Great Zeal and Activity have already been shewn in Hallifax and that neighbourhood; and it appearing to me that on such an occasion the Exertion of the Civil Power and the Diligence and Activity of the Justices of the peace in all the neighbouring places (where there may already be too much reason to suspect the practice of clipping, coining and uttering coin so adulterated may extend) should not only be encouraged, but also supported by all the Gentlemen and considerable Persons of the neighbourhood.
I must therefore take the Liberty to desire, that you meet me at Halifax on Tuesday morning.
As the time is so short, I hope you will excuse me addressing you in a circular letter, which I mean to send to all the gentlemen now Acting, and also to those whose names are in and who have not as yet Acted in the Commision of the Peace for the West Riding in the neighbourhood of Halifax, Leeds, Wakefield and Bradford.
My object in addressing those Gentlemen who have not as yet acted is with some hope that on this very interesting public Occasion some of them might be inclined to act, if it was only for a few months, during the present situation; and even if that idea did not succeed, yet the very appearance of many considerable Gentlemen, concurring in the Proceedings of those who do Act, would have, most probably, at this juncture, a very good effect.
I have the honour to be, Sir, with great truth and regard.
Your most Obt. Humble Servt.
Rockingham
From across the county in carriages they came. From sprawling rural retreats and town dwellings; from churches and chambers, from working farms and landscaped estates with lakes and follies and ornamental gardens. They came from north and east and south; from Beverley and Bradford. From Richmond and Harrogate and Tadcaster. From Penistone and Pocklington and Bedale and Cottingham. From Malton and Ripon and Skipton. Whitby and Wharfedale.
Men of standing.
Lord Viscount Irwin from Temple Newsam. Sir James Ibbetson of Denton Park.
Sir Lionel Pilkington.
Colonel Henry Wickham and Mr. Richard Wilson.
One a Justice of the Peace, the other the Recorder Of Leeds.
The Right Rev. Alexander Leigh.
Mr. Robert Parker and Mr. Thomas Sayer, the Halifax solicitors.
Mr. John Caygill and Mr. Michael Wainhouse.
Mr. John Edwards and Mr. William Prescott and Mr. Christopher Rawson and Mr. Samuel Waterhouse.
Across the ridings they rode, summoned by a letter.
Others too.
Lords and clergy and doctors and solicitors.
Mr. Robert Charlesworth and Mr. John Cookson.
Mr. Charles Swain Booth Sharp and Mr. William Crowle and Mr. William Buck and Mr. Samuel Harper and Mr. Marmaduke Ferris and Mr. Timothy Puxton and Mr. Thomas Ramsden.
Law-makers and politicians and mill owners and landowners and mine operators and exporters and men of many interests, investments and enterprises.
Up they came and over they came and through they came. These noble Yorkshire gentlemen.
They were wealthy men, endowed with family names deep rooted and double-tied to time and place; names of purpose and profession and location and meaning. A roll-call of northern wealth and power.
Mr. James Wetherherd and Mr. Samuel Waterhouse.
Mr. Thomas Woolrick and Mr. Benjamin Ferrand.
Mr. John Blayds and Mr. Thomas Hardcastle and Mr. Richard Mawhood and Mr. Christoper Rawson.
And Charles Watson-Wentworth, Second Marquess Of Rockingham and former Prime Minister in the Whig administration. Graduate of Eton and St. John’s College, Cambridge, proprietor of Wentworth Woodhouse, the largest private residence in England.
From across the moors they came to heed his call; from all horizons.
They travelled along uneven carriageways and through pollarded woods. Some journeyed by night along strange darkening lands towards a far-flung town unfamiliar to most. To Rockingham’s call they came, these merchant men of trade and travel.
Men of honour and titles and entitlement. Men of land and law and power. Of family mottos.
Those who resided in the West Ridings set out before dawn, while others took lodgings in the town of Halifax whose economy, they had heard, was on the verge of collapse. They brought with them footmen and secretaries and valets, all of whom were dismissed for the morning’s meeting.
As former Prime Minister, Rockingham’s arrival was greeted by a peal of bells rung in his honour, and he was welcomed as the guest of wool merchant John Royds at his newly-built opulent home, Somerset House in George Street, a stone’s throw from the Old Cock Inn, where David Hartley had been apprehended. As well as schooling, the two gentlemen also shared an architect – just the previous year Royds had welcomed King Christian VII of Denmark to view his new home during the monarch’s grand tour.
Up the hill and out of town towards Illingworth, at the Talbot Inn they gathered. At Rockingham’s request Robert Parker had engaged the services of a half dozen trusted bailiffs to patrol the area.
Inside there was an air of anticipation as old acquaintances greeted one another and libations were shared. In the corner a table laid with drab food went largely untouched; most of the men had brought their own crates and hampers and, in a couple of cases, their own cooks.
