His son and successor, Sir James Caldwell, describes his father, Sir John (died 1744):
“There was no man living, in my opinion, who had a livelier faith in the merits of our Saviour or a greater degree of honesty, charity and compassion.”
This panegyric is not undeserved as seen in the actions of Sir John in one incident which has come down, in which his actions are remembered. This, was the period of the Penal Laws in Ireland when the Roman Catholic population endured a series of laws designed to stifle them economically, politically and religiously. These laws varied in the intensity with which they were applied from place to place and from time to time. Sir John Caldwell chanced one day near his home to come upon a Roman Catholic congregation and a Franciscan priest at Mass under a hedge on a very wet and stormy day. A long silence prevailed, save for the wind and rain since Sir John could have had the priest arrested and tried for breaking the law and the tenants also harshly dealt with. Instead, although "a staunch Protestant", he treated the Roman Catholics with humanity and tenderness ordering his cows to be driven from a nearby cow shed and telling the priest and people, to shelter there from the weather and to finish their devotion in peace." This humanitarian incident was to be of benefit to one of Sir John's sons, Hume Caldwell, at a time and place vastly removed from Ireland. Hume Caldwell, who had joined the army of the Empress, Maria Theresa of The Holy Roman Empire, was at this stage of his career a Lieutenant stationed in Prague,. now the Czechoslovak capital city and he happened to fall into severe pecuniary embarrassment. A fire, accidentally started by a fallen taper, destroyed the furniture of his lodgings and his landlord applied to have his pay sequestered to make good the damage. Irish Franciscan Priests in that city heard of the affair and without Hume Caldwell's knowledge, paid the debt and lifted the sequestration being induced to do so by one of their brethern who recounted the above incident concerning Hume's father. I'
Sir John died in 1744 after a long illness leaving six sons and two daughters. He left his estate to his son, James who at the time of his death was abroad in France. To his wife Ann, he left twenty of his best cows, one of his best bulls and all of his plate, linen and china. She also had the use of a. large house on Rose Isle, beside the Erne waterfall at Belleek, known as Belleek Lodge to the family. Various other sums were left to his children, to his nurses and workers and to the poor.
The tenor of the man may be gauged from his burial wish that he wanted to have no people at his burial but his own labourers who are each to be given a guinea. He also makes a curious stipulation that if he is to be buried in the family vault, he is to be buried anywhere except near his Aunt Jane Johnston. This curious wish probably reflects a very cool period. in relations between the Caldwell and the Johnstons of Magheramena. He ends his rather blunt will with:
"I hope care will be taken that no rats will get into it (the vault), Jemmy Caldwell, I advise you to read your Grandfather's will, and if you have a mind to be happy, fulfill every article of it, especially to the poor of this end of the parish and keeping the chaple in order, according to the tenor of the will, which to my great sorrow I have neglected"
Sir James Caldwell 11 and his coat-of-arms with the Austrian addition to his arms of an Imperial Eagle with a ring on its breast to signify the ring the Empress Maria Theresa gave him.
Credit: The Bagshawes of Ford Hall by W. H. G. Bagshawe
Pages 88 to 91 – Castle Caldwell and Its Families.1980.
About the Castle there was a demesne of about 700 acres and a large workforce was required to run this. Writing to his son, John, in Canada in 1778, Sir James tells of having spent £16,000 on Castle Caldwell:
" Upon a most comfortable, good house and a very large court of excellent offices ... two very large walled gardens with fish ponds and a most beautiful temple, glazed with painted glass and a vast expenditure on a demesne of 700 acres, making it three times worth as much as what it was that I may say you'll have a place allowed to be the most beautiful in England or Ireland. I have also preserved for you most valuable and ornamental woods and managed the estate to the best advantage."
Many of the workers on the estate seem to have been casual employees to judge from a letter to the Rev. Philip Skelton, the local minister from Sir James-"Since you came to this parish, whether I was at home or abroad, no person, let him be ever so old, ever so young, or ever so sickly was ever denied a day's work in any season or weather, all getting the same wages, tobacco and whiskey and sometimes provisions, without any distinction, no abatement ever made for their coming late, no, nor were they even 'checked' for it, though coming after ten o'clock-work always found for the old and weak proportioned to their strength, every person treated with mildness and lenity and allowed to work as he pleased, paid punctually and honestly, "nay, sometimes paid more than they themselves said was due, money advanced to them on all occasions, work found for every horse they thought proper to bring, spinning given to all their women, advice, drugs, cordials and proper provisions given to all their sick; protection and advice to the weak in all emergencies."
