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Katherine, Lady Marney held it at her
death when it was granted by Queen Elizabeth together with the Rectory by the
Sir Thomas Howard. This transfer is confirmed in a deed that separated the
manor from the manor of Hooke and recites the past holdings of the Staffords
and Poynings. The Rectory was worth £13 3s.8d. a year. Thomas Howard also
held the neighbouring Manor of Winterborne Abbas. 
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He was the husband of Katherine's
sister Elizabeth and second son of the third Duke of Norfolk.
The 3rd Duke of Norfolk, (1473-1554), commanded the English
army at Flodden Field and
was reputedly the most powerful peer in England. Norfolk led the party
opposed to the policies of the lord chancellor, Thomas Cardinal Wolsey. He favoured
Henry VIII's divorce from Catherine of Aragón and his marriage to Anne
Boleyn, who was Norfolk's niece. As Henry's pliant tool, however, he also
presided at Anne's trial and execution in 1536. That same year he repressed
the rebellion of the Pilgrimage of Grace, a protest against the
confiscation of monastic properties, from which he profited handsomely. In
1540 Norfolk arrested Henry's secretary, Thomas Cromwell, Earl of Essex,
who had lost favour with the king.
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Flodden Fields
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Thomas, 3rd Viscount Howard
of Bindon
(from a
portrait attributed
to Robert Peake)
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With the
execution in 1542 of his niece, Catherine Howard, Henry VIII's fifth wife,
Norfolk lost his influence at court. When his son, the poet Henry Howard,
Earl of Surrey, was arrested for treason, Norfolk was charged with
complicity; and was condemned and attainted with his son. His son was
executed in 1547, but the subsequent death of the king prevented Norfolk's
execution. He remained a prisoner until the accession of Mary I in 1553,
when his lands and titles were restored. He was also the cousin of
Elizabeth I who gave him the title of Viscount Bindon when she came to the thrown
in 1558. Two years after the award of his title, the Crown granted
additional support to Saint Martin's
church. The Manor of West Lulworth
was his home. 
In his earlier years he was
one of several boys brought in by Catherine Parr (Henry VIII last wife) as
a companion to share the schooling and sport of the young Prince Edward
who, at the age of just 10 was to become King in 1547. In later years he
was Vice Admiral of Dorset with the duty to put down piracy.
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It is said he may have turned a
blind eye to the activities of his good friend Sir Richard Rogers of
Bryanston who was a very great landowner and promoter of piracy. He also
lived nearby at Lulworth. The coastline in this part of Dorset is ideal for
smuggling and it was in Rogers’s best interest to cultivate good relations
with Howard. After censure of Roger's activities from he high level, Howard
could no longer evade his duties.
He became a Commissioner in
Dorset for the searching of Jesuit and seminary priests and made the first
search of importance in the county when he sent his brother in law, James
Bosgrove, to London for examination. The move to abolish Catholicism was to
see the execution of Thomas Howard's nephew, who as Duke of Norfolk conspired
to marry Mary Queen of Scots, however Howard's loyalty to the Crown was never
called to question .
The Balston Family
William Balston came
to Martinstown in about 1560 when he leased Townfield Farm from Lord Howard.
For over 200 years the family leased the land. The most successful seems to
have been Morgan (1709-1767). He increased the family holdings to over 1116
acres by leasing the adjoining Perkins Farm (later Grovehill Farm).
Lord Howard died in 1583 when
the Manor passed to his eldest son, Henry Lord Bindon.
Henry Lord Bindon is described
as a spendthrift and as a squalid and dissolute creature with a temper
verging on insanity. In the politically correct terms of the present day his
demeanour would be described as challenged in some trite way. In simple terms
understood by the writer, he was a thug. His neighbours suffered cruelly from
his brutish behaviour. When he came to inherit the title at his father's
death, he was totally incapable of fulfilling his duties in the county.
He was also a pirate who had
little fear of who he attacked and this included his wife Frances. His
behaviour finally came to a head in 1580 when he attacked the High Sheriffs
of Hampshire and Dorset who were riding together near Wimborne. Howard rode
with them becoming increasingly more abusive and determined to discover
evidence that either man was a Catholic. He was imprisoned for just a month
for his activities and Queen Elizabeth I took in Frances as lady in waiting.
