Why Jacobites:-

Jacobitism was a political movement in Great Britain and Ireland that aimed to restore the Roman Catholic Stuart King, James II of England and Ireland (James VII of Scotland) and his heirs to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. The movement took its name from "Jacobus" the Renaissance Latin form of Iacomus, which in turn comes from the original Latin form of James "Iacobus."

Causes:-

From the second half of the 17th century onwards, a time of political and religious turmoil existed in the kingdoms. The Commonwealth ended with the Restoration of Charles II. During his reign the Church of England was re-established, and episcopal church government was restored in Scotland. The latter move was particularly contentious, causing many, especially in the south-west of Scotland, to abandon the official church, attending illegal field assemblies known as 'conventicles' in preference. The authorities attempted some accommodation with Presbyterian dissidents, introducing official 'Indulgences' in 1669 and 1672, meeting with some limited success. Towards the end of Charles's reign those with more radical Presbyterian opinions, known as the Covenanters, who favoured rejecting all compromise with the state, began to move away from religious dissent to outright political sedition. This was particularly true of the followers of the Reverend Richard Cameron, soon to be known as the Cameronians. The government increasingly resorted to force in its attempts to stamp out the Cameronians and the other Society Men, in a period subsequently labelled as the Killing Time.

Since the late Middle Ages, the Kingdoms of England and Scotland had been evolving towards a quasi-oligarchical or collegiate form of government in which the monarch was held to rule with the consensus of the land-owning upper classes.

The reigns of the last three Stuart Kings – Charles I, Charles II and James II and VII – were marked by growing Royal resistance to this developing consensual model of government. In part the Kings were inspired by the development of Royal Absolutism in contemporary Europe, exemplified particularly strongly by their neighbour and contemporary, Louis XIV of France. In part, however, the apologists of royal authority based their claims on a just assessment of the powers claimed by England and Scotland's medieval monarchs.

In 1685, Charles II was succeeded by his Roman Catholic brother, James II and VII. In addition to sharing his family's absolutist views of government, James attempted to introduce religious toleration of Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters. In Seventeenth-century Europe, being a religious outsider meant being a political and social outsider as well. James tried to encourage the participation in public life of Roman Catholics, Protestant Dissenters, and Quakers such as William Penn the Younger. Such attempts to broaden his basis of support succeeded in antagonising members of the Anglican establishment.

In Ireland, James's viceroy, Richard Talbot, 1st Earl of Tyrconnell, was the first Catholic viceroy since the Reformation and acted to reduce Protestant ascendancy and to garrison Irish military outposts with troops loyal to the views of James.

In England and Scotland, James attempted to impose religious toleration, which helped the Catholic minority but alarmed the religious and political establishment. William of Orange, building alliances against France, lobbied the English political élite to have James replaced by William's wife Mary who was James's daughter and next in line to the throne, but they were reluctant to rush a succession expected to happen in due course. Then in 1688 James's second wife had a boy, bringing the prospect of a Catholic dynasty, and the "Immortal Seven" (Seven notable Englishmen, Earl of Shrewsbury, Earl of Devonshire, Ear of Danby, Viscount Lumley, Bishop of London, Edward Russell and Henry Sydney) invited William and Mary to depose James. On 4 November 1688 William arrived at Torbay, England. When he landed the next day, at Brixham, James fled to France. In February 1689, the Glorious Revolution formally changed England's monarch, but many Catholics, Episcopalians and Tory royalists still supported James as the constitutionally legitimate monarch.

After James II was deposed in 1688 by Mary and William (James's nephew), the Stuarts lived in exile, occasionally attempting to regain the throne.

The Jacobites believed that Parliamentary interference with the line of succession to the English and Scottish thrones was illegal. Catholics also hoped the Stuarts would end recusancy (Roman Catholics in England who incurred legal and social penalties for refusing to attend services of the Church of England). In Scotland, the Jacobite cause became intertwined with the clan system.

Jacobite Strongholds:-

The strongholds of Jacobitism were parts of the Scottish Highlands, and the low land north-east of Scotland, Ireland, and parts of Northern England (mostly within the counties of Northumberland and Lancashire). Significant support also existed in Wales and South-west England.

Jacobite Ideology:-

Jacobite ideology comprised four main tenets: The divine right of kings, the "accountability of Kings to God alone", inalienable hereditary right, and the "unequivocal scriptural injunction of non-resistance and passive obedience", though these positions were not unique to the Jacobites. What distinguished Jacobites from Whigs was their adherence to 'right' as the basis for the law, whereas the Whigs held to the idea of 'possession' as the basis of the law. However, such distinctions became less clear over time, with an increase in the use of contract theory by some Jacobite writers during the reign of George I.

Jacobites contended that James II had not been legally deprived of his throne, and that the Convention Parliament and its successors were not legal. Scottish Jacobites resisted the Act of Union of 1707; while not recognising Parliamentary Great Britain, Jacobites recognised their monarchs as Kings of Great Britain.

The majority of Irish people supported James II due to his 1687 Declaration of Indulgence or, as it is also known, The Declaration for the Liberty of Conscience, which granted religious freedom to all denominations in England and Scotland, and also due to James II's promise to the Irish Parliament of an eventual right to self-determination.

Jacobite Community and Policy:-

From its religious roots, Jacobite ideology was passed on through committed families of the nobility and gentry who would have pictures of the exiled royal family and of Cavalier and Jacobite martyrs, and take part in like minded networks. Even today, some Highland clans and regiments pass their drink over a glass of water during the Loyal Toast – to the King Over the Water. More widely, commoners developed communities in areas where they could fraternise in Jacobite alehouses, inns and taverns, singing seditious songs, collecting for the cause and on occasion being recruited for risings. At government attempts to close such places they simply transferred to another venue. In these neighbourhoods Jacobite wares such as inscribed glassware, brooches with hidden symbols and tartan waistcoats were popular. The criminal activity of smuggling became associated with Jacobitism throughout Britain, partly because of the advantage of dealing through exiled Jacobites in France.

Official policy of the court in exile initially reflected the uncompromising intransigence that got James into trouble in the first place. With the powerful support of the French they saw no need to accommodate the concerns of his Protestant subjects, and effectively issued a summons for them to return to their duty. In 1703 Louis pressed James into a more accommodating stance in the hopes of detaching England from the Grand Alliance, essentially promising to maintain the status quo. This policy soon changed, and increasingly Jacobitism ostensibly identified itself with causes of the alienated and dispossessed.

The Old Pretender:-

After the death of James II in 1701, the Jacobite claim to the thrones of Scotland and England was taken up by his only surviving legitimate son, James Francis Edward Stuart (1688–1766). His supporters proclaimed him James III of England and Ireland, and James VIII of Scotland. The French king Louis XIV and Pope Clement XI formally recognised the Catholic monarch as King James III & VIII. Later, James was called "the Old Pretender", to distinguish him from his son, Charles Edward Stuart (1720–1788), who became known as "the Young Pretender".

The Rising Of 1715 ("the Fifteen"):-

 Following the arrival from Hanover of George I in 1714, Tory Jacobites in England conspired to organise armed rebellions against the new Hanoverian government. They were indecisive and frightened by government arrests of their leaders. In Scotland 1715, is sometimes misleadingly called the first Jacobite rebellion (or rising), which overlooks the fact that there had already been a major Jacobite rising in 1689 .

The Treaty of Utrecht ended hostilities between France and Britain. From France, as part of widespread Jacobite plotting, James Stuart, the Old Pretender, had been corresponding with the Earl of Mar. In the summer of 1715, James called on Mar to raise the Clans. Mar, nicknamed Bobbin' John, rushed from London to Braemar. He summoned clan leaders to "a grand hunting-match" on 27 August 1715. On 6 September he proclaimed James as "their lawful sovereign" and raised the old Scottish standard. Mar's proclamation brought in an alliance of clans and northern Lowlanders, and they quickly overran many parts of the Highlands.

Mar's Jacobites captured Perth on 14 September, without opposition. His army grew to around 8,000 men. A force of fewer than 2,000 men under the Duke of Argyll held the Stirling plain for the government and Mar indecisively kept his forces in Perth. He waited for the Earl of Seaforth to arrive with a body of northern clans. Seaforth was delayed by attacks from other clans loyal to the government. Planned risings in Wales, Devon and Cornwall were forestalled by the government arresting the local Jacobites.

Starting around 6 October, a rising in the north of England grew to about 300 horsemen under Thomas Forster, a Northumberland squire and MP. This English contingent contained some prominent people, including two peers of the realm, James Ratcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater, and Lord Widdrington, and a future peer, Charles Ratcliffe, later fifth Earl of Derwentwater. (Another future English peer, Edward Howard, later 9th Duke of Norfolk, joined the rising in Lancashire). They joined forces with a rising in the south of Scotland under Viscount Kenmure. Mar sent a Jacobite force under Brigadier William Mackintosh of Borlum to join them. They left Perth on 10 October, and were ferried across the Firth of Forth from Burntisland to East Lothian. Here they were diverted into an attack on an undefended Edinburgh, but having seized Leith citadel they were chased away by the arrival of Argyll's forces. Mackintosh's force of about 2,000 then made their way south and met their allies at Kelso in the Scottish Borders on 22 October, and spent a few days arguing over their options. The Scots wanted to fight government forces in the vicinity or attack Dumfries and Glasgow, but the English were determined to march towards Liverpool and led them to expect 20,000 recruits in Lancashire.

The Highlanders resisted marching into England and there were some mutinies and defections, but they pressed on. Instead of the expected welcome the Jacobites were met by hostile militia armed with pitchforks and very few recruits. They were unopposed in Lancaster and found about 1,500 recruits as they reached Preston on 9 November, bringing their force to around 4,000. Then Hanoverian forces (including the Cameronians) arrived to besiege them at the Battle of Preston. The Jacobites actually won the first day of the battle, killing large numbers of Government forces. However, Government reinforcements arrived, and the Jacobites surrendered on 14 November.

In Scotland, at the Battle of Sheriffmuir on 13 November, Mar's forces were unable to defeat a smaller force led by the Duke of Argyll and Mar retreated to Perth while the government army built up. On 22 December 1715 a ship from France finally brought the Old Pretender to Peterhead in person. But an ailing James proved far too timid and melancholy to inspire his followers. He briefly set up court at Scone, Perthshire, visited his troops in Perth and ordered the burning of villages to hinder the advance of the Duke of Argyll through deep snow. The highlanders were cheered by the prospect of battle, but James's counsellors decided to abandon the endeavour and ordered a retreat to the coast, giving the pretext of seeking a stronger position. James boarded a ship at Montrose and escaped to France on 4 February 1716, leaving a message assigning his Highland adherents to shift for themselves.

Aftermath of the "Fifteenth":-

In the aftermath of the 'Fifteen', the Disarming Act and the Clan Act made some attempts to subdue the Scottish Highlands. Government garrisons were built or extended in the Great Glen at Fort William, Kiliwhimin (later renamed Fort Augustus) and Fort George, Inverness, as well as barracks at Ruthven, Bernera (Glenelg) and Inversnaid, linked to the south by the Wade roads constructed for Major-General George Wade.

On the whole, the government adopted a gentle approach and attempted to 'win hearts and minds' by allowing the bulk of the defeated rebels to slip away back to their homes and committing the first £20,000 of revenue from forfeited estates to the establishment of Presbyterian-run, Scots-speaking schools in the Highlands (the latest in a series of measures intended to promote Scots at the expense of Scottish Gaelic) and Presbyterianism at the expense of Episcopalianism and Roman Catholicism.

The Young Pretender:-

In 1743 the War of the Austrian Succession drew Britain and France into open, though unofficial, hostilities against each other. Leading English Jacobites made a formal request to France for armed intervention and the French king's Master of Horse toured southern England meeting Tories and discussing their proposals. In November 1743 Louis XV of France authorised a large-scale invasion of southern England in February 1744 which was to be a surprise attack. Troops were to march from their winter quarters to hidden invasion barges which were to take them and Charles Edward Stuart, with the guidance of English Jacobite pilots to Maldon in Essex where they were to be joined by local Tories in an immediate march on London. Charles, (later known as Bonnie Prince Charlie or the Young Pretender) was in exile in Rome with his father (James Stuart, the Old Pretender), and rushed to France.

As late as 13 February the British were still unaware of these intentions, and while they then arrested many suspected Jacobites the French plans really went astray on 24 February when one of the worst storms of the century scattered the French fleets which were about to battle for control of the English Channel, sinking one ship and putting five out of action.

The barges had begun embarking some 10,000 troops and the storm wrecked the troop and equipment transports, sinking some with the loss of all hands. Charles was officially informed on 28 February that the invasion had been cancelled. The British lodged strong diplomatic objections to the presence of Charles, and France declared war but gave Charles no more support.

The Rising of 1745 (the Forty-five):-

Charles continued to believe that he could reclaim the kingdom and recalled that early in 1744 a few Scottish Highland clan chieftains had sent a message that they would rise if he arrived with as few as 3,000 French troops. Living at French expense, he continued to petition ministers for commitment to another invasion, to their increasing irritation. In secrecy he also developed a plan with a consortium of Nantes privateers, funded by exiled Scots bankers and pawning of his mother's jewelry. They fitted out the 16-gun privateer Du Teillay and a ship of the line the Elisabeth and set out from Nantes for Scotland in July 1745 on the pretence that this was a normal privateering cruise, leaving a personal letter from Charles to Louis XV of France announcing the departure and asking for help with the rising. The Elisabeth, carrying weapons, supplies and 700 volunteers from the Irish Brigade, encountered the British Navy ship HMS Lion and with both ships badly damaged in the ensuing battle the Elisabeth was forced back, but the Du Teillay successfully landed Charles with his seven men of Moidart on the island of Eriskay in the Outer Hebrides on 2 August 1745.

The Scottish clans and their chieftains initially showed little enthusiasm about his arrival without troops or munitions (with Alexander MacDonald of Sleat and Norman MacLeod of MacLeod refusing even to meet with him), but Charles went on to Moidart and on 19 August 1745 raised the standard at Glenfinnan to lead the second Jacobite rising in his father's name. This attracted about 1,200 men, mostly of Clan MacDonald of Clan Ranald, Clan MacDonell of Glengarry, Clan MacDonald of Keppoch, and Clan Cameron. The Jacobite force marched south from Glenfinnan, increasing to almost 3,000 men, though two chieftains insisted on pledges of compensation before joining.

Britain was still in the midst of the War of the Austrian Succession and most of the British army was in Flanders and Germany, leaving an inexperienced army of about 4,000 in Scotland under Sir John Cope. His force marched north into the Highlands but, believing the rebel force to be stronger than it really was, avoided an engagement with the Jacobites at the Pass of Corryairack and withdrew northwards to Inverness. The Jacobites captured Perth and at Coatbridge on the way to Edinburgh routed two regiments of the government's Dragoons. In Edinburgh there was panic with a melting away of the City Guard and Volunteers and when the city gate at the Netherbow Port was opened at night, to let a coach through, a party of Camerons rushed the sentries and seized control of the city. The next day King James VIII was proclaimed at the Mercat Cross and a triumphant Charles entered Holyrood palace.

Cope's army got supplies from Inverness then sailed from Aberdeen down to Dunbar to meet the Jacobite forces near Prestonpans to the east of Edinburgh. On 21 September 1745 at the Battle of Prestonpans a surprise attack planned by Lord George Murray routed the government forces, as celebrated in the Jacobite song 'Hey, Johnnie Cope, Are Ye Waking Yet?'. Charles immediately wrote again to France pleading for a prompt invasion of England. There was alarm in England, and in London a patriotic song which included a prayer for Marshal Wade's success in crushing the rebels was performed, later to become the National Anthem.

The Jacobites held the city of Edinburgh, though not the castle. Charles held court at Holyrood palace for five weeks amidst great admiration and enthusiasm, but failed to raise a regiment locally. Many of the highlanders went home with booty from the battle and recruiting resumed, though Whig clans opposing the Jacobites were also getting organised. The French now sent some weapons and funds, and assurances that they would carry out their invasion of England by the end of the year. Charles's Council of war led by Murray was against leaving Scotland, but he told them that he had received English Tory assurances of a rising if he appeared in England in arms, and the Council agreed to march south by a margin of one vote.

Success at Prestonpans had not, as is often claimed, left the rebels in control of Scotland, for the great bulk of the population remained bitterly hostile to the absolutist Stuarts who, prior to their expulsion in a popular revolution, had presided over the notorious persecutions known as Scotland's 'Killing Times'. Many Scottish burghs offered burgess status to any man who would volunteer to fight against the Jacobites and, when the rebels passed near the town of Ecclefechan in Dumfriesshire, local loyalists mounted a raid on their baggage train.

The Jacobite army of under six thousand men had set out and an army under General George Wade assembled at Newcastle. Charles wanted to confront them, but on the advice of Lord George Murray and the Council they made for Carlisle and successfully bypassed Wade. At Manchester about 250 Episcopalians formed a regiment, and a number of other Englishmen had joined the Prince, mainly from rural Lancashire. One Englishman, John Daniel, from the upper echelons of the yeoman class, brought in 39 recruits by himself. A Scotsman who was in the Jacobite army and therefore an eyewitness, wrote home that 60 English recruits had joined in just one day at Preston. The myth that no Englishmen joined the Prince is just that, a myth. At the end of November French ships arrived in Scotland with 800 men from the Écossais Royeaux (Royal Scots) and Irish Regiments of the French army.

The Jacobite army, now reduced by desertions to under 5,000 men, was manoeuvred by Murray round to the east of a second government army under the Duke of Cumberland and marched on Derby.

They entered Derby on 4 December, only 125 miles (200 km) from London, with a resentful Charles by then barely on speaking terms with Murray. Charles was advised of progress on the French invasion fleet which was then assembling at Dunkirk, but at his Council of War he was forced to admit to his previous lies about assurances. While Charles was determined to press on in the deluded belief that their success was due to soldiers of the regulars never daring to fight against their true prince, his Council and Lord George Murray pointed out their position. The promised English support had not materialised, both Wade and Cumberland were approaching, London was heavily defended and there was a fictitious report from a government double agent of a third army closing on them.

They insisted that their army should return to join the growing force in Scotland. This time only Charles voted to continue the advance, and he assented while throwing a tantrum and vowing never to consult the Council again. On 6 December, the Jacobites sullenly began their retreat, with a petulant Charles refusing to take any part in running the campaign which was fortunate given the excellent leadership of Murray, whose brilliant feints and careful planning extracted the army virtually intact. The French got news of the retreat and cancelled their invasion which was now ready, while English Tories who had just sent a message pledging support if Charles reached London went to ground again.

There was a rearguard action to the north of Penrith. The Manchester Regiment was left behind to defend Carlisle and after a siege by Cumberland had to surrender, to face hanging or transportation. Many died in Carlisle Castle, where they were imprisoned in brutal conditions along with Scots prisoners whom Morier allegedly painted to depict the kilted clansmen in battle. Many of the cells there still show hollows licked into the stone walls, as prisoners had only the damp and moss on these stones to sustain themselves. The Young Pretender had his headquarters at the County Hotel during a 3-day sojourn in Dumfries towards the end of 1745. £2,000 was demanded by the Prince, together with 1,000 pairs of brogues for his kilted Jacobite rebel army, which was camping in a field not one hundred yards distant. A rumour, however, that the Duke of Cumberland was approaching, made Bonnie Prince Charlie decide to leave with his army, with only £1,000 and 255 pairs of shoes having been handed over.

By Christmas the Jacobites came to Glasgow and forced the city to re-provision their army, then on 3 January left to seize the town of Stirling and begin an ineffectual siege of Stirling Castle. Jacobite reinforcements joined them from the north and on 17 January about 8,000 of Charles's 9,000 men took the offensive to the approaching General Henry Hawley at the Battle of Falkirk and routed his forces.

The Jacobite army then turned north, losing men and failing to take Stirling Castle or Fort William but taking Fort Augustus and Fort George in Inverness by early April. Charles now took charge again, insisting on fighting an orthodox defensive action, and on 16 April 1746 they were finally defeated near Inverness at the Battle of Culloden by government forces made up of English and Scottish troops and Campbell militia, under the command of the Duke of Cumberland. The seemingly suicidal Highland sword charge against cannon and muskets had succeeded when launched against unprepared or disordered troops in earlier battles but failed now that it was pitted against regulars who had time to form their ranks properly. Charles promptly abandoned his army, blaming everything on the treachery of his officers, even though after the defeat the stragglers and unengaged units rallied at the agreed rendezvous and only dispersed when ordered to leave.

Charles fled to France making a dramatic if humiliating escape disguised as a "lady's maid" to Flora MacDonald. Cumberland's forces crushed the uprising and effectively ended Jacobitism as a serious political force in Britain. The decline of Jacobitism left Charles making futile attempts to enlist assistance, and another abortive plot to raise support in England.

York's Reaction to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715

The impact of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715 in York is largely overlooked. There was activity, however, by both the City Corporation and the Church in opposition to it. There was also some Jacobite activity within the city itself, before and after the rebellion.

Virtually nothing has been written about York during the 1715 Rebellion. York historians scarcely mention it. Ward states that little happened between 1688 and 1745.(A. Ward "History and antiquities of York" Vol. I [1785] P.M.Tillot ed., V.C.H. City of York [1961 p211, 241). The "Victoria County History" records more; namely that a system of watchmen was established and that the Corporation was hostile to the rebellion. Aveling, in his study of Catholicism in York, does refer to the anti-Catholic measures taken, but prefaces this with the statement: "The 1715 Jacobite Rebellion made relatively little impact on York". (J.C.H.Aveling, "Catholic Recusancy in York, 1558-1791,[1970] p112). As he states, military operations bypassed the city, as in the Forty Five, there was activity in the city regarding the rebellion. This oversight may be, apart from the general neglect of the Fifteen in favour of the Forty Five, because of the scarcity of source material. Unlike the later rebellion, there was no regional press, no long run of correspondence and only a little surviving matter in the State Papers. However, although material is scanty, it does exist.

York was at the centre of the revolt in the North against James II in 1688. The authority of the Catholic Stuart King then rested with Sir John Reresby who was Governor. He was imprisoned by dissident nobility and gentry led by Danby. There were also popular anti-Catholic demonstrations in the city. In 1715, the city was still Whiggish politically and was to remain so until 1734, electing two Whigs as the city MPs in the 1715 General Election. York would, therefore, seem to have been a Whig stronghold, though matters did not go entirely smoothly for them during the subsequent year. (A. Browning ed., "Memoirs of Sir John Reresby [1936], p525-531, R. Sedgwick, "History of Parliament: The Commons", 1715-1754, Vol. I, [1970] p364).

On the death of Queen Anne, the new sovereign, George I, who was also Elector of Hanover as well as King of Great Britain, was proclaimed in York as he was elsewhere. This was done at 8.00 pm., on 4 August 1714, by William Readman, the Lord Mayor, accompanied by Sir William Dawes, Archbishop of York, together with: "the Dean and his brother with a vast concourse of gentlemen.....Aldermen and Common Council". (The Daily Courant, 3996, 13 August 1714). According to Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, the initial response of the York citizens to the announcement of the Hanoverian Succession was a favourable one. She wrote to her husband in early August that there were: "vast acclamations and the appearance of a general satisfaction, the Pretender afterwards dragged about the streets and burnt, ringing of bells, bonfires and illuminations, the mob crying liberty and property and long live King George". (R. Halsband ed. "Correspondence of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Vol. I, Oxford, (1965), p213).

The Daily Courant likewise testified to the universal joy. (The Daily Courant, 3996, 13 August 1714). Many, however, also felt alarm about the potential danger from without. Lady Mary noted that "attempts from Scotland" were a cause of much alarm, and three days later mentioned that there was concern about a fleet being sent from Scotland. William Dawes, as Archbishop, along with many others, had gone to London, presumably to welcome the new monarch in person. She was, however, reasonably sure of the loyalty of those within the gates of York: "all Protestants here seem unanimous for the Hanover Succession". ((R. Halsband ed. "Correspondence of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Vol. I, Oxford, (1965), p213, 215-215).

The Government was certainly concerned about the potential Jacobite threat to the new Hanoverian dynasty The Lord Mayor was not slow to respond to instructions from central Government. On 11 August 1714, he sent a letter to London, reporting on the action he and his officers had taken. According to him: "We immediately took all precautions imaginable for the security of the peace by locking up the gates here and hindring all suspect persons from going out the next morning, we summoned all Papists and suspected persons to appear in order to tender the oaths" (T.N.A., S.P.35/1, f19r.).He also assured the Government that an account would be sent of what happened because of their implementation of their orders. (T.N.A., S.P.35/1, f19r.).

The danger from Catholics was thought to be a very real one, especially since many had recently arrived at or near to York to attend the race meetings. In any case, York was a great regional social centre, as noted by Daniel Defoe, "there is an abundance of good company here". The number of outsiders would have been considerable. Thus constables were placed at the gates to prevent: "those Papists from giving any Disturbance or going out of the town". (The Daily Courant, 3996, 13 August 1714, P.N. Furbank, W.R. Owens, A.J. Coulson, eds., "Defoe's A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain", Yale (1991), p273.). To begin with there appears to have been no threat to local order. The Daily Courant could report that two days after the proclamation of the new dynasty had been read in public: "All things continue very quiet here". (The Daily Courant, 3996, 13 August 1715).

This happy state did not last. Sometime between 6 August and late October, 1714, one or more apparently pro-Jacobite disturbances occurred in York. There is no information as to their exact nature. The only reference to them is in a Corporation order given probably in late October. This referred to: "Riots, routs and other disorders which have of late been committed in this city by Day and Night particularly on the Coronation of His Majesty King George". (Y.C.A., F12a, p18).

The Corporation ordered that orders be printed to discourage and suppress such Jacobite activity, though their effect is unknown. Probably the riots died down of their own accord, once such politically charged dates as 20 October (the Coronation) had passed. These riots, however, may not have been entirely political; other riots were economic in cause, but used Jacobitism as an idiom for their protest.

Apart from the disturbances in 1714, there was probably a further outbreak of Jacobite behaviour in 1715. The diary of Mrs Savage, the wife of a nonconformist minister, written in early June states, "this week brings tydings of much disturbances by ye Jacobite mob, great outrages in London, Oxford, York, Manchester..." (Bodleian Library, Department of Western Manuscripts, Ms Eng. Misc.c331, p48). There is no reference to a riot in York in the press, council archives and elsewhere. Possibly it was an attack on a dissenting meeting house, which were attacked in Oxford and Manchester, but there was no evidence that compensation was paid by the Government as it was to like places. It may have been a lesser disturbance, in which there were visual and vocal expressions in public on 29 May (as there were elsewhere) in support of a new Stuart restoration.

During 1714 and 1715, in response to orders from the Privy Council, the Corporation sought to keep an eye on the suspected enemy from within, the Catholics. At first this was relatively mild. On 29 December 1714, 17 out of 65 Catholics in York and Ainsty refused to swear oaths of allegiance. They were fined a total of £2 14s 6d. (Y.C.A. F12a, pviii). On 26 July 1715, the city constables were ordered to return lists of papists within their parishes. The latter were asked to take the oaths again, but this time 34 refused to comply, and were fined the lesser total of £1 3s 6d. (Y.C.A. F12a, pxi-xii). On the same day, an inventory was made of arms and horses belonging to city Catholics: two swords, one gun and three horses being the meagre total. (Y.C.A. F12a pxiv).

On 17 October 1715, after rebellion had broken out in Scotland and Northumberland, 28 Catholics, Non Jurors and others thought to be disaffected, were gaoled, though two days later, 22 had absconded. New warrants were issued to seize them. (Y.C.A. F12a pxvii). The Corporation seemed to be taking its responsibilities seriously, though the competence of its officials was dubious. Regular night patrols were commenced in August 1715. These were made up of the watchman of each ward and one or two city constables, and they were meant to patrol the ward each hour during the night. They would knock on each door and the hour was called out. The system appears to be as much against drunkards and nightwalkers than because of the rebellion. The Corporation was serious about this matter. Negligent watchmen and constables were to be "severely proceeded against". The present decrepit watchmen were to be replaced with new men. The city gates were also to be locked at night. (Y.C.A. House Book, Vol. 41 f150r, 153r).

