After 1506 the earliest reference we have to John Clydesdale is in 1513
and relates to his land in the Middle Field
of
Hungerford (2). In 1519 he was one of the feoffees of the lands of the chantry
of St. Mary
in
Hungerford (3). This was the chantry of which Thomas Clydesdale
had
been chaplain some fifty years previously. Known as 'the burgesses' chantry' it
had close links with the town's officialdom.
It was c.1520 that John Clydesdale's sister. Alice
Cottesmore, later Doyley, (A109) had been accused of heresy.
In 1521 John Clydesdale himself was rounded up in the large scale drive launched
by Bishop Longland of Lincoln against those 'later Lollards' whose doctrines
have been summarised in connection with Alice in chapter 3. The authority for
the detailed account of these persecutions is John Foxe
, some forty six years later himself to
become a Canon of Lincoln Cathedral, who drew on its ecclesiastical registers to
provide a roll call of early English dissent in a Reformation best-seller
entitled "The Acts and Monuments of John Foxe" -- popularly known an
Foxe's Book of Martyrs.
Bishop
Longland began his drive against heresy by examining on oath some of those who
had abjured in the time of his predecessor (4). Since these were liable to the
death penalty 'on pain of relapse’, he was able to pressurise sufficient of
them to detect the whole group. One of the informers, Robert Pope
of
West Hendred
. incriminated no less than 87 persons,
among then John Eden [=Hidden] alias Clydesdale. Thomas Hall
who
farmed the neighbouring manor of Leverton
and
Haywood
, and John Ludlow
, one of whose ancestors was said to
have been ‘of Hydden' in 1476 (5). The social status of these three men was
that of minor landed gentry.
In
addition to John Eden alias Ledisdall (=Clydesdale), Hall, and Ludlow, two other
possible Hungerford persons are mentioned viz. ‘one mother Joan; father Joan,
of Hungerford'. Foxe's text has many mispunctuations and misspellings -
Elizabethan printers' errors and no doubt Foxe's own mistranscriptions of
unfamiliar name in the Lincoln register - so a likely original version may have
been 'one mother Joan; and father John, of Hungerford'. The terms ‘mother’
and ‘father' were often terms of respect given to an old person, and their
conjunction here suggests husband and wife. John Eden or Ledishall's mother's
name was certainly Joan and his father was probably the John Clydesdale who
signed a deed of indenture for the manor and farm of Leverton in 1488. The
transmission of Lollard beliefs was notable within families from parent to
child, and a good deal of intermarriage among these families is also likely to
have taken place.
John
Eden (he is also called Eding) was also informed against by Robert Collins
of
Asthall
, by John Edmunds
of
Burford, and by Roger Dods
of
Burford. It was Dods who provided the one piece of substantial evidence quoted
by Foxe against him: 'John Liddisdall of Hungerford for reading of the Bible in
Robert Burges
' house at Burford upon Holyrood Day,
with Collins, Lyvord, Thomas Hall and others. 'Holy Rood Day was the festival of
the exaltation of the Cross (= September 14th). This meeting in Burford
, like those held in other houses, was
attended by people from a wide spread of villages in west Oxfordshire and north
Berkshire. A journey from Hungerford could hardly have been made in a single
day. The reason why Burford was a centre for these conferences is not known. It
is likely that, to disguise the influx of so many strangers into the little town
these occasions would be arranged on suitable 'cover' dates -- and the festival
of the Exaltation of the Cross would be one which always brought into town
villagers from miles around.
His
investigation having proved so successful, Longland obtained the king's
authority to proceed 'in the executing of justice’. Those who had 'relapsed'
(i.e. after a previous abjuration) were sentenced to be burnt at the stake. Of
the others 'who had but newly been taken' i.e. first time offenders, and there
were some fifty of these, the Bishop enjoined 'most strait and rigorous
penance'. They were split up and sent to various monasteries in the area,
including St. Frideswide
's. Details survive of the full penance
ordained for them in a letter by Bishop Longland to the head of one of the
monasteries:
'In
primis, that every one of them shall, upon a market day, such as shall be
limited unto them, in the market time go thrice about the market at Burford, and
than to stand up upon the highest greece (= step) of the cross there, a quarter
of an hour, with a faggot of wood every one of them upon his shoulder, and every
one of them once to bear a faggot of wood upon their shoulders before their
procession upon a Sunday, which shall be limited unto them at Burford, from the
choir-door going out, to the choir-door going in; and all the high mass time to
hold the same faggot upon their shoulders, kneeling upon the greece afore the
high altar there; and every of them to do likewise in their own parish church,
upon such a Sunday as shall be limited unto them; and once to bear a faggot at a
general procession at Uxbridge
, when they shall be assigned thereto;
and once to bear a faggot at the burning of a heretic, when they shall be
admonished thereto.
'Also
every one of then to fast, bread and ale only, Friday during their life; and
every Eve of Corpus Christi every one of them to fast bread and water during
their life, unless sickness unfeigned let (= prevent) the same.
'Also
to be said by them every Sunday, and every Friday, during their life, once our
lady-psalter; and if they forget it one day, to say as much another day for the
same.
'Also
neither they, nor any of them, shall hide their mark upon their cheek, neither
with hat, cap, hood, kerchief, napkin, or none otherwise; nor shall suffer their
beards to grow past fourteen days; nor ever haunt again together with any
suspected person or persons, unless it be in the open market, fair, church, or
common inn or alehouse, where other people may see their conversation.
'And
all these injunctions they and every of them to fulfil with their penance, and
every part of the same, under pain of relapse’ (6).
As
to the ' mark upon their cheeks' which they were forbidden to hide, this was
branding with a hot iron on their right cheek, described by Foxe elsewhere as
follows: 'their necks were tied fast to a post or stay, with towels, and their
hands holden fast that they might not stir; and so the iron, being hot, was put
to their cheeks’ (7).
Among
those sentenced was John Hidden (Eden) alias Clydesdale (Ledishall). The
sentence may have been fierce on paper and in intention, but it depended for its
enforcement upon local authorities -- the parish priest, or the prior of the
monastery to which an offender was sent. In John Clydesdale's case, he was a
feoffee of St. Mary
’s chantry, whose chaplain was
involved in parish affairs. His consent was needed in the case of a lease of any
of the chantry' s lands. He was one of the leading burgesses of the town, to
whom many men turned for help and made overseer of their wills. It in difficult
to see the parish priest treating such an influential penitent with strict
literalness. As to being sent to a monastery he is unlikely to have found a stay
at St. Frideswide's, for example, whose tenant farmer he was, too arduous.
Whatever sentence Bishop Longland may have devised for him. he seems to have
retained his influence and respect locally, and in the 1522 muster of Hungerford
John Cleesdale is one of the six highest rated freeholders of the town (8).
In
fact, however, whatever punishment or restriction may have been placed upon him,
he was fortunate enough to experience a sudden turn in the wheel of fortune. In
1524 the Crown had begun the first step in the dissolution of the monasteries.
It was a tentative or experimental step, which involved only a small number of
monasteries, and it included St. Frideswide's with the manor of Hidden
as
well as the priory of Poughley
which lay just to the north of Hidden. The lands of these
dissolved religious houses were granted to Cardinal Wolsey to enable him to
finance the building of a new College at Oxford -- Cardinal's College
(later to become Christ Church).
[From
The Hiddens of Hungerford By N.F
& N.J. Hidden (2nd edn 2011)
Vol 1, pp 25-27]