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Wyndam

When the King Came to Stay

Dec 22nd, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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He was “a tall man, above two yards high, with dark brown hair scarcely to be distinguished from black.” That is the description of the 21-year-old King Charles II posted about the countryside by Cromwell’s men as they looked everywhere for him, encouraged in their search by the prize of £1,000 on his head.

The King realized on the 3rd of September, 1651 that the “battle was so absolutely lost as to be beyond hope of recovery.” Almost alone except for Henry Lord Wilmot the King escaped from the Worcester battlefield and headed for Wales but finding the River Severn too heavily guarded he turned south towards Bristol, where he hoped to find a ship to take him to France. No ship could be found in Bristol and it became clear he must use a south coast port to make his get-away.

Charles owed much to the loyalty and imagination of his Roman Catholic supporters in whose houses he stayed as he made his way south. He reached Abbots Leigh, the home of Sir George Norton, on the 12th of September where he was recognised by the butler, John Pope, who suggested Trent for his next refuge. It was quiet, had no particular strategic value for the Parliamentarians and it was in a straight line from Bristol to the coast and only a score and ten miles away from a safe passage to France; it was the ideal bolt hole while plans were made for his escape.

Trent is one of those border parishes that over the years has gone to bed in Dorset and awoken in Somerset and vice-versa. Since 1895 Trent, a short step north-west of the town of Sherborne, has been in Dorset but in the mid 17th century it was a part of Somerset and The Manor House was home to a family well known for their Royalist sympathies: the Wyndhams. Edmund Wyndham had married the King’s nurse, Christabel Pyne, and had served under Lord Wilmot during the early days of the Civil War.

Lord Wilmot travelled ahead to warn the Wyndhams. Travelling behind and staying overnight at the Castle Cary home of Edward Kyrton the King was accompanied by Jane Lane and Henry Lascelles. The party arrived at Trent about ten on the morning of the 17th of September. Playing the role of servant to Jane Lane the King was wearing a suit of grey cloth; the small group was quickly ushered into the house and out of sight of any busy-body neighbours. The Manor House is only 100 yards from the parish church.

Francis Wyndham was despatched to arrange a passage for the King. He called first on Sir John Strangeways at Melbury but neither he nor his sons could offer any suggestions although they contributed £100 to the royal purse. Wyndham travelled on to Lyme Regis and for a consideration of £60 secured a passage with a Stephen Limbry, who was taking a cargo from Charmouth to St. Malo on the 22nd of September. The cover story was that a merchant and his servant were escaping from their creditors.

The King, Juliana Conigsby, Wyndham, Lord Wilmot and Henry Peters, Wyndham’s servant, departed from Trent. They met Captain Ellesdon, who had made the introduction to Stephen Limbry, at a house on the hills above Charmouth where final plans were made. But not for the last time an element of farce crept into the best laid plans in the King’s bid to reach France.

Francis Wyndham and his servant waited throughout the night on the beach at Charmouth but Limbry failed to make the rendezvous. The King with Wilmot and Juliana Coningsby playing the role of eloping lovers took rooms at the Queen’s Arms. The party left Charmouth for Bridport in the morning and, it seems, not a moment too soon for the blacksmith had noticed Lord Wilmot’s horse had been shod in three counties including Worcester.

Henry Peters was sent to Lyme Regis to find out why Limbry had not appeared. It seems his wife had guessed her husband was embarked on a dangerous mission and decided to lock him in his room and threatened to report him if he attempted to escape.

At Bridport there were Parliamentarian troops waiting to leave for the Channel Islands so the party couldn’t stay there and set off again, fortunately deciding to leave the main Bridport to Dorchester road and head for Broadwindsor just before a troop of Roundhead soldiers led by a Captain Macey began a search for them.

The landlord of the Inn at Broadwindsor knew Wyndham and gave them a room upstairs.  Farce again played a part but this time working to the King’s advantage. The constable arrived at the Inn with forty Roundhead soldiers to billet. At about midnight one of the women following the soldiers gave birth in the Inn to a particularly noisy baby. The parish officials, overseers and churchwardens, were more interested to find out who the father was and avoid a charge on the parish chest than they were to investigating rumours that the King was in the vicinity. In all the confusion the royal party made their escape and returned to Trent.

