Lady Beckwith, and her son-in-law and daughter, Mr. George Harvie,[20] and
Mrs. Frances, his wife.
The testatrix appointed John Darley and William Allen,[21] draper,
executors, and Mr. William Bushell and Mr. William Hilliard, supervisors
of her will, which was proved at York on the 30th November, 1589. She was
buried on the 9th of September preceding, in the church of Saint Michael
le Belfrey; it being her testamentary wish to be interred near to her
first husband.
I now pass to the third generation of the Turners; and I will speak first
of Philip Turner, who was the second son of Edward Turner, and the direct
ancestor of the great Poet.
In the year 1586, Philip Turner was admitted to the franchise of the city
of York, as the son of Edward Turner, gentleman. In the register of
freemen he is called a merchant, implying that he was a member of the
chartered company of Merchant Adventurers, which was then constituted of
the highest class of York citizens.
On the 18th of January, 1590, at the church of Saint Helen Stonegate,
"Phillippe Turner and Edeth Gylminge was maryed." This lady was the mother
of William Turner, in remembrance of whom he gave to his daughter Edith
her pretty Saxon christian-name, and it cannot be uninteresting to inquire
a little about the family to which she belonged. The name of Gylminge is
of rare occurrence in our local annals. In Mr. Drake's volume it appears
only once; but I believe that the "William Gylmyn" whom the historian[22]
places at the head of a list of the freeholders of York who were present
at the election of two representatives in Parliament on Oct. 28, 1584, was
the father of Edith Gylminge who married Philip Turner, as he
unquestionably was of Christian Gylminge, who, at the same parish church,
on April 9, 1599, became the first wife of George Ellis, Esq., afterwards
Sir George Ellis, Knight, a member of the Council of the North.
William Gylminge was a vintner,--in modern phrase, a wine-merchant. In the
sixteenth century the vintners were among the most opulent of the York
tradesmen, no person being permitted to sell wine without having an annual
license from the Lord Mayor and Aldermen. In the year 1583, William
Gylminge was one of the eleven persons to whom this privilege was
exclusively granted. Henry Maye, whom Edward Turner names in his will as
his cousin, and who was an alderman, and lord mayor in 1586, was another
of these eleven vintners.
William Gylminge died in the year 1591. In his will, dated Jan. 28,
1590-1, he mentions his son James, and his daughters Joan and Christian.
The name of his daughter Edith does not appear; and I can only account for
the omission, by supposing that she had received her child's portion
twelve months before, when she became the wife of Philip Turner. Robert
Gylminge, a merchant and goldsmith at York, was the brother of William
Gylminge. He died in the year 1580; and from his will[23] it may be
inferred that he was engaged in large commercial transactions, as he gives
to his wife and children all his goods "on this side the sea, or beyond
the seas."
Soon after the marriage of Philip Turner to Edith Gylminge, I find him
living in the parish of All Saints Pavement in York, a part of the city
which was then inhabited by many of its principal merchants. In this
parish he continued to reside several years, and became the father of a
numerous family. The baptismal register contains these entries:--
1592, Oct. 3.--Lancelot, son of Philip Turner.
1593, Nov. 3.--Frances, daughter of Philip Turner.
1594, Feb. 26.--Martha, daughter of Philip Turner.
1796, April 14.--Katherine, daughter of Philip Turner.
1597, June 7.--WILLIAM, son of Philip Turner.
1598, Oct. 9.--Philip, son of Philip Turner.
1603, Dec. 4.--John, son of Philip Turner.
In the spring of 1604, that dreadful scourge, the "Pestilence of the
Plague," which, in the preceding year, had almost desolated the
metropolis, made its appearance at York, and continued to rage with
unabated violence in every part of the city for several months.[24] Edith,
the wife of Philip Turner, and three of his children, were victims of this
fatal visitation. The mother died first: the register of All Saints
Pavement records her burial on July 9, 1604. The death of her daughters,
Martha and Katherine, quickly followed. Both were buried on the 23rd of
the same month. John, her infant son, did not long survive his mother; he
was buried on the 19th of December.
After this period I have not met with the slightest trace of Philip
Turner, or of any of his surviving children, except William, who, we now
discover, was not his first-born son. From the christian-name given to
Philip's eldest boy, it is pretty certain that he was the godson of his
uncle Lancelot, and had he lived to the age of maturity would have been
preferred to his younger brother. We must conclude, therefore, that his
early death made way for William to become the oldest surviving son of his
father, and the heir presumptive of his uncle, who, as we learn from your
pages,[25] having no children of his own, ultimately by his will
established this nephew in the possession of the bulk of his fortune.
