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The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal

VOL. VII.

1882

THE STOVIN MANUSCRIPT

Communicated by CHARLES JACKSON, Doncaster.

GEORGE STOVIN, the writer of the manuscript of which the following notices are presented in these pages, was the eldest son of James Stovin, esq., of Tetley, in the parish of Crowle, in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire, and was born about 1695 or 1696. Before the death of his father in 1735, he married Sarah, daughter and heiress of James Empson, esq., of Gowle, or Goole, in the former county. We are told¹ that he appears not to have been brought up to any profession, but to have led the life of a country gentleman, which afforded him abundant leisure to prosecute the topographical and antiquarian researches to which from early life he was addicted. He took a considerable interest in the drainage and other general affairs of the Level of Hatfield Chase, in and about the neighbourhood of which he had inherited, on the decease of his father, a good patrimonial estate. The adjustment of those affairs of the drainage, under circumstances of complication and difficulty of no ordinary kind, as will be seen hereafter, had occupied the attention of Mr. Stovin’s predecessors ever since their commencement by the celebrated Sir Cornelius Vermuyden, in the beginning of the reign of King Charles the first, and he continued to perform the onerous duties to which he had succeeded, and which his position entitled him to fulfil, both as an assiduous commissioner of sewers and a no less active justice of the peace.

Mr. Stovin would, no doubt, derive from his father and his other older relations many curious and interesting stories about the previous state of the Levels,² when the greater portion of that country consisted largely of extensive meres, turf-moors, bogs, and swamps, and when the unrestrained overflowings of the Trent, the Aire, the Ouse, and the Went, rendered the district thereabouts almost unfit for the residence or the labours of man. We can imagine him, arrectis auribus adstans, listening with no small interest to the popular and traditionary stories communicated to him by the ancient regarders and keepers in the Chase, who, in their turn, would have received the like from their forefathers. Especially exciting and amusing to him, we can fancy, would be, for instance, such an account as we have of the semi-aquatic deer hunt in these levels, when Henry Prince of Wales is stated to have visited that part of Yorkshire in 1609, whereat his royal highness and his retinue turned out at Tudworth, for the chase, not on sprightly steeds, but attended by a numerous assemblage, they embarked themselves in about one hundred boats, and having had driven from out the neighbouring woods and grounds some five hundred deer, which took to the waters, the little navy of sportsmen pursued their game into Thorne Mere, and there some of the party going into the water, and feeling such and such that were the fattest, either instantly cut their throats, or drew them by ropes to land and killed them. With a day’s work such as this (the last time that there was any royal sporting in this Chase), the prince is said to have been “very merry and well pleased.”³

Mr. Stovin would learn also from the older class of his acquaintance various anecdotes respecting Sir Cornelius Vermuyden and his Dutch and French partners, or participants as they were usually termed, in the grand scheme of drainage for which they left their native country to engage in; and he would be told of the ill blood that their proceedings stirred up, and the serious disturbances thereby provoked, terminating frequently in loss of life and property to many. There being in those times no local newspapers or periodical magazines, the stirring events of the period had to be recorded, as best they might be, in the memories of the inhabitants, and by them handed down, either verbally or in written memoranda, to their posterity. The observantAbraham De la Pryme, who died when Mr. Stovin was about nine years old, left behind him a good store of local information regarding those levels, and of these written collections Mr. Stovin afterwards availed himself much, as he has acknowledged.⁴

It is related of Mr. Stovin that he scarcely ever left the Levels, living in Crowle and its vicinity, and with the true feeling of a native antiquary thinking no part of England comparable to the Isle of Axholme, and no town equal to Crowle. In the latter part of his life, however, he crossed the Trent, and fixed his residence at Winterton.⁵ There he spent the concluding years of his long life, living, as one who knew him well informed Mr. Hunter, in a little cottage which he had made Arcadian with honeysuckles and other flowers, where he was to be seen with his pipe every morning at five, and where he was accustomed to amuse his neighbours with the variety of anecdote with which his memory supplied him. He died in May, 1780, aged about 85 years, and was buried in the chancel of Winterton church.⁶

Mr. Stovin contributed to the Gentleman’s Magazine⁷ an account of Lindholme, a remarkable isolated place in the turf-moor of Hatfield; and to the Royal Society he made several communications of an antiquarian sort that were printed in their Transactions. Besides these, he left in manuscript many notes of Roman roads and stations in the counties of York and Lincoln, the result of his personal observation. But perhaps the most important of his topographical collections is the manuscript now brought before us. This is a quarto volume, in size about eight by seven inches, bound in rough calf, containing 458 pages, closely written, consisting chiefly of transcripts of all documents he could obtain which in any way related to the drainage, together with extracts from law books detailing the powers and duties of Courts of Sewers, &c. To these Mr. Stovin prefixed the brief account of Vermuyden’s costly proceedings in the drainage of the Level of Hatfield Chase, which, by the favour of this Society, is now printed in the writer’s own style and language, and thus, it is hoped, rendered secure from the risk of loss to which manuscripts of importance are too frequently exposed.⁸

The contents of this volume, probably in some better digested and more carefully arranged form, it seems to have been Mr. Stovin’s intention to give to the public, for at the end of the manuscript he has sketched out a summary of the contents of it, with “Proposals for printing by subscription, in one volume, folio, with marginal notes, The History of the Drainage of the Great Level of Hatfield Chase, in the counties of York, Lincoln, and Nottingham; by George Stovin, Esq., near forty years an acting Commissioner of Sewers in the said Level.” The price was to be a guinea, in sheets, or . . . . . handsomely bound and lettered; but the design was abandoned, probably for want of encouragement. The ground-work and main outline of the history, however, was in after years taken up and enlarged upon by the learned historian of “South Yorkshire,” with that ability of composition and clearness of construction for which his works are so justly remarkable, and which will accord him a place in the front rank of topographical writers to the end of time.⁹

HATFIELD CHASE

A BRIEF ACCOUNT OF THE DRAINAGE OF THE LEVEL OF HATFIELD CHASE IN THE COUNTYS OF YORK, LINCOLN, AND NOTTINGHAM, WITH THE COUNTRY ADJACENT.

THIS famous Chase of Hatfield was the greatest Chase of red deer the Kings of England had, containing in all limits above one hundred and eighty thousand acres; and was formerly the estate of the Earls of Warren and Surry.

William the first gave the church to the Priory of Lewes, and William the second gave the tyth of all the eels taken out of the fisheries here to the abby of Roch.

The manor of Hatfield continued in the Warren family for many generations, and came at last to John Earl of Warren and Surry, who died possess’d of it. He settled it upon Maud de Bereford, his concubine, and two children, John and Thomas; but it came, soon after, to Edmond de Langley, fifth son of Edward the third, and continued in the Crown till King Charles the first granted it to Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden.

This church is only a vicaridge, and but of small income, but the inpropriate tyths are lett for above eight hundred pounds a year, and are now the property of the Duke of Portmore; but for many years they was the property of the Cavendish family.

The town of Hatfield is in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and is one of the cleanest and pleasantest vilages in those parts, being a fine gravelly soil, and most of the buildings new, and built of brick and tyle. It stands about twenty-five computed miles almost south of York, and five computed miles almost north-east of Doncaster.

It is a very large and extensive parish, and the manor is copyhold, at a fine certain, and a very small one. The copyhold tenants having the priviledge of felling their wood and timber without the consent of the lord of the manor.

To which manor belongs the several towns or hamlets of Thorne, Stainford, Woodhouse, Dunscroft, Tudworth, Fishlake, &c.

At this town of Hatfield, the Kings of England had a royal seat (now called the Manor House), at which place Queen Philipa, consort to King Edward the third, being there to take the deversion of hunting, was brought to bed of a prince (called from thence), William de Hatfield, who died there, and was burried in the cathedral church of St. Peter in York, where his effigie is to be seen cut in white marble on the north side the quire in the said church.

His mother gave five marks yearly to the Abbot of Roch, and five nobles to the monks there, for the saying mass for the repose of his soul; which said sum was transfered, and is now yearly paid out of the impropriate tyths of Hatfield to the archbishop and dean and chapter of York.

This town of Hatfield is famous in history for a great battle fought there between Penda King of Mercia and Cadwala King of Wales, who fought Edwin King of Northumberland; in which battle Edwin and his eldest son Offred was both slain. Edwin was burried at Dervento, now Aldby,¹⁰ six miles east from York, upon the river Derwent. This estate of Aldby now belongs to Henry Brewster Darley, esq. There are many Roman antiquities found at this place.

In the parish of Hatfield is a large mooras, about fifteen miles in circumference, a rank moor, and so light and boggy that you may thrust a pole down to the length of ten, twelve, or fifteen foot; this place is called Hatfield Waste, and is where the inhabitants digg their turff for burning. But what is most admireable, in the very center of this mooras is about sixty acres of firm land, sandy, and full of blue cobble stones, much like those got in great plenty at the Spurn Head, at the mouth of the Humber. Upon this ground is a farm-house, and a spring of fine fresh water, though the water in the mooras is very bad, and of the colour of coffee. This place is called Lindham, where dwelt a hermit, called William de Lindham,¹¹ of whom the people of Hatfield, Wroot, Finingley, Thorne, Blackston, &c., tell incredible stories, and some things more than wonderfull.

This great Levil hass the river Trent and the Humber to the east, and south-east; and had the river Ouse to the north and north-west; and had several natural rivers running through it, which emptied themselves into the two rivers of Trent and Ouse. The river Ayre arises in the western hills nere Skipton in Craven, and hass many fine seats and towns upon it, as Leeds, a famous town of trade for fine broad cloths, tamys, stuffs, &c. Temple-Newsom, now the seat of the Honble. Lord Irwin; this manor belonged to the Knights Templars, but was given by Edward 3rd to John Lord D’arcy. Thomas Lord D’arcy forfeited this by rebellion, 1544, 35th Hen: 8th, who gave it to Matthew Earl of Lenox and Margrett his wife. Henry Lord Darnley, father of King James the first, was born in this house.

Upon the banks of the said river stands Swillington, the seat of Sᵣ William Lowther, Barrt.; also Kipax, the seat of Sᵣ John Bland; and Castleford, a Roman station, where I have met with several Roman coins. Through this place is the famous Roman road leading from the watering place north of Lincoln, over Littlebrough Ferry, over the Trent to Doncaster, and from Castleford to Aldborrough, Catrick, &c.

Near this famous road, and adjoining Kipax, is Leadstone, now the estate of the Honble. the Earl of Huntington. At the conquest it was the estate of Edwin Earl of Mercia; afterwards belonged to . . . . . Harboard, esq.;¹² then to Sᵣ. Ric. Saltonstall; then to Sᵣ John Lewes; and then to Lady Betty Hastings. Below this is Biram, the seat of Sᵣ John Ramsden. Also Ferry-Bridge, upon the great road from London to Edenbourgh. Then Carlton, the seat of Sᵣ Miles Stapleton; and Cowick, the seat of the Lord Viscount Down. Near which is Snaith, a market town, formerly the estate of Laceys, Earls of Lincoln, with the soak of Snaith, containing all Marshland, &c. Then Rawcliff, late the seat of Sᵣ John Boynton; and then Ayremin, where the river falls into the Ouse, and now the estate of the Rt. Honbl. Hugh Earl of Northumberland. N.B. This river was made navigable up to Leeds, and in my memory the lock dues of this river was let to one Mr. Clark for £800 per annum; but by the increase of trade up that river, the lock dues are lett at £3,500 per annum, and hass been lett at that rent for several years, and it is supposed they will now be let for £4000 per annum.

The next river which came in a more particular manner through this Levil is the Don, which rises in the black mountains near Penniston in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and comes nere Sheffield, a noted place for cutlers, and glides down to Rotherham, where it takes in the Rother out of Derbyshire, and many other small rivulets. It then comes by Oldwork, the estate of Francis Foljamb, esq.; then by Tribourgh, Coningsburgh, Strafford; takes in the Dare¹³ at Darefield; then by Sprotburgh, and so to Doncaster, a Roman station upon the military road; then to Wheatley, the seat of Sᵣ Geo. Cook; Sandal, Barnby-super-Don, Stainford, and Fishlake, below which place, and near Thorne, this river divided itself into two branches, the one running north into the river Ayre, and the other east into the river Trent.¹⁴ On this branch stands Croul, an antient market town, and formerly part of the possessions of the Abbey of Selby, in Yorkeshire; below which stands Eastoft, divided by the river Don, one part in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and the other in Lincolnshire. The Yorkshire part was lately the estate and residence of Francis Eastoft, esq., and the Lincolnshire part the estate of Sᵣ John Lister, and his seat (tho’ their is some other owners in the place). This estate was part of the possessions of the Abbey of Selby, and is now the estate of Thomas Lister, esq., of Geresby, near Louth, in the county of Lincoln.

Below this, in Lincolnshire, and upon the banks of this river, is Ludington, part of the mannor of Croul, and below it stands Haldenby, formerly the seat of Sᵣ Francis Haldenby, and below that Folkerby, the estate of . . . . Skerne, esq., now of Eliz. Ramsden, a widow lady. Below this, and near Don-mouth, where it emptied itself into the river Trent, stands Æthlingfleet, now called Adlingfleet, which took its name and being from Edgar Æthling, who was heir to Harold (slain by William the Conqueror) and also to the crown of England, who having fled into Denmark with many English noblemen for refuge, prevail’d with Swain, King of Denmark, to send his son Knut with a fleet of 300 sail of ships, and a great number of men to assist him in recovering his crown, who came into the Humber in the third year of William the first, and having ruin’d and plundered the country on both sides that famous river, pass’d on to York, took that city, and got therein a great booty. But William the Conqueror having raised a large army, and upon the march to give them battle, they returned to their fleet that then lay between the Trent and the Ouse, in the river Don (where the tides before the drainage of Hatfield Chase ebbed and flowed up beyond Doncaster).

Here the Danish army encamped all winter, and in the spring Knut came to an agreement with the Conqueror for a large sum of money, and with the great riches he had got at York, and in the country, he quitted the nation, taking those spoils along with him, and left Edgar Æthling to shift for himself, who fled into Scotland to the king his kinsman, by which means William the Conqueror was left in peaceable possession of the kingdom of England.

This camp was strongly scituated, having part of the Humber and the Trent to the east, the Ouse to the north, and the river Don to the south, and covered with a deep mooras (twenty five miles in circumference, to the west), so that a few forces would defend it against the Norman duke, as the Danes by their fleet were masters of all the above named rivers.

The river Don is at this place, and for many miles upwards, the antient boundrie between the counties of York and Lincoln.

Swain, King of Denmark, came into the said rivers, the next year, with a large fleet and army, plundered the country, got a vast booty, and made all the people swear fealty to him, thinking to secure his possession; but, upon more mature thoughts, he conceived it best for him to gett off with his booty, and, sailing home, the Danes never came more to disturb this nation.

This lordship of Adlingfleet was given by William the Conqueror to one of his followers in his expedition against England, called John D’avill, and anno. Dom. 1080, William Ellerker of Ellerker, esq., lord of Holdenshire, married Marrian the daughter and heiress of John D’avill, lord of Adlingfleet. She bears Or, on a chevron betwixt four flower de luces sable two flower de luce. William Ellerker, his great great grandson, married the daughter and coheiress of Sᵣ Amias Ludlow, of Scrivleby, in Lincolnshire.¹⁵

The third river that run through this Levil was the Idle, which takes its rise nere Idleton, in Nottinghamshire, and took in inumerable brooks and rivulets in its passage, even to the boarders of Derbyshire, and runing past Bawtrey to Missen, fell into this Levil, and was a large and very crooked river, as most natural rivers are. At Sandtoft (before the drainage of this Levil), there was a ferry over this river into the Isle of Axholm, from Thorne, Hatfield, &c., and about a mile north-east of this ferry it fell into the river Don.

The fourth river is the Torne,¹⁶ a small brooke which brought great quantities of water into this Levil from Tickhill river, and Sᵗ. Catherine’s Well, near Loversall; and several other brooks fell into the Idle near Wroot.

