Heya, all. I'm trying to locate a court document from 1698. Little bit of a wild story, regarding the divorce of William Hockmore and his wife, Mary Prestwood. My sources I'm getting this from are the essay "Leggasicke, Filling the Gaps" by Richard G. Grylls, and the academic work "Fashioning Adultery: Gender, Sex, and Civility in England 1660-1740" by David M. Turner.
https://essaydocs.org/legassicke-filling-the-gaps.html?page=4http://ndl.ethernet.edu.et/bitstream/123456789/32443/1/9pdf.pdf?fbclid=IwAR2rulWc68oYguYJwBrzy6f6pwsEm3SiKIYUh1Bd9wikLbmhS-iZHHpK08wThe separation took place in 1698. The cause of it was William was convinced their youngest daughter, Prestwood (given her mother's maiden name as a first name), was not his. Apparently Mary had multiple lovers, including a Mr. Edward Ford, a Mr. Nicholas Cove, a Mr. Charles Manley, and a Swiss mercenary referred to in Turner's work as "Killcutt."
The daughter, Prestwood, was apparently baptized in London (though William and Mary were from Devon, Mary apparently ran off to London during a dispute with her husband) in early 1696 under "Prestwood Buckmore, son [sic] of William and Mary Buckmore." Not sure why she was referred to as a son, Mr. Grylls doesn't say.
Grylls implies Mary ran off to London on her own in 1696 to have her baby, though Turner in passing says she was in London with her husband, not sure which is accurate, which is why I'm looking for the original case. Turner goes on to say that that year, according to the divorce proceedings, she made several visits to her lover, Edward Ford, another member of the Devon gentry but who had apparently taken up lodging in London at the home of a Westminster victualler named Rive Morgan, who apparently gave his deposition to the court saying Mary had complained to her that there were no curtains in Mr. Ford's room.
According to a witness, Mary had apparently told William that she would go and live in London and “there I’le live, and I’le bring thee a child every yeare if the Art of man can get them, and thou shalt maintayne them all, And I will run thee in debt until I have ruined thee, if I damne both Body and Soule to effect it”.
So, moving on, Mary apparently maintained that baby Prestwood was William's daughter, but perhaps that was for inheritance reasons. When William died in 1707 he left his estates to their four elder daughters, and left some money for Prestwood. Prestwood's guardian (Mary had aparently died by then, too) Mr. Richard Underhay, appealed the will to try to get a better deal for Prestwood.
Assuming William was right, and he wasn't the father of Prestwood, it seems to me that the likeliest candidate would be Edward Ford (unless she was carrying on with multiple lovers at the time she got pregnant), given Mary's visits to him in London that year when she gave birth, and the fact he was staying in London when she went there, perhaps to be close to her when she had their child. Turner's work references the divorce proceedings saying at a party back in Devon Mr. Ford and Nicholas Cove were carrying on very inappropriately with Mary, and Cove even went so far as to openly tease William about mounting him with a cuckold's horns.
I'd very much like to be able to find the original divorce proceedings, to see what arguments were made; who William thought to be the likely father out of all Mary's lovers, why he was so certain the baby wasn't his (perhaps they'd stopped being intimate, I imagine he'd have to be very convinced of the child being someone else's to air their dirty laundry publicly at that time). If the father was Edward Ford I believe I found him in some other sources can work on drawing up a "possible/probable" genealogy for Prestwood.
Regarding the original source, Turner cites "Hockmore v. Hockmore 1698 fo. 614" and Grylls cites both Turner's book, and "C 5/134/25 (TNA)" which I assume is The National Archives but I'm not sure.
Now I *did* manage to find this page, but unfortunately the cases only go back as 1701. I wondered if anyone familiar with this site knows if they have a page for earlier cases?
https://waalt.uh.edu/index.php/C78_1701?fbclid=IwAR0mCBIjVbS9PwR83Eq38TJwgvRpL_865ZXNZGjBmkTAeL-A7RgnoH-it5wIt includes a 1701 case involving William and Mary arguing over distribution of lands after their divorce. It includes the original document which is great, but unfortunately no transcript, and the original is extremely long and illegible.
http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT7/C78/C78no1160/IMG_0001.htmIf anyone knows where I might be able to find the original divorce proceedings, I'd be extremely grateful, and thanks regardless for going through this long post.
