Sir Phineas Pett first married in 1598 to Ann Nicholls, (d.1627) giving rise to another family of Pett Shipwrights, amongst these eleven children were the infamous Commissioner Peter Pett of Chatham who was born in 1610, his brother Christopher, born in 1620, Master Shipwright and his brother, who was John Pett, born in 1602, but whom it would seem was lost at sea with all hands in 1628 whilst a Captain serving in the Royal Navy, and in Command of the ‘Sixth Whelp’ ‘whilst engaged in Buckingham’s ill fated venture to raise the siege of La Rochelle. John was married to his wife in 1625, who was Catherine, the youngest daughter of Robert Yardley of Chatham, then deceased and the mother of that other Phineas Pett who born in 1628, the year his father was killed. His son followed family lore as a Master Shipwright, and lived until 1678. Phineas, his grandfather, being John’s father had remarried in 1627, shortly after the death of Ann (nee Nichols), ~ to a Susan (nee Eaglefield),Yardley, the widow of Robert Yardley. Susan died in 1637 and the following year again Phineas married Mildred Byland (nee Etherington), who did not live to see out that subsequent year.

 Peter Pett, Master Shipwright, and 2nd Resident Commissioner of Chatham Dockyard, the son of Sir Phineas Pett is most commonly famous for the incident concerning the protection of his scale models and drawings of the King’s Fleet during the Dutch invasion of the Medway in 1667. Peter was thus to be deprived of his Office, whilst the other Navy Commissioners in London more properly guilty of criminal neglect, in failing to ensure that the King’s fleet was not properly fitted out, the real reason for the disaster, conspired to save themselves. Pett, isolated at Chatham became the scapegoat to appease the Nation.

 This was the Peter Pett who had been introduced in his youth to King Charles in 1634 and was ordered to construct a new ship, of 500 tons to be named the ‘Leopard’ and again in 1635, the King visited its place of construction at Woolwich to witness the launch. With the construction of the ‘Leopard’ underway, Charles decided that he would have built, a ship larger and more ornate than any of her predecessors. Thus in June of 1634 whilst at Woolwich and on the ‘Leopard’ with the King, Phineas Pett relates “His Highness, calling me aside, privately aquatinted me of his princely resolution for the building of a great new ship, which he would have me undertake, using these words to me : ‘You have made many requests to me, and now I will make my request to you to build this ship’.” Under the watchful eye of his father Phineas, who had drawn up the plans for this great ship Peter Pett so built the ‘Sovereign of the Seas’ at Woolwich. The largest ship in the world at that time, this was in fact a ship of 1,637 ton and was launched in 1637!

 Peter Pett nevertheless sided with Parliament during the Civil War and was consequently retained as Commissioner at Chatham during ‘The Commonwealth’ (1649~60) From the mid 16th to late 17th Centuries Chatham was the most important Naval Dockyard in England and its Commissioner held a seat and a vote on the Navy Board in London. In this capacity Pett was compelled to place the Captain of Upnor Castle in gaol at Rochester and after some effort eventually secured the Navy and Dockyard for Parliament.

 It is a curious irony that the proud ‘Royal’ Navy developed from strength to strength to a point where it was easily comparable and equal to the world’s other navies during the revolutionary period of the ‘Commonwealth’ when no monarch was available or welcome at its helm. In all probability, as it has been said that these advances were largely due to the considerable sums of money invested in it by Cromwell’s Government, raised by the confiscation of Royalist Estates, sequestrated to pay for the building of ships and the increase of wages and salaries to Officers, Sailors and Shipwrights and the improved victualling of those ships. It has been stated that with his fellow Commissioners, Pett ‘laboured with an attention to minutest details of their daily duties, a personal eagerness to ensure the perfect and a broad sense to ensure ethical relations toward seamen and workmen, of whom they were at once employers and protectors, with a success never attained before and had never been equalled since’ Pett was the only member of the group of Commonwealth Commissioners who governed the Navy with any technical knowledge of Shipbuilding, it is not surprising then that the designs of their new ships should rest principally upon him. Indeed he built a number of their ships himself, including the ‘Naseby’, which was later renamed the ‘Royal Charles’ which was taken by the Dutch. However these standards could not be indefinitely maintained and, at about the time of the Reformation, the Navy was already into a debt of one and a half million pounds, the financial resources of the Country could not sustain its Navies continued growth, and the new King from 1660, proceeded to pour oil on this sorry wound by engaging in a costly series of conflicts with the Dutch.