The fifth and last river is Went, which rises near Nostell, the seat formerly of . . . . Gargrave, knight, but now of Sᵣ Rowland Winn Bart., which takes in many streams, and fell into the north branch of the river Don nere Cowick, the seat of Lord Down.

The reader may form an idea of what a watery country this must be before the drainage. Five rivers runing through it, and frequently overflowing their banks; besides the tides comeing into the two branches of the Don every twelve hours, and no artificial banks to confine the waters in their proper channels; and he will be, I hope, agreeably surprised when he finds, in this history, that all those waste lands, by the management of the undertakers of this great work, are now become dry land.

I cannot ommitt giving some account of Thorne, within the manor of Hatfield, now become a handsome market-town. It stands about two measured miles almost north from Hatfield, in a point just between the before mentioned branches of the river Don.

On the north side the church at Thorne stood a castle, which was the prison for offenders in Hatfield Chase. This castle hass a large ditch round it; the mount where the castle stood is very high; but the castle is long since demolished; the dungeon is yet in being, and was used for a celler by the late Mr. Thomas Canby of Thorn. The castle hill was planted with ash trees, which was a great ornament to the town, but they was lately sold and cutt down. The hill is now called Peel Hill, being a corruption of Pile Hill, from the word Pile (among architects) signifying a mass or stack of buildings.¹⁷

By the drainage this town was greatly inriched, and their turbary¹⁸ hass for above a century employed their poor, and will do the same for ages to come. The labouring people digg their turff in the summer, and their wives and children makes them ready for sale. When the harvest is over, the men brings them in small boats from the moors, down the canals and drains made by the undertakers of the drainage, into the river Don, through Thorne Sluice, and puts them on board keels and other small vessels, which carry them to market to York, Selby, Leeds, Wakefield, Hull, Gainsbrough, Lincoln, &c., where they have ready sale for them. There is scarce a boatman in Thorne but what hass built a new house of brick and tile, and maintain their famalys exceeding well.

These moors, or Thorne Waste, is of great extent, being twentyfive miles round; in the midst of which hass been a Lodge for one of the keepers of this famous chase. It affords turbary to Croul in Lincolnshire, Eastoft, Haldenby, Folkerby, Adlingfleet, Ousefleet, Goule, Hooke, Ayremin, Rawcliff in Marshland, Snaith, Sykehouse, Fishlake, &c., in the county of York. And upon this waste is plenty of game, as hares, partridge, black moor-game, ducks, geese, curliews, snipes, foxes, &c. It affords plenty of cranberries, and an odoreferous shrub called Gale; some call it Sweet willow, or Dutch myrtle.

And here I cannot ommit to mention that the inhabitants of Thorne farr exceed all their neighbours in their care and industry, for they have had the art to gett estates out of fish-ponds; to make terra firma of pools and stagnated waters; to plow with horses, where a man, a hundred years ago, could not walk nor stand. In short, to get good corn, meadow, and pasture land, where there was none before.

As a confirmation of this country being nothing but water, there was, in the parish and liberty of Thorne only, fifty-three copiehold fishings held of the lord of the manor of Hatfield by certain rents, and also many copiehold fishings held of the lords of the manor of Epworth, Croul, and Wroot. None of the inhabitants of the other towns who have a right upon this Waste could or would as yett follow so good an example as the Thorne people have sett them. It is chiefly the inhabitants of Thorne that hass changed the face of the country, and that hass got estates out of the deepest pools of water; converted moor and moss into dry land, and out of quagmires and bottomless pitts raised meadows, pastures, and cornfields. And as it may be natural for the reader to enquire how all this was perfected, I shall inform him as well as I can. This was their method and industrious care, viz., every inhabitant that had right of comon and turbary in this parish, by agreement had the moor measured in breadth next to Thorne common, and they computed how many yards broad would fall to each common-right house. When this was done, every person had his equal breadth next Thorne common to the west, and so was to cutt to the east (each man as farr as he could); then they begun to cutt drains betwixt each others moor; the turff that came out paying for the labour, and betwixt those dykes they graved their turff. But they graved it to the very bottom, untill they came to the natural soil, which in many places is good strong clay, sand, &c.; and so every year clear’d as much of it as they could sell or burn for fuel. So that now they have gott from twenty to forty and fifty acres each of good firm land, and in all above . . . . . acres, and above . . . . miles from west to east, and still pursues the game. And upon this new found land is planted oaks, elm, ash, willows, thorns, &c., which grow exceeding well. I queshtion their is such an improvement made in any part of Great Britain. They are every year improving and draining this Waste, that in the same number of years that is past since the first drainage to this time, they may and possibly will gain as much more land as they have already gotten, and so on for some ages to come; for there is no other town that opposes them, or makes any improvement. And they having no known bounds between them, the Thorne people will go on until their spades clash against the spades of the inhabitants of the towns above mentioned, almost at their own doors.

This great Waste is of the same nature with that called Hatfield Waste, and both of them, as also all the low grounds and commons in Hatfield Chase, is a sort of subterranious forrest which is dugg up daily, as oak, fiirr, &c. I have known an oak tree taken up that afforded a thousand pales five foot and a half long, and from six to seaven inches broad, for which I paid ten shillings a hundred, besides several loads of firewood.

N.B.—In the year 1100, all Belton, Epworth, Crowle, Haxey, and Owston commons, part of this Levil, were cover’d with a great old decaying forrest, or wood, and all down from Crowle Causey to Althorp upon Trent. Philo: Transactions, Vol.1st, part 3rd, pa: 218.

Firr trees have been found underground above thirty yards long, and yet wanting many yards at the small end, and have been sold for masts for ships from 4, 8, 10, to 15 pounds a peece. Some have been found chop’d and squared, some bored through; some burn’d through, or on one side; some half riven with great wooden wedges in them, and broken axe heads, somewhat like sacrificeing axes in shape. Under a tree near Hatfield was found 8 or 9 Roman coins.

Mr. Edward Canby, father to the late Mr. Thomas Canby, of Thorne, found an oak tree 40 yards long, 4 yards in diameter at the great end, 3 yards one foot in the middle, two yards over at the small end; so that the tree seems to have been as long again; for which he was offered twenty pounds.

A man was found in Thorn moors lyeing at his length with his head upon his arm, as in a common posture of sleep, whose skin being tann’d, as it were, with the moor water, preserved his shape intire. (Do. part 2nd, pa: 212.)

About sixty years ago, or seaventy, the servants of Mr. James Empson, of Gowle, was digging turff in this great Waste, and one of them cutt a man’s arm off by the shoulder, which he carried home to his master, who took the bone out and stuff’d it, and made a present of it to Dr. Johnson,¹⁹ of York, an antiquarian. This was the very hand and arm mentioned by Dr. Gibson, late bishop of London in his Translation of Cambden’s Britania, in the additions to the West Rideing of Yorkshire. And in June 1747, in the neighbouring moors, and on the said Levil, in the moors belonging to Amcotts, was found by John Tate of Amcotts, who was digging turff, the intire body of a woman. He first cutt off one of her feet with his spade, on which was a sandall; but being frighted, left it. I being informed of it, went with Thomas Perfect, my gardener, and others, and we took up the whole body; there was a sandal on the other foot; the skin was like a peece of tannd leather, and it stretcht like a fine doe skin; the hair was fresh about the head and privy parts, which distinguished the sex; the teeth firm; the bones was raled black; the flesh consumed; and she lay upon her side in a bending posture, with her head and toes almost together, which looks as tho’ she had been hurl’d down by the force of some strong current of water; and tho’ a great part of this moor had been formerly graved off, she lay seaven foot deep from the present surface. I tooke the skin of one arm, from the elbow to the hand, and shakeing the bones out, it would have made a ladies’ muff. The other hand not being cutt with the spade, as we dugg for it, I preserv’d it, and stufft it, first takeing out the bones, which my son, James Stovin,²⁰ now hass in his possession, at Doncaster. And what is very remarkable, the nails are firm and fast on the fingers. He also hass one of the sandals, which was made of one whole peece of a raw hide, and only one short seam at the heel, sowed with a thong of the same leather. The sandals had ten loops cut in the whole leather on each side, and ten small loops at the toe, which caused the toe of the sandal to draw up like the mouth of a purse. They was laced on, upon the top of the foot, with a thong of the same leather. This lady’s skin and the sandals were both tann’d by the same tanner (to witt) by the black water of these moors; for there being such great quantities of oak, firs, and other wood burried in these moors, the water is by them tinctured and made exactly of the collour of the modern tann fatt water, and the firr haveing so much resenous matter in it, no doubt that helps to preserve these bodies for so many ages, for that they have laid some hundreds of years.

I have the assent of that learned body, the Royal Society, for in September 1747, I sent the hand and sandal above mentioned to that learned body with the same account (or to the same purpose I have here given), and when they returned it, I was honour’d with their thanks by letter, and their opinion was that “they must have laid there many hundred years; for the sandals were worn in England about the conquest, yet they could not find they was of the make or shape of this above mentioned, but concluded it must be much antienter than that period.” I burried the remains of this lady in Amcots chapel yard. I showed the hand and sandal to my worthy friend Thomas Whichcot, of Harpswell, esq. knight of the shire for the county of Lincoln in parliament, who was pleased to put the sandal on before I sent them to the Royal Society.

At Thorne, in these moors, about ten years ago, as one Wᵐ Biddy, of Thorne, was digging turff, he found the intire body of a man with his teeth firm in his head; the hair of his head firm and fast on, and of a yellowish collour, either naturaly so or dyed by the water of this moor. His skin like a peece of tannd leather. He took the body up intire, after having lay there some hundred years. N.B.—I had this account from the man himself.

I also think proper to mention that the servants of Mr. George Healey, of Burringham, on the east side Trent, and near this Levil, was digging up firewood in a large moor belonging to Burringham, and at the bottom of a firr tree root they found (as tho’ laid together) a British spear, a British axe, and two short swords or durks, all of brass, which Mr. Healey made me a present off, and which I now have by me.

In these moors is found yew in plenty, which the country people call wire thorne, and it is very evident that all this wood grew upon the place, for you find the roots in their natural position, and when they fell is unknown. Some will have it that they have lay in the ground ever since Noah’s flood; others that this great forrest was destroyed by the Romans, which last is the opinion of Abram de la Pryme, a native of this Levil and F.R.S., who writes that, “he supposes it was destroyed, and sett on fire by the antient Romans, under Ostorius, the Roman general, who had a pitch’d battle with the Britons, at a place now called Osterfield, near Bawtrey, upon the confines of this great Levil; that the Romans being victorious, the Britons fled to these woods and fastnesses; that he pursued them with his victorious army, and, in order to destroy them, sett fire to the woods, &c.”²¹

This seems possible, but I want to know if this battle was fought in autumn? for it is evident to me that these trees, whenever they fell, it was in autumn, and when the fruits of them was at maturity; for I have taken out of the places, when they was digging these trees, hazel nutts, in great quantities, also firr apples or the cones, all very fair and at full perfection. When I have laid the hazel nutts in the sun for some time they would moulder to dust in one’s fingers; but the cones of the firr grows tough and hard. The nutts have the kernnel left in them.

Dr. Shuckford makes Noah’s flood to be in autumn, but it’s observable that all the tops of the trees, in general, when found, lye towards the east, which is the course of the rivers running through this Levil into the river Trent, that it’s very probable, the woods being destroyed by the Romans, that those rivers overflowing frequently and by several inundations from the west and south-west, with the leaves, dirt, and sludge brought down for several ages, these large moors was formed, and those trees covered; for this Levil was the receptacle of all the waters from the south-west of Yorkshire, a great part of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire.

King Charles the first, being lord of Hatfield, Epworth, Croul, Misterton, and thirteen other contiguous manors, the demeans whereof consisted of a Levil of above seventy thousand acres of overflowed wastes, whereupon he and his progenitors had an extensive chase of red deer, for the ease of his tennants (from the destruction made by the deer in the adjacent inclosures and cornfields), and for the good of all his subjects, he contracted with Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden and his Participants, in the 2nd year of his reign, to dischase and drain the same, reserving to himself one third part of the said Levil, as lord of the soil, allowing the drainers one third part for their charges, and of meer grace granted the remainder to the respective tennants for their common.²²

Vermuyden was to agree with the commoners about their several allotments, yett he mett with unaccountable and unforseen trouble and vexation from the commoners. But, by several commissions directed to several noblemen, all the allotments was settled by consent of parties, and soon after confirm’d by decrees in the Exchequer.

But the tennants and commoners of Epworth manor in the Isle of Axholm, in the towns of Haxey, Owston, Burnham, Epworth, and Belton, claiming under an old deed of John de Mowbray, once lord of the whole island, dated the 31st of May, 1359,²⁴ gave great obstruction to this laudable and great undertaking.

N.B. Roger de Mowbray forfieted the fine estate by rebellion against Hen. the . . . . See Rapin.

The said Levil was dischased and drained at the expence of above four hundred thousand pounds, Vermuyden and his Participants being obliged to stop up the old natural rivers, and to cutt new and spacious canals, rivers, and drains for some hundred miles in all.

The river Idle²⁵ was stopt up near Haxey, and the waters conveyed into the Trent at West Stockwith.

The first Commission of Sewers for this Levil was granted A.D. 1630; and in the year 1632 another was granted in order to compel Vermuyden to stop up the branch of the Don that run east through the Levil into the Trent, and to cutt a new drain from the northern branch of Don nere Cowick to Gowle, into the river Ouse, which cutt being four or five miles long, and very wide, cost the undertakers thirty thousand pounds, and the sluce into the Ouse cost above three thousand pounds.

The King, in the fourth year of his reign,²⁶ sold his manor of Hatfield to Sir Cornelius Vermuyden under the old rent of £195 3s. 4d., and a red rose, and an increased rent of £425 per annum, to be paid to the Crown for ever. Also, part of the manor of Brampton, with his premisses in Wroot, under the old rent of £8 6s. 8d. and a pair of gloves, or fourpence, and an increas’d rent of £60 per annum.

His majesty also sold his third part of the drained lands to John Gibbon and John Corsellis esquires, under the fee farm rent of one thousand two hundred twenty eight pounds seaventeen shillings per annum, payable to the Crown.

But soon after this, the king granted the above mentioned rents to Katherine, Duchess Dowager of Buckingham, and George, Earl of Rutland, in trust for George, Duke of Buckingham, son of the said duchess and the late Duke of Buckingham, who was stab’d by Felton, at Portsmouth.

Sir Cornelius Vermuyden had brought over a great number of Dutchmen and French Protestants, with their familys and their whole substance, amongst whom were several gentlemen of famaly and great fortune. These gentlemen came over to participate in this Levil, as may be seen in page . . . and where you have an account of the numbers of acres they severaly purchased of Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden.

These undertakers had many difficuilties to encounter with, having houses to build for themselves and their tennants, who they had brought along with them, to keep them from the inclemency of the weather; and Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden built a noble house, according to the fashion of those days. It was stud-bound (and I have heard all the wood work was framed in Holland). It was a great pile of building, with a square court in the midle of it, with barns, stables, graineries, &c., to the north-east and west, and the south front was the dwelling-house. These buildings are still standing, but the dwelling-house almost new built of brick and tyle by . . . . Harvey, esq., of . . . . , in Bedfordshire, the present owner.

Sᵣ. Matthew Vanvalkenburgh also built a good house upon the banks of the Don, in this Levil, which was lately the estate of Sᵣ John Boynton, then of Boynton Boynton, esq., who left it to two daughters.

Sᵣ. Philibert Vernatti also built a good house near the banks of the Idle, in this Levil; also the De Witts, two brothers; and many more.

