, who was the sister of John and Lawrence. Their wills were proved in 1677, therefore it does not seem likely that they were born before 1605, when the baptismal registers begin, though of course it is possible. They both lost their wives, and married again after they went to America.
The registers of Kirkby Lonsdale peld no better result, and I have also vainly searched those of Firbank, Killington, Dent, and Garsdale. There are no old registers in Howgill or Caut- ley, as until very recently the inhabitants of those hamlets were baptized, married, and buried at Sedbergh. In the Kendal registers I found many Washingtons from Grayrigg and Dillicar, but no Lawrence and no John of the right date ; but there are some years missing, in which it is possible that the lost names once were. I have also been to York, to see if there were any wills of that date, and found indeed the will of John Washing- ton, January 15th, 1675, but he was a whitesmith, of Kendal, cousin to Henry Washington, of Howgill in Sedbergh, who was one of the " supervisours " to the will. The Washingtons in Sedbergh town and Howgill are chiefly mentioned as white- smiths or blacksmiths.
It is curious in examining these old registers to observe the prevalence of what are now uncommon and romantic names, such as Mabel, Christabel, Lancelot, Marmaduke, Theophilus, etc. The following curious entry occurs in the Sedbergh register of baptisms : — Agnes, daughter of Robert Wilson ("als Robin of conscience ") 1632-3.
In the register of burials there are several cases of drowning : —
THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH. 39
George Boys, son of John Boys, of Brough Sowerby, was drowned in Marthwaite, and buried April 28th, 1702.
Walter Skirm, of Kirkby Lonsdale, drowned in Rathay, buried August 13th, 1702.
Edward Walker, servant to William Coupland, drowned in Loone, and buried June 26th, 17 14.
Among the deaths we also find : —
John Sheldon, ye lead myner, Janry. 22nd, 1676. Also
Rowland Pearson, schoolemaster of Howgill Chapel, July 15th, 1634. One of his successors, Mr. John Wod, married Mrs. Mary Burton (probably the daughter of the "priest" mentioned by George Fox) November 13th, 1673, and had a son William baptized in the following year.
In 1702 Mr. John Marsden was curate of Howgill, and his daughter Dorothy was baptised that year, and his son John in the same month in the year following.
The following lines are a specimen of the dialect spoken in this part of Yorkshire, but it is almost impossible in writing to give a correct idea of the accent : —
T' GALLOWAY'S GRAVE.
Now what's to deu wi' thee, thou's greetin sae sair ?
I greets for auld Billy, because he's nae mair.
Auld Billy he sarra'd us a lang while and weel,
And it's like when a dees 'at ane sould tak it ilL
A right tidy galloway lile Billy's been ;
As bonny a pony as iver was seen,
Sen I kent him mysel, for a' he was auld,
His lile sperit in him was nin on it cauld,
For at twenty year aid he would gallop and run,
He'd beat t' coach and four like a shot frae a gun.
And when we would ketch him, what racin we haed,
Wi' Rechard and William and Kestor and Ned.
He'd let thee co'e tull him and wietly stand,
Till thou thought 'at thou haed him, and put out thy hand ;
And then he'd gang off frae beside Mally Fell,
40 THE HISTORY OF SEDBERGH.
Right across o teu-acre afore ane could tell.
We'd chase him for hours all up and doun t' gers,
And efter we'd ketched him he'd gallop nae warse.
And still he was wiet ; a wieter thing,
A horse keeper niver to Brough Hill could bring.
He'd use his legs weel, but it wasn't to strike,
And Strang legs they were teu, just t' mak 'at ye'd like.
We'll bury him wietly 'a by his sel, Where t' water co's runnin' sae bonny frae t' well. And we'll set an ake tree o'er t' galloway's head. That '11 flourish lang efter we're a' on us dead. T' barns '11 lake under 't, and t' auld folk '11 sit And tell o' grand deuins lang sen as they knit. And t' lasses '11 sit under 't milkin their kye. And chitter and laugh wi' their lads 'at ga by. And t' haymakers teu '11 co' thither t' rest, And t' lile lads '11 dim up t' late a spink nest. But they '11 nin on hem think, comin year efter year, They '11 nin on hem think that lile Billy ligs there.
Charles Platt.
THE HISTORY OF THE SEDBERGH GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
CHAPTER I.
Before beginning to relate the history of the present Royal foundation it may be well to mention what is known of the first^founder of Sedbergh School, Roger Lupton, Doctor of Canon Law. In an old book kept at Durham these entries have been found : —
" John Riddyng, late of Birkshaw, near Sadber, and Richard Riddyng, late of Sadber, sought sanctury, because they had been aiding and abetting in the slaying of Thomas Lupton."
" Oliver Branthwayte, of Iveshopburn, in Werdale, on Satur- day, the 1 8th day of September, A.D. 1479, sought sanctuary in the nave of Durham Cathedral, because he, on the feast of Epiphany, 1477, at Sadber, in the county of York, made an as- sault on a certain Thomas Lupton, and struck Thomas himself, with a certain knife, in his stomach, feloniously, from which the said Thomas died."
" Christopher Bowre, of Holgillrigg, below the parish of Sadber, county of York, on Wednesday, ist November, 1479, sought sanctuary, because he himself, together with others, was present and aided, at Sadber aforesaid, at the feast of St. Peter ad Vincula, at the felonious slaying of Thomas Lupton."
These two last announcements are, to say the least, mysterir ous. It will be observed that Oliver Branthwayte accuses him- self of having slain Thomas Lupton on the feast of Epiphany, and Christopher Bcrwre says he helped to slay him on the feast of St. Peter ad Vincula, which is the ist of August. We must conclude, therefore, either that there were two Thomas Luptons, killed on different days, or that one of the murderers gave the day wrongly. I am inclined to think the former the
42 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
more likely of the two, as there were so often two or more members of the same family who had the same Christian name, and this felonious slaying might have been an attack upon the whole family of Lupton, of whom this is the earliest notice I am acquainted with.
It has been conjectured by the authors of Sanct. Dunelm et Beverl, that Dr. Roger Lupton was the son of Thomas Lupton. One would like to know what was the public or private quarrel which was the cause of this felonious slaying, and also why the murderers did not take refuge at Durham until nearly two years after the murder ; but the record given above is the only one that I have been able to find of their crime. To return to cer- tainties, the following deed, dated 1528, tells of the foundation of the school : —
" Know all men by these presents that we, Christopher Hylton, abbot of the monastery of the blessed Mary of Cover- ham, in the county of York, and of the same place, by unani- mous consent, and with the consent and assent both of ourselves and of Richard Mydlam, present vicar of Sedbergh, have con- sulted and devised, and by this our present writing have con- firmed to Master Roger Lupton, clerk, one small close in the aforesaid Sedbergh, called commonly School House Garth, annual rent 99^., in which now by the same Master Roger Lupton the school house has been built gratuitously, to be held in the same place for ever. Together with a certain messuage adjacent called ye Lofthouse, with all the lands and other pur- tenances of the same, which lately were in the tenure of James Bland and John Bland, at the annual rent of 3/. 2s., to be had and held all and every aforesaid by the before-mentioned Master Roger Lupton, his heires and assigns, to the use of the ordina- tion and foundation aforesaid for ever. Thence to be paid annually by the aforesaid without fail in equal portions to our vicar of the same for the time being twice in the year, at the times usual in the said place. In testimony of which thing we have caused our common seal to be affixed to these presents. And because then there was present there the venerable man Thomas Donnington, bachelor of law, archdeacon of Richmond, general commissary, therefore the aforesaid Richard Mydlam,
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 43
vicar of Sedbergh aforesaid, by his own special request obtained the official seal of the same Master Thomas Donnington to be affixed in the name and behalf of the said Richard Mydlam for more full authority and trust of these presents. Given at Cover- ham aforesaid, on the 1 2th day of the month of August, in the 19th year of the reign of Henry the 8th after the conquest of England.
By Christopher "Hylton, abbot of Coverham.
By me, Thomas Donnington, clerk.
Richard Mydlam, vicar."
This Lofthouse land appears to have been used by Roger Lupton with some other lands for the foundation of a chauntry, which was either a small chapel or a part of a larger church, in which masses were sung to redeem the soul of the founder, or of persons named by him, out of purgatory. It seems very probable that if the murdered Lupton or Luptons were related to Dr. Roger, the chauntry was founded by him for their benefit; it being thought in those days doubly necessary to pray for the souls of those who died by violence or in battle.
Be this as it may, the school was endowed by Roger Lupton with the revenues of his chauntry ; and Sir Harry Blomer, called in a deed dated 1536, chauntrie priest of the said Roger Lupton in Sedbergh, was, as I suppose, the first master of the school, the first governors or feoffees being James Cowper, Rowland Bland, Harry Bland, and Thomas Bland, But Sedbergh was not the only place benefited by Dr. Roger Lupton. He was elected fellow of Eton College in 1503, and provost of the same college immediately afterwards. In 1504 he was made Canon of Windsor ; died in 1540, (having resigned the provostship of Eton in March, 1535,) and was buried in Lupton's Chapel, a chantry chapel which he had built on the north side of the College Chapel at Eton.
On the door of this chapel is carved the rebus of his name, a ton with the letters L. U. P. carved between the hoops. Dr. Lupton also built at Eton the wing of the Provost's Lodge, containing the clock tower, which has also been called Lupton's tower. He had in the year 1528 " made and estabHshed within
44 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
ye Colledge of St. John the Evangeliste, in ye Universite of Cambrydge aforesaid, a foundacon for sixe scholers or disciples for ever to continue in the said colledge," to be chosen out of such as had been " brought up and have been scholers and students in Sedbergh School, and of no other."
In 1536 the master, fellowes, and scholers of St. John the Evangliste in the Universitie of Cambrydge " granted for theyme and their successours for ever unto the sayde Roger Lupton, that he, to the honour of almightie God, our blessed lady, and all the saints in heven, and for the welthe of the soule of the sayd Roger Lupton, the soules of thois that the sayd Roger Lupton is bounde and wolle have prayed for, and for all christian soules at the nominacon and appoyntment as hereafter shalbe expressed, shall have two fellowes and two scollers founded and susteyned at the costs and charges onely of the sayd master, fellowes, and scollers within the Colledge of St. John aforsayd, ther to continue for ever of his foundacon over and above the sixe scollers that he hath now founded ther. Furthermor the sayd master, fellowes, and scollers of the colledge aforsayd, covenannten and granten for theyme and their successours unto the sayd Roger Lupton, that he from henceforth shall have nominacon and ellecon of the sayd two fellowes and two scollers durynge hys lyve naturall, and after the disseas of the sayd Roger Lupton then the sayd two fellowes and two scollers shall be at the nominacon and ellecon of the sayd master, fellowes, and scollers of the sayd colledge, and of their successours for ever, provided always that ye sayd two fellowes be ellected and chosen of thois persons which be now scollers of the foundacon of the sayd Roger Lupton now beyinge in the forsayd colledge of St. John's and of suche persons as hereafter shalbe scollers of his sayd foundacon in the sayde colledge for ever and no other. Also, the sayd Roger Lupton will that the same two fellowes and two scollers so ellecte and chosen, and their successours shall pray especi- ally for the sayd Roger, takynge a speciall colect in any masse that thei shall saye expressynge the name of the sayd Roger Lupton, and after his disseas to take lykewyse a speciall colect for his soule and for all the soules that he is bounde to pray for,
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 45
and for all Christian soules, and when they or any of theyme shall make any sermon to the peple to pray specially for his soule expressynge of his name, and the sayd Roger trustith that thei wilbe favourable to his scollers to helpe theyme and to geve theyme good counsaill to grow in vertu and lernynge and to pray for his soule." ..." the sayd master, fellowes, and scollers reseyved in money of the sayd Roger Lupton 400/. of the goods of the sayd Roger Lupton for the purchas of certayn landes sufficient to beir the chargs thereof for ever," and were bound to fulfil their agreement by a penalty of 20s. for every month in which they kept a fellowship or scholarship vacant.
The vicar of Sedbergh, the chantry priest, and the feoffees of the school having power to sue the said master, fellows, and scholars " for the sayd 20 shillings, and for th' arrerags of the same, or els into the manour of Lytle Merthin, in the countie of Nottingham, or into all that manour and landes lyinge in the towne and fylds of Cambrydge, Colton, and Chesterton, cawlyd Narleton's Landes, whiche were lately purchased by the sayd master, fellowes, and scollers of the sayd Colledge of St. John's of Sir John Mordaunt, Knight, and Ely, his wyff, and enter and distreyne for the same 20 shillings and th' arrerags of the same," &c.
The third part of this indenture remained with Roger Lupton, the vicar of Sedbergh, Sir Harry Blomer, "chauntrie priest," James Cowper, Rowland Bland, Harry Bland, and Thomas Bland.
