Sir Edward Dering of Surrenden Dering and his 'Booke of Expences', 1617-1628

Sir Edward Dering of Surrenden Dering and his ‘BookE of Expences’ (1617-1628)

laetitia yeandle

This article draws attention to a manuscript that provides a wealth of information on many aspects of life in Kent in the first half of the seventeenth century.1 The person who kept this Booke of Expences for the years from 1617 to 1628 was Sir Edward Dering, 1st bart., of Surrenden Dering in Kent who lived from 1598 to 1644. This Introduction attempts to show what the entries reveal, thanks to his orderly mind and concern for detail, about himself and his times by separating these into three main categories; those that arise from the offices he held, from the management of his estates and from the running of his household. The writer has been necessarily selective in the entries drawn upon and editors with a greater knowledge of seventeenth-century history and particularly the history of Kent might well choose otherwise. It is hoped, nevertheless, that readers will be sufficiently curious about the manuscript as a whole to want to look at the literatim transcription to be published on the Society’s web-site. A full edition still remains to be published.

Sir Edward’s family had long been associated with Kent and by the sixteenth century their estates centred around the villages of Pluckley, Little Chart, Charing, Hothfield, Great Chart, Bethersden, Smarden and Willesborough, an area south-west of Canterbury and for the most part west of Ashford on the northern edges of the Weald and the southern slopes of the North Downs. The family seat was in the parish of Pluckley. If one is to believe Dering’s own words the family’s roots went back to pre-Conquest times. He boasted that one ancestor fell with Harold at the Battle of Hastings, that another was killed at the Battle of Bosworth and that yet another circumnavigated the globe with Sir Francis Drake. His great-uncle was the well-known preacher, Edward Dering (1540?-1576), a distantly related cousin, Richard Dering (1580-1630), the organist to Queen Henrietta Maria.

At the time of his birth Dering’s father, Sir Anthony Dering (c.1558-1636), was commander of the Tower of London. Sir Edward matriculated at Cambridge in 1615 and attended Magdalene College as a fellow-commoner. He was admitted to the Middle Temple in October 1617. In 1619 he was knighted and in 1627 created a baronet. He was a justice of the peace, a muster-master and from 1627 to 1628 Treasurer for Household Compositions in Kent. From about 1629 until 1635 he was Lieutenant of Dover Castle. He was a member of Parliament twice, first as a member for the borough of Hythe in 1625, and second as one of the knights of the shire for Kent in the Long Parliament from 1640 until he was disabled in 1642. He became a member of the Privy Chamber in January 1626/27.

Dering was married three times: first, in 1619 to Elizabeth Tufton (c.1602-1622), daughter of Sir Nicholas Tufton of Hothfield in Kent, later earl of Thanet, and grand-daughter of Thomas Cecil, earl of Exeter; second, in 1625 to Anne Ashburnham (c.1605-1628), daughter of Sir John Ashburnham of Ashburnham in Sussex, whose wife Elizabeth was related to the Duke of Buckingham’s mother, the Countess of Buckingham; and third in 1629 to Unton Gibbes (d.1676), daughter of Sir Ralph Gibbes of Honington in Warwickshire. By his first wife he had a son Anthony (1621-1635?), by his second a son Ned, the second baronet (1625-1684), and a daughter Bess (b.1627) and by his third two sons and two daughters. His family connections included the Ashburnhams, the Beaumonts, the Bells, the Bettenhams, the Brents, the Bringborns, the Darells, the Hawles, the Hobarts, the Honeywoods, the Skeffingtons, the Tuftons, the Twysdens, the Villiers, and the Wentworths.

Dering was involved in the heated religious and political issues that characterise much of Charles’s reign, particularly after the period covered by the Booke of Expences. His manuscript notes and published writings of the later 1630s and early 1640s make clear how intensely he was caught up in these debates. Although he did not fit neatly into the Puritan or Royalist camp he played an active rôle at first in the Puritans’ opposition to Archbishop Laud during the deliberations of the Long Parliament in the Root-and-Branch debate on the abolition or retention of bishops, but his career in Parliament abruptly ended in February 1642 when he was disabled from sitting and briefly imprisoned in the Tower for having printed his speeches. In August he gathered together a regiment of horse at his own expense and was with the king when he raised his standard at Nottingham. In the next year, however, he thought better of his service with the Cavaliers and resigned his commission, becoming the first in February 1644 to accept Parliament’s terms of reconciliation and to return thankfully to his native heath. He was pardoned just before his death in June 1644, while his fine of £1,000 was remitted and his estate discharged the following August. His estates had been sequestered and plundered four times by Parliamentary troops.

The apparent ambivalence of Dering’s conduct as tensions mounted between the King and Parliament has clouded his reputation. He was a Kentishman above all. As Alan Everitt has written (1966, 207), there was an ‘essential consistency of purpose’ behind his apparent vacillations; ‘his dominant motive had been the desire to serve his countrymen [that is, his Kentish countrymen], by representing their grievances to the House of Commons’; and further on: Dering’s ‘heart remained embedded in that circle of cousins and neighbours around Surrenden Dering who found their life, not in national politics or warfare, but in the careful management of their estates, the adornment of their manor-houses, the local government of the shire, and that peculiar blend of studious pietism and antiquarian learning so characteristic of the county’. The Booke of Expences bears out the aptness of this verdict.²

Except for a preliminary leaf [3r] noting the expenses his father incurred on his behalf at the Middle Temple in 1617 followed by a brief summary of his expenses each year from 1618 to 1626, the Booke of Expences covers the time from 1619, shortly before Dering’s marriage to Elizabeth, to the time shortly before the death of his second wife Anne in 1628, a time when he was in his twenties and establishing himself among the country gentlemen of the county. It spans the time from when he acquired his knighthood to the time when he acquired his baronetcy, the time from when he and his first wife moved out of his father’s house after Michaelmas 1620 and started keeping house [10v-11r] to the time seven years later when his father and mother moved in with him [79r], the time when his three eldest children were born. During these years he was a justice of the peace, a member of Parliament, a muster-master, a treasurer for Household Compositions and a member of the Privy Chamber. It is also the time when his interest in antiquarian studies and the theatre blossomed. There are few overt references to what was happening on the national scene.

Dering’s expenses in carrying out his official duties, and in managing his estates and his household are amply set forth in the Booke of Expences. On the whole he is specific in his entries, whether he is noting what his various tenants and labourers did and how much he paid them, or the cost of seed and of new livestock. Similarly, he is not content to note the overall cost of, for example, a coat, but lists the cost of every last button, every last ounce of lace, and how much he paid the tailor. The manuscript is, consequently, a mine of information on all kinds of topics and introduces us to his family and neighbours, to his friends and acquaintances, in Kent and farther afield, to his servants and the people who worked on his estate, and to the tradesmen and merchants whom he patronised, as well as to certain physicians, clergymen, and lawyers, and to those who helped him in his antiquarian research.

