Thomas Pott (master hunter)

Thomas Pott or Potts was a Scottish Master Huntsman serving James VI and I, and Keeper of Temple Newsam manor and park near Leeds.[1]

Thomas Pott served Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales on the hunting field and was in charge of his dogs

At the Scottish court

Pott appears in Scottish records as a huntsman serving James VI. He was sent to France with a diplomatic gift of horses and riding equipment made by Abraham Abercromby, and horses sent from France as gifts were delivered to him.[2] In January 1603 he was appointed "Master Hunter" to Prince Henry by privy seal letter. Although some of the royal huntsmen in Scotland, like Cuthbert Rayne, were men from the north of England, Pott seems to have been Scottish.[3]

James VI usually went buck hunting in August, and an English ambassador William Asheby compared him to "chaste and continent Hippolytus, spending the time in Diana's exercise".[4] While there are many records relating to the king's dogs, his horses, and their feed, the fine detail of hunting practice in Scotland was not recorded in the accounts of expenses, and it is not clear how much the forms used resembled coursing, Par force, or other kinds of early modern and medieval hunting and fowling. Research continues into these courtly activities, royal parks and reserves, and the progresses made by James during which he took the opportunity to hunt.[5] In England, James ordered the construction of a warren at Newmarket for hares.[6]

England
Thomas Pott was tasked with entertaining Ulrik, Duke of Holstein on the hunting field

After the Union of Crowns in 1603, Thomas Pott continued to serve Prince Henry in England.[7] He was made Keeper of Temple Newsam, for which he was paid two shilling a day, and was confirmed as the custodian of the Prince's dogs in April 1605.[8] A groom or huntsman dressed in red and yellow Stuart livery clothes can be seen in two paintings of Henry hunting with a courtier companion. Two versions of the picture exist, showing the Prince's friends Robert Devereux and John Harington, with their attendant half-hidden behind the horse.[9][10]

Pott worked for Ulrik, Duke of Holstein, the brother of Anne of Denmark, when he visited England and hunted at Royston, and the Duke wrote to Thomas Lake to make sure his wages were paid.[11]

In January 1607, King James made a joke in a letter to Sir Robert Cecil. As "Tom Potte hath a fine kennel of very little beagles ready to carry to France", he wondered if Cecil would be "one of that number". James called Cecil his beagle and made fun of his stature.[12]

Pott was naturalized as a denizen of England in February 1608.[13] He became keeper of Hay or Haia Park near Knaresborough in 1608, and this grant was listed amongst those made to Scottish courtiers. Henry Slingsby of Scriven objected to this gift to Pott, as the keepership of Hay Park had long been in his family. The park is the site of Hay-a-Park Gravel Pit, and now a nature reserve.[14] Pott also had keeperships of Beaumont Grange and Kirby Park near Tattershall Castle in Lincolnshire, properties of the Duchy of Lancaster. These places, and Scalm Park, near Selby were all low lying and marshy or on gravel beds, and Kirby is also now a nature reserve.[15]

Pott travelled abroad several times, taking gifts of dogs from the king or prince to European rulers. In 1608, he went to France for Prince Henry, and the names of his party were listed, giving an idea of his status. "Mr Thomas Pottes, gent[leman]" was accompanied by two huntsmen Thomas Crowther and John Orchard, the keeper of the wagon George Hume, and a groom of the hounds, Henry Lykinge. They brought two pages and a footman. Around this time, Pott received an extra gift of property forfeited by recusants.[16] George Hume, another Scottish servant, was described as keeper of the wagon for the Privy Buckhounds in 1604.[17]

He was Master of Prince Henry's Harriers in 1610.[18] After the death of Prince Henry, he served Prince Charles as Master of the Privy Beagles.[19] In 1631, Charles I allowed Pott to form a partnership with Sir Thomas Badger or Bagehott (Master of the Old Harriers) and Timothy Tyrrell (Master of the Buckhounds) with an exclusive patent to breed and export dogs. The dogs would be bred and trained in England or Wales.[20] King James alluded to "Tom Badger" in his letters to the Duke of Buckingham.[21]

In 1638, Pott was Master of the Harriers and Beagles. He was confirmed as Master of the Harriers on 2 November 1640, [22] and appointed John Roan as a Yeoman of the Harriers. Pott also held the office of keeper of the "slug hounds" for King James and Charles.[23]

Marriage

Thomas Pott became a denizen of England and married Elizabeth Methold, only daughter of the lawyer, judge, and Chief Baron of the Irish Exchequer, Sir William Methold and his wife Margaret Southwell at Dagenham on 18 July 1608. After his death, in 1655 she successfully petitioned for a pension of £300 per year as a widow of the Master of the Harriers.[24]

Endymion Porter

In 1628 William Jones presented a poem to the courtier Endymion Porter based on an anagram of his name "Ripen to more end". Jones claimed that Thomas Pott had assisted or advised in this conceit and composition.[25]

