Yorkshire Almanac 2025

Unedited excerpt

The excerpt in the book is shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

I stayed at home a day, upon Saturday March 12 I went to Bramhup, preached there upon the Lord’s day, Monday night went to George Horsman’s house at Little Woodhouse, there preached and before I had done was apprehended by constables carried to the Mayor, who sent me to the common prison, called Cappon-Call, by the mediation of friends was released on Tuesday — this March 15 the same day 40 years after I was baptized — a fuller relation of this matter I design – I preached on Wednesday night at Joseph Wood’s near Bramley, came home on Thursday – blessed be God for this journey.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

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Where is Capon Hall/Capon Call/?? Godrey Lawson was mayor at the time.

On 13 July 1670 bailiffs acting under the new Conventicle Act apparently seized the contents of his house to the value of approx. £1550 (2021):

I stayed at home and preached 3 times last lords day – on Monday morning the church-warden and overseer came to this house, told Capt. Hodgson they had a warrant on Sabbath-day night from the justices Mr White and Mr Copley to make distress upon my goods for £10 and bec[?] of my poverty to lay it upon other two men rich: Kershaw and Will Pollard of Wyk – £5 a piece, and some 8 or 10 more their 5s a piece for being at that conventicle at Coley Chapel when I preached there these officers wanted Mr Hodgson’s assistance being an overseer, – on Tuesday morning they came and showed me the warrant, demanded £10 told me it was best to pay, since money cannot be undervalued, but goods may, upon my refusal, they came on wednesday morning i.e. James Mitchel of Crow-Nest constable, Thomas Hanson of Mitham church-warden, Samuel Wadington of Norwood-Green overseer, and brought three men with them, Will Liversidge a joiner and his men, to take down and help to hurry out my goods, they swept all away, three good chests, three tables, chairs, stools, my bed, bedding, curtains — all my goods except a cupboard, and few chairs are gone, – they caryed them to John Appleyards, at Shut, appointed R. Langley, Mic. Empsal – to prize them, they rated them togather with 10 books to ten pound and a noble – cheap penyworths — all this was on Wednesday July 13 1670: blessed be God.

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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.

• Act of Uniformity 1662 (4) W/G ·
• Armitage, Richard (1), Mayor of Leeds, 1670 W/G ·
• 📌Bramhope (4) W/G ·
• 📌Bramley, Leeds (5) W/G ·
• Conventicle Act 1664 (2) W/G ·
• Five Mile Act 1665 (2) W/G ·
• Great Ejection (2) W/G ·
• Heywood, Oliver (1630-1702) (34), Bolton-born nonconformist minister and diarist, active in the West Riding, resident at Northowram, ejected for his beliefs W/G ·
• Lawson, Godfrey (-1709) (1), mayor of Leeds 1669-70, endowed the Lawson Library, Leeds' oldest W/G ·
• 📌Leeds (249) W/G ·
• Little Woodhouse (2) W/G ·
• Nonconformism (47) W/G ·
• 📌Northowram (14) W/G ·
• Presbyterianism (20) W/G ·
• Prison (5) W/G ·
• Woodhouse, Leeds (5) W/G ·

All tags.

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

Where is Capon Hall/Capon Call/?? Godrey Lawson was mayor at the time.

On 13 July 1670 bailiffs acting under the new Conventicle Act apparently seized the contents of his house to the value of approx. £1550 (2021):

I stayed at home and preached 3 times last lords day – on Monday morning the church-warden and overseer came to this house, told Capt. Hodgson they had a warrant on Sabbath-day night from the justices Mr White and Mr Copley to make distress upon my goods for £10 and bec[?] of my poverty to lay it upon other two men rich: Kershaw and Will Pollard of Wyk – £5 a piece, and some 8 or 10 more their 5s a piece for being at that conventicle at Coley Chapel when I preached there these officers wanted Mr Hodgson’s assistance being an overseer, – on Tuesday morning they came and showed me the warrant, demanded £10 told me it was best to pay, since money cannot be undervalued, but goods may, upon my refusal, they came on wednesday morning i.e. James Mitchel of Crow-Nest constable, Thomas Hanson of Mitham church-warden, Samuel Wadington of Norwood-Green overseer, and brought three men with them, Will Liversidge a joiner and his men, to take down and help to hurry out my goods, they swept all away, three good chests, three tables, chairs, stools, my bed, bedding, curtains — all my goods except a cupboard, and few chairs are gone, – they caryed them to John Appleyards, at Shut, appointed R. Langley, Mic. Empsal – to prize them, they rated them togather with 10 books to ten pound and a noble – cheap penyworths — all this was on Wednesday July 13 1670: blessed be God.

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Similar

24 January 1680: Miners rob, murder and burn a pit-owning nonconformist minister and his mother and maid at Beeston (Leeds)

27 June 1669: The vicar of Morley fails to persuade the local JP to prevent Oliver Heywood speaking from his pulpit

11 December 1680: The Great Comet is seen in Halifax as a natural event, in London – amid Popish Plot hysteria – as a portent

2 January 1673: Despite Charles II’s Declaration of Indulgence, Presbyterians Oliver Heywood and Christopher Richardson are detained while preaching at Lascelles Hall (Kirkburton)

5 February 1691: Approaching 60, Oliver Heywood contemplates his place in the cosmos

2 April 1683: A domestic dispute at the Heywoods’ in Northowram (Halifax)

5 April 1674: An anonymous message to a preacher

29 November 1673: A verse warns Charles II against his brother James, six days after the latter’s marriage to an Italian Catholic

24 June 1679: The world’s oldest wool carders?

27 September 1680: The Rev Oliver Heywood manifests disregard for Calvinist views on fasting, for his horses, and for his wife

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To facilitate reading, the spelling and punctuation of elderly excerpts have generally been modernised, and distracting excision scars concealed. My selections, translations, and editions are copyright.

Comment

Comment

This despite frequent mentions of fasting, which, according to Calvin, had three ends:

The object of fasts is, that the flesh may be grieved; that we may be better set in order for prayer; that they may be proofs of humility and obedience. They consist in the time of taking food, its quality, and quantity. Here we must take heed, lest we rend our garments only, and not our hearts, as the hypocrites do; lest, when done, they be reckoned as a work of merit; lest they be exacted too rigidly, as if necessary to salvation (Calvin 1844).

Perhaps Heywood’s heart was so evidently in the right place that his fasting could be merely symbolic.

Heywood’s size must have taxed his horses – Ralph Thoresby calculated “that in one year he preached 105 times, besides the Lord’s Days, kept 50 days of fasting and prayer, nine of thanksgiving, and travelled 1,400 miles in his Master’s service.” (Thoresby 1715) His (second) wife was Abigail Crompton, who married him in 1667 and, childless, survived him by five years (Anon 1832).

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