LOCKE UNLOCKED: JOHN LOCKE – SCHOLAR, EXPERIMENTER, THINKER, WRITER, TEACHER, TRAVELLER, PHYSICIAN, AND UNLIKELY REVOLUTIONARY.

A Pensford Perspective by Tim Veater. (Part 2)

An overview of the life and works of John Locke and it’s application to current

issues of Government. (In Parts)

Preface.

This is the second part of a slightly different perspective on the much

discussed John Locke, the famous British philosopher. It does not claim to be a

particularly scholarly work. Rather it attempts to cast a familiar story in a

new light, highlighting the part Locke’s early life and physical environment

played in the making of the man and his ideas: ideas that were to have such an

important impact on a world that was to come after his death, the implications

of which he could have little conception. In the process it is hoped it will

help a relatively small area of North Somerset, familiar to the writer, to get

another “fifteen minutes of fame”, and its most illustrious son his rightful

place in its local history.

The article is submitted here in parts, to make it more suitable for a web site

that has been kind enough to publish some of my previous observations. I have

referred to a number of sources, principally the well-known biographies by

Maurice Cranston and Roger Woolhouse. Others will be listed as a bibliography

with the final part at a later date. Unfortunately the intended illustrations,

which helped to bring it all to life, cannot be included for technical reasons.

If despite my best efforts and in the interests of readability, any errors have

crept in, or I have offended anyone, I apologise in advance and request

indulgence. The substance is all the work of others; the errors all my own.

1. Introduction (Repeated for context).

John Locke, FRS (1632 – 1704), the seventeenth Century philosopher, is regarded

as one of the earliest and most influential thinkers in the English-speaking

world. Building on the approach of others, such as Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626)

and the Frenchman Rene Descartes (1596 – 1650), he asserted the primacy of

reason in matters of natural philosophy, religion, politics and man himself. As

such he is considered to be one of the first of the British “empiricists”. In

turn he influenced later thinkers including Voltaire (1694 – 1778) , Rousseau

(1712 – 1778) , David Hume (1711 – 1776) and Adam Smith (1723 – 1790) amongst

others. He also had a direct impact on British and American political

development, specifically the British “Glorious Revolution” of 1688 and the

American Revolution of 1776. Many of his ideas were pillars of both the United

States Declaration of Independence and first Constitution. These issues continue

to resonate in today’s interconnec

ted, corporate, unsettled world. To this liberal philosophy was added his

consideration of the mind, holding that all children were born as it were with a

blank slate (“Tabula Rasa”) and were shaped by environmental forces, to become

what they were as adults, emphasising perception and experience. So both in

political philosophy and human psychology he broke new ground and was deeply

challenging, undermining a number of political and religious “givens” of the

time. The concept of original sin, predestination, divine right of kings and

the duty of the subject to obey, no matter what, even the nature of God himself

were all directly or indirectly in the firing line! In a wider sense he

contributed to the “Enlightenment”, from which sprang later scientific discovery

and democratic principles of government. This article focuses on the period up

to and including the time Locke left home to attend Westminster School in 1646

and some incidents thereafter. (See earlier arti

cle for Sections 2 – 5 incl.)

6. The Family Home and Social Landscape

As regards the family home in Belluton, it was much superior to the Wrington

cottage, in which he saw the light of day. It was probably a Tudor Farmhouse,

neither grand nor modest. It had been purchased by his grandfather Nicholas and

handed on to his father, John senior. It consisted of a parlour, hall, study,

kitchen, buttery, three (bed) chambers and outside, stables, all with furniture

and fittings. Perhaps, the most significant item in the the still extant

inventory, is reference to a library containing books to the value of £5:14:0.

This when a stool was valued at 6d and even an exclusive 17th Century clock was

valued at £2:0:0. A library in a 17th Century home was not common and would

probably be regarded as a mark of distinction. It is likely that the majority of

it passed to Locke supplemented by many additional volumes during his life.

A“Locke’s Cottage” attached to a rebuilt and listed, “Belluton House” still

exists.

His was a fairly prosperous, low-church, family of which he was the third

generation that had made it’s money, like so many others in that time, from the

clothing trade. His father was an attorney, JP’s Clerk and steward for the

local Lord of the Manor. He also had fledging local government office, being

appointed “County Clerk for Sewers”, presumably working under the authority of

the“Quarter Sessions” – that is JP’s meeting every quarter to judge more serious

crimes – or the Lord Lieutenant. During the Civil War he was a collector of

Parliamentarian contributions on behalf of Alexander Popham.

In Bristol , five miles distant – a cosmopolitan and maritime port and city of

about 50,000 souls, with strong links to the West Indies and the triangular

slave trade – Locke had a wealthy brewer uncle (Thomas 1612 – 1664). There were

coal mines, water mills, leather, wool and metal processing factories nearby. A

varied and fascinating topography, wildlife and history; direct connections with

both local and national events; a serious Puritanical world view all of which

must have impinged on, and shaped, Locke’s youthful mind.