They also built a church at Sandtoft, in Belton parish, for the use of the Dutch and French Protestants inhabiting this Levil, and had several ministers that succeeded each other, who preach’d to the Dutch every Lord’s Day in the forenoon, and to the French Protestants in the afternoon, in their several languages; as will more fully appear hereafter.²⁷

The people of the manor of Epworth claimed right of common upon thirteen thousand four hundred acres; and at the division of the lands between the drainers and the commoners they had six thousand acres allotted them. But some of them not being content therewith, in the twelfth year of the said king, their differences was by consent of the Participants and commoners refferr’d to Sᵣ. John Banks, the then Attorney General, who allotted the commoners one thousand acres more out of the Participant’s part (which, at the first allotment, I find, was seaven thousand four hundred acres), also Epworth south moor and Butterwick moor. And considering that the poor of Epworth, Owston, and Belton parishes would be great sufferers by their loss of fishing and fowling, he awarded that the Participants should pay four hundred pounds for a stock to employ the poor people in the makeing of sackcloth, cordage, &c. N.B. This manufactory of makeing sackcloth is still carried on in this island, and employs numbers of poor people, they having ready sale for it.

These lands was at the first peaceably and quietly enjoy’d. Great numbers of Dutch and French Protestants being planted there, as is above mentioned. A house was erected for their minister, and a handsome sallery, fixed for him, paid by the owners of this Levil. But the people of Epworth manor and Misterton did, at the breaking out of the civil warr between King Charles the first and the Parliament, take up arms against his majesty, and, with the assistance of some of the Parliament soldiers, they laid waste the inclosed lands within these manors, burned and destroyed houses and corn thereon to the value of twenty thousand pounds.

The manor of Hatfield was sold, some time before this, to Sir Arthur Ingram; and the Honᵇˡᵉ Lord Irvin²⁸ is now lord of the manor.

But the people of these manors did not stop here; they defaced the church at Sandtoft, and ten commandments, burried carrion under the communion table, carried away the leads and seats, pulled up the sluices and navigable sasses, and would have thrown this famous Levil into its former chaos, had they not been suppressed (for which they were, even in those days, exempted from pardon). No orders, no decrees, of the commissioners of sewers could now be put in execution; no officers dared to execute them, for fear of their lives from the islanders, and several of the commissioners refused to act, for fear of insults. The Participants could meet with no man of courage and resolution suffitient to cope with those people, untill they fixed upon Nathaniel Reading, esq., a gentleman born in London, and brought up to the law. In his youthfull time he had made the tour of Europe, was at Naples at the insurrection of Masenela,²⁹ and it is said was his secratary, and was condemned to suffer upon a scaffold with his master; but, by a fine oration he made upon the scaffold, which took with the people, he was pardon’d; and returning into England, was a noted counsel at law, and a fine orator.

Mr. Reading pretending to religion and great integrity, was sent by the state, about the year 1650, unto this Levil of Hatfield Chase, to collect the fee-farm rents due to the state for the delinquency of George Viliers, duke of Buckingham, and finding the Levil in disorder, the inhabitants of the Isle of Axholm and the Participants at variance, he became of counsel to the Isle people. But this not suiting his interest, and the Participants being at variance among themselves, and having a desire to exempt themselves from the power of the commissioners of sewers, they made application to Mr. Reading to assist them (so that he abandoned his first clients), and promised to procure an ordinance of parliament to exempt them from the commission of sewers; for which great service he was to have a fifth part of the seaven thousand four hundred acres of common land in the manor of Epworth, which the commoners in a riotous manner had thrown down and laid waste, and which he was put in posession off. But not procuring an ordinance of parliament, as he had engaged to do, the Participants thereupon wanted to gett him out of possession; but to keep this fifth part, Mr. Reading turned solicitor for the Isle people and join’d them and the inhabitants of Misterton and Gringley against the Participants; upon which Marcus Vanvalkenburgh, esq., senior, and others filed a bill against him before the Lords Commissioners for the custody of the Great Seal of England, 1656, to have their fifth part restored. I don’t find what success they had.

Sᵣ Arthur Ingram and other great Participants prevailed with Mr. Reading to undertake the subdueing of these people that demolished all before them, and agreed to give him a sallery of two hundred pounds a-year, to indemnifie him, to reimburse all charges, and reward him further.

And in the month of September, 1655, he enterd upon this hazardous undertakeing; he obtained several writs of assistance, and orders of the House of Lords, and deputations from the sheriffs of the countys of York, Lincoln, and Nottingham, provided horses and arms and necessarys, and twenty hired men at twenty pounds a-year each and their diets, with a chirurgeon in ordinary; and upon particular occasions hired many more; and after thirty one sett battles with the people of Epworth manor, Misterton, and Gringley, wherein several of his men were kill’d, and many others wounded, he subdued these people, quieted the Crown and the Participants in their allotments, repaired the church, settled another minister, restored the congrigation, and made the Levels and parts adjacent quiet, safe, and flourishing.

The Isle people continued quiet for some years, only battleing the Participants at law till the year 1688. They still claiming more common from the Participants, the affair, by consent of all parties, was reffered to Sᵣ Tho. Hussey, Sᵣ Willoughby Hickman, Sᵣ John Boynton, Colonel George Whichcot, &c., who made their award, but the Isle people would not submit to it.

In the year 1691 the long cause between the commoners and the Participants came to a hearing in the Exchequer. The court recommended it to the parties to endeavour an accommodation among themselves, and on the 5th of May, 1691, the Participants agents, and John Pindar, sollicitor, and Robert Popplewell, agent for themselves and the commoners, came to an agreement in writing, viz.;—That the commoners of Epworth manor should have 1000 acres to be set out in the first place, and that 664 acres should be set out for the commoners of Misterton, and that 5736 acres, residue of the 7400 acres, should be surveyed and divided into two equal parts, one moiety to be enjoyed by the Participants, and the other moiety to the commoners and their heirs; and the commoners was to enjoy also the 6000 acres, Epworth south moor and Butterwick moor, at first allotted to them, free from any interruption of the Participants:—all which by consent was decreed accordingly. The commoners had decreed to them out of the whole 13,400 acres, 9868 acres, with liberty of improving the same free from all charges of drains and sewer-rates, or any proportion of the fee-farm rent; and the Participants, for the sake of peace, was content with 2868 acres, for all their costs and charges.

Now, all these differences seem’d to be at an end; the sherriff of Lincolnshire, by virtue of a writ of assistance, gave the several parties possession of their allotments, and the Participants inclosed and lett their allotments to several tenants, who plowed and sowed the same. But whilst the corn was growing, a great number of men, women, and children, with Mrs. Popplewell³⁰ at their head, pulled down, demolished, and burned the fences, and destroyed the corn.

Mr. Reading wanting above £3000 the Participants was indebted to him at this time, solicited them for the payment thereof; but they all alledged that their expenditor had no money in bank, that the rioters had again laid waste their lands in Epworth manor, but if he would accept of a lease of their lands in that manor for six years they would grant him that in full consideration of his demand. Which lease he accepted with great reluctance, foreseeing the ill consequences that would attend it; but necessity forc’t him to it, and on he pushed, but was now to fight with a hydra grown more formidable than ever.

He made several miles of fences, and plowed and sowed above a thousand acres of land, when, a consultation being had amougst the rioters, they assaulted him, his sons, and servants, night and day, and often shot at them. They killed and destroyed his goods; fired his house at midnight, with a fix’d desire to burn him, his wife, and famaly in their beds.

And afterwards, great numbers of them, being disguised and armed, destroyed all his outhouses and tennants house; chop’d down hundreds of fruit and other trees; plundered a new house he was forced to build to lye in; carried away his goods; burn’d his fences; turn’d their cattle into his corn; and gave him the diversion of all points of military execution.

He complained of these insults above, and obtained pardon for the discoverers of the vilians, and had several of them in prison in Lincoln castle; and several of them being outlawed they outbraved the laws, and detached some of their principals to go up, with a public purse, and defy the parliament itself.

Robert Popplewell being now their solicitor (tho’ no lawyer), they inclosed several hundred acres of land belonging to the Crown and the Participants, which rents was paid to Popplewell, and with which money they defied the Government.

But several of the rioters being indicted at Lincoln assizes, and bills found, and especialy one against Mr. Popplewell’s wife, who was mostly at the head of the rioters, application was made by Mr. Popplewell to Col. George Whichot and Col. Pownall to intercede with Mr. Reading to be favourable; and on the award of these two gentlemen Popplewell paid to Reading six hundred pounds, which saved his friends, the rioters, from the gallows, and which some of them richly deserved.

Mr. Reading lived to extreem old age, being above a hundred years old, and died at Belton, amongst his enemys, in great want, in the year 1712 or 1713. His wife was sister to Sᵣ John Churchill, Master of the Rols, by whom he had Thomas, Robert, John, and Lionel. Thomas had a captains commission in the reign of Q. Ann; Robert was lieuᵗ. colonel to Clayton’s regiment, and behaved very well at the battle of Dumblain against the Pretender’s forces in 1715, and at the little battle of Glenshiel, in Scotland, the year after, where he commanded in chief, and took 500 Spaniards prisoners, and a large quantity of the Pretender’s plate at Scoon, walled up in a cellar the year before. He resided at Sandtoft, in the Isle of Axholm, in the county of Lincoln, when he was absent from the regiment, and was several years an acting justice of the peace for the parts of Lindsey, in the said county, and a worthy magistrate.³¹

Col. Robert Reading and his brother Capt. Thomas Reading, farmed the Wood Carrs and Samuel closes in Belton parish, being . . . . acres, and several lands in Haxey parish of the Participants, at a low rent, upon condition they inclosed the same and defended them from being thrown down by the commoners of Epworth manor, who was still at law with the Participants; upon which they inclosed the same, and plowed and sowed a great many rapes, corn, &c., but the rioters pulled down a great deal of their fences, and destroyed their crop. This was about the year 1712. They had several of those rioters in Lincoln gaol, who were forced to compound with them, Mr. Readings being favourable in their indictments at the next assizes, which favour was obtained by the solicitation of Col. George Whichcot, of Harpswell, in the county of Lincoln, who was a great friend to the people of the Isle of Axholm whenever in his power to serve them, and which they and their posterity, with the greatest gratitude, ought to have in perpetual remembrance.

In the year 1713, I remember Col. Reading to have a party of soldiers of Clayton’s regiment encamped upon Ross, part of the Isle common, to prevent the commoners from demolishing the fences about Wood carr, and destroying the crop of rape and corn then growing.

But what preserved this famous Levil effectualy from being thrown into its former chaos was the Act against riots passed in the first year of King George the first, and from this æpoche the Levil may be said to be established in peace and safety; and in the year 1719 the commoners’ bill against the Participants was dismissed with costs, so that the Levil of Hatfield Chase hass flourished ever since, and prodigiously improved by the care and costs of the Participants, the diligence of the officers imployed in the works, and the good management of the farmers.

Of which management I shall give the best description I am capable, and I hope to the satisfaction of all concern’d in the improvement of lands. This Levil, about forty years ago, by the continual law-suits and disturbances made by the commoners, was very much neglected, and much water stood upon great part of it, especially in wett seasons; but, after the Participants was at peace from the commoners, they repaired their drains, sluices, and navigable sasses, and rebuilt several of fine ashler stone instead of timber; and the lands becoming dryer, their was room for improvement. But a great part of those lands so improved was infected with a worm or grub in such quantities that they would often, in a dry spring, have destroyed large closes or fields of oats soon after they had been above ground, for the chief of what corn they sowed in this Levil was oats or rye.

But about thirty years ago, some of the most industrious farmers began to manure this Levil with lyme which they fetched in waggons from Balby and Hexthorpe, nere Doncaster, and lays about two chaldren of an acre; they spread it with shovels out of a waggon or cart when it is fallen, and they often mix sand, or ashes, or light earth with it, which makes an increase of manure, and answers as well as tho’ it was all lyme. This they spread upon their fallows, after it is plowed and harrowed fine, and quite dead from weeds or grass; then they give it another tilt, and sows it with wheat, rye, or rape, and now grows fine wheat where they could not, forty years ago, grow oats, for this lyme destroys the worms or grubs effectualy, and stiffens their land, which in many places is a grey hungry soil.

That year they design to fallow any lands they plow it in the winter, and sows flax in the spring, which they can sell upon the ground from five to seaven pounds an acre. When the flax comes off, which is in July, they plow this ground as for fallows, giving it two or three tilts, and then manure it with lyme, and sows wheat or rye, so that the land thus managed never lyes idle. They also sow clover in great quantities, and upon clover ley they sow wheat, and grows as good wheat as any in the country, and their clover is of great service to them, for the natural grass of this Levil is but very indifferent, and makes but bad hay. They now also grow pease and beans upon their hightest ground.

Sir Cornelius Vermuyden and his Participants came over into England very rich, but he and most of them died poor. They did not live to see the drainage perfected, but those that bought their estates (almost for nothing) now reaps the benefitt of their industry and extrordinary care and expence.

Sᵣ Matthew Vanvalkenburgh died in this Levil, and left two sons, who returned into Holland. Lucius Vanvalkenburgh, his brother, also died in the Levil, who left sons that returned into their own country. And Marcus Vanvalkenburgh, another brother, died at Crowle, after he had sold every foot of land he had in those levils, about two thousand acres, and died in very low circumstances. He left four daughters, one of which was married to Mᵣ. John Margrave of Crowle.³² Mᵣ. Thomas Margrave, of Reedness, in Marshland, Yorkshire, now liveing, is grandson to Marcus Vanvalkenburgh above mentioned.

I shall now give an account of the officers employed in this Levil for the preservation thereof; which officers are chose and elected by the Commissioners of Sewers for the Levil of Hatfield Chase and parts adjacent, in the countys of York, Lincoln, and Nottingham.

And first, there is a Clerk to this commission, elected by the commissioners as above mentioned, at the renewal of every commission, which is every ten years, or at the death of the King, or in case the clerk die, or misbehave himself. This officer, for many years, had a sallery of eighty pounds a year, paid him by the Participants, for recording all the laws, decrees, and orders of sewers relating to the said Participants only, and makeing out warrants, orders, laws, and decrees, wherein the Participants are chiefly concern’d; besides other perquisites for warrants, orders, laws, summons, and decrees, juries sworn, &c., for the rest of the country as far as this commission extends, which is very extensive. The clerk’s sallery was not many years ago reduced, and the Participants only paid him sixty pounds a year, and when Mᵣ. Richard Burden, the present clerk, was elected,³³ the sallery was reduced to thirty or forty pounds a year from the Participants, and yet it is a very beneficial place.

[In another place Mᵣ. Stovin says,] I have known great contests for these places, and carried on with as much party heat as a county election, or an election for members of parliament for a worthy Corporation. When Mᵣ. Robert Banks of Bawtrey was elected in the year 17[24] General Sutton was the chairman. The High party³⁴ put up the old clerk, Mᵣ. John Arthur of Doncaster, and the Low party³⁴ put up Mᵣ. Robert Banks. Before the votes of the commissioners could be taken, dinner came up, and the commission was laid aside upon a table at the end of the long room in the Angel Inn in Doncaster. After dinner, the gentlemen went upon the election, but some gentlemen asking for the commission, it was gone and not to be found. Upon which the court was at a stand, and could not proceed; for the commission ought to be in court. There was great enquiry for it, but no person would own they knew anything of it. Upon which I informed the court that I see a certain gentleman (W——d, then clerk of assize for the Northern circuit), as wee was setting down to dinner, hand a parchment out of the casement into the street to Mᵣ. John Arthur the former clerk. This alarmed the commissioners, and they very justly resented this treatment, when they sent for the gentleman, and charged him with conveying the commission, which he absolutely denied. But the commissioners threatening to commit him to York castle if he did not produce it, he, in a sneaking, dirty manner, fetch’t it from Arthur, and delivered it into court. This base action lost their election; many of their friends being angry at this proceeding, and Mᵣ. Robert Banks was elected clerk.³⁵

There is also an Expenditor for this Levil, with a sallery of fifty pounds a year paid by the Participants. This officer receives all the scotts or assessments laid analuy upon the lands in this great Levil, at so much the acre, for the maintaining and supporting the drainage of the same, repairing of bridges, banks, sluices, navigable sasses, cleansing the drains and watercourses. He also pays the clerk, the surveyor, and other officers their salleries, buys wood for staything and banking, stone, timber, &c., which these great works may want. Mᵣ. Francis Simpson,³⁶ of Fishlock, is the present expenditor.

