Crime watch 1642

Mr John Band of Leek has showed me a fascinating collection of documents dating from the 17^th century concerning Leek at a time when the country was caught up in the Civil War. The collection is made up of journals, newspaper accounts and letters which gives a real flavour of the time- and a really turbulent time it was.

A letter signed by the prominent citizens of Leek and dated early 1642 is indicative of how law and order was breaking down before the onset of the war which started in October. The period was a very harsh one. The late 16^th century and the first decades of the following one saw a series of harvest failures, the possible result of climate change, food price rises and inflation hitting the poor hard. Famine conditions frequently occurred. Roving bands of impoverished were a common sight in England and the response of the authority was one of panic as the example from Leek shows.

The letter was addressed to King Charles 1^st representatives complained about riotous disturbances in the town especially on market days.

“ Unto which said markets and ffairs there have usually come and repaired divers misbehaved, deboyst and felonious people not only to the disturbance of his Majesty’s peace committing many felonious acts amongst said inhabitants, but also among other of the said majesty’s liege people”.

(“Deboyst” means corrupt or depraved and appears in Shakespeare’s “Tempest” and “King Lear”}

According to the writer of the letter the answer to the bands of vagabonds and beggars was the construction of a cage and stocks. But Leek being Leek was that no one would pay for the work hence the need to go cap in hand to the authorities in Stafford.

“Accordingly whereby the saide worke beinge a thing of soe great necessity & consequence is likely to bee neglected & utterly loste of unlesse by yor hono worships yor petitioners may be herein relieved”

Of course, England was not the only part of Europe where disturbances occurred. In 1642 the Thirty Years War which had convulsed Central Europe was coming to an end with approximately a third of the population of Germany dead and the countryside ruined. Ireland had been in rebellion the previous year with atrocities recorded.

And in Holland the problem of fecklessness was addressed in a unique way. Simon Schama in his book on the 17^th century Dutch Republic describes, not quite believing, the existence of a “water house” in Amsterdam which ne’er do wells were tethered and put in a cell which filled with water and were forced to work a pump to stop from drowning.

I am sure there are people who would agree with such a contrivance existing now!

Neil Armstrong 1930-2012

 

 

Neil Armstrong died over the weekend. For people of a certain age the exploits of Armstrong and other pioneers of space travel will remain for always an indelible part of their youth. Earlier today I looked up my diary entries for 1969. I was 14 years of age and in the week of the moon landing had been on holiday in Wales. We got back to Stoke that weekend and sat to watch the events of the night of the 20^th and 21^st of July unfold. The TV coverage was memorable; the BBC at the time had a policy of employing people who knew what they were talking about. And then in the early hours of that memorable Monday morning the news that Armstong and Aldrin had landed the moon vehicle and Armstrong was about to make his epoch making walk. The grainy TV screen made out a ladder and a boot as the astronaut made his descent and of course as he touched the surface of the moon his famous comment. A copy of The Guardian was bought commemorating the moon landing, which we kept until it disintegrated.

It was a time of optimism about the future of man in space and each episode of space exploration- whether it be American or Soviet- was eagerly anticipated. I particularly recall the Apollo 8 voyage in 1968. It was Christmas time and a particularly snowy holiday period. I remember looking up at the night sky at a brilliant full Moon as the astronauts beamed back the celebrated picture of a vulnerable planet Earth, a startlingly blue, and of course later the dramatic escape from catastrophe of Apollo 13. As someone told me today all these explorations were achieved by basic computers, slide rules and log tables.

I knew someone who met Armstrong and told me what a self-effacing and modest man he was. He never once sought to make personal gain from his triumph. The astronaut was the first to recognise that his supreme achievement was the product of teamwork, of the thousands of people who had worked on the space programme since the 1950s. In a modern age and in a time of instant celebrity perhaps we should reflect on what truly makes for a hero. Armstrong would certainly fit into this category, even though he shunned the limelight, because, for a brief shining moment he showed the way to the stars.