On 9 September, after the Earl of Mar had raised the Jacobite standard at Braemar, the Corporation sent a loyal address to the King. This was not an uncommon gesture of loyalty among corporations and counties, but the survival of the exact wording of such a missive is rare. Naturally the address gave "the utmost assurances of...unutterable fidelity". It also told of the Corporation's awareness of George's "unquestionable right" to the Crown, and their duty to support him in their own sphere. Indeed: "no activity on our part shall be wanting towards the disappointment of it [Jacobite disorders]". Not only were the popular assemblies so recently seen in the city "so evidently repugnant", but they were carried out by enemies to both the King and "the peace of humane society". The suppression of disorders, therefore, and the belief that George's authority was their best safeguard of Protestantism, seem to be the two main strands of the reasoning behind the Corporation's loyalty. The address finished with the wish that the King would have a long life and prosperous reign, and that there would be a lasting succession of Protestant princes on the throne. (Y.C.A. House Book. Vol. 41. f150r, 156r.)

It was almost six weeks later before the Corporation seems to have taken any further action. There was little that it could do immediately. No local rising seems to have broken out in York or even Yorkshire. The rising seemed confined to Northumberland, at least initially, and then it only broke out on 6 October. As time passed, however, the Corporation appear to become conscious of potential dangers lurking beneath the surface. On 20 October it was noted: "We are frequently alarmed with new Insurrections and Comotions and apprehensive of somemuch nearer than Northumberland." It was proposed, therefore, that the militia should be called out "with all convenient speed" or else some regular military force be sent to York. In the meantime a volunteer company of about 50-60 men was formed. (Y.C.A. F12a, pxix). Given that there were four miles of city wall, it is doubtful whether these men ould have done more than keep a watch at the four principal gates of the city. Furthermore, the city was as, Daniel Defoe noted, "not now defensible as it was then [at the time of the Civil Wars]" It would appear that the Castlegate Guardhouse was to become the central location for these volunteers, and city constables were ordered to deliver coals and candles there. (Y.C.A. F12 p33a, Defoe "A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain" p274).

Since parish constables were the custodians of parochial arms and their distribution n case of emergencies, it is unsurprising to learn that they were active in this area. The constable of Holy Trinity Church, Goodramgate, equipped three men to bear arms, and paid them the generous rate of 12d per day (double that of a soldier0 for eight days service. The total cost to the parish was £4 16s 6d. (B.I.H.R., Y/HTG15, p269). It is unknown whether other constables acted likewise. Possibly each parish provided a quota of volunteers to form the company to help watch over the city, but lacking other constables' accounts it is impossible to be certain.

As in 1745, York was not regarded by the Government as a city that was important enough to send regular troops to defend. Half pay officers from five regiments that had been called up due to the emergency were despatched to York in late September, and may have helped train the volunteers. (The London Gazette, 5367, 24-27 September 1715). In early November, there was some discussion between the Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding, Viscount Irwin, and the deputy Governor of Hull, Colonel John Jones, about the sending of artillery and gunners to York. The despatch of artillery from Hull to York would not have been difficult, because they were connected by water, as Defoe noted. At most this would only have amounted to two gunners who were not sent from Hull until 9 November at the earliest, so they would not have arrived in York until after the surrender of the rebels at Preston on 14 November. (L.A., TN/PO2/2.6).

An instance of signal loyalty was the signing of a loyal association by the Earl of Burlington, Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding. This was signed in the following week by the Lord Mayor, his aldermen, gentlemen, clergy and citizens of York (as well as their fellows in the West Riding), to signify their detestation of the rebellion and their adherence to the King and the Protestant Succession. (The Weekly Journal, 249, 12 Nov. 1715).

When the rebellion was at an end, the Corporation felt able to send an address of congratulation to the King, and this was approved of on 31 May 1716. This was clearly to show their loyalty and to pour scorn on the rebels. The latter had not received much of a castigation in the address of September 1715. The "most monstrous and unnatural Rebellion that perhaps ever stained the Records of Time" had been instigated by traitors, of course, but many of these had been Protestants as well as Catholics. The former were particularly blameworthy, having been unprovoked and being acting contrary to civil and sacred oaths. They had attacked "the best of Kings" and had proved themselves haters of their country. As with the September address, the Corporation wished for a long life to the King and his successors, and that "Party Rage" would die down and that they could look forward to peace, stability and national unity, despite all oppositions. (Y.C.A. House Book Vol. 41, f163r).

The Privy Council appointed 7 June as the day for the official thanksgiving for the suppression of the Rebellion. York Corporation ordered that £40 be spent out of the city coffers on this occasion. (Y.C.A. House Book Vol. 41, f163r). This gesture impressed William Robinson of Newby Hall. On 4 June, he was looking forward to thanksgiving day. He wrote: "I hope to be abroad on the thanksgiving day, our town designs to be very loyall". Apparently, the money paid from public stock for this event was to be spent in: "wine and bickel, in order to intertain ye clergy and gentlemen at ye Common Hall, from whence we are to proceed to the Minster in our formalitys, with drums, trumpets and ye Waits".

There had been a great celebration on 28 May, on the birthday of King George, which had outdone any Jacobite display of 29 May (Restoration Day) . There had been fireworks and bonfires, with the militia officers in their uniforms and other gentlemen and officers making merry at an inn, with an apt name, The George. (L.A. Vyner MSS 6002/13876.) The actual celebration of the defeat of the rebellion came as something of a disappointment to Robinson. It was the last push of the local Jacobite party. On 9 June he wrote that: "In my last to you boasted of our loyalty at York and now I am both ashamed and sorry to let you know we have had any unexpected disturbance". This disturbance consisted of "a little shabby mob who brought out a drest up figure writ upon ye brim of ye hat prisbiterian covenanter, said to be Dr Coweton they shouted High Church". The mob's sport was spoiled by Whig gentlemen, militia officers and others, who dispersed them. Afterwards the Whigs retired, once more, to the George and partook of the refreshments which had been purchased from public funds. Outdoor celebrations included the usual fireworks and bonfires. (L.A. Vyner MSS 6006/13229).

The other arm of the State, the Church, was also active during the crisis. Although the Archbishop was a Tory, he seems to have acted as a fervent defender of the Protestant Hanoverian Succession, as was his more famous successor, the Whiggish Thomas Herring in 1745. This can be seen first in his behaviour during Queen Anne's reign. In 1705 he preached a strongly anti-Catholic sermon on 5 November. This was titled "The continued plots and attempts of the Romanists against the establish'd Church and government of England, ever since the Reformation". (W.Dawes, "The continued plots......" [1709]).Dawes had also written to the presumed Hanoverian successor, Sophia Dorothea, assuring her of his loyalty and that of his clergy in furthering the succession. He wrote on 4 May 1714: "[I] daily and most ardently pray to God, for the health, long life and prosperity of ourself and every branch of your illustrious family amnd particularly that He would guard and maintain your Right of succeeding to the Crown of these Realms as now by law established...not onely myself, but the whole body of our clergy are faithful and zealous". (British Library, Stowe Manuscripts, 227, f16r). His zeal can also be seen in his vigorous role in the military campaign. Whilst Herring was content to remain at York during the '45, Dawes joined forces with the Whig bishop of Carlisle, William Nicholson. The Glasgow Courant reported that: "The Arch-Bp. of York and Carlisle are very Zealous for His Majesties Interest, and are with the Lord Lansdale at the Head of the Volunteers, who have risen in Cumberland and the Neighbouring Countys". (The Glasgow Courant or West Country Intelligencer, issue 4, n. 10, November 1715).

Though the efforts of the two clerics were not to achieve much in military terms, their zeal for their cause is not in doubt. The zeal of the Church was in evidence in other ways. Though there are no surviving sermons for York in 1715-1716, in contrast to those for 1745-1746, the Church was active in other ways. Chiefly, they celebrated the key dates in the Protestant political calendar by the ringing of their bells. Of the three city churches, out of 23, for which itemised accounts survive (St. Johns, St. Martin's cum Gregory, and Holy Trinity Goodramgate), the bells were rung on the following loyalist occasions. For the King's Birthday:3, the Prince of Wales' Birthday: 2, for the news of the victory over the rebels at Preston; 2, and for the double celebration of the discovery of the Gunpowder Plot and the arrival of William of Orange on 5 November; 2. Other events were celebrated by only one church; the Coronation, the anniversary of the accession, for the proclamation of the thanksgiving, on hearing the news of the fall of Perth and one against tumults. (B.I.H.R., Y/J 18, Y/MG 20, Y/HTG 13). Of such bell ringing, the most prominent seems to have been on 5 November, that key date in the Protestant political calendar (celebrating the deliverance of Protestant England from Catholicism in 1605 from Guy Fawkes and William of Orange's arrival at Torbay in 1688), which was publically celebrated. As The Weekly Journal said, it was, "here observed with more than usual solemnity". The day was ushered in with the ringing of bells, especially those of the Minster, "without intermission, only during the time of Divine Service, from Morning till Evening". There was, however, a hint of local division - it was claimed that such ringing was "to the great Mortification of the Tories". (The Weekly Journal, 249, 12 Nov. 1715).

Although there are no surviving sermons from York clergy for 1715-1716, a recent thesis has shown that the overwhelming number of sermons produced by clergy in the south of England during these years were against the rebellion; it is probable that their northern peers acted likewise. (S. Abbott, "The Clergy and the '15", Reading University B.A. dissertation (1997), p34). It has already been noted that the Corporation sent a loyal address to the King on the defeat of the rebellion. So did the Dean and Chapter of York Minster. Unsurprisingly, their emphasis was on religious matters. They declared their abhorrence to the unnatural Rebellion, and assured him of their support, and his undoubted right to the throne. Their reason for giving such assurances was because "we of the clergy are under the most strict Obligations, both of duty and interest". This is to say that they had all sworn allegiances to George I and were also aware that were the Rebellion and Popery to triumph, they as ministers of the Church of England, would be among the first to suffer. They also offered prayers to God that He had granted victory over the rebels. Prayers were also said for George's continued rule and the blessings inherent in this. (The Political State of Great Britain, Vol., XI, p16-17). Much of this was in the same tone and using similar language the address sent by the Corporation, but religious, not civil themes, were stressed.

Anti-popery, then, was the main reason why the Protestant monarch should be supported, and in such strong, unambiguous language as might be expected from those who feared for their current positions as well as clinging to their religious principles. Yet, this appearance of clerical solidarity may have had cracks beneath the surface.

Although trials of Jacobite prisoners were not to take place in York as they were in 1746, York Castle did hold a relatively large number of prisoners on account of the rebellion. Sixty men were detained here, most having been sent there by the county J.P.s. An undated list records that most were incarcerated in October or December, were a mixture of Catholics and "disaffected persons" and included several gentlemen. The Catholics were probably there because they refused to subscribe to the oaths of allegiance as required by Quarter Sessions. Others may have been men suspected as having been with the Jacobites in Lancashire. After all, York Castle was the county gaol. Furthermore, at the beginning of November, a coachman suspected of carrying treasonable papers to edinburgh was sent here. Some left the Castle in January 1716 on bail.

This provoked controversy, for they had been released by order of the deputy Lord Lieutenants, even though Burlington had told them that they could not do so without his consent. Twenty were ordered to be released by an order in Privy Council of 17 April 1716, and another 49 on 29 May, though twenty of those names for both dates are the same. Henry Cutler Esq. was the last to be given his freedom, by an order dating 18 June. (T.H.A., Privy Council, 2/85, p365, 404, 413, 434, L.A., NP1514/9). Two men escaped; they were Catholics and had been detained "upon suspicion of being at Preston". Five guineas were offered for each man's recapture. (The London Evening Post, 1076, 26-28 June 1716).

The end of the Rebellion did not mean an end to Jacobite sentiment at York, according to one observer. Mr. Barlow, writing on 11 March 1719 was convinced that the city was: "a great Rendezvous for all ye chief of the Papists and Jacobite disaffected party who now swarm here to ye degree and are so uppish". Barlow attributed such behaviour to the fact that there was an intended invasion in favour of the exiled Pretender. Violence was feared and Barlow added that he had been told that the Pretender's Health was drunk in the city taverns, even when some of the clergy were present. If clergymen were present, it would indicate that the splits in the York clergy, to an extent, mirrored splits within the Church of England nationally, between the High Church Anglican Tories and the low churchmen, though such a split did not necessarily indicate that the former supported the rebels. He was so concerned that he ended his letter with an entreaty: "I trust speedily some order will be taken with them which I know would be acceptable to all true lovers of their King and Country". (T.N.A., SP35/15, f185r).

Such fears of Jacobitism were not uncommon in the north of England in the years after 1715; Whigs in Pontefract, Leeds and Newcastle had similar concerns, and, though these were not to be realised, they do give an indication of contemporary Whig perceptions of the unsettled nature of the Hanoverian Succession. Jacobitism in York seems to have been largely a popular affair, though some of the middling sort may have been involved, possibly even including some clergymen. However, as in Newcastle, there were no popular disorders during the months of the real emergency of active rebellion in England during October and November 1715. Nor was there to be any like behaviour in 1745. The city elite, whether Tory or Whig, stood with the Corporation and the Church in its opposition to the rebellion. York's official response was to oppose the rebellion, though of course it could not do so in any meaningful military manner. yet it was not apathetic to the dynastic struggle, nor was there any coup d' etat as was suffered by the supporters of James II in the city in 1688. Clearly, as with other corporations, Protestantism and civil order were the priorities of the elites, not rebellion or Catholicism, and they acted accordingly to defend these as much as it was in their limited powers to do so. Since there was no direct military threat, nor any dangerous threat from below, they accomplished such tasks and also appeared zealous in the eyes of those in London. (Ref:- "York and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715" by Jonathan Oates. York Historian, Vol 24 (2007) p12-18)

Prisoners of the 1715 Jacobite Rebellion

Government forces in Scotland under the command of John Campbell, 2nd Duke of Argyll defeated the Scottish Jacobite army of John Erskine, 6th Earl of Mar at the Battle of Sheriffmuir on the 13th November 1715. Following the battle the Jacobite Scottish army dispersed, with the majority of the rebels returning to their homes.

Between the 9th and 14 November 1715 Government forces in England under General Charles Willis defeated the English/Scottish Jacobite army under Thomas Forster at the Siege of Preston. Almost the entire Jacobite army at Preston was taken captive. In total, seventy-five English and 143 Scottish noblemen and gentlemen surrendered together with some 1,400 ordinary soldiers of whom a thousand were Scottish. Only seventeen men had been killed in the defense of Preston as opposed to 200 on the Government side. In the words of Robert Campbell, Argyle's official biographer, "none but fools would have stayed to be attacked in that position, and none but the knaves would have acted when there as they did". (Ref. "Inglorious Rebellion: The Jacobite Risings of 1708, 1715, and 1719" by Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson page 147)

The prisoners taken after the Battle of Preston were some of the most important captured during the entire rising. This was because of the fact that at Preston, the state captured nearly an entire army, including the leaders by whose authority most of the commoners had come into the rebellion. Additionally, the Preston prisons were immediately available for swift punishment in a way that the prisoners of Sheriffmuir, in the hands of the Scottish authorities, never would be. Finally as the Government realised when given the lists of prisoners, punishing the men taken at Preston represented an opportunity to crush a group that had been a thorn in the side of Whigs, and a perceived threat to the Protestant Succession since 1688, the wealthy, powerful and close knit community of Roman Catholic gentry in northern England. (Ref. "Jacobite Prisoners of the 1715 Rebellion: Preventing and Punishing Insurrection in Early Hanoverian Britain" by Margaret Sankey. Page 17)

When the prisoners had been sorted by rank and distributed into secure quarters, the lords in the best houses, officers and notables in the Mitre, White Bull and Windmill Inns, and the commoners crowded together in the church, the Government began to realise the size of their windfall. The Reverend Robert Patten's (Thomas Forster's chaplain) estimation of the number of prisoners, later printed and widely reported as official, was enormous: 75 English gentlemen, 83 of their servants and 305 English commoners had been taken, along with a larger contingent of 143 Scottish gentlemen and 862 Scottish commoners. (Ref. "Jacobite Prisoners of the 1715 Rebellion: Preventing and Punishing Insurrection in Early Hanoverian Britain" by Margaret Sankey. Page 17)

Three hundred prisoners, including the seven main leaders, Mackintosh of Borlum; William Maxwell, 5th Earl of Nithsdale; James Radcliffe, 3rd Earl of Derwentwater; Thomas Forster, MP for Northumberland; George Seton, 5th Earl of Winton; William Gordon, 6th Viscount of Kenmure; and William Murray, 2nd Lord Nairne; and the main officers and gentlemen, were separated and marched to London, where the seven leaders were held in the Tower, and the remaining prisoners distributed between Newgate Prison, Tilbury Fortress and the Fleet.

The remaining 1,018 prisoners who had been held in atrocious conditions in the church at Preston were then sent to Lancaster, Chester, Carlisle, Liverpool and York. Some sixty Jacobite prisoners would be held at York Castle Prison until the majority of them were released following the Act of Indemnity (often referred to as the Act of Free Grace and Pardon) July 1717.

The sixty Jacobite prisoners sent to York were in all likelihood held in the two cells for suspected felons, which were to the rear of the right hand wing of the Debtor's Prison Building. These rooms were 38.5 feet by 24.5 feet and 38 feet by 14 feet. The ceiling height in the larger room was 8 feet and in the smaller room 9.5 feet. Access to these rooms was via a door onto the central courtyard. Both rooms had only two windows each for natural lighting and ventilation. With the arrival of the Jacobite prisoners, these rooms would have been very overcrowded indeed. There being very little natural ventilation conditions would have been very uncomfortable. The air would have been fetid. There was no heating or running water in these cells. Water was provided by a pump in the central courtyard and had to be carried in by the Gaoler's assistants. Sanitation would be a slop bucket, which would have to be emptied each morning.

With sixty Jacobite prisoners, on top of the number of ordinary felons already being held here, conditions would have been dire. By 1715 conditions had become intolerable and when sixty Jacobite prisoners from the 1715 Rebellion were lodged there, a petition was sent to the King from several prisoners for debt in the Castle, requesting "enlargement" (freedom) from prison, as families were in distress and the gaol was full due to the Jacobite Rebellion. The petition was signed by John Ward. Ref: Folio 136 SP 36/80/3/136 held in the National Archives.

Overcrowding was a common problem, especially as throughout the 18th century there was no regular programme of shipping off the transports and their numbers often swelled accordingly. The Prison authorities were paid four pence per day for the upkeep and food for the prisoners. With the influx of the Jacobite prisoners this meant some expense for the Government.

The Government was also anxious to empty the area's jails of anyone who was taken up by mistake, so that the limited room could be used to house men who were known to be Jacobites. Charles Townshend, the Secretary of State, personally ordered the release of four men, one of them a "poor vagabond", another a man who inadvertently talked to the rebels and was arrested as a rebel himself. Local authorities were surely doing the same kind of screening themselves to sort out men they knew to have been mistakenly imprisoned.

In York, seven men, six of them personal servants of known rebels, were released as too unimportant to keep, while Christopher Small, a fugitive debtor from London, who was caught up in the dragnet, was released because York had no interest in prosecuting a London crime! (Ref: SP44/118/159; SP44/118/178; SP44/118/200; Faithful Register, 398. (Ref. "Jacobite Prisoners of the 1715 Rebellion: Preventing and Punishing Insurrection in Early Hanoverian Britain" by Margaret Sankey. Page 49).

Transportation:-

By January 1716, the British Government had incarcerated more than 1,200 prisoners taken before and after the capitulation at Preston alone. (Baga de Secretis Abstracts, KB33/1/5/65-66. There were 22 prisoners at Lancaster, 157 at Wigan, 467 at Chester and 446 in Preston and 60 at York). Cached in makeshift jails and castles across northern England, each man was costing the authorities 4d per day to feed in bread, cheese and beer. Cost considerations apart, supplying such numbers stretched the capabilities of the local economy, especially during the winter, and so something had to be done with them reasonably rapidly. Thus the prisoners had become a serious problem for George I and his council. Leaving them in prison strained relations with the local authorities (who had to feed and house them) and posed the threat of epidemic disease, and, too, provided a focus for the disaffected and Catholic, who were gathered around the jails and sending in blankets and food parcels (Ware, Lancashire Memorials, 163). On the other hand, releasing even these prisoners, most of whom were commoners left behind when the rebel leaders were sent to London after the surrender, did not strike the deterrent note the Government needed.

The central authorities had a range of historical precedents to choose from in planning the punishment of the prisoners. The harshest was the stance taken by Elizabeth I after the Northern Rising in 1569, when the Queen insisted that more than 450 rank-and-file rebels be executed, the poorest put to death summarily under martial law, those with estates tried by jury to allow legal confiscation of their property.

The acquisition of substantial overseas colonies and the subsequently successful program of transporting poor children and undesirable vagrants to Virginia, beginning in 1617, created a more humane alternative that was first used during the Great Civil War. The Commonwealth, unwilling to release the large numbers of royalist prisoners taken at the first battle of Preston (1648), Dunbar and Worcester, but unable to afford their upkeep in English jails, transported them to New England, the Caribbean and Ireland, although it was careful to specify that the prisoners should never go to places where they might be used against the Commonwealth. (Williams, The Later Tudors, 258: Abbot Emerson Smith, Colonists in bondage: White Servitude and Convict Labor in America 1607-1776 [Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1947], 152, 154.)

James II used transportation to dispose of 522 participants in Monmouth's Rebellion in 1685, although this was paired with the harsh sentences meted out by Judge Jeffrey's 'Bloody Assizes'. The King allowed favoured courtiers to contract for shiploads of prisoners and profit from the sale of their indentures in the West Indies, and to protect their investment, stipulated that any ship's captain or purchaser of an indenture who freed one of the rebels would be fined £200, be imprisoned for a year and be barred from holding public office in the islands, while escaping rebels faced a sentence of 39 lashes, time in the pillory and a brand of F.T., meaning 'fugitive traitor'.

A popular pamphlet, A Relation of the Great Suffering and Strange Adventures of Henry Pitman (1689) described the islands as a death trap of disease and back-breaking work, and detailed the author's desperate attempts to bribe his way to freedom. There was, however, an ideological difficulty here. For all good Whigs, James II's exploitation of this option was standing proof of his tyrannical nature. (Smith. Colonists in Bondage, 193; C.H. Firth, Scotland and the Protectorate [Edinburgh: T and A Constable, 1899], 189, 192).

In dealing with the Jacobite prisoners in 1690-91, William and Mary were more interested in removing the rebels from Ireland than in swingeing punishment. The Treaty of Limerick allowed the prisoners to leave Ireland with their families and personal property for any destination outside of the British Isles. Any who wished to enter military service in France were not only given leave, but supplied with free transport. Because of these liberal provisions, more than 12,000 Jacobites entered the army of Louis XIV and immediately fought against William III in Europe, making this a procedure George I's Government was disinclined to follow. (J.G. Simms, Jacobite Ireland [Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000], 159-60).

Faced with a prison crisis that daily grew more difficult to resolve (as local authorities, faced with mounting debt, clamoured for money and/or relief), the ministry decided on a compromise that tended towards the Great Civil War precedent.

Putting this policy in practice, however, proved rather more difficult than George I and his councillors anticipated. When all the trials were over, the Government offered transportation to the plantations, which the King apparently thought meant the West Indies, in exchange for a pardon conditional on the men remaining overseas for the rest of their lives. (Abbot Emerson Smith, "Transportation of Convicts to the American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century" in The Peopling of a World, ed. Peter Charles Hoffer (New York: Garland, 1988), 237).

This seemed to the King and his Government to be both a humane and sensible option for dealing with men who, according to the law, should all have been hung, drawn and quartered, and their posterity ruined by the confiscation of their property. Unfortunately, this seemingly simple solution was soon entangled in a thicket of legal problems assiduously raised by the prisoners in an effort to prevent their deportation. For although transportation had existed since the establishment of English colonies, and had its origins in the 1547 Vagrancy Act, itself inspired by Sir Thomas More's Utopia, (Robin Blackburn, 'The Old World Background to European Colonial Slavery' in The Worlds of Unfree Labour, ed. Colin A. Palmer (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 105-6), transportation was a sentence that could only be applied by judges, not ordered.

A prisoner had to request transportation and could not be sent out of the country involuntarily, a stricture of English Common Law which had only twice been violated, and then briefly, in 1666 and 1670. Secondly, transportation did not exist in Scottish Law, Scotland having no plantations into which it could send prisoners. Banishment from Scotland was the maximum such sentence in Scottish Law, although those so banished could be executed for returning without permission.

Scottish prisoners quickly seized on this judicial conflict to protest that they could not be held to English Law when Scottish Law did not contain provisions for similar punishment. (Smith, 'Transportation of Convicts', 232) In addition, the Government's insistence that the men leave under indenture could not be legally enforced. Indentures existed to finance the transportation of emigrants crossing the Atlantic, not as a punishment. Most of those who requested transportation entered indentures for the same reason as their non-felonious fellow emigrants: they lacked the fare required to get out of Britain. To force the prisoners into indentures violated statute law in the form of the Habeas Corpus Act, a point which did not escape the notice of the prisoners themselves. (Charles Edward Gillam, 'Jailbird Emigrants to Virginia' Virginia Magazine of History and Biography 52 (July 19440, 180).

While waiting for the 'grateful' prisoners to ask for transportation, the Government nonetheless proceeded with the public punishment of the 33 men condemned at the Liverpool and Preston trials. When even this failed to inspire petitions for transportation, the infuriated ministry instructed the jailers to intimate to the prisoners that further reluctance to accept the King's gracious clemency would provoke more trials, not just confined to those who had drawn lots and remained untried, but of all those against whom the Government had substantial evidence, and that more executions were sure to follow. (Townshend to Sir Francis Page, 29 January 1716. SP 44.118.176). Additionally, the jailers applied physical coercion to the obstinate, as described by an anonymous prisoner at Chester Castle who refused to sign his indenture "whereupon we were severely threatened and without getting liberty to return to our rooms for our bed clothes and linen, we were all turned into a dungeon or little better, and fed only with bread and water". (Hugh Paterson, Leiden, to Mar, 23 June 1716, HMC Stuart II, 232-3).

The following week, Major Solomon Rapin, the supervising 'commander' of the prisoners, compiled two lists, finding that of the 1,200 plus men, 206 refused to petition for transportation, while only 116 accepted. The rest kept their own counsel, preferring not to commit themselves. (Prisoners Petitioning for Transportation, 5 February 1716, KB33/1/5/19; Prisoners Refusing Transportation, 6 February 1716, KB33/1/5/16.).

The reason for this extraordinary show of resistance lay in the prisoner's folk-memory of the treatment of Scottish rebels by the Commonwealth after their defeat in 1650. Despite the Rump Parliament having already sent hundreds of English royalists as indentured servants to the West Indies and New England, the Protectorate was puzzled as to what they could do with people, "so poor and idle that they cannot live unless they be in arms". (Monck to Cromwell, 2 May 1654, in Firth Scotland and the Protectorate, 100).

A plan to "make merchandise" of the prisoners by sending them into mercenary service with the Dutch or Holy Roman Empire against the Ottoman Turks came to nothing, frustrating Cromwell until he realised the prisoners' value in his negotiation with various Scottish leaders. Magnates like Atholl and Seaforth ultimately negotiated terms with the Protectorate that included freedom for their vassals, in many cases literally rescuing them from the holds of ships preparing to transport them. (Firth, Scotland and the Protectorate, 81).

Many prisoners in 1716, particularly among the Scots, accordingly hoped that when leaders like Huntley and Seaforth made terms, these terms would include their release. Unbeknownst to the prisoners, Argyll, while conducting the campaign in Scotland, had in fact, been specifically forbidden to enter into terms with any of the rebel leaders. Furthermore, the terrible fate of the rebel prisoners transported to the West Indies after Monmouth's rising had also passed into popular folklore, which added considerably to the Jacobite prisoner's disinclination to accept George I's 'clemency'.

Myth-history and folklore aside, the prisoners had strong practical incentives to be recalcitrant. Obviously, those with families, wives and children faced what would probably be a permanent separation from their loved ones, and both they and many of their unmarried fellows wanted to avoid leaving their homeland. Because of the Government's original offer, most of the prisoners and their families also believed that they were going to Jamaica or the West Indies, generic designations for what everyone knew were the malarial cane fields of the islands, where the prisoners would work as slaves alongside the Africans whose terms of service were for life, although given the mortality rates prevailing on Caribbean plantations, seven years' servitude in any form was likely to prove a death sentence.

