Widows as Heads of Households

Widowhood was often a chance for the mother to use other talents as she took over the household. A widow's position as mistress of the household was so different to all her former experiences that many might be loathe to give it up and accept an offer of marriage. Unfortunately having property was a snare to many women and they might be forced to accept marriages of convenience, though there was increasing pressure to present any husband at the church courts who went outside the marriage for love. Towards the middle of our period the emphasis within a strict protestant family was towards a mutual partnership.

When the father died leaving a widow the children had at least one parent to care for them. From the wills there were fourteen wives at Cropredy acting as the sole executrix who had full charge of the children under eighteen. Only three of these remarry [9, 14, 40]. Five other widows had a son over eighteen, but also younger children to bring up, and were joint executors with the eldest son on half the farm, and if her son and family were already catered for, then the customary third. Thomas French [4] took charge when his son John died leaving the young Elizabeth a widow who seems unable to cope, or at least was not given the chance. Her son Thomas was later to write in his will:

Elizabeth was not one of the most fortunate of women. She was born a Hall and may have been visiting next door [6] when she met John. They were married soon after. First her husband and then her married son died young, but Elizabeth decided to stay on in her own chamber with the use of the kitchen which had a hearth (p504). Other older widow's sons in Cropredy were charged with their mothers welfare. Thomas [25] was to keep and provide his mother Agnes Gybbs "in meat and drink and all necessities fyttinge her estate." In the six wills where the wife had died five sons and one daughter were made executors. One daughter did have brothers, but Jane Sutton had the copyhold and a duty to care for her sister Anne [42].

Six older men left their widow in control, but unfortunately we do not know what other documents may have been made concerning their children. Was it because the wives were elderly and all legacies paid off? Or had the marriage partnership been one where the wife was allowed to be a reasoning adult capable of directing her own actions (1607 [15], 1630 [18], 1631 [8], 1634 [43], 1637 [15] & 1640 [2])?

Not all are in charge for the whole length of their widowhood, for often the eldest boy married and was allowed to take over, though not always straight away. The year the sons were married is given on the chart below. The mother might still have the hearth and a third of the farm. Alyse Devotion had a son, who was married in 1591, farming with her for over three years. The next column gives the number of years the mother lived in the house as a widow, followed by her name:

Site	Years a widow	Son married	Years as a widow	Name of widow
[3]	1582 to 1594	1591	12	Alyse Devotion
[3]	1631 to 1634		3	Em Devotion
[4]	1602 to 1637	1624*	35	Elizabeth French
[4]	1632 to 1674		c42	Mary French
[8]	1625 to 1634	c1612	9	Dyonice Woodrose
[8]	1627 to 1639	*(i)	12	Martha Woodrose
[9]	1559 to 1577		18	Elizabeth Howes
[9]	1600 to 1603		3	Margery Howse
[9]	&1629 to 1643	1632	12	Margery Broughton
[14]	1564/5 to 1567		2	Alyce Lumberd
[14]	&1584 to 1613	c1593	29	Alyce Whyting
[23]	1600 to 1610/14?		c10	Ann Vaughan
[25]	1562 to 1577	1575	15	Alyce Gybbs
[25]	1617 to 1624	1610	7	Agnes Gybbs
[25]	1629 to1636		7	Elizabeth Gybbs
[25]	c1643 to 1655		?	Joyce Gybbs
[26]	1559 to 1579		20	Johan Robins
[26]	1603 to 1627	1611	24	Joanne Robins
[28]	1550 to ?	1581	?	Ayllys Howes
[28]	1592 to 1609		17	Alese Howse
[28]	1617 to 1650	1640	33	Alyce Howse
[31]	1592 to 1597	c1594	5	Alyce Kynd
[32]	1577 to 1584	1579	9	Margery Rede
[33]	1574 to 1609	1583	35	Constance Wilson
[34]	1602 to 1623	1616	21	Anne Watts
[34]	1624 to 1626		2	Anne Watts
[34]	&1633/4 to ?	1647	?	Anne Hall

