Whatmore Family History

 This a fictional story by Geoffrey Whatmore based on real people. It is set in Shropshire during the Civil War.

Lucy Watmore was worried  and confused,  which  made her irritable. She flounced up the lane with her new flame-red skirt spattered by mud.  A sudden  shower had scattered damson petals like snow flakes on the pathway. 

Ned Smalman, looking down at her from his mare, snooty, self-satisfied, was the last person she wanted to meet,  just because his family had lived in Neenton a few generations longer and  rented more acres.  Maybe he was rather good looking in his  new Royalist  uniform  but he was  a sight too sure of himself.  Royalists all, the Smalmans,  while her father and the rest of her seven brothers and sisters believed it was time ordinary folk had had some say in the government of their land.

“Why, Mistress Lucy, you brighten any day in that lustrous red gown. Too lovely for a Puritan lass”, he offered, cheeky as ever.  Being looked down  upon by Ned Smalman  was insufferable.

“I’ve nothing to say to you Master Ned but this.  The rebels have a good argument, they seek the welfare  of people like us,  like me and my father.  And there are plenty of others who think so, like the Knightleys, rather than those newly-rich snobs the Lacons and Blounts.

So she ignored him and continued on her way.  It was not just Ned.  The Smalmans were high church, probably secret Papists, some of them.  And who knows what dark priests flitted between the great houses?  Lucy’s father William would have none of it.  Her family were plain folk, and proud of it, he insisted, praying to a stern English God, and he had earlier admonished his daughter,

“This may be a May Festival but I am ashamed that a daughter of mine should be so immodest, so provocative, to flaunt such colours in the company of men.”

Father was becoming ever more restrictive of her manners.  Dancing was irreverent, mocking God, even walking on the Clee on a Sunday troubled him.   And in two years of war between neighbours, honest folk could not even agree where their neighbours were leading them. It was best to keep to yourself and say very little.

  Click to enlarge

An old house at Neenton which would have been known to Lucy Whatmore and her family. It may even have been their home. Copyright: Rhys Whatmore

The Blounts had raised a regiment for the King, but grand folk like the Devereux, who owned lands at Curdall, held back.  And now Ned Smalman was to go off to  fight  for the King with the Blounts.

As for Lucy, she was not at all sure  whose side she supported.  Most of  her neighbours were Royalists, or pretended to be.  Lucy thought  there was more the King could have done to help his subjects, and perhaps their views, through their representatives in parliament, should be listened to.

But for now,  forcing away all these thoughts,  there was a greater dilemma,  something  she knew and her father did not. Tom, her elder and much adored brother,  had  slipped away in the night to join  a group of rebels raised for Parliament  against the King.  She was fearful for him.

It was the day of the May market at Cleobury and Lucy continued down the track hoping for  a lift.  The trees made a tunnel of green as she walked on, past the bluebell wood at Prescot where she was hailed by Bess Hamon and her children,  a large lady fortunate in the  possession of a pony cart.

“Going to the market, Lucy?  Jump up.  Your father won`t like that shouty  skirt girl.”

Bess was a garrulous matron, a source of the ever-growing gossip fountain which nourished the scattered families.

“Did you hear?  Will Withypoll is back at Curdall from Aldburgh  and causing trouble, as ever.”

“What, he killed a man didn’t he? In a fight, was it? Is he out of prison?”

“He never went to prison.  Pleaded self-defence.  Of course, he had friends among important  people and was pardoned.  Different rules apply for the gentry, Lucy”

Sir William had been a troublesome presence about the town and his house  bordering Curdall for years, though fortunately spending  most of his time on the other side of the country.  A strange violent man, he was  a difficult neighbour for Tom Watmore,  across the fields.

Bess continued, “Everything is changing with the war, we are a town divided.”

And so it was.  Two years ago Uncle Humphrey over at Bewdley had given a musket to aid the royalist cause, while her father believed there was merit in the views of gentry like Leicester Devereux who supported Parliament and many of the traders up at North Bridge agreed with him.

Bess drove on, whipping  two unwilling ponies down the muddy track to the Rea Ford, still talking, and repeating the  tale  of the  Roundhead  attack across the bridge at Bewdley when they had been thrown back by the Royalist garrison there.  Whose side was she on, Lucy wondered?

At  the Chetton junction they encountered young Georgie Crow, supposed to be set  to be  road mending  but he was just lolling  under the hedge bank  “ Don’t be sorry for him” laughed Bess, “ He’s doing a turn for Master Parkes and being well paid for it“..   The road dipped sharply onto Cleobury bridge and up the High Street.

