Archives give us a unique insight into the kitchens of our ancestors We can discover ingredients unfamiliar to our modern taste buds and methods that are no longer used in a modern kitchen. We can also discover surprisingly familiar ingredients and methods which wouldn’t look out of place in a 21st century cookery book.
The following recipes have been transcribed, the spellings are left in the original form e.g. flower = flour, where more of an explanation is required this is provided in brackets. Also note that Y n = then and Y t = that.
We recently held one of our popular Reading from the Archives events with a very swish title – Ballgowns and Dinner Invitations. Planning for this event was an opportunity to scour the archives using our online catalogue, and find some documents that would give us an insight into what it was like to attend a fancy dinner, a themed ball and discover what one might wear for such an occasion.
Jackie Mitchell, a volunteer for the Unlocking Our Sound Heritage East of England hub at Norfolk Record Office, explores the audio memoirs of Wells-next-the-Sea fisherman and lifeboat coxswain, David Cox.
An interview with Mr Cox was conducted and recorded by Wells Local History Group in 2002, forming part of an archive of oral history recordings made and collected between 1976 and 2004. These recordings have now been digitally preserved by Unlocking our Sound Heritage.
The colourful history of the Howard dukes of Norfolk during the Tudor period led to their fall from grace and the loss of their Dukedom in 1572 when the 4th Duke was beheaded. Their faithful adherence to the proscribed Roman Catholic religion had played a large part in their story and the Duke’s son, Philip (later Saint Philip), 13th Earl of Arundel, had died in 1595 in the Tower of London, refusing to give up his faith. Large sums of money then had to be paid to the Crown to regain the key estates, but their fortunes were greatly assisted by the marriage in 1606 of Philip’s son Thomas, the ‘Collector’ Earl of Arundel to Alatheia Talbot, heiress of the estates of Gilbert 7th Earl of Shrewsbury. This marriage was critical for the future fortunes of the Howard family as it brought in vast new estates in North Notts., Derbs. and in the Sheffield area of South Yorkshire. From then on the family’s activities would be centered mainly on the Sussex, London and the Sheffield estates.
In Norfolk, by 1650, the Howard family’s main seat of Kenninghall Place, which had previously reached palatial proportions, had largely been demolished, with only a workaday house kept on for running the estate. Other key holdings at Thetford and in the hinterland of Great Yarmouth were also retained and, with Bungay Castle and attendant lands in Norfolk and Suffolk, they together formed the ‘Norfolk and Suffolk Estate’, administered as part of the ducal holdings for the ensuing centuries. These key estates in Norfolk, as elsewhere, were judiciously placed in the hands of Protestant trustees as a precaution against further sequestrations.
At the same time, hundreds of smaller properties throughout Norfolk and in other counties, which were now seen to be peripheral outliers, were sold off. The Dukedom had been regained in 1660 in the life time of Thomas, grandson of the Collector Earl, who thus became the 5th Duke of Norfolk. But, as he was declared to be a ‘lunatic’, his younger brother Henry (later the 6th Duke) was the one who did the actual work. He had made Norwich his home and had built his own ‘palace’ there. The King acknowledged his involvement and commitment by creating him Lord Howard of Castle Rising in 1669 and in 1671, Earl of Norwich and hereditary Earl Marshal. This was perhaps the greatest gift of all. Entitlement to the office had previously been dependent on ownership of Kenninghall manor.
Regretful as the Norfolk sales may have been, the bonus is this. Someone in the 17th century ‘office’ recognized the antiquarian importance of the earliest deeds and held them back at the point of sale. While, as an archivist, I may purse my lips at this offence to ‘provenance’, the plus side was that from that date to the present day the deeds have been carefully looked after in the ducal archives. At first it was in the archive room at Arundel House on the Strand and later in the archive building at the back of Norfolk House in St. James’s Square, Piccadilly. It was here that the 18th century Norfolk Historian Francis Blomefield studied numerous items from the collection for his prodigious ‘opus’, his History of the County of Norfolk. I was most reliant on this publication while compiling my catalogue. I could research it on line for most of the background history I needed for the deeds. Finally, when Norfolk House was sold in the 1930s to pay death duties, the deeds came to Arundel Castle, where the present archive team have flattened and stored them all in archival materials; and renumbered them with their new references.