 Remarkably determined to survive the rigors of the Nations political upheavals Peter Pett, although with great resourcefulness, having withheld Chatham from Charles I, was now in Holland preparing the fleet to accompany the return of Charles II. The success of these efforts established for him a firm relationship with the King. Pett had reached the zenith and he basked in the sunshine of Royal favour. He had also become a Justice of the Peace and had been one of the Members of Parliament for Rochester in 1660.

 To quote from the words of that famous diarist, John Evelyn from 1663, ‘passing by Chatham, we saw His Majesties Royal Navy, dined at Commissioner Petts, Master builder there, who shewed me his study and models, with other curiosities belonging to his art, esteemed for the most skilful Naupagus (shipbuilder) in the World’.

 It was in 1665 that the Second Dutch War began, ominously followed by the Plague and the Great Fire of London. These events in such close succession virtually brought the Country to its knees. Those same men who had built up the Navy, the Dockyard workers and the Shipwrights had agreements to be paid quarterly, but their salaries were in such a poor state of arrears, that Moines due them at the end of December 1667 were not forthcoming until the 15th of January of 1672, the very year of Pett’s death!

 Commissioner Pett had written that ‘I am nearly torn to pieces by the workmen for their pay’ and the problems were by no means confined to Chatham, from where as early as 1667 Pett wrote warning the Navy Commission : “If money be not provided to pay off bills it will be impossible to answer the expectations of His Majesty and His Royal Highness”, the Duke of York. It can hardly be a credible argument then, under these circumstance to hold Pett responsible for the ensuing shambles of the defence of the Thames estuary and the Medway against the ruthless Dutch assault that was to follow. The Commissioner had indeed found some difficulty, in maintaining even a proper conduct amongst the Naval Officers, some of whom took it upon themselves to challenge him to duels, Sailors too having been deprived of pay. Pett had to compel them from their actions by his authority but worse was to follow.

 The fleet had already been reduced to meet the restrictions of late expenditure and the Dutch seized their opportunity to give the King a bloody nose. On the 9th June, late in the afternoon a fleet of approximately 30 Dutch ships were sighted well into the Thames, it did not take long for this news to reach the Commissioner at Chatham who immediately sought assistance from the Admiralty. The following day the whole of the Thames~side as far up as London was in a great consternation. The Dutch fleet carried about a thousand men and landing parties were dispatched on Canvey Island and opposite on the Kent side at Sheerness, where an incomplete and unfortified Dockyard was captured. The King commanded the Duke of Albermarle to go to Chatham ‘to take the best order he could to defend and secure the ships there.’ When he arrived he reported that he could find only twelve of the eight hundred Dockyard men expected, and they being detracted by apprehension were to be of little service.

 It is doubtful that the Dutch would have been able to reach Chatham at all if Sheerness Fort had been completed, a Parliamentary report on the occasion concluded that the sinking and burning of what ships remained at Chatham was the only means available of preventing the Dutch from gaining control of the Medway on this very account. Commissioner Pett was bailed at £5000/~ and deprived of his Office whilst those who had ignored his earlier warnings quietly escaped any blame. Pett was thus compelled to defended his own actions and stood alone, discredited for the negligence.

  Admiral M. De Ruyter.

 With regard then, to the ludicrous impeachment of Peter Pett, it is clear that many ‘researchers’ remain content with the presumptions of this fellow Peypes and his scurrilous opinions. The principal charges laid against Pett were that he neglected and refused to moor the ‘Royal Charles’ and bring it up to a place of safety and that he refused to give orders to Captain Brooke to sink the ‘Sancta Maria’ as a means of blocking the channel into the river Medway at Chatham. The facts of the matters were that in the first instance that the ‘Royal Charles’ had been dismasted and therefore could not be sailed, and that in the second instance Captain Brooke had previously ran the ‘Sancta Maria’ aground, thus rendering her also immovable. Most of the other ships and boats had already been lost in the panic that prevailed when the news reached Chatham that the Dutch were at Sheerness, and in removing his models to one of those few remaining, and dispatching it up river was a shrewd course of action for England’s premier Shipwright, under the prevailing situation. If any one below the King himself should have accepted the blame for this travesty of affairs it should have been Captain Valentine Price, whom had been sent by the Ordinance Commissioners to Sheerness to ‘look after the work and pay the workmen’ at the incomplete fort, yet nothing had been done to render Sheerness defensible against an enemy. To which neglect we may justly ascribe the burning of the ships at Chatham and the dishonour that attended it.

