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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 October 2009
1712 An accountt of whatt I laid outt on the sickness, death, and buriall of my deer husband, Percy Frek, Esqr; taken outt of the severall bills in my uper closett and paid by me, Elizabeth Frek, his unhappy wife, within the year of 1707
Butt now comes the dismalls and fattasst day of my life, for on the second of June, Sunday, aboutt three a clock (the very day and howre my son was borne, hee being then thirty two years of age), my deer husband, Percy Frek, Esqr, to compleatt all the miseryes of my life, affter seven monthes torture of a dropsey and an astma, in which time I think I never wentt seven nights into a bed butt I were one of the three thatt watched with him nightt and day for fear of him.
1 An earlier version, apparently completed by the end of 1709, appears in W, fols. 35v–39r. The later account from the B text is included in this edition because it is the final version and because the tone of the revision expresses the deepening discontent of Freke's last years. Variations in the entries of expenses have not been noted; the notations supplementing the foliation are Freke's.
2 Several Goddards are listed in the Lynn land and poll taxes.
3 Ann, the wife of John Sadd, one of Freke's tenants. She was buried in West Bilney on 3 January 1706/7.
4 Peter Good.
5 The remembrances characterize James Minican as one of ‘Mr Freks two men’; the surname does not appear in the Swaffham parish register. Chaldron: thirty-two bushels of coal.
6 Among the Larges in the Swaffham register, a James Large married Ann Moare on 23 May 1685, and James and Alice Large baptized children in 1697 and 1706.
7 Possibly Robert Sherringham, who was buried in Pentney on 25 October 1721; an Anne and Robert Sheringham baptized a son in Narford in 1708.
8 Several Culhams appear in the Swaffham parish register. The earlier ledger has Raynum: either South or West Raynham.
9 Thomas Culham and his wife Elizabeth Thorpe, whom he married on 13 October 1689, had buried in Swaffham two of their four children baptized there.
10 Probably Francis Penniton, who lived with his wife Mary in East Walton. See above, p. 283 n. 217.
11 John Bagge, a merchant who was made a freeman of Lynn in 1694–5 and later served as an alderman and mayor, was the ‘founder of a family of Lynn merchants and lawyers’. The Bagge family had a brewery in King Street (Freemen of Lynn, 205, 218, 225Google Scholar; Rye, , i. 19Google Scholar; Bradferd-Lawrence, H. L., ‘The Merchants of Lynn’, in A Supplement to Blomefield's Norfolk, ed. Ingleby, Clement [London, 1929], 175).Google Scholar
12 Timothy Preist is identified as a milliner among the freemen of Lynn and in the 1690 Lynn poll tax; the 1704 land tax indicates he had property in the New Conduit, Sedgeford Lane, and Chequer Wards (Freemen of Lynn, 186Google Scholar; NRO, KL/C47/12–15 and KL/C47/35–44).
13 Charles Waldegrave, a goldsmith who was made a freeman of King's Lynn in 1709–10, resided in the Sedgeford Ward (Freemen of Lynn, 217Google Scholar; NRO, KL/C47/46).
14 Thomas Scarlet, who married Elizabeth Caps in Swaffham on 8 February 1707/8.
15 Robert Sparrow resided in the Sedgeford Lane Ward; made a freeman as a woollendraper in 1662–3, ne was also mayor in 1687–8 and 1696–7 (NRO, KL/C47/35–44; Freemen of Lynn, 172, 198, 206).Google Scholar
16 Peter Sykes has suggested that William Clark, the innkeeper of the Globe Inn, may have rented horses for hearses.
17 The W version has ‘Robenson the plumer’. John Robinson, a plumber, was made a freeman of King's Lynn in 1685–6 (Freemen of Lynn, 197).Google Scholar
18 Perhaps Oliver Browne, a carpenter whose name appears in the list of those made Lynn freemen in 1680–1 and in the 1704 land tax for the Kettlewell Ward (Freemen of Lynn, 191Google Scholar; NRO, KL/C47/35–44).
19 Elizabeth Gyles, sister of Freke's attorney John Freke.
20 Medicinal water from the pump rooms of spas.
21 A tax first imposed in 1695 ‘according to the rank and condition in life of persons, upon births, marriages, and burials’ (Dowell, , A History of Taxation and Taxes in England, ii. 46).Google Scholar
22 The King's Lynn poll tax of 1690 and 1703 land tax identify John Audley as an apothecary residing in the New Conduit Ward (NRO, KL/C47/12–15 and KL/C47/26–34, 45).
