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Nicholas' trip to London only managed to separate him further from his father, finding that their moral and religious differences were starker than he had imagined. What his trip did manage to achieve was bring him closer to his Protestant faith, since London was a more vibrant city where change was occurred more quickly than in the north of England in Newcastle. With his newfound love for the city, he convinced Matthew to give him a permanent position in CCI next to James in London. Nicholas and Margaret moved to London soon after the birth of their first child Issac, living the rest of their lives thriving in the culture that London offered.

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Nicholas Allister, Alice's second son, loved his childhood despite the fact that he grew up without a father. 

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Nicholas Allister, Alice's second son, loved his childhood despite the fact that he grew up without a father. 

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After George left permanently for London, Alice was left with nothing but her dowry and her children. Matthew being seriously against the sin of adultery, decided to lend his sister Alice a hand financially. He gave Alice an allowance of 10 pounds a year and additionally paid for her three sons to go to Royal Grammar School. Alice also decided to put her embroidery skills she learned from her older sister's to use and got a job as an embroiderer. Without the strong catholic influence of George no longer in the household, Alice could finally fully embrace Protestantism. Instead of turning to somebody else for comfort after her children died, she turned to Protestantism. Years prior to her separation from George, Alice had already begun to stop teaching and reciting certain catholic prayers and customs to her children while George was away in London. Edward VI's ascension and harsh protestant rule allowed her to more openly practice Protestantism before her catholic husband without receiving immense scrutiny from him. Once her husband left, she was free to leave the title of crypto-catholic behind and raising her children without the constant fear that someone was going to out them and turn them into the authorities. She did make sure to keep the facade that she was still a practicing catholic with Matthew and her other siblings for fear that she would stop receiving much needed financial support for her children.

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Instead of suing George for adultery, Alice decided to come to an agreement with George. Even though George no longer wanted to stay with Alice, he agreed that attempting to get a divorce wasn't a choice either since it went against his Catholic faith. George agreed not to challenge the legitimacy of their children, since they were bore out of actual love in a point where the marriage was good, and that he would give Alice the total sum of her dowry, while he would move permanently to London with his new woman. Alice's decision to not bring charges against her husband in hindsight is the smartest decision she could have made. At this time, marriage as an institution was still sacred, even though Henry VIII divorced and annulled most of his marriages. The only ways in which to declare a marriage void were by either proving that one or both partners were under the age of consent at the time the marriage took place, which wasn't the case for Alice and George, or by proving adultery and/or cruelty in the marriage. In a situation like Alice's, she would have had been the one to bring the charge of adultery against George. Annulments were scarcely granted as it was and were even rarer when the wife was the one bringing the charges against the husband. The only chance Alice would have had in winning would be if she were able to prove his adultery and prove cruelty against her, which was not the case. Alice had no safe options in which to bring proceedings against her husband that didn't endanger her dower rights or the legitimacy of her children.

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At the same time as this was happening, Anne, Alice's oldest sister, had fallen ill with a terrible fever. She succumbed to her sickness in late November of 1549 after struggling with the fever for months. As the letter below shows, it was up to Alice to write to her sister Mary about Anne's death since Mary had moved away with her husband 8 years prior to London so that he could help run CCI there. Mary brings up her concerns with filing for divorce and/or attempting to persecute George for adultery, deciding that Alice's inaction is the best way to deal with the situation.

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Reflection on my Journey with the Clifton Family

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Reflection on my Journey with the Clifton Family

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When initially creating the life of Matthew Clifton, I knew I wanted to somehow explore, through one of the three generations, a true struggle with religion while the protestant reformation was taking shape.  Growing up in Newcastle surrounded by many friaries and a strong Catholic presence, imposed a strong Catholic faith in Matthew with his morality and values of the family being heavily informed by Catholicism. This, mixed with the expectation of being the eldest son in his family of 8, made him look up to his father and everything he had built. When thinking of what could possibly shatter this very much perfect life he had lived until now, with the exception of the death of his siblings and mother, I knew it had to be something that would shatter the image of the person he looked up to most, his father. I was debating whether the father was having an affair while his wife was still alive or if he was a gambling drunk, but then I settled on shattering the core of what made Matthew look up to his father the most, the integrity of his father and his business. By introducing the fact that his father had racked up a hefty debt and revealing that not only was he a drunk, but his business wasn't as successful as he led on to be, this flipped a switch in Matthew. Everything he had learnt and lived through had been shattered by his father’s lying and now the the responsibility of his siblings, the coal company and his father’s debt fell on him. He was now faced with making the difficult decisions of how to move around the money their family had left in order to pay off their debts: will he have to take away his sister’s dowries or no longer send his younger sister to the nunnery to be educated or have the rest of his sibling start to work.

