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High up in the Staffordshire moorlands and about fourteen miles up the River Churnett from Rocester, Leek was one of Staffordshire’s most important market towns whose prosperity was, in part, founded upon the trade in wool and the manufacture of textiles. In later years, the founder of the Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris, came here to study the town’s ancient and lost techniques of woollen dying. Even today, the town still has a street named ‘Sheepmarket’ though the market itself disappeared long ago. Since the days of Thomas Trentham (d. 1587) the family had invested heavily in pasture land to the south and west of the town and, when his son ffrancis purchased the estate of Westwood Grange in 1604, it may well have sprung from a desire to facilitate getting their part-processed wool to market – for it is notable that the pasture land of the Rocester Abbey estate was chiefly given over to grazing sheep and that, of the four mills that were in the possession of the Trenthams at Rocester, three were corn mills and one was a ‘fulling mill’ which is described in the OED as “a mill for fulling cloth as by means of pesties or stampers, which alternately fall into and rise from troughs where the cloth is placed with hot water and fuller's earth, or other cleansing materials.” In 1622 Lady Prudence gave birth to Catherine who was baptised at Leek but, sadly, was buried at Rocester within the year. And then, following the death of his father ffrancis in 1626, Sir Thomas and Lady Prudence took up residence at Rocester where they had so little time to establish themselves as the lord and lady of the manor. For the next record of Sir Thomas is again found in the Rocester parish register – recording his burial on 18 January 1628 with the note, “Eques auratus et venerabilis ille vir”, which is to say, ‘Knight bachelor, and a worshipful man’. Perhaps
the most interesting document to have survived regarding Sir Thomas
is an inventory of the Rocester manor house taken on 12 April 1628.
The only realistic conclusion that can be drawn from this four-page
document is that, after his death, the house had been emptied of
all its valuable furniture, pictures, tapestries, plate, carpets,
books and family heirlooms. The inventory itself concerns itself
exclusively with the various bed chambers, parlours and the kitchen
- as well as giving a full accounting of the fairly substantial
livestock of the manor’s farm. It is a long list of household
chattels like bedsteads, featherbeds, pillows, cupboards, old carpets,
tables and chairs. That the larger communal rooms in the manor house
had been cleared can be deduced by a comparison with some of the
references in ffrancis Trentham’s will in which he bequeathes
to his son Sir Thomas all his books and “all those hanginges
which I have except sutch as furnishe the great dyning chamber the
mydle old dynyng chamber & the end chamber.” There is no
mention of a library nor of books, and there is no mention at all
of a great dining chamber where we might assume all the family portraits
had been hung. The
reason for abandoning the manor house at Rocester is easy to establish.
As Sir Thomas’ and Lady Prudence’s son and heir ffrancis
was just eight years old on the death of his father, he became a
royal ward and, while the young ffrancis moved to the home of his
new guardian, Ralph Sneyd II (d. 1643) of Keele Hall, his mother
Lady Prudence returned to Leek having been Lady of Rocester for
less than two years. Although widowed at the age of only twenty-nine,
Lady Prudence never remarried and saw out her remaining years living
in the manor house at Westwood Grange. This 750 acre estate provided
Lady Prudence with a very comfortable living as her portion of the
marriage jointure. It is likely that most of the land was worked
by tenants and that the Grange’s principal farm nearby the
manor house was occupied by a tenant who was also employed to manage
the estate on her behalf. The
royal wardship of young ffrancis is recorded in a later document
(dated 9 June 1632) in which his great-uncle Ralph Sneyd transferred
the boy’s wardship to his eventual father-in-law, Sir William
Bowyer: “Whereas our sovaigne Lord Kinge Charles (that now
is) hath comitted and graunted to the said Raphe Sneyde & his
assigns the Custody wardshippe & marriage off ffrauncis Trentham
his magestys ward (sonne & nexte heire of Sir Thomas Trentham
knight deceased)...”. The greater part of this indenture concerns
itself with establishing that Ralph Sneyd had been charged with
managing the estate of young ffrancis (in return for the annual
payment to the Crown of £12), that he had the liberty to enter
into any “graunts & indentures” concerning “the
aforesaid hereditaments & premises ... without any suite to
the law”, and that the profits from this estate could be used
howsoever he wished so long as the he took full responsibility for
the boy’s education and marriage. As will be seen later, this
brief four year possession of Rocester Abbey and Castle Hedingham
by the Sneyds would not be the last. Of
all the women who had married into the Trentham family, Lady Prudence
has continued to fascinate local historians in Leek to this day.
