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DR. FULLER S 



WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 



IN THREE VOLUMES. 
VOL. I. 



1 iilNTlCD BY NUTTALL AND HODGSON, 
GOUGH SQUARE, LONDON. 







65, iffffj. 






THE 



HISTORY 



OF THK 



WORTHIES OF ENGLAND: 

BY 

THOMAS FULLER, D.D. 

AUTHOR OK " ABfl, RED1 VIVUS," " THK CHUU&lt;;H HISTORY OV BIUIVUV/ &c. 

A NEW EDITION, 

( OVTAI.VINO BRIEF NOTICES OP THB MOST CELEBRATE!) WORTHIBS OP ENOJ.A.VI) WHO 
HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE THE TIMB OK PULLEH ; 

WITH EXPLANATORY NOTES AND COPIOUS INDEXES. 

BY P. AUSTIN NUTTALL, LL. D. 

AUTHOR OP THK "CLASSICAL AMI) ARCH.EOI,OGICAI. DICTIOffAR Y ;" 
TRANSLATOR OK HORACE, JUVENAL, &Q. 



IN THREE VOLUMES. 

VOL. I. 



LONDON: 
PRINTED FOR THOMAS TEGG, 7-i, CIIEAPSIDE. 

M OCCC.XL. 



THE 



HISTORY 



OF THE 



WORTHIES 



OF 



ENGLAND. 



Endeavoured by 

Thomas Fuller, D.D. 




L O N D N, 
Printed by J. G. W. L. and IF. G. MDCLXII. 



EDITOR S PREFACE. 



THE " History of the WORTHIES of ENGLAND" is a Work univer 
sally allowed to be the most worthy of all the productions of the witty 
and learned Fuller. He wrote in an age when quaintness and humour 
were appreciated as the peculiar characteristics of the scholar, the bio- 
grapher, and the historian. None delighted more in puns, epigram, and 
wit, whether worthy or unworthy, than the worthy Doctor ; and of all 
the various works enumerated in the ensuing Memoir, his " WORTHIES," 
as being the last and most laboured effort of his pen, are not only 
fuller in useful matter and varied interest, but (as a punster of his own 
day would have said) fuller in spirit and fuller in wit ; in fact Fuller 
throughout, 

" Strong without rage, without o crflowing^/M//-" 

The first edition of Dr. Fuller s " Worthies " was published posthu 
mously, under the revision and superintendance of his son, by whom it 
was especially dedicated to "the witty monarch" Charles the Second. 
It appeared in 1662, in one folio volume ; and it certainly presents a 
curious specimen, as compared with modern times, of the unsightly ty 
pography of the day, and of the difficulties attending the publication of 
extensive works. The Editor appears to have been compelled to dis 
tribute the copy among different printers, commencing at every stage 
with a new series of folios, and leaving at intervals most awful 
gaps ; the Work being thus considered of too vast a magnitude for 
one establishment alone to undertake ! " The discounting of sheets, to 
expedite the work at several presses (says the Editor) hath occasioned 
the often mistake of the folios." At the same time, there being neither 
a summary of Contents to the volume, nor a general Index, the fulness 
of worthy Fuller s worth was not fully developed. 

In 1811, a new edition, in two volumes quarto, made its appearance, 
under the editorial superintendance of Mr. John Nichols, proprietor of 
the Gentleman s Magazine, with which the Editor was many years 
connected. In this edition Mr. Nichols has occasionally introduced 
some useful notes, contributed by Sir Egerton Brydges, Mr. J. Britton, Sir 
Henry Ellis, Mr. Alexander Chalmers, Mr. Malone, Dr. Bliss, and 
others, as well as by himself. Of these the Editor has generally availed 
himself ; but many of Mr. Nichols s notes appeared so jejune, and 
at the present time so inapplicable, that editorial expurgation be 
came absolutely necessary. For instance, there could be little interest in 
informing the reader aldermannic gastronomy being no longer appre 
ciated as a civic accomplishment that Mr. Nichols perfectly coincided 



viii EDITOR S PREFACE. 

in opinion with Dr. Fuller on the " important topic " that " Cow-heele well 
dressed is good meat, that a cook when hungry may lick his fingers 
after it !" (i. p. 288) ; or that " Suffolk is not the particular county which 
a modern epicure would select for the finest cheese !" Nor did the 
Editor consider it necessary to reprint the innumerable and useless re 
ferences to the History of Leicestershire, the Gentleman s Magazine, 
and other works in which Mr. Nichols had a proprietary interest. 
Neither has the Editor thought proper to preserve the antiquated 
orthography, the vague punctuation, or the ridiculous system of 
italicising, &c., so peculiar to the age in which Fuller wrote, and 
which Mr. Nichols, in mere imitation of a semi-barbarous system 
of typography, has " considered most advisable to preserve pure 
and unmixed !" as if the splendid compositions of Shakspeare, of 
Milton, and of Dryden, would be rendered more acceptable to 
modern times by being clothed in the vague and unintelligible or 
thography of the age in which they wrote. Alas ! "tempora mutantur, 
et mutamur in illis." But Mr. Nichols appears to have been so much 
devoted to the very semblance of hoar antiquity as even to copy the ac 
knowledged or self-evident errors of Fuller s edition. Thus, although 
the author expressly points out and apologizes for the mistake, the Duke 
of Monmouth is again placed under the county of Radnor instead of 
Monmouth ! the list of Errata contained in the original edition is 
literally reprinted, without the errors having been corrected! the 
reference to Hatcher s "MS. eight," instead of " MS. Catalogue," 
(i. p. 142) is repeated! the typographical blunders occurring in Latin 
inscriptions (as " in omni gradus," " conjugi sm ," &c. p. 143) are 
faithfully copied ! the counties of Anglesea and Brecknock are headed 
as belonging to England ! &c. 

In producing this edition of a valuable standard work, the Editor 
has not only presented it to the Public in a portable and modernized 
form, but he has also appended to each county an alphabetical list of all 
the celebrated Worthies connected therewith, who have flourished since 
the time of Fuller, briefly stating for what they have been distin 
guished, with the respective periods of their births and deaths ; and to 
enable the reader to obtain further information relative to any parti 
cular individual, a brief summary of all the most important topographical 
works connected with each county is uniformly annexed, which, it is 
presumed, will be found extremely useful in directing and facilitating the 
inquiries of the reader. In order, moreover, to present a synoptical 
view of the various matters, &c. contained in the work, the Editor has 
prefixed to each volume a minute table of Contents, which, though 
given in a very condensed form, exhibits at one view alt the differ 
ent heads comprehended under each county ; and the general Indexes, 
which have been compiled with some labour, will afford great facility in 
referring to any subject or name contained in the three volumes. 

Sept. 1840. P. A. N. 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR, 



DR. THOMAS FULLER, son of the Rev. Thomas Fuller, rec 
tor of Aldwinkle St. Peter * in the county of Northampton, was 
born there in 1608. The chief assistance he had in the rudi 
ments of learning was from his father, under whom he made so 
extraordinary a progress, that he was sent at twelve years of 
age to Queen s College in Cambridge ; Dr. Davenant, who was 
his mother s brother, being then master of it, and soon after 
bishop of Salisbury. He took his degrees in Arts, and would 
have been fellow of the college ; but, there being no vacancy 
for his county, he removed to Sidney in the same university. 
He had not been long there, before he was chosen minister of 
St. Sennet s in the town of Cambridge, In 1631, he obtained 
a fellowship in Sidney College, and at the same time a prebend f 
in the church of Salisbury. This year also he issued his first 
publication, a work of the poetical kind, now but little known. 
It was a divine poem, entitled, " David s Hainous Sin, Heartie 
Repentances, and Heavie Punishment," in a thin octavo. 

He was soon after ordained priest, and presented to the rec 
tory of Broad Windsor in Dorsetshire ; where he married, and 
had one son, but lost his wife about 1641. During his retire 
ment at this rectory, he began to complete several works he 
had planned at Cambridge 5 but, growing weary of a country 
parish, and uneasy at the unsettled state of public affairs, he 
removed to London ; and distinguished himself so much in the 
pulpits there, that he was invited by the master and brother 
hood of the Savoy to be their lecturer. 

To which he had been presented by William Cecil earl of Exeter. 

f He styles himself Prebendarhis PrcbencUirides, in his "Appeal of injured In 
nocence," addressed to Dr. Heylin, folio, part iii. p. 47 ; a book recommended to 
notice by Mr. Granger for its spirit and pleasantry. 

b 



X MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

In 1640, he published his " History of the Holy War ; " which 
was printed at Cambridge in folio. 

April 13, 1640, a Parliament was called ; and then also a Con 
vocation began at Westminster, in Henry the Seventh s chapel, 
of which our author was a member. He continued at the Savoy, 
to the great satisfaction of his people, and the neighbouring 
nobility and gentry, labouring all the while in private and in 
public to serve the king. To this end, on the anniversary of his 
inauguration, March 27, 1642, he preached at Westminster Ab 
bey, on this text, 2 Sam. xix. 30, " Yea, let him take all, so 
that my lord the king return in peace :" which sermon being 
printed, gave great offence to those who were engaged in the 
opposition, and brought the preacher into no small danger. He 
soon found that he must expect to be silenced and ejected, as 
others had been ; yet desisted not till he either was, or thought 
himself, unsettled. This appears from what he says in the pre 
face to his " Holy State," which was printed in folio that same 
year at Cambridge. 

In April 1643, he conveyed himself to the king at Oxford, 
who received him gladly. As his majesty had heard of his ex 
traordinary abilities in the pulpit, he was now desirous of know 
ing them personally ; and accordingly Fuller preached before 
him at St. Mary s church. His fortune upon this occasion was 
very singular. He had before preached and published a sermon 
in London, upon "the new moulding Church reformation/ 
which caused him to be censured as too hot a royalist : and now, 
from his sermon at Oxford, he was thought to be too lukewarm : 
which can only be ascribed to his moderation, which he would 
sincerely have inculcated in each party, as the only means of 
reconciling both. He resolved, however, to recover the opinion 
of his fidelity to the royal cause, by openly trying his fortune 
under the royal army ; and therefore, being well recommended 
to Sir Ralph Hopton, in 1643, he was admitted by him in qua 
lity of chaplain. For this employment he was quite at liberty, 
being deprived of all other preferment. And now, attending 
the army from place to place, he constantly exercised his duty 
as chaplain ; yet found proper intervals for his beloved studies, 
which he employed chiefly in making historical collections, and 
especially in gathering materials for his "Worthies of England." 
How assiduous he was in his researches, and extensive in his 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. XI 

correspondence, for that purpose, may appear in his Memorial 
ist. This author informs us, that, " while he was in progress 
with the king s army, his business and study then was a kind of 
errantry ; having proposed to himself a more exact collection 
of the Worthies General of England ; in which others had waded 
before, but he resolved to go through. In what place soever 
therefore he came, of remark especially, he spent most of his 
time in views and researches of their antiquities and church 
monuments ; insinuating himself into the acquaintance, which 
frequently ended in a lasting friendship, of the learnedest and 
gravest persons residing within the place, thereby to inform 
himself fully of those things he thought worthy the commenda 
tion of his labours. It is an incredible thing to think what a 
numerous correspondence the Doctor maintained and enjoyed 
by this means. Nor did the good Doctor ever refuse to light 
his candle, in investigating truth, from the meanest persons 
discovery. He would endure contentedly an hour or more im 
pertinence from any aged church officer, or other superannuated 
people, for the gleaning of two lines to his purpose. And though 
his spirit was quick and nimble, and all the faculties of his mind 
ready and answerable to that activity of despatch ; yet, in these 
inquests, he would stay and attend those circular rambles till 
they came to a point ; so resolute was he bent to the sifting out 
of abstruse antiquity. Nor did he ever dismiss such adjutators 
or helpers, as he pleased to style them, without giving them 
money and cheerful thanks besides.* 

After the battle at Cheriton Down, March 29, 1644, lord 
Hopton drew on his army to Basing House ; and Fuller, being 
left there by him, animated the garrison to so vigorous a defence 
of that place, that Sir William Waller was obliged to raise 
the siege with considerable loss. But the war hasten 
ing to an end, and part of the king s army being driven into 
Cornwall under Lord Hopton, Fuller, having leave of that 
nobleman, took refuge at Exeter ; where he resumed his 
studies, and preached constantly to the citizens. Du 
ring his residence here, he was appointed chaplain to the 
princess Henrietta Maria, who was born at Exeter in June 1643 ; 
and the king soon after gave him a patent for his presentation 

* Life of Dr. Fuller, p. 27. 
b 2 



Xll MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

to the living of Dorchester in Dorsetshire. He continued his 
attendance on the princess, till the surrender of Exeter to the 
parliament, in April 1646 ; but did not accept the living, because 
he determined to remove to London at the expiration of the 
war. He relates an extraordinary circumstance which happened 
during the siege of Exeter.* " When the city of Exeter," says 
he, ie was besieged by the Parliamentary forces, so that only the 
south side thereof towards the sea was open to it, incredible 
numbers of larks were found in that open quarter, for multitude 
like quails in the wilderness ; though, blessed be God, unlike 
them in the cause and effect ; as not desired with man^s destruc 
tion, nor sent with God^s anger : as appeared by their safe di 
gestion into wholesome nourishment. Hereof I was an eye and 
mouth witness. I will save my credit in not conjecturing any 
number ; knowing that herein, though I should stoop beneath 
the truth, I should mount above belief. They were as fat as 
plentiful ; so that being sold for two-pence a dozen and under, 
the poor who could have no cheaper, and the rich no better 
meat, used to make pottage of them, boiling them down therein. 
Several causes were assigned hereof, &c. ; but the cause of causes 
was the Divine Providence, thereby providing a feast for many 
poor people, who otherwise had been pinched for provision." 
When he came to London, he met but a cold reception among 
his former parishioners, and found his lecturer s place filled by 
another. However, it was not long before he was chosen lec 
turer at St. Clement s Lane, near Lombard Street ; and shortly 
after removed his lecture to St. Bride^s in Fleet Street. 

In 1647, he published, in 4to., "A Sermon of Assurance? 
fourteen years ago preached at Cambridge ; since, in other places &gt; 
now, by the importunity of his friends, exposed to public view.-" 
He dedicated it to Sir John Danvers, who had been a royalist, 
was then an Oliverian, and next year one of the king s judges ; 
and in the dedication he says, that "it had been the pleasure 
of the present authority to make him mute ; forbidding him till 
further order the exercise of his public preaching." 

About 1648, he was presented to the perpetual curacy of 
West Waltham,f otherwise called Waltham Abbey, in Essex, 
by James Hay earl of Carlisle, whose chaplain he was just be- 

* See p. 443 of the present volume. 

| Newcourt dates this preferment in 1640. Repertory, vol. II, p. 631. 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. X11I 

fore made. He spent that and the following year betwixt Lon 
don and Waltham, employing some engravers to adorn his copi 
ous prospect or view of the Holy Land, as from Mount Pisgah ; 
therefore called his " Pisgah-sight of Palestine and the confines 
thereof; with the history of the Old and New Testament acted 
thereon," which he published in 1650. It is a handsome folio, 
embellished with a frontispiece and many other copper plates, 
and divided into five books. 

As for his " Worthies of England," on which he had been la 
bouring so long, the death of the king for a time disheartened 
him from the continuance of that work ; " For what shall I write," 
says he, " of the Worthies of England, when this horrid act will 
bring such an infamy upon the whole nation, as will ever cloud 
and darken all its former, and suppress its future, rising glories ? 
He was therefore busy, till the year last mentioned, in prepar 
ing that book and others ; and the next year he rather employed 
himself in publishing some particular lives of religious reformers, 
martyrs, confessors, bishops, doctors, and other learned divines, 
foreign and domestic, than in augmenting his book of English 
Worthies in general. To this collection, which was executed 
by several hands, as he tells us in the preface, he gave the title 
of "Abel Redivivus," and published it in 4to, 1651. 

And now, having lived above twelve years a widower, he 
married a sister of the viscount Baltinglasse about 1654; and 
the next year she brought him a son, who, as well as the other 
before mentioned, survived his father. 

In 1656, he published, in folio, "The Church History of Bri 
tain, from the birth of Jesus Christ to the year 1648;" to 
which work are subjoined, "The History of the University of 
Cambridge since the Conquest," and " The History of Waltham 
Abbey in Essex, founded by king Harold." His Church His 
tory was animadverted upon by Dr. Heylin in his " Examen 
Historicum ;" and this drew from our author a reply; after 
which they had no further controversy, but were very well re 
conciled. 

A short time before the Restoration, Fuller was re-admitted 
to his lecture in the Savoy, and on that event restored to his 
prebend of Salisbury. 

He was chosen chaplain extraordinary to the king ; created 
Doctor of Divinity at Cambridge by a mandamus, dated August 
2, 1660; and, had he lived a twelvemonth longer, would pro- 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

bably have been raised to a bishopric. But, on his return from 
Salisbury in August 1661, he was attacked by a fever, of which 
he died the 16th of that month. His funeral was attended by 
at least two hundred of his brethren ; and a sermon was preached 
by Dr. Hardy, dean of Rochester, in which a great and noble 
character was given of him. 

In 1662, was published in folio, with an engraving of him * 
prefixed, his "History of the Worthies of England." This 
work, which was part of it printed before the author died, seems 
not, in the lives or characters in some of the counties, especially 
of Wales, so finished as it would probably have been, if he had 
lived to see it completely published. It is entitled, " The His 
tory of the Worthies of England : Endeavoured by Thomas 
Fuller, D.D. folio, 1662 :" with a sculpture of his effigies pre 
fixed, engraved by David Loggan, having this inscription round 
it, " Tomas Fuller, S. T. D. at. 53, 1661 ;" this motto at top, 
" Methodus Mater Memorise ;" and these verses at bottom : 

" The Graver here hath well thy face designed : 
But no hand, FULLER, can express thy mind ; 
For that, a resurrection gives to those, 
Whom silent monuments did long enclose." 

Being a posthumous publication, it was dedicated to king 
Charles the Second, by the author s son, Mr. John Fuller, a 
young divine of Cambridge, in the following terms : 

" TO HIS SACRED MAJESTY. 

" Most dread Sovereign : 

" The tender of these ensuing collections is made with as much 
fear and reverence, as it was intended with duty and devotion 
by the author whilst living. The obligation that lieth upon me 
to endeavour him all right, forced me unto this presumption. 
It is the first voice I ever uttered in this kind ; and I hope it will 
be neither displeasing to your Majesty, or blamed by the world ; 
whilst (not unlike that of the son of Croesus) it sounds loyalty 
to my sovereign, and duty to my father. The matter of this 
work, for the most part, is the description of such native and 
peculiar commodities as the several counties of your kingdom 
afford, with a revival of the memories of such persons which 
have in each county been eminent for parts or learning. If 
this age abound with the like, it is their glory ; if not, the pe- 

1 There is a different portrait of him in a small quarto size, taken at an earlier 
period of his life, his right hand on a book, prefixed to his " Abel Redivivus." 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. XV 

rusal may perhaps beget in them a noble emulation of their 
ancestors. May your Majesty s reign be happy and long, to 
see your country s commodities improved, and your worthies 
multiplied ! So prayeth, 

Your Majesty s meanest subject, 

The Author s orphan, 

JOHN FULLER. 

And in a preface the reader is thus addressed : 

" Reader, thou hast here presented to thy view a Collection 
of the Worthies of England ; which might have appeared larger, 
had God spared (my dear father) the author life. At his death 
there remained unprinted, the bishopric of Durham, the coun 
ties of Derby, Dorset, Gloucester, Norfolk, Northampton, Nor 
thumberland, Nottingham, Oxford, Rutland, with part of Kent, 
Devonshire, and the cities of London and Westminster; which 
now at length (according to the copy the author left behind him, 
without the least addition,) are made public. 

" It is needless here to acquaint thee with the nature of the 
work, it being already fully set down in the first sixteen sheets 
thereof. Yet thou mayest be pleased to take notice, that (al 
though the title promiseth thee only the History of the Wor 
thies of England) in the end there is added a short description 
of the Principality of Wales. The discounting of sheets (to ex 
pedite the work at several presses) hath occasioned the often 
mistake of the folios.* Whatever faults else occur in this im 
pression, it is my request, that thou wouldest score them on my 
want of care or skill in correcting the same, that they may not 
in the least reflect on the credit of my dead father. 

* 

"JOHN FULLER." 

This book, though never wholly reprinted, has been partly 
revived in epitomes of the whole ;t or dividedly, in a work, geo 
graphical, historical, and political, whereof the second part is 
abstracted from these lives. J 

Besides the works already mentioned in the course of this 
memoir, Dr. Fuller was the author of several others of a smaller 
nature; as, 1. " Good thoughts in Bad Times:" 2. "Good 




Dictionary 



XVI MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

Thoughts in Worse Times." These two pieces, printed separately, 
the former in 1645, the latter in 1647, were published together 
in 1652. He afterwards published, in 1660-3, " Mixed Con 
templations in Better Times." 4. " Andronicus : or The Unfor 
tunate Politician. Lond. 1649," 8 vo. 5. "The Triple Recon 
ciler; stating three controversies, viz. whether ministers have 
an exclusive power of barring communicants from the sacra 
ment; whether any person unordained may lawfully preach; 
and whether the Lord^s Prayer ought not to be used by all 
Christians, 1654," 8vo. 6. "The Speech of Birds; also of 
Flowers ; partly moral, partly mystical, 1660," 8vo. 

He published also a great many sermons, separately and in 
volumes. 

Dr. Fuller was in his person tall and well made, but no way 
inclining to corpulency ; his complexion was florid ; and his 
hair of a light colour and curling. He was a kind husband to 
both his wives, a tender father to both his children, a good 
friend and neighbour, and a well-behaved civilized person in 
every respect. He was a most agreeable companion, having a 
great deal of wit ; too much, as it should seem, since he could 
not forbear mixing it in his most serious compositions. 

Of the powers of his memory, such wonders are related as 
are not quite credible. He could repeat five hundred strange 
words after twice hearing ; and could make use of a sermon 
verbatim, if he once heard it. He undertook, in passing from 
Temple Bar to the furthest part of Cheapside, to tell at his re 
turn every sign as it stood in order on both sides of the way, 
repeating them either backwards or forwards ; and he did it ex 
actly. His manner of writing is also reported to have been 
strange. He wrote, it is said, near the margin the first words 
of every line down to the foot of the paper ; then, by beginning 
at the head again, would so perfectly fill up every one of these 
lines, and without spaces, interlineations, or contractions, would 
so connect the ends and beginnings, that the sense would appear 
as complete, as if he had written it in a continued series after 
the ordinary manner. 

It was sufficiently known, how steady he was in the Pro 
testant religion, against the innovations of the Presbyterians 
and Independents ; but his zeal against these was allayed with 
greater compassion than it was towards the Papists ; and this 
raised him up many adversaries, who charged him with puritan- 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

ism. He used to call the controversies concerning Episcopacy, 
and the new-fangled arguments against the Church of England, 
"insects of a day;" and carefully avoided polemical disputes, 
being altogether of Sir Henry Wotton s opinion, " disputandi 
pruritus, ecclesiee scabies." To conclude, whatever exceptions 
may be made to him as a writer, he was a man of great good 
ness, and an ornament to the times in which he lived. 



These memoirs shall be closed by an extract from his Life in 
the " Biographia Britannica ; " comprehending an analysis of 
"The Worthies," and a vindication of the author. 

