by Smith, Skye
Lilburne was on his feet immediately. "You cannot do this. It is outright theft of private property. The sanctity of ownership underlies all modern laws."
The man sitting beside Lilburne on the bench pulled him back down to the bench. He was a big man, so Lilburne could not keep his feet. He was a farmer and had arms as big as other men's thighs. "We ain't thieving land that wasn't already thieved from us by the nobility. All of the land hereabouts was at one time common. The nobility twisted our traditional laws to steal it from us and call it theirs, and then they created these modern laws to keep it theirs."
Once the roar of agreement to the farmers words had died down, the mayor of Freiston stood to be heard. He looked at the elder who had raised the motion and told him, "This issue is vital to the success of our mutual aid pact, so may I suggest rewording your motion so that we can take a vote immediately." The elder nodded his permission. "Most of the land that has recently been stolen from our commons was done so by the Earl of Lindsey, who is now dead, and since the kingdom has two rulers, the naming of his successor may be delayed."
Daniel sat forward. What had the man just said. He leaped to his feet and yelled out, "Wait. Did you just say that the Earl of Lindsey was dead?"
"Why yes, hadn't you heard. Captain Lilburne brought that news to me from Boston." He stopped speaking because suddenly an entire bench of men had leaped to their feet beside Daniel and were lifting him onto their shoulders. With a cheer, the men carried Daniel out of the church and out into the fete outside to tell the rest of the village the news. "Umm, will someone be so kind as to close the doors again so we can continue."
Once everyone was seated again he did continue. "Since the common land was stolen from the villages by Lindsey's twisting of the traditional enclosure laws on behalf of the king, then it does not belong to the Earl of Lindsey personally, but to the honor bestowed by the king. Until there is a new earl, the land will not be worked or used appropriately. Under the same traditional law that was twisted to privatize the land there is provision to claim it back. Any enclosed land that is not being worked reverts to common if someone else proves that they can make better use of it."
"Where is such a law written down. In what statute?" Lilburne cried out.
A very old woman who seemed to have been sleeping at the table was now helped to her feet. Everyone in the hall went still except for Lilburne. "Be quiet fool," she told him. "We are speaking of traditional laws. Laws that date back to the time when the Great King Knut gathered all of the laws of all of his North Sea kingdoms and had his lawyers decide which of all the laws of all of those places were in widespread use ... which were such good laws that all held them in-common. Knut's in-common law is the law that we are speaking of, and that common law has survived through the centuries all around the North Sea despite the coming and going of conquerors and empires, kings and parliaments." She had said enough, had said it all, and sat down.
"Many thanks, Oudje," the mayor said kindly to the woman who was a walking history text of these parishes. "I would reword the motion thusly. I move that since there is no longer an Earl of Lindsey, that all lands, manors, mills, bridges, and ditches once claimed by the deceased Robert Bertie and his family revert to the common so that they can be worked to the benefit of all, and that they be worked co-operatively."
"That is outrageous!" Lilburne shouted out, but a hard stare from the looming farmer beside him stopped him from saying more.
"All in favour say aye. The aye's have it. Now as for our village lands and assets owned by other absentee landlords, I move that they be dealt with on a case by case basis. All in favour. Carried." The mayor of Freisburn handed the red baton back to his host, the mayor of Fishtoft.
"The next most important topic is the defense of our villages, our women, and our stock so that never again will we suffer what we suffered at the hands of the earl."
Cleff stood and reached forward and was handed the baton. "By tradition, one of Wellenhay's council is elected warlord. Our warlord is expected to lead our men in battle, and because our ships are communally owned, he is also the captain of all ships commanders. Until two years ago, I was Wellenhay's warlord. I retired in favour of Daniel Vanderus, because he had been fighting in the modern wars on the continent.
I propose two motions. First that each of the villages elect a warlord and an alternate, and that those men elect the primary warlord from amongst themselves. My second motion is that the question of defense should be set aside to a committee of these warlords and alternates in order to make plans. Before we take a vote I would like you all to know that the wetlands where Daniel was serving in the Netherlands is very similar to the wetlands around The Wash, and that the type of defenses that served the Dutch of those wetlands so well against the armies of the Spanish Empire, will serve us equally well."
"I call a vote on Cleff's two motions. On the first. Carried. On the second. Carried. All questions and suggestions for defense are to be sent to our defense committee. All except one. Our legal defense. Our defense from the lawyers of kings and nobles who will attack us in the courts for what we have just decided. This is now open for discussion."
Lilburne stood up, and was pulled back down again by the farmer. The mayor nodded towards Captain Lilburne so the farmer allowed him to stand. "If the king prevails against parliament, then all the positive changes that parliament has enacted will be swept away. The same can be said of all of your changes. That is why you must stand with Lord Brooke and parliament against the king."
"And if parliament prevails, what then. Both houses are populated with landlords who are protected by the modern laws that support private ownership over communal ownership." It was Cleff who spoke. "All landlords and especially their bankers hate the traditions of communal ownership and the mutual cooperation that it allows. We, the folk of The Wash know this better than most. That is why so many of our folk have fled to the new world. It is time that you stopped being just a learned nay sayer working in the interest of Lord Brooke and his army, and instead tell us something helpful."
