Of Herons Hawks and Kings

Hamlet:
Act 2 Scene 2

I am but mad North north-west. When the wind is Southerly I know a Hawk from a Handsaw.





























Took this photo of Heron standing on one leg and apparently sunbathing three years ago.

    Peregrine

So Hamlet is admitting that sometimes he may appear to be not entirely in control of his reason but at other times he is perfectly sane and well knows his enemies; that is clear enough but what is this comparison between a bird of prey and a carpenter's tool?

Falcons on Storks by Medieval Bavarian Engraver (rather stylized)

Well I do not remember this being explained to me at school but of course "handsaw" has nothing to do with woodwork. This is in fact an eccentric spelling of "hernshaw", an older Saxon name for the heron, predating the more usual name which is of Norman French origin.

When I was in my twenties I remember visiting some elderly relatives in Norfolk; Reg, at that time in his eighties, called the heron the "harnsa" as it flew by.(I do not know whether this dialect word still survives.)

Shakespeare was in fact using a metaphor which would have made immediate sense in his own lifetime. Falconry was a favourite field sport and a cast (or pair) of Peregrines would be loosed upon a flying heron ushering in a thrilling aerial spectacle.

This would be no one-sided contest: the heron might appear slow and lumbering at first sight but it is a light and surprisingly agile bird. Falcons were at risk of serious injury in these encounters from the heron's dagger-like bill.

The object of this duel was to bring the quarry to ground at which time the Falconer on horseback would arrive before too much damage was inflicted or sustained. The heron might be kept for the table or alternatively ringed and released.

The Falconer Royal enjoyed a position of considerable favour at the King's Court. He was allowed to bring his own wine cup to Royal Feasts and in the field the King himself would hold the horse's reins while the Hawks were being worked.

Medieval Recipe for Roasted Heron

"Take a heron; lete him blode as a crane, And serue him in al poyntes as a crane, in scalding, drawing, and kuttyng the bone of the nekke awey, And lete the skyn be on, & c.; roste him and sause him as be Crane; breke awey the bone fro the kne to the fote, And lete the skyn be on . . . his sauce is to be mynced with pouder of gynger, vynegre, & Mustard". 

In the Middle Ages as much as one third of the year was taken up with religious observances and at these times the eating of meat was forbidden. The Church, however, as well as encouraging the eating of fish gave dispensation allowing inter alia Cranes, Herons and Swans to be consumed. In Canon Law these fowl were not considered to be meat. Unsurprisingly, in the Middle Ages, a great deal more fish and fowl was eaten than today.

To the contemporary palate Heron might seem an odd choice but to the aristocracy at the time it was regarded a delicacy.

In August 2012 the skeleton of Richard III was unearthed under what today is a city centre car park in Leicester. As Shakespeare reminds us Richard died in 1485 at the Battle of Bosworth. Isotopic analysis of his bones has revealed in astonishing detail such information as where he spent his early years and the changing pattern of his diet as his aristocratic status rose.

It appears that from the time he ascended to the throne he drank a bottle of wine and between two and three litres of alcohol every day; his favourite food was (yes you have guessed it) Heron!

              The skeleton of Richard III showing clearly Scoliosis (curvature of the spine)

Many of Today's Heronries Were Listed in the Domesday Book

Despite protection, destruction of heronries does sometimes occur. In former years at times of conflict the finest oaks (often supporting heronries) would be felled to build warships; at other times nests would be shot out to safeguard fishing interests. Apart from these hazards rooks taking eggs would be the other major problem nesting herons face.

Nevertheless, even when seriously disturbed, herons show great fidelity to traditional nesting sites as records often stretching back over many centuries testify.

A Sport of Kings

Falconry has existed as an aristocratic pursuit since at least 2000 BC in the Middle East and Roman records also serve to demonstrate the popularity of this regal sport.

The Bayeux Tapestry depicts King Harold falconing with his hounds.

The Kings of Norway made gifts of Gyr Falcons to English sovereigns on a number of occasions. Edward I was gifted eight grey and two white Gyr by the King of Norway.

