Now! Then! 2024! - Yorkshire On This Day

Excerpt

Margaret, wife of Enoch Hodgson of Richmond, tailor, says, that a stranger (who is now in hold and calls himself by the name of John Fawcett) came yesterday, about four o’clock in the afternoon, into her husband’s house, and begged money of her, and said he was newly come from the fleet. Whereupon she asked him what victory we had got. To which he replied, we had gotten none since the former. And, further, asking him what news from London, he said there was four score parishes burnt. And being asked whether Whitehall were safe or not, he said it was burnt, and that he saw the king and the queen. And this informant said, “God knows this hath been a sore plot.” He had a letter from his brother out of France three months ago, by which he knew of it. And that Captain Mason of York and young Rymer were the chief agents to carry on that plot for this country and for York. And this informant, bewailing of the city of London’s loss, he said, that they would not leave the face of a devil in it, before they had done with it. Michael Jackson, of Richmond, labourer, heard the above, and also that the said stranger said that he could lay a ball and go a hundred miles before it should take fire.

Comment

Comment

Raine notes that fireballs were said to have been used in London, and recalls the anti-Papist couplet by Pope which used to be inscribed on the base of the Monument:

Where London’s column, pointing at the skies
Like a tall bully, lifts the head, and lies
(Pope 1754)

Thoresby refers to Captain Mason (Thoresby 1830).

The alleged beggar was bound over.

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Original

Sept. 11, 1666. Before Sir Joseph Cradock and James Metcalfe, Esq. Margaret, wife of Enoch Hodgson, of Richmond, tailor, sayeth, that a stranger (who is now in hold and calls himself by the name of John Fawsit) came yesterday, about four o’clock in the afternoon, into her husband’s house, and begged money of her, and said he was newly come from the fleet. Whereupon she asked him what victory we had got. To which he replied, we had gotten none since the former. And, further, asking him what news from London, he said there was four score parishes burnt. And being asked whether Whitehall were safe or not, he said it was burnt, and that he saw the King and the Queen …… which was their habitation at that time. And this informant said, “God knows this hath been a sore plot.” He said, “Yes.” He had a letter from his brother out of France three months ago, by which he [knew] of it. And that Captain Mason of York and young Rymer were the chief agents to carry on that plot for this country and for York. And this informant bewailing of the city of London’s loss, he said, that they would not leave the face of a devil in it, before they had done with it.

Michael Jackson, of Richmond, labourer, heard the above, and also that the said stranger said that he could lay a ball and go an hundred miles before it should take fire.

253 words.

Tags

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• Begging (2) ·
• Catherine of Braganza (1) ·
• Catholic Church (56) ·
• Charles II (1630-85) (25), King of Scotland 1649-51, King of England, Scotland and Ireland from the 1660 Restoration until his death ·
• City of London (9) ·
• Conflagration (1) ·
• Conspiracy theory (1) ·
• Dutch Republic (5) ·
• Fire (14) ·
• France (30) ·
• Great Fire of London (3) ·
• London (74) ·
• Monument to the Great Fire of London (1) ·
• Pope, Alexander (1688-1744) (4), poet, translator, and satirist of the Augustan period, finest poet of the early 18th century ·
• Richmond, North Yorkshire (3) ·
• Royal Navy (10) ·
• Second Anglo-Dutch War (3) ·
• Whitehall (1) ·
• 📌York Castle (36) ·
• 📌York (162) ·

All tags.

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