46 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
CHAPTER 11.
Sir Harry Blomer seems to have been succeeded by Mr. Robert Hebblethwaite, who was made chantry priest and master of the school, sometime between 1537 and 1544, probably after 1540, as he became a Fellow of St. John's College in 1539, and would not, as Dr. Whitaker thinks, have been appointed to so im- portant a situation immediately after his election to his fellow- ship. In his days the troubles of the school began, as related by the celebrated Roger Ascham in a letter " to the most illus- trious Robert Holgate, bishop of Llandaff, and lord president of the north."
The letter is in Latin, but has been translated as follows : — " Those always deserve very well of the state, most illustrious Prelate, who judge no private expence to be too great for form- ing the minds and manners of youth in general. For, from the beginning and foundation of this they very rightly indeed per- ceive that the State flourishes, and they stir up special praise to themselves. Now the praise of such a noble deed or under- taking Master Roger Lupton, a man of pious memory deserved, some years back, (though not in an equal degree yet in com- mon with your government), who founded a public school, where the youth among the Sedbarians should be instructed in letters and gentility, and gave it, endowed with a certain small estate, for the support of a school master, and committed and entrusted it to our care, and, so to speak, control. Over this school we have lately set Robert Hebblethwaite, an honourable, peaceable, and learned man. He, finding that some injury was meditated against himself on account of that aforesaid school, by a certain Bland and a Cowper, (men of weight among their own people, through the abundance of their wealth and the number of their friends), caused us to ask for the exer* cise of your power in our letters, lest some violence or injury be inflicted on this school. Let the authority of your prudence so check and restrain the lust of these men, that so the rest of
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 47
the world may learn what it is to make an attack upon schools and seminaries for youth, which are themselves the foundations of a better commonwealth. If you will do this you will greatly oblige by this one kindness ourselves, the cause of learning, and the State. He who carries this letter will relate the whole matter to you more fully, and we earnestly entreat your lordship to give credence to him."
So far Roger Ascham, and we only wish that he had entered into particulars in writing, instead of leaving them to his mes- senger, by which we have lost much information, and must trust in part to conjecture. No doubt, however, the Bland mentioned in this letter was one of the family of whom I have spoken in an earlier chapter, and Dr. Whitaker believes that he was one Thomas Bland, the father of John Bland who was rector of Adesham, in Kent.
This John Bland was burnt with three others at Canterbury, in Queen Mary's reign, July 12th, 1555, on account of his views relating to the mass ; and Fox gives a long account of him from letters which he wrote to his father, whose religious views are supposed to have been the same as his own. I give two short extracts from the " Book of Martyrs : " — " Then said Sir John Parker, ' Bland, we hear that you be a Scot, where were you born and brought up ? ' And I said ' I was born in England.' And he said * Where?' And I said 'In Sedber, and brought up by one Dr. Lupton, provost of Eton College.' ' Well,' said he, ' I know him well.' " In another examination Dr. Faucet said " Mr. Bland, forasmuch as you and I were brought up in one house, and born both in one parish, I will be as glad as any man alive to do you good, but ye may not stand thus against the Church."
In another place Mr. Bland says that he had been Dr. Faucet's tutor, and as there was a Thomas Faucet living at Lockebanke in the time of Henry VIII., the doctor may have been of his family. To return, however, to Bland and Cowper. It is very possible that they, like many other Protestants of their day, were desirous to seize on any lands which were likely to be taken from the Church, and as Dr. Lupton had endowed his school with the revenues of his Chantry, they might hope that
48 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
in the general confiscation of the property of all chantries, col- leges, free chapels, hospitals, fraternities, brotherhoods, and guilds, they might come in for a share of the spoil.
Whether they were successful in any degree I do not know, or whether the Bishop of Llandaff responded to Roger Ascham's appeal; but the next thing we hear of Mr. Robert Hebble- thwaite is in 1545, when he, (still being called chantry priest, and schoolmaster of Sedbergh), with James Cooper and Row- land Bland, and the other feoffees, made an indenture with Dr. John Tailor, master of St. John's College, and the Fellows and Scholars of the same, witnessing that "whereas Dr. Roger Lupton, when he established his six scholars in St. John's College, May 6th, 1528, had "declared and expressed out of what place and what p'sones the sayd sixe scollers should be chosen for ever . . . but in the latter foundacon of two fellows and two scollers, made no declaracon in his wrytinge out of what school or place the sayd two scollers shuld be continually chosen. Therefore nowe, as well at the instante suit, desyer, and labour off James Cowper, of Sedbergh, and at the con- templacon of his manifolde peyne taken about the foundacon of the schoole at Sedbergh. As also because the sayd master, fellowes, and scholars be fullie adcertained and certified yt it was the sayd Mr. Dr. Lupton's will, desyre, and requeste, divers and sundrie times yt the elecon of his scholers and disciples of either of his foundacons myght be made conformable and lyke in all points. . . . Yt is condescended, covenanted, and agreed between the sayd p'ties. And y^ sayd master, fellowes, and scollers promiseth, and by this p'sent themselfe bindeth, and their successors, yt they shalle from henceforth for ever choose, electe, and admitte the two scollers that be of the latter foundacon of the sd Mr. Roger Lupton, but onlie of such per- sons as have been brought up and have been scollers and students in Sedbergh School and of no other. . . . And furthermore because yt ye good mynde which ye sayd Roger Lupton bare chieflie to the helpe and releavynge of that poor countrie wherein Sedbergh standeth, and yt his goodlie and charitable mynde and foundacon should not be illuded, per- verted, or utterlie destroyed by the sinister and suttill divises
THT? HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 49
or doings of any p'son it is condescended, covenanted, and agreed between the sayd p'ties. And ye sayd master, fellowes, and scollers by this present grantith and themself bindeth, and their successors yt thei yearHe at the elleccon of the scollers of the sayd Colledge shall choose, electe, and admitte into the room of any of the disciples of the foundacon of the sayd Roger Lupton, then vacante, none such scoller or scollers whom, at ye sayd elleccon time they shall p'rfittlie know other by the letters of the schoole master or any of the feoffees of Sedbergh, or by any other certain knowledge, not to have studied and continued at ther learning in the schoole of Sedbergh by one whole yeare's space at ye leaste."
With this agreement the history of Dr. Lupton's foundation may be said to end, for in the years 1546 and 1547 Acts were passed in Parliament by which " all chantries, colleges, free chapels, hospitals, fraternities, brotherhoods, and guilds " were forfeited to the king. Among the rest the chantry at Sedbergh, called Lupton's chantry, which the pious founder fondly hoped was founded for ever, was dissolved, and the lands sold by the king to Sir Edward Warner, Knight of the Hospital ; Sylvester Leigh, gent., of Pontefract ; and Leonard Bate, of Lupsett, Yorkshire, gent. These lands are said to have been " late or present in the occupation of Edward Bland, John Faucett, and widow of Thomas Faucett, Henry Bland, and widow of William Bland ; and also Leonard Whitehead, James Lupton, Richard Lupton, John Harrison, John Faucett, James Faucett, William
Cowper, John, son of Giles Lund, Whitson, Corney,
widow of John Holme, Robert Faucett, . . . Reginald Corney,
Nelson, and widow of John Nelson, Christopher Nelson,
John Faucett (de Mosse), Peter Faucett, Richard Braithwaite,
Thomas Richardson, Bland, William Weiring, Rowland
Bland, Robert Lupton, Thomas Langstaffe, Bryan Langstafife,
Alexander Faucett, and Faucett," and to have been
situate in Sedbergh, Lockebanke, Cautlowe, Frestrey, Dow- biggin, or elsewhere.
These particulars are from a roll in the Record Office, where also I found the following entries : — " Sedbergh. A chauntry there called Lupton chauntry, founded for a Schoole and so
50 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
contynued. In the sayd parishe of Sedbergh is one priest founde besyde the vicar to serve the cure there, the number of househng people (illegible), and is a wyde parish. Robert Hebblethwaite, scholemaster there ; the same was founded by Dr. Lupton to pray for his soul, and to kepe a free schole as
appeareth by foundation dated March, , and hath
been so used hitherto, and is verie necessarie, for the bringing up of youth in that wylde countrie. Goodes, ornaments, and plate belonging to the sd chauntry as appeareth. No goods. The yerely value of the freehold lands is (figures illegible). A light in the seyd parish wyth a some of money mayntayned. The same was founded by one Henry Blound (qu. Bland), to have contynuance for ever, the seyd some of money for the mayntenance thereof remaining in the hands of Thomson and Bryan, yeomen."
It does not appear exactly what lands belonged to the chantry, as the names of the farms are not given ; but it seems certain that Lofthouse remained to the school, as it does to this day, and also the school house and the mansion house of the master, which Dr. Lupton had built, were not destroyed. The school was by this means reduced to the utmost poverty, and remained in a forlorn condition until 1552, the year of its re-establishment; and it was not the only foundation in this parish which suffered at that time.
There was then a guild called the Rood Guild, in Sedbergh, which possessed a farm called " Depemyre, lying in Cawodde, within the lordship of Hornby, besyde Aurum (alias Archolme) in the parish of Melling." This farm had been sold in the year 1S3O) by John Myers, of Thystylthwaite, in the county of Cum- berland, gentleman, to James Cowper, Christopher Robynson, and Thomas Faucett, who may have been, very probably, the founders or members of the guild.
I find, in an old history of these times, that the word guild " proceeds from the Saxon word gelo, or gilo, which signifies money ; because that such as were either for charity, religion^ or merchandise sake associated, did cast their money, goods, yea, and sometimes lands, together, for the publick support of their own common charge. They had their annual feasts and
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. $1
neighbourly meetings." Those guilds which were founded for religious purposes devoted their money to almsgiving, founding of chantries, "in which mass was sung for such persons as were named by the founders," and other such works. To which of them the Rood Guild in Sedbergh devoted itself I do not know, as nothing is told of it except its destruction, and the appropriation of Deepmire to the benefit of the school.
E 2
52 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
CHAPTER III.
We have now arrived at the date of the second foundation of the School, May 14th, 1552, on which day the letters patent which re-constituted it were issued by his Majesty Edward 6th.
The original charter is in Latin, but it was translated some time ago for the benefit of those governors who did not under- stand that language. It runs thus : —
" Whereas, Roger Lupton, clerk, had lately created a free Grammar School at Sedbergh, out of the rents, etc., of a cer- tain chantry there called Lupton Chantry, which lands, etc., came to the hands of the Crown by force and virtue of an Act made for the dissolution of chantries, colleges, free chapels, etc., so that the said school cannot be maintained as the said lands are by us sold. Therefore we, at our special favours, etc., at the request of the inhabitants, and many of our good subjects in that neighbourhood, do will, grant, and ordain, for us and our heirs, that for the future there shall be one Grammar School in the said parish of Sedbergh, which shall be called the Free Grammar School of King Edward 6th, to continue to all future times. We create and ordain that one master and one undermaster, or usher, shall be continued in the said school, and that the said intention may take the better effect, and that the lands, etc., granted for the support of the said school may be better governed, we grant and ordain that there shall be twelve men of the most discreet and honest inhabitants of the same village and parish, who shall be called governours of the possessions, revenues, and goods of the Free Grammar School of King Edward VI. in Sedbergh. Therefore know ye that we elect, name, constitute, and declare, etc., James Duckett, Richard Middleton, James Cowper, Edward Bland, Robert Hebylthwaite, Robert Faucett of Howgill, John Robynson, Thomas Faucett, Humphrey Bland, William Cragg, John Cooke, and Hugh Robynson, inhabitants of the town and
TH£; HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 53
parish of Sedbergh aforesaid, to be the first and moderne governours of the possessions, revenues, and goods of the Free Grammar School of King Edward VL, in Sedbergh, in the county of York, (that they) from henceforth may and shall be one body corporate and politick for ever. And that they shall have perpetual succession, and shall by the same name be fit persons in law to receive and take of us, land, tenements, etc., etc., hereinafter mentioned.
" And we do declare by these presents, that when any one of the twelve governors happen to die or go away to dwell with his family, or otherwise to depart out of the said village and parish of Sedbergh, that then it shall be lawful for the surviving governours there continuing with their families to elect other fit person or persons of the inhabitants of the village and parish of Sedbergh, to succeed as governours in the place of such dying or going away, departing or about to depart with his family as aforesaid. We do by these presents give and grant to the governours aforesaid, all that our rectory and our church at Weston with all its rights, etc., being heretofore given, etc., etc., to sustain an anniversary in the Cathedral Church of York.* And also all houses, edifices, barns, stables, dove cotes, springs, orchards, gardens, lands, tythes of grain and hay, glebe lands, and all other profits, etc., whatsoever in any wise belonging, and the advowson, donation, free disposition, and right of patronage of the vicarage and church of Weston aforesaid, and also all that meadow, containing by estimation i^ acres, and two closes by estimation 2 acres, also 8 acres with their appurtenances, late in the occupation of Richard Waterhouse, lying in the parish of Halifax, and late belonging to the free chapel of Coley, within the said parish, and whatsoever lands, etc., in any wise belong to the said chapel of Coley. And also all that our messuage and tenement, etc., called Depe- mire, being in the parish of Melling, in the county of Lancaster, late belonging to the Guild called Rood Guild, in Sedbergh, also two closes, etc., about 2^ acres, being in Skyecoate, in the
* The tithes of Weston and Askwith were seized by the Dean and Chap- ter of York about 1636.
