A Death at Fountains Abbey (43 page)

Molly Gaining is my invention – but it was believed that the fire was indeed started to conceal a theft.

The green ledger

Following the South Sea crash, Aislabie was thrown in the Tower. When asked to produce his accounts, he swore that his secretary had burned them, as was usual for his tallied books. (I’ve seen his accounts from his time as Treasurer to the Navy. Somewhat tragically, I even have pictures. So, you know . . .
lying
.)

Aislabie bought South Sea stock on behalf of King George I, set at eye–wateringly corrupt discount prices. He also advised the Prince and Princess of Wales. The king invested tens of thousands of pounds from the Civil List into the scheme. Aislabie would have noted all this down in his private accounts. If they’d been published, even eight years later, it would have been catastrophic for the monarchy and the government. So while the story of Aislabie’s blackmail is an invention, it’s quite possible that he kept that ledger. Aislabie knew the price of everything, after all.

In fact, a similar accounts book was smuggled abroad just after the crash by the South Sea Company’s cashier, Robert Knight. What happened next is too convoluted to recount here, but in order to keep the contents secret, the government agreed
in writing
to support the Holy Roman Empire in a potential war against Spain.

Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal

Studley Hall burned down in 1946. If you search for images, all but one show it after its grand Palladian remodelling by Aislabie’s son William. Aislabie’s water gardens are now a World Heritage site, owned and looked after by the National Trust, along with Fountains Abbey and Fountains Hall. The stables were completed in 1732. They survived the fire and are now a private home.

Aislabie never managed to purchase the abbey. In October 1720 – right in the middle of the South Sea debacle – John Messenger suddenly demanded more money, surely knowing Aislabie would refuse. Had he decided that he didn’t want the abbey going to the now notorious chancellor? Aislabie declared, peevishly, ‘[Messenger] cou’d never induce me to give a farthing more for Fountains since I can do as well without it, and if I coud buy it to’morrow I shou’d not want it.’ William Aislabie bought the abbey almost fifty years later, when the Messengers were short of funds again.

If you visit today – and you must! today! – you will see John Doe’s follies, the deer park, the moon ponds, and the cascades. The banqueting house is still there with its rusticated icicle ornamentations, but before I turn into Mr Forster, let me wake you up with the news that by 1730 there was a statue of Priapus lurking behind it. It was later destroyed, but there are now three separate places to buy scones at Studley Royal, so that is some consolation.

Fountains Hall and Fountains Abbey remain much as they were. There are tombstones laid out on the floor of the chapter house, and the door to the tower steps is still there. Locked, of course.

The riddle of the sphinx(es)

There are four sphinxes in the water gardens. They’ve been moved around at various times, but one pair now sits by the footbridge on the lower cascade as they did in 1728. I have no proof that they were meant to represent Queen Caroline, but the resemblance is uncanny, right down to the golden locks, pearl necklace, and enormous bosom. Garden statuary was often invested with allegorical and political meaning in the eighteenth century, so it’s feasible. And Queen Caroline was definitely sphinxy.

Anonymous notes and butchered deer

Anonymous threats were common throughout this period. E. P. Thompson includes numerous examples in his essay, ‘The Crime of Anonymity’. I borrowed some phrases from them. Thompson also recounts how notes were sometimes smeared with blood, or left on a doorstep ‘with a dead bird or beast . . . or even the heart of a slaughtered beast’.

Arson was by far the most popular threat. Studley Hall itself was damaged by fire at Christmas 1716 – Aislabie blamed Anne Gill for it. Someone also attacked and killed several of his deer around this time, to the point where he even considered getting rid of the herd.

Aislabie was zealous when it came to punishing poachers. When his steward caught a man stealing, Aislabie wrote: ‘I wou’d have you proceed against Hodgson with all the vigour imaginable by bringing actions against him and lay him up in Goal [sic] for ever’. Then again – never trust a Hodgson.