Arundel Castle
One of the treasures of this present publication is the collection of the most precious early family deeds which Francis Blomefield was not allowed to see. These are the Wiggenhall deeds relating largely to the purchases in Wiggenhall and other parishes in the North Norfolk Fens, made by Judge William Howard (d. 1307) the founder of the ducal family, Individually, each deed relates to a tiny amount of land, but collectively they open a window on the earliest members of the fenland Howards, the Judge, his brothers and numerous other male Howard relatives.
Aside from the Howard family, the greater part of this catalogue contains the names of hundreds of Norfolk people, hundreds of local place names, hundreds of descriptions of parcels of land in arable, meadow, common pasture and woods. It describes an old country way of life and land management which has long gone. It gives a sharp insight into particular villages at a particular place in Norfolk at a particular point in time. It has been a long and sometimes testing project for me, but I hope I hope it will prove to be the quarry into which local Norfolk historians can keep on digging.
The catalogue entitled Duke of Norfolk’s Deeds vol. 3: the early Howard Inheritance in Norfolk is available from: The Archives, Arundel Castle, Arundel, W.Sussex, BN18 9AB. For more information, email Archive@arundelcastle.org, or ring 01903 882173 ext. 235
by Heather Warne, retiring archivist at Arundel Castle in Sussex, the home of the 18th Duke of Norfolk
On D-Day 1945, RAF Medical Officer Victor Tempest introduced his memoirs, Near the Sun: Impressions of a Medical Officer of Bomber Command (NRO, MC 2216/1, 928X7), with the claim that he had achieved a ‘history of how men overcame their own instincts of self-preservation… to preserve Freedom for those whom they thought worthy of it’ [Near the Sun, 9].
Tempest was, of course, rightfully referring to the fact of valance shown by Bomber Command pilots. However, the above still provides us with two enigmas worth exploring further: for one, ‘Victor Tempest’ was a pseudonym used by Elliot Philipp of 218 Squadron, RAF Marham (posted Summer 1940, lasting for ‘9 months’). For sensitivity reasons in the immediate period following the war, both his name and details of the base were concealed. Second, the statement does little to exercise the incredible sacrifice of medical officers, such as Elliot Philipp, alike.
This comment led to the diary being offered to the Royal Navy in Portsmouth. They declined the offer and it was subsequently retrieved from a waste paper bin in Portsmouth and offered to the Norfolk Record Office because it was thought to have originated from Brockdish.Despite never identifying himself; family references and parish activities identify the diarist as Charles Souter, parish clerk of Syleham (1736-1828).
Syleham is a small Suffolk village south of the river Waveney on the Norfolk Suffolk border. Charles Souter’s house and shop, marked on the map below in red, was at the end of the lane leading to the church.
The Souter Diary
The diary was not written on a regular basis and months can pass without an entry. The contents can be categorized into six main themes; parish life, prominent families, the weather, crimes and calamities, births, marriages and deaths and national events. This is a typical page:
Family References
Charles Sowter of Syleham married Susanna Juby in 1736. Were these Charles Souter’s parents?
Souter rarely mentions his family but they do give some evidence of his identity. In 1816 Souter writes: My daughter, the wife of S Reeve, was safely delivered of a son. Samuel Reeve had married Phoebe Souter in 1813 in Needham. Baptismal records show that Robert Reeve was born on 26 July 1816 to Samuel Reeve and his wife Phoebe nee Souter. He died in September. A year earlier Souter had written:
Baptismal records for Phoebe Souter have been unavailable to prove that she was Charles Souter’s daughter. To confuse the matter there is a Phoebe born to Charles Souter in 1817. This Charles was born c1784 and was the son of Robert and Susanna Souter who I believe was related to Charles Souter, parish clerk, perhaps a nephew.
