Sheffield And Its Environs 13th To The 17th Century Part 4

a.s.suming for the moment that the two deeds were prepared at the same time and by the same hand, it is necessary to consider the position as it presented itself to the attorney, who in 1568 was instructed to carry out the sale of Hawksyard to John Weston. He possibly may have acted for both vendor and purchaser and been anxious to do his best for both his clients. He would, on receiving his instructions, ask the vendor for his t.i.tle deeds; the answer would presumably be that there were no such deeds; but it was probably well known in the vendor's family and possibly also to John Weston, that Hawksyard had been given to Sir Edward Mundy by John of Gaunt shortly before his death, after enjoying a day's hawking in Highe Frith, the tradition of which would hang round The Moorlands for centuries; perhaps letters or diaries would be produced with sufficient detail to satisfy the purchaser of the truth of the tradition.

The attorney would perhaps be in doubt, whether this traditional gift was a grant of the fee simple or a mere sporting right over certain waste lands belonging to the manor of Alstonefield, part of the duchy; which right would be what is known as a right of common in gross. The vendors were doubtless in actual possession and their ancestors had held it for nearly two hundred years; under circ.u.mstances such as these the Courts of Common Law, in the absence of the tradition, would have a.s.sumed a lost grant, made prior to the reign of Richard I, which is supposed to be equivalent to immemorial user; but the family tradition as to John of Gaunt fixes the lost grant in the reign of Richard II, which would not support a claim by immemorial user. Under these circ.u.mstances and in the absence of any t.i.tle deeds, the attorney seems to have taken upon himself the responsibility of creating a root of t.i.tle, based on the tradition and possibly what he considered satisfactory recorded evidence; in doing this he exercised neither artfulness nor skill. He hesitated whether to make it an agreement or a grant, he neglected to use the 14th century common form of such a doc.u.ment, he blundered sadly in the dates, and he referred in the deed, which he dated in the reign of Richard II, to a reign which had not then begun. There would be a difficulty as to the witnesses, and it may be that those named were taken from some deed of 1399 to which he had access, notwithstanding the fact that these five witnesses were not suitable or likely witnesses for the sealing by John of Gaunt; there was also the difficulty of the seal, and as probably no seal of John of Gaunt was available, a forest seal, perhaps of the honour of Tutbury, was used; Alstonefield manor being within that honour, and the deed of the 15th May 1399 was the result; which did well enough to hand to the purchaser, as the root of t.i.tle to Hawksyard, along with his conveyance from Vincent Mundy and his son. Even if the parties to the transaction knew of what was being done they would doubtless be well pleased to have the John of Gaunt tradition put on record; and the enterprising attorney would probably be thanked and well paid for his trouble and resource. There does not appear to have been any fraudulent intention to improperly acquire any land or other benefit, though such a counterfeit in these days would be fraught with risk to all parties concerned; but in the time of Elizabeth, the law of real property rested less on statute and more on the unwritten law; which was interpreted and applied loosely and without supervision.[B] The effect of this _ex post facto_ apograph was twofold and benefited both sides. The vendors put on permanent record their treasured family tradition and the purchaser got a root of t.i.tle, which might be of value to him in case of re-sale. It would be interesting to know why the Mundys barred the entail and sold Hawksyard, with its sporting tradition; it may have been that the chancellor of the duchy had, at a then recent date, raised the question as to whether the Mundy family originally had an estate in fee simple or a right of common in gross; and that they as owners thought they would act wisely in selling to a purchaser for value.

Whatever the reason may have been for the sale of Hawksyard in 1568, it pa.s.sed by the deed of Elizabeth from the Mundy family to John Weston of Mackworth, and is now held and enjoyed under prescriptive right, which makes its past history of little consequence, so far as the present owner, Mr Robert Shirley of Waterhouse Farm, near Longnor, is concerned.

His numerous deeds and papers relating to Hawksyard include an abstract of t.i.tle beginning in the 14th year of Elizabeth (10th July 1572), when John Weston and Katherine his wife sold Hawksyard to Ralph Bradbury who, as appears from the grant to John Weston, was in 1568 the tenant of Hawksyard; so that John Weston owned the property for less than four years and then sold it to his tenant Ralph Bradbury, who in May 1573 settled it on his younger son Otwell.