Being 17 while all this is happening to Matthew, made me think of the idea we discussed in a class of who we are when we are 20. Having to take on this much responsibility at this young of age really changes a person and makes them more vulnerable and susceptible to outside movements. Trying to put myself into Matthew’s shoes, I’m personally struggling on whether to rebel against everything I grew up with and truly give Protestantism a shot or to live up to the idea I thought my father to be while growing up and stay true to my Catholic faith. Being the daughter of an entrepreneur who has built successful companies from scratch myself, I relate to Matthew in the aspect of wanting to live up to a certain legacy. If I were to find out it was all fake, I would want to prove to my father that I could still build a successful life for myself without lying. This is why I decided to steer the Clifton family toward the road less traveled and have Matthew stay true to his Catholic faith instead of taking the easy way out and abandoning everything he grew up with to adopt a new religion.

By moving on to Alice Clifton as the head of the second generation of the Clifton family, I was able to explore what it was like for women in Tudor England. Because of her family's debts, her education was no longer a priority, only that of her brothers. Because of her status as a woman, she had no say against her brother taking money from her dowry. Because she was a woman, her chances of successfully persecuting her husband for adultery were slim, so she lived a life still tied to George without any of the financial stability that came with marriage. All these circumstances shaped who Alice became and influence her choice to turn to Protestantism. When creating her story, I really wanted to highlight how some of the same circumstances for Matthew, like financial troubles, would affect a woman differently. If you really compare both their experiences, the financial troubles never really affected Matthew, he was still able to keep the status of the family through some tough years while still indulging in his personal vendettas like supporting the catholic cause. While on the other hand, Matthew's turning to the money allocated to his sister's instead of his brothers to solve the debt problem caused Alice to never receive a full education. Exploring the institution of marriage from the point of view of a woman in Tudor England was especially enlightening. In my mind, I had initially decided that Alice was going to divorce George and then meet a strong protestant fellow and get married. I had soon discovered that this perfect picture I had created was far from possible for someone like Alice to achieve. Even with the struggle between both religions in England, marriage was still a very sacred institution, and getting a divorce or annulment was extremely rare, especially when a woman was the one initiating the proceedings.  These limitations caused me to think about how her family would react to George's betrayal and what they would do to help their youngest sister if they would even help at all.

When choosing to follow Nicholas for the third generation, I wanted to create a character who was truly excited to be part of a movement bigger than himself. He was in his early twenties when Elizabeth I ascended the throne, taking a similar trip to London as her mother had when she had first gotten married, exposing Nicholas to the true potential and excitement that was the protestant movement. Nicholas is the one who reminds me most of myself at this time. With covid, we are unable to truly connect and share ideas as a society like we used to. The political atmosphere that has arisen because of the election, as well as the chance to be socially involved with various issues, has created a new sense of community allowing me and others to be part of something greater even though we are stuck in our bedrooms.

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Nicholas grew up in Newcastle with his three siblings and mother. Turning 10 the year when Edward VI ascended the throne, Nicholas lived through the tumultuous years of the flip-flopping between religions and monarchs during his most impressionable years. Even though the 5 years where Mary I was queen, Alice continued to practice and teach her children about Protestantism. When Nicholas was 21, Elizabeth ascended the throne and restored the Protestant movement, much to Nicholas' joy. He married Margaret Child, a lovely girl from the town of Gateshead in 1563 at the age of 26.

After his father left when he was young, Matthew, his uncle, became one of the only male role models Nicholas could look up to. One of the only memories he had left of his father is that of shouting and blaming him for the death of his younger sister. Matthew carried not resent to Nicholas for what happened and cared deeply for the education of him and his brothers, choosing to financially support all of their time in the Royal Grammar School. Matthew also included them, together with his own sons, in the teachings about the family coal business, with Nicholas at the age of 19 started to work for CCI.

