Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Cornelius Vermuyden, by virtue of the agreement of 1626 with Charles I, did build and plant a town called Sandtoft (Lincs), whereunto resorted above 200 families of French and Walloon Protestants, who erected and planted above 200 habitations for husbandry, and ploughed and tilled much of the 24,500 acres of land. All which they enjoyed till about the month of June, in the year 1642, that some of the inhabitants thereabouts, pretending they had right of common, said they were not bound by the decree. And taking advantage of the present distractions (for then it was that the Parliament began to raise a powerful army for the safety of the King’s person, defence of both Houses of Parliament, and of those who had obeyed their orders and commands), the King being at that time at York, with some slender guards, they arose in tumults, broke down the fences and enclosures of 4,000 acres, destroyed all the corn growing, and demolished the houses built thereon. And about the beginning of February ensuing, they pulled up the floodgates of Snow Sewer, which by letting in the tides from the River of Trent, soon drowned a great part of Hatfield Chase (Yorks/Lincs), diverse persons standing there with muskets and saying that there they would stay till the whole level were drowned, and the inhabitants forced to swim away like ducks, and so continued guarding the said sluice for the space of seven weeks together, letting in the tides at every full water, and keeping the sluice shut at an ebb. About that time, likewise, some of the inhabitants of Misterton (Notts), pulled down another sluice, near that town; which occasioned the River Trent to break down the banks and overflow the whole level, so that the barns and stacks of corn were drowned a yard high, at the least. And thinking this not to be mischief enough, the inhabitants of the Isle of Axholme (Lincs), did about Michaelmas in the year 1645 tumultuously throw down a great part of the banks, and filled up the ditches, putting in cattle into the corn and pastures of those that had been adventurers for the draining.

Comment

Comment

Hatfield Chase Corporation, 1538-1973 provides a good intro. This battle and the war are described in great depth by George Stovin (Stovin 1893). Other pending reading includes Korthals Altes’ biography of Vermuiden (Korthals Altes 1924), Piet van Cruyningen’s article on the Dutch investors, the NNBW, Samuel Smiles (Smiles 1861).

My suggestion that “the beginning of February” translates to Sunday the 5th is based on a belief that, particularly in this community-wide type of issue, riots tended to start on the Lord’s Day. Carnival Sunday was the 19th – too late.

The agreement between Charles I and the Dutch engineer, Cornelius Vermuyden, obliged the latter to drain and reclaim Hatfield Chase, a marshy, low-lying area prone to flooding, in return for which Vermuyden would receive one third of the land, the Crown would retain one third, and the remaining third would be divided among existing tenants with rights of common (Peck 1815).

Johan Huizinga claims that Cromwell acted for the locals in the legal proceedings which took place in parallel with the rioting (Huizinga 1924).

Vermuyden may have been a better entrepreneur than engineer. J.F. Bense writes that “In 1623 the Commissioners of Sewers in Essex complained to the Council that Vermuiden had made the state of the land worse than before.” Also:

The money required was supplied by Dutch capitalists in London and in Holland, the celebrated poets Huygens and Cats being among the number, and the large number of workmen required were brought over from Holland. Owing to great difficulties with the fenmen in the Isle of Axholme and Epworth, he became disheartened, and in 1633 sold his interest in the reclaimed land to a Frenchman, Gibbon, who introduced French workmen to co-operate with the Dutch navvies.

Many of the Dutchmen, however, left the district and settled at Thorney Abbey in Cambridgeshire, which is now one of the finest corn-growing districts in England.

The interest Dutchmen took in cultivating such lands is evident from what Evelyn wrote in 1570: “Being arrived at some meres, we found Lord Wotton and Sir John Kiviet about their draining engines, having, it seems, undertaken to do wonders on a vast piece of marsh-ground they had hired of Sir Thomas Chicheley. They much pleased themselves with the hopes of a rich harvest of hemp and cole-seed. which was the crop expected. Here we visited the engines and mills both for wind and water, draining it through two rivers or graffs cut by hand. Here, my Lord and his partner had built two or three rooms, with Flanders white bricks, very hard.”
(Bense 1924).

The Leeds preacher Richard Garbut saw in the Dutch a contrast between the draining of land and the flooding (with) alcohol of hapless citizens:

Are drunkards the very children of the Devil? Then magistrates look to it, how ye may suppress and hinder this breed; these children of Belial, they breed as Laban’s Flocks did at the watering-troughs when they came thither to drink, Gen. 30:38. So these, they breed and gender at the watering troughs, at the drinking places, at blind, superfluous, by-corner alehouses, that are in by-obscure corners, there this brood breeds, as serpents, and dragons, and hurtful beasts they breed still in holes and dens, and by-coverts, that they may be the freest and most out of the way, not to be hindered in their breed; if the breed therefore of these so hurtful creatures, these sons and daughters of Belial would be hindered, their holes, their dens, their by-coverts where they breed, sc. blind, superfluous by-corner alehouses must be looked into. These are the Devil’s very nurseries, and breeding-places for his brats to be nursed and brought up in; and so long as he hath such convenient nurseries, and breeding-places allowed him, no marvel if the world (as it is) be full of his brats; therefore they that are in place, I would they would be pleased to let enquiry be made into such blind by-corner alehouses, the very nurseries and seminaries for the Devil to breed and bring up his brats there. They talk of Dutch mens draining our English fens and overflown grounds, and how commodious it would be to the country; but is by these and other good means the English would seek to drain the Dutch drinking that overflows all among us, how much more commodious a thing would that be to the country? Is it not better to have a little ground drowned among us, than ourselves? And therefore is it not better to drain that overflowing that overflows ourselves, than that which overflows our ground? (Garbut 1675ish)

