A Herefordshire Lady in the Time of the Civil War
About two centuries ago, there lived in the good old city of Hereford, one Mrs. Joyce Jefferies, of whose singular establishment, during nine years, a minute record has been preserved. In a cathedral town, olden features of English life may be traced more considerably than in other towns of less antiquity and extent. Hereford is thought to be derived from the British Hêre-fford, signifying the “old road.” It has its Mayor’s Court, view of Frankpledge, and court of Pie Pondre; though it has lost its monastic edifices; and, two centuries ago, its castle, built by Harold, was in ruins, which, as materials, were worth no more than 85l. One of the gateways of the town walls has been fitted up as a prison. There are several hospitals or alms-houses. Its Saxon cathedral occupies the site of a former church of wood; it is dedicated to St. Ethelbert, whose name was given to its nine days’ fair; two of its fairs are “for diversions.” In short, amidst broad streets, and red brick houses, and other modern aspects, are many interesting traces of old times and habits, furnished with its two crosses and a stone pulpit. Its river, the Wye, teems with salmon48 and grayling; the whole county appears like one orchard; cider and perry are made everywhere; and there is a good deposit of tobacco pipe clay. In one of its towns, on Shrove Tuesday, a bell rings at noon as a signal for the people to begin frying their pancakes; and among its festal records is that of a Morrice dance, performed by ten persons—a “nest of Nestors”—whose united ages recorded one thousand years.
In this old city, then, lived Mrs. Jefferies, upon an income averaging 500l. a year, in a house in Widemarch Street—the street in which Garrick, the actor, was born—which she built at a cost of 800l. but which was ordered to be pulled down in the time of the Rebellion, under Charles I., and the materials sold for 50l. This was a calamitous loss. Besides, the old lady lived beyond her means, not by self-indulgence in costly luxuries, but in indiscriminate gifts; and three-fourths of the entries in her accounts consist of sums bestowed in presents, of loans never repaid, or laid out in articles to give away. She continued in the city till the year 1642, when, driven by stress of war, she abandoned it, and sought refuge in the dwellings of others. Ultimately, in 1644, she gave up housekeeping to the day of her death.
The household establishment of Mrs. Jefferies is by no means, for a single person, on a contracted scale. Many female servants are mentioned; two having wages from 3l. to 3l. 4s. per annum, with gowns of dark stuff at Midsummer. Her coachman, receiving 40s. per annum, had at Whitsuntide, 1639, a new cloth suit and cloak; and, when he was dressed in his best, exhibited fine blue silk ribbon at the knees of his hose. The liveries of this and another man-servant were, in 1641, of fine Spanish cloth, made up in her own house, and cost upwards of nine pounds. Her man of business, or steward, had a salary of 5l. 16s. A horse was kept for him, and he rode about to collect her rents and dues, and to see to her agricultural concerns. She appeared abroad in a coach drawn by two mares; a nag or two were in her stable; one that a widow lady in Hereford purchased of her, she particularly designated as “a rare ambler.”
Mrs. Jefferies had a host of country cousins; for, in those days, family connexions were formed in more contracted circles than at present, and the younger people intermarried nearer home; and she was evidently an object of great interest and competition among such as sought for sponsors to their children. She seems to have delighted in the office of gossip, or God-sib, that is, sib, as related, by means of religion. The number of her god-children became a serious tax upon her purse. A considerable list of her christening gifts includes, in 1638, a silver tankard to give her god-daughter, little Joyce Walsh, 5l. 5s. 6d.; “at Heriford faier, for blue silk ribbon and taffetary lace for skarfs,” for a god-son and god-daughter, 8s.; and 1642, “paid Mr. Side, gouldsmith in Heriford, for a silver bowle to give Mrs. Lawrence daughter, which I found, too, called Joyse Lawrence, at 5s. 8d. an oz., 48s. 10d.” But to Miss Eliza Acton she was more than maternally generous and was continually giving proofs of her fondness in all sorts of indulgence, supplying her lavishly with costly clothes and sums of money—money for gloves, for fairings, for cards against Christmas, and money repeatedly to put in her purse.
We have mentioned Mrs. Jefferies’ loans. She had various sums placed out at interest, on bond and mortgage, varying from three hundred pounds and upwards, and one of eight hundred pounds. The securities were frequently shifting; and the number of persons who paid to her irregularly enough, in this way, in two years, was little short of one hundred. The borrowers of these moneys were knights, yeomen, gentry, farmers, and tradesmen; burgesses, and aldermen, and Mayors of Hereford, with many others. The collection of interest upon principal so detached and widely dispersed, must have been attended with difficulty. The principal itself must have incurred risk of diminution; but the convenience of the Three per Cents. was then unknown, and eight per cent. was the interest upon these loans. This practice of lending money in small sums must formerly have been more general than at the present day: there were then few modes of employing money so as to realize fair interest; it was often hoarded by “making a stocking,” and various modes of concealment.
