Isabel Plumpton Plumpton Correspondence 1506

“Sir for God sake take an end, for we are brought to begger staffe, for you have not to defend them withall.”

This comes from a moving personal letter from Isabel Plumpton (“your bedfellow”) to her husband Sir Robert Plumpton urging him to end the litigation that was ruining them. Sir Robert, Warden of Knaresborough Castle, was involved in numerous legal cases involving his inheritence, and actions by Sir Richard Empson, the King’s Agent. His title to the estates was bound up in such a way that he could not sell it to raise money to cover the costs. Having lost at York Assizes he had gone to London to appeal.

She relates that she has been unable to obtain money from one person who had promised it, has been trying to sell wood but “for they know ye want the money” people will not buy “without they myghte have it halfe for nought”. His son has been cutting timber but even then cannot find buyers, “and so shall your woode be distroyed and ye will get nought for it”. The storehouse is empty and she has no money to buy salted fish as Lent approaches. She thinks he may be able to  sell a field but is “not in a suerty” what it would fetch. The desperate Isabel says “Sir, I told ye this ere ye went, but ye wold not beleve me”. She goes on “. . . I know nothing else wherwith to help you. Sir for God sake take an end, for we are brought to begger staffe, for you have not to defend them withall. Sir I send you my Mare, and iijs and iiijd by the bearer hereof, I and I pray you send me word as sone as ye may”. Her efforts were unsuccessful – by 1510 they were both in the Counter, the debtors gaol, though in 1516 they recovered some of the estates through arbitration .

Usage

Although she does not use the phrase Beggars Bush the usage is identical to the later proverbial use – brought to ruin, perhaps by one’s own folly, as in Jane Anger. It is also disturbingly similar to the intermediate usage of Beggars Barne by William Bullein, who refers to people brought to ruin by litigation in London. In each of these the bush/staff/barn were symbolic features of beggary.

Sources

Stapleton, T. ed., Plumpton correspondence. A series of letters, chiefly domestick, written in the reigns of Edward IV. Richard III. Henry VII. and Henry VIII… from Sir Edward Plumpton’s book of letters: with notices historical and biographical of the family of Plumpton, of Plumpton, Com. Ebor. (Camden Society [1st series] 4; London, 1839)

Letter CLXII p.198-9

DNB

Thanks

Jane Pennington

Posted: March 13th, 2011 | Filed under: Writers | Tags: Isabel Plumpton, Jane Anger, William Bullein, proverb | No Comments »