It is believed that Matthew Whipple, Sr. married Joan (maybe Stephens) although proof is lacking.  According to the parish records of St. Mary’s Church, they had six daughters and two sons, the first, Anne (Anna), christened 1 Sept. 1583 and the last, Amy, on 20 Jan. 1605.

No evidence has been found for birth dates for either Matthew or Joan but Anne’s christening records indicates both were born in the early 1560s.  According to Church records, Joan Whipple was buried in Bocking 19 May 1612.  Matthew never remarried and if he mourned her the rest of his life and followed tradition, mirrors in the home were either covered or turned to the wall, the family coach was painted black, all rooms in the home were hung in black, and he slept in a mourning bed enclosed by black draperies.  Matthew was buried 16 Jan. 1618/19 and in those years a pot of wine was placed on the deceased chest so those who came to pay their last respects could do so with a toast.

The history and literature of the time allows us to speculate about the lives of Matthew and Joan and their family.

Matthew and Joan were probably in their early twenties when they married.  Once it was determined she should marry, Joan’s parents would have searched for a suitable husband, taking care to balance social position and status as dowries were critical to a desirable match.

The wedding was probably in 1582 since Anne, their oldest, was born in September 1583.  Before they had children, Matthew and Joan probably journeyed to London to watch the hangings decreed by the quarter law court sessions.  Prisoners, brought in from all the prisons, were tried and those condemned to the rope were carted off by the hangman to Tyburn , the place of public execution.  It was a major spectator event attended by thousands.

Anne was 10 before the family purchased a home in Bocking so they probably lived with his parents for the first 11 years of their marriage.  The Statute of Apprentices made labor compulsory and required seven years apprenticeship for all trades.  Since he was a Clothier, his father may have been one two and if so, he would have apprenticed to his father as sons usually followed their father’s occupations.

Sometime prior to 1593 Matthew paid £40 to Robert and Joan Ardley for a house, barn, large garden, and apple orchard (known as a messuage) on Bradford street in Bocking.  The Ardley’s failed to perform as agreed so Matthew took them to court for specific performance and won.  The court directed the Ardleys to deed the property to Matthew and his heirs forever.

Bradford street, named for Great Bradfords, a farm on the Coggesall Road, was one of the prettiest in Bocking, especially in early spring when the trees, just beginning to leaf, were not yet too thick to hide the red-brown roofs and pink stuccoed walls of the houses behind them.  Houses on the street dating from the 16th and 17th centuries were still standing in 1906.

CHILDREN, CHORES, MEALS, AND GAMES

Joan’s childbearing extended over 22 years from Anne born in September 1583 to Amy in 1605.  Matthew, Jr. was the first of two sons and fifth born of the nine known children.  When he was born about 1590, Anne, Margaret, Jane, and Joanna were probably eagerly awaiting a brother.  The first four daughters were born at two year intervals.  Three years separated Johanna and Matthew; four years Matthew and Elizabeth; four years Elizabeth and John; one year John and Mary; four years Mary and Amy.  Infant mortality was so high in those days, one wonders if other children were born during those four year intervals.

Joan’s duties as wife and mother were many: cook, bake, and doctor; brew beer and make wine; make medicines; sew, spin, and embroider; look after hens and the dairy; launder; raise vegetables and flowers; make her own beauty aids.  She would have joined the other women at the town mill to grind the family corn and probably baked bread in common ovens.  When shopping, she had little choice between salted meat in winter and bad meat in summer.  Fresh meat was in limited supply and came from shops cooking beef, mutton, veal, pork, and lamb on spits.

Breakfast of cold meats, cheese, herring salted, pickled, or dried, and oysters was served between 6 and 7 a.m.  A special dinner with guest might include all or some of the following; fricassee of rabbit and chicken, a leg of mutton boiled, three carp in a dish, a side of lamb, a dish of roasted pigeons, four lobsters, three tarts, a lamprey pie (considered rare), and a dish of anchovies.  Vast quantities of ale, cider, or beer would be consumed.  Wealthy families served French and Italian wines.