Some of Mrs. Jefferies’s entries respecting those who do not repay loans are curious. Thus, M. Garnons, an occasional suitor for relief, she styles “an unthrifty gentleman;” amuses herself in setting down a small bad debt; and, after recording the name of the borrower, and the trifling sum lent, adds, in a note by way of anticipation, “which he will never pay.” In another case, that of a legal transaction, in which a person had agreed to surrender certain premises to her use, and she had herself paid for drawing the instrument upon which he was to have acted, she observes, “but he never did, and I lost my money.” In all matters she exhibits a gentle and generous mind. It was natural enough that she should describe the Parliamentary folks who pulled down her house as “fearful soldiers.”
Here is a slight sketch of the personal appearance of Mrs. Jefferies in a specimen or two of her dress, among many that occur in her book of accounts. Her style of dress was such as became a gentlewoman of her condition. In 1638, in her palmy days, she wore a tawny camlet coat and kirtle, which, with all the requisite appendages, trimmings, and making, scrupulously set down, cost 10l. 17s. 5d. She had, at the same time, a black silk calimanco loose gown, petticoat, and bodice, and these, with the making, came to 18l. 1s. 8d. Next month, a Polonia coat and kirtle cost in all 5l. 1s. 4d. Tailors were then the dressmakers: she employed those in Hereford, Worcester, and London; and, strange to say, sometimes the dresses were so badly made in London that they had to be altered by a country tailor. She had, about the same period, a head-dress of black tiffany, wore ruff-stocks, and a beaver hat with a black silk band, and adopted worsted hose of different colours—blue, and sometimes grass-green. Among the articles of her toilet were false curls, and curling-irons; she had Cordovan (Spanish leather) gloves, sweet gloves, and gold embroidered gloves. She wore diamond and cornelian rings, used spectacles, and carried a whistle for a little dog, suspended at her girdle by a yard of black loop lace. A cipress (Cyprus?) cat, given to her by a Herefordshire friend, was, no doubt, a favourite; and she kept a throstle in a twiggen cage.
A young lady who resided with her was dressed at her expense in a manner more suited to her earlier time of life: for instance, she had a green silk gown, with a blue satin petticoat. At Easter, she went to a christening arrayed in a double cobweb lawn, and had a muff. Next, she was dressed in a woollen gown, “spun by the coock’s wife, Whooper,” liver-coloured, and made up splendidly with a stomacher laced with twisted silver cord. Another article of this young lady’s wardrobe was a gown of musk-coloured cloth; and when she rode out she was decked in a scarlet safeguard coat and hood, laced with red, blue, and yellow lace; but none of her dresses were made by female hands.
Of the system of housekeeping we get a glimpse. In summer, she frequently had her own sheep killed; and at autumn a fat heifer, and at Christmas a beef or brawn were sometimes slaughtered, and chiefly spent in her house. She is very observant of the festivals and ordinances of the Church, while they continue unchanged; duly pays her tithes and offerings, and, after the old seignorial and even princely custom, contributes for her dependants as well as herself, in the offertory at the communion at Easter; has her pew in the church of All Saints at Hereford dressed, of course, with flowers at that season by the wife of the clerk; gives to the poor-box at the minster, and occasionally sends doles to the prisoners at Byster’s Gate. Attached to ancient rules in town and country, she patronizes the fiddlers at sheep-shearing, gives to the wassail and the hinds at Twelfth Eve, when they light their twelve fires, and make the fields resound with toasting their master’s health, as is done in many places to this day. Frequently in February, she is careful to take pecuniary notice of the first of the other sex, among those she knew, whom she met on Valentine’s Day, and enters it with all the grave simplicity imaginable: “Gave Tom Aston, for being my valentine, 2s. Gave Mr. Dick Gravell, cam to be my valentine, 1s. I gave Timothy Pickering of Clifton, that was my valentine at Horncastle, 4d.” Sends Mr. Mayor a present of 10s. on his “law day;” and on a certain occasion dines with him, when the waits, to whom she gives money, are in attendance at the feast; she contributes to these at New Year and Christmas tide, and to other musical performers at entertainments or fairs; seems fond of music, and strange sights, and “rarer monsters.” “Gave to Sir John Giles, the fiddler, and to 2 others on 12th day;” “to a boy that did sing like a blackbird.” She was liberal to Cherilickcome “and his Jack-an-apes,” some vagrant that gained his living by exhibiting a monkey; and at Hereford Midsummer Fair, in 1640, “to a man that had the dawncing horse.” To every one who gratified her by a visit, or brought her a present, she was liberal; as well as to her own servants and attendants at friends’ houses. She provided medicine and advice for those who were sick and could not afford to call in medical aid; and she took compassion on those who were in the chamber of death and house of mourning, as may be seen in this entry: “1648, Oct. 29. For a pound of shugger to send Mrs. Eaton when her son Fitz Wm. lay on his death-bed, 20d.”
