The Goodricke Family Files
 
 
 

 Table of Contents  NOT YET UPDATED
 

Foreword by Antony A. Goodricke Young
Introduction by Mr Harry Speight
Preface by Charles Alfred Goodricke
Ribston.  Itís Early History  1086-1542
Ribston Hall, Chapel and Grounds
Bishop Goodricke. Sketch of his Life
Bishop Goodricke and the Plot of 1553
"The Earls Rebellion" or "The Rising of the North" 1589
Sir John Goodricke and the Civil War
The Goodrickes in the Parliament Army
Sir Henry Goodricke, 2nd Bart 1642-1705
Sir John Goodricke, 5th Bart  1708-1789
Bramham Park, Yorkshire
John Goodricke, Astronomer
Sir Harry James Goodricke
Sir Thomas Francis Goodricke 8th and Last Bart
Conclusion
 

 

It is with some trepidation that I approach the task of editing and re-writing this manuscript, a manuscript that is obviously a labour of love and intense research by a very dedicated and knowledgeable man, Mr Charles Alfred Goodricke.  His task was apparently finished in 1913, at which time he passed the torch on to  Mr. George Heron Goodricke of Durban South Africa. From what I am able to read into the correspondence and the opening paragraphs of the memorandum, Mr George Goodricke was unable to link and follow the manuscript since he did not have the original Goodricke Memorial  printed  in 1885 with all of its associated correspondence, inserts and page references.

The following book apparently was written during a convalescence period in 1913 to explain and elaborate on an already exhaustive study to bring to life some of the many characters who have passed through the  pages of history and their relationships to each other and to personages of high born rank. It could be considered as an addendum to the Goodricke Memorial.

To clarify and to explain the course of events and my eventual acquisition of the  original "Memorial," I must explain that it came from my grandmother Gwenllyan Cattell who passed it on to me in the late 50,s and there until recently, it has lain dormant and untouched. My grandmother's mother and her mother-in-law, were sisters, daughters of John Richardson Goodricke and Charlotte Duncan Waygood of D'Urban Natal, South Africa.
Caroline Pickering married William Davenal Cattell a staff surgeon in the British Army, later to become Surgeon-General of the British Army. Their last born son, my grandfather, married his cousin, Gwenllyan  Helen Gordon, daughter of Sarah Isabella who married Henry Kennard-Bill. Their only child, my mother, Marguerite, married Miles Archibald Young in 1925, and I was born in New Zealand in 1925.

Skipping and leaving tedious family history behind, my mother immigrated to the United States in 1946 where she remarried. I followed in 1949. My grandmother arrived in 1954 and she died in Lynchburg, Virginia, May 1958. In her possessions were the original Goodricke Memorial and other paraphernalia including over a dozen glass negatives used in the printing of the "Memorial." There was also a bound photo album of many of the South African members of the Family, some identified and some not.

Taking a quantum leap forward, my wife Anne and I were travelling in England in the late 70's looking for Ribston or Ripon Hall, not fully sure of the correct spelling nor of its location and with only a vague memory of having read the "Memorial" several years previously and a sketchy idea of what to look for, as an after-thought on our trip. Fortunately, we were in luck and found Ribston Hall north of Wetherby. The present occupants were away and the house was undergoing a major renovation. The workmen allowed us to look it over on the first floor. Impressed and feeling a little guilty re trespassing, I wrote to Mr Charles Dent the present occupant, expressing regret he was not there, and informing him of our transgressions and our connections with Ribston. I also informed him of the fact that I had the Goodricke Memorial in my possession, a book I started to read again upon my return.

Fortunately, he invited us back again on our next visit to England. He later confessed to me that  he thought I was another "bloody" colonial upstart, with an exaggerated  opinion of the importance of my  book. Believing that my copy was the standard  fifty page book that many family members have.
Returning to England a year or so later, I packed the Goodricke Memorial and visited with the Dents, Annie and Charlie. A truly delightful couple, very hospitable and genuinely interested in the  inter-relationship  of Goodricke  and Dent families as well as the history of the house and it's occupants. It is also where history repeats itself. Like Mr Joseph Dent who, according to the last chapter by Mr Charles Goodricke sustained and helped the surviving Sir Francis Goodricke with a small stipend. He took upon himself to preserve and nurture Ribston Hall acknowledging the previous occupants in all of his efforts. So too does his great grandson Charles Dent. He and his wife, Annie, are extremely interested in providing a depository for all Goodricke memorabilia and assisting in the gathering of same.They have also assisted me in contacting other scattered family members and especially those members who are interested in history and past glories.

It was a surprised Charles Dent, when seeing the Goodricke Memorial, realized the importance and value of the book. I  have since left the Goodricke Memorial with him  at Ribston Hall for future historians for research and discovery. He in return  gave me the copy of Incidents in the Lives of some of the Goodrickes of Yorkshire. This carbon copy, (written in 1913???) and the realization of the importance and my own lack of knowledge of our antecedents, stimulated my research and desire to share with those members of the family and interested parties, our inheritance.

The following pages are from that carbon copy, as the authors typed and printed their thoughts, including typographical errors and spelling errors. I have taken the liberty to correct those obvious mistakes but have tried to keep the integrity and intent, as they would have wished. It is my hope that with an updating and the availability of modern technical printing, this manuscript will become more available to all interested parties and will be passed on to future generations. Mr Goodricke was a consummate story teller and his style is  somewhat involved and some of the sentences are quite long according to some grammarian experts. I have not attempted to change and or edit his words. The major change I have attempted other than those stated, is to fix the date of purchase at 1533. Not at 1537, 1539 as some of the text wavers in.

Meanwhile the Goodricke Memorial remains at Ribston Hall for all to see and examine. Along with this manuscript, perhaps a budding author may go into more detail and expansion on the lives of an obviously important family whose lives are intertwined in the history and policy making of England and the Empire.
Again,I am indebted to Annie and Charlie Dent for providing the stimulus to proceed, also for their kind hospitality and encouragement. To my cousins, distant though they may be, Guy Goodricke late Durban, now  Walton-on-Thames, David Hunt of Wasperton, and Doreen Parsons, Westville, Natal, thanks also for the information you have been so generous with, in the pursuit of this project. To Mr. Geoffrey A. Hope M.D. who kindly allowed me to include his article in the chapter on John Goodricke, my thanks.  My thanks to my secretary, Ellen Ford for the typing and extra hours on the job. I would like to thank Gordon Mattox of this city who is my resident computer "Guru" and without whose valuable help and patience much of this updated version would not have it's graphics and pictures that make this version so different.  Finally,to my lovely wife Anne, for all of her encouragement and support, I  thank you.

Antony A. Goodricke Young
1316 Krise Circle,
Lynchburg, Virginia,
U.S.A. 24503.
04/24/91

Copyright © Antony A Young 2000
 
 

Introduction to Mr. Charles A. Goodricke's
     narrative events concerning  Ribston

The author of this handsome and carefully-prepared book has suggested that I should add some evidence,  however slight, by way of introduction. It is true, as he remarks, that in my volumes on Nidderdale, I have written much about Ribston, yet  I approach the present task with some reluctance as I find it impossible to present any correction, or indeed, to offer any criticism of a work which it is evident, has been carried out with zeal, care and discretion. What hereafter follows, can therefore only be regarded as a slight supplement  to these fascinating chapters.  honour
It has been aptly observed that an honourable pedigree, is in all nations, greatly esteemed, and everyone who peruses this book must be impressed  by the high sense of honour in upholding technical principles, accompanied by an unflinching valour and devotion to duty, which marks the  successive lives of those whom the author has portrayed. It is only when we come to the closing scene in these episodes of distinguished achievement that Fate plays an unfortunate part and we learn with pain and sadness of the severance of the ancient patrimony of a Family so well described  in the Royal Patent, quoted on page 29, as one

"with ancestral reputation and rectitude of morals."

It will be seen that John Neville, who was Richard Norton's brother- in- law, had for wife about ten years, the celebrated Catherine Parr, who in 1543 married the English Sovereign, Henry VIII. The King'  sister, the Princess Mary, was the wife of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who in 1542, sold  Ribston to Henry Goodricke (see p.p.3.) It is therefore clear that the historic personage, Catherine Parr, herself of Royal descent, was by  marriage, aunt to Richard Goodricke, son of the original purchaser of Ribston. The Duke of Suffolk was grand- father of Lady Jane Grey (see p.p. 3) whose cause was espoused by Baron Parr of Kendal, brother of Catherine, as well as by Bishop Goodricke, a younger brother of the purchaser of Ribston (see p. p.16-20.) It is also noteworthy  that these illustrious personages, Henry VIII, Catherine Parr and Richard Goodricke  of Ribston were blood relations, having a common ancestor  in the first Earl of Westmorland, whose descent from the Earls of Northumbria before the Norman Conquest is too well known to need recapitulation. I may also add that the Portraits of Henry VIII, Catherine Parr, the Duke of Suffolk and Bishop Goodricke were painted by the master Holbein.

Thus by a process of inquiry into the earlier generations of the Goodrickes it may be possible to discover the true origin or motive for their first settlement at Ribston.  We are told that the name first appears at Ribston in 1533, when Henry Goodricke is recorded as acting as Steward of the Estate, which some nine years later (1542) he purchased from the Duke of Suffolk.  But whether this sale and purchase of Ribston was a purely adventitious bargain between strangers, or whether it arose through family kinship, is at present difficult to determine, but there is a suspicion of the Royal favour entering into the transaction  when we consider the relationship between the several parties concerned.

The frequent differences on matter political and religious, existing between families, otherwise living in perfect unity, is faithfully shown in the case of the Goodrickes during the troubled time of the Civil War (see Chapters VI-VII).   A bitter illustration of such a family severance is exhibited at a later period when, in 1688, the fury of Revolution broke over the land.  The story told of the active participation of Sir Henry Goodricke and his successful maneuvers on behalf of the Protestant cause during this unhappy period, is almost thrilling in its experience (see p.p. 58-71.) But realising as all must at this day the benefits that have flowed from this enterprise, one cannot at the  same time withhold some sympathy from the unfortunate monarch who had estranged himself from so many of his subjects, and who in his ardour for upholding an inherited faith, had misjudged the character of his people.  Hume says he was
"faithful, sincere and honourable";
on the other hand, it is abundantly shown that he proved false to  his trust.
It is, however, a sad reflection on the fate of those in high places that his own child the consort of his opponent - should rise in arms against one who had in the tender years of her childhood, bestowed the fatherly caress and parent's love.  Her spirited spouse, the Prince of Orange, was the son of her own aunt Mary, who had been  baptised in the Roman Catholic faith and was sister of James the second.  Their mother was a French Roman Catholic, and by the marriage contract all the children  were to be brought up in the teaching of that religion until they were 13 years of age.  Consequently both William and Mary were strongly tinctured by inheritance with Roman Catholicism.  This fact is often forgotten in the zeal of those who would represent King William as the persecutor of the Papists.  But he himself openly declared that that was not his object.  He had come

"to deliver the Protestants but not to persecute the Papists," he said.

Ursula Stanhope is conjectured by  Mr. J. W. Clay  F.S.G. in his Additions to Dugdale's visitation of Yorkshire (1897) to have been baptized at Doncaster, 30 October 1610, but if this is correct she cannot, as is stated by the writer on Governor Walker in the Dictionary of National Biography, be the mother of the Hero of Londonderry, who was born in or about the year 1618.  The probability is she was a second wife of Chancellor George Walker.  She had several brothers and sisters, one of whom, Margaret Stanhope, was baptized at Hooten Pagnell, near Doncaster, 25 March 1607, and was married there in 1629 to Robert Dyneley of Bramhope,  near Otley, with whom she lived, according to Heywood, a married life of 59 years (see my "Upper Wharfsdale" p. 136).  These and other circumstances connected with the Protestant  party at the Revolution point to the district of Ribston being prominently identified with the affairs of that eventful period.

It is also interesting to record that when William III succeeded to the throne in 1689, he made Bryan Fairfax, who was born in 1630, at Newton Kyme (near Ribston) one of his equerries, while the Princes Mary, afterwards Queen of William III, was a god-child of Mary Fairfax, Duchess of Buckingham, cousin to this Bryan Fairfax.  Likewise Admiral Robert Fairfax had served on board the Bonadventure off Lough Foyle in 1689 (see Markham's Life of the Great Lord Fairfax, p.p. 94-99)

All these facts and incidents show the friendship that was extended by King William, not only to the family of Governor Walker, but to other supporters of his cause in this part of Yorkshire.  Some of Walker's biographers claim him to be a native of Hingley, in Yorkshire, but I have found no proof of this, and consider it more likely that he was born somewhere in the neighbourhood of Ribston or Kirk Deighton, near Wetherby.  Soon after Walker received the thanks of Parliament and a present of £5,000 he was commanded by King William to  prepare a true narrative of his heroic Defense of Derry, and this he did in an octavo pamphlet of 64 pages, printed in London in the autumn of 1689.  In that same year it went through three editions, and a German translation was published at Hamburg, and a Dutch version at Antwerp, as appears by the British Museum Catalogue.

A perusal of that engrossing Chapter VIII on the action taken by Sir Henry Goodricke and his friends in the events of that critical time, leaves no doubt in our minds that it is to such as they and Governor Walker we owe in no small degree our national freedom and the strength of our matchless constitution.
In concluding these fragmentary notes may I express  the hope that his charming work, so well written and beautifully adorned, and providing as it does so many moral lessons,  will become such a family "Jewell" as is mentioned on page 25 of the book?  And may the example of those gifted lives displayed in its pages prove an incentive to good and righteous deeds, and be a delight to its fortunate owner in time that is to come!

Harry Speight.
Bingley, Yorkshire,
Xmas, 1913
 
 
 

PREFACE

After consideration, however, I decided on attempting the task and this book is the result, undertaken and completed during a long period of convalescence from a serious illness.  It has afforded me some occupation and pleasure, and I hope my readers may not consider I am presumptuous in thinking that by my plan of deviating from the well-trodden high roads in everyday history and seeking out the less-known by-paths in  that fascinating study I have succeeded in producing a series of readable chapters.
The chief events I have dealt with are:-

The attempt to place Lady Jane Grey on the throne, in which scheme Bishop Goodricke, then Lord Chancellor, wås so dangerously implicated; the Earls' Rebellion against Queen Elizabeth in 1569, which ended in the ruin of the Nortons; Sir John Goodricke's exploits in the Civil War; and Sir Henry Goodricke's mission to  Spain, and later on the Revolution of 1688 in which he played such a important part in conjunction with Lord Danby and others.  The remaining chapters are devoted to an historical and descriptive account of the domains of Ribston  and Bramham Park and to the more personal history of several members of the Ribston family.  In order that my readers may the more easily follow the relationships between the several persons about whom I have written, I have bound up with this volume that chapter in my Goodricke family history - privately printed in 1885 - which deals with the branch seated at Ribston.

I have been careful not to write anything without solid authority, and for such of my readers a desire to test my accuracy, or follow at further length statements which I have of necessity abbreviated, a list is appended of the principal literature and state documents consulted, and references to this are given in the text.  Many other authorities will be found in the text.   I wish, however, to specially mention how greatly I am  indebted to Mr. Harry Speight's valuable work " Nidderdale" published in 1906, from which I have taken the liberty of making many extracts, which I have duly acknowledged.  I also desire to mention the works of Mr. Richard Davey, Mr. S.R. Gardiner, and Mr.  J. F. Molloy, which have afforded me most valuable historical information of which I have made full use.

The illustrations which I have added speak for themselves; the work of collecting them has given me much pleasure.

Like most families which have, through many generations, have maintained a position of importance, the Goodrickes of Ribston had their periods of prosperity and the reverse, and after perusing these pages I think my readers will grant that a moral of importance can by readily drawn from the narrative.
It is often in vain that we try to analyze the causes of the misfortune of families or of their failure or their ultimate extinction.  The decline of once well-known families is a subject which rarely fails to interest those who delight in "moving accidents",  while to minds of another cast such narratives may, and often do, supply something much more solid and profitable than mere interest.  It will be obvious to the reader how the Goodrickes of Ribston continued for generations in prosperity and importance so long as their lives were lived in the fear of God and employed in honourable service.  When, however, a lower level of  morality and conduct was allowed to prevail, nay, became fashionable, when religion became neglected and was finally abandoned altogether, when the family could boast that one of its prominent members, a cleric, Prebendary of York and the pluralist Vicar of Hunsingore was "a gentleman long and well known on the turf, kept many fine racehorses,  some of the best now existing whiçh, in respect for his clerical charåcter he always  ran in the names of some other gentleman", and when the family could find nothing more edifying to say of this same relative than thåt "he was reckoned the best whist player in the contry",  and when the last Goodricke possessor of Ribston had given himself up to a life of inglorious ease, horse racing, gambling and extravagant living, with self-indulgence and sensual enjoyment as its chief consideration, - then decay folowed, the patrimony so proudly held for nearly three hundred years passed away, and the line of inheritance became extinct.

Let us hope, however, that the lives and example of those who spent their years in well-directed and honourable enerby and in honest service to the nåtion, giving of their best, may evoke that spirit of emulation and perseverance which, rightly ordered, under prayer and the blessing of God, so entirely contributes to succes and happiness.

Let us remember as well that pride may derive a no less useful lesson from seeing how little stability exists in the gifts  of wordly fortune when they are ill-used.

Surely, the sorrowful spectacle of the life abandoned extravagance and ill-judged sport to which I have alluded in chapters 12 and 14 and which was led by the last Goodricke who possessed Ribston, and his total disregard of the example of this worthy ancestors would not be contemplated without feelings full of regret and sadness.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
End us farther than to-day.

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time; -

Footprints that perhaps another,

... ... ... ... ...

Seeing, shall take heart again
                                          Charles A. Goodricke
                                                                               Hampstead,
                                                                               March, 1913.

LIST OF THE PRINCIPAL BOOKS AND AUTHORITIES CONSULTED IN WRITING THIS VOLUME
"Nidderdale" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .H. Speight. 1906 Edition. . . .  .      . .    .  .Nidd.
"History of the Church of England" . . . .   18A.H.Hore .   . . . . . .  .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hore.
"Notes on English Churh History" . . . . .  C.A.Lane .  .. . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Lane.
"History of the Goodricke Family"  . . . .   .1897 Edition. . . . . . . . . . . .   . .. . . . . . . . . Goodricke.
"The Nine Day's Queen "  . . . . . . . . . . .  . .Richard Davey, 1909. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Queen.
"The Tower of London " . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . Richard Davey, 1910.  . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . Davey.
"Country Life" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10th February 1906 Page 198, etc.
"History of Knaresbrough       . . . . . . . . . . E. Hargrove .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Hargrove.
"Ralph Thoresby's Diary " , , , , , , , , , , , . . 1832.           Vol. II . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . .  . . . Thoresby.
"Dictionary of National Biography".
"Historical Scenes in Durham Cathedral" .I.L.Low. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . .Low.
"Vicissitudes of Families" . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Burke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . .Burke.
"History of Durham". . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Surtees. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Surtees.
"History of Durham" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . Hutchinson. . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Hutchinson.
"Memorials of the Rebellion of 1569". I .. Bowyer. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Bowyer .
" History and Antique of Masham" . . . . . .Jno Fisher. . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . Fisher.
" History and Antique of Craven" . . . . . . . .J.D.Whitaker   . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  .Whitaker.
"State Papers. Domestic Series". .  . . . . .Charles I  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . State.
"Fairfax Correspondence" . . . . . . . . . . . . . G.W.Johnson   1848 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fairfax.
"History of the Civil War" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S.R . Gardiner  1894  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Gardiner.
"Royalist Composition Papers" . . . . . . . . .Records Office  Record Series Vol IV
"Additional Manuscripts" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .British Museum Library
"Close Rolls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Record Office
"State Papers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . John Thurloe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Thurloe
"Royalty Restored" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  . . J.F. Molloy. 1887 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Molloy.
"Signet Rolls" . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Record Office.
"Memoirs of Sir John Reresby " . . . . . . . . .1634-1689  I.I. Cartwright. 1875.. . . . . .Reresby.
"Grainger's Biographical Dictionary" . . . . . .  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Grainger.
Reports of the Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts
Lord Danby's letters published in 1710.
"Ribston and the Knights Templar"     . . . .R.V.Taylor     . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Taylor.
     York  A&T Journal Vol 8 p.p. 260-299  printed 1884    . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Taylor.
"The Encyclopedia Britannica"  . . . . . . . . . 11th Ed 1911

Several authorities not listed above are specially mentioned in the text.
 
 

 

CHAPTER 1

RIBSTON IT'S EARLY HISTORY

   1086-1542

The successor to Ralph Paganel who held Ribston in 1086 was Galfridus, or Geoffrey, Jilius Pagani. His son William, surnamed Trussebut, had three sons and three daughters.  but the sons dying without issue, the Trussebut property came into the hands of the three daughters Roesia, Hyllaria and Agatha.

