Georgins ffarndayle
16 March 1602 to 17 August 1693 (buried)
FAR00073
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George lived
during the English Civil War and certainly experienced local battles and may
have been involved directly.
Headlines of
George Farndale’s life are in brown.
Dates are in red.
Hyperlinks to
other pages are in dark
blue.
References and
citations are in turquoise.
Context and local
history are in purple.
1602
Georgins ffarndayle
was born 16 March 1602 and baptised at Skelton
on 28 March 1602, the son of George ffarndayle and
Margery nee Nelson Farndale (FAR00067) (Skelton PR).
A now off-line website (www.birdsinthetree.com) indicated that
George Farndale born 16 March 1602 and that his mother was Margery Nelson (with
no information about father) and we know that George Farndale married
Margery Nelson.
When George
Farndale was born in 1602, his father, George, was therefore 32 and his mother,
Margery nee Nelson, was also 32. George lived at Moorsolm. This is
consistent with his father.
1607
George’s father,
George Farndaile was buried on 9 March 1607 at
Skelton (Skelton Parish Records). He was
probably only about 42. George was only five. They may have been living at Moorsholm by then.
1609
George’s father’s
will: ‘The Dean of Cleveland grants guardianship of William Farndaile, Susan, George and Richard Farndaile, children of George Farndale, deceased, together
with administration of their affairs, goods, rights and portions to Margery
Farndale by choice of the said children.’ (York
Wills).
1623
George farnedayle must
have married between 1623 and 1624, given the dates of birth of his children.
His wife’s name was probably Jane or Jaine (sic) Farndale (1610-1678)
who died at Liverton on 26 August 1678 (Liverton PR).
1625
William Farndale was born at Liverton on 20
November 1625 (FAR00078) (Liverton
PR).
1634
Nicholas Farndale, was born at Liverton on 6 July
1634 (FAR00082) (Liverton
PR).
1636
Jane Farndale, was born Liverton on 17 November
1636 (FAR00086) (Liverton
PR).
1637
Isabell Farndale, was born Liverton on 18 March
1637 or 1638 (FAR00088) (Liverton
PR).
1642
The
English Civil War which began in 1642 was part of the wider Wars
of the Three Kingdoms 1639 to 1653. Parliament voted on 12 July 1642 to raise a force under the
command of the Third Earl of Essex and required an oath of allegiance. The King issued commissions of array
to allow the raising of militias and raised his flag at Nottingham on 22 August
1642. Each side seized
towns, strongpoints and military stores. The King was locked out of the largest
military depot at Hull. Counties
petitioned for compromise. Counties such as Yorkshire dragged their feet.
It is too
simplistic that the war was just a fight between liberty on the part of the
Parliamentarians against the tyranny of Stuart absolutism. Nor was it primarily
about class struggle. The ancient peerages tended to back the Parliamentarians
as they disliked the novelties of Stuart government. Religion was the clearest
dividing line, but religious spectrums were fluid and nearly everyone belonged
to the Church of England. A third of Puritans in 1643 were Royalist. Instead
there was division everywhere and every town and village and many families were
divided. Most fought because they were conscripted. Families split. There were
shifting coalitions and people changed sides.
Early in the
Civil War there was a campaign
for the north in 1643. When the first great battle of the Civil War, at Edgehill
on 23 October 1642, failed to deliver the expected resolution, both Royalists
and Parliamentarians rushed to take control of extensive territories as the
basis from which to support a long campaign. In the north the King gave this
task to the Marquis of Newcastle. By November 1642 the Royalist city of York was coming under increasing threats from the
Parliamentarian forces of the Hothams and Cholmley
from the north east and the Fairfaxes from the west.
The Royalist
Marquis of Newcastle raised an army some 6,000 to 8,000 strong and marched to York. He initially swept away the
Parliamentary opposition and took York as a
key strategic hub. Parliamentarian opposition in Yorkshire was led by
Ferdinando Lord Fairfax and his son Sir Thomas. The heartland of their power
was in the cloth towns of the West Riding. They had become cut off from their
main port at Scarborough. However they
were able to recruit a significant force of musketeers from their cloth towns
base.
The
Parliamentarian strategy was to interrupt the Royalist supply of arms. In mid January Sir Hugh Cholmley led a small Parliamentarian
army from Malton to Guisborough.
A
small skirmish took place somewhere between Skelton and Guisborough, in the immediate vicinity of
the new Farndale homes of Moorsholm and Liverton, on 16 January 1643 between
Royalists under the command of Colonel Guildford Slingsby and Parliamentarians
under Sir Hugh Cholmley and Sir Matthew Boynton. The Parliamentarian army of
about 380 men seem to have approached the battlefield from the moors and they
were met by Slingsby’s force of about 400 foot and 100 horse, who were being
drilled in Guisborough. Slingsby
took the initiative by charging his cavalry against Cholmley’s
horse with some success. However, his foot soldiers were forced back by the
Parliamentarians, and he withdrew to rally his inexperienced recruits. As he was doing so, he was caught by case
shot from the parliamentarian artillery and mortally wounded. The Royalist
force crumbled and many were captured.
George
Farndale was 41 in 1643, living at Moorsholm and his
brother Richard Farndale
was 39, living at Liverton. They were both
about eight kilometres from the battle. It is difficult
to find lists of civil war soldiers. Loyalties were divided. It is quite
possible that one or more of the brothers were part of the newly recruited army
of Colonel Guildford Slingsby who were being drilled in Guisborough. This was a pretty chaotic
period of time. Whether the brothers took part of the battle, it must have been
a significant event. They must have smelt it, heard it, seen it perhaps.
