Ealing and Its Vicinity

by D. F. E. Sykes

“You do by me, and by this rod, surrender into the hands of the Lord of the Manor of Ealing, all that copyhold messuage, and this surrender you make to the use and behalf of A. B. according to the custom of the Manor.”

The history of most manors up to the time at all events of the great development of England as a mercantile power is the history of the lord of the manor. If one turns to almost any of the many histories of particular towns, it will be found that such accounts are in the main those of the fortunes of some noble family. It is inevitable that it should be so. During the early times after the complete introduction of the feudal system into this country, a town or village was a mere appanage of a Lordship. During the wars of Stephen, and in the more disastrous wars of the Roses, Manors were in the hands now of this, now of that, potent Prince or Lord.

Manors changed their lords with the political seasons. Attainders for high treason were of the commonest occurrence, and the Crown seized on forfeited lands and transferred them to new favourites. The caprices of a Court favourite, the humours of a royal mistress, the rivalries of contending houses no less than reasons of State affected the ownership of broad domains, and the faithful recorder of the growth of towns that are now great hives of industry had little to enrich his volumes save the vicissitudes of courts and the fortunes of barons of high degree. But such stories are not to be looked for in the history of Ealing. As we have said the Lordship of Ealing has reposed from time immemorial, such that the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, in the curious terminology of the law, in the Church. When all around was in seething turmoil the Church changed not. But once, in that great upheaval we call the Reformation, were the lands of mother Church much affected by imperial changes. Whether the Normans, Plantagenets, Tudors or Stuarts ruled, the Manors of the Church were, in the main, secure from the hands of sacrilege. When fierce barons were fiercest, when intestine troubles were most rife, lands in the Dead Hand were, as a rule, unmolested. And it is to this continuity of possession, this holding by a Corporation sole that never dies, this sacerdotal character of its Lordship, that Ealing owes its immunity from those storms that have raged round other and less happy fiefs. And its inland position has been again a security. It has not been exposed, as border towns have been exposed, to the raids of restless tribes or hostile neighbours. It is too far removed from the mouth of the river to make it a place of strategic importance, and though it has not escaped the tramp of armed men, it has been the scene of no memorable siege or bloody fray.

Murder Of Edmund Ironside At Brentford.

The neighbouring town of Brentford has a less happy fate, and Ealing doubtless shared to some extent in the events at Brentford. In the year 1016, Ethelred, the King, dying, the country was torn by the rival claims of Edmund Ironside and Canute. London and the parts about it declared for Edmund, the remoter counties ranging themselves with the Danish King. A sharp engagement between the hostile forces gave a temporary victory to Edmund, and the Danes fled across the Thames, many of the Saxons being, in the ardour of the pursuit, drowned in the river near where Kew Bridge now stands. Edmund did not live to reap substantial advantages from this triumph, for not long afterwards he was assassinated at Brentford. The murderer was the son of Edric Strone who had allied himself with Canute. The event is narrated by Henry de Huntingdon: “King Edmund some days after this was killed treacherously at Brentford. Thus he fell while he flourished in his Kingdom, feared and dreaded by his enemies. In the night he went in some house, where the son of Edric the leader, hid in a secret cave by the advice of his father, stabbed the King twice in the belly, and taking flight, left the knife in the viscera. Then Edric came to King Canute and saluted him, saying, ‘Hail to thee, sole King,’ and made the circumstances known to him. The King answered, ‘I am so much beholden to thee for this service, I will set thee higher than any of the English nobility.’ Therefore he caused him to be beheaded, and his head to be placed on the highest tower in London.”

Battle Of Brentford.