" The subject matter of the book is distributed under the se 
veral counties of England and Wales ; each division beginning, 
first, with the commodities, products, and other particulars most 
eminent and remarkable in each county ; whether waters, mine 
rals, plants, animals, manufactures, buildings, battles, proverbs, 
&c. ; then the Worthies born or residing therein, marshalled 
under their respective ranks or professions; the whole contents of 
each county ending with tables of the Gentry that were therein 
in the reign of king Henry the Sixth ; and a list of the Sheriffs, 
for several kings* reigns, down to king James or king Charles 
the First, with their arms described, and places of abode. Pre 
fixed to the whole, is a copious Introduction, in near twenty 
sheets,* divided into many chapters ; distinctly treating of this 
grand and comprehensive plan, the matter, order, and style, 
&c., shewing how methodical and uniform he has been through 
out; also apologizing for any defects that may have escaped his 
pen, and answering many objections which might be made to 
any part thereof. But, as the heads of those preliminary dis 
courses will best explain the contents of the book, and display 
as well the variety as the grandeur of the undertaking; and as a 
recital of them will give the most ready command of the whole 
scheme, to those who would only be informed or reminded 
thereof ; or such as may be inclined to revive the author in a 
more correct edition, or give us a continuation or any other im 
provement of his model; the said heads are therefore here 
offered to their consideration, as follow : 

CHAP. I. Contains the general design; wherein, as learned 
Camden and painful Speed, with others, have described the 

* In the present edition making 109 pages. 



XV111 MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

rooms in that convenient structure, to which he compares 
this nation ; so he intends to describe the furniture of them, 
in the most signal products and persons of distinction, adorn 
ing the same : to these five ends : 1 . To gain some glory to 
God : 2. To preserve the memory of the dead : 3. To pre 
sent examples to the living : 4. To entertain the reader with 
delight : 5. And lastly, to procure some honest profit to 
himself. 

CHAP. II. Of the National Commodities ; as the manufactures, 
wonders, buildings, local proverbs, medicinal herbs, waters, 
&c. 

III. The first Quaternion of Persons; Princes, Saints, 

Martyrs, and Confessors. 

IV. Of Popes, Cardinals, and Prelates, before the Refor 
mation. 

V. Of Popes, &c. since the Reformation. 

VI. Of our Statesmen ; as Chancellors, Treasurers, Se 
cretaries of State, Admirals, and Deputies of Ireland. 

VII. Capital Judges, and Writers of the Common Law. 

VIII. Soldiers and Seamen ; with the Necessity of en 
couraging our Fishery. 

IX. Of Writers on the Canon "and Civil Law ; Physic, 

Chemistry, and Surgery, &c. 

- X. Other Writers; in Divinity, Philology, and Philo 
sophy, History, Music, and Poetry ; also on Popery, &c. ; with 
a complaint of the number of needless Books. 

XI. Of Benefactors to the Public, with a recommen 
dation of choice charities; under the heads of Churches, 
Free-schools, Colleges, and Alms-houses ; with a distinction 
of Benefactors since, from those before, the Reformation. 

XII. Of Memorable Persons ; or such as were extraor 
dinary for stature, strength, age, fertility, &c. 

XIII. Lord Mayors of London. 

XIV. Catalogues of the Gentry under Henry the Sixth ; 
why inserted. 

- XV. Of the Sheriffs. 

- XVI. Of the Sheriffs Arms. 

XVII. Observations on Surnames being often altered, 

and variously written. 

XVIII. Of Modern Battles. 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. XIX 

CHAP. XIX. Of the Shires, and why the Worthies are digested 
under them. 

XX. Of the Surnames of Clergymen, and that their sons 

have been as successful as others ; with his expedient, where 
several places claim the birth of one person. 

XXI. Other general rules and distinctions for the author 

and reader s ease ; as his use of the word Ampliendum., ex 
pressing a want of fuller intelligence ; and his use of S. N. 
signifying second nativity : that is, when a Worthy whose na 
tive country is not known, he is historized under that which 
was his place of residence ; and by the abbreviation REM. 
which implies removeable, upon better information : also his 
rule for ranking, under some one head, persons who have a 
claim to several. 

XXII. The Precedency of several Professions adjusted. 

XXIII. Of the Authorities from whence the work is de 
rived. 

XXIV. Concerning his double division of the English, 

according to their nation and profession. 

XXV. General exceptions against the style and matter 

of the author prevented ; by his propositions of and answers 
to them, being twenty-four in number. 

XXVI. An apology for the involuntary omissions in 

this book. 

The whole volume, in the original edition, contains more 
than a thousand pages; and seems to have been not quite finished 
at the end. 

Though our author was very diligent (as hath been attested 
in p. xi.) in collecting his materials for this work ; yet, when 
several parts of it were written, he had the disadvantage of being 
unsettled, remote from proper libraries, and intelligent conver 
sation, being as it were a travelling writer, and forced to leave 
blank spaces, especially for dates ; wherein he has sometimes 
modestly left his reader rather uninformed than misinformed ; 
and sometimes again filled them up conjecturally, and without 
any supposed need of nice recollection, as he designed to be 
more exact upon better opportunities of examination ; in several 
whereof he was prevented by death. But though he looked 
upon dates as so many little sparkling gems in history, that 
would reflect the clearest and most sudden light a great way off, 



XX MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

he still found or thought them very slippery ware, liable, by the 
smallest and most imperceptible variations, to lead us greatly 
astray from truth ; and speaks of Chronology, in one of his books, 
as of a little surly animal, that was apt to bite the fingers of 
those who handled it with greater familiarity than was absolutely 
necessary ; yet he knew there was no giving any satisfac 
tory intelligence without it, especially in the writing of lives. 
But, indeed, an accurate regard to the directions thereof was 
little in use with any writers in this particular branch of history 
at those times ; as, among many others, may be observed, to go 
no further, in the author of his own life, whose deficiencies 
we have here been at much trouble to supply ; one instance 
only whereof is, that though he gives us the titles of almost all 
Fuller s books, and their sizes, he has not given us the date of 
one. But it was a general or fashionable neglect, especially in 
the more polite and ornate writers, as if they thought that arith 
metical figures would look like so many scars in the sleek face 
of their rhetorical phrase. But what our author, in apology 
for himself, has ingeniously observed further on this topic, we 
refer to his own words, in one or two of the chapters, whereof 
we have before given the heads. As to the historical particu 
lars of these lives, no man could pretend to be very circumstan 
tial, in a work that proposed to revive the famous men in a 
whole nation ; such an undertaking can or should give but a 
general and compendious view of them. Suppose here are 
eighteen or twenty hundred eminent persons characterized, much 
after the manner of those in his " Church History ; " to have 
given a general satisfaction in all parts of the lives, actions, and 
works, of one or two only in every hundred, might have required 
more eyes, hands, and years, than nature allowed this author ; and 
perhaps more abilities, knowledge, or information, than could 
be justly pretended to, by any of his ungrateful cavillers. Then 
for the errors that must unavoidably occur in the revival of such 
multitudes in all ages, our author s own apology, as it will be 
equally needful to any other compiler of a numerous collection 
of lives, is here produced from his own words, upon some ob- 
ec tions made to Mr. Fox the Martyrologist, as follow : " It is 
impossible for an author of a voluminous book, consisting of 
jseveral persons and circumstances, (reader, in pleading for Mas 
ter Fox I plead for myself,) to have such ubiquitary intelligence, 



MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

as to apply the same infallibly to every particular."* But there 
is no winning the favour of those who think they have a licence 
for detraction, and may spoil an author with impunity/^when 
he is incapable of self-defence, both of his reputation and his 
labours. Thus we may see some very rash censurers superfi 
cially read, who have often pronounced their anathemas upon 
many other historians, from the titles only of their writings, and 
sometimes without having ever seen so much as them, treating 
him also like those who cannot be content with shearing the 
inoffensive prey that is free-yielding of his wool, but they must 
butcher him too : for surely few have been so much pillaged 
who have been so much disparaged ; he has been reproached 
for his ingenuity by those who have no wit ; and robbed of hi s 
knowledge by those who have no gratitude. Bishop Nicolson, 
who w r as too censorious upon Dr. Fuller s Church History, will 
also run the hazard of recrimination upon this. Our author 
began his " Worthies of England " when he was chaplain to 
the Lord Hopton ; and it was his chief study, or mostly under 
his consideration by intervals, for near seventeen years, as it 
may be from this account computed ; but the bishop says it 
was huddled up in haste. Our author mentions (as we have 
quoted in p. xviii.) five reasons for publishing this book ; but, as 
if he had nothing more than a mercenary motive therein, the 
bishop has sunk four of them, and, quoting but the last, induced 
you to believe it was only for the procurement of some mode 
rate profit to the author : and yet not quoted this honestly. 
The bishop says, it corrects many mistakes in his " Church His 
tory ; " but our author was acquainted with few mistakes till a 
little time before he died, and then had little leisure or room 
to correct many, when the greatest part of his " Worthies " was 
printed off. The bishop says, that Fuller s chief author is Bale, 
for the lives of his eminent waiters ; and he must have been 
his also, if he had wrote in Fuller s time of the writers Bale 
has given account of, when Leland was not published ; unless 
he would rather have followed Bale s Popish plagiary. But a 
great part of the writers in Fuller lived and wrote since Bale, 
therefore he had many other authorities for his writers, as may 
be sufficiently seen in his work. And whether our author has 
given more mis-shapen scraps, or lies, as they are called, f of his 

* See the present volume, in Berkshire, p. 127. 
f Nicolson s Historical Library, fol, 1736, p. 6. 



Xxii MEMOIRS OF THE AUTHOR. 

heroes, than the bishop of his historians, those may best judge 
who have read the one and the other : but if the bishop would 
have undertaken to reform or rectify both, it might have been 
more acceptable, as well as more discreet, than to revile an au 
thor so extravagantly as to vilify himself. In short, notwith 
standing these hasty and immoderate aspersions, the characters 
or memorials here assembled of so many great men, will always 
make the book necessary to be consulted ; especially as there 
are preserved therein abundance of lives then first or newly 
written, and nowhere else to be had ; which have been of good 
service to many grave writers of substantial credit, even in his 
tory, antiquities, and heraldry ; who, wanting neither the judg 
ment nor justice in themselves which they might covet in their 
own readers, knew how to make proper uses of his work, and 
acknowledgments for what they drew from it, without turning 
executioners upon every trivial oversight, or expressing any 
grievance at his humour or his wit. But, since his character 
has been so much degraded by some, it will be but equitable to 
shew that it has been no less exalted by others ; and as he has 
bestowed a grateful remembrance upon many poets, we have 
met with a retribution that has been attempted by one, in a 
panegyric upon biography in general, and this biography in par 
ticular. It was freely communicated from the author s original 
in the possession of a late nobleman, who was a signal patron 
to some of the greatest poets and other ingenious men in his 
time ; and since it has never been published ; since it is entirely 
suitable in this, as it may be partly serviceable in any other, col 
lection of illustrious men ; or may in some part be no less ap 
plicable to any other compiler, than to every peruser of such 
collections, we shall here present it as follows, faithfully in its 
own language, without any apology for its length. 



XX111 

TO THE READER AND WRITER OF LIVES. 
WRITTEN IN FULLER S WORTHIES. 

Here, from Fame s wardrobe, you may dress to please, 
In suits adorned, and shaped to all degrees ; 
Each genius hence may graceful habits take ; 
No mind so warp d, some mould won t straighter make. 
Patterns that best become you still prefer, 
Without some wearing, they to ruin wear ; 
Some patterns yet, like tarnish d lace, are worn, 
And now disguise what once they did adorn; 
Then be not servilely a slave to those : 
Reform their fashions, but refrain their clothes. 

By the best chemic skill, their gifts combin d 
May so concocted be, and so refin d; 
May, through your works, so undistinguished wreathe, 
As incense rich, from holy altars breathe ; 
Till, so the blended aromatics rise, 
In grateful gales, to greet the deities, 
That we perceive no frankincense exhale, 
No cassia here, or storax there prevail ; 
Nor this, can myrrh, that ambergrise can call ; 
But one strong, curling odour, spires from all ; 
So when such sweets you from these flowers have hiv d, 
From each they differ, as from all deriv d. 

Choose then with prudence, in your choice proceed, 
Till those you follow, you re iraprov d to lead. 
The object equal to the human mind, 
And most instructive, must be human kind. 
Read manly books then, books of men, and so, 
That you proceed to do the best you know. 
Peruse such lives, or parts, as you can live ; 
It is the practice must perfection give. 
Souls, in which samples great, no semblance breed, 
Like cold and hungry soils, but rot the seed ; 
Or, like weak stomachs, with strong food oppress d, 
By that ne er nourished, which they ne er digest. 
For as your meals should suit, to thrive aright, 
Your constitution and your appetite ; 
So your examples should proportion d be, 
Both to your power, and your capacity. 

Some seek their- minds with marvels to replete, 
And taste no objects they should emulate : 
Of things incredible, experience saith. 
The feeblest judgments have the firmest faith . 
Such, in admiring, still those hours destroy, 
They in excelling only should employ. 

Some think, distemper d times less heal d may be, 
By wise men s woes, than fools felicity : 
Think not that fortitude grows more unsound, 
By vice s balsam, than by virtue s wound : 
That, without deeds, words hold no lasting height, 
Unbodied feathers wanting nerves for flight : 



While airy sounds soon lose their empty name, 

Surviving record is substantial fame, 

To boundless forms, some, crude collections breed, 

And write a life would waste a life to read ! 

With griping hands, some shrink up life s short span, 

And to a mite epitomize a man ! 

Others add streams, to rivers swoln too high, 

While drowned pastures unrecover d lie ; 

Prop those who boast superfluous aids to stand, 

While crowds deserted most their aid demand ! 

The aim s more lofty, th art in more esteem, 

To save the sinking, than sink those who swim. 

Thus, upon others lives their own are lost, 

Or least devoted, where deserved most. 

But worse, desert in others there is known, 

Where none from others, or themselves, is shown ; 

Whose memory of the good, the learn d, the brave, 

Should be their monument, and is their grave. 

But victories o er death must be renown d ; 
Triumphs like those must through fame s clarion sound ; 
His victors should her richest trophies wear, 
To fame who rescue what the fates won t spare, 
Garlands shall crown their works, that cannot fade ; 
The lights they rend with lustre be repaid. 
Who noblest do, most nobly must deserve ; 
Great who perform, but greater who preserve : 
If virtue most directs, which most dilates, 
The draught excels, that most communicates ; 
Such copy spread thus durably to all, 
Begets more virtue than th original : 
Tis an original ; it s own outvied ; 
Where life less copied is, than multiplied ; 
And when they are deathless made, who long since died. 
Thus, when a hero is compar d to you, 
Th historian is the hero of the two ; 
The brave, learn d, good, more efficacious grown, 
In your immortal lives, than in their own. 

Your merit is, who labour d hath so much, 
Such to revive, to be revived as such : 
Our shame is, in your WORTHIES to be read, 
Till one at least each to their number add : 
Till we, your WORTHIES reading, such shall turn, 
As sacred relics sanctify the urn : 
Till they, through you, dart influential worth, 
As stars, though fixt in heaven, shine down on earth. 

Phoebus, the sire of your resplendent wit, 
Who blinds all brightness, must to yours submit : 
He, only in th horizon, gilds our day, 
You here, though set, your glory still display. 



CONTENTS. 



GENERAL WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

CHAP. I. Design of the Work 1 

CHAP. II. On the real topics insisted on in the respective Counties: Native 
Commodities ; Manufactures ; Medicinal Waters ; the Wonders ; Buildings ; 

Local Proverbs ; Medicinal Herbs 3 8 

CHAP. Ill Of the first quaternion of Persons: Princes; Saints; Martyrs; 

Confessors 9 1 4 

CHAP. IV. Of Popes, Cardinals, and Prelates before the Reformation . . 1520 

CHAP. V. Of Popes, &c. since the Reformation 21 

CHAP. VI Of Statesmen : Lord Chancellors ; Lord Treasurers ; Secretaries of 

State ; Admirals ; Lord Deputies of Ireland 22 27 

CHAP. VII Of Capital Judges, and Writers on the Common Law 28 

CHAP. VIII Of Soldiers and Seamen, with the necessity of encouraging the trade 

of fishing 30 

CHAP. IX. Of Writers on the Civil and Canon Law, Physic, Chemistry, and 

Chirurgery , 3436 

CHAP. X. Of Writers on Philology, Divinity, and History ; Musicians ; Romish 

exile Writers ; number of needless Books 37 42 

CHAP. XI Of Benefactors to the Public : Builders of Churches ; Free Schools 
and Colleges ; Bridges; Alms-houses; Choice Charities recommended; Bene 
factors since and before the Reformation; on the word " Reformation " 43 54 

CHAP. XII. Of Memorable Persons 55 

CHAP. XIII Of Lord Mayors of London 56 

CHAP. XIV On the Catalogue of Gentry, and the general method pursued. . 58 

CHAP. XV. Of Shire-Reeves, or Sheriffs 60 

CHAP. XVI Of the Coats of Arms to those who have been Sheriffs 65 

CHAP. XVII. On the frequent alterations in the spelling of Surnames 70 

CHAP. XVIII On Modem Battles 71 

CHAP. XIX On the number of Shires or Counties in England, and why the 

Worthies in this W T ork are arranged according to Counties 72 

CHAP. XX Why Clergymen formerly carried the register of their Birth-place in 
their Surnames, &c. ; expedient when several persons claim the birth of the same 

person ; success attending the Children of Clergymen 72 80 

CHAP. XXI. General Rules for the convenience of the Author and Reader : of 
Dates ; Apology for Qualifications used, and Blanks left in this History ; on the 
signification of " AMPJ.IANDUM," or " AMP. ;" of " S. N. ;" and of " RKM." 
or " REMOVE ;" method of ranking the respective Personages introduced into 
this Work 81 _ 86 

CHAP. XXII On the Precedency of Persons and Professions 8f&gt; 

CHAP. XXIII. On the Authorities from which the Work has been derived . . 89 
VOL. I. C 



XXVI CONTENTS. 

CHAP. XXIV On the Division of the English Gentry 92 

CHAP. XXV On the Style and Matter of the Author 99 

CHAP. XXVI. Apology for involuntary Omissions; a Corollary on the reciproca 
tion of " Alumnus " ... , - 107109 



BARKSHIRE, OR BERKSHIRE. 

Boundaries, &c. 110. Natural Commodities: Oaks, Bark, Trouts, 110, ill. 
Manufactures: Clothing, ill. Buildings: Proverbs, 112. Princes, 121. 
Saints: Margaret and Alice Rich, St. Edmund, 123, 124. Martyrs : Anth. 
Persons, Roht. Testwood, Henry Fillmer, Julius Palmer, 124-126. Confessors : 
John Marbeck, Robt. Benett, 126, 127. Cardinals, 127 Prelates : Wm. of Read 
ing, John deBradfield, Rich. Beauchamp, Tho. Godwin, Tho. Ramme, Wm. Laud, 

128, 129 Statesmen : Sir J.Mason, Sir Tho. Smith, 130, 131 Soldiers : Henry 

Umpton, 131. Writers : Hugh of Reading, Roger of Windsor, Robt. Rich, Rich, 
of Wallingford, Henry Bullock, Wm. Lyford, Tho. Hyde, 132-135. Benefactors : 
Alfred the Great, Peter Chapman, John Kendrick, Rich, Wightwick, 135, 136 
Memorable Persons: Tho. Cole, John Winscombe, 136, 137 Lord Mayors, 

137 Gentry, 138 List of Sheriffs; with notices of Will. Briewere, Philip de 

Marton, Fulco de Breantree, Rog. Episc. Covent. et Lich., Phil, de la Beach, 
Tho. Chaucer, Tho. Wikham, Joh. Gowfre, John Howard, Humph.^ Foster, 
Rob. Harecourt, John Basket, Wm. Essex, Francis Inglefield, John Williams, 
Henry Norrice, Edw. Unton, Besilius Fettiplace, Rich. Lovelace, and Sir J. 
Darell, 141-160. Battles: Newbury, 161. The Farewell, 162. Worthies since 
the time of Fuller, and topographical Works relative to the County, 162, 163. 



BEDFORDSHIRE. 

Boundaries, Soil, &c. 164. Natural Commodities : Barley, Malt, Fuller s-earth, 

Larks, 164, 165 Manufactures: Buildings : Wonders : Proverbs, 166. 

Princes: Margaret Beaufort, 167. Saints: Arnulphus, 168 Martyrs: Thos. 
Chase, ib. Prelates : Silvester de Everton, ib. Capital Judges, and Writers of 
the Law: Sir John Cokeyn, Edm. Wingate, 169 Writers: John of Dunstable, 
Geo. Joy, Francis Dillingham. Wm. Sclater, 169-171. Benefactors to the 
Public: SirWm. Harper, Henry Grey, Francis Cleark, 172, 173. Memorable 
Persons, 173 Lord Mayors: Gentry, 174. List of Sheriffs; with notices of 
Rich. Basset, Henry de Essex, David Archidiaconus, Rob. de Braybrook, Hen. 
Braybrook, Edvard. films Hen. III., Tho. Hoo, John Wenlock, Sir John St. 
John, Wm. Gascoigne, John Mordant, Wm. Windsor, Francis Russel, Oliver 
St. John, Wm. Dormer, 176-190. The Farewell, 190 Worthies since the time 
of Fuller, and Works relative to the County, 191. 



BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

Boundaries, &c. 192. Natural Commodities: Beech, Sheep, Tame Pheasants, 

192, 193 The Manufactures, 193 Proverbs, 194 Saints : St. Edburg, St. Ru- 

mald, 194, 195. Martyrs: John Scrivener, 196 Prelates : Rich, de Wendover, 

John Buckingham, John Young, John Holyman, John Harley, Robt. Aldrich, 
Wm. Alley, Rich. Cox, Thos. Bickley, John King, Rich. Montague, Henry King, 
196-201. Writers on the Law: Sir Geo. Crook, Edw. Bulstrode, 202, 203 
Soldiers : Sir Wm. Windsor, Arthur Gray, 203, 204. Writers : Roger de Wen 
dover, John Amersham, Matt. Stokes, Walter Haddon, Laur. Humphred, Roger 



CONTENTS. XXVU 

Goad, John Gregory, Sam. Collins, Wm. Oughtred, 205-209. Romish Exile 
Writers: Thos. Dorman, 209. Memorable Persons: John Mathew, Dame 

Hester Temple, 210 Lord Mayors: Gentry, 211 List of Sheriffs; with 

notices of John Croke, Robt. Dormer, Edw. Bulstrod, Henry Longvile, Benedict 

Winchcombe, Sir Edw. Coke, Francis Cheney, 213-218 The Farewell, 218 

Worthies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative to the County, 219, 220. 



CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

Boundaries, &c. 221. Natural Commodities : Eels, Hares, Saffron, Willows, 222. 
Manufactures : Paper, Baskets, 223, 224 Buildings : Ely Minster, 224, 225. 
Wonders, 225. Proverbs, 226, 227 Martyrs: William Flower, 228. Prelates : 
Stephen de Fulborn, Nicholas of Ely, William, John, and Nicholas of Bottlesham, 
Thomas of Newmarket, Thos. Thirlby, Dr. Godf. Goldsborough, Dr. Robt. 
Townson, Dr. Thos. Westfield, 228-232. Statesmen : John Tiptoft, Sir John 
Cheeke, 233, 234. Soldiers, 234 Writers: Matt. Paris, Helias Rubeus, John 
Eversden, Rich. Wetherset, Wm. Caxton, Rich. Huloet, John Richardson, Dr. 
Andrew Willet, Sir Thos. Ridley, Arthur Hildersham, R. Parker, Mich. Dalton 
Dr. Thos. Goad, Andrew Marvail, 235-240. Benefactors: Hugo de Balsham, 
Sir Wm. Horn, Sir Wm. Purcase, Sir Thos. Kneisworth, John Crane, 241, 242. 

Memorable Persons : Wm. Collet, Edw. Norgate, 242 Lord Mayors, 243 

Gentry, 244 List of Sheriffs ; with notices of Thos. Cotton, Thos. Eliot, Thos. 
Cromwell, Edw. North, John Huddleston, John Cuts, Henry Cromwell, Jarvasius 
Clifton, Simon Steward, 247-259. The Farewell, 260. Worthies since the time 
of Fuller, and Works relative to the County, 260, 261. 