23 Unidentified by profession in the tax lists and unlisted in Wallis.
24 Throll is neither in the parish records nor among the tenants on any of Freke's lists. A number of Stewards appear in the archdeacon's transcripts of Pentney, none named Charles. Nor has he been linked with the Charles Stuart who studied law at Middle Temple or who held the advowson in Hiilington, Norfolk (Middle Temple Register, i. 243Google Scholar; Blomefield, , viii. 468).Google Scholar
25 Possibly James Ling, who married Mary Pinchback in Swaffham on 1 April 1680; a Henry Ling and a John Lyng are also listed in the 1689–90 King's Lynn poll taxes (NRO, KL/C47/10 and KL/C47/12–15).
26 Meaning unclear.
27 Most likely James Demee, the owner of Surrey House in Norwich, who died on 11 September 1718 at the age of fifty-nine (Blomefield, iv. 158–9).
28 Omitted is a more detailed variation of the legal and financial troubles with tenants Freke recalls in her second remembrance (above, pp. 257–8).
29 Carr: boggy land or meadow formed from drained bog.
30 B, fol. 28r, has a variation of this account.
31 Pittle: variant of pightle, a small enclosure or field.
32 He lived in East Walton, where he was later a church warden of St Mary the Virgin.
33 Versions of this history appear in B, fols. 47v–48v, and BL, Add. MS. 45721 A, fols, 1r–v. The third regnal year began on 28 January 1548/9.
34 Messuages: dwelling, nearby buildings, and adjacent land; tenement: land or real property held and in common law ‘lands, other inheritances, capable of being held in freehold, and rents’ (Black, 1,316); hereditament: inheritable property.
35 10 February 1560/1, in the third of the regnal years beginning on 17 November 1558.
36 22 February 1572/3.
37 29 June 1602.
38 1 May 1624, in the twentieth of the regnal years beginning on 24 March 1602/3.
39 ‘Edmund Bullock, of Norfolk, gen., of Furnival's Inn’ entered Lincoln's Inn on 14 November 1601 (The Records of the Honorable Society of Lincoln's Inn, 2 vols. [Lincoln's Inn, 1896], i. 133Google Scholar). ‘George Scott of Essex, gen. of Clifford's Inn’, had preceded Bullock at Lincoln's Inn (i. 128); another, the son of William Scott from Conghurst, Kent, matriculated at Queen's College in 1608, entered Gray's Inn the next year, and died in 1633 (Register of Gray's Inn, 122Google Scholar; Venn, , iv. 31).Google Scholar
40 1 June 1631, in the seventh of the regnal years beginning on 27 March 1625.
41 Edward Bullock of Faulkbourne Hall, Essex, knighted on 5 July 1609, and the father of Edward Bullock, who resided at Pentney when he entered the Inner Temple in 1628 (Shaw, William A., The Knights of England, 2 vols. [1906Google Scholar, reprinted Baltimore, 1971], ii. 148; Blomefield, ix. 40; Venn, i. 252). Thomas Bedingfeld or Beddenfield: associated with Gray's Inn; ‘Thomas Beddingfield of Holborn, Midds.’ was knighted on 23 June 1638 at Greenwich (Register of Gray's inn, 127, 211Google Scholar; Shaw, , Knights of England, ii. 206Google Scholar). Ambrose Shepherd, the son of Owen Shepherd of Kirby Bedon, matriculated at Caius in 1614; later, an Ambrose Shepherd became lord of the Norfolk manor of Kirby Bedon (Venn, , iv. 58Google Scholar; Blomefield, , v. 477Google Scholar). Thomas Richardson, a knight and member of parliament from St Albans who became speaker in 1621, served as lord chief justice from 1621 until his death in 1635 (Scots Peerage, ii. 579).Google Scholar
42 Recovery: restoration or affirmation of right through court judgment (Black, 1,147). John Tostock is unidentified among the Tostockes of Norfolk or at the inns of court.
