only a colonel; but, to quote two words from the Latin inscription, he was then an instance of “celata virtus,” his future greatness not yet known; and the epitaph, of course inscribed afterwards, is a slight solecism, and we may here venture to make the remark that this monument is now itself a further instance of “celata virtus,” for it is placed in a position where no light falls upon it, and the writer actually looked at it recently without recognising what it was. On the wall between nave and chancel, on the south side, is a small stone bearing the names of Thomas Gibson, Vicar; John Hamerton and John Goake, Church-wardens, 1675. Walker, in his “Sufferings of the Clergy” (1714), gives an account of this Vicar, which is here abridged. Born at Keswick, educated at Queen’s College, Oxford, he was appointed Master of the Free School at Carlisle; thence to that of Newcastle, and preferred by the Bishop of Carlisle to the Vicarage in 1634. In consequence of a sermon preached by him, at the election for convocation, he was seized, in 1643, and carried as a prisoner to Hull. Being released, after four months’ detention, and returning to Horncastle, he was charged with teaching “Ormanism” (Arminianism), and committed to the “county jayl” at Lincoln, and a Presbyterian minister appointed in his stead at Horncastle. In 1644, Colonel King, the governor of Boston, ordered a party of horse to seize him (he apparently having been released from Lincoln) and to plunder his house, but an old pupil, Lieut.-Colonel John Lillburn, interceded for him with his superior officer, Col. King, and the order was revoked; on Lillburn, however, presently going to London, the order was repeated, and Mr. Gibson was made prisoner, his house plundered, and his saddle horse, draught horses, and oxen, taken from him. He was imprisoned at Boston, then in Lincoln, and in “Tattors-Hall-Castle, where he had very ill usage for 17 weeks.” He was sequestered from his living, and an “intruder,” one Obadiah How, put in charge. He was now accused by the Puritans of obeying the orders of the Church, defending episcopacy, refusing “the covenant,” etc. He retired “to a mean house,” about a mile from Horncastle (supposed to be at Nether (Low) Toynton), where he and his family “lived but poorly for two years, teaching a few pupils.” He was then made master of the free school at Newark; two years later removed to the school at Sleaford, being presented by Lady Carr.
There he lived until the Restoration, and then resumed his Vicarage at Horncastle, until he died, in 1674, aged 84. “He was a grave and Venerable Person, of a Sober and Regular conversation, and so studious of peace, that when any Differences arose in his Parish, he never rested till he had Composed them. He had likewise so well Principled his Parish, that of 250 families in it, he left but one of them Dissenters at his Death.” [192a] There is an inscription painted on the south wall of the chancel, with gilt and coloured border, commemorative of this worthy Vicar, which truly states that he “lived in times when truth to the Church and loyalty to the King met with punishment due only to the worst of crimes.” The church of St. Mary is not named in Domesday Book, and probably at that time no church existed on this site. But in the Record of an Inquisition post mortem, taken at Horncastle, Jan. 21st, 1384–5, Richard II., it is stated that the King gave to a certain Gilbert, Prior of Wyllesforth, and his successors, two messuages, &c., and the site of the Chapel of St. Lawrence, with appurtenances, in Horncastre, on condition that “they find a fit chaplain to celebrate mass in the chapel aforesaid, three days in every week.” [192b] This chapel probably stood in or near the street running northward out of the Market place, and called St. Lawrence street, near which bodies have been exhumed at different times. When the clump of shops were cleared away in 1892, to make the present Market place, through the liberality of the late Right Hon. Edward Stanhope, several large fragments of Norman pillars were found, which probably once belonged to the old Norman chapel. [193c] St. Lawrence is the Patron Saint of Horncastle; and as he was martyred on a brander, or gridiron, the arms of the town are a Gridiron. The “canting” device of a castle on a horn has no very ancient authority. The “pancake bell” is rung on Shrove Tuesday, at 10 a.m.; the Curfew at 8 p.m. from Oct. 11 to April 6, except Saturdays at 7 p.m., and omitting from St. Thomas’s Day to Plough Monday. The Grammar School bell used to be rung, and the writer has often assisted, as a boy, in ringing it at 7 a.m.; but it has been given up of late years,
as the governors of the school declined to pay far it.
In one of the Parish Registers appears the following entry:—“On the Vth daie of October one thousand six hundred & three, in the first yeare of our Souvraine Lord King James was holden in Horncastle Church a solemn fast from eight in the morning until foure a clock in the afternoone by five preachers, vidiz. Mr. Hollinhedge, vicar of Horncastle, Mr. Turner of Edlington, Mr. Downe of Lusbye, Mr. Phillipe of Salmonbye, Mr. Tanzey of Hagworthingha’, occasioned by a general and most feareful plague yt yeare in sundrie places of this land, but especially upon the cytie of London. Pr. me Clementen Whitelock.” A Record at the Rolls Court states that Horncastle Church was resorted to by a robber for the purpose of Sanctuary, as follows:—“22 August 1229. The King (at Windsor) commands the Sheriff of Lincolnshire (Radulphus filius Reginald) to send two coroners of the county to see that a robber who keeps himself in the Church of Horncastle, abjures the kingdom.” [193] Among some MS. Records in the possession of Mr. John Overton, I find it stated that in December, 1812, the vestry room was broken open and robbed of all the money, and other valuables; and that £50 reward was offered by the Vestry for the discovery of the culprits.
Although the Manor of Horncastle was at more than one period Royal property, it has only once, so far as we know, been visited by Royalty. Leland states that “in the year of our Lord 1406, on the 12th of September, on
Saturday at 6 o’clock, Henry (IV.) by the grace of God, King of England, came from the town of Horncastle, to the Abbey of Bardney, with a great and honourable company on horseback”; and that “the Abbot and Convent of the aforesaid Monastery went out to meet him in procession at the outer gates.” [194a] We have no further known record of this visit; but as Henry IV. was the son of John of Gaunt, and born at Bolingbroke, we may assume that he passed through Horncastle on his way from Bolingbroke to the palace of his father at Lincoln, and that John of Gaunt’s stables, still standing at the present day in the High street of that city, sheltered the steeds of the company at the end of their journey. Doubtless he adjourned a night, if not more, at Horncastle, and the loyal old town, probably headed by the Champion Dymoke of the day, would give him as hearty a welcome as that which awaited him from the abbot and monks at Bardney.
Two or three more short remarks may be made about Horncastle. When Sir Ingram Hopton, whose tablet we have mentioned as being in the church, was slain at Winceby, the body, by Cromwell’s order, was brought to Horncastle for burial. It was placed in the house, or, rather, a previous house on the same site, in West Street, now named Cromwell House; and it is said, on what authority we do not know, that Cromwell himself came to Horncastle, that he might personally instruct the churchwarden, Mr. Hamerton, that the opponent, whom he pronounced to be “a brave gentleman,” should be properly honoured in his obsequies. [194b]
A house at the south-west corner of the market place, where Mr. R. W. Clitherow, solicitor, now lives, was formerly a public-house, but was burnt down and the present one erected. At this house, then occupied by Mr. Sellwood, solicitor, Sir John Franklin visited, and was entertained at a public dinner, a few days before
he set out, in 1844, on his final Arctic expedition; and the writer remembers his father going to attend this dinner.
We have said that, 100 years ago, almost every house was thatched. A record in Mr. Overton’s possession states that the two first slate-roofed houses in the town were one built by Mr. Storr, a gardener, afterwards occupied by Mrs. L’Oste, widow of the Rev. C. L’Oste, rector of Langton, and now occupied by Dr. Howes; and the house of Mr. Titus Overton, now occupied by Mr. John Overton, being erected in 1793.