The Hothams; being the chronicles of the Hothams of Scorborough and South Dalton from their hitherto unpublished family papers

Front matter

BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE

SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND

THE GIFT OF

Preface

IN a manuscript history in the possession of Lord Hotham, it is pointed out that there are few English families of similar rank which have produced a greater number of distinguished men than has the family of Hotham. The truth of this statement can be readily established. By means of age-old charters and public records the story of this ancient house can be traced unerringly from the earliest times, showing its members always prominent in the service of their country, always enacting a leading part in her struggles and her triumphs. Through successive generations they figure as powerful prelates, statesmen, ambassadors, courtiers and warriors ; or, in more peaceful days, as High Sheriffs, Magistrates and Members of Parliament ; while at a later period, from the end of the seventeenth century to the present day, there has scarcely been a campaign of note in which a Hotham has not distinguished himself. ^ Moreover in regard to these latter-day representatives of the race, there can still appropriately be echoed the comment expressed by George IH on those who were contemporary with his reign : — " I," remarked that monarch to his Prime Minister, William, Duke of Portland, " have known many Hothams ; but I never knew one who was not a man of honour." And the Farmer King, it must be conceded, although possibly incapable of

* Besides those who have been Commanders of Regiments, Knights of the Bath, pohticians of merit, or who have held prominent positions at Court, there have been among the members of the family during the last two centuries no fewer than six Admirals, three General officers, a Bishop, a Judge, and a Colonial Governor.

viii THE HOTHAM FAMILY 1066-1771

appreciating the genius which had gone to the fashioning of such a record, was, in the singular uprightness of his own uncompromising rectitude, an able critic of its result.

Nevertheless, in a narrative covering so lengthy a period, and embracing so many biographies as that presented in the following pages, it is obvious that much which is of interest must yet be omitted for lack of space, and much must be registered more briefly than its historical value warrants. In the present work it is proposed therefore to deal only with the salient points in the history of this house, to note any new light which its records throw upon pubUc events during successive generations, and to touch upon incidents therein preserved, grave or gay, great or small, which may serve to render more vivid that existence of a bygone day which to us is shrouded in the glamour of unreality. Still more, since the story of the earlier generations has already been ably dealt with,i it is intended here to treat principally of that portion of the family annals which, dating from the seventeenth century, may prove more arresting to the general reader ; and though even in pursuing this plan it is obvious that, at times, we must encroach upon the domain of history already written, when this is the case it will be found that either new material is presented to the reader, or that events are related from the outlook of the chief actor in the drama, whose personal records have not previously been published.

Finally it will be recognised that although the very multiplicity of men of note in this family must militate against any adequate recital of their lives as individuals, it constitutes the interest of their chronicle as a race, while it enhances the value of the muniments which they have left behind them. For as we glance at the faded documents which recall so many gallant careers and stirring deeds, a veritable panorama

^ History and Chariulary of the Hothams of ScorboroHgh, 1 100-1700, by Philip Saltmarshe, Colonel. Privately printed 191 5.

PREFACE ix

of history is unfolded before us. The existence of such men is interwoven with the life of the nation ; the story of their family is the story of England itself ; and the tale of their successes on land or sea is the tale of England's greatness.

The peculiar interest of such a narrative at a time like the present requires no emphasis. To review, instinct with all the freshness of novelty, the mighty naval and miUtary battles of a bygone age ; to watch our country once again in the throes of many a struggle and many a peril from which she has long since issued triumphantly ; to trace — always from the vivid outlook of a contemporary — ^the emotions and the actions of some human unit during each crisis of the past — this is a study which enables us of to-day to see the situation of the moment in its true perspective, and to probe the dawning future with a buoyant courage and a dauntless faith.

The author wishes to express very sincere thanks to all who have given any assistance to her in compiling the following family history ; but especially to Lord Hotham and to Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Hotham, g.c.b., g.c.v.o., who have allowed her free access to all the private documents, records, and correspondence in their possession ; and have also supplied her with valuable information.

Through their kindness she has further been enabled to refer to the following works : —

History and Chartulary of the Hothams of Scarborough, 1100-1700, by Philip Saltmarshe, Colonel. Privately printed 1915.