CHESHIRE. 

Boundaries, Rivers, Gentry, &c. 262 Natural Commodities : Salt, Cheese, Mill 
stones, 263, 264 Buildings, 264 Wonders : Proverbs, 265, 266. Cardinals : 
Wm. Makilesfield, 267 Prelates: Wm. Booth, Laurence Booth, John Booth, 
Thos. Savage, Dr. Wm. Chaderton, Dr. Wm. James, John Richardson, 267-270. 
Statesmen : Sir Thos. Egerton, 2/0 Capital Judges : Sir Humphrey Starkey, 
Sir Henry Bradshaw, Sir Randal Crew, Sir Humf. Davenport, 270-274. Soldiers : 
Sir Hugh Calvely, John Smith, 274, 275. Physicians : 276 Writers: Thos. 
Eclestone, Ralph Radcliffe, John Speed, John Dod, 276-278. Benefactors : Sir 
Rich. Sutton, Robt. Brassy, Geo. Palin, Sir John Brewerton, Dr. John Barnston, 
279-281 Memorable Persons : Wm. Smith, Wm. Webb, Randal Crew, 281, 
282. Lord Mayors, 282. List of Sheriffs; with notices of Hugh de Hatton 
Sir Hugh Cholmly, or Cholmondeleigh, John Savage, 283-289 Battles : Row- 
ton-heath, 289 The Farewell, ib. 

CHESTER. 

Boundaries, &c. : Buildings, 290 Proverbs : Martyrs, Geo. Marsh, 291 Pre 
lates: Dr. Geo. Dounham, 291 Seamen-. David Middleton, Sir H. Middleton, 
292. Writers : Roger of Chester, Randal Hygden, Henry Bradshaw, Edw. 
Brierwood, John Downham, 293-295 Benefactors : Wm. Aldersey, Sir Thos. 
Offley, John Terer, 295, 296. The Farewell, 297- 

Worthies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative to the County, 297, 298. 



xxviii CONTEXTS. 



CORNWALL. 

Boundaries, Dialect, &c. 299 Natural Commodities: Diamonds, Ambergris, 
Garlic, Pilchards, Blue Slate, Tin, 300-302 Buildings : Mount-Edgecombe, 303. 
Medicinal Waters, 304. Wonders: the;Hurlers, Main Amber, 304,305 Pro 
verbs, 306. Saints : St. Kiby, St.Ursula, St. Meliorus, 307,308. Prelates : Wm. 
de Grenvil, Michael Tregury, John Arundel, 309, 3 10 Capital Judges, and Writers 
on the Law: Wm.Noy, 310, 311 Soldiers : King Arthur, 311. Seamen : John 

Arundel, 312. Civilians: John Tregonwell, 313 Physicians: Rawe Hayes, 

Atwell, ib. Writers : Hugarius the Levite, John of Cornwall, Simon Thur- 

way, Michael Blaunpayn, Godfrey of Cornwall. John Trevisa, John Skuish, 
Bartholomew Traheron, Rich. Carew, Chas. Herle, 314-318 Memorable Persons : 
Kiltor, John Bray, John Roman, Veal, Edw. Bone, 319. Lord Mayors, 320 
List of Sheriffs; with notices of Roger de Priddeaux, John Arundel, Thos. Green- 
Til, Jas. Tirrell, John Basset, Pet. Edgcombe, Rich, diamond, Wm. Mohun, 
Ant. Rouse, Francis Godolphin, Wm. Wrey, Rich. Roberts, 320-330 Battles : 
Liskeard, Stratton, 331-334 The Farewell, 334. Worthies since the time of 
Fuller, and W T orks relative to the County, 335, 336. 



CUMBERLAND. 

Boundaries, 337. Natural Commodities: Pearls, Black-lead, Copper, 337, 338 

Buildings, 338 Wonders : the Moss-troopers, 339. Proverbs, 340 Saints: St. 

Herebert, St. Airike, 341. Martyrs: Eliz. Forster, ib Prelates: Roger Whelp- 
dale, Roger Layburn, Edm. Grindall, Dr. Henry Robinson, ^Dr. Rich. Senhouse, 

342, 343. Capital Judges, and Writers on the Law : Sir Rich. Hutton, Sir John 

Banks, 344 Civilians: Geo. Porter, 345. Writers: John Canon, Wm. Egre- 

mont, John Skelton, Dr. Rich. Crakenthorp, John Salkeld, Dr. Gerard Langbain, 
345-347 Benefactors : Robt. Eaglesfield, 348 Memorable Persons : Maud,i6. 

Lord Mayors : Gentry, 349 List of Sheriffs ; with notices of Robertus de 

Vaus, Walt. Epis. Carliol. et Rob. filius Will, de Hampton, Andreas de Harcla, 
Richard duke of Gloucester, Thos. Wharton, 350-362 The Farewell, 362 
Worthies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative to the County, 362-364. 



DERBYSHIRE. 

Boundaries, Soil, &c. 365. Natural Commodities : Lead, ib. Manufactures : Malt, 

Ale, 366, 367. Buildings : Chatsworth, 367 Wonders: Maim-tor, 368.- 

Medicinal Waters: Princes, ib Saints: St. Alkmund, ib Martyrs: Joan 

Wast, 369 Cardinals : Rog. Curzon, Philip de Repingdon, ib Prelates : Wm. 

Gray, Dr. Geo. Cooke, 370, 371 Statesmen: Sir John Cooke, 371 Capital 
Judges, and Writers of the Law : John Stathom, Sir Anth. Fitz-Herbert, 371, 
372. Seamen: Sir Hugh Wllloughby, 372 Physicians: Thos. Linacer, 374 
Writers : Thos. Ashburne, 376. Benefactors : Eliz. Hardwick, ib. Gentry, 

377 List of Sheriffs ; with notices of John Vernon, 381-390 The Farewell, z 6. 

Worthies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative to the County, 391-393. 



DEVONSHIRE. 

Boundaries, &c. 394 Natural Commodities : Silver, Tin, Herrings, Strawberries, 

Hurtberries, 394-396 Manufactures : Bone-lace, 396 Buildings : Bediford- 



CONTENTS. XXIX 

bridge, 397 Wonders: the Gubbings, 397,398. Proverbs, 399 Saints: St. 

Wenfride Boniface, St. Willibald, 400. Martyrs: Agnes Pirest, 401. Confes 
sors : John Molle, ib Cardinals : Wm. Courtney, 402. - Prelates : Robt. 
Chichester, Gilb. Foliot, Robt. Foliot, Wm. Brewer, William de Raleigh, Rich. 
Courtney, Jas. Gary, John Stanbery, Pet. Courtney, John Jewel, John Prideaux, 

403-408 Statesmen : Sir Arthur Chichester, 409 Capital Judges : Sir Wm. 

Herle, Sir John Gary, Sir Wm. Hankford, Sir John Fortescue, Sir Lewis Pollard, 
Sir John Doderidg, 410-412. Soldiers : Sir Rich. Greenvil, James Lord Audley, 
Thos. Stuckley, Geo. Monck, 413-417 Seamen: Wm. Wilford, Sir Humph. 

Gilbert, Cock, Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walt. Raleigh, 417-419 Civilians: John 

Cowel, Arthur Duck, 420. Writers : Roger the Cistercian, John de Ford, Rich. 
Fishaker, John Cut-clif, Rich. Chichester, Robt. Plympton, Nich. Upton, Rich. 
Hooker, John Reinolds, Nath. Carpenter, 421-424. Benefactors : Pet. Blundell, 
Wm. Burgoin, 424, 425 Memorable Persons : Henry de la Pomeray, Sir John 
de Beigny, Child, Nich. and Andrew Tremaine, 425-427. Lord Mayors : Gentry, 
427. List of Sheriffs ; with notices of Richardus Comes, Willielmus Brewer, 
Wm. Yoo, John Damerell, Rich. Edgcombe, Peter Carew, Robt. Dennis, Amias 
Bampfield, Dennis Rolls, 428-441 The Farewell, 441. 

EXETER. 

Boundaries : Manufactures, 442 Buildings : Wonders, 443. Princes : Prelates : 

Bartholomeus Iscanus, Baldvinus Devonius, Walt. Bronscombe, 444 Writers : 

Josephus Iscanus, William of Exeter, Rich. Martin, Wm. Martin, Wm. Tucker, 
John Barkham, 445-447 Benefactors : JohnTuckvile, 447 The Farewell, 448. 

Worthies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative to the County, 448-450. 



DORSETSHIRE. 

Boundaries, &c. 451 Natural Commodities : Tenches, Tobacco-pipe Clay, Hemp, 

451, 452 Buildings: Proverbs, 453 Saints: Edward, ib Cardinals: John 

Morton, 454 Prelates : John Stafford, Robt. Morton, Jas. Turbevil, Thos. Win- 

niffe, 455, 456 Soldiers : Thos. Basket, John Russel, Sir Rich. Bingham, 457 

Seamen : Rich. Clark, Geo. Summers, 458, 459. Civilians : Sir Thos. Ryves, 

460. Benefactors : Robt. Rogers, 461 Memorable Persons : Thomas de la 
Lynd, Arthur Gregory, Wm. Englebert, ib Gentry, 462. List of Sheriffs ; 

with notices of John Newburgh, Egidius Strangways, Thos. More, 463-474 

The Farewell, 475 Worthies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative to 
the County, 475, 476. 

DURHAM. 

Boundaries, &c. 477 Princes : Cicely Neville, ib Saints : Bede, 478 Confes 
sors : John Wickliffe, 479 Prelates: Ralph, Alexander, Robert and Geo. Nevil, 

Robt. Horn, Dr. John Cosen, 430-483 Civilians : Rich. Cosin, 484 Writers : 

Wm. Shirwood, John of Darlington, Wm. Siveyer, Thos. Jackson, Sam. Ward, 
485-487 Memorable Persons : Anthony Lord Gray, 488 Sheriffs : the Fare 
well, 489 Worthies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative to the 

County, 490, 491. 

ESSEX. 

Boundaries, &c. 492 Natural Commodities: Saffron, Oysters, Hops, Puets, 
492-494 Manufactures: Gunpowder, 494. Buildings, 495 Wonders, 496 



XXX CONTENTS. 

Proverbs, 497, 498. Princes: Henry Fitzroy, 499 Saints : St. Helen, St. Con- 
stantine, St. Ethelburgh, Hildetha, Theorithoid, Edilburge, Wolfhild, St. Osith, 

St. Neot s, 499-501 Martyrs: John Laurence, Thos. Hawkes, Rose Allin, 

501, 502. Confessors : Rich. George, 502 Cardinals: Thos. Bourchier, 503. 
Prelates : Richard de Barking, John de Chesill, John of Waltham, Rog. Walden, 
Rich. Howland, John Jegon, Sam. Haresnet, Dr. Augustine Linsell, 504-507. 
Statesmen: Sir Thos. Audley, Sir Rich. Morisin, Sir Anthony Cook, Sir Thos. 
Smith, Thos. Howard, Rich. Weston, 507-511 Capital Judges: Sir John 

Bramstone, 511 Soldiers: Robt. Fitz-Walter, Sir John Hawkewood, Thos. 

Ratcliff, Sir Francis and Sir Horace Vere, 512-514 Physicians: Win. Gilbert, 
5l5._Writers : Gervase of Tilbury, Adam of Barking, Ralph of Cogshall, Roger 
of Waltham, John Godard, Aubrey de Vere, Thos. Maldon, Thos. Waldensis, 
Thos. Tusser, Francis Quarles, Jos. Mede, 516-519. Benefactors : Rich. 
Bedew, Walt. Mildmey, Dorothy Petre, Dr. Thos. Eden, 5&lt;20-522 Memorable 
Persons : Matilda Fitz-Walter, Simon Lynch, 523. Lord Mayors, 524. - 
Gentry ; with notices of Henry Bourchier, John Tyrrell, John Mountgomery, 
Maurice Bruyn, Wm. Goldingham, John Doreward, Robt. Darcy, Henry Lang- 
ley, Thos. Heveningham, Johannes Leventhorp, Thos. Barington, Thos. Ben- 
dysh, Egidius Lucas, Thos. Barrett, 526-528 List of Sheriffs; with notices 
of Will, de Longo Campo, Cancellarius Dom. Regis, Hugo de Nevil, et Johan. 
de Nevil, Walter de Baud, Philip Bottiller, Henry Marny, Wm. Fitz Williams, 
John Christmas, Sir Brian Tuke, Sir John Gates, Sir Ralph Rowlet, Jas. Al- 
tham, Sir Henry Maynard, Sir Paul Bayning, John Lucas, 529-544. Battles, 

544 .__The Farewell, ib Worthies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative 

to the County, 545. 

GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

Boundaries, &c. 546 Natural Commodities : Tobacco, Oak, Steel, 546, 547 

Manufactures : Clothing, Mustard, Wine, Cider, 547, 548 Buildings, 549. 
Wonders : the Higre, 550. Proverbs, 551, 552 Princes, 553 Saints : St. Ke- 

nelme, ib Martyrs: Jas. Baynam, ib. Prelates : Tideman de Winchcombe, 

JohnChedworth, John Carpenter, Thos. Ruthall, Edw. Fox, 554-556._Statesmen : 
Sir Ralph Butler, 557 Capital Judges, and Writers on the Law : Anthony 
Fitz-Herbert, Edw. Trotman, 557-558 Soldiers . Sir Wm. Tracy, 558 Sea 
men : Sir Wm. Winter, ib. Writers: Osbernus Claudianus, Robert of Glouces 
ter, Alan of Tewkesbury, Alexander of Hales, Thomas de la More, Thos. of Hales, 
Thos. Neale, Rich. Tracy, Sir Thos. Overbury, Rich. Capel, John Sprint, John 

Workman, 559-564 Benefactors: Kath. Clyvedon, Sir Wm. Hampton, Thos. 

Bell, Edw. Palmer, Hugh Firry, 565-567. Lord Mayors : Gentry, 567 List of 
Sheriffs ; with notices of Walt, de Stuchesly, Thos. Berkeley de Cobberley, John 
Points, Wm. Kingston, Anth. Kingston, 568-581 The Farewell, 581 Wor 
thies since the time of Fuller, and Works relative to the County, 581, 582. 



THE 



WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE DESIGN OF THE ENSUING WORK. 

EXGLAXD may not unfitly be compared to a house, not very 
great, but convenient ; and the several Shires may properly be 
resembled to the rooms thereof. Now, as learned Master Cam- 
den and painful Master Speed, with others, have described the 
rooms themselves, so it is our intention, God willing, to 
describe the furniture of these rooms; such eminent commo 
dities which every county doth produce, with the persons of 
quality bred therein, and some other observables coincident 
with the same subject. 

Cato, that great and grave philosopher, did commonly 
demand, when any new project was propounded unto him, 
" Cui bono ?" what good would ensue, in case the same was 
effected ? A question more fit to be asked than facile to be 
answered in all undertakings, especially in the setting forth of 
new books, insomuch that they themselves, who complain that 
they are too many already, help daily to make them more. 

Know then, I propound five ends to myself in this Book : 
first, to gain some glory to God : secondly, to preserve the 
memories of the dead: thirdly, to present examples to the 
living : fourthly, to entertain the reader with delight : and 
lastly (which I am not ashamed publicly to profess), to procure 
some honest profit to myself. If not so happy to obtain all, I 
will be joyful to attain some; yea, contented and thankful too, 
if gaining any (especially the first) of these ends, the motives of 
my endeavours. 

First, glory to God, which ought to be the aim of all our 
actions ; though too often our bow starts, our hand shakes, and 
so our arrow misseth the mark. Yet I hope that our describing 
so good a land, with the various fruits and fruitful varieties 
therein, will engage both writer and reader in gratitude to that 
God who hath been so bountiful to our nation. In order 
whereunto, I have not only always taken, but often sought 

VOL. I. B 



2 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

occasions to exhort to thankfulness,, hoping the same will be 
interpreted no straggling from my subject, but a closing with 
my calling. 

Secondly, to preserve the memories of the dead. A good 
name is an ointment poured out, smelt where it is not seen. 
It hath been the lawful desire of men in all ages to perpetuate 
their memories, thereby in some sort revenging themselves of 
mortality, though few have found out effectual means to per 
form it. For monuments made of wood are subject to be 
burnt ; of glass, to be broken ; of soft stone, to moulder ; of 
marble and metal, (if escaping the teeth of time) to be demo 
lished by the hand of covetousness ; so that, in my apprehen 
sion, the safest way to secure a memory from oblivion is (next 
his own virtues) by committing the same in writing to posterity. 
Thirdly, to present examples to the living, having here 
precedents of all sorts and sizes ; of men famous for valour, 
wealth, wisdom, learning, religion, and bounty to the public, 
on which last we most largely insist. The scholar, being taxed 
by his writing master for idleness in his absence, made a fair 
defence, when pleading that his master had neither left him 
paper whereon or copy whereby to write. But rich men will 
be without excuse, if not expressing their bounty in some 
proportion, God having provided them paper enough ["the 
poor you have always with you "*] and set them signal exam 
ples, as in our ensuing work will plainly appear. 

Fourthly, to entertain the reader with delight. I confess, the 
subject is but dull in itself, to tell the time and place of men s 
birth, and deaths, their names, with the names and number of 
their books ; and therefore this bare skeleton of time, place, 
and person, must be fleshed with some pleasant passages. To 
this intent I have purposely interlaced (not as meat, but as 
condiment) many delightful stories, that so the reader, if he do 
not arise (which I hope and desire) religiosior or doctior, with 
more piety or learning, at least he may depart jucundior, with 
more pleasure and lawful delight, 

Lastly, to procure moderate profit to myself in compensation 
of my pains. It was a proper question which plain-dealing 
Jacob pertinently propounded to Laban his father-in-law : 
" and now when shall I provide for mine house also ?" f 
Hitherto no stationer hath lost by me ; hereafter it will be high 
time for me (all things considered) to save for myself. 

The matter following may be divided into real and personal, 
though not according to the legal acception of the words. By 
real, I understand the commodities and observables of every 
county : by personal, the characters of those worthy men who 
were natives thereof. We begin with a catalogue of the parti 
cular heads whereof this Book doth consist, intending to shew 

* John xii. 8. f Gen. xxx. 30. 



NATIVE COMMODITIES MANUFACTURES. 3 

how they are severally useful ; and then I hope, if good as 
single instruments, they will be the better as timed in a 
consort. 



CHAPTER II. 

THE REAL TOPICS INSISTED ON IN THE RESPECTIVE COUNTIES. 
THE NATIVE COMMODITIES. 

No County hath cause to complain with the Grecian widows, 
that they are neglected in the daily ministration,* God hath 
not given all commodities to one, to elate it with pride, and 
none to others to deject them with pensiveness ; but there is 
some kind of equality betwixt the profits of counties, to con 
tinue commerce, and balance trading in some proportion. 

We have therefore in this Work taken especial notice of the 
several commodities which every Shire doth produce. And 
indeed God himself enjoineth us to observe the variety of the 
earth s productions in this kind. For speaking of the land of 
Havilah, where, saith he, "there is gold, and the gold of that 
land is good ; there is bdellium, and the onyx-stone :"t see 
here how the Holy Spirit points at those places where God hath 
scattered such treasure, and the best thereof in all kinds, that 
man, if so disposed, may know whereto gather them up. 

I confess, England cannot boast of gold, and precious stones, 
with the land of Havilah ; yet affordeth it other things, both 
above and beneath ground, more needful for man s being. 
Indeed some Shires, Joseph-like, have a better coloured coat 
than others ; and some, with Benjamin, have a more bountiful 
mess of meat belonging unto them. Yet every County hath a 
child s proportion, as if God in some sort observed gavel-kind 
in the distribution of his favours. "Oh that men would there 
fore praise the Lord for his goodness, and declare the wondrous 
works which he doeth for the children of men.J" 

Know, reader, \vhen a commodity is general to all England, 
then, to avoid repetition, it is entered in that county where 
there was the first, or else the most and best of that kind. 
And we have so contrived it, that, generally, three commodities 
are treated of in every county. 

THE MANUFACTURES. 

Some Heathen have causelessly complained of Nature as a 
step-mother to mankind, because other creatures come into the 
world clothed with feathers, furs, or fleeces, &c., or armed with 
paws, claws, beaks, tusks, horns, hoofs; whilst man is exposed 
naked into the world: I say a causeless charge, because Provi- 



* Acts vi l. f Gen. ii. 12. + Psalms cvii. 8. 

\ 



R 2 



4 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

dence having given men hands, and reason to use them (two 
blessings denied to other creatures), all clothing and fencing is 
eminently and transcendantly bestowed upon him. 

It is very remarkable to see the manufactures in England, not 
knowing whether more to admire the rarity or variety thereof. 
Undoubtedly the wealth of a nation consisteth in driving a na 
tive commodity through the most hands to the highest artificial 
perfection, whereof we have taken especial cognizance in the 
respective counties, yet so as (though briefly naming) not 
largely handling that manufacture whereon we have formerly 
insisted. 

It must not be forgotten that there be some things which 
cannot properly be termed natural commodities, because of 
their quality altered and disguised by men s industry; and yet 
they attain not the reputation of manufactures. As salt, being 
water boiled; malt, barley dried; cider, apples pressed. See 
ing therefore they have a mixed nature, they are promiscuously 
placed as suiteth best with my own conveniency. 

MEDICINAL WATERS. 

The God of Nature hath not discovered himself so variously 
wonderful in any thing, as in the waters of fountains, rivers, &c. 
England hath as large a share herein as any country, and her 
springs wonderful on several accounts. 

1. Colour; black, red, yellow, &c. 2. Taste; sweet, bitter, 
salt, acid, corroding, astringing, &c. 3. Odour; stinking of 
sulphur, like the scouring of a gun very foul. 4. Sound ; beat 
ing sometimes like a march, sometimes like a retreat on several 
occasions. 5. Heat; lukewarm, and gradually hot even to. 
scalding. 6. Weight; considerably heavier or lighter in pro 
portion to other waters. 7. Motion; though many miles from 
the sea, sympathizing therewith, ebbing and flowing accord 
ingly. 8. Effects; some being surgeons to heal sores, others 
physicians to cure diseases. 

The last is proper for our pen, being the largess of Heaven 
to poor people, who cannot go to the price of a costly cure. 
Of these more have been discovered by casualty than industry, 
to evidence that therein we are not so much beholden to man s 
pains as God s providence. Many springs formerly sovereign, 
feave since lost their virtue, yet so that other springs have found 
it; so that their sanative qualities may seem not taken away, 
but removed. And as there are many mean men of great ability 
yet depressed in obscurity; so no doubt there are in our land aquce 
incognita of concealed worth and virtue ; in effect no whit infe 
rior to those which in fame are far above them. However, the 
gift which Nature holdeth forth may be doubled in the goodness 
thereof, if the hand of Art do but help to receive it, and the 
patients l&gt;e prepared with physic, in the using of such water ; 



MEDICINAL WATERS THE WONDERS. 3 

otherwise fons vita may be Jons mortis, if diet, due time, and 
quantity be not observed. 

Some will say that our English waters must needs be raw, 
because so far from the fire ; whilst those are better boiled, 
which, lying more south, are nearer the sun. But experience 
avows the contrary, that England affordeth most sanative 
waters for English bodies, if men were as judicious in taking, 
as Nature is bountiful in tendering them. 

As for the proprietaries of such (or rather of the ground sur 
rounding such) medicinal waters, as I would not have them de- 
trimented in the least degree by the conflux of people unto 
them; so it is injurious in my judgment for them to set them 
to sale, and make gain of God s free gift therein. I confess, 
water was commonly sold in the land of Canaan, proved by 
that passage in the Prophet, "Oh, every one that thirsteth, 
come ye to the waters; and he that hath no money/ * &c. 
Yea, so churlish were the Edomites to the Israelites, that " they 
would not give," that is, "afford them water for money / t 
But it is considerable : well-water in those hot countries was 
acquired with vast pains and expence, it being dearer to sink a 
well than build an house, besides many frustrations in that kind, 
before their endeavours found full effect; which made it the 
more equal for the owners, by such sales, to make profit, or 
rather to make up their reparations. But no such cost being 
expended in the case in hand, it may be accounted a kind of 
simony, in such as sell ease and help to poor people, though 
they may lawfully buy it, as passive and necessitated thereunto. 