They have also a Surveyor,³⁷ with a sallery of fifty pounds a year. His business is to survey the drains, sasses, bridges, banks, &c., and to sett on workmen to dyke, scour, bank, and repair, as occasion requires. When money is wanted for the workmen, &c., he makes out his warrant under his hand, directed to the expenditor, to pay so much money to the party, or partys, who have done such or such a peece of work relating to the said levil, which warrant is a sufficient voucher to the expenditor when he passeth his accounts, which he does once every year, about the month of October, before the Commissioners of Sewers and as many of the participants as please to attend at a court of sewers held for that purpose within the limits of the said commission, the surveyor always attending such court. This officer has also a power to lett any dyeking, scouring, banking, &c., by the great,³⁸ to buy timber, stone, &c., for repairs; but mostly has the advice and assistance of the expenditor in matters of moment, and frequently the approbation of some of the chief participants, as lately in a breach on the south side Gowle dyke or Dutch river, which cost the participants 1700 pounds to take again and secure the country.

They have also a Bailiff attendant upon this court, whose business it is to call the court, summons the several juries, to serve all warrants or orders made by the commissioners; to publish their laws and decrees in open markett; to levy fines and forfietures; to make distresses for rents, scotts, or assessments; to adjourn the courts by proclamation, &c. His sallery is small, but his perquisites very good, having certain fees for executing warrants, summons, orders, laws, decrees, &c.

They have a Sluice Keeper at Thorne, with a sallery and a house to live in. Another at Althorp;³⁹ another at Ferry; another at Misterton Sasse; one who looks after the Dutch river; and workmen employed in and about it; besides several under-masters who look after the workmen.

N.B. The fee-farm rents of this Levil now belong to Edward Wharton, esq., of London.

Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden and his Participants met with great opposition from the people of Hatfield, Fishlake, Sykehouse, Snaith, and other places in Yorkshire, as well as from the people of Epworth manor, Misterton and Gringley: so that it is much to be wonder’d at that they ever brought this great undertaking to perfection. For the people of those places rise against him, pull down his works several times; and when that would not do they burned all his carts and barrows by night, in great heaps; upon which Sᵣ Cornelius purchased lands of the antient owners to make such drains as would satisfie the common people, and gave those people exterordinary wages in his employment, that they did not care to disturb him or his works any more.

But his stoping up the Don that ran through the Levils into Trent, by which the surcharge of water was carried away from the antient lands in the last mentioned places, and raising a mighty bank from where he stop’d up this branch of Don to Turn-Bridge, six miles long, and of an exterordinary hieght and thickness, threw the water upon the lands of Sykehouse, Fislake, Stainford, Baln, and Polington, and other places, into their very houses. And now this part of the country rise again, cutt the banks, and destroy all before them, so that the Attorney General, in his majesty’s behalf, and Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden, on his own behalf, set forth before the Councel Board the riotous carriage of Robert Portington, esq. and others in beating, wounding, and killing divers of their workmen employed in this undertaking, and for spoiling of the walls and banks made for the defence of the Levil. This business was heard at the Board, both partys present, fully debated by their counsel, in the presence of the King. Mr. Portington and others were bound to their good behaviour and left to Sᵣ Cornelius his liberty to prosecute. But Sᵣ Cornelius was to secure, at his own charge, the banks of Fislake and Sykehouse in what was requisite for their safety more then the usual charge before the undertaking of the drainage. And whereas it was moved against Robert Portington, esq., (one of the persons complained off), that he might be put out of the commission of the peace in the West-Riding of the county of York, it is ordered that he shall continue in commission so long as he behaveth himself well.⁴⁰

Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden having thus shown the way to Whitehall, the inhabitants of Sykehouse, Fislake, Stainford, Cowick, Snaith, Baln, Polington, and divers other places in the West-Rideing of Yorkshire exhibited their petition to the Board, with a certificate of divers justices of the peace of the said rideing, made at a quarter-sessions held at Pontifract the seaventh of April 1629, representing that the said places, with the country thereabouts, had sustained infinite loss by the inundations of water caused by the Participants’ new works, &c., which overflowings were occasioned by the great bank erected by Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden, as mentioned above, and by turning the water of Don and Ayre into channels not capable to receive them and carry them away, and that the new channel to Gowle, repairing and raising the old banks on the west side of the north stream of Don, according to a late order of the Board, would secure the country and prevent future danger.

These allegations on both sides were deliberately heard by their counsell, the King present, and it was ordered, for preventing further disputes, that the inhabitants of the above mentioned towns should raise by an equal assessment upon their lands the sum of two hundred pounds, to be paid to the said Sᵣ Cornelius, and that thereupon the said Sᵣ Cornelius with the other participants shall, at his and their own proper costs and charges, make the old wall on the west side the river Don as high as the great bank on the east side lately erected by Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden, and he and his participants shall for ever repair the same, upon condition they pay to him and his participants such yearly allowances as by certain commissioners of sewers to be indifferently chosen by both parties shall be thought requisite; and that the country do not directly or indirectly cutt, pull down, nor wilfully indamage the banks so raised and repaired, and for quietness sake provided that all losses and damages on either side committed or sustained should be remitted, in that their lordships looking forwards were desireous to avoid all contentions and law suits, and to promote a good understanding between Sᵣ Cornelius and the country.

Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden now projected to have this improvement establishd by Act of Parliament; and this same project was on foot soon after the Restoration of Charles 2ᵈ., but obstructed by the late lord Down, which noble lord, with Sᵣ Thomas Yarborough, both member of parliament for Pontifract, satisfyed the house by several weighty arguments to the contrary.

Upon which the petition of the above mentioned inhabitants was considered over again, and the whole matter in debate twixt the partys was refferred, by order of councel, to the right honᵇˡᵉ Thomas Lord Viscount Wentworth, lord president of the north, John Lord Darcy, and Mr. Justice Hutton, or any two of them, whereof the Lord Wentworth to be one.

According to the direction of this order, Lord Wentworth and Lord Darcy mett at Hatfield two several times, and view’d the works made by Sᵣ Cornelius for draining the said Levil of Hatfield Chase, and the 26th of Augᵗ. 1630, after hearing the alligations on both sides, and with the assistance and consent of Sᵣ Robert Heath his majesty’s Attorney General, and Sᵣ Thomas Fanshaw his majesty’s Surveyor General (both Sᵣ Cornelius his especial friends), and by the consent of both parties, these two noble persons made an order or award. This award was ordered to be decreed in his majesty’s court of Exchequer, also before the Lord Precident and Councel in the north. But, to prevent this, Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden secretly conveys his improvements unto trustees.

This made the Lord Precident grievously complain from York to the Councel Board above, that, notwithstanding his award, the banks and works were neglected, and the country miserably drown’d, and that Sᵣ Cornelius kept without the jurisdiction of his court, and so made all process inefectual; that he hass great difficuilty to keep the people from riseing; therefore humbly desires their lordships to direct Sᵣ Cornelius to be sent down to him and order him to make just satisfaction to the country.

But the country being much under water on the west side the river Don, the inhabitants preffer’d a fresh petition to the Councel Board, 25th May 1631, setting forth that Sᵣ Cornelius refused to give way for the passing a decree according to order; and the Board having called both partys before them, and seen their order, and heard the arguments on both sides, did unanimously order and declare that the said Sᵣ Cornelius and his partners shall suffer the said order to be decreed as well in the Exchequer Chamber as before the Lord Precident and Councel at York, according to the true intent and meaning of the said order: and they further order that the petitioner’s bill now depending in the Exchequer Chamber may be so suffitiently answered by the said Sᵣ Cornelius and his partners before the first day of the next term as that a decree may be thereupon had by consent, without any suit or delay; and, if the said Sᵣ Cornelius and his said partners shall make default in performance of their lordships’ orders, the Board will take notice thereof. So that upon the 28ᵗʰ day of November following the award was decreed in the Exchequer. But Sᵣ Cornelius and his partners still puts off the award being decreed at York.

The famous sluce at Gowle blowing up some years after this, for want of proper repairs, lett in the tides out of Ouse, and for many years caused great floods upon the antient lands, some of which I can remember, and the people of Fishlake and Sykehouse at such times used to cutt Vermuyden’s great bank on the east side Don and drown’d all the levils as farr as Crowle, Belton, Epworth, and Haxey. But the great bank being become very firm, and Gowle dyke, as well as the north branch of Don, with which it communicates, being by the tides worn much deeper, it contains all the water that ebbs and flows, so that there hass not been a flood this forty years past, except the breach made in the bank of Gowle dyke in the year . . . which cost the Participants seventeen hundred pounds to take it.⁴¹

The tides being let into this Dutch River was the only cause and decay of the navigation up to York, and of infinite loss to that antient and great city, once the seat of the Roman emperors. For the tides flow out of Ouse up this river, and so up Don as farr as Doncaster, and capeable to carry a ship up of a hundred and fifty tons burden, but that they are prevented by three bridges across this Dutch River.

It was also complained of, at the same time, against Sᵣ Philibert Vernatti,⁴² Sᵣ Cornelius Vermuyden, Sᵣ Matthew and Marcus Vanvalkenbourgh, and others their partners, that above a hundred poor workmen wanted above fifteen hundred pounds for wages, for which a decree was made in the Councel at York and adjudged to be by them paid, which was unperformed, and they stood out to the writ of rebellion. It was therefore expressly ordered that they should obey the said decree, and give full satisfaction before the first day of next term, or otherwise they should be committed to a messenger of his majesty’s chamber, to be by him carried down to York, and there be proceeded withall according to justice.

Most of these transactions happen’d in the first nine years of this great undertaking about Thorne, Fishlake &c. in Yorkshire.

[Here follow:

The Bounders of the lordship of Hatfield Chase.

Ordinance for the preservation of the King’s majesty’s Swans and Cygnets, and for the conservation of Fish and Fowl, with the fishing of nets within the chase of Hatfield.⁴³

Proceedings of a jury sworn at a court at Hatfield, 31ˢᵗ March 1651, relative to laying out the moors from Kirkbrigg cawsey, Thorne, to Fishlake.

Copy of a Quo Warranto against John De Warren Earl of Surrey, 12ᵗʰ Feb. 4 Eliz. (Latin.)

Proclamation, dated 3ᵈ Nov. 33 Henry VIII. (1542)⁴⁴ recorded at a Forest or Chase Sessions held 26 July, 38 Henry VIII. Perambulations of the Chase of Hatfield. Notes of the bounders betwixt Hatfield and Crowle.

A copy of the bounders of the lordship of Crowle, 7ᵗʰ Nov. 1607.

The course of old Don from Eastoft to Stainford.⁴⁵

Copy of the decree for the certainty of the Fines of copyhold lands within the manor of Hatfield, confirmed by an act of parliament 7ᵗʰ James cap. 21.

Articles of agreement, 24 May 2ᵈ Charles, between the King and Sir Cornelius Vermuyden for draining Hatfield Chase.

31 January 4ᵗʰ Charles. Grant from the King to Sir C. Vermuyden of the manor of Hatfield, &c.

Copy of certain notes of Sir Richard Gargrave, relative to Sir Anthony Browne Kᵗ.

Owners of the Level of Hatfield Chase 1635.

Charges of Scots 1629, 1635.

Extract from indenture dated 14 June 1628—the King to Sir C. Vermuyden.

Letter from the King to the commissioners of sewers, 2ᵈ April 12ᵗʰ Charles 1637.

Certificate of the Commissioners of sewers to the King, 4ᵗʰ Aug. 1637.

Certificate to the Lords of the Privy Council, May 1ˢᵗ 1635, of the arrears of Scots owing from the Participants.

Order of Court of Sewers at Haxey, 2ᵈ June 10ᵗʰ Charles, 1635.

Names of gentlemen in a commission of sewers 26 Feb. 11ᵗʰ Charles.

Bill against Participants by the Earl of Antrim and Catherine Duchess of Buckingham for fee farm rents, 13ᵗʰ Charles.

Another commission of sewers 13ᵗʰ Charles.

Decree of Court of Sewers, 28 May 21 Charles, 1645, relative to the repairs by the Participants of the banks from Idle-Stop to Misterton Sasse.

A Commission for the better draining the lordship of Hatfield &c., 25ᵗʰ June . . . Charles. And instructions to Commissioners named in the said commission for the better execution of an order annexed.

Certificate of the same Commissioners to the Barons of the Exchequer, 8ᵗʰ Sept. 5ᵗʰ Charles, 1630.

Copy of the Decree out of the Exchequer Chamber for the commons of Crowle &c., 30ᵗʰ Nov. 5ᵗʰ Charles, 1630.

Decree in Michaelmas term 6ᵗʰ Charles, 1631, relative to Sir C. Vermuyden.

Law of Sewers made at Doncaster 9ᵗʰ Dec. 1640, for raising a tax.

Decree and Ordinance of Sewers made at Doncaster 1ˢᵗ Oct. 1647, for repair of Trent banks.

Petition from the commissioners of Sewers to the Lords Keepers of England, setting forth the doings of “the Dutch”; riotous proceedings &c. If their lordships do not take some timely course for prevention of these vexations, the burden will be too great for us to undergo; and we must leave both the Levil and the rest of the country adjoining to groan and sink under their own burthen.

Petition of the Commissioners of sewers 1647, in which they complain against one Matthew Brunyee⁴⁶ “an alien borne and no denizen,” for having at the session of sewers at Doncaster, the 8ᵗʰ Oct. 1647, “in a most scornefull jeering manner,” contemned the laws of the kingdom to be unjust; and further questioning the authority of the commission, the court thought fit to fine him £10, whereupon he appeared very contemptuous, and further insisted upon his former discourse, and would not be silenced, inveighing against the justice of the law, and authority of the commission, till it was thought fit to commit him to the castle of York: and there he remained for some few days, and then brought his action against the commissioners.

Answer of the commissioners of sewers to the Lords Commissioners of the Great Seal of England Mich. Term 1648, to exceptions exhibited against them and the officers of the court, in the foregoing business.⁴⁷

A Commission of Sewers 30ᵗʰ Aug. 1649.

A Decree of Sewers made at Doncaster, 23ᵈ Nov. 1650.
Dº Dº . . . . 25ᵗʰ Sept. 1651.
Dº Dº . . . . 22ᵈ April 1651.
Dº Dº at West-Stockwith 15ᵗʰ April, 1651.
Dº Dº at Doncaster . 27ᵗʰ Feby. 1651.
Dº Dº ,, Dº . 2ᵈ March, 1652.
Dº Dº ,, Dº . 26ᵗʰ July, 1652.
Dº Dº ,, Whitgift . 2ⁿᵈ June, 1653.
Dº Dº ,, Doncaster 13ᵗʰ January, 1652.

A true copy of the antient deed of John de Mowbray some time Lord of the Isle of Axholme and of the Honour of Brember, made to the freeholders there, after he had made an approvement to himself of some of the wastes within the manor of Epworth in the said Isle, as is now translated out of French into English by William Riley keeper of the records in the Tower of London; dated 31ˢᵗ May 33 Edw. 3. (1359).]

The freeholders and commoners had a trial, verdict, judgment, and execution upon this deed at the Exchequer bar in Michaelmas term last [1651], in the name of Thomas Vavasour, a gent. of an antient family, son of Henry Vavasour, son of Thomas Vavasour, the grandfather, son of Henry Vavasour the great grandfather, who married Joan one of the daughters of Robert At-Hall, to whom, by partition made between her and Elizabeth and Mary her sisters, the same place called Belwood did come. Robert At-Hall was son and heir to Oliver

At-Hall, who was son and heir of Margery one of the daughters and heirs of Thomas Beltoft and Emot his wife, to whom, by partition with Elizabeth her sister, the said place called Belwood came. Emot was daughter and heir to Richard de Belwood, who is one of the eleaven specially named in the deed of Mowbray, and lyeth entombed in the parish church of Belton, in a tomb called Belwood tomb.⁴⁸

And Thomas Vavasour the grandfather, desireing upon his death-bed to be burried nere the said tomb, was after his death laid in the tomb, (the tomb being broken open for that purpose) where a pair of slippers were found at the feet of Richard de Belwood, whose bones are there yet in lead. All things haveing ever since passed according to the above deed till now that the projectours (Sᵣ Corn. Vermuyden, &c.) came in against law.