7. Civil War.

Locke Senior had direct involvement in the Civil War as Captain of Horse for

Popham’s troop (he declared himself for the Parliamentary side during Sunday

service in Publow Church). He was present under General Waller at the Battle of

Roundway Down, Devizes when the Parliamentary troops were routed. In the

fighting at Roundway Down, the Parliamentarians lost around 600 killed and 1,000

captured, so both he and Popham were lucky to survive. The defeat essentially

destroyed the Western Association army and left the west open to Royalist

forces. Taking advantage of this vacuum, Prince Rupert captured Bristol on July

23, 1643.

After this military and financial setback, both Locke Senior and Popham appear

to retire from direct involvement, although they maintained their allegiance and

practical assistance for the Parliamentary side. Locke Senior never appears to

have been properly recompensed, which later on Locke junior in a letter to him,

comments adversely on Popham’s role. It has been suggested that Popham’s

sponsorship of John and his brother to Westminster was partially out of

gratitude or guilt.

At the start of the Civil War Bristol declared for Parliament. However in the

summer of 1643 Prince Rupert attacked from both north and south and after a

spirited defence, in which many were killed, he took the city and huge reserves

of booty and armaments. It then, for two years, became an important

manufacturing centre for the Royalist armies. How Pensford, only six miles to

the south, was affected by all this uproar we do not know. We know even less

about how Locke responded to it. The defeated Parliamentary troops were allowed

to depart with their possessions, so some may have made their way to Pensford

for support and recovery.

Somerset was a known Royalist area but Pensford bucked the trend and was a

rather notorious centre of both religious and political dissent. Having said

this, it should be qualified by the observation that many local people took the

view “a curse upon both your houses”. En route to Bristol in 1645, Fairfax had

to meet the “Somerset Clubmen” to promise his Army would treat them fairly. (The

Clubmen of Dorset were even more antagonistic requiring Fairfax to treat them

more harshly) As the Royalists retreated from their defeat at the Battle of

Langport, they were pursued and slaughtered by the essentially civilian

“Clubmen” in retribution for their mistreatment under Royalist occupation.

After the Battle of Langford and various other skirmishes at Yeovil and

Bridgewater, the tables were turned when Fairfax and his army laid siege to

Bristol for Parliament. He held counsel with his up and coming Captain of Horse,

Oliver Cromwell in Wickham Court, Stapleton (recently on the market) on the east

side of Bristol, so it is not altogether clear whether his route from Sherborne

was through Pensford but it is likely some of his army approached Bristol that

way.

In the environs of Chew Magna on the Winford brook there were apparently several

gunpowder factories under the ownership of the Babers for whom Locke senior was

Clerk. There is a battle Lane in Chew approaching a bridge over the brook, a

tributary of the Chew River, so it may be reasonable to assume there may have

been skirmishes there.

However after the fall of Bristol on the 10th September 1645, General Fairfax

billeted his troops at Pensford for three weeks on Locke/Popham land, probably

chosen for its convenient and strategic location and facilities. It offered

plentiful supply of river and spring water for ablutions and other purposes;

timber from the “Lords” and “Culvery” Woods for fires; several bakeries and ale

houses; a weekly market when a wide range of items could be purchased; animals

for food, and an agricultural hinterland for vegetables and corn; blacksmiths

for repairs to weapons and implements; even fine cloth if required for blankets

or clothes. (From the 14th Century it had been customary to issue “a length of

broadcloth” to all the King’s men required to muster, parish by parish and of

course Pensford was famous for its broadcloth) It had the further advantage that

it was up wind of Bristol itself, which was affected by an outbreak of plague at

the time.

How much of this victualling and provisioning was actually paid for, can only be

guessed at. It is likely Locke was expected to contribute a great deal gratis

and probably led to his straitened circumstances thereafter.

Can you imagine the effect on the young Locke surrounded by all those battle

hardened soldiers? Three years later Locke senior records “ransoms” to Fairfax,

and by March 1649 the Taunton Assize records Pensford poor relief had become

defective. The war bled Locke Senior dry, a point that was to exercise him when

nearing death a decade later.

In a letter from Oxford in 1660 Locke Junior reassures him not to worry: “Let

not those thoughts deject you” he writes, “and if your convenience can leave me

nothing else, I shall have a head and hands and industry still left me which

alone have been able to raise sufficient fortunes.”

8. Class and Status

The Belluton Lockes were no working class household, and it is clear from the

first, Locke was brought up in a bookish, puritanical, socially elevated and

politically aware environment, but we should be careful not to project current

notions of class onto the 17th Century. The “Industrial Revolution” was yet to

arrive and with it Marxian ideas of class around the means of production. Nor

indeed modern ones of the “Classless Society”, even though in 1887 Lord Harcourt

famously opined, “We are all Socialists now” or even John Prescott’s comment in

2002 that, “We’re all Middle Class now”. Of course neither opinions were true

then or now.

Perhaps no one has better portrayed the 20th Century British attitude to class

than the famous Monty Python sketch from the early 1970’s – upper, middle and

lower. Today we appreciate the part played by family background, occupation,

education and wealth in determining it – still the subject of national debate

around the proportion of “Public School” scholars in government. We know that

class remains important for its implications for individual life chances,

standard of living, health, fulfilment and influence, despite all egalitarian

attempts to modify it or abolish it.

