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April 2004

Parish History Episode 36

Rector Manley's 'Lean Years'

It was mentioned, in last month’s article, that Rector Manley was not, apparently, in Houghton, in 1319, when the village was devastated by one of the most ambitious raids led by the Black Douglas, and when the curate and many of the parishioners were besieged within the church by the Scottish raiders.

It may be that Stephen Manley was a “pluralist” (a priest holding more than one benefice) - at that time, many priests were. But there is another possible explanation : that he had been locked out of the Rectory by his predecessor’s widow, and had nowhere to live in Houghton.

How did such a scandalous state of affairs arise? And, anyway, were not the rules of Clerical Celibacy meant to obviate such problems? The opponents of clerical marriage naturally emphasised the positive benefits of celibacy, but they also drew attention to negative advantages, such as the fact that there should never be any disputes between the heirs of a deceased priest and the rest of the Church over the legal ownership of any property acquired by the late priest for the benefit of his parish.

It might help to understand the situation if we try and summarise what little we know about the late Thirteenth-Century and early Fourteenth-Century Rectors of Houghton.

We have earlier stated that we know practically nothing about the rectors who served our village before 1250. Then we come to the names of Geoffrey of Saint Agatha and John Mansell, both of whom were mentioned in the December (2003) issue of the “Signpost”, chiefly in connection with the dispensations they needed in order to hold other parishes in “pluralism”, and to draw the income attached to them.

Robert of Beckenham then became Rector, at the turn of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries. He seems to have got seriously into arrears in the payments that he should have made to Bishop Anthony Beck, and seems to have been supported in his defiance of the bishop by the Prior of Durham Monastery, Richard of Houghton. The good Prior seemed to be sustaining his home village in its fight against Bishop Beck’s impositions, and Beck became equally hostile to both Richard of Houghton, the Prior of the monastery, and Robert, the Rector of Houghton-le-Spring.

On Robert’s death, in 1310, Bishop Beck, who was of course the patron of the parish, saw to it that his good friend, William of St. Botolph, who was also Archdeacon of Durham, was appointed to the living. But in 1311, both Bishop and Archdeacon seem to have died, almost simultaneously. Both were very quickly replaced. Richard of Kelloe, a monk of Durham, became the new bishop; and he appointed Stephen Manley to be the new Rector of Houghton-le-Spring, while another man became Archdeacon of Durham.

When Manley reached Houghton, expecting to be inducted into his new living, he was surprised to find St. Botolph’s family still installed in the Rectory (they obviously preferred Houghton Rectory to the Archdeacon’s official residence on College Green). St. Botolph had apparently gone through some sort of illegal marriage ceremony with a lady, and she seems to have expected, as St. Botolph’s widow, to inherit his estate, including the Rectory and various items of church plate. Thus, eight years before the Black Douglas came to Houghton and besieged the church, another siege took place in the village : the Rector attempting to gain admittance to what should have been his own Rectory. Mrs. St. Botolph was sustained in her defiance by some of her late husband’s former friends, while the new Bishop supported Manley, the man whom he had appointed to take over the parish.

Of course the siege did not go on for eight years, and Houghton Rectory was firmly in Manley’s possession long before 1319, when the Black Douglas came to Houghton, and smashed the place up. So we cannot use his troubles with his predecessor’s partner as any excuse for his absence from the scene when, perhaps, his parishioners most needed him.

Was the Rectory which Rector William’s lady so gallantly defended against the new Rector the same as the building we can still see in Rectory Park, just across the Broadway from the church? It was not of course the present Rectory, which has only been in use as a residence for the clergy for the last fifty years or so. But the “Old Rectory” is still standing, in use as offices for Sunderland City Council (and before that, for Houghton-le-Spring Urban District Council), on the Broadway. Was that the building that was defended against Stephen Manley?

The history of the Old Rectory has not been so clearly investigated as that of the parish church. It is, however, without doubt, the oldest building in Houghton, other than the church; but it has been altered and rebuilt so many times that it is difficult to be sure what is the original heart of the building. Substantial parts of the Rectory are certainly of Fifteenth-Century date, but these appear to be based on a core of, perhaps, Early Fourteenth-Century construction: that is, from the time of William of St. Botolph and of Stephen Manley.

Thus it is possible that Rector Stephen was banging on the door of what is now the Old Rectory (though not of course the present door, which will have been replaced many times, over the course of the centuries). But it seems more likely that, if there is no discernible trace of work earlier than the Early Fourteenth Century to be found in the Old Rectory, it will then be a new building, erected after the devastation caused by the Black Douglas’ raid in 1319. And we simply do not know where exactly the Rectory, as it was prior to 1319, stood.

