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The Billingbear Remembrances of February 1603: Household, Building, Provisioning, and Networks

Mixed In Progress witness packet

The Billingbear Remembrances of February 1603

What the document is

Royal Berkshire Archives D/EN/F45/1-2 consists of two memoranda catalogued as “Remembrances,” probably by Sir Henry Neville. The archive dates the two items to 1603 and 1614 and describes them as memoranda of estate, legal and other business, people to be seen, and alterations to Billingbear. The earlier item is docketed:

Remembrances w^th

Wokingham 3. February

1602

The date is Old Style. It is therefore 3 February 1602/3, or 3 February 1603 in modern-year reckoning. The same sheets include another heading, Remembrances w^th Wokingham in March 1602, which is chronologically coherent within the same Old Style year.

The photographed item does not visibly carry /1. The assignment to D/EN/F45/1 follows from its 1602/3 date and from the distinct November 1614 memorandum visibly carrying D/EN/F45/2. The public catalogue controls the file and description; the original-resolution photographs control the quoted words. Royal Berkshire Archives, `D/EN/F45/1-2`.

A household move, not merely a repair list

The first leaf begins:

persons to go to Billingbere

The clearest family line is:

my wife & 4 children

Other lines name or partly name women, maids, male household members and a footeman. A brace and the numeral 9 appear beside part of the roster, but the scope of the brace cannot yet be reconciled safely with every adjacent name. The numeral must not be converted into a total household count.

This evidence supports a planned family and service move to Billingbear. It does not establish that the writer had only four children, that all four were minors, or that every member of the household travelled. If the memorandum is Sir Henry Neville's, the phrase is an unusually direct snapshot of the family group selected for this move. The document itself does not name the wife or children, and the archive's word probably still governs authorship.

Rebuilding and furnishing Billingbear

The memorandum joins the move to a concentrated programme of work:

About raising y^e gallery, about y^e lightes, & timber & stone

for yt

It separately records the woolhouse, grounds, flock, tithes, wheat, barley, ponds, wainscoting of the little parlour and construction of a bridge. Another leaf calls for:

necessaries for y^e howse & to consider what is done

allready & what is fit to be supplyed

and ends with:

To provide hanginges for y^e roomes

The memorandum therefore documents simultaneous architectural, decorative and operational work. This matters for the chronology of Billingbear. The Victoria County History says that the principal house was built by the elder Sir Henry Neville about 1567 and describes Billingbear as a red-brick Elizabethan mansion within a park of about 400 acres. The 1603 memorandum is evidence of a later phase of alteration and refurnishing, not the original construction of the house. VCH Berkshire, “Waltham St Lawrence,” pp. 179–184.

Measured chambers and Dornix hangings

A separate leaf records wall spans and the lengths of pieces to be used in the great chamber and pond chamber. It calculates additional material in Flemish ells and then estimates Dornix for three named rooms:

m^r hollymans chamber will take up about 45 yardes of dornix

my sister seymours will take about 39 or 39 yardes

my la: of warwickes chamber about 59 or 60 yardes

Dornix was a furnishing textile associated with hangings. The significant point here is not merely that Billingbear possessed hangings, but that the memorandum measures individual wall runs, matches existing pieces to spaces, calculates new purchases and assigns rooms by remembered or intended occupants.

The names open three distinct research lanes. my sister Seymour is consistent with Dorothy Killigrew Seymour, Anne Killigrew Neville's sister, but the room label should be collated with the family chronology before being made an absolute identification. my la: of Warwicke may refer to a contemporary countess within the Russell/Killigrew court network; the title alone is not enough to decide which woman or whether the label records expected residence, past residence, or simply a conventional room name. Mr Hollyman remains unidentified.