By the marriage of Rose Trussebut the lands at Ribston were inherited by the powerful family of De Ros.

Rossia Trussebut married Everard De Ros in the reign of Henry II, about 1170. The family of De Ro was settled in Normandy and joined the Conqueror in his invasion of England. Everard De Ros had issue by his wife Rossia Trussebut a son, Robert De Ros who, in the year 1217 gave:
-

"To god and the Blessed Mary and the Brethren of the  Knighthood of the Temple of my manor of Ribston with the advowson of the church of the same vill and the hamlet of Walesford with the mills of the same hamlet etc."

He married in 1191 Isabella, daughter of William the Lion, King of Scotland, and widow of Robert Bruce, and was one of twenty-five Barons appointed to enforce the decrees of the Magna Charta.

 Ribston thus became the property of the Knights Templars in 1217 and remained in their possession until the beginning of the fourteenth  century when it reverted to the Crown due to forfeiture of all Templars Properties in 1307. It was then held by Edward II for several years. In 1324 by an Act of Parliament, the whole of the properties lately belonging to the Templars in England, became the vested in the order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem. This Act was confirmed by statute in 1334. Ribston was held by the Knights of St. John from 1324 to the dissolution of religious houses in the time of Henry VIII. In 1535 the Papal Supremacy was abolished, and the Royal Supremacy re-asserted. King Henry loved power, he liked governing, through Parliament, so long as it did what  he wanted, but as if  Parliament opposed him, he would manage without it! But if there was one thing he loved more it was money, and an easy mode of obtaining this now presented itself to his mind. The monasteries were considered immensely rich and had long been regarded as a fair field for plunder. Kings had seized their revenues to help them in their wars and it was only taking one step further to utilize them to his own purpose.

Henry's first act as Supreme Head was to appoint Cromwell as his Vicar-General; he made him supreme  over Archbishops and Bishops with the power to reform abuses and specially to hold a general visitation of Church and Monasteries. A general visitation was consequently commenced in October 1535, the jurisdiction of the Bishops being meanwhile suspended. Henry declared it to be his intention to devote the property of all the religious houses which might be dissolved, to more useful objects such as schools, etc., as is now again pretended by the dissenting promoters of the present infamous Bill before Parliament for the dis-establishment and dis-endowment of the Church in Wales. The visitation of the smaller houses, of which Ribston was one, was commenced first. (1536)

Three hundred and seventy-six houses were dissolved in the country and their property, with an annual revenue of £32,000 beside £100,000 worth of plate and jewels (sums representing more than a million in modern currency) was handed over to the King. By this one act, some ten thousand persons were thrown on the world deprived of the means of subsistence-- some at an advanced age, others to swell the ranks of sturdy beggars, at a time, too, when acts of vagrancy were punishable with death.

The visitation continued throughout the year 1538 when Canterbury was plundered by order of the King and in 1539 a yearly revenue rated at £131,607 with moveables valued at £400,000 accrued to him. Twelve mitred Abbots were executed upon the most frivolous charges and it is unnecessary for us to be reminded of the immense amount of misery which followed the dissolution of the religious houses and hospitals. As many as seventy two thousand persons are said to have died at the hands of the executioner during the reign of Henry VIII. (Hore p.249)  So much for Protestant reforming zeal!

To return to Ribston. As we have seen it was, at he time of the dissolution, was the property of the Knights Hospitallers of St., John of Jerusalem whose headquarters in England, was the great priory church at Clerkenwell in London, Sir William Weston being Prior of the Order in England with Sir John Rawson as Prior of Kilmainham, the headquarters in Ireland.

There are still two Court Rolls of the Manor of Walshford existing at Ribston dated respectively June 28th of 22nd Henry VIII (1530) and October

2nd 25th Henry VIII (1533)  both  of which are signed by "John Rawson, Prior of Kyllmaynam," which makes it probable that at that date Sir John Rawson was the resident at the Commandery of Ribston. This appears the more probable as the name Sir John Rawson is stated as of the Commandery in the  "Valor Eccles". 26th Henry VIII (1534).

Henry Goodricke, brother of the Bishop of Ely Dr Thomas Goodricke, appears to have been in possession of Ribston and acting steward of the receiver-general of the estate in 1533.   (Nidd.106).

Dr. Edwin Freshfield, the present Registrar of the New Order of the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, says that just before the dissolution of the English branch of the Order, the Knights were in the habit of letting the Commanderies on lease, very often to a Knight. This would appear to have been the case at Ribston, for at the dissolution, Sir John accepted the Royal Supremacy and was afterwards in 1541, created Viscount Clontarf (Memoir of Sir I.R. Gent's  Mag. August 1856 p.179) and Henry Goodricke is entered  in the Court Rolls as being a tenant of the Knights of St. John for a lease of 90 years, in consideration of money  which he had expended  "circa Tympill Ribstayne." This is the first mention of the Goodricke family in connection with the Ribston Estate.

We now  pass over eight years,  to 1542, when, by letters patent of 9th of February in that year the,  "Manor or mansion of Rybtsan Hall in the parish of Hunsingore with the late scyte and circuite of the said manor or late Commandery with all other houses, edyfices and buildings etc., late in the occupancye of Henry Goderyck," were  granted to that remarkable historic personage, Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, who had married the Lady Mary, sister of King Henry VIII  and widow  of Louis XII, King of France. (Lane says that Charles Brandon's dukedom was enriched at this time by no less than  thirty dissolved religious houses:  Lane p. 53)

It would be profitless for me to dwell on the enormities of the King and his courtiers in relation to the dissolution of the monasteries and other religious houses. That is a theme  which has occupied the attention and pens of thousands of able-persons for centuries and will, doubtless, long continue to be one full of the deepest interest in all serious students. For my present purpose it must suffice to relate that in the same year (1542) in which the grant of Ribston was made by the King to the Duke of Suffolk, that nobleman sold and conveyed the same property  to the said Henry Goodricke for the price of  £1,000,

"payable at the Feast of Pentecoste at the Fount in the Cathedral Church of St.Paul between the hours one of the clock and five in the afternoon."

It may be convenient to say that by letters' patent dated 28th August 1545, the King granted to Henry Goodricke the Manor and Rectory Church of Hunsingore, Co. York, with the rights etc. in the late Priory or Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem, the advowson and right of patronage of the Church of Hunsingore, together with sundry lands in Hunsingore, Walshford etc. The purchase price paid by Henry Goodricke for this property was  £699. 9. 2.  (Nidd, p.84.)

We have now arrived at the time when Ribston and Hunsingore with several other properties in that neighbourhood became the possession of the Goodrickes, Ribston and Hunsingore being chosen  as the principal family seats.   I have not found any evidence to show whether or not Henry Goodricke resided continuously  at Ribston from 1534 to 1542, but be this as it may it is certain that in the latter year he was permanently settled there as its owner by purchase and it would be fruitless, at this long distance of time - nearly four centuries - to enter into a dissertation on the merits and demerits which surrounded the very interesting but exceedingly difficult and thorny controversial subject of the dissolution of the monasteries.

It may be helpful here to state that Henry Goodricke's second wife was Margaret, daughter and eventually co-heiress of Sir Christopher Rawson, of London, Knight, and a niece of Sir John Rawson, Prior of Kilmainham afterwards Viscount Clontarf.  The Rawsons were a Yorkshire family seated at Fryston.  (Vide Memoir of Sir John Rawson by G. R.C. Gentleman's Magazine for August 1856 page 179.  Also my "Goodricke Memorials".  1888. page 307 and App. 5.)

For the information of those of my readers who may be interested in the subject I may mention that a succinct sketch of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk and his five wives is contained in the recently Published work "The Nine Days' Queen,"  by Richard Davey, 1909.  Charles Brandon was the bosom friend of Henry VIII.  In appearance the King and his comrade were singularly alike and in youth they were equally skillful and agile in sport and pastimes.

 Brandon was more intellectually gifted than Henry, but there was little to choose between them as regards their execrable ideas of moral responsibilities and their laxity in respect of their marriage vows.  Although King Henry highly approved of his intimate and constant companion's conduct his subjects held Brandon to be an arrant rascal and his treatment of his beautiful royal wife (Mary Tudor the King's sister) was on a par with his low conception of his moral obligations.  His health failed him completely soon after his return from France with the King, October 1544, and he seems to have suffered from a complication of disorders not unlike those which afflicted his brother-in-law the King.  He died at Guildford in 1546, after a long illness and was buried with great pomp in St. George's Chapel Windsor.  His eldest grand-daughter was the unhappy Lady Jane Grey, daughter of Henry Grey Marquess of Dorset and afterwards created Duke of Suffolk by his wife Lady Frances Brandon, Marchioness of Dorset and Duchess of Suffolk, one of Charles Brandon's daughters.

CHAPTER II

RIBSTON HALL, CHAPEL AND GROUNDS

Of the precise character and dimensions of the original house of the old Knights there does not appear to be any record, but old evidences show that the house contained numerous apartments and was adapted for the accommodation of many guests because it

 "lay on the road to Scotland."

The oldest existing reference to the old hall is contained in the Diary of Dr. Johnstone of Pontefract which is preserved among the M.S.S. of Mr. F. Bacon Frank, Campsall Hall, Doncaster. Dr. Johnstone made an extended tour in the neighbourhood, visiting Ribston on October 19th, 1669.  He made careful and comprehensive notes and sketches of what he saw.  He describes his reception at Ribston by Sir John Goodricke in the "fair square parlour" of the old house, and made sketches of the stained glass armorial windows in that room.  These were - in a bay window, Goodricke Coat of Arms with Crest and Mantlings and the Motto "Me memo mor" below - in another window, a quartered coat of arms, 1, Savile; 2, Copley; 3, Rishworth; 4, Copley; with Savile crest.  The Savile coat would appear to indicate that these two windows were comparatively modern at the time of Dr. Johnstone's visit.

He goes on to describe  the various coats of arms in the chapel windows and painted on the roof.  The windows are described as "The East Window"; "The South Window"; "The West Window"; "The 1st window from the West on the North side"; "The 2nd West window"; "The North window."  Among the armorial bearings of which there appear to have been about thirty in these windows,  the most prominent were Savile; Vavasour; Eure; Roos; Tunstall; and Jenkins; and others not easily distinguishable in the Diary sketches.  There were several shields painted on the woodwork of the roof prominent among which were Fitzhugh; Roos;  Scroope;  Clifford; Goodricke.  The Goodricke Coat of Arms was hung up on the north side of the Choir.  Dr. Johnstone goes on to describe, with accompanying sketches, the arms and Latin inscription on the tablet of white marble erected in 1652 by Sir John Goodricke (of which I give here a rather  poor photo from my own camera taken in 1896) and the monumental arms of Richard Goodricke impaling Norton (1582) which, according to this account, were then at the East End of the Choir.  (My photo of this is here presented, taken in 1896. p.13 Goodricke)  Dr. Johnstone also mentions that Sir John Goodricke was contemplating the complete re-building of the residence.  From Dr. Johnstone's description of the window it would appear that at that time the chapel stood apart from the house with windows looking north.  (Nidd. 125 and Goodricke 14; 17; and App. 14).

The Hall was entirely re-built in 1674 by Sir Henry Goodricke, 2nd Baronet, but notwithstanding this drastic change the Chapel was in part preserved, and made a portion (the south-west corner) of the new mansion.  While writing about the Chapel I may mention that none of the old armorial glass or paintings on the roof now exist.  All remaining that is old are:-

1.  The two grave slabs on the floor on either side of the Altar from which, however, the brasses have long since been removed, and which Hargrove thought cover the remains of two Knights Templar (Nidd. 130).
2.  The Font;
3.  Monumental Arms of Richard Goodricke, (Goodricke 14)  circa 1582.
4.  White Marble tablet erected 1652 (Goodricke 17).
5.  Monument to Sir Henry Goodricke, 4th Bart., 1738 (Goodricke 37).
6.  Tablet erected by Sir Henry Goodricke, 2nd Bart., 1703 (Goodricke 32).
I will refer again to these tablets when writing about the personages to whose memory they were erected.
I cannot do better than give here some extracts from recently written accounts of Ribston Hall and Park which convey a very accurate idea of the place and its surroundings.  A writer in  "Country Life" of 10th February 1906 p.198  says:-
 

"Well known to most visitors to Knaresborough, that most picturesque  old town of Yorkshire, and in a beautiful part of the valley of the winding Nidd, before it flows out into the open plain, stands the historic house of Ribston.  The region is one of great natural beauties and of high historic interest, and within the walls of Ribston Hall secret discussions have been held which have had their influence upon English history.  Here, in ancient times, in the parish of Hunsingore, was founded by Robert de Ros or Roos a Commandery of the Knights of Solomon's Temple, and in September, 1444, the Bishop of Philippi dedicated and reconsecrated the chapel at Ribston.  When the Dissolution came, Ribston fell into the hands of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, the King's brother-in-law, much enriched with the spoils of many monastic possessions.  But the Duke could not retain all his vast landed estates, and in 1542 he sold the manor of Ribston, with other possessions in that part of England, to Henry Goodricke of Wisbeach in the Isle of Ely, second son of William Goodricke of East Kirby, and brother of Thomas Goodricke, Bishop of Ely and Lord Chancellor in the time of Edward VI.  The Goodrickes converted the ecclesiastical possession at Ribston into a residential domain, and there was built a manor house in which they dwelt, more than a century before the present edifice arose upon the site.  The situation must have been tempting to one who wished to establish himself in that romantic part of England, for there was much of wood and water, a winding river, a healthful situation,  a fishery, and much opportunity for sport.  The fine eminence upon which the house stands is more than half encompassed by the river Nidd, and the estate and park are widely extended, and have been developed, in the course of centuries, and in the hands of many eminent men, into a seat which ranks among the most important in Yorkshire."

The re-building of the Mansion, which Sir John Goodricke informed Dr. Johnstone he contemplated carrying out was completed by his son Sir Henry, the second Baronet in 1674.  "The main frontage of the new (present) building is without remarkable features.  It is an elegant and typical illustration of the newer spirit in English domestic architecture which was tending to displace the last elements of the earlier forms."  The date 1674 is above the saloon-door which has Ionic pillars, also the Goodricke cypher, as depicted (page 38 Goodricke) which was used by Sir Henry Goodricke on one of his seals (vide an example Stowe H.S. Brit:  Mus: 745, p. 109).   Surmounting the whole was a shield containing the Goodricke Coat impaling that of Legge, but this had almost entirely perished through age when I last saw it in the summer of 1904.
 

 "The great saloon which is 44 feet long by 31 feet wide is very handsomely decorated in the Renaissance style and is said to have been completed in Sir Henry's time.  The library also bears evidence of the great care devoted to the beautifying of the place, and has some admirable carving by Grinling Gibbons (here illustrated) including hanging birds, fruit, leaves and flowers, all in the best style of the master."

The present house, handsome as it is, falls short of the spacious and imposing mansion delineated in Kip's engraving published about 1700 of which a reduced size copy is here given, at page 54.  This shows "the long frontage of the house,  with its central (saloon) door, many windowed wall, cornice, and characteristic roofs.  Buildings are depicted behind forming a quadrangle and stable quarters, with bell cupola and an open space and gates are seen beyond.  In front of the house is shown an enclosed space of turf, with vases on pedestals, (and statuary) and at the inner angles are seen handsome garden-houses.  To this terrace there is a handsome balustrade or edging, with a noble descent to a lower garden, which overlooks the river from the boundary wall.  This latter is a remarkable feature in Kip's drawing, for it seems to surround the place, and to be constructed almost as a fortified enceinte, with angle bastions, quite appropriate, it might be said, to the home of the Lieutenant-General of the Ordinance.  The house and garden are depicted as standing high above the river, and there are gardens and orchards both inside the wall and on the river bank on the right side of the house; on the left is another enclosed garden in formal manner, with sentinal-like yews and garden houses, while outside in the park are herds of deer and distant woods."  (Nidd).

Such was the Mansion as rebuilt in 1674.  It was questioned by the late Mr. John Dent whether the arrangement of the outer buildings, and particularly of the outer walls surrounding the gardens, really ever existed, as shown in Kip's view, as not a vestige of the walls now remains.  Since this question was raised by Mr. Dent in conversation with me in 1884, the point as to the walls has been decided favourably to Kip by the publication a few years ago of a letter written 29th September 1688, by Charles Bertie to Lord Dartmouth, Sir Henry Goodricke's brother-in-law.
 

"Lord Danby, Lord Dublane and he are all at Ribston one of the most charming seats he has yet seen in the North, both in respect of its noble structure and the lovely country about it.  What would yet more particularly please his Lordship is that Sir Henry Goodricke is environing his gardens with a kind of fortification, and has already finished 2 bastions and hopes when Lord Dartmouth visits the northern forts he will please to reckon this among the number.  Then when Lord Danby drinks the sulphur waters they remember his Lordship's health and the prosperity of his family in most serene Florence, (sic) and in a sort of liquor called Walshford Ale, which transcends all that ever was named, and is the smoothest and best natural drink  in the world and cannot fail withal to carry an Election, though Sir Harry and his Lady are so generally beloved and esteemed that they need no southern artifice to secure the affection of their neighbours to them."  (Dartmouth Papers, p. 138).

This letter would show that although the house was built in 1674 as indicated by that date ve the saloon door, the surrounding walls were not completed until fourteen years later.  I must not omit to mention the paintings in the saloon.  They are fixtures and are part of Sir Henry's original work.  Chief among these are - "The Virgin at work attended by Angels" copied by Pietro Angdetti from Guido; "The descent from the Cross" copied by Sig. Lud. Sterne from Dan: de Volterra;  "The rape of Helen," Guido; "The Death of Dido," Guercino; These last two are the works of Sig. Francesco Smuglandients;  "Bacchus and Ariadne," Guido; A copy of the "Aurora" by Guido; A copy of the Aldobrandini marriage; The marriage of Helen and Paris.  In the library, which is next to the chapel, and has two windows in the front of the house, there is a large collection of valuable books, including some works dating back to the Bishop's time, also many which belonged to Sir John Goodricke, 1st Bart., and which have his autograph signature in them.  Amongst the most interesting of the books are the French Bible printed in 1622 which was bought at Tours by Sir John in 1638 as a present for his father (Goodricke, 20) (Nidd, 128)  and two Goodricke Family Bibles purchased for the Chapel by Sir Henry Goodricke 4th Bart., in January 1706 in which there are voluminous entries of Births - Marriages and Deaths which occured in the Goodricke family from 1706-6 up to 1833 (Goodricke App. 30).   As recorded on the tablets in the chapel there must have been many burials in the vaults beneath it.  In the small burial ground adjoining the chapel there were also many interments as the remains of about twelve adult persons were found there some years ago.  The last of the Goodrickes to be buried at Ribston was Sir Henry the 4th Bart.  His son, Sir John, 6th Bart., built a family vault at Hunsingore Church where all burials from his time took place.

An interesting visit was paid to Ribston on 8th June 1710 by Ralph Thoresby the eminent Yorkshire Antiquary and Historian.  This visit  was made in response to an invitation from Sir Henry Goodricke and the particulars of it are recorded in Thoresby's Diary thus:-
 

"June 8th 1710 -  Rode with Mr. R.P. to  Wetherby; then alone to Parson Froget's who obliged me with his company to Ribston, where most courteously received by Sir Henry Goodricke, who showed me several curiosities, ancient writing from King John and others, relating to the Templars Commandery there of old; the Chapel is yet in being, and accommodated for present use; there are two modern inscriptions relating to the family of the Goodrickes, which, though but here since the Reformation, yet is of good antiquity in Lincolnshire.  I was the pedigree of nine descents before that in Mr. Hopkinson,s  M.S., several of which have been very eminent.  I was  best pleased with that of Sir John Goodricke, who gave the tithes worth better than £100  per annum to the Church of Hunsingore.  He wrote also a Latin History of this nation in a large folio: (The title page of this is now in the M.S.S. Department of the British Museum).  I saw the autograph and some original surveys of Christopher Saxton's;  took notice of the family pictures since the Reformation, but was troubled that the famous Bishop's, who was also Lord Chancellor, was not there, but he gave his Estate etc. to the elder branch, this being the second. There is also a good library, though I had not time to view it; only took notice of a Common Prayer Book, 1552; but I durst not stay for fear of missing my company at Wetherby, with whom I returned by way of Thorner; transcribed Sir John Saville's Epitaph from his monument lately erected there, and got well home."

(The Prayer Book of 1552 was in the Library at the time of the purchase of Ribston by Mr, Joseph Dent in 1836, but it was stolen and Mr. John Dent always believed that a copy of the 1552 book which was sold at an auction in London recently was the Ribston copy - and this would seem to be quite probable.)