"I ... ugh ... that is," Lilburne sat down, but then immediately stood up again. "Why not copy what the Scots did to confound the kings lawyers?"
"And what was that, pray tell?"
"The valleys of Scotland are clannish like the villages around The Wash. They are self sufficient and communal of necessity, because their winter cuts many of the valleys off. The Scots want and need as much local rule and as little centralized rule as possible." Lilburne explained. "For a decade the king squabbled with the Edinburgh parliament about who was running Scotland ... the Scots or the king in London." "
"But Charlie is a Scottish king," came the gruff voice of the farmer at his side.
"His father James was a Scottish king in English clothing. Charles is an English king in Scottish clothing. In any case, Charles tried to outsmart Edinburgh by gaining more control of Scotland via the church. He appointed bishops who would control Scotland from England through the kirk ... ugh... the church. His plan blew up in his face as soon as he tried to take control of the Scottish kirks. You see, they were all Presbyterian."
"As are we," the mayor of Fishtoft pointed out.
"Edinburgh used religion to defeat the king's laws and claims," Lilburne continued.
"Edinburgh defeated him because they brought General Alex Leslie back from Sweden and he trounced the king's army," Cleff pointed out, and rightly so.
"Yes, but why are those wars now called the Bishop's Wars, and why was Leslie leading an army call the Covenanter army. I'll tell you why. Because all of the southern Scots signed their grand petition, their Covenant. It was a long and convoluted document, but underneath all the fine words, what it said was that the Scottish Presbyterian Kirk was perfect the way it was because it had been designed around the teachings of the Lord Jesus. Any change, such as imposing foreign bishops or prayer books, would pervert the good works of the true King of Kings."
John Lilburne gazed around
at the blank stares. "Don't you see. They pitted a greater king against Charlie thus beating him and his lawyers at their own game."
"Aye," Cleff pointed out, "And rather than be beaten by the Jesus petition, Charlie sent an army to Scotland."
"The man is a fool," the farmer said pulling Lilburne down to his bench. "The whole point of this discussion is to find ways to keep us safe from Charlie's army and his lawyers."
"Let go of me," Lilburne said, shaking out of the farmers grip. "I'm sorry if my example confused you. What I meant to say was that you can keep hold of your reclaimed common land by making it a part of your religion. You can use church law to block the property laws. You can gain support for your case in parliament by making sure that what you do is encouraged by the Presbyterians who are now running Westminster." He looked around, frantic to find any glimmer of understanding in any of the eyes.
He found it in the most unlikely of faces, the most comely of faces at the elder table ... the mayor of Wellenhay. Venka stood and a hush came over the men. This was the woman who last month had rallied all of her kinfolk to rescue the women of Fishtoft and Freiston. She had earned their respect, and their attention. If Lilburne was expecting a rebuke from this uppity woman, he was wrong.
"What Captain Lilburne has told you rings true to Wellenhay's own experience," she told them all. "We have always been a traditional, communal village, and I hope we always will be. Many times the law has been twisted by nobles and bishops to try to break up our clan, break up our village, usually by trying to break up our common land. For the last generation, however, we have been left in peace, while other villages have suffered the loss of wherewithal and the dislocation caused by the drainage enclosures. And why have we been left in peace? Because we declared ourselves Anabaptists. The independent Presbyterians, especially the Congregationalists all around The Wash do not approve of Anabaptists, but they do accept them as a communal version of their own beliefs."
"By Congregationalists you mean Puritans," Lilburne confirmed.
"If that is the word you prefer, yes," Venka told him with a smile. "Though in my experience they do not call themselves by that name. They are Presbyterian independents who believe that local churches and schools should be run by the local congregation."
"And rightly so," added the Mayor of Fishtoft.
"As Anabaptists we also believe this but take it further. We feel that the choice of religious beliefs should be made after the age of consent, and not be forced on children by christening them. We also believe that the congregation should not only rule their churches and schools, but the main means of livelihood as well. How else can they be run for the benefit of all the community." Venka stopped the explanation at that point, before she accidentally let it slip that her clan were not actually Christian.
"So what you are saying," Lilburne replied, "is that as Anabaptists, the Presbyterians accept that you refute private ownership of the land and the mills and the ships because you work them communally as part of your independent Presbyterian beliefs."
Venka’s face showed her relief as this stranger explained it so well. "Yes. Is that what you had in mind when you were going on and on about the Scots?"
"I think so. Yes it fits. Your religious beliefs justify the holding of the land in common, and any legal action to take the land from you must first traverse the quagmire of religious decrees."
The mayor of Fishtoft looked across the table at the mayor of Freiston and said, "So it seems that as of today our villages must strive to become like Anabaptist communes. Do you have any objection to that?"
"Not a one. Look how well it has worked for Wellenhay. Announcing it is simple enough, but how ever will we encourage the communal way of life amongst our folk."
Old Oudje rose to her feet, and the mayors went quiet out of respect. "Winter is coming and though many curse it, winter bonds us communally. From what the captain says, it does so in Scotland too. Wellenhay keeps a common long house, and a common bath house including a sweat lodge, and it is in those places that we gather for the duration of the long winter nights to share our company, and our warmth, and our food. You must build the likes of them in your villages, and you must do it before the snow flies."