The Reverend Skelton came often to Castle Caldwell both socially and to preach. He and Sir lames got on very well together and combined to help with famine relief in the Pettigo area in 177l.22 Skelton sold his beloved book collection for £80 and as well as personal aid, Sir lames collected among his friends at home and abroad. Skelton had an eccentric habit of holding occasional 'examination' services at which he would lock the church doors and conduct a personal examination of the religious knowledge of the congregation. He used to announce these services in advance until he found that the congregation virtually disappeared on that particular Sunday and in response, he stopped announcing and ambushed the congregation instead.
In relation to Castle Caldwell and its owner, the Reverend Skelton's biographer writes that he:
“ … preached once in the month on a Sunday in his parlour, where he had a tolerable congregation and used to examine the people there in their religion. He was once examining some persons of quality there, when one of them told him there were two Gods and another-three and so on. One of them, indeed, who had nothing to say every question he was asked, made a genteel bow in which he was much better instructed than in religion.
Sir James, like his father before, seems to have been a most generous and enlightened landlord and for him religion was a most important part of his affairs. He drew up a prayer which he commanded his workers to say every morning when they heard the Castle bell ring out. He reminded them of their coming judgement day in asking them to recite this prayer and promised rewards for obedience and dismissal for failure to do his wishes.
"Let me entreat you by all that is good and valuable in this world and the next-let me beseech you by the tender mercies of God-let me conjure you by the agonies and blood of your crucified Saviour, to get the prayer I have sent you by heart and to take good heed of what it contains ... If even one immortal soul is by this means rescued from eternal misery, it will be the greatest happiness and satisfaction to me who am your beloved friend, James Caldwell.”
Sir James was most anxious as we see for the spiritual welfare of his tenants and he asked several of his friends to compose a prayer which his workers might say especially those who might be 'pilferers or malefactors'. The Rev. Skelton refused to compose a prayer on the grounds that he thought 'the people would pray and pilfer; pray with one hand up and pilfer with the other in the pocket of him who kneels next' .26 But Dr. Hawksworth, a notable literary friend of Sir James did compose a suitable workers prayer for the Baronet. Hawkesworth was a major literary friend of Dr. Samuel Johnson, but his name has not longer the stature it would have had in the mid eighteenth century when with Johnston, Hawkesworth was a member of the Ivy Lane Club and both more associated with various literary project of the period such as 'The Gentleman's Magazine and The Adventurer' Both were friends of Sir James and one of the major incidents of Johnson's life as recorded by Boswell in his famous book, owes its existence to a letter from Johnston to Sir James. Dr. Hawkesworth's prayer composed in May, 1771 is entitled" A Prayer for the Labourers of the Field when the Bell Rings."
"O God, the creator and the judge of all who for the first offence against the Holy Law last ordained that 'man should eat his bread in the sweat of his brow' give us we beseech thee Grace to labour honestly, diligently and without repining or discontent. Make us thankful that for the poor these are treasures in Heaven and let us not for any perishable good, expose our souls to that everlasting torment in which the rich man lifted up his eyes, and begged in vain for a drop of water to cool his tongue. Preserve us 0 Lord, we beseech thee from theft, drunkeness, sloth and all other deadly sin, give us in this life that peace which the world cannot take away and everlasting happiness in the world to come through the merits of Jesus Christ, our God and Saviour. Amen."
It is not known if this prayer was that enforced at the Castle, but it would appear in rather elevated language and another prayer which survives as a more easily understood alternative:-
"O Lord my God I am required by my employer at the sound of the bell which
I now hear to fall down before thee to think upon and bless thy holy name. Grant therefore, O Lord that I may now properly and effectively fulfill his good and charitable purposes ... that by thy blessing I may continue strong to labour so as to provide for myself and family the necessities of life without depending on charity much lesson any Knavish or dishonest means etc .... "
I think it is easy to see the landlord's hand in the composition of this second prayer, bent on getting over a few solid practical points- (a) to the Lord and (b) to the tenant. An interesting point about these prayers was that Sir lames ordered them to be translated into Irish to be taught to the workers indicating that the Irish language was still very strong in the district in the late 18th century.