Our Herefordshire Lady’s Diary takes us through nine years of the time of the dispute between Charles I. and the Parliament: it, accordingly, possesses much historic interest. In 1638, she paid the unpopular impost of Ship-money, unsuccessfully opposed by Hampden, as well as another tax, called “the King’s provision;” and she finds a soldier for her farm, and for her property in Hereford, when the Trained Bands are called out and exercised. Now, too, old ancestral armour, or Train-band equipments, that hung rusting in manor-houses, were taken down and repaired. And when Prynne, Burton, and Bastwick had been agitating, Laud impeached and imprisoned, and Lord Strafford tried and beheaded, she took a decided interest in passing events, and sent for some of the pamphlets and newspapers that swarmed from the press. Thus, we find paid for a book of Strafford’s Trial, and his portrait, and Laud’s, and some other portraits, 4s. 1d. And when the Parliament soldiers discharged their muskets, at or near her dwelling, we find this item: “Gave the sowldiers that shott off at my window, 1s. and beer.” Then we find her, amidst great confusion, packing up her beds, furniture, and boxes, and taking flight in her carriage: but she was mercilessly plundered of “much goods, two bay coach mares, and some money, and much linen and clothes.”
How her possessions were made away with at Hereford is a sad tale. Sir Henry Slingsby, a noted Royalist officer, mentions the havoc in terms of much regret. The orchards, gardens, trees, and houses were all destroyed. Before her house was pulled down, she sent her steward to save some part of the property, and make presents of the produce of her gardens, “gardin salitts,” &c.
As years advance, symptoms of infirmity appear. The spectacles, and favourite “guilt spoone,” and diamond ring, are missing, and found and brought by her attendants, who always have a reward. It has been related of Prince Eugene of Savoy, that his servants took dexterous advantage of his foible of immoderate anger, and threw themselves in the way of his fits of passion, that they might get a sound beating from him, and its never-failing accompaniment, a reward to make it up. Thus, probably, the attendants of Mrs. Jefferies, though in a different method, might make profit of her failing memory, by hiding and reproducing the above valuables, in order to a remuneration. Then, a fair is held at Worcester, and the maids from Horncastle of course attend it: our lady gives each a shilling, when Barbara, the dairy-maid, pretends that she had lost her shilling, and her mistress gave her another. But the maids were always in favour, and not content with making them presents at stated times, she invented vicarious means of slipping vails into their hands.
Age seems to have abated nothing of her generous feeling, or of the ardour of her domestic affections. In all those events which usually bring joy to families, and occasion entries in our parish registers, she heartily sympathised. A marriage, even of a servant, was an occurrence that always appeared highly to interest her. When Miss Acton was married, she gave her a handsome portion, arranged the settlement, and defrayed incidental expenses; and to the entries she adds, “God bless them both.” The clerks in the solicitors’ offices are not forgotten; and, “Paid the butcher for a fatt weather to present this bride wooman at her wedding-day, 6s. 6d.” The portion was made up in instalments, and on the last payment, she notes: “So I praise God all the 800l. is paid, and we are even.” Then, what joy was there at a christening, when “ould Mrs. Barckley and myself Joyse Jeffreys were Gossips. God bless hitt: Amen.” Also, “Gave the midwyfe, good wyfe Hewes, of Vpper Jedston, the christening day, 10s.;” and, “Gave nurce Nott ye same day, 10s.”
Thus did she continue to go on, with blessings upon her lips and her right hand full of gifts, without intermission, till the grave closed over all that was mortal, and amiable, and singular in the character and conduct of one whose parallel is not easy to be found.
As respects herself, little did she think that, in compiling these accounts, she was about to present, after a lapse of upwards of two centuries, a more expressive memorial of her virtues than any that her surviving relatives could have placed upon her tomb.
“And so it has fallen out, that nothing appears to have been hitherto done to mark the spot where she lies; neither has the exact period of her decease been ascertained, though the codicil of her will carries her forward to 1650, and it has been shown that she was buried in the chancel of the parish church of Clifton-upon-Teme, on the borders of Worcestershire. But her memory is still revered by those to whom her existence and character are known: and a brass tablet has been placed near the spot where she is believed to have been interred, with an inscription transmitting the name and virtues of Mrs. Joyce Jefferies to future times.”49