   Edward I ("Longshanks") born in June 1239 reigned from 1272-1307

Edward through a chain of impregnable castles garrisoned and subdued Wales and even managed, temporarily at least, to quell the rebellious Scots.

In earlier years John (aka John Lackland) had been given two Gyrs by the Norwegian King; John's great passion was to fly this pair of Hawks against Herons in the Test Valley

                                       King John (1199-1216)

After John had lost Normandy and waged expensive and unsuccessful war in Spain, all of this funded by the nobility, his vassals decided it was time to act. 

On 15 June 1215 King John, confronted with a rebellion by his barons, was forced to sign the Magna Carta at Runnymede. This document imposed strict limitations on the right of the King to levy taxes and curtailed his right to make arbitrary arrests. No longer could the King delay, pervert or sell justice. This was a direct assault upon the Divine Right of Kings and although Pope Innocent III intervened for John on the grounds that his acquiescence had been obtained under duress, all English monarchs since have affirmed this charter.

                            Gyr Falcons

    Magna Carta

This document remains the massively important foundation of the principle of habeas corpus and the Rule of Law: both essential elements of modern western democracy.

Wrecks of the Sefton Coast

These treacherous shores have seen a great many shipwrecks

Some estimates claim that over 400 vessels have come to grief, over recent centuries, on this 20 or so miles of coast and lay buried beneath the sands. When conditions are right and there is a big ebb-tide some wrecks reveal themselves fleetingly. It would be an impossible task to tell the harrowing stories of every shipwreck, or of the heroism of those who risked all in going to their aid; indeed sometimes there were no survivors left to tell the tale.

What I wish to do here is relate the story of just a few and let the images of this beautiful but wild stretch of coastline convey something of the desolation and horror which would have been the last memory of so many stricken sailors.

The Wreck of the Pegu

Remains of SS  Pegu about a mile off Formby Point

The Pegu, an 8000 ton passenger and cargo vessel of the Henderson Line, foundered on 24 November 1939 and now lies at the low spring tide line. This means that for most of the year she is under water.

As a wartime measure the navigation lights on the buoys had been switched off. She lost her course and ran aground initially on the river revetment. The New Brighton lifeboat rescued all 103 passengers and crew before she later broke her back: it is the forward section of the ship which now lies at Mad Wharf.
Until 1987 she still bore her mast but this was lost when a tugboat herself in difficulties in a force 10 gale overran her.

Four more images of the Pegu










-Before 1987

Zealandia

The Zealandia buoy (and its occasional tenant) marks the hazard where the ship of this name ran aground on 2 April 1917.
The Zealandia, a 2730 ton iron clad steamer, was sailing from New York to Liverpool with a general cargo when she ran aground on Horsebank about 3 miles west of Southport pier. What remains of the ship, engine block and boilers, can still occasionally be seen; two of the crew of 47 were lost.

The Zealandia was one of the last wrecks to be attended by the Southport lifeboat before de-commisioning in 1925.

Loss of Pilot Boat and 22 Lives

This was the headline when the Liverpool Daily Post of 27 November 1939 ran the first news of this tragedy and some of the account which follows is an abstract of this report.
It later  emerged that not 22 but 23 lives had been lost.




On 26 November 1939 the pilot boat Charles Livingston ran aground on the sands at Ainsdale at about 3.30 in the morning. Twenty three men died including seven pilots; ten were either rescued by the Blackpool lifeboat or managed, with the assistance of a shore team, to save themselves.

The circumstances of this disaster were particularly disturbing: there was a heavy sea running in a WSW gale and the crew sent out a Mayday stating that they were ashore somewhere between Great Orme's Head and the Bar Lightship.
After an exhaustive search involving the Rhyl, Hoylake and Blackpool No. 2 lifeboats nothing could be found on this stretch of the North Wales coast. It transpired that in the raging sea and with persistent squalls of rain the crew had lost sight of the Lightvessel which would have been their main navigational aid; for more than three hours they had steamed cautiously ahead trying to ascertain their position.

With first light and with waves crashing over them the surviving crew realised that they were actually aground on Ainsdale Sands. Earlier in the piece, the ship's oar boat had been launched with the apprentices on board but this almost immediately got into difficulties. The ship's two motor boats were then sent to lend assistance but all three were soon lost sight of; they were later found upturned on the beach with no survivors.