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After getting married, Matthew was set to take a trip to London to visit James, his Uncle through his marriage to Mary, to learn more about the operations of CCI in London. With his trip, he struggled with the decision of whether he should visit his father or not while in his time in London, deciding to ultimately have dinner with him.

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https://www.britannica.com/place/Newcastle-upon-Tyne-England

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Newcastle_upon_Tyne#Tudor_period

https://www.british-history.ac.uk/no-series/newcastle-historical-account/pp118-123

http://www.destinationnewcastle.co.uk/history/newcastle-upon-tyne-in-the-16th-and-17th-centuries.asp

https://www.nottingham.ac.uk/manuscriptsandspecialcollections/researchguidance/deedsindepth/associated/will.aspx

https://www.history.com/news/women-education-medieval-nuns-church

https://catherinemeyrick.com/2019/12/20/a-good-portion-maker-hir-the-better-dowry-and-jointure-in-16th-century-england/

https://thehistoryofengland.co.uk/resource/medieval-prices-and-wages/

http://elizabethan.org/compendium/6.html

https://blog.oup.com/2009/07/nuns/
https://www.britannica.com/event/Pilgrimage-of-Grace

https://www.britannica.com/topic/sumptuary-law

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosary#Single-decade_rosaries

https://www.racked.com/2017/4/26/15305022/rosary-beads-fashion-history

http://www.rosaryworkshop.com/HISTORYjournalingBead.htm#16%20Cent.

https://www.shakespeare.org.uk/explore-shakespeare/blogs/shakespeare-100-objects-tudor-rosary/
https://www.elizabethi.org/contents/essays/divorce.htm
http://www.localhistories.org/women.html#:~:text=In%20the%2016th%20century%20some,brewers%2C%20bakers%2C%20or%20confectioners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Grammar_School,_Newcastle_upon_Tyne
https://doinghistoryinpublic.org/2017/11/21/experiencing-the-law-in-sixteenth-century-england/

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Around the final months of Alice's 4th pregnancy, there was a tragic accident. Alice was sitting outside with Nicholas and Eveline enjoying the breeze while they played. She went inside the house to grab the embroidery pattern she was working on, coming back outside to find Eveline lying on the ground crying as blood kept oozing out of her head. While running around with Nicholas, Eveline tripped and smashed her tiny little head on a rock. Alice picked up Eveline, desperately trying to find her husband or anyone for help. With George not at home, she finally managed to find a doctor but it was too late, Eveline's fall had been too hard and she had lost too much blood already. Weeks after Eveline's death, Alice delivered her baby two months premature, coming out stillborn. Immense sadness draped over the Allister-Clifton family that year. George took the loss of Eveline pretty hard, blaming Alice and little Nicholas for her death. He delved into his job to try and forget about the tragedy, deciding to take more and more trips to London for his work as a merchant. Instead of finding comfort in his shared experience with Alice, George found comfort in another woman in London. George's affair caused him to further distance himself from Alice and their children choosing to take more and more frequent trips to London. Alice ultimately found out about the affair by accident one day in 1549 while George was away on a trip. While doing some cleaning, she found a stash of letters hidden from the woman George was seeing in London. When he came back from his trip, Alice confronted George, and he decided to come clean, saying that he wanted to move permanently to London to live with this other woman.

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George Allister was the youngest son of a wealthy merchant, whose older brother had been friends with Matthew and the rest of the Clifton family for years. They were another family who had continued to practice their Catholic faith in secret, Matthew believed a strong Catholic like George for a husband might set Alice on the "correct path". Despite her initial reluctance to the match, Alice and George got on famously, getting married 2 years after their introduction in 1531. Before any of their children were born, George would often take Alice with him on his business trips to London. Once in London, Alice was exposed to the true nature of the Prot6estant movement and was increasingly in support of it. They had their first child together in 1532, Antony, followed by Cecily in 1536, Nicholas in 1537, and Eveline in 1542. Then tragedy struck.

