Riots at Little Thetford, Rector in peril getting to Even Song

Little Thetford Church Yard

It seems hard to imagine it now, but in 1833, this church yard and quiet village was the scene of a pitched battle between the villagers and the Constabulary.  When on the following evening my three x great grandfather, the Rev'd Henry Hervey Baber arrived to take the service, the villagers at once tried to prevent his entering the church in protest.

On the 16th of November 1833 a notice had appeared in the local press, announcing the intention of the promoters to apply for an Act of Parliament to enclose the common lands of Stretham and Little Thetford.  In order to do this a number of legal formalities had had to be undertaken including pinning notices to the Church doors of the villages concerned, and the solicitors clerks set out to Stretham and Little Thetford to post the notices. At Stretham this seems to have happened with no immediate repercussions.

However at Little Thetford, perhaps forwarded by the appearance of the notice on Stretham Church door, when Thomas Archer and his clerks arrived they found a dozen villagers who were opposed enclosure waiting for them, each armed with bludgeons, who prevented the official getting to the church door, determined to prevent the posting of the legal notice.

The clerks retired thwarted in their intention, to Ely where they went to visit the local magistrates, who ordered ten constables to accompany the clerks to see that the job was completed.

It must have seemed to the magistrates that ten constables would have been more than a match for the original twelve villagers, however by the time they arrived back in the village they found that they were confronted not by twelve, but one hundred and fifty protesters, all of whom were armed with sticks.

This must have been just about every adult male from this small village, and quite possibly other protesters from surrounding communities had joined in.

Here is a copy of the notice that had appeared in several local news papers, including the Huntingdon, Bedford & Peterborough Gazette and the Cambridge Chronicle and Journal. 

            Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette - Saturday 16 November 1833

The notice read as follows, and its text must have been very similar to that, which it had been intended to post onto the church door.

STRETHAM-CUM-THETFORD. 

NOTICE is hereby Given, that Application is intended to made in the next Session of Parliament for leave to bring in a bill for dividing, allotting, inclosing, and draining the several Open Fields, Commons, Meadow and Commonable Lands and Waste Grounds within the parish of Stretham and hamlet of Thetford, in the Isle of Ely and County of Cambridge, and such portions of fen called Grunty Fen, in the said Isle and County, (being an intercommon between the said parish and hamlet, and the parishes of Wilburton, Haddenbam, Wentworth, Witchford, and Saint Mary, in Ely, in the said Isle and County, or some of them) as may be equal in value to the rights and interests of the several commoners and inhabitants of the said parish of Stretham and hamlet of Thetford over the same: and for exonerating from tithes the said fields, com mons, lands, and waste grounds, and the said portions of the aforesaid fen, and all other the titheable lands and properties within the said parish of Stretham and hamlet of Thetford. And that is intended to make provision in the said Bill for appropriating for the exclusive benefit and enjoyment of the Poor Inhabitants of the said parish of Stretham and hamlet of Thetford. certain parts of the said fen or of the said commons. And Notice is further Given, that provision is also intended to be made in the said Bill for altering, amending, or repealing an act passed in the sixth year of the reign of His Majesty King George the third, entitled, "An Act for draining and preserving Stretham Common in the Isle of Ely "and County of Cambridge; and for empowering " the Commissioners for putting in Execution an Act for the effectual draining and preservation of Waterbeach Level in the County Cambridge, and to establish an Agreement made between the Lord of the Manor of Waterbeach-cum-Denny and the Commoners within the said Manor, to raise Sum " of Money to pay the Debts owing upon the Credit "of the said Act." And that provision will also be made in the said Bill for embanking, draining, and preserving, as well such of the said commons and meadow and commonable lands as may require to be embanked and drained, as also certain low lands situate within the said hamlet of Thetford, and parish of the Holy-Trinity in Ely, and the parish of Saint Mary in Ely, and between certain bank, called Cawdle-Fen Bank, and a certain common, called Hall-Fen Common, and certain other low lands and grounds situate within the said hamlet, called Reed Fen and Langmore grounds.—Dated this eighth day of November, 1833.

By Order,

EVANS, ARCHER, and EVANS, Solicitors.

Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette - Saturday 16 November 1833

Eventually the police withdrew bruised, however the villagers remained on watch until midnight.

The next afternoon, being a Sunday, the Rector, Henry Hervey Baber, arrived to conduct the service of Evensong, and the watchers resisted his approach to the Church, “No church today” they shouted, however the rector persisted and was eventually able to enter the Church with his church warden, who had been one of the protesting crowd. [1]

The objections to the inclosure act was not just coming from the poorest of the villagers, but from a vocal and well organised group of villagers who appear to have including many of the tenant farmers. 

They were sufficiently well organised to be able to publish their own advertisements in the local press objecting to the inclosures.  The following fascinating advertisement names many of those who must have taken part in the demonstration and fracas in the street at Little Thetford.

Friday 22nd of November 1833,  Cambridge Chronicle and Journal 

The Rector was at this time relatively new in the living, having been presented to it in 1827, as a reward for his efforts in publishing the facsimile of the Alexander Codex, and to supplement his salary as Keeper of the Printed Books at the British Library.  This meant that until 1835 when he resigned his post at the Library, he can have only been present in the villages of Stretham for parts of the year, and that he must have employed curates to read the services in his place. 

Revd Henry Hervey Baber, Rector of Stretham Cum Thetford.

It was probably because those involved in the affray were in many cases substantial farmers and villagers, that the magistrates appear to have been very restrained in their treatment of those involved when they came before the bench in Ely.

STRETHAM CUM-THETFORD INCLOSURE.

In consequence of the extreme unpopularity of the proposed inclosure among the small commoners, attempts to post the notices church doors in each place was resisted. At Stretham, however, a notice was eventually posted; but at Thetford the whole population rallied, from the farmer to the servant, with their wives and children - all were in readiness to resist the posting of the notice in arms.