THE WONDERS. 

Of these England affordeth many, which by several authors 
are variously reckoned up. One reckoneth four as most re 
markable; J- another accounted six; a third bringeth them up 
to thirteen, 1 1 which since some have increased. Indeed if so 
many men had all agreed in one number, that had been a 
wonder indeed. 

But under this title we comprehend all rarities, whish are out 
of the ordinary road of nature, the illustration whereof may 
minister unto us matter of profitable discourse. Of these 
wonders, some were transient, lasting only for a time (like ex 
traordinary ambassadors employed on some great affair) ; others 
liegers and permanent, the most proper for our pen to observe. 
And to prevent vacuity in some counties (that this topic of 
wonders might be invested with some matter), some artificial 
rarities are (but very sparingly) inserted, such as transcend the 
standard of ordinary performance : but these are cast in as over 
weight, the former being only our proper subject. 

k Isaiah, lv. i. f Deut. ii. 28. J H. Huutington. Sir John Sidney. 
j| Samuel Beauland on Nennius. 



6 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

Our great design herein is, that men may pay the tribute of 
their admiration, where the same is due, to God himself, who, 
as David observeth, "only doth great wonders."* Only, ex 
clusively of men and angels; doth, that is, really, solidly, and 
substantially. Jugglers do shew, not do, whose pretty works are 
not prtestdtiones, but prcestigice. Great wonders, called in 
Scripture MAGNALIA; and, if the Latin alloweth the word, we 
could grant the devil his Parvalia, doing of petty feats, great- 
ened into wonders by his cunning and our credulity. 

Well, let our admiration be given to God, seeing deliberate 
wondering (when the soul is not suddenly surprised) being 
raised up to an height is part of adoration, and cannot be given 
to any creature without some sacrilege. Such wondering con 
sists of reverence and ignorance, which best becometh even the 
wisest of men, in their searches after God his ways. As for 
that unkind wondering, which melts not man s heart like wax 
into the praising of God, but clay-like hardeneth it unto stupe 
faction, "Behold, ye despisers, and wonder, and perish / f 
God keep all good men from being guilty thereof ! 

A secondary end J have herein, to shew that England falls 
not short of foreign countries in wonderful sights, the same in 
kind, though not in degree. Italy hath her Grotta della Sibilla ; 
we in Somersetshire our Wockley Hole. Spain her Anas; we 
our Mole, &c. But wonders, like prophets, are not without 
honour save in their own country, where constancy (or at least 
commonness of converse) with them abateth their respect and 
reputation. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

[Reader, in our following book we have inverted the method, 
and more properly placed buildings next to manufactures.] 

Next we take notice of the signal structures which each 
County doth afford. Indeed the Italians do account all English 
to be Gothic buildings, only vast (and greatness must have 
something of coarseness therein). However, abating for their 
advantage above us in materials, marble, porphyry, &c. their 
palaces may admire the art in some English fabrics, and in our 
Churches especially. 

Elisha, beholding Hasael, wept by way of prophecy, foresee 
ing that, amongst other many mischiefs, he would set fire on the 
strong cities, J and, by consequence, on the fair houses in Israel. 
But well may we weep, when looking back on our late civil war, 
remembering how many beautiful buildings were ruined thereby, 
though indeed we have cause to be thankful to God that so 
many are left standing in the land. 

But what said our Saviour to his disciples, when transported 
with wonder at the goodly stones in the Temple ? " Are these 

* Psalm cxxxvi. 4. f Acts xiii. 41. % 2 Kings viii. 12. 



THE BUILDINGS LOCAL PROVERBS. / 

the things you look upon ? "* Such transitory buildings are 
unworthy of a Christian s admiration. And let it be our 
care, that when the fairest and firmest fabrics fall to the ground, 
yea, when " our earthly house be dissolved, we may have an 
house not made with hands, but eternal in the heavens. "t 

LOCAL PROVERBS. 

A Proverb is much matter decocted into few words. Hear 
what a learned critic saith of them : J " Argutee has brevesque 
loquendi formulae, quamvis e trivio petitatse et plebi frequentatee, 
suas habent veneres, et genium cujusque gentis penes quam ce- 
lebrantur, atque acumen ostendunt." 

Some will have a proverb so called from verbum a word, 
and pro (as in proavus ) signifying before ; being a speech which 
time out of mind hath had peaceable possession in the mouths 
of many people. Others deduce it from verbum a word, and 
pro for vice (as in proprceses] in stead of, because it is not to 
be taken in the literal sense; one thing being put for another. 

Six essentials are required to the completing of a perfect 
proverb; namely, that it be 

1. Short. -N si. Oration. 

2. Plain. f ^2. Riddle. 

3. Common. (__ Otherwise it is no 1 3. Secret. 

4. Figurative. ( proverb, but a "\ 4. Sentence. 

5. Ancient. \ 1 5. Upstart. 

6. True. VG. Libel. 

I have only insisted on such local Proverbs in their respec 
tive counties, wherein some proper place or person is men 
tioned ; such as suggest unto us some historical hint, and the 
interpretation thereof afford some considerable information, and 
conduce to the illustration of those counties wherein they are 
used. 

Herein I have neglected such narrow and restrictive Pro 
verbs as never travelled beyond the smoke of the chimneys of 
that town wherein they were made, and, though perchance sig 
nificant in themselves, are unknown to the neighbouring coun- 

O o 

ties, so far they are from acquiring a national reception. Be 
sides, I have declined all such which are frivolous., scurrilous, 
scandalous, confining ourselves only to such whose expounding 
may contribute to the understanding of those shires wherein 
they are in fashion. 

Objection. It is more proper for a person of your profession 
to employ himself in reading of and commenting on the Pro 
verbs of Solomon, to "know wisdom and instruction, to per 
ceive the words of understanding." Whereas you now are 
busied in what may be pleasant, not profitable ; yea, what may 
inform the fleshly, not edify the inward man. 

Lukexxi. 6. j 2 Cor. v. l. J Salmasius e Levino Warnero. 

Prov. i. 2. 



8 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

Answer. Let not our fellow-servants be more harsh unto 
us than our Master himself : we serve not so severe a Lord, 
but that he alloweth us sauce with our meat, and recreation 
with our vocation. 

Secondly, God himself, besides such as I call supernatural 
Proverbs (as Divinely inspired), taketh notice, and maketh use of, 
the natural or native proverbs of the country, praising, approv 
ing, and applying some; "Physician, cure thyself;"* "The 
dog is returned to his vomit, and the swine which was washed 
to her wallowing in the mire." f Disliking and condemning 
others, and commanding them to be abolished: " The fathers 
have eaten sour grapes, and the children s teeth are set on 
edge."J Now seeing antiquity without verity is no just plea 
that any thing should be continued, on this warrant I have, in 
these our country proverbs, alleged more than I allow; branding 
some with a note of infamy, as fit to be banished out of our dis 
course. 

Lastly, besides information much good may redound to the 
reader hereby. It was the counsel which a wise gave to a great 
man; " Read histories, that thou dost not become a history." 
So may we say, "Read Proverbs, that thou beest not made a 
proverb," as God threatened the sinful people of Israel. Sure 
I am that David, by minding of a country (no canonical) pro 
verb viz. "Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked," |j was 
thereby dissuaded from offering any violence to the person of 
Saul, then placed in his power, whereby he procured much 
tranquillity to his own conscience. 

We have not confined ourselves to Proverbs in the strict 
acception thereof; but sometimes insist on such which have 
only a proverbial tendency, or lie, as one may say, in the 
marches betwixt proverb and prophecy ; where they afford us a 
fit occasion to sally forth into such discourse as may conduce to 
the history of our nation. 

THE MEDICINAL HERBS. 

Some maintain this position, " that every country cures the 
diseases which it causes, and bringeth remedies for all the ma 
ladies bred therein." An opinion which, grant not true, yet 
may have much truth therein, seeing every country, and Eng 
land especially, affordeth excellent plants : were it not partly 
for men s laziness, that they will not seek them; partly for their 
ignorance, that they know not when they have found them ; and 
partly for their pride and peevishness, because, when found, they 
disdain to use and apply them. Indeed, quod charum, charum 
what is fetched far, and bought dear, that only is esteemed ; 
otherwise, were many English plants as rare as they are useful, 
we would hug in our hands what we now trample under our feet. 

1 Luke iv. 23. f 1 Peter ii. 22. J Ezek. xviii. 2. 

1 Kin^s ix. 7. || 1 Sam. xxiv, \:\ 



MEDICINAL HERBS PRINCES. 9 

For proof hereof, let not the reader grudge to peruse these 
words of a grand herbalist,* speaking of virga aurea, or golden 
rod, growing plentifully, but discovered lately in Middlesex : 
" It is extolled above all other herbs for the stopping of blood in 
sanguinolent ulcers and bleedingwounds ; and hath in time past 
been had in greater estimation and regard than in these days. 
For, in my remembrance, I have known the dry herb, which 
came from beyond the seas, sold in Bucklersbury, in London, 
for two shillings and sixpence the ounce ; but since it is found 
in Hampstead Wood, even as it were at the town s end, no man 
will give two shillings and sixpence for an hundred weight of 
it ; which plainly sets forth our inconstancy and sudden muta 
bility, esteeming no longer of any thing, how precious soever it 
be, than while it is strange and rare." 

We may also observe, that many base and barren heaths and 
hills, which afford the least food for beasts, yield the best phy 
sic for man. One may also take notice that such places that are 
nearest to London, Cambridge, Oxford, Bath, or where some emi 
nent herbalist hath his habitation, afford us the greater variety 
of medicinal herbs. Not that more have grown, but more are 
known thereabouts, where the native plants are not better, but 
more happy in their vicinity to such discoverers. And now, to 
be always within the reach if not the touch of mine own calling, 
we may observe in Scripture that God s Spirit directs men to 
the gathering of such simples of his own planting : " Is there 
no balm in Gilead ?"f True in a literal sense, as well as mys 
tically of our Saviour. 

Now the reason why I have been so sparing on this topic, 
and so seldom insist thereon, is because these herbs grow 
equally for goodness and plenty in all countries ; so that no 
one shire can, without manifest usurpation, entitle itself 
thereunto. Besides, they are so common and numerous, they 
would jostle out matter of more concernment. However, we 
have noted it where the herb is rare and very useful : and in our 
following Book (though here the method be transposed) have 
placed medicinal herbs next medicinal waters, conceiving that 
order most natural. 



CHAPTER III. 

OF THE FIRST QUATERNION OF PERSONS. 

I. PRINCES. IK SAINTS. III. MARTYRS. IV. CONFESSORS. 

PRINCES. 

WE take the word, as it is of the common gender, inclusive 
of both sexes, and extend it only to kings with their wives and 

* Gerard, in his Herbal, p. 430. t Jcr. viii. 22. 



10 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

children. Of the second sort we have but few, and those only 
from the time of king Edward the Fourth, who first married 
his subject, or native of his dominions. 

We confine ourselves to such as were born since the Con 
quest ; otherwise we should be swallowed up, should we launch 
out beyond that date into the Saxon government, especially into 
the gulf of their Heptarchy, where a prince could not be seen for 
princes. But, if a British or Saxon king comes under our pen, 
we prefer to take cognizance of him in some other notion (as 
of saint, martyr, soldier, &c.) so to preserve the topic of prince- 
ship entire according to our design. 

We have stinted ourselves only to the legitimate issue of 
kings ; and after such who are properly princes, we have, as 
occasion is offered, inserted some who in courtesy and equity 
may be so accepted, as the heirs to the crown (in the Lancas 
trian difference) though not possessed thereof ; or else so near 
a kin thereunto, that much of history doth necessarily depend 
upon them. 

We have observed these nativities of princes, because 
such signal persons are not only oaks amongst under-woods, but 
land-marks amongst oaks, and the directory for the methodical 
regulation of history. Besides, in themselves they are of spe 
cial remark, as more or less remote from the crown ; not only 
their OAvn honour, but the happiness of thousands being con 
cerned in their extraction, and Divine providence most visible 
in marshalling the order thereof. For, although " Nasci a prin- 
cipibus fortuitum est K may pass for a true instance in gram 
mar, it is no right rule in divinity, which, though acknowledging 
"rich and poor the work of God s hands/ * pronounceth 
princes to be men " of his right hand, made strong for him- 
self/ t that is, purposely advanced to employ their own great 
ness to his glory. 

Let none object that the wives of kings need not to have 
been inserted, as persons of no such consequence in govern 
ment, seeing it is the constant practice of the Spirit of God, 
after the mention of a new king in Judah, to record the name 
of his mother and her parentage : " His mother s name also 
was Micaiah, the daughter of Uriel of Gibeah:"J His 

mother s name was Althaliah, the daughter of Omri :" " His 
mother s name was Hamutal, the daughter of Jeremiah of Lib- 
nah :"|| and divines generally render this reasqn thereof, that if 
such kings proved godly and gracious, then the memory of their 
mothers should receive just praise for their good education ; if 
otherwise, that they might be blamed for no better principling 
them in their infancy. 

* Job xxxiv. 19. f Psalm Ixxx. 17. % Chron. xiii. 2. 

2 Chron. xxii. 2. || 2 Kings xxiii. 31. 



WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. ]1 

SAINTS. 

This word accepts of several interpretations, or rather they 
are injuriously obtruded upon it. 1. Saints of fiction, who 
never were in rerum natura, as St. Christopher, &c. 2. Saints 
of faction, wherewith our age doth swarm, alleging two argu 
ments for their saintship : first, that they so call themselves ; 
secondly, that those of their own party call them so. Neither 
of these belong to our cognizance. 3. Saints of superstition, 
reputed so by the court of Rome. 4. Saints indeed, parallel to 
St. Paul s " Widows indeed,"* and both deserve to be honoured. 

It is confessed, in this our book, we drive a great trade in the 
third sort ; and I cannot therefore but sadly bemoan that the 
lives of these saints are so darkened with popish illustrations, 
and farced with faussetes to their dishonour, and the detriment 
of church history ; for, as honest men, casually cast into the 
company of cozeners, are themselves suspected to be cheats, by 
those who are strangers unto them ; so the very true actions 
of these saints, found in mixture with so many forgeries, have a 
suspicion of falsehood cast upon them. 

Inquiring into the causes of this grand abuse, I find them 
reducible to five heads. 

1. Want of honest hearts in the biographists of these saints, 
which betrayed their pens to such abominable untruths. 

2. Want of able heads, to distinguish rumours from reports, 
reports from records; not choosing, but gathering; or rather 
not gathering, but scraping what could come to their hands. 

3. Want of true matter, to furnish oat those lives in any pro 
portion. As cooks are sometimes fain to lard lean meat, not 
for fashion, but necessity, as which otherwise would hardly be 
eatable for the dryness thereof ; so these, having little of these 
saints more than their names, and dates of their deaths, and those 
sometimes not certain, do plump up their emptiness with such 
fictious additions. 4. Hope of gain ; so bringing in more cus 
tom of pilgrims to the shrines of their saints. 5. Lastly, for 
the same reason for which Herod persecuted St. Peter (for I 
count such lies a persecuting of the saints memories) merely 
because they saw it pleased the people-t 

By these and other causes it is come to pass, that the obser 
vation of Vives is most true : " Quse de sanctis scripta sunt, 
prater pauca qusedam, multis foe data sunt commentis, dum qui 
scribit affectui suo indulget, et non quee egit divus, sed quse 
ilium egisse vellet, exponit.";}: (" What are written of the saints, 
some few things excepted, are defiled with many fictions, whilst 
the writer indulgeth his own affection, and declareth not what the 
saint did do, but what he desired that he should have done/ ) 
To this let me couple the just complaint of that honest Domi 
nican Melchior Canus : " Dolenter hoc dico, multo severius & 

* l Tim. v. 3. f Acts xii. 3. % DC Trad. Discrip. 1. v. 



12 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

Laertio vitas Philosopliorum scriptas, quam a Christianis vitas 
Sanctorum, longeque incorruptius et integrius Suetonium res 
Ceesarum exposuisse, quam exposuerint Catholici, non res dico 
imperatorum, sed martyrum, virginum, et confessorum/"* (" I 
speak it to my grief/ saith he, " that the lives of the Philoso 
phers are more gravely written by Laertius, than Saints are by 
Christians ; and that Suetonius hath recorded the actions of the 
Ceesars with more truth and integrity, than Catholics have the 
lives, I say not of princes, but even of martyrs, virgins, and con 
fessors.") 

To return to our English saints. As our catalogue beginneth 
with Alban, it endeth with Thomas bishop of Hereford, who 
died anno Domini 1282, the last Englishman canonized by the 
Pope : for though Anselm was canonized after him (in the 
reign of king Henry the Seventh) he was no English but a 
Frenchman, who died more than an hundred years before him. 
Since which time, no English, and few foreigners, have attained 
that honour; which the Pope is very sparing to confer : First, 
because sensible that multitude of saints abateth veneration. 
Secondly, the calendar is filled, not to say pestered, with them, 
jostling one another for room, many holding the same day in 
co-partnership of festivity. Thirdly, the charge of canonization 
is great ; few so charitable as to buy it, the Pope too covetous 
to give it to the memories of the deceased. Lastly, Protestants 
daily grow more prying into the Pope s proceedings, and the 
[suspected] perfections of such persons, who. are to be sainted ; 
which hath made his Holiness the more cautious, to canonize 
none whilst their memories are on the must, immediately after 
their deaths, before the same is fined in the cask, with some 
competent continuance of time after their decease. 

NOBLE MARTYRS. 

St. Ambrose, in his Te Deum, doth justify the epithet ; and 
by Martyrs, all know such only are imported who have lost 
their lives for the testimony of a fundamental truth. However, 
we find the word by one of the purest writers in the primitive 
times attributed to such who were then alive : " Cyprianus 
Nemisiano Felici, Lucio, alteri Felici, Litteo, Coliano, Victori, 
Faderi, Dativo, Coepiscopis ; item, Compresbyteris et Diacon- 
ibus, et ceeteris fratribus in metallo constitutis, Martyribus Dei 
Patris Omnipotentis et Jesu Christi Domini, et Dei Conser- 
vatoris nostri, eeternam salutem/ t 

See here how he bemartyreth such who as yet did survive ; 
but in so servile a condition (condemned to the mines) that 
they were almost hopeless, without miracle, to be released. 
Yet dare we not presume on this precedent of St. Cyprian 
(children must not do what their fathers may) to use the word 

* Lib. xi. c. 6. | Cyprianus, Epist. 77. us marsluilled by Famelian. 



NOBLE MARTYRS. 13 

so extensively ; but by martyrs understand persons (not in the 
deepest durance and distress) but actually slain for the testi 
mony of Jesus Christ, which by an ingenious pen is thus not ill 
expressed : 

" What desperate challenger is he, . For all the way he goes he s none 

Before he perish in the flame, Till he be gone. 

What e er his pain or patience be, It is not dying, but tis death 

Who dares assume a MARTYR S name ? Only gains a MARTYR S wreath." 

Now such martyrs as our land hath produced are reducible to 
three different ranks : 

1. Britons, suffering under Dioclesian, the persecuting 
Roman emperor; as Alban, Amphibalus, &c. 2. Saxons, mas 
sacred by the Pagan Danes ; as king Edmund, Ebba, &c. 
3. English, murdered by the cruelty of papists, since the year 
1400 ; as William Sawtree, John Badby, &c. 

In the two former of these we are prevented, and they antici 
pated from us, by the Pope s canonizing them under the title 
of Saints. The third and last only remain proper for our 
pen, martyred by the Romish prelates for above an hundred and 
fifty years together. 

I confess I have formerly met with some men, who would not 
allow them for martyrs who suffered in the reign of queen 
Mary, making them little better than felons de se, wilfully draw 
ing their blood on themselves. Most of these, I hope, are 
since convinced in their judgment, arid have learned more cha 
rity in the school of affliction, who by their own losses have 
learned better to value the lives of others, and now will willingly 
allow martyrship to those from whom they wholly withheld or 
grudgingly gave it before. 

We have reckoned up these martyrs according to the places 
of their nativity, where we could find them, which is my first 
choice, in conformity to the rest of this work. But in case this 
cannot be done, my second choice is (for know, reader, tis no 
refuge) to rank them according to the place of their death, 
which is their true birth-place in the language of antiquity.* 
Hear how a right ancient author expresseth himself to j;his pur 
pose : " Apte consuetudinem tenet Ecclesia, ut solennes bea- 
torum Martyrum vel Confessorum Christi dies, quibus ex hoc 
mundo ad regionem migraverunt vivorum, nuncupentur Natales, 
et eorum sollennia non funebria, tanquam morientium, sed 
(utpote in vera vita nascentium) Natalitia vocitentur."f Now 
if the day of their death be justly entitled their birth-day, the 
place of their death may be called their birth-place by the same 
analogy of reason and language. 

We have given in a list of martyrs names in their respective 
counties, but not their total number, only insisting on such 

* Origen, lib. iii. Comment, in Job. Albinus Flac. de Divin. Offic cap. de 
Sexta Feria, p. 60. 

f Nichol. Papa in Epist. ad Consulta Bulgarorum, cap. 5. in fine. 



14 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

who were most remarkable ; remitting the reader for the rest 
to the voluminous pains of Mr. Fox, who hath written all, and 
if malicious papists be believed, more than all, of this subject. 

WORTHY CONFESSORS. 

All good Christians are concluded within the compass of 
Confessors in the large acception thereof. " With the mouth 
confession is made unto salvation."* But here we restrain this 
title to such who have adventured fair and far for martyrdom, 
and at last not declined it by their own cowardice, but escaped 
it by Divine Providence. Confessor is a name none can wear 
whom it cost nothing. It must be purchased for the mainte 
nance of the faith, with the loss of their native land, liberty, 
livelihood, limbs, any thing under life itself. 

Yet in this confined sense of confessors, we may say with 
Leah, at the birth of Gad, " Behold a troop cometh,"t too 
many to be known, written, read, remembered ; we are forced 
therefore to reconfine the word to such who were canditates 
and probationers for martyrdom in proximo, potentia. There 
was not a stride, " but (to use David s expression) a step 
betwixt them and death ;"J their wedding clothes were made, 
but not put on, for their marriage to the fire. In a word, they 
were soft wax, ready chafed and prepared, but the signature of 
a violent death was not stamped upon them. 

Manifold is the use of our observing these confessors : First, 
to show that God alone hath paramount power of life and 
death ; preserving those who by men are " appointed to die." 
One whose son lay very sick, was told by the physician, " Your 
son, sir, is a dead man/ To whom the father (not disheartened 
thereat) returned, "I had rather a physician should call him so an 
hundred times^ than a judge on the bench should do it once, 
whose pronouncing him for a dead man makes him to be one." 

But though both a physician in nature, and a judge in law, 
give men for gone, the one passing the censure, the other sen 
tence of death upon them; God, "to whom belongeth the 
issues fr^m death/ || may preserve them long in the land of the 
living. Hereof these confessors are eminent instances; and 
- may God therefore have the glory of their so strange deli 
verances ! 

Secondly, it serveth to comfort God s servants in their great 
est distress. Let hand join in hand ; let tyrants piece the lion s 
cruelty with the fox s craft ; let them face their plots with 
power, and line them with policy; all shall take no effect. 
God s servants, if he seeth it for his glory and their good, shall 
either be mercifully preserved from or mightily protected in 
dangers, whereof these confessors are " a cloud of witnesses." 

We have an English proverb, " Threatened folks live long ;" 

* Rom. x. 10. f Gen. xxx. 11. J 1 Sam. xx. 3. 

