Part 8 (1/2)
What the memorable year of scarcity really was in a locality like this is best understood by means of the poor rate.
The poor rate in Royston was very heavy during the previous twenty years, averaging about six or seven s.h.i.+lling rates in a year. In the old Parish Books are preserved all the rates made, and the months in which they were made, for Royston, Herts., and from these entries it is possible to trace the effect of the scarcity for each year. In 1796 there were ten s.h.i.+lling rates made, in 1797 nine, in 1798 (a more favourable year than the others) eight, after which it went up with bounds. In 1799 the rates rose to eleven, and in 1800 to eleven 1s.
rates and three of 2s. each, or 16s. in the pound. In 1801 the demands became so pressing that to have collected the requisite amount in s.h.i.+lling rates {61} would have necessitated the making of a fresh rate almost every fortnight all through the year! The Overseers therefore made out the rates in 2s. at a time, and for that memorable year of scarcity eleven 2s. rates were necessary for the relief of the poor, or a rate of 22s. in the pound! A s.h.i.+lling rate produced about L42 for Royston, Herts., at that time (now it is about L200), and the total amount of rate required for that single year was L944 15s. 2d., or more than three times the average of even the scarce years of the two previous decades! The Overseers for these memorable years were Thomas Wortham and E. K. Fordham for 1800, and Joseph Beldam and John Phillips for 1801.
In some places in Ess.e.x the rate was as high as 48s. in the pound for the year 1801, or more than twice the amount of the rent of the property rated!
The highway rates, levied upon the land to make up the tolls sufficient to repair the turnpike road from Royston to Caxton, were in arrear for 1801 and the whole of the next year!
To understand the effect of the misery upon the whole of the people, War had brought Napoleon to the front in a manner which caused many in England to take a gloomy view of the future, and to express the opinion that ”the sun of England's glory is set”! While British s.h.i.+ps were upholding British heroism in the Mediterranean, the hungry ma.s.s of the people at home were paying more attention to the sun in the heavens and the promise of harvest. Happily the season promised well, and in Royston the religious bodies held special meetings in July and August for prayer and thanksgiving for the encouraging signs of a bountiful harvest, which was shortly afterwards gathered. Then to add to the sense of relief their came the joyful tidings ”Peace with France,” on printed bills pasted on the sides of stage coaches pa.s.sing through our old town, by which means the glad tidings pa.s.sed through the country like a gleam of sunlight into many a home, and brought about a sudden and extraordinary reaction from despair to hope! In a very short time corn went down to a comparatively low rate, and the poor rate for Royston, Herts., went down to L355 18s. 3d., or little more than one-third of the previous year!
Though, as we shall see, the shadow of Napoleon was shortly to settle again over even the local life of England with a new terror, yet that short-lived burst of joy, if it did not quite close, gave a brighter turn to a bitter crisis in which the people of this country were pressed down by want and war, and may be said to have subsisted upon barley bread and glory!
The memorable re-action from the scarcity and suffering already described, in the peace rejoicing of 1802, had scarcely died away in our streets before, in 1803, the action of Napoleon aroused suspicion, and {62} our old Volunteers (to be referred to presently) found themselves called upon in earnest, for ”the magnanimous First Consul,”
suddenly changed into the ”Corsican Ogre” with a vengeance!
The firmament breaks up. In black eclipse Light after light goes out. One evil star Luridly glaring through the smoke of War, As in the dream of the Apocalypse, Drags others down!
War broke out and Napoleon formed a great camp at Boulogne for invading England. This aroused a remarkable outburst of patriotism, and led to the enrolment of an army of three hundred thousand Volunteers. We, who sometimes discuss, merely as a theory, the possibility of an invasion of England, can form a very inadequate idea of how terribly real was the Napoleonic bogie to our great-grandfathers! They knew that ”Boney”
was a character who would stop at nothing in carrying out his designs, and so it came about that the shadow of that collossal stride of the Corsican adventurer, darkened the homes in every town, village, and hamlet in this land, and you cannot even to this day turn over the pages of old parish records, or stir the placid waters of old men's memories, without finding traces of this old ghost which Wellington wrestled with so terribly on the fields of Waterloo!
There was, in Napoleon's work, an over-mastering will to accomplish, at whatever cost, the purpose he set himself, and our great-grand-fathers, with all their contempt for the French, had the sense to recognise something of what Wellington afterwards so well expressed of the man, Napoleon Buonaparte,--”I used to say of him that his presence on the field made a difference of forty thousand men.”
Of more interest even than the enrolment of the Volunteers were the measurers taken for local defence and for the protection of the civil population and property--the women and children and livestock. This was taken up as a complete organization, county by county, hundred by hundred, town by town, and village by village. In the month of July, 1803, we find the Deputy-Lieutenants of Cambridges.h.i.+re, thirty-four in number, meeting at Cambridge, and adopting an address to the King, expressing determination to support him in the war with France. Sir Edward Nightingale, Bart., of Kneesworth House, presided. It was resolved to adopt the measures indicated for establis.h.i.+ng a system of communications throughout each county, and also for rendering the body of the people instrumental for the general defence in case of an invasion. Also that the several hundreds in the county be formed into divisions with a lieutenant over each, to report to, and act in concert with the County Lieutenancy, that the lieutenant for each division {64} appoint an inspector for each hundred, and that the inspector for each hundred appoint a superintendent for each parish. For the division of the county formed by the union of the hundreds of Armingford (Royston district), Longstowe, Wetherby and Thriplow, Hale Wortham, Esq., was the responsible lieutenant.
