The King's Smuggler: Jane Whorwood, Secret Agent to Charles I

261 Pages·2011·2.13 MB·English

by  Fox

For Glen, Karl, Mark, Daniel,
With Ellen and Osian
Our ‘Secret Islanders’
Contents

Title Page
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Timeline
Genealogy

1. 1612–84: Finding Jane Whorwood

Westminster
2. 1612–19: Jeane Ryder, ‘Bairn’ in a ‘Scottified’ Court
3. 1619–34: James Maxwell, Black Rod and Stepfather

Oxford
4. 1634–42: Four Weddings: Whorwoods, Hamiltons, Cecils and Bowyers
5. 1642–46: ‘Madam Jean Whorewood’, Gold-Smuggler Royal
6. 1646: The Cromwell Naseby Wedding at Holton House

Newcastle to the Isle of Wight
7. 1647: ‘Mistress Whorwood, Committee Chairwoman?’
8. November 1647 – June 1648: ‘715’ and a Frightened King
9. June – November 1648: ‘Sweet 390 … Your Most Loving 391’
10. November 1648 – June 1651: The End of Service

Oxford and London
11. 1651–59: Divorce from Bed and Board
12. 1660–84 ‘Poor Mistress Whorwood’
Plate Section
Copyright
List of Illustrations

1. Charing Cross, 2009. Charles I’s statue (1633) marks the site of the medieval
cross and of the regicide executions in 1660.
2. Old St Paul’s and London Bridge. As the sun encircles the earth, so the king
enlightens the City, Return from Scotland Medal, 1633.
3a. Holton House site today. A fixed bridge replaces the drawbridge.
3b. The filled-in basement of the south-west wing, beyond which a bridge
connected the rear courtyard to the park.
4. Oxford, 1644 (Crown coin).
5. Carisbrooke Castle courtyard and gatehouse from the bedchamber window of
the king’s first lodging.
6. Carisbrooke Castle from the approach road.
7. Commonwealth Silver Coins: a 1649 sixpence (measuring 25mm) and two
undated halfpennies (measuring 10mm each).
8. St Bartholomew’s church, Holton, where Jane, Brome, three of their four
children, Brome’s mistress Kate Allen, and their child ‘cousin Thomas’ were
buried.
Preface and Acknowledgements