Mr. Thomas Archer, one of the solicitors for the bill, attended by a host of constables, sworn in for the occasion, was successfully resisted. It is but right to state that their resistance was as peaceable as, under the circumstances, might be expected. An information against eleven of the inhabitants was heard before the magistrates at Ely, on Thursday last, when all the parties were discharged upon entering into recognizances. The excitement was beyond all precedent, and particularly as regards Grunty Fen, which belongs to nearly all the surrounding parishes. The attempt to inclose Grunty Fen, some fifty years ago, brought forward an opposition nearly amounting to a riot.

Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette - Saturday 30 November 1833

The Main Street in Little Stretham, opposite the church. Presumably the site of the struggle with the Constabulary.

Why were the villagers so exercised by the proposals to inclose the land?

The Fens and especially the Isle of Ely had a long tradition of resistance to outsiders, going back to at least Hereward the Wake. Oliver Cromwell had lived in Ely, and was well aware of the popular resistance to the drainage of the Fens during the 1830's.

The Fens to the east and north of Stretham were amongst the deepest and most waterlogged, so that they remained as marshland until much later than more accessible and less deep areas had first been reclaimed.

Nearby Wicken Fen represents the closest that we can get today to seeing what the land around Little Thetford and Stretham was like in 1833.

The land was covered in marshland, reeds and wet land woods, which was seasonally flooded each Winter and in wet periods.  In the Summer months it was dry enough over much of its area for cattle to be fed in the marshes. The reeds were cut and sold for many miles inland for thatching houses, and year round there was a rich harvest of fresh water fish and wildfowl. Rents were generally low.

The following photo taken recently at the National Trust's reserve at Wickham Fen, which is being returned to its former wetland status, gives a very good idea of what the landscape around Little Thetford and Stretham looked like before the drainage. Cattle including Highland Cattle were droved as two and three year olds from Scotland and the North West of England to markets where local farmers would buy them, each year to turn out on the summer grazing.  These cattle, previously only used to sparse upland vegetation, would rapidly fatten ready for onward droving first to St Ives market, and then London in time for the Christmas markets. 

Modern Highland Cattle at Wicken Fen

Surprisingly examples of the former vegetation that was living and growing at Stretham and from the surrounding Fens at this very time survive in the Botanical Libraries of Edinburgh and Cambridge in the form of pressed plants and flowers.

They demonstrate the former marshy situation that they grew in.  The samples were taken in the 1830's by Henry Hervey Baber's son Harry Baber, who was a student of Theology at nearby Cambridge University. Whilst studying there he had been very interested in botany, and had studied under the Rev Philip Henslow, who had been one of Darwin's tutors.  Harry's father was also responsible for the British Libraries botanical collection, which later on, would be separated out and formed the core of the future National History Museum.  This sample was one of a number of aquatic plant species that Harry sent to the Botanical Collection at Edinburgh University, where they have recently been photographed as part of their digitising of their collections.

Carex Hirta (Hairy Sedge) collected by Harry Baber at Stretham in 1838.

It had become possible to drain and convert the land to arable uses by drainage because of the advances in steam pumping engines that had been taking place in the previous decade.  In 1831 a very large pumping engine had been built to the east of Stretham, which still survives. A Mr Glynn had been commissioned in 1829 to develop a proposal for this very large new pumping station.  By 1831, complete with its 75 feet tall chimney it was brought into service.[2]

The beam engine had been manufactured by the Butterley Company and must have taken a considerable effort to move from Derbyshire to Stretham and to erect.

Stretham Steam Pumping Station.

The cost of the coal for the pumping station was met by levying a tax per acre onto the land of the surrounding parishes, and these added financial burdens put pressure on farmers and graziers who didn't have the capital to invest in hedging and draining their individual farms.

An extract of the Ordnance Survey map of Little Thetford circa 1890.

Although this map shows the later railway, and indeed the field boundaries and drains installed following the inclosures, it still show the names of the former boundaries, including in this case Thetford Cow Common.  As can be seen the common extended over the site of many local fields laid out in 1837.  Before the inclosures the villagers held the Common Rights "in Common" and were each able to turn out a set number of cattle onto the Common, so that many cows from the village would all be grazing together.  With the inclosure acts all of this was done away with.  By the time the Act was proposed at Stretham and Little Thetford enclosure Acts had previously been enacted in many other villagers, so that the villagers were under few illusions as to what to expect.

The open and potentially dangerous nature of the land at Little Thetford prior to its draining is illustrated by the fate of a drover returning to Ely who had lost his way in 1830. Stretham and Little Thetford were on the main London to Ely and Kings Lynn Road.  Both villages were situated on low islands that were raised just above the surrounding marshland, and in wet weather with the floods out, it must have been easy to become confused. The route north into Ely involved crossing several deep drains.

Friday 26 February 1830 Cambridge Chronicle and Journal

A modern map showing the location of Little Thetford relative to Ely and Stretham

Cambridge is about ten miles to the south of the map.

The Rector found himself caught up in the resentment for many reasons.  The primary one was that the farmers had to pay tithes to the Rector, and these represented a substantial amount of their annual income.  In many cases the same farmers were Dissenters, or Non-Comformists, and as such they disliked supporting the Established Church.  The issue became really complicated, because in most cases, the Inclosure Act was intended amongst other things, to compound for the tithes by allotting the Rector an area of Glebe Lands with which in future he would be able to grow his own income, and the villagers would no longer have to pay him tithes.

There was also the issue of Puralism, or absentee parsons. Throughout the 18th Century the religious fervour and rigour than had applied in the 17th Century fell away, and with so did church attendances.  Many of the richest parishes also came to belong to institutions like the Oxford & Cambridge Colleges.  The incomes from these parishes became dedicated to the support of academics in those Colleges, and the incumbents rarely ever visited their parishes in person.

A very telling letter appeared in the local Huntingdon, Bedford & Peterborough Gazette complaining about this situation.  Oddly enough the Rector of Stretham is singled out as being one of the few who did at least attend his parish, if only for part of the year.

Saturday 20 September 1834, Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette

In Henry Hervey Baber's case he had been given the living specifically to support his income because his salary from the British Library was too low.  By externalising the cost the Board of the Library were able to avoid raising their budget.  In 1834 Henry would give evidence at the Royal Commission saying that it was no longer acceptable that the Keeper of the Printed Books be a pluralist, and that the salary should be increased.

