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An English Catholic on Tour in Europe, 1701-03
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 May 2017
Extract
Writing of the education of the English landed classes in the eighteenth century, Professor Mingay has said: ‘The Grand Tour which followed university became almost de rigueur, at least for the eldest sons of wealthy families’. The Tour was popular as a means of providing prospective heirs with the poise, taste and experience which were judged to be essential to their future station. Though it soon became primarily fashionable, it was designed as a climax to the educational process. As such, it could be very expensive. The cost was particularly onerous for recusant families, whose economies were generally less diversified and more vulnerable than those of their contemporaries. Nevertheless, as the case discussed here illustrates, though impecuniosity might leave its mark on a tour, it was only rarely sufficient to prevent it taking place. In this, as in so many other respects, recusants strove to maintain their social status, despite what was often a precarious financial and economic situation.
In March 1701, Sir Philip Constable, a leading Yorkshire recusanL, entered into an agreement with a Mr Janvers. In return for assisting Sir Philip's eldest son, Marmaduke, during a tour of ‘Flanders, France, Italy and co’, Janvers was to receive his travelling expenses plus £40 a year. The document reflects Sir Philip's impoverished position. Janvers was to accompany Marmaduke wherever Sir Philip ordered, spending money ‘carefully and savingly’, and to render an account of his expenditure whenever Sir Philip required him to do so.
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- Copyright © Catholic Record Society 1971
References
Notes
1 Mingay, G. E., English Landed Society in the Eighteenth Century, London, 1963, pp. 137-8.Google Scholar
2 The detailed material upon which this paper is based is drawn from the Constable of Everingham MSS. in the East Riding County Record Office, Beverley. I am grateful to the Duke of Norfolk for allowing me to consult this collection, and to the archivist, Mr N. Higson, for his help. References to these MSS. below begin with their code number: DDEV
3 DDEV/56/415A.
4 See: Roebuck, P., ‘The Constables of Everingham. The Fortunes of a Catholic Royalist Family during the Civil War and Interregnum’, Recusant History, 9, no. 2, April 1967, pp. 75–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 P. Roebuck, ‘Four Yorkshire Landowning Families, 1640-1760. An Economic History’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Hull University, 1970 (hereafter referred to as Roebuck thesis), l, pp. 219-83; 2, 40-47.
6 DDEV/60/11.
7 DDEV/56/415B. The details in this document are reproduced on pp. 157-8.
8 Four of Marmaduke's aunts entered convents on the Continent, two being professed in Louvain where Marmaduke spent six weeks during his return journey. ( Arnold, R., Northern Lights. London, 1959, p. 35 Google Scholar; Pedigrees of the County Families of Yorkshire, ed. J. Foster, London, 1874, II.)
9 D. J. Sturdy, ‘English Travellers in France, 1660-1715’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Trinity College, Dublin, 1969, pp. vii, 1-16.
10 For a description of the effect of Sir Marmaduke's long absence on his estate affairs see my forthcoming article in the Agricultural History Review: ‘Absentee Landownership in the Late 17th and Early 18th Centuries. A Neglected Factor in English Agrarian History’.
11 Roebuck thesis, 1, pp. 284-352.
12 DDEV/56/415B.
NOTE.—Clearly, Marmaduke's arithmetic was not perfect. Total listed expenditure was £655 10s. Is., not £656 0s. Id. The pocket money entry is also wrong; he probably meant 21, not 25, months. The money paid to Janvers may have been a tip. If it was part of his agreed salary, then as much again remained in arrears. In which case the total cost of the tour is slightly underestimated in the above.