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Three Sites in the City of York1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2016

Katharine M. Longley
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Extract

The final identification of what is known as the ‘Birthplace’ of Guy Fawkes has not only settled a question much disputed in York, but has led to the discovery of a number of small facts of wider significance.

It has been generally known since 1933 that Edward Fawkes, father of Guy, was a tenant of the Dean and Chapter, and that his house stood in Stonegate, for in that year the late Rev. Angelo Raine published a complete transcript of a lease made on 8 July 1579 by the Dean and Chapter to Edith Fawkes, widow, of a dwelling house in Stonegate late in her husband's tenure and occupation. Mr Raine was confident that further research would enable this house to be identified. The research has now been undertaken, and the house is found to have been on the northwest side of the street, and to be represented today by nos. 32-34 Stonegate (currently occupied by Mearas, carpet specialists, A. Simpson-East, tailor, and the Hong Kong Chinese Restaurant). All the premises appear to have been entirely rebuilt from the ground level since the sixteenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 12 , Issue 1 , January 1973 , pp. 1 - 7
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1973 

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References

Notes and References

1 My step-by-step account of the very intricate processes of identifying the sites of the houses of Edward Fawkes and John Clitherow from the archives of the Dean and Chapter in York Minster Library, together with further details about Duke Gill Hall, accompanied by plans, has been deposited in the Reference Department of York City Library.

2 Proceedings of the Yorkshire Architectural and York Archaeological Society, I, no. 1 (1933), pp. 30-32: ‘The Birthplace of Guy Fawkes’ by Angelo Raine.

3 Most of our previous knowledge of the ancestry of Guy Fawkes is derived from an invaluable pamphlet entitled The Fawkes's of York, published anonymously in 1850 by Robert Davies, Town Clerk of York 1828-48.

4 Borthwick Institute, Wills 11, f. 497r-v (Will of William Harrington, 10 November 1540).

5 Dean and Chapter archives, Chapter Act Book, Wa, f. 152v.

6 [Davies, R.], The Fawkes's of York (1850), p. 22.Google Scholar

7 Dean and Chapter archives, Bailiff's accounts, F3/20.

8 Borthwick Institute, Dean and Chapter Wills 5, ff. 93r-v (Will of Ellen Fawkes, 22 August 1570, published in full in Davies, op. cit., pp. 51-54, shows the wife of Humphrey Ellis as already dead), 115r (Will of Thomas Fawkes, 18 February 1581-28).

9 Guy Fawkes when arrested and examined in 1605 gave his mother's name as Edith Jackson (S.P. 14/216, no. 19). This ties up both with the statement of Fr Richard Cowling, S.J., that Guy Fawkes was his ‘cosin germane’ (S.P. 12/240. Ralph Cowling, father of Richard, married Alice Jackson at St Olave's Church, York, on 15 November 1552), and probably also with a tradition that connects Guy Fawkes with Bishopthorpe. Thomas Gent recorded in A Journey into some parts of Yorkshire (published in 1733 with his Ancient and modern history of the loyal town of Rippon), p. 64, ‘The House opposite to the Church [of Bishopthorpe] is said to be the Birth Place of Guy Vaux …’. William Harrington was granted the office of keeper of the manor of [Bishop]thorpe on 4 April 1501 (Dean and Chapter archives, M 2 (5), f. 374v), and a family connection with the parish may have started in this way. One Guy Jackson of Bishopthorpe was recusant during the years 1581-85 (Aveling, H., The Catholic recusants of the West Riding of Yorkshire, 1558-1790 [1963], p. 285),Google Scholar perhaps a very significant combination of names and fact.

Fr Richard Cowling also refers to the Harringtons of Mount St John as his cousins, but it does not seem that in this case there was blood relationship. William Harrington, Lord Mayor of York in 1536, had a son Martin, who had a son William. (Will of Ellen Fawkes, see note 8. Aveling, J. C. H., Catholic recusancy in the city of York, 1558-1791 [1970], p. 316,Google Scholar has misread the will.) If this was William Harrington of Mount St John, who was the host of St Edmund Campion in January 1581 (and perhaps the father of the martyred priest William Harrington) he would be first cousin to Edward Fawkes (son of Ellen Harrington and father of Guy).

10 Davies, op. cit., p. 26, points out that the post of Registrar of the Consistory Court had been granted to Richard Frankland in 1565 (Dean and Chapter archives, Wb, ff. 149v-150r). On 20 January 1578-79, three days after the burial of Edward Fawkes in York Minster, the post of Registrar of the Exchequer Court was granted to Simon Hill and Samuel Sandes (ibid., f. 306r-v).

