Memorials of old Derbyshire - 1907 - Illustrated E-Book

J. Charles Cox

• Herausgeber: Librorium Editions
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

AFTER making due allowance for a natural prejudice in favour of the county of one’s birth and early associations, it may, I think, be reasonably maintained that the comparatively small shire of Derby not only contains within its limits most exceptionally wild, beautiful and varied scenery, but that its social and political history is exceedingly diversified and full of interest. In all, too, that pertains to almost every branch of archæology, Derbyshire is well able to hold its own with any other county that could be named.

Leseprobe

Haddon Hall: “Dorothy Vernon’s Bridge.”From a water-colour sketch by Mr. Frank E. Beresford.

MEMORIALSOF OLD DERBYSHIRE

EDITED BYRev.J. CHARLES COX

Author of “Churches of Derbyshire” (4 vols.), “Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals” (2 vols.), “How to write the History of a Parish,” “Royal Forests of England,” “English Church Furniture,” etc., etc.Editor of “The Reliquary”

With many Illustrations

1907

© 2022 Librorium Editions

ISBN : 9782383835400

PREFACE

HISTORIC DERBYSHIRE

PREHISTORIC BURIALS IN DERBYSHIRE

Neolithic Barrows

Bronze Age Barrows

“Late” Prehistoric Barrows.

THE PREHISTORIC STONE CIRCLES OF DERBYSHIRE

SWARKESTON BRIDGE

DERBYSHIRE MONUMENTS TO THE FAMILY OF FOLJAMBE

REPTON: ITS ABBEY, CHURCH, PRIORY, AND SCHOOL

THE OLD HOMES OF THE COUNTY

WINGFIELD MANOR HOUSE IN PEACE AND IN WAR

BRADSHAW AND THE BRADSHAWES

OFFERTON HALL.

ROODS, SCREENS, AND LOFTS IN DERBYSHIRE CHURCHES

PLANS OF THE PEAK FOREST

OLD COUNTRY LIFE IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY

DERBYSHIRE FOLK-LORE

The Glass House[

Peggy with the Wooden Leggy

MISCELLANEOUS FOLK-LORE

A Skull as the Protector of a House

Christmas Eve

New Year

Easter Observances

Shrove Tuesday Custom

Yule Loaf, Posset, and Candle

The last of the Cave-dwellers

First Foot

Curfew

Good Times

Vows under the Shadow of a Hill

Thar-Cake Joinings

Burial Customs

Wakes

Offerings to the Fairies

“Sweeping the Girl” on St. Valentine’s Day

JEDEDIAH STRUTT

INDEX

PREFACE

It has been a great pleasure to accept the request of the General Editor of this Memorial Series to edit a volume on my native county of Derby. In proportion to its size and population, more has been written and printed on Derbyshire than on any other English county. But in these days, when, year by year, the national stores of information in Chancery Lane are becoming better arranged and more fully calendared, when there is more generous access to muniments in private possession, and when the spirit of critical archæology is becoming more and more systematised, there is no sign whatever that the history of the county is in any way near exhaustion. Nor will that be the case even when the four great volumes of the Victoria County History are completed. So abundant are the historical records of Derbyshire, and so rich are the archæological remains, that there would be no difficulty, I think, in the speedy production of a companion volume to this of equal interest and of as much originality, should the General Editor and the publishers desire such a sequel. I say this as an apology for omissions of which I am fully conscious; and, as it is, the publishers have kindly allowed the present pages to exceed in number those of any other volume of the series.

There is one sad subject in connection with the production of this work—I allude to the death of that distinguished antiquary, the late Earl of Liverpool. Many years ago, in the “seventies” of last century, it was owing to his suggestion and friendly encouragement that I first undertook and persevered in the attempt to write on all the old churches of Derbyshire; and when he was known as Mr. Cecil Foljambe, we often visited together such churches as Tideswell, Bakewell, and Chesterfield. Immediately the idea of this volume had been formed, I wrote to Lord Liverpool, and at once received his cordial assent to prepare an article on the Foljambe monuments of the county. In the course of his letter he wrote:—“I accept your proposal all the more willingly as I have recently unearthed certain strong confirmatory evidence as to the two Tideswell effigies, claimed of late years to belong to the De Bower family, and rashly lettered, being in reality Foljambes” (see p. 103). We exchanged several letters on the subject, then his health began to fail, and he begged me to undertake the work, promising to revise it carefully and to give additional matter; but, alas! death intervened before even this could be accomplished.

All the articles between these covers have been specially written, and for the most part specially illustrated for the book, with one exception, namely, the delightfully vivid chapter by Sir George R. Sitwell, on the country life of a Derbyshire squire of the seventeenth century. To almost all the readers of the book, this essay will also be entirely novel. It is reproduced, in a somewhat abbreviated form, by the writer’s kind and ready permission, from the introductory chapter to Sir George Sitwell’s privately issued Letters of the Sitwells and Sacheverells, of which only twenty-five copies were printed.

My most grateful thanks are due to each of the contributors for their valuable papers, as well as to those who have supplied photographs, or who have loaned prints or drawings. It would be invidious for me to particularize where there has been so much ready kindness in contributing the elements of this Olla Podrida.

In arranging this book, it may be well to state that no effort whatever has been made to produce a kind of history of the shire inpetto, which would, in my opinion, be a great mistake in a work of this character and intention. Each essay stands by itself; all that I have done, in addition to my own contributions, is to arrange them in a kind of rough chronological order.

J. Charles Cox.

Longton Avenue,Sydenham,November, 1907.

HISTORIC DERBYSHIRE

By Rev. J. Charles Cox, LL.D., F.S.A.

After making due allowance for a natural prejudice in favour of the county of one’s birth and early associations, it may, I think, be reasonably maintained that the comparatively small shire of Derby not only contains within its limits most exceptionally wild, beautiful and varied scenery, but that its social and political history is exceedingly diversified and full of interest. In all, too, that pertains to almost every branch of archæology, Derbyshire is well able to hold its own with any other county that could be named.