Real people in the novel

John Aislabie

Aislabie never returned to power. He spent the rest of his days pouring all his ambitions into his family, his gardens, his horses, and his land. (I like to call this his extended gardening leave.) He died in 1742.

Judith Aislabie

Lady Judith was born in 1676, so Tom was right, she was over fifty when they met, not that this would have stopped him. Judith’s son Edmund married Aislabie’s daughter Jane, so they were quite the blended family.

Like her husband, Judith was very keen on horses and horse racing. In 1723 she was responsible for the first ever women’s race, which took place at Ripon: ‘Mrs Aislabie gave a plate to be run for by women, and nine of that sex mounted their steeds, rid astride, were dressed in drawers, waistcoats, and jockey caps, their shapes transparent, and a vast concourse of people to see them.’

Judith died in May 1740. In her will, she mentioned her granddaughters before her grandsons, and left them all an equal sum of £500. She bequeathed £500 to her daughter-in-law as well, along with much of her jewellery, noting twice that the money was ‘for her own separate use . . . to be put out by her direction’.

Metcalfe Robinson

I discovered Metcalfe Robinson through his lively if somewhat blotchy letters to his brother Thomas. He was funny, self–doubting, loyal, confessional, and loving. He also suffered from very serious bouts of depression. There were self-loathing comments (‘I cannot but incommode you’, ‘I shall make a ridiculous figure’) and worrying insights into his fragile state of mind (‘After all my irresolutions which you was in the right to think might kill me’).

Tragically, Metcalfe committed suicide in 1736. A legal document describes how he was deeply affected by his father’s death, ‘having laboured Severall years under a great disorder of mind’. Four days later, on 26 December 1736, Metcalfe ‘shott himself through the head, and died instantly’. I can’t help but think that his grief, coupled with the pressure of taking over as baronet, was simply too much to bear.

John Simpson

In autumn 1728, Simpson wrote a desperate letter to Aislabie regarding unpaid bills: ‘I made bold to write to you to Studley on the 30th of Octo; but did not meet with the favour of an answer . . . above is copy of my former to you of which I never had the least answer’. These were brave words, and Simpson quickly returned to the customary (and necessary) deference: ‘Hoping your honour will not take this boldness in me amiss being on all occasions with the humblest respect honoured sir your most obedient humble servant.’

Nowadays, we would probably refer to Aislabie as a ‘nightmare client’ – changing his mind, haggling over costs, delaying payment, redesigning in the midst of construction. In the end, it seems to have broken Simpson – financially and physically. In December 1728, Aislabie’s steward wrote to him: ‘Last night Mr Simpson died, he only got his Bills made up last Friday night.’ William Fisher, the head gardener, was even more blunt: ‘I suppose you no that Mr Simpson is Dead and Died very poor and his work men all Ruined by him.’

The Gills

‘I am not at all surpris’d at the accident that has happned; I know that Anne Gill is so devilish a woman that there is no mischief she cou’d invent, that she wou’d not execute. Is there no way to find it out? Let the reward for the discovery be never so great, I will pay it.’ So wrote John Aislabie on 1 January 1716, following a mysterious fire at Studley Hall on Christmas day.

In April the same year, Aislabie writes about ‘those rogues that kill’d the Deer’. He hopes that a reward might help break ‘this gang’ or ‘[drive] them out of the country’. Once again, he suspects the Gills: ‘I wou’d give any money to fix it upon Gill or any of his companions’.

Perhaps the Gills were the leaders of a local gang – but no one was convicted for either crime. Something certainly seems to have happened between Anne Gill and Aislabie – he is still muttering darkly about her in a later letter.

Thomas Wattson

(Also spelled Watson.) When Simpson died in December 1728, William Fisher wrote at once to Aislabie: ‘Theair is on of his men Thomas Watson a good work man and worked at the Canal Last Summer he Desiers me to write to yr Honor in his be halfe if you pleas to Employ him’. Aislabie replies: ‘as to Thomas Watson, I know he is a good workman, and I shou’d give him what encouragement I can’. Shortly after that, Wattson appears regularly in lists of Robert Doe’s men.