Expenses related to his Official Duties

Although the reason is not always apparent, some of Dering’s journeys to Maidstone, the county town, must, for example, have been made in connection with his duties as a JP, as those to London and Oxford in June, July and August 1625 were in connection with his obligations as MP for Hythe. He had been ‘made free there’ and ‘Chosen Burgess’ on 21 April, 1625 [51r]. He refers to his parliamentary status under the 23 and 26 of June when he notes that ‘ye Sergeants fee to ye parlyament house’ cost 2s., ‘ye Clearkes fee’ 2s. 6d. and that he gave ‘ye under Clarkes’ 1s. [51v]. At the same time he bought ‘A Catalogue of ye Knights burgesses and barons’ for 5s. Between 29 July and 15 August he lists his expenses ‘whent I went to ye parliament att Oxford’ [52r]. The session at Oxford lasted from 1-12 August when this first Parliament of Charles’s reign was dissolved. In The Journals of the House of Commons the only mention of ‘Sir Edward Dearing’ in this Parliament is under 4 August when he, heading the list, and eight others are said to ‘have Liberty to come into the House’ (n.d., I: 810).

Dering’s position as muster-master is reflected in various ways beginning in 1626 when England was already at war with Spain and continuing into 1627 when she would be with France. He gave sums to drummers, for example on 10 July 1626 giving ‘ye drommer Ioyne’ 2s. 6d. as well as ‘Payne ye fife’ 1s. 6d. [60r]. He treated his soldiers to beer, sometimes adding something for the sergeant. At least twice, in June and July 1626, this was ‘att Challocke Leas’… ‘when I mustered there’ [59v, 60r]. On 24 July 1626 he paid his assistant in his antiquarian studies, Master Taylor, a total of £8 6s. 6d. for making an ensigne and the requisite leading staff, at the same time paying £2 15s. 4d. for a ‘Leiuetenants partizan’, two halberds and a gorget of black and gold [60r]. He paid 3s. to ‘Iohn Woulton for watch att Shorne cliffe’ on 30 July 1626 [60r]. In April 1627 he paid Sergeant Snowden 6s. ‘for trayning my souldiers by Command from my Lord Leieutenant 3 dayes’, as well as giving him 6s. for his diet and 5s. to a drummer for attending [71v]. On 18 June, shortly before the Royal fleet sailed to the Ile de Rhé with the intent of relieving the Huguenots besieged in La Rochelle, he bestowed a barrel of beer on his soldiers at a cost of 11s., besides paying his assess of 1s. for ‘beacon watch’ at Shornecliffe and Westwell Downe the day before [74r]. While in London in February 1625/26 he had bought two books on the subject of mustering [55r], and on his return made ‘euen with my father...for ye Conducting of Souldiers doune into sussex’ by paying him 5s. on 14 March 1625/26 [55v].

One payment shows that Dering became a member of the Privy Chamber. On 23 January 1626/27 he gave £1 to ‘master Tauerner Secretary to my Lord Montgomery when he drew a warantt for me to be sworne of ye priuy Chamber to the K[ing]’, and 2s. the same day to Sir William Heydon’s man ‘when his master tooke my oath’ [68r].

As Treasurer for Household Compositions in Kent Dering states among his expenses for 1627 what he spent at London in a little over a month from October 11 to November 13 ‘when I went vp about ye composition for ye Country: being then Threasurer’ [79r].

Dering had had his eye on the position of Lieutenant of the Cinque Ports. On 12 May 1623 he gave £1 2s. to Sir Thomas Wotton ‘att ye mermaide in ye old bayly, before Doctor Bargar, master Partherich, master Bradshaw and Robert King, vpon this Condition that when he is Lord warden of ye Cinque portes I may be his leifetenant’ [30v]. This never happened. The Duke of Buckingham became Warden in 1624.

Management of His Estates and Other Local Matters

Throughout nearly all the years of the manuscript, Dering seems to have kept a close watch on the management of his estates. One is introduced to the activities of the different seasons of the year, those associated with ploughing, sowing and harvesting. One learns of the cost of fencing, paling and railing, hedging, ditching and cutting bushes, diking and quicksetting, cutting down and digging up of trees, cutting of timber, fagotting, pruning, dressing the hop garden, shearing sheep, the list seems endless. One reads of the purchase of farm animals both for work and food, such as bullocks, welsh beasts, oxen and steers, the marking and shoeing of those that were working animals, and the cost of killing them when the time came. He bought various kinds of horses, as for example nags, geldings, mares, a stone horse and a sorrel horse. In March 1621/22 he paid Thomas Martin for hay for his sorrel horse ‘whilst he had him to amble’ and for teaching it to amble for ten days [20v]. He paid for mole catching. Once, in April 1622, he paid a boy for ‘keepinge rookes’ [22r]. He bought farm implements and equipment and supplies – chisels, mattocks, hatchets, augurs, a gouge, a saw, padlocks, vast quantities of nails of varying pennyweights; and, for example, in November 1620, court wheels along with the shoes and nails needed for them, ‘burninge iron markes’, a ‘wooll marke for sheepe’ [11v], bushels of lime, and seams of seed wheat. In July 1622 he bought four fir poles for fishing nets [24v]. There are payments to the smith and others for the repair of various implements and occasionally veterinary expenses as ‘for medicining my sheepe’ in September 1624 [40r], and a medicine for his gelding in May 1627 [73r]. In September and October 1625 he was buying loads of tiles, including corner tiles and gutter tiles, for ‘mending and repayring ye house’ [52v and 53r]. Shingles were a staple. He needed 15,500 for the north side of the stable in August 1627 [76v].

Dering names the people who worked for him, often noting how much they were paid for so many days work and thus indirectly giving us an idea of the relative standing of the different farmworkers and possibly the difficulty of the work and scarcity or otherwise of labour. This is also the case with the household servants. The brothers Theophilus and Thomas Tilghman, for example, usually earned 1s. a day as farm labourers, but sometimes 6d. as in January 1625/26 [54v], and in August 1626 for haying [63r]. In the same month Dering paid John Hunt £1 7s. for three weeks ‘haying and haruest att 18d per diem’ [63v]. In September he paid John Lucas 7s. 6d. for seven and a half days’ harvesting at the rate of ‘12d per diem and board in ye hanfe(?)’ [63v]. Another farm worker, ‘old friend’, received 4s. 3d. in June 1622 for making ‘265 fagott att 20d ye 100’ [23v] and Thomas Tilghman £1 7s. in May 1626 ‘for making of 1800 of fagotts att 18d per C’ [62v]. Abraham Butcher received 12s. in December 1622 for twelve days ‘threshinge of pease, att 12d per diem. viz. about 60 Copp’ [28r], John Hunt and his boy 12s. in March 1622/23 for ‘makinge ye dike and laying ye setts, he att 16d per diem, his boy att 8d’ [29r]. On 30 May 1620 Dering mentions having land measured by Goodman Lane for 7s. 6d. ‘after 1d per acre’ [8r]; on 1 January 1622/23 some land was being measured for 2s. 2d. at 2d. per acre [28v].