He also handed in his notice, and retired to Stretham.

Friday 21 August 1835, Cambridge Chronicle and Journal

The actual process of inclosure seems to have taken nearly a decade to implement.  It caused a large scale reorganisation of the entire landscape, and required many families to commit to major fencing and drainage works.

The Fence and Ditches from the Inclosure Award are evident in this 1890's map.

Many of the meetings to arrange the work of dividing up the parish lands took place in the Lamb Inn in Ely, which survives to this day. Did the Rector attend along with the other villagers?

The Lamb Inn, Ely.

Here is an example of one such meeting called at the Lamb in the following notice published in the Cambridge Chronicle in November 1835.

Friday 20 November 1835, Cambridge Chronicle and Journal

Before the Inclosure, the individual farmers land had generally been interleaved with that of many others. In future it would be combined into contiguous blocks wherever possible.  The other boundary fences were erected by the Commissioners who were undertaking the Inclosure, but in due course they would charge the farmers for it.  Many of the roads were also realigned, and until these could be rebuilt, this must have reduced the roads to an absolute mud fest until such time as they could be surfaced.

The villagers themselves were responsible for this road making. It was generally done in winter using labourers and their families who had been reduced to dependency on the Poor Law.  To get the stones, they were expected very often to stone pick the newly ploughed soil, which can have been no fun at all throughout the winter months, carrying the stones in sacks or baskets across the fields to the dump in the newly fenced lanes. Here is an advertisement for the fencing work.

Saturday 15 October 1836, Huntingdon, Bedford and Peterborough Gazette

By 1837, the bulk of the work had been completed on the enclosures, and the formal award was announced, with the lands being handed out.

STRETHAM INCLOSURE. 

WE, the Commissioners acting under and by virtue of Act of Parliament passed in the 5th and 6th years of the reign of his late Majesty King William the Fourth, entitled "An Act for inclosure and allotting lands in the Parish of Stretham, the Isle of Ely and "county of Cambridge, and for the Commutation " of Tithes," do hereby give notice, that we shall hold a SPECIAL GENERAL MEETING at the Lamb Inn, in Ely, on Wednesday the sixth day of September next, at ten o’clock the forenoon, for the purpose of reading over and executing our Award in the presence of such the Proprietors as may think proper attend, and of transacting any other business relative the said Inclosure that require our attention.—Dated this 17th day of August, 1837.

JOHN JOSSELYN.

ANTHy. JACKSON.

For many of the smaller farmers, whose allotments were often too small to adequately support their families the effects were dire. With the land no longer held at least in part as common land, and with it all fenced off, it was no longer as easy to forage as it had been in earlier years.  With the land increasingly drained, there was much less opportunity for fishing or wild fowling to supplement the pot.

Many of the farms were sold in the following years, and the ownership of land was consolidated into the hands of many fewer larger farmers.  Many smallholders who had previously eked out a living, working seasonally on the holdings of the larger farmers, and who grew subsistence crops or foraged to supplement their incomes became dependent on the parish.

As I will show in a future blog, this led to an unfortunate series of events in Stretham, that would affect both the Rector, but also many of the villagers profoundly. 

[1] I acknowledge the assistance of  Steve Skerry who wrote an excellent leaflet and notice board in 1995, which appears inside Little Thetford Church setting out these events.

[2] See http://strethamoldengine.org.uk/history.htm.  The pumping station is open at weekends and public holidays, but it is advisable to check with the trusts website before you set out for the details of opening days and times.

The newspaper extracts all come from the excellent British Library online Newspaper Archive, without which this blog would be far less interesting, if indeed possible.

Warren Hastings, With fangs like those which wolves & tigers wear

Warren Hastings by Lemuel Abbott [1]

By 1797 Warren Hastings with his trial over, exhausted, but elated by his acquittal had retired to Daylesford from where he carried on an extensive correspondence with his many former friends and colleagues.  Amongst whom was Edward Baber, once his secretary in Calcutta.

On the 7th of May 1797 Edward received the following letter from Hastings at his Park Street home in London.

Letter from W Hastings to Edward Baber, page 1

The text reads:

Daylesford house 6^th May 1797

My dear Baber

                                    I am so much pleased with the copy which I have just finished of my own portrait from an excellent original now in the possession of your friend, Mr Cowper, that I cannot resist the inclination which I feel to send it to you.  As an atonement for imposing upon you the labor of inspecting it, I have associated it with a recruit of chilleys.—

Yours affectionate

W Hastings

Verses to be inscribed on a portrait painted by W. Abbots.

            A mouth extended fierce from ear to ear,

With fangs like those which wolves & tigers wear;

Eys, whose dark orbs announce, and sullen mood,

A lust of rapine, and a thirst of blood;

Such Hastings was, as by the Commons painted----

(--- Men shudder’d as they look’d, and women fainted---)

When they display’d him to the vacant throne,

And had the Peers the labor’d likeness own,

and such, in all his attributes array’d,

Behold him here, on Abbott’s canvass spread!

Letter from W Hastings to Edward Baber, page 2

Tis true, to vulgar sense they lie conceal’d,

To Burke, and men like Burke, alone reveal’d.

They, their own hearts consulting, see him here

In hues reflected from themselves appear;

With Metaphysic eye the picture scan,

Piece through the varnish, and detect the man.

To Burke it shews a soul with envy curst,

Malignant, a foe to shame, untrue

To ev’ry kindred tie, and social too:

To Fox, a shifting knave, with false pretence:

Michael alone decried his want of sense.

And all in avarice agreed to find,

Or make, the ruling passion of his mind.

Yet he has friends! And they, --- nay, (strange to tell!)

His very wife, who ought to know him well,

Where daily suff’rings from the worst of men

Should make her wish the wretch impeach’d again—

Believe him gentle, meek and true of heart. –

            O Hastings, what a hypocrite thou art!

Although retired from the East India Company for many years, Edward Baber continued to follow EIC procedures cataloguing Hastings letter.

Besides illustrating Warren Hastings continuing rancour and disdain for Edmund Burke this letter raises an interesting point.