The proofs of the residence of early man in the district are afforded by the considerable variety of remains that have been discovered in the bone caves of the High Peak near Buxton, in those of the high lands above Wirksworth, and more especially in the Creswell caves on the verge of Nottinghamshire. In Grant Allen’s remarkable and generally accurate book on the beginnings of county history throughout England, a singular blunder is made with regard to Derbyshire; it is there stated that this county “was almost uninhabited until long after the English settlement of Britain, with the solitary exception of a few isolated Roman stations.” Archæology, however, puts such a statement as this to complete rout. Difficult as it is to understand how such large bands of savage men were able to maintain themselves in so wild a district, it is the fact that the Peak of Derbyshire was, so to speak, thickly populated by prehistoric tribes. A glance at the map of prehistoric remains, given in the first volume of the Victoria History of the County of Derby, to illustrate Mr. Ward’s article, will at once show that the whole of that part of North Derbyshire which extends from Ashbourne to Chapel-en-le-Frith on the west, from thence to Derwent Chapel on the north, and then southward through Hathersage and Winster back again to Ashbourne, is peppered all over with the red symbols that betoken the barrows or lows which were the burial places of our forefathers during the neolithic and subsequent ages. Round Stanton-in-the-Peak and Hathersage the barrows, circles and other early remains occur with such frequency that it is difficult to mark even small dots on the map without them running into each other.

When the Romans held Derbyshire they had five chief stations in the county, namely, at Little Chester, near Derby; at Brough, near Hope; at Buxton; at Melandra Castle, on the verge of Cheshire; and near Wirksworth. The chief Roman road, termed Ryknield Street, entered the county at Monksbridge, between Repton and Egginton; crossing the Derwent by Derby to Little Chester, the road proceeded to Chesterfield, and thence into Yorkshire. Another road crossed the south of the county, entering Derbyshire on the east near Sawley, and passing through Little Chester to Rocester, in Staffordshire. A whole group of other roads radiated throughout the Peak from Buxton as a centre.

Doubtless one of the chief reasons why the Romans were so determined to occupy, after a military fashion, the north of the county was because of the lead mining which they so actively pursued. The chief district of this lead mining extended between Wirksworth on the south and Castleton on the north. Between these two places groups of disused mines appear with frequency. Most of those that have been closely examined yield obvious traces of having been worked by our conquerors. Six pigs of inscribed Roman lead have been found in the county. One of them bears the name of Hadrian (A.D. 117–138). The probabilities, however, are strong that the Roman miners were at work in this county half a century earlier, for there is evidence of lead working in western Yorkshire in A.D. 81, and it is most unlikely that mining began in that part of Yorkshire before Derbyshire had been touched.

It is scarcely possible to exaggerate the interest and importance pertaining to Dr. Haverfield’s article on Romano-British Derbyshire, as set forth in the first volume of the Victoria History of the county.

When the Romans left this county at the dawn of the fifth century, the first English or Saxon settlement speedily followed. The north of Derbyshire formed the southern extremity of that long range of broken primary hills—termed the Pennine Chain—which extended from the Cheviots down to the district long known as Peakland or the Peak. As the Romans withdrew, Peakland seems to have been overrun by hordes of the Picts; but when the pagan English settled in Northumbria a new element of strife was introduced which affected the line of Pennine Hills from end to end. This range became a boundary between two hostile races dissimilar in habits, tongue and creed. The older British race, Christianized to a considerable extent, took up their position on the western side, and also held their own in certain parts of the actual dividing ridge.

It seems likely that the Peakland, for about 150 years after the first coming of the English—and possibly other parts to the east and south afterwards known under the common name of Derbyshire—was retained by the Celts, or Welsh, after the same fashion as they undoubtedly held the districts round the modern town of Leeds.

With the opening of the seventh century substantial historic data begin. Ethelfrith, the last pagan king of Northumbria, crossed the southern end of the Pennine Chain in 603, and by a notable victory at Chester extended, as Bede tells us, the dominions of the English to the Mersey and the Dee. The actual conquest of Peakland probably soon followed. Mr. Grant Allen’s supposition that it was never actually overrun by a military force, but that the scanty numbers of the Welsh were by degrees absorbed into the surrounding English population, may, however, be the true explanation. The general story of English place-names shows that the majority of our hill and river names are earlier than the English occupation; but in North Derbyshire there is not a single river or hill that does not bear a Welsh name, whilst not a few of the homestead names have a like origin, and even words of Cymric etymology still linger in the fast disappearing dialect.

It is of interest to remember that those Mercians who settled from time to time in small groups throughout the wilder parts of Derbyshire bore the local name of Pecsaete, that is to say, settlers in the Peak; so that the future county, as Mr. Allen remarks, narrowly escaped being styled Pecsetshire, after the fashion of Dorsetshire or Somersetshire.

In the development and Christianising of the widespread Mercian kingdom, South Derbyshire played a very considerable part. Repton, on the banks of the Trent, is mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle in the year 755 in the account of the slaying of Ethelbald, the Mercian king. The same Chronicle also records the visit of the devastating Danes to Repton in 874, when they made that town their winter quarters. The founding of an abbey at Repton early in the seventh century, and the same place becoming the first seat of the Mercian bishopric from 654 to 667, is dealt with in another part of this volume and need not be named further in this sketch.

The Peak seems to have known of no widespread Saxon or English settlement until after the eruption of the Danes. It is also to the Danes that the town of Derby owes its present name, and the importance which gave its title to the surrounding shire. When the marauding Scandinavian bands overran the kingdoms of Northumbria and Mercia, the value of the Derbyshire lead soon attracted their attention. Hence they established themselves strongly and built a fort at Northworthy (the earlier name for Derby), whence the valley of the Derwent branched off in different directions to the lead-mining districts. It was the common practice of the Danes to change the names of the places where they settled; Northworthy was to them an unmeaning term now that settlements of importance had been pushed on much further northward. Deoraby, or the settlement near the deer, was clearly suggested by the close propinquity of the great forests. There is no part of the county where the place and field names are of greater interest than in the Ecclesbourne valley, which leads up from Duffield to Wirksworth. The intermingling of Norse names shows that at least two distinct streams of colonists pushed their way to this valuable mining centre.

