Chapter II
The Aldington Family
The Aldington Family
John the Advocante's second son Thomas, received less of his father's estates than his other brother but he became the owner either through marriage or purchase, of the Goldwell Estate in Great Chast in Aldington.
Thomas' son, another Thomas, built himself a new house in Aldington, known to this day as Cobbe's Hall and it was here that Elizabeth Barton, the Maid of Kent, served as a scullery maid. The house is built in an early style of timbering with straight carved oak beams, known as needlework. Some of the rafters have now been cut away to allow the insertion of an interior stairway.
Upstairs is to be seen a magnificent overmantle, in plasterwork, depicting Adam and Eve and the beasts and birds in the Garden of Eden.
In Thomas Cobbe's early days Linacre was Vicar of Aldington and founded the Royal College of Surgeons, In 1511, Erasmus, an illegitimate son of a physician in Rotterdam, was inducted as Vicar of the living by Archbishop Warham, and his teaching, in broken English, was the unpopular prelude to the Reformation.
William Cobbe was Bailiff to the Archbishop of Canterbury's Estate at Aldington where the Archbishop had a mansion, part of which still exists, and is known as Court Lodge. Henry VIII and Ann Bolyne are said to have stayed there on their way to the 'Field of the Cloth of Gold'.
The story of the Maid of Kent is told very fully in many histories of England and by Lambarde the Romney Historian of Kent of 1570, It begins at Thomas Cobbe's house in 1525 when Elizabeth Barton, the Holy Maid, was lying ill from an internal complaint. She lay in a trance from time to time, and when she awoke, Cranmer records in a letter "she possessed powers which she herself did not understand and told wondrous things done and said in other places where she was neither herself present nor yet had heard report thereof and was possessed of the Holy Ghost or the Devil." Thomas Cobbe and his family were greatly concerned and they called on their Parish Priest, Richard Masters, who had become Vicar of Aldington after Erasmus, for his advice.
Together they carefully recorded all that fell from Elizabeth's lips. Elizabeth, it is said, was a good and pious girl who had been brought up in the Catholic faith and she "spoke words of marvellous holiness in rebuke of sin or vice." After close
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observation of the girl, Thomas Cobbe and Masters decided that Archbishop Warham should be informed and they mounted their horses and rode to Lambeth Palace to see him. The Archbishop, who was then an old man, heard the story and was "much impressed and believed that which the maid had said had come from God". He ordered Masters to keep a diligent account of her utterances. He also sent a message to the Maid, by Thomas Cobbe, that "she should not refuse or hide the goodness and works of God".
Thomas, being encouraged by such high authority and at the Archbishop's request, did not keep Elizabeth in his Kitchen. As soon as the girl was sufficiently recovered from her illness he caused her to sit at his own mess with his mistress and his children Thomas, James, Richard and Martin, and it seems that Joan, his wife, did not take kindly to this arrangement. Archbishop Warham then appointed a commission to report the truth. It is from this time onward that this honest but ignorant girl became the object of political intrigue and propaganda. Her trances became more frequent and she related the places she had visited, which included Heaven, Hell and Purgatory.
It was not long before the news of the girl spread over much of England and crowds stood round Cobbe's Hall in the hope of seeing her or of being cured of their ailments. For a time Richard Masters installed her at the Church, which was visited by many thousands with money and jewels which they laid at the feet of the Maid. This money was used for the repairs of the Chapel at Court up Street, now sadly in ruin.