Diarist Charles Souter’s headstone in Syleham churchyard reads:
In Memory of
Charles Souter
Who was 54 years clark of this parish
He died Dec 16th 1828 aged 92 years.
Also of Mary his wife
Who died Augst 12th 1820
Aged 82 years.
St Margaret’s Church, Syleham. Souter’s grave marked in red.
When Souter died in December 1828 the Bury & Norwich Post wrote: On Friday last at Syleham in his 92nd year, Charles Souter, he was clerk of the parish for 54 years. From his early youth he made the Holy Scriptures his constant study, the fruits of which were apparent in his exemplary piety and strict integrity.
Charles Souter married Mary Mills in 1768. He mentions her only once; 35 years after starting his journal, he writes: I and wife went to Fress (Fressingfield).
What other personal information can we glean from the diary? A shopkeeper, he assiduously noted prices of crops and coal. Other references: The causeway before my home was thrown down in June and July 1787 . . . . shop end and fore side of the house daubed (July 1792) . . . . Pantry taken down (November 1800) . . . . House new tiled (June 1801) . . . A new window in the kitchen (May 1802).
Souter’s House
Parish Activities
Souter’s recording of parish activities provides strong evidence that he was Charles Souter, parish clerk. Who but a parish clerk would be inspecting churches and issuing fines and have such a detailed knowledge of parish activities and costs?
Went the bounds of the parish 9 ½ miles 27 rods (1802).
Church visited and as many faults found as come to 7s 0d (1804).
Other references include covering another parish clerk’s duties at Wingfield in 1816, purchasing a new bible for the church for £4 (1822) and tythe feasts.
The annual tythe feast was usually held at Wingfield in December or January. Souter first writes about it in 1803. The menu was similar throughout the years as were the numbers attending, usually between 40 and 60. December 1812: Tythe feast at Wingfield. 45 dined. 4 stone 11 pound of beef 21 ½ pound of mutton. Paid for all beer.
Souter wrote much about people and events in his parish. A few entries to note include:
The building of the brick wall in the mill pool in 1784 and the county bridge to Brockdish the following year.
In 1805, at a time of fear of invasion from France: Volunteers reviewed on Syleham green by General Elwes . . . . Fressingfield Volunteers marched to Lowestoft on duty.
Prominent Families in Syleham
Mann
William Mann (1738-1812) owned Syleham corn mill. When William died in 1812 he gave £20 to the poor of Syleham.
Souter writes of the family building the Horse Mill (1785), building a windmill (1788), purchasing the Manor of Syleham (1791), building a barn (1793), purchasing the estate by the church gate (1795), purchasing the manor house (1796) and Richard Mann laying his first brick at the manor house (1797). In 1818 Mr Mann sold his windmill and lett the water mill to Mr Hervy the windmill built by the side of the common.
Souter also writes of Issabella Mann: Took Miss Issabella Anne Mann to nurse (1789), took Miss Mann to nurse she had been taken home for fear of the small pox (1790), died Mrs Murry of the smallpox Miss Mann went home (1791).
Memorial to three of the Mann family in Syleham church.
Corbould
Pelham Corbould (1743-1771), of the Corboulds of Bath, lived at Monks Hall in Syleham with his wife Catherine (1740-1826). They had three children; Pelham, Elizabeth and William. Catherine later married James Walne in 1772 and they continued to live at Monks Hall. They had six children; five died in infancy. Catherine’s obituary in 1826 read: A woman greatly esteemed by a numerous acquaintance for her hospitality and for her kindness and attention to the poor.
Barry
Lambe Barry (1704-1768) was a wealthy landowner and lived at Syleham Hall. He was High Sheriff of Suffolk in 1748. He married Susan Morse (1709-1786) and they had two daughters. Following the death of Susan Barry in 1786 Souter writes: The remains of Lambe Barry was put into a new coffin he died November 24 1768.
Souter mentions Mrs Barry on two occasions. On New Year’s Day 1814: Mrs Barrys tennants dined at Wingfield beef 9lb mutton 10lb. 8 dined. And in January 1816: A tythe feast at Wingfield. 6 stone 2lb of beef at 8s 9d per stone. 18lb of mutton at ? per lb. Mrs Barrys feast included.
