Yorkshire Almanac The administration of warrants by the Puritan Thomas Posthumous Hoby, “the best JP in the land”

15 June 1635: The administration of warrants by the Puritan Thomas Posthumous Hoby, “the best JP in the land”

William Brereton. 1915. The Journal of Sir William Brereton, 1635. North Country Diaries (Second Series). Ed. John Crawford Hodgson. Durham: Surtees Society. Get it:

Unedited excerpt

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

This man the most understanding, able, and industrious justice of peace in this kingdome. Noe warrant graunted out butt he takes notice thereof in a booke : and att sessions an account demaunded of all those warrants sent out : which if the constables to whom, they are delivered, doe not exequute nor returne, and give an account: they are called uppon att the sessions : or if those that require and procure the warrants keepe them in their hands, and make use of them for their owne ends and doe nott deliver them to bee served they are bound over to the sessions.

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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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13 June 1635: A Puritan talks to the gardener at York of the notorious miser and swindler, Sir Arthur Ingram

2 July 1644: Henry Slingsby of the Royalist York garrison recounts Prince Rupert’s defeat at Marston Moor today, which ends Charles I’s hopes in the north

20 March 1649: Judge and Yorkshireman Francis Thorpe justifies to the grand jury at York the recent execution of Charles I

5 February 1643: Rioting locals reïnundate Hatfield Chase in protest at flooding and a loss of fishing and fowling caused by Netherlandish colonists and Cornelius Vermuyden’s land reclamation scheme

20 April 1631: Quoting Elizabeth I’s 1572 Vagabonds Act, justices of the peace in Thirsk order a crackdown on a variety of layabouts

30 January 1650: Alderman Hoyle of York hangs himself at Westminster on the first anniversary of Charles I’s execution, inspiring John Cleveland to verse

3 January 1647: “H.M.” arrives at York with 36 carts containing £200,000, the first half of the sum paid to the Scots for custody of Charles I and to persuade their army to go home

13 July 1626: Charles I gives the borough of Leeds its first municipal charter, reflecting York’s loss of industry, protecting its textiles, and reducing the power of most burgesses

2 August 1680: William Dolben, perhaps reluctantly, condemns Thomas Thwing to death at York for his part, without co-conspirators, in a fictitious conspiracy – the Popish Plot

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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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