Which is the original Abbott portrait, and how many copies were there?

What became of the copies and especially the one Hastings was sending Edward Baber?

The following portrait was for instance sold by Philip Mould Ltd and now resides in a private collection in the USA.

A copy perhaps of the original by Abbott. [2]

[1] From the National Portrait Gallery
[2] http://www.historicalportraits.com/Gallery.asp?Page=Item&ItemID=308&Desc=Warren-Hastings-%7C-Lemuel-Francis-Abbott

Chevauchée, or great great.....uncle, what were you up to in the summer of 1432?

Figure 1. A monument at the base of the castle walls at St Céneri recording the many sieges. [1]

 As a small boy my parents would drag my brother and I off to nearby castles in order to run off our excess energy wherever and whenever we were on holiday.

Brought up learning to read Ladybird books about Warwick the King Maker, and King Henry V, I have been fixated on castles ever since.

For most of my life I have wondered what it would have been like to have lived in castles, or indeed to have taken part in the events surrounding these castles.

However gaining an ability to learn these details had always seemed beyond my grasp.  It always seemed to me to be something that I could only ever imagine in a general sense, but that it would never actually be possible for me to say in which castle, or when my ancestors had been present if at all.

I had to assume that they would forever remain lost in the mists of time, peasants who had left no trace in history.

Of course history is largely written by the winners, and in general only features the "important people" and my forebears would have almost certainly only ever have been bit players in events all those centuries ago.

However with the incredible increase in access now possible through the internet to archives, and especially thanks to the work of Doctor Anne Curry and her colleagues, it has sudden become possible for me to locate some of my forebears in more than 55 Medieval documents encompassing literally hundreds of events that took place from 1371 until 1444, covering about 10 individuals, most of whom are either direct forebears of mine, or who are ancestral brothers, uncles, cousins or probably closely related to my Nowell's from Wakefield, the villages of Read, Nether Harwood and nearby in the Ribble Valley.

Figure 2. The Medieval Chapel of St Céneri [2]

A few years ago Dr Anne Curry a Professor of Medieval history at the Southampton University, former editor of the  Journal of Medieval History, and a specialist in the Hundred's Years' War  published her seminal book on the Battle of Agincourt, which contained an incredible list of the names of those who took part in the battle on the English side.

I had looked through the list with awe not imagining that such lists could have survived at this time.

Brought up at school on films like the 1940's film of Shakespeare's Henry V, I was well aware that...

"men back in English now safe in their beds will curse themselves for not having been here, and think less of their own manhood when they listen to the stories of those who fought with us here on St. Crispin’s Day."

Having long considered that I would be amongst those accursed, I was completely unaware that Gilbert Nowell, an esquire had been on that field on the eve of St Crispin's Day.

Also unknown to me, was that in 2009, Anne Curry and her colleagues at Southampton had embarked on a much larger project called "The Soldier in later Medieval England"[3], to transcribe and analyse records from 1369 up to 1453.

Stumbling on this amazing resource in recent days, I am now happily campaigning my way around the archives and back lanes of France, if only electronically, in the footsteps of these men, surprised to find that I can place them at many of the key events of those years.



Figure 3. Output from the Medieval Soldier database showing the record of John Nowell's service at the Siege of St Severin.[4]

I have started collecting information about many of these campaigns, however it is already clear that many of these sieges and battles will take months of work to study and collate.

Starting therefore with a relatively small action, chosen more or less at random, the first challenge was to locate St Severin, which when you turn to Google and Google maps takes you to many locations of churches named after this well known saint, almost all of which evidently don't fit.

However, all was not lost because Enguerrand de Monstrelet, a contemporary chronicler writes in his Chronicle [5]

In this same year of 1434 ,[6] the lord Willoughby [7], accompanied by Mathagon, [8] and some other captains, and from eight hundred to a thousand combatants, laid siege to a very strong place in the country of Maine called St. Severin, about two leagues distant from Alençon, which was held by the French.  The governor was a gallant knight, named sir Antony de Loreuil, who, on arrival of the enemy, made a vigorous defence: nevertheless, the English surrounded the place on all sides, and remained there about six weeks.

While this was going forward, the lord de Bueil, sir William Blesset, the lord de la Varenne, and other French captains, assembled about fourteen hundred fighting men, with the intent to force the enemy to raise their siege. They remained for some days at Beaumont le Vicomte, [9] where part of them were quartered, and the remainder at Vivien, [10] four leagues distant from St. Severin.  While at Beaumont they called a council of all the chief captains, to consider how they should act; when, after much noise and debating, they determined to attempt withdrawing the besieged the back way out of the town. The captains now returned to their different quarters, and established good guards around them during the night, both of horse and foot. The lord de Beuil was, on this expedition, lieutenant for the lord Charles d’Anjou, and had the charge of his banner.

This same night a detachment of the English, having had intelligence of the advance of the French, took the field, and marched in silence until they came near to the town of Vivien, whither they sent scouts to reconnoitre the state of the French, who, having twice entered Vivien, brought word they were in tolerable good order. The English then made an attack on their quarters about day-break, and easily defeated them without much loss. Many were taken and killed: among the last was a valiant man from Amiens, but originally from Auvergne, called John de Bellay. When the business was over, the English took the field with their prisoners; but the lords de Bueil and de la Varenne, who were in Beaumont, hearing of this discomfiture from the runaways, made instant preparations to pursue the English, who no sooner saw them than they rejoiced, thinking to defeat them as they had done the others. – and each party met gallantly. Many valorous acts were done on both sides; but, in the end, the English lost the day, partly from the prisoners whom they had taken at Vivien joining the French. A valiant knight named Arthur [11] was slain, and Mathagon made prisoner, -- but the bastard of Salisbury [12] fled. Four hundred, or more, of the English were killed or taken, and the French left masters of the field, very joyful for their victory. When the English who had remained at the siege of St. Severin heard of the ill success of their companions, they raised the siege, and retreated to the garrisons whence they had come.

Monstrelet places "St. Severin, about two leagues distant from Alençon" and as a league was about 3 miles or 9.6 kilometres this accords well with 11.8 kilometres given on Google Earth to Saint Céneri.