[Ill.u.s.tration: NAPOLEON BUONAPARTE.]
A similar meeting was held at Hertford, and men were called to arms between the ages of 15 and 60, and in all towns and villages there was nothing but swearing in and drilling of soldiers, to resist the impending invasion, by which it was said that England was to be divided among the French--”the men all to be killed and the women saved.”
In accordance with the above mentioned county scheme each parish had its Council of War, so to speak, at which men more accustomed to ”speed the plough” found themselves in solemn conclave discussing such strategical proposals as the local circ.u.mstances of each neighbourhood seemed to suggest for arresting the onward march of the invader when he had landed, as it was feared he would. Necessity was the mother of invention, and what the farmer cla.s.s wanted in military knowledge, they made up for in practical sagacity directed to the intensely personal ends of protecting their own homes and families, their herds and stacks from the ruthless hands of the coming hosts! It was naturally expected that Napoleon would land and enter England from the South or East, and that in the latter case the inhabitants of Hertfords.h.i.+re and Cambridges.h.i.+re would, in the event of a flank movement through the Eastern Counties for London, be among the first to bear the brunt of the devastating march! The horror of the expected invasion was intensified a thousandfold by the Englishman's attachment to his home and family, and deliberations of the village councils often showed less regard for the national scheme of defence than the protection of their homes and property in the time of trial coming upon them. They set to work devising means of local defence as real and as earnest as if every village was already threatened with a state of siege!
This is clear from an intelligible means of local defence which was taken in this neighbourhood. The expectation that ”Boney” and his ”Mounseers” were coming from the South or East, naturally suggested the expedient of arranging for the transport of non-combatants, and live stock away farther Northward. The expedient was arranged for by the villages around Royston along the Old North Road; and a plan had been devised that as soon as tidings arrived that Buonaparte had landed, each village was to a.s.semble their live stock at a common centre in the village, and then unite with those from other villages. Thus the route for the removal of stock was settled, until it was expected that quotas from each village would make one united common herd wending {65} its way Northward to a safer distance from the ravaging hordes! One seems to see that terrified exodus----
Now crowding in the narrow road, In thick and struggling ma.s.ses.
Anon, with toss of horn and tail, And paw of hoof and bellow, They leap some farmer's broken pale, O'er meadow-close or fallow!
From chronicles in the British Museum I am able to supplement the foregoing arrangement in force in Cambridges.h.i.+re by more definite particulars of the organized precautions to be taken in counties lying nearest the coast as soon as the presence of the Invader became known.
As a preliminary, returns had to be made as to the driving of live-stock farther inland away from the coast ”in order that indemnification might be estimated for such as could not be removed.”
The removal of stock and unarmed inhabitants was to be effected after the following fas.h.i.+on:--
First in order were to go the horses and wagons conveying those persons who were unable to remove themselves; then (2nd) cattle; and (3rd) sheep, and all other live-stock; intelligent and active persons to be set apart to superintend these measures.
With regard to the unarmed inhabitants, generally, the arrangement was that they were to ”form themselves into companies of not less than 25 or more than 50, the men to come provided, if possible, with pickaxes, spades, and shovels, billhooks and felling axes, each 25 men to have a leader, and for every 50 men a captain in addition.” For the purposes of transport, the n.o.bility, gentry, and farmers, were requested to sign statements showing how many wagons, horses, and carts, they could place at the disposal of the nation in an emergency. Similar returns were required from millers and bakers as to how much flour and bread they could supply.
Turning once more from doc.u.mentary evidence, to the recollections handed down from parents to children, I am reminded that the inhabitants of Ba.s.singbourn and other villages were farmers first and soldiers afterwards; for, having settled the momentous issue of providing for the safety of their families and herds, these village yeomen joined with others in seeking means for thwarting the too ready advance of ”Boney's” legions. It is said that as a last resort it was intended to cut down the trees standing by the sides of the North Road, felling them across the road, so as to impede the march of Napoleon's artillery! For how long these efforts could have withstood the march of the legions who crossed Alpine heights, or for how long that great caravan of non-combatants and live-stock could have {66} out-distanced the invaders, could not have been very re-a.s.suring questions, nor have I been able to find out what was to be the destination of the live-stock.
It is true that if the worst fears were realized our great-grandfathers in this district would have had some little warning, for did not the old coach road to the North pa.s.s through our town and district? and did not the old semaph.o.r.e stand there on the summit above Royston Heath, waiting to lift its clumsy wooden arms to spell out the signal of the coming woe by day? By night was the pile for the beacon fire, towards which, before going to bed, the inhabitants of every village and hamlet in the valley turned their eyes, expecting to see the beacon-light flash forth the dread intelligence to answering hills in the distance!
Only the simple act of striking a flint and steel by night, or lifting of the arm of the newly invented semaph.o.r.e telegraph by day, seemed to separate the issues of peaceful rural life and the ruthless invasion of War! The dread was a real and oppressive one, such as we cannot possibly realize to-day!