Katherine Ferrers -
Near the cell, there is a well
Near the well there is a tree
And under the tree the treasure be
This is the well known Hertfordshire rhyme regarding the whereabouts of treasure stolen by the 'Wicked Lady', Katherine Ferrers. She is the subject of a popular legend and for those who may not know the story, it is retold briefly below.
Katherine Ferrers, heiress to a fortune was married against her will at the age of fourteen to Thomas Fanshawe. Bored with married life and an absent husband she took to highway robbery in the company of Ralph Chaplin, a local farmer. Chaplin was hanged for his crimes. Katherine continued alone until she was fatally wounded one night and died outside her home at Markyate Cell, near Wheathampstead. Her body was discovered by servants and carried across the county to be buried in Ware church. Her ghost still haunts the neigbourhood and to this day she is known as the 'Wicked Lady Ferrers'.
I will not dwell on this legend but concentrate on the background of the families involved and later stories that have embroidered and coloured the story. I hope to redress the balance and restore Katherine's reputation.
Katherine Ferrers was born on 4 May 1634 into difficult times. Civil War had divided the nation and a few months after the death of her father Knighton Ferrers in April 1640, her grandfather Sir George Ferrers also passed away. A brother had died young and by a decision of the courts in October of that year, was appointed sole heir to her grandfathers estates. She was just 6 years old.
Her mother Catherine died two years later in 1642 having married Simon Fanshawe in September 1640. Katherine was made a ward of court for a payment of £1200 by Simon's brother Richard Fanshawe and his wife Ann. Katherine was sent to live with Lady Bedell in Huntingdonshire.
Both the Ferrers and the Fanshawes were rich landowners with property in Hertfordshire.
George Ferrers, Katherine's great-
The Fanshawe's had lands in Derbyshire and Essex but a Thomas Fanshawe bought the manor of Ware in June 1570 from the widow of the Earl of Huntingdon. They became the owners of Ware Park. Thomas' son Henry had six boys; Thomas, Richard and Simon were the three brothers who feature most prominently in the family history, and in this mystery also.
The Fanshawe's were committed royalists, as were the families of their spouses. There is little written evidence but it is safe to assume that given the above, the Ferrers would also have declared for King Charles. However by the time real hostilities had commenced the only surviving member of the family was Katherine.
Thomas and Richard Fanshawe both fought for the King. Richard spent much time abroad and it is from the writings of his wife Ann, that much of the family history is known. At various times both Richard and Simon were imprisoned.
In 1643 the Sequestration Act was passed by which estates of known royalists were placed in the hands of local commissioners and their rents and other income kept by Parliament. Ware Park was one such property. Unlike Parliament the royalist party had to rely upon voluntary contributions, involuntary fines and any other means of raising cash, such as looting. The Fanshawe's contributed heavily to King Charles.
This was the situation at the time of Katherine's marriage. The Ferrers and Fanshawes
were close neighbours; Katherine Ferrers was heir to large parcels of land and the
Fanshawes were slowly realising assets to support the King. It would seem a marriage
made in heaven for the families to combine. Simon appears to have arranged the marriage
between his step-
Both families were on the point of extinction. Three other brothers of Simon had already died young or in battle. Thomas Fanshawe snr had one other daughter, Ann. It was important for landowners to secure a son and heir, and pressure was exerted on young men to marry young and to marry well. Although mercenary marriages had declined by the middle of the seventeenth century they still existed and there were still many reluctant brides.
The teenagers were married in April 1648 and went to live at Markyate. Soon after the marriage was finalised property vested in the Ferrers family was slowly turned into cash. Bayford had already been mortgaged by Knighton Ferrers and although much royalist property had been sequestered, Markyate Cell appears to have been spared.
However, the liquidation of assets continued apace. Ponsbourne (Broxbourne) was conveyed
by Katherine to Thomas Fanshawe jnr who sold it to Stephen Twee of Watford in 1653
for £5000. Markyate Cell itself was sold in 1657 to Thomas Coppin -
CADDINGTON bed Markyate Cell
Coppin -
If this is so, then Katherine was not living at Markyate at the time when she was supposed to have been terrorising the countryside using the old Priory as a base. In 1661 her husband disposed of other properties, Flamstead, Agnells and Bayford; and eventually in1669 was forced to sell Ware Park itself to recover the family fortunes.