54 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
parish of Halifax, late belonging to the late chantry called Hunter's chantry, in Halifax. And all that our cottage or tenement, and all lands, etc., late in the tenure and occupation of John Watson, situate and being in Fishlake, in the county of York. Heretofore given and granted to the sustaining of lamps in the church of Fishlake aforesaid. And all those our lands, etc., etc., about yl acres, called Mary Crofts, in the parish of Thorne, late belonging to the chantry of the blessed Mary, in the church of Thorne aforesaid, in the county of York. And also all that our messuage, etc., etc., and lo acres of land, and ^ acre of meadow, with appurtenances. And also all that our messuage, land, tenements, etc., etc., known by the name of Allanthing, containing, by estimation, 30 acres, lying and being at Bramwith and Barnby, in the county of York, formerly belonging to the late chantry of the blessed Mary, in Barnby. And also all that our messuage, and our cottage, and all lands, tenements, etc., etc., lying and being at Bramwith and Barnby, formerly belonging to the late chantry of the blessed Mary, in Barnby aforesaid. And also one acre lying and being at Westhall. Also i acre lying into Thwaite, within the village of Thorpe. Also one acre of meadow lying and being into Old Inge, in Barnby aforesaid, and Fishlake or elsewhere. (The above three parcels of land formerly belonged to the late chantry of the blessed Mary, in Barnby.) Also all that our 18 acres of land, and 16 acres of meadow, with its ap- purtenances, lying at Stainford, in the county of York. And also all that our messuage and tenement, etc., etc., lying and being within the parish of Fishlake and Haylefirth, now or late in the tenures or occupation of William Simpson, Thomas Adlington, James Howson, and Christopher Howson, both the above to Jesu College, in Rotherham, formerly belonging. And also all the whole late chantry of St. Nicholas, in Ilkley, in the parts of Craven, with all its rights, etc., etc., known by the names of Packstone, Becklees, Edes, Longlands, etc., etc. And all and singular the hereditaments thereunto belonging. And the reversion and reversions of all and singular the pre- mises, and of every part and parcel thereof, in as full, free, and ample a manner and form as any chantry priest, etc., of the
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 55
late chantries, guilds, or colleges, or any of them, or any other heretofore hath possessed thereof, or hath had, holden, or en- joyed, or ought or might have, hold, or enjoy the same or any part thereof, in the same ample manner and form as all and singular the same came or ought to have come to our hands by force and virue of a certain Act for dissolving and determining divers chantries, colleges, guilds, fraternities, and free chapels, in our Parliament holden at Westminster in the ist year of our reign, which certain messuages, lands, tenements, rents, rever- sions, services, and all and singular the premises do now extend to the clear yearly value of 20/. 13^-. lod. To have and to hold the aforesaid messuages, etc., and all and singular other the premises with appurtenances aforesaid, to the modern govern- nours, etc., newly elected and their successors for ever. To be holden of us, our heirs, and successors, as of our manor of Wakefield, by fealty only in free soccage,* and rendering yearly to us, our heirs, and successors of and for the aforesaid mes- suages, etc., part of the possessions of the late free chapel of Coley, 16 pence, and of and for the two closes in Skyecoate and Halifax, 2 pence and a halfpenny, to our Manor of Wakefield, and to pay yearly to us, our heirs, etc., after the death of the most reverend father in God, Robert, by divine permission Archbishop of York, for the messuages, etc., in Barnby, as well a certain annual rent of 13 pence halfpenny, as also a certain annual rent of 4 pence year by year, to be paid for all the rents, services, and demands, for the premises to us, our heirs and successors, in any manner or wise whatsoever.
**We do nominate and constitute Robert Hebblethwaite, clerk, in the office and place of a master, to enjoy the same so long as he shall live and behave himself well in that office.- We grant to the said governors, etc., that for the future for ever they may have one common seal, so that it touch and concern the same only. And that the said governors may plead and implead, defend and be defended, answer and be answered, in whatsoever courts or places, and before whatsoever judge, in
* Lands held in soccage are lands held not on condition of militaiy ser • vice, but on what are said to be certain inferior husbandry services.
56 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
whatsoever causes, actions, etc., of what nature or kind soever they may be touching the premises. And seeing that in con- sideration of ijOoo/. of EngHsh money, by the aforesaid Roger Lupton, clerk, to the master, fellows, and scholars of the College of St. John the Evangelist, in the University of Cam- bridge, commonly called St. John's College, given and granted, it was consented and agreed between the said Roger Lupton, and the master, fellows, and scholars of the same college, that the same master, fellows, and scholars amongst the rest of the statutes which by the executors of the excellent Princess Margaret, Countess of Richmond and Derby, foundress of the said college, certain statutes and ordinances, ordained, incor- porated, and made, for two fellows and eight scholars in the same college, to be sustained in all future times over besides and above the scholars for the foundress before given and instituted by other benefactors of the same college, which two fellows and eight scholars are to come forth instructed out of the Grammar School of Roger Lupton, at Sedbergh aforesaid, to be founded according to certain writings, agreements, and ordinances in their behalf made and kept, by virtue whereof the said master, fellows, and scholars of the said College of St. John have constantly hitherto been supported and maintained, and there ought to be supported and maintained in the said college two fellows and eight scholars coming forth instructed out of the school of Sedbergh.
*' We will therefore, and by these presents, ordain that the same two fellows and eight scholars in the said College of St. John's, as before shewn, shall be sustained for the future, coming forth instructed out of our school at Sedbergh, by these presents advanced like as heretofore hath been accustomed to come forth and be elected out of the school of Roger Lupton erected at Sedbergh. And we by these presents declare and ordain that after the decease of Robert Hebblethwaite, now master, it shall be lawful for the master, etc., of St. John's to name and elect a master to the school aforesaid ; and if they do not name and elect a master within the space of one month after notice to them given, that then it may be lawful for the governors, with the assent of the bishop of the diocese, to
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 57
elect and name a master to the said school. And we will and ordain that the said governors, with the advice and assent of the master and fellows of St. John's College for the time being, may make fit and wholesome statutes and ordinances in writing touching the ordering, governing, and directing the master, usher, and scholars of our school aforesaid, and to be supported in the said College of St. John's, which statutes and ordinances so to be made, we, by these presents command to be faithfully observed from time to time for ever. And farther, of our abundant favour, and by the advice aforesaid, we give and grant to the said governors and their successors special liberty and free and full power to have and take to them and their successors for ever, of us, our heirs, and successors, manors, messuages, lands, tenements, rectories, tythes, or other heredita- ments whatsoever, within the kingdom or elsewhere within our dominions, for supporting our school aforesaid, so that they do not exceed the clear yearly value of 20/. over and above the lands and tenements, etc., etc., given to the said governors aforesaid.
''And we will and ordain that all the clear yearly rents, etc., be expended and laid out and converted to the wages and for sustaining the master and usher of our school, and to no other use whatsoever. And further, we will and ordain that the house where the school was formerly kept, and the mansion house of the master, shall remain and be converted to the like use for our school and mansion of the master thereof as hath been accustomed. And that the master for the time being shall -hold and enjoy the same house, with all buildings, lands, etc., etc., thereunto belonging.
" And we will and by these presents grant to the governors these our letters patents under our Great Seal of England, in due manner to be made and signed without fee or reward, great or small, to us in our Hamper or elsewhere, to our use, therefore, in any manner to be rendered, paid, or done. In witness whereof we have caused these our letters to be made patents. Witness, the King at Westminster, the 14th day of May, in the fifth year of our reign. By writ of private seal, and the date aforesaid. By authority of Parliament.
"May 14th, 1552." " Wainwright.
58 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
It will be observed as rather a curious thing that the school which had been deprived of its property, because that property was the endowment of a chantry, was re-endowed with lands belonging to other chantries and religious foundations in other parts of the country. This arrangement was the cause of much trouble to later governors, as there was a great difficulty in collecting rents and looking after tenants, at the distance of a hundred miles or so from Sedbergh. There were many law-suits in consequence, and the governors must often have wished that his Majesty had left them in peaceable possession of Dr. Lupton's gift, and not followed the pernicious custom of those days, which unfortunately is not yet extinct, of " robbing Peter to pay Paul."*
In these days, however, the distance is of little moment, and the land has increased so much in value that, probably, the school has gained upon the whole.
* This significant byeword came from the fact that the Bishopric of Westminster was destroyed, and some few of the lands belonging to it and to the Abbey (St. Peter's), were laid out for the restoration of St. Paul's Cathedral.
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 59
CHAPTER IV.
It seems probable that Mr. Robert Hebblethwaite, the master appointed by the King, was the person mentioned in Roger Ascham's letter. We must suppose him, therefore, to have been a man of moderate views and quiet temper, or else so excellent a master that his services could not be dispensed with, as he had begun by being a chauntry priest, and was continued in his office of schoolmaster by the men who destroyed the chauntries.
I have not been able to find out how long Mr. Hebblethwaite held the school, but in the year 1562 he was still master, as appears from an award touching the rent of Lofthouse, a farm which still belongs to the school. The award is as follows : " Unto all true Christian people, to whom soever this present award indented shall come, etc. Robert Faucett, of Sedbergh, John Cooke, of the same, and John Holme, of the same, within the county of York, yeomen, send greeting in our Lord God everlasting. Whereas there have been divers variances, con- troversies, and debates heretofore had, moved, and depending betwixt Robert Hebblethwaite, clerk, schoolmaster of Sedbergh, of the one part, and Robert Bower, of the same Sedbergh, husbandman, on ye other part. And most specially for one parcel of ground which ye said Bower saith ye said Robert Hebblethwaite held from him. For quietness to be had therein both the said parties have committed and given their said matters to us, the aforesaid Robert Faucett, John Cooke, John Holme, of their full consent. Whereupon we deem, judge, and award that Robert Hebblethwaite and his successors, or they who shall have ye interest of ye tenement called Lofthouse, now in ye occupation of ye said Robert Hebblethwaite, shall con- tent and pay yearly at Whitsuntide, for ever, Sd. to ye said Robert Bower and his assigns, or them who shall have ye, tene- ment which ye said Robert Bower is in occupation of. Alsoe
60 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
we deem, judge, and award that the said Robert Hebblethwaite, his successors nor assigns, shall never give any fine, income, or grossonie, to the said Robert Bower, nor his assigns, neither at change of lord nor tenant, but only the yearly rent of 8^., as before is said. In witness whereof we, the aforesaid arbitrators to this"said award, have put to our hands and seals, the 5th day of April, in the 4th year of the reign of our Sovereign Lady Elizabeth, by ye grace of God, Queen of England, France, and Ireland, Defender of the Faith, etc."
I have found no record of Mr. Hebblethwaite's death, nor of any other event until the year 1589, when leases were granted of farms at Ilkley to Robert Cowghyll, butcher, and Richard Gybsone, farmer, by the governors of the school, whose names are given in the lease, as follows : Richard Duckett, Francis Cowper, John Robinson, James Syggiswyk, junr., Gylberte Bland, James Faucett, Thomas Atkinson, Christopher Holme, and Henry Sawre. CowghylFs lease was for twenty-two years, and the land which the governors " demysed, granted, and to farme lettyn," consisted of " one dwelling house, one barne, and one lytle house, one croft thereunto adjoining, one close cawlyd East Close, conteanynge foure acres, one other close cawlyd Syke Close, conteanynge one acre and a halfe, one rood of medow cawlyd Wheattags, three roods of ground cawlyd [word illegible], sytuate in the next holme, one close cawlyd Bynding Holme, conteanynge towards three acres or lesse, comons, comon of pasture and [word illegible], with all and singular ye appurtenances and all other p'fitts and comoditys thereunto belonging or in any wyse appertaining, or which have been knawen, tayken, rented, or occupied, or any part, parcell, or number of the sayme within the towne and fields of Ilkley afore- said." For this he agreed to pay the yearly rent of thirteen shillings, four pence, of current YngHshe money att the Feast of the Nativitye of St. John Baptiste and St. Andrew th' Apostle, by evyn portions to be payd att or in the south porch door of Ilkley Church aforesayd." (The following form of oath is in one of the governor's books : " I, A. B., do sweare according unto the grant and trust reposed in my p'decessors by King Edward the Sixth, constituting them a Corporation, and me a
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 6 1
member thereof now elected, well and faithfully to execute and p'forme the office of one of the governors of the Free Grammar Schoole of King Edward Sixth, in Sedbergh, in preserving the rights and privileges thereto belonging, and improving them to the best advantages of the said schoole, and therein I will dis- charge my conscience uprightly, soe helpe me God.")
