Читать книгу Records, Historical and Antiquarian, of Parishes Round Horncastle - J. Conway Walter - Страница 15

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Goulceby lies in a northerly direction, about 7 miles from Horncastle, some two miles further on than Scamblesby, and barely a mile west of Asterby, to which parish it is now ecclesiastically annexed; the joint value of the two benefices, the former a vicarage and the latter a rectory, being about £380 a year, now held by the Rev. J. Graham, J.P., who resides at Asterby. Goulceby was probably, in Saxon times, the more important of the two places, since it was one of the 222 parishes in the county (according to Sir Henry Ellis) which possessed a church before the Norman Conquest, and one of the 131 which had a resident priest.

Letters arrive via Lincoln at 10 am., and are despatched at 3.55 p.m. The nearest money order office is at Scamblesby, the nearest telegraph office at Baumber; but, by arrangement, telegrams can be sent from the Donington-on-Bain station, on the Lincoln and Louth railway, which is distant about 2 miles.

The village lies in a valley which is watered by a branch of the river Bain. The patronage of the benefice has been in various hands. In pre-reformation times it belonged to the Preceptory of the Knights Templars at Willoughton; in 1605 it was held by Christopher Pickering (“Liber Regis”), later by a Mr. Hatley (Ecton’s “Thesaurus”); then by the Listers of Burwell Park, who presented as late as 1837; from whom the patronage, with the manor, was acquired by the Bagnell family; whose representative now presents to the united benefice, alternately with the Traffords, as Lords of the Manor of Asterby. At what period the original church perished does not appear to be recorded; but, according to Weir (“History of Lincolnshire,” ed. 1828) there was in 1821 only a small modern church, dedicated to all Saints. This fell into decay, and in 1855 was succeeded by a small brick and stone structure; which, in turn, has more recently been taken down; and the church at Asterby now serves for the two parishes.

Historic references to this parish are “few and far between,” yet by bringing them together, with a moderate degree of assumption from given premises, we can make out a fairly connected catena of its ownership. The name itself can hardly be said to give a certain sound. It has been variously spelt, as Golsby, Goldesby, Gouthesby, Golksby, Colceby, and, in Domesday Book, Colchesbi. We can only conjecture that it may have been the “Buy,” i.e., Byre, or farmstead of a Saxon Thane, named Col, Kol, or Golk, the two former being common as contractions of Colswen, or Colegrim, and not uncommon in the neighbourhood. [58]

According to Domesday Book, this, like many other parishes in the neighbourhood, was among the possessions of the Norman noble, Ivo Taillebois, acquired through his marriage with the Lady Lucia, the wealthy Saxon heiress of the Thorolds, and connected with the Royal line of King Harold. He (or she), had here 3 carucates of land (or 360 acres), rateable to gelt; with 16 socmen and 2 villeins, occupying 6 carucates (or 720 acres); a mill worth 4s. yearly; a church and priest, and 120 acres of meadow. As I mention in notices of other parishes (Bolingbroke, Scamblesby &c.), the tenure of these demesnes was not of long duration, and in a few years they were dispersed among the descendants of the Saxon heiress. Goulceby would seem to have become an appurtenance, with Belchford, Donington and several others, of the superior manor of Burwell. It would thus be granted, originally, by Henry I. to the Norman family of De la Haye, one of whom, in the 13th century, founded the Benedictine Alien Priory of Burwell, as a dependency of the Abbey of S. Mary Silvæ Majoris, near Bourdeaux, and endowed it with some of his own demesnes. This family held these possessions for 150 years. The last of them, John De la Haye, in the reign of Edward I., having enfeoffed Philip de Kyme of the same, continued for the remainder of his life to hold the lands, under the said Philip, by the peculiar (nominal) “service of one rose.” (Chancery Inquis., post mortem, 21, Edward I., No. 33). For some years the Kymes held the property, being called to Parliament as Barons, and doing other service for their sovereigns; until in 12 Edward III. (Dugdale’s “Baronage,” i., 621) William of that name died without issue; and his widow married as her second husband, Nicholas de Cantelupe (whose ancestors had been Earls of Abergavenny), who thus succeeded to these demesnes. He dying also without issue, on the subsequent death of his widow, the property reverted to Gilbert de Umfraville, Earl of Angus, who had been enfeoffed of it by his uncle, the above William. Gilbert, again, died without issue, and his widow married Henry Percy, created at the coronation of Richard II., the 1st Earl of Northumberland, who thus in turn acquired the property. He, however, rebelled against Henry IV. (Camden’s “Britannia,” p. 547); and on his attainder that sovereign granted the manors to his son John, afterward. Duke of Bedford (Patent Rolls, 6, H. iv., p. 2., m. 16s) He dying without issue, the property reverted to the crown, and Henry VI. granted it to Ralph, Lord Treasurer Cromwell. (Patent Roll 18, H. vi., pt. 2, m. 19).

