Eighteenth Century Waifs

by John Ashton

About the same time, and in another field, almost close to this borough, was discovered also, in searching for gravel, another human skeleton; but the piety of the same worthy gentleman ordered both pits to be filled up again, commendably unwilling to disturb the dead.

Is the invention[25] of these bones forgotten, then, or industriously concealed, that the discovery of those in question may appear the more singular and extraordinary? whereas, in fact, there is nothing extraordinary in it. My Lord, almost every place conceals such remains. In fields, in hills, in highway sides, and in commons lie frequent and unsuspected bones. And our present allotments for rest for the departed, is but of some centuries.

Another particular seems not to claim a little of your Lordship’s notice, and that of the gentlemen of the jury; which is, that perhaps no example occurs of more than one skeleton being found in one cell, and in the cell in question was found but one; agreeable, in this, to the peculiarity of every other known cell in Britain. Not the invention of one skeleton, then, but of two, would have appeared suspicious and uncommon.

But then, my Lord, to attempt to identify these, when even to identify living men sometimes has proved so difficult—as in the case of Perkin Warbeck and Lambert Symnel at home, and of Don Sebastian abroad—will be looked upon, perhaps, as an attempt to determine what is indeterminable. And I hope, too, it will not pass unconsidered here, where gentlemen believe with caution, think with reason, and decide with humanity, what interest the endeavour to do this is calculated to serve, in assigning proper personality to those bones, whose particular appropriation can only appear to eternal omniscience.

Permit me, my Lord, also, very humbly to remonstrate that, as human bones appear to have been the inseparable adjuncts of every cell, even any person’s naming such a place at random as containing them, in this case, shows him rather unfortunate, than conscious prescient, and that these attendants on every hermitage only accidentally concurred with this conjecture. A mere casual coincidence of words and things.

But it seems another skeleton has been discovered by some labourer, which was full as confidently averred to be Clark’s as this. My Lord, must some of the living, if it promotes some interest, be made answerable for all the bones that earth has concealed, and chance exposed! and might not a place where bones lay, be mentioned by a person by chance, as well as found by a labourer by chance? Or, is it more criminal accidentally to name where bones lie, than accidentally to find where they lie?

Here, too, is a human skull produced, which is fractured; but was this the cause or was it the consequence of death—was it owing to violence, or was it the effect of natural decay? If it was violence, was that violence before or after death? My Lord, in May, 1732, the remains of William, Lord Archbishop of this province, were taken up by permission, in this cathedral, and the bones of the skull were found broken; yet certainly he died by no violence offered to him alive, that could occasion that fracture there.

Let it be considered, my Lord, that upon the dissolution of religious houses, and the commencement of the Reformation, the ravages of those times affected the living and the dead. In search after imaginary treasures, coffins were broken up, graves and vaults broken open, monuments ransacked, and shrines demolished; your Lordship knows that these violations proceeded so far, as to occasion parliamentary authority to restrain them; and it did, about the beginning of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. I entreat your Lordship, suffer not the violence, the depredations, and the iniquities of these times to be imputed to this.

Moreover, what gentleman here is ignorant that Knaresborough had a castle, which, though How a ruin, was once considerable, both for its strength and garrison. All know it was vigorously besieged by the arms of the Parliament. At which siege, in sallies, conflicts, flights, pursuits, many fell in all the places around it; and where they fell were buried. For every place, my Lord, is burial-earth in war; and many, questionless, of these yet rest unknown, whose bones futurity shall discover.

I hope, with all imaginable submission, that what has been said will not be thought impertinent to this indictment, and that it will be far from the wisdom, the learning, and the integrity of this place to impute to the living what zeal, in its fury, may have done; what nature may have taken off, and piety interred; or what war alone may have destroyed, alone deposited.