There was also a prayer of repentance which a malefactor had to recite if he was apprehended. This prayer would have to be recited by a Catholic in front of all his assembled workmates and overseer or by a Protestant in front of the assembled congregation at service. We may think little of this whole religious deterrent and penalistic system, but Sir lames did like it for a quite humane and practical purpose as it gave him an alternative to sending a culprit to jail. With jails what they were in those days, this embarrassing or humiliating exposure was of one's faults, was a comparative minor discomfort. Indeed it was obviously too minor a discomfort as Arthur Young in his visit to the Castle some years later records, 'The common people are remarkably given to thieving, particularly grass, timber and turf and they bring up their children to hoking potatoes, that is artfully raising them, taking out the best roots and replanting them so that the owner is perfectly deceived when he takes up the crop.” As a landlord, Sir lames adjudged himself even perhaps too generous and lenient:
" Since I came to my estate, I have never had a single beast appraised, impounded or even driven nor have I ever had any suit in any court of justice, though many of my tenants have gone off full-handed (some to the glebe of this parish), who have not as yet paid me."
He probably was very lenient as one such tenant who ran away from his farm in December of 1772 was Peter Clancy who left owing £17. 15s. 5d. which indicates that he owed several years rent at this time."
One religious issue in which Sir James involved himself was the siteing of the proposed new Church in the Belleek area in 1775. The Bishop intended building at Tawnynoran some miles from Belleek but Sir James and many of his fellow worshippers wanted it built in the village itself. Pettigo was the site of the parish church but the difficulties of winter and the poor roads made a much closer place of worship desirable. Mr. John Ellis was willing to give land in Belleek for the proposed church and other advantages were enumerated in a petition to the Bishop upon the matter. These advantages included stabling for the worshippers' horses, shelter in houses for the congregation until service began, the better availability of lime and timber for building and the assertion that Belleek would be a better place for the clergyman to live in. It was claimed that Belleek would be a better place for the church as it was at the junction of five roads and on the Erne waterway to Belturbet and was very central for the Protestants of the area. The disposition of Protestants in the area is interesting to reflect upon today as the petition tells of fifty six houses in Belleek of which thirteen were Protestant with eleven more families within one mile on the Fermanagh side of the town in the Pettigo parish and only seven more between that and Castle Caldwell and not one Protestant family from there to Rossharbour. A church in Belleek would be very convenient for many of those Magheraboy Protestants who had to go to the chaple-of-ease at Slavin and for 30 families of Protestants in Kilbarron Parish who were only a half mile from Belleek and two and a half from Ballyshannon, besides which there was a factory of Protestant weavers within a ¼ of a mile of the town. Those who signed the petition are interesting for the many names which still survive in the area two hundred years later.
They were:
Thomas Johnston, Robert Allingham, George McDonald, John Kirkpatrick, John Allingham, John Ellis, Hugh Killeen William Graham, Thomas Ellis, James Caldwell, John Johnston, Patrick Hamilton and James Johnston.
Despite these best endeavours the church however was not built in Belleek and instead about twenty years later it was built on the hill above Castle Caldwell after Sir James's death.
Where exactly the Roman Catholic Mass houses were in the area of this period is unknown but Sir James no doubt looked after his tenants in this regard since in Enniskillen he presented the Roman Catholics of that parish with a Burgess acre at Toneystick near the town as a site for their place of worship and erected a church thereon. He was on very friendly terms with the then Roman Catholic Bishop of Clogher. Bishop Kernan and the gift arose from this friendship. His action was applauded in letters from Lord Taafe and the Titular Bishop of Kilmore.
The renovation of the castle about 1660 was the first major renovation this place had since the Caldwells obtained the property and was part of the marriage settlement between Sir James and Elizabeth Hort, third daughter of Most Rev. Josiah Hort D.D., Lord Archbishop of Tuam. This young lady brought £10,000 with her as her dowry to this union of these two families in 1753. The couple were married in Dublin Kiltyclogher Lord Shelburne's by the Lord Primate of Ireland and the Lord Chancellor of Ireland gave Elizabeth away. Lord Shelburne, later Prime Minister of England, was married to a sister of Elizabeth Hort and this was obviously a great match for Sir James, both socially and politically and financially. To cap what was obviously the social wedding of the year; the ceremony was attended by the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Lord George Sackville, later Duke of Dorset.