Many changes have passed over Ribston Hall since 1674, but it still remains as a fine place and the trees which were then and subsequently planted, have now grown to great size.  The beautiful park and gardens are thrown open to visitors on Tuesdays during the summer months.  The gardens cover about twenty-four acres and are very tastefully and attractively laid out with a numerous assortment of trees and shrubs many of which are most deservedly celebrated for their rarity or exceptional growth.  The late Mr. John Dent told me that the resence of these is due to Sir Henry Goodricke, 4th Bart., (died 1738).  Sir Henry had a fine taste and  a discriminating eye and spent much time in the improvement of his Estate.  He was especially fond of trees which is shown in an interesting letter written by him to Sir Hans Sloane, the great naturalist, now in the Brit. Mus. (Nidd, 132).  It may be suitable here to allude to one matter which has given fame to Ribston Hall.  Here it was that the famous Ribston Pippin was first grown.  The origin of the Pippin and its introduction into England are related in a letter written by Miss Clough - who was a great grand-daughter of Sir Henry Goodricke and who spent much of her youth at Ribston.  Miss Clough wrote-
 

"These pippins were sent to Sir Harry Goodricke (4th Bart.) from Normandy about the year 1709; only one of them succeeded, and from that all the Ribston Pippins have descended.  The Ribston Pippin came from Normandy about the beginning of last century; my great grand-father Sir Harry Goodricke, had a friend abroad who sent him three pippins in a letter, which being sown two came to nothing; the present old tree at Ribston is the produce of the third of these pippins, and have been transplanted into all parts."

 
CHAPTER III

BISHOP GOODRICKE.   SKETCH OF HIS LIFE

He was one of the divines consulted by the convocation as to the legality of the King's marriage with Catherine of Arragon, and also one of the syndics appointed by the University of Cambridge to determine that question in February 1529-30. At this time he was a doctor of divinity. Soon afterwards he occurs as one of the chaplains to Henry VIII and Canon of St. Stephen's, Westminster.

He was  a commissioner for reforming the Canon Laws in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI.  About a year after the death of Bishop West the King granted a license to the Prior and Convent at Ely, to choose themselves a Bishop and they thereupon, on 17th March 1534 elected Dr. Goodricke who was consecrated at Croydon by Archbishop Cranmer on 19th April 1534.

It was soon after his elevation to the See of Ely that he repaired and beautified the palace there entirely at his own expense and built the long gallery (called Bishop Goodricke's gallery) on the west side of it.  His Arms are still to be seen beneath the central window of this gallery, as also on the sides of it

"Our duty towards God"

"Our duty towards our neighbour"

Bishop Goodricke was a zealous supporter of the Reformation, as may by seen from the mandate which he addressed in the next year to his diocese; in which he directs, that at High Mass or at Vespers, a declaration shall be made in English to the intent that the

"Authoritie of long time usurped by the Bisshope of Rome in this realme, who then was called Pope, ys now by God's laws, justly, lawfully, and on grownde raysons and causes, by athorite of Parliament, and by and with the hole consent and agreement of the Bishops, Prelates, and both Universities of Oxforthe and Cambridge and also of the hole Clargie of this realme, extinct and ceased for ever."

In 1537 he was one of the compilers of what was called the "Bishops' Book" which was published under the title of "The Godly and Pious Institution of a Christian Man," (Hore 254) and soon after he was entrusted with the Gospel of St. John in the revision of the New Testament.
In 1541 he published a violent mandate for the utter destruction of

"All images and bones of such as the Kyng's people resorted and offered unto,"

"The ornaments, writings, table monuments of myracles or pylgrymage, shryns, coverings of shryne, appertaining to the said images and bones."

These he commanded should be
 

"So totally demolished and obliterated with all speed and diligence that no remains or memory of them might be found for the future."

On the accession of Edward VI he was sworn of the Privy Council, and in November 1548 was appointed one of the royal commissioners for the visitation of the University of Cambridge.  He was one of the compilers of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI (1549).
On 15th March 1548-9 Bishop Goodricke was sent to prepare Lord Seymour of Sudeley for death, after the warrant had been signed for his execution by his brother the Duke of Somerset.

The Dukes's harsh conduct induced the bishop to join the malcontents in the Privy Council who sought the overthrow of the protector.  In 1550 Goodricke was one of the bishops who tried to obtain a recantation from Joan Bocher, and "I.M.N." of Trinity College, Camb. writes:-
 

"It should ever be remembered that in the memorable dispute on the use of ecclesiastical vestments  it was by the advice of Bishop Goodricke that the Primate stood firm against the objections of Hooper."

In Nov. 1550 Goodricke was appointed one of the commissioners for the trial of Gardiner, bishop of Winchester.  Soon afterwards he and Cranmer  were ordered by the Council to dispute with George Day, Bishop of Chichester, who was deprived and committed to Goodricke in "Christian Charity."  In May 1551 Bishop Goodricke was appointed a commissioner to invest Henry II, King of France with the order of the Garter, and to treat of the marriage of his daughter Elizabeth with Edward VI.  On 22nd December 1551 the great Seal, on the retirement of Lord Chancellor Rich, was given into the bishop's hands as keeper and Goodricke received the full title of Lord Chancellor on 19th January 1551-2 when it was discovered that Rich's illness has been pretended.  Bishop Goodricke's portrait is in Holbein's picture of the "Grant of the Charter to Bridewell Hospital" of which I present here a reduced copy of Vertue's well known engraving.
 
 

 CHAPTER IV.

BISHOP GOODRICKE AND THE PLOT OF 1553.

"In June 1553, when the poor young King  was stretched on his couch  at Greenwich, dying of a hopeless complication of diseases, the Duke of Northumberland laid a proposal dealing with the succession to the Crown before him, which set aside his Majesty's two sisters  (Mary on account of her religion and Elizabeth on that of her doubtful legitimacy) and entailed the throne on the Lady Frances, Machioness of Dorset, mother of Lady Jane Grey, the newly-wedded bride of Northumberland's son, Lord Guilford Dudley, and on her sisters and their heirs.
Northumberland ended by inducing the dying King to eliminate every one of these other heirs, save and except Lady Jane Grey, who was named his immediate successor.  His first step had been the overthrow of Somerset; his second, the alliance of his family with the Royal blood by the marriage of his youngest son, Guilford, to Lady Jane Grey, and the proclamation of Lady Jane as Queen of England was to be the third, The King's Council was easily induced to approve the "Devise" as the scheme was called.  And so it came to pass that when Edward VI passed away on July 6, 1553, all was  prepared for the realization of Northumberland's audacious plan." (Davey p. 191).

On the 8th July 1553, two days after the death of the King, the Duke of Northumberland, accompanied by the Duke of Suffolk, Jane's father, the Earl of Pembroke, Bishop Goodricke, the Lord Chancellor and other members of the Council proceeded on that memorable journey to Sion House, Isleworth, and proclaimed Lady Jane Queen,

"an honour which she refused with tears and protestations."

Lady Jane's scruples were however entirely overcome and on the following afternoon she was conveyed in state from Sion House to the Tower.
There is a fine painting by Leslie, R.A. at Woburn Abbey, Bedfordshire, which portrays the scene at Sion House on 8th July 1553.  An engraving of it is here presented (from "Pictures & Royal Portraits; Blackie & Sons, Ltd. Glasgow).  Lady Jane is the chief figure, standing by her side is her husband drawing her attention to the Patent with the Great Seal hanging from it which the Duke of Northumberland, kneeling, is displaying to her view.  Prominent among the other figures - all kneeling - is the Lord Chancellor holding  his insignia of office in both hands.
Jane was proclaimed Queen in the city of London on 10th July 1553 but the people received the announcement with manifest coldness.

 
"Meanwhile events within the Tower moved rapidly. Bad news came in daily and it became increasingly evident that Northumberland's efforts were being checked at every turn. At last, the Duke growing desperate, decided to take the field against Mary himself, and he departed, very unwillingly on July 12th, after a meeting of the Council which sat daily in the White Tower, and rode northwards with a troop of horse and several noblemen. He got as far as Bury St. Edmunds, and then, scenting defeat, fell back on Cambridge, where he was taken an unresisting prisoner by the Earl of Arundel and Sir John Gates, both of whom had, up to that time, pretended to be his warmest friends. (Davey p.195)

"For the whole week most of the members of the Council had been kept strictly within the Tower, holding consultations etc. By July 19, the Council had matured its centre-coup. Very early in the morning of that day, certain of them waited on the Duke of Suffolk and  asked to depart temporarily from the Tower and resort to Baynard's Castle to confer  with the French Ambassador about the importation of French levies to reinforce Northumberland." (Davey)

 
"Suffolk, having given his consent, the Ministers trooped out of the Tower and proceeded to Baynard's Castle where they signed a paper proclaiming Mary Queen, and this they forthwith caused to be promulgated at various points of the City amid the shouts of citizens."

"And Suffolk did as he was bid, and proclaimed the rightful Queen on Tower Hill in person"
"Suffolk told his gentle daughter that her brief reign was now closed  and the little "Queen," a great weight lifted from her mind, passed silently out of the State Room to her own chamber." (Davey)

Bishop Goodricke was imprisoned being one of those named for trial as  traitors. His action in affixing the great Seal to the "Devise" was alone sufficient to have speedily brought him to the scaffold along with Northumberland and those who suffered death with him. Richard Davey in his interesting and valuable work "The Nine Days Queen" gives at page 254-255 the full text of the celebrated "Devise" drawn up by Northumberland and approved by Edward VI. It bears seventy-three signatures-- those on the first line being:- T. Cant (Cranmer) T. Ely Cane (Goodricke) Winchester and Northumberland.

The reader of these lines will be able to realise the anxiety which  would now arise in the homes of the Goodrickes at Ribston, in Lincolnshire, and at Ely, for was not the aged and revered member of their family to whom they looked with affectionate regard, standing in the imminent danger of death on the scaffold for high treason! Who shall say what days of anxious fear were passed by all members of the family and what relief they must have felt  when the news reached them that Queen Mary had herself struck the Bishop's name out of the list of those to be tried, that he had been released  and had safely reached his home at Ely. It had been thought that Queen Mary's reason for exempting from trial was consideration for his age  and on account of his having joined  in the order sent by the  Council on July 20th commanding the Duke of Northumberland to disarm. The Great Seal, of course, was taken from him. He did homage to Queen Mary on the day of her coronation  October 1st 1553 and he was permitted to retain his bishopric until his death.

When we remember the terrible fate  of so many Divines who were disposed towards  the new doctrines, the protracted punishment of the Lady Jane Grey and her husband and the fate of Northumberland and others, we cannot fail to realise the painful suspense that must have been felt by all the members of the family and their thankfulness that the Bishop's natural death on 10th May 1554, their old and honoured relative was at rest. Bishop Goodricke was buried in the Chancel of Ely Cathedral and the handsome monumental brass to his memory--much mutilated, however, during the Civil War-- is the oldest remaining in that beautiful building. This brass is now in the south aisle of the choir and it seems probable that it was removed to that position when the Cathedral  was renovated, as Willis in his "Survey" 1742 Vol 3  has the Bishop's grave marked as

"in the middle of the Quire" (App.2.)

The Effigy, as can be seen from the illustration, is perfect with the exception of  a small piece in the upper part of the right shoulder, It represents the Bishop in full Episcopal vestments.  The alb, which is handsomely ornamented in the orfray, reaches to the feet, which are sandaled; above these is the tunick; between the latter and the dalmatick the fringed ends of the stole are visible; the maniple and chasuble are both richly ornamented.  In the left hand is the pastrol staff adorned with the vexillum; in the right, the Bible and the great seal.  The legend which is now much mutilated is in Latin.  Six small scrolls contained the Bishop's motto

"Si Deus nobiscum, quis contra nos"

"Goodryke."

At the top right hand corner  was a shield - Ely See impaling the Goodricke arms quartered with Williamson.  At the foot on same side was Goodricke quartered with Williamson, but these are lost.  (Vide Add. M.S. 5813 p.123. Brit. Mus.)  The two corresponding shields on the other side are lost and I cannot find any record of what they were.  The Bishop's character and actions are mush abused by Dr. Burnet, and especially his acceptance of the office of Chancellor but Mr. Downes, in his "Lives of the compilers of the English Liturgy" says of him:-
 

"He was a sincere promoter of pure religion and a patron to all learned men whad the blessings and prayers of the poor and the favour and esteem of the rich.  His greatest enemies could not but acknowledge him gentle, just and gracious; and his most intimate friends, when they brought a bad cause before him found him infexible, severe and unprejudiced."

One who knew him personally, however, Robert Steward, the last Prior and first Dean of Ely writes of him as follows:-
 

"Vir erat justus, mansuctus, hospitalis, misericors, amans omnes, et amatus ab omnibus."  (Rob. Steward, Hist. Eli. p. 676).

He stood forth boldly in defence of what he considered right, but that he was very considerably influenced by the "new learning" his conduct while in the See of Ely abundantly shows, and this burning zeal for the promotion of Protestantism undoubtedly contributed largely to his acquiescence in Northumberland's plans on behalf of Lady Jane Grey.
 There is ample evidence that King Edward was entirely persuaded and most fully believed that Northumberland's intense desire to see the "Devise" carried into effect was the outcome of his zeal for the new religion.  Archbishop Cranmer and others of the Council had qualms of conscience as to it legality but Cranmer, as the result of an interview with the King was finally converted to his views and it is on record that when he, with the  others, signed  the scheme for the succession of the Lady Jane Grey he
 

"did it unpainedly and without dissimulation."  (Cranmer's Works, Parker Society, Vol.II p.442, also Nine Days Queen p.241)

There seems to be, therefore, no reason for doubting the "bona fides" of the Chancellor in his action, ill advised as it was. Hooper,  writing to Bullinger on 27th December 1549, refers to Goodricke as one of the six or seven  bishops who comprehended the (so-called) reformed doctrine relating to the Lord's Supper with as much clearness and piety as one could desire.
It has been said that he would not have been pardoned by Queen Mary had he not veered round with the times. But it is on record, that he was, from middle age, a delicate man and that at the time we are considering, he was in declining health, suffering from that painful malady, stone.  One writer ("J.M.N." Trinity College) says:-
 

"If we cannot assign to this prelate that energetic resolution and unwearied perseverance and courage which distinguished some of his contemporaries; still, while the gentle, the persuasive, the long -suffering, are held in esteem, so long will the Anglican Church feel a pride in, and look back in reverence to the name of Bishop Goodricke"

Bishop Goodricke's Will, dated 24th April, was proved in the Prerogative Court of Canterbury 7th October 1554.
Before closing this chapter I should mention  that the Bishop  is often misnamed  Goodrich, but, as I have many times  pointed out, he was not related, even remotely, to the Goodrich family, though he is continually claimed by it as an ancestor- without, however, one atom of proof being brought forward to support such a claim.

 
CHAPTER V

"THE EARLS REBELLION" OR "THE RISING OF THE NORTH" 1569

Richard Goodricke of Ribston  had married, about the year 1558, Clare, one of the daughters of Richard Norton, of Norton Conyers, Co. York, by this wife Susan Neville, fifth daughter of Richard Neville, Lord Latimer, a union of which his descendants have ever been justly proud.   Richard Norton was a personage of note in the country.  Descended from the ancient family of Conyers, he was a member of the Council for the North temp Henry VIII and Edward VI, Governor of Norham Castle and at the time of which I write, (1569) he was High Sheriff of Yorkshire.   In the late autumn of 1569, in the eleventh year of Queen Elizabeth's reign insurrection,  known as the "Rising of the North" took place at the head of which were Percy Earl of Northumberland and Neville, Earl of Westmorland.  The aim of this movement was to re-establish the religion of their ancestors, to remove Evil Counsellors, and to restore the Duke of Norfolk and other peers to their liberty and to the Queen's favor.  The two Earls published a manifesto in which they declared that they intended to attempt nothing against the Queen to whom they avowed unshaken allegiance but that their only object was as just stated.   There can be no doubt whatever however that one of their objects was to carry off Mary Queen of Scots from her prison at Tutbury.  Queen Elizabeth received repeated intimations of the Earls' disaffection and summoned them to Court to answer for their conduct, but they dared not trust themselves in her hands and they consequently disobeyed the mandate.  The summons sent to the two Earls, however, precipitated the rising before they were fully prepared.  Among the disaffected Richard Norton was one of the most eager for immediate action together with several of his sons, his brother Thomas and other relations.

Before proceeding further in my account of the rebellion which terminated so disastrously I will turn aside to give just one absolutely authenticated example of the religious intolerance, bigotry, and sacrilege  which prevailed at the time all over the country and which, I submit, it is but reasonable to think would be regarded as abundant justification for their hostile action by all those who were so staunch in their support of the Catholic faith.   The case I will quote is that of Durham.

There is no evidence to be found that Richard Goodricke was personally implicated in this ill-fated insurrection,  but the  close union of the families must have caused the issue of the rising to be a matter of the gravest concern to him.
After the accession of Elizabeth the Dean and several prebendaries were deprived and others more in accordance with the Queen's views were appointed in their room.  The Dean in 1569, William Whittingham, was a most devoted Calvinist and both he and James Pilkington the first "reformed" Bishop of Durham had been among the refugees on the Continent in Queen Mary's time and had returned, with all the others, deeply imbued with the zeal of foreign Protestantism.   Dean Whittingham, indeed, had never received Episcopal ordination -  he had nothing but a call from a congregation at Geneva, where he is said to have married the sister of Calvin.  Both the Bishop and the Dean were  opposed to the surplice which they considered to be relics of Popery and under their care the Cathedral assumed what would now be considered a very strange appearance.  The Holy Table was removed to the middle of the Choir and was subject to all kinds of irreverent usage.  The singing of the Canticles was regarded as Popish and everything connected with Divine Service was made to be of the plainest and barest character.

It is not to be thought that such a man as Whittingham would have any sympathy with the past.  The extreme reformers appear to have regarded themselves in the position of the people of God entering on the possession of the promised land and all monuments of supposed idolatry were forthwith to be destroyed.  The Statue of St. Cuthbert which had survived the desecration and destruction of his tomb was now, by Whittingham, broken in pieces and utterly destroyed.  After the rapine of the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI little spoil was left in the time of Elizabeth, but sill some profit, however paltry, might be made by thriftily disposed ecclesiastics.  The stones which covered the graves of Priors were taken up by the Dean.   Everyone which had a cross or chalice on it was destroyed and the rest used for the flagging of a wash-house, while the stone coffins, emptied of their contents, were appointed by Whittingham to be used as troughs for horses and pigs.

There were two holy water stoups, they  were appropriated  by Mrs. Whittingham to be used in her house for steeping salt meat or fish.  Whittingham lowered the roof of the Frater house and so made a profit by the lead which was saved by the process.   Whittingham also proposed to take down the bills and appropriate the metal to his own use but this sacrilege was prevented.  One most venerable relic still remained - viz - the Banner of St. Cuthbert.  Flodden had seen it in the field in 1513 and it had outlived the dreary days of Henry VIII and Edward VI but as it could not be turned to account by Mrs. Whittingham that lady burned it in her fire.

Much more might be written of Whittingham's sacrilegious acts, but the foregoing will suffice and it cannot be wondered that the people who loved their church rebelled against what they could neither understand nor tolerate.  I may mention here that Whittingham died in June 1579 and was buried in the Cathedral, but his tombstone with a memorial brass were destroyed by the Scots in 1640 in the same woeful manner as he had violated the monuments of his predecessors and others.

After this digression from my subject, made with the object of showing the aggravation caused throughout the country by the so-called foreign reformers, I will take up the narrative of the rebellion.
Old Richard Norton was at Topcliffe - one of the residences of the Earl of Northumberland, when the Earl, acting under fear of immediate arrest, left that place in company with Norton and joined the Earl of Westmoreland at Brancepeth.  Northumberland thought the time inopportune for insurrection but the fiery eagerness of Norton and his sons to begin the struggle urged on the two Earls who were nominally their leaders.  They marshaled their army and took the field
 

"with the avowed object of restoring the religion of their ancestors."

They marched to Durham and their first step was the occupation of that city.  The Earls  entered the Cathedral with their followers armed to the teeth.  Behind them old Richard Norton followed with massive gold crucifix hanging from his neck and carrying an old banner of the "Pilgrimage of Grace" which displayed the crucifixion with Christ's five wounds.   The Bishop was in the South, Whittingham did not appear on the scene till the trouble was over and only one dignitary, George Clyffe, is heard of.  The insurgents after their entrance to the Cathedral threw down the Communion Table and tore the English Bible and Prayer Book.  They then proceeded to erect two altars, one in the old place of the high altar, and one in the south transept.  One of the great stone altar slabs was brought from behind the house of the Prebendary of the first stall and the other was discovered in the Centry garth under a heap of rubbish.  The people of the town gave their help in removing the ponderous stones  and masons were induced to set them up.  On 30 November 1569 Mass was sung with the old ceremonies.   They retained possession of the Cathedral, the parish churches for ten or twelve days.  They then proposed  to proceed to York but receiving intelligence that the Earl of Essex had raised a powerful army against them they turned first to Raby Castle one of the Earl of Westmorland's seats and thence to Barnard Castle which was shut against them by Sir George Bowes and which they besieged for eleven days before the fortress surrendered.