In the north-eastern portion of Mercia, five of these Scandinavian hosts, each under its own earl, made a definite settlement; they became known as the Five Burghs, and formed a kind of rude confederacy. In this way Derby became linked in government with Nottingham, Stamford, Lincoln and Leicester. This combination, however, had not long been made before Ethelfleda, the Lady of the Mercians, the sister of Alfred the Great, began to win back her dominions from these pagan Norsemen, building border forts at Tamworth and Stafford. Derby was stormed by Ethelfleda in 918, after fierce fighting, and this victory secured for her for a time the shire as well as the town itself. Six years later Edward the Elder, Ethelfleda’s brother, advanced against the Danes through Nottingham, penetrating into Peakland as far as Bakewell, where he built a fort. In 941–2 King Edmund finally freed the Five Burghs and all Mercia from Danish rule.

The establishment of a mint at Derby during the reign of Athelstan (924–940) is a clear evidence of the advance of civilisation. Coins minted at Derby are also extant of the reigns of Edgar, Edward II., Ethelred II., Canute, Harold I., Edward the Confessor, and Harold II.

The division of Derbyshire among the conquering Normans, together with the social conditions of the times, so far as they can be gathered from the entries in the Domesday Survey, have been admirably treated of at length in the recently issued opening volume of the Victoria History, to which reference has already been made. The number of manors held by the Conqueror in this county was very considerable. He derived his Derbyshire possessions from three sources. In the first instance he succeeded his predecessor, the Confessor, in a great group of manors that stretched without a break across the county in a north-easterly direction from Ashbourne to the Yorkshire borders near Sheffield. The second division of the Kings’ land consisted of the forfeited estates of Edwin, the late earl of the shire, and grandson of Earl Leofric of Mercia. These lay in a widespread group along the Trent south of Derby, and included Repton, so famous in earlier Mercian history. In the north of the county the King also secured a very considerable number of manors which had belonged to various holders, such as Eyam and Stony Middleton, Chatsworth and Walton, and a considerable group round Glossop.

There were two ecclesiastical tenants-in-chief in the county, namely, the Bishop of the diocese, who held Sawley with Long Eaton, and the manor of Bupton in Longford parish, and the Abbot of Burton-on-Trent, who held the great manor of Mickleover and several others which nearly adjoined the Abbey on the Derbyshire side.

By far the largest Derbyshire landholder was Henry de Ferrers, lord of Longueville in Normandy, whose son in 1136 became the first Earl of Derby. He held over ninety manors in this county, but the head of his barony, where his chief castle was, lay just outside the border of Derbyshire, at Tutbury. Just a few of the smaller landholders seem to have been Englishmen, confirmed in their rights by the Conqueror. In one case it can be definitely said that an Englishman not only held land at the time of the survey, under Henry de Ferrers, but became the ancestor of a family which continued for centuries to hold of Ferrers’ successors. This was “Elfin,” who held Brailsford, Osmaston, Lower Thurvaston, and part of Bupton. During the reigns of William the Conqueror and his two sons, Rufus and Henry, genuine historical particulars relative to the county are almost entirely absent. When persistent civil war raged for so long a time over the greater part of England during Stephen’s reign, Derbyshire was but little disturbed, for the leading men of the county adhered loyally to the King and held its several fortresses on his behalf. In the great Battle of the Standard, fought against the Scots at Northallerton in 1138, Derbyshire played the leading part in winning the victory; its chief credit being due to the valour of the Peakites under Robert Ferrers. Ralph Alselin and William Peveril, two other Derbyshire chieftains, were also among the successful leaders of the battle.

Peak Castle, built by William Peveril in the days of the Conqueror, passed to the Crown in 1115 on the forfeiture of his son’s estates. The Pipe Roll of 1157 shows an entry, repeated annually for a long term of years, of a payment of four pound, ten shillings, and two watchmen, and the porter of the Peak Castle. In that year Henry II. received the submission of Malcolm, King of Scotland, within the walls of this castle. There are records of other visits made to this castle by Henry II. in 1158 and 1164.

In this reign a variety of interesting particulars relative to the castles of Bolsover and the Peak can be gleaned from the Pipe Rolls, particularly with regard to their provisioning, garrisoning and repairing between 1172 and 1176, during the time of the rising of the Barons. Richard I., at the beginning of his reign, gave the castles of the Peak and Bolsover to his brother John, who succeeded to the throne in 1199. In 1200, King John was at Derby and Bolsover in March, and at Melbourne in November. This restless King’s visits to the county were frequent throughout his reign, and included a sojourn at Horsley Castle in 1209. During this turbulent reign Derbyshire was again fortunate in escaping any material share of civil warfare. The party of the Barons gained but little support, for the three notable fortresses of Castleton, Bolsover and Horsley were held for the King with but slight intermission.

In any historic survey of Derbyshire, however brief, it must not be forgotten that the Normans, for the convenience of civil administration, linked together this county and Nottinghamshire, giving precedence in some respects to the latter. The Assizes, for instance, up to the reign of Henry III., were held only at Nottingham, and the one county gaol for the two shires was in the same town. From the beginning of the reign of Henry III. up to the time of Elizabeth, the Assizes were held alternately at the two county towns. During the whole of this period there was but one sheriff for the two shires; it was not until 1566 that they each possessed a sheriff of their own.

Derbyshire possessed a fourth great fortress, which has generally been overlooked; it does not appear on the Pipe Rolls, as it was never held by the Crown. Duffield was a convenient centre for the great Derbyshire possessions of Henry de Ferrers. The castle at this place stood on an eminence commanding an important ford of the Derwent, at the entrance of the valley that led to Wirksworth with its lead mines, and hence forwards to the High Peak. Here was erected in early Norman days (as we know from the long-buried remains) a prodigiously strong and massive keep. William, Earl Ferrers, was a stalwart supporter of Henry III. until his death, but his grandson, Robert de Ferrers, soon after he came of age, in 1260, threw himself with ardour into the baronial war against the King. Eventually he was overcome when fighting with his allies at Chesterfield in 1266. Ferrers was taken prisoner, and his life spared; but all his lands, castles, and tenements were confiscated to the crown, and conveyed by Henry to his son Edmund, who was afterwards created Earl of Lancaster. It would be at this period that Duffield Castle was demolished.

The foundations of this castle were accidentally discovered in 1886. The lower part of the walls of a great rectangular keep, 95 feet by 93 feet, were brought to light, the walls averaging 16 feet in thickness. These measurements show that Duffield Castle far exceeded in magnitude any other Norman keep, with the single exception of the Tower of London.

