The battle between the two women went on and on, Grace refusing to give up the matter, Mary refusing to give in. Relations between the two women had never been friendly, understandably. The court costs escalated, until Grace Cutteford could no longer afford to pay the rent on Walreddon and she was forced to leave the estate. George Howard bought the lease for Walreddon and its farms for just £300.14 After George Cutteford had spent so many months in prison, battling Grenville over the lease for the sake of his family’s future, George Howard’s payment to his father’s family seems a paltry sum.
What happened to Grace Cutteford’s daughters isn’t known, though Anne Robinson, then a widow, took her brother’s will to Canterbury to be proved in 1658, so she must have kept Tuddy Brooke farm. Her brother John should have dealt with the matter, as executor of the will, but he had found employment in Bristol as a ‘wayter and searcher’15, his father’s old friend John Maynard giving him a reference.16 After a childhood of lofty aspirations, John Cutteford was forced to return to his father’s old trade as a customs officer.
John and his mother fell out over the finances, and John refused to talk to her again. Grace Cutteford moved to St Thomas in Exeter, living on charity for the rest of her life. The area around St Thomas had been flattened during the siege of Exeter, to deny any cover to potential attackers, and was now being hurriedly re-built to house the thousands of homeless, including Grace. It was a sorry end to everything George Cutteford the elder had dreamed of for his family.
His son George Howard did try to do his bit to improve the world. He gave money to charity, and he was kind to the Puritan minister, Thomas Larkham, appointed by the people of Tavistock.17 And he had his own tragedies to bear. In 1655, Howard married a local woman called Mary Burnby, and they lived at Hayes End in Tamerton Foliot, but his wife died in childbirth, and the child, baptised George, did not live long; he died in 1658. Suddenly there was no one to inherit the Fitz estates, for George Howard never re-married (which was very unusual for the time).
In 1660, after the death of Oliver Cromwell, the monarchy was restored and the son of the executed King Charles I was crowned King Charles II. George Howard then threw all his energies into politics. He and his father’s old friend Sir John Maynard were returned as members of the newly constituted Parliament, representing Bere Alston, though George Howard eventually chose to represent Tavistock with his uncle Sir William Russell.18
Russell and George Howard were both Whigs, a faction of Parliament urgently trying, and failing, to curb the powers of the new King. Of course, George Howard could be an MP, with a say in the new constitution, only because he was a landowner – he owed all his success and status to the efforts of his unacknowledged father. In fact, George the younger had been instrumental in getting his father released from prison all those years ago. How did George Cutteford, just one of so many prisoners at Lydford and then Exeter, get the attention of the King? The key to the success of his son’s petition lies in a group of men on both sides of the Civil War, a shadowy group that possibly included George Howard; a group of conspirators in the 1640s, who were battling for peace.
Like a chess board, where a knot of black and white pieces are in heated discussions on one side of the board, as the pawns are being massacred around them, the English Civil War had split the country, but not everything was black versus white. Some of the combatants, all moderates in their political and religious views, were desperately trying to change the nature of game, conspiring amidst the skirmishes and bloodshed for an end to the war. And all of these men, on both sides of the conflict, were friends of George Cutteford, relations of Mary Howard, and sworn enemies of Richard Grenville.
The first of these was Sir John Maynard, an old family friend to the Cuttefords. He had had great success in his life, as an attorney to King Charles I, but when war was declared he sided with Parliament. The ensuing war, however, dismayed him – not because of the thousands slain, but because the war was costing the country, and him, a fortune.19 Like his friends the Earl of Essex and Bulstrode Whitelaw, Maynard was very worried about the costs of the war, and also about the rising military power of Oliver Cromwell, the Parliamentary General. In 1644, John Maynard secretly met with the Earl of Essex – and others – in an effort to have Cromwell indicted. Cromwell’s plans for a New Model Army, the first professional army in England, made them uneasy, and they were concerned that in the distractions of the Civil War, in the midst of the fighting over religious, financial and political differences, there would be a military coup. They were right to be concerned – in 1646, Cromwell and his New Model Army did invade London and take over the Government, and in 1649 they beheaded the King. Cromwell subsequently reigned over Britain and Ireland as a military dictator.