Various manuscripts and memoranda by Admiral Sir William Hotham, g.c.b., second son of General George Hotham ; born 1772, died 1848.

A manuscript history of the Hotham family, by Arthur Collins, author of The Baronetage of England.

X THE HOTHAM FAMILY 1066-1771

A manuscript history of the Hotham family by the Revd. the Honble. Frederick Hotham, Prebendary of Rochester, second son of Beaumont, second Lord Hotham ; born 1774, died 1854.

When not otherwise indicated, the reader will understand that it is to this last manuscript history that any reference relates in the following pages ; but it must be remarked that more than one copy of the manuscript specified is in existence, and the volume in the possession of Lord Hotham differs slightly from the volume in the possession of Mr. Charles Doughty, who also kindly allowed the author to have access to his copy. A comparison of both volumes has therefore been essential, as in many instances the one supplied anecdotes or particulars which the other lacked.

The author also wishes to express her thanks to Mr. Wray Skilbeck for his permission to republish certain passages from an article by her entitled " The Devil- Diplomatists of Prussia " which appeared in The Nineteenth Century and After, January,

Her thanks are also due to Mr. John Amphlett of Clent for allowing her to have a reproduction of the miniature in his possession of Mrs. Mary Amphlett, the heroine of the Lyltelton ghost story ; to Mrs. Jackson for lending the plumbago of Bridget Gee ; and to Miss Brown- Westhead of Lea Castle for her kind help with the proofs.

Contents

CHAPTER

PAGE

Preface vii

Chapter I John De Hotham, Bishop Of Ely, Etc

THE pedigree of the Hotham family as produced in county histories and genealogical works dates from the time of the Conquest, when Sir John de Trehouse accompanied William the Conqueror from Normandy, and for his good services at the Battle of Hastings received, by a grant under the Great Seal, the lordship of Hotham in the county of York and the castle and manor of CoUey Weston in the county of Northampton. This Sir John de Trehouse, the alleged ancestor of the Hotham family, was styled Lord of Kilkenny, and was presumed to have been a son of the King of Leinster.

Now that numberless families in England claim to prove their descent from the period of, or a date prior to, the Conquest, is a matter of common knowledge ; equally certain is it that, with very few exceptions, such claims cannot be substantiated. In the majority of pedigrees the sequence of the early generations will seldom bear investigation ; gaps occur which have been filled in by the imagination of the compilers, or from the suggestions of unsupported tradition ; and those who do not wish to have their faith shattered in the fable of their ancient lineage will be well advised not to investigate the matter too narrowly. Not so with the Hothams. Although the above story of their ancestry may be impossible of proof, the origin of the family can with complete reliability be traced to a date as remote as that which tradition assigned to it. Searching into the records of the past, the facts which are incontrovertible are as follows.

When the Conqueror invaded England, he was accompanied by his half-brother, Robert, Count of Mortain,^ who fought by

' William the Conqueror was illegitimate ; nevertheless it was not tiU after the death of his father that his mother, Herlwine de Conteville, married

VOL. I.— B his side at Hastings, and after the battle received, besides the earldom of Cornwall, enormous tracts of land throughout the country.

This Count was followed by two powerful Norman chieftains, Nigil Fossard and Richard de Surdeval, to whom he granted the greater part of his Yorkshire possessions. Fossard, at the Domesday survey, was thus holding numerous East Riding manors under the Count de Mortain, and among others in Hode (Hotham) he held, in 1085, one manor of 5| carucates (about 660 acres) besides a mill.

The victorious usurpers drove from their new possessions the Saxons who had formerly dwelt there, and replaced these by their own knights or retainers. Among the followers of Fossard who apparently profited by this action was a Norman named William, who although he does not appear himself to have assumed any territorial patronymic, was the father of Durant or Durand, styled in the Pipe Rolls " de Hodhum." We may therefore regard this Norman knight WiUiam, and his son, as the first recorded ancestors of the Hotham family, a race which has undoubtedly derived its name from the township of Hotham, in the Wapentake of Holderness, in East Yorkshire.