Provisioning an elite country household

The supply list is unusually broad. It includes:

wheate malt sheepe & oxen hay & provender

fuell

wyne from Abingdon for mine owne provision

som poultry to set up

brewing stuffe, graines, mawe, hoppes

vinegar, salt, beefe & every thing els

This is a start-up or replenishment programme extending from field and flock to brewhouse, cellar, kitchen and stable. The language to set up beside poultry is especially suggestive of establishing productive household stocks rather than ordering food for a single entertainment. The Abingdon line supplies a specific inland procurement route for wine.

The wine entry continues with a gift instruction to S^r Edm. Fettipl.. The name is consistent with Sir Edmund Fettiplace. A calendared Chamberlain letter of 19 September 1601 records that Elizabeth knighted Sir Edmund Fettiplace when leaving Sir William Knollys's entertainment at Caversham. That makes him a documented member of the adjacent Berkshire/Oxfordshire progress and gentry world shortly before the memorandum; it does not by itself explain the wine gift. CSPD Elizabeth, 1601–1603, p. 98; Chamberlain, p. 117.

Broadolease: flock, waste land and herons

Broadolease appears repeatedly. The memorandum considers the flock, coppihold or waste ground, and an instruction involving people and y^e hernes in Broadolease, followed later by the clear line:

To take order about y^e hernes in Broadolease

The earlier verb before y^e hernes remains unresolved. The repeated noun creates a focused research problem around herons or a heronry at Broadolease. Estate accounts, game records, gifts of birds, pond management and land rights are the most appropriate next sources.

Court, county and financial errands

The action list moves rapidly from estate logistics to high-level contacts:

Speake w^th my lord Treasurer about my assurance

w^th m^r Controllour about furnishing

To draw a quittance for S^r Bassingbourn Gawdy to seale

To try m^r Smith & m^r Crispin for 200li

The Mr Controller line can now be given a precise office-history test. Chamberlain wrote on 23 December 1602 that Sir Edward Wotton “was made Controller” while Sir William Knollys was translated to Treasurer. That is only six weeks before the memorandum's modern date. Edward Wotton is therefore the leading officeholder identification, but about furnishing still needs a transactional source before the person and purpose are promoted as fact. Chamberlain, letter of 23 December 1602, p. 171.

The Lord Treasurer, Gawdy quittance and £200 Smith/Crispin action should be searched independently. The memorandum gives no explanation of the assurance, the consideration behind the quittance, the nature of the £200, or whether try means approach, test, sue, or another action in this compressed context.

Two deleted instructions—writing to Lady Russell and to the writer's brother Doyly—place the list inside the Cooke/Killigrew/Neville family and court network without proving why either communication was cancelled. A further instruction mentions my cosen Savile; the surname is clear, but the particular Savile and the relation to the Broadolease/herons line require independent control.

What the memorandum contributes

The document's importance lies in the conjunction of activities:

It is one of the strongest surviving records for reconstructing Billingbear as a working household rather than as an abstract estate name. It also supplies a clear warning about evidentiary layers: the words are image-controlled, the file placement is catalogue-controlled, but the hand and authorship remain probable rather than independently authenticated.

Next research actions

  1. Obtain an archive-produced scan or re-photograph the roster and the

    2. Broadolease/herons line to resolve the remaining strokes.

  2. Search D/EN estate accounts and correspondence for every roster name,

    3. Hollyman, Parker, Gell, Smith, Crispin and Newbery.

  3. Reconstruct the ages and residences of Neville's children in February 1603

    4. before assigning the unnamed four.

  4. Search household and wardrobe accounts for Dornix, Flemish ells, the gallery

    5. raising and room hangings.

  5. Trace the Abingdon wine supplier and the gift to Sir Edmund Fettiplace.
  6. Search Broadolease records for herons, heronry, ponds, flock passage,

    7. copyhold waste and Savile involvement.

  7. Test Edward Wotton against the Mr Controller furnishing instruction and

    8. identify the contemporary Lord Treasurer from office records.

  8. Locate the Gawdy quittance and Smith/Crispin £200 transaction in legal,

    9. estate, Exchequer and Chancery material.

Sources