Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

If an excerpt is used in the book, it will be shorter, edited and, where applicable, translated.

Extract from Jackson’s Oxford Journal, 1759

Last Friday came on at York the Trials of Richard Houseman, of Knaresbro’, Eugene Aram and Henry Terry, for the murder of Daniel Clark of Knaresbro’ aforesaid, who disappeared on the 8th of February, 1744-5, having a little Time before borrowed and bought on Credit a large Quantity of Silver Plate, a great Number of Watches, Rings, and other Things of Value, for the Sake of which it is supposed he was murdered, no account ever having been given of him or them. Richard Houseman was acquitted and then admitted Evidence; who deposed That in the Night between the 7th and 8th of February, 1744-5, after above two Hours spent in passing and repassing to and fro between their several Houses to dispose of various Goods, and to settle some notes concerning them, Aram proposed first to Clark and then to him, to take a Walk out of Town; that when they came to the Field where Sir (sic) Robert’s Cave is, Aram and Clark went over the hedge into it; and when they came within six or eight Yards of the Cave, he saw Aram strike Clark several Times, upon which he fell, and he never saw him more, but saw no Instrument that he had, and knew not that he had any; that on this, without any Interposition or Alarm, he left them and returned home. And being asked why he did not discover the Affair, said That Aram threatened to take away his life, if he made any Discovery of what had passed. Houseman’s Evidence was delivered with all the Anxiety, Diffidence and Embarrassment of Conscious Guilt, solicitous to accuse the Partner of his Iniquity no farther than it consisted wuth the keeping the Curtain drawn between the Court and him. Aram in his defence (that he had drawn up previous to his Trial, which as a defence, could not avail to exculpate him; but as a Composition it was greatly admired for the Closeness and Acuteness of the Reasoning and in general for the Propriety, the Force, and Eloquence of the Expression) expatiated greatly on many innocent Persons suffering by the Perjury of Accomplices and circumstantial Evidence, and as such recommended himself to the Clemency of the Judge and Jury; who on Houseman’s evidence, with corroborating circumstances given by others, immediately brought him in Guilty; and Sentence of Death was passed upon him.

Last Monday (being the day fix’d for his Execution) he cut with a Razor, which he had concealed in his Cell some Time before, the Veins of his Left Arm a little above the Elbow and also a little above the Wrist, but miss’d the Artery, by which, before it was discovered, he had lost so much Blood, that he was rendered very weak. Surgeons were immediately sent for, who stopp’d the Bleeding, and he was carried to Tyburn (at which Place he was sensible, tho’ very feeble, and was there ask’d if he had any Thing to say, to which he answer’d “No,”) where he was executed and his Body carried to Knaresbrough Forest, where it is to be hung in Chains in the nearest Part of it to that Town, pursuant to his Sentence.

He wrote an Account of his Life, which with the Defence he made on his Trial, he left with the Rev. Mr. Collins of Knaresbrough.

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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

The case – with different names and details – had a wide impact in European literature, usually turning on the question of whether it is just to murder a wealthy fool if that wealth is then used to acquire knowledge profitable to mankind. One day I will publish a book containing translations of various tellings.

The outstanding contributions to huge mass of Aramiana are Edward Bulwer Lytton’s romantic novel (Bulwer Lytton 1891) and its excellent refutation by Watson; my title reflects both. Here’s Thomas Hood’s Dream of Eugene Aram, read by Roy Macready:

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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.

• Assizes (24) W/G ·
• Bulwer-Lytton, Edward (1803-73) (1), writer and politician W/G ·
• Capital punishment (7) W/G ·
• Celtic languages (1) W/G ·
• Eugene Aram (novel) (1) W/G ·
• Eugene Aram (2) W/G ·
• Hanging (25) W/G ·
• Hood, Thomas (1799-1845) (1), poet, author and humorist W/G ·
• Indo-European languages (1) W/G ·
• Knaresborough (9) W/G ·
• 📌Knavesmire (15) W/G ·
• Limestone (11), a common type of carbonate sedimentary rock, generally formed from the accumulation of corals and shells in the sea, often containing fossils; unsuited for textile manufacturing because of the hardness of the water and the relative lack of springs and brooks on its fells and in its gills W/G ·
• Murder (38) W/G ·
• North Riding of Yorkshire (51) W/G ·
• Philology (5) W/G ·
• River Nidd (5) W/G ·
• St Robert’s Cave and Chapel of the Holy Cross (2) W/G ·
• St. Robert of Knaresborough (ca. 1160-1218) (2), born Robert Flower, hermit who lived in a cave by the River Nidd at Knaresborough, feast day 24 September W/G ·
• Watson, Eric R. (1879?-1927) (1), barrister, Inner Temple W/G ·
• 📌York (165) 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

The case – with different names and details – had a wide impact in European literature, usually turning on the question of whether it is just to murder a wealthy fool if that wealth is then used to acquire knowledge profitable to mankind. One day I will publish a book containing translations of various tellings.

