28/04/2009

Listener Nigel Clarke lives in Lyme Regis and knows the story of the civil war siege in 1644 well. However, what he and many townspeople are less sure about is where the Royalist and Parliamentarian dead are buried. Making History enlisted the help of civil war historian Professor Mark Stoyle from the University of Southampton to help suggest possible locations.

Professor Stoyle pointed out that the main documentary evidence for the siege comes from a diary kept by Edward Drake a local supporter of the parliamentary cause who lived through the siege. This gives some insight into the numbers of the dead and how the bodies were disposed of. We can also draw parallels from what happened to the dead during the earlier stage of the conflict in Plymouth. Professor Stoyle suggests that those held siege by the Royalist forces would’ve most likely been buried in or around the town church. The attacking force, which suffered many more casualties, would most likely have buried its dead close to defensive works thrown up around the outskirts of the town.

The Siege of Lyme Regis, Chapman Serendip Fine Books (Jul 1982) ISBN-10: 0950414395 ISBN-13: 978-0950414393

The place name “Caldecote” is generally accepted as Anglo Saxon for something approximating “cold cottages” – a bleak community often on the edge of areas between more important settlements. Making History listener Derek Armstrong once lived in Upper Caldecote near the A1 in Bedfordshire and notes that in Italian the word for hot is “Caldo”. Given that the Great North Road was partly Roman and that Roman remains have been found nearby, couldn’t Caldecote have a much more pleasant origin he asks?

Dr Paul Cavill from the Institute for Names-Studies at the University of Nottingham travelled to Bedfordshire to help Making History find out more.

Dr Cavill noted what Derek Armstrong had to say, however, Caldecote is about two miles away from the A1 which is a little inconvenient for a Roman settlement and on poor land. He favours more recent research which shows that the Anglo Saxons deliberately planted anti-social members of society in places that were out of the way, literally on the edge of society. Caldecote, then, is most likely to be some kind of penal settlement and so the idea of “cold cottages” is probably correct.

Masking History turned to Professor John Walter at the University of Essex who is writing a history of the Tichborne Dole which, legend has it began in the 12th century.

Professor Walter is working on a thesis that the dole may be more recent than legend suggests. There is a painting of the dole from 1670 which gained some publicity when prince Charles included it in an exhibition in Washington in the 1980’s. John Walter wonders whether the painting was commissioned to publicise a charitable endeavour by a Catholic family and, in so doing, protect them from anti-Rome feelings.