Before taking the next step in this sketch of the political history of the county, it will be well to go back a little in the account of the great Derbyshire family of Ferrers, with special reference to their connection with the Peak Forest. William de Ferrers, the fourth Earl of Derby, was bailiff of the Honour of the Peak from 1216 to 1222. It was charged against him that during that time he had in conjunction with others taken upwards of 2,000 head of deer without warrant. At the Forest Pleas held in 1251, five years after the Earl’s death, formal presentments as to these offences were made, when Richard Curzon was fined the then great sum of £40 as one of the late Earl’s accomplices, and other county gentlemen in smaller amounts. But much more serious matters occurred in the wild region of the Peak later on in the reign of Henry III., when the transgressor was Robert de Ferrers, the grandson of the Earl just mentioned. The Pleas of the Forest were generally held at long and somewhat fitful intervals. It was not until September, 1285, that these pleas were again held at Derby, when all the offences committed during the thirty-four years that had passed since the last eyre were presented by the forest officials. By far the gravest charge at this eyre was that made against the last Earl of Derby (of the first creation), who died in 1278. It was charged against Robert de Ferrers that on three separate occasions, in July, August and September, 1264, he had hunted in the forest, with a great company of knights and others, and had on these occasions taken 130 head of red deer, and had driven a still greater number far away. These illicit hunting affrays were evidently made on a great scale, for thirty-eight persons are named in the presentment, and there were many others, besides the Earl himself, who were dead before the eyre was held. Others, too, were not summoned because they were mere servants of the Earl. Eight out of the thirty-eight were knights, and it is not a little remarkable that hardly any of those who joined in the forest affrays were of Derbyshire families; they came from such counties as Warwick, Leicestershire, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Cambridgeshire, etc. Reading between the lines, though it is not mentioned in the presentments—the originals of which can be studied at the Public Record Office—it becomes clear that these incursions into a royal forest must have been animated by something deeper than a love for wholesale poaching. In May, 1264, the battle of Lewes was fought, when the King’s forces were defeated by those of the barons. For two or three years from that date, as an old chronicler has it, “there was grievous perturbation in the centre of the realm,” in which Derbyshire must have pre-eminently shared, for the youthful Earl Robert was one of the hottest partisans of the barons. There can be no reasonable doubt that these three raids on the Peak Forest in the months immediately following the battle of Lewes, were undertaken by Robert de Ferrers and his allies, issuing probably from his great manor house at Hartington, much more to show contempt for the King’s forest and preserves, and to get booty and food for his men-at-arms, than for any purposes of sport.

It is interesting to note that in April, 1264, Henry III. came into Derbyshire, and lodged for a time at the castle of the Peak after the subjection of Nottingham.

Definite Parliamentary rule began in England under Edward I. No Derbyshire writs are extant for the Parliaments of 1283, 1290 or 1294. The first Parliamentary return extant for Derbyshire names Henry de Kniveton and Giles de Meynell as summoned to attend the Parliament at Westminster in November, 1295. The county representatives in 1297 were Robert Dethick and Thomas Foljambe; in 1298, Henry de Brailsford and Henry Fitzherbert, and in 1299 Jeffrey de Gresley and Robert de Frecheville. John de la Cornere and Ralph de Makeney represented the borough of Derby in 1295. The maintenance of the knights of the shire when attending Parliament, as well as their travelling expenses, were paid by the county. The scale of payment per day in the fourteenth century varied from 3s. 4d. to 5s., whilst the payment of the borough members varied from 20d. to 2s. a day.

Soon after the accession of Edward I., inquiries were made into the various abuses that had arisen during the latter part of the turbulent reign of his predecessor. A considerable number of official irregularities and illegalities were brought to light in this county, including both the imprisoning and undue releasing from prison at the Castle of the Peak.

Edward I. visited Derbyshire in 1275, tarrying both at Ashbourne and Tideswell, when on his way to North Wales. In the subjugation of Wales, various of the great landholders of Derbyshire, with their tenants, took a prominent part; among them were William de Ferrers, William de Bardolf, Henry de Grey, Edward Deincourt, John de Musard, and Nicholas de Segrave.

Between 1290 and 1293 the King was frequently in the county, coming on more than one occasion for sport amongst the fallow deer of Duffield Frith, at the forest lodge of Ravensdale. Derbyshire was closely concerned in the long dispute as to the succession to the Crown of Scotland, of which Edward I. was made arbitrator in 1291. His decision was in favour of John Balliol, who was most intimately connected with this county. Balliol held for a time the custody of the Peak, with the Honour of Peveril; he was lord of the manors of Hollington and Creswell; and he had served as joint sheriff of the counties of Derby and Nottingham from 1261 to 1264. All the leading men of Derbyshire were engaged from time to time in the prolonged wars with Scotland which resulted in the deposition of Balliol in 1296. This county had its share in the discreditable honours that Edward II. showered on his favourite, Piers Gaveston, for early in the reign he held the custody of the High Peak. In 1322 the Scotch forces entered into alliance with those of the rebel Earls of Lancaster and Hereford. After fierce fighting at the bridge of Burton-on-Trent, the royalists crossed the river by a ford and drove Lancaster’s forces before them into Yorkshire. During the retreat Derbyshire suffered severely. The King, with several of his ministers, tarried for a few days at Derby; from thence he visited Codnor Castle, which was held by one of his ardent supporters, Richard, Lord Grey. Edward II. also, on several different occasions, sojourned at the lodge of Ravensdale, amid the beautiful parks of Duffield Forest.

In the various wars of the reign of Edward III. Derbyshire was often called upon to supply forces for the hastily raised armies of the King. The number of men levied on several occasions in this county were considerably in excess of its due proportion when compared with neighbouring shires, either in acreage or population. This may, we suppose, be taken as a compliment to the valour of the county, and it is by no means improbable that the hardy lead miners of the north of the county would furnish better men, and perhaps more capable archers, than were to be found in purely agricultural districts. Early in 1333, when the Scots were making great preparations for invasion, John de Twyford and Nicholas de Longford were appointed Commissioners of Array for Derbyshire, to call out and have in readiness for the field all men between sixteen and sixty years of age. Soon afterwards they received a definite warrant to send to the front five hundred archers and two hundred light horsemen from within the county. Derbyshire archers to the number of six hundred set forth for Scotland in 1344, and there were frequent levies of them during this reign to proceed to France. Derbyshire, however, considering the fame of its archers and the fighting-men of the Peak, took but a small part in the French campaign of 1346–7, which resulted in the crowning triumph of Crecy and the fall of Calais. The reason for this was that only those counties that were citra Trent received summonses to take part in the French expedition; the forces of Derbyshire, Yorkshire, and other northern counties were kept at home for fear of aggression from Scotland. There were, however, a sprinkling of Derbyshire men in the ranks of the English at Crecy, including Sir John Curzon, Nicholas de Longford, and Anker de Frecheville.