N.B. The 12ᵗʰ May 1750, being in Belton church with the Revᵈ Mᵣ Clough, the present vicar, I observed Vavasour’s tomb above mentioned, with several coats of arms upon it, and a large stone block on the top of all, where an effigie has laid at full length, but in stone,⁴⁹ and which by some indiscreet person or other was removed from its place and carried out of the church, where it now lyes, on the south side of the chancel, and under the window of the vestry, in the church yard. To the north of this tomb (which tomb is on the north side of the alter), I observed two antient grave-stones which were covered over with cement mortar, which formerly they had made there for repairs of the church, but by the help of Wᵐ Dale, the parish-clerk, I got the same clean’d, and found the following inscription of the nearest to Belwood or Vavasour’s tomb, vizᵗ: cut in a border round the stone in very deep letters, and those letters fill’d with pitch vizᵗ:—HERE LYETH ROBERT MOUNSOUN ESQER LATE OF BELTON, AND WAS BURIED THE 3 OF AUGUST A° Dᵢ 1521. WHOM GOD HATH CALED TO HIS MERCI. And in an inner border of this same stone this inscription:—Also here lyeth Margaret his wife, onley Daughter and Heir of Fraunsis Belwood Esquire, and was burᵈ 24ᵗʰ July A° Domini 1570. Arms, Argent, a fess crenelle between 3 escalops sable and border of third. On the stone north of this, and close by it, is this inscription:—Hic jacet corpus sub hoc tumulo Iohanis Sheffield Armigeri, nuper de Beltoft, secundi filii Roberti Sheffield Militis, 6 die Novebris, 1526. Et corpus Jane Sleeford nuper de Beltoft senioris filiæ Johanis Sheffield, obijt 27 die Septembris, A.D. 1588.

The Mounsons and Sheffields were antient famalys in the Isle of Axholm, and of late years inobled, Mounson Lord Mounson: Sheffield 1st Baron of Butterwick in this island, then Earl of Mulgrave, Marquess of Normanby, and Duke of Buckingham.

In the parish register is this account of the Vicars of Belton since the Reformation;—1ˢᵗ Tho. Cliesby, who I take to be incumbent at the Reformation. 2ᵈˡʸ Francis Houlder 1588. 3ᵈˡʸ John Searle 1588. 4ᵗʰˡʸ John Melton 1598, May 1ˢᵗ. 5ᵗʰˡʸ Henry Langley, 1605. Mark Summerscales, 1609. John Baldwin, 1619. John Baldwin junᵣ, Hugh Shaw, John Upsal, 2ⁿᵈ Feb. 1679. John Morris 1695, Cxtmas Day. Gerrard Clough 174 .

In the register book is this memorandum:—Memorandum, that the blasphemous pictures of the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, were removed out of the glass windows of this quire of Belton Jan. 10ᵗʰ 1595, the expence whereof was 10 pence and no more. Witness thereof, John Melton clerk, Henry Glew, Wᵐ Ashton, Wᵐ Marcer, Richᵈ Medley.

In Belton church,—taken from a manuscript book of Mᵣ Torrd’s, now in York Minster, by the Revᵈ Wᵐ Potter, vicar of Hemingbrough nere Howden, Yorkshire, June 1753.

In the north quire window:—Gules, on a bend compone azure and argent between 2 lyons’ heads erased argent 3 leopards’ faces or, and boarder compone argent and azure.

In the north quire:—Gules, a lyon rampant argent debruised by a bend azure, thereon 3 escalops or. Gules, a lyon rampant argent.

In the east window of north quire, Bendy of 6 argent and gules; fyle of 5 points or.

In the chancel lyes a white stone with a double inscription about its verge, thus:—Here lyeth the Body of John Ferne son to William Ferne Esq. who died yᵉ 26 Augᵗ A.D. 1615.—Here also lyeth the Body of Johan Ferne, wife to the said William Ferne, who dyed upon the 3ᵈ day of Sepᵗ A.D. 1616.

In the north quire, round the circumference of a stone (now not legible, 1753,):—Hic jacet Wilmˢ Evers armiger & Agnes uxor ejus, filia et heres Willi Gardiner, qui obiit 3 die mensis Feb. & Agnes 16 die mensis Novʳ A.D. 1500.

The inhabitants of the Isle of Axholm, under the above-mentioned grant of Mowbray, claim’d right of common in all the waist grounds of the said island and parts adjacent; and notwithstanding the grants of the Crown of part of this land to the Participants for the draining of the remainder, yet the islanders would not submit or yield up any part, but was at law with the Participants for almost a whole century, as I have heard Wᵐ Gylby esq. recorder of Lincolne say, who was many years of councel for the islanders. But if the law did not favour them they imeadietly went to club law, and broke down the inclosures of the decreed lands, destroying large quantities of corn, rape, &c. frequently. The islanders were unanimous, and when they did rise they gathered their whole posse, men, woemen, and children all went in a body to do what mischief they could.

To manage the cause against the Participants, the islanders chose a person at their head which they called their solicitor. The first they appointed was Thomas Vavasor esq. of Belwood, (a descendant of Vavasor of Belwood, in the parish of Belton). But he being a gent. of a generous disposition, he spent great part of his own estate in protecting his neighbours’ rights, and was obliged to sell Belwood, the antient patrimony of his ancestors. But those that followed or succeeded him in that office took the contrary measures.

The next that was chose solicitor for the isle was John Pindar,⁵⁰ an attorney-at-law at Owston in this isleand, (the son of Robert Pindar, of Eastoft, yeoman,) who raised a considerable estate by this office; for they not only now paid an annual assessment for their estates to carry on their cause against the Participants, but their solicitor tooke in several hundred acres of comon ground, which was let to farmers, and so raised great sums of money. How it was accounted for by this gentleman I know not; he had all or most of the inhabitants of Belton, Epworth, Owston, and Haxey bound, and many of them was ruin’d and forc’t to sell their estates.

The next and last solicitor for the Isle people was Robert Poplewell, of Moswood, in the parish of Belton, and son of David Popplewell yeoman,⁵¹ who from a small paternal estate of fourteen pounds a year raised an estate of four or five hundred pounds a year. How he came to be chose their solicitor I know not. He had no education but in a comon country school. Indeed, he was land-steward to Grace Countess of Granvill, and by that most of the tennants of the manor of Epworth lay under one obligation or other to him; and I am of opinion this was the true reason of his being chosen solicitor.

This gentleman had them all bound (or the greatest part of them), and which they had reason to repent whilst they liv’d, and almost all their posterity after them; for he taxed them at his pleasure; besides, he inclosed what comon ground he pleased, under a pretence to raise money to carry on the cause, but never was (that I ever heard off) accountable for the rents and proffets thereof. The Isle cause and his pocket was the two great gulphs that swalled all that and many estates of substantial yeomen in the island, as the Kinmans, Halifaxes, Foxes, Bernards, Nodel, Tankersley, Wakefield, &c.

He and his Affidavit men attended Westminster Hall almost every term for a great number of years, and was as well known their as an Irish evidence. He tooke in lands to support these men nere Hyrst Priory,⁵² called “Affidavit closes.”⁵³ To this day I can remember Belton West Carr taken in by him, containing some hundred acres, and fine oats growing thereon, which was the last ground this worthy solicitor inclosed.

I have mentioned above how the Isle people had recourse to club law, when the law of the nation was against them, and cannot well ommit the following narrative, as it is true in fact.

I have said that the fee-farm rent of the manor of Hatfield, &c., was given by King Charles the 1ˢᵗ to Geo. Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, and that the Earl of Antrim in Ireland married his dowager. But, before I proceed any further, I shall give some account of Nathaniel Reading esq. This gentleman where he was born I have not had the oppertunity to be inform’d, but he was brought up at the Inns of Court and was called to the barr, lived in Chanel Row, Westminster, and practised as a councel in the law. He married Arabela Churchill, sister to Sᵣ Wynston Churchill, by whom he had John, Thomas, Robert, and Lionel. Mrs. Reading being own aunt to John Churchill, late Duke of Marlbrough (that second Alexander, and British hero), he provided for the sons of Mr. Reading in the army. John died a major in Ireland; Thomas was a captain of foot, but sold his commission soon after; Robert died at Newcastle, lieut. colonell of Clayton’s regiment of foot; and Lionel was many yeare a superior officer in the Emperor’s army, and died in that service.

Nathaniel Reading esq. in his youth made the tour of Italy, &c., and was at Naples when the insurrection of Masinela⁵⁴ happened, and was made secratary to this usurper, and with his master was condemn’d to die. But when he came to the place of execution, and being admitted to speak, he made so fine a Latin oration, &c., that he was pardon’d; and returning into England putt on the gown, was an able and learned councel, and then married the said Mrs. Churchill.

He was of councel for the Popish Lords in the Tower, committed their upon the evidence of Titus Oats and others for being concern’d in what was then called the Popish Plott.

Mr. Reading, instead of acting as became one in his station, undertooke to suborn the king’s evidence; was imprisoned and tryed for the fact and convicted, and was sentenced to stand in the pillory and pay a fine to the king of a thousand marks, &c.⁵⁵ The first part of the sentence was executed upon him; how he got quit of the fine I know not, but he was discharged from his imprisonment and imployed afterwards by the Earl of Antrim (who was at the head of the papists in Ireland) to collect the fee-farm rents above mentioned. The earl might employ him as a fitt and proper person to cope with the parties who was in arrear, but I rather think it done as a reward for his suffering in the case of the Popish Lords, for the old gentleman retained his high-flown principals to the last. And I remember, not many years before he died, when that great incendiary in church and state, Dʳ Sacheverel,⁵⁶ was impeach’d and tryed by the House of Comons, and was only degraded, &c., and escaped with his life, Mr. Reading roasted an ox whole at Sandtoft, which he gave amongst the populace, with ale, and each of them two roasted eggs with the letters H. S. upon each egg.

But now I return to Mr. Reading’s first settleing at Sandtoft. When he first came he begun with the collecting those fee-farm rents, and used to make frequent distresses of cattle upon the grounds lyeable to pay the same, and used to impound them at Hatfield, Bawtrey, and Doncaster, so that there was a perpetual struggle between him and the landowners and tenants of those lands in arrears for the fee-farm rent.

Mr. Reading being a very active man, the Participants, who met with continual opposition from the Isle people, thought proper to lett several large parcels of the decreed lands to him, thinking he would defend their possession better than they could themselves. Upon this he inclosed these decreed lands, and got large crops of corn and rape, but was forced to defend his possession often at the hazard of his life, for the Isle people often attempted to take it, and in particular by setting his dwelling-house on fire at Sandtoft in the dead of the night. This wicked act was comitted by one Peel, Spark, and others, with the solicitor’s wife at their head. They first cutt up a fine young orchard, then stopt all the keyholes of the doors with clay, that the keys could not be moved, and then sett fire to the house, and had certainly burnt Mr. Reading and his lady in the flames, had not Providence been their friend in this calamitous condition. For I have heard Col. Reading say he was then about eighteen years of age, and in bed, when they percieved the fire, he and the rest of the famaly flew to the doors, but could not gett the keys to move, and in the hieght of despair he wrenched an iron barr out of the window frame, and got his aged father and mother out of the window, and by a meracle saved there lives, for that the house roof fell in the moment he had got them out of it. This was barbarity with a wittness, and yet none of the offenders met with the punishment they deserved, for the lesser vilians fled their country and never returned; and Mr. Reading, being in low circumstances, compounded with the great ones for money; and especialy the solicitor, by the award of Sᵣ Willoughby Hickman and Colonel Geo. Whichcot, paid (to save his wife’s bacon) to Mr. Reading six hundred pounds.⁵⁷

After which Mr. Reading built another house not farr from that which was burnt upon the bank of the Idle, whose son, Colonel Robert Reading, enjoyed the same (after his father’s decease) to his death.

This old gentleman died at Belton, amongst the most inveterate enemys, in the year of our Lord . . . supposed to be above a hundred years old. He was reduced to poverty and extreem want before he died, yet was a man of excellent parts, both natural and acquired, and one of the finest orators of the age he lived in. His son Robert was an acting Justice of the Peace for the parts of Lindsey, in the county of Lincolne, for many years, and a fine orator. He left a son Robert, an unfortunate young man, who died at Wakefield or Leeds, 1746.

This Robert, the lieut.-colonel, and his brother Thomas the captain, farmed many hundred acres of the decreed lands of the Participants, and kept possession for them against the Isleanders for many yeers; until the passing the act against riotous assembles (as mentioned before) in the reign of king Geo. the first, about the year 1716. This famaly of Reading is now extinct.

Whereas their was in process of time, some years after the great drainage of this Levil, several other improvements made, and new drains cutt, &c., by the power of the commissioners, I shall only mention one amongst many others, as it happen’d within the manor of Crowle, which was part of Hatfield Chase, as before taken notice of.

[Minutes from Keadby Law of Sewers, 17ᵗʰ May, 1717.

Articles of agreement between the lord and the inhabitants of Keadby, 13ᵗʰ June, 1722.

Court of Sewers at Crowle, 5ᵗʰ July, 1722.

Dº at Epworth, 22ⁿᵈ June, 1727.

Petition of Nathaniel Reading esq. to the commissioners of sewers, “well worth the reading.”

Notices of Adlingfleet, families of Ellerker, Davill, Ludlow, &c.]

Having mentioned Sᵣ Matthew Vanvalkenburgh and his two brothers as great owners in the Levil, I shall remark that Sᵣ Matthew died at Middle Ings,⁵⁸ in the said Levil and parish of Hatfield, in April, 1644, and Dame Isabella, his wife, died at the same place in Novʳ, 1644. Sᵣ Matthew left Sᵣ John Anthonie his son and heir,⁵⁹ and Matthew, who retired into Holland, there father’s country, which famaly, I am informed, still remains. Marcus Vanvalkenburgh,⁶⁰ brother to Sᵣ Matthew, died in the year 1653, and left Marcus, his son, who died at Crowle, in Lincolnshire, very much reduced. He left no sons, but several daughters, as mentioned at page . . . . of this book. He died about the year 1680. What became of the other brother, Lucius, I have not been informed.

[Copy of receipt of the King’s fee farm rent for the manor of Wroot, 23rd July, 1649.

Copy of a Commission of Sewers, dated 3rd June, 11 Geo. 2nd.

Precedents of oath, forms of court proceedings, &c., concerning the office of Commissioners of Sewers, taken from “Callis on Sewers.”

Lists of names offered to the Lord Keeper to be put into the commission of sewers, on behalf of the counties of York, Lincoln, and Nottingham, and the Participants, “who all stand.”

1633, Jan. 8th. An Agreement of the Participants for a Minister of the Gospel amongst the French and Dutch Protestants who first inhabited the Levels of Hatfield Chase, &c.; translated out of the French, 1647.

Petition for a Minister of the Gospel in the Level addressed to the Participants.

The Participants title in equity against the Queen Mother and her trustees or assigns.

Order for payment of 40l. a-year to a Minister, made at a Court of Sewers, held at Bawtry, 9th Sept., 28th Charles 2nd.

Order made at a Court of Sewers, at Turnebridge, 30th Sept. 1681, referring question of a salary for a Minister to Sir John Boynton, Knt.

Copy of Indenture dated 26th May, 8 Charles I. 1632, whereby Sir Arthur Ingram, Knt., sells land in Armin to Sir C. Vermuyden and others, to cut the Dutch river.

Copy of Indenture, dated 17th April, 1654, whereby Sir C. Vermuyden and John Lamott convey to Thomas Lee and Thomas Thompkinson lands in divers parishes.

Report from Rushworth’s appendix, vol. 3, p. 39, of case, Vermuyden versus Torksey and others, concerning a riot in the Level.