In 1658 Sir George Booth initiated a Presbyterian uprising in the north; the younger Thomas Fanshawe was implicated and imprisoned in 1659; although released the next year in February 1660. In May Charles II entered London.
This helps to determine Thomas' whereabouts in 1660; but where was Katherine.
Ann Fanshawe (wife of Richard -
The Manor of Ware also included properties in Bengeo, Thundridge and Wadesmill and it was in Bengeo that Richard and Ann Fanshawe were living in 1651 (when their daughter Elizabeth was born) against a surety of £4000 from Thomas Fanshawe.
In 1648 Ware Park was worth £800 but by 1650 its contents and furniture had been sold to fill Parliament 's coffers and much of the surrounding woodland had been chopped down. In 1650 Thomas snr requested the release of his properties, both in Hertfordshire and Essex. They were returned but financially he was ruined. According to Ware church records he was residing at Ware Park on July 12 1655. At this time the Fanshawes still owed £600 of the £1200 for making Katherine a ward of court.
It appears that just like the rest of his family Thomas jnr was still active in the
royalist cause. The Ferrers family home at Markyate had been sold and Katherine could
well have been living with her in-
Katherine Ferrers was buried on 13 June 1660. The Fanshawe family vault, according to Ann Fanshawe was in the village church of Dronfield, Derbyshire. Her memoirs state that the family was buried at Ware, rather than interred. In choosing this as her final resting place Katherine was given the same respect as other members of the family, including at a later time her husband Thomas and much later a monument was erected to the memory as he was by then, of Sir Richard Fanshawe.
The nature of Katherine's death is unknown. At the age of 26 she was still childless. As seen above this would have given a family of landowners such as the Fanshawe's good cause for worry. With Katherine's death, the Ferrers line died out and a year after her death her husband had disposed of the bulk of the property. Would this alone have been enough cause for local people to have nicknamed her 'wicked ' for having disposed of property granted to her ancestors by Edward V1
Ann Fanshawe found little to write about Katherine other than she was the heiress
of George and Knighton Ferrers and married the son of her brother-
I was set upon this trail by Dr Marianne Gilchrist of Fife who had already completed
some background research but could not identify Chaplin. Ralph Chaplin appears nowhere
but within the legend. There is no mention of him in the Parish Register Indices
and a thorough search at Hertford Archive library found no Chaplins at all. He was
supposedly captured red-
During the middle of the seventeenth century highway robbery was still an activity
persued by gentlemen. Many were royalist supporters left without home or income and
struggling for a living. This is the time of honourable thieves, romantic figures
of high born families and always well mannered -
English literature thrives on this romantic, almost glamorous figure. It is the stuff
of novels by Walter Scott and melodramatic English films of the nineteen fifties
-
The Fanshawes had raised much needed funds; other royalist supporters may well have stooped to looting and highway robbery to secure the cash for their armies. Tales of underhand methods may well have been attributed to the Fanshawes who were well known as royalist supporters but lately struck for cash having their lands confiscated and members of family in hiding abroad.
One of the pointers to Katherine has been a nineteenth century ballad 'Maude of Allinghame'. It tells the story of the daughter of a great and wealthy noble who is courted by all manner of eligible bachelors but she rejects them. She robs one such young lord on his way home and later the Mayor of Redbourne. She is hunted down, chased and shot but reaches home where she dies.
This is close to the story of Katherine as it has been told down the centuries, but the latter was married. It seems a closer comparison to Anne, surviving daughter of Thomas Fanshawe snr and his first wife, also Ann who was the daughter of Sir Giles Alington of Cambridgeshire. The surnames are similar. From the burial and baptism dates, 19 and 27 July 1628 respectively it would appear her mother died in childbirth but Anne Fanshawe lived out her days as an old maid (Ann Fanshawe's words! not mine) until 1714.