The wide-spread revolt of the peasantry was the great feature of the reign of Richard II.; but Derbyshire, together with most of the west midlands, remained unaffected by these serious disturbances, in which the miners, at all events, had no inclination to take part.

Henry IV. was not unfrequently in Derbyshire in connection with the rebellious movements of that much-troubled reign. In the summer of 1402 the King tarried for some little time at the small town of Tideswell in a secluded district of the Peak, issuing from thence a variety of orders to sheriffs and other officials as to the military preparations against the Welsh. When sojourning about the same time at the royal hunting lodge at Ravensdale, he dispatched thence orders for hastening resistance against serious Scotch invasion.

In the following year, when the Percys and their followers suddenly raised the standard of revolt, the King hastened to Derby with all the forces he could gather. After waiting there a few days to rally the musters, he proceeded through Burton-on-Trent to Shrewsbury, where a terrible battle was fought on July 20th. Early that morning, before the fray began, Henry knighted several of the gallant esquires of Derbyshire. Of these Sir Walter Blount, who bore the King’s standard, Sir John Cokayne, and Sir Nicholas Longford were slain in the fight, whilst Sir Thomas Wendesley died soon afterwards of the wounds he had received. It is not a little interesting to note that the last three of these Derbyshire knights, who held their honour for so brief a period, have their effigies still extant in fair preservation in the respective churches of Ashbourne, Longford, and Bakewell; the fourth, Sir Walter Blount, was buried, in acordance with his will, at Newark. Of the 4,500 men slain or grievously wounded on the King’s side in the Battle of Shrewsbury, a large proportion must have been Derbyshire men. It was, perhaps, out of compliment to this county that Henry, when the fray was over, proceeded yet again to Derby before going north to York to receive the Earl of Northumberland’s submission.

It was under Henry V. that the memorable Battle of Agincourt was fought on October 25th, 1415. In this battle the county played a prominent part. Richard, Lord Grey of Codnor, was at the head of a large contingent of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire retainers and tenants. The list of horsemen under him begins with two Derbyshire knights—Sir John Grey and Sir Edward Foljambe, and it also includes such well-known county names as Cokayne, Strelley, FitzHerbert, and Curzon. Another contingent of Derbyshire men was in the retinue of Philip Leach, of Chatsworth, whilst an important command was held by Thomas Beresford, of Fenny Bentley, as recorded on his monument in that church.

MELBORN CASTLE in the County of DERBY.Formerly a Royal Mansion, now in Ruins; where John Duke of Bourbon taken Prisoner by K: Henry Vth. in the Battle of Agincourt (Ano. 1414.) was kept Nineteen Years in Custody of Nicholas Montgomery the Younger; he was released by K: Henry VIth.This Draught is made from a Survey now in the Dutchy office of Lancaster, taken in the Reign of Q: Elizabeth. Sumptibus, Soc: Ant: Lond: 1733.

The notable triumph of Agincourt must have been long held in remembrance in Derbyshire, for the midland fortress of Melbourne Castle was selected as the place of imprisonment for the most notable prisoner taken on that field of French disaster. John, Duke of Bourbon, was confined at Melbourne for nineteen years; at first under the custody of Sir Ralph Shirley, one of the leaders in the fight, and afterwards in the charge of Nicholas Montgomery the younger.

In the deplorable Wars of the Roses, between the Lancastrians and the Yorkists, which extended over thirty years from 1455 to 1485, Derbyshire men took no small part, now on one side, now on the other, whilst occasionally they were found in the ranks of both parties. A commission issued in December, 1461, to Sir William Chaworth, Richard Willoughby, and the Sheriff of Derbyshire, illustrates the disturbed condition of the county in the beginning of the reign of Edward IV. These commissioners were ordered to arrest John Cokayne, of Ashbourne, who is represented as wandering about in various parts of the county with others, killing and spoiling the King’s subjects, and to bring him before the King in council.

A manuscript list of the “names of the captayns and pety captayns wyth the bagges, in the standerds of the army and vantgard of the king’s lefftenant enterying into Fraunce the xvj day of June,” 1513, begins with George, Earl of Shrewsbury, the King’s lieutenant of the vanguard, who bore on his standard “goulles and sabull a talbot sylver passant and shaffrons gold”; the Derbyshire banneret, Sir Henry Sacheverell, with John Bradburne for his petty captain, bearing “goulles a gett buk sylver.” Other Derbyshire gentlemen who were captains in this array, each having his petty captain and his “bagges” (badges) or arms as borne on his standard, were:—Robert Barley with John Parker, Nicholas Fitzherbert with John Ireton, Sir John Leek with Thomas Leek his brother, Sir Thomas Cokayne with Robert Cokayne, Sir William Gresley with John Gresley, Sir Gylbert Talbot the younger with Humphrey Butler, Robert Lynaker with George Palmer, Thomas Twyford with Roger Rolleston, Sir John Zouch (of Codnor) with Dave Zouch (his brother), Arthur Eyre with Thomas Eyre (his brother), Ralph Leach and John Curzon (of Croxall) with Edward Cumberford.

In addition to all these Derbyshire gentlemen, William Vernon bore the banner of St. George, John Leach the banner of the lieutenant’s arms, and Thomas Rolleston the standard of the talbot and chevrons. Derbyshire considerably preponderated in this army of the vanguard, there being twelve companies from that county. Shropshire had nine companies, Staffordshire eight, Nottinghamshire six, and Leicestershire and Cheshire two each; five other counties only furnished a single company.