It was but a short time previous to the occurrence of the calamity which
deprived Philip Turner of his wife and three of his children, that
Lancelot Turner became the owner of Towthorpe.
An acute critic,[26] who has taken great interest in all matters connected
with the genealogy of Pope, suggests, as "more than probable, that
Lancelot Turner himself acquired the property which enabled him to make
the purchase of the manor of Towthorpe." But the fact seems to be, that he
had obtained the means of making that purchase by converting into money
part of the property bequeathed to him by his father, in the sale of which
he had prevailed upon his brother Philip to join. Prior to the year
1602,[27] they had sold to Robert Watterhouse, Esq., the ancient
churchyard of Saint Wilfred, and the buildings that stood upon it; and in
January, 1604, "Lancelot Turner and Philip Turner of York gentlemen, sons
of Edward Turner late of York gentleman, deceased," conveyed to John Smith
and John Sharpe, two York tradesmen, all the remaining property which had
belonged to their father, situate in the parish of Saint Helen Stonegate,
consisting of nine dwelling-houses which stood in the several streets of
Stanegate, Ald-Conyng-strete, Blake-street, and Davygate.
About this time Lancelot Turner was making purchases of copyhold cottages
and land at Towthorpe; and from his having sold his paternal property in
York, to enable him to become the lord of the manor of Towthorpe, and from
his manifest desire to enlarge the borders of his domain there, it might
be reasonably inferred that he had some ancestral attachment to that
place. There can be no doubt that a family of the same name, who were
small landed proprietors, had long been settled there. The baptism of
John, son of the Robert Turner, of Towthorpe, of whose will you give some
account,[28] is entered in the parochial register of Huntington, on Jan.
11, 1600-1. Robert, the testator, was buried at Huntington on Sept. 30,
1626. In April, 1642, Richard Turner, doubtless the son and executor of
Robert, surrendered copyhold land at Strensall, the manor to which
Towthorpe is appendant, to William Turner, doubtless his son, and the
grandchild to whom Robert bequeaths "the little brown whie."
Nothing can be more probable than that Robert of York, the father of
Edward and the grandfather of Lancelot, sprang from this respectable if
not opulent family of Turner of Towthorpe, and, according to a practice
very common in those days, had been transplanted from the country to be
brought up to a trade in the town.
I have now to bring to your notice a remarkable circumstance which
occurred in the earlier part of the life of Lancelot Turner.
You need not be reminded of the bitter persecution of Nonconformists that
prevailed in the northern counties whilst the Court of York was under the
presidency of the Earl of Huntingdon; and the strict watchfulness which
the civil authorities were specially required by the Government to
exercise over all persons suspected of any attachment to Popery. At the
commencement of the year 1594, the magistrates of York were called upon by
the Lord President and Council of the North, acting in obedience to
instructions received from the Privy Council, to make diligent inquiry as
to the number of gentlemen resident within their jurisdiction who were
sending, or had sent, their children abroad under colour of learning
languages. In the answer which the Lord Mayor and Aldermen returned to the
communication from the Lord President, they certified that Martin Turner,
son of Edward Turner of York gentleman deceased, went over the seas about
three years before--that he was then at Venice at the University, and
learning of languages there--and that he was relieved and maintained by
one Lancelot Turner of York gentleman, his brother.[29]
The curious facts thus disclosed appear to me to admit of only one
explanation. We discover that in the year 1591, about twelve months after
the death of Mrs. Jane Turner, his father's widow, Lancelot Turner took
the extraordinary step of sending his brother, a youth of nineteen, into
Italy. We have seen the desire of the father, as shown by the testamentary
provision he made for his son Martin, whom he probably designed for one of
the liberal professions, that this his youngest boy should be brought up
at the university. His solemn injunction to his widow, that she should be
"a good mother to the boy and see all things ordered for his most
benefit," was, no doubt, piously fulfilled. We cannot imagine, that when
Edward Turner, an officer of the Council of the North, spoke of the
university, he had the most remote idea of his son being brought up at a
Popish college. Yet we find that Lancelot Turner, the moment he became the
youth's natural guardian, sent him abroad, and placed him at the
University of Venice, which was then notorious for being the very centre
and hotbed of Jesuitism.[30]
The conclusion seems inevitable, that Lancelot Turner was himself a Roman
Catholic, and adopted the most effectual method of having his brother
Martin educated and established in the same faith.