Mrs Mason

Mrs Mason’s scrupulous accounts were an invaluable resource, revealing what would be ordered for the table in April, for example. The Aislabies, being astoundingly rich, ate well. In fact theirs was a model of a balanced diet – lots of fresh vegetables, fish and ‘sallet’. Mrs Mason seems to have been given responsibilities beyond the kitchens – in one month alone she pays bills totalling £340 to (among others) bricklayers, gilders, masons, and plumbers.

Francis Pugh and William Hallow

Pugh turns up in a list of bills as a coachman, earning a monthly wage of fifteen shillings. (Aislabie’s bill for wine at Studley in 1733 came to £182.) He also took trips to London, presumably driving members of the family, and/or belongings between the Aislabies’ several houses. The head groom at Studley in 1728 was called Mr Benson – I amalgamated the roles for the purpose of the story. Hallow was unmarried when he came to Studley, and lived in a cottage on the estate.

John Messenger

Messenger would have been fifty-two in 1728. He was protective of the abbey as both a religious and historical site. At the same time, it was overgrown with ivy and there were several trees growing inside the ruins. There are no surviving estate papers for the Messenger family. However, the rivalry and animosity between the two families were of long standing, evident in border disputes and litigation spanning decades. Messenger died in 1749 aged seventy-three.

Mr Gatteker

There is a reference to an apothecary called Mr Gatteker in a set of bills for April 1734. He was paid just over £5. I liked his name so I stole it, and turned him into a physician. He may, or may not, have owned a cat.

Select bibliography

I would like to thank David Barnard for kindly sharing his own notes and illustrations, and for being so generous with his time. I met David in summer 2014, when he was training National Trust guides at Fountains Abbey. He gave me a fascinating and incredibly helpful tour in torrential rain. His research and his advice were invaluable as I began my own tentative studies.

For anyone looking for a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated book by the leading expert on Fountains and Studley, I recommend Mark Newman’s
The Wonder of the North: Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal
. Unfortunately for me, it came out after I’d begun writing, but it was a very useful resource when I came to go through the final edits.

Needless to say any embellishments within the novel are mine alone.

Contemporary Sources

Archival material

West Yorkshire Archives, Leeds

WYL150 (Vyner collection) and WYL5013 (Newby Hall) – a mixture of family letters, accounts, estate correspondence and legal documents, including letters by John Aislabie and Metcalfe Robinson, Simpson’s bills, Mrs Mason’s accounts,
etc.

Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, Aylesbury

The Diary of John Baker of Cornhill, linen draper, 25 May–13 July 1728. Baker wrote an entertaining diary of his tour of the north. He visited Studley Royal in June and was given a guided tour by John Aislabie. He also visited Baldersby, where the deer came right up to the window.

Speeches and commentary

‘Mr Aislabie’s Second Speech on his Defence in the House of Lords’, 20 July 1721; ‘Mr Aislabie’s two Speeches Considered’, 1721; ‘The Speech of the Right Honourable John Aislabie, Esq, Upon his Defence made in the House of Lords’, 19 July 1721; ‘A Speech Upon the Consolidated Bill’, 1721; ‘A Vindication of the Honour and Justice of Parliament against a Most Scandalous Libel, Entitled, The Speech of John Aislabie, Esq.’, 1721.

Secondary Sources

—
Dinner at Lacock in 1729
(Wiltshire Folklife Society)

—
Mr Aislabie’s Gardens
(New Arcadians)

—
Studley Royal: A Celebratory Tour Occasioned by the Rejuvenation of the Pleasure Grounds
(New Arcadians)

Bates, Malcolm,
A Very English Deceit: The Secret History of the South Sea Bubble and the First Great Financial Scandal