Into the grievous question of the cruel way in which the monasteries were suppressed by Henry VIII. it is not proposed here to enter, even after the briefest fashion. It may, however, be remarked that although the county had no religious houses of first importance within its limits—the most noteworthy being the Premonstratensian Abbeys of white canons at Dale and Beauchief, and the houses of black or Austin canons at Darley Abbey and Repton Priory—the amount of landed estates, both large and small, held throughout Derbyshire under abbeys or priories situated in other shires, was very considerable. If there is one social or economic fact that is thoroughly established in connection with this great upheaval, whose main object was to secure pelf for the Crown, it is that the condition of the monastic tenantry was far better than that of those under often changing secular rule.

The sternest possible measures were taken to suppress the least disaffection shown against the policy of dissolution. Lives were lost, even of those in high position up and down the country, on the merest hearsay evidence of having indulged in private talk against the King’s policy. At the time when Henry and his Court were seriously alarmed by the Lincolnshire rising on behalf of the smaller monasteries, lists were drawn up on October 7th, 1536, of the names of noblemen and gentlemen to whom it was proposed to write, under privy seal, requiring their aid with men and horses fit for war. The Derbyshire names on this list were: the Lord Steward, Lord Talbot, Sir Henry Sacheverell, Matthew Kniveton, Sir Godfrey Foljambe (Sheriff), Roland Babington, and Francis Cokayne. The rising was, however, so summarily suppressed that there was no necessity for the calling out of any general array.

There are full particulars extant of the Derbyshire musters for April, 1539, giving the exact number under each parish of archers with horses and harness, of billmen with horses and harness, and also of unharnessed archers and billmen. The total for the various hundreds of the county, including the town of Derby, reached the total of 4,510.

As to the various religious changes in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., Mary, and Elizabeth, which affected Derbyshire as much as any other part of the kingdom, it is not proposed here to enter. Suffice it to say that their distinguishing feature under Elizabeth, which was also continued throughout the greater part of the seventeenth century, was the fierce persecution and ruinous fining directed against the recusants of the Roman obedience. The reason for the pre-eminence of Derbyshire in this respect arose from two facts: firstly, that some of the most influential of the old Derbyshire families, such as the Fitzherberts and the Eyres, remained steadfast to the unreformed faith; and, secondly, that the wild districts of the Peak afforded so many places of shelter to those recusants of this and the neighbouring counties who desired to escape the rigorous search of Elizabeth’s pursuivants.

Throughout the long reign of Elizabeth, the county musters were under frequent survey. A few months before the reign began, the old local militia, with its scale of arms (including bows and arrows) as revised in 1285, which had continued for more than four centuries in accordance with the scheme laid down by Henry II., came to an end. The old Assize of Arms had long been found unsuitable to the advance in the art of war. Eventually an Act of Parliament of Philip and Mary “for the having of horse armour and weapon,” which provided that after May 1st, 1558, everyone who had an estate of inheritance of the value of £1,000 or above was to keep at his own cost six horses meet for demi-lances (heavy cavalry), and ten horses meet for light horsemen, with the requisite harness and weapons; also 40 corselets for pikemen, 40 Almayne rivettes (flexible German armour), 40 pikes, 30 longbows, 30 sheaves of arrows, 30 steel caps, 20 black bills or halberds, 20 hand-guns, and 20 morions or light open helms. A sliding scale followed, making due provision for what was required from those having lands of various values down to £10, and these last had to find a longbow, a sheaf of arrows, a steel cap, and a black bill. Another section of the Act provided that the inhabitants of every town, parish, or hamlet, other than those who were already charged in proportion to their landed property, were to find and maintain at their own charges such harness and weapons as might be appointed by the commissioners of the musters.

Within a few months of Elizabeth’s accession, this new legislation was tested by calling out the general muster throughout the kingdom, and by obtaining returns of the number in equipment from each county. The long, interesting return for Derbyshire, dated March 9th, 1558–9, is extant; it is signed by seven justices—George Vernon, Humphrey Bradbourne, Henry Vernon, Francis Curzon, John Frances, Gilbert Thacker, and Richard Pole. Every hundred and township is set forth in detail, both as to the arms and the men. There was only one landowner of sufficient wealth in the county to be called upon to provide all that was requisite for a heavy horseman; but there were ten light horsemen. The total of “the able Footemen harnissed and unharnissed” amounted to 1,211, namely, 56 harnessed archers, 135 harnessed billmen, 236 unharnessed archers, and 784 unharnessed billmen.

A second full certificate of the able men, arms, and weapons throughout the county was forwarded ten years later to the council. With this return a letter was forwarded signed by the Earl of Shrewsbury as lord-lieutenant, as well as by his deputies. A noteworthy paragraph in this letter shows that Derbyshire was not taking kindly to the general substitution of explosive weapons in the place of archery which was then in progress.

“Touching thorders prescribed for thexercise of harquebuziers, the truthe is this shire doth not aptlie serve theretoe for we have very few harquebuziers & they placed so farre from market townes as they shuld nott come to a day of exercise above the nombre of six, & yet their travell further than in the time for the same is prescribed. Indeed we have good plenty of archers & therefore in our generall musters wee thought it best to appoint many of them to be furnished accordingly & nowe if we shuld make a new charge the countrey undoubledy wuld think themselves oversore burdened.”

The Earl of Shrewsbury received orders in November, 1569, to raise the whole force of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire, and to proceed against the Earls of Northumberland and Westmoreland, “now in rebellion.” It would be wearisome in a sketch of this character to note the various incidents, which can be gleaned from both the public records and the county muniments, as to the several occasions on which the Derbyshire musters were called out when there was no immediate necessity for their use.

The considerable part that this county played in the safeguarding of Elizabeth’s unhappy prisoner, Mary, Queen of Scots, during her repeated sojourns at Wingfield Manor House, together with her visits to Chatsworth and Buxton, are fully dealt with in another paper in this volume. It may, however, be here remarked that the deplorable execution of Mary, in 1587, and the way in which the youthful Babington had so rashly conspired in her favour, made a great impression upon this county, and caused the Council as well as the local authorities to redouble their precautions. Not only was a certain local undercurrent stirred up in Derbyshire through the Fotheringay execution, but it also had the result of hastening the hostilities of Philip of Spain and other of Elizabeth’s external enemies. There was in consequence at this period frequent exercise of the county forces. The Earl of Shrewsbury’s gout prevented his taking any active part, and the work was chiefly supervised by his brother-in-law, John Manners, the senior of the deputy-lieutenants. A certificate of the musters, as viewed by Manners in November, 1587, shows that there were 400 “selected bands armed and prest for present service”; these bands were divided into 160 “shot,” 80 pikemen, 80 billmen, and 80 archers. It is interesting here to note the remarkable way in which the musket had gained ascendancy over the bow in fourteen years. In addition to the selected 400, Manners returned 1,300 men who were available in times of need, namely, 300 for shot, 300 for pikes, 360 for bills, 200 for bows, 80 as carpenters and wheelwrights, and 60 as smiths. The mounted forces consisted of 9 demi-lances and 178 light-horse.