Nevertheless, we have some evidence that at a later period he outwardly
conformed to the religion of the State. One of the important facts you
have brought to light concerning him is, that the royal grant of
Towthorpe was made to him just before the Queen's death. Had he then been
an avowed Roman Catholic, or even suspected of recusancy, he would
scarcely have obtained such a grant from the Government of Elizabeth. The
documents you refer to, showing his residence at York after the accession
of James I., testify that he then stood well with the municipal
authorities. I may add, by way of corroboration, that in January, 1612,
when the royal treasury was empty, and the Ministers of James resorted to
the expedient of raising money for the necessities of the State, by
sending privy seals into the country, Lancelot Turner was one of "twenty
able commoners" of York, whom the Lord President and the Lord Mayor, upon
private conference, selected as persons of sufficient ability to lend
money to the Crown upon that security.
The touching incident recorded in the nuncupative codicil made by Lancelot
Turner in his dying moments,[31] shows the close personal friendship
which must have subsisted between him and Sir William Alford; and this
gives plausibility to a conjecture, that their families were connected by
some tie of relationship: possibly the first wife of Edward Turner was an
Alford. The christian name of Lancelot, which Edward Turner bestowed upon
his eldest son, and which was afterwards given to his eldest grandson, had
been a favourite name with the Alfords. The first occupier of Meaux Abbey,
after the dissolution of monasteries, was Lancelot Alford, Esq., who died
in 1562, and was succeeded by his nephew, Sir Lancelot Alford, who
obtained a grant of the site of the monastery in 1586, and was knighted by
King James I., at York, in 1603.[32] He was the father of Sir William
Alford, Lancelot Turner's friend. But another and perhaps the more
probable conjecture is, that the intimacy between these two persons had
arisen from a community of feeling upon the all-important subject of
religious faith; for there can be little doubt that Sir William Alford was
a Roman Catholic.
In a petition presented by the House of Commons to King Charles the First,
in the year 1626, numerous persons are named, holding places of trust and
authority, whom the petitioners accuse of being either Popish recusants,
or justly suspected of being such. They do not scruple to charge the Lord
President of the North himself[33] with being ill affected in religion;
and, among other instances, they allege--first, that in the preceding
year, the Lord President being certified of divers Spanish ships-of-war
upon the coast of Scarborough, his lordship went thither, and took with
him the Lord Dunbar, Sir Thomas Metham, and Sir William Alford, and lay at
the house of Lord Eure,[34] whom he knew to be a convict recusant, and
did, notwithstanding, refuse to disarm him, although he had received
letters from the Privy Council to that effect; and secondly, that he gave
order to Lord Dunbar, Sir Thomas Metham, and Sir William Alford, to view
the forts and munition at Kingston-upon-Hull, who made one Kerton, a
convict recusant, and suspected to be a priest, their clerk in that
service.[35]
It is well known that Lord Dunbar and Sir Thomas Metham were Roman
Catholics. Had Sir William Alford not been of the same religious
persuasion, he would scarcely have acted as their colleague on these
occasions.
The estrangement of which Lancelot Turner complained, when he revoked his
gift of the clock to his "good and worthy friend," may possibly have been
occasioned by Sir William's dislike of that outward conformity to
Protestantism, which Lancelot had found it convenient to assume in his
latter days.
Like other country gentlemen, Lancelot Turner had a town-house for his
occasional residence, as well as his manor-house of Towthorpe. You show us
that in December, 1619, when he executed his last will he is described of
Towthorpe; but you think that the codicil, which is dated a few days
before his death, was probably made at York.[36] There is no doubt that in
his last illness he was residing in Goodramgate, in the house which his
nephew afterwards occupied. Part of the street called Goodramgate is in
the parish of Saint John del Pike, which was then, as it is now, united to
the parish of the Holy Trinity Goodramgate; and I find in the
register-book of the united parishes, an entry of the burial of "Mr.
Lancelot Turner" on Jan. 16, 1620.
Upon the death of his uncle, William Turner made Towthorpe[37] his
principal perhaps his only place of abode, and exactly two years after
that event, viz., on Jan. 14, 1621-2, his marriage to Thomasine Newton
was solemnized at the little church of the parish of Huntington, in which
the township of Towthorpe is situate. The extreme youth of the lady was
most probably the cause of the postponement of the marriage (which, as you
observe, had evidently been contemplated by the uncle) until the
expiration of two years after his death. At that time she could not have
been more than fifteen years old. Her father, Christopher Newton, was not
of age in 1604, when his father, Miles Newton, died;[38] and it is pretty
certain that he was not then married.