In his cold dark room Joseph ‘Belch’ Broadbent’s fire was unlit; the stone floor dotted with mucus and strings of blackened blood. There were congealed clots of it on the hearth and clots on the rug too, and a small pool of spittle connecting the old man’s mouth and chin to the floor of millstone grit cut squarely into slabs a century earlier. His nearest neighbour would later swear to her husband that she could see old Joe’s last cough hanging in the air above him like pipe-smoke, although perhaps it was pipe-smoke indeed, for although the fire grate was full of unlit dried kindling that had been folded in there, his flint and steel and tinder box on the crooked mantle trunk above it, his pipe was on the ground, a small heap of tobacco curls smouldering beside him, a silent glowing reminder of a life spent in smoke and fire.
Hip-hip.
As Rockingham entered the inn the gathered men put down their cups and brushed aside their plates, then stood to attention out of respect. All had received missives from the man, and some had received him at their homes previously too, but several knew the Marquess only by a reputation as one of the most honourable men in England.
Hip-hip, he said again to hush those few still talking. These are Godless times gentlemen.
With short economical movements he removed a cape coloured a mottled azure blue and hung it, then removed his hat and patted hair that was gently curled at its tips down back into place. The men saw that the Marquess’ centre-parting was as straight and true as a gate-post and that the back of his cape displayed an elaborate family crest.
He waited until the men had settled and then he continued.
Men without God are men without respect for their crown, their country and even themselves. Men without God are those whose existences are at odds with the very tenets of this empire of ours. And here in the Yorkshire that we all know and adore – the Yorkshire that they say is God’s own country, in fact – there is, as you are all now aware, a scourge of men who have been forging the King’s currency for their own gain. These are men of greed and violence who would rather kill another, in this instance a Tax Supervisor named –
Here Rockingham paused for a moment then leaned over to the nearest man, who happened to be Robert Parker, and conferred with him.
Yes, continued Rockingham. William Deighton is his name. These felons would rather make the wife of William Deighton a widow than cease this evil, godless practice. Not five miles from here in the dale of the Calder these beasts reside, and to you I say their days must now be numbered.
He let the words settle. The men nodded in agreement. They spoke among themselves.
Let us first commend ou
rselves for the public-spiritedness we have shown by being here today. For it is up to us, England’s nobleman, to tame these savages.
Hear, hear, said a voice and others joined it.
A man who dares to call himself ‘King’ David Hartley now resides in York Castle where his future is bleak, continued Rockingham. This individual and his minions are responsible for not only plunging the local economy into chaos – many of you, I know, have seen your enterprises adversely effected – and undermining the King’s treasury and mint, but also for cutting down all those right-minded colleagues who have challenged their behaviour. Deighton is one of them; his callous murder, I have been reliably informed, committed by two or more of Hartley’s own, possibly his brothers, who are known amongst their acolytes as the Duke Of Edinburgh and the Duke Of York.
These are common men taking titles of standing, said one Sir James Ibbetson. Hill-top farmers parading as dukes – it is an insult and it should not be allowed.
Hear, hear, replied a chorus of voices.
Rockingham continued.
I agree. Therefore I call upon you all today as men of power and sound moral judgement to solemnly swear to support the civil magistracy in bringing these men to account, safe in the knowledge that doing so will help restore the reputation of this corner of Yorkshire which has been otherwise sullied and besmirched by these ditch-dwelling felons. The King himself has spoken upon the matter. Justice will be served.
You can count on me, my lord.
Colonel Henry Wickham said this, and promptly received several pats on the back.
Other men immediately pledged their support.
Rockingham spoke again.
I also propose that subscriptions be sent on foot in the otherwise thriving towns of the West Riding for the discovering and apprehending of all Coiners, forgers and corrupters of coins, with immediate effect. It is imagined that there are between one and two hundred persons concerned in the clipping or uttering of false or diminished coins in Calderdale alone. Thirdly, I ask of your support in petitioning that the widow of Mr Deighton be recommended as an object of His Majesty’s Royal Bounty in recognition of her late husband’s brave and devoted attempts to – with the aid of the honourable Mr Robert Parker here – bring about the downfall of this gang who are known both locally and now nationally as the Cragg Vale Coiners. Parker here is a good chap who tells me that only the charitable and liberal donations of several persons have met the widow’s immediate financial necessity.
At this Marmaduke Ferris cleared his throat and raised his cup.
And may I propose a toast to both you, my lord, Charles Watson-Wentworth, Second Marquess Of Rockingham, and to the only King there is, our monarch, the King of England.
To Rockingham, said a chorus of voices. To the King. Huzzah.
To think that all them men gathered from across auld Jórvíkshire and beyond to disguss King David and his gang of clippers Well it bends the mind and warms the stomach and makes my stones twitch knowing that I the bestest Kinge of the North brought all them men to the valley The very same men who have plans to carve it up and dig it up and yoke the folk as if they were oxen and work them into the grownd in ther mills for a pittans of coin.
And this Rockenham carracter who they say was wans the Pry Minnyster of grayte Brittun and whose house they also say is the biggest in the land and whose garden has lakes and fountains and mayzes and stone sculpchurs and swans and herons and peacock fowls brought over from Injur on the spice boats It was this Rockenham that was to see the Coiners done for once and for all Yes the black bastard Dyeton and yes the yellow ratt Broadbent are to blayme but it was this Rockenham what had the ear of the King himself and I don’t mean King bloody Dayvid I mean George the bloody bastid the thyrd Yes reely it was this Rockenham who brort your humble host down from his moorland pallas and onto this long slow wark up to the gallows jibberd that awaits me now But who also withowt reeleyesing it took the name of the Crag Vayle Coiners to the world and made the name of me David Hartlee a ledgend.