Two payments show Dering’s curiosity about certain tasks. On 7 March 1619/20 he gave 1s. to ‘Iohn ye gardener when he first shewed me how to graft’ [7v]; a year later he bought grafting tools [13r]. On 5 July 1620 he gave 1s. to ‘Iohn Gardiner for teachinge me to inoculate’ [9r]. John Gardiner also worked in his hop yard [13r]. He occasionally lists trees he bought, a ‘sumach tree from virginia’, a ‘duke Cherry tree’, a ‘may Cherry tree’, and a ‘Cluster Cherry tree’ in March 1620/21 [13r]. In October 1625 he bought walnuts at ‘4d per 100 to sett in ye best garden’ for a total of 2s. 2d. [53r].

A few of the expenses must have brought in some income though Dering only records the charges involved. On at least two occasions, in March 1625/6, he sent hops to Faversham [50r] and to London [50v]. From time to time he sent old pewter to London, once in March 1625/6 bothering to note that in exchanging old pewter for new he was allowed only 6d. a lb. for the metal of the chamberpots [50v].

Certain payments tell one how Dering held different parts of his estate. Among the quitrents he paid were those to Sir Robert Darell for Little Chartlands, to the manor of Boughton Court for land in Willesborough, to the Lordship of Westwell for part of Dunmersh, and to Wye Court. He also made payments for the suit he owed to several manor courts.

Legal expenses might involve the drawing up of legal documents. In September 1624 Dering paid £90 to ‘Ihon Bocher for his house and Land which I bought of him in part of payment’ [40r]. In July 1625 he seems finally to have settled with John Bocher of Maundfeldes ‘for his house and land in Pluckley called maundfelds alias Maundeuiles’ with a payment of £100 [56r]. In December 1627 he bought of Brent Dering his chapel at Charing for £5 and paid 11s. ‘for drawing ye writings to master Wyuell’, adding that he, Dering, found the parchment and his man engrossed them and that ‘there was of itt nothing but ye walles. viz: no roofe. nor windowe’ [81r]. On 16 December 1624, prior to his second marriage, he paid 6s. to ‘ye scriuener for engrossing ye ioynture’ and five days later gave Herbert Finch 10s. ‘for engrossing 2 parts of indentures about ioynture’ [41r]. On 20 December he paid 2s. for ‘making of two bondes when I borrowed mony’. In the following June he paid Richard Spice 1s. for making a bond [52r].

In January 1627/28 Dering ran into some expense when he sent Hutton and John Hunt to the Sessions at Canterbury apparently apropos ‘a bill against Francis Ianyoere(?) for taking partridges’ which was passed [82r].

Journeys to Ashford, Maidstone, Canterbury, London and elsewhere on business or pleasure led to costs for meals, horse meat and at times lodging, maybe for Dering himself and his boy, maybe just for his man. Frequently, he gave 6d. or more to a fiddler or two. If he was dining with friends he usually mentions their names, as, for example, in November 1623 ‘Supper with Sir Ihon Milliscent, Sir Walter Waller, Master Crofts, master Tyrwhitt, master shelden, my cosen Honywood, master Dawes’ [34r]. He particularly mentions certain charges when attending the Assizes in July 1627 [74v] and those at Maidstone in February 1627/28 [83r].

There are regularly recurring payments for various exactions levied by the central government, the county, and the parish. For example, Dering paid a composition for Surrenden lands, and lands in Pluckley, Chart and later Willesborough. In August 1624 he paid a fifteenth for all lands belonging to Surrenden in Pluckley and Little Chart. In October 1625 he paid his first fifteenth to King Charles amounting to 4s. [53r]. He paid the subsidies granted by Parliament, one entire subsidy of £2 to the treasurers on 23 August 1624 [39v], and then on 22 October 1625 his first subsidy of £1 ‘due’ to King Charles [53r], and on 20 April 1626 his second subsidy in the same amount ‘granted’ to King Charles [57v]. Under 13 September 1626 is the entry ‘paid ye beneuolence granted to ye King by way of free guift’ amounting to £1 2s. [the entry and sum underlined], adding in the margin ‘I recd’ this againe october 5’ [60v]. A free gift had been proposed by the Crown on 7 July but had met with strong resistance; in September a forced loan was substituted, and attempts started to be made to raise it in London and the nearby counties. Was Dering one of the few who felt compelled to pay?

Other recurring expenses were the assesses, principally for the poor of Pluckley and Little Chart, and the payments for small tithes and tithe hay. In addition, there were some special assesses, as the ones for beacon watch, the one of 8d. in August 1627 ‘to ye reparation of Tunbridge bridges’ [76v] and the one of 9s. in December 1627 for the repair of the Church [80v]. There were also some extra church-related payments, such as the two to the sexton of Pluckley for his quarterly wages of 8d. in January 1620/21 and April 1626 [12r, 57v], and the one to ‘ye Clarke his qters’ wages’ of 6d. in October 1627 [80r]. In 1621 Dering paid for the bells [17r]. The vicar of Pluckley was a Master Copley, who later under the sobriquet ‘Mrs Copley’, as we learn from a manuscript compiled between 1639 and 1640 (Folger MS X.d.488), was to arouse such disgust and loathing in Sir Edward that words could not fully express his dislike of the minister’s opinions (Larking 1862, 47n).

During his more prolonged absences, Dering’s father, Sir Anthony Dering (c.1588-1636), and/or his brothers Richard and Henry took charge of his accounts and made the necessary payments on his behalf. On his return Dering duly noted these expenses all together. Occasionally, as in May 1622 and February 1622/23, his brother Robert would make purchases for him in London [22v, 28v].

Household and Personal Expenses

Interspersed with the above payments are Dering’s household expenses, including his payments to his servants. As with his farm labourers, some of the servants were paid their wages every half year. In September 1624 these wages ranged from £1 to Edward, to £2 10s. to Stephen [Kennard?], and £2 15s. to John Barton [40r]. In 1626 probably the same Stephen was dressed in livery [60v]. Among the women servants/chamber-maids who received wages were Mary Rutting who was paid 12s. and Susan Fowler who was paid £1 for three months in 1625 [47v], and Alice Browne who was paid £2 10s. ostensibly for a whole year in February 1626/27 [69r] and then £2 in September 1627 [78r]. In April 1626 Susan Fowler ‘went from my wife to serue ye Duchess of Buckingham’ [62r].

Among the servants a few stand out as being particularly trustworthy, ones on whom Dering could depend to act on his behalf, such as William Harper, Sander Hart, George Gadsby, Stephen Kennard, John Lucas and John Barton. A few were personal servants who had to be appropriately dressed, like Nicholas, twice referred to as ‘ye footeboy’, for whom Dering bought two and a half yards of ‘ffrise att 3s a yd to make...a ierkyn’ in February 1620/21 [12v], while in March 1621/22 he was fitting him out with two bands, two pair of Cuffs, a pair of stockings, a pair of gloves, and having him go to the barber’s, suggesting that he accompanied Dering and had to look presentable [20v]. One dependent whom he singled out to educate was George Elton. Dering started paying for his schooling somewhere beyond London in September 1622, and was still doing so in June 1625. He bought him an ‘Accedence’ in October 1622 and in June 1623 clothes [27r, 31r]. In June 1624 he paid in addition 4s. 6d. specifically ‘to teach him to write and to find him paper pens, and inkes’ [38v]. Another member of his household is always referred to by his initials, the mysterious ‘NL’, or ‘M.B.NL’. Once, in March 1623/24, Dering adds the prefix ‘Cosen’ [36r].