They then advanced to Clifford Moor, near Wetherby, where they found their troops consisted of 4000 foot and 600 horse only.  Disappointed in the support they expected both in men and money, Westmorland began so visibly to despond that many of his men shrunk away, though Northumberland still kept resolute and was master of the field till the 13th December when Essex marched out of York at the head of 7000 men followed by a still larger army under the Earl Of Warwick.   The rebels retreated northward first to Raby then to Auckland and Hexham and lastly to Naworth Castle from whence the two Earls escaped into Scotland.  The Earl of Northumberland was captured and shut up by the Regent Murray at Lochleven and in 1572 he was given up to Elizabeth and after being led through Durham, Raby and Topcliffe, he was beheaded in the Pavement at York August 1572.  His countess escaped to Flanders.

Lord Westmorland found protection and concealment for a long time at Fernyhurst Castle, Lord Kerr's house in Rosburghshire, but meanwhile the Earl's cousin Robert Constable, was hired by Sir Ralph Sadleir to endeavour to track the unfortunate nobleman, and, under the guise of friendship, to  betray him.  Constable's correspondence appears among the Sadleir State Papers - an infamous memorial of treachery and baseness.

Despite, however, the efforts of Government, the Earl succeeded in effecting his escape to  Flanders; but his vast inheritance was confiscated, and he suffered the extremity of poverty.  Brencepeth, the stronghold of the Nevilles in war, and Raby, their festive Hall in peace, had passed into strangers' hands, and nothing remained for the exiled Lord!  He subsisted on a miserable pittance from the King of Spain, dying penniless and forgotten on 16th November 1601.  Though the insurrection was suppressed so easily the Earl of Essex and Sir George Bowes put vast numbers to death.  Sixty-six people were executed at Durham, many others were executed at York and  some were removed to London.

Richard Norton, his sons, Christopher and Marmaduke,  and his brother Thomas Norton, and about fifty others of noble extraction or of other distinction were tainted of high treason 7th Nov. 1569 and their possessions forfeited.  Richard Norton fled to Flanders where doubtless he rejoined the Earl of Westmorland, and died there in poverty 9th April 1585 (aged 91), the
 

"Patriarch of the Rebellion."

 His brother Thomas was hanged and quartered in the presence of his nephew Christopher at Tyburn on 27th May 1570.  The fate on the sons of Richard Norton was as follows:-

Francis, the eldest, was a fugitive with his father;
John, the second, was of Ripon, was not implicated;
Edmund, the third, was ancestor of the Lords Grantly.  He was of Clowbeck, Co. York, and died there in 1610.  He was not implicated;
William, the fourth, was tried with his uncle Thomas and Brother Christopher but was pardoned;
George, the fifth, was a fugitive with his father;
Thomas, the sixth, died without issue, was not implicated;
Christopher, the seventh, was hanged and quartered with his uncle Thomas, at Tyburn, 27 May 1570;
Marmaduke, the eighth, pleaded guilty but was pardoned and died at Stranton where he was buried 4th Nov. 1594.  He was kept a prisoner in the Tower, however, until 1572.
Sampson, the ninth, and youngest son, was a fugitive with his father and was at Mechlin in 1571, then a pensioner of the King of Spain.
Richard Norton had seven daughters, all well married.

For the information above recorded I am greatly indebted to Hutchinson's History of Durham; "Vicissitudes of Families" by Sir Bernard Burke; Surtees' History of Durham; Whitaker's Wordsworth has immortalised the vicissitudes of the Nortons in his well known poem the "White Doe of Rylstone" of "The Fate  of the Nortons," but it is a matter for regret that his poem is not true to facts and reference must be made to the works I have mentioned for an accurate account of the sad fate of this noble family.

For a full pedigree of the Norton family vide -
"Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire" Vol. II 1874 by Joseph Foster.  The interesting portrait of Richard Norton here presented is from a panel in the possession of Lord  Grantly.  It is worthy of notice that in the original picture the countenance of old Norton is florid, the hair grey, the slight beard of a sandy colour and the eyes small, grey and intelligent.

There is an interesting story related about Christopher Norton, who was Richard Goodricke's brother-in-law, which may be introduced here.  Christopher was enrolled a knight and in Lord Scrope's guard at Bolton Castle during the imprisonment there of Mary, Queen of Scots.   In his confession before his trial he relates one of his adventures at Bolton which is characteristic.  One day in winter, when the Queen had been knitting at the window-side, after the window was covered she rose and went to the fireside.  She looked for one of her servants to hold her work, and as they were all gone down into the kitchen to bring up the meat, she called young Norton to her, who was then standing by looking at Lord Scrope and Sir Francis Knollys playing at chess.   Lady Scrope was also there, with many other gentlemen in the room.  But cautious Sir Francis had an eye on the bird he guarded so closely, and when he saw young Norton holding the Queen's work, when he had finished his game, he called Norton's captain to him, and asked if Norton was ever on guard, and being told he was, he bid him watch no more
 

"For the Queen would make a fool of him!"  (Yorkshire Anecdotes).

As stated earlier Christopher was hanged and quartered with his uncle Thomas, 27th    May 1570.
 

 

 CHAPTER VI

SIR JOHN GOODRICKE AND THE CIVIL WAR

"Longum est iter per proecepta, breve et efficax per exemple"

Notwithstanding the existence of these voluminous records of the civil war, however, I am in the pages which follow, adding one more to the stories of that fascinating period.  It is one which has never been told, not even briefly, and I must leave my readers to judge whether or not I have been justified in the labour I have expended in writing the narrative.
I have adhered strictly to well authenticated facts and resisted the strong temptation to "adorn" my tale by incursions into the attractive regions of romance not withstanding the greater interest which would undoubtedly have been created by following such an inclination.

Should my story be considered a little "dry," therefore, my readers, having my assurance that it has been compiled very largely from the archives of the nation and the works of undeniably reliable historians, will have the satisfaction of knowing that it is quite true.

With these prefatory remarks, then, I present my account of Sir John Goodricke's life and adventures.

At the time when my story commences, that is in the year 1639 the Ribston family consisted of Sir Henry Goodricke, Knt., its owner, aged 59, Dame Jane Goodricke, (who was daughter of Sir John Savile, of Methley, Co. York), his wife, aged 56, and their children, John, aged 22, Savile 20, and Francis, probably 18 and two unmarried daughters.  Sir Henry's eldest daughter Mary, was then the wife of Sir Richard Hawkesworth, Knight, of Hawkesworth Hall, near Otley,  and they had two young children.

John Goodricke was the seventh but eldest surviving son of Sir Henry and was born 20th April 1617.  He was educated, as was his brother Francis, at Aberdeen as his father considered the discipline there stricter than in the English Colleges (State - Vol. 414 No. 55, also App. 10).    At the age of nineteen, that is in 1636, he was sent to France for travel and education, accompanied by his servant George Anderson, a Scotchman.  He remained in France a year and a half and returned home to Ribston in 1637 when he became a Captain of the Trained Bands in the County of York and in 1638 he received a Captain's commission in the first Lord Fairfax's regiment of foot.   In the State Papers of 1638 there are some very interesting records of John Goodricke.  There is a letter from him dated 12 January 1638 addressed to Mr. Livingstone the Tailor in London enquiring the price of a complete suit of armour suitable for a Captain of a foot company and ordering many articles of clothing in accordance with a list enclosed, all of which he desired might arrive at Ribston precisely by the 12th February 1638 as it was intended there should be a meeting of the Deputy Lieutenants a few days later (19th February 1638) at which he had to appear before his colonel, Lord Fairfax (State Vol. 409, No. 72, also App. 9).   Another letter from Dame Jane Goodricke, his mother, dated 14th January 1638 deals with the same subject of armour and clothes for her son John.  (State Vol. 409, No. 85, also App. 10.)

Under the command of the King, John Goodricke and his servant George Anderson were examined by Sir Henry Spiller, Knight, on 7th March 1638 (State Papers).   The record of this examination, the precise object of which is not clear, shows that John Goodricke had been a Captain of the Trained Bands since September 1637 and that he purposed to provide himself with arms etc. to attend his Majesty as a Captain of a Company of Foot in Lord Fairfax's regiment, and further, to attend his Majesty in arms as a private gentleman if not as a captain in the summer of 1638. (State Vol. 414, Nos. 55 & 56, also App. 10.)

The troubles which led up to the Civil War were now beginning to manifest themselves and the King having resolved to enforce submission to his will by an appeal to arms, set out upon a crusade against Scotland in March 1639 arriving at York on the 30th of that month where he was greeted with a very fulsome address delivered by Sir Thomas Widdrington, Recorder of that City, and it is stated (in the "Fairfax correspondence") that on that occasion Captain John Goodricke showed his and his father's devotion to the royal cause by presenting his Majesty with a bag containing 300 pounds in gold.  Sir Ferdinando Fairfax (afterwards the second Lord Fairfax) who was Colonel of a regiment of Yorkshire Trained Bands was in attendance upon the King.  The King had levied an army of nearly twenty thousand foot and above three thousand horse which was put under the command of the Earl of Arundel.  The King put himself at the head summoning all the peers of England to attend him.   While at York the gentlemen of Yorkshire endeavoured to influence his Majesty to reconsider his intention of proceeding against the Scots and presented an address to him with this object which was signed by twenty of the leading gentlemen of the County - Sir Henry Goodricke being one of the signatories.  The King was unmoved, however, and was more than ever determined to press hostilities vigourously.  The Earl of Arundel, the Commander-in-Chief advanced by forced marches to Berwick and Sir Ferdinando Fairfax received his order from Lord Arundel under date 17th May 1639 to attend the King with his regiment at Goswick, near Berwick.

John Goodricke, who was then but twenty-two years of age accompanied the expedition and on their arrival at Berwick he received from the hands of Lord Arundel his Captain's commission.  This document, which is still preserved with numberless others among the archives at Ribston is interesting.  It runs thus - (App. 11)::-

"To Captaine John Goodricke:-"By the authority and power given me from ye souvraigne Lord King Charles under the great Seale of England as Generale of his Mats. Army, I doe hereby constitute and appointe you Captaine of one Company of CXXtye Foote of the trayned bands of the County of Yorke, whereof Sir Fferdinando Ffairfax, Knight, is colonell, etc. etc.Given under my hand and Seale at Berwick the 26th day of May 1639.Arundell and Surrey."

As we have just seen John Goodricke accompanied the King in the expedition to Scotland in the early summer of 1639.  The Scottish Army was as numerous as that of the King, but inferior in cavalry, yet notwithstanding their leaders immediately sent submissive messages to the King and craved to be admitted to a treaty.  Charles believed, however, that Scotland had never before been so united and so animated in its  own defence although it had often been able to foil the force of England and he began to fear that he would now find much greater difficulty in subduing by force a people so deeply inflamed with religious prejudices, and the possible misfortune of a defeat from the opposing army weighed heavily with him.  He would not hazard it, so a sudden peace was concluded, and the Scotch expedition of 1639 resulted ignominiously!

The next year, 1640, was, as is well known, full of stirring events and there were many unmistakable instances, including the attack upon Laud is his palace at Lambeth, which were presages of some great revolution looming in the near future.

How John Goodricke was employed during 1640 I have not discovered.  It was on Nov. 11th in this year that Lord Strafford and Archbishop Laud were impeached for high treason and thrown into the Tower.  The next year saw the execution of Strafford when that notably touching incident occurred.  Strafford, in passing from his apartment to Tower Hill, where the scaffold was erected, stopped under the window of the cell where Laud was confined, with whom he had long lived in intimate friendship, and entreated the assistance of his prayer in those awful moments which were approaching (May 12th 1641).  The aged primate dissolved in tears pronounced, with a broken voice, a blessing on his departing friend and sunk on the ground, while the procession passed on.

On 22nd July in this year Sir Henry Goodricke died at Ribston.  There is a letter in "the Fairfax correspondence" dated 23 July 1641 from Mr. Thomas Stockdale of Bilton Hall, near Harrogate, to Lord Fairfax in which Sir Henry's death is mentioned in somewhat quaint language (Vol. II. p. 214).   Mr. Stockdale writes:-
 

"Yesterday good Sir Henry Goodricke left us; he hath been sick about three weeks.  His disease, by the symptoms, seemed to be the stone, of which he rather languished than suffered any extreme fit.  But the nauseousness of his stomach would not admit of meat, which wanting, his spirits wasted; so, yesterday about two o'clock afternoon he died, at the loss of whom I am not a little grieved, for I have found him very nobly respective to me, and upright in all his intentions, so far as I could observe.  I am now going to attend his burial."

"Now know ye that we of our special grace and of our certain knowledge and mere motion have erected preferred and created and by these presents for us our heirs and successors do erect prefer and create our beloved John Goodricke of Ribston in the county of York esquire (a man of a family with ancestral reputation and rectitude of morals who with a generous and liberal sprit gave and afforded us a full and sufficient aid and succour to maintain and support thirty men in our foot regiments in our said Kingdom of Ireland for three whole years for the defence of our said Kingdome and especially for the security of the plantation of the said province of Ulster) unto the dignity Estate and degree of a Baronet and the same John Goodricke We for us our heirs and successors do prefer constitute and create by these presents a Baronet to have to him and the heirs male of his body, lawfully begotten for ever".  etc. etc.

On October 24th in the next year (1642) Lady Goodricke gave birth to a son, Henry, who became the second Baronet.  This son was baptised at Hunsingore on 5th November 1642 (Parish register).

The Civil War had now broken out, the King had erected his standard at Nottingham on 25th August 1642 which event may be justly regarded as the opening scene of the great Civil War.  Sir John lost no time in espousing the royal cause, and leaving wife, infant and mother, entered on that active service which was destined to bring him such speedy trouble and distress.  It is recorded that in October 1642 - Sir John, being then a Colonel in the King's Army sent one of his Captains with a squadron of horse to Hawkesworth Hall to arrest Sir Richard Hawkesworth who was captured and carried off to York where he was kept a prisoner for nearly two years.  It must be remembered that Sir Richard Hawkesworth's wife was a sister of Sir John Goodricke but she was living in separation from him owing to Sir Richard's brutal conduct.  Contrary to every tradition of his house Sir Richard had taken up arms against the King.  The disputes between Sir Richard Hawkesworth and his wife were the subject of much litigation and engendered great animosity all round.  In his paper on Hawkesworth Hall in the Bradford Antiquary for 1903, Mr. Harry Speight, the indefatigable Yorkshire historian, deals at some length with this matter and again in his History or Kirkby Overblow he refers to the disputes between Sir Richard and his wife which were fomented greatly by Mr. Miles Dodson of Kirkby Overblow.  But it is not my intention to dwell here on the Hawkesworth disputes which, nevertheless, involved the Goodrickes at Ribston and Sir John's uncle Lieutenant Colonel William Goodricke in a great deal of family trouble.  I have referred to the subject in order to explain Sir John Goodricke's action in arresting his brother-in-law.

Sir Richard Hawkesworth against whom there was no doubt a great amount of animosity on account of his unnatural conduct to his wife, and Sir Richard having further aggravated matters by taking up arms against the King, the opportunity for paying off some old scores would in the circumstances, be far too tempting to be neglected!  This act was probably one of Sir John's earliest if not actually the first after the outbreak of hostilities though Mr. Wheater in his "Mansions of Yorkshire" gives an extract from Sir Thomas Fairfax's writings to the effect that an attack by Sir John Goodricke and others on Sir John Savile in which three were killed and Sir John Savile and all the rest made prisoners

"was the first guiltless blood shed in the County since the King left these parts."

Sir John was, however, accused in Parliament by Mr. Thomas Stockdale, who has been previously mentioned in this narrative, of plundering his house & etc., and if such an act were committed, which Sir John emphatically denied, as we shall see a little later on, it must have taken place between the time of which I am writing (October 1642) and the 18th of December following when the siege of Bradford occurred in which Sir John was a conspicuous leader.  At the beginning of the troubles, Yorkshire was the scene of an important part of the war.  The King, after being shut out of Hull marched towards the South, set up his Standard at Nottingham and placed the command of the four northern counties with William Cavendish,  Earl of Newcastle, who garrisoned York.

Sir Ferdinando had now become the (2nd) Lord Fairfax in consequence of the death (2nd May, 1640) of his father, the old Lord Fairfax, and he had now sided with the Parliament, being appointed General of the Parliamentary Forces in the same counties.
 

NOTE.    Thomas Fairfax, lst Lord Fairfax, died 2 May 1640 and was succeeded as 2nd Lord by his son Ferdinando, who was then fifty-six years of age.  At the beginning of the Civil War, Ferdinando  was the Parliamentary General for York and became eminently distinguished.  After defeating the Earl of Newcastle in 1642, Lord Byron in 1643,  and Col. Bellasis in April 1644, at Selby, he had the chief command at the battle of Marston Moor in the July of the same year (1644) and there, routing the royal army under Prince Rupert, he took possession of the City of York, as governor. Lord Ferdinando died 14 March 1647-8 and was succeeded by his eldest son and companion in arms, Thomas, 3rd Lord Fairfax, the great Lord Fairfax of history, who was born 17 Jan. 1612 and who had distinguished himself as a republican military leader as Sir Thomas Fairfax.
In 1650 Lord Fairfax resigned the command of the army to Cromwell, and nine years afterwards his Lordship, coalescing with Monk, assisted zealously in restoring the monarchy.  He had an only child, Mary, who married in 1657, George Villiers, 2nd Duke of Buckingham.  He died 12th November 1671 aged fifty-nine only.  (Burke).

The siege of Bradford took place on Sunday, 18th December 1642.  A contemporary account of the event was written by the parliamentarian Joseph Lister which will be found at (page 18) of my Goodricke family history.  Probably this account ought to be accepted with caution.  From other authorities we hear that the royalists were commanded in person by Sir William Savile, Sir Marmaduke Langdale, Sir John Goodricke, Colonel Eure and others.  Their numbers are differently estimated, fourteen of fifteen hundred according to the periodicals of the time, seven or eight hundred according to Sir Thomas Fairfax's own estimate.  Sir Thomas Fairfax (in his memorials) gives the following brief account of this affair - (vide York A. & T. Socy. Journal Vol. 8 (l884) p. 207).
 

   "The first action we had was at Bradford.  We were about three hundred men, the enemy seven or eight hundred, and two pieces of ordinance.  They assaulted us; we drew out close to the town to receive them; they had the advantage of the ground, the town being encompassed with hills, which exposed us more to their cannon, from which we received some hurt.  But our men defended those passages by which they were to descend so well, they got no ground of us, and now the day being spent they drew off, and retired to Leeds."

"got a bastinado"

After the sharp contest at Bradford which resulted so adversely for the Royalists, they retired to Leeds followed by Sir Thomas Fairfax.  Sir Thomas found, however, that they had abandoned the town and had gone to York.  Still advancing upon them, Fairfax took this post at Tadcaster and, his force being increased to 1,000 men, he resolved to keep the pass at Wetherby and with that view Sir Thomas went to Wetherby with 300 foot and 40 horse.  The Royalists surprised him there at six o'clock in the morning, but after a sharp encounter they retired.  The Royalists made another attempt after this, but they were defeated, Sir Thomas Fairfax following them for several miles and taking many prisoners.  Sir John Goodricke and Captain Hilliard were among the captured.

These officers were immediately conveyed to Manchester, then in the hands of the Parliamentarians, where they were placed in confinement.  On 21st January 1643 it was ordered by the Commons assembled in Parliament:
 

  "That the Petition of Mr. Stockdale shall be taken into consideration in due time for his relief.  And do further order that Sir John Goodricke, who plundered the said Mr. Stockdale to a great value, and is now a prisoner in Manchester, be not exchanged, or any otherways enlarged, until he make full satisfaction to the said Mr. Stockdale for the wrongs and injuries done unto him, for his losses and damages sustained by the said plundering."   (Commons Journals).

It was during Sir John's confinement at Manchester that his mother, Dame Jane Goodricke sent him his father's Bible in French printed in 1622, on the fly leaf of which she wrote:-
 

"Son John,
     I have sent you to Manchester your father's French Byble a jewele to which you are no stranger.  This book was the delightful study of his freedome and trust it may bee the profittable delight of your confynment by the assistance of God's most Holly Spirit is the Harty desyr and shall be the humble prayers off
Your loveing mother,
Jane Goodrick."
Post p.s. - What you fynd writen of your worthy Father's Hand be carfull to preserve, for I part not willingly with any of his manuscripts."

