Thomas Lynwood and Agnes Cawsey

Bedfordshire and Luton Archives and Records Service has a transcript from the Essex Calendar of Quarter Sessions Rolls for 9th May 1576, it is available as CRT130Wootton7. The transcript concerns two people from Wootton, who got into trouble a long way from home. The transcript is as set out below.

"Examination of Thomas Lynwood, taken before Edward Barrett, esquire, brought by the constables of West Thurrock".

"He says that his last dwelling was in the parish of Wootton, co. Bedford, where he was born and bred and hath continued there always until a sennight [week] after Whitsuntide was twelve months [i.e. a week after 22nd May 1575] and was there married to a wife seventeen years and dwelt there with her during all the said seventeen years and had three children by her, which children and his said wife he did forsake and left in the said country about Whitsuntide aforesaid, and ever sithence hath continued about London, Gravesend, and in West Thurrock in Essex, sometimes with one man, sometimes with another as he could get work, being in no service with any nor having any dwelling place; but at Midsummer last one Agnes Cawsey of Wootton aforesaid, deceased, came to one William Bowlton her brother, who dwelleth about Holborn Bridge in London, and there the said Lynwood met with her, and departed from her for the space of a month, and than she found him out in “Marybone Parke”, where he wrought with one Wilson about the mending of the park pale, and ever sithence they have kept company together, and lain together as man and wife, and so have lived a wicked and incontinent life. Also he says the said Agnes and her said husband went about a-begging many times when he was strong in body and able to work, and she likewise, and hath been an idle huswife ever sithence his death, begging from house to house within her own parish and in other places".

"The said Agnes Cawsey, being examined, says that she was born and brought up all her time in Wootton aforesaid, and was married to Richard Cawsey “acrowe keaper in common fildes their in Wootton aforesaid”, by the space of seven years, and he died at Christmas last was three years [i.e. 1573]. Further she says that at Midsummer last she did come up to London to her said brother for to see how he did, where she remained by the space of six weeks, then with the consent of her brother she went down again to Wootton to fetch up her son to London whom she had by her said brother, where she remained until “Bartulmewtyd last past” [i.e. August 1575] and then she met the said Lynwood and went with him to an alehouse hard by and there made him promise to go with him whither he would, and so hath continued with him ever since about London in sundry places, and at west Thurrock in Essex, saying she was his wife, and hath lived with him “a beastly and filthie life”".

The Wootton parish registers have the following entries which may be of people connected with Thomas Linwood or Agnes Cawsey:

• 1570: Margaret Lynwood was buried;
• 1576: Robert Linwood baptised;
• 1580: William Linwood baptised;
• 1581: Elizabeth Bolton buried;
• 1589: John Linwood Savidge alias Barnar married [blank] alias Barnar.