Cholmley
returned over the moors to Malton and later defected to the Royalists, but he
had sent his force on to a bridge crossing over the River Tees at Yarm,
south of Stockton, to try to stop a large
Royalist munitions convoy travelling from Newcastle to York on 1 February 1643.
The Parliamentarians, who may
have set up barricades, were quickly overwhelmed, losing over thirty men killed
and many wounded and captured. Others fled. The prisoners were marched to
Durham. The defeat may have helped influence parliamentarian Sir Hugh Cholmley
to change sides a few weeks later.
The attempt
to disrupt the Royalist army moved its focus to the Tadcaster area and there
was another Parliamentarian defeat at Seacroft
Moor near York on 30 March 1643.
The Battle
of Marston Moor took place west of York on
2 July 1644. During the summer of 1644, the Parliamentarians had been besieging
York. Prince Rupert had gathered a
Royalist army which marched through the northwest of England, gathering
reinforcements to relieve the city. The convergence of these forces made the
ensuing battle the largest of the Civil War. Rupert outmanoeuvred the Parliamentarians
to relieve the city and then sought battle with them even though he was
outnumbered. Both sides gathered their full strength on Marston Moor, an
expanse of wild meadow west of York. Towards
evening, the Parliamentarians themselves launched a surprise attack. After a
confused fight lasting two hours, Parliamentarian cavalry under Oliver Cromwell
routed the Royalist cavalry from the field and, with the Earl of Leven's
infantry, annihilated the remaining Royalist infantry. After their defeat the
Royalists effectively abandoned Northern England, losing much of the manpower
from the northern counties which were strongly Royalist in sympathy and also
losing access to the European continent through the ports on the North Sea
coast. The loss of the north was to prove a fatal handicap the next year, when
they tried unsuccessfully to link up with the Scottish Royalists under the
Marquess of Montrose.
In December
1644, a New Model Army of 22,000 men was formed by the Parliamentarians under
Lord General Sir Thomas Fairfax. This was the nation’s first professional army.
There was a new officer corps. The Self Denying Ordinance removed Members of
Parliament from military command, though with the notable exception of the MP
Oliver Cromwell, who was given command. The army was detached from civilian
society. Harsh discipline was imposed with penalties for drunkenness and
blasphemy. Sir Thomas Fairfax came from a Yorkshire gentry family. The Fairfaxes were among Parliament's leading supporters in
northern England.
The Royalist
forces suffered painful defeats in 1645. Nevertheless, there was factionalism
amongst the Parliamentarians. The Scottish Alliance had brought with it the
threat of an authoritarian system based on Scottish Presbyterianism. A faction
of Independents emerged within the Parliamentarians who sought liberty of
conscience. Many in the Army supported the Independents.
The New
Model Army soon became a problem. Its cost and the need for taxation caused
resentment. The army came to be hated by the civilian population. But
disbanding was also a problem with significant arrears of pay, amounting to
£3M. The army was seeking its own terms, including protection from being sent
to fight in Ireland and indemnity from prosecution for acts during the war.
By 1645,
many clergy who could not agree with puritan ideals were removed from their
livings and Marske Parish records of this time shows evidence of this amongst Skelton
folk.
In July
1647, the army commanders offered conciliatory terms, Heads of Proposals, which
included tolerance for the Anglicans. Charles was initially conciliatory, but
eventually rejected the terms. Charles was taken to Hampton Court.
Active
political debates were started in the period of political instability following
the end of the civil war. The Putney Debates were held
from 28 October to 8 November 1647 which discussed such ideas as every man
that is to live under a government ought first by his own consent to put
himself under that government. The Levellers
came to prominence at the end of the Civil War, led by John
Lilburne, and were most influential immediately
before the start of the Second Civil War. Leveller views and support were found
in the populace of the City of London and in some regiments in the New Model
Army. The Levellers wanted limited government, though Lilburn denied that he wanted to level all men’s estates.
A Second
Civil War restarted in 1648. In June 1648 Royalists sneaked into Pontefract
castle, only a few miles north of the old Farndale home of Campsall,
and took control. The Castle was an important base for the Royalists, and
raiding parties harried Parliamentarians in the area. Oliver Cromwell led the
final siege of Pontefract Castle in November 1648. Charles I was executed in
January 1649, and Pontefract's garrison came to an agreement and Colonel
Morrice handed over the castle to Major General John Lambert on 24 March 1649.
Following requests from the townspeople at a grand jury at York, on 27 March 1649 Major General Lambert was
ordered by Parliament that Pontefract Castle should be totally demolished
& levelled to the ground and materials from the castle would be sold
off.
1673
George farndaile had one hearth at Moorsome
in 1673 (Hearth Tax Returns).
1674
George ffarndaile hath
two hearths at Moorsome in 1674 (Hearth Tax Returns).
1678
Jaine Farndale, probably his wife (although it could have been his daughter),
was buried at the Anglican Church of St Michael at Liverton on 26 August 1678. Their
daughter Jane had died at birth, so this was probably George’s wife, also Jane.
1693
George Farndale
died in August 1693 in Loftus,
Yorkshire, at the impressive age of 91. Loftus
might have been the registration if he was still living at Moorsholm.
George Farndale
was buried at Loftus on 17 August 1693.