 
"This Bible I bought  at Tours in France Anno Ani 1638, and brought it with mee into England as  a present to my Father; after whose death it was sent to mee by my mother, being Prisoner of Warre in Manchester, as the best companion in solitude.
John Goodricke."
"I have found by experience that The Bible is most profitably read when a man reads it in his mother Tongue, however he understands it in foreign languages and (as the food we are accustomed to) is soonest digested into solid nourishment."

Overtures had been made by Fairfax with the object of obtaining the release of the prisoners at York by an exchange for those held at Manchester but from a joint letter from Sir John Goodricke and Captain Hilliard written at Manchester on 4th May 1643 and addressed to Lord Fairfax at Leeds (Harl. M.S. 7001 p. 162)  It is seen that Newcastle would not accept the terms (app. 12).   As stated Lister reported that the officers wounded in the attack on Bradford were Sir John Goodricke and Colonel Goring.  We have just seen that Sir John was subsequently captured and conveyed to Manchester.  Colonel Goring escaped and shortly afterwards defeated Fairfax at Seacroft Moon, near Leeds, (March 1643), but in the May following he was taken prisoner at Wakefield on the capture of the town by Fairfax. (Vide Chapter VII p.51)

It appears that Sir John was transferred from Manchester to safe custody in the house of Lord Petre in London whither Colonel Goring was also sent as on 14th August 1643 an order was passed in Parliament for them both to be sent to Lord Fairfax at Hull to be disposed of as his Lordship thought fit, but in the meantime they were removed to the Tower of London.   Goring, however, was successful in effecting an exchange in April 1644 and was liberated, several further orders concerning Sir John's imprisonment were passed by the Commons, the last being on 18 October 1643 when it was ordered that the Lieutenant of the Tower should deliver him on board the ship "Desire" laden with ammunition for Hull to be handed over to Lord Fairfax at that place.  This order, however, was not carried out and Sir John continued in imprisonment in the Tower, where Archbishop Laud had been lingering in confinement for the past three years.

In August 1644, Catherine, Lady Goodricke, Sir John's young wife died at Ribston, and was buried on the 27th of that month in the vault beneath the Chapel there - (Hunsingore Parish register).   The news of this sad event must have been heard with the deepest sorrow by the imprisoned husband whose health was beginning to be impaired by the close confinement in the Tower surrounded as it then was by the pestiferous moat which at that time acted as the chief drain constantly causing outbreaks of fever and sickness of various descriptions.

On 10th January following (1645), early in the morning, the old Archbishop Laud was led forth to the scaffold - he who had once seemed to hold the destinies of the Church in England in the hollow of his  hand.  Little as those who sent him to the block imagined it, there was a fruitful seed in his teaching which was not to be smothered in blood, and if the immediate object for which Laud had striven could never be permanently realized, his nobler aims were too much in accordance with the needs of his age to be baffled.  It is little that every parish church in the land - now, two centuries and a half after the years in which he was at the height of power - presents a spectacle which realizes his hopes.  It is far more that his refusal to submit his mind to the dogmatism of Puritanism, and his appeal to the cultivated intelligence for the solution of religious problems, has received an ever increasing response, even in regions in which his memory is devoted to contemptuous obloquy.  (Gardiner II, 108).

          "We thank God,"

"For his noble care of the poor, and his large and generous aims for the English race, aafor his splendid example of diligent service in Church and State for this work was the great promoter of learning of his age."

In January 1645, driven almost to despair, Sir John Goodricke made a determined attempt to escape from the Tower which was packed with Royalist prisoners at this time, for nearly all the most prominent prisoners made by the Roundheads were consigned to those walls.  This distressed community numbered among them Colonel George Monk, afterwards Duke of Albemarle who had been committed in 1643, Sir John Hotham and his son, charged with attempting to give Hull over to the Royalists, Sir Alexander Carew, Governor of Plymouth imprisoned on a similar indictment, Lord Maguire, Colonel Macmahon, and

 "gallant Cavaliers in plenty filled the cells"!

His escape is recorded in three periodicals of the time:-
The "Mercurius Civicus: of Jan. 25th to Feb. lst 1644-5
The "Parliament Scout" of Jan. 26th to Feb. 2nd.
The "Weekly Account" No. 22. Thursday, lst Feb.

He was disguised as a butcher and was proceeding to Oxford to join the Royalists when he was overtaken, captured by Captain Barksted (the regicide) and conveyed to Windsor and then again to the Tower.  When taken (Tuesday, 30 January 1644-5) he was on horseback, disguised in the habit of a butcher and seated behind another man.  In his pocket were found eighty pieces of gold coin.  The exact date of his re-imprisonment in the Tower I have not discovered but there he was securely kept until March in the following year, (1646) fifteen more months.

The poverty of the King was no greater than the poverty the gentlemen and noblemen who surrounded him at Oxford or who were suffering for his cause in the Tower and elsewhere.  Whether their Estates lay in the enemy's country or not, their rents remained unpaid and the distress amongst the loyal gentry was very great and was marked by the increasing number of those who took the "Covenant" at Westminster and compounded for their own property by the payment of heavy fines.
Probably some day in the future, as the voluminous records in the Public Record Office are gradually more and more opened out, some detailed account of Sir John's escape and re-capture may be revealed and a thrilling story laid bare in which, of course, others - probably his relatives, may have played a conspicuous part.  In the meantime we must be satisfied with the account I have just given as all that is at present authentically known.  Like hundreds of others all over the country Sir John was becoming heartily weary.  Upwards of three years of close confinement in the Tower had told most seriously on his health and he resolved on following the course of compounding for his Estate and, if possible, obtaining his release from the terrible position he was in.  Consequently about the beginning of November 1645, Sir John drew up his petition to Parliament but this was not presented to the house until 22nd December following.   (Vide. Goodricke p.p. 20 to 23 and App. p. 13.).   The Commons made an order the same day, that Sir John's petition be referred to the Committee for report.

On 29th December 1645, Sir John was conducted from the Tower to Westminster and took the National Covenant which was the step necessary as a preliminary to any further proceedings.  On 2nd February in the next year, 1646, the Committee for the West Riding of York issued their certificate concerning Sir John's Estate, (Goodricke p. 21)  and on 23rd March 1646 the House of Commons passed an order accepting the sum of  £1,200 as

"a fine for his delinquency, his offense being bearing arms against the Parliament."

"That Sir John Goodricke, now Prisoner in the Tower (having compounded for his Delinquency, and Discharge of his sequestration, and the said Composition being accepted by this House) that he have his Enlargement, and be discharged from any further Restraint or Imprisonment."

There was certainly not much room for complaint as to the despatch of Sir John's case by the Commons when the business had been introduced in the House, but there was a decided touch of irony in the Common's resolution that the 1,200 fine had to be paid over by the Committee at Goldsmith's Hall to Mr. Thomas Stockdale "towards satisfaction of his losses" which were reported by the committee to amount to the sum of £5,216 a considerable sum in those days.  This portion of the order must have possessed some sting for Sir John inasmuch as he had protested that he had taken no part in or had any knowledge of the destruction at Mr. Stockdale's house.  However, the precise manner of the disposal of Sir John's fine was immaterial really, since by an order dated lst April 1643 the Commons had declared that the sequestered estates of "Delinquents" should go to the maintenance of the public affairs.   ("Sarcastic notices of the Long Parliament" by I.C. Hotten.  A rare work in Guildhall Lib. A.C. 5.)

Mr. Stockdale was one of the members of Parliament for Knaresbrough (elected 1642) and his residence was Bilton Hall, near Harrogate.  He died in 1653 and was buried in Knaresbrough Church.  He was a strong partisan of the Parliament and an intimate friend of Lord Fairfax with whom he kept up a correspondence.  (Sir John's composition Papers are preserved in original at the Public Record office, London, In "Royalists Composition Papers" lst series, Vol. 113, p.p. 47, 107 and 2nd series, Vol. 4, p.p. 246, 249, etc.  These are printed at p.p. 73 to 80 of the Yorkshire Arch. Socy's Record Series Vol. 15. printed in 1893 which, of course, is more accessible than the volumes in the Public Record Office.  The resolutions of the parliament can be seen in the journals of the House of Commons Vols. II, III & IV, and the Journals of the House of Lords 25th August 1646. Vol. VIII, p.p. 470, 472).

It should be noted that the fine of £1,200 was subsequently increased on 22 November 1650 by £143.10.0. making a total of £1,343.10.0. (Vide. Y.A.S. Vol. 15. p. 80)
.
Sir John was now released from the Tower, March 1646, having been a prisoner of war continuously form January 1643, and we can easily picture to ourselves the joy with which he would be welcomed back to Ribston and the loving embraces of his aged mother whose anxiety during the whole time of her son's imprisonment must have been almost past endurance.  And there was the little son and heir, Henry, now approaching four years of age, to be presented virtually for the first time to his father!  But there was a sad blank, there was no wife to enfold him in her arms, and notwithstanding the great joy of feeling his freedom once more, the homecoming must have had its pangs of sadness hard to bear and suppress by a man of Sir John's temperament and age for he was only verging on thirty years.

But there was little now to be done at home, Hunsingore Hall, one of Sir John's residences had been completely destroyed by the enemy and the country was in such a condition of disturbance and uncertainty and almost entirely in the hands of the puritanical parliamentary army that it would appear as if order, peace and prosperity would take years to establish and what was more - Sir John's fine had been accepted by the Parliament and his person released from imprisonment in the Tower on the undertaking that he gave his honourable word and good security

 
"Never hereafter to act or doe anything to the prejudice of the State,"

"his word was his bond."

Sir John, however, deemed it wise to place himself beyond the reach of the parliament and, looking to the conditions of his release, out of the reach of the Royalists too, and the possible temptation to again join them, and had consequently gone abroad.  In nearly all the old Baronetages it is stated that Sir John effected his escape from the Tower to  France where he remained until the Restoration, but this is obviously incorrect in the face of the accounts in the newspapers of the time of his escape and re-capture, and the voluminous documents in the Record Office relating to his composition and release from the Tower in March 1646.  It seems, however, that his sojourn at home was short, for we find him a visitor at the English College at Rome in June 1647, and again at Ribston in March 1649.  He appears to have ignored the odious tax levied upon him for the maintenance of the war by the Parliament but whether this was evasion implemented by his absence from the country or not we cannot say - and now on 20th February 1649 an order was passed by the Committee to again sequester his estate in consequence of continued non-payment.  Francis Goodricke, Sir John's brother now comes on the scene and deposes 8th March 1649 to his debts amounted to £1,290 and that Sir John had sold portions of his lands to the value of £45 a year to enable him to meet the composition of £1,200 in 1646.  On 15th March 1649 this tax was reduced to £250 but on 22nd idem Sir John, apparently then at Ribston, appealed and on 5th April 1649 it was finally ordered that he was to pay £150 at once, and £50 in one month, the remainder to be respited.  It was on 22nd November 1650 that he was fined a further sum of £143.10.0. in connection with his original fine in 1646 and on this date (22 November 1650) he appears to have been at Ribston.

Early in the year 1648 Dame Jane Goodricke, Sir John's mother, died at Ribston at the age of sixty-five, but whether Sir John was then at home or abroad is uncertain.  Her will was proved at York in June 1648 by her sons Savile and Francis Goodricke.

There is further evidence that Sir John was in residence at Ribston in 1652 as in that year he and his brother Francis jointly erected the beautiful white marble tablet in the chapel to the memory of their ancestors and to Catherine, Lady Goodricke, who died in 1644.

Before closing my story of Sir John's activity during the Civil War, I am tempted to give a short account of the sacking of Basing House  on 11th October 1645 which event has become memorable for all time in consequence of the most noble defence by John Powlett, Marquis of Winchester, who faced death and utter destruction rather than flinch one hair's-breath in his loyalty to the King.  I have really some small excuse for introducing this most fascinating narrative into my work - it is that in the year 1707 Sir Henry Goodricke, eldest grandsons of Sir John about whom I have been writing, married in York Minster, Mary, only daughter of Tobias Jenkyns of Grimstone, Co, York  by his wife Lady Mary Powlet, grand-daughter of the good old John Powlet, Marquis of Winchester, the aged noble defender of Basing House.  The story of the defence of Basing is so well known as almost to discourage any repetition, but it illustrates such a striking instance of the spirit exhibited on both sides during the Civil War that it will for ever continue memorable in history.

 

"THE SACKING OF BASING HOUSE.  11th October 1645.

"Cromwell marched on Basing House from Winchester to which Dulbier, an old German officer had for some weeks been laying siege.  Cromwell arrived on the 8th October 1645 bringing with him a complete train of artillery.  It was through the possession of siege-guns that he hoped to win his way where so many of his predecessors in command had failed.  On the 11th when he was ready to open fire, he summoned the garrison to surrender.  The defenders of the noble mansion of the Catholic Marquis of Winchester - Loyalty House, as its owner loved to call it - were not the professional soldiers to whom Cromwell was always ready to give honourable quarter.  If they refused quarter now it would not be offered to them again.
There were no signs of yielding.  By the evening of the 13th two wide breaches had been effected, and at two in the  morning it was resolved to storm the place at six.  At that hour the storming parties were let loose upon the doomed house rising for the last time in its splendour over field and meadow,  It has been said that the old house and the new were alike to make an emperor's court.  The defenders were all too few to make head against the surging tide of war.  Quarter was neither asked nor given till the whole of the buildings were in the hands of the assailants.  Women, as they saw slaughtered before their faces, rushed forward with the intrepidity of their sex to cling to the arms and bodies of the slavers.  One, a maiden of no ordinary beauty, a daughter of Dr. Griffiths, an expelled City clergyman, hearing her father abused and maltreated, gave back angry words to his reviler.  The incensed soldier, maddened with the excitement of the hour, struck her on the head and laid her dead at her father's feet.  Six of the ten priests in the house were slain and four others reserved for the gallows and the knife.  After a while the rage of the soldiers turned to thoughts of booty.  Plate and jewels, stored gold and tapestry, fell a prey to the victors.  The men who were spared were stripped of their outer garments, and old Inigo Jones was carried out of the house wrapped in a blanket because the spoilers had left him absolutely naked.  One hundred rich petticoats and gowns which were discovered in the wardrobes were swept away amongst the common plunder, whilst the dresses were stripped from the backs of the ladies.  It is impossible to count with accuracy the number of the sufferers.  The most probable estimate asserts that one hundred were killed and three hundred taken prisoners.  In the midst of the riot the house was discovered to be on fire.  The flames spread rapidly, and of the stately pile there soon remained no more than the gaunt and blackened walls,  The Marquis himself owed his life to the courtesy with which he had formerly treated Colonel  Hammond, who had been his prisoner for a few days.  Hammond now in turn protected his former captor, though he could not prevent the soldiers from stripping the old nobleman of his costly attire.  After this the lord of the devastated mansion was safe from all but one form on insult.  Consideration for fallen greatness never entered into the thoughts of a Puritan controversialist.  A Catholic was beyond all bounds of religious courtesy and Hugh Peters thought it well to enter argument with the fallen Marquis.  Did he not now see, he asked him, the hopelessness of the cause which he had maintained?  "If the  King" was the proud reply, "had no more ground in England but Basing House, I would adventure as I did, and so maintain it to the uttermost.  Basing House is called Loyalty."
"I thank God" wrote Cromwell to the Commons, "I can give you a good account of Basing"." (Gardiner II, 362).

To return to Sir John - we  have now arrived at that period in my narrative when probably the greatest tragedy in the history of our country was enacted, namely the judicial murder of the King. On 30th January 1649 he suffered martyrdom. Thus the triumph of the  Puritans was complete, having first pulled down the Church they next destroyed the throne, Cromwell would not allow the King's remains to be buried in Westminster Abbey so they were taken to Windsor where they were interred on 7th February in St. George's Chapel without any service whatever, the book of Common Prayer having then been suppressed.  For eleven years - 1649 to 1660 - England was governed through the army - there was no King, no House of Lords, the Church was suppressed and in abeyance and the government of the country was nominally a republic, but in reality a despotism, limited only during Cromwell's lifetime by the wisdom and moderation of that despot!  The Prayer-book was forbidden by law to be used even in private houses and Evelyn in his diary describes a service in London at which he and his wife were present when the parliamentary soldiers held their muskets against them as they went up to receive the sacrament - as if they would have shot them at the Altar.  Seven thousand of the clergy, not reckoning curates, were ejected from their livings - all the Bishops were ejected only nine of them surviving the Commonwealth and eighteen dying in poverty, one (Wren of Ely) having been imprisoned for eighteen years.  As the great majority of the clergy were married men it has been computed upon good authority that fully thirty thousand persons were turned out to starve!  But the story is too well known to readers of history to need repetition.  Cromwell, when it was too late found out his mistake and would willingly have restored the Church and the Monarchy.  His last years were consumed with remorse, bitterness and an ever present dread of assassination.  He died 3 September 1658, eighteen months of anarchy ensued.  Dissension pervaded the army; and the nation, sensible of its degradation, longed for the restoration of the Church and of the Throne.  (Hore).

About the year 1653 Sir John Goodricke married for his second wife Elizabeth, widow of William, third Viscount Fairfax, of Gilling Castle, Co. York, and daughter of Alexander Smith Esq., of Sutton, Co. Suffolk, and by her he had an only son, John, born 16th October 1654 who eventually succeeded to Ribston in 1705 and was the third Baronet.

The place where Sir John was married and the exact date of that event I have not been able to discover.

Little remains to be recorded about Sir John.  He was returned as Member for Thirsk in the Parliament called by Richard  Cromwell to meet on 27th January 1659 and at the Restoration he was elected member for the county of York, 25th March 1661.  He was Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding 1662, 1667 and 1668; these commissions are still at Ribston.

He died at Ribston in 1670, his Will, bearing date 19th September 1669 being proved at York 25th November 1670.  His widow survived until 1692 and resided at Moulsham Hall, Co. Essex.

 Sir John was succeeded in Title and Estates by his eldest son Sir Henry, 2nd Baronet, then twenty-eight years of age.

 
 

CHAPTER VII

THE GOODRICKES IN THE PARLIAMENT ARMY

As is well known, family divisions were very frequent at this unhappy time and brothers and near relatives often found themselves ranged against each other in opposing camps. The Goodrickes were not an exception to this frequently occurring condition, Sir John's  uncle, Colonel William Goodricke and his two sons, Major William and Captain Henry being actively engaged in the Parliamentary Army from the commencement.

Colonel William was the second son of Richard and Muriel Goodricke of Ribston, and brother to Sir Henry Goodricke, Knt. father of Sir John the first Baronet.  He was born in 1582.  In 1612 he married Sarah, daughter of Mr. William Bellingham, of Bromby Co. Lincoln and sister to Richard Bellingham who emigrated to America in 1633 and became Governor of Boston, New England.  At the outbreak of the Civil War, Colonel Goodricke was sixty years of age.  Up to that time he had lived as a country gentleman at Skidby and at Walton Head, Co. York, but when  active hostilities commenced he, with his two sons sided with the Parliament.

The earliest information about him at this period which I have found is contained in a letter from him to Mr. John Burdin and dated 21st May 1643.  (State Papers, Domestic Series, Chas. I.  Vol. 497,  No. 93).  In this letter the Colonel says that he musters sixty-eight men completely armed and holds them in readiness at an hour's notice whenever

"the Governor will be pleased to command our musters'.

The writer goes on to say that he thinks in the circumstances it will be considered that he did very well in collecting the sum sent, and that he had done his very best without exposing himself and his whole troop unduly to attacks by the enemy.  The Colonel then advises that the Royalists at York

"droope mightily for their defeat at Wakefield" (21 May 1643)

"killed abundance of men, took 700 prisoners, got 3000 armes, routed three of the royalists best regiments, took Colonel George Goring prisoner, got a world of treasure and many horse." (Vide Chapter VI p.39)

"all the Popish enemy ran away"

The letters, however, confirm the well known fact that the greatest difficulty was found by the parliamentary army in procuring the "sinews of war" and that the debt to the officers and men for pay and expenses was not only a daily growing one but one which it was constantly feared would not be discharged.   In 1651, Trustees were appointed by the parliament for the sale of the Crown manors and the Goodrickes on the side of the parliament appear as purchasers of some of these.  Colonel Goodricke bought the Crown manor of Westwang-in-the-Would, Co. York (Close Roll, 3664 of 1652 part 24, No. 17), and Major Goodricke purchased 23rd March 1651, the

"fee farm rents belonging to the Commonwealth"

"purchase was that of the Manor of Richmond with its appurtenances, the Palace or Richmond Court, with the site thereof, and sundry other premises."