Before this period, however, the Cromwells were connected with Goulceby, since it is shewn, by an Inquisition in the reign of Henry V. (post mortem, No. 72, A.D. 1419), that Matilda, the wife of Sir Ralph Cromwell, Knight, held lands in Roughton, Wodehall, Langton, Golseby, Belcheford, Donington, etc., [59] and that Sir Ralph Cromwell her son was the next heir. When the Lord Treasurer founded at Tattershall, the College of the Holy Trinity, on the 17th Henry VI. (1439), he endowed it with portions of many of these manors, as had also been done in the case of Burwell Priory, centuries before; Goulceby doubtless being one of them. On the dissolution of Religious Houses by Henry VIII. a great number of the lands connected with them in this neighbourhood were bestowed by that sovereign on Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, among these being Goulceby, Belchford, ffulletsbye, etc. [60a] He died 24 August, 1545, leaving two sons, Henry and Charles, by his wife Catherine, daughter and heiress of William Lord Willoughby de Eresby. They, while at St. John’s College, Cambridge, died of the epidemic, called “the sweating sickness,” 16 July, 1551 (Cooper’s “Athenæ Cantabridgenses,” i., 105); whereupon the descendants of the daughters of their great grandfather, Sir William Brandon, were declared the rightful heirs. One of these, Eleanor, had married John Glemham, of Glemham Parva, Suffolk, and their great grandson succeeded Thomas Glemham, Burwell, and a considerable portion of these demesnes. [60b] He died about the 14 year of Queen Elizabeth, and was succeeded by his son Henry, afterwards Sir Henry Glemham, Knight, who married Lady Anne Sackville, daughter of the Earl of Dorset. [60c] He settled upon his wife, Burwell, with appurtenances; and documents connected with the Lister family (subsequently owners of Burwell, etc.), now in the possession of Porter Wilson, Esq., shew that, in 1602, the farm rents included those from “Goulsby, Belchforde, Donington super bayne,” etc. We now proceed a step further to another change of ownership:—In 1641, Sir Thomas Glemham, of Burwell, was a strong supporter of Charles I., being Colonel of the King’s 4th Regiment, and successively, Governor of York, Carlisle, and Oxford. [60d] He, probably in order to raise funds for his royal master, sold for £15,000, the Burwell estate and its many appurtenances, to Sir Matthew Lister, Knight, of St. Martin in the Fields, co. Middlesex, and Martin Lister, of Thorpe Arnold, co. Leicester, his brother. It is somewhat curious that in the list of manors, which then changed hands, although Belchford, Oxcombe, ffaireforth (i.e. Farforth), and Walmesgate, all in the near neighbourhood of Goulceby, are named, no mention is made of Goulceby itself, yet down to as recently as 1863 the patronage of the benefice was vested in them (Morris’s “Gazetteer,” 1863). It appears, however, from a deed of settlement, dated 10 Jan. 1656–7 (or about 15 years after the sale), that Sir Martin Lister, of Thorpe Arnold, was possessed of Belchford, Colceby, &c.; and after his death, his children were to divide his property, and the trustees were “empowered to sell, if necessary, Belchford, Colceby,” &c. It is possible that by this “Colceby,” Calceby may be intended, which was annexed to Driby and Ormsby; but it certainly looks as if Goulceby formed a part of the share of the property originally bought by Sir Matthew Lister’s brother Martin. The Listers continued to be owners of Burwell, doubtless at different periods parting with various of the subsidiary “appurtenances” down to a few years ago; intermarrying with the Dymokes, Alingtons, Gregorys of Harlaxton, Lord Deloraine, members of the families of Sir Robt. Barkham, Knollys, Sir Edward Boughton, and forming other good connections. Only in 1883, was the property finally parted with by the late Matthew Henry Lister, eldest son of Matthew Bancroft Lister, High Sheriff in 1800, to the present owner, William Hornsby, Esq., High Sheriff in 1898. We may add that Matthew Bancroft Lister claimed descent from Philip of Kyme; whose family, we have seen, were owners of Goulceby, in the reign of Edward I., and in 1840 he petitioned the Queen for a revival in his person of the Barony of Kyme; but that dignity still remains in abeyance. Of the Matthew Lister who married Eleanor, daughter of the Hon. Sir Charles Dymoke, Knight, champion of James II. (Circa 1683), it is recorded that he had a son “Martin, baptized 1 October, buried in woollen 30 Nov., 1693.” [61] For these particulars as to the ownership of Goulceby in the past, I am largely indebted to a paper in the “Architectural Society’s Journal” for 1897, by Mr. R. W. Goulding, entitled “Notes on the Lords of the Manor of Burwell.”