Psalmlxxix.il. || Psalm Ixviii. 20. 



COXFESSORS POPES. 15 

but let me add, I know a threatened man who did never die at 
all ; namely, the prophet Elijah, threatened by cruel and crafty 
Jezebel, "The gods do -so to me, and more also, if I make not 
thy life like one of their lives by ^to-morrow at this time."* 
Yet did he never taste of mortality, being conveyed by a fiery 
chariot into heaven. Now, although our ensuing history pre- 
senteth not any miraculously preserved from death, yet affordeth 
it plenty of strange preservations of persons to extreme old age, 
though they wear the marks of many and mighty men s menaces, 
who plotted and practised their destruction. 

We have pursued the same course in confessors, which we 
embraced in martyrs; viz. we have ranked them according 
to their nativities, where we could certainly observe them, to 
make them herein uniform with the rest of our book. But 
where this could not be attained, we have entered them in 
those counties where they had the longest or sharpest sufferings. 
And this we humbly conceive proper enough, seeing their con- 
fessorship in a strict sense did bear true date from the place of 
their greatest persecution, 



CHAPTER IV. 

OF POPES, CARDINALS, AND PRELATES, BEFORE THE 

REFORMATION. 

POPES. 

I MEET with a mass of English natives advanced to that 
honour. Pope John Joan is wholly omitted ; partly because 
we need not charge that see with suspicious and doubtful crimes, 
whose notorious faults are too apparent, partly because this 
He- she, though allowed of English extraction, is generally be 
lieved born at Mentz in Germany .t 

Wonder not that so few of our countrymen gained the triple 
crown. For, first, great our distance from Rome, who, being 
an island or little world by ourselves, had our Archbishop of 
Canterbury, -which formerly was accounted alterius orbis Papa. 
Secondly, the Italians of late have engrossed the papacy to them 
selves : and much good may their monopoly do them ; seeing 
our English may more safely repose themselves in some other 
seat than the Papal chair, more fatal, it is to be feared, to such 
as sit therein, than ever Eli s proved unto him.J 

Yea, I assure you, four Popes was a very fair proportion for 
England. For having perused the voluminous book of Panta- 
leon, " De Viris illustribus Germanice," I find but six Popes, 

* 1 Kings xix. 2. f Godwin, in Catal. Cardinal, p. 159. 

+ l Sam. iv. 18. 



16 WORTHIES OF ENGLAIS D. 

Dutchmen by their nativity, viz. Stephen the Eighth, Gregory 
the Fifth, Silvester the Second, Leo the Ninth, Victor the 
Second, and Adrian the Sixth. Seeing therefore Germany, in 
the latitude thereof, a continent five times bigger than England, 
measured by the aforesaid Pantaleon with advantage; I say, 
seeing Germany, the Emperor whereof is, or ought to be, Pa 
tron to the Pope, produced by but six of that order, England s 
four acquit themselves in a very good appearance. 

I need not observe that our English word Pope came from 
the Latin Papa, signifying a father, a title anciently given to 
other bishops, but afterwards fixed on the see of Rome. One 
would have him called Papa by abbreviation, quasi PA^er 
PAtriarcharum, flitting only the two first syllables ; a pretty 
conceit, which I dare no more avouch than his fancy who 
affirmed the former syllable in Papa to be short in verse, for 
the Popes personal, who indeed are short-lived ; whilst the same 
syllable is long, the word being taken for the succession of 
Popes, who have lasted above a thousand years. 

CARDINALS. 

A word of their names, numbers, degrees, dignities,, titles, and 
habit. Cardinals are not so called, because the hinges on which 
the church of Rome doth move, but from cardo, which signi- 
fieth the end of a tenon put into a mortise,* being accordingly 
fixed and fastened to their respective churches. Anciently, 
cardinalis imported no more than an ecclesiastical person, bene- 
ficed and inducted into a cure of souls; and all bishops gene 
rally made cardinals as well as the Pope of Rome. 

In proof whereof, there were anciently founded, in the church 
of Saint Paul s, two cardinals chosen by the dean and chapter 
out of the twelve petty canons ; whose office it was to take 
notice of the absence and neglect of all in the choir, to give the 
eucharist to the minister of that church and their servants, as 
well in health as in sickness; to hear confessions, appoint 
penance, and to commit the dead to convenient sepulture. And 
two of them lie buried in the church of Saint Faith, with these 
epitaphs : 

" Hie homo Catholicus Willielmus West tumulatur, 
Pauli Canonicus Minor Ecclesise vocitatur, 
Qui fuerat Cardinalis bonus atque sodalis, &c. 

" Perpetuis annis memores estote Johannis 
Good, Succentoris, Cardinalisque minoris-," &c. 

Many other churches besides Saint Paul s retained this 
custom of cardinal-making ; viz. Ravenna, Aquileia, Milan, 
Piso, Beneventana in Italy, and Compostella in Spain. 

But in process of time cardinal became appropriated to such 
as officiated in Rome; and they are reckoned up variously by 

* Vitruvius, lib. 10, c. 20. 



CARDINALS. 1 

authors, fifty-one, fifty-three, fifty-eight, sixty; I believe their 
number arbitrary, to be increased or diminished ad libitum 
.Domini Papcs. They are divided into three ranks: Cardinal 
Bishops, assessors with the Pope ; Cardinal Priests, assistants 
to the Pope; and Cardinal Deacons, attendants on the Pope. 

The former of these have chairs allowed them, and may sit 
down in presence of his Holiness; and these are seven in 
number, whose sees are in the vicinage of Rome; and some 
Englishmen have had the honour to be dignified by them. 
1. Bishop of Hostia. 2. Bishop of Rorto, R. Kilwardby. 
3. Bishop of Sabine. 4. Bishop of Alba, Nic. Breakspeare. 

5. Bishop of Preneste, Bernar. Anglicus and Simon Langham. 

6. Bishop of Rufine. 7- Biphop of Tusculane. 

Cardinal Priests succeed, generally accounted twenty-eight, 
divided into four septenaries, whose titles are here presented, 
with such Englishmen* who attained to be honoured with such 
churches in Rome. 

1. St. Mary s beyond Tiber. 2. St. Chrysogon ; Stephen 
Laughton, A. D. 1212. 3. St. Cecily beyond Tiber; Thomas 
Wolsey, A. D. 1515. 4. St. Anastasia; John Morton, A. D. 
1493. 5. St. Laurence in Damaso. 6. St. Mark. 7- St. Mar 
tin in the Mount; William Alan, A. D. 1587- 8. St. Sabine; 
John Stafford, A. D. 1434. 9. St. Prisca; Reginald Pole, A. D. 
1540. 10. St. Balbine. 11. St. Nereus and Achileus ; Phil. 
Repington, A. D. 1408. 12. St. Sixtus. 13. St. Marcellus. 14. 
St. Susan. 15. St. Praxis ; Ancherus, A. D. 1261. 16. St. Pe 
ter ad vincula ; Christopher Bambridge, A. D. 1511, 17. St. 
Laurence in Lucina. 18. St. Crosses Jerusalem; Boso, A. D. 
1156. 19. St. Stephen in Mount Celius ; Robert Curson, A. D. 
1211. 20. St. John and St. Paul; Robert Surnmercote, A. D. 
1234. 21. The four Crowned Saints. 22. The holy Apostles. 

23. St. Cyriacus in the Baths ; Thomas Bourchier, A. D. 1464. 

24. St. Eusebius; Robert Pullen, A. D. 1144. 25. St. Pun- 
tiana ; Boso, A. D. 1160. 26. St. Vitalis St. ; John Fish 
er, A. D. 1535. 27. St. Marceline and Peter. 28. St. Cle 
ment. 

Observe, I pray you, this catalogue of titles (taken out of Sir 
Henry Spelman his glossary) is imperfect, St. Pastor being 
omitted therein, whereof Boso was at last made cardinal.f 
For these cardinals were not so mortised to their churches, but 
that they might be removed, especially if advanced a story higher 
(from cardinal deacons to priests, from priests to bishops); 
and sometimes, though remaining on the same floor, they w r ere 
removed (to make room for others) to some other title. Many 
more Englishmen we had created cardinals, w r hose certain titles 
are unknown. 

Sometimes there were several English Cardinals successively of the same title, 
whose names and numbers will be exhibited in their respective counties, 
t Bishop Godwin, in his Catalogue of Cardinals, p. 165. 
VOL. I. C 



18 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

But let us proceed to the Cardinal Deacons, sixteen in num- 

ber i 

1." St. Mary in Dompusinica. 2. St. Lucy. 3. St. Mary 
the New. 4. St. Comus and St. Damian. 5. St. Gregory. 
St. Mary in the Greek School. 7- St. Mary in the Porch. 8. 
St. Nicholas by the Prison. 9. St. Angelus. 10. St. Eusta- 
chius. 11. St. Mary in the Water. 12. St. Mary in the broad 
Way. 13. St. Agathe. 14. St. Lucia on the top of Sabine. 
15. St. Quintin. 16. St. [The last lost by the Scribe in 

Curia.] 

I only find one Englishman, Boso by name, made cardinal 
deacon of St. Cosmus and St. Damian ; but it was not long 
before he was advanced to be a cardinal bishop. 

The habit of cardinals is all scarlet; whereof Theodore Beza 
tartly enough thus expresseth himself : 

Crede meat nullo salurantur murice vestes, 

Divite nee cocco pallia tincta mihi- 
Sed quce rubra vides Sanctorum cade virorum, 

Et mersa insonti sanguine cuncta madent, 
Aut memor istorum quce celat crimina veslis, 

Pro Domino justo tincta pudore rubet. 

" My clothes in purple liquor ne er were stew d, 

Nor garments (trust me) richly dyed in grain. 
These robes you see so red I have imbru d 

In gore of guiltless saints, whom I have slain. 
Or, mindful of the faults they hide, with shame 

The bashful clothes do blush their wearer s blame. 1 

They wore also a red hat of a peculiar fashion to themselves, 
and rode abroad on horseback on scarlet foot-clothes ! and 
Pope Paul the Second -made it penal for any beneath their order 
in Rome to use the same ;* yea, to such a height of pride did 
they aspire, that we read this note in the Roman Pontifical : 
" Notandum, quod Caesar antequam coronetur simplici diade- 
mate sedet post primum episcopum cardirialem : et si quis rex 
adest, sedet tune post primum omnium presbyterum cardina- 
lem." Indeed, making their own canons, and being their own 
heralds to marshal their own precedency, they had been much 
to blame if not carving a good portion of honour to themselves, 
whilst devout princes, abused by bad instructors and their own 
erroneous consciences, gave to the clergy what they were pleased 
to demand. 

None might elect the Pope save such as were cardinals ; yea, 
none out of that order were eligible into the Papacy ; as in 
England one must first be a serjeant before he be^a judge. 
Cardinal deacons were in equal capacity of being popes with car 
dinal priests, and oftentimes were preferred before them, as they 
could strengthen their faction, which carried all in these, and I 
could wish in no other, elections. 

* Platina in ejus vita. 



CARDINALS. 19 

William Allen, who died anno 1594, was the last Englishman 
advanced to this honour ; so that our country hath not had a 
cardinal these sixty years, which from the former six ^hundred 
years was never without one or two of that order. This may 
seem a wonder ; our nation being as meriting as any for the 
Romish cause, and having as good heads as any, why should 
they not wear as gay hats as others ? Nor will the reasons 
assigned for the contrary give satisfaction: viz. 

1. That the Pope commonly makes Cardinals to gratify foreign 
kings, whilst our English sovereigns have ever since been of a 
different religion from his holiness. 2. That our English Ca 
tholics living beyond seas in the nature of exiles, and under 
persecution, as they call it, so high an honour is inconsistent 
with their suffering condition. 3. That our Englishmen want 
preferment and estates to maintain the distance of so great a 
dignity. 

There are at the present two English natives in France of noble 
extraction and Romish persuasion, much voiced in common 
discourse for their probability to such preferment ; but on what 
grounds I do not know, and list not to inquire. 

Surely the matter is not great, seeing that dignity hath been 
observed to be rather fatal than fortunate to the English, and 
attended with some sad and sudden casualties. 1. Cardinal 
Mackelsfield was four months buried before his cap was brought 
him. 2. Cardinal Sertor died in Italy in the juncture of time 
inter pileum datum et susceptum. 3. Cardinal Fisher, when his 
cap was come to Calais, had his head struck off at Tower Hill. 
4. Cardinal Somercot was poisoned in the very conclave, to 
prevent his selection to the popedom. 5. Cardinal Evosham 
was sent the same way on the same occasion. 6. Cardinal 
Bambridge was poisoned at Rome by one of his servants, being 
an Italian. 

If such their success, I suppose it far easier for Englishmen 
to have their caps (though coarser and cheaper) made of our 
own country wool, which will be more warm, and may prove 
more healthful for the wearers thereof. I have done with this 
subject when I have observed that there is a cardinal bishop of 
Sabine, a place near Rome ; and a cardinal priest of St. Sabine, 
a church dedicated to her memory in the same city; the not 
heeding whereof, I suspect, hath bred much confusion in our 
English writers. The best is, our Englishmen, when they write 
of places in Italy, cannot commit greater and grosser mistakes 
than what Italians have done, when they have written of towns 
and places in England ; though perchance, such is their pride, 
that they will say it is our duty to be exact in Italy, and their 
courtesy to take any notice of England. 

Let not the reader wonder if cardinals inserted in others are 
omitted in our catalogue ; viz. Ulricus, Ancherus, Theobaldus, 
Bernadus de Anguiscello, &c. ; seeing I am unsatisfied in some 

c 2 



20 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

of them whether they were cardinals ; in others whether they 
were Englishmen ; foreign countries laying more probable 
claim unto them. Nor will it quit the cost of a contest, nothing 
more than their names being left in history, without any other 
observables. 

PRELATES BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 

Next succeed such eminent clergymen who attained to the 
honour of being archbishops and bishops in England, and 
were famous in their generations. 

Objection. These popes, cardinals, and prelates, were su 
perstitious persons, and limbs of Antichrist, whose names are 
better lost than kept. Yea, it mattered not much if some good 
Josiah served their bones as those of the idolatrous priests of 
Jeroboam ; even burn them to ashes, that so their bodies and 
memories might perish together.* 

Answer. I am afraid our age affords those who, if they were 
to manage that act, would, together with their bones, sans differ 
ence, notwithstanding the distinguishing epithet, burn the bodies 
of the young and old prophet ; I mean, utterly extirpate the 
ministerial function. But I answer, it must be confessed they 
were deeply dyed with the errors and vices of the age they lived 
in, yet so that some of them were for their devotion exemplary 
to posterity ; and the very worst of them, though yielding no 
thing fit for our imitation, may afford what is well worth our 
observation. 

And here be it remembered, that the same epithet in several 
places accepts sundry interpretations. He is called a Good 
Man, in common discourse, who is not dignified with gentility : 
a Good Man upon the exchange, who hath a responsible es 
tate ; a Good Man in a camp, who is a tall man of his arms ; 
a Good Man in the church, who is pious and devout in his con 
versation. Thus, whatsoever is fixed therein in other relations, 
that person is a Good Man in history, whose character affords 
such matter as may please the palate of an ingenuous reader ; 
and I humbly crave the honour to be his taster in this behalf. 

Now of bishops before the Conquest, the most were merely 
nuda nomina, naked names. As for such appearing clothed with 
remarkable history, most of them move in an higher sphere of 
saints, and so are anticipated. Since the Conquest, for the first 
seven kings, many prelates were foreigners, generally French, 
and so aliens from our subject. It will therefore be seasonable 
to begin their catalogue about the time of king Henry the Third, 
deducing it unto the popish bishops who were deprived in the 
first of queen Elizabeth. 



* 2 Kings xxiii. 16. 



PRELATES SINCE THE REFORMATION. 21 

CHAPTER V. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

NEXT those prelates before, follow such as were since the 
Reformation ; much different, not in title but tenure, from the 
former holding their places, not from the Pope but their prince, 
and practising the principles of the Protestant religion, for the 
term of a hundred and twenty years, since the latter end of the 
reign of king Henry the Eighth. Amongst these, malice itself 
meets with many, which it must allow, for their living, preach 
ing, and writing, to have been the main champions of truth 
against error, learning against ignorance, piety against profane- 
ness, religion against superstition, unity and order against faction 
and confusion ; verifying the judicious observation of foreigners, 
" Clerus Britanniee, gloria mundi." 

These prelates may be digested into five successive sets, or 
companies, under their respective archbishops ; allowing each of 
them somewhat more than twenty years, as large a proportion 
for the life of a bishop as seventy years for the age of a man. 

1 . Archbishop Cranmer s ; whereof four, besides himself, 
were burnt at the stake, and the rest exiled in Germany. 2. 
Archbishop Parker s ; in the beginning of queen Elizabeth 
leading halcyon-days, without any considerable opposition 
against the hierarchy. 3. Archbishop Whitgiff s ; much pen- 
persecuted, and pelted at with libellous pamphlets ; but sup 
ported by queen Elizabeth s zeal to maintain the discipline 
established. 4. Archbishop Abbot s; fortunate all the peace 
able reign of king James, and beginning of king Charles, 
though the sky was red and lowering, foretelling foul weather to 
follow, a little before their death. 5. Archbishop Juxton s ; 
w r hose episcopal chairs were not only shrewdly shaken, but (as 
to outward appearance) overturned in our Late mutinous dis 
tempers. 

I know the man full well, to whom Mr. Charles Herle, pre 
sident of the assembly, said somewhat insultingly, " He tel 
you news : last night I buryed a bishop, dashing more at his 
profession then person, in Westminster Abbey/ To whom 
the other returned, with like latitude to both, " Sure you buried 
him in hope of resurrection." This our eyes at this day see 
performed ; and, it being " the w r ork of the Lord, may justly 
seem marvellous in our sight." 

It is also very remarkable, that of this fifth and last company 
[all bishops in 1642] nine are alive at this present; viz. par 
don me if not enumerating them exactly according to their 
consecration London, Bath, Wells, Ely, Salisbury, Bangor, 
Coventry and Lichfield, Oxford, Rochester, and Chichester ; a 
vivacity hardly to be paralleled of so many bishops in any 
other age, Providence purposely prolonging their lives, that as 



22 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

they had seen the violent ruining, they might also behold the 
legal restitution of their order. 

Now although not the quick but (the) dead worthies properly 
pertain to my pen, yet I crave leave of the reader in my follow 
ing work, to enter a brief memorial of the place of their nativi 
ties : partly because lately they were dead, though not in law., 
in the list of a prevalent party ; partly because they are dead to 
the world, having most attained, if not exceeded, the age of 
man, three score and ten years. 

To conclude : though the Apostle s words be most true, " that 
the lesser are blessed of the greater/ and that imperative and 
indicative blessings always descend from the superior ; yet an 
optative blessing, no more than a plain prayer, may properly 
proceed from an inferior ; so that a plain priest and submissive 
son of the Church of England may bless the bishops and 
fathers thereof. God sanctify their former afflictions unto 
them, that as the " fire in the furnace"* only burnt the bonds, 
setting them free who went in fettered, not the clothes, much 
less the bodies, of the children of the captivity ; so their suffer 
ings, without doing them any other prejudice, may only dis 
engage their souls from all servitude to this world. 

And that, for the future, they may put together, not only the 
parcels of their scattered revenues, but compose the minds of 
the divided people in England, to the confusion of the factious, 
and confirmation of the faithful in Israel. 



CHAPTER VI. 

OF SUCH WHO HAVE BEEN WORTHY STATESMEN IN OUR LAND. 

THE word Statesmen is of great latitude, sometimes signify 
ing such who are able to manage offices of state, though never 
actually called thereunto. Many of these men, concealing 
themselves in a private condition, have never arrived at public 
notice. But we confine the term to such who, by their prince s 
favour, have been preferred to the prime places : 

1. Of Lord Chancellors. 2. Of Lord Treasurers of England. 
3. Of Secretaries of State. To whom we have added some 
Lord Admirals of England, and some Lord Deputies of Ireland. 

LORD CHANCELLORS. 

The name is taken from cancelli, which signifies a kind of 
wooden network, which admitteth the eyes of people to behold, 
but forbids their feet to press on persons of quality, sequestered 
to sit quietly by themselves for public employment. Hence 
chancels have their denomination, which by such a fence were 

* Dan. iii. 25. 



LORD CHANCELLORS. 23 

formerly divided from the body of the church ; and so the lord 
chancellor had a seat several to himself, free from popular in 
trusion. 

I find another notation of this office, some deducing his name 
a cancellandOy from cancelling things amiss, and rectifying them 
by the rules of equity and a good conscience ; and this relateth 
to no meaner author then Johannes Sarisburiensis.* 

Hie est qui leges Regni cancellat iniquas, 

Et mandata pit principis aquaj acit. 
Siquid obest populis, out legibus est inimicum, 

Quicquid obest, per eum desinit esse nocens, 

" Tis he, who cancelleth all cruel laws, 

And in kings mandates equity doth cause. 
If aught to land or laws doth hurtful prove, 
His care that hurt doth speedily remove." 

He is the highest officer of the land, whose principal employ 
ment is to mitigate the rigour of the common law with consci 
entious qualifications. For as the prophet complaineth that the 
magistrates in Israel had " turned judgment into wormwood," f 
the like would daily come to pass in England, where high jus 
tice would be high injustice, if the bitterness thereof were not 
sometimes seasonably sweetened with a mixture of equity. 

He also keepeth the great seal of the land, the affixing 
whereof preferreth what formerly was but a piece of written 
parchment to be a patent or charter. For though it be true 
what Solomon says, " Where the word of a king is, there is 
power ;J yet that word doth not act effectually, until it be pro 
duced under the public seal. 

Some difference there is between learned authors about the 
antiquity of this office, when it first began in England. Polydore 
Vergil, who, though an Italian, could (when he would) see well 
into English antiquities, makes the office to begin at the Con 
queror. And bishop Godwin accounteth them sufficiently ridi 
culous, who make Swithin bishop of Winchester, chancellor of 
England, under king Athelwolfe. Several persons are alleged 
chancellors to our English kings before the Conquest, and king 
Ethelred appointed the abbot of Ely, " ut in regis curia can- 
cellarii age ret dignitatem," || The controversy may easily be 
compromised by this distinction. Chancellor before the Conquest 
imported an office of credit in the king s court (not of judicature, 
but) of residence, much in the nature of a secretary. Thus 
lately he was called the chancellor (understand, not of the diocese, 
but) of the cathedral-church, whose place was to pen the letters 
belonging thereunto j whereas the notion of the king s chan 
cellor, since the Conquest, is enlarged and advanced to signify 
the supreme judge of the land. 

* In his book called " Nugae Curialium," or Polycraticon. f Amos, v. 7. 

t Eccles. viii. 4. 

See Master Philpott s Catalogue of English Chancellors, pp. 1, 2, 3. 

II History of Ely. 



24 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

The lord keeper of the great seal is in effect the same with 
the lord chancellor of England : save that some will have the 
lord chancellor s place ad terminum vita, and the lord keeper s 
adplacitwn Regis. Sure it is, that because Nicholas Heath, late 
archbishop of York and chancellor of England, was still alive, 
though ousted of his office, Sir Nicholas Bacon was made lord 
keeper; and in his time the power of the keeper was made 
equal with the authority of the chancellor by act of parliament. 

We have begun our catalogue of chancellors at Sir Thomas 
More, before whose time that place was generally discharged by 
clergymen, entered in our book under the title of eminent pre 
lates. If any demand, why such clergymen, who have been lord 
chancellors, are not rather ranked under the title of statesmen, 
than under the topic of prelates; let such know, that seeing 
episcopacy is challenged to be jure divino, and the chancellor s 
place confessed to be of human institution, I conceive them 
most properly placed, and to their best advantage. 