The Weather
Souter appears obsessed with the weather and the diary is valuable for anyone researching weather patterns of this period.
A favourite and frequent phrase of Souter’s was “as ever was known” or “as was ever remembered by man” to describe extreme weather conditions, even those occurring within weeks of each other.
Property suffered in bad weather. Following severe storms Mr Girling’s house was badly damaged in 1794, Mr Bond’s house burnt down in 1795, Mr Pitt’s barn burnt down in 1809 and Mr Kent’s house burnt down in 1811.
In July 1802: A very great tempest and a storm of hail such as had not been remembered by man . . . Hailstones as big as nuts.
In 1822:
Crimes and Calamities
As with any time or place, Syleham was not immune to tragedy in its many forms.
Some of the accidents Souter writes about include:
1787. Sharp frost many accidents on the ice. Boy Danford killed by turnip cart . . .2 children scald to death and many others had limbs broke near us.
1791. Miss Bunstead drowned at Hoxne Swan water her body found March 1st near the Red Bridge.
1804. William Harper of Fressingfield drowned in going home from street.
1808. In May Mr Brighton of Wingfield drowned in the river near Earsham bridge.
Souter writes of the suicides of Samuel Gibbs and widow Pretty which were regarded by the jury as lunacy. Charles Gosling drowned himself in the river and Mr Sherrick shot himself. In 1791 Mrs Hawes gave herself the death sentence: Mrs Hawes of Brockdish hanged herself. She first fractured her husband’s skull with a hatchet of which wounds he dy’d May 15.
Souter also writes of murder. In 1791 Souter noted that Mr Gooch of Brockdish set off on his travels. Gooch, an astronomer from Brockdish, joined a Naval voyage to make astronomical observations. In 1793 news arrived of his death. Malancholy news arrived of the death of Mr Gooch who was killed in the Sandwich Isle. The Ipswich Journal (20 April 1793) reported that both Gooch and Lieutenant Hergest were making astronomical observations when they were attacked, killed and eaten by a local tribe.
In 1793 A cruel murder was committed at Cratfield on the bodys of Mr Carter and daughter. Their skulls had been fractured with a hammer. What is interesting about this case is that it took 18 years to find the culprit. In 1812 Souter writes: This month Thrower was hanged for the murder of Mr Carter and daughter. The Bury and Norwich Post (25 March 1812) commented he eluded justice for more than 18 years.
Other Crimes included the theft of cows by Jonathan Saunder who was hanged in 1802. At his trial Saunders denied any knowledge of the Carter murders in 1793 for which he and William Dunnett, hanged at the same time for stealing a horse, had both been suspect. Prior to Saunder’s execution he was attended by a minister and Saunders spoke of his concerns and innocence in the murders which prompted the minister to write to James Fisher of Cratfield who had been diligantly trying to solve the case. This letter was published in the Bury and Norwich Post on 28 April 1802.
Births, Marriages and Deaths
Souter records 4 births, 65 marriages and 128 deaths. Not all occurred within Syleham itself. The reasons for Souter’s selective recording are unknown. Not all can be listed here; see the full list at the Norfolk Record Office.
Souter usually only gives surnames. Christian names have been added from checking his entries against genealogical sites.
Births:
The four births may all have a family link to Souter. Three are the children of Syer and Elizabeth Smith born in 1793, 1794 and 1796. Syer Smith’s wife was Elizabeth Mills, possibly related to Souter’s wife Margaret?
In 1799 twins were born to Robert and Susanna Souter. Their son Charles, born in 1784, named his daughter Phoebe in 1817.
Marriages:
1784 Henry Theobald and Susan Sadd.
1785 John Walne and Anne Theobald.
1792 Syer Smith and Elizabeth Mills.
1794 Barzallai Hurry and Lydia Batho.
1797 Rev Thomas Whitaker and Jane Ayton.
1798 Charles Mann and Sarah Moxon.
1799 Doctor Abraham Girling and Jane Goat.
1800 John Burgess and Susanna Girling.
1805 William Sumpter and Sophia Cotton.
1819 September 9. Was married by the Rev S Reeve Sir George Crewe Bart of Calke Abbey Derby to Jane eldest daughter of the Rev Thomas Whitaker of Mendham. The last marriage to be recorded and a significant one at that.
