Readers who know Theydon Mount Church will have been shocked to hear of the serious burglary in November 2010. Amongst the items stolen was a figure from one of several 17th century monuments to the Smyth family of Hill Hall, for which the church is historically renowned. The figure was that of a small child, set between two kneeling women above a recumbent man in armour. The clothing made the child look like a girl, but in fact it was a young boy, Edward Smyth. This article is an attempt to bring Edward back to life by uncovering what we know about his short but eventful life.
Edward – known to the family as Ned – was born in August 1630 and baptised on August 19th in St Michael’s church, which had been completely rebuilt after a fire some 16 years before. The baby’s father was Sir William Smyth, who had inherited Hill Hall when his own father, the old soldier Sir William, had died in 1626 . A year after inheriting, 27-year-old William had married the extraordinarily named Helegenwagh Conway, one of the daughters of Viscount Conway of Ragley in Warwickshire – a suitable match for the time. William and Helegenwagh’s first child was a daughter called Bridget, probably named after William’s mother, but the baby sadly died at seven months old. The birth of a healthy son just a few months later would have been an occasion for rejoicing, except that just a week after Ned’s christening, his young mother died. Strangely the monument inscription records two daughters, but there is no sign of another in the parish records, and not actually enough time in their short marriage for another birth.
Following the custom of the age, Sir William remarried as soon as possible, this time to Anne Croft, from an ‘ancient family’ in Herefordshire. However, any happiness was short-lived, as in March 1632 Sir William himself died, aged only 31. Young Ned was orphaned and was not yet two. His stepmother arranged for the unusually designed alabaster and marble monument to be made. Sir William lies in a conventional death pose, wearing armour and with a salamander – the Smyth emblem – at his feet. Helegenwagh carries a skull to indicate that she pre-deceased her husband. Anne herself wears widow’s weeds, mourning her husband. Between them, Ned was shown in skirts – the normal boy’s clothes of the time, worn until he was ‘breeched’ at about 6 – and a leather jacket with hanging sleeves, slit at the elbow for ease of movement. This is a rare example of this type of costume, and the level of detail given to a child was remarkable.
Having done her widow’s duty, Anne remarried as soon as decency allowed and left for Buckinghamshire. What happened to Ned at this time? It appears that he was being brought up by his maternal family, the Conways, who were still closely linked with Hill Hall and the Smyths. Helegenwagh had an older sister with the equally wonderful name of Brilliana, who was married to Sir Robert Harley of Brampton Bryan Castle in Herefordshire and already had seven children, mostly boys.
A whole series of Brilliana’s letters have survived, some written to her husband when he was away and many more to her eldest son, another Edward, at Cambridge University. She gives him family news including, in May 1633: ‘I thank God all the children are well and so is Ned Smith’. Ned would have been almost four at the time. References to ‘your cousin Smith’ are frequent if unenlightening; typically ‘your brothers and your cousin Smith are well’. Occasionally Ned has ‘the ague’ and then recovers. The boys of the family, including Ned, were being taught by a home tutor, Mr Ballam. In 1641 he left and, when he was replaced, Brilliana comments wryly: ‘Your brothers are well, and your cousin Smith, whose only sorrow is that I have got [some]one to teach school for Mr Ballam’. It was later arranged that they would go to ‘Mr Voil’s’ – presumably a school. By this time Ned was nearly 12 and Brilliana writes that the boys are away and have ‘a very good chamber’. However, in March 1642 Ned had a recurrence of the ague and a fit, and seems to have come home to be cared for by Dr Wright, the family physician, who actually stayed at Brampton during the boy’s illness. Clearly Ned was being well looked after in a stable and apparently happy family environment. In April he was better and probably went back to school, as Brilliana said she was going to hire someone to wait on ‘cousin Smith and your brothers’.
However, the rumblings of the imminent Civil War soon erupted in hostility and Edward is not mentioned again in Brilliana’s letters. The whole country was taking sides between King and Parliament, and many families were split in their loyalties. The Harleys were strongly Puritan, the religious view favoured by the Parliamentarians, whereas the Smyths and Conways (apart from Brilliana) supported the King. The ordinary people of Essex, however, including the villagers in Theydon Mount, were mostly for Parliament and Puritanism.