Contemporaries of the same name

Pott the huntsman is sometimes confused with Thomas Potts, the Lancashire court clerk and author of The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster.[26] Another contemporary was the Scottish preacher Thomas Potts, who served congregations in Vlissingen and Amsterdam.[27]

References
  1. Thomas Burgeland Johnson, The Sportsman's Cyclopaedia (London, 1848), p. 124: Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1603-1610, no. 82a: John Leeds Barroll, Politics, plague, and Shakespeare's theater: the Stuart years (Cornell, 1991), p. 42 fn.39.
  2. Letters to King James the Sixth (Edinburgh, 1835), pp. lxxix, lxxviii.
  3. Humphry William Woolrych, Lives of Eminent Serjeants-at-law of the English Bar, 1 (London, 1869), p. 167: William Arthur Shaw, Letters of denization and acts of naturalization for aliens in England and Ireland (Lymington, 1911), p. 12
  4. Calendar State Papers Scotland, vol. 10 (Edinburgh, 1936), p. 129 no. 166.
  5. Steven J. Reid, The Early Life of James VI, A Long Apprenticeship (Edinburgh: John Donald, 2023), pp. 277-282.
  6. M. S. Guiseppi & D. McN. Lockie, HMC Salisbury Hatfield, 19 (London, 1965), p. 334.
  7. A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (London, 1790), p. 328.
  8. Issues of the Exchequer during the reign of King James I (London, 1836), p. 22: Robert Folkestone Williams, Domestic Memoirs of the Royal Family and of the Court of England, 3 (London, 1860), p. 30: TNA SP 14/60 f.2.
  9. John Leeds Barroll, 'The court of the first Stuart queen', Linda Levy Peck, The Mental World of the Jacobean Court (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 205-6.
  10. Henry, Prince of Wales with Robert Devereux, 3rd Earl of Essex: RCT RCIN 404440
  11. Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Addenda, 1580-1625 (London, 1872), no. 15: TNA SP 15/37 f.26.
  12. M. S . Giuseppi & D. McN Lockie, HMC Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Earl of Salisbury, 19 (London, 1965), p. 22.
  13. William Arthur Shaw, Letters of Denization and Acts of Naturalization for Aliens in England and Ireland (Lymington, 1911), p. 12
  14. Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic 1603-1610 (London, 1857), p. 433 no. 65, TNA SP 14/32 f.119: Calendar of State Papers, Domestic Addenda, 1580-1625 (London, 1872), no. 5, TNA SP 15/39 f.12: HMC 6th Report (Ingilby) (London, 1877), p. 632: Pott held a reversion of the keepership.
  15. HMC Manuscripts of the Earl Cowper, vol. 1 (London, 1888), p. 164.
  16. M. S. Giuseppi & G. Dyfnallt Owen, HMC Calendar of the Manuscripts of the Earl of Salisbury, 20 (London, 1968), pp. 199, 300.
  17. J. P. Hore, History of the Royal Buckhounds (Newmarket, 1895), p. 99.
  18. A Collection of Ordinances and Regulations for the Government of the Royal Household (London, 1790), p. 328
  19. Frederick Devon, Issues of the Exchequer (London, 1836), pp. 50, 97, 104, 156, 272, 285: George Richard Jesse, Researches Into the History of the British Dog, 2 (London, 1866), pp. 287-9.
  20. Foedera, 19 (London, 1732), pp. 283-4: 'BAGEHOTT (BADGER), Sir Thomas, The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1604-1629, ed. Andrew Thrush and John P. Ferris, 2010
  21. David M. Bergeron, King James and Letters of Homoerotic Desire (University of Iowa, 1999), pp. 176, 180.
  22. Foedera
  23. Calendar State Papers Domestic, Charles I, 1638-1639 (London, 1871), p. 188: Patrick Reginald Chalmers, The History of Hunting (London, 1936), p. 300: Issues of the Exchequer, p. 50.
  24. Humphry William Woolrych, Lives of Eminent Serjeants-at-law of the English Bar, 1 (London, 1869), p. 167.
  25. John Bruce, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1628-1629 (London, 1859), no. 72: TNA SP 16/126 f.129.
  26. A letter from Francis Clifford, 4th Earl of Cumberland at Skipton Castle to Thomas Lake discusses a plan for the royal servant "Thomas Potts" to breed and train dogs at "Skalme Park" at Wistow near Selby. The Earl was asked to resign the keepership of the park to Potts. 14 October 1615, TNA SP 14/82 f.62: Mary Anne Everett Green, Calendar of State Papers, Domestic, 1611-1618 (London, 1858), p. 315 no. 48 After drainage, Scalm was a suitable flat site for the construction of a decoy airfield during World War II.
  27. William Steven, The History of the Scottish Church, Rotterdam (Edinburgh, 1833), p. 302.
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