Many of the household expenses concern the purchase of food, improvements to the house, its furnishing and the clothes Dering and his family had made for themselves and their servants. He noted what was purchased in the way of food and supplies from individuals, including his relations and neighbours, and at certain fairs, especially those held at Faversham, Charing, Harrietsham, Sandway, Wye, and Maidstone, items such as seams of wheat and malt, strikes of oats, tovets and a strike of beans, bushels of peas, tares and barley, fish, especially herrings, soles and at least twice sturgeon, congers, lobsters, crabs, oysters, prawns, huge amounts of beef, veal and mutton, pork, welsh beasts, welsh runts and heifers, a cow, sheep, wethers, a bacon hog, a sow and seven pigs, chickens, pullets, cockerels and capons, ducks, rabbits and coneys, game birds like partridges and at least once a lapwing, quantities of cheese, butter, eggs, and so on. In addition he laid in supplies of salt, almonds, powder sugar, currants and figs, raisins of the sun, wine, often brought down from London, sack, saffron heads, pepper, onions, and, for example at the time of Ned’s christening on 8 December 1625, currants, mace, prunes, nutmegs, cinnamon, ginger, cloves and aniseeds. He mentions fruit from time to time. Since he paid for gathering apples at least once, in November 1621, and another time writes of bringing wardens up to London for a dinner he was giving, he may have relied on his own fruit trees for most of his needs. Once, in April 1621, he bought 41 oranges for his wife to preserve, several times he bought lemons and occasionally, as in July 1626, cherries which were a little extra special. Does and bucks came from neighbours’ parks. On 27 November 1625, shortly before Ned’s christening, he sent a letter ‘into ye mersh’ to William Bateman asking for fowl; on 6 December he gave Bateman’s boy 4s. for ‘bringing wild foule out of ye mersh which his master gaue to me’. Among the commodities he frequently bought were candles, at least once, in October 1620, changing ‘12 li’ of tallow for Candles’ for 1s. If he had to pay to bring these purchases home he always noted the cost of doing so, whether by water or overland, as well as the cost of meals, lodging and horsemeat incurred by his men.

Dering must have wanted the furnishings and appearance of his house to match the social status to which he aspired. One sign of this is his acquisition of family portraits. In May 1623 he paid £1 10s. for a copy of his mother’s picture [30r]. In March 1625/26 he paid Master Cuddington for pictures of his first wife’s at length, his own, his wife’s, his brother Henry’s, and their frames, while his father paid for Anthony’s picture and frame and his grandfather’s, for a total of £34, not to mention 5s. to his man and 3s. for bringing the frames down from London [57r-v]. A year earlier Dering had bought twelve yards of green linsey wolsey for curtains for the parlour window and ten pieces of coarse hangings for ‘our owne Chamber’ [44r]. In November 1625 he bought six Venice beer glasses and ‘ye box’ for 11s. [53v]; in December 1626, another six [67r]. In July 1627 he bought damask of ‘ye History of Holofernes’ and of ‘ye history of ye prodigall Child’ for table cloths, a cupboard cloth and a side-board cloth, as well as other damask and diaper, chiefly for napkins [75v]. One expensive purchase, in July 1622, was a ‘silluer sugar chest weighinge 18 ounces 1/2 and 3d which att 5s 10d per ounce is’ £5 8s. 6d. [25r]. Soon after his second marriage in early January 1624/25 he had his arms engraved on the plate given them at their marriage as well as on seven spoons and a sugar chest [41v]. Likewise, in January 1626/27 and in March of the same year he was paying for carving arms upon plate [67v, 71r]. Early on in 1619 he bought a ‘clocke with an allarum’ [4v]. Other miscellaneous purchases included a looking glass [11v and 52v], brooms [11v], a smoothing iron, gally potts, a lantern and sieve for the stable [11r], from time to time a case of knives, and so on.

After acquiring a coach about the time of his first marriage Dering had the added expense of its upkeep and of the care of the coach horses. On 14 June 1620 he bought a pair of ‘Bay Coach geldinges’ for £36, a pair of ‘Coach harnesse with all furniture’ for £4, a pair of ‘Coach bytts’ (sum omitted), and two ‘blacke snaffle bridles’ for 3s. 4d. [8v]. Soon, for a total of 1s. 3d., he was mending the ‘Locke of Coachbox’, and paying for a ‘bolt for ye Coache’, for ‘1 li’ of grease for ye Coach’, and ‘to one for helpinge Thomas to grease ye Coache’ [8v]. On June 22 he added a ‘Coach whippe’ for 1s. [8v] and on June 23 he paid £1 for ‘paintinge armes vpon our Coach’ [9r]. In March 1620/21 he paid 2s. 6d. for ‘makinge Cleane ye Coach and harnesse and oylinge them’ [13r]. In December 1625 the coach was ‘ouerthrowne’ in an accident [54r]. When buying coach horses, he favoured black mares and geldings [57v, 70r]. On one journey, in December 1621, he hired four coach horses [19r]; occasionally, as in June 1622 and July 1623, he paid for coach hire [23r, 31v].

There were also medical and pharmaceutical bills, among them sums ‘given’ and fees to ‘master Bennett ye phisitian’ around the time of the death of Dering’s first wife [24r], to Waters the physician in September 1622 [25v], to ‘Doctor Baskeruill ye phisitian’ [in London] in November 1624, probably Simon Baskerville (1574-1641), later knighted [41r], to Dr Rowzer, probably of Ashford [51r], in April 1625, to Dr ‘Fox’ in London, probably Simeon Foxe (1568-1642), [69r, 70r-v], to Dr ‘Haruy’ in London between November 1626 and February 1627/28, presumably Dr William Harvey (1578-1657) [66r, 79v, 82v], and to chirurgeons in March 1626/27 [70r-v]. Dr Foxe’s fee was 10s., Dr Harvey’s £1. The first actual mention of his second wife’s sickess was in February 1627/28 when he gave Doctor Davy a total of £5 10s. ‘when my wife was sicke’ [82v]. A little later, when he and his wife were in London on account of her sickness to consult ‘Doctor Haruy and Doctor Foxe’ whose combined fees came to £12 [84r], they ‘lay att master Doctor Dauy’s’ in Maidstone, both going and coming [84r], and paid 18s. for ‘helpe to leade ye litter to and from London’ [84v]. At the same time Dering bought a staff for each of them [83v]. Other relatively minor medical expenses come up every now and then such as the 2s. he paid in June 1620 for ‘Cuttinge ye Cornes on my feete’ [8v], and the 10s. he gave in May 1627 for having his deaf ear dressed by Master Hill [72r]. In December of that year he gave 1s. for surgery to ‘my boyes mouth’ [81v]. He also paid for medical help for his servants and farm labourers [25r-v].