The outstanding contributions to huge mass of Aramiana are Edward Bulwer Lytton’s romantic novel (Bulwer Lytton 1891) and its excellent refutation by Watson; my title reflects both. Here’s Thomas Hood’s Dream of Eugene Aram, read by Roy Macready:

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Similar

27 July 1612: Jennet Preston, the only Yorkshirewoman among the Pendle witches, is found guilty at York of the murder of Thomas Lister of Westby Hall, Gisburn (Ribble Valley)

19 October 1808: William Perigo of Bramley finds that Mary Bateman defrauded him in promising to cure his wife Rebecca’s palpitations, and suspects she died of poisoning

13 August 1821: The laments of the adulterous poisoner Ann Barber on the scaffold at York

14 April 1792: The ballad of Spence Broughton, hung this day at the York Tyburn for robbing the Sheffield and Rotherham mail

10 December 1769: Part of the northern ballad about Bill Brown, a Brightside (Sheffield) steelworker and hare-poacher killed by gamekeepers today near Rotherham

29 August 1570: On arriving in Yorkshire, Archbishop Grindal declares war on bloody-minded folk-Catholicism

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

4 August 1661: The tenant of St Robert’s cave, Knaresborough, tells the parson-naturalist John Ray the legend of the saint and the cripple

21 September 1549: Egalitarian, republican and Catholic, the leaders of the Seamer Rebellion against the Edwardian Reformation are hanged at York

27 March 1634: In commercial Gothic urban legend, John Bartendale, a piper, is hung and buried at York, but awakes, is rescued and pardoned, and returns to the music business

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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

Sources. Here’s Richard Brathwait’s original Latin and English translation:

Ibi Tibicen apprehensus,
Judicatus et suspensus,
Plaustro cöaptato furi,
Ubi Tibia, clamant pueri?
Nunquam ludes amplius Billie;
At nescitis, inquit ille.
Quod contigerit memet teste,
Nam abscissa jugulo reste,
Ut in fossam Furcifer vexit,
Semi-mortuus resurrexit:
Arce reducem occludit,
Ubi valet, vivit, ludit.

A piper being here committed,
Guilty found, condemned and titted:
As he was to Knavesmire going,
This day, quoth boys, will spoil thy blowing;
From thy pipe th’art now departing;
Wags, quoth the piper, you’re not certain.
All which happened to our wonder,
For the halter cut asunder,
As one of all life deprived,
Being buried, he revived:
And there lives, and plays his measure,
Holding hanging but a pleasure.
(Brathwait 1638)

Bacon:

There have been many examples of men in show dead, either laid out upon the cold floor, or carried forth to burial; nay, of some buried in the earth; which notwithstanding have lived again; which hath been found in those that were buried (the earth being afterwards opened) by the bruising, and wounding of their head, through the struggling of the body within the coffin; whereof the most recent and memorable example was that of Joannes Scotus, called the subtile, and a schoolman, who being digged up again by his servant (unfortunately absent at his burial, and who knew his master’s manner in such fits) was found in that state. And the like happened in our days in the person of a player, buried at Cambridge (Bacon 1638).

Brathwait would probably not have cared about the detailed confutation of Bacon by the Irish Franciscan Luke Wadding in 1636 (Murray 1998).

Gent’s History of York:

1634 … This year one John Bartendale was executed at York gallows for felony. When he had hung three quarters of an hour, he was cut down and buried near the place of execution. A little after, a gentleman of the ancient family of the Vavasours of Hesselwood riding by, thought he saw the earth move: Upon which ordering his man to alight, and alighting himself, both of them charitably assisted to throw by the mould, and to help the buried convict from his grave; who, being conveyed again to York Castle, was by the said gentleman’s intercession reprieved ’till the next assizes, and then pardoned by the judge, who seemed amazed at so signal a providence. And this puts me in Mind, that the said Bartendale was a piper, taken notice of by Barnaby, in his book of travels into the northern parts:

[Latin as above]

Thus paraphrased:

Here a Piper apprehended,
Was found guilty and suspended.
Being led to fatal gallows,
Boys did cry, Where is thy Bellows?
Ever must thou cease thy Tuning!
Answered he, For all your cunning
You may fail in your prediction.
Which did happen, without fiction.
For cut down, and quick interred,
Earth rejected what was bur’ed:
Half alive or dead he rises,
Gets a pardon next assizes,
And in York continued blowing,
Yet a sense of goodness showing.