In 1644, as George Cutteford suffered in gaol, John Maynard and his friends could see the future; they knew they had to end the war, by any means necessary. At the moment that George Cutteford’s case was finally being heard, in November 1644, Cutteford’s old friend John Maynard was visiting the King in Oxford, negotiating peace.
THE MAYNARDS
The Maynard family have had a long history in Devon. In 1569, three sons – John, Oliver and Nicholas Maynard – presented themselves for the compulsory muster roll in Milton Abbot, a parish belonging to the ‘Tavistock Hundred’, an administrative region of 100 parishes around and about the town of Tavistock.20 Milton Abbot is located north west of Tavistock, mid-way between Tavistock and Launceston.
The three sons were probably farmers. Unlike sons of the wealthy, they were not required to provide supplies of weapons, armour or horses, though they were required to maintain their personal weaponry and armour.
In the 1560s, the Spanish armies were gathering in Holland and appeared to be a threat. By 1569, compulsory musters were a regular event throughout the country, and the three sons duly attended the muster at Milton Abbot. Nicholas was a pikeman, wearing light body armour and wielding a pikestaff. Oliver was an archer, carrying a long bow and a sheaf of twenty-four arrows. John Maynard was a harquebusier; he deployed a harquebus firearm, an early form of musket about 3ft long, weighing about 10 pounds and fired by lighting the pan of powder with a lighted wick.
It is not known whether the three sons ever did fight in battle, but their many descendants would become influential and wealthy people throughout Devon. All Presbyterians and committed to their faith, their wealth would be used to establish schools and almshouses in Tavistock, Exeter and Plymouth. In 1602, Oliver Maynard, the archer, established ‘The Gift House’, an almshouse once in Tavistock, on Barley Market Street, housing twelve people: four couples and four widows. ‘The Gift House’, later known as ‘Maynard’s House’, remained there as a charitable institution until the mid-1800s.21
John Maynard, the harquebusier, had three sons: John, Alexander and Thomas. John Maynard the younger established himself in Plymouth, and became a very wealthy merchant and attorney, building almshouses and schools in Plymouth and Exeter. He was one of the first to provide funds for a school for the education of women, known as Maynard’s School, which is still in Exeter. It was the third school for girls ever built in Britain. It was John Maynard the younger who witnessed the will of his friend, the sailor William Cutteford, and probably supervised the education of William’s son George.22
Alexander Maynard, his brother, established himself as an attorney in Tavistock, probably working for the Stannary Court. It is said he lived at Abbey House in Tavistock, though the building later known as the Abbey House, located on the grounds of the former Abbey (where the Bedford Hotel is today), was not developed as a residence until about 1720. Alexander Maynard married Honora Arscott and they had four sons, the second son, John, born in 1602, achieving great renown as Sir John Maynard, lawyer and politician. Alexander’s son, the future Sir John Maynard, attended Exeter College, Oxford in 1618, at just sixteen years old, and entered the Middle Temple in 1619. In 1640, he was appointed as Recorder for Plymouth, the highest legal position in Ply
mouth, and became the representative for Totnes in Parliament. There he advocated the end to feudal wardships, which would eventually result in the dissolution of the Court of Wards.
In the build-up to the English Civil War, Sir John supported Parliament, worried about King Charles I’s religious views, but more importantly Charles’s denial that the rules of habeas corpus could not be applied to the monarch. King Charles felt he could imprison anyone who opposed him, without trial or account. During the ensuing Civil War, Maynard’s Tavistock home was ransacked and nearly destroyed by Royalists. Staying in London, Sir John was worried by the rising military power of Oliver Cromwell and joined with the Earl of Essex, Bulstrode Whitlocke and other Parliamentary supporters in an anti-Cromwellian faction, attempting to take action against Cromwell as an incendiary, but it came to nothing.