During the years he was married Dering scrutinised his wife’s household book which was submitted to him generally every month or every quarter. His first wife’s personal allowance was £25 every half year [8r, 11r, 14r].

One of Dering’s most costly outlays was on dress. Shoes, gloves may be mentioned in passing, not so his best clothes. He goes into minute detail when he lists the cost of the various items used in making a cloak, a suit, a waist-coat, a gown, a petticoat, whether for himself or his wife, less often for his sons until they were out of their baby clothes. He usually adds the price for having the garment made and its total cost. The cost of his first wife’s wedding apparel and of some everyday necessities came to £159 7s. 1d. [92v], a sum over which there seems to have been some friction with his father-in-law as one gathers from details given at the end of the manuscript [92r-93r]. His own dress and ‘wearinge thinges’ in the third quarter of 1619 during which he was married came to £111 5s. 3d. [5v-6r]. At the time of his second marriage, c. 1 January 1624/25, he seems to have gone overboard; a large proportion of the £242 11s. [42v] he spent between 25 October 1624 and 15 January 1624/25 while he was in London was on clothes [40v-42v]. The colours red, white, black, along with gold and silver, predominate among the satins, taffetas and scarlets, the plush, the lace, the various ribbons, buttons, points, gloves, garters, stockings, hose, girdles, hangers , and so on [41v-42v]. Little Anthony, now about four years old, had a hat costing 5s. 9d. and was sent 6d. ‘in single pence’ shortly after the wedding. He received a ‘horne and a sving’, ‘2 per of gloues’, and a ‘girdle and dagger’ [41v]. Back home he had a ruff made for him, apparently for the first time, from six yards of lace costing 2s. [42v]. More humdrum costs came from having suits turned, as in 1619 [4v]. In November 1626 Dering had his breeches enlarged [66r]. From time to time he needed to mend his sword and scour it [14v]. A saddle cost him £2 beside the cloth in 1621 [15r], a watch £7 in October of that year [18r]. He does mention jewelry but not often. He bought some at the time of his weddings. In February 1625/26, shortly after his second marriage, he bought a ‘little silluer locke and key to hang in [his wife’s] hair’ [55r] and in May ‘an enamelled heart to sett a Locke of my Lady Mary u(?)illers haire in’ for her [58r]. In January 1626/27 he bought ‘2 pendent pearles Counterfeited’ [67v]. To add to her coiffure he paid 3s. 6d. for ‘haire Curles’ for his wife in December 1627 [81r], and in the following January 1s. 2d. for a ‘tire of haire’ [82r]. A particular need called for a particular purchase. Prior to going to Scotland and Ireland in the summer of 1621 he bought a ‘Sea Cappe’ at Liverpool [16r].

Similarly, special occasions called for special outlays not only on dress but also on food and entertainment and extra services. The most outstanding of the occasions were Dering’s two weddings in 1619 and 1625, which have been touched on, his first wife’s funeral in 1622 and the christening of his son and future heir Edward in 1625. Neither his eldest son Anthony’s christening in 1621, nor his daughter Bess’s in 1627 seem to have been treated as grand occasions. Typically, he does not as a matter of course specify the reason for the out-of-the-ordinary expenditures right away, but the dates and the nature of the accounts soon tell one what was happening. For example, on 29 January 1620/21 he was paying ‘mistress Hayman ye midwife’ £4 8s. ‘for 3 weekes helpinge my wife’, and 18s. 8d. for ‘4 yds of holmes fustian att 16d ye yd. to line ye Curtaines of my wiues Childbed’, presumably when his son Anthony was expected/born [12r]. On 23 March he paid £2 5s. 6d. to ‘woodward ye Confectionary of maidston his bill, for sweete meates att ye Christeninge’ [13v]. Then, on 23 June, 1622, he gave ‘master Doctor Moseley(?)’, possibly John Moselye (b. c.1581), rector of Little Chart, ‘for his funerall sermon’ £3, ‘ye sexton for tollinge ye bell and digginge ye graue’ 10s., and paid Thomas Robins ‘for lendinge of blacke Cotton to hange escocheons on...’ 7s. 6d. [24r], and so on. In October he was having a cloak lined with bla[ck] bayes, a suit made from bl[ack] satten and a ‘mourninge suit’ made of ‘bl[ack] Philjpp and cheiney’ [27r]. His wife had died.

The purchase of food and wine towards the end of November and the beginning of December 1625 precede an entry ‘Stephens iourneyes to inuite guestes’, followed by the payment of £7 14s. ‘for all ye dry sweete meates att ye banquett’ [49r]. On 10 December Dering gave £1 to ‘Robert Sir Thomas Wotton his cooke for helping allmost a weeke’, and ‘his man’ 10s. [49r]. The entry on 24 December tells one what had been in the offing; on that day he paid Oldfathers 1s. ‘for helpe in ye Kitchin att Ned’s Christning’ [49v]. In March of the following year he reimbursed Harper for a few further provisions [50r]. Ned was born on 12 November and christened on 8 December 1625. A little further on, though a little earlier chronologically, he listed more payments in connection with Ned’s birth. On 18 October 1625 he gave ‘mistress Hayman ye midwife for being heere 3 whole days’ 10s. [53r]. On 8 December he gave £3 to ‘mistress Ely ye midwife for bringing my wife to bedd of a sonne’ and £1 2s. to ‘master Ashborne that brought a gilt Cupp from my Lord Gray to ye Christning of ned’, and 10s. to ‘William Esday who brought a gilt pott from my Lady Wentworth then’ [53v]. When Bess was born in September 1627 he likewise gave the same midwife £3 while giving Lady Maidstone’s man £1 for bringing ‘a peece of plate from her to Bess’ [77v]. In October he paid for blankets and various kinds of cloth for ‘ye girle Bess’ [79r]. These are the only early references to Bess’s advent on the scene. His wife’s churching cost 3d. [80v].

The needs and demands of little Anthony and later Ned show up in different ways. Besides the necessary clothes, they were given baubles and toys. For example, in early 1625/26 Dering bought Anthony a fiddle [55r] and in November 1626 the first of several drums, while Ned got a rattle [65v]. On 1 January 1626/27 he paid 4s. for ‘gilding of mony’ for Anthony [67r] and in February, 1s. 9d. for two grammars and ‘Aesops fables in English’ [68v]. There are also expenses connected with their education. In the case of Anthony the first time this is explicitly mentioned is in an entry for 9 June 1626 when he was five years old: Dering paid master Hannington, probably Henry Hannington (b. c.1585), vicar of Hougham in Kent, 2d. for his schooling, on 17 June, 6d. ‘for ye boyes schooling’, and in July, 1s. for 2 weeks [59v]. On 24 July he paid 1s. for two weeks schooling for ‘ye boyes’, on 5 August, 6d. for ‘ye boyes schooling’ [60r], on 30 September, 10d. ‘for schooling Anthony and Andrew’ (the other boy), on 7 October, 6d. for the two boys [61r], on 26 August, 4d. for two weeks for Anthony [63v], and then on 29 April 1627, 5s. ‘for schooling of Anthony att Charter house’ [72v]. On 26 January 1627/28 he paid ‘master Burton (per stephen) for all due vnto him for boarde and schooling of Anthony…since midsommer day...6.li’ although he had beene away 13…weekes from midsommer to this day…but I was to pay after 3 li’ per qter’’ [82r]. In December 1627 Ned, aged two, was ready for a horn book [81r].