Eventually, of course, (but long before 1319) Stephen Manley secured possession of his Rectory. But it was a wretched inheritance into which he entered. After the disastrous defeat of the English at Bannockburn, in 1315, the people of the Palatinate of Durham were to pay heavily for the enthusiasm with which Bishop Beck had marched his peasants - the “Haliwer Folc” - into Scotland. Douglas and other raiders slew the people, destroyed the houses, and burnt the crops. There was plenty of work for priests in this devastated land, but few tithes to be collected from abandoned farmland.

Bishop Beck’s successor, Richard of Kelloe, died in 1316, after a brief, five-years’ term as prince and bishop, a period of office which culminated in the disasters arising out of the defeat at Bannockburn. King Edward’s government immediately took steps to see that some care was taken to find a suitable successor, no simple monk, but rather a strong man who would take good care of England’s endangered Northern frontier.

In 1317, the Crown found what it hoped would prove to be the “right man”. He was Louis de Beaumont, a Court priest, and a chaplain to Edward II’s neglected French queen, Isabelle - indeed, a Frenchman himself, he was actually a cousin of the Queen’s. The Archbishop of York and the Monastery of Durham were “squared”, and both agreed to accept the Crown’s appointee. And, as mentioned in last month’s “Signpost”, he set out from London, along the Great North Road, with a great retinue, including two cardinals who were on a visit from the Papal Court at Avignon, and who wished to discover exactly what the state of affairs was in North Britain (the Crowns of both England and Scotland had sent ambassadors to Avignon, to try and gain the Papal blessing for their campaigns against each other).

Well, they found out soon enough. Despite the protection of Earl Conyers with his falchion, who had joined the cavalcade when they crossed the Tees at Croft, they were ambushed at Rushyford (where the “Eden Arms” now stands) by a party of “wild Scots”, who robbed them of all their jewellery, their silver and gold, and their richer vestments, but who spared their lives, and permitted them to continue their journey towards Durham.

When they reached that city (in their underwear, it would appear), it would appear that the incident had been a shock to Beaumont’s nervous system. At his Installation it was discovered that he was unable to read any but the simplest words in Latin : he stumbled hopelessly over any word of more than three or four syllables. He may, of course, have been dyslexic. Also, it was soon discovered that he knew very little English (his native language was of course French). At any rate, he couldn’t understand the sort of English spoken at Durham.

In fact, it was soon discovered that Beaumont was not “the right man” for the job.

He was still Bishop in 1327, when King Edward II died (or rather, was horribly murdered by the barons, whose opinions on the King’s sexual irregularities were not enlightened), and the King was succeeded by his fifteen-year-old son (the son, at any rate, of Queen Isabelle), Edward III. Despite his youth, the lad was determined not to suffer the fate of his father, and so, to please the barons, he immediately assembled troops, without even waiting for his Coronation, and set off for the North, in the hope of winning fame and glory against the invader. Messengers rode ahead of him, to instruct Bishop Beaumont to muster the Haliwer Folc, and to prepare to set out in search of the Scots.

King and Bishop, at the head of their knights and men-at-arms, met together outside Durham Cathedral, determined to find the enemy and to destroy him. They did not have to go far in search of him. The Black Douglas was on the warpath again, and was invading England by way of Tynedale, Allendale and Weardale, and was reported to be coming down along the Wear to attack Durham itself. The King and Bishop rode up the Wear, and were ambushed by Douglas at Stanhope, and decisively defeated, most of the ill-trained English levies running away. The King and the Bishop, both mounted on fine horses, managed to get away faster than most of their unfortunate soldiers, and soon got back to the safety of Durham’s walls. It is said that the King arrived at the gates of Durham in tears, because of his humiliation. Bishop Beaumont was more laid back about the outcome of the battle. It was how battles generally ended up, in his experience.

King Edward III learned by his early defeat. After returning to London for his Coronation, he studied warcraft more seriously, and he would later win many victories in campaigns against the Scots and the French. His most famous victory against the French was the Battle of Crécy, in 1346. Readers of the “Signpost” blessed with long memories which go back over a year, to March, 2003, may recall an incident, described in that issue, of how, when Edward III was preparing, in 1333, to invade Scotland, he and his Queen, Philippa, and many lords and ladies of the Court, were entertained by the Prior of Durham, and were found beds within the monastic quarters; but, after complaints by some of the more pious monks, the Queen and her ladies were awoken, and, though they were wearing little or nothing, were made to troop out, through the night air, to Durham Castle, where alternative accommodation was found for them.

By Edward III’s time, Stephen Manley was dead, and he had, in 1326, been succeeded as Rector of Houghton-le-Spring by Theobald de la Valle. Rector Manley’s period of office had been a miserable time for Houghton, not of course through any fault of the Rector. It would be remembered as the “Lean Years”.

De la Valle’s incumbency would not last long. He would be dead by 1330, and was succeeded by Manserus Marmeyon. The latter’s incumbency would bring happier times. Bishop Bury, Beaumont’s successor, would even be led to describe Houghton as “a fat parish”.