The relator states that, under his agreement with the Crown, he was bound to drain and lay dry the grounds in the Level; and his workmen being at work thereabout, the defendants at several times beat and terrified them, threatening to kill them if they would not leave their work; threw some of them into the river and kept them under water with long poles; and at several other times, upon the knelling of a bell, came to the works in a riotous and warlike manner, divided themselves into companies to take the workmen, and filled up the ditches and drains, burned up the working tools and materials, set up poles in the form of gallows to terrify the workmen withal, threatened to break their arms and legs, beat and hurt many of them, and made others flee away, whom they pursued to a town with such terror and threats that they were forced to guard the town, to the damage of the relator of 2000l. The defendants were all committed to the Fleet; three of them fined 1000l. a-piece, one of them 500l., and nine others 500 marks a-piece; all of them at the next assizes to acknowledge their offences and pay 2000 marks damage.

Copy of a decree, dated 3rd Feb., 7 Eliz., for the agistment of Dikesmarsh or Hoole Pasture, &c., within the lordship of Hatfield, for 3l. 6s. 8d. a-year, by the tenants of the manor. Enrolled in the Exchequer.

The true state of the Improved Rent, how the same is to be paid according to the king’s contract.

Copy of Vermuyden’s grant of the commons of Hatfield in trust for the use of the inhabitants, dated 15th July, 9th Charles I.

Proceedings, in Latin, inter Tenentes dominii de Haitfield et Tenentes manerii de Crowle, concerning Duckling Lodge and the Heines, circa 1360.

Rents granted by King Charles I. to Katherine, Duchess of Buckingham, and George, Earl of Rutland, in trust for her son George, 9th Sept., 5th Charles I.

Summons to Francis Wood and 9 other persons to appear on 22nd of August, 1676, at Hatfield, to be examined upon interrogatories, in a cause Geo. Duke of Buckingham, plaintiff, and Sir Gilbert Gerrard, Bart., and John Harvey, esq., defendants.

The case of the grandchildren of John Dillingham, gent., deceased, and John Rushworth, of Lincoln’s Inn, esq., and Theophilus Smith, of St. Paul’s Churchyard, draper.

Notes of creation of certain noblemen.

A perambulation of the bounders of Thorne meer, found by 24 men at my lord’s court, “as our elders have had in tyme past.”

Particulars of the land some time of Sir Fillibert Vernatti, in Hatfield Chase, with some engagements or part thereof.

Abstract of the customs of the manor of Hatfield, from the rolls of court, temp. Edw. 3rd: headed, In principio creavit Deus cœlum et terram. (These are printed in Hunter’s South Yorkshire, vol. i. page 158.)

Inquisition taken by a Jury of the Hatfield Manor court, 23rd Feb., 1674, re John Midleton.

Answer and resolution of the homagers of the same court on certain legal points of custom. “N.B. The poynts to which this is an answer was torne out of Mr. Pryme’s book, March 10th, 1752.”

The last contest relateing to these Levels. Copy of order of dismission, Popplewell et al. versus Reading et al. Exchequer, Hilary Term, 6th Geo. 1st, 25th Jan. 1719.

Memoranda as to floods, &c., on Sunday, Feb. 18th, 1753.

Proposals for printing by subscription, in 1 volume folio, The History of the drainage of the great Levil of Hatfield Chase; by Geo. Stovin, esq., at one guinea each book.]

PART OF THE REGISTER OF THE FRENCH PROTESTANTS’ CHURCH AT SANDTOFT⁶¹

1643. Le 3ᵈ jour d Avril, 1643, Mart Dubliq et Eliz. Teurqoin ont este Espouzez danse L Eglise de Santoft.

Le 11ᵗʰ Juni, 1643, Anthoine Blancart et Marie Bondvel ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

Le 22ᵈ October, 1643, Anthoine Scanfaire et Jenne Longuespee ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

Le 5 Novembʳ., 1643, Pier Delahaye et Jenne Henegrave ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

Le 28 Jan. 1648, Noe Ager et Jeann Caidoy ont este Espouzez a Sandtoft.

1644. Le 19 Maii, Jesay Beamarm et Susann Lehouq ont este Espouzæz a Sandtoft.

Le 14 Jullii, Jaques Pinssoy et Susann Leespier ont este Espozez a Sandtoft.

Le 10 June, Jehan Leleu et Judith Lenoy ont este Espouzez a Sandtoft.

Le 21 Julii Jaques Leroy et Maria Pinsfoy ont este Espouzez a Sandtoft.

1645. Le 15 Jully, 1645, Simon Acfair et Maria LeRoy ont este Espouzez a Sandtoft.

Le 3ᵈ Augᵗ. Francois Derick et Cath. Delespiser ont este Espouzez a Sandtoft.

Le 10 Augᵗ. Anthoine Leflour et Maria Renault ont este Espouzez a Sandtoft.

1646. Le 30 Mars, Pier Amory et Maria Watson ont est Espouzez a Sandtoft.

Le 2 Aug. Jacob Renard et Maria Frank ont este Espouzez a Sandtoft.

1647–1648. Le 29 Oct. Christian Smaque et MagDelein Descamps ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

Le 14 Jan. Michell Lebrand et Ester Pensoy ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

1649. Le . . . Jan. Piere Descamps et Ester Cony ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

Le 1 Julliet, Isaac Delanoy et Marie Du Battelot ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

Le 15 Julliet, Jaques Harnew⁶² et Jenne Le Roy ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

1650. Le 3 Juin ont este Espousez Oser Legrand et Jenne Hancar, a Santoft.

Le 1 de Jan. Jaq. Dumoulin et Cath. Legrain ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

1651. Le 23 Avril, Anthoine Blancar et Marie Lespiere ont este Espouzez a Santoft.

1652. Le 9 Nov. ont este Espousez Jaques Coquelar et Ester Morilion a Santoft.

1665. Le 15 Febier, Abram Egard et Jeanne Delaynoy ont este Espousez a Santoft.

Le 25 Julliet, David Morillion⁶³ et Catherin Banruedt Espousez a Santoft.

Le 30 Octʳ. ont este Espousez Piere Lelieu et Ester Lenoir.

Le 1 Nov. ont este Espouzez Isaac de bacy et Eliz. Amory.

Le 18 Jan. ont este Espousez Isenbar Chavatte et Ann Morillion.

Le 18 Jan. ont este Espousez Marc de coup et Marie Morillion.

Le 8 Fevrier, ont este Espousoz Isaac Vanplue et Jeann duvertier.

Le 14 Mar. ont este Espousez Jacob Tissen et Marie Baurudet.

1666. Le 28 Nov. ont este Espousez Isaac Beharelle et Jean Discamps.⁶⁴

Le 23 Jan. ont este Espousez Jacob Tyssen et Sara de Raedt.

Le 23 Jan. ont este Espousez David Letalle et Maria Amory.

Le 13 Feb. ont este Espousez Piere Tyssen et. Eliz. Leenards.

1667. Le 24 Feb. ont este Espouser Abram Beharelle et Elizabeth Letalle.

Le 26 Feb., ont este Espouser Piere Leleu et Maria duvertier.

Le 4 Mars, ont este Espouser Iseubar Chavatte et Marie Smaque.

1670. Le 4 d April Sont maries Abram Bareel⁶⁵ et Francoise Sterpin; Matthias Priem et Sarah Smaque.

1671. Le 25 d Janivar ont este maries Isaac Desbiens et Joanna Waterloo.⁶⁶

BAPTISE À SANTOFT

1642. Le 19 May a este Baptissee Eliz. fille de Noe et de Marguerit Guiselin p’pise de Crowle.

Le 22 Febrier a este Baptize Isaac fils de Jean Beharrelle et de Jane Jordain.

Le 26 Feb. a este Baptize Jacob fils de Mattᵐ. Porree et de Maria Jaquemine.

Le 26 Feb. a este Baptize Susann fille de Osee Tafin et de Sara de Zomber.

Le 26 Mar. a este Baptize Michael fils de Custaw Legrand et Magelen Chavatte.

1643. Le 3 Apᵗ. a este Baptize Pierre fils de David Morillion et Anne Letalle.

Le 23 d Jullet a este Baptise Jaques fil de Jehan Le Talle et Judith Descamps.

Le 23 Jullet a este Baptize Jean Hernu fil de Jaques et de Jenne Lombard.

Le 24 Sept. a este Baptize Matthew Prime fil de Crullin et de Sara Bresmr.

Oct. 25, Margᵗ. Brungue fille de Matthew et de Marguerit Bale, a este Baptise.

Nov. 26, Jaques fills Jehan Letalle et de Jaquenime Tissen a este Baptize.

Dec. 3, Isaac fills de Jaques Flahau et de Jeanne Chatelet a este Baptize a Sandtoft. Les Testimoys sant Isaac Amory et Judith Leflour.

Dec. 5ᵗʰ Ester Vienin fill de Jaq. Vienin et Judith Dubois a este Baptise.

Marc 14, Marie Amory fil de Isaac et de Maria Morillion bapt.

1643. Le 22 Jan. Pier Berchet fili de Monsʳ. Berchett, minister, de Santoft, Bapt.

Susan fill de Anthonine Dubois et Susanna Morillion Bapt.

1644. Issenbar fils de Isenbar Chavatte, Bapt.

Le 1 Sept. Susan fil Roland Dubois et Magdalen Cardue a Baptise.

Dº Matthias fils de Charles Prime et Pree Messman a Baptise.

Piere fills de Jean et de Jennine Morillion a Baptise a Santoft.

Ann fili David Morillion et Ann Letalle.

Jacob fill de Isaac Vennin et Cath. Smaque, Bapt.

Jacob fill de Isaac Amory et Maria Bapt.

Feb. 6ᵗʰ Eliz. fille de Adrian Vanhouge et Eliz. Derrick Bapt.

9ᵗʰ Feb. Isaac fills de Isaac Lelew et Judeth Leroy Bapt.

1645. 30 Mars Eliz. fill de Isaac Amory et de Ann Morillion Bapt.

Andu Clebaux fill . . . . . Lenoy Bapt.

John fill de Antoin Le Roux et Maria Duffosse Bapt.

26 Oct. Maur fill de Nicholas Tyssen et Sara Jacob Bapt.

Abraham fill de Anthoine Dubois et de Susann Morillion Bapt.

Johan fil de Jaques Flahau et Jeanne Castlet Bapt.

1646. Marie fill de Pier Delagaye et Susanne Bapt.

Dina fill Charles Raney et Sara Elbiet Bapt.

Ann file David Le Conte et de Sara Werquin Bapt.

Isaac fill de Anthoin Massengarbe et Dnia Mitchell Bapt.

Marie file de Marc Dubliq et Eliz. Turquine Bapt.

21 July, Ester fille de Robᵗ Flahau et de Maria Scanfair Bapt.

Eliz. fille de Custar Legrand et de Magdelen Asolom Bapt.

20ᵗʰ Sept. Cath. file Isenbar Scavat et Maria Descamps Bapt.

Marie fil Isaac Roubay et Sarah Scanfair Bapt.

1 Nov. Isaac fill de Isaac Amory et de Ann Morrillion Bapt.

Charles fills Charles Grebault et Eliz. Ferre Bapt.

Abram file Anthoine Merquehier et Bapt.

Sarah file Adrian Vanhouq et de Eliz. Derick Bapt. (I remember this woman.)

1647. Piere fils de Isaac Venin et Cath. Smaque Bapt. 2ᵈ May.

Anne fil Cxtian Fontain et Franciose Beaussart Bapt.

Jacob fils Rolland Dubois et Magdellen Cardoy Bapt.

Margeret fil de Mathin Brugne et de Margueret Bapt.

Isaac fills Josias Harlay et Maria Legrand Bapt.

Jacob fill Isaac Clais et Maria Deltur Bapt.

1648. Jacques fill Isaac Amory et Ann Morillion Bapt.

Le 4 Oct. Abram fils de Francois Derique et Bapt.

Le 15 April, David fils de Charles Priam et de Peronne Mesinan, Bapt.

Le May 27, Abram Desquire fils de Abram et de Maria Dubois, Bapt.

1649. Abram Geubau fils de Charles et Eliz. Ferez, Bapt.

Isaac Leleu fils de Jean et de Judith Le Roy, Bapt.

Le Aug. 5, Eester Prime fille Guilim et de Sarah Bresme, Bapt.

Ester Merquilide fille de Anthoim et Anthennett Treffet, Bapt.

Sarah Smaque fille Chrestien et de Madelener Descay, Bapt.

Oct. 7. Samᵢ. Amory fills . . . . de, Bapt.

Adrien Vanhouq fills de Adrien et de Eliz. Derick, Bapt.

Nov. 18. Susanne Vennin file de Jean et de Cath. Smaque, Bapt.

1650. Jane Benitland file de Thoˢ. et Louyse de Zembr, Bapt.

Jaques Dubois fills de Martin et de Judith Salmon, Bapt.

May 5ᵗʰ. David Beharrel fils de Jean et de Jenne Cordain, Bapt.

May 12ᵗʰ. Marie Letalle file de Jean et Judith Descay, Bapt.

May 19ᵗʰ. Jenne Leroux file de Anthoine leroux et Marie Dufosse, Bapt.

1651. 11ᵗʰ May. Marie Hancar fille de Isaac et de Jenne Legrand, Bapt.

Ester fille de Robᵗ. et Marie Taffin Bapt.

Susnie(?) Amory fille de Isaace Amory et Ann Morillion Bapt.

16 Nov. Ann de Lepiere fille de Joel et Marie Lermitte, Bapt.

Ann Leconte fille de David . . . . Bapt.

25 Jan. David et Abram fils de David et Ester Lenoy, Bapt.

1652. Abram de Lannois fils de Jean et de Marie Pincheon, Bapt.

30 May. David Amory fils de Jan et de Marie Thery, Bapt.

Piere de Roubay fils de Jan et de Sara Canster, Bapt.

20 June. Jan filz de Abram Blique et de Marie Discampe, Bapt.

4ᵗʰ Jullet. Piere filz de Daniel Duverlie et de Marye Lenoir, Bapt.

22 Dec. Jacob filz de Jacob Liennar et de Mary Frank, Bapt.

Jacob filz do Charles de Lannoy et de Sara Albert, Bapt.

6 March, Marie filz Mr. Berchett minister de Santoft et Marie Lecoq, Bapt.

1653. Samᵢ. fils de Isaac Amory et de Anne Morillion, Bapt.

4ᵗʰ Sept. Isaac filz de Jan Vennin et de Cath. Smaque, Bapt.

9ᵗʰ Oct. Vierre filz de Isambar Chauate et Mary Ample, Bapt.

1654. 12 Mar. Sarah file de Joel Lespirre et Mary Lermit, Bapt.

9 April. Marye fille de Isaac Lennoy et Marye de Chatlet, Bapt.

25 Jan. Jan fille de Piere Egar et de Sarah Vandebec, Bapt.

Jenne fille de Jan demoulin et de Margeret Legraine, Bapt.

1655. Piere filz de Piere Duquenne et de Jenne Bernard, Bapt, 19 Aug.

1656. Abram filz de George Hardicq et de Marye Roubay, Bapt.

26 May. Piere fils de Samⁿ. Letalle et de Eliz. Descon, Bapt.

Abram filz de Simon Le Haire et de Marye Le Roy, Bapt.

Jan fils de Isaac Hancar et de Jenne Legrand, Bapt.

1657. Marie fille de Jan Venain et de Catherine Smaque, Bapt.

18 Octʳ. Marie file Pieire Egar et de Sara Vandebec, Bapt.

1658. Sara file de Jan Vennin et Cath. Smaque, Bapt.

Ellie filz Charles Lennoy et de Sara Albert, Bapt.

1659. Anne file de Jan Lehaire et de Anne Le Roy, Bapt.

1660. 25 March. Pierre Morillion filz de David Morillion et Ann Letalle, Bapt.

28 Junii. Abram Vennin filz Jan Vennin et Cath Smaque, Bapt.

14 Oct. David Letall filz de Samⁿ. Letalle et Eliz. Descon, Bapt.

1661. 27 June Susanne file de Benjamin quoy et Elisabet Lehouq, Bapt.

