Bygone Derbyshire (Tales From Antiquaria Episode)

Hi listeners! I am aware that quite a few folks are still listening to The Local Mythstorian Podcast (great to see) and so I wanted to pop an episode of my Tales From Antiquaria podcast out here, with one eye on the future, and see how it goes down. Hope you enjoy!

BYGONE DERBYSHIRE

Divine intervention, low moral tones and the King of England! Welcome to Bygone Derbyshire, the 1892 work by William Andrews.

'The old judicial superstitions that the wounds of a murdered man shed forth fresh gore at the touch of the murderer, doubtless terrified many a guilty wretch into the confession of his crime'.

Tales From Antiquaria is a podcast dedicated to exploring the legacy of work published regarding folklore and local history during the golden age of antiquarian writing in the nineteenth century.

For show notes and links, visit talesfromantiquaria.com

Episode written, produced and presented by Eli Lewis-Lycett. All source material taken directly from the stated publication. Main theme music by Humanoid Media. Incidental music from Restum-Anoush. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Divine Intervention, Low Moral Tones, and the King of England. My name is Eli, and this is Tales from Antiquaria. This is episode three, William Andrews' 1892 collection, Bygone Derbyshire. Born in Nottinghamshire in 1848, Andrews would later move to Hull and in 1879 founded the Hull Literary Club. He was a writer who produced a large number of publications during the late 19th century. This one being published in 1892 by his own publishing firm, William Andrews Co. And I suspect we'll be coming across William again in the future, as this Derbyshire collection is one of a broader bygone series that he produced. But this one in particular seems to have been closer to his heart than most, and in the preface he writes of how the editing of this volume has been a labour of love, recalling happy memories of the past. It's more than 25 years since I resided in Derbyshire, and made myself familiar with its historic byways and highways. I have continued my studies of its old time law since I left the county, never missing an opportunity of obtaining a local work and making a note of matters I deemed of interest and importance, and in the following pages will be found the results of some of my gleanings. There's a certain sense of romance from the tales is included in the collection, in that a lot of them have a theme of love or rather lost love at their core, plenty of lost tradition too. So sit back and let's explore William Andrews' Bygone Derbyshire The Romance of Haddon Hall In the chequered but not inglorious day when Our Lady Elizabeth ruled the broad realm of England, Sir George Vernon, gentleman of the old faith, reigned at Haddon Hall, a place where he had two fair daughters, Margaret and Dorothy, and they contributed to the happiness, perchance also to the anxieties of the good knight. Sorrow had entered deeply into the strong man's life, and the bond of gentle years he had been served by the angel of death when his dear girls were deprived of the tender, caring, guiding wisdom of a mother. Time healed the wounded spirit, and Sir George, prompted by love or ambition, took to himself a second wife, the proud and ambitious Dame Maude. The lady bore him several fair sons, but none reached the careless happy age of boyhood to cheer the worthy knight's heart as he rode forth with hawk and hound by mere and wood. Proud hopes rose high, only to wither and pass away, but the two fair girls throve and grew up into gentle womanhood. But alas, for true love's errant course, sweet mistress Dorothy, gentlest and fairest of the sisters, attracted the attention of the handsome and courtly John Manners. Very soon there was trouble in Haddon Hall. A younger son of the Earl of Rutland was surely no match for Dorothy Vernon, coheress with her sister to the great wealth and thirty manners of Sir George. The good knight, whose heart was wrapped in his fair daughter, his Winsome Doll, might have succumbed to the pleading of bright eyes and the persuasive pressure of sweet lips, but Dame Maude was above such weakness, and John Manners was mortified by a cold rejection of his suit, although he was happily conscious that he had won the heart of the damsel. Margaret the eldest sister was betrothed to Sir Thomas Stanley, son of the Earl of Derby, a suitable match highly approved by her haughty stepmother. To add to the perplexity of the fair Dorothy, another of the Stanleys came a wooing, and it really appeared inevitable that John Manners must lose a fair and loving wife, and that the obtrusive Stanley must take his chance with the cold heart and cold hand of an unwilling bride. But less indeed, Mistress Dorothy warmed into a little shrew and made him pay heavily for his own wisdom. While