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Helloo Fellow CLIBBORN researchers,
Here is an article on Protestation returns and Tax Assessments 1641-42 that
may be
of interest to us all. Although the article refers specifically to
Oxfordshire and North Berkshire, it is pertinent to England, Scotland and
Ireland.
Protestation Returns
An article by Tony Hadland from Catholic Ancestor, February 1997
My Source:http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hadland/page19.html
On the 3rd of May 1641, fifteen months before the outbreak of the Civil War,
the
House of Commons drew up a Protestation Oath with six stated objectives:
To defend "the true Reformed Protestant Religion, expressed in the doctrine
of the Church of England, against all Popery and Popish Innovations",
To defend "the Power and Privileges of Parliaments",
To defend "His Majesty's Royal Person, Honour and Estate",
To defend "the lawful Rights and Liberties of the subjects, and every person
that
maketh this Protestation",
To oppose and bring to punishment "all such as shall, either by Force,
Practice, Counsels, Plots, Conspiracies or otherwise" oppose anything in the
Protestation,
To preserve "the Union and Peace between the Three Kingdoms of England,
Scotland
and Ireland".
All MPs immediately signed the Protestation. The following day the House of
Lords agreed it and all the Protestant Peers signed. On the 30th July the
House of
Commons passed a resolution that all who refused the Protestation were unfit to
hold office in Church or Commonwealth.
Nearly six months later, on the 19th January 1642 (New Style), Speaker William
Lenthall, Protestant son of a west Oxfordshire Catholic and a nephew of the
Jesuit martyr Robert Southwell, sent copies of the Protestation to the
county sheriffs
with these instructions:
The Sheriff and JPs were to meet as soon as possible and take the Oath,
The JPs were then to disperse to their respective county divisions and bring
together the Minister, Constables, Churchwardens and Overseers of the Poor of
every parish,
These officials were then to "very speedily call together the Inhabitants of
their Parishes, both Householders and others, being of Eighteen Years of Age
and upwards",
and to tender and witness the Oath, listing all who took and refused it,
The Sheriff was then to collate the returns from the various parishes.
Hence in February 1642 (NS) most adult males in England and Wales
(and in a few cases, women as well) took the Oath.
Three months later a tax was raised which had a much lower threshold than
typical
Tudor or Stuart subsidies. The Tax Assessments include men and women, and also
absent landlords or nobility. Recusants had to pay double and were
therefore to
be clearly identified. If the recusant was below the tax threshold of £1 in
land,
£3 in goods or £10 a year in wages, he or she had to pay a poll tax of 2s 8d.
In December 1994 The Oxfordshire Record Society, in association with the
Banbury Historical Society, published a new edition of the extant
Oxfordshire Protestation Returns and Tax Assessments, combining them with
those which have survived for the
areas of north-western Berkshire absorbed into Oxfordshire in 1974. Edited
by Jeremy Gibson, whose name is well known to many family historians, the
volume incorporates a much expanded version of the Oxfordshire Family
History Society's index of personal names of those taking the Oath.
What then does this book tell us about recusants? One of the main reasons
for the Protestation was to ascertain the number, location and names of
Roman Catholics in
the country. Hence some contemporary Oxfordshire or Westminster official
compiled
a summary list of the county's recusants, and this is reproduced on page 148
of the book. Sounds promising?
Well, yes and no! Surprisingly, the list identifies papists in only 16
parishes,
all concentrated in just four of Oxfordshire's 14 hundreds. As Jeremy
Gibson points
out in his introduction to the book there must have been recusants in other
areas,
so it seems unlikely that the other returns reached the compiler of the
vital summary.
In fact, the Protestation Returns have survived for only seven of the 14
hundreds of Oxfordshire - Bampton, Bloxham, Chadlington and Wooton in the
north and west of the county, and Langtree and Binfield in the south. For
former north-west Berkshire the
only surviving returns are for the three hundreds of Moreton, Ock and
Hormer, which comprised the Abingdon Division. In both counties the borough
returns - for Abingdon itself, Banbury, Wallingford, Woodstock and Oxford -
are missing.
(The University returns survive however, and are in the book.)
What is remarkable (although it is not picked up in the book) is the strong
correlation between missing Protestation Returns and the locations in
Oxfordshire
and former north-west Berkshire where manor-based Catholicism survived. For
example, the Berkshire returns are missing for East Hendred (home of the
Eystons) and Buckland (seat of the Yates). Similarly, in Oxfordshire, the
returns for Pyrton hundred (including Stonor), Dorchester (home of the
recusant yeoman families Day, Davey and Prince), Ewelme (Simeons of
Britwell), Bullingdon (Powells of Sandford-on-Thames and Cursons of
Waterperry), Lewknor (Belsons of Aston Rowant) and Ploughley (Fermors of
Somerton, Tusmore and Hardwick) are all missing.
Even among the hundreds for which Protestation Returns have survived,
various parishes are missing. Here again, of the eight missing in the south
of Oxfordshire, half are parishes where Catholic gentry held land or
resided, viz. Shiplake (Plowdens), Checkendon (Hildesleys of Littlestoke),
Mapledurham (Blounts) and Whitchurch (Hydes
of Purley-on-Thames).
So, it is important to note that, in Oxfordshire and former north-west
Berkshire, Protestation Returns are not extant for the vast majority of
locations with classic manor-based Catholic survivals. Indeed, the negative
correlation is so strong that
it suggests more than mere coincidence. Was there, perhaps, a very
effective and concerted closing of ranks and "nobbling" of petty parish
officials by the Catholic gentry - stimulated by the knowledge that on 16th
April 1642 the House of Commons
had appointed a committee to consider what to do about the recusants
identified in
the Protestation Returns?