Forty-two years later, on the 11th May 1615, Otwell Bradbury and Ralph his son and heir sold Hawksyard to Henry c.o.c.k for 400. For many years the estate remained in the possession of the c.o.c.k family, who sold it to Ralph Wood of Leek Abbey, the Cistercian monastery Dieu-la-Cresse, and on the 5th April 1800 Hawksyard pa.s.sed into the possession of John Shirley of Rewlach, the great grandfather of the present owner.

In 1850 some closes, part of Hawksyard, lying on the west side of the road leading from Newtown to Warslow, were exchanged for adjacent closes, part of the late Sir John Harpur Crewe's estates. With this exception, the Hawksyard estate seems to follow the boundaries set forth in the deed of 1399, and Harrison's Intake, Low Meadow, Rye Meadow, Kiln Croft and Spout Field of that date still exist and appear in the description of the lands in the 19th century t.i.tle deeds. On the front of the house are two dates, one above the other, the lower one is "H C 1620" and the upper one is "H C 1784"; both these dates occur during the ownership of the c.o.c.k family, and the initials "H C" probably indicate Henry c.o.c.k.

Hawksyard of to-day is a substantial farmstead of eighty acres, with a good house and farm buildings occupied by Mr Shirley's son Edwin Leslie Shirley; it is bounded on every side by lands of Sir Vauncey Harpur Crewe of Calke Abbey and Warslow Hall, but it has never formed part of the encircling Harpur estate, which we may a.s.sume was crown property; and the grant to the Harpurs of these surrounding lands may have given rise to a discussion as to the Hawksyard t.i.tle, and possibly suggested to the Mundys the desirability of the sale to Weston. If the surrounding lands were granted by the crown, leaving Hawksyard an isolated and independent holding, there seems to have been a recognition of the Mundy t.i.tle and a strong vindication of the Hawksyard tradition.

Of the places referred to in the deeds, Boothesley (now spelt Boosley) Grange still stands; Bank or Over Boothesley is now Bank House and the "pearle of water" is Boosley Brook. Highe Frith and Malbanc Forest are not on the ordnance map and are almost forgotten in the district; but Lady Edge is still in daily use, and the existence to-day of these medieval place-names seems to strengthen the probability of the story of John of Gaunt's visit to the Highe Frith.

If ramblers on foot and on wheels, when pa.s.sing the east end of the church and the adjoining school of Newtown, will stop for a moment to glance down on Hawksyard, two fields to the east and up to Lady Edge half a mile to the south-west; it will not be difficult to reconstruct the scene of the hawking, when

"Old John of Gaunt, time-honour'd Lancaster"

visited Highe Frith of Malbanc Forest more than five centuries ago and first gave the name Hawksyard.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHEFFIELD]

FOOTNOTES:

[A] It may be of interest to mention, that in 1867 while ridging potatoes in a field at Boosley Grange, known as Boosley Folly Meadow, a number of silver medieval coins were found, which had presumably been lost or hidden in the difficult times through which The Moorlands pa.s.sed, during the fierce struggle between Edward II and his cousin Thomas the great earl of Lancaster; who in his headlong flight from Tutbury Castle up the valley of the Dove lost a military chest containing over 100,000 similar coins, English, Scotch and Flemish, in the river, which was found in 1831, embedded deep in the mud at the ford below the castle.

[B] The reverend Joseph Hunter, in a Memoir on the ancient family of Wilson of Broomhead Hall, Bradfield, published in _The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal_ volume v. calls attention to what he describes as a surrept.i.tious Bradfield deed, dated in the feast of saint Martin in winter (11th November) 22 Richard II and anno domini 1399; whereas the feast of saint Martin 1399 was not in the reign of Richard II but in the first year of Henry IV; he further points out that even if the news of the accession of Henry had not reached the wilds of Bradfield by the 11th November, the feast of saint Martin 1399 would have fallen in the 23rd year of Richard II and not the 22nd, as stated in the deed.