A few widows, as the above table shows, rose to the occasion carrying on into their fifties until an arrangement was made with their son, though some died still farming. Elizabeth Howes [9] kept the farm going for eighteen years bringing up two sons. She died in 1577 in possession of her land, stock, fire and table. In 1579 Widow Johan Robins [26] to her annoyance found herself often sick. Her son Richard had been married and lived elsewhere. For twenty years Johan had hung onto her stock, her control of the hall fire and the table while her lease lasted. Her part of the house consisted of a hall, chamber, nether (below the hall) house and kitchen. Up to 1577 Johan had the Wydow Elizabeth Gybbs [25] either next door, or at least in the town, also managing to hang onto her farm, in spite of the fact that her eldest son had been married for two years. Did these three women, their marriages casualties of the 1550's and 1560's, meet to discuss their farming and family problems? The three farms continue in the family name, so the landlord, presumably having made safe guards, was satisfied with their administration.

Were they ever allowed to partake in the church affairs, or did the men of the town have to take up their share, willingly or grudgingly? The next Joanne Robins, left a young widow in 1603, also farmed for twentyfour years. Although not all that time in full control she was still able to keep farming her third.

Thomas Devotion's widow Grace [3] married John Smythe and Thomas's son George became known as George Smith alias Devotion or Dyer. George married in 1564 and when he died eighteen years later his Alyse took on more land and carried on for twelve years still in full control even after her son Thomas Devotion [3] and Em Whyting [14] had of necessity to marry. Years later as a widow herself Em firmly carries on supporting herself and her family on half the farm into her mid-sixties, by which time her son George was thirtyseven.

Widow Toms [15] was older and manages only two years, but still kept her fire and some stock for a while. She had been more fortunate than Anne Watts [34] down Creampot, who for twentyone years after her husband died had the rearing of their seven children, born over ten years. Perhaps from sheer exhaustion Anne needed the help of Richard Hall.

On the corner of Creampot Lane lived the Kynd's [Kindes] [31]. John died in 1592 and his Wydow Alyce managed to carry on through five years of dreadful harvests and near starvation in poorer families. Widow Alyce's inventory shows how goods after a crisis drop in value. The appraisers were being realistic as few had money to buy. Alyce's inventory follows her husband's line by line. Her table, bench and forms were now worth only 3s, a fall from 12s. Even wear and tear would not reduce them so. Other items in her hall were halved in value and a cupboard once 13s was now but 6s-8d. Two feather beds, family heirlooms, once £1 were now 15s. Even the standing bed and two bedsteads fell from 10s to 6s. During this period Alyce had to replace her cart. Alyce Kynd had not needed in her small household to sell items to survive, and her stock was reared, corn sown and harvested so that even if the value of her goods had plummeted according to the assessors, their usefulness had not, and she like many others had pulled through the worst years. Unfortunately only the chamber and hall are mentioned though there would appear to be other rooms. Was her married son using them?

Alese Howse [28], a much younger widow in Creampot, lost her husband Rechard in the same year as Alyce Kynd and she carried on farming with the help of her old bachelor uncle, Fremund Densy (p185). Both were to die in the epidemic of 1609. Fremund may have come to help after Rechard died, but let him not take all the credit, for Alese ran a tidy place increasing her goods.

Young widows had a doubly difficult task, for not only had they to build up and carry on the farm or the business, but single handed they had to raise the legacies. One great advantage if they stayed unmarried was of course the family was not still growing. There was no reason why with a man to do the ploughing, the husbandry could not be organised by a strong mother. Most were used to field work and had learnt what to demand of a man servant to keep it going and few could not manage a long hard day. Widows of craftsmen, if their husband had not taught them his skills, must employ a journeyman. Children were brought up to help as soon as they were able as part of their home apprenticeship. Marrying older men in their thirties certainly carried more risks of being left as widows. To these mothers fell the education and bringing up of the children. All the skills the father should have taught them the mothers had to see they were accomplished. Most obviously succeed for their families like the Howses [28] go on for at least three more generations. Women proved that a farm could keep producing under their administration with the help of staff, but minus a Master.

