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the Knights Templar,
the Holy Grail and
underground tunnels -
A hoax.
A look at the 'double' side of 1960 -
A 1980's news magazine
A photographic tour of the county town.
Greetings cards for the discerning drinker.
Clocks and fridge magnets
Personalised birthday badges for all ages.
Four walks through Camden, Hampstead, Highgate and two markets.
How to reduce the odds on winning the Lottery.
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 neighbourhood 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 in 1669 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) lived abroad for much of the Civil War but frequently returned and mentioned in her memoirs that she and her husband were forced to return to England in 1648 for the marriage of her nephew. (Thomas to Katherine). However she was also pregnant and gave birth to her son Richard in June of that year. The latter would seem to be a more pressing reason to return although the importance of the joining of the two families in marriage should not be underestimated.
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-