The class distinctions of the 17th Century were different but no less real. In

fact it could be said they were more stratified and rigid. Elizabethan

Sumptuary Laws laid down specific rules as to dress and weapons, so that it was

literally possible to place people on sight. The rules were well defined and

structured so that it was unlikely individuals could move seamlessly from one

class to another – although it was possible. Social status of Locke’s time

ranging from paupers and dispossessed, vagrants who could and were whipped and

sent back to their originating parish; cottage holders such as many of the

“very poor” tenants of Locke; small businessmen and yeoman farmers; the growing

merchant class that would often take on functions in the chartered towns and

cities – Gentlemen and Esquires, and if beneficial to the crown might obtain a

baronetcy. Then the nobility in all its degrees to those of royal blood with the

monarch at the very top.

Needless to say, despite all democratic and social progress, the basic pyramid

in British society remains – presumably because we cannot find anything better

to replace it.

The merchant or manufacturer that came from humble beginnings, making his

fortune and then assuming both place and influence, within the context of the

Chartered cities and towns was the exception that proved the rule. The legend of

Dick Whittington is emblematic.

Another route to preferment and status was the Church which held a special place

in public education and administration right up to the dissolution of the

monasteries and thereafter under the auspices of the established Church of

England. Thomas a Beckett (c.1120) – 29 December 1170) the famous martyred

Archbishop of Canterbury, came from a small land owning/merchant family. In

contrast Thomas Cromwell, (c.?1485 – 28 July 1540) 1st Earl of Essex and Henry

VIII’s Chancellor was the son of Walter Cromwell, a blacksmith, fuller, and

cloth merchant, and owner of both a hostelry and a brewery – not unlike Locke’s

origins in fact!

However distinctions of class as determined by the status of one’s parents were

hard to cross and most of the population remained in them for life. This reality

must also have had significant psychological consequences.

Following the Black Death in 1350, the labourers had flexed their increased

economic muscle to improve their circumstances, most notably in the person of

Wat Tyler (d. 1381) lead rebellion. By Locke’s time the Civil War also had

strong populist and libertarian themes. “The Levellers” were so named for

obvious reasons!

Seventeenth Century conurbations – London, Bristol, Norwich, Oxford and other

ancient centres – were then a melting pot, where talent and effort could

transform the social and financial status of an individual. Quakers, from the

1640’s onwards, though generally reviled, including by Locke himself initially,

and denied access to established education routes, were particularly adept at

self improvement. They became prominent in areas of instrument making, commerce,

banking – and social reform – because they were sober and honest. (Trust in

banking – now there’s a thing!)

Most medium sized towns now had their “Grammar Schools” where the children of

those who could afford to pay or were lucky enough to win scholarships, could

find a route to the established universities of Oxford and Cambridge and thence

usually into the Church and a comfortable living.

However in the rural areas where, unlike today, the vast majority lived,

mediaeval and feudal approaches clung on and the chances of making it big were

actually quite small. If lucky you might be born the child of a farmer or

tradesman. For the rest you got by on the strength of your arm or the ingenuity

of your brain. The common fields had largely been, or were being, enclosed and

although serfdom had disappeared, the lot of the farm labourer was hard and

desperate. Somerset fields had been given over to sheep from crops, particularly

around the very profitable cloth producing towns such as Pensford. Even so

Elizabethan poverty was rife which necessitated the first Poor Laws. Pensford

poor are specifically mentioned in the mid 17th Century as requiring the

surrounding parishes to contribute to their relief.

Being more affluent, all three generations of Lockes made provision for the

poor. For example John Locke donated a pound every Christmas for bread for the

poor of Pensford, the elderly, infirm to be treated preferentially. His will,

like his Grandfather Nicholas, specified two pounds annually for the poor of

Pensford and High Laver and ten pounds annually for apprenticeships until the

death of his executor.

No-one was exempt from the waves of infectious disease that swept the country

which reappeared every few years. The “French” Pox was almost endemic as were

intestinal parasites and infections. Tuberculosis was rife to which Locke’s

father succumbed. The poor were worse off for obvious reasons and there was

plenty of poverty to go around in the 17th Century. Medicine was still largely

based on inaccurate notions of anatomy and false projections from cosmology

dating back fifteen hundred years to Aristotle and Galen. The theory of the

“four humours” as they related to the “four elements” was superficially elegant

and all embracing but it didn’t work in practice. It was tied to superstition

and religion in equal measure. Cures utilizing mercury and frequent blood

letting usually made matters worse.

Established trade had been disrupted by a decade of civil conflict as had the

physical infrastructure of bridges demolished and towns and stately homes

burned, including one owned by our Col. Popham at Wellington in Somerset. There

were thousands of bread winners either killed or disabled. There was no

unemployment or sickness benefit. There was no old age pension. Plague was rife.

The reality was that if you could not work you starved.