A lot depended upon the length of their lease, the number of yardlands, her skills as manager and the weather as to how they increased the value of their moveable estate. Most important of all the mother passed on a farm or trade and kept a roof over her head for as long as required. Many epidemics upset the family pattern. The 1550's left many widows on their own and the following generation married earlier. The 1609 fever brought several changes on the farms. Within a year the average age of heads of households plummeted as the next generation were able to marry, though some only with their mother as the head of the household.

When, as in 1609, the fevers spread rapidly from house to house, it would almost seem that one husbandman had no sooner been called in to help witness a will, or the making of an inventory than he too was calling for neighbours to come in as he had been taken ill. In this year it was not just the elderly at risk, but the husbandmen still in their prime. It was not just the poorest who were reduced by under nourishment, but fevers catching everyone including the wealthiest townsmen. The parish clerk's father William Rede [32], when he too caught the "fever" and before he died, managed to make a will passing on exact instructions for the division of his household and the care of his younger son and second wife (p118).

The generation before 1570 whose fathers died young were able to marry in their early twenties so that any rebuilding had to be done during their marriage. After the 1570's a father's death might force a rebuilding prior to a son's marriage at the change of lease, or a father would begin rebuilding when the children reached adulthood. The eldest sons would then have to put off marriage into their thirties. Six of those who married young women then died early on in the marriage and left the widows to bring up the family. One third of the husbandmen who married late in the 1570's and 1580's appear to build prior to marriage.

No.	1570	75	80	85	90	95	1600	05	10	15	20	25	30	35	40	45
6								*
5							*					*	*
4						*					*			*	*
3	*	*		*	*				*							*
2										*
1			*

What happened to their young widows? Most would manage to cope alone, a few would choose to remarry. Over several years there were at least three widows managing their farms. After 1592 this rose to four and in the first decade of the new century five then six widows took the chair in their halls. This dropped to three then two in the second decade, rising in the 1620's to four then five, a sixth of the farms. The winter of 1622/3 was bad, but the worst years were yet to come, though nothing to do with house building delaying marriages, for the 1630's began badly. In 1630 the price of wheat had risen and the demand for barley to make bread caused a scarcity. The local magistrates seeing a crisis arising prohibited the making of malt. By 1631 the market was still hampered by fixed prices and the husbandmen were holding onto the corn waiting for the price to rise. The winter of 1634/5 was such a terrible one that the poor everywhere came near to perishing. Cropredy registers reveal that 1631 and 1634 produced two dreadful epidemics made worse by the market prices.

The strain took a toll on artisans, small holders, husbandmen and a yeomen seemingly irrespective of age or wealth, leaving five farming widows then four in the third and fourth decade. Husbandmen being outdoor workers would in a wet season after a poor harvest be forced to carry on worrying and working in dreadful conditions often without adequate food until he dropped from exhaustion. Apparently boys and men were more vulnerable to disease than women. The loss of a father certainly put their children at a disadvantage and there were always a few one parent families in Cropredy due to sudden death (p126).

The term "step" was not often added to mother or father. The new wife or husband might be called mother or father by their stepchildren. Remarriage was not lightly entered into by a widow or widower with a family. The clash with children could spoil the second marriage, especially if more children arrived and upset the older family. In a few cases children may be left with older relations before the new marriage, but with the paternal grandparents already living in the house it had to be a maternal grandparent who was approached. Widow Elizabeth French [4] preferred to stay on with the help of her father-in-law, rather than give her children a step-father, for then she would have had to leave Cropredy and the new stone buildings. There were sometimes economical reasons why remarriage was undertaken. Support for old age was one, or if a very young mother needed help with the children (p104). Orledge had found someone else to love and contracted to marry again for men had nothing to loose in the way of property (p104).