Something to say? Get in touch

Original

Cornelius Vermuyden, together with his participants and their assigns, being in quiet and peaceable possession of what belonged to them by virtue of the agreement [of 24 May 1626 with Charles I], did build and plant a town called Sandtoft, with a church therein; placing a minister there; whereunto resorted above two hundred families of French and Walloon Protestants (fled out of their native country for fear of the Inquisition, only to enjoy the free exercise of their religion here) who erected and planted above two hundred habitations for husbandry, and ploughed and tilled much of the said twenty four thousand and five hundred acres of land, to the great benefit of the common wealth. All which they enjoyed till about the month of June, in the year 1642, that some of the inhabitants thereabouts, pretending they had right of common, said they were not bound by the before-specified decree: and therefore taking advantage of the present distractions: for then it was that the Parliament began to raise a powerful army for the safety of the King’s person, defence of both Houses of Parliament, and of those who had obeyed their orders and commands; and preserving the true religion, laws, liberties and peace of the kingdom (as their votes and remonstrances did set forth) a vast proportion of money and plate, being brought in, by the citizens of London, and others, for that purpose; the King being at that time at York, with some slender guards (which they voted to be a levying of war against his Parliament) they arose in tumults, broke down the fences and enclosures of four thousand acres, destroyed all the corn growing, and demolished the houses built thereon.

And about the beginning of February ensuing, they pulled up the floodgates of Snow Sewer, which by letting in the tides from the River of Trent, soon drowned a great part of Hatfield Chase; diverse persons standing there with muskets; and saying, that there they would stay till the whole level were drowned, and the inhabitants forced to swim away like ducks: and so continued guarding the said sluice for the space of seven weeks together, letting in the tides at every full water, and keeping the sluice shut at an ebb. And about that time, likewise, some of the inhabitants of Misterton, pulled down another sluice, neer that Town; which occasioned the River of Trent to break down the banks and overflow the whole level, so that the barns and stacks of corn were drowned a yard high, at the least.

And thinking this not to be mischief enough, the inhabitants of the Isle of Axholme, did about Michaelmas in the year 1645 tumultuously throw down a great part of the banks, and filled up the ditches, putting in cattle into the corn and pastures of those that had been adventurers for the draining.

481 words.

Tags

Tags are assigned inclusively on the basis of an entry’s original text and any comment. You may find this confusing if you only read an entry excerpt.

• Balne (1) ·
• Charles I (1600-49) (23), King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from 1625 until his execution in 1649 ·
• Colonialism (3) ·
• Common land (4) ·
• 📌Doncaster (34) ·
• Dyke breach (2) ·
• East Cowick (1) ·
• East Riding of Yorkshire (66) ·
• English Civil War (1642-1651) (27), a series of civil wars and political machinations between Parliamentarians ("Roundheads") and Royalists ("Cavaliers"), mainly over the manner of England's governance and issues of religious freedom ·
• Epworth, Lincolnshire (1) ·
• Fishlake (2) ·
• Flanders (6) ·
• Fowling (1) ·
• France (31) ·
• Goole (7) ·
• Gringley on the Hill (1) ·
• 📌Hatfield Chase (3), low-lying area in South Yorkshire and North Lincolnshire, drained with partial success by Cornelius Vermuyden in 1626 ·
• Hatfield, South Yorkshire (5) ·
• Huguenots (1) ·
• Isle of Axholme (1) ·
• Land reclamation (2) ·
• Lincolnshire (15) ·
• Michaelmas (6), feast principally of St. Michael on 29 September, one of the four quarter days of the financial, judicial, and academic year, in medieval England the beginning and end of the husbandman's year, hence hiring fairs at this time ·
• Misterton, Nottinghamshire (1) ·
• Netherlands (9) ·
• Nottinghamshire (10) ·
• Pollington (1) ·
• Protestantism (25) ·
• River Aire (25) ·
• River Don Navigation (2) ·
• River Don, Yorkshire (10) ·
• River Idle (1) ·
• River Ouse, Yorkshire (19) ·
• River Torne (1) ·
• River Trent (4) ·
• Sandtoft, Lincolnshire (1) ·
• Snaith (1) ·
• Sykehouse (2) ·
• Vermuyden, Cornelius (1595-1677) (2), engineer who introduced Dutch land reclamation methods to England and drained Hatfield Chase, with disastrous consequences ·
• West Cowick (1) ·
• West Riding of Yorkshire (147) ·
• Xenophobia (2) ·
• 📌York (164) ·

All tags.

Similar

• 20 December 1697: Terrible flooding in the lower Don is caused by the failure of the colonist Cornelius Vermuyden’s land reclamation scheme to cope with snow-melt
• 22 September 1465: A (perhaps exaggerated) menu for the enthronement at Cawood Castle of George Neville as Archbishop of York
• 11 June 1681: A recent grainstorm near Leeds
• 14 March 1573: Archbishop Grindal intercedes on behalf of the commoners of Sutton-on-the-Forest (north of York) against enclosure of part of the royal Forest of Galtres
• 28 January 1069: In the first major northern battle after Hastings, Tynesiders slaughter a Norman army at Durham, whereupon William the Conqueror ravages the north
• 9 June 1758: Entry into law of the first dedicated railway enabling act, for Richard Humble and Charles Brandling’s wagonway from Middleton Colliery to the Aire at Leeds
• 15 October 1645: Unable to distinguish Cavaliers from Roundheads, Lord Digby’s victorious Royalist army flees the battlefield at Sherburn in Elmet and is destroyed
• 7 March 1615: A great thaw begins in York – heavy flooding along the Ouse and Foss, followed by four months drought
• 23 January 1642: Entering Hull to claim it for parliament from Charles I, young John Hotham receives divine warning of his and his father’s acephalous fate
• 4 May 1643: The Royalists take Rotherham and begin a search for the preacher John Shawe