The vicinity of Ealing appears to have known little of the horrors of war, from the time of Canute to that of the Civil war when, on November 12th, 1642, an engagement took place at Brentford between the Royalist and Parliament forces, which though of no great magnitude was the occasion of much recrimination between the King and his disaffected subjects, as it occurred at a time when efforts, more or less sincere, were being made to accommodate the differences between the Throne and the people. Lord Clarendon in his history thus narrates the battle: “So the King marched with his whole army towards Brentford, where were two regiments of their best foot, for so they were accounted, being those who had eminently behaved themselves at Edge-Hill, having barricaded the narrow avenues of the town, and cast up some little breastworks at the most convenient places. Here a Welsh regiment of the King’s, which had been faulty at Edge-Hill recovered its honour, and assaulted the works and forced the barricades, well defended by the enemy. Then the King’s forces entered the town, after a very warm service; the chief officers, and many soldiers of the other side being killed; and they took there about five hundred prisoners, eleven colours, and fifteen pieces of cannon and good store of ammunition. But this victory, for considering the place, it might well be called so, proved not at all fortunate to his Majesty.” An officer of the King’s says of his colonel in this battle (Sir Edward Tritton,) that “it was his happy honour (assisted by God and a new piece of cannon newly come up) to drive the Roundheads from their works, where it was an heart breaking object to hear and see the miserable deaths of many goodly men; we slew a Lieutenant Colonel, two Sergeant Majors, some Captains, and other officers and soldiers there, about thirty or forty of them, and took four hundred prisoners. But what was most pitiful was, to see how many poor men ended and lost their lives, striving to save them, for they run into the Thames, and about two hundred of them, as we might judge, were there drowned by themselves, and so were guilty of their own deaths; for had they stayed and yielded up themselves, the King’s mercy is so gracious that he had spared them all.” The first blood was shed in the civil war at Edgehill, on Sunday, October 23rd, 1642, so that when the encounter took place at Brentford the young officer whose letter survives him, was fresh to the gruesome attendants of war, and it may be presumed that if he had the good luck to see its end, he was less appalled by the sights he witnessed than he seems to have been, after what was probably his baptism of fire at Brentford. However, that affair, trivial as in some aspects it appears, served unhappily to fan the flame, and of course each side was anxious to throw the responsibility for the bloodshed upon the other. Each side was anxious to say “You began it.” The Parliamentarians, as we have said, were defeated at Brentford, but they made their defeat a sort of object lesson, as we should call it nowadays, to serve to stimulate their adherents throughout the Kingdom. A commission was appointed to enquire into the alleged barbarities of the King’s forces, and their report is so amusing a specimen of special pleading that it deserves to be reproduced. It is noteworthy also that the House of Commons ordered that “The Minister of Middlesex and parts of London, do the next fast-day read in their several parish-churches the account of the sufferings of the inhabitants of Old Brentford, on the 12th and 13th of the month by his Majesties forces; and that they do exhort the people to a compassionate consideration of them.” “Compassionate consideration” is good and we may surmise that “Remember Brentford” was used in those days much as the historic phrase “Remember Mitchels-town” was used in our own. The report was as follows: “A true and perfect relation of the barbarous and cruel passages of the King’s army at Old Brainford, near London, being presented to the House of Commons by a Committee of the same house, who was sent thither on purpose to examine the bulk of the particular actions of the said Army.” “The King’s army upon Saturday, the 12th of November instant, (after his Majesty’s assent to the Treaty of Accommodation,) surprised Colonel Holles, his regiment, at Old Brainford, and after they had possessed themselves of the town, they plundered it without any respect of persons, except the home of one Brent, a Church papist (whose wife was a known popish accusant, and he suspected to give intelligence, to the King’s Army.) First they drank and wasted the beer and wines at the several inns, and other places in the towns, and such beer and wine as they could not drink, they let it down out in some cellars as deep as the middle. They also took from the inhabitants their money, linen, woollen, bedding, wearing apparel, horses, cows, wine, hens, &c., and all manner of victuals; also pewter, brass, iron pots, and kettles, and all manner of grocery, chandlery and apothecary ware, nay, such was their barbarous carriage, that many of the feather beds which they could not bear away they did cut the tales of them in pieces, and scattered the feathers about in the fields and streets; they did also cut the cords of the beds, and broke down the bedsteads; they did cut to pieces and burn the poor fishermens’ boats and nets by which they got their living, having pillaged them besides of all they ever had; they did cast beef into the dirt, which they carried not away with them; they littered their horses with wheat-sheaves; they spoiled nurseries of fruit trees of good value, and near upon three bushels of apples from one man they took away, spoiled and trampled to dirt with their horses’ feet, besides fifteen pair of sheets, his bedding, &c. They also took candles to the value of twenty pounds and upwards from one man, and burnt them all night through the army, and such as they carried not away, either they broke in pieces, or threw into the fire, or trod in the mire. Had they rested with robbing of the richer sort it had been some degree of mercy, but they left not unplundered the blind beggar at Old Brainford, taking from him and his wife their wearing apparel, linen, woollen and bedding; and the like they did to the poor almswomen in the Spittle there, and cook from them their wheel or rocks by which they got something towards a livelihood; and when they had thus plundered and taken away all the goods, except here and there a bed, they defaced some houses and set one of them on fire on purpose, as is conceived, to fire the town, which was afterwards quenched by an inhabitant. Had their wicked carriages here ended in the loss of the inhabitants’ goods without hazard of their persons, they had undergone it with more patience, but such was their inhuman behaviour, that they did set drawn swords and pistols cocked to men’s and women’s breasts, threatening them with death if they brought not out all their money, and threatening others to cut off their noses and pull out their eyes, calling them Parliament dogs, round-headed rogues, beating and wounding some of them, (one of them being a lame cripple,) taking of the inhabitants prisoners, and putting irons upon them, others they tied with ropes, and stripped some to their shirts, and as one of them who was led next day in irons towards Oatlands, stopped to take a little water in his hat to drink, they beat him and bruised him for offering to do it. Their hearts were so scared they would not extend compassion to the aged and greyheaded; for they took one grave old gentleman, above four score years of age, and put him with other of the inhabitants of the town, into the pound, where they were divers hours, and afterwards were removed into a slaughter-house, where they lay all night, it being a most nasty and noisome place; and the old gentleman being bound hand and foot together all night. They also plundered an ancient gentlewoman of about three score and ten years of age, whose age and weakness would not permit her to go to Church for these seven years last past, they took from her all her bedding, linen, pewter, &c., and even her mantle from her back, leaving her in a poor and miserable condition. Their plundering was so universal, that even divers of the richer as well as the mean sort were, and to this day are, inforced to live on the charity of the Earl of Essex and his soldiers, the Cavaliers leaving scarce a piece of bread or meat in all the town. It would pierce a heart of flint to see the tears dropping from the old men’s eyes, in expressing their sad condition; and a great addition to these cruelties was the barbarous, merciless, and unheard of usage of the Parliament soldiers by the Cavaliers; for they did put them into a pound and there tied and pinioned them together, where they so stood for many hours, some of them stripped to their shirts, others to their breeches, most without stockings or shoes, and in that condition removed to the slaughter-house, where they lay all night, and next day were dragged away over Houndslow Heath towards Oatlands, divers of them bare foot and bare leg over fur and thistles till their feet and legs did bleed, and were sorely galled. But these may be accounted acts of grace and favor in comparison to what they did to others of them; for when divers of Master Holles, his soldiers, fled into the Thames for safeguard of their lives, they shot at them as they were swimming, and divers of them were drowned.”

