Mexborough and Swinton Times January 20, 1940
Fifteenth Century Wombwell Article III.
Crystal Gazer Who Was Attainted of Heresy
(by J. Lawson, M.A.).
In local government, as we have said, Thomas Wombwell played a conspicuous part in his day. First of all he was a Justice of the Peace, and as such had a variety of duties to perform—the suppression of riots, the arrest and trial of law-breakers and heretics, the regulation of prices and the supervision of weights and measures and so forth.
He was also not infrequently appointed to serve on commissions for special purposes, such as the levy of local detachments of troops for service in the French wars, and the raising of loans and taxes. On some of these commissions he must have met some of the greatest magnates of the north of England the heads of the famous Neville and Percy houses, for instance.
In 1410 he was named a commission to raise a war loan in the West Riding, and his fellow commissioners included the Earl of Northumberland, and the Earl of Westmorland. On another commission, to raise a subsidy in 1431, he acted with Sir William Haryngton and Sir Ralph Hastings, both of them well known north country knights. He was a Commissioner in 1427 for the levy of archers in the West Riding, along with the Earl of Northumberland, Sir Richard Neville (later Earl of Salisbury and father of the kingmaker Warwick), and Sir William Haryngton. In 1448, when an invasion from Scotland was rumoured, he was commissioned to raise soldiers in the West Riding and “to cause bekyns to be set up to warn the people of coming of the said enemies.” His colleagues in this appointment included great Yorkshire landlords like Sir William Gascoigne, Sir Henry Vavasour and Sir Robert Waterton.
Other official matters also claimed his attention; for example, in 1428 he was ordered, together with the same great persons, to investigate the alleged refusal of certain people to pay their lawful dues to the Hospital of St. Leonard at York, and in 1444 to see to the condition of the river “Eyre from Ferybrygge to the descent of the said water into the Ouse.”
This by no means exhausts the list of his varied public activities. In 1448 we find his name on the dentures return by the sheriff as one of those who elected the two nights to represent the shire in the Parliament of that year. And in 1449 he was acting as a supervisor and an executor of the will of Margaret, widow of Sir John de la Zouch, his fellow executors including such eminent personages as the Richard Bingham, a Justice of the King’s Bench, and John Kemp, Cardinal Archbishop of York. Occasionally two, he appears as a witness to conveyances of land in the district.
Thrice Married.
Thomas Wombwell was three times married. His first wife Elizabeth was possibly the widow of Robert Mauger, of Darfield. Joan, his second wife, was a Bosville, and in 1430, in order to marry her, Thomas had to get a dispensation from the Pope, Martin V., because she was related in the fourth degree to his late wife. His third wife, also called Joan, was a daughter of Sir William Fitzwilliam. of Sprotborough, and she survived him. He had two lawful sons— John, the elder, by his first wife Elizabeth and Thomas.
Who were his neighbours, the local gentry with whom he might have hunted and hawked in the woods near Wombwell, and whom he probably entertained at times in his Hall? First, there were the Draxes at the Woodhall, and his kinsfolk the Bosvilles at Ardsley, and the Fitzwilliams at Sprotborough. At Wath there were Flemmings, at Barnburgh the Cresacres, at Billingley the Normanvilles (really only a substantial yeomanly family), and at Bretton the Wentworths—related by marriage to the Fitzwilliams and Thomas Wombwell’s third wife.
It was with such as these that Thomas Wombwell must have discussed the latest political developments of the day—the loss of the English provinces in France, the impeachment and murder of Suffolk, Cade’s rebillion, and—shortly before he died — rumours of impending civil war. And it is with such as these that, with a flight of the imagination, we can picture him riding on occasions to York to see the miracle plays or the famous pageant staged in the city on Corpus Christ) day.. Perhaps the most interesting details which we have about Thomas Wombwell come from his will, a contemporary copy of which is still preserved at York in the District Probate Registry. Most of what we know about the history of England in the later Middle Ages comes from documents simply concerned with routine, official investigations into facts, and they are not generally very exciting to read. Wills are an exception, for in them we can find direct and vivid contact with the personal lives of men, great and small, who died as many as six hundred years ago. Thomas Wombwell’s will is typical of its time: it shows his concern for the welfare of his soul after death, his piety, and his generosity to local charities and public works.
Interesting Bequests.
