Part 12

If the above refers to the celebrated Lady Mary Yate (a daughter of the house of Pakington) who is commemorated on a monument in Chaddesley Church as having died in 1696, at the age of 86, she must have been 70 years old when these precautions were taken by the Government against the poor old lady attempting to invade the country or to comfort the Pope with her presence and support. Dame Mary Yate was no doubt a Roman Catholic, and the permission above referred to was granted under the 7th section of the statute 3rd James I, chap. 5, which was virtually repealed by the statute 43rd George III, chap. 30, which exempted Roman Catholics from all the penalties and restrictions mentioned and enjoined in the older acts, if in one of the Courts at Westminster or at the Quarter Sessions they made a declaration which to them was unobjectionable.

Bridges and Highways.

Upton bridge seems to have been a nuisance to the county ever since the time of the Civil Wars, when one of its arches was destroyed for purposes of defence. Frequent complaint was made of its dilapidations, and in 1757 the Sessions ordered that a frigate should be bought "for carrying workmen, stone, and other purposes, about the said repairs." Mr. Sheward was appointed superintendent of the said bridge in 1775, at the salary of one guinea a year.

A presentment was made in 1661, that "the causeways and horse bridges leading from the city of Worcester to London, and towards the city of Gloucester, which ought, as wee humbly conceave, to be mayntayned and repaired by the Dean and Chapter, are very defective and out of repaire." About five years later the capitular body were again presented "for not repairing a certain causeway leading from a certain messuage called or known by the name of ye Three Crowns, St. Peter's, to a place called Red Hill Cross, in the said parish, and soe from thence to a place called Whitton Pound, thence to a place called Staple Cross in the parish of Norton, being the London road, and likewise one other causeway leading from the newly-erected inn called ye White House, through the parish of St. Peter's, at a place called Clarken Lipp, in the parish of Kempsey, being the road leading to Bristol." And for the third time, in 1689, the Dean and Chapter were presented "for not repairing their causeways from outside Sidbury gate to the further end of Clarkenlip, upon ye Gloster road." In the Townsend Manuscript (elsewhere alluded to) it is recorded that "by virtue of a commission dated March, 1652, out of Chancery for charitable uses, the Commissioners sat on the 12th January, 1653, and by the oaths of 12 men on the inquiry, did order and decree that the several manors and lands of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Worcester were charged by way of repriz. for the payment of £40 yearly towards the repayres of the several highways therein expressed, and should so continue for ever. The like for £106. 13s. 4d. for 40 poor schollers of the grammar school at the Colledg unto every of them four marks per annum, the high master 40 marks, the under master 10 marks, £52. 10s. per ann. towards ye releefe of ten poore old men, and £40 yerely to the poore of Worcester and St. Michael's, by 7s. 3d. in money and 7s. 8d. in bread to be distributed weekly; and it was ordered, 3 June, 10 Car., for the Clerk of the Peace to see the £40 for the Dean and Chapter to be imployed for the use of the causeys, one from Worcester to Redhill Cross, and the other towards Kempsey, and he to pay the same to the surveyors." The Dean and Chapter were liable to repair these roads _ratione tenuræ_, that is by reason of their being the owners of certain lands. These roads are now repaired by the turnpike tolls; but if the tolls became inadequate, and the Dean and Chapter were before liable to the repair, they would still continue to to be so now.

The Plague.

Redditch is stated as having been visited with this scourge in 1625, when the poor people being thrown out of work, it was ordered, under the statute of 1st James I, that Bromsgrove pay 12s. per week, Belbroughton 6s., Cofton Hackett 1s., Northfield 4s., Kingsnorton 9s., Alvechurch 5s., Beoley 6s., Feckenham 7s., Inkberrow 5s., Stoke Prior 4s., Upton Warren and Cookesey 3s. towards the relief of the said poor.

Theatres.