In November 1644, John Maynard and his colleague Bulstrode Whitlocke were appointed to the committee to present to King Charles I the propositions of the Treaty of Uxbridge, drawn up by Parliament in one of many attempts to end the Civil War. Their meeting with the King in Uxbridge, on the outskirts of London, sadly failed to end the war; the King was still too confident of success. The Treaty of Uxbridge named Sir Richard Grenville, amongst others, as one whose actions, even in the event of peace, would receive no pardon from Parliament.
In the midst of Cromwell’s reign, in 1653, Maynard came to the defence of John Lilburne, known as ‘Freeborn John’, a political agitator who had been imprisoned repeatedly by Cromwell for his outspoken views on human rights. With Maynard’s brilliant defence, Lilburn was acquitted, much to Cromwell’s annoyance. Maynard had hoped to have Lilburne’s support in his continuing case against Cromwell’s brutal leadership, but Freeborn John declined the invitation.
Maynard’s subsequent battles with Cromwell over habeas corpus-related issues put him in the Tower of London, but he seems to have re-gained favour with Cromwell, now reigning as Lord Protector of the Commonwealth, and John Maynard was appointed as the Protector’s serjeant-at-law.
When Oliver Cromwell’s son then inherited the Protectorship, Maynard found himself propping up a disastrous government, but his political mutability protected him. At the restoration of King Charles II, Maynard took part in the coronation procession as the new King’s serjeant-at-law. Maynard was knighted, much to the derision of some of his anti-Royalist peers. Maynard was subsequently remembered for his greed, his fortune-hunting and his materialistic view of the world.23 He became a very wealthy man.
In 1660 and 1661, Sir John Maynard was returned as MP for Bere Alston, just south of the Walreddon estates, along with George Howard, the son of Maynard’s old friend George Cutteford.24 South of Bere Alston is Bere Ferrers, where, in 1665, Sir John Maynard and his old enemy – and now business partner – Sir John Berkeley (then Lord Berkeley), amongst others, made a fortune in mining rights.25 Sir John Maynard died in 1690, at the age of eighty-eight, at his vast estate of Gunnersbury Park, having survived three of his four wives and outliving all but one of his children.
* * *
In 1643, Sir William Russell, Mary Howard’s cousin, also tried to negotiate peace with the King. Initially siding with Parliament, he defected to the King’s forces in Oxford, and tried to persuade the King to open peace negotiations, but with limited success. The King was then in no mood for such negotiations.
Realising the situation was at that time hopeless, Russell returned to Parliament, but they were suspicious of his motives and refused to let him work with them again. Sir William returned to his family estate at Woburn Abbey, north-east of Oxford, and remained there for the rest of the war.
However, his younger brother, Edward Russell, remained in Oxford until June 1644. He was supposed to be commanding a regiment for Parliament26, for his cousins the Howards, so the Parliamentary leaders were rightfully suspicious when they discovered Edward was living in William Day’s house in St Aldgate in Oxford.27 Edward Russell had been granted a licence to travel, to see relatives, but that licence had long expired. When asked by Parliament to explain himself, Edward could give no good reason for his presence in Oxford, secretly living with Royalists.
During 1644, besieged Oxford was filled with refugees and ‘strangers’28, who lived in any room they could find and who were conscripted to fight for the Royalists as they battled desperately against the attacking Parliamentary army. The King was rightly suspicious of some of these characters and requested that the Earl of Dorset do a survey of the local population, which produced some rather surprising results for both sides. There were a surprising number of Parliamentary supporters living in the Oxford tenements.
To Parliament, it seemed inexplicable that their officer, Edward Russell, would choose to stay in Oxford when he could be living more comfortably in London, or at his family estate of Woburn – or even taking part in the battles against the Royalists. They were, after all, employing him for that purpose. It seems very likely that Edward remained in Oxford as a spy for his older brother.
