Memorials of old Derbyshire

by Unknown

Wingfield Manor.
(From an Indian Ink Drawing by Colonel Machell, 7th August, 1785.)

This return, large as it was, was not, however, a complete one for the whole county, for none of the musters from the hundred of Scarsdale were allowed to be present for fear of infection. A grievous attack of the plague was then raging at Chesterfield and several of the adjacent parishes. The severity of what is termed in the parish register “the great plague of Chesterfield” may be gathered from the fact that the deaths of that town in June, 1587, were fifty-four, in July fifty-two, and yet the average deaths in Chesterfield for several years about that period were only three a month.

Although Derbyshire was perhaps further removed from the sea-coast than any other county, the threatened approach of the great Spanish Armada appears to have made almost as much stir as in the sea-board counties. The gentlemen of the county consented to greatly increase the number of lances and light-horse, provided that such action should not be taken as a precedent; and they further promised to provide an addition of 400 to the number of unmounted troops. The old earl wrote a brave letter to his sovereign, assuring her that the gentlemen of Derbyshire were both ready and well affected, and that, as for himself, the threatened invasion was making him young again, “though lame in body, yet was he lusty in heart to lead her greatest enemy one blow, and to live and die in her service.”

The signal defeat of Spain brought for some years general peace and quiet throughout the kingdom. The musters in Derbyshire and elsewhere were but rarely called out, save in the winter of 1598–9, when renewed threats from Spain caused Sir Humphrey Ferrers, the most active of the Derbyshire deputy-lieutenants, to view the musters of the various hundreds.

Quite irrespective of the part played by the general musters during this reign in preparation for possible emergencies, there was much stir and excitement in the county, accompanied, no doubt, by a great deal of misery, consequent upon the repeated call for troops to take part in the subjection of Ireland. The levies of troops for Ireland were almost ceaseless during the last quarter of the sixteenth century. It has usually been understood by historians that these raw troops came mainly from Lancashire and Cheshire; but the Belvoir manuscripts, supported by the Acts of the Privy Council and local muniments, show that Derbyshire—possibly as a compliment to her bravery—was being constantly called upon to supply men for these expeditions entirely out of proportion to the limited area and population of the county. It is not surprising to find that these forcibly impressed levies, utterly untrained in military matters, and suffering severely from poor clothing, insufficient food, the dampness of the climate, and frequent infectious disease, perished in large numbers before they could attain to any proficiency. When the Earl of Essex was granted special powers in 1573 to suppress the Irish rebellion, Derbyshire had to submit to the impressment of a hundred men, and a complaint was lodged at the sessions that some of the best lead-miners had been taken for that purpose. The whole story of these forced levies, of the difficulty of conveying them to the ports of Lancashire and Cheshire, of their frequent desertions both en route and even when they had crossed the seas, of the poorness of the weapons and equipments with which they were supplied by the swindling contractors of the day, is a most sorry and sordid tale. Nor could these Derbyshire troops have presented, even when first called out, a particularly attractive or uniform appearance, for the Belvoir manuscripts tell us that they were to be provided, in addition to convenient hose and doublet, “with a cassock of motley and other sea-green colour or russet.”

There was much nervousness with regard to Derbyshire when Elizabeth was on her deathbed, in March, 1682–3. The council were alarmed lest attempts should be made to remove Lady Arabella Stuart (who had a certain kind of claim to the throne) by violence from the custody of her grandmother, the old Countess of Shrewsbury, better known as Bess of Hardwick. They dispatched Sir Henry Brounker in haste with a warrant to all the Derbyshire lieutenants, justices, and constables, to give him all assistance in guarding Arabella, and in the suppression of every form of disorder and riot. On March 25th, Sir Henry met a large body of the deputy-lieutenants and justices at North Wingfield, a short distance from Hardwick Hall, when it was arranged that there should at present be no general view of the musters, but that the constables were to see that the armour was in readiness, and to take other precautions. But whilst they were thus debating, death removed Elizabeth, and on the following day James I. was quietly proclaimed King at Derby without any trace of remonstrance.