Despite continued resistance, transportation began with the departure of the Scipio on 30 March 1716, bound for Antigua carrying the first 95 'volunteers', many of whom had actually been tried and condemned to death and gained a conditional pardon by their acceptance of transportation. By then convinced of the seriousness of their situation, the remaining prisoners began writing to anyone they knew who had connection to the Government to ascertain their chances of avoiding execution of sentence without transportation.

Ultimately, by August 1716, 638 men consented to transportation and duly departed for the colonies on ten ships chartered by Sir Thomas Johnson, who contracted with ship captains bound not just for the islands, but for Virginia, Maryland and South Carolina. (Transcript of a letter written by James Stanhope (Secretary of State) at Whitehall to the Commanding Officer of his Majesty's Forces in Liverpool. It gives orders for the transportation of Jacobite prisoners in Liverpool Castle to plantations in America and provides instructions for the care of sick prisoners, 29 February 1716 [SP 35/5/13).

"Whitehall February 29th 1715

I am commanded to signify [show] his Majesty’s pleasure to you that you should deliver to Sir Thomas Johnson, or Mr. Richard Gildart & Son: Trafford Merchants in Liverpoole such of the Prisoners in the Castle of Liverpoole , in order to their being transported to some of his Majesty’s Plantations in America, as have subscribed [signed] the Petition inclosed and are in a fair state of health- taking care that all the Prisoners so to be transported, do in the [presence] of the Mayor, or other Cheife Magistrate of the Sea Port Town, where they shall be embarked [taken on board], execute Judicature [hold trials] in due form; thereby obliging themselves to serve in the Plantations for the term of Seven years from the time of their Arrivall there.

You will likewise give such assurance to the magistrates & the Persons concerned in the receiving the said prisoners, as shall be judged necessary for putting them on board the severall ships to which they shall be consign’d with the greatest case of safety. As such of them as are not in a condition to be transported in regard to their health, you are to take care that they be as soon as possible taken out of their places of confinement in order to have the benefit of the air, with these restrictions that it be within the castle walls & at proper times, and with proper Guards, so as to prevent their making Escapes.

It is likewise his Majesty’s Pleasure, that the Places of their Confinement [prison cells] should be cleaned & proper medicines be administered [given] by the Physicians [doctors]and apothecarys [chemists] of the Town to such of them, whose cases shall require it, so as to prevent any contagious Distemper [disease] getting amongst them the charge where of shall be reimbursed [paid] by his Majesty’s order and as such Prisoners shall recover their health, you are to Deliver them in the same manner as is above mentioned in order to their being likewise Transported. After the Prisoners are embarked you are to transmit [send] back to me this originall Petition.

It is His Majesty’s Pleasure [wish], that Charles King one of the Prisoners at Liverpoole, who has sign’d the Petition, should not be delivered with the rest to be Transported, but that he should be taken out of Prison, & quartered in a private Lodging under a Guard.

I am Sr. Your most humble Servant, James Stanhope

Commanding officer of his Majesty’s fortress in Liverpoole"

TS 20 47 3 [Public Record Office, Treasury Solicitor] Cover sheet, pp 7, 7reverse and 8. Warrant Sr. Thos. Johnson for Transporting Rebel Prisoners. (Copy)

Whereas Sr. Thomas Johnson of Leverpoole in the County of Lancaster Knt: being under an Agreement wth. us persuant to Articles in that Behalfe bearing date the 16th Day of April 1716 to transport or carry at his own proper Cost & Charges to some of his Maj. Plantations in America such Rebels or Prisoners as were or should be delivered or offered to be delivered to him or his Servts. at Liverpoole from any of the Goals of Chester, Leverpoole or Lancaster We in Consideration thereof did by the same Articles Covenant & Agree on his Maj: Behalf that the sd. Sr Thos. Johnson should recieve and be paid 40 sh. for every Rebel or Prisoner that was or should be so delivered to be transported upon producing proper Certificates from the Mayor of Leverpole as the Collector or Searcher of ye Port of Liverpoole of the sd. Rebels or Prisoners being shipped on Board of his Ships in & by the sd. Articles amongst other things relation being thereunto had may more fully appear.

These are by Virtue of his Maj. Genl. Tres patents Dormant bearing date 14th Day of August 1714 to pray and require your Lordship to draw an Order for paying unto the sd. Sr. Thomas Johnson or his assignes the sum of 278L 00sh together wth. the sum of 1000 already issued to him by way of Advance upon the Contract or Agreemt. is in full of the sd Allowance of 40sh for 639 Rebels or Prisoners so shipped for Transportation according to the annexed Certificates attested by the Mayor of Liverpoole & the Collr. or Searcher there as by the said Articles is directed, that is to say:

30th March 1716 shipped on Board the Scipio Frigate Capt. John Scraisbrick Commander for Antigua 96 Rebels nil. at 40sh each amount to . . . . . 190

21st April 1716 shipped on Board the Wakefield Capt. Thos. Beck Commander for South Carolina or Rebels nch. at 40sh each amount to . . . . . . 162

26th April 1716 shipped on Board the Two Brothers Edward Rathben Commander for Jamaica 47 Rebels or Prisoners nch. at 40sh each amout to . . . . . 94

7th May 1716 shipped on Board the Susannah Capt: Thos. Bromhall Comander for South Carolina 104 Rebels or Prisoners at 40s each amount to . . . . . 208

24th May shipped on Board the Friendship Capt. Michael Mankin Commander for Maryland or Virginia 80 Rebels or Prisoners nch: at 40sh each amount to . . . . . . 160

25th June 1716 shipped on Board the Hockenhill Capt. Hockenhill Comander for St Christophers 30 Rebels or Prisoners nch.at 40s each amount to . . . . . 60

29th June 1716 shipped on Board the Elizabeth & Anne Capt. Ed: Trafford Commander for Virginia or Jamaica 126 Rebels or Prisoners nch. at 40s each amount to . . . . . . 252

14th July shipped on Board the Goodspeed Capt: Smith Comander for Virginia 54 Rebels or Prisoners nch: at 40sh each amount to . . . . . . 108

15th July 1716 shipped on Board the Africa Gally Rd. Cropper Comander for Berbadoes one Rebel or Prisoner nch at the same rate amon. to . . . . 2 Eod Die shipped on Board the Elizabeth & Ann Capt. Ed. Trafford Commander for Virginia one Rebel or Prosoner nch at the same rate is . . . . . . 2

28 July shipped on Board the Goodspeed Arthur Smith Mar. for Virginia two Rebels or Prisoners nch. at the same rate amount to . . . . . 4

31 July 1716 shipped on Board the Ann Capt: Robt. Wallace Commander for Virginia 18 Rebels or Prisoners nch. at the same rate amount to . . . . 36

1278 From nch: to be abated the Sum advanced and paid as aforesaid . . . . . . 1000 Then remains . . . . 278

Notwithstanding nch. Paymt. the sd. Sr. Thos. Johnson is by the sd Articles obliged to produce Certificates signed by the Govn. or Governors of the said Plantations of the Landing of the sd. Rebels or Prisoners in the sd. Plantations or upon any of their dying by the Way an Affidavit of such Death And let the sd. Order be satisfied out of any his Maj. Revenues being & remaining in the Receipt of the Exchequer applicable to the Use of the Civil Government. And for so doing this shall be your Warrant

Whitehall Treary Chamber

25th March 1717 R. Walpole Wm Sr. Quintin Torrington R. Edgcumbe

In order to speed the process, Johnson left the indentures in the hands of the captains, who were paid 40 shillings, a head in advance to transport the prisoners, and who would pocket the indenture's market value when it was sold. Stanhope, hoping to guarantee that the rebels arrived at and remained in the colonies, sent stern warnings to all the governors of the ships' destinations that the men were to enter into indentures, and that they were to be guarded vigilantly and exact lists returned to London naming the purchasers of the indentures. (Executive Journals of the Council of Colonial Virginia, ed. H.R. McIlwaine, vol. 3 (Richmond: Virginia State Library, 1928), 428-9; Calendar of State Papers: Colonial Series, America and the West Indies, ed. Cecil Hedlam, vol. January 1716-July 1717 (London: HMSO, 1930), 128).

Stanhope's precautions hint at the ministerial misgivings about the likely outcome of the transportation policy and such fears proved well founded. No sooner had the process of transportation begun before prisoners began to escape and to lay elaborate plans to avoid fulfilling the terms of their sentences. It was common knowledge amongst the prisoners that the going rate to buy one's freedom from a ship's captain was £80, a fact which won Andrew Hogg his freedom after he pointed it out to the authorities, acting out of resentment that he could not afford it himself. (Paul Methuen to the Lords of the Treasure, 9 August 1716, SP44/147/28-9).

("Jacobite Prisoners of the 1715 Rebellion: Preventing and Punishing Insurrection in Early Hanoverian Britain" by Margaret Sankey [Ashgate Publishing Limited, Hampshire 2005] Page 59-64)

It is not known if any prisoners from York Castle Prison accepted transportation. Those that remained in prison in July 1717 were subsequently released under the Act of Indemnity.

The Act of Indemnity 1717:-

The Indemnity Act 1717 also referred to as the Act of Grace and Free Pardon was passed by both houses of parliament in July 1717, the last enactment of the session. It followed almost two years after the Jacobite rising of 1715, during and after which many Jacobites were taken prisoner. Those later convicted of treason were condemned to death, and some were executed, but by the Act most of the surviving Jacobite prisoners were freed and were permitted to settle either at home or overseas.

Hundreds of Jacobites were freed by the Act. The more notable included the Earl of Carnwath, Lord Nairne, and Lord Widdrington, together with seventeen gentlemen awaiting execution in the Newgate and twenty-six in Carlisle Castle. Some two hundred men captured at the Battle of Preston were released at Chester, also all remaining prisoners held in the castles of Edinburgh and Stirling and York. The Act did not undo the effect of any attainders, and confiscated estates worth £48,000 a year in England and £30,000 a year in Scotland; the dispossessed owners were not restored of their property.

There were some specific exceptions to the general pardon granted by the Act: Matthew Prior and Robert Harley, 1st Earl of Oxford, had been held in the Tower of London before the Rising of 1715, and Oxford's friend Lord Harcourt and his cousin Thomas Harley. All members of the Clan MacGregor were also excluded from the Act's benefits, one of the targets of this last exclusion being the famous Rob Roy MacGregor. Philip Henry Stanhope noted in the 1840s that "...a modern reader is shocked to find excepted 'all and every person of the name and clan of Macgregor'".

The passage of the Act was marked by the issuing of a silver medal, also struck in bronze, engraved by John Croker, chief engraver to the Royal Mint. On the obverse is the head of King George I, on the reverse is the winged figure of Clemency, who is standing, but leaning by her left elbow on a short stone pillar, surrounded by the words "CLEMENTIA AVGVSTI". In her left hand is an olive branch, while in her outstretched right hand she holds a caduceus, with which she touches the head of a fleeing snake, representing Rebellion. This image recalls the story of the caduceus of Mercury. (Ref : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indemnity_Act_1717)

York's Reaction to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745

On 24 September 1745, Archbishop Thomas Herring addressed a meeting of 800 people assembled in the Castle Yard at York: "The Pretender's Son is in Scotland....has gathered and disciplined an Army of great Force; is in possession of the Capital City there; has defeated a small part of the King's Forces; and is advancing with hasty steps towards England....Something must be sone......to stop this dangerous mischief". (A Speech made by His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, 24 September 1745. Printed by John Hildyard. Castle Museum Collection).

Herring's plea for action was eloquent testimony to the alarm felt by the Whig establishment at the success of the Jacobite Rebellion which began on 25 July 1745 when Charles Edward Stuart stepped ashore on Eriskay, an island off the west coast of Scotland, from the French ship Doutelle. His avowed intention was to secure the crown of Scotland and England in the name of his father, James II, the Old Pretender. Charles raised an army from the Highland Clans, occupied Perth and Edinburgh, and on 21 September defeated an army of the British government under General Sir John Cope, at Prestonpans. He then moved his forces south and invaded England, where he was to seize Carlisle, Penrith, Lancaster, and Preston, penetrating as far south as Derby before returning back for Scotland in December. Pursued by the army under the Duke of Cumberland, the rebels were finally defeated at Culloden on 16 April 1746.

The initial success of the rebels spread panic throughout the north of England. The defenses of the northern counties had to be hastily overhauled, and the principal cities prepared to resist the expected Scottish sieges. In York the walls, bars and ditches were inspected and repaired, and bodies of volunteers were formed.

This article discusses first the state of the defenses in 1745 and the measures taken to put them into good order, and then the raising, clothing and arming of the soldiers recruited during the crisis. (Cedric Collyer, "Yorkshire and the "Forty-five", Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 38 (1952-55) pp71-95).

Following the depredations of the Civil War extensive repairs had been made to the defenses; the ditches and fortifications added during the war were filled and pulled down. Francis Place recorded the extent of the defenses in a drawing of 1676, while in 1725 Daniel Defoe wrote that "a little time, and many hands would.....make the city able to stand out a small siege". (Daniel Defoe A Tour through England and Wales (1726).

Maintenance work on the defenses continued during the early years of he 18th century. For example in 1719 it was ordered that £20 a year be spent on the upkeep of the walls and bars. (Y.C.A., quoted in City of York Vol. II, The Defenses, Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (1972) p.28). It is surprising therefore that when the Lord Mayor and other city officials toured the defenses in the company of Major General James Edward Oglethorpe on 28 September, they felt the city could not withstand a determined assault. Oglethorpe, formerly Governor of Georgia, had arrived in York when the military situation in Scotland and adverse weather conditions prevented his leading a body of Dutch troops north. His professional advice was eagerly sought, although his comments about the defenses must have been depressing.

After discussing the situation with Oglethorpe, the Lord Mayor wrote to Lord Malton, Lord Lieutenant of the West Riding, that York "is not tenable against even a small force". (Y.C.A., quoted in City of York Vol. II, The Defenses, Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (1972) p.29). Various measures had been and continued to be taken to repair the shortcomings revealed by the inspection. For example twelve roods of stone were removed from the priory at Clementhorpe to repair the walls on 11 October, and Richard Balfour was paid £3 9s 0d for work on Bootham Bar in November. £4 12s 0d was spent on Castlegate Postern and £5 15s 6d on North Street Postern. (Y.C.A. 41B, p59). On 1 October the ramparts were ordered to be lowered so that the stone walls stood ten clear feet above the earth bank, Matthew Wharton being paid for "pairing away the earth from the city walls at Bootham Bar". (Y.C.A. 41B, p91). On 28 January 1746, 9s 8d was paid for a rope for the portcullis at Bootham "by direction of Genl. Oglethorpe". (Y.C.A. 41B, p65).

The flurry of activity aimed at putting the defenses into order would have been wasted in the absence of troops to man the positions. Passing through and sometimes quartered on the city during the crisis were several regiments of the regular army. In October 1745 troopers of General Wade's Horse and Colonel St. George's Dragoons rode through the city, while men of General Oglethorpe's infantry regiment remained in York for several months. (York Courant, 22 October 1745). A party of unidentified dragoons were quartered in a guardhouse on Peaseholm Green. (Y.C.A., 41B, p91).

The suppression of public disorder and the repulsion of an attacking force in strength would however have been beyond the resources of these units. The regular army was not in any event supposed to provide men to garrison English cities: companies might act as a policing force at elections, but the establishment of the British army was too small to fill a larger internal military role. The British forces in Flanders had to be recalled to deal with the Jacobite army at Culloden. This was no accident. The standing army was not an accepted idea in the 18th century, and the annual debate on the Mutiny Bill, which provided the legal framework for the army's existence, was usually characterised by demands for further reductions in the establishment. Responsibility for the internal defense of the realm rested with the Militia.

Numerous attempts had been made to reform this county based force, which traced its history back to the Anglo-Saxon fyrd, and by the mid-18th century its care was in the hands of the county lieutenants and their deputies. Their parsimony and inertia served the Militia poorly, and the authorities realised the true state of the force too late. Lord Derby, Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire, wrote when he grasped the implications of the rebellion, "as for putting the Militia in readiness......'tis not practicable". (Derby to Sir Henry Hoghton, one of his deputies, 4 October 1745: Lancashire County Record Office DDH/475/25, quoted in an unpublished study of Lancashire in the Forty-five, by Mr. T. Murray, of the Castle Museum).

Lord Irwin, Lord Lieutenant of the East Riding of Yorkshire simply felt that to embody the Militia would be a pointless and expensive exercise. (Irwin to Newcastle, quoted in Collyer; Lancashire County Record Office DDH/475/25, quoted in an unpublished study of Lancashire in the Forty-five, by Mr. T. Murray, of the Castle Museum).

Confronted with a militia system in tatters, the authorities in Yorkshire canvassed the idea of raising regiments of volunteers, and maintaining them by means of a subscription fund. The meeting held in the Castle Yard, York, at which Archbishop Herring made his impassioned plea fro action rather than words, was designed to establish an Association amongst the assembly which would contribute to the fund opened the previous day at Bishopthorpe. (A Speech made by His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, 24 September 1745. Printed by John Hildyard. Castle Museum Collection).

On the same day as the meeting in the Castle Yard, the City Council met in the Guildhall at ten o'clock in the morning and resolved "by voluntary subscription to raise sums of money sufficient for the raising of Armed Forces for the Defence of this City......". (Y.C.A., 41B, p. 1). The Council sought the approval of the Archbishop for their plans.

Collectors were appointed in the city and Ainsty, who undertook to forward the money promised by the signatories to the fund's treasurer, Mr. Hildyard. (Possibly John Hildyard, bookseller of Stonegate; York Courant, 22 October 1745). Each subscriber promised a certain amount to be paid in four monthly instalments, thus assuring the fund of a steady income for the envisaged period of the crisis. Although the subscription was voluntary a record was kept of those who did not choose to support the fund, and by implication the government. Indeed as an index of the support enjoyed by the Hanoverian succession, while not foolproof, the fund's accounts do provide a political dimension to local history. For example the small village of Hessay contributed an amount out of proportion to its population and resources. The total subscribed over four months was £2,655 1s 3 3/4d, of which there remained when the final accounts were drawn up £310. This was repaid at the rate of 2s 4d in the pound.

Very little of the money was used on the repairs to the defenses, described above, since the chief concern of the city was to raise and arm a regiment of volunteers. Initially two or three companies of 100 men were proposed, each commanded by a captain and two lieutenants. Advertisements were printed to encourage men to enlist for four months at one shilling a day for private men, a wage in excess of that paid to the infantrymen in the regular army. Commissions for the officers would be issued by Lord Malton. Colonel Pearson, another professional offering the city the benefit of his experience, advised the creation of four companies of 60 men, and his suggestion was adopted. (Y.C.A., 41B, p6).

Called the York Company, with an establishment of four companies, this volunteer body soon had sufficient recruits to provide for each unit one captain, one lieutenant and one ensign, three sergeants, two corporals and a drummer, and 60 men. (Y.C.A. 41B, p8). The four captains were John Haughton, Henry Waite, William Thompson and William Haughton. The latter had the distinction of commanding the "grenadier" company, although since there is no record of the city buying grenades, this must mean that Haughton's men were to perform special duties in the event of an attack. (Y.C.A., 41B, p9).

Blank commissions were obtained from Lord Malton for the junior officers, and as far as possible use was to be made of half-pay officers to provide a stiffening of professionalism. Each captain was allowed £18 - 18 for the clothing of his company, £8 for himself, and the balance on a sliding scale for his officers and men. The typical infantry man in the regular army at this time wore a three cornered hat, a full-bodied red coat and waist-coat and red breeches. Stuart Reid, in his book Cumberland's Culloden Army 1745-46 details the uniform of the Company as a blue coat with red cuffs and no lapels. Mr. Sherrif Spooner, Mr. Hale Wyvil, Mr. Jaques Priestly "and other drapers" are to send for cloth "for making of the coats and breeches". (Y.C.A., 41B, p59), while hat makers provided 30 hats for the men at 2s 6d a piece.

The Lord Mayor found blue ribbon at 8d a piece to make into cockades for the hats, this addition to their uniform earning the Company the soubriquet "The Blues". By early October, both tailors and hatters were hard at work completing the orders. Colours or flags were provided for each company, and on 14 December James Carpenter, a painter, was paid £5 15s 6d for painting the four colours of the Company. (Y.C.A., 41B, p61).

A contemporary engraving of the flags shows that they bore the city arms of York, a red cross on a white shield with five gold lions on the cross, all on a blue background, with the words Religion and Liberty in gold above and below the shield respectively. Arming the men proved less straightforward than clothing them. The sergeants were issued with pikes, although these were intended as signs of rank rather than weapons. Sergeants in the regular army carried halberts, and officers half-pikes, for the same reason. Pike in the York context may be a mistake for halbert, or refer to the nine foot pike usually issued to officers. Sergeants did not carry the half-pike in the regular army until 1792. (Y.C.A., 41B, p63, December 1745 "to John Theakston for making up and arming pikes £0 14s 6d").

The basic weapon of the infantryman was a smoothbore flintlock musket and bayonet, the musket, possibly because of the browning used as a preservative, referred to as Brown Bess. Ammunition consisted of a charge of powder wrapped in paper with a lead ball, a number of these cartridges being carried in a cartridge box, hung at the soldier's side. Additionally the soldier carried a short sword, called a hanger. Thomas Taylor provided the York Company with cartridge boxes at 12d each (Y.C.A., 41B, p16a), and Thomas and Martin Croft were ordered to make up musket balls from a stone of lead, while Amos Oxley sold the city four casks of gunpowder each weighing 50lb, at 13 1/2d a pound (Y.C.A., 41B, p67).

Colonel Pearson told the city not to issue swords, so that the council had to provide for its volunteers 120 muskets and bayonets. The traditional source for arms was the parish armoury. After the meeting on 24 September all arms were called in from the parish armouries, and 129 guns and 114 bayonets were produced. These were then sent to a number of local blacksmiths and white-smiths for cleaning. John Gillison, for example was paid to "clean and put in order" eighteen guns and seventeen bayonets. (Y.C.A., 41B, p65).

Shortly afterwards however the four captains examined the guns with Robert Watkin, whom the city recorded as a gunmaker from Birmingham. (De Witt Bailey and D. Nie, in English Gunmakers - The Birmingham and Provincial Gun Trades in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries (1978) do not record a Watkin working in Birmingham. A.M. Carey in English, Irish and Scottish Firearms Makers (194) records R. Watkin in London in the early 18th century. Y.C.A., however are clear that Watkin was "of Birmingham". It is likely that Robert Watkin of London had business contacts in Birmingham). This inspection revealed how neglected the parish arms were. Watkin commented, "very few of them are fit for service or capable of being made fit". (Y.C.A., 41B, p22). He proposed to sell the city replacements at 23s 6d each, and the council agreed to buy 100, complete with bayonets, free of delivery charge, on condition that each gun should stand proof of an ounce of powder and ball, that is they should be tested with such a charge to prove the barrels could withstand the pressures generated by the explosion. Watkin undertook to deliver the guns on or before the following Saturday. (Y.C.A., 41B, p22).

York was fortunate to secure the services of this entrepreneur. Throughout the country the authorities experienced considerable difficulties in obtaining arms, the Birmingham trade usually supplying parts to London for setting up, so that few guns could be had from these manufacturers, while the price of second-hand guns on the London market soared. (Cedric Collyer, Yorkshire and the "Forty-five", Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, 38 (1952-5) pp71-95). Watkin's guns were later stored and eventually exhibited in the Guildhall, where they stayed until 1942, when they were rudely removed by a German bomb. Many were damaged, but a batch was afterward deposited in the Castle Museum. Examination of these specimens reveals the name "R. Watkin" on the lockplate. The muskets have clearly been repaired at various times, but appear to be variants on the standard pattern issued to the regular army.

The day after Watkin examined the parish guns, the Lord Mayor received a letter from Lord Malton offering the city 60 muskets in exchange for twelve blunderbusses. Malton's guns were "too short to range with the arms of the West Riding Companies" (Y.C.A., 41B, p23), which implies these units were issued with a variation on the Long Land Pattern Musket with its 46 inch barrels. In fact the city had no blunderbusses, but Watkin undertook to provide the guns Malton required at £1 each. They were to be blunderbusses with swivels, which would mean they were large wall pieces, suitable for the defense of a fortified position.

Recruited, armed and clothed, the volunteers were now drilled. On Wednesday 30 October the companies drew up outside Micklegate Bar on the occasion of the King's birthday. They were marched through the Bar, along Low Ousegate, Coney Street, Stonegate, Petergate, Colliergate, Pavement and Thursday Market (now St. Sampson's Square). In pavement they drank the King's health and fired several volleys. A similar celebration on 5 November "being gunpowder plot" marked the failure of an earlier attempt to usurp the throne. (Y.C.A., 41B, p57, for the King's birthday "for racking four bonofires (sic) of Ale for four companys of soldiers £6 4s 0d" , £4 4s was spent on the celebration to mark "Gunpowder Plot"). In fact the volunteers never fired a shot in anger. The Jacobite invasion of England lost its momentum and the rebels turned back for Scotland in December.

In late January 1746 the guardhouse which had been converted from the schoolroom in Thursday Market was deemed no longer necessary, "the rebels now far distant from this city, the Town quiet, no appearance of Tumults or Disorders". (Y.C.A., 41B, p25). This was just as well for the city, since the subscription money was coming to an end. To conserve what was left it was proposed the volunteers be allowed to return to work, and turn out once a week to be drilled. This the men rejected, their enthusiasm for the military life evaporating with the retreat of the rebels. The York Company disbanded and the arms purchased from Watkin were taken into store in the Guildhall.

There remained in York, one other body of volunteers. This was the Independents, formed by "gentlemen and other principal inhabitants of the city". (Caesar Caine, "The Martial Annals of the City of York (1893)). These men provided their own uniforms and arms, but paraded with the Blues. They assisted with the searches that were made of the houses belonging to catholics in December, and together with Oglethorpe's Infantry Regiment were thought sufficient to defend the city after January 1746.

The only locally raised body of volunteers actually to come into contact with the enemy was the Royal Regiment of Yorkshire Hunters. In September a number of fox hunting gentlemen, including John Hall Stephenson, a friend of the novelist Laurence Sterne, decided to form a regiment of light cavalry. They asked Oglethorpe to command them, and the General led them when they formed part of Wade's army pursuing the rebels north. In December the Hunters had a brief skirmish with the Jacobite rearguard at Shap, near Penrith, but Oglethorpe failed to follow up the advantage he gained. His timidity led to a court martial, although he was acquitted. (C.T. Atkinson, "Some Letters about the Forty-Five" [Journal of the Society for Army Historical Research 1959]).

Cumberland's victory at Culloden was decisive. He stayed in Scotland and supervised operations designed to root out all hints of rebellion, before making his way back to London in May 1746. On 6 May the council at York decided to present the Duke with the freedom of the city in a gold box. (Y.C.A., 43B). In fact when Cumberland arrived in York he was whisked away by the Archbishop, who dined him at Precentor's House. The Lord Mayor, Recorder and seven aldermen were however permitted to kiss the royal hand and present the box which had cost £130, rather more than the £100 initially envisaged.

Cumberland and his party left York at midnight two hours after arriving. Colonel Pearson thanked the men of the Independent Company who had hoped to be reviewed personally by the victor of Culloden.

The rebellion and its aftermath continued to echo through York. Later in 1746 a number of rebels were tried in the city and 22 were hanged at the Tyburn on the Knavesmire. The severed heads of two of those executed were set up on Micklegate Bar, where they remained until 1754 when William Arundel stole them with the help of an Irish journeyman. Arundel, a tailor, was later detected, fined and imprisoned for two years in the gaol on Ouse Bridge.

Toward the end of t he 19th Century a final reminder of the rebellion was discovered when workmen excavating a drain behind the Castle unearthed twenty bodies. Several of these lacked their skulls, and the bones were disjointed. It was supposed that this common grave held the remains of those rebels who had been hanged, drawn and quartered. (A. Twyford and A. Griffiths, Records of York Castle).