Starting by research with John Nowell's commanding officer Robert Willoughby who was aged 47 at the time of the siege and subsequent encounter battle, I found that he had been the son of William Willoughby, 5th Baron Willoughby de Eresby, and his first wife, Lucy le Strange, daughter of Roger le Strange, 5th Baron Strange of Knockin in Shropshire.

This immediately struck me as significant as it was the title of the Stanley family. 

I already knew that my Nowell ancestors had served with the Stanleys in campaigns from 1496 onwards right through and up until the English Civil War, when my Great x 6 Grandfather Roger Nowell had commanded the defence of Lathom House in 1648.  He later became the first governor of Lord Stanley's castles on the Isle of Man following the Restoration in 1660.

Perhaps the relationship with the Stanley's who were one of Lancashire's premier landowners goes back even further than I had previously thought.

Willoughby was a highly experienced officer who had fought at Agincourt and very many other of the significant actions since then. [13]

At this point in the past history would have ended for us, with only the names and deeds of the Lords and senior personalities recorded, and we would have had absolutely no idea who had taken part in these actions, however thanks to the recent transcriptions and the happy accident that the papers have survived in the Bibliothéque Nationale Collection Clairambault we can now see even the names of the archers and foot soldiers, and the men in the trenches.

If you go to the "Soldier in Later Medieval Website" and go to the database tab, and then select the garrison database, input "Severin" and select "location" for you get 1341 entries.

Figure 4. Screen shot for the garrison database for Severin, showing the start of the 1341 entries.

The list is absolutely fascinating as it illustrates the polyglot nature of the men who served in these forces.

A considerable number of whom appear to be from the north west of England like the Nowell's, as they have names I can recognise from my wider research.

There is perhaps unsurprisingly also a very strong contingent from Wales, as well as a large number of men from France. Some of the other names look German and even Scandinavian. I will try to track down men some of these over the coming months.

Figure 5. An example of one of the muster rolls transcribed by the project. Not necessarily of the ones discussed here.

Figure 6. An indenture, showing one of the lists from the period, which were drawn up in two identical columns, and then cut in two with a wavy line so that officials could by matching up the cut ensure that one of them was not a forgery. [14]

What do we know about John Nowell?

While it is not possible to be absolutely sure that it is the same man, a John Nowell, an archer was in William Swinburne's contingent under Humphrey Duke of Gloucester during 1417, as was Robert Nowell, although Robert was in another unit Richard Beauchamp, Lord Abergavenny's band of archers.

Although he may have remained in France, we cannot rule out his having returned to England.  He next appears to have served in France at the Siege of La Ferte-Bernard in 1426, and he may have been the same man who was in William Minors contingent of archers at the Siege of Louviers on the 20th of June 1431.

What became of John Nowell, we will probably never know.  However he appears to have survived the serious defeat at Vivions, and therefore it is very possible that he was one of the men who had remained behind in the siege works.

A John Nowell appears in the contingents of Christopher Fretevault and John Kendal in an list dated 30th November 1437 at Mantes, and also in 1441 under  Sir John Cressy and Richard Duke of York on yet another expedition to France.

This latter campaign with Richard Duke of York (1411 to 1460) may help identify John Nowell's connection to the wider Nowell family.

The Nowell's of Read in Lancashire were cattle breeders and very probably also drovers who owned land along the prime droving route from Pendle and Read where their primary holdings were to a cluster of villages situated around and south of Wakefield on the route to the Great North Road.

Roger Nowell, one of my 12 x great grandfather's "of Arksey" whose will is dated 14th June 1486 clearly shows that he is the same Roger Nowell who also owned Read and who gave on the 20th of January 20th 1483, lands that had belonged to Thurstan Banastre, his uncle in Wakefield, Stanley, Sandall and elsewhere in the County of York to the Wardens of Wakefield Church for the foundation of a Chantry to pray for the soul of Richard Duke of York who had been killed twenty three years earlier during 1460 as his force left Sandal Castle and was ambushed by a much larger force of Lancastrians.

Much of the land the Nowell's used to graze their store cattle and three year old oxen on route to East Anglia or Smithfield was rented in the Wakefield area from Richard Duke of York.

The Nowell's had been engaged in droving for at least a Century by 1432. They had established younger sons at Castle Donnington, Thorpe by Balne, South Mimms and Enfield as well as in the City, all holding land at significant points along the 270 mile cattle route south to Smithfield.

Marching the long distances required of soldiers on campaign can have presented them with few difficulties as they must have been conditioned to the marches by the long droves that they had previously been undertaking.

Roger's father was called Alexander Nowell, and he also appears in the Protection lists of July 1437.  His great grandfather was called John Nowell, and he had taken out a protection on the 14th of May 1415, in order to serve with Henry V in France.

The pedigrees that survive for the Nowell's were drawn up in the 19th Century by Churston and Whittaker concentrate on the older sons, and can be shown to have missed out many younger brothers, or younger sons of younger sons. The same few Christian names were used again and again in every generation. It was generally the "spares", and not the heirs who went to France as archers.

Thurstan Banastre, uncle to Roger Nowell, was son and heir to John Banastre. The same garrison database includes 42 entries for Banastre during this same period, with John, Richard and Robert Banastre's also appearing in Robert Willoughby's garrison at Pont de l'Arche in 1430.

As for Baron de Eresby, Robert Willoughby, he died aged 67 in 1452, knowing that Normandy had been lost to the French. He was buried in a monastic College at Mettingham which he had acquired through his wife Cecilly's family. I expect he had a few lives on his conscience, and would have felt in need of some prayers to ease his path through purgatory.

Figure 7. Entrance to Mettingham Castle and College, buried place of Robert Lord, Willoughby [15]

Figure 8. An extract from Google Maps showing the locations of Saint Céneri, Beaumont and Vivoin

We have already seen how Enguerrand de Monstrelet described how a council of all the chief captains of the French, considering how they should act; when, after much noise and debating, they determined to attempt "withdrawing the besieged the back way out of the town."