My wife and family have put up with Jane Whorwood and Holton’s ‘secret
island’ for years. In fact, Holton Park’s landscape, evocative and barely
chronicled, prompted the search which became this book. The editors of the
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography trusted me with their new article, Jane
Whorwood, in 2009. Stephanie Jenkins, Kevin Heritage and Nigel Philips
enthused me about the Whorwoods, whose former home, Holton Park, now
‘Wheatley Park’, hosts a comprehensive school. It enriches their teaching of
history. Marian Brown of St Bartholomew’s church, Holton, and Julia Dobson of
Holton village, ‘history whisperers’, encouraged me quietly. Caroline Dalton’s
hoard of local wills and Kay Hay’s midlands discoveries have been unofficial
archives, while professional staff – ever cheerful at the Bodleian; thoughtful at
Lambeth Palace – have helped greatly. These include Guildhall Library, British
Library, London School of Economics, The National Archive at Kew, National
Archives of Scotland, Royal Library at Windsor Castle, municipal and county
archives in Westminster, Kingston, Windsor, Oxfordshire, Kent, Surrey, Dover
Cinque Ports, Newport IoW and the English and Scottish National Portrait
Galleries. Christie’s auction house also chimed in. I cannot hope to comb the
tens of thousands of seventeenth-century wills held in TNA, Kew, let alone those
in Edinburgh, but the several hundred which I have explored threw up many
unexpected clues to Jane Whorwood’s life. No book is a final word. I hope this
one is presented humbly enough to welcome finds and revisions, and that the
reading is as enjoyable as the search has been. Simon Hamlet and the editorial
staff at The History Press have been patient with my afterthoughts and additions.
John Prest, fellow Vetelegan and Balliol historian, read my manuscript,
claiming with typical modesty to represent only ‘the mythical general reader’.
Allan Dell shared his ancestor, William Dell; Emma Clarke-Bolton of Sarah
Eastel Locations guided me through the maze which is English Heritage; Robin
Harcourt Williams and Victoria Perry on behalf of the Marquess of Salisbury
were hospitably efficient; Rosalind Marshall gave freely of her expertise on the
Hamiltons and, with Bruce Royan, kindly secured me access to the Virtual
Hamilton Palace research project; Mark Bateson of Canterbury Cathedral, Sarah
Poynting of Keele University, Malcolm Gaskill of the University of East Anglia,
Martin Maw of OUP and my numismatist friends from the Ashmolean
(Heberden) Coin Room patiently fielded my sometimes gormless questions;
Antony Green, anthropologist and former pupil, ‘combed out’ red hair for me;
Tim Wilson, Curator of Western Art at the Ashmolean, and Philippa Glanville,
formerly Curator of Metalwork, Plate and Jewellery at the Victoria and Albert
Museum, pondered at really generous length the significance of plate and jewels
inventoried at Holton Park in 1684; Tony Lynas Grey of Oxford University Dept
of Astrophysics quite literally shed moonlight on the king’s letter of 3 May
1648. The curators of Carisbrooke Castle Museum and the owners of Passenham
Manor welcomed us warmly; Maureen Jakob has familiarised our family with
Hampton Court Palace across half a century, and is thanked with love. Kevin
Heritage produced the genealogies. Andrew Kinnier introduced me both to
Cromwell’s Sydney Sussex College and James Maxwell’s Inns of Court. Martin
Roberts, a valued colleague of many years and a historian of repute, quietly and
tangibly encouraged my history ‘hinterland’. I thank him warmly for this – and
much else.
The book’s shortcomings and mistakes are mine, as are its idiosyncrasies. I
use [parentheses] to clarify opaque period writing. I replace ‘civil war’ with ‘the
War’ and ‘Wartime’: even contemporaries thought that ‘civil’ was inappropriate
to describe the brutalising of the community. I cite ‘Mrs’ in full, to remind that
‘Mistress’ was stronger than the muttered abbreviation of today, and indicated
rank; ‘Mr’ (Master) was also stronger, but its full form is dead beyond reviving.
John Taylor the Water Poet, whose biographer calls him ‘a genial companion’,
has been adopted as company through the book, lightening up Wartime Oxford,
romanticising the Thame at Wheatley Bridge, enjoying beer and oysters on the
Medway, and kissing the king’s hand at Carisbrooke. Wartime was not all
sombre and Taylor made contemporaries laugh, like the pub landlord he was.
Finally, in Chapter 6, I have dared to reconstruct from evidence, for the first
time, the overlooked Cromwell family wedding in the Whorwood house at
Holton. It marked the first anniversary of Naseby and allowed the commanders
of the new-modelled Army an occasion to ‘leap and smile’ when the War
seemed to be over. Oxford was about to surrender, and Naseby had been pivotal
in the victory. The wedding by the new Parliamentarian rite was a cameo of
national issues. It was also a dramatic Whorwood event in which the
Whorwoods, Jane and mother-in-law Lady Ursula, the recusant’s daughter, were
completely silent participants. If only for that, it deserves its airing here.
John Fox
Abbreviations

APC Acts of the Privy Council
CCAMCalendar of the Committee for the Advance of Money
CCC Calendar of the Committee for Compounding (and Sequestration)
CSP Calendar of State Papers
HER English Historical Review
HCJ House of Commons Journal
HLJ House of Lords Journal
HMC Historical Manuscripts Commission (Reports)
LSE London School of Economics
Ms(s) Manuscript(s)
NAS National Archives of Scotland
ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (‘New’ DNB)
PROB Probate
RPCS Records of the Privy Council of Scotland
SP State Papers
TNA The National Archive (formerly PRO, Public Record Office)