About this objectHenry visited Hitchin in the 1520s to hunt, possibly staying at Maydencroft Manor, Gosmore. He almost died twice here - his lodgings caught fire, and he nearly drowned in a ditch.
The Chronicle of Edward Hall refers to his accident “In the yere the king folowynge of his hauke, lept over a diche beside Hychyn, with a polle and the polle brake, so that if one Edmond Mody, a foteman, had not lept into the water, and lift up his hed, which was fast in the clay, he had been drowned; but God of his goodness preserved him.”
Edmund Moody was awarded a pension of 4d (pennies) a day for the rest of his life. Tom Williams the current owner of Maydencroft Manor worked this out to be £8.67/day or £3,120/year in today’s money. Back then, enough to buy 4 horses, 15 cows or the equivalent of 200 days wages for a skilled tradesman.