Deaths:
1784 John Pretty died very suddenly.
1785 Thomas Souter of Stradbrooke died. Age 66. A relation?
1786 James Branch, schoolmaster at Fressingfield.
1787 Brothers John Branch age 48 and William Branch age 49 of Thorpe Parva. Age 48. They were buried together on 3 January at Billingford.
1789 Rev John Malyn. He preached at Wingfield on Sunday afternoon went to bed well and found dead next morning Text Tim 3.16.
1793 Ann Mills. Age 60. Wife of Joseph Mills, Souter’s brother-in-law.
1799 Elizabeth Theobald. Age 61. Died very suddenly Mrs Theobald very much lamented.
1806 Jacob Sadd parish clerk of Brockdish. Age 56.
1817 William Gooch of Brockdish. Age 77. An Israelite indeed in whom was no question.
1819 Joseph Mills brother to my wife.
1821 Susanna Souter. Age 66. Wife of Robert Souter. A relation?
National Events
Major national events that made an impression on Souter were recorded including solar eclipses and political events.
There are several references to the monarchy including the beheading of the King and Queen of France in 1793. A loyal supporter of George III, in 1810 he writes: A general thanksgiving to Almighty God for the protection afforded the King during a long and arduous reign. A barrel of beer given to the poor on Syleham Green. Perhaps not such a loyal supporter of George IV when, in 1820, he writes: Great rejoicing this month at the Queens acquittal of adultery brought against her by spies and false witnesses to the disgrace of King and ministers.
Throughout this diary Souter gives us a glimpse of Georgian life but he remains an enigmatic figure revealing little of his own personal life. Who knows how his journal made its journey from Syleham to Portsmouth but its return to East Anglia is most welcome.
With thanks for the help from the Needham and Brockdish History Group and J & L Woodger.
Astrology, or using the stars to tell the future, has been a part of human society since prehistory and remains with us today in the form of horoscopes and readings. For Early Modern people astrologers offered a chance to understand and control their future, be it almanacs that predicted the following year, horoscopes used to search for lost items, and the stars used to cure disease. Great Yarmouth had a variety of astrologers in the Early Modern Period, from conjurors using their gifts, to a family publishing an almanac for over half a century, and the amateur astrologer Mark Prynne accused of witchcraft.
By the early seventeenth century astrology had become more of a science or art, and a mainstream interest for residents of Great Yarmouth. The first half of the seventeenth century to the British Civil Wars was a golden age for astrologers. The puritan minister John Booker, Nicholas Culpeper, William Lilly, Richard Saunders, John Tanner, George Wharton, and Vincent Wing all gained fame for their astrological skills. The astrologer William Lilly was described as ‘the first astrological republican’ during the Civil Wars, and he had been taught by the father of Great Yarmouth’s puritan minister John Brinsley senior.[1] During the British Civil Wars both the royalist, George Wharton, and parliamentarian, William Lilly, were producing rival almanacs, and the leading generals of Parliament’s New Model Army during the British Civil Wars consulted astrological predictions to inform their military strategy.[2] The professionalisation of astrology meant that it was respectable and accessible to residents.