Were somewhat numerous in the county towards the close of the last century. It is recorded in 1789, that, "upon the application of John Boles Watson, of Cheltenham, comedian, ordered that a licence be granted for the performance of such tragedies, comedies, interludes, operas, plays, or farces, as now are or hereafter shall be acted, performed, or represented at either of the patent or licenced theatres in the city of Westminster, or shall have been submitted to the inspection of the Lord Chamberlain of the King's household for the time being, in the town of Stourbridge for the space of sixty days." William Meill, of Worcester, comedian, who in 1794 held the theatres of Worcester, Wolverhampton, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and Stourbridge, obtained similar licences for Bromsgrove and Malvern.

Compositions to the King's Household.

On the 20th of November, 1613, a certificate was sent down from Whitehall to "our very loving friends, the Justices of the Peace and compounders for the county of Worcester," which, after the usual "heartey commendations," &c., set forth that "Thomas Gunner, his Majesty's servant, under-tacker for the countie of Worcester, hath delivered for the service of his Majestie and his most hon. house, for the compost of the 11th yere of his Highnes raigne, 20 fatt oxen, 20 fatt muttons, 20 stirks, and 40 lambs, all good and serviceable, and soe wee bid you heartily farewell." There were two certificates in the year 1640--the one "that Thomas Hill, your undertaker for the composition of lambes, hath, on behalfe of the country, delivered into the office of his Majesty's Poultry at the Court, the full number of 150 lambes," due for the year ending the last day of September; and the other, for 20 fat oxen, 200 fat muttons, and 20 stirks, due for the year ending the last day of December. Nash states that the purveyance for this county in 1660 was--20 oxen, or a composition of £4 a head, to be paid June 16th; 200 muttons, or 6s. 8d. a head, paid July 10th; 150 lambs, or 1s. a head, August 15th; and 20 stirks, or 10s. a head, October 8th.

These compositions arose out of the prerogative of purveyance. Mr. John Bruce, F.S.A., in his "Verney Papers," published by the Camden Society (p. 86), says:

"The prerogative of purveyance was one of those ancient rights of sovereignty which in practice were most annoying to the people. It consisted of the power of taking, at certain fixed low prices and with or without the consent of the owner, for the use of the royal household, any provisions which an officer called a purveyor thought proper to select. With that wisdom which distinguished the government of Queen Elizabeth, we find that this ancient right was not harshly enforced, but made the subject of a clear arrangement, which avoided in practice all the heartburnings and contentions which are sure to follow from carrying out an indefinite authority."

The powers of purveyance having been suspended during the time of the Commonwealth, Charles II at his Restoration consented to resign entirely these branches of his revenue and power, and they were abolished by the statute 12th Charles II, chap. 24, Parliament granting him in lieu an excise duty on beer and ale of 15d. a barrel and a proportionate sum for other liquors. But temporary acts were subsequently passed suspending this statute in favour of the King's royal progresses, and in favour of the navy and ordnance.

Worcestershire Manuscripts.

THE DINELEY MANUSCRIPTS.

Among the valuable manuscripts in existence relating to this county are the Dineley, Jeffries, and Townsend, besides those of Dr. Prattenton, now in possession of the Society of Antiquaries. To preserve these, with a view to publication, should be an object of solicitude to all literary men of the county. The Dineley Manuscripts (now in the possession of Sir T. E. Winnington, Bart., M.P.) consist of three volumes, written between 1670 and 1680 by Thomas Dineley, Esq., a member of one of the oldest Worcestershire families. One of the volumes contains accounts of his visits to many churches in this county as also to adjacent towns and about a dozen cathedrals; pen and ink sketches of monuments, coats of arms, dresses, &c., many of them exquisitely done; copies of inscriptions, both quaint and curious; tracings of pedigrees, &c.; showing the compiler to have been a gentleman well versed in ecclesiastical antiquities, a classical scholar, acquainted with heraldry, and an accurate draughtsman. The second volume is entitled "Observations in a Voyage in the Kingdom of France, being a collection of several monuments, inscriptions, draughts of towns, &c."--date 1675; and the latter part of this volume is devoted to a similar description of Ireland, with a curious dissertation on the manners and customs of the Irish. The filthy habits of that people in the seventeenth century are treated of in rather broad language, not adapted for the present day. The third volume has the following title: "The Jovrnall of my Traveils through the Low-Countreys, Anno D'ni 1674." It appears that in December, 1671, Mr. Dineley went in the suite of "Sir G. Downing, Knt. and Bart., Ambassador from his most sacred Ma'tie to ye States Generall of the United Provinces." His journal is written in a minute but beautiful caligraphy, and denotes habits of judicious observation. In his notice of the town of Dort, in Holland, he alludes to the great abundance of salmon, and mentions a custom which I had long thought was by no means confined to our own city of Worcester: he observes, "It is sayd that prentices and maid servants, before they enter into service, indent not to be oblig'd to eat salmon above twice a week;" and in his account of the Irish (chapter on Limerick) Mr. Dineley alludes to a "salmon weire, out of town, having a castle without timber or nayle, in the middle of the river," where the custom was "to grant tickets for salmon gratis to all strangers who will eat them upon the place; this the corpora'con is obliged to, though they set it for £200 per ann." In some commonplace notes at the end of the volume is the following entry:

"Hops among other things brought into England 15 Hen. 8. wherefore this rithme--

"Turkeyes, carps, hops, pickerel, and beer, Came into England all in one year."

There is another of Mr. Dineley's volumes in the collection of the Duke of Beaufort, at Badminton; it describes a tour through Wales with the President of the Marches, an ancestor of the Duke's. It is mentioned in Blakeway's History of Shrewsbury.

THE JEFFRIES MANUSCRIPTS.

Henry Jeffries (who died in 1709), the last heir male and proprietor of the manor of Clifton-on-Teme, was a man of some learning, and left a manuscript memorandum book in which he had jotted down his own observations _de omnibus rebus_, and generally in so easy and familiar a way as to render them agreeable as well as instructive. This relic likewise belongs to Sir Thomas Winnington, one of whose ancestors married the heiress of the Jeffries family about a century and a half ago. Specimens of its multifarious contents are given in vol. ii of "The Rambler in Worcestershire," from which they appear to be invested with great local interest to the neighbourhood of Clifton, Stanford, and Shelsey, as also to the general antiquary.

DIARY OF MISTRESS JOYCE JEFFRIES.

There is also a Manuscript Diary of Miss Joyce Jeffries in the possession of Sir T. Winnington. The diary contains an account of the state of domestic life among the upper classes, during the reign of Charles I, in the counties of Worcester and Hereford, and relates to Ham Castle, in the parish of Clifton-on-Teme, where this lady resided, and the siege of the city of Hereford, where she also possessed a residence, during the calamities of civil war. It is hoped that the Manuscript will be published, and no one can be found more able for the task of editor than the Rev. J. Webb, of Tretire, near Ross, who has already published a most valuable work, of local as well as general interest, on the Household Roll of Bishop Swinfield of Hereford, of which I have given an abstract further on.