By going to Beaumont-sur-Sarthe on Google Earth it is possible to locate the old town square, and its nearby Motte that was probably the forward operating base that lords de Bueil and de la Varenne had used in their approach march as they attempted to break the siege of Saint Céneri.

Figure 9. Beaumont-sur-Sarthe market place. The motte is under the trees in the background.

Do those houses still contain the timber frames of the houses that looked out over the French troops as they hurriedly formed up to rush off and rescue their colleagues. Perhaps the fugitives from Vivoin has come running the three kilometres, shouting their warnings, as they arrived in this market place?

I am uncertain where the English had started out from to besiege Saint Céneri, however I have been able to establish that quite a few of those in the English contingent has previously been in the garrison of Alençon where the database shows the names of the English garrisons who had been present in the town in 1431 and in 1435.

It is about 27 kilometres from the Alençon or northern side of Saint Céneri, where I am presuming the main English siege camp would have been located to Vivoins.

Figure 10. The possible routes from Saint Céneri to Vivoin.

There are several possible routes that could have been taken.  The route I have selected would have taken the English further away from the main French camp at Beaumont and have had the advantage of placing the River Sarthe between the two forces. We have no evidence to confirm that this route was the one used, but it fits the known timing well.

Monstrelet wrote:

"This same night a detachment of the English, having had intelligence of the advance of the French, took the field, and marched in silence until they came near to the town of Vivien, whither they sent scouts to reconnoitre the state of the French, who, having twice entered Vivien, brought word they were in tolerable good order."

 Google suggests that this march would have taken five and a half hours to walk. In practise, given that the approach march was done in the dark, and with the probable presence of a nearby enemy force within the district, this must have been eight to ten hours of very tense marching.

Figure 11.  The Priory of St-Hippolye, Vivoins.

The village of Vivions must have been of considerable importance in 1432.  There still remain with the town, magnificent buildings that once formed the Priory of St-Hippolye.  It doesn't appear that the town had any real defences, compared with Beaumont, for instance with it's castle mount. 

I expect it was the combination of a lack of any obvious defence, and the probable presence of pillage that had encouraged the English to mount the raid. 

As can be seen from the following picture, the Priory was a substantial building, much of which is probably old enough to have been present in 1432, and to have witnessed the raid. One wonders where the tithe barn was?

Armies have always lived on their stomachs.  Their pay was often years in arrears, and starving out your enemy was the primary way to win a siege.  However it was often the besiegers, living in crude huts built out of branches, turf and grass, and not the besieged, tucked up as they were behind the walls of a castle, with a cellar full of food and drink who suffered most.

Figure 12. The former Priory Buildings at Vivoins.

The English must have realised that they only had limited time available in which to remain at Vivoins before the French forces in Beaumont and very probably Fresnay-sur-Sarthe also would act to cut off their retreat. However buoyed up by their mornings success, and quite possibly loaded down with recently plundered food and drink, they set off to return to Saint Céneri.





Figure 13.  The French counterattack.

A lesson no doubt re-learnt by every new generation of soldier is that counter attacks are most successful when mounted as soon as is possible after the enemy has taken the position, and before they have time to consolidate.  

The French commanders, Lords de Bueil and de la Varenne, appear to have been highly experienced and effective officers.  They had their troops underway quite possibly even before the English had started their return march.

As is often the case with Medieval battlefields, it is not clear where this counterattack took place.

However by inspection of Figure 13, from Google Earth there appears to have been a Route d'Or that crossed the Sarthe, which was located closer to Beaumont than it was to Vivoin, and where it would have been possible for a fast moving French unit to get across the most obvious of the English return routes.

The Route d'Or is believed to have been a Roman Road, and the even today the bridge is described as a Roman Bridge.

It is unlikely that today's bridge is the same one that was used in 1432, but it is possible that the Medieval bridge was in part at least Roman in origin.

It is clear that the French attack was not an ambush as the over confident English are recorded to have been able to see them coming. I believe the French almost certainly marched to Juillé.



Figure 14. The Rue de Belevent, D27Bis

I have not been able to locate older maps of the area, however it looks very likely that the road shown in Figure 14 leaving Vivoins was the one the English would have taken. 

Medieval soldiers preferred to use ridge routes when moving at speed, as they could see into the distance, and this would lessen the chance of their being surprised. This Medieval approach differs from that of later 20th Century soldiers who are taught to avoid moving along ridge lines at all costs in order to prevent their being "skylined" and then being shelled. This was a threat the Medieval soldier did not have to fear.

The road rises towards Juillé almost all of the way.  As can be seen in Figure 14, 15 and 16; the views to the side of the road are good towards the River Sarthe, and have probably little changed over the past 583 years.

Beaumont is to the left of both of these images.  The road from Beaumont over the Roman Bridge that crossed the River Sarthe to Juillé runs from left to right beyond the horizon behind the trees.

At this point the English troops who had been marching, and in action since last light on the previous day must have been starting to feel really tired after the night march and adrenaline rush of the assault. We have no idea at what time the encounter battle took place, however it was probably in the middle of the morning, three or four hours after the village had fallen to them.



Figure 15. Mid way to Juillé

The column of weary English laden with plunder, and quite possibly driving stolen livestock, was also trying to herd along a number of despondent French captives, some of whom were probably wounded.

They all faced a minimum of six or seven hours of further of footslogging if they were to reach safety.

The French from Beaumont who were furious over the raid and fresh, were already reaching the river crossing.

Figure 16. Reaching Juillé.

At this point about 500 metres from the cross roads and the nearest houses, the village first comes into sight for the English to the left of Figure 16: today and quite possibly then the view is interrupted by trees.

The vanguard of the French were probably streaming up from the horizon to the left of the photo.

At first these may only have been the mounted scouts and officers, and they probably appeared to be little threat to the English column.

Figure 17. An overview of the probable battlefield

The English (in red) coming up the lane would have crossed the ridge shown in Figure 16 in yellow, and it would have been at this point that they would have first have been aware that they were facing appreciable numbers of French who were probably streaming up the two routes shown in blue.  The dotted red line shows the intended route of the English back to their camp.

The Google Earth image is interesting because it clearly shows that the road network have changed considerably since the Medieval period.