The remaining crew had stayed aboard clinging to the rigging. With waves running 20 feet high on an incoming tide it was not until 2 pm that six survivors were taken aboard the Blackpool lifeboat which had perilously navigated to the lee of the stricken vessel. Of the rest a small number had managed to get ashore but the others, including the captain, had been washed exhausted out of the rigging to their deaths.
The ship was just 500 yds from the shore.

Both the Lytham and Blackpool lifeboats had attended and crew members from each boat were awarded gallantry medals. At one point in the mountainous seas two crew members of the Blackpool boat Sarah Ann Austin were washed overboard but their fellow crew managed to save them.

Star of Hope

Martyn Griffiths, who has spent much time researching this subject and to whom I am indebted, describes the Star of Hope as archetypal of the many sailing vessels which have foundered on Sefton's shores.

She was German owned but of Scottish construction: a three masted barque 120 feet long by 25 feet wide, built in Peterhead in 1865.

Happily, in this case, the crew of nine realising their ship could not cope with the westerly gales and surging sea had all managed safely to get aboard the Crosby Lightship before abandoning the ship to her fate. Like the ill-fated pilot boat Charles Livingston she was driven aground on the Ainsdale shore. Here she still lies.

That same night the New Brighton lifeboat  was launched in answer to several distress calls. When she was flipped over by a huge wave four crew were pitched into the sea. Three were rescued by their comrades but the fourth drowned leaving a wife and six children to mourn his loss.

The Russian vessel the Kuvus was blown ashore not far away in the same storm.

Images Star of Hope

The Star of Hope had been voyaging from Wilmington, North Carolina, with a cargo of cotton destined via Liverpool to the mill towns of Lancashire.

Southport and St Anne's Lifeboats Disaster

It is impossible to overestimate the courage of lifeboatmen who put out in the very worst of conditions to go to the aid of those in distress at sea or at the shore's edge. All Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) crew are unpaid volunteers yet when the occasion demands they willingly put their lives on the line. Most volunteers these days have regular jobs which are quite unconnected with the sea.

The most devastating lifeboats disaster in British waters took place on 9 December 1886 after the Mexico, a German barque, ran aground on Horsebank near Birkdale. The crew of twelve were all rescued by the Lytham lifeboat, the Charles Biggs, on this her maiden rescue mission. The lifeboats from Southport and St Anne's, however, each of which answered the call also, capsized. 

Accounts of the two survivors of the Eliza Fernley from Southport report that she had got close enough to the Mexico to throw a line before the crashing sea first turned her broadside before turning her over completely trapping most of the crew.

Quite how the Laura Janet of St Anne's became submerged is not known since none of the crew survived. At noon the following day the wrecked boat without anchor, mast or sails was discovered on the Birkdale shore. In all 27 lifeboatmen were lost: 14 from Southport and 13 from St Anne's.

The two survivors from the Southport boat, Henry Robinson and John Jackson, managed to swim ashore before walking to their homes and raising the alarm.

News of the tragedy touched the nation and within two weeks a fund of £30,000 pounds was raised for the relief of the sixteen widows and fifteen orphans. Queen Victoria and Kaiser Wilhelm I both made personal contributions.

     Illustration of the capsized Eliza Fernley







     The Mexico



The Mexico was salvaged and repaired and even achieved a return voyage to the Falkland Islands before in 1890 she was finally lost off the coast of Scotland.

Attributions:

The more recent photographs I have found from web research. To any who recognize these images as their own I extend my thanks. It is unclear to me who the authors are.


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Wicca Man of Blundellsands

Perhaps the oddest son of Blundellsands, an affluent area of Sefton near Liverpool, was Gerald Brosseau Gardner.

He was born on Friday 13 June 1884 into a wealthy merchant family of teak and mahogany importers. Indeed, Joseph Gardner & Sons were reputed to be the world's first and largest importers of tropical hardwoods.