“They took, after the fight ended, five of the Earl of Essex his soldiers, and tied by the hands with ropes, inforced them into the river Thames, who standing in the water to their necks, casting their eyes on their enemies in hopes of mercy; but, such was the merciless condition of their adversaries, that a trooper ran in the water after them, and forced them to fall into the depth of the water, crying to them in a jeering manner, swim for your lives, when it was past all possibility to escape. Here had their barbarous carriage begun and ended in the heat of blood and revenge, had a little qualified their offence; but so full of inhumanity was their hearts, even before the fight at Old Brainford, with Colonel Holles, his regiment, that they placed ten of the Earl of Essex his soldiers, whom they had formerly taken prisoners at Kingston, pinioned in the front of their men to be as a breastwork to receive the bullets that came from Colonel Holles, his regiment, that the Cavaliers might escape them; but such was the providence of God, that not one of them was hurt, though shot in the clothes in many places, and one of the ten escaped, who was formerly a sergeant to a company in Colonel Essex, his regiment, and in the presence of divers witnesses averred the truth of this particular. And now since it appears by the prodigious acts of rapine, devastation, and tyranny, that these men delight in cruelty, and fight against their own associates, and spoil those that favour their own cause with those that oppose it, what remains but that they be taken not for such as endeavour the defence of the King, but the ruin of the Kingdom, and not as enemies of some kind of men, but as the common enemies of mankind; and, therefore, mankind should join together against them, as it was said of Ishmael, ‘His hand shall be against every man, and every man’s hand against him.’”

To this precious and characteristic document which was ordered by Parliament to be published, the King’s advisers thought it necessary to reply at length, and to that reply Parliament replied, and so for a time rebutter and surrebutter were shuttlecocked between the parties in a dispute which must end in the awful issue of civil war.

Patrick Ruthen, Earl of Forth, in Scotland, was, for his services in this action, created by Charles I, Earl of Brentford, a title which became extinct with him in 1651. In 1689 the title was revived by King William, who gave it to Duke Schomberg; Schomberg’s son, who died in 1719, was the last Earl of Brentford.