Earlier tracks persist as crop marks. There was probably a scramble on the part of the long straggling English column to get past the French force that was attacking into their flank. The lack of time from the moment that the French first became visible in significant numbers didn't allow time enough for the archers to form up, as the English were situated 500 metres away at most from the French .

The French prisoners must have realised that it was now, or never, if they were to avoid many weary uncomfortable months in a dungeon, and they turned on their captors.

Perhaps initially less concerned about prisoners turning on them than at Agincourt, the English don't seem to have time (or possibly the will) to have killed their prisoners.

 Presumably the next couple of hours must have been pandemonium.

In Medieval battles the casualties tended not to be that high during the actual fighting, often less than 10%. It was during the pursuit that the real damage would have occurred.

The mounted men like the bastard of Salisbury probably got away relatively easily. Many of the men at arms and some of the archers may also have had horses, however many would have been on foot.

It was about 20 kilometres up the old Roman road back to Alençon, which is where I expect most of the fugitives will have made their way.

It was closer than their former camp that they had left about 24 hours before.

Many must have been cut down along the road; it must have been a really tough night for the wounded or those who became lost or separated.

Figure 18.  Alençon Castle.

The fugitives must have been hugely relieved and have felt much more secure once they were safely back inside the gates of the Chateau at Alençon.

The men left behind at Saint Céneri probably only numbered between 200 and 300. They must have spent an anxious day, hoping that the French garrison was not aware of just how few of them there were left in the bulwarks and trenches.



Figure 18. The church at Saint Céneri

The relief on the faces of the defenders at St Severin must have been enormous when they realised that the English were slipping away from the siege lines.

Presumably it was the French forces fresh from their victory who first clattered into the town over this beautiful old bridge.

Figure 19. The former Castle was located in the area of the highest trees. 

Figure 20. Google Earth Image showing the area around Saint Céneri

Figure 19 and 20 show the same area, and from them it is possible to locate the approximate position of the former castle.

History sadly does not seemed to have recorded where the English siege lines were at Saint Céneri, however given the villages location in the bottom of a steep valley and in the bend of the river, the English must presumably have been trying to take the hills that over looked the castle, like the one this photo was taken from.

I believe that the castle was located inside the ellipse in blue. With the castle and village secured by the bend of the River it formed a very strong position.

The description by Monstrelet of how the French relief force had planned to withdraw the garrison by the back way, begins to make sense, if the English were occupying the mouth of the promontory somewhere close to the positions shown in red.

Presumably with local knowledge they expected the garrison to be aware of a place where they could slip through the river at a shallow spot and to get away into the wooded valley sides. With about two kilometres of river bank to patrol around the outside of the huge river bend, it would have been almost impossible for the English to have patrolled it adequately, especially at night with only about 1,300 men to man the defences.

Although Saint Céneri had lived to fight another day, this was certainly not the last time the English would attack the castle. There were other sieges in 1434 and 1439.

I have never been to Saint Céneri, but it is certainly high on the list of places I would like to visit in future, although I do promise not to bring a cannon.

If you are aware of other records that cover these events, in French or English, I would be very pleased to hear from you. [balmer.nicholas@gmail.com] If you can trace your ancestors back to these events, and can tell me anything about any of the other men who stood shoulder to shoulder with John Nowell, I would also love to hear from you.

I would also like to say a big thank you to Anne Curry to all those who worked on The Soldier in Later Medieval England project. You have added immensely to my knowledge of these events, and I will have many happy hours and days researching into all those other locations and events you have recorded.

[1] Picture courtesy of http://a133.idata.over-blog.com/4/34/42/48/Notre-terroir/11-04-23-Chateau-Saint-Ceneri-3.JPG [2] http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint-C%C3%A9neri-le-G%C3%A9rei#/media/File:Chapelle_St-C%C3%A9neri-le_G%C3%A9rei.JPG.[3] http://www.medievalsoldier.org/ [4] http://www.medievalsoldier.org/search_garrison.php [5] The Chronicles of Enguerrand de Monstrelet: Containing an Account of the by Enguerrand de Monstrelet, Bon-Joseph Dacier, volume 1, page 631. [6] Thought to be in error for 1432 given elsewhere. Interestingly the local authorities who installed the monument give a date of 1434. Can anybody tell me which is correct, or were there more than one siege in this volatile frontier zone?
[7] Robert Willoughby. [8] Believed to be Matthew Gough who is known to have been captured after the siege. See http://yba.llgc.org.uk/en/s-GOUG-MAT-1390.html for this man, who played a very important role in the events leading up to the loss of the first English "Empire" in Normandy. [9] Believed to be Beaumont-sur-Sarthe [10] Spelt Vivoin today. [11] John Arthur, Knight in the database. [12] Footnote says John, bastard son of the great earl of Salisbury, to whom in his will he bequeathed fifty marks. See Dugdale. [13] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Willoughby,_6th_Baron_Willoughby_de_Eresby [14] From http://historyspot.org.uk/sites/default/files/field/attachments/digital_history_medieval_soldier.pdf [15] Entrance to Mettingham Castle - geograph.org.uk - 984718 by Graham Horn. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons -

The Wolton's of Penhulton

Pendleton circa 1900. [1]

If you go far enough back in any twig of your family tree, you are almost certainly going to find a peasant. For most of the twigs in my family tree, the Tudor period has represented a barrier beyond which it has not been possible to penetrate.  However, in one small and very remote valley in East Lancashire, I have recently been able to make some surprising detailed discoveries thanks to the indefatigable efforts of a number of 19th & early 20th century antiquarians, William Farrar, Thomas Dunham Whitaker, and Christopher Townley in the early 17th Century.

For many years I have known that John Wolton or Woolton, who became Bishop of Exeter in 1578 was one of my great x 11 Grandfathers.  Johannes Wolton, as he appears in Latin in most records of the time was apparently a highly intelligent man chosen for his ability to devote Protestant doctrine in the face of the Counter Reformation, as well as a medical practitioner of some courage and ability who stayed in Exeter nursing the sick during the plagues in the 1570's. He left us a tomb in the cathedral of a very radical nature for the time covered in humanist symbols, that suggests that he had absorbed ideas from the Renaissance during his time in Europe. And yet he was brought up in a deeply conservative area, and had been a close neighbour, of Abbot Paslew's family, and who probably witnessed the events of the Pilgrimage of Grace.