Becors a stone thrown in that dark corner noen as Cragg Vale has rippled orl the way up to the English throne my frends Orl the fucken way.
The three children played in the patch of purpling heather that was their pen. David Hartley the younger was old enough to walk and talk and know his own mind. As many remarked, he had the very same flinty eyes as his father. Mary Hartley was learning the ways of the world by following in her brother’s footsteps, while Isaac Hartley the younger had just turned one, and was still discovering newness in everything he touched and heard and tasted.
Though the air was cut through by a cold sharp edge, they were dressed in good wool, their thick jerkins warm against the winter, and the smallest swaddled in a blanket gifted to Grace Hartley by a grateful brogger whose merchant’s route passed across the moor close by, and who had been guaranteed safe passage by her husband’s men in exchange for goods and coins.
Only the eldest child knew that his father was gone, but the concept of forever was impossible to grasp in an imagination that knew only moors and sky and the innocence of play.
The sky was turning grey to white with the promise of a storm on tomorrow’s wind but for now David Hartley and Mary Hartley and Isaac Hartley rolled and dug and danced and wrestled and sang and chattered in a land of make believe.
They made figures from twigs and housed them in homes of moss; they fashioned crowns from sprigs and wore them on their young heads, then snatched them from their scalps and threw them spinning off into the air, then fell tumbling to the ground.
They conversed with worms and mimicked the calls of birds and they built kingdoms there down on the ground, from leaves and wool and feathers and pebbles, just as their father had built a kingdom from what he had to hand.
The baby tried to put a small fist of soft moor-top dirt into a mouth that was starting to show the first row of teeth, and his sister reached out to stop him. After the third or fourth attempt the baby succeeded though, and chewed on the mud, black drool running down his chin until his brother and sister pointed and laughed, and the baby laughed too, grit and peat on his gums and tongue.
Young David Hartley stood and ran around, laugh-screaming through the stiff roots of the heather, and his sister joined him to do the same, both gulping mouthfuls of a breeze that filled their lungs and inflated their imaginations, and the baby gurgled dirt, and above them crows circled, familiar shadow forms briefly reflecting the movements of the hilltop children before scattering.
From Bell House Grace Hartley watched, her face at the window, pale and drawn, as the eldest boy bent and picked something from the ground. He examined it for a moment and she saw that it was a jagged two-pronged branch, large in his little hands. He lifted it to his head and, turning into profile, he held the branch there, mounted in his thick curls, and then he tipped back his head and let out a bellow. It was such a strange roar, one that she did not imagine a child could ever produce from his young lungs, a sound almost inhuman, and then she realised that there were no trees up here on the moor, and it was not a branch that he held.
Grains of morning sleet blew down the chimney and hissed in the roaring fire. An ice storm was blowing in off the moor.
Isaac Hartley, William Hartley, their father William Hartley Sr and Grace Hartley were at the table in Bell House. Spread before them was a newspaper.
The previous night, as on that same night every year in December, the sky had screeched with the sound of what was said to be spectral hounds believed to stalk the firmament, and the distant portentous rumble of the giant unseen huntsmen who were said to pursue them. It was the night of the wild hunt; a time for staying close to the warmth and light and safety of the flickering fire. Little sleep was ever had on this night. Instead the valley dwellers preferred to sit up until first light, sharing stories and drinking hot ale until the chase receded and the sky was free of these great snarling, unseen be
asts that split the sky with their animalistic howls of rage.
Protecting Grace during the wild hunt was the Hartley men’s pretext for choosing this night to congregate around the hearth of Bell House to discuss their predicament.
See how they are set to turn the valley against us, griped Isaac Hartley. He pointed at the page.
You know I cannot make this out, said his father William Hartley the elder.
They’ve already turned one of us against David, said Grace Hartley.
Broadbent?
Yes. You should have silenced him when you could.
Isaac frowned.
Well. He’s in the gaol now. I’m sure our brother has welcomed him well. It’ll be buggery for breakfast from the boys for Broadbent.
His brother leaned in and slowly underscored the words with a finger.
What does it say? asked his father.
A lot of squit.
Read it to me, my son.
That’ll take all day father, said William Hartley. But here is the part that matters. It is a proclamation by one Mr Chamberlayne, solicitor to his majesty’s mint, and some posh cunt called the Marquess Of Rockingham. It is dated this very week, December, and written in the Talbot Inn, Halifax.
I know it well, said their father. I was put out on my ear once.
It says that by an act of parliament in the seventh year of the reign of his late majesty King William the Third, any person guilty of coining, clipping or diminishing the current coin of the realm, who shall afterwards discover two or more persons who have committed either of the said crimes, and give information thereof to any one of his majesty’s justices of the peace, for as two or more be convicted of the crime, is thereby entitled to his majesty’s pardon for all his said crimes which he may have committed before such discovery.
The Gallows Pole Page 27