Will you have a cup of tea, Father?

From Thomas Scot’s account of his role as intelligencer for the Council of State in the early 1650s, describing his network of spies and agents:

For France there was one who went by the name of N. N., who had for a long time before (as I understood from Mr Frost) given Intelligence to the Committee of both Kingdomes, and after to the Committee of safety at Derby House, which I saw was satisfactorie, but when the King came thither wee added, and by the meanes of Father Creely an Irish Abbott, knowne here by the name of Capt. Holland, got something more in relation to his Maties affaires and from about ye Queene his Mothers Court.

Is it wrong that when I read about Father Creely I immediately thought of his modern-day counterpart?

Things noted

Too immersed in dissertation angst at the moment to post much – only 4,000 words to go! – but in the meantime here are some blog posts that have caught my eye recently:

• The latest History Carnival at Airminded.
• An ancient/medieval edition of Carnivalesque at Food History.
• Archaeastronomy on Herodotus and the shape of the world.
• Bookn3rd on the Gild Book of the Barber-Surgeons of York.
• Early Modern Whale on bees.
• A Historian’s Craft on using newspapers as sources. This prompted various thoughts, given my current immersion in 1650s newsbooks, which I will try to write up at some point…

News networks

A snippet on how far newsbooks were distributed in the late 1640s:

Coventry December 15. The last Post here was intercepted a Packet of scandalous Books that were going to Lincoln, there was amongst them some book entituled, The Character of King Cromwell, The Woodstock Scuffle, and The Man in the Moon. They are very base and scandalous things, it is  a very great pity that there is no way to suppresse them, the are very prejudiciall to the Common-Wealth.

From the Perfect Diurnall, 2 (17-24 December 1649), BL, TT, E.533[31], p. 15.

The Man in the Moon was of course John Crouch’s excoriating newsbook. The Character of King Cromwell doesn’t seem to have survived, but was presumably in a similar vein to the wide variety of short, single-sheet quarto satires on Cromwell that were starting to emerge at this time. The Woodstock Scuffle is a fun doggerel poem about Sir Richard Croke and other commissioners appointed to sell Charles I’s lands being harrassed by poltergeists. It includes an attempt to crowbar in the following rhyme:

But no intreaty of his friends

Could get him to the house of fiends

He came not over for such ends

From Dutch land

But worse divinity hee brought

And hath us reformation taught

And with our money he hath bought

Him much land

Bad poetry or not, I like the idea of a seditious "care package" being put together in London for beleaguered royalists in the Midlands.

In other news: it is 1.30am on a work night, and I have just passed the 10,000 word mark on my dissertation.

John Morrill on revolt in the provinces

John Morrill will be giving the Victoria County History’s Marc Fitch Lecture on 6 July 2009, on “The British Revolution in the English Provinces, 1640-9″. It’s at 6.30pm in the Clore Management Centre at Birkbeck. [via]

Mr Barrington’s gelding

I’m in the midst of writing up my dissertation, hence the lack of posts in recent weeks. Most recently I’ve been going through issues of Severall Proceedings in Parliament, a newsbook set up in October 1649 under the auspices of the Commonwealth’s new licensing act. It was licensed by Henry Scobell, the clerk to the Commons, and edited by Henry Walker. In issue 9, in amongst material on the war in Ireland and reports on parliamentary legislation, is this:

Last Sunday night was lost a large Dapple grey Gelding, that paces and Trots with heat in his feet, who before had lost a dark Grey trotting mare, wall eyed, a ban[...] face, 5 years old. And a Flea-bitten grey Gelding, that paces and trots of 18 years. Mr Barrington of Colchester will give content to any that shall help him to the knowledge of them.

Walker had a habit of dropping obscure small ads into the midst of high political news, but even so I had to stifle a laugh when I read this.

Mr Barrington is, I think, Henry Barrington who was from one of Colchester’s longstanding elite families. His wealth came from brewing; he was mayor of the town in 1631, 1641, 1648 and 1658. He was an Independent who clashed with more moderate Presbyterians over government of the town. In 1653 he would go on to sit in Barebone’s Parliament.

I’ve had a look through the Essex assize records and the case never came to trial. So it’s not clear whether whether Mr Barrington ever did get his gelding back. What the records did reveal is that gelding theft seems to have been to mid-seventeenth century Essex as bike theft is to early twenty-first century Cambridge – that is to say, completely endemic. Here are all the cases of gelding thefts heard at one assizes session in Chelmsford on 26 July 1649:

• 10 April 1649. Indictment of Thomas Albrett of Billericay labourer there stole a bay gelding worth £5, belonging to Thomas Cordwell. Pleads not guilty; guilty; to be hanged, reprieved after judgement. Witnesses: Thomas Cordwell, Edras Humfrey. (ASS 35/90/7/23)

• 10 May 1649. Indictment of Edward Smith of Feering labourer, there stole a bay gelding worth £15, belonging to William Mihill. Ignoramus. Witness: William Mihill (ASS 35/90/7/57)

• Indictment of William Barnes alias Avis Playse (sic) of Little Baddow labourer, 1 June 22 Chas.I, there stole a fleabitten gelding worth £5, belonging to William Meade. Ignoramus. Witness: William Meade. (ASS 35/90/7/50)

• 24 June 1649. Indictment of William Markes of Beaumont labourer there stole a “yellow bony” gelding worth £8, belonging to James Heard. Pleads not guilty; not guilty. Witnesses. James Heard, Edward Cole. (ASS 35/90/7/41)

• 3 July 1649. Indictment of John Rutter and William Baily of Barking, labourers, there stole a abay gelding worth £3, belonging to the same Henry. Pleads not guilty; both acquitted. Witness: John Savidge. (ASS 35/90/7/12)

• Indictment of John Archer of “Walden” labourer, 11 July, at “Hallingbury’ stole a grey gelding worth £8, belonging to Geo, King gentleman Pleads not guilty; not guilty. Witnesses: George King, Roger Smith. (ASS 35/90/7/20)

Horse theft increased significantly during the civil wars, for obvious reasons. But even in times of relative peace it could have significant profits. In the 1590s, a ‘flea-bitten ambling gelding’ could fetch over £3. As the records above attest, typically thieves were labourers down on their luck, although there is some evidence of organised gangs operating sophisticated enterprises, with stolen horses taken outside the county and sold elsewhere. But Barrington also attracted significant criticism from the Presbyterian minority in Colchester, so it’s possible there were more personal reasons at play in the theft of his horse.