His early years were spent at "The Glen" which still stands on The Serpentine commanding an unimpeded view across Liverpool Bay. His forbears included Mayors of Liverpool, an admiral and a peer. His grandfather was something of a local eccentric, given to disporting himself naked in public, but even so it would have been difficult to foresee, from these uber respectable beginnings, the strange future that would lie ahead for young Gerald.

Gerald Gardner was in later life to become one of Britain's most notorious occult figures.

He was not educated in the formal sense but was taught literacy by a governess and went on to become a voracious reader. He developed an interest in antiquarianism, archaeology and anthropology. A delicate child who suffered from asthma (the occultist's curse), he was sent in the care of his nurse to the East, where it was thought, the warm climate would cure his ailments. For many years it was here that he remained.
At the age of 16 he managed a tea plantation in Ceylon where he remained for nineteen years before moving to Borneo and later to Malaya where he became a Government Inspector of rubber plantations for thirteen years and later a Customs Officer.
During these years he became increasingly interested in native customs and tribal ritual; he absorbed himself in ethnic superstition, necromancy and magic. He had already developed a fascination with the pagan history of the Old World and to this he melded the mysticism of the East. He courted Buddhism, Islam and was twice a Freemason before becoming a confirmed Occultist who went on to establish his own religion when, upon retirement, he returned to England.





Once back in England he quickly established himself in occult circles and gained a reputation as a quirky but original author who wrote about the odd world he had come to inhabit. Not until 1951 was the Witchcraft Act 1735 repealed in England and consequently most of Gardner's early prognostications and revelations on the occult were cloaked in the guise of fiction. High Magic's Aid and Book of Shadows were two such.
Gardner was nothing if not an accomplished self-publicist: he gave frequent interviews to the press, radio and on at least one occasion to TV. Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft were his seminal works of non-fiction with which, after 1951, he enthusiastically promoted his views. In the 50's and 60's his Wicca religion gained a dedicated  following not only in Britain but in the USA and Australia also.

In 1939 Gardner had been initiated, by Edith Woodford-Grimes, into the New Forest Coven, which drew its energy from pre-Christian paganism. They would meet at "Old Dorothy's House". Old Dorothy is believed to have been Dorothy Clutterbuck, an otherwise respectable Church of England communicant. Gardner rose to a position of eminence in the coven and later adapted the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship to his own style, suffusing it with freemasonry, ceremonial magic and the writings of his contemporary Aleister Crowley, the self-styled Great Beast 666 himself.
Gardner's revisions were largely accepted because other members of the coven cravenly claimed to know him from a previous life; Gardner had long been a believer in reincarnation and claimed for himself an earlier existence in Cyprus in 1450.

The Great Cone of Power

In 1940, during WW2, England endured some of her darkest days. Invasion by Nazi Germany was, it seemed, only a matter of time. Gardner and the coven decided it was time to act.

On Lammas Eve, 31 August 1940, "skyclad", that is to say naked, the coven performed a ceremony in the New Forest: the Fuhrer who was poised to launch Operation Sea Lion had to be stopped. Gardner, by this time 56, and his elderly confederates invoked the psychic energy of the Cone of Power against the forces of Nazism.
Hitler it should be noted was himself a man of great superstition and the message: the channel cannot be crossed once implanted in the collective psyche of him and his cohorts would be irresistible.

The McLeod, Lord of Skye, had a similar plan in mind to forestall a German invasion. He planned in extremis to wave the Fairy Flag (Am Bratach Sith)  from the white cliffs of Dover. This flag possessed the power of victory just one last time having been used already on two previous occasions in McLeod clan history.

In channeling nature's elemental forces through their own mortal bodies it is said that two of Gardner's coven, Walter Forder and James Loader, went into a state of collapse from which they were not to recover.

The Cone of Power had twice before been called upon to defeat the enemy: in 1588 the Armada was thwarted and in 1807 it had been invoked to stop the advance of Napoleon.

Just as previously, the power of the Cone was to prove invincible.

Pronouncements

Gardner was never short of what we would today call a soundbite nor was he slow to grab the headlines.

He asserted that Grissell Gairdner burnt as a witch in 1610 was one of his forbears. He had a reverence for the Royal Family, mainly because he believed them, like himself, to be descended from a long line of witches.