Among Dering’s pastimes a recurring expense is ‘Lost at cards’, both by himself and his wife, the amounts ranging from 6d. [7v] to 13s. 3d. to 15s. 7d. [7r] and more. One has no way of knowing if he sometimes won. In the Summer of 1619 he lost £4 18s. 7d. at ‘play, gleeke and tables’, [5r]. Just after his first marriage he lost at ‘Cardes, tables, Boules &c’ 4s. 2d., while his wife ‘lost att Cardes this quarter’ £6 16s. 3d. [8r]. From March to September 1620 he lost at ‘Cardes, tables &c’ £2 3s. 9d. [10v], from September 1622 to March 1622/23, £6 1s. [29v]. In 1627 he lost at ‘bowles’ 1s. 6d. [74v]. In April 1627 he refers to ‘worke about ye bowling gro[un]d’ [71v], and to paying 6d. for ‘bowles for ye Children’ [72r].

Another pastime as we learn indirectly was hunting. Dering paid altogether 3s. 4d. for scouring a ‘birdinge peece’, a pound of gun powder and four pound of shot in 1621 [14r]. In December he bought a pistol [18v]. In January 1625/26 he paid Sir Thomas Culpeper’s warrener £1 5s. for 30 coneys ‘aliue to store my groune with’ [49v], on 14 March, twenty-four more ‘to store my parke’ [50v]. He had to have the right clothes and boots and equip his dogs with chains and collars. He had greyhounds, and in January 1625/26 mentions his mastiff [54v]. In June 1625 he had bought two mastiffs to give to the Duke of Buckingham [52r] and a year later gave 2s. to have dogs from Farthingloe carried to the seaside ‘which I sent for my Lord Duke to send into France’ [59v]. On 25 October 1626 Dering paid 3s. to ‘my Tutor for 2 collers for ye doggs that my Lord Duke sent ouer’ [61v]. From time to time he noted that he ‘tooke say’, as when in August 1622 he gave ‘att ye takinge say of a deere a peece of gold’, that is, 4s. 4d. [25r], or when in August 1623 he gave the keeper of Eastwell park 6s. ‘when my dogg kill’d a bucke and I tooke say’ [32r]. A few times he had to compensate people for the havoc his dogs wrought as in April 1621 when he paid 6s. 6d. for a ‘leane sheep which my doggs killed’ [15r]. Incidents such as these were not uncommon.

Gifts are frequently mentioned, such as sums of money and a bracelet that Dering gave to his sister Margaret in May 1623 [30v], and small sums to children of the family, along with numerous pairs of gloves and the occasional book, like the copy of Vindiciae contra tyrannos which he gave Master Perd, probably George Peard (1594?-1644), in May 1623 [30v]. At the time of his first wedding, the total price of 26 pairs of wedding gloves came to £13 6s. [6r]. At the time of his second wedding he was also giving away garters and points [42r].

In another context the items ‘giuen’ and ‘poor’ appear constantly, the amount varying from a few pence to a few shillings. No service rendered by a person lower in the social scale went unrequited. Dering rewarded people bringing or conveying letters. He gave 6d. and 4d. respectively ‘to a breife’ on 3 May 1622 [22v] and on 25 February 1627/28 [83r]. In March 1622/23 he gave 10s. to ‘master Iackson a poore minister sometime Chaplain vnto Doctor Hampton Archbishop of Armacgh’ [29r]. In March 1627/28 he gave 4d. to a poor soldier [83v]. There are numerous ‘givens’ to fiddlers, occasional ones to tumblers [32r], masquers [7v] and dancers [19r], one on 1 January 1622/23 to a musician at Boughton [28v], and another on 10 December 1623 to a ‘whistling fellow’ [35r]. On his return to Pluckley after his second marriage he gave the bell ringers 10s. [42v]. In March 1624/25 he gave ‘ffidlers att home’ 2s. 6d. [44r].

Dering was frequently away from home, accompanied or not by his wife, travelling both on official and personal business and always he dutifully noted down the cost of transportation, lodging, meals and so forth. He often went to London and neighbouring places in Kent, especially Boughton (Malherbe?). In August 1620 he and five others went to Calais and Gravelines for four days after getting the requisite pass from the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports [9r], a journey which cost him in all £10 0s. 8d. He saw an oil mill and came back with ‘12 Angelott cheeses’ [9v]. A journey in September 1620 took him to Coventry and Northampton [10r]. One prolonged journey lasting from May to August 1621 and costing him £92 2s. 3d. took him to Scotland and Ireland where he had a cousin John Dering of Mellifont [15v-16v]. Another from March to May 1623 took him into the Midlands and cost him £59 2s. 6d. [30r-31r]. Another from June to August 1624 took him again into the Midlands this time with his cousin H. Hawle [38r-39r]. From 25 October 1624 to 15 January 1624/25 he was in London ‘itt being ye time wherein I was married, and my stay in London being not a fortnight long after marriage’ [40v].

A short journey from 27 May to 2 June 1625 took Dering and his two men to Boulogne just at the time Henrietta Maria was expected there on her way to England after her marriage by proxy to Charles I on May 1. One can assume Dering’s journey was connected with this event both on account of the timing and because Dering says that he ‘dyetted most meales with ye countesses of Buckingham and Denbigh’ [51v] (the latter being the countess of Buckingham’s daughter) who had been sent ahead to meet the princess. The princess was in Boulogne from 8-12 June waiting for the right weather conditions to cross over. Between 9-15 June Dering and his wife with ‘Sir Peter and my sister were att Douer and Canterbury attending vpon my promise to wayte on ye Duke and Countess of Buckingham &c’ [51v]. Charles arrived at Dover from Canterbury on 13 June, the day after Henrietta Maria’s arrival, and together the two spent three days (13-16 June) travelling to London by way of Canterbury. It looks as though Dering and his wife may have been with the party that accompanied the king and princess from Dover as far as Canterbury, and have been with the advance royal party earlier (Toynbee 1955).

