The Life of John and Margaret Inskip in Old Warden

John and Margaret Inskip were married in January 1584, a reasonably common month to marry as weddings were not allowed during the Christmas or Lent periods.  John was aged around 28 and Margaret 26 – couples at this time only got married when they had the means to support a family and somewhere to live.  John and Margaret were relatively young for the time, up to 25% of young people in the early seventeenth century never married because they could not afford to set up a family, including John’s son Robert.

The couple had 8 children, one every two-three years, from Robert (1585) to Dorothy (1604), with no recorded child burials – given the difficult times they were living in in the 1590’s (plague broke out in nearby London in 1592/3, whilst 1596 and 1597 saw the worst harvests for a century, followed nationally by malnutrition)  this is an unusual achievement.  Interestingly conception was usually around December or August, suggesting they were not involved in tiring harvesting work, but enjoyed a rest and feasting at Christmas.

Margaret died in March 1614; she was born around 1558, at a dip in the national population, entered the menopause around age 47, and died age 56, a reasonable lifespan. With death from childbirth, illness and economic conditions around every corner Margaret’s classic female sixteenth century life shows good management.

John Inskip married second, wife, Alice Goodine from Warden Street in April 1615, he was aged around 59 and she was possibly in her late 30’s. Coming a year after Margaret’s death this was fairly late, many men married within months of a wife’s death as the family had to be supported.  However, John’s youngest child was aged 10, five others were likely servants elsewhere, and the two elder girls, who both married in Warden, may have lived at home. In September 1615 John was involved in the court case over enclosure. John had two further children with Alice,  Mary in 1616, who died at birth,  and Henry in 1617.

John Inskip died in late October 1626,  he was probably a committed Protestant who explored Puritan ways along with other Warden townspeople in the years from the 1570’s.  The Old Warden area was part of the cradle for Bedfordshire non-conformist belief that took hold in the mid-seventeenth century.  Evidence for John’s beliefs comes from the christening of his eldest daughter Elizabeth in Southill in 1595 at a time when the village had charismatic Puritan preachers;  and the naming of his second daughter Rebecca in 1598, one of the new biblical names beloved of Puritans and given to around 10% children instead of their godparents names.   The majority of children in Old Warden, as elsewhere in southern England, where given one of the popular names of  Elizabeth, Mary, Ann or John, Thomas, William and Richard.

Picture source:  A summer rural scene showing a sheep being dipped and in the background a maid milking a cow. © Folger library