The next event recorded is the granting of a lease by John Mayer, schoolmaster of Sedbergh, to John Graswith, of one acre of meadow in Kirk Sandal Ing, late in the occupation of George Brookby, of Halifax, gentleman, at the rent of 3 shillings (March 27, 1598). There were Mayers, or Mayres, whose baptisms and deaths are registered, but it is not stated that they belonged to Mr. John Mayer, M.A., master of the Free Grammar School. He was buried March ist, 1622 (or 23), and a gentleman of his name died at Thorns Hall in the year 1670. He was succeeded, apparently, by Mr. Gilbert Nelson, who " was of St. John's College in Cambridge, mentioned in the register of that university to have taken both his degrees of that college, that of B.A., 1618-9, and that of M.A., 1622; but having never been fellow, was probably chosen master of Sedbergh School for his worth." (Life of Dr. John Barwick).
He^had four daughters, all baptized at Sedbergh, the first in 1626, and is thus described in the life of his distinguished pupil Dr. John Barwick. " When John had lost much time under masters of little diHgence, and not much learning, and was now well grown, he was sent to Sedberg School in Yorkshire, not without hopes, as it afterwards proved, that he would there make a greater proficiency in learning. His master there was Mr. Gilbert Nelson, a very good man, but that he did not constantly attend the school, for his salary not being sufficient to maintain his wife and family, he engaged also in a cure of souls, to the great disadvantage of his scholars. What time he could afford them he taught them Latin very well, Greek indifferently. He was a very pleasant facetious man, and by his many comments rendered so very agreeable what used to give most uneasiness in learning, that his scholars became fond of their books, though never so hard. They were wonderfully delighted when he undertook to explain any of the dramatick
62 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
poets, particularly Terence or Plautiis, for whatever in them seemed difficult to the weaker capacity of the boys, he expounded with so much wit and merriment that all who had the least ingenuity were extremely in love with that sort of learning. In order also more thoroughly and clearly to explain the meaning of those poets, whether comedians or tragedians, he used to teach such of his scholars as he found fit for it to tread the stage now and then for their diversion, and act the several parts of those plays ; without which kind of knowledge he knew he might fit them for the lives of monks or hermits, but not to bear any offices in the State, or perform the duties of a civil life. Among such as were most skilful in acting plays, he took greatest delight in John Barwick, and was mightily pleased to see him act so much to'the life the part of Hercules raving in the tragedy, as to gain the applause of all the spectators."
Mr. Nelson is also highly spoken of by another pupil, Mr. Sedgwick, agent to the Countess of Pembroke and Montgomery, and born at Capplethwaite, in Killington ; but, as he says, " Capplethwaite being sold, my father then bought a small estate a mile above Sedbergh, from whence I and my second brother went every day to the school there, being then of great note and eminence, under Mr. Gilbert Nelson, the worthy schoolmaster ; who out of his love and affection to me, when my father began to decay in his estate, took me into his own house, and gave me diet and lodging for a year and above, with other scholars then boarders there. A great honour I had for the memory of so worthy a person ; and though God did not prolong his life till my coming into the north in 1652, yet I had the means and opportunity, by the favour of my most honoured lady the Countess of Pembroke, to place his widow (then in a low condition) mother of her ladyship's almshouse in Appleby, then newly built and endowed by her, where she had a con- venient chamber, a garden, and 8/. a year, during her life; taking a daughter of hers at the same time into her service, from whence she was afterwards well married."
I have not been able to find out what Church was served by Mr. Nelson to the detriment of the school ; and there are no further records of him, except that in January, 1625, a power
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 63
of attorney was granted to him to hold a court at Bramwith Woodhouse, Bramwith, Barnby, Fishlake, and Stayneford, etc., and to collect rents, grant leases, etc., by He. Cowper, Thomas Atkinson, Edward Bland, Jo. Fothergill, John Bland, James Cowper, Edmund Guye, Theophilus Waidson, Reginald Robin- son, John Robinson ; and in 1635 ^ similar power of attorney was given to Mr. Nelson and William Foster, of Tatham, Lancashire, gent., by John Bland, Edmund Guye, John Robin- son, Theophilus Waidson, James Cowper, James Sidgewicke, governors of the school.
In 1648 Mr. Nelson died, and was buried June 26th; and before entering on the history of his successor I will give my readers a short account of one of his pupils. Dr. John Barwick, whose life was written in Latin by his brother, and a translation published about the same date, from which the following chapter is principally derived.
64 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
CHAPTER V.
Dr. John Barwick was born at Witherslack, in Westmorland. His father was of an ancient family (being descended from Thomas de Berwick, or Barwick, who had the command of the archers in the reign of Edward the 3rd), but possessed only a small estate, which he adminstered so prudently, as to bring up all his five sons well, and leave his estate increased when he died. Peter Barwick, who was seven years younger than John, was, like him, educated at Sedbergh, and at St. John's College, Cambridge, which he left probably on account of the ejectments. In 1655 he was created doctor of physick, and married a kins- woman of Archbishop Laud about the same time. He practised in London, and directly after the Restoration he was made one of the king's physicians in ordinary.
In the following year he and his brother John had the honour of an addition to the arms of their family, of a red rose irradiated with gold. He left only one daughter, who married Sir Ralph Dalton, of Sherborn, in Gloucestershire. He was a zealous advocate of Dr. Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood, famous for his knowledge in the small pox and all sorts of fevers, and also was of great service during the erruption of the plague in London. " When the dreadful fire of that city the year following had driven him from the neighbourhood of St. Paul's, where he had purchased a house for the convenience of attending daily upon God's service in that cathedral ; the same pious reason determined him to take another house very near Westminster Abbey, where he lived to a great age, and constantly frequented the six a clock prayers, consecrating the beginning of every day to God, as he always dedicated the next part of it to the poor, not only prescribing to them in their sickness gratis, but furnishing them with medicines at his own expence, and charitably reHeving their other wants." (From the preface to the translation of the life of Dr. John Barwick).
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 65
He died on the 4th of September, 1705, in the 86th year of his age (having been for some years blind), and was buried near his wife, in the Church of St. Faith.
John Barwick went up to Cambridge in the year 163 1, at the age of eighteen, and had for his tutor Mr. Thomas Fothergill, to whom he was greatly indebted both for his instruction and pecuniary aid. He studied hard, but diverted himself by pitching the bar, and football, and also by music. He used to sing in the choir, and in after years found his knowledge of church music "very useful for the management of a choir, when he was promoted to the government of a cathedral."
He early began to take a prominent part in the public affairs of that unhappy time, and was one of the persons who managed the conveyance of plate and money from the university to the king at Nottingham. This was a difficult business, as Crom- well had heard of the intentions of the colleges, and was lying in wait to intercept their offering, but it was conveyed safely through bye roads. Shortly after this the university was " visited " and the loyal members of it deprived of their incomes, and some of the more important imprisoned.
Mr. Barwick, who had been chosen fellow of St. John's College, gave an account of the sufferings of his own college under the title of " Querela Cantabrigensis, or the University of Cambridge's Complaint." Before this he and some friends had written a book against the Solemn League and Covenant, which was not pubhshed, because it was thought by the Vice- Chancellor, Dr. Ralph Brownrigg, that it would endanger the heads of the university. Mr. Barwick, of course, was deprived of his fellowship, but he had left Cambridge a month before the ejectments began, probably in February, 1643, and went to London, where he had the management of the king's affairs, and carried on a con-espondence between London and Oxford, the king's head quarters. For greater convenience and safety in this business he lived in the family of Dr. Morton, Bishop of Durham, whose private chaplain he was, as Durham House, being large, afforded opportunity for hiding papers and cyphers, and his chaplaincy gave a sufficient reason for his residence in London. Here he endeavoured to bring back to their duty
F
66 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
those men that he perceived to be wavering, especially Sir Thomas Middleton, of Wales, who afterwards did good service to the King, and Colonel Roger Pope, who, however, had no sooner returned to his allegiance than he was seized with the plague.
In his last illness Mr. Barwick ministered to him, though the Colonel had hesitated to send for him for fear of infection, and also from a feeling that he had done so much to injure the Church that he did not deserve to be comforted by the clergy. Mr, Barwick managed to keep up a secret correspondence with the King, in cypher, and by means of various agents, all the time of his imprisonment ; and was with him after he was taken from Holmby House to the head quarters of the army. He was sent by the King to London, during the negotiations with the Parliament, and even went disguised as a soldier with Cromwell's army towards London, in order to find out how the common soldiers were affected to the King's cause.
When the King was removed to Carisbrook Castle Mr. Barwick still managed to communicate with him, in cypher, through one of his servants, Mr. Cressit. He also received and deciphered letters in London for and from others of the King's friends, particularly Mr. Thomas Holden, who being found out and imprisoned, Mr. Barwick went to see him, and succeeded in conversing with him in whispers through a chink of a nailed- up door, and so was able to find and burn all his cyphers and papers, and give warning to other persons who were threatened with imprisonment.
All this time Mr. Barwick seems not to have been suspected himself, but was able not only to do the King's business (on one occasion going from London to the Isle of Wight in one day and back again in the same time, without being tired) but also to help his less fortunate friends.
After the King's death he still would not despair of the Monarchy, but continued to correspond with the young King and his ministers abroad, one of his two brothers, Peter and Edward, who were both then in London, going to the post office for his letters, which came under a feigned name. Mr. Barwick was at this time in a very feeble state of health,
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 67
supposed to be in a consumption, and not likely to recover, insomuch that, with the assistance of his " dearest friend, Mr. John Otway," (of whom more hereafter) he had prepared him- self a burying place where he might be interred with the rites of the Church of England. But at last he and his brother Edward, being betrayed by one of their agents, were brought before those in power, in the Holy Week of the year 1650, Mr. Barwick having left the Bishop of Durham some time before, and being in private lodgings, which he frequently changed to escape detection.
The brothers were examined separately, but nothing could be extracted from them, though John Barwick was threatened with torture to make him discover his accompHces. " But he, who (as they well knew) would never acknowledge for laws the military resolves of these new lords, made no scruple to answer undauntedly that neither he himself, nor any others with whom he had entertained friendship, had done anything that he knew repugnant to the laws of his country; and that if anything should possibly be extorted from him to the contrary by the force of torments, which that dry and bloodless carcase they saw of his might not be able to bear, it ought by all means to pass for nothing."
His brother Edward was threatened with death, and both brothers were charged with contumacy, but nothing could be proved against them or their friends, as Mr. John Barwick, before the messengers who came to take him could break open his door, which he always kept bolted, had burnt all his letters and cyphers. However, he was found guilty of high treason, and his brother suspected of it, so both were confined in dungeons in the Gate House of Westminster, by a warranl from Bradshaw, president of the new Republic.
Here they suffered a close imprisonment, none of their friends being permitted to see them, and were treated with great cruelty, until at the end of a few weeks Mr. Edward Barwick, when "almost destroyed with cold and hunger," was let out of prison, upon security to return there when summoned.
But his captivity had been more than he could bear, and he soon afterwards died of diseases brought on by his hardships.
F 2
68 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
" He was a young man of exemplary piety/' and had borne arms for the King under Sir Marmaduke Langdale as ensign in the company of Colonel James Bellingham. " After that gallant army of north countrymen was routed, taking his colours from the staff, he tied them round his waste, and brought them safe to his colonel."
In the meanwhile, John Barwick, after three days' imprison- ment, had been again examined and threatened, and promised large rewards if he would confess what plots he had been privy to, but without effect. " Yet they thought it not advisable to put him to the torture, a barbarity in this age unheard of in England, and he reduced to a mere shadow;" but "by a warrant under Bradshaw's own hand, dated the 12th of April, 1650, they order Mr. Francis West, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, to take into his custody this dying person. Nor after all this did they desist from their cruel threatenings, for they gave this reason for changing his prison, that he might be nearer to the rack, kept there to torture such incorrigible rebels, as they esteemed him ; nor indeed, as false and perfidious as they were in other instances, did they use to fail the least tittle of what they threatened."
" But Mr. Barwick's hopes soared higher than to be the least affected with their dire menaces. In all difiiculties he still preserved his mind firm and undejected, and at all times fortified his faith and patience with this pious reflection, that upon the very same day, according to the computation of the Church, Christ had endured more grievous sufferings for him, for it was on Good Friday that all this was done." The Lieutenant of the Tower kept him very strictly, even nailing boards against his window to intercept the air, and not allowing him writing materials, or any book except the Bible, which he almost learnt by heart during his imprisonment. All his possessions had been seized, and no allowance was made for his support, while great difficulties were put in the way of any assistance from his friends, who were not allowed to see him, except one special person, and he only in the presence of the gaolers.