Whether they were flattered or merely amused is unknown but it is known that Gardner was invited to a reception at Buckingham Palace in 1960.

Fairies, he declaimed, were a persecuted race of pygmy-witches.

He claimed that Aleister Crowley, a long-time rival and altogether more sinister figure, had accepted him as heir apparent when he visited him shortly before his death on 1 December 1947. He was initiated into the Ordo Templis Orientis (OTO) in a testament hand-written by Gardner but signed by Crowley. Upon Crowley's death he proclaimed himself leader of the OTO in Europe and was apparently accepted as such.



    Aleister Crowley

Later Years and Death

August 1940 might have been the apogee of Gardner's illustrious career but he was to continue for some years yet. With age he became even more outre: by this time his body bore numerous occult tattoos, he wore a weighty bronze bracelet inscribed with symbols denoting the three degrees of witchcraft and a large silver ring bearing his Wicca name Scire in letters of the ancient Theban alphabet. His beard was groomed in barbiche style while his hair was combed into two vertical peaks.

In 1951 he moved to the Isle of Man where he declared himself Resident Witch of the Island. Here with Cecil Williamson he opened in Casletown the Folk-lore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft. This clumsily named enterprise soon ran into financial difficulties and Gardner eventually bought out Williamson who subsequently opened the rival Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall. The Castletown Centre survived until after Gardner's death.





On 12 February 1964 Gardner died at the age of 79 while on board the Scottish Prince returning from the Lebanon having suffered a sudden heart attack at the breakfast table. He was buried with only the ship's captain present. His body lies interred in a cemetery in Tunis.

Gardnerian Wicca lives on with a claimed one million adherents in 66 countries of the world.

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The Curious Case of the Little Owl

Can any bird claim so illustrious a place in history and legend as the Little Owl, Athene noctua?

 

The Little Owl is the smallest of the British Strigiformes. It is a plump bird, about the length of a mistle thrush, with a flat head and pronounced whiteish eyebrows which can give it a stern, censorious appearance.

It inhabits all but the colder parts of Europe and Asia as far east as the Korean peninsula. It is also present in parts of North Africa and Arabia. As if to emphasise its adaptability, the Little Owl has also been established in New Zealand. Nor is is it native to Britain. It was first introduced in 1842 by Thomas Powys and in the succeeding decades further introductions were made. Since the turn of the nineteenth century it has become a successful breeding bird in all counties of England and Wales and is now breeding in the Scottish Lowlands also.

As a "no status" bird, conservation groups take a rather stuffy view. The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) has asserted that "as a non-native species we do not consider it to be of conservation value". Mark Avery, formerly conservation officer of the RSPB has said that he "probably wouldn't be very keen on an introduction like this nowadays" before admitting "I don't know of any harm done to  our native fauna by the Little Owl". It is truly native, of course,  just 20 miles away across the Channel!

Nesting takes place from about mid April to June often in pollarded trees or in derelict buildings though crevices or even rabbit burrows may also be used. Typically 3-5 eggs are laid with incubation lasting about four weeks; at about 35 days old the young fledge.
Territories frequently remain occupied throughout the year.
Beetles, grasshoppers and earthworms form the dietary staple but lizards, frogs and small birds are taken when the opportunity presents.




According to Greek Mythology, Athene, Goddess of Wisdom, was so impressed by the sagacity of the Little Owl that she conferred upon it the honour of noblest of all birds. Its watchfulness, implacability and wraith-like ability to arrive unobserved was without equal. The Little Owl's  taxonomic name, Athene noctua, recalls the unique distinction which the Olympian goddess of war, commerce, wise counsel and heroic endeavour deemed befitting this small owl.


Athenian tetradrachm of 5th century B.C.

Athenian tetradrachm of 2nd century B.C.

The Little Owl possessed a supernatural "inner light" which gave it not only an ability to see in the dark but also the power of prescience: the ability to see into the future. It was, and still is, a familiar sight around Greek classical temples and this served to strengthen the perception of the Little Owl in the everyday lives of the Ancients both as guardian and as foreteller of danger.