In what creed either of the parents of Edith Pope was educated, we have
no means of ascertaining, but we may reasonably suppose that their
religious faith would take its colour from that which was professed by him
of whom they were the adopted children. If the Roman Catholic tendency
were less manifest in them, we see it abundantly developed in their
numerous offspring, of whom a considerable proportion, we are told, were
avowedly members of the ancient church.
The origin of that particular regard which Lancelot Turner had for
Thomasine Newton remains inexplicable. His having "household stuff at
Kilburn," which he bequeathed to her by his will, would indicate that he
had occasionally resided at the house of her parents at that place. The
will of either of them might have thrown some light upon these points; but
such documents, if they exist, have hitherto eluded our researches.
About thirteen months after the marriage of William Turner and Thomasine
Newton, their first child was born. "Christian Turner,[39] daughter of
William Turner of Towthorpe gentleman," was baptized at Huntington on Feb.
19, 1622-23. The second child was a son. On March 30, 1624, "George
Turner, son of William Turner of Towthorpe gentleman," was baptized at
Huntington. This was doubtless one of the youths whose "gentle blood was
shed in honour's cause." About two years afterwards, the second daughter
was born--Alice, of whom you speak as the wife of Richard Mawhood,[40] was
baptized at Huntington on the 23rd of March, 1625-6. After this time the
parochial register of Huntington ceases to yield any information relating
to William Turner or his family.
In the same year in which he was married, William Turner made a purchase,
with what specific object it is now in vain to inquire, of a house in
Stonegate, York. In the deed (dated Nov. 5, 1622) by which the property
was conveyed to him he is described "William Turner of Towthropp in the
county of York gentleman." Whatever may have been his motive for
purchasing a house in York, he did not long retain the ownership of it. By
a deed dated June 5, 1626, "William Turner of Towthropp gentleman, and
Thomasine his wife," transferred all their interest in the property to
William Scott of York merchant, and John Lasinbye of Huntington yeoman. It
maybe surmised that Scott and Lasinbye were not purchasers, but merely
trustees for effecting some charitable or other purpose not strictly
legal, which had soon afterwards been brought into litigation or dispute.
On June 3, 1630, William Turner, who was then at York, joined with William
Scott and John Lasinbye in an absolute conveyance of the property to
Robert Hemsworth and Thomas Hoyle, aldermen, and several other persons,
also members of the corporation of York. This conveyance is stated to have
been made in performance of a decree of the Court of Chancery, dated Feb.
20 preceding, in accordance with an act of Parliament passed in the 43rd
year of Queen Elizabeth, intituled "An Act to redress the Misemployment of
Lands and Tenements theretofore given to Charitable Uses." Of this
transaction I will not venture to offer any further explanation.
A chasm of ten years now occurs in my chronology. I do not again meet with
the name of William Turner until the year 1640, when he was once more a
resident in York, most probably occupying the same house in Goodramgate in
which his uncle Lancelot lived and died. The register of the united
parishes of Saint John del Pike and Holy Trinity Goodramgate, contains
entries of the baptism of "Judith, the daughter of Mr. William Turner," on
July 16, 1640, and of the burial of the same child on Aug. 3 in the same
year. The removal of the family from York must have taken place soon
afterwards. For an account of the circumstances attending their residence
in the West Riding, I need only refer to your valuable tract.[41]
I am unable to give any assistance towards dispelling the obscurity in
which that period of the history of William Turner is involved, that
extends from the month of June, 1626, when he is described "of Towthrope,"
until the birth of his daughter Judith at York in the summer of 1640. It
is clear that he was at York in June, 1630; but I have met with nothing to
show where he passed the preceding four years or the following ten years.
During these fourteen years his wife presented him with two sons and seven
daughters; but I have failed to discover the entry of the baptism of any
of these children, either at York or at Huntington.
Neither have I succeeded in my attempts to ascertain at what time, or
under what circumstances, William Turner disposed of the manor of
Towthorpe. John George Smyth, Esq. of Heath, near Wakefield, M.P. for the
city of York, is the present owner of the estate, which was purchased, in
the early part of the last century, by one of his ancestors, from Sir
Charles Dalston, Bart., to whom it had descended from his grandfather,
Sir William Dalston, the first baronet of that name. The Dalstons were a
Cumberland family, and Sir William had most probably acquired the
Towthorpe estate by his marriage with Anne Bolles, the eldest daughter and
coheir of that singular person, Lady Bolles of Heath Hall, the Baronetess,
whose curious history is narrated in your interesting "Antiquarian Notices
of Lupset, the Heath, and Sharlston."