This by no means exhausts the list of his varied public activities. In 1448 we find his name on the indenture returned by the sheriff as one of those who elected the two knights to represent the shire in the Parliament of that year. And in 1449 he was acting as the supervisor and an executor of the will of Margaret, widow of Sir John de la Zouch, his fellow executors including such eminent personages as Sir Richard Bingham, a Justice of the King’s Bench, and John Kemp, Cardinal Archbishop of York. Occasionally, too, he appears as a witness to conveyances of land in the district. The will, written in Latin, was drawn up—perhaps by his chaplain, William Carter, or his friend, John Bosville, Rector of Darfield—on February 14. 1452.
His first request is to be buried in his parish church of All Saints at Darfield, and there somewhere he will lie to this day. Conspicuous among his bequests are those made to churches and religious societies. To Darfield Church, for the service or chantry of Our Lady, he bequeaths £3; towards the building of the chapel of St. James and John the Evangelist in the church, ten marks, that is £6 13s. 4d.; and for the High Altar a missal, lately give to him by John Rokly, though when the chapel of SS. James and John the Evangelist is finished the missal is to be used on the altar there. These sums, it has to be remembered must be multiplied by something like forty in order to obtain their equivalents in modern money. To St. Mary’s Chapel at Wombwell he leaves 13s. 4d. (that is a mark), and the same sum to each of the two houses of friars at Doncaster—the Franciscans or Grey Friars, and the Carmelites or White Friars—and also to the Dominicans, or Black Friars, at Pontefract. These bequests are made for masses to be sung for his soul after death.
Chief among his personal bequests are £40 to his wife Joan, together with all the Jewels and domestic utensils which had belonged to her before their marriage, and also eight oxen and twelve cows. He also bequeaths to her the two beds in the lady chamber and new chamber of the Hall, with all their hangings, curtains, quilts and covers. Beds are a common feature in medieval wills: it was probably their elaborate accoutrements which made them so expensive. To his son Thomas he leaves 100 marks (tee 13s. 4d.), the bed in the “parlour chambre,” and all the utensils and implements in the other two chambers. Agnes Wombwell, his niece, gets £2O, and William Carter, his chaplain, £1. Four manservants each receive 13s. 4d., and each of seven other servants 6s. 8d.
Most of his effects he bequeaths to his son and heir John. To him he gives four teams of oxen, all the hangings, benches and other pieces of furniture in the hall, the vessels and implements in the kitchen and brew house, his own bed with all its appurtenances, the bed in the “Heghtour,” and all the hangings and benches in the parlour, with the furniture in his private chapel, that is, a calice, books, and vestments.
Gifts For The Poor.
On the day of his funeral five marks (£3 6s. 8d.) are to be distributed among the poor folk of Wombwell, and each of the five old widows living in the almshouses near the chapel are to have 6s. 8d. An interesting bequest, already mentioned, is his gift of twenty shillings for the upkeep of the road from Wombwell to Darfield. Such bequests are common in wills of the time, for the maintenance of the public highways, both in towns and in the countryside, was largely dependant on the generosity and public spirit of the rich men of the district.
The executors named in the will are Joan, his wife, John and Thomas, his sons, and John Bosville, the Rector of Darileld. Probate was made in the court of the Archbishop of York on March 14, 1452, exactly a month after the will had been made, so by this time Thomas Wombwell was dead.
His widow did not long survive him. She took the veil in 1453 and died late in the following year. In her will she bequeathed 13s. 4d, to the service of St. Mary in Darfield Church “for the quarter called the Wombwell quarter”; to John Bosville she left a black girdle, and to John Fitzwilliam her little gold crucifix.
From 1452 to 1487 the manor of Wombwell belonged to John Wombwell, Thomas’s son. He was in every way a much less important person in local public life than his father had been, for he appears never to have served on commissions, nor even ever to have been a Justice. He had, however, before his father died, already acted as executor of two local wills—in 1436 that of John Wortley, who left him ten marks, and in 1449 that of Richard Wentworth of Bretton, near Silkstone. Several times he was involved in Chancery law suits: twice he was cited about land which he held of the Flemmings in the manor of Wath and about his refusal to carry out his part of an agreement made when his daughter Elizabeth married one of the Flemmings, and once by William Colo about land and houses jointly held by him in West Melton and Brampton. His wife, Elizabeth, was the daughter of John Bosville of Ardsley. In his will, dated June 15, 1487, and proved on July 31, 1487, he asks to be buried in Darfield Church, and leaves all his effects to his eldest son and heir John, except the contents of his chapel (a calice, two reliquaries, a pax and other ornaments), which he bequeaths to his second son Roger. The witnesses and executors of the will were his grandson Hugh, the son of Roger, and the Vicars of Darfield and Bolton (Oliver Croft and Richard Hopkynson).