During the years which followed, Fossard was one of the barons who hastened at the call of Archbishop Thurstan to check the progress of the victorious armies of Scotland at Northallerton, and having participated in the glories of the Battle of the Standard in 1138, in 1141 he supported Stephen at the Battle of Lincoln, subsequently sharing the captivity of his monarch. Under the feudal system this overlord, Fossard, would be accompanied by his knights, so doubtless his undertenant from Hodhum was combating in his train. William, however, must have died some time before 1166, for at that date his son appears as head of his family ;i while in the generations which follow the Hothams emerge more prominently into the page of history. The account of certain of these early members of the race is indeed so unusual,

Harl de Conteville, and Robert, Count of Mortain, was their son The latter conspired against WilUam Rufus in 1088, and lost his Enghsh possessions in consequence. Fossard then became tenant in chief.

1 In the great Military Assessment of 11 66 he is reported as holding two Knights' fees under William Fossard. ^ and moreover appears to find its echo in the fortunes of those who came after, that, even in view of the fact that they were not representatives of the main branch, we may be forgiven for pausing to give a brief description of them.

Historians and antiquarians aUke make constant mention of Sir Geoffry de Hotham of Cranswick,^ often called Sir Gilfrid, who, a minor in the year 1260, was a man of great wealth and importance in Yorkshire from the reign of Henry HI into that of Edward II. He held many official positions, which it would take too long to enumerate, and he took an active part in the rebellion of the Earl of Lancaster against the latter King, for which he afterwards received the Royal pardon. A curious episode in his life is that, for some unknown reason, he violently entered the church at Ferriby and resisted by force of arms the presentation of William de Cliff to that living ; for which conduct he was subsequently excommunicated, and did not receive absolution till he had asked for pardon on his knees before the Chapter at Beverley. Nevertheless the piety of his subsequent conduct seems to have atoned for this one act of profanity, and of all the incidents in his eventful career historians dwell principally on his having granted a house in Kingston-on-HuU to the Friars of St. Augustin in 13 15. This was five years after he had been excommunicated, and may have been in expiation of his fault, or to rehabilitate himself in the favour of the Church. Tickell, the especial historian of Hull, describes this gift as follows : —

" Gilfrid de Hotham, a devout Knight, from a religious zeal for the honour of God, for the good of his own soul, and the benefit of the poor, founded a friery [sic] in Hull, and dedicated it to St. Augustine, for Black Monks or Hermits of that Order, in the Street or Gate, called from thence Blackfryergate.

" This was a remarkably lofty, large, and spacious edifice. The back part extended as far as the Market Place, where they had a chapel, and a cemetery, wherein to bury their

' Cranswick was the oldest possession in the Hotham family until 1909, when it was sold.

dead. This Friery was ornamented with curious gardens, and various delightful fountains.— Soon after it was finished^ Sir [sic] Richard Hotham, son and heir of the pious founder, obliged himself and his successors to pay yearly to the King the fee-farm rents ; for which the Priests were to pray for the souls of him, his dear wife Mieta (Amicia), and all their descendants. Soon after this, the Mayor and Commonalty entered into a similar agreement, on account of the messuages possessed by those Monks in High-street and Market-Gate, for which they were to receive the benefit of their pious prayers.

" There yet remain," adds Tickell, writing in 1788, " standing near the Town's HaJl, on the East side of the Marketplace, a square tower, with Gothic windows, six storeys high, four of which are lodging rooms but the two uppermost are used as warehouses ; also a long range of buildings running north and south, now converted into a public inn, known by the name of the Tiger, and kept by Mr. Topping. In one of the rooms (used now for a dining-room) stood, some time since, upon four pillars of stone, a font composed of the same materials, neatly carved and ornamented ; but, in order to make some alterations in the room, it was removed thence into the yard of the inn, and appropriated to a very different use. — It was here taken notice of by the ingenious Mr. Page, who procured it of the owner, and it is now in the possession of Thomas Williamson Esq. of Welton, and placed under a beautiful cascade in his garden. The house and tower are both built of brick."2