You state that William Turner was living in the parish of Saint John del
Pike at the time of the Heralds' Visitation in 1665, and was one of the
persons whom they summoned to appear.[42] The visits of the heralds at
York took place in the months of August and September in that year; and
perhaps you would not have imputed blame to him for having neglected that
opportunity of recording his genealogy, had you been aware that he was
then in his last illness, awaiting a more solemn summons. He died within a
month after the date of his will, and was buried in the church of the Holy
Trinity Goodramgate, on Oct. 3, 1665. Had the heralds made their
visitation at York a few months sooner, we should doubtless have
possessed their testimony, that the Turners were entitled to take rank
among the gentry of York. But it will now, perhaps, be admitted that no
such testimony is requisite.
It has been shown by unimpeachable evidence that Edward Turner, the
great-grandfather of Edith Pope, was the son of a substantial citizen of
York, who flourished in the reign of King Henry VII.; that, having
advanced a step higher in the social scale, he maintained during great
part of the reign of Queen Elizabeth the rank of a gentleman, and
associated upon a footing of equality with the best of the inhabitants of
a city which was then "the glory of the North"; that, in addition to the
property he inherited in the city, he acquired lands of considerable value
in the county, and these he transmitted to his descendants; that his
eldest son, Lancelot Turner, by means of his paternal fortune, was
enabled, at the commencement of the seventeenth century, to purchase the
manor and estate of Towthorpe, and thus attain the _status_ of a country
gentleman; and in that position, dying childless, was succeeded by his
nephew, William Turner, who "made choice of, to be the mother of his
children,"[43] of whom Edith Pope was one, a lady who was not only herself
of good family, but was (as you have remarked[44]) allied with several of
the higher Yorkshire gentry.
That genealogical critic must indeed be fastidious, who would deny the
Poet's right to assert that his mother was of _gentle blood_ and of an
_ancient family_.
The baptismal register of William Turner, by which his birth is placed
only two or three years earlier than the date you have conjecturally
assigned for that event, shows that he was in his sixty-ninth year when he
died. His wife survived him nearly sixteen years. "Mrs. Turner, widow,"
was buried in the church of the Holy Trinity Goodramgate, on Sept. 11,
1681. Administration of the goods of "Thomasine Turner of York," who died
intestate, was granted by the archbishop's court to her daughter Mary
Turner, spinster, on Dec. 2, 1681. From the circumstance of Mary being the
sole administratrix it may be inferred that the only surviving son,
William Turner, was then absent from York, and that Mary was the oldest of
the unmarried daughters who had remained at home.[45] But there is no
reason to suppose that she had remained there alone. We may presume that
Edith was one of her companions, and took part in administering to the
comforts of their mother's last hours--in assisting to "rock the cradle of
reposing age."
Assuming it to have been soon after the Restoration that William Turner
returned to York, his daughter Edith was then just entering into
womanhood, so that for nearly twenty years of the bloom of her life she
was domesticated with her family within the walls of our venerable city.
Their residence stood under the very shadow of the towers of our
cathedral, the parish of Saint John del Pike being usually regarded as
forming part of the Minster-close. The neighbourhood in which they lived
was crowded with the stately mansions of the dignitaries of the church,
the higher officers of the ecclesiastical courts, and many of the wealthy
families of the county. We cannot doubt that the Turners moved in the best
society of which the city could at that period boast; not so brilliant and
dignified as when it shone with the splendour of the vice-regal court of
the Lords Presidents of the North; but still aristocratic, refined, and
intellectual,--a society in which Edith Turner might receive that
training which fitted her to hold converse in after-life with
Bolingbroke, and Congreve, and Swift.
When, upon the death of Mrs. Turner, the daughters who had remained under
the maternal roof at York had to seek a home with their married sisters in
other parts of the kingdom, it was Edith's lot to remove to London, where
she became the wife of Alexander Pope, and the mother of the Poet, whose
name you justly designate "one of the greatest among Englishmen."
* * * * *
It now only remains for me to offer to you my cordial thanks for the
valuable information and suggestions with which you have favoured me in
the progress of my investigation; and to assure you that I shall feel
highly gratified if the additional facts I have brought to light
satisfactorily blend with or prove to be in any measure illustrative of
those contained in your more important narrative.
* * * * *
I must not conclude without gratefully acknowledging the kindness of my
York friends,[46] who have, with the utmost readiness and liberality,
given me free access to the records and documents which form many of my
authorities.
I am, my dear Sir,
with much respect,
most faithfully yours,
ROBERT DAVIES.
THE MOUNT, YORK,
_April, 1858_.
LONDON: F. PICKTON, PRINTER, Perry's Place, 29, Oxford Street.