The deeds and misdeeds of Sir John Reresby

He completed his education but in 1654 decided to go abroad, keen to abandon London, which he wrote was ‘full of zealots and the debauched’! We know all about his travels because he wrote about them in his Memoirs.

He learned to play the guitar, to dance and to fence but crucially he also established links with the Royal Family exiled in Paris and he remembered seeing ‘the King (Charles II but obviously not yet crowned), the Duke of York and Prince Rupert playing billiards in the Palais Royal.

He returned to England in 1658 on the death of Oliver Cromwell but felt threatened in London and so retreated to Thrybergh. Even in Thrybergh though he found spies listening out for those who loved the monarchy.

By 1660 Charles II was back in England and King. Instantly Sir John’s prospects improved greatly. He used the support of George Savile, Marquis of Halifax, George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham and Thomas Osborn, Earl of Danby (a near neighbour at Kiveton Park) to advance his social and political position.

Despite this his fiery temper was not curbed and in 1661 he ‘cudgelled’ a Mr Calverley in Holborn in London for ‘giving me very rude words’ and in 1663 was involved in both a fight and a duel.

He was commissioned Deputy Lieutenant for the West Riding of West Yorkshire in 1661 and mentions going to Scarborough Spa in 1662 where ‘there were many people of quality that went in summer for their health or their diversion’.

He was involved in a great deal of home improvement at Thrybergh Hall in the 1660s and mainly raised money for this by cutting down a large number of trees in the surrounding parkland and selling them for timber.

The remnants of this wood still remain today to the left of the entrance to Rotherham Golf Club. In October 1666 he was named High Sheriff of Yorkshire and lived in the Minster Yard in York.

Here he lived the high life including having two coaches for his own use, having his own violinists for entertaining and giving a lavish ball. All this cost him at least £300, a great deal of money at that time.

He seems never to have grown out of his bad temper, he even fell out with the Countess Dowager Strafford from Wentworth Woodhouse in 1671 being prominent in a court case against her for setting up a rabbit warren and opening a quarry on the common at Hooton Roberts.

He won the case and Lord Strafford and her Ladyship consented to destroy the warren and fill in the quarry. Later he came close to being charged with the murder of his servant, a ’16-year-old Moor’, from Barbados.

On a more positive note he provided dinner for at least 300 local people at Thrybergh on New Year’s Day in 1675 and in the following year supported the Sheffield cutlers in a dispute linked with the new Hearth Tax.

In August 1676 he dined at the Cutlers Feast in the Town Hall and was received in the street with loud music, ‘shouts of the rabble’ and the ringing of bells.

Sadly his loyalty to the Crown, and particularly to King James II, cost him his position in high office and his political influence and he retired to Thrybergh, a broken man. He died in 1689 and is buried in St Leonard’s where a fine wall monument is dedicated to him.

A local man whose deeds and misdeeds are known into the 21st Century.