She was certainly one of the more notable Trentham wives though,
like her husband, separating apocryphal legend from fact leaves
the historian with precious little to record. With no indication
that she had inherited Catholic sympathies from her Eyre family,
one is left merely to wonder at the fact that on 8 September 1629
the widowed Lady Prudence was fined the considerable sum of £13
6s 8d under the recusancy laws. Having recorded the fine, the author
of the ‘Staffordshire Catholic History (Vol XVIII)’ then
relates that “she conformed soon afterwards and attended the
parish church.” But by far the most colourful anecdote that can be drawn from the historical record occured when Lady Prudence was thirty-five years old and her son ffrancis a mere fourteen. The record is, “A list of the Trayned horse for the county of Stafford, taken at Stafford the fifth day of June and at Lichfield the second day of October in the yeare of our Lord God 1634” The combined list of these musters is quite comprehensive, noting the number of men and horses for each of the Staffordshire ‘Hundreds’ with the names of the principal landowners taking pride of place. Ralph Sneyd II (d. 1642) is there leading his men from the Pyrehill Hundred, and so is Sir John Stanhope (d. 1638), the son of Elizabeth Countess of Oxford’s sister Katherine. Sir John’s nominal family seat was at Elvaston in Derbyshire, yet the fact that he joined the Staffordshire muster under the Totmonslow Hundred list (which incorporated Rocester) is just one more indication that he may well have taken up the tenancy of Rocester Abbey during young ffrancis’ minority – the Stanhopes also owned considerable tracts of land to the north of the Rocester estate. The
entry that leaps out from this muster list, though, is the sole
name of a horsewoman amongst the ranks of men listed under ‘Curasiers’
of the Totmonslow Hundred: “Lady Trentham and her sonne”.
Although two or three other mothers are listed here along with their
sons, Lady Prudence is the only woman recorded as being a mounted
curasier. Perhaps I’m being fanciful, but I simply cannot rid myself of the image of Lady Prudence upon a charger wearing a gleaming breastplate and carrying a shield emblazoned with the three griffin’s heads of the Trentham family arms like a latter-day Joan of Arc. It is, perhaps, notable that when her father-in-law ffrancis Trentham made his will in 1619, thirteen of his bequests refer to various types of horse (mares, geldings, colts and ‘nagges’). With the exception of Lady Prudence, all the horses he bequests to the females are mares. Yet, the entry, “Item I gyve & bequeath unto my good daughter the Ladie Prudence Trentham my grey stoned Colt.” is, perhaps, suggestive that she was a capable and keen horsewoman. This
entry is also notable for the fact that when ffrancis made this
will, his son and heir Sir Thomas had yet to marry the then Prudence
Eyre. In any event, she may have been a dilatory church-goer but,
as we will shortly see, Lady Prudence and her son ffrancis were
certainly devoted Royalists who took a keen delight in the mustering
of companies of armed horse and foot. Of
apocryphal legends, it is widely believed to this day that Lady
Prudence lies buried in the foundations of what is now Westwood
High School and that her spirit somehow inhabits (though not haunts)
the place even though her burial at Rocester is clearly recorded
in the Rocester parish register. The rumour that circulates is that
her untimely death was the result of foul play.
Copyright 2007 Jeremy Crick.
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Leek Parish Church |
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The
Roebuck Hotel, Leek |
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Page three of the Inventory of the manor house at Rocester Abbey, dated 12 April 1628, following the death of Sir Thomas Trentham. Two of the sections shown here are “In my Ladyes Chamber” and “In my Ladyes iner Chamber”, his lady being Lady Prudence Trentham. This important document proves that the Rocester manor house was cleared of all the family’s valuable possessions by this date. (Lichfield
Record Office, Catalogue B/C/11, indexed under date of
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The indenture which records the transfer of the wardship of (Sir) ffrancis Trentham in 1632 from the boy’s great-uncle, Ralph Sneyd, to Sir William Bowyer of Biddulph Hall due west of the town of Leek.. (Sneyd Papers, S1385, Keele University) |
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