If any ask, why the lord chancellors, who meddle so much in 
matters of law, are not rather digested under the title of lawyers 
than under that of statesmen: let such know, it is done because 
some chancellors were never lawyers ex professo, studying the 
laws of the land for their intended function, taking them only in 
order to their own private accomplishment; whereof Sir Chris 
topher Hatton was an eminent instance. As we begin our 
catalogue with Sir Thomas More, we close it with Sir Thomas 
Coventry; it being hard to say, whether the former were more 
witty and facetious, or the latter more wise and judicious. 

LORD TREASURERS. 

Kings without treasure will not be suitably obeyed : and 
treasure without a treasurer will not be safely preserved. 
Hence it was that the crowns and sceptres of kings were made 
of gold, not only because it is the most pure and precious of 
metals, but to shew that wealth doth effectually evidence and 
maintain the strength and state of majesty. We may therefore 
observe, not only in profane but holy writ; not only in old but 
new testament, signal notice taken of those who were over the 
treasury,* in which great place of trust the eunuch served Can- 
dace queen of Ethiopia, t 

The office of Lord Treasurer was ever beheld as a place of 
great charge and profit. One well skilled in the perquisites 
thereof, being demanded, what he conceived the yearly value of 
the place was worth, made this return, " That it might be worth 
some thousands of pounds to him who, after death, would go 
instantly to Heaven ; twice as much to him who would go to 
Purgatory ; and a nemo scit to him who would adventure to go 
to a worse place." But the plain truth is, he that is a 

* Ezrai. p. Neli. xiii. 13. -f Acts via. 27, 



LORD TREASURERS SECRETARIES OF STATE. 25 

bad husband for himself will never be a good one for 
his sovereign ; and therefore no wonder if they have advanced 
fair estates to themselves,, whose office was so advantageous, and 
taey so judicious and prudent persons, without any preju 
dice to their master, and, for aught I know, injury to 
his subjects. 

We have begun our catalogue at William Lord Powlett 
Marquess of Winchester. For although before him here and 
there lay lords were entrusted with that office ; yet generally 
they were bishops, and so anticipated under our topic of 
eminent prelates. And blame me not if, in this particular, 
I have made the lustre of the lords spiritual to eclipse the 
lords temporal, drowning their civil office in their ecclesiastical 
employment. We close our catalogue of lord treasurers 
with Francis Lord Cottington. 

SECRETARIES OF STATE. 

There were but two of these at once in the king s time, 
whereof the one was styled the Principal Secretary, the other 
the Secretary of Estate. Some have said that the first in the 
seniority of admission was accounted the principal ; but the ex 
ceptions in this kind being as many as the regularities, the 
younger being often brought over the head of the elder to 
be principal, their chiefness was penes Regis arbitrium. Nor 
was the one confined to foreign negociations, the other to 
domestic business, as some have believed ; but promiscuously 
ordered all affairs, though the genius of some secretaries did 
incline them most to foreign transactions. Their power was on 
the matter alike ; and petitioners might make their applications 
indifferently to either, though most addressed themselves to him 
in whom they had the greatest interest. Their salaries were 
some two hundred pounds a-piece ; and five hundred pounds 
a-piece more for intelligence and secret service. 

Before the reformation, clergymen, who almost were all 
things, were generally secretaries of estate ; as Oliver King, se 
cretary to Edward IV., Edward V., and Henry VII. ; and those 
come under our pen in the notion of eminent prelates. We 
therefore begin our catalogue of secretaries from Sir Thomas 
Cromwell, in the reign of king Henry the Eighth, because from 
him until our time a continued series of laymen have discharged 
that office. 

We conclude our secretaries of state with Sir John Cook, 
who, perceiving his aged body not so fit for such active times, 
resigned his place about the beginning of the Long Parliament, 
though surviving some years after in a private condition. We 
will, for the more safety, follow the pattern of so wise a states 
man ; and where he gave over his office, we will give over 
writing of those officers, for fear we tread too near on the 
toes of the times, and touch too. much on our modern dis 
tempers. 



26 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND, 



AMIRALS, Or ADMIRALS. 

Much difference there is about the original of this word, 
whilst most probable is their opinion who make it of eastern ex 
traction, borrowed by the Christians from the Saracens. These 
derive it from Amir, in arabic a Prince, and AXto S belonging 
to the sea, in the Greek language ; such mixture being prece- 
dented in other words. Besides, seeing the Sultan s dominions, 
in the time of the holy war, extended from Sinus Arabius to the 
north-eastern part of the midland-sea, where a barbarous kind 
of Greek was spoken by many, Amiral, thus compounded, was 
significatively comprehensive of his jurisdiction. Admiral is but 
a depraving of Amiral in vulgar mouths. However, it will never 
be beaten out of the heads of common sort, that, seeing the 
sea is scene of wonders, something of wonderment hath incor 
porated itself in this word, and that it hath a glimpse, cast, or 
eye of admiration therein. 

Our English kings (following the precedent of the politic 
Romans, who very seldom entrusted places of great importance, 
especially during life, in a single person, as also that they might 
gratify more and trust less,) divided the over-sight of sea-matters 
betwixt a triumvirate of amirals, and, like wary merchants, 
ventured the charge in several bottoms for the more safety. 

1. The North Amiral. His jurisdiction reached from the 
mouth of Thames to the outmost Orcades (though often opposed 
by the Scots) and had Yarmouth for his prime residence. 

2. The South Amiral. His bounds stretched from the 
Thames mouth to the Lands-end, having his station generally 
at Portsmouth. 

3. Tne West Amiral. His power extended from the Land s 
end to the Hebrides, having Ireland under his inspection, Mil- 
ford Haven the chief stable for his wooden horses. 

I find that Richard Fitz-alen, earl of Arundel, was by king 
Richard the Second made the first " Amirall of all England ;" 
yet so, that if three co-admirals were restored as formerly, his 
charter expired. John Vere, earl of Oxford, was, in 1 Henry 
VII. "Amirall of England," and kept it until the day of his 
death. Afterwards, men were checquered, at the pleasure of our 
princes, and took their turns in that office. For this cause I 
can make no certain catalogue of them, who can take with my 
most fixed eye no steady aim at them, the same persons being 
often alternately in and out of the place, whilst officers pro ter- 
mino mt&lt;K may be with some certainty recounted. 

Yet have we sometime inserted some memorable amirals 
under the title of statesmen ; and vice-amirals under the topic 
of seamen, because the former had no great knowledge in navi 
gation (I say great, it being improper they should be sea-mas 
ters who in no degree were seamen) ; and were employed, rather 
for their trust than skill, to see others do their duty, whilst the 
latter were always persons well experienced in maritime affairs. 



WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 27 



LORD DEPUTIES OF IRELAND. 

Ever since king Henry the Second conquered Ireland, few of 
our English princes went thither in person, and none continued 
any long time there, save king John and king Richard the 
Second, neither of them over-fortunate. But that land was 
governed by a substitute, commissioned from our kings, with the 
same power, though sometimes under several names. 

Lord Lieutenants. These were also of a double nature ; for 
some staid in England, and appointed deputies under them, to 
act all Irish affairs. Others went over into Ireland, transacting 
all things by presence, not proxy. 

Lord Deputies. Immediately deputed by the king to reside 
there. We insist on this title, as which is most constant and 
current amongst them. 

Lord Chief Justices. Not of the King s Bench or Common- 
Pleas, but of all Ireland. This power was sometimes sole in a 
single person, and sometimes equally in two together. 

Thus these three titles are in sense synonyma, to signify the 
same power and place. Some erroneously term them presi 
dents of Ireland, a title belonging to the particular governors of 
Munster and Connaught. 

It is true of Ireland what was once said of Edom, " their 
deputies were kings/ * No viceroy in Christendom (Naples 
itself not excepted) is observed in more state. He chooseth 
sheriffs, and generally all officers, save bishops and judges ; and 
these also, though not made by his commanding, are usually by 
his commending to the king. He conferreth knighthood ; hath 
power of life and death, signified by the sword carried commonly 
before him by a person of honour. His attendance and house 
keeping is magnificent, partly to set a copy of state to the bar 
barous Irish, by seeing the difference betwixt the rude rabble 
routs running after their native lords, and the solemnity of a 
regulated retinue ; partly to make in that rebellious nation a 
reverential impression of majesty, that by the shadow they may 
admire the substance, and proportionably collect the state of 
the king himself, who therein is represented. Our English 
kings were content with the title of " Lords of Ireland," until 
king Henry the Eighth, who, partly to shew his own power to 
assume what style he pleased, without leave or liberty from the 
Pope, whose supremacy he had suppressed in his dominions, 
partly the more to awe the Irish, wrote himself king thereof, 
anno Dom. 1541, from which year we date our catalogue of 
lord deputies, as then, and not before, viceroys indeed. 

Indeed it was no more than needs for king Henry the Eighth 
to assume that title ; seeing, " quod efficit tale magis est tale " 
and the commission whereby king Henry the Second made 
William Fitz-Adelme his lieutenant of Ireland hath this direc- 



* 1 Kings, xxii. 47. 



28 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

tion; "Archiepiscopis, episcopis, regibus; comitibus, baronibus, 
et omnibus fidelibus suis in Hibernia, salutem." 

Now, though by the postponing of these kings to archbishops 
and bishops, it plainly appears that they were no canonical 
kings, as I may say, I mean solemnly invested with the 
emblems of sovereignty [the king of Connaught,* the king of 
Thomond] ; yet were they more than kings, even tyrants in 
the exercise of their dominions,t so that king Henry was in 
some sort necessitated to set himself king paramount above 
them all. 



CHAPTER VII. 

OF CAPITAL JUDGES, AND WRITERS ON THE COMMON LAW. 

BY Capital Judges we undertand not those who have power 
to condemn offenders for capital faults, as all the twelve judges 
have, or any serjeant commissioned to ride the circuit ; but the 
chief judges, who, as capital letters, stand in power and place 
above the rest; viz. 1. the Chief Justice of the King s Bench; 
2. of the Common Pleas ; 3. the Chief Baron of the Exchequer. 
And the learned antiquary Sir Henry Spelman avoweth the 
title of " Capital Justices " properly applicable to these alone. 

1. The Chief Justice of the King s or upper bench is commonly 
called " the Lord Chief Justice of England/ a title which the 
lord chancellor (accounting himself chief in that kind) looks on 
as an injurious usurpation. And many alive may remember 
how Sir Edward Coke was accused to king James, for so styling 
himself in the frontispiece of his Reports, (parts the tenth and 
eleventh) ; insomuch that the judge was fain to plead for himself, 
" Erravimus cum patribus," as who could have produced plenty 
of precedents therein. 

2. The Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, in place beneath, 
is in profit above the former; so that some have, out of design, 
quitted that, to accept of this. Amongst these was Sir Edward 
Montague, in the reign of king Henry the Eighth, who being 
demanded of his friends the reason of his self degradation, " I 
am now," said he, " an old man ; and love the kitchen above 
the hall, the warmest place best suiting my age." 

3. The Chief Baron is chiefly employed in the Exchequer, to 
decide causes which relate to the king s revenue. Their brevia, 
or writs, did commonly run with this clause, that the judge 
should "have and hold his place guamdiii se bene gesserit (so 
long as he well behaved himself "} ; on this token, that Sir John 
Walter, lord chief baron of the exchequer, being to be outed 
of his place, for adjudging the loan-money illegal, pleaded for 
himself " that he was guilty of no misdemeanour, who had 
only delivered his judgment according to his conscience." 



* 6 Johannis Claus. membrana 18. f 6 lien. Ill, Chart, in. 2. 

+ Glossary, v. Justiciarius. 



JUDGES, AND WRITERS OX COMMON LAW. 29 



Others are granted from the king, durante nostro benepladto ; 
to continue in their office " during his will and pleasure." 

We begin the army of our judges, for some few, like the for 
lorn hope, advance higher, about the time of king Edward the 
First. It is impossible exactly to observe that inn of court 
wherein each of them had his education, especially some of 
them being so ancient, that, in their times, Lincolns Inn and 
Greys Inn were Lincoln s Inn and Grey s Inn; I mean, belonged 
to those their owners, from whom they had their names, as 
being, before they were appropriated to the students of our 
municipal laws. 

Here I will condemn myself, to prevent the condemning of 
others, and confess our characters of these judges to be very 
brief and defective. Indeed, were the subject we treat of over- 
strewed with ashes, like the floor of Bell s temple, it were easy 
to find out and follow the footsteps therein. But here is no 
such help to trace the footings of truth, time having almost out 
worn all impressions thereof. I perceive, though judges leave 
more land than bishops, they leave less memorials behind them, 
of the time, place, and manner, when and where born and died, 
and how they demeaned themselves. 

In the same topic with judges, we have also placed such as 
have been writers of our common law : and such conjunction, 
we hope, is no disparagement, considering many of them were 
capital judges, as Broke, Dyer, Coke, &c. ; and the rest learned 
men, of great repute in their profession, insomuch that the 
judges themselves, in several cases, have submitted to their 
judgments. 

And here I can but admire at the comparative paucity of 
the books of our common law, in proportion to those written 
of the civil and canon law. Oh how corpulent are the cor- 
puses of both those laws ! besides, their shadows are far 
bigger than their bodies; their glosses larger than their text. 
Insomuch, that one may bury two thousand pounds and up 
wards in the purchase, and yet hardly compass a moiety of 
them : whereas all the writers of the common law, except they 
be much multiplied very lately, with all the year-books belong 
ing thereunto, may be bought for threescore pounds, or there 
abouts ; which with some men is an argument, that the common 
law embraceth the most compendious course to decide causes, 
and, by the fewness of the books, is not guilty of so much 
difficulty and tedious prolixity as the canon and civil laws. 

Yet it is most true, that the common law books are dearer 
than any of the same proportion. Quot libri, tot librae, holdeth 
true in many, and is exceeded in some of them. Yea, should 
now an old common law book be new printed, it would not quit 
cost to the printer, nor turn to any considerable account. For 
the profession of the law is narrow in itself, as confined to few 
persons ; and those are already sufficiently furnished with all 



30 WORTHIES OP ENGLAND. 

authors on that subject, which, with careful keeping and good 
using, will serve them and their sons sons, unto the third gene 
ration : so that a whole age would not carry off a new impres 
sion of an ancient law book, and, quick return being the life of 
trading, the tediousness of the sale would eat up the profit 
thereof. 

All I will add is this, that that tailor, who, being cunning in 
his trade, and taking exact measure of a person, maketh a suit 
purposely for him, may be presumed to fit him better than 
those who, by a general aim, at random make clothes for him : 
in like manner, seeing our municipal law was purposely com 
posed by the sages of this land, who best knew the genius of 
our nation, it may be concluded more proper for our people, 
and more applicable to all the emergencies in this half-island, 
than the civil law, made for the general concernment of the 
whole empire, by such who were unacquainted with the particu 
larities of our land and nation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

OF SOLDIERS AND SEAMEN, WITH THE NECESSITY TO ENCOU 
RAGE THE TRADE OF FISHING. 

SOLDIERS. 

SOLDIERS succeed, though it almost affrighteth my pen to 
meddle with such martial persons. It is reported of the God 
of the Jews, that he w r ould have no share of the Pantheon at 
Rome, except he might have, and that justly too, the whole 
temple to himself. So lately we have been so sadly sensible of 
the boisterousness of soldiers, one may suspect they will, 
though unjustly, jostle all others out of the book, to make room 
for themselves. 

But since their violence hath, blessed be God, been season 
ably retrenched, we have adventured to select some signal per 
sons of that profession, whose prowess made eminent impression 
on foreign parts, so purposely to decline all meddling with the 
doleful and dangerous distractions of our times, beginning our 
list in the reign of king Edward the Third, and concluding in 
the beginning of king Charles. 

SEAMEN. 

Surely Divine Providence did not make the vast body of the 
sea for no other use than for fishes to disport themselves therein, 
or, as some do conceit, only for to quench and qualify the 
drought and heat of the sun with the moisture thereof: but it 
was for higher intendments. Chiefly, that by sailing thereon, 
there may be the continuing of commerce, the communicating 
of learning and religion, the last from Palestine, the staple 



SOLDIERS AND SEAMEX. 31 

thereof, and the more speedy and convenient portage of bur 
thens ; seeing a laden ship doth fly, in comparison of the creep 
ing of an empty waggon. 

Now to speak w r hat envy cannot deny, our Englishmen, either 
for fights for discoveries, whether for tame ships, merchantmen, 
or wild ships, men-of-war, carry away the garland from all na 
tions in the Christian world. 

Learned Keckerman, who, being a German by birth, was un 
biassed in his judgment, and living in Dantz, a port of great 
trading, whither seamen repaired from all parts, and writing a 
book, f&lt; De Re Nautica," may be presumed skilful therein, 
alloweth the English the best seamen, and next to them the 
Hollanders.* And if the latter dare deny the truth hereof, let 
them remember the late peace they purchased of the English, 
and thank God that they met with so conscientious chapmen, 
who set no higher price thereof. 

Yea, let the Dutch know, that they are the scholars to the 
English in some of their discoveries : for I find the four first 
circumnavigators of the world thus qualified for their nativities : 
1. Magellanus, a Spaniard : 2. Sir Francis Drake, an English 
man : 3. Sir Thomas Can dish, an Englishman : 4. Oliver Noort, 
an Hollander. But be it known, that the last of these had an 
Englishman, Captain Mellis by name, pilot, to conduct him. 

Yet let not my commending of our English seamen be mis 
interpreted, as if I did not refer all success to the goodness of 
God, the grand admiral of the world. The praising of instru 
ments, by way of subordination, is no more detrimental to the 
honour of the principal, than the praising of the edge of the 
axe is a disparagement to the strength of the arm which useth 
it. God, I confess, by his providence, ordereth all by land and 
by sea ; yea, he may be said to be the first shipwright ; for I 
behold the ark as a bird, wholly hatched, but utterly unfledged ; 
without any feathers of masts and tackling, it could only float, 
and not sail ; yet so, that therein was left pattern enough for 
human ingenuity to improve it to naval perfection. 

Yea, God himself hath in Scripture taken signal notice of 
the dexterous in this nature ; on which account we find the 
Tyrians, or men of Hiram, praised, for that they " had know 
ledge of the sea/ when sent with the servants of Solomon to 
Ophir. 

^ We begin our catalogue of seamen in the reign of king 
Edward the Third, before which time there were many good 
seamen in England, but few good English seamen, our king 
using mariners of the Hanse towns. But it is no good house 
wifery to hire char-women to do that which may as well and 
better be done by her own servants. In the time of Edward 

"Hoc certum est, omnibus hodie gentibus navigandi industri;!, et peritia. 
supenores esse Anglos, et post Anglos Hollandos." 
t 1 Kings ix. 27. 



32 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

the Third, England grew famous for sea-fights with the French, 
and increased in credit, especially since the Navy Royal was 
erected by queen Elizabeth. 

Some conceive it would be a great advancement to the per 
fecting of English navigation, if allowance were given to read a 
lecture in London concerning that subject, in imitation of the 
late emperor Charles the Fifth ; who, wisely considering the 
rawness of his seamen, and the manifold shipwrecks which they 
sustained in passing and repassing between Spain and the W est 
Indies, established not only a Pilot Major, for the examination 
of such as were to take charge of ships in that voyage, but also 
founded a lecture for the art of Navigation, which to this day 
is read in the Contraction House at Seville ; the readers of which 
lecture have not only carefully taught and instructed the 
Spanish mariners by word of mouth, but have also published 
sundry exact and worthy treatises concerning marine causes, 
for the direction and encouragement of posterity. 

Here it were to be wished that more care were taken for, and 
encouragement given to, the breeding of fishermen ; whom I 
may call the spawn, or young fry, of seamen ; yea, such as hope 
that mariners will hold up if fishermen be destroyed, may as 
rationally expect plenty of honey and wax though only old 
stocks of bees were kept, without either casts or swarms. 

Nor can fishermen be kept up, except the public eating of 
fish at set times be countenanced, yea, enjoined by the state. 
Some suspect as if there were a pope in the belly of every 
fish, and some bones of superstition in them which would choke 
a conscientious person, especially if fasting days be observed. 
But know, that such customs grew from a treble root of popery, 
piety, and policy ; and though the first of these be plucked up, 
the other must be watered and maintained; and statesmen may 
be mortified and wise without being superstitious. Otherwise 
the not keeping of fasting days will make us keep fasting days ; 
I mean, the not forbearing of flesh for the feeding on fish, for 
the good of the state will in process of time prove the ruin of 
fishermen, they of seamen, and both of Englishmen. 

We are sadly sensible of the truth hereof in part, God forbid 
in whole, by the decay of so many towns on our north-east sea ; 
Hartlepool, Whitebay, Bridlington, Scarborough, Wells, Cromer, 
Lowstoft, Alborough,* Orford, and generally all from Newcastle 
to Harwich, which formerly set out yearly (as I am informed) 
two hundred ships and upwards employed in the fishery, but 
chiefly for the taking of ling ; that noble fish, co-rival in his 
joule with the surloin of beef at the tables of gentlemen. 

These fishermen set forth formerly with all their male family ; 

In Fuller s time Aldborough consisted of three streets. -most of which have since 
been swallowed up by the sea. At the neighbouring town of Dunwich, once so 
flourishing, the destruction has been almost entire. 



SOLDIERS AND SEAMEN. 33 

sea-men, sea-youths, I had almost said sea-children too (seeing 
some learned the language of larboard and starboard, with bread 
and butter), graduates in navigation ; and indeed the fishery did 
breed the natural and best elemented seamen. 

But since our late civil wars, not three ships are employed 
yearly for that purpose ; fishermen preferring rather to let their 
vessels lie and rot in their haven, than to undergo much pain 
and peril for that which would not at their return quit cost in 
any proportion. 

So that it is suspicious, that in process of time we shall lose 
(the masters being few and aged) the mystery of ling- catching, 
and perchance the art of taking and handling some other kind 
of sound and good fish ; no nation, without flattery to ourselves 
be it spoken, using more care and skill in ordering of that com 
modity. 

Yea, which is a greater mischief, it is to be feared that the 
seminary of seamen will decay : for, under correction be it 
spoken, it is not the long voyages to the East Indies, &c. which 
do make, but mar, seamen ; they are not the womb, but rather 
the grave of good mariners. It is the fishery which hath been 
the nursery of them, though now much disheartened, because 
their fish turn to no account ; they are brought to so bad mar 
kets. Nor is there any hope of redressing this, but by keeping 
up fasting days, which our ancestors so solemnly observed. I 
say our ancestors, who were not so weak in making, as we are 
wilful in breaking them : and who, consulting the situation of 
this island, with the conveniences appendant thereunto, suited 
their laws and accommodated their customs to the best benefit 
thereof. 

Nor was it without good cause why Wednesdays and Fridays 
were by them appointed for fish days : I confess some foreigners 
render this reason, and father it upon Clemens Alexandrinus, 
that because those days were dedicated by the heathen, the one 
to Mercury the god of cheating, the other to Venus the goddess 
of lust, therefore the Christians should macerate themselves on 
that day with fasting, in sorrowful remembrance of their pronity 
to the vices aforenamed. But waiving such fancies, our English 
fish or fasting days are founded on a more serious considera 
tion ; for our English fishermen in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, &c. 
set forth on Monday and catch their fish, which on Tuesday 
they send up to London, where on Wednesday it is sold and 
eaten. Such, therefore, who lately have propounded to ante 
date fish eating, and to remove it from Wednesday to Tuesday, 
must thereby occasion the encroaching on the Lord s-day, to 
furnish the markets with that commodity. Again : such fish 
ermen as returned on Tuesday set forth afresh on Wednesday 
to take fish, which on Thursday they send up to London to 
supply the remainder of the week ; it being observable that so 
great is the goodness of God to our nation, that there is not 

VOL. I. D 



34 WORTHIES OF ENGLAXD. 

one week in the year wherein some wholesome fish, caught on 
our own coast, is not in the prime season thereof. 