His presence was the cause of much anxiety and apprehension to the lady of the house and her mother-in-law, Lady Wyndham, as they guarded against all contingencies. It is recorded that on the King’s first arrival at The Manor House Ann Wyndham was overcome with emotion by the sight of “so glorious a prince thus eclipsed” and paid him “the homage of tears.” The consequences of capture were serious indeed for the King but all of his supporters who actively assisted him, if caught, would likely suffer a similar fate. One has to wonder if the Wyndhams were as overjoyed to have him as their guest a second time.

The local tailor warned them that local supporters of Cromwell had their suspicions about the guests and that a raid on the Manor House was planned. On another occasion Anne had seen a troop of Roundhead soldiers in Sherborne and entreated the king to go to his privy chamber, probably a priest’s hiding place. Colonel Wyndham let it be known that his guest was his relative Col. Bullen Reymes and he would show himself at church that Sunday.

Lord Wilmot had been despatched from Broadwindsor to Salisbury to rendezvous with other supporters and make plans to get the King away via the port of Shoreham. On his return to Trent Henry Wilmot was not best pleased to find that it was his turn to play a role; that of Col. Bullen Reymes, who he resembled in build and stature.

Now it was the turn of black comedy rather than farce too come to the King’s aid. The King in conversation with the diarist Samuel Pepys after the restoration recalled hearing the church bells ringing to celebrate his death. He told Pepys: “There was a rogue, a trooper come out of Cromwell’s army that was telling the people he had killed me, and that was my buff coat which he had on; upon which, most of the village being fanatics, they were ringing bells and making a bonfire of joy of it.” The King may have owed his life to that rogue trooper who having hood winked the local Protestants for his own aggrandisement had successfully diverted their attention from the guest at the Manor House.

On the 6th of October Charles was able to take his leave “of the old Lady Wyndham, the Colonel’s lady and family, not omitting the meanest of them that served him.” He set off with Juliana Coningsby riding pillion behind him, accompanied by Col. Robert Phelips of Montacute and Henry Peters. They made for Wincanton and Mere and on, without mishap, to Shoreham on the Sussex Coast where on the 15th of October he set sail on the brig ‘Surprise’ and into exile that was to last for nine years.

Some in the villagers of Trent must have guessed who was staying with the Wyndhams and for whatever reason hesitated to turn Charles in. The local Protestants and especially those of non conformist persuasion would have been livid when they realised he had been living amongst them and they had failed to capture the Papist King.

Trent – St. Andrews Church

Dec 22nd, 2009
by Dorset Ancestors.
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On an autumn afternoon the parish of Trent is a picture of tranquillity and belies the fact that it has been a refuge for a Catholic King of England and a retirement home for an Archbishop of Canterbury and judging by the bullet holes in the church weather vane it has also seen turbulent times as well.

These days the parish is on the Dorset side of the Dorset/Somerset divide being about equal distance from the Somerset town of Yeovil and Sherborne in Dorset. Trent is a quiet rural parish and besides farming and some fine houses is home to little more than a pub, the Rose and Crown, and the parish church which is dedicated to St. Andrew.

For a few days in September of 1651, unknown to most residents of the village, the Catholic King Charles II was hiding in the Manor House just one hundred yards from the church. Some of the more fanatical Protestant dissenters had their suspicions about who the mysterious guest of the Wyndham family was and were secretly planning to raid the house but then events took an ironic twist: a soldier arrived in the village claiming to have personally killed the King. The Protestants celebrated the news by ringing the church bells and making a bonfire, their plans to raid the Manor House quickly forgotten. Rather than killing the King the soldier probably saved his life!

Walking through the tidy and well kept-up churchyard you pass-by a tall memorial; the lower part has stood here since the 15th century but it was damaged during the Civil War and was only restored in the 20th century as a memorial to the dead of World War I.

Continue on past the south porch entrance to the church to the western edge of the churchyard and you will find, unusually in my experience of visiting churches, a small building housing a public lavatory and washroom kept to a high standard.

