The Early History of the Post in Grant and Farm

by James Wilson Hyde

Another postmaster, Thomas Parks, on the stage from London to Barnet, petitions Secretary Windebank to the following effect:—"Has executed that office about six years, which has stood him in £180, without any neglect, as Mr. Railton can inform you, and has received but two years' pay at the rate of 20d. per diem. Notwithstanding his diligence, Mr Witherings endeavours to bring in another, and has already taken from petitioner the through posts place of Charing Cross, which cost petitioner £63, 6s. Prays order to Witherings to deliver petitioner his orders and confirm him in his place."

David Francis, late post of Northop, petitions thus:—"There is £90 in arrear to petitioner for execution of the said place, as appears by the last account of Lord Stanhope to the Auditors. Has been three months in town soliciting payment, and received fair promises from Mr. Witherings; but now he absolutely says petitioner shall have none, so that he is like to be imprisoned. Has spent near his whole estate in coming to town to solicit for his father's arrears, who was post of Chester 60 years. Prays order to receive part with the rest who are in the privy seal, otherwise he is like to perish by the prosecution of his greedy creditors."

Richard Scott, innkeeper of Stilton, Huntingdonshire, petitions Coke and Windebank for the place of a postmaster who discharges his office by deputy. "For some years past," says he, "the place of post of Stilton, being in the high North road, has been executed by a deputy, who keeps an alehouse there, the postmaster living twelve miles distant, and his deputy no ways able to receive gentlemen and travellers, much less noblemen, whereby the posts are forced to travel at unseasonable times and are not fitted with able horses. Petitioner being an innkeeper in the town, both able and willing to give noblemen and gentlemen entertainment, prays that he may serve His Majesty in that place."

Royston, a market-town in Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire, was an important place in relation to the posts for two reasons: it was a stage not far distant from London, on the great North road, and a place of residence for the king when he retired to hunt in the neighbourhood. Now, on these two accounts there must have been frequent demands made upon the postmaster to provide horses, and, on occasions, considerable numbers of horses. We are little familiar with the demands then made for horses when the sovereign was pleased to go on progress. In Nichols' Progress of James I., it is stated that the number of carts employed when the sovereign went on progress was, about the year 1604, reduced from 600 to 220! And even when the king moved about, not in a formal progress, it is probable that large orders were given for horses. In an account of the number of post horses taken up at Royston by four o'clock in the morning of one day in February 1638, it is recorded that, from nineteen parishes, 200 horses were so taken up, each parish contributing from six to fourteen horses. That the duties of the postmaster were more than usually onerous, is recognised in the fact that he and the postmaster of Newmarket, where there was another royal hunting seat, were paid (or were supposed to be paid) on the highest scale allowed to postmasters, namely, 4s. 4d. a day, as will be seen by the list of wages previously given.

But all this levying of horses was extremely burdensome and irritating to the people, who, however, do not appear to have submitted quietly to the infliction. The following petition of eighteen inhabitants of Royston, to the Justices of Peace for the county of Hertford, shows how matters stood, and the estimation in which they held their postmaster; it refers to April 1638:—"Thomas Haggar, of their town, innholder, bearing himself so irregularly by authority of his office (as postmaster), abuses his protection, to the great grievance of the town and country: breaking open some of their doors in the night without constable; taking away their horses without their privity; extorting, bribing, beating, commanding, threatening countrymen that will not fee him, or do him service with their carts, or spend their money in tippling in his house; hindering poor men from coming to the market to sell their corn, by taking their horses post when there is no cause; causing the horses to be double posted, keeping them longer than the service requires; and misusing young colts and horses not fit for that service, whereby they are oftentimes spoiled; as also taking more horses than need requires. They state the consequences to their market, and pray relief."

With this petition the following specific cases of abuse were set forth, some of them sworn under affidavit. One John Rutter, a husbandman of Harleton, Co. Cambridge, having his horse, along with others, taken up to go post to Ware, and seeing one of the others released, "said he feared there was underhand dealing; whereupon the postmaster's wife, and afterwards the postmaster himself, violently assaulted him, so that he was forced to lie at Royston all night for his hurts to be dressed, and was compelled to go to Ware after his horse, and had to pay charges for him, being paid only for one stage, although his horse had gone two; and was much wronged thereby." The statement adds that the postmaster, and also his wife and servants, "usually take money to free horses from going post, and then take other horses to do the service." A yeoman of Croydon, Co. Cambridge, named Amps, complained of Haggar taking a horse to go post one stage from Royston, but discovered that it had been ridden to Newmarket. When the horse was returned, the postmaster refused payment; and because Amps made complaint, he found that whenever he came to Royston the postmaster was "ready to take his horse and put an unreasonable load upon him." One of the chief constables of the Hundred of Odsey, Co. Hertford, stated that, having to serve a warrant on Haggar for an assault, he compelled him to send on the packet, which means that his horse was taken to ride the post stage. The complainer adds, that "by taking money to excuse post horses, the market of Royston is much wronged." Another case of assault by Haggar and his wife upon a countryman is alleged; the grounds being that he had imputed bribery on seeing another man's horse released while his own was seized for service. Sundry other instances of misconduct and oppression are charged against the postmaster, one of which is: that four men were sent out with warrants to warn country towns to bring in horses; that in two days about 200 were summoned, but that most of them were believed to have been compounded for by the constables.

In reading this story of the proceedings of the postmaster and his wife, the comment suggests itself, that "the grey mare must have been the better horse."

On the 7th May 1638, a Mr. John Nicholas writes to his son, Mr. Edward Nicholas, to the following effect, complaining of his local postmaster:—"Edward Nicholas may do his country good, and especially that neighbourhood, who are much oppressed by the postmaster of Sarum, Roger Bedbury, the innkeeper of the Three Swans, in Sarum. Sends copy of a warrant Bedbury has procured from the Secretaries of State. By virtue thereof he sends his warrants to the constables to bring in horses furnished, and to pay for their keep, and employs them, not in His Majesty's service, but to his own benefit. Leonard Bowles, one of the constables of the Hundred of Alderbury, being required, brought in horses; and in his presence a minister, coming to the postmaster to hire horses, he delivered to the minister one of them. The constable asked the postmaster wherefore the minister rode post, imagining he was not employed in His Majesty's service, to which the postmaster answered, he rode for a benefice, as he thought. If Edward Nicholas may prevent the postmaster's knavery, prays him to do so." From an enclosure with this letter, it appears that, in issuing his warrant to the constables to send in on the 9th May "six able horses, with furniture, for His Majesty's service for two days and two nights, at the charge of the owners," the postmaster relied upon and recited a warrant from Secretaries Coke and Windebank, dated 13th February, "for sending to the postmaster ten or twelve horses from New Sarum, a six-miles' compass."

A week later, Mr. John Nicholas, finding that the prosecution of the complaint was likely to prove troublesome, declares that he will have nothing more to do with it. "Touching the postmaster," he writes, "I will meddle no further, if there be such a business in it; but let the constable, or who else finds himself wronged, follow it and inform against him. It will be good service in any that shall do it, and good for your own understanding to know the ground of the warrant, and whether the postmaster may require the owner of the horse to pay for his meat two days and two nights. It may be my own case, for the constable has been to me for a horse. I put him off with good words; but how I shall do it again, I know not; yet if it be too troublesome to you, I pray you meddle no further." Mr. John Nicholas was one of a very common type of men, who are ever ready to make a fuss over a grievance in the first instance, but who are at all times forward to draw someone else in to fight their battles for them.