Mr. Barwick had always lived sparingly, but now was obliged to do so more than ever, not being desirous of causing more
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 69
expense to his friends than he could help. Among these friends must be reckoned the King (Charles the 2nd) who, having received the welcome present of a thousand pounds from Lady Savill, ordered two hundred to be employed for Mr. Barwick's relief, and endeavoured to exchange for him a prisoner he had made. But contrary to the expectation of friends or enemies, the spare diet, close confinement, and enforced idleness, were of singular benefit to his enfeebled health, so that after fifteen months, Mr. Otway having with great difficulty obtained leave from Bradshaw to visit his friend and carry messages from other friends in Gray's Inn, found Mr. Barwick so much altered for the better that he hardly knew him ; and " being almost astonished at the unexpected sight." " Is this," says he, " that Mr. Barwick whom I saw at our last meeting, or am I rather imposed upon by some apparition ?" " Yes, indeed," replied Mr. Barwick, " you might formerly take me for a shade or an apparition, or anything of yet less substance, my dear Mr. Otway, when you was so good to take upon you the care of seeing my then wasted body duly interred ; but now I am again your very friend Barwick, since God of His great mercy has sent His Spirit into these dry bones, and beyond all hope commanded them to live under this severe confinement."
The two friends were left alone together by the Lieutenant of the Tower (who had been so won over by the goodness of his prisoner as to have become very friendly to him), and had a long and interesting conversation, Mr. Otway with much difficulty prevailing on Mr. Barwick to accept a small sum of money as a pledge of the further bounty of his friends if he required it.
Mr. Barwick's example had made so great an impression upon Mr. Robert Browne, the Deputy Lieutenant of the Tower, that he was, " together with his wife and family, daily at prayers with him ; received the blessed Sacrament from his hands ; brought his new bom child to be baptised by him according to the rites of the Church of England ; and, indeed, became' so thorough a penitent that he would no longer serve under the usurpation, but soon after returned to his own trade, that of a cabinet-
70 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
maker, as more honest, though less gainful." The sponsors at this baptism were the Lords Ogilby and Spiney, both prisoners in the Tower, and the wife of General David Leslie, who had been taken prisoner at Worcester, and was also himself present at the ceremony, though formerly an enemy to the Church of England, but, as he said on the occasion to Lord Ogilby, " such sacred offices as these are by no means unacceptable to me, which may be not a little owing to the extraordinary virtue and piety of this holy man."
By the favour of his gaolers Mr. Barwick's captivity was much lightened, and he was removed into a convenient room where he was allowed to take exercise and see his friends. The Government, during the last four months of his imprison- ment, granted him five shillings a week towards his subsistence, chiefly through the entreaties of Mr. West, to whose endeavours also his liberation on the 7th of August, 1652, is principally to be attributed. This took place before the Government was seized by Cromwell.
Mr. Barwick being out of prison, devoted some time to his private studies, reading prayers daily at some friend's house. He had only been set free on condition that he would appear when called upon, but he was not troubled any more, though he soon began to turn his thoughts towards the restoration of the Church and King. To relate distinctly the part he took in this we must return to his friend Mr. Otway, who if not a Sedbergh scholar (and I think it likely he was one), may cer- tainly be claimed as a Sedbergh man.
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 7^
CHAPTER VI.
Mr., afterwards Sir, John Otway, was born at Beckside, in Middleton, and was the son of Mr. Roger Otway, who died at Ingmire Hall, near Sedbergh, February, 1648. He was admitted pensioner of St. John's College, Cambridge, at the age of 16, June 3, 1636, and made fellow March 24, 1639. He was ejected with the rest of the fellows March 15, 1643, for refusing to take the solemn league and covenant, and other misdemeanours.
In Dr. Barwick's life he is called " that brave Mr. Otway, who first of all the University of Cambridge was not afraid publickly and learnedly to defend the Royal cause against the wicked association of those which were thence called the Associated Counties, in despight of the ringleaders of the rebellion and all their malice; first of all was thrown into prison for that heroick action ; and being first of all expelled the University, courageously led up the first rank, as it were, of academick combatants, who fought so strenuously against savage brutes in that glorious conflict for their oppressed country ; nor did he shew less courage afterwards in the field against the sworn enemies of the Kingdom than he had formerly done in the University."
He married, first, Mary Rigg, of Winchester, and secondly, Elizabeth, daughter of John Braithwaite, and niece and heiress of Thomas Braithwaite, of Ambleside. He was one of the readers of Gray's Inn, and during Mr. Barwick's residence in London he seems to have been there also. When Mr. Barwick was set at liberty, he and Mr. Otway and other Royalists, endeavoured to persuade those of their friends who were of the other party to return to their duty, and, in particular, Mr. Otway devoted his attention to his two brothers-in-law, Colonel Daniel Redman, who married his sister, and Colonel John Clobery, who married his wife's sister. Colonel Clobery com*
72 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. ,
manded in Scotland, and Colonel Redman in Ireland. Colonel Clobery was a friend of General Monk, and Colonel Redman served under Henry Cromwell, and their brother-in-law laboured for seven years to bring them over to his side, in which at last he succeeded with the assistance of Mr. Barwick, who frequently came up to London from Sussex, where he lived under the pro- tection of Sir Thomas Ersfield. After his death Mr. Barwick remained some time with Sir Thomas Middleton in Wales, with whom he had many consultations regarding his Majesty's affairs, and from thence went to London in the beginning of the year 1658, where he lived with his brother, Dr. Peter Barwick.
In his house, in St. Paul's Churchyard, he found an oratory formerly consecrated to God, but profaned during the Rebellion. He restored it to its former beauty, and constantly performed divine service there. In this house there were also many con- venient hiding places for cyphers and letters, of which during this time Mr. Barwick received some from the King, and many from Sir Edward Hyde, afterwards Lord Clarendon. With the latter he had a long correspondence on the subject of consecra- ting new bishops, those prelates who remained being now very old, so that it was feared that the succession might be lost. The Restoration, however, happily prevented this misfortune. In the meanwhile, Oliver Cromwell being dead, and his son Richard Protector, the hopes of the Royalists began to revive, and Mr. Barwick had reason to believe that by the industry of his friend Mr. Otway, both Colonel Clobery and Colonel Redman were willing to serve the King when opportunity offered. Colonel Redman, however, was turned out of his employment in Ireland at the same time as his general, Henry Cromwell, and became for the present useless. Therefore, " Mr. Barwick, by his Majesty's direction, desired Mr. Otway to lay aside all thoughts of the affair in Ireland for some time, and take a journey into Scotland, and prevail with his brother- in-law. Colonel Clobery, to endeavour by all means possible to bring over his general to the King's interest, to which no accession could be of greater importance, and with whom the great opinion the general had of Clobery 's courage, prudence, and fidelity, had given him no little credit.
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 73
Mr. Otway undertook the business willingly, and performed the journey at his own charges, in acknowledgement of which service and many others, he received the following letter from the King : —
" Brussels, Jan. 8, 1660.
" The person through whose hands this comes to you, hath enough informed me of your great affection and zeal to my service, and of the pains you have taken to advance it, of which you may be confident I have the sense I ought to have. I have writ to your friend (Col. Clobery) which you will deliver to him and use your interest in him, that he may take my business to heart ; and persue it with his utmost industry and dexterity. I hope the issue will be good for us all, and you will find that I can never forget your part, and that I shall always be
" Your affectionate friend,
" Charles R."
Mr. Otway had not been long at his brother-in-law's quarters in Edinburgh, when General Monk's brother arrived, also an emissary of the King, and he and Colonel Clobery and others used all the influence they possessed with the General to incline him to the resolution he finally adopted. In August, 1659, there was an unsuccessful rising of Royalists in Cheshire, and General Lambert, after having defeated them, marched his army against General Monk, who was, he knew, no friend to him, though Monk's real designs, if he had any, were at this time known to none, and could only be guessed at. Mr. Otway thought it a favourable sign that the General made use of Colonel Clobery to purge the army of such officers and men as he could not confide in, before he marched to England.
He sent three commissioners before him (of whom Colonel Clobery was the chief), and in London the colonel met Mr. Otway and Mr. Barwick, and also Colonel Redman, who they hoped would induce his old regiment to declare for the King. Colonel Redman set off for Yorkshire, where his regiment was encamped, and as soon as his old soldiers saw him " they bad their new commanders, Axtel and Zanchy, shift for themselves,
74 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
openly protesting they would serve hereafter under none but Colonel Redman, and their example was followed by the whole wing, to the number of fifteen hundred horse."
Thus a great obstacle in General Monk's road to London was removed, and Lambert's army weakened; but this cele- brated march is a matter of general history with which Mr. Barwick and Mr. Otway had nothing to do but look on and wait, and send what tidings they could to their friends abroad. But when Monk declared for the King, Mr. Barwick was sent by the bishops to his Majesty at Breda to inform him of the state of the Church, etc.
He preached there before the King, and was appointed one of his chaplains. He also petitioned that his friend Mr. Otway might be put into a place then vacant in the Court of Chancery, to which he had some right from the grant of Charles the ist.
I do not know whether this was the vice-chancellorship of the Duchy of Lancaster, or the chancellorship of the County Palatine of Durham, but Sir John Otway filled both these offices ; nor do I know in what year he was knighted. Colonel Clobery was knighted and received a considerable pension. I cannot discover how Colonel Redman was rewarded. Mr. Barwick went to Cambridge and took his doctor's degree, but refused to turn out the holder of his fellowship, and would not ask for any preferment or favour for himself, except that he hoped to be confirmed in the possession of his prebendal stall at Durham, and the rectories of Wolsingham and Houghton-in- le-Spring, which had been given him by his late patron the Bishop of Durham, from the enjoyment of which benefices " the iniquity of the times had debarred him."
However, the King ofiered him the See of Carlisle, which he declined lest persons should think he had ambitious motives for his anxiety to fill up the vacant Sees, and was appointed Dean of Durham. He took possession of the deanery on All Saints Day, 1660, and reserved to himself only the living of Houghton, distant four miles from Durham. Here he liberally employed his large revenues for the public good, repairing the cathedral and the prebendal houses, erecting a grammar school, and bringing water into the college for the prebendal houses.
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 75
But he had not time to execute half he had intended, for before the year was expired he was appointed Dean of St. PauFs, and gave up his preferments in the north, where he would for his own part have preferred to stay.
He went to St. Paul's in October, 1661, and at once began to restore the musical service, which had been discontinued. (This he had also done at Durham.) He found great disorder in the cathedral, there being only two canons instead of twelve, and they neglectful of their duty, and began at once to do his best to remedy this state of things, subscribing largely to the repairs of the cathedral.
He was appointed prolocutor in Convocation, and by his labours there, and in his duties as dean, he again ruined his health, and was seized with his old distemper November, 1662. Notwithstanding, he would not be withheld from administering the Holy Communion in St. Paul's on Christmas Day, after which service he became much worse, and was ordered to have rest and change. The former he would never really take, but for the sake of the latter he removed to his living of Therfield, in Hertfordshire. Here he became a little better, and endea- voured to resume his duties in London, but was obliged to return to the country, and stayed at Chiswick by the express command of his ecclesiastical superiors, though even there he continued to work very hard in arranging papers, etc. He had a severe fit of vomiting blood, and going to London a short time afterwards he was seized with a violent pain in his side and died in three days, October 22, 1664. Dr. Henchman, Bishop of London, read the burial service over him ; and his dear friend. Dr. Gunning, afterwards Bishop of Chichester and of Ely, preached the sermon, his text being Phil, i., 21, 22,
23, 24.
In his will he left his copy, in two volumes, of the Eicon Basilike to his " dearest friend, Mr. John Otway, who mainly by his advice and persuasion (to use the words of the testator himself) declined no labour nor danger that the King's son might be restored to his throne." He left, among other legacies, 40/. to Sedbergh School, 300/. to St. John's College, and 100/. to St. Paul's Church, and these three sums "to be
76 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
employed in the repairs of all those publick buildings." His epitaph was written in Latin by Mr. Samuel Hewlett, a young gentleman of great promise, and fellow of St. John's College. I found an imperfect copy of it in a book belonging to the governors of Sedbergh School. The following is a transla- lation : —
Sacred
To Love, and to Generations to come.
Thou that passest by, whosoever thou art,
Bring hither thine Eyes and Understanding also,
Intuitively both to look and lament.