It must be remembered that at first the Maid believed, fervently, that the messages which came to her mind were given to her by the Holy Ghost and it is remarkable that even, when at a later date she was being used by the Church to rouse popular resentment against the King's divorce from Catherine of Aragon, that she was able to influence and gain the support of such men as Thomas More, Bishop Fisher of Rochester, Archbishop Warham, the Earl of Essex and many others. Even Wolsey, in the year of his decline, was convinced of her sincerity. Archbishop Warham wrote to him on 1st October 1538 saying "Elizabeth is a. religious woman, possessed at St. Sepulchere, Canterbury, which had all the visions of Our Lady at Court up Street - a well-disposed and virtuous woman...." and it was evident that even the King himself, when he saw her later, treated her with respect and, kindness even though he was one of the few who did not fall under her spell. The Commission appointed by the Archbishop included three monks from Christchurch, Canterbury, Doctor Booking, Master Dan William Hadleigh and Barnes, and in addition Father Lewis and Richard Masters, Vicar of Aldington.
Bocking stage-managed the whole affair in such a manner that he brought discredit to the Church which resulted in no small way, in the ultimate dissolution of the monasteries and the Reformation, by giving the King popular support against the exploitations and superstitions of the Church of Rome.
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The Maid, who had not yet recovered fully from her own ailment, is reported by the Commission to have said that the Virgin had appeared to her and had fixed a day when she would come in person to take away her disorders, at the ruined chapel at Court up Street, where a hermit was then living among the ruins.
On the appropriate day the "Holy Monks" called a vast concourse of people and the girl was conducted to the Chapel in a "great procession led by hooded monks, clergy and notables of the best degree, together with many thousands of people of the common sort."
She was taken to the image of Our Lady where she went into a trance, "her face became distorted, her tongue hanging out, and her eyes protruding - almost as if they laid upon her cheeks."
Then, it is said that a voice was heard, speaking within her belly, with her lips hardly moving, and she remained in a trance of three hours. It would seem that, on this occasion, for the first time, she was unduly influenced by Dr. Bocking and his gang. When she awoke from her trance she is said to have completely recovered from her ailments. A book was written and published at Canterbury giving an account of her utterances and was sold all over the Kingdom. The book was given to the King who, after reading it, sent it to Sir Thomas More, but it is said that neither of them was greatly impressed with what had been written.
It would appear that Thomas Cobbe had, from the first, complete faith in the child and he must have been apprehensive when Dr. Bocking told him that the Virgin had appeared to the Maid and informed her that she must leave his house and devote herself exclusively to the Church. It may be that Joan, Thomas' wife, did not disagree with the Virgin's directions. The Maid was admitted as a Sister of the Priory of St. Sepulchre at Canterbury and Fr. Bocking was appointed, by the Archbishop, to be her spiritual Father.
It was not long after the Maid's departure that Thomas Cobbe died, but Elizabeth visited him after she went to Canterbury. In his will, which was proved in June 1528, he left his wife Joan only a pittance saying:
"I will that if my wife is not contented with this portion and vex the executors she shall lose, and not have anything." (1)
In his will he made gifts to the Church at Aldington and Newchurch and says in connection with the former:
"I bequeath toward the building of a new steeple there 20/- and to making a new window in the North side 20/-. If the parishoners will make a window, if not the bequest be void"
(l) Will No. 3 given in Appendix.
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Each of these bequests to the Church would be valued at about £100 in to-day's currency.
Archbishop Warham had intended that the Church should have a steepl but it was never completed; but in 1911 a parapet was built which has given it the form of a tower. He also made provision for "Elizabeth his I daughter" and it may be that he had adopted Elizabeth Barton as there is no record of a daughter having been born to him.
It is of interest to finish the story of Elizabeth Barton. At Canterbury she occupied a cell where she interviewed many of the most influential people in England and it is remarkable that all those who talked with her were impressed with her piety and, when, for example, she was visited by Sir Thomas More, then Chancellor, he gave her a gift and begged her to pray for him and his family.
The Maid had boldly declared that "if the King should divorce Catherine of Aragon and marry Ann Boleyn, that he should not be a King a month later, but should die the death of a villain". She was by this time in correspondence with the Pope and the Foreign Ambassadors at the Court of St. James.
John Fisher, Bishop of Rochester, and his secretary, Gould, were in frequent consultation with her. John Fisher, who was a prelate eminent for his learning and for the high favour which he had long enjoyed with the King, was ultimately thrown into prison and executed in 1535 for refusing to take the oath on the King's succession and for his concealment of Elizabeth Barton's statements on the question of the King's divorce.
