Thrale history

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A New Thraliana (1973)

The children of Robert the younger did not live in very happy times. An epidemic of influenza visited the country in 1557 and continued through most of 1558 carrying off people in hundreds and bringing sorrow to almost every household. Trade and agriculture were fearfully depressed, bad seasons contributing to the general ruin, while the heavy hand of taxation was felt by rich and poor. Storms and tempests rarely paralleled for their destructiveness added vastly to the general feeling of misery. Political unrest, and a war with France ending in irretrievable disgrace, were circumstances which clouded the more distant horizon.¹ The people of Sandridge lived much the same as those in other English villages. The only one of the existing buildings that were standing at that time is St. Leonard's church. The cottages were gabled and thatched with clay, loam, rubble and wattle-work filling up the spaces between the uprights, and cross-beams. Chimneys had recently become the usual thing instead of the exception, and the fuel for warmth and cooking was wood. The people fed reasonably well with two meals a day, mostly of bread and meat. Potatoes were just beginning to come into some garden plots, but were not yet grown as a crop in the fields. Dinner, the chief meal, was at eleven or twelve, and supper some five hours later.² The food was served on wooden plates and eaten with spoon, knife and fingers, but not forks. The yeoman might have one or two pieces of pewter, but crockery was not of that date. The men all wore beards which must have saved an incredible number of man-hours. Out in the fields the horse was gradually beginning to share with the ox the labours of the plough.

During this period Thomas Thrale was at Sandridgebury and it was through him and his wife Elizabeth, that the descent of the family was continued. His brother John who had inherited Fairfolds from his father was the only brother to have sons. As in other cases during this generation, he outlived his son, dying in 1617. He gave to his daughter, Margaret Sare one acre of good wheat and one acre of good oats, and to her daughter Mary a swarm of bees.³ The rest of his estate he passed on to his son William, and for some reason no mention is made of his other son John. His will also asked Dr. Westerman, Vicar of Sandridge, to administer the distribution of money to the poor. Westerman had

Footnotes

1. H. Gee Reformation Period.↩︎
2. G.M. Trevelyan English Social History.↩︎
3. Archd. St. Albans Reg Dainty fo. 74.↩︎