The success with which the York Company and the Independents and the Hunters were raised cannot disguise the inadequate internal defense of the kingdom in 1745. Rather it highlights the poor state of the Militia, and the problems of hurriedly organising, equipping and arming bodies of volunteers at very short notice. An efficient force for local defense depended upon a greater degree of central government authority, better finance, and the establishment of links with the regular army. This, however, was not achieved until the Haldane reforms of 1908. (Ref:- N.J. Arch "To stop this dangerous mischief": York and the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745" York Historian Vol. 3 (1980) pp 27 - 30)

Conditions in York Castle Prison 1745 - 1752

Except in the two Jacobite Rebellions of 1715 and 1745 England had peace from political dissensions after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, when William III and Mary II ascended to the British throne. York had little to do during the first of these rebellions apart from holding sixty prisoners. These were men of middle or lower standing in the rebellion. The main leaders of the 1715 Rebellion and the majority of the prisoners were marched to London where the leaders were executed and the other prisoners held on prison hulks until eventually some 600 were transported as indentured labour to North America. The men held at York were eventually all released, apart from one or two who had died, in 1717 following a general pardon.

The second Rebellion of 1745 was long remembered in York. The nobility and gentry, headed by the Archbishop of York, Dr. Thomas Herring, entered in an association to raise money, and aid in the defense of "his Majestie's Government and person in general, and of the country in particular". Upwards of 30,000 lire was subscribed, and the City of York raised four companies of men, styled the Yorkshire Blues on 24th September 1745 carrying a flag bearing the York coat of arms. The various wards, for the further security of the city organised themselves in bodies properly clothed and accoutred, which remained under arms for ten months. (Ref: Records of York Castle Fortress, Court House and Prison" A.W. Twyford and Major Arthur Griffiths Page 190-191).

The inhabitants of the three Ridings (of Yorkshire) were responsible for the common gaol or county prison at York, and in 1700-01, in pursuance of an Act of Parliament passed in the 11th year of William III, wherein Justices had enlarged powers granted to build and extend gaols of the county, a tax of 3d in the pound was levied upon all lands in the county to defray the expenses of a new prison.

As was the practice in York, the ruins of the dissolved monasteries in the city were extensively used for all kinds of rebuilding - the City walls being frequently restored in this way. The knights, citizens and burgesses serving in Parliament for the county of York and others the Justices of the Peace for the county petitioned the King begging that they might use the stones about the King's Manor House, which included the ruins of St. Mary's Abbey, for the erection of a new gaol.

"To the King's Most Excellent Majestie

The Humble petition of the Knights, Citizens and Burgesses serving in Parliament for the County of York and others the Justices of the Peace of the same County Humbly Shew That the Justices of the Peace being Enabled by a Late Act of Parliament to build a County Gaol for the services of your Majesties Sheriffs to the great charge and expense of the Said County. And where as there are severall Buildings belonging to your Majesties Manor House situated in the City of York which are become ruinous, nothing remaining there but walls. It is humbly desired they may be impowered by your Majesties warrant to make use of such ruinous walls as may be serviceable in the building of the said Gaol. And your Petitioners shall pray, etc...." [Treasury Papers 1697-1702 Page 473].

On March 19 and again on April 8, 1701, a request was made to the Crown Surveyor to hasten his report. The new prison, an imposing structure, was completed in the year 1705. It had two projecting wings and a clock turret (Nb. the clock wasn't provided until 1717) in the centre of the edifice. The right wing of the building was originally occupied by debtors and the governor, with rooms for the under gaoler. In the left wing were the chambers and cells wherein the felons were imprisoned until the more modern prison was built in 1826-35. There were two small apartments for "solitary" imprisonment, and three cells used by those condemned to death. (Ref:- ”The History of the Castle of York from its foundation to the present day” by T.P. Cooper, Page 211-212.) https://archive.org/details/historyofcastleo00coopuoft).

Between 1701 and 1705 work began on the building of a completely new building (the present Debtors' Prison). Work finished in 1705 on a building designed to hold 104 inmates. Daniel Defoe described the new building as "the most stately and complete of any in the kingdom, if not in Europe". The prison was home to debtors, imprisoned only for failing to pay their bills, but the prison also housed some of Yorkshire’s most notorious criminals on the ground floor. The architect was possibly William Wakefield, a trained lawyer rather than a professional architect. A native of Yorkshire, Wakefield is known to have designed Duncombe Park and Gilling Castle. The finished building was a handsome early example of English Baroque architecture, built to reflect County pride. Nikolaus Pevsner stated, "This building is, next after the Minster, the most monumental of York".

The prison soon became a visitor attraction in its own right. Promenading gentry were able to view the inmates behind the railings of the exercise yard. For a while at least, the prison served its purpose in a modern and functional way, with separate areas for men and women. The debtors were housed upstairs and the felons below. However the prison quickly became overcrowded and conditions intolerable. Escapes were made and new, smaller cells were built.

Sanitation:-

The felons had no access to running water and this had to be brought in buckets from a pump situated just outside the fenced front courtyard by the gaoler's servants. There were no privies or toilets in the prison until 1758. Before then the felons only had the use of slop buckets. Come the morning these had to be emptied into an open sewer that ran through part of the building.

Prior to 1758 there was no adequate ventilation to the prison, especially to the felons' accommodation on the ground floor. Most of the night cells had no outside air source, and their only internal source was either a hole above the cell door about 4 x 8 inches, or some 1 inch holes cut into the cell doors. The sleeping cells were only intended to accommodate three men, but numbers often exceeded that. In 1746 the Recorder of York complained to the Archbishop that "when the turnkey opens the cells in the morning, the steam and stench is intolerable and scarce credible".

Overcrowding frequently contributed to outbreaks of disease, in particular smallpox and typhus (gaol fever). Overcrowding may have helped blunt the cold, however. There was no provision for fire in the sleeping cells, though the transports' day room had a fireplace. Prior to 1780 the floors were made of stone and bedding consisted at best of straw on low wooden pallets.

Location of Felons' accommodation:-

Until 1780, the felon's accommodation was on the right half of the ground floor, towards the back. There were no individual cells until 1732. Instead there were several large rooms, each of which had a door opening onto the central fenced courtyard. Theoretically, different categories of prisoners were held in the different rooms: suspected felons, convicted felons awaiting transportation, convicted felons awaiting execution, etc. Most of these rooms had no connection with each other. The only rooms which did connect were those in front of the left wing, which served as the gaoler's office and also the living quarters of the under-gaoler and turnkey and sometimes their families as well. The offices and employee's quarters in the left wing were the only rooms on the ground floor to have access via a staircase to the first floor.

Access:-

Prisoners were taken in and out of the gaol by means of the appropriate door opening onto the central courtyard. From the beginning there were three doors along the front of the building opening onto the central courtyard and at least one, possibly two, along the inside of the right wing. These led into the felon's rooms.

When the prisoners went to chapel, they were taken out in batches from their respective rooms, across the paved courtyard, through the gate in its fence, and then up the external staircase at the front of the right wing to the chapel, which was on the first floor.

The gaoler, employees, debtors and visitors entered the building via the external staircase that went up to the first floor of the left wing. This is where gaoler had his parlour cum reception room. Beyond were the first floor rooms for the debtors.

A 1710 drawing of the prison by Francis Place suggests that there were no doors or windows on the ground floor of the left wing fronting the courtyard. This meant that there was no direct access between the gaoler's quarters and the felon's quarters and courtyard. This was perhaps intended as a security measure, so that the felons could not rush a gaol employee entering the courtyard from the administrative wing.

There were one or two doors at ground level on the exterior side of the left wing and also apparently a small one on the exterior side of the right wing, right towards the front of the building. This would correspond with a theory that the front room in the right wing was an overflow room for bailed suspects and King's evidence on court days and that they were taken in and out of it without going near the felon's courtyard.

The front courtyard:-

The front courtyard was initially sunken three feet below ground level. It was not raised to ground level until after 1823. It was always intended as the felon's exercise yard, and was used for that purpose until the Victorian prison was built.

The enclosures at the rear of the building did not occur until around 1789 and indeed there were no exit doors on the ground floor rear wall until after 1780. Originally the courtyard had a single palisade or grill fence running across the front with a central gate.

The first cells 1732:-

The first cells were built in 1732 after a break out of 21 felons led to a reassessment of security at the gaol. They were "sleeping" cells; ie. places where the felons were locked up on a night. The cells were installed in four of the original felon's rooms in the back, central to the right-hand corner of the building. At the time there were virtually no proper widows in this area, only a few narrow slits in the outer walls. When the cells were added, few had a slit, meaning that they had no natural light or ventilation.

The cells were on average 7.5 feet by 6.5 feet. The internal walls were the thickness of two bricks placed lengthways end to end. Most of the cells were 9.5 feet high apart from those in the largest room in the right hand corner of the building which were only 8 feet high. The cell doors were made of two inch oak planks, cross battened on one side, and were 6 feet high by 3 feet wide.

Prior to 1823, most of the cells were apparently more than 3 feet below ground level (like the courtyard). The floors were raised up to ground level in response to early 19th century legislation outlawing subterranean gaol accommodation. The floors were made of stone flags and the walls plastered and whitewashed.

Transportee's day room and cells:-

Originally the room for felons awaiting transportation was 24 feet deep and 15.5 feet wide, and all the transportees lived and slept in it together. In 1732 three sleeping cells were installed down the long right hand wall. This left a long narrow room only about 8 feet wide, with a fireplace, which served as the transports' day room. The original window slit in the back of the transports' room was left in the day room, so none of the cells had external ventilation.

Condemned men's day room and cells:-

Immediately to the right of the transports' room was a similar sized room, which was the room for condemned men. In 1732, four sleeping cells were installed here, three down the long right hand wall and one in the back left corner. This left a small area 16 feet by 8 feet as a day room for the condemned men. The back window slit was again left in the day room, meaning that the four cells had no external ventilation.

Suspect felons' day room and cells:-

To the right of the condemned men's quarters were two rooms occupying the back of the right wing where suspected felons were held awaiting trial. The back room had a door into the front room and that in turn had a door onto the central courtyard. In1732, nine sleeping cells were installed in the back room, and four in the other one. Each was left with a wide corridor lit by at least one window slit to serve as the suspect felons' day rooms. This area was larger than either the Transports' room or the condemned men's room. This was because at any one time, and especially in the weeks before the Assizes suspected felons were expected to be the most numerous category of inmates in the gaol.

Unfortunately we do not have any plans for the original prison layout. Those still existing are from the 19th century.

Overcrowding:-

By 1715 conditions had become intolerable and when sixty Jacobite prisoners from the 1715 Rebellion were lodged there, a petition was sent to the King from several prisoners for debt in the Castle, requesting "enlargement" (freedom) from prison, as families were in distress and the gaol was full due to the Jacobite Rebellion. The petition was signed by John Ward. Ref: Folio 136 SP 36/80/3/136 held in the National Archives.

Overcrowding was a common problem, especially as throughout the 18th century there was no regular programme of shipping off the transports and their numbers often swelled accordingly. At times of war or social crisis the numbers rose even higher. During the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745-46 the gaol was packed to overflowing.

In January 1746 the Government appointed a four man commission, W. Bell, Nathaniel Hills, Charles Allix and T. Cayley to report on conditions in several of Britain's prisons. On 27 January 1746 the commission reported that there were 227 Rebel Jacobites held in York Castle Prison as well as the normal inmates, and that they were worried about the outbreak of infection due to the excessive overcrowding. Ref: Folios 96 and 99 SP 36/80/3/96 held in the National Archives. By February 1746 it was reported that 249 rebel Jacobites (including 8 women) were held at York. These were principally transfers from the capitulated Carlisle garrison Ref: (S.P.Dom., 81-88; Scottish History Society: Prisoners of the 45 Vol. I page 89); but 23 men and one woman were shown as "on suspicion." Of this latter class one was styled "Papist," and there were 7 "Popish priests."

On the 10th March 1746 Lord Justice Sir Thomas Abney, one of the eight judges appointed to officiate at the trial of the Jacobite rebels, wrote to the Duke of Newcastle, thanking him for moving over one hundred Jacobite prisoners from York Castle to Lincoln Castle, in order to relieve the overcrowding at York. Ref: Folio 73 SP 36/82/1/73 held in the National Archives.

Rationing and care of Prisoners:-

In 1715 there were several petitions about the small rations for poor prisoners - both debtors and felons - entitled to county bread allowance. One such petition came from inmates at York Castle Prison. From the East Riding Archives and Local Studies Service. QSF 29/D/1 - Easter 1715. The bread allowance was not an automatic right; only prisoners with a certificate testifying to their poverty were eligible for it, hence the reference to "poor prisoners". The word "poor" thus had a very specific use and should not be interpreted to mean simply "unfortunate" or "unlucky".

The county allowance was treated as an established right, as evidenced by the petitioner's suggestion that the county could well afford to pay more. For the poor prisoners, the bread allowance was their sole food source. It was washed down by water supplied by the gaol. Prisoners with some financial resources - or friends outside - drank beer or ale in preference to water. Beer was both more nutritious and less likely to be contaminated than water.

"To the Right Worshipfull her Ma[jes]ties Justices of peace for the East Ryding of the County of York at their Generall Quarter Sessions of the peace holden for the said Ryding The humble Petition of the prisoners in the Low Gaol of the Castle of York being about four score in number Sheweth That the Allowance from the whole County of York for poor Petitioners Subsistance is but Two and fifty pounds per ann. wch. amounts not to Threepence a piece per week Insomuch that your petitioners are all of 'em like to starve and many of 'em fall sick and severall of 'em even dye for want of food. They further humbly shew that there are near abt. Three Thousand Towns in the whole County a great number whereof are Markett Towns and divers of these large & flourishing so that by a moderate computacion the present Allowance to the Gaol amounts not to above a Groat a Town one with another for a whole year or according to Computacion by the Land Tax an estate of fifty pound p[er] ann pays not Three farthings in the whole year to the said allowance. Therefore humbly pray your Worships to have compassion on your petitioners Miserable Condicion by aughtmenting their Allowance and they shall ever pray &c. respited till next Sessions & in the Interim Know what the justices of the other two Rydeings have Contributed".

There had been no financial provision made for the Jacobite Rebel prisoners in 1745, and Mr. Griffith, Keeper of York Castle, was expected to keep them on thin air. Knowing this, his advertisement in the York Courant of 21 January 1746 can only be viewed as a disguised appeal:

“Whereas it has been reported that I have denied or prevented Alms and charitable contributions from being sent to the prisoners, contrary to the Act of Parliament in that case made and provided; which enacts, that every prisoner, shall have liberty to provide and send for victuals, drink, and other necessaries, from any place whatsoever. This is therefore to inform the Publick, that any person may freely bring or send cloths, provision or money to any prisoner, provided the same do not exceed ten shillings or the value thereof, to be first examined by me…..” (York Courant, 21 January 1746).

Some certainly responded to such an announcement, if they had not done so already. Roger Strickland, a Catholic gentleman of Richmond, whose brother Francis had been one of the Seven Men of Moidart who had initially accompanied the Young Pretender on his expedition to Scotland the previous July, certainly sent money to ameliorate the lot of the prisoners. His accounts mention on 30 September that 12s had been sent for "the poor Scots prisoners". (L.P. Wenham Roger Strickland, a Richmond Jacobite 1680-1749 NYCRO (1982) p86). Another man who was sympathetic to some of the rebels was Bache Thornhill who wrote of "the unhappy people at York". He was especially concerned about two of the gentlemen prisoners, Murray and Hamilton, and rejoiced when the former was reprieved "on that subject shall say no more, but I hope he'll be pardoned". (L.A. NH2873/3-4). However, we do not know the identity of others who sympathised with the prisoners to the extent that they gave alms.

There were those who condemned the scale of alms giving. The most trenchant critics were both Anglican clergy, and given that it was feared that the rebellion would overturn the temporal and spiritual authority of the Church of England, their responses are hardly surprising. Indeed, during the rebellion, the clergy had done their utmost to combat it, chiefly through their sermons, many of which were published. (F. Deconnick-Brossard, The churches and the '45; J.W. Shiels, ed., Studies in Church History. Church and War (1983).

The Reverend Richard Horne of Marske, wrote to Master John Hutton, a Westminster schoolboy on 31 March 1746, about the lot of the prisoners in York. He had heard accounts of two of the prisoners there who seemed to live a life of relative luxury. One of these was Margaret Simpson who "appear'd so much like a Person of quality having on an exceeding good silk Gown and all other things so suitable". The other was Captain George Hamilton, who similarly appeared well dressed, despite three months stay in the gaol. He too, was "dress'd in a, very gentile manner". These two treated one Ensign Brown, to wine and punch and later Margaret invited him to breakfast with her. Horn did not approve of all this. "They had Jocolate, Coffee and Tea, such is the fare of the Rebels, who as far as I can learn talk in a very brisk strain and are in high spirits, tho' I hope in a little time we shall hear different accounts of them". (NYCRO, ZAZ 80, Horne-John Hutton, Easter Monday 1746).

Fellow cleric, Jaques Sterne, had similar sentiments that he lost no opportunity in voicing. He informed Viscount Irwin that "The Rebels have been so pampered by the papists since they came into the castle, that some of 'em, who looked like poor devils, might be able to do great mischief if they got out". (H.M.C. Reports, Var. Coll. VIII, p160).

It was not until January 1746, after the fall of Carlisle, that the Government awoke to the necessity of making financial arrangements for the rationing of the prisoners in England, although the authorities in Scotland had had Standing Orders on the subject which had been drawn up long before the outbreak of the '45. Consequently on 13th January ' Secretary Corbett' was directed to address the "Commissioners for Sick and Wounded" and instruct them to undertake the task (T.B.M., 1/32, p. 81).

On 14th January 1746 there was a meeting of the Treasury Board of which the following proceedings (T.B.M., 29/30, p. 230) are reported :

"Read a letter to Mr. Scrope from the Sick and Wounded Office, dated 11th January 1746, about subsisting Rebell prisoners in England. My Lords are of opinion that 4 pence per diem per man be allowed them, and the same be provided in the best manner."

On 20th January the Commissioners asked for £2,000 on account and enquired what sum it was proposed to allow for sick prisoners. This was followed on 4th March 1746 by another meeting (T.B.M., 29/30, p. 247), minuted as follows :

"Commissioners for Sick and Wounded attend on their memorial of 25th February last concerning Rebell prisoners. My lords are of opinion that sick prisoners be subsisted at or under 12 pence per day as proposed by the Commissioners ; and their Lordships are also of opinion that all persons who are or shall be taken prisoners of Warr on board Men of War or Transports should be deemed and treated as prisoners of Warr until it shall appear that they are subjects of Great Britain and Rebells."

The following printed pamphlet, not dated, was published by the "Commissioners for taking Care of Sick and Wounded Seamen and for exchanging Prisoners of War," with, the secondary title : "Instructions to be observed by the Persons appointed to take care of the Rebel Prisoners, etc. in Great Britain."

I) All such Rebels as are taken Prisoners, as well as these taken upon suspicion of Treason ... are to be secured in the Gaol of the Place, in the same Manner other Criminals for treason are ; and attested lists of the Names & Qualities of such Prisoners are to be asked for of the Persons who deliver them, and copies thereof transmitted to Us from time to time in Form No. I.

II) A weekly Account of them is to be sent Us in Form No. 2, and the names of such as shall have been discharged or shall have Died or Escaped ... set off on the back of it.

Ill) The prisoners are to be subsisted by . . . according to the annexed Scheme No. 3, and care taken their Provisions be properly dressed for them ; that they be furnished with as much good fresh Water as they shall desire, and have a sufficiency of clean straw to lie on, and that this be changed every Fortnight, for all of which there will be allowed four Pence a Man a Day.

IV) The Prisoners are frequently to be Mustered, and such Checqued out of Subsistence, for the Benefit of the Crown, as refuse to answer their Call.

V) If any of the said Prisoners should happen to be either Sick or Wounded, they are to be put into some convenient Place, seperate [sic] from the other Prisoners, and there furnished with Beds and Bedding, Diet and Nursing . . . for which there will be allowed Eight pence a Man a Day for so long as their State of Health shall require it.

VI) Some skilful Surgeon is to be Employed to attend the said Sick or Wounded Prisoners, to furnish them with Proper Medicaments and to do everything necessary in the way of his Profession for their cure ... for which Service they will be allowed Six Shillings and Eight Pence for the Cure of each Man.

VII) If any of the said prisoners shall die, a Grave is to be dug for them, and they put into it at the Cheapest Rate that may be, and the expense charged in the proper Column of the Book No. 4.

The "Scheme of Provisions to be issued each Rebel Prisoner every Day" was as follows :

Wheaten Bread one lb.

Marketable Beef . . . half lb.

Gloucester or other Cheese equivalent to it . quarter lb.

N.B.—The Meat to be Boiled into Broth with Oatmeal, Salt, etc.

It will be noted that, though bread is mentioned, no scale of oatmeal is defined. As the gaoler had to find the above ration, and make his own profit out of four pence a day, it is improbable that he troubled much about the addition of oatmeal or condiments to the broth. Ref: Scottish History Society: Prisoners of the 45 Vol. I page 178-179.

From contemporary sources (Lyon, passim) it is common knowledge that the prisoners were rigorously treated in Carlisle, York and Lancaster prisons. James Miller, one of the rebels briefly held at York Castle, whose sentence was commuted on condition of enlistment wrote a diary of his experiences between 1745 and 1750. He describes his experiences after the surrender of Carlisle :

"We were barbarously treated, the souldiers rifling us and taking everything of value from us, both money and Cloaths ; they did not offer us any Provisions for three days, and on the fourth but one small Bisket a man. They broke open a well in the bodv of the Church, which had not been used for upwards of an hundred years. ' We was oblig'd to drink that or die of thirst, after we had been there five days, which I realy believe was for want of natural subsistence. ' The Gentlemen (i.e. Officers) were took Jany. the 12 for London. The day following about four score were took out of the Church and Marched for (York Castle) and upon the third day the Remainder were took to Lancaster and Chester Castles, guarded by a party of Mark Kerr's Dragoons, who used us very barbarously, dragging us through the dirtiest places they could find. ' We arrived at Lancaster Jany. 18, and orders were given to the. Jayler to load us with heavy irons. 'The Governor allowed us four pence, but our Jaylour, perceiving it would be more beneficial, thought it proper to keep our pay and provide us with victuals, which were but very indifferent, consisting of cow heads, livers, lights, and the refuse of the market, which threw most of us into the Flux. Upwards of 80 poor prisoners died while (we) remain'd there. 1 August 49 of us march'd to Carlisle ... and were confined in the County Goal, the Town Mr [Major], having the principal command over us, as to paying us, bedding and other agreable necessarys, thought to have imposed upon us by allowing us one pound of Brede a day and Beef twice a week. We made our address to Carteret (Webb) the King's Solicitor, who recover'd our four pence a day." Ref: Scottish History Society: Prisoners of the 45 Vol. I Page 167 See https://www.yourphotocard.com/Ascanius/documents

/The%20Diary%20of%20James%20Miller.pdf for full transcript of James Miller's Diary.

Mortality of Prisoners:-

The Jail Returns and State Papers show that 88 deaths are known to have occurred in English and Scottish prisons and transports during the Jacobite 1745 Rebellion. An analysis of the list shows that in Scottish prisons only 18 deaths were reported, which must be regarded as very few considering the crowded condition of the prisons during 1746 and up to the Indemnity of 1747. Of 66 deaths in England, 36 admittedly took place in the transports in the Thames. Of the remainder 8 were accidentally caused by the sinking of a boat at Liverpool while prisoners were being sent, on board the Johnson for transportation.

There is no doubt that people often died in York Castle while imprisoned there. The Death Book, at present at the Yorkshire Archaeological Society, gives between 1730 and 1741 at least 79 deaths. Thirty-two were executions, 47 deaths though, it must be presumed, were natural causes.

The next four folios have been cut out, and these may well have recorded deaths during 1745, 1746 and 1747. Of the recorded deaths, three were buried under the gallows, ten "behind the Castle", 11 at St. George's, one in Leeds, 27 at St, Margarets, 4 at Holy Trinity, Micklegate, and the remainder not stated.

The only standard work on the Prisoners of the '45, that published by the Scottish Historical Society in three volumes, is full of errors although it must be judged a monumental and a major work. It vastly overrated the number of deaths in York Castle, including in its total the "above one hundred" who were sent to Lincoln. How can the true total be arrived at?

The prisoners spoke with non-Yorkshire accents and their names were often misspelled by the people compiling the lists, so that one man often appears under two names, etc. It is next to impossible to identify with certainty the fate of each one, though the majority can be identified with reasonable confidence.

The record books of the Castle held in the Public Record Office deal only with the civil prisoners and not at all with the Rebels. One thing which can be done is to search in the Parish Registers of York churches for burials, and the table below shows the results of this.

St. Denys Church, Walmgate:-

19 February 1746 William Craven debtor from York Castle.

12 March 1746 John Humbel prisoner from York Castle.

12 March 1746 Thomas Preasley prisoner from York Castle.

17 May 1746 Thomas Agar debtor from York Castle.

25 May 1746 John Priestly debtor from York Castle.

1 June 1746 John Healouse debtor from York Castle.

St. Margaret's Church, Walmgate:-

None identifiable as Castle deaths.

St. Martin cum Gregory Church, Micklegate

28 July 1746 John Reid a Scotsman

28 November 1747 Mr. Peart a Papist.

St. Mary's, Castlegate

9 July 1745 William Hudson Attorney at Law, prisoner from York Castle.

13 February 1746 James Thompson a Rebel from York Castle.

23 May 1746 Elizabeth wife of Major Wilson prisoner at York Castle.

20 January 1747 John Kay prisoner for 24 years at York Castle.

17 September 1747, John son of William Taylor Scotsman linen draper.

18 October 1747 David illegitimate son of Ann Chambers out of York Castle.

St. Crux Church, Whip-ma-wop-ma-gate

16 May 1746 Duncan M'Clane Scotsman.

31 May 1746 John Wreakes (of Lillui) prisoner from York Castle

St. Maurice Church, Lord Mayor's Walk

20 April 1746 John son of Mr Joseph Marsh from York Castle.

St. John's Church, Ousebridge

11 December 1745 William Borrel prisoner from York Castle

St. Cuthbert's Church, Peasholme Green

In "Jacobites of Aberdeenshire and Banffshire in the Forty-Five" by Alistair and Henrietta Tayler (1928) there is a confusion between York and Carlisle, occasioned by the fact that Captain George Hamilton's head was sent to Carlisle and displayed there, and that in both cities a man called Gordon was executed. There has never been a Micklegate Bar in Carlisle. But there is a St. Cuthbert's church there. However, the only burial recorded in St. Cuthbert's York for 17 November 1746 was that of Richard son of Philip Dove. The next burial was in January.

The other city parishes had no entries from York Castle up to the end of 1746. No Castle deaths are recorded for January 1747, although we have the Archbishop's authority that there was one. In February James Thompson "a reble from the Castle" was buried on the 13th and William Craven, an imprisoned debtor, on the 19th. In March there were two recorded deaths, John Humbel and Thomas Preasley, both buried on the 12th and described only as "prisoner".

In April a child living in the Castle died. In May there were four, possibly five deaths. Duncan M'Clane was probably not a prisoner, he was buried on the 16th. The outbreak of illness was now slackening and only one death is recorded for June 1847, John Healouse a debtor.

Evidence found so far indicates 11 certain deaths in a seven month period during which health conditions must have been at their worst, with peak mortality being in May 1746. It is likely that other deaths resulted in burials "behind the Castle" which escape record in parish Registers.

Of the twenty one men executed in York on the 1st and 8th November 1746, evidence would seem to show that twenty of them were buried "behind the Castle".

DISCOVERY OF THE REMAINS OF SCOTTISH REBELS:- Within the last few days a curious discovery has been made behind York Castle. A number of excavators were employed there to dig a drain, when they turned up the remains of about twenty human bodies; but the skulls of three or four of them were wanting, and the bones appeared mixed together, in such an unusual manner as to excite the curiosity of all who saw the positions in which they were found. The conclusion formed respecting them is, that they are the remains of twenty-one Scottish rebels who were executed near York, ten of them on Saturday 1st, and the remainder on Saturday, the 8th of November, 1746, when they were hanged, drawn and quartered." Ref: Criminal Chronology of York Castle; with a register of the criminals, capitally convicted and executed at the County Assizes. Published by C.L. Burdekin, No. 2, Parliament Street; London: Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 1867. Page 60 - 62.

Arnot and Seton's Prisoners of the '45 published by The Scottish Historical Society (1928) shows the following prisoners who died in York Castle:-

John Barnaghy of Glenbucket's Regiment died 19 January 1747.