The Le Neve family provided the commonest form of astrology available to residents in Great Yarmouth during the first half of the seventeenth. Geoffrey Le Neve compiled a series of annual almanacs published in the town from 1604, in which he described himself variously as a physician, a student in mathematics, and a gentleman, rather than a conjuror. After his death in 1613, his nephew Jeffrey Le Neve continued the almanacs until the corporation dismissed him from the town in 1626, and his cousin John Le Neve took over writing the almanac between 1626-61.[3] Almanacs were a popular form of astrology that was accessible to the public. In them astrologers laid out the year’s predictions, including astrological events, the weather, and predictions of major political occurrences. They were sold unbound on cheap paper, a mass-produced product aimed to be accessible to ordinary people in Great Yarmouth. Publishers sometimes relied on families of astrologers to maintain their readership, such as the Wing, Gadbury and Le Neve families.[4] For astrologers like the Le Neves, astrology was not a magic, but an art. It was connected to mathematics and being able to accurately read the sky rather than conjuring with spells or magical equipment. The Le Neves and their almanac were acceptable to the Stationers’ Company, the official publishers during the Stuart period who continued to print the almanacs for half a century and to the town’s residents who purchased their almanac for over half a century.
Jeffrey Le Neve was a man of status and importance, showing how respectable astrology had become. He had been an alderman in Great Yarmouth, had served as one of the town’s bailiffs, the equivalent of mayor, in 1620 and was a gentleman quarter waiter to the king.[5] After his dismissal from Great Yarmouth in 1626 he studied for a medical degree in Leiden. When he returned, Le Neve becoming part of the city’s astrological establishment.[6] In London, Le Neve’s reputation as an astrologer amongst his contemporaries was mixed, though likely based on personal politics due to Le Neve’s court connections. The royalist astrologer John Gadbury described him ‘one of the best Astrologers that lived in his time’, while the parliamentarian William Lilly was more scathing, claiming Le Neve had only ‘some small smattering in Astrology’.[7] His use of medical astrology had likely started in Great Yarmouth, and involved the use of horoscopes cast to diagnose the cause of illness and its ideal treatment. His high status gave him a position to promote his continued career as an astrologer even after he left Great Yarmouth.
Mark Prynne was an amateur astrologer who used his skills in astrology to supplement his income and we know was practising between the 1630s and 1640s. His importance is as an astrologer whose story was recorded by John Taylor, the so-called water poet for writing as a boatman in London, because of accusations of witchcraft made against Prynne. It remains unknown if he was connected to the Le Neves, but as far as we can tell Prynne was a self-taught astrologer, his skills originating in his collection of astrological works. While little information survives on Prynne’s family and background, we know he was an educated man, and well-practised in astrology. Prynne was notable for his collection of ‘Theologicall, Historicall, and Phylosophicall’books.[8] This collection demonstrates Prynne’s educational status, and how his astrology was self-taught. Prynne’s astrological skills were ascribed to his use of Moulsons Almanack, a ‘breefe of the fam’d fabulous Sheperds’, a fifteenth-century almanac that provided guidance on astrology.[9] Prynne was also described as using a book of circles, ‘an old almanac’, likely The Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon a more overtly magical text relating the spells created by King Solomon or The Picatrix, an Arabic guide to celestial magic.[10] Prynne was employed by local residents to use astrology to help them find lost objects such as hats and pillows, and according to the satirist John Taylor ‘lost Cowe, Calfe, Horse or Cart, or silver spoone, or Bodkin, Knife or Ring, or Milstone, Windmill, Corke’.[11] Prynne would craft a horoscope based on when the question was received and understood. His astrological skills were also applied to medicine and the Great Yarmouth town corporation paid him 30s in 1645 for curing ‘one Tills a distracted man in Bridwell of the malady w[hi]ch was upon him’, likely using a horoscope to determine cause and cure (‘distracted’ refers to a form of mental illness).[12] Thirty shillings was the equivalent of three weeks wages for a skilled craftsman, showing the high premium put on Prynne’s skills. Prynne’s medical treatment was comparable to other contemporary astrological medical practitioners like Jeffrey Le Neve or the contemporaries Richard Napier and Simon Forman, and efficacious enough for him to be paid handsomely.[13] Prynne provided a skill that was in demand from local residents and Great Yarmouth’s corporation
Despite Prynne’s skills, he was accused of conjuring. He was tried for witchcraft in both 1638 and 1645. According to the poet John Taylor in 1638 there was ‘no proof but a Book of Circles found in his [Prynne’s] Study, which Miles [Miles Corbet, MP and judge] said was a Book of Conjuring’.[14] The connection made between astrology and witchcraft was nothing new. The contemporary astrologer John Gadbury blamed ‘pretenders’ for the connection that emerged between astrologers and magicians and necromancers. William Lilly sought to reject the ‘darke Sentences of Oracles’ being put on astrologers, differentiating between inspired soothsayers and astrologers who relied on natural philosophy.[15] Corbet sought to argue that Prynne’s power to prognosticate emerged from the magical use of ‘conjuring’ of spirits. In 1645, Miles Corbet described another almanac discovered in Prynne’s household s as ‘damnable and dangerous’ because of its astrological content. Corbet was fearful of astrological content such as ‘pictures of the Bull, Beare, Goat and Lyon’ and the ‘names of Lucifer, and of Oryon’ were demonic in nature. Despite this, Prynne was found not guilty each time, defended by a local minister called Thomas Cheshire. While astrology had grown in popularity and status in the century between Wycherly and Prynne, it still held an uncertain place in the community.