When in London, Dering sometimes at least had lodgings in Aldersgate Street. In the last quarter of 1618/19, while a student at the Middle Temple, he paid £6 for chamber-rent at the Temple for a whole year [4r]. In July 1622 he, and in December 1626 he and his wife, stayed at his cousin Bringborn’s [24v, 66v]. Several times he rented a chamber. In February 1625/26 he paid ‘Chamber rent att master Hydes’ [55r]. During these stays he made many purchases, including books, and spent time visiting and cultivating friends and relations. He also went to the theatre and indulged his antiquarian interests. In September 1623 he paid 6d. to see ‘ye Elephant’ [33v]. One episode suggests he sometimes brought his dogs along. He paid 8d. in October 1623 to ‘ye Cryer for Crying my lost doggs in fleetestreet’ [33v]. His most prolonged stay was between October 1626 and May 1627. In early October 1626 he sent Stephen to London ‘about taking a house’ [61r]. This he did with his wife, probably in Aldersgate street for later in the Autumn of 1627 he paid £1 7s. for the tithe due ‘whilst I liued in Aldersgate streete, neuer demanded before’ [79v], and at the end of the manuscript gives details of a dinner he gave there on 23 December 1626 [91v]. Meanwhile, his brother Henry looked after his home affairs [70r]. In late October he started paying for items that make one think he was furnishing a house and buying supplies, like fagotts, billets and seacoal [65r-66v]. It was a great time to pursue his antiquarian interests and to visit and entertain friends. He frequently called on ‘my Lord Duke’, referring to the Duke of Buckingham, at his Chambers, at his ‘lodgings’, at Wallingford House, or at Whitehall, giving 2s., for example, to the ‘pages of ye backe stayres’ there in January. On 17 February 1626/27 he had supper ‘in Apollo’ with Sir George Dawson, Sir Thomas Walsingham, Sir John Skeffington and his brother Ashburnham [69r]. On 27 February he had dinner with Sir Thomas Shirley at a tavern [69r]. On 13 March he was at Denmark House [69r]. On 7 April 1627 he was at the Archbishop of Canterbury’s [71r]. He paid the Scavenger 1s. 8d. on several occasions and the ‘watchman of ye City’ 2s. in April 1627 [71v]. In the same month he paid 10s. for a ‘voluntary assesse to ye minister for afternoone Lectures’ [71v]. During this time, Ned was being looked after at home by Nurse Markettman. Anthony was not forgotten but seems to have remained behind too. Clothes were made for him in London and in March he may have joined his father in London. Dering paid 5s. ‘att London for teaching Anthony to play on a drumm’ [70v]. After his wife returned to Kent he paid 16s. for ‘Chamberent for a fortnight in Kings streete’, 7 May 1627 [72r].

During his sojourns in London Dering’s fondness for ‘seeing a play’ and his growing absorption in antiquarian studies are well documented. Unfortunately, when entering his play-going expenses he abandoned his usual habit of entering a detailed record, never disclosing either the name of the play or where he saw it. In 1623 he usually paid 1s. 6d. for himself and proportionately more if he went with friends whose names he sometimes gives. In the third quarter of 1619, just before his marriage, he spent 18s. seeing a play ‘with my mistress and ye reste’ [6v]. Often the cost of a meal and boat-hire are given close by in the accounts. This casual attitude also applied to most of his purchases of play-books, though certainly not to most of his purchases of books generally, including the collected works of Shakespeare and probably of Ben Jonson in 1623. Except in two instances the twenty-five entries relating to purchases of play-books do not identify the 220 and more individual copies of plays he bought for small sums. He bought six copies of A merrie dialogue, betweene Band, Cuffe, and Ruffe [34v] for 1s. in December 1623 and three copies of The woman hater for 2s. in March 1623/24 [36v]. When he bought numbers of play books at a time, as he often did, he was probably buying multiple copies of one or a few plays, as for example when about the time of his first marriage in the third quarter of 1619 he bought 27 play-books for 9s. [6v]. These purchases, along with a few like ‘heades of haire and beards’ [28v], a ‘false beard’ [35r] and possibly ‘false haire for my wife’ [7v], as well as references to masques, corroborate what little is known about Dering’s interest in private theatricals from other sources. A cast list of family and friends in his handwriting shows that they played rôles in John Fletcher’s The Spanish Curate. One was the playwright Francis Manouche. This list survives in a conflation of Henry IV, Parts I and II, which Dering had a Master Carington copy out, as he noted in the Booke of Expences under 27 February 1622/23 [28v], and which he himself revised (Folger MS V.b.29). Dering himself also copied out, if not composed, three acts of a scenario of a plot set in Thrace and Macedon sometime after 1627 (Folger MS X.d.206). On 6 November 1626 he gave 6d. ‘when my wife was att my Lord Dukes masque’ [65v].

Dering returned to his usual habits when recording payments related to his antiquarian and heraldic studies and closely linked to these his studies in local and regional history. In almost all cases he was careful to give the title and author as well as the cost of the books he bought; altogether, apart from those relating to his purchase of play-books, there are over 130 entries relating to his purchase of books. Some were hot off the press like the two copies of the first edition of Shakespeare’s collected works for which he paid £2 on 5 December 1623 [34v]. Some he occasionally bought at the second hand. He also bought almanacs and several on subjects like surveying that might help him in managing his estates. By the late 1630s and 1640s he was to become the owner of a substantial library of at least 2,000 volumes, comprising undoubtedly many more titles. This was a large number in the first half of the seventeenth century. He was soon to be regarded as one of the leading antiquaries of his day, counting Sir William Dugdale, Sir Robert Cotton, Sir Simon D’Ewes, Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Thomas Shirley among his friends. In 1638 he, Sir Christopher Hatton and Sir Thomas Shirley were to form a ‘Society of Antiquaries’ (Larking 1858).

Dering’s pursuit of these studies entailed payments to library keepers and custodians, such as the one on 23 September 1622 when be gave 2s. 6d. to ‘Kennett ye Clarke of ye marsh for writinge a Coppy of ye Lordshipps and surueyours’ [26v], or when on 27 October he paid 1s. for seeing ‘tombes att Westmester’ [27v]. On 5 November, he gave ‘Phillpott the herald’ (John Philipot, 1589?-1645), 11s. and on 11 November, 2s. 6d. ‘att ye heraldes office’ [27v]. While in Oxford between 29 July and 15 August 1625, ostensibly to attend the Parliament, he gave sums to the ‘library keepers’ at Brasenose and Merton besides buying ‘The Catalogue of ye bookes in Oxford Library’ for 2s. 4d. [52r]. In March 1626/27 he was at the ‘office of Wills’ in London [69r], in April at the Exchequer [71v] and in May at the Rolls [72r]. Later, in the Autumn of 1627, he paid 3s. 6d. ‘for search in ye office of armes’ [79v]. Such payments are less numerous after he obtained a warrant from the Privy Council in April 1627 enabling him ‘to search all offices without fee’ [71r]. Occasionally, he paid to borrow books, as for example in May 1627 when he gave master Lilly, probably the herald Henry Lilly (d.1638), 10s. for ‘ye vse of his booke of visitation of Kent’ [72r] and again £1 in December for ‘ye vse [of] a booke of pedegrees’ [81r].