The Queen sent a messenger to collect Frances. He was an effete individual
named Hercules Meautys and was accompanied by John Strangways, the hapless
Sheriff of Dorset. Stangways reported much abusive behaviour from Henry
Howard who was only too pleased to see the back of his wife, referring to her
in typical fashion as a "filthy and porky whore".
It was considered a bad day for
Dorset when the able first Viscount gave way to his unworthy sons. An act of
1581 had made it high treason to reconcile anyone to Rome, or to be
reconciled. After this, the arrest was ordered of any Jesuit or seminary
priest. This enforcement followed hard upon riots against the sheriff,
instigated by Henry Howard.
With such a
climate of suspicion against Catholics and a Lord of the Manor like Henry
Bindon it was hardly surprising that, the parish priest of
Martinstown, John Adams, left the village to join other local clerics to
train as a Catholic priest at the Seminary of Rheims in France under William
Allen. It was at this time that the Spanish invasion under Medoza was planned
with support from English Catholic exiles.
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Adams
returned from France in 1585 and worked for a while at Winchester. He was
then captured, tried and found guilty as a supporter of the Pope and a
traitor to Queen Elizabeth. He was hung drawn and quartered in October 1586
with two other local priests. It is interesting to note that Adam's name is
not shown in the church records nor does Hutchins mention him. The Priest
from nearby Litton Cheney who went to Rheims with Adams escaped and ended
is life, not as a Shepard of men but
of sheep.
Henry's younger brother
Thomas who became the third Lord Howard on Henry's death, less mad but
quite unpleasant, fulfilled his father's duties by helping to train the
militia in preparation for a long anticipated Spanish invasion. He also
took over his father's duty as Vice-Admiral of Dorset. He was one of six
nobles in the county to take this role and trained the hapless men from the
Dorchester area. When the Spanish Armada finally came, he captained the Ark
Royal and together with the Mary Rose and Bear they joined Frobisher and
fought a splendid battle off Portland Bill, using the notoriously dangerous
Portland tidal race and the Shambles bank as a barrier against the Spanish
through which he was able to fire his cannons to good effect. With the
threat of invasion receded, although there were to be later waves of alarm,
notably in 1599, the Spanish never came. Nevertheless, Catholics remained
under deep suspicion.
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The Battle of Portland
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Chideok Martyrs in Dorchester
(statues by
Dame Elizabeth Frink)
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Of the
persecuted Catholics, probably the most important Catholic Martyr of the
time was the Blessed John Cornelius of Chideok, executed in 1594. In A
statue was erected in recent years in Dorchester to commemorate the Chideok
Martyrs.
Another Catholic, and one who
had been a favourite of the Queen was Sir Walter Raleigh. He was born at Barton Hayes (Poer Hayes)
Devonshire in 1539.  At this time he lived at Sherborne Castle
Sherborne and other manors directly from
her. He was considered the finest military strategist of his generation but
had been involved in a feud with the Dorset Howards for many years. This
feud was perpetuated by the London branch of the Howards until, after the
Queens death, he became discredited in the eyes of the Crown under King
James I.
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Henry Howard,
in typical vein, had written to the king to complain of Raleigh that:
"Hell cannot afford
such a like triplicity that denies the Trinity" and as a "person whom
religious men do hold anathema".
This was a clear reference to
Raleigh's Catholic faith. Some years after Henry Bindon's death in 1606,
Raleigh was arrested at Chideok by Thomas Howard (then Lord Lieutenant of
Dorset) and taken to the Tower of London.
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Sir Walter Raleigh
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It is said Raleigh's behaviour
at his trial won him much sympathy whereas beforehand his unpopularity had
been at its height. He was condemned to death for High Treason. However there
was to be no death. King James planned a joke to entertain the crowds and
demonstrate his clemency. Raleigh and the other prisoners were led to the
gallows, one by one, and then each was dismissed to wait in a separate room
for an execution that was never to take place. Raleigh spent the next twelve
years in the Tower before his eventual execution in 1618.
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Copyright Gerald Duke
2002 - 2003
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