 There the May Market  was not what it was. Still crowded, but subdued,  friends greeting friends uneasily.  Enmities  between neighbours created by the civil strife made them nervous, careful in their words and wary of speaking their thoughts.   Dogs and a few sheep grubbed about the scene.  Gaffer Wyer had brought a litter of piglets which kept escaping from their wicker baskets.

 Lucy jumped down from the cart and moved towards the scattered groups.  Jamie Crump,  the pedlar,  was in his usual place by the church wall, offering  a tray of coloured ribbons among starched white collars.  Enjoying a better trade, was John Hakluyt, not so much from his tracts on holy living as a book of  faraway voyages, newly arrived from London.  Abraham Pigott, the maker of sundials from the forest at Wyre joined the blacksmiths and forgemen from Reaside.  Coming out of the churchyard  was John Barker, vicar these last twenty years who had now been evicted, but still loitered in the precincts as there was as yet no replacement. 

One event was on everyone’s lips. For these last three weeks a tiny group of Parliament men had held out a against a force of Royalists and were refusing to surrender at Hopton Castle. What would be the outcome no one knew and few  declared  which side they supported.

Lucy shivered, but spoke to no one.  Across the market, aside from the general company, she spied her father, in  conversation with Richard Baxter, a tall figure in black, leaning on  his staff, no doubt visiting from Kidderminster.

“Father, I would speak with you.”

“Not now girl, we are discussing Godly matters and you should not interrupt.”  

“Father, this is important, it is about Tom ,  only last night he has left us,  as I feared he would..”

“Shush, daughter, not here” and they moved away.

So she told him,  the words spilling out  in her anxiety,  how Tom was gone, in the night.   She knew her brother better than anyone. He was intent on joining  the Parliament men  besieged at Hopton.  His father’s musket was missing from the cupboard at the fireside and his brother said he had not shared a bed  with him that night.   They had talked often she and Tom of  the rights of ordinary men to govern themselves  and she knew how hot headed he  was.

In great confusion of mind,  her father looked across at his neighbours, folk he had known all his life, traded with, worshipped with, but now found himself at odds over this great matter that divided  them. Was there none he could trust? 

He  hurried away.  There was much to be done, but Lucy stayed on in the market, listening with only part of her mind to the excited chatter of her neighbours  about the other favourite story, the exploits of Major Smalman, Ned’s cousin from  Wilderhope who had routed a posse of Parliament men who lay in wait for him.  To the general approval of the gossips, he escaped over the hillside at Wenlock and hadn’t been seen since.  Lucy wasn’t so sure.  The Parliament men had as much right to their lives as the lordly Smalmans and was all this bloodletting worth while?

The market was ending  and the low sun cast grotesque shadows when there came from  up the Hopton  road the clatter of  hooves, and a triumphant company of riders entered the town with much hallooing.  At their head was  Will Withypoll, red-faced, staring eyes, mouth dripping with saliva, almost out of control with excitement.  He galloped  up to the alehouse and shouted ,

“We killed the bastards, slaughtered them, everyone, those traitors up at Hopton Castle. None left. Chucked their bodies in the pond.”

 Source: ‘The Garrisons of Shropshire during the Civil War’ published by Leake and Evans, Shrewsbury 1867

Lucy clutched at her heart, and stood for a moment in shock. Tom was heading  there only two days ago. And she was standing next to the sweating horse and the wild and exuberant man who might have killed. him.  Overwhelmed  with tears and anger she flung herself at horse and rider, grasping the  stirrup of the man above her. She beat with her fists at his legs.  “No, no, they were our people. You have no right.  It was you and your kind.  This war, you have killed him.”

The townsfolk stood in shock, mute at first, then came a murmur, an aggressive  movement towards  the horsemen. This was too much.  They might disagree, but they wanted no killing     Withypoll  hesitated., and briefly he stared at the crowd, almost in puzzlement. This was not the reception he expected.. He turned his horse, called  to the troop  and rode off the way he came.

 Lucy `s hands fell to her sides and her shoulders drooped. Her fury and distress had achieved nothing.  Miserably, she moved away to find her father.  She knew at that moment  whose side she was on in this war - the side of the people, her friends, her family, peaceable folk who wanted no part  of war.     And a curse on the kings and priests who started it.

Lucy  was left to mourn a brother who never came home

Most of the characters in the above story can be found in the pages of ‘Whatmore Panorama’ by Geoffrey Whatmore, which can be purchased at this link:

http://www.genfair.co.uk/product_list.php?sid=115&page=1

 The massacre which took place at Hopton Castle is one of the most appalling and shameful episodes of the Civil War. The story is told in the two contemporary reports below. These are taken from ‘Garrisons of Shropshire during the Civil War 1642-48′ published by Leake and Evans, Shrewsbury 1867.