Another English folk song is 'Savay' about a young girl who disguises herself as a highwayman in order to test her lover. The highwayman and stories of ladies in disguise are strong themes in English folklore.
The final piece in the puzzle concerns another Ferrers family. In 1760 Laurence Shirley, 4th Earl of Ferrers was hanged at Tyburn for murdering a old and faithful servant. He was known afterwards as 'Wicked Lord Ferrers'.
In 1611 his ancestor George Shirley was created a baronet by James 1. He was a defiant royalist as was his grandson Sir Robert Shirley who built a church in 1653. Cromwell suspected him of being a monarchist and imprisoned him in the Tower on the grounds that if he had enough money for a church he had enough for an army. These Ferrers were also considered to be firm Roman Catholics.
All the high born ladies marrying into the Fanshawes have thereafter been called
Fanshawe; only Katherine has been called by her hereditary title -
As mentioned above both the Ferrrers and the Fanshawes were members of a more or
less orthodox English church. Did the epithet 'wicked' come about through confusion
over the different Ferrers family -
There is certainly a mystery surrounding Katherine's death. Archive material is patchy
during the years 1643 to 1660. In the mid seventeenth century premature and early
death was not uncommon; there was little hospital care for women with difficult births.
Her death may have been from natural causes, possibly childbirth, perhaps a fatal
miscarriage -
It is said that her ghost walks far and wide over Nomansland Common (see Wicked Lady Inn on left and note below), it haunts the hidden staircase at Markyate Cell and she can be heard riding all over the countryside. Her horse is black with white blazes, or in other versions, ghostly white. She has been seen swinging from the sycamore tree below which lies the treasure she stole. Though her body is buried in Ware she is a much travelled and troubled spirit; it is the stuff of folklore.
There is nothing to connect Katherine with the crime of highway robbery. She was
born into a wealthy family and married into another. By an accident of birth she
found herself in the middle of a Civil War in which family fortunes were lost and
family life ruined. The Fanshawe's were rewarded by Charles II with the title of
Viscount Fanshawe; father and son both represented Hertford in Parliament. Katherine
on the other hand, found herself the target for unspeakable crimes. History has not
served her well. I think it is time to let her rest in peace -
©John Barber 2002
A shortened version of this article was published in Hertfordshire Countryside July 2002.
In 2003 I was contacted by the current Fanshawe family who forwarded me a copy of Katherine's portrait (reproduced at the head of this article, although its current whereabouts is unknown). It is thought to be a portrait of her at the age of 14. They also referred me to a family history written by Herbert Fanshawe in 1927 but which draws heavily on Lady Ann's memoirs.
He states that 'she died at the age of 26 in June, 1660, immediately after Lady Fanshawe had been with her at her lodging in the Strand on the occasion of the celebration of the return of King Charles II. to his capital on the 29 of May. Possibly her death occurred at the birth of a child for the Register of Ayott St. Lawrence (no great distance from Ware), gives the burial, on 22 November in the same year, of "Marie Fanshawe daughter of Sir Thomas Fanshaw." Neither Lord Fanshawe nor Sir Thomas Fanshawe of Jenkins were knighted till after this date, so in either case the entry must have been inserted some time later than the burial but that was not very unusual in those days : many of the parish Registers being irregularly kept. Very probably the child was put out to nurse after her mother's death."
Katherine's husband was imprisoned by Cromwell in 1659 following the Booth uprising
in the North and not released until February 1660. At the most, four months is a
short pregnancy for a child to have survived in those times. If it was that Katherine
died in childbirth -
Legend says she was shot and died from loss of blood at Markyate Cell. Possibly not. Possibly from a miscarriage which has been discussed above.
Thomas had 4 children from his second marriage -
© John Barber November 2006
I have since been contacted by the curator of the Valence House Museum who was able
to confirm that in 2003 when Robin Fanshawe contacted me the painting was still in
the hands of the Devonshire branch of the family. However, in 2004 the portrait came
to Valence House Museum to join the other 48 Fanshawe portraits given in 1963. There
are portraits of her husband Thomas and her step-
John Barber -
The only extant portrait of Katherine
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The classic poem by Alfred Noyes with amazing graphics by Charles Keeping
