An abduction in the Peak District

We live in an age where the thought of forced marriages and abductions fills people with horror and reports of such events in the British Asian communities are condemned. Each year according to a recent TV documentary over 10,000 young Muslim women are forced into such arrangements against their will.

 The picturesque Blore near Ilam seems a world away from such considerations although a dramatic episode involving a forced marriage took place at Blore Hall at the beginning of the 16^th century.

Margaret Kebell was the daughter of Ralph Bassett and in 1502 was a newly widowed 25 years old. She had married 10 years before to an elderly Leicestershire lawyer on whose death the previous year had left his young bride a sizable inheritance. In short, Margaret was now a very attractive proposition to the gentry of the area as any wealth that she had would become the property of the husband.

At the end of January Margaret became engaged to Ralph Egerton of Wrinehill who was also a wealthy person as he stood to inherit lands in Cheshire, A party was organised to celebrate the event. However someone had other ideas.

On the 1^st February 1502 an armed band led by Roger Vernon of Wirksworth, Derbyshire assisted by a local landowner Thomas Foljambe of Throwley Hall attacked Blore Hall. The brigands arrived at 6am. The band was about 100 strong and was well armed. The trembling guests and retainers were under siege by a group of determined men. Vernon’s band broke in and threatened the servants of Margaret Kebell brandishing swords to get them to reveal her presence. Margaret was found and forced onto a horse and the posse plunged over the River Dove back into Derbyshire. Quickly a compliant priest was found in Derby and the couple was married despite Margaret’s protests.

Margaret’s father was furious and sent out parties to rescue his daughter. Roger Vernon was aware of the threat and moved his new unwilling bride into Herefordshire until things quietened down. Margaret’s mother, Eleanor, accompanied by Eleanor's father and brother, set off in pursuit of the abductors. They were outnumbered and unable to rescue Margaret, but Margaret later managed to escape on her own and reach safety in London. Sir Henry Vernon of Haddon Hall, Margaret’s father in law, was protesting his son’s innocence at court to anyone who would hear that his daughter in law was just being difficult. But Margaret was determined to have her say and gained personal audience with Henry VII. The case ended up before the court of the Star Chamber, where changes and counter-charges kept the litigation active for many years. Vernon was fined, but in December 1509 all those involved in the abduction were pardoned by the new king Henry VIII. Margaret did eventually marry Ralph Egerton, who was knighted in 1515. However whether it was a happy marriage is debateable as Egerton was reputed to have fathered many illegitimate children.

Foxe Book of Martyrs and a local villain

It must have been a troubling time to be a church goer in England in the mid 16^th century as the country went on a roller coaster ride plunging between positions from the English Catholicism of Henry VIII , extreme Protestantism of Edward VI back to the fanatical Catholicism of Mary before the arrival of the Elizabethan Settlement and the establishment of the Church of England.

Of course, a wrong choice in the matter of religious belief could result in imprisonment, torture and at worse a gruesome execution. One book that chronicled the 300 or so Protestants who were executed during the reign of “Bloody” Mary was the “ Acts and Monuments” of John Foxe better known as the “Book of Martyrs”.

It was one of the most important books of its time whose graphic illustrations helped to frame the anti Catholicism of the country right up to the 20th century. The main message of the book that Catholics were cruel oppressors was so powerfully conveyed that a essential characteristic of “Englishness” up to fairly recent times could be defined as not being Catholic. One account in the Book of Martyrs features as a villain a local man Anthony Draycott, a native of Draycott- in- the- Moors, a prelate at Lichfield Cathedral and a zealous Catholic. He was determined to root out heresy locally. Draycott had also been Rector of Grindon and was well known in the area. He and the Bishop of Lichfield Baines began to eagerly conduct trials of Protestants after 1555. The case of Joan Waste, a young blind woman from Derby, came to their attention. A Protestant convert she had objected to the services now being read in Latin. She was sentenced for buying a New Testament in English which she asked friends to read to her.

 Waste also denied the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation and held that the bread and wine were only that. She was quickly found guilty and condemned to die at the stake in Derby. Foxe takes up the story

“Sentence was then adjudged, and Dr. Draycott appointed to preach her condemned sermon, which took place August 1, 1556, the day of her martyrdom. His fulminating discourse being finished, the poor, sightless object was taken to a place called Windmill Pit, near the town, where she for a time held her brother by the hand, and then prepared herself for the fire, calling upon the pitying multitude to pray with her, and upon Christ to have mercy upon her, until the glorious light of the everlasting Sun of righteousness beamed upon her departed spirit”.  It said that after the burning Draycott calmly ate a meal.

However, he quickly fell foul of the new Queen Elizabeth and was imprisoned in London before being allowed to return to North Staffordshire dying at the family home Painsley Hall near Cheadle in 1572.