His daughter Mary, later married John Baber, [1564-1628] Rector of Tormarton, and Vicar of Chew Magna, who is my 10 x great grandfather.  It is known that John Wolton was helped during his early career as a clergyman by being the nephew of Alexander Nowell, who became Dean of St. Paul’s but who originally came from Read, near Whalley in Lancashire.

Both Alexander Nowell and John Wolton were both ardent Protestant’s and were in exile in Frankfurt during the reign of Queen Mary in the 1550's.

John’s father, also named John married Alexander’s sister Isabella Nowell, daughter of John Nowell (d 1526) of Read, through his second wife Elizabeth, the daughter of a Mr. Kay of Rochdale.

Biographer’s of Alexander Nowell going back to Churton in 1809 are not in agreement over either the name of John Wolton’s mother, or even his place of origin.  The difficultly arises because of two separate issues.  The variable spelling of Wolton, Woolton, or Walton, and also because the Parish of Whalley in Medieval times was very much larger than it currently is, covering about a dozen modern villages, that today have churches, but which in Tudor times had no churches of their own, or at best only chapels that were dependent on the Abbey at Whalley.  Marriages had to be celebrated at Whalley.

Evidence from the following court records however suggest that the Wolton family had been resident at Wishaw when John married Isabella, in about 1560, and that about a century earlier they had been living at Pendleton.

Clitheroe Castle yard [2]  It must have been with some trepidation that John de Wolton walked up here on Thursday 27th of September 1425.

The following fascinating record from September 1425, recorded over a Century before their offspring would eventually marry has Roger Nowell, who is another great…. grandfather of mine, in the jury, and John de Wolton, who was being presented for pasturing his stock on the Townfield at Pendleton, or Penhulton as it was spelt at that time.

Halmote, held at Clyderhow, on Thursday next before the feast of St. Michael the Archangel, 4 Henry VI. [27th September, 1425].

Inquistion taken there by virtue of office, by the oath of Edmund, son of William Hoggeson, and John his brother Gilbert Mercer, Henry de Walton of Penhulton, Henry Strynger, Roger Nowell, John de Reued, Lawrence deStanden, Henry del Smythe, William de Hognesby, William Daweson, jun., and John, son of William Daweson, who present as follows: -

Penhulton,

John Clerkson, iijd for one beast tethered (averium ligatum), in Penhulton town-field, contrary to the byelaw.

John del Chaumbre, iiijd likewise for two beasts there.

Richard Dissher, ijd likewise for one beast.

John del fforest, iiijd likewise for two beasts.

John de Wolton, ijd. Likewise for one beast.

Thomas de Merseden, vjd likewise for three beasts.

John, son of William Hoggeson, ijd likewise for one beast.

Mabot, relict of William Hogson, ijd likewise for one beast.

Gilbert Merser, ijd likewise for one beast.

John de Westwode, ijd likewise for one beast.

John del Chaumbre, iijd for one beast in the Brokeholme.

John de Clyderowe, iijd for one beast.

John del fforest, jd for one beast.

Gilbert Mercer, jd for one beast.

John Hogson, jd for one beast.

John de Westwode, jd for one beast.[3]

Pendleton from the 1844 Ordnance Survey Map, with the main properties numbered.

Over time the boundaries may have changed and plots may have subdivided over time, however there appear to have been about 21 properties in the village.

The 1847 Ordnance Survey Map of Pendleton with properties arbitrarily numbered.

With sixteen of the villagers presented in court for pasturing their cattle in the two fields, Town-field and Brokeholme,  and at most probably twenty or less properties, this list must represent the heads of the household for nearly every cottage in the village at that time.

Were these fines a regular event?

Why had somebody decided to crack down on the villagers at this time?

The fact that almost the entire village got fined, suggests that this was not a isolated incident, or a case of stays going through a broken fence.

Halmotes were Manorial Courts held in the Lord of the Manor’s hall, in this case in Clitheroe Castle, in which cases were tried over minor cases involving the villagers, and before a jury of twelve villagers.  Most cases centred on land disputes, and were settled by fines.  These courts also formalised property transfers between old and new tenants, and these generally were also settled with the payment of a fine of a year’s rent to the Lord of the Manor.

A extract from the 1847 Ordnance Survey Map showing Pendle Brook and the cattle route from Pendle Hill to the right of the map, leading down the main street in Pendleton towards Clitheroe and its cattle markets towards the left of the plan.

Unfortunately, I am unable to discover any records of which property belonged to whom, but it is possible that “town-field” is the field called Townhead, and which is bisected by a footpath going south, and Brokeholme might be a reference to the Pendleton Brooke.

 Google Earth Image marked with the possible locations of Town-field and Brokeholme.

Town-field was probably where cattle that had spent the summer up on Pendle were brought down through the "funnel" shaped hedges that formed Brokeholme.

From Google Earth it can be seen that there are two areas which appear never to have been ploughed adjacent to the village, and which could very probably be Town-field and Brokeholme.

Brokeholme appears to have been part of another cattle funnel down from the high summer grazing land on Pendle.  The placed the northern boundary of Brokeholme along a deep former ditch and track, that can be seen crossing the field, although it have been wider still.

I am aware that a local field name survey was underway in Pendleton a couple of years ago. I would love to know how that has progressed, and if it is possible to narrow down the field names or the early ownership of any of the cottages, farms and properties in the village?

I can be contacted at balmer.nicholas@gmail.com


[1] From http://www.oldclitheroe.co.uk/page213.htm
[2] From the following website by a descendent of the Mitton family, which has a great deal of fascinating information about the Mitton family who were frequently in the same locations and events that my Nowell and Wolton ancestors were also present https://thefamilydemitton.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/mitton-46.jpg
[3] Court Rolls of the Honor of Clitheroe in the county of Lancaster. Farrar. Page 13. Available at https://archive.org/stream/cu31924088014174#page/n39/mode/2up