As for staple or salt fish, there are those that are acquainted 
in the criticisms thereof, and have exactly stated and cast up 
the proportions, who will maintain that it will do the deed, and 
set up the fishery as high as ever it was, if every one in England 
able to dispend a hundred pounds per annum were enjoined to 
lay out twenty shillings a year in staple fish ; a sum so inconsi 
derable in the particulars, that it will hurt none, and so con 
siderable in the total, it will help all of our nation. If any cen 
sure this for a tedious digression, let it be imputed to my zeal 
for the good of the commonwealth. 



CHAPTER IX. 

OF WRITERS ON THE CANON AND CIVIL LAW, PHYSIC, 
CHEMISTRY, AND CHIRURGERY. 

LAWYERS. 

I SOMETIMES wondered in myself at two things in the primi 
tive church during the time of the Apostles : First, that seeing 
they " enjoined all things in common/ * what use they had of 
lawyers ; seeing no propriety on pleading, and such a commu 
nion of all things gave a writ of ease to that profession. And 
yet I find mention made of Zenas the lawyer ;f no scribe of the 
law, as among the Jews, but Nopuoe, an advocate or barrister 
therein. 

Secondly, I wondered what use there was of physicians in the 
church, seeing the Apostles miraculously cured all maladies, and 
so, in my apprehension, gave a supersedeas to the practitioners 
in that faculty ; and yet I find honourable mention made of 
" Luke, the beloved physician."! 

But since I have wondered at my wondering thereat ; for that 
communion of goods was but temporal, for a short continuance, 
and topical, of a narrow compass practised only in Judea, or 
thereabouts, whilst the churches amongst the Gentiles continued 
their propriety, and particularly at Rome, where Zenas had his 
habitation, and had work enough, no doubt, to exercise his pro 
fession, even amongst Christians themselves. 

As for the Apostles, they had not always power at their own 
pleasure to work miracles and cure diseases in all persons, no, 
nor always in themselves, (witness sick St. Paul, receiving in 
himself the sentence of death,) but as they \vere directed, for 
the glory of God, and other occasions ; and therefore, notwith- 

* Acts iv. 32. f Titus iii. 13. J Coloss. iv. 14. 

2 Cor. i. 8, 9. 



WRITERS ON PHYSIC. 35 

standing their miraculous power, St. Luke might have plenty of 
practice in his profession. Nor was it probable that God, the 
author of all ingenuity, would, by the giving of the Gospel, 
utterly extinguish any literal calling, which formerly had been 
publicly, lawfully, and needfully professed. 

We have, in our following book, given in the list of some 
eminent lawyers, civilians, and canonists, who have written on 
that subject ; though we confess them very few in number, their 
profession being lately imdeservedly disgraced, though now we 
congratulate the probability of the restitution thereof to its 
former dignity. Sure I am, in the days of queen Elizabeth, 
when an ambassador was sent to foreign princes, if it were an 
affair of grand importance, and more than a mere matter of 
magnificent compliment, some able civilian, as doctor Haddon, 
Dale, Fletcher, &c. was joined in commission with the noble 
man employed on that embassy. And as the iron dogs bear 
the burthen of the fuel, while the brazen-andirons stand only 
for state, to entertain the eyes ; so the negociating part was 
loaded on the civil lawyers, whilst the pomp-pageantry was dis 
charged at the cost of the nobleman. 

WRITERS ON PHYSIC. 

The precept in the Apocrypha hath a canonical truth therein, 
" Honour the physician for necessity sake ;" and although king 
Asa justly received little benefit by them, because of his pre 
posterous addressing himself to them before he went to God,* 
and the woman in the Gospel, troubled with the issue,t reaped 
less ease by their endeavours, because God reserved her a sub 
ject for his own miraculous cure ; yet in all ages millions have 
been cured by their practice. 

The ancient Britons, who went without clothes, may well be 
presumed to live without physic. Yet, seeing very beasts know 
what is good for themselves, the deer, (the Cretan dictamum ; 
and toad, his antidote of plantain. ;) sure they had some experi 
mental receipts used amongst them, and left the rest to nature 
and temperance to cure. The Saxons had those they termed 
leeches, or blood-letters, but were little skilled in methodical 
practice. Under the Normans, they began in England ; and 
would we had fetched physicians only, and not diseases from 
France ! Yet three hundred years since it was no distinct pro 
fession by itself, but practised by men in orders ;J witness 
Nicholas de Fernham, the chief English physician and bishop 
of Durham ; Hugh of Evesham, a physician and cardinal ; Gri- 
sant, a physician and pope. Yea, the word physician appears 
not in our statutes till the days of king Henry the Eighth, who 
incorporated their college at London ; since which time they 

* 2 Chron. xvi. 12. f Luke viii. 43. 

J See their several characters under their names in the ensuing book. 

D 2 



36 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

have multiplied and flourished in our nation, but never more, 
and more learned, than in our age, wherein that art, and espe 
cially the anatomical part thereof, is much improved, our civil 
wars perchance occasioning the latter. 

We begin our catalogue at Richardus Anglicus, our first phy 
sician, flourishing anno 1230; and continue to doctor Harvey, 
whom I may term Gulielmus Anglicus, such honour he hath 
done England by his worthy writings. Thus wishing them all 
happy success in their practice, I desire a custom in France, and 
other foreign parts, naturalized in England, where a physician is 
liable to excommunication, if visiting a patient thrice before he 
acquainteth a priest of his sickness, that so the medicine for 
soul and body may go hand in hand together. 

CHEMISTRY. 

Chemistry is an ingenious profession, as which by art will 
force somewhat of worth and eminence from the dullest sub 
stance, yea, the most obdurate and hardest-hearted body can 
not but shed forth a tear of precious liquor, when urged there 
unto with its intreaties. 

They may be termed parcel-physicians, every day producing 
rare experiments, for the curing of many diseases. 

I must confess there occurs but few, (and of those few, fewer 
modern ones,) through the whole series of our books. Yet may 
we be said to have extracted the spirits, (I mean such as were 
eminent therein,) of this profession ; being confident the judi 
cious reader will value one gem before many barley-corns, and 
one drop of a true extract before many bottles of worthless 
water. 

CHIRURGERY. 

Necessary and ancient their profession, ever since man s body 
was subject to enmity and casualty. For that promise, " A 
bone of him shall not be broken/ * is peculiar to Christ. As 
for the other, " To keep them in all their ways, that they dash 
not their foot against a stone," t though it be extended to all 
Christians, yet it admitteth, as other temporal promises, of 
many exceptions, according to God s will and pleasure. 

It seemeth by the parable of the good Samaritan, who 
" bound up " the passenger s " wounds, pouring in oil and 
wine,"J that, in that age, ordinary persons had a general in 
sight in chirurgery, for their own and others use. And it is 
reported, to the just praise of the Scotch nobility, that anciently 
they all were very dexterous thereat ; particularly it is written 
of James, the fourth king of Scotland, quod vulnera scientissime 
tractaret, " he was most skilful at the handling of wounds." 
But we speak of chirurgery, as it is a particular mystery, pro- 

* John xix. 36. f Psalm xci. 12. $ Luke x. 34. 

Buchanan, Rerum fcoticarum, lib. xiii. fol. 138, p. 1. 



WRITERS. 37 

fessed by such as make a vocation thereof. Of whom we have 
inserted some (eminent for their writings or otherwise), amongst 
physicians, and that, as we hope, without any offence, seeing 
the healing of diseases and wounds were anciently one calling, 
as still great the sympathy betwixt them ; many diseases caus 
ing wounds, as ulcers ; as wounds occasioning diseases, as 
fevers ; till in process of time they were separated, and chirur- 
geons only consigned to the manual operation. Thrs, wishing 
unto them the three requisites for their practice, an eagle s eye, 
a lady s hand, and a lion s heart, I leave them, and proceed. 



CHAPTER X. 

WRITERS. 

BEING to handle this subject, let not the reader expect that 
I will begin their catalogue from fabulous antiquity, or rather 
fanciful fables. For if the first century of J. Bale and J. Pits 
their British writers were garbled, four parts of five would be 
found to be trash ; such as 1. Samothes Gigas : 2. Magus Sa- 
motheus : 3. Sarron Magius : 4, Druys Sarronius: 5. Bardus 
Druydius : 6. Albion Mareoticus : 7- Brytus Julius : 8. Gerion 
Augur: 9. Aquila Septonius : 10. Perdix Prsesagus : 11. Cam- 
bra Formosa: 12. Plenidius Sagax, &c. 

Of these some never were men; others, if men, never were 
writers ; others, if writers, never left works continuing to our 
age, though some manuscript mongers may make as if they 
perused them. It is well they had so much modesty, as not to 
pretend inspection into the book of life, seeing all other books 
have come under their omnividency. 

We are content to begin our number at Gildas, commonly 
surnamed the wise, (flourishing about the year 580); and are 
right glad to have so good a general to lead our army of wri 
ters, taking it for a token of good success. 

Now these writers were either such who wrote before or since 
the reformation of religion. The former again fall generally 
under a treble division, as either historians, philologists, or 
divines ; and we will insist a little on their several employments. 

OF WRITERS ON PHILOLOGY AND DIVINITY. 

Doctor Collens, King s Professor in Cambridge, and that 
oracle of eloqxience, once founded his speech (made to enter 
tain strangers at the Commencement) on the words of Saint 
Paul, Salute Philologus and Olympas."* Under the former, 
he comprised all persons present, eminent in human learning; 
under the latter all skilful in heavenly divinity. 

* Rom. xvi. 1 5. 



gg WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

Indeed philology properly is terse and polite learning, melior 
Uteratura (married long since by Martianus Capella to Mer 
cury) ; being that florid skill, containing only the roses of learn 
ing without the prickles thereof, in which narrow sense thorny 
philosophy is discharged, as no part of philology. But we take 
it in the larger notion, as inclusive of all human liberal studies, 
and preposed to divinity, as the porch to the palace. 

Having passed the porch of philology we proceed to the 
palace of divinity. The writers in this faculty we distinguish 
into two sorts. First, Positive Divines ; such I mean, whose 
works are either comments on, or else expositions of, some por 
tion of Sacred Writ. Secondly, School-men, who have made it 
their business to weave fine threads of nicer distinctions. 

WRITERS ON HISTORY. 

This is either Ecclesiastical or Civil. Of both these, England 
presenteth many, but generally Monks before the Reformation, 
who, too much indulging to holy fraud, have farced their books 
with many feigned miracles, to the prejudice of truth. How 
ever, herein foreign historians have been as^ guilty as English 
men of the same age ; witness the complaint of Mariana the 
Jesuit,* which one may justly wonder how it passed the Index 
Expurgatorius : " Quis enim negare possit fastos ecclesiasticos, 
aliquando adulatione temporum, aut potius incuria hominum, 
multis maculis contaminatos, libris aliis, quibus preces eccle- 
siasticee ritusque sacrorum continentur, multas fuisse inspersas 
confusasque fabulas et commenta : Addam nonnunquam in tem- 
plis reliquias dubias, prophana corpora pro Sanctorum (qui cum 
Christo in coelo regnant) exuviis sacris fuisse proposita. Est 
enim miserum negare non posse, quid sit turpe confiteri ; at, 
nescio quo pacto, fictis seepe fabulis, et prseposteris mendacio- 
rum nugis, populus magis quam veritate ac sinceritate capitur : 
ea est mentis nostree inanitas, has sordes, ubi semel irrepserunt 
in ecclesiam sacrorum ritus libros ecclesiasticos, nobis fortassis 
dormientibus, attrectare nemo audet, mutire nemo, ne impieta- 
tis suspicionem commoveat, scilicet et religioni adversarius esse 
videatur. 35 

Nor hath our land been altogether barren of historians since 
the Reformation, having yielded some of as tall parts, and large 
performances, as any nation in Christendom. Besides these, 
we have adventured to add such as have been eminent in 
poetry, which may not unfitly be termed the binding of prose to 
its good behaviour, tying it to the strict observation of time and 
measure. 

Amongst these, some are additioned with the title of Laureat, 
though I must confess I could never find the root whence their 
bays did grow in England, as to any solemn institution thereof 

In his book of the coming of St. James the Apostle into Spain, chap. I. 



WRITERS MUSICIANS. 39 

in our nation. Indeed, I read of Petrarch (the pre-coetanean 
of our Chaucer) that he was crowned with a laurel, in the Ca 
pitol,* by the senate of Rome, anno 1341 ; as also that Frederic 
the third emperor of Germany gave the laurel to Conradus 
Celtes,f and since the count palatines of the empire claim the 
privilege solemnly to invest poets with the bays. 

The branches hereof in all ages have been accounted honour 
able, insomuch that king James, in some sort, waived his crown 
(in the two and twenty shilling pieces) to wear the laurel in his 
new twenty shilling pieces. On the same token, that a wag 
passed this jest thereon, that poets being always poor, bays 
were rather the emblem of wit than wealth, since king James 
no sooner began to wear them, but presently he fell two 
shillings in the pound in public valuation. 

A.S for our English poets, some have assumed that style unto 
themselves, as John Kay, in his dedication of " The Siege of 
Rhodes " to king Edward the Fourth, subscribing himself " his 
humble poet laureat." Others have in compliment given the 
title to such persons as were eminent in that faculty ; and 
nothing more usual than to see their pictures before their books, 
and statues on their tombs, ornamented accordingly. However, 
all this is done by civil courtesy, or common custom, no cere 
monious creation in court or university. I write not this, as if 
I grudged to poets a whole grove of laurel, much less a sprig to 
encircle their heads, but because I would not have any specious 
untruth imposed on the reader s belief. 

Yet want there not those, who do confidently aver that there 
is always a laureat poet in England, and but one at a time ; the 
laurel importing conquest and sovereignty, and so by conse 
quence soleness in that faculty ; and that there hath been a 
constant succession of them at court, who beside their salary 
from the king, were yearly to have a tun of wine, as very essen 
tial to the heightening of fancy : this last, I conceive, founded on 
what we find given to Geoffrey Chaucer : ( Vigesimo secundo 
anno Richardi Secundi, concessimus Galfrido Chaucer unum 
dolium vini per annum durante vita, in portu Civitatis London, 
per manus capitalis pinceriice nostri/ But Chaucer, besides 
his poetical accomplishments, did the king sendee both in war 
and peace, as soldier and embassador ; in reward whereof, this 
and many other boons were bestowed upon him. 

MUSICIAN S. 

Music is nothing else but wild sounds civilised into time and 
tune. Such the extensiveness thereof, that it stoopeth as low 
as brute beasts, yet mounteth as high as angels : for horses will 
do more for a whistle than for a whip ; and, by hearing their 
bells, gingle away their weariness. 

* Vita Petrarc. f Holdastus, torn. iii. p. 482. 



40 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

The angels in heaven employ themselves in music, and one 
ingeniously expresfceth it to this effect : 

We know no more what they do do above, 
Save only that they sing, and that they love".* 

And although we know not the notes of their music, we know 
what their ditty is, namely Hallelujah. 

Such as cavil at music, because Jubal,f a descendant from 
wicked Cain, was the first founder thereof, may as well be con 
tent to lie out of doors, and refuse all cover to shelter them, 
because Jabal, of the same extraction, being his own brother, 
first invented to dwell in tents. 

I confess there is a company of pretenders to music, who are 
commonly called crowders, and that justly too, because they 
crowd into the company of gentlemen both unsent for, and un 
welcome ; but these are no more a disgrace to the true profes 
sors of that faculty, than monkeys are a disparagement to man 
kind. 

Now right ancient is the use of music in England, especially 
if it be true what I read in a worthy Father ; J and I know not 
which more to admire, either that so memorable a passage should 
escape Master Camden^Sj or that it should fall under my obser 
vation. 

Atovai o 



yovai o Kat 01 Tag laropiaq ffwraa/ufvoi, a/LKpi TJJV 
vrjcrov avrpov TI VTTOKH^IEVOV opti" ETTI SE rrjg 

E/iTTiTrrovroc ovv TOV a vEyiiov E/g TO avrpov, /cat Trpoa- 
Tpri-yvvp,tvov TOig KO\TTOIQ TOV opvy/naroQ, 

KpOVO/ilEV(DV 



(" They say, even those which compose histories, that in the 
Island of Britanny, there is a certain cave, lying under a moun 
tain, in the top thereof gaping. The wind therefore falling 
into the cave, and dashing into the bosom of a hollow place, 
there is heard a tinkling of cymbals, beating in tune and 
time/ ) 

Where this musical place should be in Britain, I could never 
find: yet have been informed that Dr. Miles Smith, bishop of 
Hereford, found something tending that way, by the help of 
an active fancy, in Herefordshire. But, waiving this natural) 
the antiquity of artificial music in this island is proved by the 
practice of the Bards, thereby communicating religion, learning, 
and civility, to the Britons. 

* Dr. Fuller says, " The Conceit is Mr. Waller s, whose book is not by me at the 
present to transcribe the very words." The couplet alluded to stands thus in the 
verses on the death of Lady Rich : 

" So, all we know of what they do above, 
Is that they happy are, and that they love." 
f Gen. iv. 21. J Clemens Alexand. Strom, lib. vi. p. 632. 

Dr. Miles Smith, who had been a canon residentiary of Hereford, was bishop of 
Gloucester from 1612 till his death in 1624. 



MUSICIANS. 41 

Right glad I am, that when music was lately shut out of our 
churches, on what default of hers I dare not to inquire, it hath 
since been harboured and welcomed in the halls, parlours, and 
chambers, of the primest persons of this nation. Sure I am, it 
could not enter into my head, to surmise that music would have 
been so much discouraged by such who turned our kingdom 
into a Commonwealth, seeing they prided themselves in the 
arms thereof, an impaled harp being moiety of the same. When 
it was asked, &lt;e what made a good musician ? " one answered, 
a good voice ; another, that it was skill. But he said the truth, 
who said, it was encouragement. It was therefore my constant 
wish, that seeing most of our musicians were men of maturity, 
and arrived at their full age and skill, before these distracted 
times began, and seeing what the historian wrote in another 
sense is true here in our acceptation and application thereof, 
Res est unius seculi populus virorum ; " I say, I did con 
stantly wish, that there might have been some seminary of 
youth set up, to be bred in the faculty of music, to supply suc 
cession, when this set of masters in that science had served 
their generation. 

Yet although I missed of what I did then desire ; yet, thanks 
be to God, I have lived to see music come into request, since 
our nation came into right tune, and begin to flourish in our 
churches and elsewhere ; so that now no fear but we shall have 
a new generation skilful in that science, to succeed such whose 
age shall call upon them to pay their debt to nature. 

If any who dislike music in churches object it as useless, if not 
hurtful, in Divine service, let them hear what both a learned 
and able divine* allegeth in defence thereof; " So that although 
we lay altogether aside the consideration of ditty or matter, the 
very harmony of sounds being framed in due sort, and carried 
from the ear to the spiritual faculties of the soul, it is by a na 
tive puissance and efficacy greatly available to bring to a perfect 
temper, whatsoever is there troubled ; apt, as well to quicken 
the spirits, as to allay that which is too eager; sovereign against 
melancholy and despair, forcible to draw forth tears of devo 
tion, if the mind be such as can yield them, able both to move 
and moderate all affections." 

In recounting up of musicians, I have only insisted on such 
who made it their profession ; and either have written books of 
that faculty, and have attained to such an eminence therein as 
is generally acknowledged. Otherwise the work would be end 
less, to recount all up who took it as a quality of accomplish 
ment ; amongst whom king Henry the Eighth must be account 
ed ; who, as Erasmus testifies to his knowledge, did not only 
sing his part sure, but also compose services for his chapel, of 
four, five, and six parts, though as good a professor as he was, 

* Hooker s Ecclesiastical Polity, p. 858, Sect. 38. 



42 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND, 

he was a great destroyer of music in this land ; surely not in 
tentionally, but accidentally, when he suppressed so many 
choirs at the Dissolution. 

ROMISH EXILE WRITERS. 

After the writers before the Reformation, succeed those Ro 
mish banished writers since the same, all living since the reign 
of queen Mary, which might have been distanced from the for 
mer with a black line interposed, as beheld under a far differ 
ent, yea worse, qualification : for the superstitions of the former 
were the more pardonable, as living in a dark age, which are 
less excusable in these since the light of the Gospel. 

I confess the word exile carries much of commiseration 
therein, and with charitably-minded men bespeaks pity to the 
persons, until the cause of their banishment be well considered : 
for some, in the first of queen Elizabeth, wilfully left the land, 
and so in effect banished themselves ; others, having their lives 
forfeited by the laws, had their deaths mercifully commuted by 
our magistrates into banishment. 

Objection. These men might have been lost without loss ; 
and been omitted in your book, as no limb, but a wen, yea, an 
ulcer thereof. 

Answer. Grant them never so bad, being digested into a 
classis by themselves, their mixture cannot be infectious to 
others. Secondly, abate their errors, and otherwise many of 
them were well meriting of the Commonwealth of learning. 
Lastly, the passages of their lives conduce very much to the 
clearing of ecclesiastical history. 

In noting of their nativities, I have wholly observed the in 
structions of Pitzeus, where I knock off with his death, my light 
ending with his life in that subject, since which time I have 
neither list to inquire, nor conveniency to attain, of these Ro 
mish fugitives beyond the seas. 

A JUST COMPLAINT OF THE NUMEBOSITY OF NEEDLESS BOOKS. 

Solomon was sensible of this vanity, even in his time, when 
pronouncing " of books there is no end."* The heathen poet 
took notice thereof : 

Scribimus indocti doctique Poemata passim. 

Poems write amain we do, 
Learned and unlearned too." 

All this was before the invention of printing, when books 
came but single into the public, which, since that mystery is 
made common, come swimming into the world like shoals of 
fishes, and one edition spawneth another. This made learned 
Erasmus, for company sake, to jeer himself, that he might the 
more freely jeer others : Mult i mei similes hoc morbo laborant, 

* Eccl. xii. 12. 






BOOKS BUILDERS OF CHURCHES. 43 

ut cum scribere nesciant, tamen a scribendo temperare nonpos- 
simt,* (" Many men like myself are sick of this disease, that when 
they know not how to write, yet cannot forbear from writing.") 

A worthy English baronet, in his book (incomparable on that 
subject,) hath clearly and truly stated this point. 

Here I expect, that the judicious reader will excuse me, if I 
take no notice of many modern pamphleteers ; seeing unlearned 
scribblers are not ranked with learned writers ; yea, it was, though 
tartly, truly said, to the author of such a book : 

Dum scateant alii ei-ratis, datur unica Libro 
Menda tuo, totum est integer error opus. 

" Whilst others flow with faults, but one is past 
In all thy book tis fault from first to last." 

Indeed the Press, at first a virgin, then a chaste wife, is since 
turned common, as to prostitute herself to all scurrilous pam 
phlets. When the author of an idle and imperfect book endeth 
with a catera desideranhir, one altered, it non desiderantur, sed 
desunt. Indeed they were not, though wanting, wanted ; the 
world having no need of them ; many books being like king 
Joram, who lived not being desired : yea, the press beginneth 
to be an oppression of the land, such the burden of needless 
books therein. 

Some will say, the charge may most justly be brought against 
yourself, who have loaded the land with more books than any 
of your age. To this I confess my fault, and promise amend 
ment, that, God willing, hereafter I will never print book in 
the English tongue, but what shall tend directly to divinity. 



CHAPTER XI. 

OF BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC, WHEREIN ALSO CHOICE 
CHARITIES ARE RECOMMENDED TO MEN OF ESTATES. 

THESE are reducible to several heads ; and we will begin with 
them who have been 

BUILDERS OF CHURCHES. 

Such centurions who have erected us synagogues, places for 
God s public worship, seem to me to have given good testimony 
of their love to our nation. Bitter was the brave which railing 
Rabsheca sent to holy Hezekiah, proffering him 2,000 horses, on 
condition that the other were but able to find riders for them.f 
But it grieves me to see the superstition of the former 
insult over the religion of this present age, bragging that 
she left us ten thousand churches and chapels, more or 
less, ready built, if we can find but repairers to keep them up. 