Wingfield Manor. (From an Indian Ink Drawing by Colonel Machell, 7th August, 1785.)

This return, large as it was, was not, however, a complete one for the whole county, for none of the musters from the hundred of Scarsdale were allowed to be present for fear of infection. A grievous attack of the plague was then raging at Chesterfield and several of the adjacent parishes. The severity of what is termed in the parish register “the great plague of Chesterfield” may be gathered from the fact that the deaths of that town in June, 1587, were fifty-four, in July fifty-two, and yet the average deaths in Chesterfield for several years about that period were only three a month.

Although Derbyshire was perhaps further removed from the sea-coast than any other county, the threatened approach of the great Spanish Armada appears to have made almost as much stir as in the sea-board counties. The gentlemen of the county consented to greatly increase the number of lances and light-horse, provided that such action should not be taken as a precedent; and they further promised to provide an addition of 400 to the number of unmounted troops. The old earl wrote a brave letter to his sovereign, assuring her that the gentlemen of Derbyshire were both ready and well affected, and that, as for himself, the threatened invasion was making him young again, “though lame in body, yet was he lusty in heart to lead her greatest enemy one blow, and to live and die in her service.”

The signal defeat of Spain brought for some years general peace and quiet throughout the kingdom. The musters in Derbyshire and elsewhere were but rarely called out, save in the winter of 1598–9, when renewed threats from Spain caused Sir Humphrey Ferrers, the most active of the Derbyshire deputy-lieutenants, to view the musters of the various hundreds.

Quite irrespective of the part played by the general musters during this reign in preparation for possible emergencies, there was much stir and excitement in the county, accompanied, no doubt, by a great deal of misery, consequent upon the repeated call for troops to take part in the subjection of Ireland. The levies of troops for Ireland were almost ceaseless during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. It has usually been understood by historians that these raw troops came mainly from Lancashire and Cheshire; but the Belvoir manuscripts, supported by the Acts of the Privy Council and local muniments, show that Derbyshire—possibly as a compliment to her bravery—was being constantly called upon to supply men for these expeditions entirely out of proportion to the limited area and population of the county. It is not surprising to find that these forcibly impressed levies, utterly untrained in military matters, and suffering severely from poor clothing, insufficient food, the dampness of the climate, and frequent infectious disease, perished in large numbers before they could attain to any proficiency. When the Earl of Essex was granted special powers in 1573 to suppress the Irish rebellion, Derbyshire had to submit to the impressment of a hundred men, and a complaint was lodged at the sessions that some of the best lead-miners had been taken for that purpose. The whole story of these forced levies, of the difficulty of conveying them to the ports of Lancashire and Cheshire, of their frequent desertions both en route and even when they had crossed the seas, of the poorness of the weapons and equipments with which they were supplied by the swindling contractors of the day, is a most sorry and sordid tale. Nor could these Derbyshire troops have presented, even when first called out, a particularly attractive or uniform appearance, for the Belvoir manuscripts tell us that they were to be provided, in addition to convenient hose and doublet, “with a cassock of motley and other sea-green colour or russet.”

There was much nervousness with regard to Derbyshire when Elizabeth was on her deathbed, in March, 1682–3. The council were alarmed lest attempts should be made to remove Lady Arabella Stuart (who had a certain kind of claim to the throne) by violence from the custody of her grandmother, the old Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as Bess of Hardwick. They dispatched Sir Henry Brounker in haste with a warrant to all the Derbyshire lieutenants, justices, and constables, to give him all assistance in guarding Arabella, and in the suppression of every form of disorder and riot. On March 25th, Sir Henry met a large body of the deputy-lieutenants and justices at North Wingfield, a short distance from Hardwick Hall, when it was arranged that there should at present be no general view of the musters, but that the constables were to see that the armour was in readiness, and to take other precautions. But whilst they were thus debating, death removed Elizabeth, and on the following day James I. was quietly proclaimed King at Derby without any trace of remonstrance.

Early in the reign of James I. the nature of the general musters or local militia was considerably changed, but their special services were never really needed during the time he was on the throne. In 1624, when James was unhappily persuaded to give authority to the Duke of Buckingham to raise 10,000 men in England to proceed to the Palatinate, this county had some share in the general misfortune. Out of the great disorderly rabble collected by impressment at Dover, half of whom died in the overcrowded vessels from the plague ere they could even be landed, Derbyshire contributed 150 men. These troops from the centre of England were allowed 8d. a day whilst marching to Dover, and they were expected to make at least twelve miles daily. It is probable that James was at Derby in August, 1609, when making a progress from Nottingham to Tutbury Castle. He was certainly in the county towards the close of his life, during the summer progress of 1624. On August 10th the King was at Welbeck, when he knighted two Derbyshire gentlemen, Sir John Fitzherbert of Norbury, and Sir John Fitzherbert of Tissington. In the following week he stopped two nights at Derby with Prince Charles, proceeding thence in the following week to Tutbury. In the latter place he knighted Sir Edward Vernon, of Sudbury.

