Life In the Town & Country
Informant for the government.
Daniel was a staunch Royalist, even to the point of giving evidence to the government against others if they were to exhibit behavior in any way negative toward the King.
In August 1663 he wrote a letter from Hunsden-house, London, addressed to Lord Arlington concerning some worries he had about certain dissenters considered belligerent men in the neighborhood.29
He enclosed lists of names with addresses and comments about each one.
He volunteered to give evidence if they were ever to start anything.
There was a second letter written a few months later from Eggarton expressing concern about rebellious Presbyterians.30
London was a city of more than 500,000 people, by far the largest in Europe at the time.
Overcrowding and unsanitary conditions spread even the least outbreak of plague into a serious danger of death for all.
The “Great Plague” began in the Autumn of 1664 and by December of 1665 some precincts of the city had become entirely deserted.
75,000 had died and many more had fled.
Then on September 2, 1666 came the worst fire in London’s history lasting four days till all but the northeastern and extreme western parts remained.31
It was on August 25 just before the fire that Daniel, while at his residence in Eggarton, in the parish of Godmersham, expressed by word of mouth his last will and testament.32
He probably died rather soon, but the will was not proved in court until the later part of September.32
Provisions of Daniel’s will.
Daniel made the following provisions in his will:
1) that William Fysher, the silk throster of London, should, together with his own oldest daughter Deborah Gotherson supervise the disposition of all his property in Kent
in order to pay his debts and support his wife Dorothy and their children;
2) his house and marshland in Rumney Marsh, Kent, however, was not to be sold so that the rents might support his wife and children;
3) his lands in Long Island were to be disposed of as follows:
3,000 acres to William Fisher, 3,000 acres to his daughter Deborah,
3,000 acres to Jane Brymington and her son, 3,000 acres,
and the rest to his wife and children including the child that she was “enseint” with,33
4) to William Fisher and Elizabeth Craydon of St. Martins in the Fields, spinster, the four tenements of freehold in Three Tunne Alley in Southwark, Surrey;
5) to them also what remained of a lease of a tenement in Kennington, Lambeth, Surrey, together with its orchard and garden,
(he executed two deeds of gift to secure these last two bequests).
William Fisher and his daughter Deborah Gotherson were to act as the executors.
Little did he know that John Scott had squandered his lands on Long Island in his bid for power the previous year.