Sir William Howard, Mary Howard’s brother-in-law, was also living in Oxford, just up the road from Edward Russell. Sir William had been commander of the King’s personal guard at the Battle of Edgehill29, while his nephews James, Earl of Suffolk, and his brother, George, were fighting for Parliament.30 Sir William lived in the same house as the King’s apothecary – a rough tenement house in Oxford, just north of Christ Church, belonging to John Bolte, a tailor. It seemed a poor choice compared with the Howard family’s vast estate at Audley End. But the King’s survey of those residing in Oxford clearly states that, ‘In parte of the house where John Bolte liveth Sir William Howard and 4 men’.31 One of these anonymous and mysterious four men was possibly Sir William’s nephew, the son of Mary Howard – George Halse.
George Halse was a man of many surnames, difficult to trace and difficult to pin down when it came to political allegiance. He was the ward of Francis Trelawney, the Trelawneys active in the support of King Charles I. He was also a Halse and a Howard, most of whom were fighting for Parliament. He was a man who disappeared during the war, probably acting as a spy and an informant, working with his friend William Russell in their efforts to end the war. But even he, regardless of the support of his relations Edward Russell and William Howard, could never have convinced King Charles I to request a hearing for a humble man like George Cutteford.
The essential piece on their chess board was George Cutteford’s old friend, the Earl of Dorset, Lord Chamberlain to the King. Edward Sackville, a cousin to the Howards, had inherited the title of Earl of Dorset after the death of his brother Richard in 1614. Edward probably first met Mary when she married Charles Howard. They met again in 1628, at the Court of Queen Henrietta Maria, when Mary Howard was falling in love with Sir Richard Grenville. Edward Sackville was then Lord Chamberlain to the Queen, his wife governess to the royal children.
By 1628, Edward Sackville was already a firm friend of George Cutteford; they shared moderate views of religion and politics, and a fervent hatred of Richard Grenville. They also shared a common interest in acquiring land and money. Having inherited an impoverished estate from his brother, and desperate for good advice on contracts and accounts, George Cutteford was just the sort of friend Edward Sackville needed.
EDWARD SACKVILLE, EARL OF DORSET
Until he was thirty-four, in 1614, Edward Sackville had not expected to become the Earl of Dorset.32 On the death of their father, the title had passed to Edward’s older brother Richard, who was noted for his extravagance and profligacy. When Richard died, Edward inherited a title, a substantial, though impoverished, estate called Knole in Kent and a series of debts. Fortunately for the family estate, Edward was ‘a sober and consistent gentleman’33 and a fiercely loyal servant to King Charles I, travelling in Europe and the New World to secure the fortunes of his sovereign, and a little money for himself. He was a cousin to Theophilus Howard, and both were active members of the King’s Privy Council. At the start of the English Civil War, Edward Sackv
ille was employed as Lord Chamberlain to the Queen, with his wife governess to the royal children. This essentially put them in charge of the royal household. Edward took part in the Battle of Edgehill in 1642, fighting courageously for the Royalists. He was the bodyguard for the royal children amidst the terrifying slaughter. Meanwhile his family estate at Knole in Kent was ransacked, desecrated and sequestered by Parliament’s forces.
By 1644, Sackville was Lord Chamberlain to the King, representing the King in the newly-constituted Oxford Parliament while the King was travelling with his army, and also leading the negotiations for peace with Parliament. He had the King’s ear throughout the war, whether or not the King was willing to listen to Edward’s constant and persuasive pleas for an end to the conflict.
His position, though, put his sons in great danger. His elder son, Richard was captured and imprisoned by Parliament in the early stages of the war, and his younger son, Edward, an active soldier during the battles, was kidnapped at Kidlington near Oxford and brutally murdered there by Parliamentary soldiers.
Despite his criticism of the war, and his own personal tragedies, Edward Sackville remained loyal to the King throughout the war. When King Charles I was beheaded in 1649, Edward returned to Knole, vowing never to set foot outside his estate again – he kept his vow, and died in 1652.
The Devil Comes to Dartmoor Page 16