Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Though “noe politition nor statesman,” Mr. Sitwell took a keen interest in home and foreign affairs. News books, papers of news, letters diurnal, gazettes, royal declarations and speeches, and Acts of Parliament, were constantly forwarded to him by his cousin, Ralph Franceys, who resided in London. Franceys frequented the Exchange, and the taverns and coffee-houses about it, and kept him informed of “what is said in the City”; and, in addition to the items of news thus supplied, Captain Mazine (well known by sight to all who have studied the engravings in the Duke of Newcastle’s book on horsemanship), Peter Pett, the naval commissioner, and other correspondents in London told him what they heard, and he had occasionally a “particular relation” of some important occurrence, a confirmation “by one who lives neare the Court,” or a copy of “a letter to the Mayor of Hull which a friend of myne saw.” He was thus better acquainted than most of his neighbours with what was going on in the world, and it is curious to find that in February, 1660–1, the loyal Marquess of Newcastle owed to him the first intimation of the date of the elections. “His Excellency,” writes Sir Francis Topp, the secretary, “hath commanded me to let you know that he will not expect you until your own occasions may give you the opportunity, and then you shall be very welcome. We presume you writt about the choosinge of Knights and bourgesses, which we conceave is by some directions of the Councell, for we have noe newes got here of y^e writts.”

Guest Arriving on Horseback.

The owner of the letter-book describes himself as “one of those fooles of the world who love to be busie,” and, in spite of his age, led an active and in many respects a useful life. His duty as a commissioner for the royal subsidies took him frequently to Chesterfield and Derby, and at the latter town, as became one who had served as Sheriff, he attended the Assizes, and sometimes served upon the Grand Jury. He often “waited,” either upon public or private business, or merely to “tender his service,” upon the famous Duke of Newcastle at Welbeck, the Earl of Devonshire at Hardwick, and Lord Scarsdale at Sutton, and more rarely upon Lords Deincourt, Frecheville, and Byron. On Tuesdays, when Sheffield market drew in the neighbouring gentry, he sometimes met his acquaintances at the “Angel” Inn, near the Irish Cross; and on Saturdays, as already explained, he dined at the eightpenny ordinary at Chesterfield on fish, mutton, chicken, and ale, and when dinner was over, joined his friends, Cornelius Clarke, of Norton Hall, Samuel Clarke, of Ashgate, and Mr. Watkinson, of Brampton, in the enjoyment of a game of shovel-board and a bottle of sack. He visited the fairs at Sheffield, Rotherham, and Chesterfield; rode up to London at least once a year; and at intervals paid visits of a few days to his “son Revell,” at Ogston Hall; to Doncaster, where he stayed with his daughter at Nether Hall, or with his wife’s brother, Mr. Childers, of Carr House; and to Nottingham, whence I have no doubt he ran over to see his “brother Sacheverell” at Barton. All these excursions were on horseback, and a start was made from Renishaw as early as seven o’clock in summer and eight in winter, as is shown by appointments to be at Chesterfield “before eight oth’ clock” in June, and at Whitwell “between eight and nine oth’ clock” in February. This hour, however, was not too early for letters to be written before mounting, as may be seen by one which concludes—“So breifly, for I am just putting foot into stirrop, I remaine your freind to serve you.”

There was also much local business to be attended to in Eckington and the neighbourhood. In April, 1661, just after the elections were over, Mr. Sitwell was intrusted with the proceeds of the subsidy which had been imposed upon the township for the buying of trophies, in order that he might convey it to the Sessions. A little later, being commanded upon the news of Lambert’s rising to march to Derby with whatever force could be raised, he advanced money to honest poor men his neighbours, who walked as far as Chesterfield before they learnt that their services would not be required. At another time we find him endeavouring to procure men and horses for Lord Ogle’s troop. In 1665, the bridge at Renishaw being so decayed with age that any little flood made it impassable, Mr. Sitwell applied to the Court at the Sessions for money, as it was required for the work of repair. The bridge was of stone, and approached at either end by a causeway supported upon small arches; and he supervised the rebuilding of it from the very foundations, and, partly at his own expense, made it “soe that for many generations the country will not need to be att further charge.” There is a letter to the jury in a local lawsuit, and two others, requesting the Justices to discharge or bail prisoners before trial. In January, 1663–4, when a doubt has arisen as to the proper manner of collecting hearth money in the parish, he writes to Sir Simon Degg, asking the latter to direct the constable what he is to do therein; and in December, 1665, a pauper who had been sent by warrant of two Justices from Eckington to Treeton having been returned by Sir Francis Fane, a letter is carried to Treeton by several persons who are ready to swear that the unfortunate man had no settlement in Eckington.