Some care is also needed in referring to the consolidated Oxfordshire List of
Recusants in respect of the entries for Witney. This was a major centre of
population but not one with a significant Catholic population. But if the
list is
taken at face value, Witney was the recusant capital of the county,
twenty-two Witney men being listed. Yet of these, only one is specifically
identified as a recusant,
and only three others even have surnames associated with recusancy in that
area.
In fact, it seems that all the sick and elderly who were unable to take the
Oath
were lumped in with Witney's one known recusant!
Nonetheless, despite these intriguing inconsistencies, there is still much of
interest to the recusant hunter, especially concerning the north and west of
Oxfordshire. For example, we learn from the Protestation Return for the
parish of Asthall in Bampton Hundred that Edward Saunders and his wife Mary
refused the Oath,
as did the widow Elizabeth Cooke. From the Tax Assessment we receive
confirmation
that Mr and Mrs Saunders were recusants and that so too was Mr Saunders'
servant
John (surname not recorded), for which the latter paid the 2s 8d poll tax.
Further,
the assessment shows that John and Edward Saunders jointly held a farm of Mr
Field. Referring back to the Protestation Return, we see that John
Saunders, unlike his recusant relative (brother'?) Edward, not only took the
Oath but was one of the churchwardens whose task it was to administer and
witness it!
The widow Cooke is not mentioned in the Tax Assessment but there is a
reference to
Sir Robert Cooke, presumably an absent landlord. He is not listed as a
recusant but
was presumably a relative, perhaps a son. Were these Cookes related to the
martyred abbot of Reading, Blessed Hugh Faringdon, whose family name was
Cook and who came
from Faringdon, just across the Thames from Bampton?
In the same hundred, but at Brize Norton, the Protestation Return identifies
as recusants the two Thomas Greenwoods, Senior and Junior, along with
Richard Todkill
and William Linee. The first three are clearly gentry, being prefixed "Mr".
Turning to the Tax Assessments, the Greenwoods (who had a recusant pedigree
stretching back to the 1570s and who remained in the area until 1769, being
served latterly by the Benedictines) are identified both as gentry and
recusants. So too
was Richard Tadkine - though whether this version of his name was more or less
correct than Todkill, I do not know. Wilham Lyngin (cf Linee) is listed as the
recusant servant of Mr Greenwood Senior, as is Ellen Messenger. Further, we
learn
that Mt Greenwood Senior "farmeth of Mr Tempest". The latter held land in
the area
and was related to the Tempests of Holmeside, Co. Durham, who had been
involved in
the Northern Rebellion of 1569.
In the Abingdon Division of Berkshire at Lyford, scene of the arrest of St
Edmund Campion 61 years earlier (and therefore just about within living
memory), Thomas
Yate(s) and his son William refused the oath, as did William Cullam, a
husbandman.
However, a number of Catholics, perhaps church papists, appear to have taken
the
Oath. At Henley-on-Thames, Richard Stonor1 is listed as doing so; and at
the nearby Stonor manor of Rotherfield Peppard (later bought by a Hildesley)
Richard Ilsley
(= Hildesley) did the same. Neither was listed as a recusant, although it
seems probable they were both Catholics. But taking the oath was no
guarantee that a
known recusant would escape identification in the Protestation Returns, as
Richard
Hyde and two other recusants discovered at Standlake.
Other approaches to the Oath included that of:
John Phippes of Charlbury who "simplye refuseth not but demurres -upon it as
pretending not to understand what is meant by the true reformed Protestant
religion", and Ralph Sheldon of Steeple Barton, who with his family asserted
to the Protestation except in respect of "one clause of religion standing in
opposition to what they professe, being the religion of the Church of Rome".
These are just a few tasters of what can be found by careful perusal of this
book -
a very worthwhile investment for anyone interested in the recusant history
of Oxfordshire and Berkshire, and highly recommended. Copies can be
obtained by sending
a cheque for £17 (£15 for the book plus £2 post & packing) made payable to
"The Oxfordshire Record Society", to S R Tomlinson Esq, Hon. Sec., The
Oxfordshire Record Society, c/o Bodleian Library, Oxford OX1 3BG.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Footnote
1. The Hon. Georgina Stonor advises me that there was no recorded Richard
Stonor.
It is possible that this was an alias used by the Stonor's relative Richard
Ilsley, perhaps to confuse the authorities.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Reference
Gibson, J.S.W. (Ed), Oxfordshire and North Berkshire Protestation Returns
and Tax Assessments 1641-2, The Oxfordshire Record Society, Volume 59, 1994
____________________________________________________________________________
_____
Clibborn Listers,
Does this gentleman belong to any of you?
>From the 'Master Mariners Service Association'yearbook for 1918.
'Members who are flying the MMSA flag', among those listed
CLIBBORN, W.L. Master of the ss.'Strathcona"
Think this was a P&O vessel.
For info: The MMSA was the British Merchant Marine Captain's trade union
at that time.
Rod Clayburn.
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I have just updated the Clibborn family tree - only minor changes. Thanks to
Rod Grant I checked some of my data and have now made it clear that Clibborns
who lived in West Derby were still in the Liverpool location. West Derby is
not in Derbyshire but in Lancashire only about five miles from Liverpool.
This may help anyone who has been looking in the wrong Record Office.
I noticed that there is a microfiche for sale of records of Quaker Deaths
1657-1838 for Hardshaw West, which is for the Liverpool area. Unless
someone already has been through these records I shall obtain this microfiche
and add any Clibborn events to the family tree.
Celia