 Many less well known Shipwrights lived through these times as is plain by account of the many ships built, but it is certain of the Pett ‘Dynasty’ that they were to form, with their inlaws and colleagues a cornerstone at the foundations of the Royal Navy, and it appears, very often had the ability to take these skills to sea. The Shipwright, if he were going to be a real success had also to be a Mariner, whilst it is clear few Mariners were otherwise skilled as Shipwrights, and so the Craft grew in status until the appellation ‘Aristocrat of the working class’ was put upon these comparatively very often poor and large families, although it is clear from earliest records that many Shipwrights recived a better payment than the average working man.

 Peter Pett’s will was proved on the 2nd of December 1672 and it revealed that he had a sufficiency of worldly goods to enable him to live in comfort after his dismissal as Commissioner. In his will there was, for example mentioned a necklace containing over 270 pearls, and that he was Lord of the Manor’s of Woodbridge Ufford and Kettle Ufford in Suffolk indicate that he remained possessed of some wealth.

 It is not surprising that over the years some confusion has arisen between the identities of Peter Pett and his many cousins, even the Navy Board had difficulty in keeping its records straight on this matter. From probably before the time that John Pett, (son of Thomas) was ‘paid’ for ‘Caulking’ (making watertight) the ‘Regent,’ in 1499 the Pett’s have been variously mistaken, one for the other. Often this was the case with Peter, the Master Shipwright at Deptford, who died in 1652, and with each of that Peter’s two sons, Sir Peter, the Advocate General for Ireland and Sir Phineas Pett, Master Shipwright at Chatham, who was knighted in 1680, and who was the Comptroller of Stores, and resident Commissioner at Chatham, and who is further to be distinguished from the Commissioner Peter Pett’s brother Phineas, a clerk of the check at Chatham. Three other Pett’s named Phineas were at the same time in the Naval Service at Chatham or in the Thames, one of whom was killed in action in 1666, whilst in command of the ‘Tiger’, this being a brother of the 2nd Commissioner at Chatham. The Roll and index of the domestic State Papers have so confused the numerous Pett’s as to have been described as useless, with perhaps the only way of clearing up the confusion being through a careful re~examination of the original manuscripts focusing on a detailed study of the various signatures appertaining to the Petts.

 In years long since past a person would often have been known and so named by his trade or place of residence, and so it is possible that Baldwyn of London was known in 1193 to be of the family of Holeborn. It is difficult to really know, but I find it not unreasonable to feel Baldwyn may also have been related to Gerinun de Holeburn who in 1263 was one of a jury of twelve assembled lawfully to conclude upon an ‘inquisition into how much land ‘Hamo de Creuker’, Baron of Chatham, deceased, held of our Lord the King, at Ledes’ in Kent.

 A generation later John Holeborn was found to be living in Surrey in 1296 and Stephen Holeborn in Essex in 1364. The earliest use of the name spelt as it is in Kent today, that I have as yet found for the County, has to be that taken by the Rector of Minster in Thanet from the 1430’s who was known as William Holbourn. William was transferred to the living of the parish of Brooke as Rector of Woodnesborough, closer to Canterbury during the 1470’s and seems to stand out alone on the records that have survived, that I have been able to note in respect of his name.

 A Merchant Adventurer, who became a Freeman of the City of Newcastle during 1543/4 was Anthonye Hebborne, known as the son of George in the papers of the Surtees Society which itself declares it often associates the names Hebborne and Holborne as being of the same origin. With these variations in records, is it a coincidence that we find in a neighbouring town, in 1577, a Roberto de Gateshead, otherwise refereed to as Robert Holborn of Gateshead? This Robert witnessed a confession by a person named Christopher, in Newcastle who it was alleged, assaulted another unnamed individual resulting in the victims death. As one of the witnesses Roberto was called so that the said Christopher might gain the Sanctuary of the Church.

 Although this is in all probability not the Robert Holborn known to have been a Shipwright for the King, although it is clear that the same lived in Harwich his work took him to Portsmouth, a Place from which any Shipwright might find easy passage to Newcastle. Especially given that the coal industry was flourishing at this time and considerable trade was done with the south of England by sea.

 ‘Thomas of Nonnington’ is said to have been born in Herne, Kent in the 1560/70’s, and may have been a cousin of Robert, the King’s Shipwright, who may even have moved to Chatham with Peter Pett. It has been proved that the earliest in a long line of men of Kent named Solomon Ho(l)bo/(u)rn/e married in Canterbury in 1685. Another member of the Holbourn clan found at that time, being Thomas Gibson Holbourn married Mary (nee) Harris at Canterbury in 1671, might be related to Solomon as a nephew or brother, the dates being too close for Thomas Gibson to be his father, but not impossible. The name of ‘Gibson’ being one of a number of curious coincidences that may allude to a connection with the Baron’s Dudley. It is fairly certain that Solomon had at least one brother, named Henry, of Nonnington, born 1660, near Canterbury, in Kent. They also had a sister Elizabeth. Working with Henry and Solomon we can deduce their most probable father as being that Thomas Holbourn Living at Nonnington and who was married to a Margaret.