The King saw her at Canterbury on his return from the "Field of the Cloth of Gold" but regarded her as a simple but ignorant child. Elizabeth, however, relates that he offered to make her an abbess, which she refused
The time had now come when the Maid's influence was a serious obstacle to the King in his matrimonial plans and he was well aware that even if Elizabeth herself was innocent, she was being used by those at Canterbury against his interests. He ordered that an enquiry be made, and a report was published which disclosed Dr. Bocking's intrigues. The following record is amusing:
"The scandalous prostitution of her manners was laid open to the public. Those passions which so naturally insinuate themselves amidst the warm intimacies maintained by the devotees of different sexes, had taken place between Elizabeth and her confederates, and it was found that a door to her dormitory, which was said to have been miraculously opened, in order to give her access to the Chapel for the sake of frequent converse with Heaven, had been contrived by Bocking and Masters, for less refined purposes."
The above account was written in the eighteenth century.
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The Maid was tried by the Star Chamber at Westminster Hall and the Chancellor, in the King's presence, gave an account of the Maid's doings. He said the King had married a second wife to secure the succession and provide for the tranquility of the realm.
The woman before them had instigated the Pope to censure him and had endeavoured to bring about a rebellion, to deprive him of his throne.
On the word "rebellion" the audience, who had so far listened quietly, broke out into cries on all sides, TO THE STAKE! TO THE STAKE!
The nun showed no alarm but admitted quietly that what the Chancellor had said was true.
On 21st April, 1554, she suffered at Tyburn with Dr. Bocking, Hering, a Monk, Gold, Rich, a Friar and Risby.
At the place of execution she addressed the crowd:
"I am come hither to die, being not only the cause of my own death but also of the death of all those persons who die with me. Yet, to say the truth, I am not so much to be blamed. It was well known unto those learned men that I was a poor wench, without learning, but because the thing I feigned was profertable unto them, therefore they much praised me and bear me in hand that it was the Holy Ghost, and not I, that did them; and then I, being puffed up with their praises, fell into a certain pride and foolish phantasy which thing has brought me to this case."
Thomas' treatment of his wife was not praiseworthy and one might think that the money he left for the singing of 30 masses for his soul might have been spent with better effect if he had devoted the money to her needs.
Thomas left four sons, James of Aldington, Richard of Bilsington and Martin, whose son Thomas went to Chilham. James purchased from John Carden, the Manor situated on the west boundary of the parish of Hodeford which is described in the charter of Horton Priory and lived here or alternatively at Cobbes Hall at Aldington. It is believed that he continued his father's work as Bailiff for the Archbishop.
James' son, another James who died in 1587, and his grandson William, lived at Aldington and married Margaret, daughter of Sir Edmond Pelham, Sergeant at law, and Chief Baron of the Exchequer of Ireland in James I's reign. Sir Edmond Pelham lived at Calsfield Manor in Sussex and was a lawyer of repute, and his great nephew,
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Henry Pellham, was Prime Minister in 1754. William was living in 1619 at the time of the Herald's Visitation to Kent, and left three sons and one daughter. The eldest son James went to Bury St. Edmunds and died in 1664. He married Dorothy, daughter 6f Sir Edmund Bury, a doctor. His arms, quartered, with the Bonnington and Ermyners, are given in the 1664 Visitation of Suffolk. This branch failed on the male line and he left three daughters, Margaret, Dorothy and Winifred.
From James' second son, Thomas, the well-known family of Cobbs living at Mockbeggar near Rochester are said to have descended. This is given in a book published by the Faversham Club of Kent Families, This Thomas wrote a satire on Oliver Cromwell which he sent to Lord Ormonde and which he described as "a poem upon Cromwell and his archhayterous rabble of rebellious rascalles and Englands jaoel birdes."
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