Angus Campbell died 8 April 1748

David Ogilvie of Ogilvy's Regiment died 9 June 1747

Nb. When a prisoner died in prison or was executed, his or her belongings became the property of the prison. If they were not sold to relatives of the deceased, the prison could sell or dispose of the longings as they wished.

Jacobite Prisoners held in York during 1745-1752

During both the later stages and the aftermath of the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, many of the rebel prisoners were imprisoned and subsequently tried at York. Scarcely had the trials been completed than accounts began to be written, and controversy soon erupted. An advert for one announced: "The publick has been grossly abused and imposed upon by several spurious, erroneous, and inconsistent Accounts, even that which pretends to be the most Authentick is not free from several Mistakes....We have been at the Pains of comparing those accounts one with another, and having purg'd them of all their errors and falsities, have, we are persuaded, compiled a full and Exact Narrative" (The Manchester Magazine, 507, 11 November 1746).

Such comments would be equally apt today as they were in 1746. The earliest known published source is the contemporary "The Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York", which, as its title suggests, solely considers the trials. Forbes' "Jacobite Gleanings" also contains useful material on the disposal of prisoners, but relatively little on the trials. The best known work, however, is the national survey, the three volume "Scottish Historical Society: Prisoners of the '45'" by Arnot and Seton. It deals with all of the prisoners and their fates, rather than the judicial process which convicted them, though there are a few comments about the latter in the first volume. Unfortunately, despite the seemingly impressive list of sources used, there are some important ones which are under used or not used at all, such as newspapers and private correspondence. There are also a number of factual errors in the first volume, which summarises their conclusions. This is especially the case in the small section which deals entirely with those held in York Castle. This work has, however, been extensively used as a source by most historians, and it is difficult to avoid making references to it.

Since then, the only work devoted solely on this issue, though on a far smaller scale, is Wenham's "Some Scots Jacobite Prisoners in York and Richmond". Although this chiefly focuses on the fate of one man, Captain George Hamilton, it does throw some interesting light on the judicial process, though in contrast to the Jacobite bias in Arnot and Seton, Wenham argues that it was extremely fair.

More recently, Barbara Whitehead has discussed the fate of the prisoners in York, among other aspects of the impact of the rebellion there, as has Margaret Craig in her feminist work "Damn Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45".

The disposal of prisoners in general has been referred to in passing by most authors. Popular writers make generalisations and tend to portray the lot of the prisoners to have been unusually unpleasant and the prison officials and judges as instruments of cruelty, neglect and of harsh punishments, but the majority of serious historians have not reached such conclusions. For example, Speck writes: "The civil government.....made a show of tempering justice with mercy". (W.A. Speck "The Butcher: The Duke of Cumberland and the suppression of the Forty Five" (1981) p181).

It should be noted from the outset that there were two principal groupings of prisoners that were held at York Castle, although the first were those who were accused of high treason and were tried by the annual county Assizes, and were by far the minority, fall outside this study. The majority of prisoners were those who were rebels captured in arms, and faced the more serious charge of levying war against His Majesty.

At their peak, in February 1746, they numbered 227. These were tried by a Special Commission. However, all the prisoners were held in York Castle, the county gaol of Yorkshire, and so were the responsibility of the County Sheriff, an annual and usually unpopular (because expensive) appointment.

State prisoners became an issue towards the end of 1745, when the first of the prisoners from the military campaign began to be taken, as the rebels retreated from Derby and when their garrison surrendered at Carlisle. Some were sent to York. The government seems to have been initially unclear what should be done about them, since it was an exceptional, though not unprecedented set of circumstances, compared to the routine work of the Assizes. Furthermore, since the rebels were still undefeated, albeit in retreat, military victory was the government's top priority.

Policy as regards the prisoners was  made when required, and often in retrospect. Formal orders were not always given. Initially, the Duke of Newcastle decided to put the ball into the court of the local authorities. Although prisoners began to be placed in York Castle on 3 December 1745, this was only a relative trickle of eleven men, mostly taken at the skirmish at Lowther Hall, the seat of Lord Lonsdale. (The York Courant 1052, 10 December1746).

It was on 7 January after the fall of Carlisle, that Newcastle wrote to the High Sheriff of the county of Yorkshire that he should give the necessary orders to put these prisoners in "any gaol within the county....received there....kept in close custody till they be dispersed by the course of law". (PRO, SP44/133, p48). It was then, York Castle, which was to take the bulk of the Prisoners which were to be held in the north east. Sixty nine prisoners, including eight women, were placed in York Castle on 29 December 1745. They were in a sorry state even before they arrived. According to the York Courant, "They are a miserable Ragged Crew, most of them barefoot, and some almost naked". (The York Courant 1055, 31 December 1746). Some of these prisoners may have been taken after the skirmish at Clifton on 17 December 1745 or as stragglers during the retreat of the rebels.

With the fall of Carlisle on 31 December 1745, 395 men of its mainly Scottish garrison surrendered. The initial decision to despatch these prisoners to nearby gaols seems to have been made by the Duke of Cumberland. One destination for many of them was York, and 193 prisoners were despatched from Carlisle on 6 January. They spent the night of 15/16 January at Richmond School. The Sheriff gave the Richmond constabulary orders to provide accommodation and provisions for the prisoners. They were supplied liberally with meat and other food. They were also given straw for bedding, candles and coals for warmth. The constables also provided carts and horses. The officers received slightly better treatment, white rather than brown bread, and rode to York, rather than walked, as the common men were obliged to do. George Lambert was paid 2s 5d "for Cording to bind the Rebels". The next day they departed to Bedale. (The Gentleman's Magazine Vol. 16 (1746) p24; L.P. Wenham "Notes on the History of Richmond School: Jacobite prisoners, January 1745/1746", Yorkshire Archaeological Journal Vol. 37 (1948-1951) pp372-375).

The treatment of the rebels was not, then, all bad, as is often claimed. The Archbishop of York, Thomas Herring, wrote to Sir Rowland Winn, baronet of Nostell Priory on 19 January 1746, "190 more prisoners are just come to ye Castle from Carlisle, one dyed in ye yard, one escaped on ye way, and fourty are extremely sick". However, of these, 41 were all the recently captured officers (English, Scottish and French), and they, as well as three gunners, a servant and a deserter were soon despatched to London for trial, guarded by a detachment of volunteer soldiers, before they were transferred to the custody of Major Adams with some troopers of Lord Kerr's dragoons at Doncaster. They exchanged hands on 27 January, according to a receipt signed by Winn, who was also a deputy Lord Lieutenant and a colonel of the county volunteers. (L.A., NP1546/42, 1547/9, 1510/28; The York Courant 1058, 21 January 1746).

The curious exception was Captain George Hamilton, who had already been at York for three weeks. He remained, probably, because he may have been too ill to move, since he had been "much wounded" at the Clifton skirmish. Certainly The York Courant announced that "Tis said particular orders are given that he be civily treated". (The York Courant 1055, 31 December 1745; The Gentleman's Magazine Vol. 15 (1745) p626). The Rev. Jaques Sterne, Precentor of York Minster and J.P. commented similarly, but added, "Hamilton.....turns out a very scoundrel; and the Duke of Richmond himself, who was concerned in procuring him such treatment, says that he turned out the same at Appleby and other places". (H.M.C. Reports, Var. Coll. VIII, p160).

The man who was responsible for the security of the prisoners was the newly appointed Sheriff of Yorkshire, Henry Ibbetson, who has been all but ignored by historians. His main concern was not to let any prisoners escape.

In 1715-1716, there had been several high profile escapes, and clearly this was not to recur. Ibbetson was a wealthy and ambitious young man, and zealous in the Whig cause (he had formed a company of volunteers independent of the county Association and had been prominent in arranging that Catholic properties in York be searched in the previous year). Ibbetson was "universally" approved of by the county Whigs. (L.A. NH2875/12; A.C. Price "The Story of Leeds" (1912) pp36-37; BL. Add. Mss 35598 f167r). Archbishop Herring remarked, "He is young, healthy, rich, active for the King, prudent and would like the office". (B.L., Add. Mss. 167v). As Winn wrote: "I am justified yt we cannot find in this county a man so fit for ye office as himself". (P.R.O., SP36/80, f338r.)

One of his first actions was to dismiss the gaoler of York Castle, Thomas Griffiths. In this decision he was probably influenced by Herring and Sterne. These two clergymen disliked Griffiths, whom, they claimed, had abused them, had insulted the captain of the guard and objected to the suspected Jacobite Dr. John Burton being especially guarded. Griffiths also had a poor reputation among the county gentry. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35598, f164v). Herring certainly approved of Ibbetson's decision, "He changes the Jailor for good reasons". (B.L., Add. Mss., f167r). Sterne was aware that Griffiths had been involved in the suspicious death of a prisoner in his custody in 1741, though there had been insufficient proof to prosecute him. (P.R.O., SP36/57, f7r-15r, f85r).

Later, Ibbetson appointed Joseph Marsh to be jailer. (B.R. Hartley "Thomas Griffiths" York Historian Vol. II, (1994) p43). Ibbetson's instructions were relatively simple. "He must receive such prisoners as were disposed of". (P.R.O., SP44/133, p48). He appears to have set about his duties with a will, "[he] set himself to the execution of his office with great alacrity, and I hope, with equal prudence". (B.L., Add. Mss., 35598, f166v)

Another urgent task was to deal with overcrowding in the prison. On 7 February 1746, there were a total of 251 prisoners in the castle (as well as those charged with civil offences). Of these, 227 were eventually to be tried by the Special Commission, and 24 were to be dealt with by the Assizes. (P.R.O. SP36/81, f92r-95r).

Even before this time, there had been fears among city residents that this number might cause a severe health risk to them. Dorothy Johnson wrote in December 1745, "I fear some infectious distemper from such a number of lousey Rascals" (N.R.O. ZAL Box 40/4, Mrs Johnson-Thomas Mayer, 26 December 1745). In January, Archbishop Herring voiced similar fears. Forty prisoners were "extremely sick" and one had died on arrival at York. He wrote, "The filth and sickness and close confinement of these wretches may breed a contagion". (L.A. NP1546/42; B.L. add. Mss., 35889, f79r). He added that "when the wind sets fair, I can almost fancy that I can smell them, as they do hogs at a distillery". (B.L. Add. Mss., 35598, f164v).

Several Yorkshire J.P.s wrote to the Commissioners for the Sick and Wounded Seamen about the dangers, and included a petition from other prisoners who protested their loyalty and hoped for mercy. (P.R.O., SP36/80, f447r, 49r). The Recorder of York, Thomas Place paid a visit to see for himself, and reported that, once the turnkey had opened the cells, "ye steam and stench is intolerable and scarce credible....walls covered in lice". (B.L. Add. Mss., 35598 f189v).

Nothing seems to have happened for some weeks, until Thomas Abney, Justice of Common Pleas arrived from London. He noted what the others had, and furthermore, that seventeen prisoners had died and another sixty were seriously ill. (P.R.O. SP36/82, f85r). This resulted, on 3 March, in many prisoners being transferred to Lincoln Castle. (State Papers Entry Books record 97), though Herring thought the figure was as many as 120, and the press spoke of it being over 100. (P.R.O. SP44/82, p264-265; The York Courant 1064 4 March 1746; B.L. Add. Mss., 35889, f193r). The sick were transported in three waggons and the other 65 were tied together. The Cavalry escort were made up of men from Wade's and Montagu's Horse. (The York Courant 1064, 4 March 1746).

Ibbetson was also concerned that none of the prisoners would escape. In January this was not an immediate problem, for two companies of James Oglethorpe's Regiment were at hand, and were one hundred strong. There were also the city volunteers and the city gentlemen volunteers (each of about 200 men), but these forces might depart or disband in the near future. Archbishop Herring wrote "if they should be withdrawn; Mr Ibbetson is apprehensive that he should want a military guard to supply their room". (B.L. Add. Mss., 35598, f166v).

Oglethorpe's troops departed in April and the volunteers had all disbanded by July 746. (The London Evening Post 2860, 4-6 March 1746; A. Ward, History and Antiquities of York Vol. I, York (1785) p353-355; The General Advertiser 3579, 17 April 1746). It appears that Ibbetson was given some regular soldiers as guards, and was told that others quartered in Yorkshire towns could be drafted in if there was need.

As the trials approached, companies of infantry stationed at Wakefield and Leeds were put at his disposal should he feel the need for them. (P.R.O. SP44/133, p226, SP36/86, f348r). Guarding prisoners had fallen both to the volunteer and regular forces. Men of Captain Chomley's company of the North Riding Volunteers escorted prisoners to York in 1745, but regular troops guarded those being sent to Lincoln in March 1746. (The York Courant 1055, 31 December 1745, 1064, 4 March 1746). He also needed to know whether he could legitimately order them to fire on any escapees, and wrote to Lord Newcastle on several occasions about this point. This was important, because the legality of such order was dubious, though it would seem that the matter was typically unresolved. Apparently, the soldiers guarding prisoners in 1715 had been given such orders.

Eventually, Ibbetson, perhaps trusting to this precedent, told Newcastle; on 15 November, "My zeal for the service prompted me to give orders to the commanding officer.....to fire upon the rebels" in the event of escape. (A.J. Hayter, "The Army and the Crowd in mid Georgian England (1978) p17; P.R.O. AP36/89 f186r). There is no evidence that the legality of these orders was ever put to the test. On the whole, Ibbetson carried out his onerous duties well. No prisoners are known to have escaped during his tenure of office and the majority of them survived to stand trial in October 1746.

However, historians have been critical of the conditions in which the prisoners were placed. Arnot and Seton make the following damning indictment: "On 7 February 1746 the official lists showed 249 men and 8 women confined in the Castle, described as having been taken in actual rebellion. On 27 July when Philip Webb went there to carry out the lotting of prisoners, he found 109 men and women awaiting trial. The discrepancy is inexplicable in the absence of mortality tables for the prison but it throws a lurid light on the health conditions in York Castle". (J.G. Arnot and B.S. Seton, "Scottish Historical Society 3rd Series "Prisoners of the '45" Vol. I, (1928) pp108-109). Maggie Craig adds to this with a chorus of disapproval with the following remark: "York Castle, where conditions were notoriously bad". (M. Craig, Damn Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45 (1997) pp102).

Eighteenth century gaols have a poor reputation. Filth and sickness were rife and the gaolers were thought neglectful, mercenary and oppressive, though it should be remembered that York Castles new Debtor's Prison was only built with 104 inmates in mind. Indeed, a letter in The General Advertiser in the summer of 1746 made such observations, though not obviously aimed at any particular gaol. (S.& B. Webb, "English Prisons under Local Government" (1903) p19-22; The General Advertiser 3699, 1 September 1746). Yet, according to Daniel Defoe, York Castle was the exception. He wrote of it in glowing terms: "a prison the most stately and complete of any in the Kingdom, if not Europe....The Felons are allowed straw, and their beds are now raised from the Ground: and there is an Infirmary apart from the Common prison, to which the sick are conveyed, and a surgeon has an appointed salary to attend". (D. Defoe, "A Tour thro' the whole Island of Great Britain" Vol. II (1761) p166).

Since there are no records of deaths of prisoners, it is necessary to examine the patchy evidence offered by lists of prisoners which are periodically made throughout 1746. On 7 February, there were 227 (not 257 as claimed above) state prisoners at York Castle. As said 97 departed on 3 March to Lincoln. An undated list of prisoners, probably written in early April, lists 113 names. (P.R.O. TS20/76/1). Only six new prisoners appear on the July lists, and newspaper lists of prisoners are not always accurate. Possibly these prisoners were only stopping en route to London. By 27 July, the total was 109. (P.R.O., SP36/85 f405r-406r). These figures show that the death rate, from February to July 1746, was remarkably low. The exact figure is difficult to discern, but it would appear, by a comparison of lists that it may have been 24. Those dying between February to April amount to 17 and for July to October possibly another 16, as overcrowding again became a problem. It should be remembered that many were ill on entry, and so were scarcely in a good condition to survive, especially in the first few weeks of extreme overcrowding. This moderate death rate (about 40 deaths in about a year) would appear to have been in part due to Ibbetson's work. Archbishop Herring writes that "By a regular care and ye airiness of our Prison situation, the Rebel prisoners have escaped without much sickness and consequently the city". (B.L. Add. Mss., 35889, f123r).

Though some prisoners had died in custody, there had been no "holocaust" at York Castle, as has been implied, and in no way as many has been hinted. Ibbetson's task grew no easier. More prisoners were directed to York, in July and August, in order to be tried, and once again the fear of overcrowding loomed, as he wrote. "I have now more than my gaol can conveniently hold". Fifty prisoners were transferred to the gaol chapel. He wished some might be sent to Lincoln, as they had in March, but because of the planned trials, this request was not granted. He feared that escape attempts might be made, possibly abetted by their fellows outside the walls. (P.R.O., SP36/86, f348r). At least he was given troops should he need them.

Although prisoners had been filling gaols since December 1745, it was only in early March that the preliminary business of the trials began to be formulated. His Majesty's rebellious subjects had to be dealt with in a complex and drawn out process. This was not to be a hasty affair. It was to be conducted with speed, but also with due regard to the facts as they could be ascertained. As with military operations, intelligence was required as a preliminary for action. Lord Newcastle sent Mr. Masterman, a solicitor, to York, to make the opening enquiries, "....getting such a thorough light and information into all particular circumstances as may be sufficient ground for the attorney general to proceed upon in forming the indictments and carrying on the prosecutions". (P.R.O., Sp44/134, p93).

As ever the representative of central government would need assistance from the local authorities. Newcastle informed the Reverends Sterne and Baker and Mr. Braithwaite, that Masterman would need access to the gaols, and lists of prisoners, including those who had escaped. Lists of the latter do not exist, though there is no evidence that any did so. The prisoners that were of interest were not only those who had been taken in arms, but any "who had encouraged and fomented the said Rebellion". (P.R.O., SP44/134 p93). A similar letter was also sent on 13 March to Place (PR.O., SP44/134 p93). It seems that Masterman was unable to examine the sick prisoners, a task eventually accomplished by Sterne in May and which he writes about in a letter to Newcastle on the 12th of that month. (P.R.O., TS20/25/48). Masterman's task had taken him twelve days, because there were so many people to question and because he was "determined to go to the bottom of the affair". (P.R.O., SP36/83 f40r).

In the middle of May, a meeting had been held in London to work out a scheme for the trial of the rebels. Mr. John Sharpe, a Treasury solicitor, was to gather information about the prisoners and send it to Sir Dudley Ryder, the Attorney General (Harrowby Mss Trust, Vol. 431, Doc. 20, pI). On 17 May, Newcastle wrote directly to the High Sheriffs of several counties, including Ibbetson, asking for, "....an exact list of the names of the persons that are in custody....on account of the rebellion that proper instructions may be given for bringing them to tryal". (B.L. Egerton Mss, 3433 f28r).

York had not initially been selected as a place of trial. The Duke of Cumberland had sent 564 prisoners in six ships to Newcastle from Inverness for that purpose, but there was inadequate gaol accommodation for them there, and there would be difficulties in guarding them. (Arnot and Seton, op. cit. in note 33 p5-6). By 5 June the Duke of Newcastle had changed his mind about the desirability of holding the trials there, and chose York instead, perhaps on the grounds of practicality, since there were already a large number of prisoners already securely detained there. (P.R.O., SP36/85 f7r).

Newcastle was in regular communication with the Lord Justice Clerk, presumably about any matters specifically relating to the Scottish prisoners, and, at the same time he obtained information for the Solicitor General regarding other individual prisoners. (B.L. Egerton Mss, 3433 f30r). Sharpe instructed John Avery as to what was required of him: "....it is not the intention of the Treasury General to try any but such only against whom the evidence shall be full and clear". (P.R.O., TS20, 33/153). Sharpe wrote to Newcastle on 15 July, "I shall take care to observe and get such evidence as I can". (P.R.O. TS20, 5/2).

Philip Carteret Webb, the Treasury Solicitor and Prosecutor, was detailed to report on the numbers of prisoners at York. He does not have a savoury reputation. Horace Walpole called him, two decades later, "a most villainous tool and agent in any iniquity", and more recently he has been described as, "a determined opponent of Jacobites, he went out of his way to injure them....totally devoid of any sympathy". (Arnot and Seton op. cit. in note 33 p251). Yet he was efficient. Archbishop Herring wrote, on 5 October that "It is not possible for the King to have a more active and useful servant than Mr. Webb". (B.L. Add. Mss., 35598, f230v).

The details he required were forthcoming. By 7 July, it was learnt that there were 109 prisoners in York Castle. Of these, 25 were set aside for trial, according to the list sent by Newcastle, eight were set aside as witnesses and the remaining 76 were lotted for trial, and of these, four were added to those to stand trial. (P.R.O., SP36/85 f404r-406r).

Throughout July and August, others were being sent to York in order to stand trial. These were 28 or 29 men from Lincoln, 21 from Chester, 3 from Stafford, and 2 from both Derby and Coventry. Very few were removed from York at this time, though two men are recorded as being taken by King's Messenger to London in June. (P.R.O., SP44/84, pp26-27, 2, 42, 43-44, 50, 72, SP44/82, p314).

It appears that the King wanted the trials to be completed with the minimum of delay, knowing "....how much it imports the publick peace of the kingdom". (P.R.O., SP36/85, f309r). Further evidence of this aim comes from the preamble to the announcement o fthe Special Commission which mentions the need for an "...easy and speedy trial of such persons". (P.R.O., TS20, 117/3). A meeting of the Cabinet, on 9 July, decided that, presumably in order to save time, given the hundreds of prisoners taken and awaiting trial, that not all should be tried, as per the Order in Council of 13 December 1715. These would be lotted, and only one in twenty added to those to be tried. The majority would be shown mercy and be transported, rather than risk capital punishment. Only those who were: "Gentlemen, or Persons of Note, and of Such as have distinguished themselves by any extraordinary Degree of Guilt, of if on indecent Behaviour, since their Commitment" were to be tried. (P.R.O SP36/85, f115r).

Webb was opposed to the whole system of lotting, for he thought it would mean many of those transported returning, and that in order to guard against this, they should be branded, but his proposal was not implemented. (Arnot and Seton op. cit. in note 33 p25). Four men out of the 76 who were lotted, joined the other 71 who would face trial. This order was probably influenced by the recommendations of the judges on the northern circuits. Sharpe wrote about a meeting that he had had with them in June: "The judges likewise recommended it to consideration touching the number of the prisoners to be tryed and to pardon the rest on their petitions for mercy on terms of transportation or inlisting in the navy". (P.R.O., TS20, 33/4). Those that were to draw lots were those against whom there was little evidence. They also included all eight women prisoners. (P.R.O., SP36/85, f405r-406r). Those who were chosen for trial were those men who were deemed most guilty. They included the only two rebel officers then at York, Captain George Hamilton and Charles Gordon (Sir David Murray, Baronet), was not sent to York until after his arrest at Whitby in August). Hamilton had allegedly threatened captive British soldiers unless they enlisted with the rebels after Prestonpans. Then there was William Conolly, who had allegedly advised others to kill soldiers at Prestonpans so they would not be able to identify the rebels, and there was James Sparkes who expressed great joy on the rebels' entry into Derby. (P.R.O., SP36/88, f121r-122v; The General Advertiser, 3696, 30 August 1746).

Eight prisoners had chosen to give King's Evidence. (P.R.O., SP36/85, f405r). On 22 July Webb travelled northwards to York, Newcastle, and Morpeth, as directed by the Attorney General in order to begin his enquiries. (P.R.O., TS20, 27/6). The quality of the evidence and witnesses were to ease work for the prosecutors and their agents, a letter to Webb, concerning them reading, "without them we shall be seriously hampered". (P.R.O., TS20, 33/158). These included Thomas Whelsdale, a Penrith attorney, who would be providing evidence against those prisoners at York who had been taken near Penrith. (P.R.O., TS20, 33/53).

Prisoners were recommended to be moved to where there were witnesses to prove the fact of rebellion against them, as suggested in a letter of 13 August, concerning three prisoners who might be directed to York. (P.R.O., TS20, 33/64). Whelsdale reported on 1 September, that progress was being made at York, though one Mr. Hutchinson was deputising for him on Webb's directions. He wrote that the prisoners near Penrith, ".....were immediately known by our Penrith evidences and they can testify against them with great certainty". (P.R.O., TS20, 39/12). However, but for these witnesses most of the bills found against the prisoners "....were found upon rebels evidence. How far this will satisfy the jurors, I cannot say". (P.R.O., TS20, 39/12). The Special Commission opened after the Assizes had dealt with the county business. (London Evening Post 2927, 7-9 August 1746). This delay had allowed for the examination of prisoners, the collection of evidence, and any necessary movement of prisoners between gaols, either for trial, or as witnesses. The trials of those remaining were to be undertaken by the Special Commission in the North, a body which was to be advidsed by four judges; Lord Chief Baron Parker, Sir Thomas Burnet, Sir Thomas Dennison, and Mr. Baron Clark. (P.R.O., TS20, 117/3). These were respectively from the Courts of Common Pleas, the Exchequer and King's Bench. (The General Advertiser 3698, 31 August 1746). They were to be assisted by the Commission, which was made up of twenty-eight men (The York Journal 40, 26 August 1746), county notables including Herring, Sterne and the three Lords Lieutenants of Yorkshire. (The York Journal 40, 26 August 1746). Lower down in the scale of those involved were the Grand Jury of sixty men, who had been summoned to serve upon it, including Winn. (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) p2). Lower still were the jurors, 150 of them, largely gentlemen, who were "Men of such Credit, Reputation and Fortune in their County". ((Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) p2). The itinery of the judges was well known and published in advance. The four judges were also responsible (as was Webb too) for the trials held at Carlisle, and it was these that they had to begin to deal with first, in early August. Then their journey was as follows, to quote a contemporary journal, "On the 16th the trial judges to set out for York, when they will arrive on the 20th; on the 21st and 22nd hive the charge, on the 23rd find Bills, give copies of the indictments, and adjourn to the 26th of September". (London Evening Post 2927, 7-9 August 1746). While at York, they were addressed by James Ibbetson, chaplain to the Bishop of Lincoln, at the Minster. His sermon, dedicated to the Sheriff and the Grand Jury, was titled The Heinus nature of Rebellion, and it spent much time considering the criminal nature of the rebellion. Although he stated, "I would not seem to imitate Justice against these unhappy wretches, who are under the prosecution of the law", he did say that compassion might be cruelty but also that there was justice in mercy too. (J. Ibbettson The Heinous Nature of Rebellion (1746) p14). James Ibbettson did not seem to advocate a bloody revenge, but a just retribution against those who had opposed the Crown and killed its soldiers. On 25 August, bills were found against seventy five of the prisoners at York Castle who had been appointed for trial. Of this number, three men employed a solicitor, William Brooke of York, and a Counsel, Mr Perrot, the remainder apparently desiring neither. These three men were Murray and Hamilton, two of the three gentlemen among the prisoners (why Edmund Clavering, the third gentleman did not avail himself of such representation is a mystery) and John Beaton, a Scot, who clearly had wealthy friends. However, Perrot did not in fact appear, and Mr Lockhart was their counsel instead. Alan McDougal was sworn in as interpreter, presumably since some involved could only speak Gaelic. Indictments were served within four days. (The York Courant 1094, 30 September 1746; The York Journal 40, 26 August 1746; The General Advertiser 3724, 4 October 1746). These were only served n cases, "what were indisputably clear upon the evidence". (P.R.O., TS20, 33/102). Webb wrote to the Lord Chancellor, Hardwicke, to warn him that if the other prisoners at York who were to be transported were not removed before the trials, they could be witnesses to support any pleas that the rebel prisoners might make to support a defence claiming that they had been forced into rebellion. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35588, f324r). On the same day, he wrote that most of the 29 Scottish witnesses took the oath in the English form, and that those who were sworn by the Scottish form were to be ignored. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35588 f331r). The prisoners were brought into the court and the clerk of arraigns informed them of the Bill of Indictment against them. They had to answer that their names had been correctly recorded, and if so, the indictment was filed, if not, their true name was asked for, and then the indictment was altered by the Grand Jury before being filed. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35588 f331r). Other possible difficulties occurred when it was necessary to find two bills against some of the prisoners. In these cases, Webb gave proof to the Grand Jury the confession of the prisoner as proved by two witnesses. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35588 f334r). The Grand Jury came into court and asked the judges' advice about the legality of such extra judicial confessions in the light of the Act of William III made in 1695. Though the judges agreed that they were admissible, some of the Grand Jury were still dissatisfied. Webb was annoyed at this interpretation of the law, which he saw as obstruction in a clear case, so he quoted the precedent of Francis Sayers and others to show that the question had already been settled n his point of view. Webb wrote, "I hoped the Grand Jury would receive the law from the judges and not deliberate on that". (B.L. Add. Mss., 35588 f334r-v). After almost an hour in the jury room the jury finished debating and the said bill was carried by the smallest margin possible: 12 to 11. Another matter for dispute was to focus on where exactly the treason lay. Webb was clearly annoyed at the attitude of the jury, "I found coolness springing up among the Grand Jury". (B.L. Add. Mss., 5588 f334v). He did not sympathise with their questioning the judges. According to him the jury thought that the judges had no power to execute any man without a report to the Crown, and he said that if offenders were not to be executed, it made a nonsense of finding bills against them. But, eventually, a contented Webb could report "I am glad our business is thus got well over". (B.L. Add. Mss., 35588 f334v). On 29 September, all the prisoners were arraigned. Of the 75 who were indicted, 53 chose to plead guilty. The other 22 pleaded not guilty. Apparently, some of the latter had offered to plead guilty, too, in the hope of mercy, but the court advised them not to do so "since if there were any favourable circumstances in their case, it might be proper to offer them in mitigation of their crime and as a means of recommending them to mercy" (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) p26).