Long since has vanished the last trace of that home of the Blackfriars. Where they paced in their gracious garden, and where they chanted their orisons in the dim light of their stately chapel there sprang up in sacrilegious days a butcher's shambles, a warehouse and a tavern. And now long vanished too is that famous Tiger Inn with its inappropriate ornament of a font in the dining-room ; long mingled with the dust is Mr. Topping who degraded that sacred rehc of the dead friars ;

1 Sir Geoffry died between 1320-22.

' The History of the Town and County of Kingston-on-HuU, by the Rev. John Tickell, a.d. 1789, pages 19, 20. In an addendum Tickell adds : " The square Tower with whatever else remained of this ancient and once stately fabric has been lately taken down ; so that now there remains not the least vestige of such an edifice."

dust likewise is the " ingenious Mr. Page " who rescued it, and dust the vandals who placed the age-old stone to crumble under " a beautiful cascade." Nevertheless the name of Blackfriars Gate still survives in Hull ; and, little regarded by the busy townsfolk of to-day, constitutes the sole link with that forgotten past when the holy monks chanted their prayers for the souls of Gilfrid, Richard and Amicia de Hotham, and all their descendants.

Shortly before the bequest to the Church made by this devout knight, and probably an ensample to his piety, are to be found two other members of his family whose merits received greater recognition at the hands of men. In the reign of Edward I lived William de Hotham^ who, though born in England, was educated in Paris at the Convent of the Jacobins, where he took his degree as Doctor of Divinity. He was afterwards a Dominican Friar, and twice Provincial of that Order in England and Scotland. Always favoured at Court and prominent in the councils of the Sovereign, twice also he was sent out to Rome as Ambassador from the King of England to the Pope Boniface VIII. Presumably in consequence of the favourable impression created by his first visit, that Pontiff quashed a subsequent election to the vacant See of Dublin, and himself appointed Hotham to that Archbishopric in 1297. The year following was the occasion of the prelate's second embassy to Rome, when he went to treat with Boniface who had undertaken the office of mediator between England and France. On this important journey he was accompanied by his two nephews, John and Peter de Hotham, the former of whom was afterwards destined to surpass in celebrity his illustrious uncle. The Archbishop-Ambassador, we are told, executed his mission " with great applause " ; but this was his last service to his country, for he died at Dijon on his way homeward, when his body was conveyed in state to London and buried there in the Dominican Church of his Order. In a quaint summary of the character of this worthy ecclesiastic, we are told — (the italics are not in the original) : " This prelate was inferior to none of his contemporaries in learning, and has

' He probably derived from a younger branch of the earlier Scorborough Hothams. See page 20.

6 EARLY MEMBfiRS OF THE HOTHAM FAMILY

been highly extolled as a person of great spirit, acute parts, and admirably adapted for conciliating to himself the favours of men."^

It may not be amiss to assume that this latter characteristic was largely instrumental in determining the career of his nephew, John de Hotham, who, born in 1265, is said to have been a son of Alan de Hotham and Maud or Matilda his wife. This couple, towards the close of the reign of Hemy III, were living in the little hamlet of Trehouse in the township of Hotham, and in this remote locality presumably their son first saw daylight. There, too, he probably dwelt till, with the coming of manhood, he elected to follow in the footsteps of his renowned uncle, a decision which resulted in his being ultimately pronounced to be " one of the most eminent men of the age in which he lived." For in those days the sumptuous prelate upon his episcopal throne and the humble Dominican in his barren cell were aUke a power in the land. Saintliness was then a political asset of appreciable value, and the grey silence of the Church hid statesmen as acute and potentates as ambitious as any who swayed the State in acknowledged worldliness.

John de Hotham first comes into prominence when, as Vicar of Merkesbury, he, with his brother, accompanied the Archbishop on that journey to Rome which ended so fatefully for the great prelate and in such melancholy wise for the two young men to whom must have been entrusted the solemn and lengthy office of bringing back the body of their uncle to England. But from that date the future of the young Vicar seems to have been assured. Whether on his own merits or on those of the dead prelate, he attracted the favour of the King, Edward II, who appointed him clerk or chaplain to his Royal person ; and, with the ready tact of a courtier, Hotham appears likewise quickly to have ingratiated himself with the King's favourite. Piers Gaveston, to whom he became later attorney or steward. In this it will be seen that he enacted an opposite role to that of his kinsman and contemporary. Sir Geoffry, who assisted Lancaster to take the favourite prisoner.