For within this marble Wardrobe are folded up
The thin worn Weeds
Of the valuable, substantial, and well accoutred Soul
Of John Barwick, Doctor of Divinity ;
To whom Westmorland may well boast
To have given Breath and Being ;
Next Cambridge may boast
To have given him his first Admission,
And St. John's College there a Fellowship
In that Foundation : ^
From which Fellowship
(Which still makes more for his Honour)
He was unjustly ejected by a Pack of Parricides,
Who notwithstanding
Regardless of the Rage of those bloody Times,
Or his own Blood-spitting Malady equally pernicious,
And at length more certain, alas ! to destroy him :
Boldly attempted and successfully managed
Matters of the greatest Difficulty and Danger,
In the behalf of the King and Church ;
And for that Cause
Was shut up in a dire and loathsome Prison,
Where he suffered inhuman and barbarous Usage.
Yet with a constant and undaunted Spirit.
And in the end he saw,
By the Miracle as it were of a new Creation,
The Revival of both Crown and Mitre,
Himself vigorously assisting at the new Birth of both.
Last of all
For his active Services, and passive Sufferings,
He was dignified with the Deanery of Durham,
Which he held a few months.
And afterwards with that of St. Paul's
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 77
Which he enjoyed three years,
Tho' either of them too short a Season,
Yet discharged both with singular care and Fidelity,
Living and dying a Bachelor,
And strictly chaste and sanctimonious
Both in Soul and Body :
And being much debilitated
By a long and lingering Consumption,
Here he rests in the Lord,
And deposits his Remains
Among those ruinous ones of St. Paul's Church,
Being confident of the Resurrection
Both of the one and the other.
He died in the 53d Year of his Age,
And of our Lord 1664.
Reader, if thou desirest to know more
Of this Reverend Churchman
Go Home, and learn
By the conspicuous copy of his sincere Devotion
What it is to be a true Christian indeed.
This is taken from the translation of Dr. Barwick's Life, and so is the original Latin, which is as follows : —
Amori et ^ternitati.
Quisquis es Viator,
Oculum, animum, hue adverte, lege, luge.
Jacent sub hoc marmore
Tenues exuviae non tenuis animae
JOHANNIS Barwick, S. S. Th. D.
Quem suum
Natalibus gloriatur Ager Westmoriensis,
Studiis Academia Cantabrigiensis,
Admissum socium in S. Johannis Collegium
Indeque, quod magis honori est,
Pulsum a Rebellibus.
Qui nee perduellium rabiem.
Nee Haemoptysin, quamvis aeque cruentam,
Et certius heu ! tandem percussuram,
Quicquam moratus.
Pro Rege et Ecclesia summe ardua molitus,
Diro carcere perquam inhumana passus.
(Inconcussa semper virtute)
Renatum denuo vidit et Diadema et Insulam,
Etiam sua non parum obstetricante manu.
Qui deinde functus
7 8 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
Decanatu Dunelmensi paucis mensibus,
Paulino ver6 triennio,
Parum diu utroque, sed fideliter ;
Tandem (post ccelibatum
Cum primis caste cum primis sancte cultum)
Labe pulmonum et curis publicis confectus,
Heic requiescit in Domino,
Atque inter sacras ^dis Paulinae ruinas,
Reponit suas
(Utrasque resurrecturas securus)
Anno astatis LI 1 1.
Salutis MDCLXIV.
Caetera scire si velis,
Discede et Disce
Ex illustri primsevse pietatis exemplo,
Etiam sequiore hoc seculo,
Quid sit esse veri nominis Christianum.
His brother, Dr. Peter Barwick, observes, that he was spared much sorrow in dying before the Great Fire of London, which, however, it was remarked by his affectionate friends, spared that part of the choir of the Cathedral where he was wont to celebrate the Eucharist, and one little Oratory which he used for his private prayers. From the likeness of him affixed to his life. Dr. Barwick would appear to have possessed handsome features and a pleasant face.
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 79
CHAPTER VII.
While these various events were in progress Sedbergh was not without its own share of trouble. The University having been visited before the death of Mr. Gilbert Nelson, it was to the usurping master and fellows that the governors of the school had to address themselves in the year 1648, and they received the following reply : —
" A Coppie of the College letter of recommendation of Mr.
Jackson.
" St. John's Colledge, Cambridge,
July 31st, 1648.
" Gentlemen, — We, the master and senior fellows of St. John's Colledge, in Cambridge, understanding by your letters of June 3olh (which came to our hands July 6th) that the Free Grammar School of Sedbergh is now void by the death of Mr. Nelson, finding that it belongs to us to elect a schoolmaster within a month after notice of a vacancy, duly consideringe the present condition of ye schoole (not without takeinge to heart yor affectionate address made to us for a good supply), and earnestly desireinge to approve ourselves to God and men in the faithful discharge of our duty herein, have made choice of the bearer hereof, Richard Jackson, Master of Arts heretofore of our colledge. A man of such approved abilities and con- versation, and withall of such experience as wee cannot but hope that he will by God's blessinge prove instrumental for regaineing the reputation of yo^ schoole, and promotinge as well pietie as learning among you, wee therefore heartily recom- mend him to your love (not doubtinge of his friendly reception) and you to the guidance and grace of Christ, in whom we are yor assured friends — Jo. Arrowsmith, Js. Worrall, Geo. SiKES, Jo. Pawson, Tho. Goodwin, Sam Heron."
So THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
How little Mr. Jackson deserved the high praise bestowed on him in this letter the following account of his actions will show. He seems, very soon after his arrival in Sedbergh, to have begim to quarrel with the governors of the school, and to engage them in various expensive lawsuits. They paid one of their attorneys, Mr. Ward, from June, 1650, to August, 1654, 55/. 1 1 J". 7^., and more was still owing; for various expenses in the same suit, 11/. gs. was paid. Another bill was 22/. iSs. ; and another, for expenses and repairs, was 106/. 12^-. id. ; and yet another, for the second suit against Mr. Jackson, was 21/. Ss. id. These various expenses I believe to have been for a suit between the masters and governors respecting a tenant at Stainforth. The governors had granted a lease of their land there to William Coulson for twenty years, at a rent of 23J. 4^., the fine being 15/. Coulson underlet the land to a man named Swift. But the previous tenant, John Wright (who had paid 15^-. 4d. per annum, and whose lease had expired in 1645), had underlet the farm to one Sympson, and this Sympson, supported by Mr. Jackson, claimed the farm.
In November, 165 1, Baron Thorpe, one of the justices of assize at York, required Sir Robert Barwick to call the parties before him and make an end of the suit between them if he could. He heard them both, but found, as he says, "the schoolmaster unconformable to reason." His opinion was decidedly in favour of the governors, especially as Coulson was willing to pay a larger rent, and the lands were worth six or seven pounds a year more than they were let for. I know not how this suit ended; perhaps it dropped of itself, as more important ones took its place.
The governors received from June, 1650, to October, 1654, rents from various tenants, from three of them arrears (Deep- myre, the schoolmaster of Halifax, and John Waterhouse), in all amounting to 131/. 19^". 2d. I do not know whether the law expenses were paid out of the revenues of the school, but it seems as if they had been, as the accounts of them are among the school papers. The governors must, however, if they paid any income at all to the master, either have borrowed money, or paid some of the many and heavy expenses themselves,
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 8 1
which they might think worth while if they could so rid them- selves of their enemy. About five years after Mr. Jackson's appointment they addressed the following petition to the master and fellows of St. John's College (1653-4) : —
^' A Petition against Mr. yackson.
" To the Right Worshipful the Master and Senior Fellows of St. John's College, in Cambridge, the humble Petition of the Governors of the Free Grammar Schoole of Sedbergh, to- gether with the Minister and other Inhabitants of the same Parish.
" Sheweth, that your petitioners have for the space of five years patiently borne what, with much prejudice, they have sustained by the turbulent and vexatious temper of Mr. Richard Jackson, master of the Free Grammar School of Sedbergh, who noe sooner gott footing here by your worshipful approbation and commission, but as one wholly bent to recke the good of Posterity thereby to launch his owne private interest, he forth- with engaged us in a long and tedious suite, much to our disturbance, but (as God would have it) more to his owne both disadvantage and discredit, wherein the publick face of justice has taken such notice of his own lesse, as well as groundlesse clamours, that both the Honourable Baron Thorpe and the Right Worshipful Sir Robert Barwick have publiquely repre- hended him in the canvasse of these differences 'twixt him and us. And the whole county can witnesse what open checks was given him for his misdemeanour by the full bench at the generall sessions held at Pontefract, the 4th of April last, sufficient to render a man of any forehead but his both silent and penitent. But that (Right Worshipfull) which more afflicts us is the great dishonour of God, and the great neglect of the duty of his charge, arising from his debauched and dissolute conversation. A constant haunter of Alehouses, frequently intoxicated with immoderate drinking, who (without regard had either to the gravity of his function or the duty of the day) on a late Sabbath was most notoriously drunke, engaged wagers of no small value to kindle strife and adverse contention to the
$2 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
breach of the blessed bond of peace and love amongst us, and the no lesse scandall of his sacred profession. In the piirsuite of which disordered disputes he has now for a long time deserted his employment, shut up the schoole rooms, discharged the usher, and those few schollers left, who are soe thinned by his gross neglect, that scarce a sixt part of that number his former predecessors usually had either is or has any time been resident since he came amongst us, soe as were not the schollar- ships and fellowships built upon this royall foundation a greater invitation than any improvement to younge students can be hoped from his tuition, the schoole of Sedbergh in all pro- bability had long ere this sunk under his tyranny on one side and remissnesse on the other. And the schoole house, instead of young Athenians, been left a lodging for owls and batts to roost and rest in. Further, we crave leave to minde you how miserably he has suffered the mansion houses to delapidate, that if we had not interposed in a speedy repaire, not only the houses themselves, but even their reuins too had perished. In a Word (for we delight not to pursue complaints to the period, how just soever, and should we attempt it here, not onely this paper but this day would faile us), so vexatious has his carriage been that while he is amongst us none will share in office with us in lieu of those whom death hath taken from us. And as he hath outdonne all former president in his practise, soe he has left us short of all expression for reproof
" May it therefore please your reverend society, out of a tender regard had to the memory of our noble and pious bene- factors, not to suffer the immunities and privelidges of this Royall (and late flourishing) foundation to be sacrificed to the proud, petulant, and pedantige humour of the present in- cumbent. But out of your grave wisdomes either to authorize Mr. Garthwaite, master of arts of your college, who by his long continuance here and civill and carefull managery of his charge, both well understands the constitution of the schoole and well deserves our commendation to it, being foniierly put in by order of Parliament, or (if your wisdomes shall otherwise resolve) to send us some well qualified person who, by the blessing of God, may both preserve what little is left, and in
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 83
time repaire what is so nearly lost, in order to the fame and credit of this now widowed foundation. And your petitioners shall be ever bound to pray."
This petition has no signature to it, neither can I find that it ever received any answer ; possibly the college were not able to assist the petitioners. Mr. Jackson afterwards stated that the governors sent a " scurrilous railing petition to the colledge" in May, 1654, and also to Whitehall to the commissioners, who were then sitting there ; but neither petition seems to have pro- duced any effect, as Mr. Jackson continued in his office for some time longer, until the governors appealed to a more powerful body.
Before their petition to the college, the Long Parliament had come to an end, and also all the various committees and sub-committees for sequestrating livings and expelling clergymen and schoolmasters from their benefices. Cromwell and the Independents were now in power, and in the be- ^nning of the year 1654 a new ordinance was issued "for ejecting scandalous, ignorant, and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters."
In March, 1654 (1653 according to the reckoning of that time, which began the year on the 25 th of March), a committee of about forty persons was appointed, who were called tryers, and sat at Whitehall, and no one could be appointed to any benefice who had not been approved by them " to be a person for the grace of God in him, his holy and unblameable con- versation, as also for his knowledge and utterance able and fit to preach the Gospel." They chiefly directed their attention to finding out the " precise time and manner of the conversion of the candidate, but also required that all who presented themselves for approbation should bring a certificate, signed by three persons at least, of known godliness and integrity (one of which to be a preacher of the Gospel in some settled place), touching their godly and unblameable conversation." (See Walker's "Sufferings of the Clergy,") And an ordinance of September 2, 1654, provided that no one should be appointed to a benefice until the Protector and his Council were satisfied of their conforming to the governmept of the day.
G 2
$4 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
Perhaps it was in order to travel up to London and present himself at Whitehall that Mr. Jackson shut up the school in April, and absented himself for three months (though he does not say so), but he was certainly approved by the tryers about June, 1654, in spite of the complaints of the governors. Shortly afterwards, however, a Court of Commissioners for Ejecting Scandalous Ministers, etc., sat at York, and the op- portunity was at once seized by the inhabitants of Sedbergh and Garsdale, who began a new prosecution in 1655, as is shewn by the following letters : —
"Jan. 15th, 1655.