Whether the Goodrickes were ever paid by Sir Gregory Norton or not seems a little doubtful and there are some family letters which seem to give color to the supposition that the purchase price was not paid.  But of one circumstance, however, there is no doubt.  Sir Gregory Norton was one of the regicides and was not only excepted out of the general pardon but condemned to be executed, though this extreme penalty was not carried out.  His property was confiscated and Richmond Palace was given back to the Queen, 23 June 1660.   There is a 1660 Tract entitled "The mystery of the Good Old Cause," (re-printed by I.C. Hotten April 10th 1863 under the title "Sarcastic notices of the Long Parliament etc. Guildhall Lib. A.6.5.) at page 36 of which it says -

"Sir Gregory Norton, of Sussex, a man but of a mean fortune before these times, as it is said; had Richmond House and much of the King's goods for an inconsiderable value, only they were the price of royal blood, he being one of his prince's judges, and a constant Rumper to the last."

"I must intreate you to desire Captaine Strangewayes to inquire privately how Major Goodericke carryes himselfe at his being now in the country, for I hean the souldiery in the North, by trying their tempers.  There is something more than ordinary in his coming downe at this time, and I desire you to instruct Capt. Strangewayes thus much, and to give notice privately to the officers and souldiers to beware of him, and if t'were be amisse, if you know Capt. Strangewayes (as I presume he is) to be against kingship.  I had rather put this trouble upon him, because he is both faithfull and prudent, if he pleases to communicate it to some officers with naming mee, and give me some account of it, wil be very acceptable." (Thurloe, Vol 6, p. 292)

On the 27th June 1657 Cromwell, had, in the presence of the Judges of the Land, the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of the City and members of Parliament assembled at Westminster Hall, seated himself on the coronation chair of the Stuarts, assumed the title of Lord Protector, donned a robe of violet velvet, girt his loins with a sword of state, and grasped the sceptre, symbolic of kingly power.   From that hour distrust beset his days, his nights were fraught with fear.  All his keen and subtle foresight, his strong and restless energies, had since then been exerted in suppressing plots against his power, and detecting schemes against his life, concocted by the Republicans whose liberty he had betrayed, and by the Royalists whose King he had beheaded.  At last, the vigilance with which he had combated his enemies was powerless against the divers bodily infirmities which now attacked him and he became sick unto death.  Prayers were offered for him by all his admirers, and so sure were those around him that providence must grant the fulfillment of their desires that one of Cromwell's chaplains said: -

"We asked not for the Protector's life, but we prayed for his speedy recovery etc."

"He had the impudence to say to God,
          'Thou hast deceived us' (Molloy).

As the evening of 2nd September closed in, the elements appeared in complete unison with the distracted condition of the Kingdom.  Dark clouds, seeming of ominous import to men's minds, gathered in the heavens, to be presently torn asunder and hurried in wild flight by tempestuous winds across the troubled sky.  As night deepened, the gale steadily increased, until it raged in boundless fury above the whole island and the seas that rolled round its shores.  In town houses rocked on their foundations, turrets and steeples were flung from their places; in the country great trees were uprooted, corn stacks levelled to the ground and winter fruits destroyed; whilst at sea ships sank to rise no more.  This ever memorable storm lasted all night and continued until three o'clock next afternoon - when Cromwell expired (3rd Sept. 1658).  The immediate sequel - not recorded in those popular histories, mostly by biased protestant authors and written for every day college students and the surface-reading public - is well worthy of remembrance.

Cromwell's body was immediately embalmed and interred in great haste in Westminster Abbey, the last home of kings and princes being selected by his friends as the fittest resting place for the arch-regicide.  As it was impossible to honour his remains by stately ceremonials, his followers had a waxen image of him made which they carried to Somerset House - then one of the late king's palaces - and placed on a couch of crimson velvet beneath a canopy of state.  Upon its shoulders they hung a purple mantle, in its right hand they placed a golden sceptre, and by its side they laid the imperial crown, probably the same which the Protector had secretly caused to be made and conveyed to Whitehall with a view to his coronation.  The walls and ceiling of the room in which the effigy lay were covered by sable velvet; the passages leading to it crowded with soldiery.  After a few weeks the town grew tired of this sight, so the waxen image was taken to another apartment, hung with rich velvets and golden tissue, and otherwise adorned to symbolize heaven, where it was placed upon a throne, clad

 "in a shirt of fine Holland lace, doublet and breeches of Spanish fashion with great skirts, silk stockings, shoe strings and gaiter suitable, and black Spanish leather shoes. Over this attire was flung a cloak of purple velvet, and on his head was placed a crown with many precious stones. "

"by four or five hundred candles set in flat shineing candlesticks, so placed round near the roof that the light they gave seemed like the rays of the sun, by all which he was represented to be now in a state of glory."

"now sat with Christ at the right hand of the Father."

I will passer the brief inglorious reign of Richard Cromwell which ended in May 1660rom which time the name of Cromwell was no longer any power in the land.  On 25th May 1660 a vast concourse of nobility, gentry, and citizens assembled to meet and greet their sovereign King Charles II, who landed at Dover amidst the roar of cannon, ringing of bells and such mighty shouting and rejoicing among the people as had not been heard for many a long year.  General Monk who had been mainly instrumental in bringing his royal master to the throne without bloodshed fell upon his knees to greet his majesty; the king raised the general from the ground, embraced, and kissed him.

It was only to be expected that the political pendulum should now swing violently.  The universal joy which filled the nation at the restoration of the monarchy and the end of the era of Cromwellian tyranny and puritanical despotism was accompanied - as was natural - by bitter hatred towards the leaders of Republicanism, especially towards such as had condemned the late king to death.  The chief objects of popular horror now, however, lay in their graves; accordingly, the effigy of Cromwell, crowned with its royal diadem etc. was now exposed at one of the windows at Whitehall with a rope fixed round its neck, by way of showing the death which the original undeserved.

 But this mark of execration was not sufficient to satisfy the exasperated public and on 30th of January  1661, the Anniversary of the murder of Charles 1  the bodies of Oliver Cromwell, Henry Ireton and John Bradshaw were exhumed and drawn on hurdles to Tyburn.

"All the way the universal outcry and curses of the people went along with them"

 At the restoration Major William Goodricke's name appears among those who received the Royal Pardon in December 1660, which indicates the part that he played in the rebellion had not been an insignificant one. (Signet Rolls, December 1660 Public Record Office). At the end of 1659-60, he appears to have been in residence at Tickenham Court, Sommersetshire, which Estate belonged to him as the inheritance of his late wife who  was Eleanor, widow of Nicholas Poyntz and daughter of Rice- Davis of the same place. In 1661 Major Goodricke purchased an Estate at Ely Co. Cambridge, where he married for his second wife Mary, daughter of Thomas Stewart of Stuntney Hall. He continued to reside at Ely where he died July 26, 1666. His father, Colonel Goodricke who, with his younger son Captain Henry, continued to reside at York, died whilst on a visit to Ely January .

The history of this branch of the family descended  from Richard  Goodricke of Ribston and his wife Muriel Eure, through Richard second son Colonel William Goodricke, the Parliamentarian, was interesting from a family point of view and may be carried up to the present time "Family History," but I propose to leave it at this point in the present---  merely remarking in conclusion that the tradition of the Army  as a "profession" was continued in the next generation by the sons of Captain Henry Goodricke who were officers and served in several campaigns.

 
CHAPTER VIII

Sir Henry Goodricke, 2nd Bart. 1642-1705

Sir Henry was the elder son of Sir John Goodricke, the first Baronet. As already stated he was born just before the commencement of hostilities (1642 24th October) and his youth and early training were spent amidst the terrible distractions of the Civil War and despotic government that prevailed throughout the length and breadth of the land. At the Restoration he was just eighteen years of age and there can be no doubt whatever that his father had been particularly careful to ensure that his education and discipline should be conducted in such a manner as would develop in him a strong character. And we have  reliable testimony that Sir John was not disappointed in his son. Sir John Reresby writing about Sir Henry in his "Memoirs 1634 to 1689" says that

             "This Sir Henry Goodricke was a gentleman of fine parts naturally, and those improved by great reading and travel, one that being fixed at his excellent seat at Ribston, near  Knaresborough, pleased himself there etc.,"

" Sir Henry and his lady are so generally beloved and  esteemed that they need no southern artifice to secure to them the affection of their neighbours ".

"own worth"

  On Sir Henry's nearing his majority, his father obtained for him a commission  as Captain of a Troop of Horse.  This is dated 22 May 1663 and it is probable that it was about this time or soon after that he was introduced at Court, where he would come into frequent company with that old court favourite, Colonel William Legge - the faithful devoted servant to King Charles I, in whose cause he had been  such a great sufferer. Legge had been in Scotland in the campaign of 1638,  (probably with Sir John Goodricke) helped Charles to escape from Hampton Court  in '47 had been wounded and taken prisoner at the battle of Dorchester and would have been executed if his wife had not contrived his escape from Coventry Goal in her own clothes,  (Burke). After passing through various vicissitudes in   Ireland and abroad he was again (1659)  active in the royal   cause. He enjoyed much favor at the Court of Charles II, dying on the 13th October 1670.

Sir Henry Goodricke, at the age of twenty-six, married in 1668, Mary, daughter of this veteran Royalist, Colonel William Legge. Mary, Lady Goodricke, is spoken of by Sir John Reresby as

"one of the finest women in his age"-

    "Few families were more entitled to praise for their  invariable loyalty and the   constancy with which they suffered in that cause. She married Sir Henry Goodricke, Baronet, an alliance suitable in point of  family, wealth and dutiful affection to the crown."

  In 1670 Sir John Goodricke died, and his son Sir Henry, then in his twenty-ninth year succeeded to the Ribston Estates and his father's title. (Up to this point I have spoken of him as Sir Henry, as he was a knight by virtue of the Patent of Baronetcy. Grainger says he was knighted by Charles II, but I have not yet found authenticated particulars of this.)

For five years Sir Henry and his Lady appear to have lived in quiet retirement at Ribston with "no thoughts of any public business" (Reresby) until a vacancy in Parliament occurred for Boroughbridge - 1673, when Sir Henry was returned (7th November). (He continued to represent this constituency until 1679.) He was also made a Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding this year - commission dated 26th May 1673.

The rebuilding of the residence at  Ribston appears now to have occupied Sir Henry's  attention, and he took it in hand. As shown in Chapter II, Sir John stated in 1669  that it was his intention to re-build Ribston, but his death the following year, delayed the work. Sir Henry evidently considered the old buildings of the Knights Templars which had been converted into a residence  more than a hundred years previously, were worn out and no longer suited to either the time or circumstances. He accordingly pulled the whole of them down, excepting a very small portion of the chapel, in 1673 and upon the same site, he constructed the new Hall, the main portion of which we see at the present time.

This work of re-building was completed in 1674 and that date was carved above the saloon door facing the south-west, together with the Goodricke cipher, evidently copied from the old one of his (Sir Henry's) grand-father's time in the stained glass of the Hunsingore Church, and the whole, surmounted with a handsome shield, displaying Sir Henry's arms impaled with those of his wife. It is unnecessary for me here to repeat any description of Sir Henry's work when I have detailed in Chapter II, and which is so well represented in Kip's view . (Goodricke p.54)

It was, therefore, during the time that Sir Henry was engaged re-building his residence on an extensive scale that he was induced by the vacancy at Boroughbridge and the persuasions of his great friend Sir John Reresby to enter into political life. He was then just thirty-one years of age. He sat for Boroughbridge from 1673 to 1679, and his political career thus commenced, continued until his death. He was again elected for Boroughbridge  in 1685 and remained its representative until he died in 1705.

In the year 1678 the state of affairs in Holland had become acute.  The was with France whose growing power was causing great alarm had been dragging on for years and notwithstanding the manful struggle which had been displayed by the Prince of Orange supported by the German States against Louis, Holland was in a bad way.  The Earl of Danby and the nation had urged Charles to join the Dutch and to put up an effectual curb upon the ambition of the French King.  Charles, however, was sincerely anxious for peace and as a means to this end he had consented to the marriage of his niece, the princess Mary, elder daughter of the Duke of York to the Prince of Orange and this had taken place on 4th November 1677 to the satisfaction of the country generally.  But in the spring of 1678 the French King, himself took the field and appeared before Ghent and Ypres, and speedily making himself master of both places, greatly alarmed the Dutch.  Charles immediately began to enlist forces and such was the ardour of the English for a war with France that an army of about twenty thousand men was raised in a short time.  One of the regiments raised for service in Flanders in aid of the Dutch was under the command of Sir Henry Goodricke.  His commission as Colonel is dated February 26th 1678 and this interesting document is still at Ribston folded up with another commission (dated 17th October in the same year) appointing Sir Henry to be Colonel of a regiment of the Trained Bands or Militia.  They are endorsed in Sir Henry's own hand thus:-

"My Commissons for forreign service, and for my Militia Regiment under my Ld. of Dabny etc."
      H. Goodricke."

Sir Henry's Regiment, which was a thousand strong proceeded to Flanders where it served in 1678, but in August the French King consented to the evacuation of the towns they had occupied and after some indecision on the part of Holland and England a treaty of peace was ratified at Nymwegen.  By this treaty the Dutch secured the integrity and independence of their country and all the conquests made by the French which were not inconsiderable, were given up.  Sir Henry's regiment returned to England without having, so far as is now known, been in any engagement whatever and it was disbanded, with several others in March 1679.  (C. Dalton's English Army Lists).

In November 1678 Sir Henry, was in England for on the 21st of that month he was challenged to a duel by one of the Captains of his regiment who had thrown up his commission.  The reason for this action does not appear in the account we have of this affair, nor the name of the offended captain.  The names of the Captains contained in the Muster Roll before mentioned, were:- John Rumsey; Wm. Lesley; Thomas Fairfax; Jonathan Jenings; Christ. Tancred; Symond Pack; Wm.  Norton.....Buller and Wm. Stow, and we are left at present to conjecture which of these nine gentlemen it was who challenged his Colonel.

Parliament had met on 21st October 1678 and Sir Henry who was member for Boroughbridge was up for the session.  Sir John Reresby who represented Aldborough, and who was such a close friend of Sir Henry's that they called each other brothers, was also up for the sitting of Parliament.

Sir Henry accepted the challenge and went in search of his friend Sir John Reresby to act as his second.  Sir John was not at home, however, so he sought out Sir Thomas Mauleverer who accompanied him and in the combat which followed

"Sir Henry wounded and disarmed his adversary while Mauleverer ran his sword through the body."

Sir Thomas Mauleverer was a very strong partisan of the Parliamentary Army during the Civil War and one of those who signed out of the general pardon.  I have not yet discovered how it same to pass that he was at large at this period and able to figure on a duel!  Reresby says he had command of a troop in Monmouth's rebellion in 1685 and that

"he was hated as a reputed Papist."  (York: A. & T. Journal, Vol. 8. 1884. p.440).

Sir Henry's formal "Instructions" which are rather long but very interesting are contained in Rawl M.S. App. 256, p.p. 138-141 and will be found printed in full in my Family History.  (Goodricke p.p. 25 to 27)   They bear the signature of Charles II and in a postscript the King instructs Sir Henry to express to the Spanish King his desire for the prosperity of the Spanish Crown and particularly for the Spanish Netherlands and to remind his Majesty how he (Charles) pressed the French King to concede more advantageous conditions than those arrived at in the Nymwegen treaty.  He also reminds Sir Henry how quickly and at what cost an Army was levied in England and sent over to oppose the French and having himself been an officer in this army and an eye-witness of its arrival and marches in Flanders he could personally assure the King of Spain of the great interest in Spanish affairs which obtained at the English Court.  These instructions are dated 10th June 1679.  Sir Henry proceeded to Madrid travelling through Holland and France.  The journey was an "extraordinary" one and apparently  it took an inordinate time as we do not hear of Sir Henry's arrival at Madrid until December 1679.  The King of Spain (who was Charles  II) had just been married to Marie Louise of Orleans and in a letter dated 5th December, Sir Henry complains of the delay in his reception at the Court, everything being postponed until after the public entry  of the new Queen which had then been fixed for 21st December.  Sir Henry says: -

"The preparations are magnificent and questionless, the solemnity will be very splendid.  The Queen is admired by all, and behaves herself to admiration."

Affairs were not prosperous with Spain at this time.  The monarchy has been described by Mr. W.A. Phillips, M.A. in the Encyc: Brit: 11th Ed. (Vol. 25, p. 552)  as:

"an inert mass which Louis XIV treated as raw material to be cut into at his discretion and saved from dismemberment only by the intervention of England and Holland."
"Spain took a subordinate and passive part in the Dutch wars - the King was imbecile."

Of course such treatment of an Ambassador was wholly unjustifiable and it was felt in Madrid that it was very ill-timed, but the insult had been hastily offered by the Spanish Court and having determined not to accept any intervention on the part of the English King, Spain now went a step further by resolving to forbid the importation of goods of English manufacture.

King Charles died on 6th February 1685, the Monarch who, it is remarked

 "never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a wise one."

A Parliament was summoned, May 19th 1685, to which Sir Henry Goodricke was again returned as member for Boroughbridge. He had previously, 12 August 1684, and again 6th April 1685, received Commissions as Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding of Yorkshire.

Sir Henry was, however, a very strong hater of Popery and he joined most heartily in the general disgust at the new King's proceedings and despotic conduct which were destined to bring ruin upon him so speedily.

Beyond his position as a member of Parliament and a Deputy Lieutenant, Sir Henry appears to have taken no active public part in politics during the short reign of James II (1685-1688) until near its end when he became a strong supporter of William Prince of Orange.
But although Sir Henry did not assume any outward participation in politics, he was a silent observer of all that was taking place. He witnessed the open defiance of the Test Act, the appointment of Romanists as Privy Councilors, Civil and Military Officers, the consecration of four Roman Catholic Vicars Apostolic, the royal chapels used for Roman Services, the appointment of a Roman as Master of University College, Oxford and another as Dean of Christ Church. In fact, James was favouring the Roman Church to the utmost of his power and doing everything he could to depress the Church of England.

As history relates, matters rapidly grew from bad to worse and the greatest indignation was manifested throughout the length and breadth of the Kingdom. At length, the King's "Declaration of Indulgence" by the Test Act was nullified and the order in Council that it should be read during divine service in all churches and chapels throughout the Kingdom, brought down the just anger of the whole community. The Bishops, towards whom all eyes were directed, hesitated not a moment and convening a meeting at Lambeth on 18th May (1688) resolved that the Declaration should not be read. The King told the Bishops that for their "rebellion" they should feel his displeasure.  The Primate and six Bishops were commanded to appear before the King in Council on 8th June and, upon their refusal, they were thrown into the Tower and tried at Westminster Hall on 29th June. The Jury sat all night and next morning returned a verdict of Not  Guilty. This was received everywhere with the wildest joy. London was one blaze of light, the Bishops were called the saviours of the nation. This was the final act which culminated in James' downfall. No time was lost. On the very day of the Bishops' acquittal an invitation signed in cypher by seven leading men in England, including Compton, Bishop of London and Lord Danby was dispatched to Holland to invite the Prince of Orange to come to England to intervene on behalf of the liberties and religion of the country.

Still unwarned by the popular feeling, James refused to give way and it was not until October that he saw his errors, but it was too late.
On 5th November, 1688, William of Orange landed at Torbay. Every day now added to Jame's misfortunes. One by one his friends fell from him, then his son-in-law, the Prince of Denmark and finally his own daughter Anne, forsook him and on the 23rd  December, 1688, James escaped from England never to return. On the same day William of Orange entered London.
In these stirring times Sir Henry Goodricke  ceased to be a passive spectator any longer.  Every motive, both civil and religious concurred to alienate the King from every rank and denomination of men and Sir Henry united himself with the Earl of Danby (Thomas Osborne, afterwards created Duke of Leeds) of Kiveton, Yorkshire, the Duke of Devonshire and others, in the active promotion of the revolution which placed William on the throne.  The Earl of Danby was a Yorkshireman and a personal friend of Sir Henry who placed Ribston Hall at his disposable as a suitable centre for the  discussion of plans.  As before mentioned, Danby was one of the seven leaders of the Revolution who, on 30th June, 1688, signed the invitation to William of Orange.

Frequent private meetings were held at Ribston at this time, the earliest of which any positive account exists taking place on 29th September, 1688, when Lord Danby, Lord Dumblane and Charles Bertie were all staying with Sir Henry.  (Dartmouth Papers. p.138.)  Lord Danby, in his letters published in 1710, mentions a later meeting.  He says:-

"The Duke of Devonshire came to Sir Henry Goodrick's house in Yorkshire purposely to meet me there again, in order to concert the times and methods by which he should act at  Nottingham (which was to be his post) and me at York (which was to be mine) and we: agreed that I should first attempt to surprise York, because there was a small garrison with a governor  there, whereas Nottingham was  but an open town, and might give an alarm to York, if he should appear in arms before I had made any attempt upon York, which was done accordingly."

