The Baitson / Swaine feud of 1591/2

[A fuller version of this story is available, entitled The Swaines of Thorp.]

Background

Robert Swaine belonged to a large and violent Idle family. It had a lease on parts of Idle Wood, allowing it to cut timber to burn for charcoal. This brought it into conflict with Edward Cage, a London grocer, who had a similar lease for the West Wood of Idle, near Shipley.

In a number of incidents, Cage’s men were forcibly driven from their woods by Swaine’s thugs. Cage lodged a Bill of Complaint against the Swaines, which eventually reached the Star Chamber in London:

“Cage was possessed of the said piece of ground in Idle Wood for a term of years with free ingrease, egrease, regrease, waie and passage therunto. Robert Swaine, with Robert Baildon, had stopped and enclosed the comon highe waie in the said Greate Woode and other places so that the plaintiff’s carts could not pass” [1].

The outcome of the Complaint is not known as no records have survived.

The stories

Unable to countenance competition, Swaine, accompanied by Tristram Lillye and George Waterhouse, set out to wreak vengeance on Cage's charcoal enterprise in the West Wood, near Windhill.

Once, after a spell of cutting and felling underwoods and bushes which his employer (Edward Cage) had bought from Christopher Baitson of Windhill, William Watts was making his way along the common footpath towards his lodgings when he encountered Swaine, who was armed, contrary to the law, with a large "pyked staffe" with which he started to belabour the defenceless Watts.

Recalling Robert’s uncle George, who had fled abroad after committing a heinous murder, Watts called out: "Wouldst thou murder me as thine uncle murdered Stillingfleet?" Swaine, taken aback at hearing this, turned pale and allowed Watts to escape.

Seven or eight days later Swaine and his men, armed with stones, axes and other weapons, drove Cage's workmen out of the wood, then cut down some of his trees and marked them as their own.

Not long afterwards, he and Robert Baildon, together with other gangsters, blocked the common highway through the wood, so that Cage's carts could not pass.

On 13 January 1592, Swaine and twenty-nine ruffians from Idle and Baildon armed themselves with staves, swords and daggers and, “purporting hunting in a secrete and pryvie search for semynarie preistes” set out for the homes of Christopher and William Baitson of Windhill (or Wrose) [2]. Two local constables, George Walker, from Idle and William Hudson from Baildon, accompanied them. They got to the Baitsons's houses around midnight and threatened to break down the doors unless they were granted access.

On learning that Swaine was the leader of the rabble, the Baitsons opened their doors, whereupon they were seized and carried off to Idle and kept in custody along with another victim of Swaine's evil designs, a Baildon collier named Murrowes. Next day they were taken to Howley Hall in Batley and put before Sir John Savile, the district Justice. There, strange to relate, the wind seems to have gone from the sails of Swaine's craft: to the astonishment of his victims, instead of charging them with “semynaries or treason or Fellonye”, Swaine accused them only of having "cut down, coled, and carried awaie certen of his woade and timber." To this charge the three prisoners replied that they were only servants acting under the direction of Edward Cage and his agents. Savile dismissed the charges, but Swaine lodged a Bill of Complaint against the three men before the Counsel of the North in York.

In response, Cage lodged the Bill of Complaint against Swaine at the Star Chamber in London.

Notes

[1] Robert Baildon was a gentleman from Baildon known for “pretendinge some authorityie under Sir Anthony Thorel, Knighte unto whome some parte of thee Greate Wood called Idle Wood belongeth and through which the comon highe waie leadeth”.

[2] Seminary priests were sent from Europe with the aim of keeping Catholicism alive in England; this was seen as a threat to the authority of Queen Elizabeth.