' From a MS. in the possession of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Hotham, g.c.b.

In consequence, too, he incurred the hatred of the rivals of Gaveston, who pronounced him to be one of the bad advisers of the Sovereign. Edward himself, however, at this period speaks gratefully of his clerk's abilities and trustworthiness, and where matters of delicate diplomacy required unusual astuteness Hotham was always in request.

It is impossible here to relate in detail the numberless important posts which, during the years that followed, he filled with ability and success ; it must suffice to mention that he became successively Chancellor of the Irish Exchequer, Chancellor of the English Exchequer, thrice Chancellor of England, and in 1316 was elected and consecrated to the See of Ely. Further, in 1313, we find him attending the King of England to France to treat with Philip I ; he was the Royal Plenipotentiary to Ireland on a special mission to treat with the Barons ; in 1316 he was, as his uncle had been before him, entrusted with an important embassy to the Pope ; and in 1320 he was sent as Ambassador to Scotland to treat with Robert the Bruce for peace. Nor was he absent from the field of battle, for he marched with the Archbishop of York to check a raid of the Scots, and at the defeat of the Enghsh at Myton-upon-Swale he was nearly taken prisoner. Later he was sent by the King to settle affairs in Gascony, then in a disturbed state, and to appoint a governor for the island of Oberon.

During these years he can have had but little leisure to dwell at his beautiful manor of Holborn, the " hostell " or town house of the Bishops of Ely, yet to its improvement he appears to have devoted tireless thought and unstinting expenditure. The famous palace in his day must have been a comparatively modern dwelling, lacking in many requisites both for comfort and for state ; while the occasion of its acquisition by the See was as yet a novel tale in the minds of men. From the date of the Conquest the Bishops of Ely had been entitled to estabhsh themselves at the Temple when they required a town domicile, but in 1250 Bishop Balsham or Balsam — whose name the irreverent might deem scarcely typical of his character — ^was, for some unexplained reason, stoutly denied entrance there by the then Master. It is comprehensible that the arrival of the prelate and his train may have been inconvenient, for this unbidden guest was, according to precedent, entitled to full use of thehall, chapel, chambers, kitchen, pantry, buttery and wine-cellar— though history does not relate whether the latter was with or without the contents. But in regard to all the aforesaid places he was to be permitted ingress and egress, by land or by water, whenever he came to London. And, denied the rights which his predecessors had enjoyed uninterruptedly for the space of two centuries, Balsam refused indignantly to submit to such ruling. He took his grievance to law, when, in view of the refusal with which his just demand had been met, he laid his damages at £200.

The Master could not overthrow this claim, and the Bishop won his case ; but recognising that this was an unpleasant manner of procuring lodgings in London, a subsequent bishop, John de Kirkeby, in 1290 left to his successors in the See a messuage and nine cottages in Holborn, whither they might repair in future without let or hindrance. Save that Bishop Arundel in the fourteenth century enclosed the building, by what process the said cottages were transformed into the fine dwelling Ely Place or Palace, with its manifold offices, its extensive grounds, and its beautiful chapel, there is no exact record. The latter edifice is known to have been erected by a predecessor of John de Hotham and, strange to relate, shorn of its ancient glory, it is to-day the sole surviving relic of all the spacious architecture with which it was once surrounded. It was dedicated to a Saxon lady whose name it still bears, St. Etheldreda, likewise builder and patron saint of Ely Cathedral, and who, born in 630, was a daughter of Anna, King of the West Angles. So holy was she that although wedded respectively to two husbands, she tied from the affection of both, and, becoming an abbess, led a life of austerity which many tried to emulate. Bede tells us she never wore linen, but only woollen garments ; she ate only once a day, except on high festivals ; when her health permitted she never retired to bed after matins at midnight, continuing her prayers in the church till daybreak ; and she finally died of an infectious disorder which she had foretold would close her pious existence.^ A lady of such uncommon sanctity

• It was perhaps the irony of fate that this lady of austere saintliness should come to be associated with a word the very antithesis of her own

THE BISHOP OF ELY, ETC. g

must have been deemed by John de Hotham a patron saint deserving of special veneration ; but although he did homage to her memory by many munificent gifts to her chapel, it was rather by the perfecting of the episcopal residence that his name was remembered.