After dinner games included Crambo, Hunt-the-Slipper, Blind Man’s Bluff, and Hot Cockles.  “I love-my-love-with-an apple, because-she-is-angelic” required male and female players.  Family members confined indoors by weather, gout, or, if female, by a state of chronic pregnancy,  had lots of pastimes to alleviate boredom.  “Rise Pig and Go,” “One Penny Follow Me,” “I Pray My Lord Give Me a Curse In Your Park,” and “Fire” were among the favorites.  On special occasions Matthew may have hired a fiddler, a gittern player, a piper, and a drummer and the home would enjoy dancing that night.

CHRISTMAS 1606

Daughter Amy, the last of the eight Whipple children, was born Jan. 20, 1605 and the family would have celebrated her first Christmas in style.  Bocking’s inns, taverns, and alehouses were wreathed with Christmas greenery and within those warm, noisy, crowded places, good beer and ale and all the best wines were served.  All houses from leading citizens to the lowly rat-catcher were open to hospitality.  Few, if any, went hungry, including prisoners who received baskets of good things to eat and drink.

At night Bocking’s streets were lit with lanterns and torches, minstrels played music, and young men rang church bells until it seemed the spires and steeples would tumble down in a heap like the walls of Jericho.  Firewood sprinkled with the musk and leaves of flowers was burned in place of the usual stinking sea coal.  The firewood brought the congenial sounds of axes, the rasping hum and whining singsong of long and short saws, and the creaking of the carts of the wood bearers who looked forward to their best season of the year.

A great blast from a ram’s horn announced the opening of Bocking’s Manor House and owner Sir Robert Barker dispensed Christmas hospitality to all.  Servants served tankards of nappy ale and wonderful cakes and cream  A fiddler played country dances enjoyed by all, especially Sir Robert who was light of foot and quick as a fox.  No one was better at Shake-a-Trot or the Bishop of Chester’s jig.

The Whipples would have opened their home to employees, neighbors, and strangers.  The usual torches and plain tallow candles and sputtering  rushes dipped in fat were replaced with the best candles of berry and beeswax scented with herbs and perfumes.  They burned night and day along with the perfumed oil in the lamps and the yule log in the hearth in the hall lighted with a brand preserved from last year’s log.  All chambers in the house seemed to be choirs of candle flame.

Wreathes and branches of evergreen were hung throughout the home.  They included slender-brittle branches of potted rosemary with narrow, shiny leaves, blue-green juniper with stiff bristling, little leaves like those that sheltered and concealed the Holy Family from Herod’s murderous soldiery; strong-scented myrtle in honor of true and unfeigned love, glossy, fragrant leaves of bay; ivy with clusters of black berries and thin, smooth, shinny, sharp-pointed leaves, each looking snipped and cut out of tin and then painted with rich green.  And because it was Christmas, the three herbs strewn in the manager in Bethlehem were scattered in the yard, barn, and shed; wild thyme, groundsel, and sweet woodruff, which made the oldest hay smell newly mown.

Mistletoe, its twin leaves like a pair of slender, delicate wings, and berries like tiny pearls, and smooth, prickled holly brightened by round, blood-red berries were hung as “remembrances of the most precious blood of Our Lord and Savior.”  These evergreens remained in place until Candlemas, when for good luck they were fed to the fires and replaced through Lent until Easter Day with the deep green leaves of the Box tree.

It was time for Christmas cakes and ale; to wear their most gaudy, light-colored, lighthearted costumes; to put on jewels both true and paste; time for hobby horse, for dancing with strings and ropes of little bells, twisted around each leg; time for mumming and masking and disguising; time to tune instruments, make music, and sing the ancient and ageless carols.  When the tables were finally cleared of the Christmas feast, Matthew and Joan watched the children play their games and joined in singing and dancing.

As the evening wore on, Matthew, feeling the need for fresh air, probably went outside alone to stand in the cold, star-dazzled night, thanking God for his family and his good fortune.  Full of love and charity, he would have wished on a star seeking good fortune for both friend and enemy, wishing the dead from Adam and Eve to their rest in peace, and the living, from the beggar in his hedge to the Queen in her soft bed, the best life had to offer.  As he made these wishes he wondered what the Queen was thinking:  was there a place in her dreams for the Bocking Clothier and his family, for the plowman, the butcher, the baker, the beggar, and the school master?  As the last echoes of the midnight bells faded into silence, he reentered the home and joined Joan in bed.

TO BE CONTINUED

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