The trials were then adjourned, eventually taking place at York on 2-8 October 1746. Since the crime that all the prisoners were charged with was that of being in armed rebellion against their lawful sovereign, witnesses and evidence were brought forward against those pleading not guilty to show whether or not the accused had been seen thus in the company of the rebels. If he had, unless he could be shown to have been enlisted and, just as crucially, kept in the rebel ranks by force, he would be found guilty. For example, Charles Robinson, who was tried on 3 October, and who pleaded not guilty, had three Crown witnesses against him, who; "plainly prov'd him to have appeared in arms". His defence was that he, and six others in the districts of Starathland and Garantully were forced out by Lord Lovat's son. He was found guilty, nonetheless. Had the witnesses testified that he had attempted to escape during his time in the ranks, he might have been found not guilty, as was the case with John Ballatine, a piper, of the Atholl Brigade. Ballatine was fortunate that his witness contradicted one the two Crown witnesses. James Reid, a fellow piper, was not so fortunate. Although he had carried no arms, and was recommended for mercy, the judges deemed, that, since "no regiments ever marched without Musical Instruments.....his Bagpipe, in the eyes of the Law, was an instrument of War", he was found guilty. (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) pp8-9, 10, 19).

Other cases were more cut and dried. William Conolly and John Porteus had deserted from the British Army to join the rebels, and were both found guilty. Others had several witnesses to testify against them. (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) pp8, 10).

Witnesses for the Crown who had travelled to York to testify had to have their transport, accommodation and other expenses paid for out of the Treasury Solicitor's finances, which amounted to £313 2s 1d. (N.U.L., NeC 1811). There seems to be evidence that the trials were conducted as fairly as possible. Thomas Metcalfe thought that "The court appeared to proceed with great caution and exactness". (J.Raine Marske in Swaledale, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal Vol. VI (1879-1880) p259). A contemporary historian commented: "the jury acted with great Candour, but here, as at Carlisle the Evidence was irresistible". (A.Henderson The History of the Rebellion (1753) p350). Another contemporary account reported "none were condemned but on the fullest proof". It added that the counsel with the prisoners, "returned his most humble thanks to the Bench, for the great Patience and candour with which he had been heard and permitted to offer every Thing he thought material, declaring that the Counsel for the King, as well as the Judges, had behaved with the utmost Tenderness and Impartiality". (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) p3).

Thirteen witnesses were brought forward against George Hamilton of Redhouse, although only two were needed to convict him. Additionally, papers were found to show his complicity in the rebellion. According to Wenham: "one cannot but admire the prosecution for the meticulous way in which they had laboriously collected their evidence and presented their case. The bringing together of 13 witnesses from Scotland and the Cumberland and Carlisle area must have been a time wasting and complex matter. No one could argue that Hamilton had other than a fair trial". (L.P. Wenham Some Scots Jacobite Prisoners in Richmond and York, P48). It was not only Hamilton who had a fair trial. Since the witnesses on the behalf of James Main were still travelling to York when the time came for his trial, it was postponed. Michael Brady's trial lasted three hours. The prosecution had done their homework, as has already been shown, but they did not have an easy ride. (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) p11; The General Advertiser 3730, 11 October 1746).

When the trials were over, Lord Chief Baron Parker addressed the prisoners at the bar, in order that they would hear their fates. He told them that high treason involved many crimes, including perjury and murder (about 700 British soldiers had been killed in battle, plus many more wounded or dying of fever). That the rebellion had been without cause and that the King and his government were liberal and gracious and so to try and upset them was criminal. He concluded by exhorting them: "To reflect upon their past Actions; sincerely to repent of that horrid Crime they stood convicted of, and all other Offences of their Lives". (The Newcastle Journal 393, 18 October 1746). Sentence was then passed.

After the trials, Webb was critical of the jury's conclusions. He did not think that Newcastle would approve of the jury recommending mercy is so many cases of those "who in strickness to be sure might have been found guilty". (B.L. Add. Mss. 35589 f60v), but even he acknowledged that for a few prisoners there were some favourable circumstances, and in any case, at least the jury was only quibbling in the cases of common men, not in those of the few gentry among the prisoners, of whom it was considered imperative to make an example. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35589 f60v).

Mr Noel made a speech to the jury on the first day of the trials, and Webb thought that his judicious and polite manner was very effective in winning the approbation of the court and judges. He had flattered the jurymen by commending them for their loyalty and courage in their determination to resist the rebellion in the previous year. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35589 f69r). Dennison also thought that the trials had gone well, and he spoke for his fellow judges, too. He praised the conduct of all involved in the judicial process, singling out the chairman of the jury, Mr. Noel, for his humanity, zeal and candour, and Webb for his able and zealous discharge of his duty. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35589 f109v).

On 8 October, a letter was sent to Newcastle informing him of the results of the trials held at York, and the judges recommendations. There were 75 men who were accused, but of these, only 21 had been actually tried. Dennison gives details of these 21 in a letter of 8 October to Hardwicke, on behalf of all the judges accused those who pleaded not guilty. The others pleaded guilty and so did not need to be tried. He sent him three lists. The first were of the 21 prisoners who had been tried. These prisoners had been further subdivided into four classes. In the first category were five who seemed to the judges to be the most guilty. In the second were seven who were convicted on general evidence as having been seen with the rebels in arms, though if there were any favourable circumstances then these were stated. Then there were four persons who had been convicted, including the seventeen year old David Ogilvy and two other youths that the jury had recommended for royal mercy, and rightly so, in the opinion of the judges. (B.L. Add. Mss., 35589 f108r-v). Lastly, there were five acquittals. Of these, there was no legal proof against two of them, despite there being six witnesses to say that one John Lang had been a surgeon's mate in the rebel army. The other two were supported by witnesses who convinced the court and jury. When John Ballantine was acquitted, his relief was evident, "upon which the poor fellow was in such a transport of joy, that he threw up his bonnet to the very roof of the court, and cry'd out "My Lords and gentlemen, I thank you. Not guilty. Not guilty. Not guilty. Pray God bless King George forever, I'll serve him all the days of my life"; and immediately ran out into the castleyard with his irons on, took up a handful of channel water, and drank his majesty's health". (The Gentleman's Magazine Vol. 16 (1746) p524; P.R.O. TS20/29/20).

There were two Frenchmen on trial, and of these, one was acquitted and the other was condemned. (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) p22-25). The fact that they were tried at all, raised comment. A contemporary historian, Henderson, wrote, "In the nature of Things, they could not be construed Traitors to King George as they were foreigners and had never sworn allegiance to him". (A. Henderson The History of the Rebellion (1753) P350). Mr Justice Burnet urged the jury to recall that they were not subject to British law. (The Newcastle Journal 393, 18 October 1746). Although their counsel also supported this plea, and "spoke very fully on these words and argued with great Learning", matters were more complex. (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) p22-25). King's Counsel argued that counsel was taking to much latitude in the matter of allegiance. He argued that any foreigner who came to Britain as a friend, as Jellens had, being in Schwartzenburg's Dutch force, owed a local allegiance to George II, so could be construed as a traitor, and was found guilty. Since his compatriot, Lewis Foure had come over as part of the French forces to aid the rebels, he did not owe such an allegiance, so was treated as a prisoner of war, and acquitted from the legal proceedings. (Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) p22-25). They probably faced trial because there was some doubt over their nationality, and evidence was taken to show that they could not understand English when they had been initially taken. Had this not been the case, as Burnet observed "that indeed might be a Circumstance deserving Notice". (The Newcastle Journal 393, 18 October 1746). Nevertheless, Jellens was condemned.

The second list was of 53 other prisoners who were convicted by their own confessions without the need for a trial and who were sentenced to hang. Against each name were the judges' comments. Those against whose name scarcely anything was written, "appear to us barely involved in the general guilt", (B.L. add. Mss., 35889 f108v), and once again, if any extenuating circumstances could be found, after close inspection or by authentic information, these were stated.

A third list was also sent to Hardwicke, listing the seventy ordered to be executed, that is to say all the above 75 but the five who were acquitted, in order of those thought to be most guilty, and who would be executed first, whereas those four men who had been recommended for mercy were provisionally ordered to be executed last. This was so "that there will be full time allowed for Royal Clemency to reach evry one who shall be thought a worthy object of it". (B.L. Add. Mss., 35889 f108v).

It should be borne in mind that many of the Highlanders probably did not enter the rebellion of their own free will, given the tyrannical hold that the clan chieftains had over their men, as Barthop writes, "The ranks of the Highland army were filled by the fear of burning crofts". (M. Barthop The Jacobite Rebellions 1689-1745 (1982) p17). Apparently Roy Stuart, colonel of the Frasers, raised men by threatening to burn their houses and had these forced men locked up at night during the campaign. As said, if it could be proved that the men had not tried to desert, they were deemed guilty of involvement in the rebellion by their own free will. (The Newcastle Journal 393, 18 October 1746).

Clearly, the same excuse could not be used by men of the Manchester regiment, or army deserters. The result was that provisional arrangements were made for 13 executions on 1 November, 53 on 8 November, and four on 15 November, this time lag being so that orders for royal clemency could be issued and thus reach the York magistrates in time. (B.L. Add. Mss., f108v). It eventually transpired that 48 of the 70 sentenced to hang were reprieved; in the case of Jellens, this came as he was about to be led to the gallows. Those reprieved included all those youths aged under eighteen, including Sir david Murray, possibly because the executions of these lads would bring the slur of inhumanity on the whole proceedings, or because they would make good recruits for the army or as indentured servants if they were transported. P.R.O., SP36/92, f212r; The Gentleman's Magazine, Vol. 16 (1746) p614).

Ten of the executions scheduled for 1 November went ahead, with a further eleven of those planned for the 8th being carried out. The final execution was that of James Reid, a piper, who had been recommended for mercy, which occurred on 15 November. This was to be the last. The 22 were put to death at Tyburn, near York. "The prison chaplain, Mr Etty, read the prayers while the under sheriff presided. Those hanged were the men deemed most guilty; gentlemen and officers, sergeants in the rebel army, deserters from the British army and others thought to be zealous rebels. A press report details the final act: "When they had been hung ten minutes, the executioner cut them down, laid their bodies on a stage built for that purpose, and stripped them naked. Captain Hamilton was the first whose heart was taken out, which the executioner threw into the fire, crying out, Gentlemen, behold the head of a traitor - when he came to the last Man....he said....God Save King George....Then he scored each of their Arms and Legs, but did not cut them off, crying, Good People behold the four quarters of a Traitor, and when he had finished that part of the operation, he chopp'd off their heads.....The whole was conducted with the utmost Decency and good order. Two of the heads were placed on Micklegate Bar, York, and one was sent to Carlisle". (The London Evening Post 2696, 6-8 November 1746.)

There is a macabre footnote to the executions. On the night of 28/29 January 1754, the two heads which adorned Micklegate Bar were removed by person or persons unknown. The Lord Mayor, Richard Lawson, needed no heeding before making an investigation into this deed. He "made all proper enquiries of the watchmen", but they could tell him nothing. After holding a public meeting on the matter, a reward of £10 was offered, adverts placed in The York Courant throughout February and March and 50 posters were distributed throughout the city. The Rockingham club also placed adverts in the local press, and offered a reward of £50, to show their abhorrence of the crime and their sense of happiness under George II.

Finally, one John Moffitt claimed that William Arundel, an Irish tailor, was the culprit, and after further enquiries were made, he was prosecuted. On 10 August, Arundel was bailed for £300. This may seem to be a trivial incident, but the authorities took it seriously, as Newcastle's language suggests. He referred to the culprits as "wicked and disaffected persons in contempt of the King's authority". ( P.R.O. SP36/125 ff270r, 280r-283v; SP36/127, f63r, SP36/128 f14r; The York Courant 1477-1481, 5 February-5 March 1754).

Those not executed were mostly transported or enlisted in the armed forces. However, they had first to petition the King for mercy. Most were eventually transported. this number included most of those who had drawn lots successfully, plus a few of those reprieved from hanging. The use of the royal pardon and transportation had become common by 1746. Transportation served at least two purposes; it allowed proof of the King's mercy to be shown, exercising his role of tempering justice with mercy. It also regulated the level of capital punishment, so that only an "acceptable" number of hangings occurred. For example, in Surrey, between 1600-1800, 60% of those convicted of capital offenses by the county Assizes, were given reprieves. (J. Beattie, Crime and the Courts in England, 1600-1800 Oxford (1986) pp431, 433).

Those to be transported were either sent to Jamaica, on board the St. George or the Carteret, or to Barbados, on board the Frere, or to Maryland on board the Johnson or the Gildart. Those on board the Frere and Johnson were pardoned on condition that they were bound apprentices and servants to Samuel Smith, of London, merchant. (Arnot and Seton Scottish Historical Society: Prisoners of the '45 Vol. I (1928) pp42-43).

Most of those transported had not long to wait. The order for transportation came for 66 York prisoners on 24 March 1747. Of these, 49 were sent to Liverpool and boarded The Veteran, en route to Antigua, St. Kitts and Jamaica, sailing on 8 May 1747. The journey was not to be uneventful, since on 28 June, the ship was attacked by the French privateer, The Diamant, and after a struggle, the ship was taken. The prisoners were set free by the governor of Martinque. (P.R.O. TI/327/12, SP44/48 p154-5; Arnot and Seton Scottish Historical Society: Prisoners of the '45 Vol. I (1928) pp45-47; J.M. Forbes, Jacobite Gleanings (1903) pp 37-42).

Twelve further York prisoners were ordered to be transported on 24 July 1748, but three had subsequently died, two had escaped and three were too sick to be moved, so only four were transported. Of the three sick men, one was discharged in 1750 and the other two pardoned in 1752. The cost of their stay there was constantly rising. Up to 15 December 1749, it was £44 17s 5d. Although a later order came for the transportation of one of them, the man had been incorrectly named in the instructions which had been sent, so the gaoler took no action. P.R.O., C66/3625/14; SP36/110, f23r; SP44/85 p86, pp245, 314-5; SP36/111, f230r).

Another 37 of those who were not executed chose to enlist in the "Independent Companies" of the army rather than be transported to His Majesty's colonies in America. On enlistment, 22 July 1748, they received their pardon. (P.R.O., C66/3625/21). The five prisoners who were acquitted were presumably released before the end of the year, as were the eight witnesses and two other prisoners who gave evidence. Certainly there is no further reference to them in the State Papers and they had definitely been discharged by 1747. (Scots Magazine Vol. IX (1747) p293).

Four prisoners were discharged in March 1747. (P.R.O., SP44/84, pp133, 135). One man was pardoned. It was decided by Cabinet on 20 August 1747, that William Sharpe (a university student and merchant's son) should be given a free pardon, though he had decided to escape from Carlisle, where he had been sent, prior to receiving this news. (J.M. Forbes Jacobite Gleanings (1903) pp10-11; P.R.O., SP36/100, f66v). Although at the same meeting, there was also talk of Sir David Murray being pardoned on condition of banishment, it was another year before, eventually, he was banished. In August 1748 the Duke of Bedford signed the appropriate warrant, "on condition that he transport himself out of these Realms and never more return to any part of His Majesty's Domains". (The York Courant 1191, 9 August 1748; P.R.O., SP44/85, pp72, 135; SP36/100, f62r.)

We have some knowledge of one of the two prisoners who are definitely known to have escaped, since a report was demanded from the Under Sheriff, Jerom Dring. George Mills, who was ordered to be transported in 1748, escaped on 16 August 1747. This was during the Assizes, when the Castle's outer gates were always kept open. The turnkey allowed Mills to leave his place of confinement so that he could drink with a discharged fellow prisoner in the debtor's prison. However, instead of going there, he got behind a coach which was leaving the castle. Since he had recently acquired a new coat, he passed through the outer gates without being detected by the porter. A reward of ten guineas was offered and adverts placed in the York press, but to no avail. The gaoler claimed he rode one hundred miles in a fruitless search for Mills. (P.R.O., SP36/110, ff23r-24v).

Three prisoners are recorded as having died in 1747-1748. (P.R.O., 44/85, pp85-86). There were eight female prisoners, all of whom appeared to survive their stay in York Castle, whereas, as noted, 40 men died there during 1746. None of these women was brought to trial, so none ever risked the death penalty, which might have been because only those thought most guilty were tried. Elizabeth Grant became Elizabeth Clavering as she was married by one of the priests there, John Rivet, to Edmund Clavering, though given her husband's execution on 8 November 1746, the marriage was a short-lived one. (L.P. Gooch, The Desperate Faction? Hull (1995) p170).

A more happier fate is perhaps that of the woman initially referred to as Margaret Simpson, who was described as a Lady and as a "lieutenant's wife". There is no reference to her ultimate disposal under that name, but there was an order, on 28 February 1747 for the discharge of one Margaret Hamilton. It is known that she kept company with George Hamilton, so it is possible that she may have been his wife or mistress, and was certainly known as the former among prison officials. (P.R.O., sp44/84, p133; NYCRO, ZAZ 80, Rev. Horne-John Hutton, Easter Monday, 1746; L.P. Wenham Some Scots Jacobite Prisoners in Richmond and York, pp44, 50; P.R.O., SP36/91, f63r; The York Courant 1055, 31 December 1745).

It is possible to conclude that three of the higher ranking prisoners, William Sharpe, David Murray and Margaret Simpson/Hamilton were unpunished because of their rank, yet George Hamilton and Edmund Clavering were not, nor were other rebel officers who were tried elsewhere. Yet if the first two were released because of their age and the third because of her sex, there were other youths and women who were not so fortunate, it is possible that these three did have influential friends. The Treasury had to foot the bill at the end of the day. Sharpe applied for £2,000 to pay for the cost of the prisoners being held in the northern counties on 31 July 1746, and two days before he had asked for special payments made necessary by the fact that the Oyer and Terminer Commissions were to be held at York and Carlisle. (NUL, NeC 1811). He also applied for £4,718 5s 3d to pay the expenses that he had been involved with on his northern sojourn of 89 days (18 July to 12 October). This was mainly for the costs of witnesses, entertainment allowances and payments to those who executed the Commissions. (NUL, NeC 1811).

Local responses to the rebel prisoners varied. Some were clearly sympathetic, though whether out of humanitarian or political considerations is unclear. Certainly some Whigs and Jacobites thought that there were strong Jacobite sympathies in York, though these had remained hidden during the crucial weeks of the rebels' march through England. Since the giving of alms to the prisoners was not an indictable offence, Jacobite sympathisers could show their opinions openly in this way without fear. However, whatever the political leanings of the alms givers, the fact that some did take pity on the prisoners is undeniable. Thomas Griffiths, keeper of York Castle went so far as to put an advertisement in The York Courant "Whereas it has been reported that I have denied or prevented alms and charitable contributions from being sent to the prisoners, contrary to the Act of Parliament: in that case made and provides which enacts that every prisoner shall have liberty to provide and send for....necessaries.....any person may freely bring or send Cloaths, Provision or money to any prisoner providing the same do not exceed 10s....to be first examin'd by me" (The York Courant 1058, 21 January 1746).

Some certainly responded to such an announcement, if they had not done so already. Roger Strickland, a Catholic gentleman of Richmond, whose brother Francis had been one of the Seven Men of Moidart who had initially accompanied the Young Pretender on his expedition to Scotland the previous July, certainly sent money to ameliorate the lot of the prisoners. His accounts mention on 30 September that 12s had been sent for "the poor Scots prisoners". (L.P. Wenham Roger Strickland, a Richmond Jacobite 1680-1749 NYCRO (1982) p86).

Another man who was sympathetic to some of the rebels was Bache Thornhill who wrote of "the unhappy people at York". He was especially concerned about two of the gentlemen prisoners, Murray and Hamilton, and rejoiced when the former was reprieved "on that subject shall say no more, but I hope he'll be pardoned". (L.A. NH2873/3-4). However, we do not know the identity of others who sympathised with the prisoners to the extent that they gave alms.

The young Ensign Brown also concerned himself with the prisoners, whether out of curiosity or otherwise, is unclear. It was said of him: "he took an opportunity when he was at the Assizes at York to take a turn into the Castle to enquire for Captain Hamilton, or to see if he could meet with any of the Rebels who were conducted from Bowes to Richmond at Christmas". (NYCRO, ZAZ 80, Rev. Horne-John Hutton, Easter Monday 1746).

There were those who condemned the scale of alms giving. The most trenchant critics were both Anglican clergy, and given that it was feared that the rebellion would overturn the temporal and spiritual authority of the Church of England, their responses are hardly surprising. Indeed, during the rebellion, the clergy had done their utmost to combat it, chiefly through their sermons, many of which were published. (F. Deconnick-Brossard, The churches and the '45; J.W. Shiels, ed., Studies in Church History. Church and War (1983).

The Reverend Richard Horne of Marske, wrote to Master John Hutton, a Westminster schoolboy on 31 March 1746, about the lot of the prisoners in York. He had heard accounts of two ofthe prisoners there who seemed to live a life of relative luxury. One of these was Margaret Simpson who "appear'd so much like a Person of quality having on an exceeding good silk Gown and all other things so suitable". The other was Captain George Hamilton, who similarly appeared well dressed, despite three months stay in the gaol. He too, was "dress'd in a, very gentile manner". These two treated Ensign Brown, to wine and punch and later Margaret invited him to breakfast with her. Horn did not approve of all this. "They had Jocolate, Coffee and Tea, such is the fare of the Rebels, who as far as I can learn talk in a very brisk strain and are in high spirits, tho' I hope in a little time we shall hear different accounts of them". (NYCRO, ZAZ 80, Horne-John Hutton, Easter Monday 1746).

Fellow cleric, Jaques Sterne, had similar sentiments that he lost no opportunity in voicing. He informed Viscount Irwin that "The Rebels have been so pampered by the papists since they came into the castle, that some of 'em, who looked like poor devils, might be able to do great mischief if they got out". (H.M.C. Reports, Var. Coll. VIII, p160).

There was divergence among contemporaries as to whether these trials and their resultant executions had represented a bloody "Assize" or not. Unsurprisingly Jacobite opinion took the lead in criticism, though this was not to go unanswered. Bahaldy, alias William MacGregor, referred on 26 January 1747 to "the barbarous butcherys and murder comitted in England on the best of your Majesty's subjects". (Stuart Mss Mic 150 Vol 280/30 (Microfilm)). Furthermore on 9 October, the day after the last of the trials and also the day appointed for national thanksgiving for the defeat of the rebellion, a verse was found about York Minster. It was a direct attack on the State's actions against the rebels, including, no doubt, the sentences which had been passed so recently. It read:- "What mean these vile and idle pranks To murder men and then give thanks Stop preacher and go no further God ne'er accepts thanks for murder". (The York Journal 47, 14 October 1746). This provoked reaction. Two counter verses were printed in The York Journal. One stated: "Subduing Rebels is no Murther". (The York Journal 49, 28 October 1746). Another Whig apologist wrote in the same paper: "Since the Faction goes on to charge the government unjustly with barbarity....I think they cannot have a better answer than in an account lately published of the proceedings against the rebels [of 1685] by the Lord Chief Justice Jeffries.....334 executions, 854 transportations in England alone, 1878 in Scotland.....let the world compare the legal proceedings of the present government with those inhumane barbarities". (The York Journal 52, 18 November 1746).

Although this contemporary, and doubtless highly Protestant account of the aftermath of the Monmouth rebellion is exaggerated, a modern historian has calculated that of 1,200 prisoners taken in England in 1685, between 200-300 were executed, and most of the others were transported. This certainly compares unfavourably with the national total of executions in England in 1746 as being about 120 with roughly 936 transportees, out of a total of 3,470 prisoners. (R. Clifton The Last Popular Rebellion (1984) pp239-41; Arnot and Seton Scottish Historical Society: Prisoners of the '45 Vol. I (1928) pp152-153).

There are other parallels between the 1685 and 1746 trials. The former not only executed a far higher proportion of prisoners, but only allowed 1 1/2 d per day, instead of 4d or 8d if they were ill, for the prisoners' subsistence, and the trials were conducted far speedily, perhaps in batches; 35 being sentenced at Dorchester in one day, compared to 21 over six days at York. (R. Clifton The Last Popular Rebellion (1984) pp231, 234: P.R.O., SP36/111, f230r; Anon True and Impartial Account of the trials of the rebels at York York (1746) pp8-25).

Some popular historians talk of the trials as "judicial murder", but this is surely as anachronistic as it is inaccurate. (M. Craig Damn Rebel Bitches: The Women of the '45 (1997) p97). Speck is far nearer the mark when he comments that by the : "standards of the day the results were not unduly harsh, especially considering that the government itself was determined not to be accused of leniency, on the grounds that mildness in 1716 kept alive the spirit of disaffection". (W.A. Speck The Butcher: The Duke of Cumberland and the suppression of the Forty Five (1981) p182).

Some gentry were concerned about their relations among the rebel prisoners. Edmund Clavering, a Northumbrian gentleman who had been with the rebels, was one such cause of concern, as the unsympathetic Dean Spencer Cowper wrote on 7 November 1746. "The Bows and Lydall familys have been very solicitous to their Rebel Cousin. They applied to me to try.....I would not attempt it.....Not that one of them care 6d about him, but the disagrazzio hurts their pride". (H. Hughes., ed., Letters of Dean Spencer Cowper", Surtees Society Vol. 165 (1956) p73). When Clavering was executed, Cowper reported that what he surmised was true, "by what his relations say of him here, he is no great loss, he having been half a madman as well as a whole rebel". (H. Hughes., ed., Letters of Dean Spencer Cowper", Surtees Society Vol. 165 (1956) p74).

On the whole, however, the correspondence of the northern gentry makes scarce reference to the prisoners in York Castle or the trials. With the exceptions noted above, they were of very little interest to those outside the judicial process, though the trials and executions of the rebel lords are commented upon in their correspondence. The gentry were probably uninterested in the proceedings at York because, with very few exceptions, those on trial were Common Men. What the reactions of the common people were about the rebel-prisoners is even harder to discern. However, there are indications. Dorothy Johnson, writing on 26 December 1745, thought that the citizenry were curious, at least. "The mob are so anxious to feast their eyes with them that they have lined the streets these two days, and I suppose they won't quit their post till they arrive". (N.R.O., ZAL, Box 4014, Mrs Johnson-Thomas Mayer, 26 December 1745).

Similar reactions were displayed by the London mob after both the Fifteen and the Forty Five. Crowds also attended the public spectacles of the executions in November 1746. They appear to have appreciated them, since they were reported to have cheered: "the spectators gave a loud huzza", after the executioner had finished his work. That there was no public disturbance is borne out by the following remark: "The whole was conducted throughout with the utmost Decency and good order". (The London Evening News 2696, 6-8 November 1746).

It would seem that the mass of the public viewed the executed rebels as criminals and traitors, rather than as popular heroes, as they had regarded Dick Turpin in 1739. This may be because most of the prisoners were Scots and only one prisoner, Joseph Hinchley, who was eventually transported, was from York. (P.R.O., SP36/79 f36r-37r).