The Poor Law and private charity provided not much more than bare survival,

unless lucky enough to find a place in an Alms House or be looked after into old

age by a philanthropic employer. Is it any wonder that Thomas Hobbs in his

famous tract “Leviathon”, in 1651, on whose work Locke built, could easily

imagine a “life with no arts, no letters, no society, and worst of all continual

fear and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty,

brutish and short”.

Locke was not, and never became aristocracy, but in a rural community, he

decidedly was not one of the labouring classes. He occupied a privileged and

elevated status of “Gentleman” carved out by his father and grandfather. Further

back he was able to trace his lineage to Sir William Locke, mercer to Henry

VIII, alderman and sheriff of London in 1548. Locke was therefore fortunate in

possessing a good springboard from which to jump and could be proud of his

ancestral line, confirmed by the fact that he adopted Sir William’s arms for his

own seal. Such distinctions, then as now, could be of critical importance to an

individual’s social advance.

The Locke family that lived just outside the Pensford town would weekly appear

in either of the parish Churches of Pensford or Publow. This would be as much a

social statement as it was of religious observance. They would be seen and known

intimately. Local administrative functions, in the absence of municipal

government, were largely discharged by JP’s. Locke was later to make much of the

“Magistrate” and the limitations on his and the church’s powers to require

conformity on pain of punishment, and the converse need for the church to stay

out of politics. In other words the seeds of the principle of separation of

powers adopted most notably by the United States. There can be little doubt that

the seeds of his reasoning was grounded in his childhood experience in Somerset

and the activities of his father as Clerk to the Justices. His attitudes can be

seen to change and mellow with the years from an authoritarian one of his 1660

tracts on government and church, to the mo

re liberal position of 1690 for which he is famous.

With his advantageous family background, exclusive education at Westminster and

Oxford, adoption by Lord Ashley, later to become the Earl of Shaftesbury, his

status and influence definitely elevated. From the mid 1660’s on he was to be

given various high level administrative positions supporting royal envoys and

ambassadors and after the “Glorious Revolution” other government roles but never

the “top jobs” reserved still for the aristocracy. Today we might compare him

to a noted academic and high level civil servant but were it not for his

writings, he would have been a footnote to British history and largely

forgotten.

9. Religion and Beliefs.

The swirling and heated debate on political and religious issues of Locke’s

lifetime cannot be over-looked. The great division between Roman Catholic and

English churches that began in the 1530’s was still the dominant political theme

a century and a half later. It and the power of the King to act arbitrarily

infused the Civil War of 1642-9 between supporters of Parliament, called

“Roundheads” and of the King called “Royalists”.

It was a time when the protestant church initiated by Henry VIII to facilitate

his marriage to Anne Boleyn, splintered further into puritan faiths of various

persuasions. Locke said of himself in 1660, “I no sooner perceived myself in the

world but I found myself in a storm, which has lasted almost hitherto.”

With the introduction of the Great Bible (1539); the Geneva Bible (1560), and

the Bishop’s Bible (1568) and finally the King James “Authorised Version” of

1611, all based to greater or lesser extent on Tyndale’s earlier translation

from Latin into English, scripture access gradually became democratised: Beyond

the Latin-only priesthood, to the English speaking Clergy, to the wealthy laity,

until eventually it entered the homes of even the poor. The issue was to what

extent the Biblical stories and themes could be translated to the temporal

sphere of government and social order. Every side of the argument looked to the

Bible for support, be it the God given right of a King to rule or a divinely

established order of equality between his creation. The Baptists, Anabaptists,

Congregationalists, Presbyterians, Quakers, Shakers, Ranters, Fifth Monarchists

– following variously Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, or even John Bunyan and George

Fox, rejected in various degrees, traditio

nal ecclesiastical authority. As such they were often seen as destabilizing and

threatening influences to the established order, both political and religious.

Both Catholics and non-conformists suffered persecution and limitation up to and

including execution.

Persecution was a factor in the the colonisation of the New World by those who

had had enough of the repressive mother land. The Pilgrim Fathers set sail from

Plymouth in 1620 only twelve years before Locke was born. America was a recent

and intimate topic in Locke’s childhood insofar the father of his lifelong

friend John Strachey, William (1572–1635) had actually been instrumental in

setting up the colony of Virginia to which they resorted and had survived

shipwreck before returning. This William it should be noted was a friend with

the likes of Thomas Campion, John Donne, Ben Jonson, Hugh Holland, John Marston,

George Chapman, and Matthew Roydon, who met at the Mermaid Tavern in London and

no less than William Shakespeare himself. He is also generally credited for

supplying the account on which the latter based his play “The Tempest”. It must

have been a topic of family and boyhood conversation with first hand information

as to what this amazing new territory and ?

?savages” was really like. Fascinatingly in 1996, William Strachey’s signet

ring was discovered in the ruins of Jamestown, identified by the family seal, an

eagle!

In one sense it was a democratisation of religion that had wider connotations

for society generally, one of which was a greater questioning of slavish

obedience to civil authority that ultimately was to challenge the King himself.

