In the second Civil War of 1648 Lincolnshire took little part. Early in June an attempt was made by Michael Hudson, rector of Uffington—the chaplain who had guided the King in disguise through the eastern counties—to raise a Royalist force. Accompanied by Stiles, the Crowland parson, he occupied Woodcroft House, near Stamford, where he was soon besieged. On the surrender of the place he was denied quarter, and, having been thrown into the moat, was “barbarously knocked on the head.” A more serious rising took place at the end of the month. A body of Cavaliers from Pontefract, 600 strong, entered the Isle of Axholme and pushed on to Lincoln, where they doubtless hoped to find arms and ammunition, but the magazine had been removed to Hull. After plundering the houses of the chief Parliamentarians, they attacked the Bishop’s Palace, whither the little garrison of a hundred had retired, and reduced it in three hours; they then wrecked and burnt the building, leaving it in ruins. But their commander, Sir Philip Monkton, found it impossible to hold the town, and on July 4 his force was defeated and dispersed near Nottingham by Colonel Rossiter, who commanded for the Parliament in Lincolnshire.
At the outset of the struggle the feeling of Lindsey inclined towards the King; but the insecurity produced by the constant forays from Newark turned the balance the other way. Holland and Kesteven, especially the fen district, supported the Parliament. The nobility and gentry were about evenly divided. Of the two chief peers, Montagu Bertie, second Earl of Lindsey, followed the King through all his misfortunes, and was one of the few who attended his funeral; Theophilus Clinton, Earl of Lincoln, who held Tattershall Castle for the Parliament throughout the war, changed sides, like Lord Willoughby, in 1647, and with him was impeached and thrown into the Tower, when the Independents gained the upper hand. Of the principal county families (besides those already mentioned), the Dymokes, Heneages, Husseys, Nevilles, Skipwiths, and Thorolds were for the King; the Brownlows, Fitzwilliams, Massingberds, Nelthorpes, Trollopes, and Whichcotes for the Parliament; and the Andersons, Cholmeleys, Harringtons, Listers, and Pelhams were divided. According to one list,[130] the number of persons in the county compounding for their estates was 180, and the total amount of their compositions was £80,800. This, however, does not include the sums set aside for the maintenance of ministers in parishes where the compounder possessed an impropriation. In some instances where the composition-fine could not be paid in full, the estates were either let or sold outright to some supporter of the Parliament at a ruinous loss. This happened to the estates of the Earl of Lindsey near Alford; his mansion and lands at Belleau were sold below their value to Sir Harry Vane the younger, who was residing there in 1655, when he was sent for by Cromwell and imprisoned in Carisbrooke Castle. Nor was it only persons of influence and large holders of property who were subject to fine. Anthony Gurley of the Close, Lincoln, had to pay £1, which was assessed upon “his books and apparel.” Sutton Dalton, who had some landed property, was fined £100 for spending only two days in Newark garrison. Sir William Clarke, of North Scarle, used to go to Newark on market-days, and for this offence was imprisoned for six months and had to pay £21. Of the seven Associated Counties, Lincolnshire, which had suffered the most heavily by the war, contributed to the Treasury by far the greatest sum in fines inflicted upon Royalist estates.
The Church history of the county would require a separate chapter; but much of the material has been lost beyond recall. When Walker was compiling his “Sufferings of the Clergy,” in Anne’s reign, he could not get proper returns from Lincolnshire; and the number of ejected clergy which he gives (37) must be far below the true figure. Bishop and Dean-and-Chapter had been abolished in November 1643, and the cathedral was served by a Sunday-lecturer, who, though he may have been episcopally ordained, yet in sympathy, like Hudibras,
“Was Presbyterian true blue.”
In 1644 the Earl of Manchester, who presided over a commission for purging the Association of “scandalous” ministers, appointed committees for the separate counties; but the minutes of the Lincolnshire Committee have not survived; perhaps they were not kept; for the business was done by sub-committees of five, who would not allow the accused clergyman to be present “lest it should discourage the witnesses,” and made him pay even for a copy of the depositions. The clergy of Stamford were all deprived for Royalism; and when Paul Prestland, the rector of Market Deeping, fled to avoid arrest, his wife and children had to spend many months first in a barn and then in the belfry of the church. Thomas Gibson, vicar of Horncastle, a man of exemplary piety, was imprisoned five times, once spending four months in Tattershall Castle, and on his release had to maintain himself by teaching. Several clergy were ejected simply for going to His Majesty’s garrisons; against one, the rector of Hykeham, it was even made a charge that he had by him many copies of the Oxford “Aulicus” gazette. Some were deprived for using the prayer book, or complying strictly with its directions; the rector of Hareby lost his living for “preaching but seldom, and not being above half-an-hour in the pulpit, and having no books.” Though many of the clergy must have taken the Covenant, there is little trace that the Presbyterian “Classis” system was ever adopted within the county. In fact, the ease with which Anglicanism was restored, after eighteen years of persecution, is strong proof that even the most Puritan districts were weary of ecclesiastical chaos.
DODDINGTON HALL
By Rev. R. E. G. Cole, M.A.
Some six miles to the south-west of Lincoln, well within view of the great Minster on its sovereign hill, but on the very border of Nottinghamshire, stands the little village of Doddington, otherwise Doddington-Pigot, situated on the slightly rising ground which here forms the watershed between the valleys of the Witham and the Trent. Its most notable feature is the Elizabethan mansion, known as Doddington Hall, which is the more prominent, inasmuch as it is not secluded in any surrounding park, but stands guarded only by its own picturesque gate-house, in close and friendly proximity to church, and rectory, and village.
Needless to say, the place had a long history before the present Hall was built. Already at the time of the Domesday Survey it had its church and priest, and its manor had been given by Ailric, its owner in Edward the Confessor’s reign, as an endowment to the newly built Abbey of Westminster. Mention is especially made of the woodland, which still is such a feature of the place, and which then formed an unbroken tract, a mile and a half in length, and half a mile in breadth. No other property was held by the Abbey in Lincolnshire, and doubtless the distance made its personal management by the Abbot and convent difficult and inconvenient. At all events, from very early times the manor was held under them, for a fee-farm rent of £12 per annum, by the knightly family of Pigot, whose long tenure, lasting for some ten generations, attached their name to that of the place, to distinguish it from the several other parishes so-called. Even so, difficulties at times arose; and in 1303 the Abbot had to make complaint in the King’s courts that Sir Baldwin Pigot had failed to render the customary rents and services, and that when he caused his beasts at Doddington to be seized, the knight and his men had rescued them and assaulted the Abbot’s servants. As a rule, however, this fixed rent of £12 continued to be paid by successive tenants to the monastery until the Dissolution. It then passed into possession of the Crown; in 1661 it was sold with other Crown rents by Charles II. to Sir Edmund Turnor, and from his direct descendant it was redeemed by the late owner of Doddington in 1860, after a continuous payment of some 700 years.