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Because her brother took her out of the nunnery after only 3 years and because of its eventual closure in 1536, Alice Clifton never received the same religious and intellectual education as her two older sisters Alice and Mary. She was forced to come home at the age of 13 and help around the house with her older sisters attempting to help her finish her education in the basics of reading and writing whenever they had extra time. Without a strong enough exposure to the Catholic religion, like that of the rest of her siblings, Alice was especially intrigued by the new protestant movement.  Matthew started to pick up on her disinterest in Catholicism, noticing how Alice would often not be present whenever her sisters were reciting the rosary. Matthew took matters into his own hands, since he had the final say on who his sisters would marry according to their father's Will, pushing Alice to marry George Allister.

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Given that the Clifton family was having some financial trouble, it was in their best interest to not be publicly outspoken against the Protestant Reformation, bringing any unwanted attention toward their situation. But because of their strong Catholic ties in their community, they continued to practice the Catholic religion in secrete, becoming Crypto-Catholics. With this being said, rosaries such as these, belonging to the women of the family from their days at the nunnery, would have been burned together with any other Catholic relics that would have been found in such a household at the time. After the burning of the rosaries, the Clifton women started using Decade Rings, which allowed them to continue to practice their Catholic faith but in a more discrete fashion.  Even though Newcastle-Upon-Tyne has the reputation of being an English stronghold to the Scottish advances, Matthew secretly supported the various plots to establish Mary Queen of Scots as Mary I's heir instead of Elizabeth by sending monetary support to the various movements.

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While at their time at St.Bartholomew's, as Mary states in her letter to her father below, Matthew's sisters would have received a standard rosary like the one pictured below. This particular rosary pictured below is said to have derived from the early 16th century from Tudor England, made out of 56 wooden carved beads consisting of 50 Hail Marys (represented by the larger beads) and 6 Lord’s Prayers (represented by the smaller beads). While the style and materials for the rosaries varied from person to person, the ones that would have been provided by the nunnery of St. Bartholomew would have been of a simpler, more uniform nature, most likely made of wood with no etchings, unlike the rosary pictured below. Sumptuary Laws, deriving from the purpose of restraining luxury and extravagance, were popular in the religious community in relation to the modesty and simplicity in their belongings like rosaries.  This, mixed with the mass production of rosaries starting in the late 14th century, can account for the much simpler rosaries used in religious settings such as nunneries and friaries.  Unlike Alice, when Mary and Anne finished their 10 years of religious and intellectual education in the nunnery they would have switched out their standard rosaries for ones made of glass colored beads.

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Matthew and his siblings dealing with the protestant reformation 

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Matthew and his siblings dealing with the protestant reformation 

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Because of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne's proximity to catholic Scotland and the fact that it was home to various friaries and nunneries, the townspeople were deeply committed to the Catholic faith, this included the Clifton family. After his father's death, Matthew continued the practice of taking the entire family to church various times per week. Unlike Alice, Mary and Anne were able to finish their 10 year religious and intellectual education at the Nunnery as devout Catholics.

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Matthew got married to Katherine Sharp in 1529 at the age of 26.

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Matthew got married to Katherine Sharp in 1529 at the age of 26.

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Katherine sharp was part of a well off family who had made their money in the textile from the neighboring town of Tyne. They got married two years after they met in Newcastle-Upon- Tyne's Catholic parish in 1529. Soon after they welcomed their first son in 1531 named James, then a daughter named Mary in 1535, then another son in 1538, Alexander, and lastly, welcomed their last son, Richard in 1542. Even after Matthew got married, all of his younger siblings continued to live with him as his new family until they managed to get married themselves, with Peter being the last to leave the house in 1540.

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Matthew now faced the impossible task of settling the family debt and running CCI. He found out that some of the people his father was indebted to were all owners of the local bars, with his debt stretching back to the year his mother died and others were other businessmen in the coal industry. In order to pay the 70 pounds he owed, he removed Alice from the nunnery, using the money set aside for her tuition, and took 10 pounds from each of his three sister's dowries. Matthew had every intention of re-enrolling Alice in the nunnery and restoring the amount to his sister's dowries but when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and nunneries in 1536, he lost some substantial business and Alice lost the only chance of continuing her education since they were no other opportunities for girls to get an education, and Matthew was not willing to pay for a private tutor for her sister. Even with these temporary losses, Matthew still managed to donate several pounds to uprisings against protestant changes imposed by Henry VIII, such as the Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536. His business started booming again, coal managed to become Newcastle-Upon-Tyne's main export with its amount of exportation jumping from 15,000 tons at the start of the century to 35,000 tons in the 1560s.