Astrology offered a chance for ordinary people to glimpse into the future. The residents of Great Yarmouth made use of almanacs published over fifty years that gave them foresight of the year ahead. They called upon astrologers who gave them insights into the issues they faced. They could pay an astrologer to guide them to find lost objects or diagnose their illnesses through a horoscope. Astrologers were respected enough to earn a living in the town, employed by the town’s corporation and private citizens alike.
[1] William Lilly, Mr. William Lilly’s History of His Life and Times (London: J. Roberts, 1715), 12; Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind, 63.
[2] Alison A. Chapman, “Marking Time: Astrology, Almanacs, and English Protestantism,” Renaissance Quarterly 60, no. 4 (2007): 1257–90; Paul Kléber Monod, Solomon’s Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment (New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 2013); Ann Geneva, Astrology and the Seventeenth Century Mind: William Lilly and the Language of the Stars (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995), 47-9, 64-5.
[3] Bernard Capp, ‘Le Neve, Jeffrey (1579–1653)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography [hereafter ODNB]; Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS. Ashmole 418; Bernard Capp, Astrology and the Popular Press: English Almanacs, 1500-1800 (London: Faber And Faber, 1979), 371.
[5] John K. Gruenfelder, ‘Jeffrey Neve, Charles I and Great Yarmouth’, Norfolk Archaeology, 40 (1988), pp. 155-63; Cust, ‘Parliamentary Elections in the 1620s’, pp. 188.
[6] Capp, ‘Le Neve, Jeffrey (1579–1653); Gruenfelder, ‘Jeffrey Neve, Charles I and Great Yarmouth’, p. 161.
[7] Capp, ‘Le Neve, Jeffrey (1579–1653); Lilly, Mr William Lilly’s history of his life and times, p. 26; John Gadbury, Collectio Geniturarum: Or, a Collection of Nativities (London, 1662), p. 179.
[8] John Taylor, A Briefe Relation of the Gleanings of the Idiotismes and Absurdities of Miles Corbet (London: n.p., 1646), 8.
[10] John Taylor, Persecutio Undecima: The Churches Eleventh Persecution: Or, a Briefe of the Puritan Persecution of the Protestant Clergy of the Church of England: More Particularly within the City of London, (London, 1648) 17.
[11] NRO, Y/S/1/2, ff. 194-6; Taylor, A Briefe Relation, 9.
[13] Michael MacDonald, “The Career of Astrological Medicine in England,” in Religio Medici: Medicine and Religion in Seventeenth-Century England, ed. Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham (Aldershot, England: Scolar Press, 1996), 62–90.
Would we have reached the moon without the courage of men like General William Kepner?
The Experiment
In 1934 General William Kepner took part in an experimental stratosphere flight, in which he tried to reach the second layer of the earth’s atmosphere, a staggering 40,000-50,000 ft, in a gondola attached to a balloon. A recording of his memories of this event, held in the Norfolk Record Office (NRO, MC 376/420), gives us a great insight into the technical research and training required to try such a flight, and explains just what happened when the experiment went disastrously wrong.
Norfolk Record Office 