1662. 14ᵗʰ Sept. Jan fils de Isaac Beharell et de Marye Blique, Bapt.

1663. 21 Junii. Piere filz de Jan Gougler et de Susanne Hersein, Bapt.

1664. 26 Feb. Sara file Abram Brynye et Sara Tissen, Bapt.

1665. 5 April, Jaques filz de Jaques Hernu et de Ann Amory, Bapt.

Abram filz de Jaques De Ratt et de Jenne Descamps, Bapt.

1666. Le 20 May, Jaques filz de Jaques Rammery et de Cath Cigny, Bapt.

4ᵗʰ Julliet, David filz Jan Egar et Mary Morfin, Bapt.

22ⁿᵈ. Jullet, Jaques filz de Jaques Hernu et Ann Amory, Bapt.

26 Augᵗ. Elisabet file de Isaac Deburge et Elizabet Amory, Bapt.

7 Octʳ. Jacob filz de David Morillion et de Cathrine Benrocedt, Bapt.

11 Novʳ. Pierre filz Isambar Chavatt et Ann Morillion, Bapt.

Vanplue. 30 Decʳ. Piere fils de Isaac Vanplue et Jenne de Verlier, Bapt.

1667. Egar. 19ᵗʰ May. Rebecca file Abram Egar et de Jenne Lennoy, Bapt.

Brungye. 26 May. Isambar filz de Abram Brynye et Sara Tyssens, Bapt.

23 Feb. Pierre filz de Piere Tuyssen et de Elizabet Leenards, Bapt.

1668. Hernu. Jene file de Jaques Hernu et de Ann Amory.

1669. Morilion. 12 Sept. Piere filz de Piere Leleu et Mary Dumerlye, Bapt.

1670. Harnu. 15 Jan. Piere filz de David Morillion et Cath. Banderete, Bapt.

3 Decʳ. Isaac filz de Jaques Harnu et de Ann Amory, Bapt.

1671. Priam. 15 Jan. Abram filz de Matthias Priam et de Sara Smaque, Bapt.⁶⁷ It is from this Gent I have collected most of my materials for this Booke.⁶⁸

Vanvalkenburgh. 12 Oct. Penelope filla de Marc Vanvalkenburgh et Anne Starkey, Bapt.

1672. Priam. 27 Sept. David filz de David Priam et de Maria Beaumont, Bapt.

Hanquar. 6 Mar. Rachel file de Isaac Hanquar et de Jenne Legrand.

Priam. 9ᵗʰ April. Piere filz de Matthias Priam et de Sara Smacque, Bapt.

1673. Letalle. 24 Feb. Samᵢl. filz de David Letalle et de Marie Amory, Bapt.

Tyssen. 6 Mars. Catheline fille de Jan Tyssen et de Susanne Venin, Bapt.

Hernu. 8 May. Jan filz de Jaques Hernu et de Ann Amory, Bapt.

Oesley. 21 June. Jean filz de Francois Oesley et de Marie Amory, Bapt.

Priam. 8 Jan. David filz de Matthias Priem et de Sara Smaque, Bapt.

Egar. 8 Feb. Caterine file de Abram Egar et de Jenne de Lannoy, Bapt.

1674. Brongye. 9 April. Susanne file de Abram Brongne et de Sara Tyssen, Bapt.

Impson. 29 April. Marie fille Gregorii Impson et Susanne Vanpouille, Bapt.

Frouchart. 1 Sept. Jan fils de Jan Frouchart et Eliz. Taylor, Bapt.

Ramary. 2 Oct. Jan filz de Jaques Rammery et de Catherine Cugny, Bapt.

Swart. Abram filz Jan Swarte et de Jan Dewit,⁶⁹ Bapt.

1675. Hernu. 11ᵗʰ Novʳ. Elis file de Jaques Hernu et de Ann Amory, Bapt.

Hefnu. 1 Jan. Anne fille de Isaac Hernu et de Eliz. Amory, Bapt.

1677. Hernu. 8 Jan. Samᵢl. filz de Jaques Hernu et de Ann Amory, Bapt.

1678. Hernu. 4 Decʳ. Abram filz de Jaques Hernu et de Ann Amory, Bapt.

1681. Amory. 3ʳ Jan. Isaac filz de Samᵢl. Amory et de Jenne Marequilly, Bapt.

1682. Hernu. 8 Sept. Isaac filz de Jaques Hernu et de Ann Amory, Bapt.

1683. Amory. 9 Sept. Jan fils de Samᵢl. Amory et de Jenne Marequilly, Bapt.

1684. Leleu. 20 Novʳ. Marie fille de Pierre Leleu et Sara Glover, Bapt.

1685. Hernu. 8 June. Susanne fille de Jaques Hernu et de Ann Amory, Bapt.

BURRIALS

1650. Marie Dufosse interre a Santoft, 8 Julet.

Derique. Piere Derick interre a Santoft, 4 Feb.

1651. Dam Catherin Le Coq de la Femme de Monsʳ. Berchett Minister, enterr a Santoft, 26 May.

Mʳ. Berchett ministre de Santoft est decede merqwedy 18 Auril 1655 enurion midy et a este enterre le lendemain enuiron 4 heures du soir, a Crowle.

I find Monsʳ. Berchett’s hand at the Churchwardens or Elders accounts to the year 1655, as Pastue⁷⁰ of the Church at Santoft.

1659. I find the hand of Jean Dekerhuel Minister a Santoft; and then Monsʳ. De la prix.

1664. Samuel Lamber, Pasture a Santoft.

1676. Jaques De la Porte, Ministere a Santoft.

1681. The last minister, Monsʳ. Le Vaneley, minister a Santoft. Ministers. Monsʳ. Berchett, Mᵣ. Deckerhuel, Mᵣ. Delaprix, Mᵣ. Delarporte, Mᵣ. Levaneley.

Memᵐ. this is but an abstract of the Regester. I find above four hundred ninety nine children baptised in this little church, and no doubt many others was baptised in the neighbouring churches of Crowle, Belton, Epworth, Haxey, and Missen, in Lincolnshire, also at Wroot, and also at Thorne, Hatfield, Finningley, &c. Their church at Sandtoft being demolished by the Isleanders for severall years, till reedified by Mr. Reading.

N.B. Sᵣ Matthew Vanvalkenbourgh had Sᵣ John Anthony Vanvalkenburgh his son and heir.

This Sᵣ Mattʳ. was elder brother to Marcus and Lucius Vanvalkenber.

N.B. It was their custome to add the names of the Sureties to every one that was Baptised in the following manner. Le 25 Feurie 1654, a este Baptises a Red Hall (or a Santoft) Jehan Filz de Pierre Egar et de Sara Vandebec, Ses Tesmoins sont Jehan Egar filz de Jehan, Marye Quoy femme de Jaques Iserby. (Enquire where Red Hall was.)

January 1752. Died, at Welchpool, in Montgomeryshire, Jonathan Evans a shepherd, aged 117. Had his eyesight and hearing till a few days before he died. He left a son who is 91 years old, and a daughter aged 87.⁷¹

Also Robert Magrath, of Kilbarton⁷² in the county of Clare, aged 115 years, in full enjoyment of all his senses. He was a student of the Temple at the Restoration of Charles the 2ⁿᵈ; was married, and had a daughter born in 1664, and another daughter born in 1737. He was a man of a most exemplary life, and possessed of every social virtue. (From the York Courant, Feb. 4ᵗʰ, 1742.) N.B. His eldest daughter (if living) must have been 73 years of age when his other daughter was born in 1737.

Memᵐ. I convers’d with a man at the Salutation at Castleford Bridge in July 1749: born in Pennyston parish, in Yorkshire, that was then 106 years old; very hearty, and then going to York Assizes as a wittness about a highway. He told me he liv’d with a daughter that was above 80 years of age. What is remarkable, he eat broil’d hang beef to his breakfast that morning, and drank ale; had comed above 30 miles computed, the day before, on horseback.

G. STOVIN.

I enquired after this man in 1751, and he was dead that year, so that he was 108 years old.

NOTES

1. See memoir of him by Hunter in South-Yorkshire, vol. 1, page 181.

2. Mr. Hunter says, “When we speak of the Levels we are using a term which is merely a common colloquialism. There is no particular jurisdiction prevailing throughout them, nor can their limits be accurately defined. But when we speak of the Level of Hatfield Chase, we detach from the whole level land a portion the boundaries of which we can define,” &c. (South-Yorkshire, vol. 1, p. 150.)

3. Hunter, South-Yorkshire I. p. 156, quoting the story as given in De la Pryme’s MS.

4. In the preface to South-Yorkshire Mr. Hunter pays a passing compliment to both these worthy antiquaries of the Levels, by saying: “De la Pryme’s notes are admirable for the history of Hatfield Chase; but that portion of the ensuing work would not have been so complete as I flatter myself it may be found, if I had not had the benefit of the labours of another gentleman, who fifty years after the time of De la Pryme, employed himself in collecting materials for the history of that Level. This was George Stovin, esq., of Crowle, grandfather of Dr. Stovin, the rector of Rossington, who, in the most obliging manner, acceded to the request of a friend, and allowed me the unrestricted use of a well-filled volume.” (The MS. now under our notice.)

5. A small market town, about 8 miles W.S.W. from Barton-upon-Humber, and a place where Roman antiquities have been met with.

6. No gravestone remains to mark the exact spot of his interment. At one time it was thought likely that it might be under one of two pews, but when these were removed nothing was found; nor does the record of any monumental remembrance of the deceased antiquary exist. In front of the old hall at Winterton is a shield carved in stone with the arms of Stovin, viz.:—Barry of six or and gules, in chief a label of five points; impaling Empson, Azure a chevron between three crosses formée argent. Crest, over the helmet, a bow with the string drawn and the arrow ready to be discharged. Buried, A.D. 1780, May yᵉ 14, Mr. George Stovin (Par. Reg.). Ex. inform. Rev. J. T. Fowler.

7. January, 1747, page 23. See Peck, page 109.

8. In 1880, the MS. was accidentally discovered behind some books in the office of a solicitor at Doncaster much connected with the legal affairs of the Level of Hatfield Chase. From whence it came, or how long it had been lying there, could not be explained.

9. Peck, Wainwright, and Stonehouse also derived information from this MS.

10. See Drake’s Eboracum, p. 33.

11. Lindholme. John Symson, of Fishlake, by his will 23rd March, 1407, and proved at York 28th July following, bequeathed 7d. to the Hermit of Lindholme (Item viiid. heremite de lyndholm.) Dr. Johnston’s MSS. at Campsall, contain some notices of this place and its occupant, which have been followed by other writers. See Diary of Abraham De la Pryme, Surtees Soc. pub. vol. 54, 146. Hunter’s South-Yorkshire I. 196. Stonehouse’s Isle of Axholme, 394. In 1747, Mr. Stovin communicated to the Gentleman’s Magazine an account, with a small woodcut of the hermitage or cell said to have been the abode of William of Lindholm, which Dr. Miller reproduced in his History of Doncaster, page 300. John Bland, of Lindholme, gent., made his will 28th August, 1629; mentions his sisters Ann and Johan—his wife Sarah—leaves to John West his hanger or his peece, which he shall choose—40s each to the poor of Haitefield and Haitefield Woodhouse—12d. each to persons named Ashley—desires to be buried at Haitefield—John West and Wm. Woodcock supervisors. About the year 1837, Mr. John Hatfeild Gossip purchased between 3000 and 4000 acres of land on the Lindholme moor or waste, with the intention of converting the property into one of great value by the process of “dry warping.” For want of sufficient funds, however, to enable him to prosecute the works successfully, it is believed that the property passed into the hands of Messrs. Charles and Robert Wright, of Anston, who had advanced money upon it. The Rev. N. Greenwell suggests the meaning of the word Lindholme to be the linden or lime-tree island. Lindi, Danish for a linden or teil, and holme an island or low-lying level, alluvial land. The limetree is said to succeed best in low, deep, subhumed loams. Another derivation may probably be from ‘ling’ and ‘holme,’ the ling (heath) island.

12. Harebred. See Thoresby’s Ducatus Leod. 235.

13. Dearne.

14. This branch having been stopped up by Sir C. Vermuyden, at the drainage, it may be as well to notice Mr. Stovin’s memorandum of “The course of old Donn from Eastofte to Stainford. Going by Micklemash Hill and Barefoot Hill, and so along between Raynsbutt on the north side and Blackwater to the Garth on the north side the Hazell-ends, and so by the Garths called the Land-Garths almost by Tockwith to Saunder-Garth, and so up the south syde of Reeder-Wath to the Crooke; and so through a Garth called Wrymouth to Lamer-Rack, and so through a wath called Booth-Eye to Ellen-Tree-Hill, and from thence by . . . . to Tudworth; and so by Sea-Bank up the closes late Thomas Darling’s, of Thorne, and so on Stainford Inge up Fyll-pitt against Mydleinch-Nooke, and to Stainford.”

15. In another part of the MS., Mr. Stovin writes:—“Anno Dom. 1080, William Elerker of Elerker, esq., married Marrian, the daughter and heiress of John D’avill, lord of Athlingfleet. I take it that John D’avill came over with William the Norman, as a soldjer, and as Edgar Athling, (from whom this town had its name) with the Danes, invaded England soon after William was proclaimed king, went up as farr as York and burnt and sack’d that city, they return’d to their fleet, which they left at this place, in the autumn, and with the army encamped in the grounds betwixt the rivers Trent and Ouse, and having their fleet at hand wintered there. In the spring following, the Conqueror attempted to dislodge them, but their camp being surrounded with large rivers and moorasses, he was forced to come to terms with the Danish general, and by a shower of gold divert the storm that hung over his head; upon which they sett sail, and returned to their own country. A.D. 1101. John Ellerker, son of William, by Marrian D’avill, built the chapel of Ellerker (nere South Cave, in the East Riding of Yorkshire about eight miles from Athlingfleet, and within one mile north of the Humber) and covered it with lead, which was enjoyned his father to have performed by King William Ruffus, and gave the bells. A.D. 1241. John Ellerker, his great grandson, repaired the chancel of Ellerker, being casualy buried in the year 1241; and being lord of Holdenshire in the time of Nevile Frisney lord bishop of Durham (by the help of Joceline earl of Northumberland, who gave the timber), the said John undertook the repair of the same, and gave lands to the maintenance of the chantry; wherefore the bishop gave him and his heirs for ever the grantship of Ellerker, with a certain fee thereto belonging. William, his son, married the daughter and co-heiress of Sᵣ Amias Ludlow of Scrivelby, in com. Lincoln. N.B. The owner of the manor of Scrivelby is Champion of England, Sᵣ Amias Ludlow was Champion then. It hass been for many years in the hands of Dimock, Champion of England. N.B. I take it that John D’avill, lord of Athlingfleet, was a chief officer in the Conqueror’s army, and for the good services he did the Norman Prince in treating with the Danes to quit the kingdom, and this peece of ground whereon they encamped in particular, he gave him a grant of it. This was a strong place to encamp in, as may be seen by the short sketch below.”

16. The river Torne is stated in a presentment of a jury of the court of sewers, 2nd Oct., 1668, to have been “antiently a navigable river, and so continued to till Mr. Francis Childers erected a dam or weare, about 20 years agoe, upon the said river, below Rosington bridge, whereby the same is dam’d upp and become unnavigable.” (Court records, vol. 2, p. 362.)

17. The place being used as a “prison for offenders,” may it not be called a peel from the French word piller, to rob or plunder?

18. From turba, an obsolete Latin word for turf; turbary is a right to dig turfs on a common or in another man’s grounds. “C. E. K.” in Notes and Queries, 6 N.S. III, 457, states that at Tolpuddle church, Dorset, the three bells are supposed to ring, “My turf’s out, my turf’s done.” Turf being the principal fuel of the peasants, when their firing was done, he says, they repaired to the belfry to keep themselves warm by ringing.