Dering also employed people whom he names to transcribe manuscripts and to help him in his researches, sometimes for months at a time. The person most often mentioned is Master Taylor, who drew coats of arms, escutcheons in colours, patterns for prints in brass and so on. In the Autumn of 1627 he and his boy received £2 for a week’s work besides 10s. for his ‘charges of Comming downe’ [79r]. Other helpers mentioned by name are Master Rowley, Oliver Marshall, Master Kymbe, and Master Humble. In March 1627/28 Master Marshall was also paid £2 ‘for tombe work in brasse’ [84r].

Dering needed certain supplies and implements in order to pursue these studies. He was forever buying different kinds of paper by the quire and the ream, with names such as royal, imperial, Italian royal, best Venice demy, ‘troys’ demy. At the time of his first wedding he bought gilt paper [6r]. In November 1626 he had eight quires of paper costing 16s. ruled with red ink for an Alphabet of Arms for 4s. [66r]. (He used red ink to rule the columns of this Booke of Expences). He bought a ‘tablebooke’ [9v] and blank paper books, such as the two in folio for Commonplaces in November 1621 [18v], and the two ‘for expences’ in June 1622 [24r]. Occasionally, he bought skins of vellum. He bought pens, ink, including red ink, ‘Inke of ye exchequer’, galls and copperas, gum arabic, ‘pensells’, ‘blacke lead pencells’, ‘wax blacke leade in a brass quill’, ‘blacke leade in a sweete sticke’, wax, painting colours for arms, a ‘stone and muller for Colours’, ink-horns, pairs of compasses. He had seals, book prints and brass and steel stamps made displaying his arms for use on his bindings and elsewhere. Several were cut by Cockson, possibly the engraver Thomas Cockson (fl.1609-1636), a few by Wodenett and Richardson. At least once in March 1623/24 he resorted to having a ‘print Cutt in wood for to print blanke Escocheons in paper royall’ for 10s. [36v]. Another way he displayed his arms was in embroidery. When in London in December 1626 he paid 2s. 6d. for ‘yellow, blew, and russett silke att 2s per ounce to worke armes’ [66v]. Yet another way was in glass. In May 1627 he paid 10s. for ‘glasse Armes’ [72r], and in June he was paying the glazier for ‘setting vp my armes in ye east parlour’ [74r] and in July the arms of his two wives ‘etc’ [75r]. After he was created a baronet in 1627 these arms had to be updated.

The appearance and safe-keeping of his books was important to Dering. He often paid for bindings, sometimes specifying the kind of binding, and, if intended as a gift, to whom the book was being given. His study, or, as he once termed it in July 1627, his ‘Vtopia’ [75r], is mentioned several times. In February 1621/22 he paid 8d. for a lock for the door [19v]. In July 1627 a joiner was working on the door and drawers [75r]. Later in the month he painted the wall with red ochre [75v] and in August bought ‘9 yds of linsey wolsey for a Carpett on my study table’ [76r]. When he was in London for over six months in the last part of 1626 and the first part of 1627 he was quick to have some shelves made at the end of October for the study [65r] and in December paid for a lock for the door [66v].

Two one-of-a-kind expenses were connected with the purchase of Dering’s knighthood and of his baronetcy. His knighthood conferred on 22 January 1618/19 cost him a little over £200 [4r], his baronetcy conferred on 1 February 1626/27, £84 16s. [70r]. In the previous December he had borrowed his father-in-law, Lord Tufton’s ‘patent of ye baronettship’ [67r].

One other expense involved the payment of interest on money borrowed. Altogether one gets the impression that Dering may have spent more than he received in income. Throughout the years covered by the Booke of Expences he was paying interest on debts to various people, including members of his family. For example, he paid £2 18s. 4d. for the ‘vse of mony’ in the third quarter of 1619 [6v], £2 10s. for the ‘vse of 50 li’’ for sixteen weeks in March 1619/20 [7v], £3 for the ‘vse of mony’ in October 1620 [11r]. The largest sum mentioned is £1,000. In December 1626 during his stay in London he paid 1s. ‘for making a bill from my Lord Cheife Iustice to me of 1000 li’ to be paid 1628’ and the next day the same amount for another [66v]. With this exception, none of the sums are large, so maybe they were not a drain on his resources. What his total income was in any one year is not clear. Mary Keeler notes that he was ‘granted at his first marriage in 1619 £700 a year for maintenance ... But he does not seem to have enjoyed more than £400 a year for some time’ (Keeler 1954, 155-156). The first year he recorded his expenses in any detail, 1619, he headed the page ‘My prodigall yeare’ [4r] but later deleted these words. The third quarter of that year he headed ‘My desperate qter’ [5v]. These words he did not delete. It was the quarter in which he married Elizabeth Tufton in December 1619. His total expenses for the calendar year 1619 amounted to over £548 10s. 2d. [7r], setting him in debt £110 [3r].

So much was happening on the national scene during the years covered by the Booke of Expences that one wonders how many of these events are reflected in its entries. Not many as far as one can tell, and those usually incidentally. Besides the ones noted in trying to describe the varied contents of this Booke of Expences, the oblique references to Henrietta Maria’s journey to England in June 1625, Dering’s participation in the first Parliament of Charles’s reign in 1625, his brush with the Crown in its attempt to demand ‘free gifts’ from its subjects, there are a few others mostly concerned with Parliamentary elections and what was happening in Parliament. On 12 January 1623/24 Dering was at Maidstone ‘to Chuse Sir Nicholas Tuffton [his father-in-law] knight of ye shire’ (which he was), and on the 21st he laid out £1 1s. 6d. for ‘Sir Nicholas Tuffton att Ashford in wine vpon ye gentlemen there, on Saturday ye 17. as he appointed me: which was offered to me againe on munday ye 19 but I refused itt’ [35v]. On 6 May 1625, shortly after his own election as member for the borough of Hythe, Dering was paying Harper’s charges at Maidstone when the latter went with him ‘att Choice of ye knights for this shire’ [51r]. On 28 January 1625/26 he gave 8d. ‘in my iourney about ye knights of ye shire’ by one of his men [54v]. Between 1-20 February 1625/26 he was in London and paid 13s. 4d. for a ‘Roome to see ye K[ing]s going to parliament’ [55r], an event which took place on the 6th. There is no mention of watching the Coronation procession on the 2nd.

One event receives passing notice from Dering’s payment for a copy of The Spanish Proclamation on 24 March 1622/23 at the time Charles and the Duke of Buckingham were in Madrid courting the Spanish princess [29v]. Another, the outbreak of the plague in the summer of 1625, must have prompted the purchase of ‘A booke of ye orders appointed in time of pestilence’ and ‘The booke of ye forme of prayer, and orders for fasting this time of visitation &c’ in June of that year [52r].

endnotes

¹ MS U350 E4, Centre for Kentish Studies. The Booke of Expences was deposited in May 1953 by Mrs C. Langworthy and Mrs Sturgess, daughters of Sir Henry Dering, 10th baronet.

² For more details about his life see Reference List in Krivatsy 1992, 161-163, especially Clark 1977, Hirst 1972 and Larking 1862.

bibliography

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PLATE I

Sir Edward Dering MP 1640

(By kind permission of the Folger Shakespeare Library, Washington DC)