The eventual results of the trials were lenient by contemporary standards, and as has been noted, every extenuating circumstance was used by those in court to gain reprieves for those found guilty, which the government seems to have largely acted upon, sparing the lives of 48 of the 70 found guilty at York who were facing the death penalty after having been found guilty of armed rebellion against the Crown. The others at York were mostly transported after drawing lots. The whole business had not been without acrimony and Webb was often critical of the lack of zeal shown by his colleagues. But, on the whole the process had been a success.

Although the government had to deal with more prisoners in 1745-1746 than in 1715-1716, there were far fewer escapes to cause embarrassment and on the whole, and given the scale of the proceedings, the process had been both efficient and humane. (Ref:- Jonathan Oates York and the Rebel Prisoners. 1745-1752 The York Historian, Vol. 17 (2001) pp47 - 61)

Henry Ibbetson, Sheriff of Yorkshire (1745-1746)

The man who was responsible for the security of the Jacobite prisoners held at York Castle was the newly appointed Sheriff of Yorkshire, Henry Ibbetson, who has been largely ignored by historians. His main concern was not to let any prisoners escape. In 1715-1716, there had been several high profile escapes, and clearly this was not to recur. Ibbetson was a wealthy and ambitious young man, and zealous in the Whig cause (he had formed a company of volunteers independent of the county Association and had been prominent in arranging that Catholic properties in York be searched in 1745). Ibbetson was “universally” approved of by the county Whigs. (LA, NH2875/12; A.C. Price “The Story of Leeds” (1912) pp36-37; BL. Add. Mss 35598, f167r) Archbishop Thomas Herrring remarked, “He is young, healthy, rich, active for the King, prudent and would like the office”.(BL Add. Mss. 167v. 12; PRO, SP36/80, f338r.) As Sir Rowland Winn of Nostell Priory wrote: “I am justified yt we cannot find in this county a man so fit for ye office as himself”.

One of his first actions was to dismiss the gaoler of York Castle, Thomas Griffiths. In this decision he was probably influenced by Archbishop Herring and Jacques Sterne, Precentor of York Minster. These two clergymen disliked Griffiths, whom they claimed, had abused them, had insulted the captain of the guard and objected to the suspected Jacobite Dr John Burton being especially guarded. Griffiths also had a poor reputation among the county gentry. (BL Add. Mss., 35598, f164v). Herring certainly approved of Ibbetson’s decision, “He changes the Jailor for good reasons”. (BL Add. Mss., f167r). Sterne was aware that Griffiths had been involved in the suspicious death of a prisoner in his custody in 1741, though there had been insufficient proof to prosecute him. (PRO, SP36/57, f7r-15r, f85r). Later, Ibbetson appointed Joseph Marsh to be jailer. (B.R. Hartley., “Thomas Griffiths” York Historian Vol. II (1994) p43). Ibbetson’s instructions were relatively simple. He must receive such prisoners as were sent, and hold them securely until they were disposed of. (PRO, SP44/133, p48). He appears to have set about his duties with a will, “[he] set himself to the execution of his office with great alacrity, and I hope, with equal prudence”. (BL Add. Mss., 35598, f166v).

Ibbetson was also concerned that none of the prisoners would escape. In January 1746 this was not an immediate problem, for two companies of General Oglethorpe’s Regiment were at Hand, and were 100 strong. There were also the City Volunteers and the City Gentlemen Volunteers (each of about 200 men), but these forces might depart or disband in the near future. Herring wrote, “if they should be withdrawn; Mr Ibbetson is apprehensive that he should want a military guard to supply their room”. (BL Add. Mss., 35598, f166v). Oglethorpe’s troops departed in April and the Volunteers had all disbanded by July. (“The London Evening Post” 2860, 4-6 March 1746; A Ward “History and Antiquities of York” Vol. I, York (1785) p353-355; The General Advertiser 3579, 17 April 1746). It appears that Ibbetson was given some regular soldiers as guards, and was told that others quartered in Yorkshire towns could be drafted in if there was need. As the trials of the prisoners approached, companies of infantry stationed at Wakefield and Leeds were put at his disposal should he feel the need for them. (PRO, SP44/133, p226, SP36/86, f348r).

Ibbetson also needed to know whether he could legitimately order them to fire on any escapees, and wrote to the Duke of Newcastle on several occasions about this point. This was important, because the legality of such an order was dubious, though it would seem that the matter was typically unresolved. Apparently the soldiers guarding prisoners in 1715 had been given such orders. Eventually, Ibbetson, perhaps trusting to this precedent, told Newcastle on 15 November 1746, “My zeal for the service prompted me to give orders to the commanding officer….to fire upon the rebels” in the event of an escape. (A.J. Hayter, “The Army and the Crowde in mid Georgian England” (1978) p17; PRO SP36/89 f186r). There is no evidence that the legality of these orders was put to the test.

On the whole, Ibbetson carried out his onerous duties well. No prisoners are known to have escaped during his tenure of office and the majority of them survived to stand trial in October 1746. (Ref:- “York and the Rebel Prisoners. 1745-1752” by Jonathan Oates York Historian Vol. 17 (2001)).

Thomas Griffith of York Governor and Keeper of York Castle 1739 – 1746

Thomas Griffith was a tanner and entrepreneur with property in Bootham and Marygate, York. From 1739 – 1746 he was also Governor of York Gaol. However, his business interests were not successful and he died in prison in York in 1751.

In searching the deeds of Nos. 39 – 45 Bootham, York, registered at York, the name of Thomas Griffith is found named as the entrepreneur. As his name suggests, Griffith was of Welsh extraction, descended from a family which had settled at Caycuriog near Ruabon in the middle of the 15th century or earlier. (C.L. Shaver, “The Griffith family: Wordsworth’s kinsmen”, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiq. Archaeol. Soc. New Series 63 (1963), pp. 199-230; Dictionary of Welsh Biography down to 1940, 300f). Thomas’s grandfather, Roger Griffith was a second son and left home to settle at Beaumaris in Anglesey. (National Library of Wales MSS 7009E has him as “married Beaumaris and died there about 1675 leaving four children”). Thomas’s father, Gabriel (the first), was also a second son and was probably born at Beaumaris in the 1660s, since he married in 1690 and survived until 1750. Gabriel married Mary Hunter at St. Olave’s Church, York on 10 June 1690. (Borthwick Institute of Historical Research, University of York (BIHR) Y/OL/4). Mary perhaps lived with relatives in York, since her father Thomas Hunter, a Lancaster attorney, had died in 1687 and nothing is heard of her mother. (Lancashire Parish Register Soc. X (1908), pp 112, 311).

Thomas was born in 1696, being baptised on 29 December 1696 at St. Mary’s Church, Carlisle, having presumably also been born there. Thomas’s formative years were spent in and around the Castle at Carlisle, where his father Gabriel was master-gunner and where he was particularly anxious from 1698 to acquire freehold and leasehold property, a trait repeated in his son. (C.L. Shaver, “The Griffith family: Wordsworth’s kinsmen”, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiq. Archaeol. Soc. New Series 63 (1963),in note 2, 200, 203 with an addition from Howard Family Documents: Deeds and Manorial Documents Relating to Cumberland (University of Durham, Department of Palaeography and Diplomatic, 1970), C50/17 of 1720).

Thomas was sent to Carlisle Grammer Scool on 7 September 1701 (G.B. Routledge (ed.) Carlisle Grammer School Memorial Register 1264-1924, 46) and apprenticed in 1711 to a Carlisle tanner, John Richardson. (Gabriel paid a premium of £7 (Soc. Of Genealogists, The Apprentices of Great Britain, 1st ser. Vol. for 1710-62).

By May 1721, Gabriel was a master-gunner at Edinburgh. (Scottish Record Soc. 8 (1908), 231). If Thomas also moved to Edinburgh, he could be the Thomas Griffith, tanner, who married Janet Herriott there on 14 December 1718. (Scottish Record Soc. 60 (1929), 46). No other 18th century Griffith family has been traced in Edinburgh. However, a letter from Gabriel suggests that Thomas married for the first time in 1721: (Pers Comm. Mr C.R. Hudleston. C.L. Shaver, The Griffith family: Wordsworth’s kinsmen”, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiq. Archaeol. Soc. New Series 63 (1963),in note 2, 203-04).

“Dear Son: I have reced your’s, by this time I perceive you are in a Marriage State. God in His Infinate Mercy guide guard and direct you both thro’ the Course of this Mortall Life, or state and Grant that you may Live a Godly Peaceable Life together… Have a Care how you Contract Debts for the Goal Gates are open to None but the Simple and Lavish Man be sure you be Bound for No man that’s the way to Pennury and Sorrow of Heart….

Gabl Griffith

Master Gunner and Barrack Master of Edenburg Castle.

The letter was certainly prophetic in terms of Thomas’s character. On balance it is probable that Thomas was previously married in Edinburgh in 1718, although there appears to be no record of issue or of Janet Griffith’s death. Thomas’s son William was born in 1722, of the 1721 marriage to Dorothy Colling of Brafferton. However, in 1731 Thomas buried a Gabriel at St. Mary’s Church, Castlegate, York, he being noted as “tanner”. (Yorkshire Archaeol. Soc. Parish Register Section CXXXVI, 38. Burials 1731: Apr. 28). The name Gabriel seems the natural choice for a first born son, and this may have been a child from the putative earlier marriage. The marriage to Dorothy took place at Great Stainton, Co. Durham on 1 May 1721. William’s baptism is not recorded at Brafferton or Darlington and has not been traced at York, but as he reached the age of 21 in October 1743, his birth must have been in October 1722. (Durham County Record Office EP/Gs2 and EP/Da SC3 are both negative).

Down to the 1720s, then, the only definite close York connection was the marriage of Thomas’s father Gabriel to Mary Hunter in 1690. However, Gabriel is known to have visited York in May 1703 and, since there was no garrison there at the time, it is not impossible that this had to do with family affairs. (Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiq. Archaeol. Soc. XLVI (1946), 196). Another intriguing link between Gabriel and Yorkshire is that his first wife was distantly related to Sir William Rawlinson of Graythwaite Hall and Hendon. (C.L. Shaver, “The Griffith family: Wordsworth’s kinsmen”, Trans. Cumberland Westmorland Antiq. Archaeol. Soc. New Series 63 (1963) in note 2, 199).

There are thus vague hints of possible links with York before 1731, when Thomas was recorded as a tanner (Yorkshire Archaeol. Soc. Parish Register Section CXXXVI, 38. Burials 1731: Apr. 28) though not free of the City. He did not establish the tannery in Marygate until considerably later and, in view of the burial at St. Mary’s, he was perhaps active in a neighbouring parish, such as Fulford.

By 1737 Thomas was living in Bootham “in the County of York”, which means that his house was on the west side of the street, though whether he owned it or leased it is unknown. (Calderdale Public Libraries (Archive Section), Halifax (CPLAS) RP 1332 and schedule). On 20 October 1737 he and Dorothy bought Burton House in Clifton, then in the occupation of Richard Lund, as well as an adjoining barn, garth and orchard. More land went with it, namely Philipson’s or Philipstone’s Flat and half an acre of meadow in Clifton Ings, adjoining the Ouse. All had been the property of Montague Giles of Bootham, a brickmaker practising in Clifton. (Calderdale Public Libraries (Archive Section), Halifax (CPLAS) RP 1332 and schedule; the location of Gile’s kiln sold to the Griffiths is given in Yorkshire Archaeol. J. XIV (1898), 449). All this property seems to have been let to tenants for as long as it was held.

A month later Thomas was leasing land in Clifton for 21 years from Sir Tancred Robinson at a yearly rent of £2 5s 0d. (Leeds City Archives NH2160A, 21 November 1737). At an uncertain, later date Little Ings at the bottom of Marygate and Almery Garth to its north (estimated at 25 acres in 1756) were also leased. (YCA K57 of 25 November 1756). The Griffiths, therefore, held a considerable acreage in the Hamlet of Marygate and in Clifton. The Marygate fields were used as meadows, at least in William Griffith’s time, (York Courant 26 March 1754) but the Griffith’s activities were not confined to growing and selling hay. Although apparently not registered at Northallerton, at some time after 7 October 1737 Thomas had bought a house and garth in Marygate from Robert Reynolds, Vicar of Holy Trinity Church, King’s Square and a prebendary of the Minster, and his sister Jane. (CPLAS RP1332). The house was the present No. 60 Marygate, which had been occupied by the Grey Coat School from 1705. (RCHME, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in the City of York. IV North-East (1975), 86b). If Thomas was already tanning in Marygate in 1738, it will have been on a small scale and the expansion of the tannery had to wait upon the availability of capital.

To provide for expansion the Griffiths began what was to be a very long chain of mortgages. Burton House and the associated lands in Clifton were mortgaged in May 1738 to john Preston of York, for £200 at 4 ½ per cent. (CPLAS RP 1663). In January 1740 a mortgage was raised on the Marygate property (£100 from Arabella Thompson), the house then still occupied “by Mrs Branfoot, Mistress of the Charity Girls and a barn, stable or tenement and yard adjoining to the said messauge” were rented by William Frubisher, coal-merchant. (CPLAS RP 1663 deed dated 28 January). Later in the same year another £100 was raised from Arabella Thompson, the deed noting that “by building Thomas Griffith had greatly improved the premises”. (CPLAS RP 1663 deed dated 28 October).

From 1740-43 expansion of the tannery evidently continued, but it was being worked by William Griffith, as is clear from a marriage settlement dated the day before Williams marriage at St. Olave’s Church to Margaret Colling on 14 July 1743. (BIHR Y/OL/4; CPLAS HAS 702). The agreement was between Thomas and Margaret’s father Robert Colling of Darlington, (R. Surtees, History and Antiquities of the County Palatine of Durham 3, 408).

“….whereas the said Thomas Griffith has lately set up and stockt a considerable Tan-yard in St. Marygate…..and hath bred his said son up to the trade and occupation of a tanner and proposed to set him up in the said Tanyard and to assign him all his Stock in trade….which by reason of the said William Griffith’s not being quite of Age cannot at present be complied with….”

Thomas goes on to agree that the conveyance to William will be made by the following 1 November and that he will assign him £1000 of stock in trade. The transfer took place in October, and the deed clearly states that William was already running the tannery. (North Riding Deeds Register K540/642 of 7(?) October 1743).

One may ask why Thomas, at the age of only about 50, was ready to hand over his business entirely to William. The answer lies in the other occupation which he had found for himself. In May 1738 he was still a tanner (CPLAS RP 1332, schedule), but by March 1739 he was giving evidence at the trial of Richard Palmer (Dick Turpin) in his official capacity as Governor of the Castle of York, ie. Keeper of the County Gaol. (D. Barlow, Dick Turpin and the Gregory Gang, 397, 406).

Thomas would have been appointed by the High Sheriff of Yorkshire, but neither Sir Hugh Smithson of Stanwick, 3rd Baronet and later Duke of Northumberland (12 January 1738 to 10 January 1739) nor Sir George Cooke of Wheatley (from 11 January 1739) is known to have had any dealings with him. Perhaps he might have been recommended by one of the Aislabies or by Sir Tancred Robinson. (J.W. Clay (ed), Dugdale’s Visitation of Yorkshire VII, 363).

As gaoler (or goaler as it was customarily spelled) he had no salary, but the perquisites could be considerable and came from fees charged for prisoners’ lodging and board, profits on contracts for transportation of felons to the American colonies and from the notorious (unofficial) system of “garnish”. Corruption was rampant; prisoners were expected to bribe their keepers for minimally adequate treatment, and those without money were often allowed to die of neglect. Four pence a day was paid for the upkeep of prisoners and eight pence per day for sick prisoners. This was intended for gaolers to provide adequate food for the prisoners. It was quite common for unscrupulous gaolers to pocket some of this money for themselves and only give prisoners half rations or less. Better off prisoners and those with friends on the outside could pay their gaolers for better food and better living conditions. In 1746 for example a young officer who had been involved in the capture of the badly wounded George Hamilton at Clifton later visited York Castle to enquire after him.

"To his great surprise he immediately met with one of the rebel women who goes by the name of Mrs Simpson walking upon the pavement in the Castleyard, he says she was transformed into so different a dress and appears so much like a person of quality having on an exceeding good silk gown and all other things so suitable that he did not know her".

Margaret Simpson, then aged 33, invited the young man to breakfast with her and Captain Hamilton where there was chocolate, coffee and tea served. "Such is the fare of rebels", says the letter writer disapprovingly. (Damn Rebel Bitches: Women of the 45 by Maggie Craig).

Although there is no direct evidence that Thomas was involved in the “garnish” system, there were many contemporary accounts stating that prisoners at York Castle were poorly fed.

Thomas was certainly involved in contracts for transportation, several of which survive for prisoners transferred to him from the City gaol at Ousebridge. (He signed contracts or bonds on 1 September 1740, 14 September 1742, 3rd May 1743, 13 October 1743, 10 September 1744, and 22 April 1745 (YCA Gaol 459/1: YDT). In 1739 he was paid £15 by York Corporation for escorting a prisoner to York from the King’s Bench prison in London. (YCA B43/5)).

Although from c. 1739 he would officially have lived in the Castle (and gave that as his abode), he obviously had plenty of time to pursue his own affairs, no doubt leaving much of the work at the Castle to his under-gaoler. Apart from his involvement with the Turpin case, his work at the Castle would for the most part be humdrum, though he would no doubt have had to attend the assizes and be present at executions. (The unusual fragmentary register of baptisms and deaths at the Castle published in Yorkshire Archaeol. J. XXV (1920), 438-41 is now in the Yorkshire Archaeol. Soc.’s archives. None of the entries is in Thomas griffith’s hand and it was perhaps kept either by successive chaplains or under-gaolers). In 1745, however, he was still gaoler, and the events of that year obviously disturbed the routine. Both prisoners from Prince Charles Edward Stuart’s Jacobite army and suspected Jacobite sympathisers found themselves in the County Gaol. Among the latter was Sir Marmaduke Constable 4th Baronet of Everingham, a well known recusant, who escaped late in 1745 or early in 1746. He died in 1746. (P. Roebuck, Yorkshire Baronets 1640-1760, 193).

In a slightly different class was the even better known York physician and obstetrician Dr. John Burton. Although Thomas was no Tory, having voted in 1741 for Chormley Turner, one of the Whig candidates for the County, (The Poll for the County of York (York, 1741), 94) he evidently strongly disapproved of the harsh treatment meted out to Dr. Burton, which was largely due to the animosity of Dr. Jaques Sterne, Precentor of the Minster, York magistrate and fanatical Whig. (Yorkshire Archaeol. J. II (1873), 413ff).

On 11 January 1746 Sterne reported:

“….Griffith the goaler insulted the captain of the guard when in the Castle to look after the rebel prisoners, and pushed the guard out of the room where Captain Hamilton, a prisoner was. He has likewise spoken insolently of you and the Archbishop for placing a guard upon Burton. If a new sheriff is not immediately appointed, it will be necessary to do something further than taking a recognisance for his behaviour…..” (Historical MSS Commission 55, VIII (1913), 159-60).

Thomas will have disliked having the military in his gaol and no doubt the trouble was not all one-way. The implied threat in the last sentence of the extract from Sterne’s letter was carried through. Early in 1746 Henry Ibbotson was appointed High Sheriff of Yorkshire. One of his first actions was to dismiss Thomas as gaoler of York Castle. In this decision he was probably influenced by Archbishop Herring and Jacques Sterne, Precentor of York Minster. These two clergymen disliked Griffiths, whom they claimed, had abused them, had insulted the captain of the guard and objected to the suspected Jacobite Dr John Burton being especially guarded. Griffiths also had a poor reputation among the county gentry. (BL Add. Mss., 35598, f164v). Herring certainly approved of Ibbetson’s decision, “He changes the Jailor for good reasons”. (BL Add. Mss., f167r). Sterne was aware that Griffiths had been involved in the suspicious death of a prisoner in his custody in 1741, though there had been insufficient proof to prosecute him. (PRO, SP36/57, f7r-15r, f85r).

Joseph Marsh replaced Thomas as Governor and Keeper of York Castle in 1746. (YCA Gaol 459/1 includes a contract signed by Joseph Marsh of the Castle of York, Gent., who is not included in Cooper’s list of gaolers, but who was already “late governor” on 3 October 1749 (North Riding Records VIII (1890), 290). He had recently been in trouble with Thomas’s attorney Samuel Waud, who had denounced him in the press as a liar (York Journal 19 July 1748) and later prosecuted him. He may perhaps have been identical with the Joseph Marsh who was an innholder in Goodramgate in 1742 (BIHR PR Transcript, St. Maurice’s).

At this point Thomas apparently retired from York briefly. In documents between may 1746 and February 1747 he is “Thomas Griffith of Moorby in the County of York, Gent”. (Bootham School Deeds (at Ford and Warren, Leeds): Main Building Old Deeds; YCA E93/195, 213, 214; BIHR Wills: Admon. Of Thomas Law (1 October 1746). Moorby must be the township of Moreby in the parish of Stillingfleet (Pers. Comm. Mary Thallon) and Thomas presumably leased a house there for a short term, or held one by copyhold, as there is no entry in the East Riding Deeds Register for the appropriate period).

Thomas’s retirement from York, however, was more apparent than real, and in any case he was again living in Marygate by 1748. (YCA E93/213). Before 26 March 1746 he bought land on the east side of Bootham, formerly a garden, from George Gibson of Bootham for £80. (Bootham School Deeds (45) Epitome of Conveyance; YCA E93/193). It is typical of him, and also one suspects of Gibson, that there was no proper conveyance and that Gibson did not inform his mortgagee of the transaction.

Thomas continued to buy property and then mortgage it. At this point a summary of Thomas’s financial position in 1748 may be attempted. The Marygate and Clifton properties were mortgaged together for £500 to John Mayer Esq. “at lawful interest” (4 ½ per cent at the time). (CPLAS 1663 of 6 and 7 October 1748.) He had increased his mortgage with Mary Preston on 39-43 Bootham to £560 (Bootham School Deeds (41/43) and had another out with Roger Shackleton of York, Gent., in trust for James Blanchard for £350 on No. 45 Bootham. (YCA E93/213). The total was £1410 on mortgage, with some £63 in interest to pay a year, assuming that those were the only mortgages. In addition he will have borrowed some money on bonds. By the time that he had paid the poor-and church rates and land taxes on his properties, the fire insurance required by some of the mortgagees and his rent for leases of land at Clifton, there can have been little left out of his rents. Indeed, his position was obviously already giving cause for anxiety, as is clearly shown by the judgement against him for a debt of £2,000 with costs of £13 to Mary Preston in the Court of Common Please in the Michaelmas term of 1748. (Bootham School deeds (41/43) Assignment of Mrs Preston’s Judgement). The document explains that this device was used “as a Security to Indemnifie her for money by her lent to the said Thomas Griffith”. It was obviously a put up job, as Mary was represented by Levyns Boldero (Yorkshire Archaeol. J. XIV (1898), 446-7; YCA E93) while her son, Thomas Preston, represented Thomas.

Thomas, however, continued in his old ways. In April 1748 one Stephen Beverley, brewer and tanner of walmgate, was declared bankrupt and Thomas bought his establishment in St. Margarets parish west of the church, almost opposite to Winterscale’s almshouses. (York Courant 12 April 1748 with YCA E93/229). He was soon building again and providing a new drying house in the tanyard, presumably with the intention of resuming trade; indeed, in the ensuing conveyance he is once more described as a tanner. (YCA E93/229). He could not have chosen a worse time, because the cattle plague had reached East Yorkshire earlier that year and there were major restrictions on the movement of beasts, carcasses and hides. (York Courant, 11 february 1748; North Riding Records VII (1890), 268 of 29 April 1748). On 28 September 1749 he sold out to Samuel Wormald, reserving the right to fell the trees on the site and have the timber. (YCA E93/229). There is still no sign that he used the cash to pay off debts, but instead bought another property in Bootham. (BIHR DEP/P/M21).

A list of Thomas’s debts in 1750 has survived in one of the Bootham mortgages of that year, and this clearly shows only too clearly what deep water he was now in. (Bootham Schhol Deeds (42/43). His total debts were now £1060, and the annual interest would be some £110.

Which of Thomas’s creditors made the move to commit him to gaol is not known, but his friends could scarcely help again. It is likely that Thomas was committed to gaol in June 1751. (York Courant, 25 June to 27 August 1751). He died in Prison in November that year. He was buried at St. Olave’s Church, as was his son William, who was buried there on 15 September 1753.

Dr. John Burton (antiquary) of York

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burton_(antiquary)

John Burton, M.D. (1710–1771) was an English physician and antiquary. Burton was born at Colchester in 1710, and was educated at Merchant Taylors' School, London (1725–6), and at St John's College, Cambridge, where he was admitted in 1727 and graduated M.B. in 1733. In 1734 he was practising medicine at Heath, on the outskirts of Wakefield. He was a good Greek and Latin scholar, and attained no little eminence in his profession both in the city and county of York. Already displaying the strong support for the Tory party that he maintained throughout his life, Burton was vigorous on his party's behalf during the bitterly contested county election of 1734. His activities badly affected the success of the Whig interest in York, personified in the prominent local clergyman, the Rev. Dr Jaques Sterne. This sowed the seeds of the animosity between the two men that was to bedevil Burton for some years to come. On 2 January 1735, in York Minster, Burton married Mary (c.1715–1771), only child of Samuel Henson (d. 1716) and his wife, Mary (d. 1743); their only son, John, became an army officer. It was probably his wife's income that enabled Burton to continue his medical studies, under Herman Boerhaave at Leiden University, where he became acquainted with Heinrich van Deventer's teachings on midwifery; he was awarded MD from Reims. His first medical articles were published by the Edinburgh Philosophical Society in 1734 and 1736, and his Treatise of the Non-Naturals was printed at York in 1738. By then he had established his practice as physician and man-midwife in York, and he was a prime mover in establishing in 1740 the York County Hospital, where he was honorary physician until 1746.

Burton actively campaigned for the Tory interest in the elections of 1741, further incurring the hostility of Sterne, now Precentor of York Minster, and his nephew and political assistant, Laurence Sterne.

Burton's position was financially improved in 1743, when he inherited substantial estates on the deaths of his father and mother-in-law. Two years later he suffered a setback from which his reputation and his pocket never fully recovered. The occasion was the Jacobite rising of 1745. Burton travelled late in November to Lancashire, where Charles Edward Stuart's forces were marching south after their capture of Carlisle. His motives were unclear but his absence from York at this critical time strengthened the suspicion, fuelled by his Whig enemies, that he was going over to the Young Pretender. Burton was arrested on his return to York, and committed to York Castle on 30 November on a charge of treason. After three months' imprisonment he was summoned to London to be examined before the privy council, who finally released him on bail after examination in March 1747. He was tried at York assizes in July, but on account of the Act of Indemnity passed in June his prosecution was abandoned and he was discharged. He had been declared bankrupt and his furniture and books sold, leaving him with his wife's modest fortune.

Burton's political rehabilitation was marked by his appointment as commissioner for the land tax in 1750, 1765, and 1766, and by the offer in 1754 of the freedom of the city of York (which he did not accept). This is in spite of the fact that he was visited by two of his fellow prisoners from London, Flora Macdonald and Captain Malcolm McLeod, in 1747, 1748, and 1749. In 1749 he published two pamphlets to justify his conduct and proclaim his innocence. His medical practice took longer to resurrect. In 1751 he published An Essay towards a Complete System of Midwifery, in which the engraved plates are the earliest published work of George Stubbs. Burton's text shows signs of hasty composition which were perhaps partly due to his attempt to recover his damaged professional status but were principally due to his wish to forestall a book being written by the eminent London man-midwife, William Smellie, which was sure to publicize Smellie's improved obstetrical forceps. Smellie's Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery (1751) received warm praise from the Monthly Review, whereas Burton's Essay had been given a long, but cool review. Burton reacted by publishing A letter to William Smellie, M.D., containing critical and practical remarks upon his Treatise on Midwifery (1753). Smellie did not respond but a former pupil of his, Giles Watts, published a successful defence against Burton's criticisms in 1755. Burton's reputation does not seem to have suffered, and his own improved forceps remained in use for many years.