11 Surtees Soc, vol. 45 (1864), p. 362.

12 Davies, op. cit., pp. 24-25, note.

13 Dean and Chapter archives, L 1 (1) a, f.87r. (Caveat entered by Edith Fawkes.)

14 Will of Thomas Fawkes (see note 8), and see Davies, op. cit., p. 31.

15 Probably the lawyer appointed 8 December 1581 to be steward of all the Archbishop's manors in Yorkshire (Dean and Chapter archives, Wb, f. 319r).

16 Dean and Chapter archives, H (4), f. 305r-v.

17 Davies, op. cit., p. 64.

18 Aveling, York, pp. 83, 88.

19 Id., p. 213,

20 Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, Special Supplement no. 9, November 1971. (Albert J. Loomie, S.J., Guy Fawkes in Spain.)

21 Pullein, C., The Pulleyns of Yorkshire (1915), p. 120.Google Scholar

22 Foster, J., ed. The Visitation of Yorkshire … 1584/5 … to which is added the subsequent Visitation made in 1612 (1875), p. 367.Google Scholar Pedigree of Salveyn, of Newbiggin.

23 Now demolished.

24 J. Morris, S.J., Troubles of our Catholic forefathers, vol. 3 (1877), p. 399;Google Scholar from Fr John Mush's True report of the life and martyrdom of Mrs Margaret Clitherow, written in 1586.

25 Robert Brumby was the sculptor of the statue of the Madonna and Child now in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Christ the King, Liverpool; the statue was fired in no. 10 Shambles.

26 Dean and Chapter archives, We, ff. 37v and 348v.

27 As ‘Mary Claridge’ in Margaret Clitherow (1966), and in the Ampleforth Journal, Autumn 1970 and Summer 1971.

28 Aveling, York, pp. 193-4.

29 Borthwick Institute, Wills 17, f. 394 (Will of Richard Clitherow, 1564), Wills 29, f. 195 (Will of William Calvert, 1602, proved 1603), Administration of Mary Clitherow, 15 November 1572 (City).

Millicent Calvert was probably the ‘sister of Mrs Clitherow’ whose acquaintance was made by the boy John Jackson in York about 1593 (C.R.S. 54, pp. 124, 126).

30 Borthwick Institute, Wilis 22, f. 272 (Will of John Mudd, 1570, and codicil 1575, proved 1582); cf. Wills 15 pt. 2, f. 131 (Will of Sybil Scotson, 1557).

31 Venn, J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, pt. 1, vol. 4 (1927).Google Scholar

32 Collectanea, M, printed by J. Morris, S.J., Troubles, vol. 3, pp. 317–19;Google Scholar derived from the fuller Collectanea F, printed in H. Foley, S.J., Records of the English Province of the Society ofJesus, vol. 3 (1878), pp. 237-9.

33 Cal. S.P. Dom, Eliz. Add. 1566-79 (1871), p. 369.

34 City archives, E51, p. 156.

35 Cal. S.P. Dom. Eliz. Add. 1566-79, p. 224.

36 Surveyed 1851, scale 5 ft: 1 mile.

37 Morris, , Troubles, vol. 3, p. 299;Google Scholar see also pp. 317-18.

38 Id., pp. 237, 250, from City archives, Housebook B26, ff. 68v, 97v.

39 Foley, , Records, vol. 3, p. 235.Google Scholar

40 Cross, M. C., The Puritan Earl (1966), p. 240,CrossRefGoogle Scholar from Huntington Library, H.A. 4140.

41 Morris, , Troubles, vol. 3, pp. 311–12, 316.Google Scholar

42 Duke Gill Hall, ‘heretofore called the Kinges courte’ (City archives, G55), was already a legend. Sir Thomas Widdrington, whose Analecta Eboracensia was completed before 1664, identifies this house with the palace of the ancient kings who kept court in York, and implies that it gave its name to the nearby church, Ecclesia Sanctae Trinitatis in Curia Regis. Modern writers tend to identify it with the palace of the tenth century Scandinavian king Eric Bloodaxe.

43 G54-56.

44 G54.

45 James Vavasour, eldest son of Dr Thomas, had become a priest, and died in 1593.

46 See Morris, , Troubles, vol. 3, pp. 449–50Google Scholar for the account by Fr James Sharpe (‘Fr Pollard’) of the sufferings and impoverishment of this family.