Yorkshire Almanac 2026

Unedited excerpt

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

We returned to York, where I was desired to call upon a poor prisoner in the castle. I had formerly occasion to take notice of a hideous monster, called a Chancery Bill; I now saw the fellow to it, called a Declaration. The plain fact was this: Some time since, a man who lived near Yarm, assisted others in running some brandy; his share was worth near four pounds; after he had wholly left off that bad work, and was following his own business, that of a weaver, he was arrested, and sent to York gaol; and, not long after, comes down a Declaration, that Jac. Wh— had landed a vessel laded with brandy and geneva, at the port of London, and sold them there, whereby he was indebted to his Majesty, £577, and upwards;” and to tell this worthy story, the lawyer takes up thirteen or fourteen sheets of treble-stamped paper.

O England, England! will this reproach never be rolled away from thee? Is there any thing like this to be found, either among Papists, Turks, or Heathens? In the name of truth, justice, mercy, and common sense, I ask, 1. Why do men lie, for lying sake? Is it only to keep their hands in? What need else, of saying it was the port of London, when every one knew the brandy was landed above three hundred miles from thence? What a monstrous contempt of truth does this show, or rather hatred to it? 2. Where is the justice of swelling four pounds into five hundred and seventy-seven? 3. Where is the common sense of taking up fourteen sheets, to tell a story that may be told in ten lines? 4. Where is the mercy, of thus grinding the face of the poor? Thus sucking the blood of a poor, beggared prisoner? Would not this be execrable villany, if the paper and writing together were only sixpence a sheet, when they have stripped him already of his little all, and not left him fourteen groats in the world?

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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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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.

• Bankruptcy (3) W/G ·
• Brandy (6) W/G ·
• Catholic Church (57) W/G ·
• Gin (5) W/G ·
• HM Customs (2) W/G ·
• Jenever (1) W/G ·
• Legal profession (1) W/G ·
• London (84) W/G ·
• Methodism (38) W/G ·
• River Tees (5) W/G ·
• Smuggling (2) W/G ·
• Spirit (3) W/G ·
• Turkey (4) W/G ·
• Weaving (5) W/G ·
• Wesley, John (1703-91) (21), cleric and leader of a evangelical revival movement within the Church of England known as Methodism W/G ·
• 📌Yarm (7), market town on the south bank of the River Tees, a port before industry moved closer to the sea W/G ·
• 📌York Castle (37) W/G ·
• 📌York (165) W/G ·

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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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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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This is a Jesuit hagiography, and I don’t know to what extent the source reflects the substance of Dolben’s remarks. Wikipedia takes a more benevolent view of him:

In the aftermath of the Popish Plot, Dolben tried many of the accused, including Sir Thomas Gascoigne, 2nd Baronet and Sir Miles Stapleton; due to his impartial trait of pointing out inconsistencies in the prosecution’s evidence, both were acquitted.[4] At the trial of Mary Pressicks, who was accused of saying that “We shall never be at peace until we are all of the Roman Catholic religion”, Dolben saved her life by ruling that the words, even if she did speak them, could not amount to treason.[5] As a result of this and his opposition to Charles II’s removal of the City Corporation’s writs, he was “according to the vicious practise of the time” dismissed on 18 April 1683. Again working as a barrister, Dolben prosecuted Algernon Sidney in November 1683 before being reinstated as a Justice of the King’s Bench on 18 March 1689. Records from 29 April show him “inveighing mightily against the corruption of juries [during the Glorious Revolution]”,[1] and he continued sitting as a Justice until his death from an apoplectic fit on 25 January 1694,[6] and was buried in Temple Church.

Vulgar almanacs glory in death sentences and executions, but I suppose one (1) is called for.

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