Burton died in the parish of Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York, on 19 January 1771, and Mary Burton died on 28 October following. At his death he was living in or near Micklegate in York; he was buried at Holy Trinity Church, Micklegate, York, on 21 January. Burton is commonly supposed to have resembled Laurence Sterne's satirical description of him the novel Tristram Shandy as the character Dr Slop: "a little, squat, uncourtly figure...of about four feet and a half perpendicular height, with a breadth of back, and a sesquipedality of belly". However, a sworn testimony of 1746 describes him as "a tall Well sett Gentleman".

The Yorkshire Archaeological and Topographical Journal on Dr. John Burton, York 9th June 1710 - 19th January 1771

https://www.yourphotocard.com/Ascanius/John_Burton.htm By Yorkshire Archaeological Society – Volume II 1873 pp 411-415

In the memorable year 1745, the landing of the young Pretender in Scotland threw the whole kingdom into a state of alarm and excitement; at that time Dr. Burton appears to have been diligently engaged in the practice of his profession, whilst he devoted with indefatigable industry every moment he could spare to those literary and antiquarian pursuits to which he was so strongly attached. But a cloud was impending which soon afterwards overshadowed his fortunes, and cast a gloom over his future life, never to be entirely dissipated.

A considerable proportion of the higher class of the York people were of the opposite party in politics to Burton, and by most of them he was regarded, not merely as a violent Tory, but as a confirmed Jacobite, and in religious feeling a papist. The injudicious step he took, as soon as it was known in York that the rebel troops under the command of the young Pretender had crossed the border, gave some colour to the imputation that he was favourable to the cause of the Stuarts; but, if the account he gave of his proceedings on this occasion may be credited, the charge was without foundation. That he was no papist, but a consistent member of the Church of England, is now generally admitted.

On the 22nd of November, 1745, Dr. Burton and an anxious crowd of York gentry were assembled at the Guildhall, waiting to hear news of the progress of the rebels, when an express arrived to acquaint the Lord Mayor that the vanguard of the Highland army had arrived at Kendal, but it was uncertain whether their future route would be through Yorkshire or by way of Lancashire.

It happened that Dr. Burton was the proprietor of two farms situate in the lordship of Newby, near Clapham, a few miles beyond Settle in Ribblesdale, in the West Riding, and not far from the borders of Lancashire, the rents of which, due at Michaelmas, amounting to £120, the Doctor had not received, and he was apprehensive that, by the near approach of the rebel army to the place where his property lay, he would be in danger of losing the money due to him. He debated with himself, and consulted with his friends at the Guildhall, as to the expediency of hurrying to the spot that he might personally settle with his tenants. When he asked the Recorder what he would do under similar circumstances, the Recorder replied that "He would post away and be there before them." "Well then," said the Doctor, "I'll start to-morrow morning."

Having obtained the Lord Mayor's permission for the city gate to be opened before sunrise, Burton with his servant set off on horseback early the next morning, and arrived at Settle between nine and ten the same evening, just as an express was passing through the town with the news that the Highlanders had taken the route towards Lancaster. Thus an end was put to the Doctor's fears respecting the plunder of his tenants, and the next morning (Sunday) he wrote to York to announce his intention to be at home on Tuesday or Wednesday following. But that very day he went to the village of Hornby, which, he says, was the nearest town to his property where he could have any tolerable accommodation, and here, as ill luck would have it, whilst his barber was shaving him at the inn, he was taken prisoner by a party of Highlanders who had escorted Lord Elcho and other gentlemen to Hornby Castle to dine and see the place. He was conducted as a prisoner to Lancaster, where he was permitted to go at large upon his parole, and he remained there until Tuesday morning, when he was dismissed with a pass for his safety, signed by Lord George Murray. Burton then returned to Settle, having appointed his tenants and workmen to meet him there, and with them he made a settlement of accounts, receiving a balance due to him of about £60. On Wednesday the Doctor arrived once more at York, and found that, during his absence, one Birkbeck, of Settle, a quaker, had ill-naturedly sent an express to York with the information that he had been seen with the Highlanders. This intelligence had been eagerly made use of by his enemies in York, and they raised a report that he had joined the rebel army. They did not scruple to allege that when he went to Hornby he knew that the rebels were there, and supposing that the Duke of Perth was with them he wrote a letter to that nobleman, which fell into the hands of Lord Elcho, who, having opened the letter, sent two Highlanders to bring the Doctor up to the Castle, and from thence he was taken as a prisoner to Lancaster, where he had an interview with Lord George Murray and a person called his Royal Highness Prince Charles. A day or two after his return to York, a rumour was current throughout the city that the rebels were at Rochdale, and were coming to York upon Dr. Burton's invitation, and it was said that he ought to be taken into custody.

On Saturday, the 30th of November, upon the strength of these reports, and without any legal information or other evidence having been adduced against him, Dr. Burton was committed to York Castle as "a suspicious person to his Majesty's government." The magistrates who signed the warrant of commitment were Thomas Place, Esquire, Recorder of York, and the reverend Doctor Jacques Sterne. Although the cause of his arrest is plainly set forth in the warrant, Dr. Sterne, as Burton alleges, maliciously gave out that the prisoner was committed for the crime of high treason, and he wrote several letters to his acquaintance to that effect, and sent a paragraph to a London newspaper with this false account of the circumstances. Dr. Burton had been a few days in prison when he applied to be released upon bail. This was refused by Dr. Sterne and three other magistrates; and a further charge against Burton was trumped up by the evidence of one James Nesbitt, a prisoner in the castle, upon which the same four magistrates signed a warrant of detainer, and endorsed upon it an order to the jailer that Burton should not be admitted to bail because they thought that the information given by Nesbitt amounted to a charge of high treason.

During his imprisonment in York Castle, Dr. Burton was treated with great severity. He was not allowed the use of pen, ink, or paper, or to have intercourse with any person, his wife not being permitted to see him. On the eve of the assizes at which he expected his trial was to come on, a king's messenger arrived at the castle with authority from the Secretary of State to remove him to London to be examined before the Privy Council. The prisoner was then so ill with the gout in his knees, feet, and hand, that he could not travel in any other way than in a coach, for he could bear to be in no other position than to be extended horizontally. On Wednesday, the 12th of March, 1745-6, after three months' incarceration, the unfortunate Doctor, accompanied by the king's messenger, "set forwards in a coach and six, about two o'clock in the afternoon, for London, where they arrived very safe on the Monday following." At London, Burton was detained eight weeks in the messenger's house, but without having to complain of any ill usage, and was then sent for to the Cockpit to be examined by the Privy Council, and from eight o'clock in the evening to near one o'clock in the morning of the 7th of May, 1746, he was under examination. Another long detention followed, and the Doctor seemed to be forgotten. On the 9th of February, 1746-7, a day or two before the suspension of the Habeas Corpus Act expired, Burton wrote to the Duke of Newcastle's secretary to request that he might be liberated upon bail. Until the 4th of March following he was left in suspense, no answer being vouchsafed to his application. On that day he had an intimation that he must make an affidavit that he carried neither bills, money, nor letters to the Highland army. This he consented to do, and on the 25th of March, three weeks afterwards, he had notice to appear at the Cockpit with his bail. They went there at seven o'clock, but it was near twelve before he obtained his discharge. The bail-bond was for his appearance at the York assizes in July following. When the assizes were held, no prosecution was instituted against him, and his bail-bond was formally discharged.

The Bitter Rivalry between Dr John Burton and Jacques Sterne

Barbara Whitehead "York and the Jacobite Rebels: some events and people in the York of 1745 to 1747 (York Historian Vol. 6 (1985) pp59-70

"We are cheerful, tho' poor Nancy cry'd about ye Rebels in Scotland, and advised us seriously to turn Papists befure they got into Yorkshire", wrote Ann Worsley from Hovingham on 6 September 1745. (Newby Hall letters, Leeds Record Office, Sheepscar, Leeds, NH2822-2903, covering the period 1745/6). The first news of the Jacobite rebellion to be printed by The York Courant had appeared on 20 August 1745 and in the York area exaggerated rumours were circulating and fear was mounting. After the experience of centuries, no one had a doubt that any army from Scotland on a strike southwards would aim first to take the provincial capital before reaching out for London. York was a divided city. The basic rift was Whig/Tory, which had tended to polarise as Minster versus Mansion House, and include Protestant versus Papist, Hanoverian versus Jacobite.

It had been for some years a favoured social centre for the nobility of Scotland and had a thriving Catholic community centred on the Bar Convent and Micklegate. The trade was advantageous to the City. The Corporation was and large sympathetic to Tory politics - sufficiently so for the Government to fear that the City might support the rebellion. (Archbishop Thomas Herring's letters give many hints of this, eg. in B.M. Add. Mss 35889 f62, 8 December 1745, "I am a good deal surprised that our City affairs have been so much the talk with you, and so foully misrepresented. The Magistracy upon the whole have acted well, and infinately better than it was conceived they would".

The most outspoken citizen in the Tory interest was Dr. John Burton, chief physician at the County Hospital which he had helped to establish. His friends in key positions were Francis Drake, the antiquary, who was City Surgeon and one of the surgeons at the County Hospital; Bacon Morritt, Treasurer at the Hospital and involved in running the Assembly Rooms; Caesar Ward and Thomas Place. Caesar Ward was editor of The York Courant regarded as a Tory paper, and Francis Ward lodged with him in Coney Street. Dr. Burton with his family lived in the Red House on the corner of Duncombe Place and St. Leonard's Place, which they leased from the Robinson family. Thomas Place, the Recorder of York, lived lower down Blake Street; as the most important fulltime official of the Corporartion he had to be circumspect but there is no doubt where his sympathies lay. Bacon Morritt lived in part of the complex of buildings now known as Gray's Court and the Treasurer's House. He had bought the "Little House" from Dr. Jacques Sterne, who lived in the "Great House". It was at Bacon Morritt's dinner table that it was said the toast was always drunk to "The King over the Water" (James II, The Old Pretender).

Opposing this powerful Tory faction were the Whigs, headed nominally by Archbishop Thomas Herring, who had come to York in 1743 after being Bishop of Bangor. He had earlier been a chaplain to George II and was a staunch Hanoverian. The most indignant, busy, outspoken Whig in York was however, Dr. Jacques Sterne, Precentor of York Minster, uncle of the novelist Laurence Sterne and grandson of an earlier Archbishop of York. He and Dr. Burton were already bitter enemies, having taken opposite sides in the previous Parliamentary Election.

Charles Edward Stuart (Bonnie Prince Charlie) landed in Scotland on 25 July 1745. The wild rumours which circulated in the York area can be judged by the following report from The York Courant of 20 August 1745:

"A Person who some days ago was sent Express on private business to the Isle of Mull....declares upon oath that the people there declared to him, that hey saw fifty or sixty ships off that Island; and that he went to the shore himself, but being short sighted could not see them". (The York Courant 20 August 1745). On 10 September The York Courant published the text of Prince Charles Edward's message to the people of the British Isles.

Archbishop Herring, knowing that there were probably some 6,000 Dutch troops in the country and dreading the possible outcome of events, took action. The next day, 11 September, he issued a proclamation calling for a meeting on 24 September (York Courant 17 September 1745).

"Whereas a most wicked and unnatural Rebellion....has actually begun.....and whereas this County of York will probably be soon and most nearly affected by the Progress of this Rebellion, a general Meeting of the several Nobility, Gentlemen, and Clergy, in the several Ridings of this County, is desired to be at the Castle of York, on Tuesday the 24th of this Instant September, in order to consult of such measures as may be thought necessary......."

The Archbishop delivered a fighting sermon in York Minster on the Sunday before the meeting (22 September). Herring followed the sermon by an outstanding speech to the meeting at the Castle, which was also printed. (29 October 1745, sold by John Hildyard, Bookseller in York). The Archbishop's action was a huge success. An amount, said to be £30,000, was raised to help pay for military defence, and volunteer troops were organised. The meeting was attended by both Dr. Burton and Dr. Sterne, and for the time being all differences appeared to be forgotten in what was called the "Bishopthorpe Truce".

Detachments of soldiers began to move north, and as York was a garrison town they came here, often only for a break on their journey. Meanwhile the drums were beating through the City to encourage men to enlist, and clergymen were upholding their Archbishop by conducting house to house collections for his Fund in their parishes; Laurence Sterne for instance, collected money in Sutton on Forest said to amount to £6 9s 6d.

The Bishopthorpe Truce between the Whigs and Tories did not last, however. The Whig faction moved against its enemies. A handbill was circulated vilifying Francis Drake for an article he wrote for The York Courant of 24 September. Nothing in the surviving copies of the paper seems to give grounds for the attack. (Copy in York City Library). Persons whose loyalty was suspect were also being asked at this time to take Oaths to prove their allegiance.

Archbishop Herring went to London to attend the House of Lords at the beginning of November. Writing on the 9th, he described the advance of the Scottish Army: ".....these Ruffians are marching to England, and probably are by this time as far as Carlisle, for their horses hoofs are of flint, and their wheels like the whirlwind - it is most certain they are strong, well disciplined, dauntless and united". (This letter is actually headed Bishopthorpe. But the Archbishop was at the House of Lords on 4 November, and William Herring, his secretary, writing to give him the latest news from York on 13 November, confirms that he was still away then. It seems impossible that he was at Bishopthorpe on the 9th). Carlisle fell to the Rebels.

The Scots Army's movement down the west of the country removed any immediate cause of fear from York. It was now that Dr. Burton played straight into his enemies' hands. Despite the elaborate alibi he set up at the time, despite the defence of his actions which he published afterwards, there can be little doubt that he journeyed west to meet the invading army and that he met Prince Charles Edward Stuart as an ally and not, as he alleged, as a prisoner. (Dr. John Burton British Liberty Endangered (1749) dedicated to Archbishop Herring). It is Dr. John Burton British Liberty Endangered (1749)even possible that he took over money from the Prince's supporters in York.

Events had been moving swiftly and as news came in to York's Mayor announcements were made outside the guildhall, to the people waiting there. (Dr. John Burton British Liberty Endangered (1749). It was in this crowd that Dr. Burton had the conversation with Thomas Place and with the Mayor which he later recorded as proof of the innocence of his journey. He owned property near the route of the invading army and was afraid that the rents, due and collected, might fall into their hands. His account of what happened on that journey can be read in his own words, set out in parts as if it was a play. (Dr. John Burton British Liberty Endangered (1749).

Dr Burton left York early on Saturday morning, 23 November 1745, with a manservant, both mounted. He had been delayed by heavy rain until after seven o'clock. He returned about nine o'clock the following Wednesday evening. On the morning of Thursday the 28th Dr. Burton, worried by the fact that Habeas Corpus had been suspended had an interview with the archbishop, who had by now returned from London. The meeting took place in the house of the Recorder of York, Thomas Place, who had arranged it. Herring drove in from Bishopthorpe. The Dean of the Minster, Eichard Osbaldeston, was also present, and Lord Irwin, who was militarily active during the whole period, was present for part of the hearing. After hearing Dr. Burton's defence of his actions and receiving from him a paper with details of the Prince's forces, Herring wrote a full account to his friend Lord Hardwicke. Oddly enough, part of this letter is set out in the fashion of a play - the only example so far found in Herring's letters where he does this.

Herring's letter to Lord Hardwicke about Dr. Burton

(Add.MSS 35889) 30 November 1745

".......the enclosed is the last you can hear of them from me, and is their history at Lancaster - however don't believe it too implicitly, for it comes to me from a very suspect hand, for, though its author Dr. Burton is now at York and pretends to have been taken Prisoner by them, and released, together with a brace of Geldings of great value, which is certainly most marvelous, I am more inclined to think he went and returned and continues a real Friend to them, and this Transaction of his is now under consideration of our Magistracy.

His information is indeed nothing, tho' he would make a great merit of it to me, and the store of new levies from Scotland is false, or else the King has not a true friend there. He told me he was examined by Charles himself, wch certainly was not en Prince, but you shall hear his dialogue as he relates it.

Pretender: Who are you, sir?

Dr. Burton: Dr. Burton a Physician at York an't please your Highness.

P: What brought you here?

B: Some affairs in the neighbourhood.

P: How stand our Friends affected at York?

B: Please your Highness they are very unanimous there.

P: Where is Wade and his Army?

B: I believe, sir, his motions will depend upon those of your Royal Highness.

P: Where is Ligonier?

B: I don't certainly know, sir, but by our last accounts he is in Cheshire.

Exit Dr Burton. As to the Person and attitude of this Youth, he says, he is very tall, genteele and spritely, a long face, much freckled, and his eyebrows sandy, he was in a Plaid and [Boots?] came in walking at the head of his Party of Foot, and has walked every step of the way from Edinburgh. f.55

Dr. Burton's account of the Rebel Army.

Went out of Lancaster Monday morning November 25th 1745

Horse.......gentlemen...... 66

Horse......servants....... 40

Foot 875

Tuesday Morning

Horse 289

Foot 4674

To come in

Of the foot who passed Lancaster Lusty tall and stout men 2000

Middle aged and middle sized men 2000

Old men above 50 and boys abt or not exceeding eighteen 1200

The Lame sick or feeble abt 349

[Total] Foot 5549

15 Pieces of Cannon 7 of which are brass from France, consisting of 4 and 6 pounders. the men compleatly armed. They sent 500 stands of arms into Scotland being more than they wanted here.

They left 200 men as a garrison in Carlisle with French engineers. They proclaimed the Pretender at Lancaster, on Monday abt 10 o'clock. They have 4000 in Scotland, to whom they sent to join them here.

Later Herring was to write to the Duke of Newcastle and deny all knowledge of Dr. Burton. Later again, when the aftermath was dying away, he did finally admit to Newcastle that he remembered the man.

In spite of his efforts to put himself right with the authorities, Dr. Burton was committed to York Castle at 2pm. on 30 November 1745, after direct action by Dr. Jacques Sterne. Sterne had received a letter from a friend implicating Burton and with a body of other clergy he went to the Guildhall where they found Burton. (Dr. John Burton British Liberty Endangered (1749). Thomas Place sent out to the Coffee House or as many people in authority as could be found, and after an ad hoc meeting Dr. Burton was refused bail and sent to the Castle.

The previous day the Rebel army had arrived at Manchester. They had advanced to Derby by 3 December, the very day when the first Jacobite prisoners joined Dr. Burton in York Castle.

Although they had been given the power to do so, the Magistrates of York had refused to seize the arms and horses of York Papists. (York Courant 5 November 1745. Suspension of Habeas Corpus). On 7 December both Jacques Sterne and Archbishop Herring knew that this was to be carried out with the consent of the City.

The twelfth of December saw Dr. Burton accused of drinking a Jacobite toast in the Castle; Richard Murth and James Nesbit were prepared to testify against him and this resulted in the signing of a Warrant of Detainer on the 14th. (Dr. John Burton, British Liberty Endangered (1749).

By now the Scots Army was in retreat. The papers were full of reports from such places as Pontefract, Rochdale and Halifax. One of the Newby letters of 15 December reads: "Mr Aisalbie is hear drove from York with the Panick that seiz'd all People upon hearing the Rebells were in full March for Leeds, a great manny trade's people are hear as an Asylum....." (Newby Hall Letters, Leeds Record Office, Sheepscar, Leeds, NH2822-2903, covering the period 1745/46).

This was the period when Dr. Burton was treated with the greatest severity. Presumably he was in the newly built Debtors' Prison because he had had his own room and was able to have friends in for supper, see his wife, and so on. Now, he was kept incommunicado, a guard set on his door, and pen, ink and paper were forbidden to him.

On 18 December there was a skirmish with the retreating Jacobite Army at Clifton Moor near Penrith. Seventy prisoners, including nine women were reported taken to Appleby. Captain George Hamilton, sixty other men and eight women were marched through Richmond and arrived in York in a rather sorry state. There were orders that Captain Hamilton "was to be civilly treated". The others were described as "a miserable, ragged crew, and some almost naked". (York Courant 31 December 1745).

Mr. Francis Drake lost his post as City Surgeon during December because he would not take the Oaths when they were tendered to him. (York Journal 7 January 1745/46). York Corporation was bending to the pressure of events, and Dr. Sterne was in hopes of having Dr. Burton hanged.

On 19 January 1746, 190 prisoners arrived in York, taken at the fall of Carlisle. They had walked through heavy snow and bitter weather. Archbishop Herring described them as follows:-

"They are lodged in the Castle, about forty of them extremely sick, one dyded the moment he came in. Twenty of them are Highlanders [with] officers out of Manchester, are in good spirits, and well looking men, the French very gay. I am glad to hear a Regulation as to the Prisoners is like to be soon settled, for a delay of it may prove very fatal to the nation. The Filth and Sickness and close confinement of their [?] may breed a contagion very [dangerous] to the publick". (B.M. Add. MS 35889 Hardwicke papers, f78, 19 January 1745/46).

There had been no financial provision made for the prisoners, and Mr. Griffith, Keeper of York Castle, was expected to keep them on thin air. Knowing this, his advertisement in the York Courant of 21 January 1746 can only be viewed as a disguised appeal for funds.

At the time, the Debtors' Prison was the pride of Yorkshire, newly built, airy, undoubtedly healthy. It seems likely, that the prisoners with means would have been housed in the Debtors' Prison, and this hypothesis seems to be confirmed by a letter in the Hutton papers at the North Yorkshire Record Office. It is doubtful whether more than a handful of the prisoners had such means so where were the others housed? At that time there were two ancient buildings in the enclosed area of the Castle, the Moot Hall and the Grand Jury House, later replaced by the Female Prison and the Assize Courts. Thanks to Archbishop Herring, we can be fairly sure that ost of the prisoners were confined in the ground floor of the Grand Jury House. Arthur Cash quotes a letter of Herring's to Hardwicke, dated 14 February 1746: "The prisoners die and the Recorder told me yesterday when the turnkey opens the cells in the morning, the steam and stench is intolerable and scarce credible. The very walls are covered with lice in the room over which the Grand Jury sit". (Arthur H. Cash, Laurence Sterne: the early and middle years (1975), p171; Philip Chesney Yorke, Life and Correspondence of Philip Yorke, Earl of Hardwicke, Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, Vol. I (1913) p501).

In York, the Tory supporters were still suffering. Francis Drake lost his post of surgeon at the County Hospital. (York Journal 7 January 1746). Caesar Ward (who had accepted responsibility for his brother-in-law's debts) became bankrupt, so did Dr. Burton. Fortunately for the York Courant, Francis Drake in his enforced professional idleness was able to edit and finance it until Ward was once more free to do so.

The crisis in accommodation in York Castle caused the Lent Assizes to be moved from their usual venue in the Grand Jury Room and to be held in King's Manor. The overcrowding could not continue. On 3 March "upwards of a hundred of the Scots Rebels were removed from the Castle, in order to be conveyed to Lincoln Gaol. There were six parties, each led by a trooper, consisting of five couples tied together in a string, and one party of five only. They were guarded by a detachment of Marshal Wade's and Montague's Horse, and the sick were conveyed in three wagons". (York Courant 4 March 1746). Conditions were still very bad, however. By now the prisoners numbered 118, with 22 (including Dr. Burton) "on suspicion" . Mr. Masterman of the Crown Office came north to question them.

On a date which is unclear but must be late February or early March, Archbishop Herring wrote: ".......the sick Dutch and the Prisoners here have spread a ery ugly Distemper round us". (B.M. Add. MS. 35889 Hardwicke papers, f88). The only other evidence of this outbreak of sickness is the story that Mr. Masterman's Secretary caught gaol fever (probably typhuis) and died.

Mr Masterman completed his interrogation of the prisoners hastily and left the remaining enquires to Dr. Jacques Sterne and Dr. Baker.

On 12 March 1746 Dr. Burton, in the custody of Mr. Dick, one of the King's Messengers, set out for London in a coach and six. Just before leaving he had to resign his post as Physician to the County Hospital. His palce was taken by Dr. Wintringham, who lived in the house now called the Judge's Lodging, and whose appointment was announced in May.

In London Dr. Burton was kept in the same house as Flora Macdonald, Captain McLeod and Clanranald, awaiting whatever fate might befall them. Richard Murth, involved in bearing (false) witness against Dr. Burton came up at the Lent Assizes and was then discharged, probably on 19 March. Mrs. Burton sold all the furniture from the Red House, including Dr. Burton's library, and then sold the lease.

April brought a further group of prisoners to York Castle, this time from Perth, four in a coach and twenty on foot, and at the end of the month news arrived of the Battle of Culloden. The news seems to have sparked off a mob riot in York, whose actions can be traced by the denials in the York Journal of 29 April. Mr. Pulley, Clerk of the Peace for the West Riding, was related by marriage to Dr. Sterne, and it is denied that he was inciting the mob to attack the Bar Convent, and also denied that Dr. Sterne was in the crowd who broke Thomas Place's windows in Blake Street. Thomas Place had not illuminated his windows, as was the custom for those who were participating in any particular rejoicing. Neither had he illuminated them "upon any other occasion of Publick Joy". The occasion of publick joy in recent months had all been Whig ones, such as the King's birthday. It is now, by his non-illumination of his windows, that we see Thomas Place declaring his political opinions.

Celebrations took place in York over the victory at Culloden, but not everyone celebrated. For the prisoners in the Castle it must have seemed like the end of all hope. "The Rebellion is crusht....." wrote one of the family at Hovingham. (Newby Hall letters, Leeds Record Office, Sheepscar, Leeds, NH2822-2903, covering the period 1745/46).

The York Journal reported on 29 April 1746, "After the Battle at Culloden Moor, near Inverness, there was not a Bayonet in Barrel's Regiment but was either bloody, or bent, so great was the heroism of the soldiers". (The York Journal 29 April 1746).

The times were now less exciting and everyone could settle down to normal life again - except for those paying the penalty for their support of the Stuart cause. There was still the interest of hearing of the pursuit of Charles Edward Stuart and his followers across the length of Scotland, and anticipation of the trials of the Jacobite prisoners. In London, Dr. Burton had been taken to the Cockpit for questioning on 6 and 7 May, but not brought to trial.

On 18 June, Herring was writing "By a regular care and the airiness of our prison situation, the Rebel Prisoners have escaped without much sickness, and consequently the City and yet we are under some impatience to get rid of them.....I see the Circuit is adjusted, and the Vermin are soon to be tried....." (B.M. Add. MS. 35889 Hardwicke papers f122). He goes on to complain of the presence in the City of Lockhart of Carnwath, on bail but able to "keep a Table and support and encourage a Conversation at it that don't become him" and to look forward to the Duke of Cumberland paying a visit to the City to receive his Freedom.

On 27 July 1746, Philip Webb visited York Castle to carry out the "lotting" of the prisoners. (Arnot and Seton Scottish Historical Society: Prisoners of the '45 Vol. I pp108-109). This was a procedure first adopted after the 1715 Rebellion. The prisoners drew lots, and only one in twenty actually stood trial. These were the "ordinary" prisoners. Prisonerswho were in any way special had individual notifications of trial: 25 of the prisones in York had received such notices, 76 people participated in the lottery, and four of them were chosen to stand trial. The remainder were to petition for mercy, and expected to be transported. Additionally there were eight prisoners who had agreed to turn King's Evidence.

On 26 August 1746 the newspapers announced the arrival of the Judges and named the Grand Jury for the preliminary hearings; it may be significant that later, in the actual trials, the next Grand Jury were almost all from South Yorkshire. The Judges went away again because the actual trials did not begin until 2 October 1746. The trials occupied five days, 2-7 October. Five people were acquitted, and 70 condemned to death, but in the end only 22 were actually executed. The other 48 received "His Majesty's Reprieve during pleasure". Seventy-eight awaited transportation, and "about twenty" were made Evidences and were for the most part released. (York Courant 7 and 14 October 1746; York Journal 4, 11, 18, and 25 November 1746).

Dr. Burton asked, in December 1746, for an interview with Archbishop Herring, who was then in London. (Dr. John Burton British Liberty Endangered (1749) . At this interview the Archbishop assured the Doctor "That he had always believed him innocent", and soon after, admitted to Lord Newcastle that he had known Dr. Burton previously. Burton was finally released on 25 March 1747, never having been tried. He returned to York, set up house in Bootham, and was finally discharged after a brief appearance at the July Assizes. He went on to write, to practice his profession, and to receive a visit from Flora Macdonald. He was offered his Freedom of the City, whereas Dr. Sterne, who offered the Corporation £200 and a portrait of the Duke of Cumberland, was refused.