In no other county in the whole of England is the evidence more clear or detailed than in Derbyshire as to the ill-advised proceedings in the opening part of the reign of Charles I., which eventually brought about the misfortunes of the great Civil War. The methods of raising funds for the Crown after an irregular fashion by way of benevolences and loans, was no new invention of this ill-fated Stuart King. Such exactions, though contrary to statute, were resorted to by Henry VII. in 1491, when he took a “benevolence” from the more wealthy folk for his popular incursion into France. Henry VIII. made like cause for an “aimable graunte” in 1528 and in 1548. Elizabeth appears to have always expected and received valuable “gifts” of money or plate during her progresses, and numerous “loans” demanded and obtained from Derbyshire gentlemen by that Queen were considerable, and a frequent cause of friction when it was found that they were scarcely ever repaid. Charles I., however, was so foolishly advised as to begin his reign by pressing for definite sums, which were ridiculously termed “free gifts.” Derbyshire was practically unanimous in its refusal to the demand. The courts of four of the hundreds duly met in 1626, and declined to pay a single farthing “otherwise than by way of Parliament.” The Derbyshire justices met in session on July 18th, and forwarded to the council the answers from all the hundreds. The first signature to this reply was that of the Earl of Devonshire, and in the whole county only £20 4s. was subscribed.

Two years later the King’s consent was obtained to the Petition of Rights, and thus benevolences or forced loans were put an end to in most explicit terms. The next expedient, however, for raising money without Parliament was still more foolish. A well recognised method for getting together a navy in actual time of war, namely, by issuing ship-writs, had become established in Plantagenet days, and proved of great service to Elizabeth in resisting the Armada. There were also later precedents of 1618 and 1626, but in every one of these cases ship-writs were only served on seaports, and were never issued save for immediate warlike enterprise. The ship-writs, however, of 1634 were served when there was no war or fear of attack; and in the following year the grievance was intensified by serving writs on inland as well as maritime counties and towns. Under the writs of 1635, the small county of Derbyshire was called upon to pay the great sum of £3,500—£90 of which was to be contributed by the clergy. Many in the county actively resisted. Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston, flatly declined to pay a farthing, was put under arrest, taken before the council in London, and his goods distrained. A third ship-writ reached Derbyshire in 1636, but the sheriff could only raise £700, and that with much difficulty. A fourth writ in October of the same year, again demanding £3,500, was served on the new sheriff, Sir John Harper. Resistance was general. The King was compelled in 1640 to summon the “Long Parliament,” which speedily declared all the late proceedings touching ship money to be illegal and void. To this the King consented; but it was too late, the mischief was done.

Charles I., in the earlier part of his reign, was on three occasions the guest of the Earl of Newcastle at Bolsover Castle. The record visit of the three was in 1633, when he was accompanied by his Queen. The entertainment, as Lord Clarendon has it, was “very prodigious and most stupendous.” The expenses for hospitality on this occasion reached the huge total of £15,000; it was during the visit that Ben Jonson’s masque of Love’s Welcome was performed.

In 1635 Charles I. visited Derby, and slept at the Great House in the market-place. The corporation and townsmen had very good reason to remember this visit, for they gave the Duke of Newcastle for the King a fat ox, a calf, six fat sheep, and a purse of gold to enable him to keep hospitality, with a further present to the Elector Palatine of twenty broad pieces. The King further improved the occasion by “borrowing” £300 off the corporation in addition to his gifts, as well as all the small arms in possession of the town. At the end of the Scottish War in August, 1641, Charles I. passed through Derbyshire, and was again at the county town on the eleventh of August, when he made Sir John Curzon, of Kedleston, and Sir Francis Rodes, of Barlborough, baronets.

The great Civil War began in the summer of 1642 with the raising of the Royal Standard at Nottingham. The registers of All Saints, the great church of the county town, have the following brief chronicle of this dramatic incident: “the 22 of this August errectum fuit Notinghamiæ Vexillum Regale.—Matt. xii. 25.” The vicar, Dr. Edward Wilmot, who made the entry, was a staunch Royalist, and probably employed the Latin tongue knowing full well the general tendency of the opinions of the townsmen. When the news reached Derby, the response was meagre. Hutton, the historian, tells us that about twenty Derby men marched to Nottingham and entered the King’s service. On September 13th the King marched with his army from Nottingham to Derby, but only made one day’s stay in the town, pushing on from thence to Shrewsbury. Within a few months practically the whole of the counties of Derby, Leicester, Stafford, Northampton, and Warwick were united in an association against the King.

Sir John Gell, of Hopton, at once came to the fore as the local energetic supporter of Parliamentary Government, obtaining a commission as colonel from the Earl of Essex. After rousing the county both at Chesterfield and Wirksworth, he marched with a small force to Derby, which he entered on the thirty-first of October, 1642, where he was joined by one of the leading gentlemen of the south of the shire—Sir George Gresley. It would take far more space than can here be afforded to give even the barest outline of the ups and downs of the sad civil strife that raged throughout Derbyshire, for the most part in favour of the Commonwealth, for the next few years. It must suffice to state that the county, apparently owing to its central position, suffered more in various ways, both in loss of men and property of all descriptions, than any other part of the whole of England. Wingfield Manor House, Bolsover Castle, and such great houses as Chatsworth, Tissington, Sutton, and Staveley, were held first by one side and then by the other; whilst important garrisons at places so near to the county boundaries as Welbeck, Tutbury, and Nottingham, contributed to constant raids over the parts of Derbyshire within easy reach.

In 1645 the plight of Derbyshire was most deplorable, through the frequent marches and counter-marches of the hostile forces through its limits; for, although the Parliament held its own throughout the county during the prolonged struggle, the Royalists now and again gained the victory in a skirmish, and succeeded in maintaining their hold in well-garrisoned places for a few months at a time. Both sides, also, found it essential in their campaigns to cross the county in various directions. In August of this year Sir George Gresley and others wrote to the Speaker as to the miserable condition of the county, which had been successively afflicted by the armies of Newcastle, the Queen, Prince Rupert, Goring, and others, who had freely raided from even the poorest of the people during their transits. The enemy, he stated, had lost all their Derbyshire garrisons, but they had been taken by force and at a great charge to the county. Several garrisons on the confines of the county, such as Newark, Tutbury, and Welbeck, still had power and means to levy contributions on the adjacent parts of Derbyshire, and to ruin those who denied them. Moreover, the Scotch army had been for a time very chargeable to the county, for they not only claimed free quarters, but supplied themselves with what horses they required. And now, to crown all, the King’s army had passed through, and made spoil of a great part of the county. Some of the Parliament forces had come to their help, and more were daily expected; but all of them would at least have free quarters, and the owners of the very few horses left in Derbyshire had now small hope of retaining them. The House of Commons was asked to grant them the excise of the town and county for the present maintenance of their own soldiers.