Equally in the commerce of peacetime as in the perils of war the Little Owl was a potent omen. If Athenian soldiers sighted it on the eve of battle they were emboldened in the knowledge that they could not be defeated.

Oddly it seems that the converse was true if one were to dream of the Little Owl. The second century Roman soothsayer Artemidorus  warned that this foretold a shipwreck: sailors would desperately seek an anchorage and traders would see this inauspicious sign as reason to put off their bargaining for another day.

Like Athene before her Minerva, the Roman Goddess of Wisdom, was similarly to adopt the Little Owl as her chosen companion. The Athenian owl legends would gain new currency this time with Minervan provenance.
These legends are recalled in the present day name for the Little Owl in Sweden: Minervauggla; in Finland it is known as Minervanpollo.

Just as for the Greeks, the Little Owl, gifted with the power of divination, was the most ominous of birds: its appearance foretold the deaths of Caesars Augustus, Commodus Aurelius and Agrippa. Most famously perhaps, as Shakespeare reminds us, it  also announced the imminent death of Julius Caesar:

"...yesterday, the bird of night did sit Even at noonday, upon the market place, Hooting and shrieking". 

In Roman mythology Proserpine (Persephone) was consigned to the underworld where Ascalpus reported her as eating the forbidden fruit of a pomegranate. He expected to be rewarded for this piece of intelligence but was instead turned into an owl, a "loathsome bird".

In contrast to Greek beliefs, a Roman army would regard the sight of an owl before battle as a harbinger of disaster. At Carrhae on the ancient plains of Mesopotamia the appearance of the Little Owl presaged a most inglorious day. Here in 53 B.C. the army of the Parthian Empire inflicted an humiliating defeat upon the invading force of Romans, who, though superior in numbers, were put to rout by the Parthian cavalry. The Roman commander Crassus was killed and the surviving members of his army were enslaved.

This was to endure as one of Rome's most crushing defeats.

Modern science has demystified much of the lore surrounding the Little Owl and indeed owls in general but to hear its call at night or to meet its gaze still, in me at least, invokes a sort of primal response.
One English superstition had it that in order to negate the baleful effect of an owl observing you, you should walk around and around the tree in which he sat in order that he may wring his own neck.

In Britain, as recently as the eighteenth century, owls would be nailed to barn doors to protect livestock from curse, lightning strike or similar misadventure.

Birds of omen dark and foul,
Night-crow, raven, bat, and owl,
Leave the sick man to his dream --All night long he heard your scream.

-Sir Walter Scott

In many societies owls are still associated with death and even in the West the notion of the "wise old owl" retains its currency.

Although severely  affected by bad winters the Little Owl is a species of "least concern".

Photographs (all taken in Sefton) remain copyright of C McIndoe.

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A Tale of Two Crosbys

The villages of Great Crosby and Little Crosby, separated by less than a mile of farmland, have developed their own discrete and distinctive personalities over the centuries.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct

to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way. . . .

Dickens's use of the repeating phrase, or anaphora, for rhetorical impact is displayed to fine effect in the opening lines of A Tale Of Two Cities. He reverts to this same form in the concluding chapter when Carton, the dissolute but brilliant lawyer, meets his death on the guillotine.

It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest I go to than I have ever known.

In the death of Sydney Carton, Dickens creates a thinly veiled Christian synthesis: Carton, whose earthly life had been one of ennui and lack of purpose, relishes his end as both noble and salvational. He is certain that his enduring name will be "glorious" when he finds his rest in Heaven and is equally sure that Paris will rise from its bloody abyss to become a "beautiful city and a brilliant people".
Dickens imbues Carton, at the end, with a purposeful almost Messianic mindset which sees him embrace his fate with a serenity and a conviction as he casts off the louche excesses of his past.

The injustices in English society exacerbated by class, poverty and discrimination never led to a popular uprising quite so tumultuous as in France of 1789. But social tensions there were all the same and it was the popular uprising on the one hand and the contrasting grudging endurance of the English underclasses on the other which informed Dickens's great work.