The owner of the letter-book had a warm and somewhat arbitrary temper, and when roused could “speak plaine English” (not, indeed, as Macaulay would have led one to expect, in oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse, uttered in the broadest accent of his province, but pure, nervous, incisive English) with force and directness. In other respects, he was a good Christian, who believed that it was the “duty of every man to be careful in the service of God,” but abhorred the cloak and the mask of pretentious piety; supported the institution of Bishops and the “decent, harmless ceremonies” of the Church of England, but “meddled not with controverted points of faith.”

In disposition, the writer was a kind-hearted man, and in spite of a great deal of public and private business, he found time to help other people in their troubles. He twice redeems a debtor out of the House of Correction at Chesterfield, and endeavours to assist him when imprisoned there for the third time. He writes on behalf of “Whittles’ boy”—“a poore ffatherless and Motherless boy, an object of pitty to move one, if not to releeve him, yet to helpe him to right from those who would doe him wrong”—to the Rector of Aston and Sir Francis Fane, begging them to hear and determine the differences between the lad and his “knavish uncles”; provides him with clothes and other necessaries, and finds money to release him from a cruel master and to keep him from starving. He sets himself to help Mr. Leigh, of Coldwell Hall, who had lately fallen into a sad condition of poverty; pays £4 in order to have a son, Joseph Leigh, apprenticed to a tailor in Sheffield, and urges another son in London to “write by the next post after this comes to you, to hould up the hartt of the ould man.” Later on, he drafts a petition on behalf of the father applying for a place in the Duke of Norfolk’s Hospital or Almshouse, at Sheffield. He urges a spendthrift husband to make a settlement of his property upon his wife, who had brought him a little fortune in marriage, and was willing upon such terms to free him from his debts and to maintain his children. He endeavours to incline to mercy the creditors of a former maidservant at Renishaw, who had married a man already deeply in debt, seeing that she was willing, in her own phrase, “to part with all they had, quick and dead, to pay theire debts, soe that they might have the freedome to beginn the world new and to live by theire labor.” It was a common practice at this time for litigants to avoid the cost and delay of a lawsuit by referring their quarrel to some neighbouring gentleman for his “doom and award,” and Mr. Sitwell, believing arbitration in such cases to be a “very charitable good worke,” both rendered such services himself, and made arrangements also on behalf of others. He was “shy of his reputation” in Derbyshire, where he was “well known in his country”; anxious to do his duty by his children, and not, as he puts it, “to bringe trouble on those I leave behinde me”; and considered the possession of a good estate carried with it “an ingagement thereby to be regardfull of the welfare of one’s Country.” It may be inferred from the use of certain phrases in the letter-book that then, as now, public spirit, truthfulness, and courtesy were considered to be the distinguishing marks of the class to which he belonged.

Such, in real life, were the Tory squires upon whose memory Lord Macaulay has heaped the coarsest epithets of a not very refined vocabulary, the falsest coin of a not very sterling rhetoric; for I have no reason to believe that the owner of the letter-book was otherwise than an average specimen of the class to which he belonged, neither better nor worse than his neighbours who sat next him at the market ordinary, discussed the Dutch War with him over a quart of sack and a pipe of tobacco at the “Redd Lyon,” or rode over to a mid-day dinner and a game of bowls at Renishaw. The impression left upon the mind by such documents as the letter-book is not one of rudeness, but rather of comfort, education, and refinement. Of the ignorance and uncouthness, the drunkenness, the pig-handling, the low habits and gross phrases, the oaths, coarse jests, and scurrilous terms of abuse, the vulgar taste which aimed at ornament, but could produce nothing but deformity, there is not a trace; and instead of meeting with “the deportment, the vocabulary, and the accent of a carter,” and the manners of “rustic millers or alehouse keepers,” we find a class of men useful in their generation, public-spirited and intellectual, courteous in their dealings with each other and compassionate towards the poor, and better judges of taste in architecture and gardening than at least one of their critics.

A Gentleman and his Servant on the Road.