19. Probably Nathaniel Johnston.

20. James Stovin, elected Clerk of the Court of Sewers for Hatfield Chase 5th Feb., 1757: resigned in 1775. Elected town-clerk of Doncaster, 11 Dec., 1771: resigned 12th Jan., 1778: became of Whitgift, also a commissioner of sewers and a justice of peace for the West-Riding co. York and for Lincolnshire. He built the house in the parish of Rossington, formerly called Shooter’s Hill, and died at Sprotborough Hall, where he then resided, 26th July, 1789, and was buried at Rossington.

21. See letters from De la Pryme to Dean Gale, Surtees Soc. pub. vol. 54, p. 221.

22. A copy of this agreement dated 24th May, 2d Car. 1626, is printed in Peck’s Isle of Axholme, 1815, Appendix No. 2: and an abstract of it in Hunter’s South Yorkshire, vol. 1, page 160. Mr. Stovin also gives a copy of it in the MS.

23. De la Pryme, in one of his manuscripts, says the Isle of Axholme “was a mighty rude place before the drainage, the people being little better than heathens; but since that ways have been made accessible unto them by land, their converse and familiarity with the country round about them; they have become mightily civilized.”

24. A copy of this deed, stated to be translated from the French by Wm. Ryley, keeper of the records in the Tower of London, is printed in Peck’s Isle of Axholme, Appendix No. 1. Mr. Stovin also gives a copy of it in the MS.

25. Some notes concerning the river Idle are printed in Peck’s Hist. of Bawtry and Thorne, 1813, Appendix No. 1.

26. Mr. Stovin gives in the MS. a Latin copy of this grant, dated 31st January, 4th Charles. Peck furnishes a translated copy which he dates “the fifth day of February,” without any year, and styles it in the heading as “made in the second year of his (the King’s) reign.”

27. Roger de Mowbray, in the reign of Henry III, by a charter of which an exemplification is given in the Monasticon, and copied from thence by Wainwright in his “Strafford and Tickhill,” page lxxviii, granted certain lands and fisheries at Sandtoft to the Abbey of St. Mary, at York; for the sustentation of a recluse. It was then an island, formed by the river Idle dividing into two streams near its junction with the Don. There was a ferry over the Idle from Hatfield and Thorne. The situation for a church was most central for the Dutch and French protestants. (Stonehouse’s Hist., Isle of Axholme, p. 354).

28. Irwin. See pedigree, South-Yorkshire, vol. I. p. 173.

29. Massaniello.

30. “This lady was of ancient extraction in the Isle: the daughter of Robert Ryther, of Belton, esq., and related to many of the better families settled there. She seems to have fully imbibed all local prejudices.” (Hunter S.Y. 1. p. 163 note.)

31. Baptized at Doncaster 23d Feb., 1716-17, “Robert the son of Col. Robert Reading.”

32. A pedigree of the Vanvalkenburgh family is given in the Surtees Society’s pub. vol. 54, page 284. Mrs. Margrave married for her second husband, 15th June, 1693, Mr. Edmund Thompson, from whom descends the Rev. William Hepworth Thompson, D.D., F.S.A., Master of Trinity College, Cambridge.

33. Elected 29th Aug., 1738. On 16th Oct., 1730, he had been elected town-clerk of Doncaster, which office he resigned 10th March, 1755, being incapacitated by reason of ill health. For “neither attending the duty nor business of the court of sewers, by himself or deputy,” he was fined £2 2s. on the 8th July, 1752. He was buried at Doncaster 30th December, 1756. His descendants were of Newcastle, and Hartford co. Northumberland.

34. These were the members of the court who were more especially interested in what were formerly known as the “High Level” and the “Low Level,” which from their position received different degrees of benefit from the operations of the drainage. Under a more equalized system of taxation, however, there is now practically little or no distinction known between them.

35. Mr. Arthur was elected clerk 24th Aug., 1724, but on the 17th Sept. following his appointment was revoked, and Mr. Banks was elected. He was a son of the Rev. Robert Banks, of Hull. Of this family the Rt. Hon. Sir Joseph Banks, Bart., 1781, who died s.p. in 1820.

36. Either the father or the brother of Sir Edward Simpson, LL.D., M.P. for Dover, Master of Trinity Hall, Cambridge.

37. Mr. Abraham De la Pryme, nephew of the Rev. Abraham De la Pryme, the antiquary, was elected surveyor 18th December, 1724. Died in 1740.

38. Sic in MS. apparently.

39. “In the year 1752, the Participants built a handsome new house between the Double Rivers, and between the two stone sluces at Althorpe, of brick and tyle, for their sluice keeper to dwell.” (MS.)

40. See South-Yorkshire, vol. 1, p. 214.

41. Mr. Stovin records in another part of his MS., under date of Sunday, 18th February, 1753, N.S.—“The highest tides at night in the rivers Ouze and Trent ever known. It top’d the banks in most places; broke several gymes; and drownded the country on each side of those rivers, and in the Dutch river, going from Gowle to Doncaster, about a mile up the river from Gowle, it broke on the south side, as wide and as deep as the river itself. Mr. Benj. Empson, of Gowle, comeing from Thorne in the night, his servant man with his horse chop’d of a sudden into this gyme, and the water beginning to ebb, he and his horse was carried into the Dutch river and their both drowned. The Participants maintain those banks, and its supposed it will cost 1000l. to stop the breach. The tide ebb’d and flowed through this breach from Monday to Saturday senight after, and laid most of Marshland under water, as also up to Thorne. N.B. This breach cost 1700l. to take it.”

42. One of this family, Sir Gabriel Vernatti, was committed to the gaol at York, by order of the Court of Sewers, 25th April, 1650, for assaulting the Officers of Sewers in the execution of their duty.

43. “But as their swan poles and fishponds in this famous chase are now, by great expence and industry, converted into dry land and corn-fields, there is no occasion for these laws, in this part of the kingdom, and it is to be hoped never will be. There was an officer appointed by the Kings of England in this chase called the Master of the Game, who had deputies under them. The Master of the Game had his turffs lead to the manor-house by the tennants of the manor of Hatfield, giveing them a dinner and ale. He also had the agistment of a large parcel of ground called the Severals, which the tennants of the manor fenced for him, with several trees, and other great perquisites; but I take it that this officer was first created not long before the drainage, Sir Gervise Clifton being the first. How long he held this office I cannot learn. Robert Lee, esq. was the second, and continued in that office above twenty years; and the last that enjoyed that office was Edmond Lord Sheffield, of Butterwick, in whose time, I think, it was dischased.” (MS.)

44. By this the manor of Armthorpe, parcel of the possessions of the late monastery of Rowthe [? Roche], and the manor of Crowle, parcel of the possessions of the late monastery of Selby, were added to the Chase of Hatfield, which is described as being one of red deer for the pleasure and pastime of the Kings of England, and well replenished.

45. See antea, note 14, page 200.

46. This name still exists on the Levels and elsewhere. The Rev. Nathaniel Brunyee, M.A., late rector of Belton, is a son of Mr. John Brunyee, late of Sand Hall, near Crowle, a son of Mr. Nathaniel Brunyee of the latter place, who died at Sand Hall, 25th Feb., 1858, æt. 80.

47. These proceedings are entered in the records of the Court of Sewers, Vol. I, pp. 234, 253, 286.

48. A representation of this tomb is given in Stonehouse’s Hist. Isle of Axholme, page 322.

49. A representation of this is given as above.

50. Stonehouse gives a pedigree of his family, and states that by his great-grandson Thomas Pindar (who died s.p.), “a person remarkable for the oddity of his manners,” the property they had acquired was left to Earl Beauchamp. The above Thomas had a brother, the Rev. Robert Pindar, who left issue. (Hist. Isle of Axholme, p. 244.)

51. A John Popplwell, of Belton, laborer, was one of a party of 24 persons who were indicted at York for killing John Pattricke, in Sept., 1660. (Depositions from York Castle, Surt. Soc. pub. 40, p. 175, note.) Richard and Humphrey Popplewell, esqs., occur as Commissioners of Sewers, 3rd June, 11th Geo. 2. 1738.

52. Mr. Stovin, in this MS. says in a marginal note, “Hyrst is in Belton parish, and was a cell to Nostal in Yorkeshire. Its now the estate of Mr. Jona. Stovin, and tythe-free. Had a great quantity of fine oake upon it about 40 years agoe, and is now planted round, and in every hedgerow with elmes by the said Mr. Stovin.”

53. A sketch of this “Affidavit Land,” taken from a map in the possession of the Stovin family, is given in Stonehouse’s Isle of Axholme, page 353.

54. Massaniello.

55. £65 3s. 4d.

56. Henry Sacheverell, son of Rev. Joshua S. of Marlborough. Died 5th June, 1724. See account of him in “Lives of Eminent Englishmen,” 1834, vol. iv., p. 110.

57. Mr. Reading, no doubt, underwent numerous “perils by his own countrymen.” In 1655, Peter Barnard, of Belton gent., had been heard to say that if Mr. Reading came at Low Melwood, or Epworth, or Owston, he would have four men to lie in wait to beat him, “and lay him along.” (Records of Court of Sewers.) On 21st Jan., 1669-70, about fifty persons, armed with swords, pistols, guns, and other arms came to Sandtoft, where they assaulted, shot, and wounded Mr. Reading and his servant. On 21st Jan., 1669, Humfrey Tonge, of Hatfield, came to Mr. Reading’s house, and there, without any provocation, shot him in the legs, having before threatened to put a brace of bullets in his belly. (Depositions from York Castle, Surt. Soc. pub. vol. 40, p. 174.) In 1702, Mr. Reading presented a memorial to the Commissioners of Sewers setting forth a long list of grievances he had had to undergo in their service; amongst other things, he said that in the performance of his duties as agent to the Participants he had thirty-one set battles, wherein several of his men were killed, and others wounded and lamed; that after several years spent under inexpressible hazards and difficulties, “he subdued these monsters,” and restored peace in the Levels for a time. But afterwards the rioting again commenced; the disaffected people assaulted him and his sons and servants night and day, fired at them, killed his cattle, fired his house with design to have burned him, his wife and family in their beds, “and gave him the diversion of all points of military execution.” Having thus “been kept in the wilderness of their service, and grieved with a generation of vipers longer than forty years,” he concludes by hoping he shall be suffered to depart in peace with 3000l. in part payment of what his employers were indebted to him.

58. This house was the scene of a riot in 1648. Mark Vanvalkenburgh, of Midlins, esq., on the 20th October, deposed, before two justices at Doncaster, that on the 11th of that month Robert Kay, a Doncaster gentleman, together with his father’s house at Midlins, in a warlike manner, with muskets and swords drawn, broke open the outgate, and four other doors within the house, and wounded three servants there, Kay saying to those with him, “Go on, for I will bear you out in whatsoever you do.” One of these men knocked Mr. Vanvalkenburgh down with his musket, and forced him out of the house. But two other captains coming in quieted the place, and put the owner into possession again. Kay, however, returned shortly after with six men, and, besides carrying off some writings, took Mr. Vanvalkenburgh away by force for a quarter of a mile from the house; but the soldiers again interfering, he was once more put into possession. (Depositions from York Castle, Surtees Soc. pub. vol. 54, p. 12.) Mr. Kay, it seems, had married Isabella, the widow of Sir Matthew Vanvalkenburgh, who died in 1644, and it was possibly under some alleged claim of right that he made this attack upon the residence of the deceased baronet’s brother. (See Surtees Soc. pub. vol. 54, pp. 5-283.)

59. This baronetcy was created 20th July, 1642. Sir J. A. Vanvalkenburgh was aged twenty-one in 1664. “We have been unable to obtain any information respecting the baronetcy or family since that date.” (Burke’s Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies, 1838, p. 540.)

60. In the Court of Pleas at Doncaster, 6th Sept., 1649, John Noades, gent., brought an action against Mark Vanvalkenbrough, gent., for having, on the 7th of May previously, publicly spoken of him these “falsa, ficta, scandalosa, et opprobiosa verba,” viz. “You are a Theife,” to his great damage of 50l. The Jury gave a verdict for the plaintiff for £6 13s. 4d., and costs £2 12s. 8d. = £9 6s. 0d.

61. Much enquiry has been made by antiquaries and others, from time to time, for the original registers of this church, but without success. When Mr. Hunter wrote his chapter on the Drainage of the Level of Hatfield Chase in South-Yorkshire, vol. 1 (published in 1828), he then gave what he termed “a pretty complete list” of the names of the foreign settlers on the levels, “from the register of the chapel of Sandtoft, which was carefully kept from 1641 to 1681, and is still in existence, or lately was so.” Mr. Stovin’s writing not being so clear in some places as could be wished, it is possible that some of the names, &c. in the extracts here given may not be perfectly correct. Wainwright, in his History of the Wapentake of Strafforth and Tickhill, 1829, page xcii, gives “A list of the first drainers and others that came over from France, Holland, &c.” but some of them look dubious.

62. This name exists in the Levels at the present day. John Harnew, farmer, died there 13th Nov., 1880, aged 81; stated to be “well known as a sound practical agriculturist.”

63. “Old Shadrack Morillion” was buried at Thorne, Dec. 12th, 1682.

64. This marriage is registered at Hatfield.

65. From the similarity of the name, it may not be out of place to notice here that a baronetcy was conferred, in 1644, on Sir William de Boreel, of Amsterdam, but nothing appears on record. (Burke’s Extinct and Dormant Baronetcies, 1838, p. 75. A correspondent in “Notes and Queries,” 5th S. II. p. 52, states that the present holder of this title (1874), is Sir Willem Boreel, who is a senator of Holland, and is, or has been, a Minister of State, born in 1800. An Act of Parliament was passed, 29th Dec., 1660, for naturalizing John Borrel, esq., eldest son of Sir William Borrel, knight and baronet. (Lord’s Journals xi. 202.)

66. The name of Waterlow exists in London at the present day.

67. In a memorandum in his own handwriting, Abraham de la Pryme gives this as the date of his birth. See Surtees Soc. pub. vol. 54, p. 259. This was the eminent antiquary and diarist, de quo see Hunter’s South-Yorkshire, vol. 1, p. 179, Surtees Soc. pub. vol. 54. In the latter work a pedigree of this family is printed; and there are several genealogical, monumental, and testamentary notices of them in the appendix.

68. In one page of the MS. Mr. Stovin gives “An account of what papers relateing to this history, are taken out of Mr. Pryme’s booke since the year 1735, when I first see it, and which was not to be found in it when I had the booke from Mr. Wharton, Feb., 1752.”

69. Concerning the De Witts, see Hunter’s South-Yorkshire, vol. 1, p. 169. The marriage of “Jaquus Dewett, wth. Antoniæ Vandemin,” is registered at Doncaster, 1st Dec., 1631; Peter, son of Jacus de Witt, bap. Jan. 21, 1633-4; buried March 19th same year. John, son of Do., bap. 15th Feb., 1634-5; buried May 30th, 1635. Joshua, son of Do., buried Feb. 10th, 1644-5. Rachell, dau. of Do., bap. Dec. 14th, 1648. (Thorne Regr.) 1677, Sept. 5th, Elizabeth, dau. of Jaques De Wit, buried. 1679, March 30th, Mary, dau. of Do., master and mariner, baptized. (St. Mary’s, Hull.) 1731, Feb. 8, James Dewitt, of Kingston-upon-Hull, mariner, aged 40 years, slender, tall person, ruddy complexion, was admitted and sworn a younger brother of the guild of the Trinity House at Hull. 1738, Dec. 8th, Samuel Dewitt, of the same, mariner, aged 35, admitted the same. 1775, Dec. 13th, “Mr. Richard Dewitt, a stranger,” buried at Doncaster. Jaques Dewit departed this life 1717, aged 77. Holy Trinity Ch., Hull. (Gent’s Hist. Hull, page 48.) A Mr. De Witte, cement merchant at Liverpool, in 1870. The Baron Jules De Witte, Paris, was an honorary member of the Archaeological Institute in 1867.

70. Pasteur—pastor.

71. This person’s death is under date of 26th January, 1752, in Gent. Mag. vol. 22, page 92.

72. In Gent. Mag. Kilburrow, ib. page 92.