The intertwining of religious and political beliefs made the Parliamentary

forces under Cromwell doubly inspired to fight for both a temporal and spiritual

kingdom. The issues were perhaps best demonstrated in the Putney Debates of

1647 – whilst Locke was literally a mile or so down river still at Westminster,

aged 15. Surely the boys in their dorms were not immune to the heated issues of

the day?

Locke’s views on Quakers in particular are interesting. They were very strong in

Bristol numbering many thousands. Quaker Friars remain as a testament to their

influence. Locke wasn’t impressed with either their radical beliefs or

outlandish behaviour. Fox believed in direct communication with God and that

every human possessed the spirit of Christ within them – “the light within” –

that circumvented any need for episcopal interpretation or authority. In a sense

it was an extension and continuation of a trend initiated by Luther and his

ninety five theses of 1522 – direct communication with God without the need for

priestly intervention mediation or supplication.

This was thought to be overtly challenging to state institutions and dissenters

were harshly treated if they failed to attend the Parish Church, pay Church

tithes or attended their own places of worship.

At the Restoration in 1660, despite a desire on the part of the new King,

Charles II to tolerate a degree of religious diversity – not least because of

his own Catholic leanings – Parliament was insistent on repressive measures

against dissenters and Catholics. Repressive legislation was passed banning

alternative places of worship in towns and believers from civic appointments.

The so called Corporation and “Five Mile” Acts of 1665 which prohibited

Non-conformist and Quaker Meeting places within five miles of the larger towns,

impinged directly on Locke’s Pensford property where a Meeting House was

established in about 1667 on the road to Chew Magna, recently relocated and

documented.

Quakers it has to be said had a reputation for bizarre behaviour. It was

exemplified by the action of James Naylor who had a passing resemblance to what

was thought to be Jesus Christ himself, when in 1656 he paraded naked through

Bristol on a donkey, surrounded by followers crying “hosanna”. Significantly he

had served in the Parliamentary army from 1642 to 1650. He was arrested brought

to Westminster to answer a charge of blasphemy. Locke the young Oxford graduate

was there to witness and report on it in detail.

Narrowly escaping execution, Naylor was pilloried and whipped through the

streets of London, was branded with the letter B on his forehead, had his tongue

pierced with a hot iron, and was then transported back to Bristol to be whipped

through its streets there also, before enduring two years imprisonment at hard

labour. He died in 1660 aged only forty-four.

Such events bring home to us the changed social circumstances in modern Western

Society, though not necessarily elsewhere in the world. If we have a more

enlightened approach, Locke deserves a large share of the credit.

Locke rejected the Quaker approach, as much for its irrationality and weirdness

as for any assault on firmly held religious beliefs. He considered them “mad

folk” for good reason and poked fun at their refusal to remove their hats “as

dangerous for their already hot heads”. Indeed this typifies Locke’s approach.

One senses throughout, a rather cynical view of alternative religious practice,

whilst retaining a personal faith in what he considered the irreducible tenets

of Christianity as demonstrated by his religious writing at the very end of his

life.

Two paradoxes strike me. First that only a few hundred yards down the road from

his Belluton home, a Quaker Meeting House was built in the late 1660’s as

mentioned above and continued there for the next two centuries. Recent

investigations have revealed the exact location of the burial ground. If not on

Locke land it was immediately adjacent to it, so it must have had Popham/Locke

approval. It was located five miles to the south of Bristol and about a mile

outside Pensford probably to comply with the legislation mentioned above. Was

this an example of Locke’s liberal attitude to religious expression?

The second paradox relates to the fact that Locke was later to rely heavily on

an English Quaker in Rotterdam. Benjamin Furly, sheltered him when he was being

sought for extradition on charges of complicity in the Rye House plot. Furly and

his family were to become firm friends and in old age, despite rejecting

“enthusiasm” in matters of religion, he softens his attitude to dissent,

including Quakerism as personified in his writing on Toleration. Only Catholics

were to be excluded on the grounds that they posed a real risk to the state,

answerable to a foreign power although his trip to Cleve in 1665/6 modified even

that when he witnessed different religious persuasions living together

peacefully.

10. Crime and Punishment 18th Century Style.

It is not until one reads examples of crimes and their punishment from the

period, is one struck by the transformation of what is considered acceptable

behaviour and how Christian society has evolved. Some may consider it has swung

too far the other way but I suggest it would be difficult to find anyone today

who would wish to return to that time. There are for example a multitude of

young women executed for killing their illegitimate “bastard” children. The

fathers appear to have uniformly escaped punishment which might be considered a

double injustice.

There follows a vivid account from 1728 involving the very Quaker Chapel at

Belluton referred to above, that illustrates both the desperation and barbarity

of the times better than any current description.

“Jan 17. Bristol, Jan 7.A barbarous Murder was committed last Tuesday, by HENRY

BROOKMAN, (an idle fellow, about 18 years of age) on the body of MARY COFF, a

Quaker, who was found in the Meeting House last Wednesday, with her throat cut

from Ear to Ear. It happened, that one of the Neighbours seeing the said

Brookman coming from thence, caused him to be apprehended upon suspicion, and

being brought before the Justices then sitting at Pensford, they immediately

ordered him to be search’d, and found a Bloody Knife in his Pocket, which prov’d

to be the poor Woman’s; whereupon he made an ample confession of the Fact, viz.