 The promoters of the Revolution were all men of strong determination and will.  They needed no convincing that James's intention was to introduce Popery, and what was worse they fully believed that he had imposed a superstitious Prince of Wales upon the nation  in order to promote Popery and to defeat the Prince and Princess of Orange of their right of succession; all this appeared but too clear.  They had promised him their support with their fortunes and persons and now that news was reaching the country of William's impending departure from Holland it was felt that the time for action was near at hand.

The greatest alarm was felt all through the country at the news, now spreading rapidly, of the intention of the Prince of Orange to invade the Kingdom and the wildest rumours and speculations were rife as to what was likely to happen.  It was suggested in Court circles that William's aim was to be for the crown and the capture by the Dutch of the trade of England while on the other hand the revolutionists were careful to keep their plans secret and persistently to declare that

"the prince was coming to maintain the Protestant Religion and would do no harm to England."

"not once suspecting that men of their high quality and great estate could intend anything prejudicial to the government or dangerous to themselves."

Important events now followed quickly.  William had landed at Torbay (5th November) and  the news reached York by express messenger very quickly.  Reresby at once advised the Duke of Newcastle but his Grace replied that owing to the distance of Torbay from York he did not consider his presence yet necessary!  The Deputy Lieutentants were at this moment all in York and the promoters of the revolution were keenly alert.  Sir Henry Goodricke now took the initiative and proposed that a meeting of gentry and freeholders should be held in the  Guildhall for the purpose of drawing up a petition to the King and also

 "to consult on such matters as might be for the honour of God and their own welfare and safety."

On the 19th November the Duke of Newcastle came to York and Sir John Reresby writes that he sat with his Grace  until midnight discussing the position with him and that they mutually arrived at the resolution that if the petition proposed by Sir Henry Goodricke was not conceived in terms of the strictest loyalty they would not sign it.

The following day the Duke called together his deputy-lieutentants, asked them if there was anything meant by the proposed assembly more than to make a declaration of loyalty to His Majesty?  Sir Henry Goodricke at once declared in plain language that he intended to petition for a free parliament, and hoped that the rest, who should meet would concur therein.  The Duke was  so much offended at  this that he said he would not remain to be overruled by his deputies and would leave York the next day - which he did, the governor protesting.

On the 22nd November 1688, the long looked for meeting in the Guildhall took place.  All the Deputy Lieutenants of the three Ridings were present with several noblemen and a multitude of esquires and substantial yeomen,
The militia was drawn up under arms to preserve the peace.  Sir John Reresby was not present.  Sir Henry Goodricke lead the meeting.  He said

"That there had been a great endeavour by the government to bring Popery into the kingdom of late  years, and to invade the laws in many ways;  that there was no way to redress grievances of this and other natures but by a free Parliament; and therefore this was the only time to petition the King for it; and a better pattern could not be followed than what the Lords spiritual and temporal, or some of them had done   before."

 Sir Thomas Yarburg, Sir Lionel Pikington and Mr. Stockdale suggested that some expressions in the petition should be softened and that the petitioners ought to assure the King that they would support him with their lives and fortunes in the dangers which threatened both him and the Kingdom.  These suggestions were not agreed to, however, and the petition was ultimately drafted by Sir Henry and his supporters - those who did not approve of it in its final form leaving the Hall.  The signing of the petition was then commenced,  Sir Henry Goodricke and Mr. Wortley Montagu leading but before a third signature could be affixed an alarm was raised by Mr. Tancred who rushed into the Hall crying out that the Papists had risen and fired at the Militia.  Whether or not this was part of the original plan or whether it had been expected that the meeting would not last long enough for the signing of the petition to be reached can now only be conjectured but it seems quite plain that what did now happen had all been pre-arranged and that it was carried out exactly as desired by the promoters.  Confusion ensued, all the gentlemen rushing out, Sir Henry  Goodricke, Mr. Montagu and Mr. Tancred being among those whose horses were held in readiness.  The concluding episode in this affair by which York was seized for the Prince of Orange immediately followed.  By previous design, well arranged and still better carried out Danby now appeared at the head of about a hundred horsemen and riding up to the militia raised the cry

"No Popery!  A free Parliament!  The Protestant Religion!"

Poor Sir John Reresby!  Sir Henry's distress for him in his discomfort now showed itself and he immediately went to Sir John, now under arrest, and did his utmost to persuade him to join the ranks of the victorious and reforming party, but his persuasions were all in vain.  Sir John would not yield, although he agreed with the purport of the petition, he replied that his signing of it would be equivalent to joining in the armed force to back it up.  The truth was that Reresby like the vast majority of the gentry throughout the land, had for some time past been growing lukewarm and disgusted in the royal cause.  He had been elected M.P. for York City at the General Election after the accession of James II and had uniformly taken a prominent part in the House of Commons as a supporter of James.  A few days later, Reresby requested Danby's leave to go to his country house at Thrybergh promising to remain there quietly and inoffensively whereupon Danby invited him to dinner and immediately told him he would release him on his promise.  Danby also said how the Duke of Newcastle's absence had favoured their plans.

Reresby retired to Thrybergh.  He was presented to William III in 1689, but he died suddenly 12th May in that year at the comparatively early age of fifty-five.

After the successful capture of York, Sir Henry lost no time in proceeding in the direction of his home, and stopping at Knaresborough he entered the Town Hall where a meeting of Roman Catholic gentlemen in the Commission of the Peace was assembled.  This he abruptly interrupted, and drawing his sword, informed them that the authority under which they were sitting was superseded and proclaimed William the Third King.

Sir Henry's popular actions in support of William and reformed government and against the Romanists, and his close association with the great leaders of the revolution naturally brought him prominently forward at the new Court.  He was appointed Treasurer in respect to the collection and disbursements of the taxes in the county of York (Signet Rolls) and on 26th April 1689 he was advanced to the post of Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance in succession to the Earl of Shrewsbury.  This position he held until 29th June 1702 (Signet Rolls).

(In June 1907, I came across a collection of 53 original letters written in 1691 and 1692 to Sir Henry in his official capacity as Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance.  They are very interesting and I would have acquired them had not the owner, B. Dobell, 77 Charing Cross Road, asked an exorbitant price for them.  They form Item No. 367 in his Catalogue No. 150).

On 13 February 1690  Sir Henry was sworn of the Privy Council.  (One of his signatures as privy councillor can be seen in Add. M.S. 34195, p.p. 119, 125).  He was also a Privy Councillor to Queen Anne.
Few of his speeches in the House of Commons are recorded, but those that have been preserved are

"brief, frithy and to the purpose."

"Our deliverer from Popery and slavery"

Before closing the present chapter I feel I must allude to the sad story of the Reresbys as Sir John was not only a neighbour of Sir Henry Goodricke but a very close friend.  Of the many instances of the reverses of great families, there is scarcely one so striking as that I am going to relate.  This story is not intended to "adorn a tale" but to "point a moral," a sad moral, indeed, and to tell of the utter destruction of a time-honoured race by the profligacy and wickedness of one single descendant, which deplorable circumstances Sir Henry Goodricke lived to witness and to lament.

A grand old pedigree was that of these Reresbys, their home at Thrybergh, one of the loveliest in Yorkshire, and their high county position, the fair result of good and honourable lives and deeds.  We have just seen how, after the capture of York in November 1688, Sir John Reresby, the Governor was permitted to retire to Thrybergh where he died suddenly in May of the following year.  His son William succeeded to the family honours, and this descendant of an honoured line, the possessor of ample Estates and of a name renowned both in the history and literature of his country lived to see himself stripped of every acre of his broad lands.

Intemperance and gaming were Sir William's particular weakness and that particularly vile folly, cock-fighting, was one of his vices.  Thrybergh was said to have been lost on a single bet so low had Reresby fallen and the wretched spend-thrift was at length reduced to such abject beggary that he accepted the menial post of tapster in the Kings' Bench Prison, and was tried and imprisoned for cheating in 1711.

Beautiful Thrybergh was lost in 1705.  It was purchased by John Savile, Esq. of Methley.

Sir William Reresby died in abject poverty, "unwept and unhonoured."  His only brother, the landless Sir Leonard, survived him, but at his death the title expired.  (Burke)

"Virtute Victoria"

Motto used by Sir Henry Goodricke on Seal 25th January 1679.

Stowe M.S. 746 p. 7.

CHAPTER IX.

SIR JOHN GOODRICKE, 5TH BART.  1708-1789.

Motto "Loyal yet free."

There is nothing of importance to record about Sir John, the 3rd Bart.  He had a family of five sons and five daughters.  He enjoyed Ribston only nine months, dying on 19th December 1705.  (Vide Goodricke History).  His eldest son Henry, born 8th September 1677 succeeded to Ribston at the age of twenty-eight.  At the age of seventeen he received a commission as ensign in Lieutenant-Colonel William Ashton's Company of the lst Foot Guards, commanded by the Earl of Romney.  He was a Justice of the Peace for the West Riding and High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1718.

Sir Henry appears to have loved his home where he spent his life in quiet and retired devotion to arboriculture, the improvement of his estate and the general happiness of his tenants.  It is to him Ribston Park and gardens now owe some of their finest and rarest trees as also that delicious apple known as the "Ribston Pippin."

He married 26 April 1707 in York Minster, Mary, only surviving daughter of Tobias Jenkyns, Esq., of Grimstone, Co. York by this wife Lady Mary, second daughter of Charles Paulet first Duke of Bolton, and died 21st July 1738, leaving issue four sons and four daughters.

He was succeeded in Title and Estate by his eldest son John who was the fifth Baronet.  Sir John Goodricke, 5th Bart., was born at Ribston 20th May 1708.  He was thirty years of age when he succeeded to Ribston and he lived to enjoy his ancestral home for fifty-one years, a much longer period than had been granted to any of his predecessors.

He married at the early age of twenty-three, (28 Sept. 1731) at Hendon, Co. Midd.  Miss Mary Benson a natural daughter of Robert Benson, Lord Bingley, who had died on the 9th April in the same year.

Sir John had issue, an only surviving son, Henry, born at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, 6th April, 1741.  A daughter, Mary, was born at Ribston 23rd October 1732 but she died in the following July.  Another daughter, Harriet, was born at Bingley House, London, 9th March 1739 but she also died in infancy (1746).

The quiet life led by his father at Ribston does not appear to have appealed very strongly to Sir John.  Three years after succeeding to his paternal acres we find him at Boulogne in France, and in March 1745 he was at Rotterdam making a very strong appeal to Sir Thomas Robinson, British Ambassador at Vienna to obtain for him a commission in the Wallon Regiment of Prince Charles as he was "extremely desirous to be in the Queen of Hungary's Troops and to serve the Glorious Defendress of the Cause of Liberty."   (Add. M.S. 23819, p. 422).   He begs Sir Francis to use his interest to obtain for him this commission, as a Captain and thus place him under "eternal obligations."  Whether or not his commission was obtained I do not know - but in August 1750 Sir John commenced a career in the Diplomatic world which continued for twenty-three years during which time (1750-1773) he appears to  have resided almost entirely abroad, in the discharge of several important positions under the State.

On 18th August 1750 Sir John was appointed Resident at the Court of Brussels, eight years later (l4 March 1758) he was appointed

 "Resident at the Court of the King of Sweden"

In February 1764, he was appointed
"His Britannic Majesty's Envoy Extraordinary to the Court at Stockholm"

His appointment to Stockholm on 14th March 1758 does not appear to have taken immediate effect as he seems to have continued to reside at Copenhagen.  His secretary Charles F. Sheridan in his "History of the late Revolution in Sweden" 1783 p.p. 201, 204, writes that in 1763 Sir John was at Copenhagen until after the war, left there at the end of that year and arrived at Stockholm in April 1764.

This agrees with one batch of Sir John's Correspondence in the Brit Museum Library (Hardwicke Papers Add. M.S. 35885, p.p. 99-142).   He remained as British Envoy Extraordinary at Stockholm from 1764 to his retirement in 1773.  (It may be here noted that Charles Francis Sheridan was second son of Thomas and Frances Sheridan and elder brother of the celebrated Richard Brinsley Sheridan, 1751-1816.  Charles F. Sheridan was appointed Secretary to the Legation in Sweden in May 1772.  It was while he was on his journey to Stockholm that his brother Richard fought his second duel at Bath with Mr. Mathews in which he nearly lost his life. "Sheridan" by W.F. Rae, Vol. I. 197).

In the Manuscript department of the British Museum Library there is, dispersed over many files, a voluminous correspondence between Sir John and various high officers of state, between the years 1750 and 1773.  A careful examination of this would undoubtedly reveal much of great political interest for at that time Sweden occupied a vastly different position in Europe to that she now holds, but I have not had the time at my disposal to devote to this research work.  In his work entitled "A Queen of Tears" or the History of Caroline Matilda, wife of Christian VII, Mr. W.H. Wilkins says that Sir John was nominated Minister Plenipotentiary to Sweden, but through the intrigues of the French Government he never got nearer to Stockholm than Copenhagen.  This is, of course, quite incorrect as the heavy correspondence from Sir John in the B. Mus. Liby. shows.  At pages' 136-147 of his book,  Mr. Wilkins relates a story about Sir John's relationship with Anna Catherine Bathaken who went by the nickname of "Storlep Katerine" or "Catherine of the Gaiters"  while he was resident at Copenhagen.  After Sir John's departure from that City, Catherine became mistress to the new King of Denmark and Norway, Christian VII a semi-idiot, over whom she gained a great ascendency.  I do not propose to repeat this story - it can be read, if desired, in Mr. Wilkin's book.

As we have seen, Sir John Goodricke commenced his diplomatic resident at Stockholm in the spring of 1764.  In 1766 his portrait in pastel was painted at Stockholm by the celebrated French artist Lundberg, and a photograph of this same picture - now in my possession, is here presented.  It represents Sir John in Court dress - scarlet velvet coat, salmon silk vest, the whole elaborately embroidered in gold, lace cravat, etc.  The King of Sweden, Adolphus Frederick died in 1771 and was succeeded by his eldest son Gustavus III.  The condition of Sweden was deplorable and Gustavus finding himself little better than a hostage for the maintenance of existing anarchy at once turned his thoughts towards the bold project of a revolution as the only means of saving his country from utter ruin.  A revolution headed by a King was a somewhat anomalous expedient but Gustavus planned this revolution so skillfully that it was carried out at Stockholm on 19th August 1772 with the greatest success and without the loss of a single life!  Sir John Goodricke was a close and deeply interested spectator of this event.  He was,

"by common consent the most quick-witted and keen-sighted of the whole diplomatic corps"

"Sir J. Goodricke has by the death of some Lord come into a considerable fortune.  If so, it is probable he may entirely relinquish his present post for which I should be extremely sorry, as I fear it would not be easy to find a successor of such abilities to give you information or such humanity to make your situation agreeable."  (Temple Bar, March 1900. p. 398)

The "Annual Register" under date 29 November 1773 announces the appointment of Lewis de Visme, A.M. as Envoy Extraordinary to Sweden in the room of Sir John Goodricke

"who has obtained his Majesty's permission to resign."  (See also  Signet Office Docquet Books).

Sir John and his Lady now returned to their native county and took up their residence at Bramham Park which place it is on record (Batham's Baronetage) Sir John preferred to his paternal estate while Ribston was Lady Goodricke's favorite home.  Sir John was made a Privy Councillor to George III, September lst 1773 and he was M.P. for Ripon.  In my next Chapter,  I will describe Bramham Park.
 
 

 CHAPTER   X.
BRAMHAM PARK, YORKSHIRE.

"This noble residence was built in the reign of Queen Anne, by Robert Benson, Lord Bingley, who employed for that purpose an Italian architect.  It is designed upon a scale of much grandeur, consisting of a large centre, in which are the grand apartments, and wings, for the domestic offices, connected by corridors of the Doric order; the whole fronting a spacious court, elevated five feet above the Park, approached by iron gates affixed to dwarf piers, bearing sphinxes, which occupy a space within two lofty rusticated columns, each surmounted by a Bear upholding the shield of arms of the founder.
The mansion presents a magnificent and singular character, seldom paralleled in the form and dimensions of the truly elegant apartments it contains; some of them decorated with the rich and tasteful carvings of Grinling Gibbons, others are hung with curious specimens of tapestry, in excellent preservation.  Among the pictures is a fine original portrait of Queen Anne presented by her Majesty to Lord Bingley, as an acknowledgment of the attention of his Lordship during a visit to his seat.
The Gardens correspond in their style with the House, and consist of the timber cut in straight hedges of the height of the trees, the whole kept up with the greatest precision, and are said to resemble those of St. Cloud, in France; gravelled walks extend for miles through the pleasure grounds; the Deer Park is finely wooded, and the views are rich in beautiful scenery.  Very handsome kennels for the fox-hounds are at one extremity of the Park; the kennels for the harriers are near the house.  It stands in a fine sporting country, and his present Majesty once spent two nights at this venerable mansion, and partook of the delights of the chase.  The House is situated in Barkstone Ash Wapentake, ten miles north-east from Leeds, four miles south-west from Tadcaster and fourteen miles from York.

On 29th July 1828 a most disastrous fire took place which destroyed this noble mansion with most of the furniture, plate and pictures, the loss being estimated at over £40,000.  In 1907, the present owner, Mr. George R. Lane Fox rebuilt the Hall to some extent.  A writer in the Yorkshire Weekly Post for 18th May 1907 referring to Bramham says:-

"Since 1828 the erstwhile beautiful apartments have shown like yawning vaults to the sky, open to the rains and winds of heaven, and free to all the birds of the air.  They have been picturesque ruins, and their beauty was enhanced by the loveliness of the surroundings; the trim Italian gardens, with their beech avenues; the fine old elms and sycamores; the distant views of wood and dell.  One can only, in passing, think what an enchanting place this must have been in the days of its glory."

I will conclude my chapter on Bramham by referring my readers to an account I contributed to the Yorkshire Weekly Post of 25th October 1902 explaining how that place became Sir John Goodricke's residence.  In regard to this I would remark that it may doubtless be presumed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, that the disposition of the Bingley Estates in 1771-1773 by George, Baron Bingley was accepted by Sir John and Lady Goodricke without protest but Lord Bingley's action would, in the light of evidence now available certainly appear somewhat unjust to the Goodrickes having regard to all the circumstances I have related.  Lord Bingley, no doubt, took advantage of his then strictly legal position, but one would have thought that in consequence of the death of this son Robert and the failure of issue to Harriet Benson, the estates of her father ought, in justice, to have devolved upon Mary Lady Goodricke as her right in accordance with the will of her father, Robert first Lord Bingley, dated 27 June 1729 and not upon Mr. James Fox, who was a stranger in blood.  but the complex nature and uncertainty of the law relating to property is very great and at times past understanding, and the succession of the Lane-Fox family to the Bingley estates was, no doubt, in perfectly legal order.
 
 
 

 CHAPTER   XI

JOHN GOODRICKE   ASTRONOMER
"Ingenio stat sine sorte decus"

In November 1782, when only eighteen years of age, he noted that the brilliancy of Algol waxed and waned, and he devoted himself to observing it on every fine night from the 28th December 1782 to 12th May 1783.  He communicated the results of his observations to the Royal Society in two papers and suggested that the variation in brilliancy was due to periodic eclipses by a dark companion star, revolving round Algol.  His conclusion was confirmed spectroscopically in 1888-1889 by the late Dr Vogel, of Potsdam and it is now universally accepted as correct.

The Royal Society recognized the importance of the discovery by awarding to Goodricke, then only nineteen years of age, their highest honour, the Sir Godfey Copley Gold Medal (1783).  His later observations of Lyrx and Cephei were almost as remarkable as those of Algol, but unfortunately Goodricke's career which was of such extraordinary promise was cut short by death, to the infinite loss of science, on 20th April 1786, when he was but twenty-two years of age after his election to the Royal Society.

The records of his observations are to be found in the "Philosophical Transactions' of the Royal Society Vols. 73, 74 and 75.

The wonders of Astronomy are not only definite but endless and some small conception of this may be derived from the fact that Astronomers estimate the distance of Algol to be so great that it takes 93 years for its light to reach the Earth so that the variations which we may see in its light this evening will be those which actually occurred in November 1819!  There is still much curiosity as to the kind of body which John Goodricke suspected and Dr Vogel proved was  eclipsing Algol by passing between that star about three days.  That it is comparatively dark is said to be certain; and although it is nearly the size of our own sun it has never seen even with the most powerful telescopes.  Miss Agnes Clerke, a great astronomer, describes it as being to all intents and purposes a gigantic planet.  It has been found that of the companion is 830,000 miles!

