Search

The Northumberland, a third-rate man-of-war was lost with all hands during the Great Storm of 26-27 November 1703 on the Goodwin Sands-famously known as 'the ship swallower'. It was rediscovered in 1980 by local divers following the location of a sister ship, the Stirling Castle. Since, the primary concern has been to record exposed structural remains, ordnance and artefacts, and interpret the wreck formation of the site. This paper describes the results of this work, and discusses in particular the size of the keel, the use of chocks, and standardization of ordnance in the Restoration Navy through reference to comparable ship-finds and historical records. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The enclosure of commons and open fields was carried out by many different methods over a long period of time. Traditionally, enclosure methods have been thought to have replaced one another chronologically, unity of possession being replaced by agreements, which were in turn replaced by Acts of Parliament in the mid-eighteenth century. Recent research has however revealed the continuing importance of non-parliamentary methods in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In light of this it is necessary to examine the reasons behind the selection of a particular method of enclosure, which will be attempted in this paper. It is found that the most formal, and thus most expensive, methods were used only when necessary in order to avoid conflict or legal ambiguity, or where specific local problems required them. Less formal methods were preferred where the circumstances were appropriate. Parliamentary enclosure was used as a particularly formal type of enclosure in the most complex or contentious situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

William Heron had a poor contemporary reputation as a grasping and arbitrary sheriff. For twelve years, he held important positions in the North- East, as sheriff, then also as keeper of key castles and justice of the forests. The Chancery and Exchequer records show that, even by the standards of his time, he was unusually dishonest. Henry III’s government required sheriffs to squeeze more revenue from the counties; sheriffs like Heron added to the pressure by their corruption and greed. Such behaviour helped to fuel the popular discontent which found expression at the time of the movement of baronial reform and rebellion, which began in 1258. Unpublished documents, including the particulars of the sheriff’s account for 1258–59, show how the county community was exploited to provide the county farm and profit. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]