We saw that a man who lost his first wife generally tried to remarry to make sure there was a woman to control the running of the household. In the Pratt/Howse household this led to three families under one roof. Some families became so complicated with step-mothers and fathers remarrying that children needed all the help they could get. An entry on a copyhold soon after they were born was one way to protect one child and some daughters then inherited and not the sons. The second wife on such a property was left with little. In Church Lane Richard Howse [24] had retired onto half a yardland leaving his son-in-law Pratt the rest of the two yardlands. John Pratt having married Elizabeth Howse, the eldest daughter, whose name was on their copyhold lease. Her step-mother Grace Howes [24] nee French [4] had on the death of her husband Richard in 1600/1 to give way to the Pratts. Then Elizabeth Pratt died and her husband John took over the widow's half yardland and Grace went to live with a step-daughter, Mrs Alyce Thompson nee Howse [44]. Unfortunately Jhon and Alyce Thompson leave the town in 1614 and again the goodwife has to move. This time back to Church Lane to her daughter Ann Vaughan nee Howse [23] the wife of Thomas, who lived right next to her late husband's farm. Did Grace pay off her husband's legacies totalling around £10 and a whole "land of barlie" plus a further two strikes of barley before she left the farm and why had the French's not made some provision for Grace before she married the widower? Her late husband had trusted her enough "to take my goods and pay my debts and bring my bodie honestly to ye ground," but who would do the same for her?

After Grace left her marital home the widower John Pratt married Margaret and more children arrived (p557). He died suddenly in 1609 leaving his widow to run the farm, which she did with the help of a Thomas Webb. John left legacies for his four children and the unborn baby.

He included the vicar's maintenance clause (though only the brief version) that they remain at home until "they may be honestly be by service provided." If she remarries then the children's payment must be seen to first, otherwise when they are twentyone. Rebecca and John from his first marriage must have £16 at twentyone and twentytwo years old. The two from the second £13-6s-8d each, and "the child my wife now goeth with all," twenty marks. He had full confidence in her and left a personal estate of over £100. Here was an example of the farm using all the profits to go towards providing for the children. John had recently re-entered the lease which was worth £40 for the remainder of the years. It was seven years before widow Margaret married William Howse from Creampot [28]. A condition of marriage may have been to settle the legacies for Margaret's three children and her two surviving step-children. Margaret and William added two more children to the family.

A bride whose father had made a covenant with the groom and his father prior to their marriage, as Elizabeth Batchelor and Thomas Gybbs (1575-1629) [25] had done, gave her the security of the leased land and the house should she be left a widow. This was even more essential before a second marriage if Grace Howse's position was to be avoided. Richard Terry [13], weaver, in 1603 reveals a jointure made by Ursula Farmer's father when he married the widow Elizabeth Russell nee Farmer at the blacksmiths (a copyhold cottage on the Brasenose estate): "Whereas at the marriage of my nowe said wife I did enter Bonds unto Mr Richard Ffarmer my brother to leave her in worth of goodes and money the sum of £100 which I do hope my estate will performe upon the honest and carefull regarde of the performing of my goods...any surplus I doe give to my daughter for her portion and legacy...and desiring my wife in her loving regarde to take the government and education of her...as my trust is in her ...and provide her as her owne childe." Elizabeth seemed to acquire other people's children for her previous husband John Russell had died in 1600 and left her with the education of his grandson Thomas Densy "until he maie honestlie be putt to an apprentice" with a blacksmith.