That he first knocked her down, then searching her pocket, found therein 18d. in

Money, and that Knife, with which he cut her Throat; he was thereupon committed

to Ilchester Gaol.

Apr 18. Bristol, Apr 8. We hear that at the Assizes at Taunton 10 Malefactors

receiv’d Sentence of Death; among whom is HENRY BROOKMAN for the Murder of a

poor Woman at Belton Meeting House near Pensford, … Brookman is to be executed

on Wednesday next on a Gibbet near the said Meeting House, and to be hang’d up

in Chains on the same.

May 2. Bristol, Apr 28. On Friday last about one in the Afternoon, HENRY

BROOKMAN was executed, and afterwards hanged in Chains, on Hursley-hill, for the

Murder of MARY CUFF, a Quaker. He confess’d the said Murder, and said he stabb’d

her in seven Places, and then cut her Throat and robb’d her of 1s. 6d. Some

Gentlemen having the Curiosity to ask him, why he was Guilty of such a Crime? He

answered (as he did before the Judge) that ‘twas Hunger made him do it.”

Then if you thought burning witches went out of fashion in the 1500’s an example

from 1727 when this method of execution was still inflicted in the Bristol

area..

“1723. JANE LEAMOUCKS, of the Parish of St Philip and Jacob, was indicted for

the murder of her husband JAMES LEAMOUCKS, on the 12th of October last, by

giving him one mortal wound on the Navel with a knife. Several witnesses deposed

that they had often heard her threaten to kill him; but one John Harding swore

positively that she told him she had stabbed her Husband, and desired him to

hide the knife in the Garden, for fear it should be discover’d. She said very

little to the Purpose in her Defence, and being a Person of a very bad

Character, the Jury brought her in Guilty of Wilful Murder. – To be burnt. April

1 – At the same time Jane Leamoucks was burnt for the murder of her Husband; she

likewise denied the Fact, and behaved herself very stubborn, from the time of

her receiving Sentence to the place of Execution.”

Then a third and final example involving quite possibly a coal mine on what had

been Locke’s land – he had at least one over which there had been a legal

dispute.

“May 20. From Mist’s Journal, May 11. On Tuesday se’nnight, one JOHN FLOWER

kill’d a Boy with a Pick Axe, as he was at work with him in a Coal pit, near

Pensford, four mile from Bristol. He confess’d the Fact, and that he did it

without any Provocation; the next Day he was committed to Ilchester Gaol. It

appeared to the Coroner’s Inquest, that the man was Lunatick, he having

attempted to kill his own Father but three Days before, and was prevented only

by the timely coming in of his brother.”

These and many others can be found at http://www.genebug.net/glsinquests.htm

11. Friends and Family

For the times, the Locke family was small. His mother Agnes (nee Keene) was

actually nine years older than his father, and gave birth to only three

children, one of which (Peter) did not survive. His younger brother by five

years, Thomas, was rather delicate and followed him to Westminster School, but

did not excel. His father died in 1661 of “consumpyion” (TB?) and his brother

Thomas soon after in 1663 aged 26 possibly of plague. His mother Agnes had

already passed away in 1654, so at thirty-one, Locke remained the only survivor,

bereft of paternal, maternal or sibling advice or support and suffering from

persistent asthma type symptoms, always exacerbated by urban smoke. In addition

he remained unmarried with no children, so he was the last of that particular

family line. One of his uncles, Peter, living in near-by Bishop Sutton,

providing indispensable help looking after the estate when John was living and

working away, and uncle Thomas the successful Bristol brewer assisted in other ways.

As regards the first fourteen years of Locke’s life in Pensford, his character,

activities and acquaintances, we have relatively sparse information. To a

certain extent we have to fill the gaps with reasonable supposition. Where did

he get his youthful education? Did he accompany his father on JP or other

business? Was he free to travel abroad and mix socially with locals? Did he ever

travel or stay elsewhere, in Bristol with his uncle for example. Did he have to

travel everywhere by foot or did he ride? Was he familiar with his later

sponsor, Alexander Popham? What were his personal experiences and recollections

of the Civil War? In all these areas we can only surmise and construe on the

basis of his later letters, notebooks and writings.

Locke speaks little of his mother other than saying at a later stage that she

had been “a very pious woman and an affectionate mother”. As regards his father

it appears he was “severe with him, keeping him much in awe and at a distance

while a boy but relaxing by degrees as he grew up to be a man.” There is

suggestion that later on he mellowed with age and regretted his sternness for

when a man Locke junior reported his father “solemnly asked his pardon for

having struck him once in passion as a boy, his fault not being equal to the

correction”. On the other hand in that age, when wayward women were publicly

whipped on market days in Pensford, the fact he could apologise for only one

instance, is rather reassuring.