Mistress Joyce Jeffries was the half-sister of Humphrey Coningsby, Esq., of Neen Sollers, a gentleman remarkable for his chivalrous enterprise as a traveller in the reign of James I. This autograph account book embraces a period of nine years, and embodies many curious particulars bearing upon the events, persons, and manners of the age, also setting forth the writer as the representative of a class now only to be seen in family pictures of the time. She lived unmarried, had an income of more than £500 per annum, in the expenditure of which she was very generous. Her dress was costly; she employed false curls and curling irons, wore many rings, used spectacles, and carried a whistle suspended at her girdle by a yard of loop black lace--probably for a little dog. A Cypress cat was given her by the Lady Dansey of Brinsop, and she kept a throstle in a twiggen cage. She had many god-children, to one of whom (Mistress Eliza Acton) she gave £800 as a marriage portion. Madam Jeffries kept several servants, and went abroad in a coach drawn by two mares. She was very observant of the festivals and ceremonies of the church, and contributed to the wassell of the hinds when they lighted their twelve fires, and made the fields resound with their revelry; and on Valentine's Day gave Tom Aston, Dick Gravell, or any other male, a present in money for coming to be her Valentine. She sent the mayor a present of ten shillings on his law-day, and on one occasion dined with him, when the waits were in attendance, to whom she gave money; and she was generous to travelling minstrels and showmen, as "to a boy that did sing like a blackbird," "to Cherlickcombe and his jackanapes," and "to a man that had the dancing horse at the Hereford Midsummer fair." As to what befell her in the troubled time of the Civil War, the book passes from the year 1638 to the end of 1647, during which England toiled and suffered under intestine strife. No county was more loyal to the royal cause than that of Hereford. In 1638, Mrs. Jeffries pays ship-money and another impost called "the king's provision," and finds a soldier for her property in Hereford and elsewhere. In 1641 she purchases pamphlets and news-books and takes an interest in passing political events. In September, 1642, when the Earl of Essex entered Worcester, and sent the Earl of Stamford to occupy Hereford, she quitted her town house and went to Garnons, the residence of Mr. Geers, a few miles distant, thinking she would be there in security; but in the plundering which took place by the Earl of Stamford's soldiers, immediately upon their arrival, the house of Mr. Geers was visited and pilfered by Captain Hammond, who carried off much goods, including her two bay coach mares. At the same time she had other property secreted and saved in other places. The Parliamentarians having left the city in December, it was reoccupied by the Royalists, and her friend and cousin, Fitzwilliam Coningsby, was made Governor; when, besides her regular assessment, she sent him a present of £50 to pay his soldiers, and a bullock worth £6. In the spring of 1643 he marched with the rest of the commissioners of the county and the Herefordshire levies to join the little army of Lord Herbert of Raglan, at Highnam near Gloucester, where they were all captured by Sir William Waller. Hereford continued unmolested till the month of April, and Mistress Jeffries returned for a few days to her house, but the report of the Parliamentarians coming once more to assail the city under the command of that general drove her once more to her retreat. Her house at Widemarsh Gate suffered during his attack on the city, but she remained in quiet at Garnons until April, 1644. As the county was now seriously disturbed by the contending parties she suddenly took flight again, visiting Hereford for the last time, and carrying off her trunks and chests and servants to Ham Castle, the seat of her cousin Jeffries, on the banks of the Teme, on the edge of the county of Worcester. Soldiers were still quartered in her house at Hereford, and she pays for work done in making bulwarks to defend the city. At length, in 1645, when the whole of the suburbs were laid bare up to the walls by order of the governor, Colonel Barnabas Scudamore, her new house and several others her property without Widemarsh Gate were pulled down. She takes this as a matter of course, without comment upon the hardship of the proceeding, and upon all occasions shows a cheerful and contented mind. In many other respects she felt the effects of the war, and symptoms of them frequently appear in her accounts. She contributed to the lecturers introduced into the churches; her cousin's child was "baptised after the new directory;" and the committee men laid their hands on her property and straitened her means, though she still persevered in the unwearied exercise of humanity and in bestowing her charity on others. As she advances in years her accounts exhibit a trait or two of her approaching infirmities: she loses various small articles of value--spectacles and rings, which her servants find and bring to her, and are rewarded accordingly; and the recurrence of this excites some suspicion of their knavery. The death of her cousin Herbert Jeffries, at Ham Castle, in consequence of his breaking his leg, disturbed her tranquillity, and is described with melancholy minuteness. Age seems to have neither abated her generous feeling nor the ardour of her domestic affections. She was always interested in those events which usually bring joy to families and occasional entries in our parochial registers. The union of Miss Acton, her goddaughter, with Mr. Francis Geers, and a christening that took place at Ham Castle a very short time before her death (the child receiving her own Christian name), was to her a source of infinite pleasure. She went on, "giving" to some and "forgiving" others, to the close of her beneficent career. She died in April, 1648, and was buried in the chancel of the parish church of Clifton-on-Teme, where her memory is still revered by those to whom her existence and character are known.

THE TOWNSEND MANUSCRIPTS.