I have been told the poor fellow turned ostler, and lived very honestly afterwards. Having been demanded, what he could tell in relation to hanging, as having experienced it, he replied, that when he was turned off, flashes of fire seemed to dart in his eyes, from which he fell into a state of darkness and insensibility. (Gent 1730)

William Knipe’s Criminal Chronology of York Castle (which was shamelessly plagiarised by A.W. Twyford, governor of York Castle, who should have known better (Twyford 1880)):

In the reign of King Charles I., and on the 27th day of March, 1634, John Bartendale was executed on the York gallows, without Micklegate Bar, for felony etc. etc. (Knipe 1867)

Sabine Baring-Gould:

… Earth has a peculiarly invigorating and restorative effect, as has been recently discovered; and patients suffering from debility are by some medical men now-a-days placed in earth baths with the most salutary effects. In the case of gangrened wounds a little earth has been found efficacious in promoting healthy action of the skin. John Bartendale was now to experience the advantages of an earth-bath … (Baring-Gould 1874).

Philip Caraman:

It was probably at [the March 1630 assizes] in York that Fr. Robinson was condemned to be hanged, drawn and quartered outside Micklegate. The sentence was not carried out, but he lay in York Castle for another eleven years, providing for the relief of Catholic prisoners. No longer in need of disguise, he ministered openly to the condemned malefactors. As an old man he told of his days as novice-master in gaol and the story of John Bartendale, the felon whom he had confessed on the eve of his execution on 27 March 1634. Bartendale had been a strolling piper. After he had hung on the gallows three-quarters of an hour he was cut down for dead and buried near the place of execution. The hangman had not reckoned on the strength of Bartendale’s throat muscles. Shortly afterwards, Sir Thomas Vavasour of Haslewood, passing on his way to the city, saw the freshly-turned soil heave close to his path. At once he dismounted, and with his servant’s help, ‘dug up the convict all alive’. At the next Assizes the Judge mercifully ruled that Bartendale was legally dead. He was released through the intercession of his deliverer, who took him into service at Haslewood: but in intervals of work he went into town,

And in York continued blowing
Yet a sense of goodness showing.

(Caraman 1957)

One two non-sources for the Caraman anecdote.

Mark Graham ventriloquising in The York Press:

For many years there has been a curious custom in York of making a toast to Honest John for good luck. Now Mark Graham, of the Original Ghost Walk of York, which leaves from the King’s Arms nightly, has uncovered the tale behind the toast. According to Mark, Honest John was John Bartendale, a young piper, who was hanged for theft on March 27, 1634 despite a clear lack of evidence. The judge behind the sentence was a notorious hanger who ignored John’s pleas that he was an honest man. John was hanged near Micklegate Bar, cut down and buried. But several hours later, travellers spotted John’s burial mound moving and watched in amazement as the piper emerged naked from the pile of soil. No sooner had John escaped his grave when he was arrested and brought before the judge who condemned him. But this time the entire city petitioned his release and an eminent gentleman argued on John’s behalf that God had passed his judgement when he allowed him to survive. The story says that Honest John was freed by the judge to rapturous cheers from the crowd. Mark said: “Honest John, as he became known, led a long and happy life as a publican in the city. People travelled from far and wide to hear his story and drink to his health, hoping to share a drop of his good fortune.” He compiled the story, using information from secret sources, for the York Brewery pub, The Last Drop Inn. The pub intends to display the tale and encourage customers to drink a toast to Honest John (York Press 2003/04/21).

Duns Scotus trivia:

• A poem, found I know not where:
  

  Mark this man’s demise, o traveler,
  For here lies John Scot, once interr’d
  But twice dead; we are now wiser
  And still alive, who then so err’d.

• Who would be in your medieval supergroup? Malcolm Guite replies:
  

  Albertus Magnus: Bass
  Thomas Aquinas: Multiple keyboards
  Duns Scotus: Bagpipes
  Bonaventure: Lead Guitar
  Dante: Vocals (triple tracked)

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