Entrance to the church is through the south porch where a notice hangs: “All Persons are requested to take off, Pattens and Cloggs before entering the Church.” Looking to the west end of the nave there is a door of 15th century origin which leads into the modern vestry. The window above the doorway is of the 15th century and of three lights as are the two windows in the north wall of the nave, though they have been much restored. The two windows in the south wall are modern. The roof of the nave is 19th century.

The pews are worth more than a passing mention. Obviously pre-Reformation and probably carved in the early 16th century, some show floral designs, others figures of people, beasts, birds and lettering. It is said these along with other images, crucifixes and candlesticks were removed and hidden from a troop of Parliamentary soldiers sent to Trent in 1643 on the orders of the Puritan Committee to demolish “all Monuments of Superstition and Idolatry.” This is when the upper part of the churchyard memorial mentioned earlier was destroyed.

Looking east towards the choir and chancel we see first the screen which is said to have come from Glastonbury Abbey. It dates from the 15th century. Behind the screen the choir and chancel and a large east window of four lights with similar windows but of only three lights in the north and south walls.

You are asked not to enter the north or Manor chapel but there are steps you can mount to see in. The chapel houses three effigies; the oldest probably being of Sir Roger Wyke who married a lady of Trent. Sir Roger died about 1380 and is represented as a knight in armour. The second is probably of John Franks. He was a sergeant-at-law and a local man who became Master of the Rolls and for a short time acted as Lord Chancellor to King Henry VI: he died about 1438. The 19th century effigy is of the Revd. William Turner, Rector of Trent from 1835 to 1875; it was his wife who founded the almshouses. Apparently the effigy was carved in 1853 and kept in the rectory coach house until his death in 1875. Mr Turner and his wife are both buried in the churchyard though a vault was prepared for them.

There is a small table surrounded by several chairs and the chapel is lit by three modern windows in the north wall and a restored early 14th century three light window in the east wall which depicts the military saints; St. George; St. Martin and St. Michael. The window remembers General Lord Rawlinson who died in 1925. As you peer into the Manor chapel you will notice the arch of 13th or early 14th century origin. The mirror writing on the arch reads: “All flesh is grass and the glory of it is as the floure of the feilde” (Isaiah Chapter 40, verse 6 and Psalm 103, verse 15.) The mirror writing was supposed to remind the ladies of the manor (this is where they sat) of their religious duties if they looked at a mirror during the service.

The south transept area is now largely a memorial to Lord Fisher of Lambeth, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1945 to 1961. His contributions to the religious and social life of the nation are many but he will be mostly remembered for the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey on the 22nd of June 1953. Earlier, in 1947, he had married the then Princess Elizabeth to Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh. On his retirement he came to Trent where it is said he achieved his ambition to become the assistant parish priest. He attracted large congregations when he preached here and in the neighbouring Comptons. He died peacefully in the village on the 15th of September 1972 and his funeral was held in the church on the 20th of September. Afterwards his coffin was lowered into the vault under the 15th century churchyard memorial. The vault originally intended for the former rector William Turner.

It was the Archbishop’s suggestion that the south transept became the baptistry. The font is probably Victorian, though the elaborately carved cover is of the 15th century. On display here is one of the Archbishop’s copes.

The south transept is the ground floor of the tower and spire. St. Andrews, is one of three Dorset churches with a medieval spire – the others being Iwerne Minster and Winterbourne Steepleton. The second storey has in each of the East, South and West walls, a window of two lights.

The bell-chamber has, in each wall, a window similar to those just described but larger and houses six bells and five of them would have been rung to celebrate the supposed death of King Charles II in 1651. Nine years later Charles was restored to the throne and the Wyndham family forbade the Trent bell-ringers to ring a peal to celebrate this event; instead ringers from Compton were invited to ring the Trent bells. It has since been the tradition for the Compton bell-ringers to ring the Trent bells each year on Oak Apple Day, the 29th of May, the anniversary of the Restoration of Charles II.

St. Andrews is built from local rubble with ashlar dressings of Ham Hill stone. The roofs are covered with stone slates. The north chapel and the nave date from the 13th century, the south tower and porch were added in the 14th century and the chancel was rebuilt in the 15th century.