It is likely that when the first hostile skirmishes began in the summer of 1642, 12-year-old Ned was sent back to Brilliana’s brother, Lord Conway, who seems to have kept a base at Hill Hall in the 1630s and 1640s. There was local ill feeling and unrest in Theydon Mount, but it was certainly safer than Herefordshire, where the Harleys were the only Puritans in a sea of Royalist support. In July 1643 Brampton Castle was attacked and besieged for weeks, defended only by Brilliana and her household, as Sir Robert was away. Despite her heroic efforts, including a spirited counter-attack, Brampton Castle fell and suffered great damage. In her last letter in October 1643 Brilliana complained of a ‘great cold’, and died soon afterwards.
According to the historians J J Howard and H F Burke (of Burke’s Peerage fame), Ned served as a volunteer at the age of 16, under his uncle Lord Conway, who was the King’s General of Horse. They also claim that he served under the dashing cavalry colonel Prince Rupert of the Rhine, the King’s German nephew. Most of the main fighting was actually over by the time he was 16, but it’s possible he joined up at 12 or 13. Drummers, musicians and messengers were often boys. It is hard to imagine one so young taking part in one of Prince Rupert’s famous cavalry charges, as even grown men found it nearly impossible to control their horses, which were usually stallions. However, he could have been part of Lord Conway’s or Prince Rupert’s camp.
The main hostilities ended in 1646, but trouble flared up again in the summer of 1648, even having an impact on Theydon Mount. In June of that year, the parish registers record the death of John North (of North Farm), ‘being slain in the service of the Parliament in Epping’.
Ned, however, was not at Hill Hall at that time. In March 1648 he had been admitted as a Fellow Commoner at Trinity College Cambridge. Fellow Commoners were affluent students granted privileges like sharing high table with the Fellows of a college. He was almost 18, which was rather older than most new entrants then. There is no record of him graduating, but clues to what he was doing may be gleaned from a battered vellum-bound notebook, now at the Essex Record Office. This details his enormous debts in both Cambridge and London, to saddlers, innkeepers and above all to tailors and drapers. He had also borrowed extensively from Brilliana’s husband Sir Robert Harley. The debts totalled almost £7,725 – about £900,000 in today’s money.
In January 1652 Ned died, the parish registers (then kept by a disapproving Puritan rector) baldly recording in the burials: Edward Smith Esq of Hill Hall, Jan 24. Howard and Burke claim that he ‘died in the Civil War’, but by 1652 the fighting was all over. We know he was not at Hill Hall at his death because the first entry in the debt book was the cost (£1 5s) of hiring a coach to bring his body back to Mount. His uncle Thomas, who had unexpectedly inherited Hill Hall in middle age, had to sort out and pay off all the boy’s debts, which he did meticulously, although it took him over 6 years to complete. When Charles II returned to rule England in 1660, the family’s loyalty to the Crown and Edward’s active service were rewarded with a baronetcy for Thomas and all succeeding generations.
Young Ned was only 21 when he died. His life began surrounded by death, and he lived – at times to excess – through some of the most turbulent years in English history. Apart from growing up with his cousins at Brampton Castle, there was not much peace in his lifetime, and now sadly even his monument has not been left in peace.
The older Sir William is portrayed in a magnificent monument on the south side of the chancel, along with his wife Bridget. His funeral helm, which hung in the chancel roof, was stolen in the burglary. The salamander was also stolen. Compare with the very simplified ‘weepers’, representing their seven children on the base of William and Bridget’s tomb. In 1637, the parish registers record the burial of Lord Conway’s household chaplain at St Michael’s, implying he was resident. The rector Daniel Whitby, who had been appointed by the Crown, was ejected from his post to his great indignation, and he retaliated with accusations of lies, deceit and even incest. He reported that Hill Hall was once raided for its arms and armour ‘when my Lord Conway was away’. Theydon Mount, its Lords and Rectors, 1892 Puritans frequently criticised the gentry for their sartorial extravagance; they favoured instead sober black and white clothing. Dress was a public indicator of which side you were on.