"Mr. Cowper, — I have sent the inclosed from Mr. Huddleston Phillipson, with directions how to prosecute, as you may perceive, soe as I desire you would consider hereof and take advice by Mr. Howley (yf he be in Yorke), to present the articles and keepe coppyes therein, and gett a summons from the commissioners to give him notice before he goe forth of the country, and lett not anything be awanting, whatever it cost. I pray you lett my cosen Edmond Ward know this much. I intend to goe for London next Tuesday, soe I desire to have some account before I goe. Nothing els but my ever kind respects and regards. Your assured friend,
"Jo. FOXCROFT."
"Jan. 19, 1655. "For my very loving friend, Mr. John Cowper, att Sedberghe, theise. Accordinge to directions to us, we have drawn articles against the party you know, which we hope may be duly and truly ended against him (a coppye thereof we have herein enclosed and sent you, with a coppye of yor first petition to -the college). The committee for ejecting scandalous, ignorant, and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters, of Tuesday, August 29th, 1654, wherein you may se your way of p'secution, therein desiringe you to put yor articles in forme, and to direct us the way for p'secution, and to returne them with all speed and safety. Upon Wednesday last, Mr. Adamson, their attorney, delivered a declaration to James Sedgwick, who lives at ye Lofthouse, a coppie whereof we likewise send you, and ye
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 85
declaration itselfe we shall deliver to Edward Foxcroft, who we shall direct to come to you to advise for a plea. This is all we have to present to you att present, but that we are your faithful friend and lo. brother."
In February, 1655, Mr. Jackson called the governors before Mr. Asheton and Mr. Coates, two of the justices of the peace for the West Riding, at Giggleswick, upon two warrants from His Highness Cromwell, upon Mr. Jackson's petition. " He there laboured to prove who first entered into the schoole after Mr. Jackson leavinge of the same, and whether the feoffees then forcibly kept him, the said Jackson, furthe of the schoole, but could not prove the same." I suppose that no further steps were taken in the matter, though the governors appear to have taken advice as to whether it was material for them to " pleade Mr. Jackson herein."
The following paper is dated March 5th, 1655: — " By the commissioners for ejecting scandalous, ignorant, and insuffi- cient ministers and schoolmasters, for the West Riding and Citty of York, it is ordered that the b\isiness concerning Mr, Jackson, of Sedbergh, be putt off and suspended until our next meeting in ye assize week at York, upon Wednesday, ye 19th instant, at which tyme Mr. Jackson is to appeare, and our clarke is to give coppyes of ye depositions and Mr. Jackson's answers to ye prosecutors. Signed by order of ye aforesaid Commissioners. — Jo. Stephenson, Regr."
The depositions of the witnesses from Sedbergh which were made upon oath before the Commissioners were as follows : — " Mr. Edmund Ward, of Sedbergh, deposeth, that upon the 9th day of January, 1653, being the Lord's Day, he see Mr. Richard Jackson, school master of the said school of Sedbergh, very much distempered with drink, in a common ale-house, in- joining that he could not repeat the words that he had newly spoken, and the landlord of the house wagered a flaggon of ale with the said Mr. Jackson that he could not remember or repeat the words which the said Mr. Jackson had spoken ; but the said Mr. Jackson lost.
" Mr. Richard Garth waite, of Sedbergh, deposeth, that being usher to the said Mr. Jackson about the beginning of Aprill,
86 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
1654, (he) discharged this deponent, and the said Mr. Jackson locked upp the schooll doores and absented himself for the space of three months or hereabouts, all that tyme taking noe care of his schoole.
" John Cowper, of Sedbergh, in the county of York, deposeth, that about the ist or 2nd day of April, 1654, Mr. Richard Jackson aforesaid, did leave his schooll, locked upp the doores, discharged his schollers for the space of three months. And the said John Cowper further deposeth, that the said Mr, Jackson, during his residence at Sedbergh, was a common frequenter of alehouses, and this deponent hath seen the said Mr. Jackson at several tymes, both in Sedbergh and other places, much distempered with drink.
" Henry Guy, of Sedbergh, deposeth, that upon a Friday, about the 9th or loth day of May, 1653, this deponent, having an occasion to goe into an alehouse, in Sedbergh, found the said Mr. Jackson in the said alehouse drinking, and at that tyme the said Mr. Jackson was soe full and distempered with drink that he was forced to lye down upon a bedd in ye said alehouse (to which bedd he had much adoe to gett) and there began to talke, but this deponent could not understand him, he faltered soe sore in his speech,
" Richard Cowper, of Sedbergh, deposeth, that upon a Lord's Day, about the 9th or loth of January, 1653 (this deponent then living uj the house where the said Mr. Jackson then lodged), he, this deponent, see the said Mr. Jackson sore dis- tempered in drink ; and this deponent at night went to help him to bedd, and the said Mr. Jackson sitt downe in a chair, but being so much distempered he could not sitt, but fell out of the chair upon the boards ; soe that this deponent was forced to call for help to gett the said Mr. Jackson to bedd. And he was a constant frequenter of ale-houses while he was at Sedbergh.
" Edward Fawcett, of Sedbergh, deposeth, that the said Mr. Richard Jackson, about the ist day of April, 1654, did lock upp his school doores and absented himselfe for the space of three months, all that tyme takeing noe care of his school, and the said Mr. Richard Jackson at several tymes before hath left his school for a month together. He further deposeth, that
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 87
this deponent see the said Mr. Jackson about (Michaelmas) distempered with drink for three or four days together. And, also, on a Lord's Day, about Martinmas, 1653, this deponent was at Garstall, with the said Mr. Jackson, when and where he, the said Mr. Jackson, was very full of drink, and as he came home he could scarce keep his horse, and he would have ridde in the water (being then very high,) but was prevented by this deponent.
" True coppies examined by Jas. Stephenson, registrar."
It will be observed that all the occurrences mentioned in these depositions took place before Mr. Jackson's approval at White- hall, as he remarks in his defence. I cannot find out whether all these accusations were brought before the tryers or not ; if they were, Mr. Jackson may probably have defended himself by stating that his *' conversion " took place after these events, as his defence before the commissioners at York seems to imply something of this kind.
' I have not found any of the names of these witnesses, except that of John Cowper, among the governors. The depositions from Garsdale bring much the same accusations (though in that place, to which Mr. Jackson had been appointed minister about 1648, he seems to have had some friends), and are as follows, being dated March 19th, 1655, which it will be observed was near the end of the year: —
'' John Guye, of Garsdale, deposeth, that about September, 1655, Mr. Richard Jackson left his congregation at Garsdale for at least three months, not once looking after his people, nor took any care for the supply of it. He further deposeth, that Mr. Jackson, coming one Lord's day, the 30th December last, to Garsdale, being his parish church, being very wett, lighted at an ale house, and told his people he was soe wett he could not preach, and soe disappointed his congregation, and the said Mr. Jackson came that day from a place called Baynbrigge, about ten miles distant, where he did not live.
"Christopher Parkinson, deposeth, that about ye 21st Sep- tember, 1655, he seeing Mr. Richard Jackson at Clapham, he believes ye said Mr. Jackson had bin drinking, and he thinks he was something distempered with drink, and this deponent is
S8 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
induced to believe this, in regard the said Mr. Jackson was chollerick in some discourse to this deponent.
" OUver Linsey, of Garsdale, deposeth, that in Sept. 1655, Mr. Richard Jackson, minister of Garsdale, left his cure here for at least 3 months together. And he further saith that on a Lord's day, in December, 1655, the said Mr. Jackson came to Garsdale and lighted at an ale house in the dayle, and the said Mr. Jackson kept in the alehouse, with some company, and did not preach to his parishioners.
" Symon Nelson, of Garsdale, deposeth, that in September, 1655, the aforesaid Mr. Jackson left his congregation at Garsdale for at least three months together, and the said Mr. Jackson did not provide any to supply the cure, that this deponent heard off.
"True coppies executed by J. Stephenson, registrar."
" Mr. Jackson went and absented himselfe from Garsdale the 2d of Aprill, 1654, being the Lord's day, leaving the church without cure untill July, 1654, being 3 months or upwards. And that he absented himselfe in the like manner in September, 1654, until May, 1655, being 7 months and upwards. And likewise that he absented himselfe from June, 1655, until the 30th of December, 1655, being about 6 months, being the Lord's day, then comeing to Garsdale, the people being there assembled at the church, expecting some exercise from him, he betooke himselfe to the ale house, utterly neglecting his office and duties. And further, that he upon [day illegible] 1655, being the Lord's day, did fall into such extravagances and raile- ing Termes in his Exercise to the great dislike of his hearers, in so much that some of them left him.
"John Guye can affirm this last, for he upon his dislike of Jackson's raileing Termes went out of the Church. I perceive that Mr. Jackson goes about to get a certificate from the dale for Testimonie of his good conversation. But if you thinke it fitt and necessary, I will do my endeavours to get a certificate from Mr. Burton (of Sedbergh), and Mr. Waller (being two of the next ministers) of Jackson's neglegence, and this I preferre to your serious consideration, and shall ever study to render myselfe to be, your most observantly obedient servant,
" John Cowper."
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 89
CHAPTER VIIL
To rebut these accusations Mr. Jackson produced the following testimonials : —
*' To the noble the Lord Maior of Yorke and ye rest of his Highnesses Commissioners for ejecting scandulous ministers, etc. in the West Riding, sheweth unto your honours yt this day hath been shewed unto us most scandalous artickles exhibited before your honours against Mr. Richard Jackson, schoolmaster of Sedbergh and minister of Garsdale. And at the request of the parishioners aforesaid wee are intreated to certifie our knowledge and opinions in reference to ye said artickles.
" To the I St artickle we do not believe it to be true, for we have heard the said Mr. Richard Jackson preach at Kendall, and doe conceive him to be an able minister of the Gospell, but we refer it to ye tryall.
" To the 2d, we can say nothing.
" To the 3rd, we do not conceive it to be true, seeing ye said Mr. Richard Jackson hath lived within 7 miles of us, wee have knowen him about seaven years and uppwards, and yet never knew ye said Mr. Richard Jackson guilty of what is exhibitted against him in ye said artickles. Neither ever heard any such report, but hath often heard otherwise by men of judgment and piety. — Robert Jackson, Maior, Roger Bateman, Ja. Greenwood.
"Kendall, 15th March, 1655."
" To the Rt. Noble the Lord Maior of Yorke and the rest of his Highnesses Commissioners for ejecting scandalous ministers in the West Riding, etc. — " The humble certificate of us, the inhabitants of Garsdale
and Grisedale, sheweth that upon Sunday, ye 9th instant, Mr.
Richard Jackson, our minister, did openly publish certain
scandalous artickles exhibited against him before your honours.
90 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
Wee therefore ye inhabitants aforsaid, doe conceive our selves bound in conscience to certilie unto your honours the truth according to our knowledge concerning the same.
" To the I St artickle we doe conceive ye said Mr. Richard Jackson to be a very al)le minister and preacher of the Gospell.
'' To the 3rd artickle, ye said Mr. Richard Jackson hath been our Minister for 7 years or thereabouts, but hath bin an Inhabiter amongst us but about a yeare and a halfe or some- what more, and in all that tyme wee never have known him to be any ale-house haunter or distempered in the least kinde by any excessive drinking, nor ever heard him soe accounted off. — George Heber, Rich. Atkinson, Rob. Shaw, Wm. Nelson, Jo. Dawson, Jo. Nelson, Wm. Dawson, Rich. Shaw, Edw. Stockdall, Jo, Morland, James Thompson, James Wilson, Jo. Darby, Abra. Nelson, Tho. Heber, John Holme, Reginald Win, Jo. Win."
It will be observed that in neither of these testimonials is anything said about Mr. Jackson's conduct at Sedbergh; and, indeed, it does not seem clear how the Mayor or any other inhabitant of Kendal (distant io|- miles from Sedbergh), could have much opportunity of forming an opinion as to his behaviour there (much less in Garsdale, seven miles further off) if he stayed at home and attended to his business in either place. It is also curious that George Heber and Abraham Nelson (whose names are appended to the Garsdale testimonial) are the same names that were borne by those who signed a remonstrance against the illegal engagements which the House of Commons endeavoured to impose upon the nation. ( Vide chap. ii. in the History of Sedbergh).
Another strange thing is, that Mr. Jackson would appear, according to the testimony of his friends, to have resided in Garsdale for a year and a half before he was petitioned against by the much enduring governors and inhabitants of Sedbergh. Before that time he seems to have lodged in an ale-house in Sedbergh, as far as I can ascertain from the depositions against him ; and I cannot find anything decisive about the mansion-house of the master, though it is frequently mentioned.
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 9I
The governors, however, at the beginning of the present century remark that " Lofthouse, being the only school estate adjoining the town of Sedbergh or near the school, has an ancient dwelling house upon it, wherein it is supposed the master used formerly to reside;" and at Lofthouse, in 1656, Mr. George Otway resided, and paid 5/. 4s. for rent. It might be that Mr. Jackson, being frequently absent, found his house an incumbrance, and I do not know whether he was married during the period of his mastership, though he left a widow. His name does not appear in the registers, but he most likely would not be married at Church, nor his children (if he had any) be baptised there.