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William Clifton died at the age of 54 in 1520 due to complications of old age, leaving Matthew as the new patriarch of the Clifton family at the age of 17.

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William Clifton died at the age of 54 in 1520 due to complications of old age, leaving Matthew as the new patriarch of the Clifton family at the age of 17.

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Newcastle-Upon-Tyne is a town settled on the edge of the River Tyne. Its easy access to the ocean made it a town that thrived on the business of exporting goods to other cities, especially London. Wool was its biggest export up until the 16th century where coal took over as the cities main export. Its close position to the Scottish border made the town susceptible to various attacks by Scottish invaders during the Anglo-Scottish Border wars, with the town being known as an English fortress against Scotland since the Middle Ages. A wall was even built-in 1265 to help protect the town from further attacks, this attracted a lot of religious and commercial bodies to settle inside the wall of Newcastle since now there was further security. Before Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in England, Newcastle was a strong catholic community, being home to 5 friaries and 1 nunnery.

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William was highly invested in the education of all his children. He sent his boys, Matthew and Henry, to the local grammar school in Newcastle starting at the age of 7. Even though he died before his youngest, Peter, was of age for school, he made plans with Matthew so he would also be sent to school. Peter was one of the first groups of pupils to attend the Royal Grammar School of Newcastle when it first opened its door in 1525, which is still a functioning school today. William also sent his daughters once they turned the age of 10 to the Nunnery of St.Bartholomew, which was also located in their town, to be educated until they were of age to marry.

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William's Clifton last Will and Testament 

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William's Clifton last Will and Testament 

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Before his father's death in 1520, his father had Matthew about leaving him all of his holdings in CCI to him, as well as naming him the sole executor of his last will and testament. What Matthew later found out after being read his father's Will by the family lawyer, was the fact that his father had amounted to a copious amount of debt with several gentlemen he did not recognize and that it was his responsibility to now pay those debts.

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Matthew Clifton's story started 7 years before his birth when his father, William Clifton, married his mother, Emma Golding in their hometown of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. 

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Matthew Clifton's story started 7 years before his birth when his father, William Clifton, married his mother, Emma Golding in their hometown of Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. 

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William came from a middle class family who, for generations, were involved in the wool industry in Newcastle. At the age of 19 in 1485, with financial support from his father, he took a chance on the up and coming coal industry and open his own company called Clifton Coal Industrial or CCI. His gamble paid off and it made him quite wealthy. When he was 29, he met Emma Golding, who was 23 at the time; they got married a year later in 1496 in their local Catholic parish church. Together they had 9 children, with 5 of them surviving infancy, Matthew was the eldest boy out of all his siblings. His mother had delivered a stillborn a year before he was born, with his younger siblings, Robert and Jane, dying  at a young age due to fevers. When Matthew was 13, his mother was pregnant with his youngest brother Peter. Now age 44, the pregnancy took a heavy strain on her body causing her death a couple days after Peter's birth.

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Alice Clifton's, Matthew's youngest sister, life went a bit differently. 

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Alice Clifton's, Matthew's youngest sister, life went a bit differently. 

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Matthew exposed his three sons at an early age to the family coal business, preparing them to eventually take over the company after his death. He raised his children secretly under the catholic faith and never succumbed to the protestant movement, dying proudly as a crypto-catholic. Since CCI was doing so well, he spent his final years secretly supporting lost causes to reinstate a Catholic ruler, finally dying at the age of 57 in 1559 due to complications of old age just like his father

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After the Nunnery Of St. Bartholomew was closed due to Henry VIII's order in 1536, a man named Robert Anderson tore down the nunnery and built the Newe House in its place, which is still standing today. (The Newe House Pictured below)

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After the Nunnery Of St. Bartholomew was closed due to Henry VIII's order in 1536, a man named Robert Anderson tore down the nunnery and built the Newe House in its place, which is still standing today. (The Newe House Pictured below)