Early in the reign of James I. the nature of the general musters or local militia was considerably changed, but their special services were never really needed during the time he was on the throne. In 1624, when James was unhappily persuaded to give authority to the Duke of Buckingham to raise 10,000 men in England to proceed to the Palatinate, this county had some share in the general misfortune. Out of the great disorderly rabble collected by impressment at Dover, half of whom died in the overcrowded vessels from the plague ere they could even be landed, Derbyshire contributed 150 men. These troops from the centre of England were allowed 8d. a day whilst marching to Dover, and they were expected to make at least twelve miles daily. It is probable that James was at Derby in August, 1609, when making a progress from Nottingham to Tutbury Castle. He was certainly in the county towards the close of his life, during the summer progress of 1624. On August 10th the King was at Welbeck, when he knighted two Derbyshire gentlemen, Sir John Fitzherbert of Norbury, and Sir John Fitzherbert of Tissington. In the following week he stopped two nights at Derby with Prince Charles, proceeding thence in the following week to Tutbury. In the latter place he knighted Sir Edward Vernon, of Sudbury.

In no other county in the whole of England is the evidence more clear or detailed than in Derbyshire as to the ill-advised proceedings in the opening part of the reign of Charles I., which eventually brought about the misfortunes of the great Civil War. The methods of raising funds for the Crown after an irregular fashion by way of benevolences and loans, was no new invention of this ill-fated Stuart King. Such exactions, though contrary to statute, were resorted to by Henry VII. in 1491, when he took a “benevolence” from the more wealthy folk for his popular incursion into France. Henry VIII. made like cause for an “aimable graunte” in 1528 and in 1548. Elizabeth appears to have always expected and received valuable “gifts” of money or plate during her progresses, and numerous “loans” demanded and obtained from Derbyshire gentlemen by that Queen were considerable, and a frequent cause of friction when it was found that they were scarcely ever repaid. Charles I., however, was so foolishly advised as to begin his reign by pressing for definite sums, which were ridiculously termed “free gifts.” Derbyshire was practically unanimous in its refusal to the demand. The courts of four of the hundreds duly met in 1626, and declined to pay a single farthing “otherwise than by way of Parliament.” The Derbyshire justices met in session on July 18th, and forwarded to the council the answers from all the hundreds. The first signature to this reply was that of the Earl of Devonshire, and in the whole county only £20 4s. was subscribed.

Two years later the King’s consent was obtained to the Petition of Rights, and thus benevolences or forced loans were put an end to in most explicit terms. The next expedient, however, for raising money without Parliament was still more foolish. A well recognised method for getting together a navy in actual time of war, namely, by issuing ship-writs, had become established in Plantagenet days, and proved of great service to Elizabeth in resisting the Armada. There were also later precedents of 1618 and 1626, but in every one of these cases ship-writs were only served on seaports, and were never issued save for immediate warlike enterprise. The ship-writs, however, of 1634 were served when there was no war or fear of attack; and in the following year the grievance was intensified by serving writs on inland as well as maritime counties and towns. Under the writs of 1635, the small county of Derbyshire was called upon to pay the great sum of £3,500—£90 of which was to be contributed by the clergy. Many in the county actively resisted. Sir John Stanhope, of Elvaston, flatly declined to pay a farthing, was put under arrest, taken before the council in London, and his goods distrained. A third ship-writ reached Derbyshire in 1636, but the sheriff could only raise £700, and that with much difficulty. A fourth writ in October of the same year, again demanding £3,500, was served on the new sheriff, Sir John Harper. Resistance was general. The King was compelled in 1640 to summon the “Long Parliament,” which speedily declared all the late proceedings touching ship money to be illegal and void. To this the King consented; but it was too late, the mischief was done.

Charles I., in the earlier part of his reign, was on three occasions the guest of the Earl of Newcastle at Bolsover Castle. The record visit of the three was in 1633, when he was accompanied by his Queen. The entertainment, as Lord Clarendon has it, was “very prodigious and most stupendous.” The expenses for hospitality on this occasion reached the huge total of £15,000; it was during the visit that Ben Jonson’s masque of Love’s Welcome was performed.