" By him," relates Knight, " the whole appears first to have been brought into a state of completeness " ; ^ yet it is difficult to conjure up an accurate idea of the hostel in his day or to trace the precise changes which he wrought there. The fine old gate-house opening towards Holborn, or Oldbourne, was built at a later date ; but ere then, before a doorway wide and massive, the armed retainers of the bishop in residence kept ward by night and day. Beyond this entrance, and apparently across a courtyard, lay the great banqueting hall which, in the passing of ages, was to witness so many strange and brilliant scenes. Built of stone, with a finely timbered roof and tiled floor, it was seventy-two feet in length and thirty feet in height. It was lighted by six Gothic windows ; and at one end was a raised dais, at the other an oaken screen. Leading from the hall on the north-west were the quiet cloisters, enclosing a quadrangle of unusual size, in the midst of which was a garden designed to gladden the eyes of the placid monks as they paced to and fro in the eternal shadow of the arches. Above the cloisters were long galleries containing apartments indented with deep-set windows, from which, through many generations, rich leaded panes cast a vivid stain upon the grey stonework below. Adjacent, half shrouded in embowering trees, stood the chapel of St. Etheldreda, whence strains of sacred music flooded the precincts, and where, before the high altar, John de Hotham, when visiting the palace, officiated with pontifical splendour. All without the peaceful building lay fair country, the smiling valley of Holborn and the hill uprising from it, which afforded a wide prospect of rural scenery and undulating land stretching away to the walls of the great City of London in the distance.

personality. Often called by the more homely name of St. Audry, at the fair of St. Audry at Ely in olden times certain cheap necklaces used to be sold, which, under the name of tawdry laces, were long very popular. In process of time the epithet tawdry came to be applied to any piece of glittering tinsel or shabby magnificence.

' Knight's London, Vol. Ill, page 377.

Here, indeed, it is easier to ascertain the nature of the benefit conferred by John de Hotham on his pleasant dweUing. In 1327 we learn he " piirchased of Henry de Grey, heir of John de Grey, Lord of Ruthyn, a house and several parcells of land contiguous to his Manor of Holborn in the Suburbs of London, consisting of a vineyard, kitchen-garden, orchard and enclosed pasture which, together with other lands situate within the parish of St. Sepulchre's in London, that he had purchased of John de Pelham, he settled on the Church of Ely, dividing them between his successors and the Convent."^ In that princely gift to the See from thenceforward, besides shady walks and velvet parterres, doubtless tended by the skilled hands of the monks, besides wondrous red roses, ^ banks of sweet-smelling herbs, and the pleasant plash of ingenious fountains, there flourished delights of a more practical nature ; for the garden of Ely Palace became noted for its fruit and particularly for its strawberries, which history and Shakespeare alike have immortalised.^

Often, one fancies, by reason of the love which he showed for his " hostell," the thoughts of the Bishop, when far away, must have turned with longing to that peaceful abode from

1 From a MS. in the possession of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Hotham, g.c.b. In a map of London by Ralph Agas in the reign of Elizabeth we see the vineyard, meadow, kitchen-garden and orchard of Ely Place, extending northward from Holborn to the present Hatton Wall and Vine Street, and east and west from Saffron Hill to the present Leather Lane. In the names of Saffron Hill, Field Lane, Tummill and Vine Street we are reminded of a rural past ; while we find a fragment of the old episcopal residence preserved in, and giving its name to, Mitre Court which leads from Ely Place to Hatton Garden. Here, worked into the walls of a tavern long known as " The Mitre," Timbs points out, " is a Bishop's mitre sculptured in stone which probably once adorned Ely Place or the precinct gateway." It is fixed to a triangular stone on which is the date 1546.