The letters from son to father that survive suggest affection and respect in

equal measure. As we shall see there is also a shared sense of humour regarding

amusing people and life events. When his father is ill he returns home to tend

him with his physician skills not yet fully developed and attempts to put his

father’s cares at rest. Though sparse, this speaks volumes as to the quality of

the relationship between the two.

So we get a picture of a small family unit with rather stern and distant

puritan parents taking their religion and politics seriously. Father busy and

cerebral effectively fulfilling the role of a local authority, police authority,

water authority, highways agency, social security, inland revenue and

administrator of justice all rolled in one.

Queen Elizabeth I had identified JP’s as her effective administrative arm a

century before. Women were publicly whipped in Pensford on sequential market

days for falling pregnant outside marriage for example and Locke senior as Clerk

must have been party to the sentence. He was specifically responsible for the

county’s sewers and for calculating and collecting the hated Ship Money – one of

the aggravating factors leading up to the civil war. Pensford was part of the

Popham estate, for which John senior acted as attorney. It was the location of a

weekly market and twice yearly fair that required supervision and adjudication.

As we saw above, JP’s held sessions in Pensford itself.

The Civil War had seriously depleted the family fortune and it was equally

disastrous for his boss, Alexander Popham, both suffering defeat by Royalist

troops at the battle of Devizes in 1643. After this they appear to have retired

from the conflict. The office of Custos Rotulorum was filled by Alexander

Popham, who is described as Keeper of the Rolls of the County at the Wells

Sessions, 1653-4.

The atmosphere at home was likely to have been sober and industrious with little

time for frivolity. Nevertheless or even perhaps because of it, it is clear that

Locke junior managed to develop an earthy and somewhat subversive sense of

humour. I am very aware how humour is used to mitigate an overly sober domestic

environment and I think I can understand how Locke might have developed his

scatalogically and satirically. In a humorous letter to his father dated 25th

October, 1656, that was obviously intended to amuse, he describes sharing his

carriage from Bath with an obese woman which he describes as: “that mountain of

flesh that cald herself a merchants wife, by her tongue and her body may well be

taken for two, shee was so grose that she turned my stomack and made me sick the

first two mornings and a third I was like to be buried, for had the coach (as it

might) overturnd and she fell on me I shud have been dead and buried at a time.”

In a letter (dated 21.10.1659) to Sarah Edwards at Stanton Drew concerning her

husband – one gets the impression a “Capt. Mannering” figure – clearly suffering

from unfortunate intestinal complaint, amid much ribald mockery, he ends by

saying: “Pray tell Mr Constable ’twas noe ill-grounded conjecture that I told

him when I saw him last that he was in the way for preferment: I then smelt

preferment in his breeches and his luck was sure to be good according to the

proverb…”

12. The Strachey Connection.

Perhaps Locke’s best friend from childhood was John Strachey (1634 – 1675) who

lived a couple of miles across the valley to the south in an old Elizabethan

manor house called Sutton Court, whose foundation dates back to 1310. If

anything, the Stracheys were somewhat higher in the social pecking order but the

two families shared much in common in their business, religious and political

outlook. Both were protestant and parliamentarians of a Whig persuasion. Locke’s

father was an attorney and so Locke’s friend John Strachey was to become.

Strachey was two years younger than Locke and died some twenty nine years before

him. In between they followed a similar educational trajectory and remained

close, communicating by letter when circumstances forced them apart.

Sadly his father dies only a year after he was born when his mother marries

again (the third time) Edward Baber, the wealthy Chew merchant and JP that

Locke’s father worked for as clerk. There is also a suggestion that the Lockes

and Babers were related by marriage. John St Loe Strachey says Eliz. Hodges

brought the house to Strachey Sutton Court whereas others say it was the Babers.

Part of my inability to unravel it exactly probably results from the different

interests – freehold, leasehold and renting – of the property.

In the 15th Century it had belonged to the St Loe’s. Sir William St Loe married

Bess of Hardwick. When he died she married a Sir William Cavendish, and they had

a son Charles who became the famous Earl of Newcastle. By 1646/7 the Earl was

compounding for his estates with the Parliamentarians and was deeply short of

cash, his tenant, Edward Baber had been renting the property for some years. He

had married Elizabeth Strachey, nee Crosse, daughter of William Cross of

Charlinch, Blackmore in Cannington, and of Norton FitzWarren, in 1635. Elizabeth

Baber was able to “purchase the revision”. In 1662 she drew up a will which in

1671 left the property to John Strachey.

Elizabeth Crosse (1605-1671) (spelt sometimes Cross) had been married three

times, to Samuel Jepp, who was dead by 1631, then to Strachey who died by 1634,

and finally to Baber. As can be seen John only survived a few years after he

inherited the house, so it then passed to his son, another John, (10 May 1671 –

11 June 1743) who would make a name for himself as member of the Royal Society

and effectively one of the first geologists, demonstrating rock stratification

as a way of identifying coal seams. Locke who had been refused admission by

Mendip Miners to their workings but must have been familiar with pits on his

father’s land, must have taken a keen interest in the young orphan.

