What are you looking at?
This is a probate inventory–a survey of goods and possessions taken after someone’s death. When Raphe Whitestones, bearward and yeoman, of Ormskirk in Lancashire died in 1622, a group of local people walked into his house and “assessed” every item thought to be worthy of documentation. Neighbours and trusted associates only recorded such inventories for those wealthy enough to need their estate reviewed and priced. This inventory accordingly lists goods and possessions on the left hand side, with their value (in pounds, shillings, and pence–the currency of early modern England) on the right. We therefore learn that in 1620s Lancashire, two pigs were valued at 15 shillings, a feather bed at 22 shillings, and the lease of a meadow at £4. But what was the most expensive item that Raphe Whitestones owned? “One Bear called Chester,” priced at £12.
Why is it important?
This inventory offers a possibly unique glimpse into the lifestyle and living arrangements of a known bearward. It also records the name and identity of a bear–our Chester!–in a legal record. It allows us partially to reconstruct the household of a prominent regional bear-keeper and to imagine the setting in which Chester might have lived and the human community of which he was part. It also offers insight into the social and economic status of bearbaiting…
What does it tell us?
On the one hand, this inventory introduces us to the bear Chester and the animal’s supposed economic value to humans in the early seventeenth century. But it also provides a snapshot of the living situation and possessions of a bearward. While the travelling bearward who wrote the diary discussed elsewhere in our resources was apparently a jobbing entertainer of little wealth, Raphe Whitestones was a substantial man with some standing in his community. As well as material goods, inventories sometimes indicate the financial ties that bound together communities. Whitestones’s records substantial borrowing and lending (typical of the period), including from the local vicar. The inventory also indicates the Whitestones’ social status in other ways. Upon the property called the Brandearth (a detail Raphe tells us in his will), he owned six beds, four of which were feather beds and some of with an array of sheets, bolsters, coverlets, and cushions–all materials of some considerable value (here, with other “napery,” amounting to over £8 and among the most costly items in the list). These several beds perhaps suggest the sociability of the Whitestones household. When Raphe’s son Richard died 16 years later, having inherited much of what was included in this inventory, his own list of goods included a “pair of playing tables.” The materials inventoried in 1622 suggest a moderately comfortable–if not extremely well-off–existence for Raphe and his family.
Both Raphe’s and his son’s inventories record the labour required on land in this agricultural area in these years. Not only did the Whitestones lease a meadow, their household contained various items, such as pitchforks, for ground work. Indeed, inventories offer a miniature “tour” of an early modern household and its grounds and were sometimes recorded room by room. Here, however, we can only infer the house’s layout: it had several chambers, a buttery, at least one outhouse (with a “roost” for curing meat), and (seemingly) a kitchen. And, of course, buildings for other inhabitants…
Indeed, the inventory also hints at the living situation of Chester the bear. 4 shillings are marked against “one Cratch with certain […] wood over the bear house and stable.” A cratch was a trough used to feed animals, and it seems Chester (and any of his forebears, so to speak) had domestic arrangements of his (or her?) own. Yet less wholesome details also emerge in the list. Raphe Whitestones owned an array of “white tanned leather, whereof one part is horse hide, part bear hide, and part is calf skin.” Might this offer a clue about what happened to bears once they had passed away in early modern England? These animals were and continued to be quite literally part of the fixtures and furnishings of a household.
Where does it come from?
This document is now held at the Lancashire Archives in Preston (shelfmark: WCW/Supra/C83C/0). It was perhaps written by a clerk (or one of the “assessors”) but the list of those responsible for valuing the items is included at the top–all people close to the bearward Raphe Whitestones: William Laithwait, James Chadocke, Thomas Morcrofte (a relative, perhaps brother, of his Raphe’s wife), and James Tyrer of Ormskirk. Six years later, James Chadock is the first-named inhabitant of Ormskirk and its “Constable” in a legal petition, suggesting a distinguished position in the town (QSB 1/50, 30).
Further Facts
Raphe was not the only person in his family to be involved in bearbaiting in the town of Ormskirk. In fact, the Whitestones were a family dynasty of bearwards. His son, Richard, inherited much of the land, including the main property known as the Brandearth. Richard’s own will, made in 1638, left the bulk of his estate to his bastard son, Griffy or Griffith Whitestones. Griffy appears elsewhere in the Lancashire records, where his misfortune clearly shows him continuing his grandfather’s occupation. After being summoned to the Quarter Sessions court in 1637, he was compelled to put in an excuse for non-appearance shortly afterwards, as a result of being ” most dangerly wounded with one of his Bears & is in great fear to be lamed by that accident & misfortune […] he being not able to go or Ride, his humble suit is that [he might be spared] until the next Sessions of the Peace, hoping in god that he will be then able to make his appearance” (QSB 1/194, 62).
Raphe’s youngest son and Richard’s brother, Thomas, was also a big character in early seventeenth-century Ormskirk. Thomas was accused by a neighbour of keeping “Continual gaming” at his house until the early hours. He also apparently slandered the town as “the devill […] and wished that it were on fire so that his goods were forth of it”–a rather liberal approach to material and economic security that sits in wild contrast to the careful inventorying of possessions that took place after his father’s death. Yet Thomas certainly inherited something of his father’s proclivities, given that the neighbour described him as a “Bearward.” Was this his chief occupation? He described himself in legal accounts as “husbandman”–a less distinguished term than his father’s “yeoman.”
In 1631, Thomas found himself in a scuffle with other local individuals in Ormskirk while having a drink at Harper’s alehouse. Thomas Whitestones and the Leadbetter brothers “did fall together by the ears,” and one Roger Barton (a relative of the Whitestones by their sister’s marriage and perhaps Thomas’s nephew) was stabbed and in danger of death. Thomas chased after the Leadbetters with a pair of tongs, striking one of them over the head. Might the Whitestones’s reputation have slid slightly since Raphe’s death? Thomas (who died in 1639) does not appear in his brother Richard’s will (d. 1638). Might it be that his trade and “roguish” behaviour was thought to be less respectable by the late 1630s, or that there was a personal falling out? The kerfuffle with Thomas and the Leadbetters also suggests a further community connection with Thomas’s father. As the fight was taking place, the town watch (an informal policeman) was called in to break it up. The man in question was “Robert Laithwait,” quite possibly a relative of the William Laithwait responsible for taking Raphe Whitestones’s inventory (QSB 1/90, 39 and 40). This colourful bearward family were clearly at the heart of Ormskirk life for over half a century.