 Nicholas Holborne, and William Holborne had been trained Lawyers, they both migrated southward into London and the Home Counties around the period 1600. Prior to which apparently separate families named ‘Holborne’ are recorded in Kent and Northumberland. Of the latter a son of which was that then most famous musical composer Anthonye Holborne. Such was his abilities that he was thought to have been a member of the Queen Elizabeth’s ‘Chapel Royale’. It is known he married and a son was born to the couple, who was to be named Nicholas (of Berwick) Several of Anthonye’s written works have survived, containing ‘Thirty two Preludes, Pavans, Galliards, Popular song tunes &c for the Cithern alone, their being twenty three others with accompaniment for Treble, Tenor and Bass Viols.’ (this being ‘The Cithern Schoole’ 1597) As an associate of Robert Dowlande a Duet, ‘My Heavy Spirite’ with Lute accompaniment by Anthonye is found in Dowlande’s ‘Musical Banquet’ of 1610, the year of Anthonye’s death. Some twelve years earlier in 1598 Antonye Holborne had written some commendatory lines (about Dowlande) and had them translated from his original Latin into the English for ‘Morley's Plain Introduction’ in 1608. at about that time Robert Dowlande dedicated the first song ‘I saw my ladye weepe’ of his second book to the ‘Most famous Anthonye Holborne.’

 The Composer was known to have been married and raised a family though his son Nicholas (of Berwick) and is known to have been a brother to William, he seems likely to have had grand children, and I believe he also had several brothers, also recorded in their individual right in the papers of the Surtees Society at York. For whereas William an RN Captain also became celebrated as a musician, and was included in his brothers manuscript ‘the Cithern Schoole’ with ‘Six short aers, neopolitan like, to three voyces without the instrument, the first-fruits of composition done by William Holborne’ no reference has yet been forthcoming about Thomas and Nicholas, their father being most probably a Merchant Adventurer of the City of York.8 These possible brothers include Nicholas (of Northumberland) and Thomas who is recorded as having held land at ‘Thorkleys,’ although some uncertainty in regard of origin still remains.

 Thomas of Thorkleye was said to have had a son named John. Further research might place this individual as that John who died in 1619, whom had been married to Margaret, who died a widow in 1625. John was a mariner, and although his children were raised in Newcastle, he is thought to have been buried in Denmark. It is certain that his three known children were named Roger, Margaret and Edward. Roger, the eldest son, later himself became a ‘Master Mariner’ and raised a family by his wife Catherine (nee) Smith, who lived until 1646. However, although a son named John was born in 1627, more is known of Edward’s children. His wife’s name is uncertain but by reference to his daughters, an educated guess is possible. His daughters were Jane (b1600/1), Elizabeth, born the following year and Ann, who was born around 1604 and whom wed to a Thomas Bodeley in 1626. Another child is recorded as living with this family, a Marjery, also born around 1600.

 Raiphe Holborne of Berwick, would appear to be a cousin of Anthonye, the composer who died in 1610. He was married to Eleanor Woodringstone, whose will survives from 1592/3 in which no mention of any child is cited except for her niece who was Katherine Holborne, whose legacy, the whole Will, consisted of a number of horses with sheep and cattle and a house, its furniture with some attached fields of wheat. Raiphe was the brother of Nicholas of Berwick. I have placed a theoretical succession of this line in another Yorkshireman described as John, the brother of Thomas (of Ellerton). Thomas’s will is dated 1664, and was proved in 1665 at the York registry. (Vol.47, folio 360).

 An ‘abstract from the Yorkshire Wills’ of 1665/6 (Volume 9), page 92 reveals some of the content of the Will of Ralph Bell, for 1665, a yeoman of Thirsk, in which William, Ralph, Sarah and Margaret Holborne were cited as his grandchildren. Each child received 40 shillings from the Will and Robert Holborne is mentioned as one of three of Bell’s son’s in law. The omission of the particular daughter to whom he was wed is unfortunate, it is also odd that only two granddaughters are mentioned, one having apparently been excluded, their having been mentioned three son’s in law ?~