Both before and after the “two Johns” the Strachey line is interesting. John

Stracheys father William, was something of an adventurer, and first Secretary

to the Colony of Virginia. His account of his ship wreck on Bermuda and

miraculous survival formed the basis of Shakespeare’s “The Tempest”. Edward

Baber mentioned above was one of the first financial backers of the Virginia

Company formed under Royal Charter. He was referred to as “Lord of the Manor of

Chew and died about 1640. His prominent tomb remains in Chew Church and is the

focus of periodic Baber family reunions to this day.

On a personal level I retain vivid memories of Sutton Court visiting as a child

with my father who would converse with the last Lord Strachey, whilst his Great

Dane looked in at me and my Cardigan Corgi through the back window of the Morris

Eight! Indeed my x4 grandfather was born in Chew Sutton in 1778 probably on the

Strachey estate and may have worked for him. So on two counts I feel an

insignificant but authentic link with the Stracheys as well as the Lockes!

Sadly on the death of the last Baron in 1973, modern economic necessity

required the house be converted to flats, surrounded by “executive houses”, and

with it an indefinable historic link with a past age was terminally damaged.

In his 1922 autobiography, “The Adventure of Living”, John St. Loe Strachey, for

many years the Editor of The Spectator, refers affectionately to Sutton Court,

his family home and ancestors. He writes:

“The beauty and fascination of the house, its walls, its trees and its memories

made …. so deep an impression upon me that to this hour I love the place, the

thought of it, and even the very name of it, as I love no other material thing.

I remembered with a glow of pride that it was on these principles that my family

had been nourished. William Strachey, the first Secretary to the Colony of

Virginia, would I felt, have been a true Whig if Whig principles had been

enunciated in his time, for the Virginia Company was a Liberal movement. John

Strachey his son stood at the very cradle of Whiggism, for was he not the

intimate friend of John Locke? Locke in his letters from exile and in his

formative period writes to Strachey with affection and admiration.” (Many of

these between Jan 1658 and Nov 1666 are preserved in the Bodian Locke

manuscripts).

Indeed right up to John Strachey’s death in 1674/5, the very year Locke made his

escape to to the continent, they maintained their friendship, Locke visiting him

whenever back in Somerset and writing to him whenever away.

Consistently it is his humour and scepticism that comes through. Just one

example will have to do.

Whilst on a Government mission to Cleves in 1655/6 he pokes good-natured fun at,

“a learned bard in a threadbare coat and a hat that though in its younger days

it had been black, yet it was grown grey with the labour of its master’s brain …

his two shoes had but one heel, which made his own foot go as uneven as his

verses.” And again in relation to a formal disputation of theologians he

records, “the dispute was a good sport and would have made a horse laugh and

truly I was like to break my bridle”. As a descendant of a tribe of saddlers it

has a special resonance.

It is worth remembering 1665 saw catastrophic plague in London. It also happened

to have struck Pensford also. This was followed by the Great Fire of London in

which much of the old city, including St Pauls, was destroyed. Meanwhile on his

return from Cleves diplomatic mission, Locke was back with his friend Strachey

at Sutton Court, carrying out rather amateurish in pressure experiments for his

friend Robert Boyle, noting how the mercury level changed when he ascended a

nearby hill (at Clutton?) This was also the first year that he came fully into

the possession of the Belluton estate which he valued at £872.00 – a not

insignificant inheritance that proved his father’s fears unfounded.

Locke owed much to the Stracheys and between them they were to have a lasting

and profound effect in various realms, scientific and social, including the new

American territories in Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia. But more of that

later.

13. Leaving Home.

Locke remained at home in Pensford until his fifteenth year, (1646) when he was

dispatched to London for schooling. The importance of this notable life event

cannot be understated. It transported him from the quiet rural landscape, filled

with animals, birds and plants of every kind, his childhood friends and village

life, to a contrasting one of the pre-Great Fire and Christopher Wren remodelled

Capital City of almost half a million population, in a sprawling mass of mainly

timbered, closely packed, houses stretching from the Tower of London to the

Palace of Westminster itself, all enclosed within city walls. Locke was

fortunate being located in the relatively undeveloped west, as it was still

surrounded by fields and except in an easterly wind, the stench of the smoky and

un-sewered town was kept away. Even so the immediacy of the sights and sounds of

one one of the foremost conurbations of the time, the splendour of the Abbey, of

the Thames packed with sailing vessels, o

f traffic and industry, the cries of street sellers, all classes and

nationalities engaged in lawful and illegal trade, the centre of political

momentous events, must have been a shock to a relatively unsophisticated

Somerset youth. Could he fail to apprehend that he was now at the very centre of

things? Located in London, he was to return to Pensford during the vacations and

subsequently to at least 1666 and again in 1674. He returned less frequently

thereafter but kept in touch via his agent Uncle Peter Locke. On the death of

his father in February 1661 at only fifty-five, Locke had inherited the estate

of property and land, although he did not take full possession for four years to

enable accrued debts to be paid off, providing a moderate income variously

estimated between about £75 and £250 pa. for the rest of his life which

supplemented other sources of income.

Next time (hopefully!) his academic career from 1646 to 1667. END PART 2.