Byo, The Imposter.
In 1487 John Wombwell was involved in an incident which illustrates a typical feature of the life of the time. Life in the medieval village must have been intolerably dull; it was only on very rare occasions that things happened to break the monotony and provide a little excitement. Such an occasion must have come in Wombwell about 1485. About that year a man appeared in the village called William Byg, or Lech, professing to be able to recover stolen property with the aid of a magic crystal. His reputation soon spread around from Wombwell, and in 1467 he found himself before the Archbishop’s Vicar-General on a charge of heresy. From the awful penalties of this offence he probably only saved himself by a complete public confession and the implication of certain influential local persons, including John Wombwell and one of the Fitzwilliams. We must not infer from this that John Wombwell and the people of the village were unusually gullible. One of the most remarkable characteristics of the people of this time was their astonishing credulity, and William Byg’s deception was small compared with some that were practised. Unscrupulous rogues at this time did a profitable trade in the sale of home-made relics, like pieces of the Cross, bits of wood from St. Paul’s shipwreck, saints’ bones, and so on.
It was John Wombwell’s son, Roger, who actually succeeded to the manor (his elder brother John apparently dying before his father), who in his will in 1507 founded and endowed the chantry of Our Lady of Pity in the Chapel of St. Mary. The fifteenth century was the great age of chantries and the churches of this district were particularly rich in them. In a small parish church a chantry would only consist of a side altar in one of the aisles, founded by some person for a priest to sing masses for his soul after death and endowed with property or rents in the district.
Darfield Chantry.
Considering its size and importance it is surprising that Darfield Church had only one chantry, and this a poorly endowed one founded by the parishioners, “to the ‘entente to pray for all Cristen soules, and to helpe divine service in the sayd quere, and to mynistere to the parochians in tyme of necersltie.”
Wath Church had two, one dedicated to Our Lady and one to St. Nicholas. At Bolton there were three, one in the nave and one in each of the two slides, all dedicated to Our Lady and supported by endowments in Bolton, Goldthorpe and Wath. It was the priest attached to one of these chantries who in the fifteenth century kept a grammar school, as chantry priests often did in order to supplement their incomes. At High Melton a chantry was founded in 1399 by John de Melton chaplain, and the carved oak screen which separated the chantry from the chancel and the south aisle of the church still stands.
The chantry priest at Wombwell—his name in 1546, as we have said, was Robert Curtevo—lived in a house belonging to the endowment and derived his stipend from the rents of three houses in Bolton, Newhill near Wath. and Darfield. It is likely that an earlier chantry than Roger Wombwell’s had existed in St. Mary’s Chapel. In the chartulery of Monk Bretton Priory a deed enrolled In which Richard, con of Richard de Wombwell, confirms to the prior and convent land which Nicholas Aldham held of him in Smethley, paying for it groat (4d.), to the altar of St. Nicholas in the Chapel of St. Mary at Wombwell. It is not improbable that this had once been a chantry.
But when we have unearthed these dry facts about the Wombwell of five hundred years and more ago, there is precious little that we can really get to know about the lives of John Bythebroke and Alice Shepshank, and those others who lived here in Chaucer’s day. Nearly everything is changed —our speech, our manners, our habits, our conditions of life.
The River Dove, then full of trout, is a murky dyke; the valley, then full of woods and game, is disfigured by coal pits and poisoned by black smoke; Thomas Wombwell’s Hall is gone: the little chapel of St. Mary is gone. If we could for a moment be carried back into Wombwell in the year 1440, our surprise would only be exceeded by the alarm of John Bythebroke and Alice Shepshank if they could be raised from their dust in Darfield churchyard and could come to Wombwell to look for the cottages they lived in when they paid their groats’ to Peter Mauleverer and Richard Lewer in 1379.