43 Sir Jacob Garrard (d. 1666), London alderman from Bishopsgate and Candlewick, was knighted on 3 December 1641 and received a baronetcy on 16 August 1662 (Beaven, , Aldermen of the City of London, ii. 64Google Scholar; CB, iii. 255–6).Google Scholar
44 William Coward (1634–1705), called to the bar from Lincoln's Inn in 1662 and later a sergeant-at-law, was a recorder of Wells, which he represented in a number of parliaments (HC, ii. 164–5).Google Scholar
45 Regnal year beginning on 13 February 1688/9.
46 Thomas Richardson, the second of Lord Cramond's three sons, died in 1696 (Scots Peerage, ii. 582Google Scholar). The land known as Decoy was on the western side of the estate, west of the area located on the current Ordnance Survey map as Denton's Farm and north of Wormgay, which Freke's transcription of Camden's Britannia notes is ‘commonly called Wrongey’ (BL, Add. MS. 45720, fol. 47r) and Faden's 1797 map of Norfolk depicts as Wormegay Fen.
47 Yelverton Peyton, fourth son of Thomas and Elizabeth Peyton of Rougham and husband of Hannah Roberts, matriculated at Caius in 1669 and entered Gray's Inn in 1672 (Blomefield, , x. 32Google Scholar; Register of Gray's Inn, 315).Google Scholar
48 27 May 1659 was in the tenth regnal year of Charles II.
49 W, fol. 40V, has an earlier version ending in 1680.
50 Frances, the wife of William Freke of Hannington.
51 An earlier version of this account in W (fol. 41r) ends in 1709.
52 The 1711 mortgage is on Steven Weston's Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire property; see above, p. 189 n. 478.
53 An earlier version dated 7 January 1709/10 appears in W, fols. 39v–40r.
54 William Richardson, serjeant-at-law, was the younger brother of Thomas Richardson, second Baron Cramond. His will was proved on 24 July 1682 (Scots Peerage, ii. 581).Google Scholar
55 John Ernle or Earnley (c. 1620–1697), a Wiltshire justice of peace and militia commander knighted by Charles II, was a member of parliament, chancellor of the exchequer, and lord of the admiralty. Freke's recipes and remedies include several from Lord and Lady Earnley (HC, ii. 271–4Google Scholar). But conceivably Freke could intend his son, Sir John Ernle of Calne, Wiltshire (1647–1686), who was knighted in 1673 and was later a member of parliament (HC, ii. 274Google Scholar). Goringe Ball, the second son of the knight and master of the bench Peter Ball, entered the Middle Temple in 1652 and was called to the bar in 1657 (Middle Temple Records, iii. 1,033, 1,108).
56 A tripartite indenture or deed: three copies of an agreement made on a sheet cut on indented lines (Jowitt, i. 960).
57 Anne Richardson died on 31 January 1697/8.
58 A John Brockett resided in the Sedgeford Lane Ward according to the 1705 Lynn land tax (NRO, KL/C47/46); the Gayton parish register records the marriage of a John Brockett and Mary Chambers, widow, in November 1709.
59 Freke signed his will on 3 February 1705/6 (PRO, PROB 11/489/145).
60 A member of Middle Temple called to the bar in 1687, Joseph Jekyll (c. 1662–1738) received a knighthood following his appointments as chief justice of Chester and serjeant-at-law. He succeeded John Trevor as master of the rolls and long served as a member of parliament (The History of Parliament. The House of Commons, 1715–1754, ed. Sedgwick, Romney, 2 vols. [New York, 1970], ii. 174–6)Google Scholar.
61 John Freke's will mentions a Charles Blunt, his sister-in-law's husband (PRO, PROB 11/559/154).
62 Variations of the first and last of the following three inventories appear in W, fol. 3r, dated 5 December 1710.
63 Buckthorn berries are purgative.
64 Bullace: ‘The Bullesse … wilde kindes of Plums’ that ‘do stay and binde the belly’ (Gerard, , The Herball, 1,498, 1,499).Google Scholar
65 Isop, isope: hyssop-aromatic herb; mixed with water, honey and rue for inflamed lungs, ‘the old cough, and shortnesse of breath’ (Gerard, , The Herball, 580Google Scholar; Pechey, , The Compleat Herbal, 107).Google Scholar
66 Purslane: a succulent herb recommended for, among other ills, ‘Coughs, and Shortness of Breath’ (Pechey, , The Compleat Herbal, 155).Google Scholar
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