Problems arose when a man was left a widower with young children, he might remarry as John Pratt had, but only after first safeguarding his first family. John Wilmer, gentleman, [8] who had already settled the children from his first marriage, writes in his will "whereas I have upon marriage with Marie my faithful and loving [second] wife settled all these my freehold landes whereof I was seized at the time of marriage in Joynture to my said wife for her life with the remainders over to the heirs of my bodie lawfully of her begotten..." He left her the Indenture which was with Mr John Sadler her father and brother Mr William Sadler. One bond of £800 had been entered into with the Sadlers with the condition "to give and devise my College lease on the farme in Cropredy unto my said wife or some of her younger children" [PCC 250 414 Aylett].

Arrangements such as Terry and Wilmer had made for their second wives and her possible children were not possible for most husbandmen, but some arrangements in the form of a covenant, especially if she was younger, had to be made to satisfy the wife's relations. Rede [32] left instructions for his two sons by his first wife that Richard must take care of William and his second wife Susan who must have "one half of all my goods." Did this exclude the lease? He had "certain artycles made betwixt Thomas Tomes her father and me before the tyme of my near weding unto her...she to provide for Joane Reade my daughter." The son was sole executor. Susan and Joane do not appear to stay, once Joane is sixteen. It was not just the second wife who might suffer, the children from the first marriage were at risk from a new marriage. The College manor records made sure that the Redes [32] in a later generation gave a brother and four sisters the sole use of the chamber over the kitchen during the duration of the lease [Hurst 158].

Most second wives and second husbands appear to have a limited time on the lease and their children could not inherit in the case of Whyting [14], Broughton [9] and Wilson [33], the exception being the Haslewoods who take up the lease [14] (p534). The craftsmen's widows had a much more difficult task for most had little more than a cow common and a bit of land to feed themselves, though the mercer's widow [39] may have carried on with the shop and few acres before remarrying, for there were four surviving Tanner children to see to (p409). Only one Tanner signs the 1641 protestation returns, but none of that name grace the baptism register for a few centuries. Across the street Widow Anes Watts [27] kept her two looms. She shared with her son until she died (p452).

Thomas Elderson's [38] second wife brought up the son and daughter of his first marriage and now they were still at home and must take care of her. "If she disliked the maytenance which shalbe allowed and provided for her by my said executors" then she shall have £5 one year "next after her dislike." Her full board was to be provided by the carpenter son Thomas and his sister. What did his son and daughter really feel about their step-mother? In 1601 Agnes Palmer as a second wife was left "her maintenance of meat, drinke, lodginge with apparell" by her late miller husband off his estate so that "shee shall have weekly such decent and honest allowance as may be seene her estate and calling yf my lease of Bolte Mill continue." He wanted to make sure the Palmers would not be let down, but again what were her feelings about her status? [Other second wives lived at 16, 32, 36]. Few of these widows ever had the chance to run the farm or business.

Occasionally a young couple [19] went to care for an elderly man taking on their farm or trade (p429). Very few who were newly married managed to start as a nuclear unit in spite of the fact that the vicar of Banbury, the Reverend William Whately, found that sharing a house was the source of a great deal of trouble in families. On three years in the lists there are examples of couples squeezing into an already full cottage. Pettyfers with Clyftons into a two bay cottage [7], Breedons in Bryans [47] open hall cottage, and Fishers into Matchams [18] three bay cottage. An Act of 1589 tried to forbid this practice, but even with a penalty of ten shillings a month it was obviously a dead letter, for there must have been a reason why it had to be tolerated. After the death of a parent when the family home was taken over by the inheriting son any married younger siblings must move out, except at Woodroses [8] who had room, which may be why the Breedon's moved from Creampot to another parish (p483).

Sons had to wait if their mother had remarried. Stepfathers holding the lease during the sons minority would have their names in the terriers for a short period, then the family name reappears as the son takes up the next lease. The names on terriers show the changes as stepfathers give way to sons with craftsmen like Bostocks and Pratt [41], or husbandmen such as Lumberd and Whytinge [14], Howse and Broughton [9] and Devotion and Smyth [3].