June 2006

Parish History Episode 62 Keeling, Lyghe & Kent

Henry Gillow’s three successors as Rectors of Houghton, whose incumbencies saw the completion of the Chantry Chapel of the Most Holy Trinity, according to the terms of Gillow’s will, and saw also the brief flourishing of later chantry guilds, were Henry Keeling (from 1483), Alexander Lyghe (from 1490) and Robert Kent (1500 - 1528). Although they may not come to life so vividly as Henry Gillow, we can infer something of each of them from brief mentions in contemporary writings.

There must have been a lot of building work going on in Rector Keeling’s time. The chantry chapel (now the clergy vestry and the church office) was then, in accordance with the provisions of Gillow’s will, under construction, but there were also warlike preparations under way, as the Rectory itself was being fortified. This was not the present residence of the Rector, nor the building in Dairy Lane which served as a rectory throughout the second half of the Twentieth Century, but the rather grander building, now known as the Old Rectory, which stands in the Broadway, immediately opposite the church. The core of this Old Rectory appears to have been constructed in the first half of the Fourteenth Century, and it presumably replaced an earlier rectory, burned down by the Black Douglas in the course of his great raid of 1319, an expedition which culminated in the sack of Hartlepool. It remained the residence of the Rectors of Houghton for over six hundred years, until, in 1949, ownership was transferred to the Houghton-le-Spring Urban District Council, and the rectors moved into more modest accommodation in Dairy Lane. The Urban District Council used the Rectory as a town hall, and built an additional office block to accommodate their staff (which increased in numbers as the United Kingdom evolved into a “welfare state”), and turned the rectory gardens into a public park, Rectory Park. As a consequence of the re-organisation of local government in 1974, the Urban District of Houghton-le-Spring became part both of the Borough of Sunderland and of the new county of Tyne & Wear, and Rectory Park and its buildings were transferred to the ownership of the Borough (later City) Corporation. The buildings still remain in use as municipal offices.

It was in 1483 that work was begun in fortifying the Rectory, and putting it in a fit state to survive a siege. The house itself was castellated - that is, battlements were constructed around the housetops, so that archers, stationed on the roof, could shoot through the embrasures without exposing themselves to hostile fire; while a pele tower was constructed in the grounds, immediately adjacent to the Rectory, from which additional archers could cut down men attacking the house. Obviously an enemy was expected, and Frank Rushford, who, in or about 1950, wrote a history of Houghton*, assumes that the reason for these defensive works was fear of Scottish raiders. But it was then over a century and a half from the time of the Black Douglas’s expedition to Hartlepool, in the course of which Houghton had been destroyed, and no Scottish raiders had since come anywhere close to the village. The Raid of 1319 was a long way back in the past, and it was probably barely remembered in Rector Keeling’s day. What was much more recent, and was remembered all too well, were the series of campaigns known as the Wars of the Roses. When the peasants saw their rector engaged in constructing these military works, they must have assumed that he was preparing for another round of civil conflict.

Was he? Did he undertake all this work at his own expense? If not, at whose?; and for whose benefit was the work undertaken?

Could he legally have done this anyway? The Prince-Bishops kept to themselves the sole right to build castles and fortifications within the Palatinate, and the towers and other works built by the Nevilles, Lumleys, Hiltons, Eures and other local lords, were either illegal, or they had been built under licence from the bishop.

Rector Keeling did indeed pay Bishop Dudley what Rushford describes as a fine for the work he had done in fortifying the Rectory, and I suspect that this might give us a clue as to what was going on.

Bishop William Dudley (1476-1483) had succeeded Lawrence Booth, a bishop who had been closely associated with the family of Neville “the Kingmaker” - the baron who had seemed for a while to be more powerful than the rival princes of the Houses of York and Lancaster. Booth had remained a supporter of the Yorkist cause even after the Nevilles had fallen out of favour with the new dynasty, and King Edward IV translated him to the See of York in 1476. While Booth became the Archbishop of England’s Northern Province, King Edward appointed William Dudley, another of his clerical friends, to take over Booth’s former See of Durham, and Dudley held the Borders firm for King Edward for the last seven years of the King’s life.

Now, Dudley died late in 1483, a few months after the death of the King, as also of the death of Rector Gillow at Houghton-le-Spring. King Edward IV was succeeded by his thirteen-year-old son, proclaimed as Edward V (with the late King’s brother, Richard of Gloucester, serving as Regent), while Henry Gillow was succeeded at Houghton by Henry Keeling. So, although we do not know the precise date on which Keeling was inducted into Houghton parish, his tenure of office can only have overlapped that of Bishop Dudley at Durham by a few months at most.

Consequently, if Rector Keeling paid some money to Bishop Dudley for the fortification of Houghton Rectory, it must have been paid shortly after his arrival in Houghton, and shortly before the Bishop’s demise. It would appear, therefore, to have been a fee paid for a licence to castellate, before the work was begun, rather than a fine paid, as a penalty for engaging in illegal military preparations, after the work was completed. These works were presumably undertaken with the approval of Bishop Dudley, perhaps even at his instigation.

I would suggest that this licence was issued when King Edward IV was dying, or immediately after his death. He was to leave behind an untrusted widow, Queen Elizabeth, who (as mentioned in the February “Signpost”), had once had to seek, along with her mother, sanctuary in Westminster Abbey from a mob who believed both royal ladies to be witches; and, as his heir and successor, a thirteen-year-old boy; and as a Regent for the lad, his brother, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, who was also seen by many as an untrustworthy individual. Edward IV had ruled the Kingdom firmly for the last twelve years, and, after years of civil war, England was once again at peace.