One of the Townsend Manuscripts is in the possession of Mr. G. E. Roberts, of Kidderminster. It is an interleaved copy of "The Compleat Justice. London, 1661," in octavo; and consists of 420 pages letterpress, and 470 in manuscript. It is well bound in calf, with initials of the Knight ("H. T.") impressed on sides, and autograph on fly-leaf. Sir Henry's aim may have been to render it a book of legal reference, as upon one of the first leaves he gives a key to a great part of the Manuscript in a list of authorities quoted. But amongst them exists much matter of a more interesting nature. The following list of the more valuable mems. will afford an idea of their character.

"1. Orders at Quarter Sessions for the raising of monies for the repair of Worcester after the battle, 13th Jan., 1651.

"2. Sundry criminal cases tried at Sessions, between 1651 and 1662.

"3. Laws respecting 'Alehowses consented to, vpon presentmt of ye Grand Jury,' within the county, 1660.

"4. Limitation of 'Alehowses' within the county, 1649; with lists of 'ye certeyn number allowed.'

"5. Forms of binding 'Apprentizes to Husbandry,' 1650.

"6. Copies of Royal proclamation:--17 Jan. 1660, 12 Car. 2. Commanding all officers to forbear seizing arms or other munitions without warrant.--26 April, 1662, 14, Car. 2. Setting rates for all provisions sold within the limits of the Court.--29 Jan., 1660. Forbidding the eating of flesh in Lent, and all other fish days.--17 Jan. 1662. The same.--16 Aug., 1661. Limiting the number of horses in carriers' waggons.--29 Sept., 1662. The same.--19 April, 1661. Against seamen serving foreign Princes.--13 Aug., 1660. Against duels.--30 Dec., 1661. For the better discovering of thefts, offering rewards of knowledge of the offenders.--9 May, 1661. To put in execution an old statute, for the relief of the poor.--30 May, 1660. Against profanity.--No date. Against the planting of tobacco. (With orders of Sessions respecting it, 1662.)--16 Jan. 1660. Authorising search for seditious papers.--10 Jan., 1660. Forbidding seditious meetings.

"7. Mems. on the Act of Oblivion, 1660, also notes from Sir E. Hyde's speech thereon.

"8. Orders of Court respecting bridges at Tenbury, Knightsford, Home, Stanford, 'Stone bridg in Alfric,' and Haford; also, the parishes of Hartlebury, Lindridge, and Wolverley exempted from county payments towards repair of bridges.

"9. 'My Lord Couentry's Letter to ye Justices of ye County, concerning Certificats about fyre,' 1661.

"10. Heads of the Act of Uniformity, 1662.

"11. Charges of Sir Waddem Wyndham and Sir Robert Hyde, at Worcester and Gloucester Assizes. (Many.)

"12. Order of Sessions, 3 Jan., 1660. That all cottages erected in the time of the late wars be plucked down.

"13. Table of fees agreed on, Worcester Sessions, 15 April, 9 Car., for Clerk of Assize; also fees for Clerk of the Peace, 1662.

"14. Orders and mems. respecting the County Gaol, 1660.

"15. Inquiry by a Royal Commission into the Cathedral School at Worcester, 1653; and results in detail.

"16. Orders of Sessions respecting the New House of Correction, 1659, and against making of malt within the county, 6th Car. 2.

"17. Orders respecting the pensions of the Muster Master and Provost Marshall, 1660.

"18. Punishment of Quakers at Sessions, 1661.

"19. Orders of the King's Majesty, made 1636, concerning the plague.

"20. Orders of Sessions respecting the poor people of this county.

"21. Charges of Mr. Baron Atkins, Worcester, 1683-4.

"22. Orders of Sessions for payments to wounded soldiers, 1651. (Many.)

"23. Heads of the charges delivered by Bp. Gauden, Worcester, 1662.

"24. Interesting notes on witchcraft, and trial of witches."

The original Diary of Mr. Henry Townsend, of Elmley Court, Worcestershire, for 1640-2, 1656-61, is in the possession of Sir T. Phillipps, Bart., and has been recommended to the Camden Society to be edited by Mrs. Mary Ann Everett Green, whose intention, I believe, it is to do so this year (1856).

VACARIUS' ROMAN LAW.