I cannot find that he had many sympathisers in Sedbergh in his political and religious opinions, and there is nothing in the registers to show that any change was made in the church. Mr. Burton, who is called curate of Sedbergh, first appears in 1636, when his son Christopher was baptised ; and he had four other children, the youngest of whom was baptised in 1647.
In the list of vicars given by Dr. Whitaker from the Registry of Chester, there is the name of Thomas Briscoe from 1637 to 1660, when he died, and Leonard Burton succeeded him. The name of Mr. Briscoe does not appear in the Sedbergh registers, but I find it in the list of Fellows of Trinity mentioned in " Walker's Sufferings of the Clergy " who were turned out of their fellowships. He is known to have held an office at Cam- bridge in 1643, 3.nd I conclude never resided at Sedbergh, so Mr. Burtoti was his curate.
In 1652, George Fox, the founder of the sect called Quakers
says he wrote to *' Burton, priest of Sedbergh," and in
1680 Mr. Leonard Burton, vicar of Sedbergh, died. I find the following entry among the expenses of the governors : — " To Mr. Leonard Burton, for other yeares rent, fourth of the Loft- house, 16s. od." in 1656 ; and this I conclude to be the rent secured to the vicar of Sedbergh when the farm was originally demised to Roger Lupton. There is a gap in the register of baptisms from December, 1627, to August or September, 1630, when they are copied in a beautiful clear hand by Jo. Bracken (p'ish Clarke in 1698) until 1649.
92 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
A gap again occurs until 1654, but the register is on loose leaves, and might easily have been accidentally spoilt or lost. The marriages between 1641 and 1648 are also missing, but the funerals go straight on after 1602. It will be observed, therefore, that these gaps do not coincide with the dates of the beginning and end of the rebellion. Mr. John Otway, the friend of Dr. Barwick, is mentioned as of Ingmire Hall, in 1658, when his daughter Margaret was baptized, and his father, Mr. Roger Otway, died there on the 12th of February, 1648. Mr. George Otway, brother of Mr. John, seems to have held his opinions, and expressed them in rather a violent fashion, as will appear subsequently.
It is remarkable that Mr. John Otway, though he had been dismissed from his fellowship, on the charge of malignancy, seems to have had no fear of bringing himself into public notice, by taking an active part against Mr. Jackson.
The influence of the gentry is said to have been very strong in this neighbourhood, which is perhaps the reason there were fewer changes than in other places during this troublesome time, or it may be that the living was so small that no Presby- terian or Independent cared to dispossess the vicar. At any rate, Mr. Jackson seems not to have been held in high estima- mation, for I cannot find that one person in Sedbergh spoke in his favour ; perhaps because his delinquencies as a schoolmaster admitted of no question. He shall shortly speak for himself, but in the meantime, unless there is a mistake in the date of the papers relating to this business, the commissioners seem to have proceeded at once to eject Mr. Jackson, before, indeed, some of the witnesses' depositions can have reached them, those of the inhabitants of Garsdale who were against him bearing date, March the 19th.
The writing of this last named paper is, however, so indis- tinct, that I cannot be sure that it did not belong to the next year. Here follows the instrument of sequestration : —
"March 20th, 1655. By the commissioners for ejecting scandalous, ignorant, and insufficient ministers and schoolmasters for the West Riding and City of York. Whereas the Free Schooll of Sedbergh, in the West Riding aforesaid, is no w vacant
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 93
Upon the ejecting and displacing of Richard Jackson, late school master there. We doe hereby sequester the said Free Schooll, and all and singular the dues, profitts, and benefitts belonging to the said school. And wee doe nominate, appoynt, and impower you whose names are hereunder written, sequestrators and trustees, to receive and gather all and singular the dues and profitts belonging or payable to the said Free Schooll of Sed- bergh. And you are to give us an account (when required) of what you shall receive by virtue of this order, and if you provide an honest, well-afifected, and able man to officiate during the vacancy, and untill the schooll can be supplyed, you are to satisfy him out of the profitts, giving an account thereof to this court. To Jo. Otway, Esquire, Jo. Cowper, gent, Adam Sawer, Rich. Holme, Jo. Bland, Antho. Willan, Tho. Blaik- linge, James Hebblethwaite, or any three of them. Signed by John Geldart, Tho. Bourchier, Robert Washington, J. Dickinson, Jo. Wardsworth."
Against this judgment of the commissioners Mr. Jackson sent the following eloquent remonstrance, dated May 5, 1655. [I conclude that he must have begun his year in January] : —
" An answer to those three articles exhibited against Richard Jackson, dark, pretended maister (as they speak) of the Free School at Sedbergh, and now minister of Garsdale. ' Firstly, as touching the ist articles concerning insufficiency (I say) first that the colledge conferred that upon me in 1648, "not as a gift, but as a reward," in respect of my approved ability and conversation to promote learning and piety in those parts, as appears by their letters I brought when I took possession, if they dare show them ; as also by their reiterated letters to these pretended feoffees, when they understood some of their gross breaches of trust, as is expressed in my printed petition. 'Sec- ondly, there is in the colledge the properest judge of sufficiency in either kind, one Mr. John Fothergill, senior fellow, who was bredd upp under Mr. John Maiers, my immediate predecessor ; [This is a mistake, Mr. Nelson was the immediate predecessor] and one Mr. Blaisthing, lately fellow, and now at a country living near Cambridge, who was bredd upp all his tyme under my predecessor, Mr. Nelson. If my adversaries will agree to
94 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
it, and you by your order, I will adventure the tryal before Dr. Arrowsmith (master of St. John's), and Mr. Duggon (who was Greek lecturer), and if I do not make it appeare before those judges to the face of those two nominated, that neither of my predecessors (whom they commend) was equall, much less superior, to myself, either in learned ability for the school, or constant sedulity in the school, or for a godly, honest conversa- tion, seconding a theologicall sufficiency for the good of the country and the schooll, in propagating Gospel truths and con- futing of heresies (which referreth partly to ye 2d article also) then I will relinquish my right and tytle, saving only for my arreares."
It will be observed that Mr. Jackson does not venture to call on any Sedbergh person to testify to his " godly, honest con- versation,"^^or " constant sedulity in the school." " Further, to ye 2d article, I say that ye scholars I did not discharge when I locked upp ye doors in April, 1654, and discharged Richard Garthwaite, Clark (having appoynted another to teach those who came in my absence, as appeareth by oath) because he turned apostate proselyte (as may appear by a letter lately written to him by one Brian Walker), he being what I expressed him in my printed petition ; and, therefore, justly rejected by the colledge upon their articles against him in 1649, and ought to be for now having introduced ye observation of the holly days (with their eves) which I had abolished and brought to ye Par- liament order.
" But unto this* article I answered more fully before the justices, using some arguments answerable for ought could be said to the contrary then, with some others to the same purpose, so fully answering that worst part of the 3d article concerning January 9th, 1653, though not used then, yet shall be ready against Easter week, if I may have leave to write them fair over. To the 3d article I say, that being an opinion or proposition copulative, it is false in logick as well as in law, the first part being a manifest slander, for Mr. Jackson hath given evidence enough to the contrary, and can give more if need be to the full satisfaction of any who are irnpartial, that he is noe haunter of ale houses, but one who hath desired and endeavoured
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 95
ye reformation and correxion of all their abuses (as may appear by another printed petition which some of these deponents had in their hands long since), and by his constant renouncing of all evill society, but of some of those his adversaries, and of all others who have insinuatingly sought it both before and since his approbation, which together (with ye Schooll cause) is that which irritates them with an implacable spite to afflict him whom they cannot infect.
" Secondly, for that clause of being drunk upon ye Sabbath, January 9th, 1653. ist, it was not upon ye Sabbath, neither according to the Old Testament nor ye New." (Note. I have looked into a prayer book of the year 1638, and I find that the 9th of January did fall on a Sunday in the year 1653, so I cannot account for this very impudent assertion, unless, as I have before said, Mr. Jackson began his year in January, or unless he supposed that his judges, having no prayer books, would have no calendars, and therefore could not convict him of a mistake).
"And, neither my will nor desire was engaged in that sin, but that barbarous ruffian, George Otway (bearing a spit to me in reffeience to his brother and ye cause of ye Schoole), having sought my company before, and mist of it was drinking with some of his complices at my lodging," (Again the question arises, why did Mr. Jackson live at an alehouse ?) '• And when I had supt within at night he sent ye hostess to intreat my company, which I yielded to, but then about 9 or 10 of ye clock when he grew scurrilous and quarrelsome in his language, not hearing of a reckoning I bid good night, for I would to bedd, saying, ' what cometh to my share I will pay it,' soe I went away calling for a candle ; but ye said Otway urged his companion to reduce me back againe by faire means, which he refusing, Otway came himselfe and pursued me to my chamber, and swore he would have his company upp or I should downe, or els he would never depart, but burne all rather, and soe forced me once downe againe, not suffering me to pinne mine owne door ; and then with his complices forced drink upon me, and urged words' to take advantage quite contrary to what I said. I being then in danger of my life being amongst
96 THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL.
such a crew of villaines, and utterly unable to quit myselfe of their insolent abuses, having a sore legg, and me necessitated to take so much drink as did stupifye me.
" Thirdly, God did by this sink my spirit with such repentance ever since, both for this and other failings, that through the grace of Christ I am (in a measure) rejoiced to hear myselfe so in- juriously railed at, and reproached for ye relicks of ye old man yet remaining in me." (On this I would observe that his repentance does not seem to have been genuine, for he was declared to have been " distempered with drink " in the same manner on several occasions after the 9th January, 1653.)
" Fourthly, they have made use of this very thing in a scur- rilous railing petition to ye colledge, and commissioners at Whitehall, to hinder my approbation there in May, 1654, and to Mr. Attorney Prideaux, in ye court, and by one Chamber- lane to the trustees, who questioned me about this very thing, and received full satisfaction, soe that I have their order to attest the same sufficiently.
" Fifthly, John Cowper offered it to ye Justices, and now to you, ye worthy commissioners, if it seem good to your grave wisdoms that implacable adversaries of such reprobate humours in all their conversation should still cast that in my teeth which I have spitt out of my mouth soe long since, with a sincere conscientious detestation, as all ye godly in that country very well know.
" For ye other parts of this 3d article, they are mere calumnyes to exasperate your spirits by ye uglinesse of ye accusation, that soe I may be despited for repenting. I must referr all legall advantages against these my violent adversarys. First, they call me late maister, and excluded maister. Why then should they meddle with me on this score ?
" Secondly, this, which is the latest thing that they alledge, was almost half a year before mine approbation at Whitehall, which court acted before you came in power, to execute that yoi^ commission.
" Thirdly, I doe not see how you can legally proceed against mee, except something be alledged and proved since my appro- bation.
THE HISTORY OF THE GRAMMAR SCHOOL. 97
"Fourthly, but if at the spiteful instance of men, burning with the desire of revenge, you will revive those buried offences (of human frailties) to bespatter the approved in favour of his persecutors soe to reproach (as it were in despite of those, his approvers) them, consider whether your authority in so acting should not absolutly bawde it to the base malignity of such fellows.
"Fifthly, if I may have due tyme, I will manifest it that in ye schoole's cause, and upon this occasion you can neither hurt me nor help mine adversaries, except you will usurp upon and goe against ye tenour of all lawes, and abandon all sound principles upon which honest and godly patriots ingaged, in judgment and conscience in that great controversie against the late King, and ye finall scope and end of this constitution and settlement, and the true declared interest ; together with ye godly intention of ye said Lord Protector, and ye glory of God in the reproach or prejudice of such as sincerely close with ye Government in favour of ye few and wilde fellows, who adhere to those old principles and that cursed interest which they can- not renounce. As also by hardening men to an impenitent impudency, according to ye paganish opinion of ye Roman orator."
" A true coppy by Jo. Stephenson, registrar." How far the charge which Mr. Jackson brings against Mr. George Otway is well founded, there is no evidence to show, but I find the following statement in Fox's Journal, 1657 : — " I passed into Westmoreland, — till I came to John Audland's. — The next day in the meeting time came one Otway, with some rude fellows. He rode round about the meeting with his sword or rapier, and would fain have got in through the friends to me, but the meeting being great, the friends stood thick, so that he could not easily come at me. When he had rid about several times raging, and found he could not get in, he at length went away. — This wild man went home, became dis- tracted, and not long after died. I sent a paper to John Blaykling to read to him while he lay ill, shewing him his wick- edness ; and he did acknowledge something of it." Probably his intention was more to frighten than to hurt, or why did he
H
98 THE HISTORY