But many were apprehensive about the future, including perhaps old Bishop Dudley and Houghton’s new Rector. They may have decided that it might be as well to start preparing for a possible resumption of civil strife. If Bishop Dudley feared for the future of the Kingdom, and of himself, it might have seemed a good idea to beready for any possible challenge to the young Edward V. The Parish of Houghton was in his gift; his man, Keeling, occupied it : why not prepare it as a base from which to rally support for the young King, in case the Lumleys and the Hiltons proved insufficiently loyal?

The licence to castellate may have been issued in 1483, but the work can hardly have been completed that year. That autumn Bishop Dudley died, in London playing politics, about the same time as Edward V disappeared, and the lad’s uncle proclaimed himself king as Richard III. Dudley was given a fine funeral and burial in Westminster Abbey, but the new King was undoubtedly pleased to see him gone, and the following year he provided Durham with a new bishop, John Sherwood, an old friend of Richard’s. Sherwood filled Durham with his political friends, including Alexander Lyghe, who will be the next Rector of Houghton. Keeling, however, kept his post for the moment, and went on with his work of fortification. As Sherwood did not, as far as we know, object, it may be that Keeling had changed with the times, and no longer concerned himself with the fate of his late king’s son.

For that matter, the times would soon (1485) change again. King Richard would be slain in the Battle of Bosworth, and the Welsh prince, Henry Tudor, would assume the royal powers and title as King Henry VII. If the fortification of Houghton Rectory was begun to sustain King Edward’s power, and continued to support King Richard’s, it was probably completed in the days of King Henry.The new Tudor king had no illusions about Bishop Sherwood’s loyalty. He did not attempt to rid himself of the man who was, nominally, responsible for the safety of England’s Northern borders, but he left the Bishop in Durham, with title but little power, while he found another man, Richard Fox, bishop first of Exeter, and later of Bath & Wells, to keep an eye on Sherwood and on the Border, while neglecting his spiritual responsibilities in the South-West.

What remains of Keeling’s works? Little or nothing, it would seem. The pele tower, which stood at the South-Western corner of the Rectory, was demolished over three centuries later, in Rector Thurlow’s time, as it blocked the winter light from his study window.

The rector complained that the light was so poor that he fell asleep while writing his sermons. The wakefulness of his congregation, when these sermons came to be preached, can only be imagined.

The stump of the pele tower seems still to be in the ground, and it appears to support both yew and holly trees, nourished presumably by the lime from the stonework, and whatever muck had accumulated in the cellar of the tower.

As regards the castellation of the rectory roof, although battlements are still to be seen, I suspect that the roof has been reconstructed several times over the centuries, and that they are not Rector Keeling’s original battlements. At any rate, they would appear to give protection only to very shortlegged archers.

Keeling’s successor, Alexander Lyghe, came into Durham in 1484, when his patron, John Sherwood, was appointed bishop. As Sherwood had previously been the English King’s ambassador at the Papal Court, it is probable that Lyghe had lived for a while in Rome. The new bishop generously provided Lyghe, evidently a trust-worthy servant, with several offices of profit as they fell vacant, including that of Master of Sherburn Hospital, and, in 1490, after Keeling’s death, with that of Rector of Houghton-le-Spring.

Lyghe was a pluralist, but his offices were relatively close together, and he probably oversaw them all with reasonable diligence. Possibly he overburdened himself with cares - at any rate, he was afflicted with the palsy (paralysis, a stroke, as we would say to-day) a year or two after taking on Houghton, and became increasingly unfit to carry out his duties.

In 1500 Bishop Fox, Sherwood’ successor, arranged for his retirement, and he was pensioned off with the sum of sixty pounds per annum (a very adequate pension, considering the purchasing power of money in those days), paid for out of the stipends he surrendered.

This was an arrangement which was of great benefit, not only to Lyghe himself, but also to the worshippers at Houghton parish church and to the residents in Sherburn Hospital. Alexander Lyghe gained security in his old age and incapacity, while both Houghton and Sherburn gained welleducated and energetic young men to take over the running of those important charges.

The young man who came to Houghton was Robert Kent. He appears already to have been in Houghton, since 1498 at least, and to have been in practical charge of the parish during Lyghe’s incapacity. He was to hold office in Houghton for a further twenty-eight years, from 1500 to 1528 - longer than any of his predecessors, other than Thomas Astley (1434-1470).

Robert Kent, therefore, came to Houghton as a young man, and held office here for over a quarter of a century. A glance at the board at the back of the church, displaying a list of rectors, from the time of the Norman priest Renaldus to the present, shows one further point of interest about this man. His name is given, with the initials S.T.P. after it. These stand for the Latin words Sacri Theologae Professor (Professor of Sacred Theology), a university degree now replaced by that of a Doctor of Divinity.

Kent was, as far as we know, the first Rector of Houghton to have enjoyed a university education. All succeeding rectors will hold one or more degrees, and the days of parish priests beginning their training by serving an apprenticeship as an altar- -boy are coming to an end.

Such priests still held many cures of souls within the Diocese of Durham, but Bishop Fox was now making it his practice to put university men into most of the parishes within his patronage.

Kent had been inducted into Houghton during the first year of the Sixteenth Century. It was a new century, a new age, with new men and new learning. During Kent’s long incumbency, Luther was to nail his ninety-five theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. Nothing would be the same again.

The news soon spread. Kent would have heard of it, and would have had an opinion. But probably nobody else in Houghton would hear tell of it for many a year. The old ways went on, but times were a-changing, and soon all that Keeling and Lyghe and Kent had worked for would be swept away in a torrent of change.

Dick Toy

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