He has spent some time at an inn, the Three Bottles, probably so the scars of the fight can fade before he shows his face again at home. Might we guess that Phillip was a bare-knuckle prize-fighter? This early form of boxing had been banned some years earlier but, as with cock-fighting today, still went on in secret. The sport only officially returned as “boxing” with the acceptance of the Marquis of Queensberry’s rules in 1867.
Phillip has fallen in love with Elizabeth and he reminds her of the promises they have made to each other. He tries to arrange to see her soon at the Air Balloon inn. This inn is still there at the bottom of the A417 hill running down from Birdlip towards Cheltenham. We should not be too surprised at the name: the Montgolfier Brothers had pioneered hot air balloons in France in 1783 and the air currents round Birdlip were excellent for English trials of the new sport.
We hear of difficulties with the roads: it is almost laughable today that one living in Cirencester should have trouble getting to Cheltenham, but the roads of Phillip’s day were nothing like those of today. What had been mere mud tracks were being upgraded with the advent of the Turn-Pike roads, whose upkeep was paid for by imposing tolls on the traveller, but they were far from the standard we would expect today. They were also the haunt of highwaymen who would extract an extra charge for using the road. Phillip is worried about Elizabeth getting to the inn as well she lives in Oxenton, 6½ miles the other side of Cheltenham.
By the second letter, it would appear that Phillip has taken employment as a toll-gate keeper at Purton. There were three gates in Purton guarding the finances of the Wootton Bassett to Cricklade road. Of these the Collins Lane Gate is the best preserved. We also begin to understand the postal system of the day … there wasn’t one. You hoped that someone you knew was going that direction and would leave your letter somewhere near its destination.
The third letter in the series, as the second, is full of apologies for missed appointments. It is obviously difficult for Phillip to get time away from his post and pressure of work is obviously not solely an end-of-Millennium problem. Elizabeth is, not surprisingly, annoyed at being stood up and he tries to pacify her with a collection of presents.
But what are we to make of these garters which she would allow “the boys” to remove? No honourable lady would allow any such thing whether as part of Whitsuntide revels or not. Elizabeth clearly now has a child and the tone of Phillip’s letters suggests he is the father. And we have the reference to her “friends” again. Could it be that they offer some form of comfort to travellers on the Cheltenham to Tewkesbury turn-pike road as it passes through Oxenton?
If this is all true, it is no wonder that the letters are to be kept secret. Almost childishly so if we read the bottom of the first letter, where Phillip has apparently written his name in invisible ink – that’s only lemon juice! – so that their secret will remain.
Some three years after the first letter, we learn in Letter 4 that Phillip is seriously ill while staying with his sister who writes to Elizabeth. Whether these “violent influxiations of the chest” were influenza, bronchitis or tuberculosis doesn’t really matter much – they were all potentially fatal, and proved to be so for Phillip. However, even on his death bed, he is still concerned about his lover and their baby son. Letter number five from the sister is in fact an object lesson in how not to break the news of the death of a loved one, but still shows concern for Elizabeth from the bereaved family. Letter No 6 has a bequest of £2 which would have been an enormous sum of money in those days for what is evidently not a well-educated (i.e: wealthy) family.
It is interesting to note that Phillip had a tidy handwriting style which was about as much as one could expect from the Dame School education that the poorer boys might have had in those days. His spelling very much resembles the way he spoke and you can hear a strong Wiltshire accent in the spelling errors.
His sister, Sarah, would probably have received no education at all other than what she picked up on her own account. Her writing is much more difficult to read and she must have had help with letter number 4 as it is in a different league from her final two letters.
It is to me a touching story of two lovers divided by only some 30 miles but which must have seemed to them as far as crossing the Atlantic for us today. It is sprinkled with failed attempts to meet and with misunderstandings but the feelings must have been strong for their families to have supported them as they did.
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