In the century and more before the time of the French Revolution, the people of Great Crosby and more particularly Little Crosby had their own deeply divisive issues. The majority of people in Great Crosby and the farms and villages of the district embraced the new orthodoxy of the Church of England. Of course local sentiment would have reflected national sentiment and in Elizabeth I's reign the threat of the Counter-Reformation and conquest from Catholic Europe was at its highest. In spite of this the villagers of Little Crosby, like the Squire, remained stubbornly loyal to the "Old Faith".
The Church of Rome had vowed to crush Protestantism and the threat of invasion from Philip II's Spain was a terrifying one. In 1588 the Armada sailed and Elizabeth I delivered her stirring Speech to the Troops at Tilbury:

I know I have the body of a weak, feeble woman; but I have the heart and stomach of a king, and of a king of England too, and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realm; to which rather than any dishonour shall grow by me, I myself will take up arms, I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field.

The Armada as we all know was defeated but suspicion of those whose first allegiance was to the Catholic Church was, if anything, heightened and Catholicism was to many synonymous with plot and treason. Discrimination against those who remained faithful to the Church of Rome was common and this was understandably a major source of resentment for the recusants who continued to conduct their masses in secret and suffered imprisonment, land sequestration and fines as a consequence.

In 1590 Richard Blundell was seized upon the orders of the Earl of Derby and died in Lancaster prison on March 19th 1592.
His son and heir William Blundell was similarly imprisoned as was his wife in Chester Castle and she bore or at least nursed a son while incarcerated.
At the time of the Civil War Charles I attracted many Lancashire Catholics to his cause. One such was William Blundell whose leg was shattered by a musketball at the siege of Lancaster Castle. Many years later on June 30th 1694 at half past five in the morning three messengers of the King arrived to arrest William (the Cavalier) Blundell on suspicion of his having been involved in a popish plot. They found a sick and lame old man of 75 and so arrested his son instead. He was subsequently committed to Newgate Prison.
The arrests, fines and harrassment went on for generations and many Catholic families were reduced to beggary but against the odds the Blundells of Little Crosby managed to cling on to their faith and to their estates. To this day the 60 houses in the village remain owned by the Estate.

During the reign of Elizabeth I and for some considerable time afterwards those who clung to the "Old Faith" were denied burial in the cemetery of Sefton Church which since 1170 had been their place of final rest. Often the dead were interred in gardens.
Similar situations arose up and down the country and in Gloucestershire rioting and loss of life had resulted. The parson of St Helen's, Sefton at the time was a particularly recalcitrant character. His name (and this may seem apt) was the Rev Nutter.
His excess of zeal was such that it earned him the scorn of Queen Elizabeth herself.

In December 1610, the vicar of St Helen's church, Sefton refused the burial of a local woman, and her relatives and friends interred her body in a shallow grave close by a lane near to some common land. Unfortunately, the body was disturbed and desecrated by hogs which grazed on the common land. #

"Were best to make readie in this village of Little Crosbie a place fitt to burie suche Catholiques either if myne owne howse or of thr Neighbourhoode as should depte this lyfe duringe the tyme of these trobles.

- William Blundell of Crosby Hall (1560-1638)

  

The refusal to allow recusants a decent Christian burial constituted a very considerable problem for the Catholics of Little Crosby and further beyond. In response it was decided that Harkirk, an ancient burial ground, would be re-consecrated. The first burial here was on April 7th 1611; the last burial at Harkirk was on November 27th 1753. In all 131 people are buried here.
In 1889 Nicholas Blundell (1811-1894) built a small chapel on the site.

Today, perhaps anachronistically, Little Crosby remains a predominantly, if not wholly, Catholic village rooted in a turbulent past but living in a more harmonious today.

The ancient cross in the village centre of Great Crosby surmounts the site of St Michael's well.







The wayside cross in Little Crosby also stands on the site of a well.






Crosby Hall, the Blundell family home, was built in 1609 and remodelled in Georgian style in the 1780's.







Acknowledgements:
# - from transcript of mass held at Harkirk 2001.
Photographs of crosses remain the copyright of Paul R Allerton.
View of Crosby Hall originally published in Lancashire Life magazine.
Other photographs copyright of C McIndoe.

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