LEONARD WHliATCKOFT, OF ASHOVER. 35 



his workshop), a turner or carpenter, as well as clerk and 

 schoolmaster. 



Leonard, the subject of this sketch, was an ardent Royalist, 

 and many of his pieces are full of military allusions. At the end 

 of one of his compositions, he writes — " This song was made 

 when Monk came out of Scotland. I was a soldier then." He 

 must have enlisted when in his teens, for he was only twenty-one 

 when the king was beheaded in 1648-9. There can be no doubt 

 that the havoc played by the Puritans in the parish church of 

 Ashover, involving the ruthless destruction of the painted windows 

 as well as the church registers, the demolition of Eastwood Hall, 

 the residence of the respected rector,* and the violation of all 

 that hitherto had been cherished and venerated by the youthful 

 Leonard, had deeply set his mind against them. In his song on 

 the " Fishing of the Amber," " Major Wheatcroft " occurs, with- 

 out doubt from the " Hand and Shears," and it is probable that 

 for his valour he obtained this promotion. That he was no 

 coward appears from an incident which he relates concerning 

 himself on one of his excursions to Winster : — "Then did I 

 expect an answer from her (EHzabeth Hawley) againe, but none 

 came. Then did I and another mount on horseback, and to the 

 Tovvne of Winster we went well armed, with a full resolution to 

 see sweet Betty, which after many repulses we did. But after 



* In a paper on Eastwood Hall, in Ashover, read by Mr. W. B. Bunting, 

 in 1885, before the members of the Scarsdale Field Club at Stubben Edge, and 

 liublished in one of the Derbyshire papers, the following lines on the destruc- 

 tion of that manor house, the ancient home of the Reresbys, is attributed to 

 our author, although they are not to be found in Mr. Milnes' MS. If the lines 

 have not been " /<?«' //tv/ /// " a little the metre is unusually good for Leonard, 

 whose measures are somewhat irregular, rhyme ajiparcntly forming his chief 

 idea of versification. 



" The Roundheads came down upon Eastwood Old Hall, 

 And they tried it with mattock, and tried it with ball, 

 And they tore off the leadwork, and splintered the wood. 

 But as firmly as ever the battlements stood. 

 Till a barrel of powder at last did the thing. 

 And then they sang Psalms for the fall of the King." 



" They afterwards marched to the Church. After destroying a stained glass 

 ivindow erected by the Reresbys, ani Ihe parish Register, which because they 

 coidd not read, they said was full of Popery and Treason, the miscreants rode 

 away." — Mr. IV. B. Bunting s quotation from Mr. Bourne's Letter. 