life moved serenely to the music of wedding bows for the stately Margaret, poor Dorothy was kept under observation and treated with a salutary severity by her worldly stepmother. The girl bore up bravely, however, her bright eyes were undimmed by secret tears, the bloom left not her girlish cheek. Smiles and laughter came and went. And none would have guessed that the fair girl cherished a hopeless passion and wasted the wealth of her young heart over a forbidden lover. In that long past summer a pretty little romance was being enacted, for there were traitors in the household of Sir George. And pretty willful Dorothy was her father's own girl, and not likely to pine away in despair without trying to thwart the project of Dame Maude. When twilight passed and the stars appeared in the evening sky, a fair girl and a comely young forester held secret love trysts. For John Manners, disguised as a woodman, had prevailed and carried the fair Dorothy off in triumph, and thus won the sweetest of brides, and one of the wealthiest heiresses in broad England. For poor Margaret's married life was extremely brief, and Dorothy ultimately inherited the whole of her father's estates. The ordeal of touch The old judicial superstitions that the wounds of the murdered man shed forth fresh gore at the touch of the murderer doubtless terrified many a guilty wretch into the confession of his crime. When the wealthy and hospitable Sir George Vernon held sway at Haddon, he was popularly known as the King of the Peak. When a cruel murder caused some sensation in the locality, it moved Sir George to the exercise of a little ultra judicial rigour. The corpse of the man was identified as that of a peddler who had recently been trading in the neighborhood. Evidence of violence was not lacking, and suspicion attached to a certain cotter, who was reported to have received the pedlar into his residence on the night preceding the discovery of the corpse. The suspected man was then summoned to the hall and was straightly questioned by the knight as to the whereabouts of the pedlar who had been seen to enter his cottage. The answer was a denial. No peddler had entered his cottage. Then George drew off the sheet and displayed the corpse to the gaze of the unhappy wretch. He then called to all who were in attendance to lay their hands upon the body and declare their innocence. When the suspected man was called upon, he refused obedience, and conscience stricken rushed wildly from the hall, sped through Bakewell, making for Ashford, and that's where Sir George's men caught up with him near the Ashford toll bar. The knight had ordered them to hang the wretched man, and hanged he was. For this summary proceeding, Sir George was called upon to appear in court himself and proceed to London, but he declined to answer the indictment as he had been summoned under the title of King of the Peak. The indictment necessarily fell through, and Sir George escaped with a salutary admiration. No doubt to be thereafter regarded with greater veneration and fear by his tenants and neighbours at Haddon. Swarkston Bridge. An old tradition that probably goes back to the twelfth century, relates to the magnificent bridge at Swarkston. At the distant period when the first foundations of the bridge were laid, two sisters named Balamont were resident at Swarkston, and were so liberal of their money in the building of a portion of the bridge that they reduced themselves to poverty. Further, they ultimately died in extreme destitution, being buried in one grave at Presswell Church, Leicestershire. This story may have some foundation of fact, and received some measure of confirmation by an ancient and remarkable tomb in Presswell Church, which is void of mark, name or inscription, but bears the figures of two ladies. Bruff Mill The old life becomes more definite, government more certain, and life and property a shade more assured when we reach the feudal era. Bruff Mill was held by the Strallys in the reign of Edward III, subject to the not very arduous service of being in mounted attendance on the king with a heron falcon for the royal pleasure when his majesty entered Derbyshire. The royal visitor had, however, to pay for his entertainment by providing two robes of bruches to court. Moreover, if the holder's horse died during the course of the service, the king had to furnish his vassal with another mount. Hunlock's War. The name of Hunlock recalls a mingling of romantic and tragic incidents and carries the mind back to the advent of a new dynasty, and to that great heroic tragedy of the seventeenth century, the conflict between King Charles and Parliament. When James I visited Ilkston in 1623, the aide sheriff of the county, Henry Hunlock, hastened to welcome his Majesty. But the fatigue of travel and the excitement of the hour overcame the old man, and he suddenly