Mr. John Goodricke's portrait was painted in  pastel in the year 1785 when he was  twenty-one years of age and this fine picture, together with that of his grandfather Sir John - painted by Lunberg, at Stockholm in 1766 - became my property in the year 1898 as I will explain later on (Chapter X11).  As I am anxious that this portrait should be carefully preserved in perpetuity where it will be valued, I presented it to the Royal Astronomical Society, on 8th November 1912 on the occasion of the first meeting of the winter session and an account of what then took place can be read at p.p. 419 and 435 of "The Observatory" Vol. 35, December 1912, and I annex here a copy of my letter to The Society on the same date which is taken from their "Monthly Notices," Vol. 73, for November 1912. The foregoing account of John Goodricke embraces, I think all that is now known of him which is sufficiently  interesting to be recorded.

INSERT  Since the above was written in 1913 I have since discovered a magazine  article, written in 1984 entitled John Goodricke 1764-1786 astronomer extraordinary. The author of the article is Mr Geffrey Hope, an E.N.T. consultant at York, who has graciously given me  his permission to use a copy of his article. Although this not part of the original book, I hope the reader will accept this article as an update and expansion on the knowledge of this brilliant young astronomer.  A.A.Y.

The article  starts out with a picture of a plaque on the wall of Treasurer's House which reads:
 From a window in the Treasurer's House near this tablet, a
young  deaf and dumb astronomer and dumb astronomer

   JOHN GOODRICKE 1764 - 1786

who was elected  a Fellow  of the Royal Society at, the age of 21, observed the periodicy of the star   ALGOL and discovered the variation of  *  CELPHEI and other stars thus laying the foundation of modern measurement of the Universe.

To quote Patrick Moore, the TV astronomer,

"He was deaf and dumb and remained so all through his life, but there was nothing the matter with either his eyesight or his brain, he became an expert observer as well as a theorist."

John Goodricke's grandfather, Sir John Goodricke Bart. was the fifth baronet. He had been Envoy Extraordinary to the court of Stockholm, later MP for Ripon and a Privy Councilor to George III.

Little is known of John's early childhood, except it is recorded

"He lost his hearing by fever when an infant and was consequently dumb."

Ten years earlier in 1760, Thomas Braidwood opened the first school for the deaf in Edinburgh and it was there that John was destined to be taught. Unfortunately Braidwood was secretive, so his pupils and his methods are not fully recorded, but the school did attract eminent visitors such as Samuel Johnson. It can only be presumed that John Goodricke went to Edinburgh between the ages of 8 and 10. He must have made good progress in both language and learning as he was found suitable to be admitted to the Warrington Academy in 1778 at the age of 14, but they made no special provision for the handicapped pupils. The Warrington Academy was a school of high academic reputation run by the Unitarians. Goodricke's report stated

"He made a surprising proficiency becoming a very tolerable classic and an excellent mathematician"

His friend, Mr. Hartley, made him his special astronomical clock and writes

 "I know how to pull down ye string, but I am afraid that I might sometimes fail on account of not being able to hear ye spring."

"I must mark the time of my clock at the last stroke of the Minster at twelve o'clock and Mr. Piggott must do the same thing with his... Some faithful person upon whom I can depend always tells me every stroke of the Minster and when he tell me the last I always mark the clock."

"As Mr Piggott is a greater distance from the Minster than I am, he must hear it somewhat later, therefore judge it necessary to make some allowance... where his clock is being set about half a mile from the Minster I always subtract one second from Mr. P's time. My distance from the Minster is only a few yards, therefore, no allowance."

As so happens,  handicapped children compensate by being more alert with their remaining senses and Goodricke was no exception. When one considers he worked with a simple optical device such as a binocular, his powers of observation and perserverance are amazing. He writes in his journal 12th November 1782,

"This night  looked at Beta -Persei (Algol) and was much amazed to find its brightness altered. It now appears to be fourth  magnitude...I observed it diligently for about an hour upwards...hardly believing  that it changed its brightness, because I had never heard of any star varying  so quick in its brightness. I thought it might be perhaps owing to an optical illusion, a defect in my eyes or bad air, but the sequel will show that its change is true and that it was not mistaken."

John Goodricke has been remembered in York by naming one of the University Halls of Residence after him. Thus ends an update on John Goodricke,  a deaf and dumb astronomer, whose life was cut short tragically at the age of twenty-two, and who  should never  be considered as handicapped but as a man with several disabilities.

Continuation of Charles A Goodricke's narrative;

He had issue 1. John, the Astronomer, 1764 to 1786; 2. Henry afterwards the sixth Baronet, and three daughters.
Mr Henry Goodricke died at his house in Lendal, York on 9th July 1784 in his fourty-fourth year and this event was followed in 1786 by the premature death of his elder son, John, as already stated. There remained now living only two young male members of Sir John's line, viz. Henry, Sir John's only grandson, who in 1788 was only twenty-three, and his nephew Thomas Francis Henry, who was just six and twenty.

The deaths of his son and grandson must have caused Sir John much grief and anxiety for on reading through his will one cannot help feeling he had had in contemplation a vision of his only grandson Henry, then his heir, dying issueless and the contingency of the family estates passing to his nephew Thomas Francis Henry, or even to a more collateral branch. So anxious was Sir John to prevent any alienation of the properties that he made his will on 20th May 1788 with the most stringent clauses, and further, to the intent that his wishes should not be frustrated, he appointed Sir George Allanson Wynn a trustee to see that every article of furniture, the family pictures, library etc. should descend to the rightful heir as heirlooms. Alas! for all these careful precautions, as we shall soon see. (Sir George Allanson-Winn was raised to the peerage in 1797 by the style and title of Lord Headley, Baron Allanson and Winn, of Aghadoe, Co. Kerry.)

Sir John's death took place on 3rd August 1789 and he was succeeded in Title and Estate by this grandson Sir Henry the sixth Baronet, then just twenty-four years of age.

Sir Henry has been described as a gentleman of eccentric habits who resided, not at Ribston, but chiefly in a house close to Micklegate Bar, now known as No. 58.  He married, 30 November 1796, Charlotte, fourth daughter of the Right Hon. James Fortescue, of Ravensdale Park, in Ireland, and sister to William Charles, second Viscount Clermont, by whom he had an only son, Harry James, born 26th September 1797.

Sir Henry died in the prime of life, 23rd March 1802, and was succeeded by his son Harry James, then just four and a half years old.

 
CHAPTER XII.

SIR HARRY JAMES GOODRICKE, 7TH BART.
THE ALIENATOR OF HIS PATRIMONY.

 "as bad a fellow as ever lived."

Sir Harry's ample means and his social position was able to provide for indulging his inherited tastes for the turf and the hunting field, to say nothing of mean sorts of excitement and amusement to the utmost, and indulge them he did.

He became a popular member of the Quorn Hunt very early in life and the records of that sport are full of his exploits between the years 1824 and 1833.  In the former year he is spoken of as having several hunters in the field, but in 1829 when he succeeded to the Fortescue Estates in Ireland and his income became so largely increased, he threw himself with greater zeal than ever into the hunting field.  In 1831 he bought the celebrated hunter "Segar" which beat the whole field in what was considered the most notable run enjoyed by the Quorn (March 1831) during the time Lord Southampton was master.

Lord Southampton resigned the Mastership of the Quorn in April 1831 and at a meeting held at the "Three Crowns," Leicester, Sir Harry Goodricke was unanimously elected to succeed his Lordship.  Sir Harry named his own terms which were that he would hunt the country at his own cost and would hold himself alone accountable for his manner of doing it.

Sir Harry's invincible passion for hunting made him a very willing successor to Lord Southampton and he began his term by promptly building new kennels at Thrussington, about five miles from Melton.  No expense was spared, of course.
The season of 1831 saw Sir Harry duly installed as the M.F.H., a dinner in his honour being held at the George Hotel Melton, on 6th October.  More than eighty guests were present and the chairman,  Mr. Thett, of Kettleby, proposed Sir Harry's health.  Among the toasts of the evening was one to the memory of Meynell the founder of the Quorn Hunt.  After dinner, Mr. G. Marriott, Jun., gave the following song written for the occasion:-

That Sire of the Chase - our crack Nimrod, old Meynell,
 Once said to a famed brother sportsman at Quorn,
That "the fame and the fun of a Le'stershire kennel
Should cease - when the sun ceased to gladden the morn."
He's gone, but each year proves how true the prediction;
Unmarred is our sport - undiminished our fame,
He's gone, and this day shows his words were no fiction,
For "Hunting and le'stershire still mean the same.
Chorus (after each verse).
Then round with the bottle, and let it not tarry,
While we hail, while we honour, the man of our choice;
In a bumper, come pledge me - the gallant Sir Harry
Whom we love in our hearts, as we hail with our voice.

Other masters we've had, in the days of our glory-
Osbaldeston, Sefton, Tom Smith, and "The Graeme,"
Southampton the last, not the least in our story,
Giving Melton its mainspring and Le'stershire fame.
And if for a season our joy has been clouded,
A day like the present's too happy for pain;
In the prospect before us what pleasures are crowded,
For oh, in our Goodricke we've Meynell again.

The Coplow again shall be famous in story,
And high be the deeds we shall do from Seg's Hill;
And Melton once more, in the blaze of its glory,
Under Goodricke shall flourish - Under Goodricke shall fill;
Again shall our coverts like Courts be attended;
Again shall our "Field days" boast many a Star,
The friends shall return who have Melton befriended,
Thyne, Forester, Kinnaird, Moore, Maxse, and Maher.

And Alvanley too - shall Meltonia forget thee?
Oh never - while wit, and while wine, have a charm;
Thou too wilt return, blithe as ever we met thee,
And with joke, fun and glee, still old sorrow disarm;
And Chesterfield too, and our honoured De Wilton,
With Plymouth and Stanley, shall come in the train,
And the Lord of the Chase, and the Monarch of Melton,
Shall be Harry of Ribston, success to his reign.

His "princely hospitality" at Melton Mowbray and his extravagant expenditure in other ways began to tell severely on his means - large as they were.  Fortunately he had not the power to do more than enjoy the income of the Clermont estates, but it was not so with Ribston,  his paternal acres, every penny of income from which property, and indeed much more, being spent on horses alone.  Sir Harry naturally became involved in debt, though this fact was not known at the time, and another mortgage of the whole of his Goodricke patrimony became necessary in order to meet his ever increasing and reckless extravagance.  True it is that his father, the sixth Baronet, whose eccentricity was notorious, found it necessary on 21st August 1795 (Wakefield Registry) to assign every acre of his inheritance to Trustees for the benefit of his creditors, but the long minority of his son Harry James, should have rendered it possible to largely diminish, if not extinguish, that debt.

It is not my intention to repeat the account of Sir Harry's doings during his mastership of the "Quorn."  Those who are interested will find much about him between pages 114 and 160 of "The Quorn Hunt and its Masters" by William C. A. Blew, 1899.

In July 1833 Sir Harry sailed in his yacht to Ireland, and while there it is said he caught a severe cold when indulging in one of his favourite sports, otter-hunting, and this proved fatal in forty-eight hours.

He had then just completed, in his customary extravagant style, all arrangements for the shooting season, inviting a number of noblemen and gentlemen to join him at his shooting box, Mar. Lodge, in Scotland, and his guests were considerably upset at the news of the unexpected demise of their popular host.

Sir Harry James Goodricke died at Ravensdale Park, Co. Louth his Irish seat, 21st August 1833.  He was unmarried.  His body was brought over for burial in the family vault at Hunsingore, and the following story was current for long after.  On arrival at Wetherby, those who were accompanying the remains rested at an inn in the town and called for refreshments, and, after these had been partaken of, cards and boxing-gloves were produced for their further enjoyment.  The landlord of the inn thought it was now high time to remonstrate and he gently reminded them of the solemn occasion which brought them there and that such conduct as they were indulging in, particularly the boxing, was unseemly indoors while the body of their master awaited their pleasure in the road.  The only reply he received was:-

 "Nonsense, man, if Sir Harry had been burying all of us he would have done just the same."

It was soon discovered that Sir Harry had signed a Will just one month before his death (25th July 1833) under which the whole of the Goodricke family estates were bequeathed to his sporting friend and school-fellow Mr. Francis Lyttleton Holyoake.  This gentleman received permission on 12th December 1833 to assume the additional surname and arms of Goodricke and he was afterwards created a Baronet, 31st March 1835.

"Sic transit gloria mundi"

This Will was proved in London on 27th November 1833 and Mr. Holyoake took possession of Ribston.  It was stated at the time that Holyoake assumed the additional surname of Goodricke
"out of respect for the memory of Sir Harry"!
Memories of rollicking and disreputable scenes Holyoake doubtless had in abundance, but none of real respect.  At all events Holyoake showed his pretended respect for Sir Harry in a curious way for, instead of taking up his residence at Ribston as might have been expected - he immediately let the residence furnished and set about the disposal of it and every Goodricke acre as early as decency would permit.  I will here refer the reader to my History, (page 42,) at the end of this volume merely adding that Ribston was eventually sold in 1836 to Mr. Joseph Dent of Appleby in Lincolnshire for the sum of £180,000.  Mr. George Robins, the agent who carried out the sale was so disgusted with Holyoake for cheating him out of £1,000  of his remuneration that he published in 1840 a fifty page pamphlet describing the whole transaction

"for the benefit and edification of the friends of Sir Francis."

"This place is now so much to me that I like to know about the people to whom it formerly belonged almost as much as if I belonged to them."

It will be of interest to record here that, with the exception of six of the Goodricke family portraits at Ribston, Mr. Holyoake removed the whole collection to his own residence in Warwickshire.  When that gentleman changed his residence to Malvern in 1863 these portraits were either sold or given by him to Lord Clermont to whom they were sent but I have as yet failed to trace them.  (This information from Miss Caroline Holyoake-Goodricke of Taunton in 1902.)

The six portraits left at Ribston in 1836 were:-
   1.  Sir John Goodricke, 5th Bart., Pastel by Lundberg, painted in 1766.
   2.  John Goodricke, Astronomer, Pastel, 1785, by Scouler, vide page
   3.  Rev. Richard Goodricke, oval oil.
   4.  Capt. William Goodricke, same.
   5.  Henrietta Goodricke, same.
   6.  Sir Harry James Goodricke when a boy.

The two first mentioned were acquired by me from Mr. George Wilson of Gilling Castle, in the year 1898.  The portrait of Sir John I have bequeathed to the Leeds Corporation Art Gallery and that of Mr. John Goodricke I have recently presented to the Royal Astronomical Society as stated in the last chapter.  On the acquisition of Gilling Castle by Mr. Wilson, the portrait of Sir Harry James Goodricke was removed to Brandsby Hall by Mr. H. C. Fairfax-Cholmeley.   The remaining three portraits (of children of Sir John, 3rd Bart) are still hanging on the walls of the gallery at Gilling Castle and can be seen in their several  positions in the pictures of that apartment which I give here, taken from "Country Life" of September 26th 1908.

The portrait of Sir Harry James Goodricke which I present here is a reduced photograph of a well known pencil drawing by Baron D'Orsay done in 1833, published by Mitchell, 33 Old Bond Street, London.

The library of the Goodrickes at Ribston has been carefully preserved and was greatly valued by the late Mr. John Dent.  The volumes generally contain the Goodricke book-plate and many of them bear on the fly-leaves the autographs of various members of the family during the past two and a half centuries.  The two family  Bibles and the French Bible purchased by Sir John at Tours in the year 1638 are still among the treasures at Ribston, and one of the many Goodricke relics there was the original grant of (altered) Crest to Sir Henry Goodricke, 2nd Bart., dated 27th August, 1694.  This handsomely illuminated parchment was most considerately and courteously presented to me in August 1907 by the present (1912) owner of Ribston, Major John William Dent, (late of the 4th Dragoon Guards), and in order that a document of such great interest and value of the family might be carefully preserved in perpetuity, I had it encased in morocco binding and presented it to the Manuscript department of the British Museum Library, 18th May 1911; where it will hereafter be available for inspection under the Library regulations.  Its official reference catalogue number is Additional M.S. 38, 168.  A copy of this Grant of Crest is contained in "Misc. Gen. et Herald. "
 

CHAPTER XIII.

SIR THOMAS FRANCIS HENRY GOODRICKE, THE 8TH AND LAST BARONET

This house which was occupied by a family of the name of Waterhouse afforded lodging to an old gentleman in reduced circumstances - none other than Sir Thomas Francis Henry Goodricke, the eighth Baronet who succeeded to and assumed the title on the death of Sir Harry James in 1833.

Sir Thomas was the only surviving son of Colonel Thomas Goodricke, and grandson of Sir Henry, fourth Baronet, and was born at Rochester, 24th September 1762.  He had married 2nd April 1794, Harriet, eldest daughter of the late Henry Goodricke, Esq., of York and grand-daughter of Sir John, fifth Baronet, but she pre-deceased him leaving no issue.

Very little is now known of the life of Sir Thomas, but the fact that Sir Francis Lyttleton Holyoake-Goodricke gave him an annuity of £20 pounds which wretched pittance Sir Thomas accepted and drew quarterly at the counter of Messrs. Glyn Mills & Co's Bank is in itself sufficient corroboration of the fact that his means were painfully small.  He died at the house above mentioned on 9th March 1839 in his seventy-seventh year and was buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.

The writer paid a visit to the house in Star Street some thirty years ago and he then found a very old man living there who well remembered the figure of Sir Thomas as he walked about the neighbourhood for exercise.

Thomas Francis Henry Goodricke was the last Baronet, and at his decease the elder branch of the Ribston Goodrickes became extinct in the male line and the representation of the old family fell to Mr. William Goodricke of  Nesham Hall, in the County of Durham, grandson of Mr. John Goodricke of Bounder House, Lamesley, and of Jarrow Grange, both in Co. Durham, who was fourth in descent from Richard Goodricke of Ribston and his wife Muriel, daughter of William, 2nd Lord Eure.
Mr. William Goodricke of Nesham Hall, above mentioned, was grandfather of the writer of these pages.
(Charles Alfred Goodricke  1847-1915)
 
 

 CHAPTER  XIV
CONCLUSION

I might also have given some account of the celebrated siege of Namur in 1692 in which Lieutenant John Goodricke a protege of Sir Henry, 2nd Bart., was actively engaged,  and how a Brass Mortar was brought back from thence  and presented to the Crown by Sir Henry, then Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, which piece is still preserved in the Tower of London. These and other stories would, however, have made my work too bulky to be contained in one volume, so, therefore, I have contented myself with the reference  to them which are contained in my History of the Family

It would appear that such an ending to the senior male line as actually occured in 1833-39 was not wholly unlooked for, but was rather feared, for on reading between the lines of the Will of Sir John, the 5th Baronet, made in 1788, it is impossible not to perceive the most pathetic anxiety which the testator felt as to the future of Ribston, and which we can readily realize the aged Baronet's concern when we remember the position of the family at that time. His hopes were centred on his only grandson, Henry (who succeeded him) a young man of one and twenty, and probably even then exhibiting signs of that eccentricity of character which was so strongly developed as he grew older, and after him, on his nephew Thomas Francis Henry and what might not happen! These two  young men were the only male members of the senior and immediate line left to perpetuate the name and traditions of the family, and their lives, not too full of promise, had yet to be lived.

Sir John took every precaution in his power to ensure the safety of the property and to keep it together, and what would have been the depth  of his disappointment had he been able to look forward to the year 1833 and see every penny of the income derived from his ancestral estate being squandered on horses and dogs, all of his most cherished wishes and hopes entirely frustrated, every acre of his land given to a sporting friend, a stranger to the family, and his nephew, certainly wearing his title, but stripped of all its associations and rightful surroundings, an impoverished baronet, lodging with a mean family in a miserable street in London and accepting the despicable pittance of £20 a year from the liberal minded and generous possessor of Ribston!

'Is not this a lamentable thing, that
"Of the skin of an innocent lamb should
"Be made parchment, that parchment,
"Being scribbled o'er should undo a man."
                                                            Shakespeare.

"that the transfer should take place with as little publicity as possible,"

Time passed, however, and the sale of Ribston to Mr  Joseph Dent was duly completed after some delays, nothing adverse to Holyoake, beyond criticism, happened. What financial benefit he derived is not known, as out of the purchase price paid by Mr Dent, namely £180,000, Sir Harry's debts had been discharged. The acquisition, apparently, did not ultimately result in great advantage to the Holyoakes or establish them in that permanent position of distinction in the County of York which had been enjoyed by the Goodrickes at Ribston for eleven generations for Sir Francis died at Malvern in 1865, a comparatively poor man. His eldest son, 2nd Baronet  died, unmarried in 1883, and his third son Sir George Edward, the 3rd Baronet, also died, unmarried, and in virtual if not actual poverty in August 1888, and with him the Baronetcy expired. Some years earlier prior to his death, Sir George was associated  with the "Bucket Shop" in Telegraph Street, in the City of London, and in 1884 he figured at the Marleborough Street Police Court on a charge of obtaining cigars etc. under false pretences!

  The curtain may now be allowed to fall.
 
 
 
 
 
 

Revised and reprinted June 1991
Antony A Goodricke Young
1316 Krise Circle
Lynchburg, Virginia
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