The mayor of Fishtoft scribbled some additions to a lengthening list of things to do. "Well obviously we can use this church as our longhouse. The last of the papist trappings were removed two years ago, and the priest fled when his master, the earl, raided the village. Since then it has been used as a longhouse to house our women and children while our burned roofs were re-thatched."
"That was fine for the summer, but not in the winter," Oudje pointed out. "You will never be able to keep his draughty old stone building warm, and warmth is one of the prime features of a longhouse that draws the folk to it. I have always thought that the papists made their churches of stone on purpose so that the folk would have to suffer the cold as punishment for their sins. You would be better to use this church to shelter your prize animals and use the rectory as the longhouse instead. At least it is timber and wattle so you have some hope of keeping it warm."
"We could do that. Yes, come to think of it, it used to be the old manor. Knock out a few walls to lengthen the dining hall back into a great hall and it would do us for this winter. What about the bath house? Would Wellenhay loan us some men who know how to build a bath house?"
"Need you ask?" Venka scolded him. "A word of advice though. We in Wellenhay are well used to bathing in mixed company. At first you may want to schedule different times for men and women in your bath house. It will save the men a lot of embarrassment, especially the young lads."
"Save the men embarrassment. I would expect it to be the women who would be embarrassed." There was a ripple of laughter through the men.
"Not bloody likely," Venka said joining in the laughter. "All of your bums have been washed by a woman at one time or another. Mark what I say about the lads. It's hard enough to get them to wash even when they aren't being embarrassed about their winkies."
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The Pistoleer - Brentford by Skye Smith Copyright 2014
Chapter 8 - Reclaiming the Lindsey Level in November 1642
It was after nine when Daniel rolled out of his bed in the rectory at Fishtoft. He wouldn't have gotten up even then, except that he needed to piss in the worst way. Last night's ale had not just forced him to rise, but had made his head feel heavier than his buttocks, and made his mouth taste like he had been licking a sheep skin. It was a lucky thing that there was no line up at the privies. After the longest pee he could ever remember taking, he slumped back towards his bed ... but that was not to be.
"Ah, we noticed you were up," Cleff told him. "I've been sent to fetch you by the committee of defense."
"Oh no, not a committee," Daniel groaned. He shoved his hands into the air and pleaded to the sky, "Come all ye Valkyries. Take me now, for I am ready."
"Shhh, not even in jest," Cleff hushed him. "According to Venka in yesterday's meeting of elders, we are all good Anabaptists."
"Oh Lord, take me now," Daniel groaned and slumped against the wall.
"Here, take this," Cleff said while handing out a steaming pot of something. "Go back into the privy and drink down this salted black coffee. You need a good purge. I'll go and fetch you something else to drink to calm your stomach after you are purged."
When Cleff returned with an ale pot of hot spiced cider Daniel was already feeling better, or at least, less wretched. Nothing like puking up your stomach to get rid of a hangover. Nothing like salted black coffee to force the cure. "What is this committee all about?" Daniel asked as he sipped the cider. "Mmm."
"Last night the able men elected a posse of warlords to be in charge of the defense of the villages. You are one of them, as am I. This morning we are to walk the land around the villages and make some plans."
"Can it wait until I douse my head?"
"That is what this bucket of warm water is fo
r," Cleff replied. "Now hurry up. I promised them that we would walk the perimeter with them early so we could discuss it over a late breakfast. And don't you be worry about your fuzzy head. The others on the committee are your drinking buddies from last night."
That stood to reason. Daniel had been drinking with some of the men he had rescued from the king's press gangs. Each was a dangerous men, and so the obvious choice for a committee of warlords. After joining up for the walk, all of them had trouble plowing their boots through the mud along the earl's main drainage canal. The canal that ran east from the Haven and separated these two villages from the neighbouring villages to the north.
"Well I'm glad we didn't fill this big sucker in the last time we held a football match," Daniel told the others. Recently the main tactic used by the cottagers of The Wash to hinder the drainage schemes of the local earls was to use a football match as the excuse for leveling the chosen game pitch ... including filling in any newly dug drainage ditches.
"We kept this main canal open on Cleff's suggestion, and he was right," said Mathew, the newly elected warlord of Freiston. "At high tide we can use it to float our fishing dinghies right up to the bridge at Freiston."
"Well now it is your best defense against the king's army," Daniel told him.
"How so? It didn't save us from the earl's henchmen."
"It would have if the bridges were not fixed spans. There are only two bridges across, right?" Daniel confirmed.
"Yes. One on the Fishtoft to Boston road, and the other on the Freiston to Boston road. They are built the same way and were built at the same time. Wooden spans across stone foundations. The bugger earl expected us to pay a toll to cross them just to go from field to field."
"Well he can use two of them coppers to pay the ferryman, then, can't he?" and Daniel laughed and so did the others, and then they all spit into the mud and ground it in to seal their personal curses against the dead Earl of Lindsey. "Come on, let's go and take a look at the bridge."