expired in the king's presence. His son Henry served the king with zeal, with purse and sword, and on Edgehill Field acquitted himself so valiantly that the king knighted him on the spot. He was afterwards created a baronet, but the parliamentarians did not allow his zeal to pass unnoted. And in 1643 they sent an expedition against Wingleworth Hall, which they garrisoned and maintained for a time. To the same period of cool intersigned strife belongs a sorrowful incident of William Du Rossington's death and burial. He was an active partisan of King Charles and was slain during an engagement with the enemy near Hartington. When the news of the sad event reached his betrothed, she proceeded to the scene of the battle, searched for and found her lover's corpse, before conveying it to Headburn Wood, ten miles from the battlefield. Tools and a light she found in a solitary hut, and in rude fashion, with no burial service save the yearning sorrow of a widowed heart, she buried the body of her cavalier. It's said the parliamentarians attached so much importance to Sir William that they vainly sought for his body and offered a reward for its production. But the place remained unknown. The lady passed from the scene of her sad ordeal and decade after decade passed, bringing new phases of history, until the sorrows of that old time of warfare became a memory of the nation. Some thirty years ago, a farmer, while putting down a gatepost, unearthed the bones of the cavalier, with the arms and armor in which he was arrayed when his lady, with her own fair hands, gave him hasty and sorrowful sepulture. A marriage at Eam. A melancholy instance of mistaken zeal and of the low moral tone that too frequently manifested itself in the lives of the ministers of religion, is furnished by a memorial stone in the vestry of Eam Church. It records the death of a rector of Eam, Joseph Hunt, buried December the 16th, 1709, and his wife, who predeceased him in 1703. The young rector, whilst making merry in the village inn, Lickerbean Inn and Wit Out, went through a mock marriage with the publican's daughter, Anne. This freak, coming to the ears of the bishop, he caused a greater evil than Joseph Hunt had been betrayed into his folly. He commanded the rector must really marry the girl. Although engaged to a Derby lady, the unfortunate gentleman obeyed the command, whereupon an action for breach of promise was taken against him. Several years were occupied in legal proceedings, and large sums of money were swallowed up by legal expenses. In the end, Joseph Hunt found himself not only stripped of friends and fortune, but harassed by the officers of the law. In the strait he buried himself in the vestry. Secluded from the companionship of his equals, and practically a disgraced man, he dwelt in the vestry until his death. The sorrows of this unfortunate couple may only be surmised, and it may be hoped that affection and mutual respect grew out of their poverty and grief, fitting them for a state where rectors sin not and bishops make no mistakes. Wynhill and loose hill Through the mutations of the centuries, after lingering long in tradition and song, many romantic, touching or gruesome incidents of the old life before us gradually disappear from the memory of mankind. But some dimly survive in the last phases of a doubtful obscurity before the night will close over them forever. Of such dim traditions is that which clothes Wynne Hill and Loose Hill near Castleton, of the mournful throes of defeat and the proud elation of victory. Here from early morn until the closing of solemn eventide a fierce and bitter conflict was maintained. Then one army won its bloody pathway to the summit of Loose Hill and slew or put to flight its decimated defenders. Such is the tradition, vague and dim and disbelieved in now. The more practical age prefers to identify the titles of the two heights with local names and productions. Yet there is usually a substream of truth underlying the dimmest traditions. Perhaps a little more satisfactory because more definite and constant is a story that clings to the mansion of Banner Cross. Suppose to stand on ground where a noble Briton met a Saxon foe boldly under shield, with war flags billowing overhead, and enacting all pageantry, glory, and tragedy of war. Drawing closer his decimated but unconquered ranks amid the rain of missiles and the crash of axe and sword, until the Saxon steel hewed down the last man of that devoted army. I'd not read half of it, despite using it a bunch of times for different bits and bobs. As I mentioned earlier, I'm sure we'll be covering more titles from William Andrews down the line. These bygone collections are really useful. We'll be back soon with the next episode. So until then, take care and may your God go with you. You can find out more about the show at Tales from Antiquaria.com.