It is in my opinion both dishonourable to God and scandalous 

" In Pi-cfat. in tertiam seriem quarti Tomi Hierom. \&gt;. 408. f Isaiah xxxvi. 8. 



44 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

to all good men, to see such houses daily decay : but there is a 
generation of people who, to prevent the verifying of the 
old proverb, "Pater noster built churches, and Our Father 
plucks them down ;" endeavour to pluck down both churches 
and our Father together, neglecting, yea despising the use 
both of the one and the other. Be it here remembered, that 
it is not only equal but just, that such as have been founders of 
churches, or grand benefactors unto them, should have due re- 
speet in preserving their monuments from violation or encroach 
ment of others. I urge this the rather, because abuses have 
been frequent in this kind, even to those that have deserved 
best. I cannot with patience remember the story of Henry 
Keble, lord mayor of London 1511, who, besides other 
benefactions in his life-time, rebuilded Alder-Mary church run 
to very ruins, and bequeathed at his death a thousand pounds 
for the finishing thereof.* Yet, within sixty years after, his 
bones were unkindly, yea inhumanly, cast out of the vault 
wherein they were buried, his monument plucked down for 
some wealthy person of the present times to be buried therein.f 
I could not but on this occasion rub up my old poetry : 

Facit Indignatio Versus. 

The Author to Alder-Mary Church. Alder-Mary Church s Answer. 

1 "Ungrateful Church, o errun with rust, " Alas ! my innocence excuse : 

Lately buried in the dust ; My Wardens they did me abuse. 

Utterly thou hadst been lost, Whose avarice his ashes sold, 

If not preserv d by Keble s cost : That goodness might give place to gold ; 

A thousand pounds, might it not buy As for his reliques, all the town 

Six foot in length for him to lie : They are scattered up and down ; 

But, ousted of his quiet tomb, See st a Church repaired well. 

For later corpse he must make room : There a sprinkling of them fell : 

Tell me where his dust is cast, See st a new Church lately built, 

Though t be late, yet now at last ; Thicker there his ashes spilt : 

All his bones with scorn ejected, O that all the land throughout 

I will see them re-collected : Keble s dust were thrown about ; 

Who fain myself would kinsman prove Places scattered with that seed 

To all that did God s temple love." Would a crop of Churches breed." 

I could wish this was the last barbarism in this kind ; and am 
sorry that, upon small inquiry, I could insist on later instances. 

FREE SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES. 

I place schools before colleges, because they are introductory 
thereunto, intended for the breeding of children and youth, as 
the other for youth and men. And seeing much of truth is 
contained in our English proverb, " It is as good to be unborn 
as unbred," such may in some sort seem their second parents, 
who have provided for their education. 

These schools are of two kinds. First, those wherein only a 
salary is given to the school-master to teach children gratis ; 
and these, I confess, are good. Secondly, such wherein a select 
number of scholars have competent maintenance allowed 

* Stow s Survey of London, p. 89. f Idem, p. 267. 



SCHOOLS AND COLLEGES BRIDGES. 45 

towards their living in the university ; and these, all will 
acknowledge, are better. Some do suspect a surfeit in our land 
of the multitude of schools, because the nursery is bigger than 
the orchard, the one breeding more plants than the other can 
maintain trees ; and the land not affording sufficient preferment 
for them, learning is forced to stoop to mean courses, to make 
a livelihood. But I conceive that " store in this kind is no 
sore ;" and if we must not " do evil that good may come 
thereof," we must not forbear doing that which is good, 
for fear of accidental evils which may arise from the same. 

BRIDGES. 

Builders of Bridges, which are high-ways over water, 
and makers of caused-ways or causeways, which are bridges 
over dirt, though last in order, are not least in benefit to the 
commonwealth. Such conveniences save the lives of many, 
ease the labour of more . painful travellers, and may be said in 
some sort to lengthen the day, and shorten the way to men in 
their journeys ; yea, bridges make and keep this our island a 
continent to itself. How great the care of the ancient 
Romans to repair them, for the safety of passengers, appears 
by the origination of Pontifex, having the inspection over 
bridges by his primitive institution. 

Indeed the word bridge appears not in all Scripture, whereof 
this the reason. The rivers of Palestine were either so shallow, 
that they were passable by fords, as of Jabbok,* Arnon,f and 
Jordan, J before it grew navigable ; or else so deep, that 
they were ferried over, as Jordan when near his fall into the 
Dead Sea : but most of ours in England are of a middle size ; 
so deep, that they cannot be forded ; so narrow, that they 
need not to be ferried over. Hence come our so eminent 
bridges, insomuch that such structures are accounted amongst 
our English excellences. || 

However, Palestine was subject with England to the same in 
conveniences of bad high-ways ; and therefore, in the list 
of charitable actors reckoned up by the prophet, he is ac 
counted as a principal, " the restorer of paths to dwell in ;"^f 
for indeed some ways may be said not-habitable, being so deep 
and dirty that they cut off all intercourse, the end general of all 
men s dwelling together. 

I will conclude this topic of bridges with this memorable acci 
dent. Maud, queen to king Henry the First, being to pass the 
river Lea about Stratford, near the falling of the said river into 
the Thames, was almost drowned in riding over it.** But this 
proved the bad cause of a good effect ; for hereupon she built 
the beautiful bridge there, for the benefit of travellers : and the 

* Gen. xxxii. 22. f Isaiah xvi. 2. J Judges iii. 28. 2 Sam. xix. 18. 

" Anglia, mons, pons," &c. If Isaiah Iviii. 1?. 

* Camden s Britannia, in Essex. 



46 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

village, probably from a fair arch or bow therein, received, as 
some conceive, the addition of Stratford Bow. Far be it from 
me to M ish the least ill to any, who willingly would not have 
their fingers to ache, or an hair of their heads lessened. Yet 
this I could desire, that some covetous churls, who otherwise 
will not be melted into works of charity, may, in their passing over 
waters, be put into peril without peril understand me, might 
be endangered to fright, but not hurt that others might fare 
the better for their fears ; such misers being minded thereby to 
make or repair bridges for public safety and convenience. 

ALMS-HOUSES. 

Because we live in an age wherein men begin to be out of 
charity with charity itself; and there be many covetous 
(not to say sacrilegious) people, whose ringers itch to be nim- 
minff the patrimony of the poor ; we will here present the cavils 
of this against the charity of former ages herein. 

Cavil 1. Shew us the foundation of such structures in Scrip 
ture, either in the Old or New Testament. As for the place 
with five porches, wherein " the impotent poor lay,"* near the 
Pool of Bethesda, it was of another nature. Alms-houses 
therefore, not being jure divino, may lawfully be abolished. 

Answer. The constitution of the Jewish was far different 
from our English commonwealth, wherein every one originally 
was a freeholder of some proportion of land, which, though 
alienated, reverted to the owner at the year of Jubilee. There 
needs not an express or particular precept for all our actions ; 
that general one, " He that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto 
the Lord,"f is bottom broad enough to build more alms-houses 
on, than all ages will afford. Besides this precept, we have the 
practice of the primitive Christians in the time of the apostles, 
parting with the propriety J of all their estate ; and w T etl then 
may we appropriate a part of ours, for the relief of the poor. 

Cavil 2. The builders of them for the most part have been 
people formerly guilty of oppression, who, having lived like 
wolves, turn lambs on their death beds, and part with their 
fleece to people in want. Having ground the faces of the poor, 
they give the toll thereof to build an alms-house, though too 
little to hold half the beggars which they have made. 

Answer. The aspersion cannot be fastened on many found 
ers ; so free from the same, that malice may sooner break her 
own teeth and jaws too, than make impression on their reputa 
tion. But grant the charge true in this sense, beatum estfuisse, 
f( blessed arethey that have been bad ;"- " And such were some 
of you." Let not envious man repine at that whereat the 
blessed angels rejoice, the conversion of sinners, and their testi 
fying thereof by such public expressions. 

* John v. 2. f Prov. xix. 17. t Actsiv. 34. 1-Cor. vi. 11. 



ALMS-HOUSES. 47 

. CavilS. Such builders generally have a pope in their belly, 
puffed up with a proud opinion to merit by their performances. 
Answer. When did the caviller steal the touch-stone of 
hearts ? (for God, I am sure, would not lend it him, who saith, 
" My glory will I not give to another)*" that he is so \vell 
acquainted with men s thoughts and intentions. " Charity, 
saith the Apostle, " thinketh no evil ;t" whereas this caviller 
thinks little good. We are bound to believe the best of such 
founders, especially of such who lived since the Reformation, 
whereby the dangerous error of merit was exploded. 

Cavil 4. Grant them guiltless of superstition, they are guilty 
of vain-glory. Witness the building of such houses commonly 
by highway sides ; when, as our Saviour saith, " Let not thy 
left hand know what thy right hand doth.J" 

Answer. The objector shall have leave to build his alms- 
house in what private place he please ; in the middle of a wood, 
if he shall think fitting; but we know who saith, "Let your 
light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, 
and glorify your Father which is in heaven ." " That they 
may see your good works," though not as finis operis, yet as 
modus operandi, thereby to provoke others to imitation. 

Cavil 5. As some affirm of tobacco, that it causeth as much 
rheum as it bringeth away, alms-houses do breed as many 
poor as they relieve. People in such places presume to be idle, 
beholding hospitals as their inheritance, \vherein their old age 
shall be provided for. 

Answer. What is good per se, ought not to be waved for 
what is ill per accidens. This calleth aloud, to the care and 
integrity of feoffees entrusted, to be wary in their elections. 
Besides, I must stick to mine own maxim : it is better that ten 
drones be fed than one bee famished. 

Cavil 6. Such places are generally abused, against the will 
of the founders. Statutes are neglected. What is said of the 
laws in Poland, that they last but three days, is as true of the 
short lived orders in alms-houses. Not the most indigent, or 
who have been the most laborious, but the best-befriended, reap 
the benefit thereof. 

Answer. I could wish that alms-houses were the only places 
wherein laws were broken. But grant too much truth in the 
cavil, all will say, " From the beginning it was not so ;" and I 
will hope, " unto the end it shall not be so." 

Cavil 7. Hospitals generally have the rickets, whose heads, 
their masters, grow over great and rich, whilst their poor bodies 
pine away and consume. 

Answer. Surely there is some other cure for a ricketish 
body, than to kill it ; viz, by opening obstructions, and deriving 
the nutriment to all parts of the same. But enough of this 

* Isaiah xlii. 8. -j- i Cor. xiii. 5. J Matth. vi. 3. Matth. v. 16. 



48 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

unwelcome subject, whereof what is spoken is not to put new 
cavils into the heads of any, but to pluck old ones out of the 
hearts of too many, who have entertained them. If these our 
answers seem not satisfactory to any, know, that as a left- 
handed man hath great odds in fencing against one that is right- 
handed; so in controversies of this kind, cavillers, with their 
sinister inferences from men s frailties, have a vast advantage 
over those who are of candid and ingenuous dispositions. 

Many faults must be confessed in such foundations, which 
for the future may be amended. 

But, grant corruptions should continue in such foundations, 
it is not plea enough for their abolition. If the sentence of 
condemnation was pronounced on those who saw Christ naked, 
and would not clothe him ;* how heavy a doom would fall on 
such who found Christ clothed, and stript him in his poor 
members of endowments given to their maintenance ! 

HERE LET ME RECOMMEND SOME CHOICE CHARITY TO 
BOUNTIFUL HEARTS AND PLENTIFUL ESTATES. 

It were arrant presumption for any to imprison freedom itself, 
and confine another s bounty by his own (pretended) discretion. 
Let the charitably-minded do what, when, where, how, to whom, 
and how much, God and their own goodness shall direct them. 
However, it will not be amiss humbly to represent unto them 
the following considerations ; the rather, because many well 
affected to the public good have lately been disheartened with 
the frustrations of former charity. 

First, for the time : it is best to do it whilst they are living, to 
prevent all suspicions that their intentions should be misem 
ployed. Sem will not be angry with me for saying Cham was 
a mocker of his father. Peter will not be offended if I call 
Judas a betrayer of his Master. Honest executors will take no 
exception if I justly bemoan that too many dishonest ones have 
abused the good intents of the testators. How many legacies, 
sound and whole in themselves, have proved, before they were 
paid, as maimed as the cripples in the hospitals to whom they 
were bequeathed ! Yea, as the blinded Syrians (desiring to go, 
and believing they went to Damascus) t were led to their ene 
mies, and into the midst of Samaria ; so is it more than suspi 
cious, that many blind and concealed legacies, intended for the 
temple of God, have been employed against the God of the 
temple. 

Next, for the objects of well doing. Surely a vigilant charity 
must take the alarum from the groans of the prisoners. 

The schoolmen reduce all corporal charity to seven principal 
heads : 

1. Visito, to visit men in misery; as Ebed-melech did to 

* Matth. xxv. 43. f 2 Kings vi. 20. 



ALMS-HOUSES. 49 

Jeremiah.* 2. Poto, to give drink to the thirsty ; as Obadiah 
did to the prophets.t 3. Cibo, meat to the hungry; as Nehe- 
miah did to the Jtws and Rulers. J 4. Redimo, to rescue the 
captive; as Abraham did Lot. 5. Tcgo, to cover the naked; 
as Dorcas did the widows. || 6. ColHyo,tQ dress the wounded; 
as the good jailor did St. Paul.^[ 7- Condo, to bury the 
dead ; as the devout men did St. Stephen.** 

See here how these seven kinds of good works are placed like 
the planets ; whilst to redeem captives stands like the sun in the 
midst of all the rest. 

Indeed, it may be sadly presumed,, that such captives ft oft- 
times want visiting, meat, drink, clothes, dressing, and all 
things but burying (except any will say that they are buried 
alive, liberty being the life of man s life) ; so that the redeem 
ing of captives is eminently comprehensive of all these outward- 
acts of charity. Yea, this act may extend itself to a spiritual 
concernment ; to save many souls from damnation ; seeing it 
may be feared that many, despairing of ransom, may put their 
souls in thraldom, to purchase the liberty of their bodies, and 
renounce their religion. 

I could therefore wish that there were in London a corpora 
tion of able and honest merchants, whereof that city affordeth a 
plentiful choice, legally empowered to receive and employ the 
charity of well-affected people, for a general jail delivery of all 
English captives in Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Salli, &c. ; and, our 
countrymen first discharged, if there were any surplusage run 
ning over, that it might be disposed for the ransoming of Chris 
tians of what country soever. This w r ere an heroic act indeed, 
whereby Christians endeavour to be like Christ himself, who 
was the Grand Redeemer. 

Oh, that I might be but instrumental, in the least degree, to 
advance their enlargement, I should behold it as an advance 
ment to myself. Two reasons make me the more importunate 
therein ; one, because the papists had a company of friars in 
England, of the order of the Holy Trinity, de Redimendis Cap- 
tivis ; which being now extinct, I humbly conceive that we are 
bound in conscience, as to quench the superstition, so to con 
tinue the charity of so good a design. Secondly, because whilst 
other beggars can tell their own tale, we must plead for them 
who cannot plead for themselves ; there being so great a gulf 
of distance betwixt us and them ; and God grant that we may 
never pass over to theirs, but they return to our condition ! 

Objection 1. It maketh mariners cowards, who, presuming 
on good men s charity that they shall be ransomed, do not fight 

Jer. xxxviii. 11. f i Kinssx-viii. 13. Neh. v. 17. 

Gen. xiv. 16. || Acts ix. 39. If Acts xvi. 33. 

* Acts viii. 2. 

ft The redeeming of Christians from captivity wa?, at the time when Dr. Fuller 
wrote, a very important branch of charity ; and briefs for that purpose were frequent 
in our churches. 



E 



50 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

it out valiantly against the Turks, as they ought and might, but 
surrender themselves on such expectations. 

Answer. I see not but the same objection lies with equal 
force against the redeeming of soldiers taken in land fights., by 
what foe soever, by exchange or otherwise. Secondly, acciden 
tal and sinister miscarriages ought not to discourage any sincere 
intention. Lastly, let those who have given the best testimo 
nies of their valour be first redeemed ; and let them lie longer, 
to suffer bad usage, till the freeing thereof shall convert them 
into more valour, if, after their liberty procured, engaging again 
on the same occasion. 

Objection 2, The late Long Parliament made an act, since 
(after some intermission) renewed, charging a tax on merchants 
goods, known by the name of Algier duty, for the redemption of 
captives in Turkey. 

Answer. The blessing of God light on the hearts of those, 
if living, who first moved, and since revived it, as I doubt not 
but those departed this life have found their reward. I could 
heartily wish that yearly a catalogue were printed of the names 
of such prisoners thereby redeemed, not knowing whether it 
would be more honourable for, or satisfactory to this nation. 
But, seeing such provisions fall short of doing the work, and 
cannot strike home to break off the fetters of all prisoners, it 
will not be amiss to implore the auxiliary charity of others. 

Next I desire them to reflect upon aged sequestered minis 
ters, whom, with their charge, the (generally ill-paid) fifth part 
will not maintain. Say not it will be interpreted an affront to 
the state, to relieve them which it hath adjudged offenders. If 
the Best of beings should observe this rule, all the world would 
be starved. Secondly, some of them, abating only that their 
conscience inclined them to the royal cause, were otherwise un 
blamable both in life and doctrine. Thirdly, the better divines 
they were, the worse they are able to shift for themselves, having 
formerly no excursion into secular affairs; so that applying 
themselves only to, and now debarred the exercise of, the minis 
try, they are left in a sad condition. Lastly, allow them faulty, 
yet quid teneri infantes ? &c. It is pity their wives and children 
should be ruined for their offence. But enough hereof, seeing, 
in motions of this nature, a word is enough to the wise, and half 
a word too much for others. [Reader, this passage being written 
some three years since, I could not command my own right 
hand to cross it out, but it must stand as it did.] 

Lastly, I recommend unto their charity, such servants who 
have nothing save what they have gained by their industry, and 
have lived seven years and upwards with the same master ; I 
mean not apprentices, but such covenant servants which are 
bound to their masters, their year being ended, with no other 
indentures than their own discretion, and are sensible that they 
must run a hazard, and may lose with their alteration j especi- 



ALMS-HOUSES. 51 

ally such females, who prefer a good master in certain, before a 
good husband in hopes, and had rather serve in plenty, than 
wed and adventure poverty. 

I confess, such is the cruelty of some masters, no servant can, 
and such the fickleness of others, no servant may stay long with 
them. Such a master was he, who, being suitor to a gentle 
woman, came, every time he visited her, waited on by a new 
man, though keeping but one at once ; such was his inconstancy 
and delight in change. Whereupon, when taking leave of his 
mistress, he proffered to salute her ; " Spare your compliments," 
said she unto him, (i for probably I shall shortly see you again ; 
but let me, I pray you, salute your servant, whom I shall never 
behold any more." 

However, though sometimes the fault may be in the masters 
or mistresses, yet generally servants are to be blamed in our age, 
shifting their places so often without cause. The truth is, the 
age that makes good soldiers, mars good servants, cancelling 
their obedience, and allowing them too much liberty. What 
Nabal applied falsely and spitefully to David, " There be many 
servants now a days which break away every man from his mas 
ter,"* was never more true than now. Yea, what Tully said of 
the Roman consul (chose in the morning, and put out before 
night,) f some servants have been so vigilant, they never slept in 
their masters houses; so short their stay, so soon their de 
parture. 

The fickleness and fugitiveness of such servants justly addeth 
a valuation to their constancy who are standards in a family, 
and know w r hen they have met with a good master, as it appears 
their masters know when they have met with a good servant. 
It is pity but such properties of a household should be encou 
raged ; and bounty bestowed upon them may be an occasion to 
fix other sen-ants to stay the longer in their places, to the gene 
ral good of our nation. 

I desire these my suggestions should be as inoffensively taken, 
as they are innocently tendered. I know there was in the water 
of Bethesda,t after the angel had troubled it, a medicinal power. 
I know also that such impotent folk as lay in the five porches 
were the proper subjects to be cured : but, alas ! they wanted 
one, at the critical instant, to bring their wounds and the cure 
together, and to put them seasonably into the water. I am as 
confident that there be hundreds in England, really willing and 
able to relieve, as that there are thousands that do desire, and in 
some sort deserve, their charity. But there wanteth one, ir t the 
proper juncture of time, to present such poor objects to their 
liberality ; and if these my weak endeavours may be in any degree 

* 1 Sam. xxv. 10. 

" Habemus vigilem nonsulem qui in consulate suo nunquam tlormivit." 
+ John v. 2. 

E 2 



WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 



instrumental to promote the same, it will be a great comfort 

unto me. 

I will conclude this subject with a motive to charity, out ot 
the road of, besides, if not against the ordinary logic of men : 
" Give a portion to seven and to eight, for thou knowest not 
what evil shall be upon the earth/ *- To seven and to eight ;" 
that is, extend thy bounty to as high a proportion of deserving 
persons as can consist with thy estate ; " for thou knowest not 
what evil will be upon the earth;" matters are mutable, and 
thou mayest need the relief of others. 

Ergo, saith the miser, " part with nothing, but keep all against 
a wet day/ Not so Solomon, advising to secure somewhat in 
a safe bank the backs and bowels of the poor. Never evil 
more likely to, never people less known of the same, than our 
selves. And therefore the counsel never out of, is now most in 



season. 



WHY BENEFACTORS SINCE, ARE DISTENGUISHED FROM THEM 
BEFORE THE REFORMATION. 

I conceive it not fit to mingle both together, for these two rea 
sons : first, because of the difference of their charity since the 
Reformation, as not parched up by the fear of the fire of purga 
tory, but kindly ripened with the sun ; viz. a clear apprehension 
by the light of the Scripture that they were bound to do good 
works. 

Secondly, because a Romish Goliah t hath defied our English 
Israel, taxing our church since the Reformation, as able to shew 
few considerable pieces of charity in comparison of those be 
yond the seas, who may hence be easily confuted. 

Indeed when I read the emulations between Peninna and 
Hannah, it mindeth me of the contests betwixt the church of 
Rome and us ; such the conformity between them. 

"Her adversary provoked Hannah sore, for to make her fret, 
because the Lord hath shut up her womb/ J 

" But how did Hannah rejoice afterwards ? The barren hath 
borne seven, and she that hath many children is waxed feeble." 

It is confessed, immediately after the Reformation, Protestant 
religion stood for a while in amaze, scarcely recovered from the 
Marian persecution, and was barren in good works. || But since 
her beginning to bear fruit, she hath overtaken her Roman co- 

o O 

rival, and left her fairly behind. 

Let the extent of time and content of ground b e proportion 
ally stated, and England cannot be matched for deeds of cha 
rity in any part of Spain, France, and Italy ; as by the ensuing 
catalogue of benefactors to the public will appear. 



* Eccles. xi. 2. f Mr. Knot the Jesuit. 

1 Sam. i. 6. 1 Sara. ii. 5. 

|| See the Lite of Mr. AVilliam Lambert [Lambarde] in Kent. 



OF BENEFACTORS. 53 

Objection. You had better omitted them, leaving them mo 
destly to multiply and increase in their own silence and secrecy. 
You know how dear David paid for " numbering the people."* 

Answer. David did not offend in mere " numbering the 
people," but in not paying the poll money appointed by God 
in such cases, t purposely to decline the plague, which omission 
argued his pride of heart. It is lawful for Protestants, without 
any just suspicion of vain glory and ostentation, to make a 
list and take the number of benefactors in this kind, provided 
the quit-rent of praise be principally paid to the Lord of heaven. 
Besides, we are not challengers, but defenders of ourselves here 
in against the challenge of another; desiring to do it in all 
humility, in confidence of our good cause. 

And here I can hold no longer, but must break forth into a 
deserved commendation of good works. Glorious things in Scrip 
ture are spoken of you ; yea, fruits of the Spirit. By them the 
Gospel is graced, wicked men amazed, some of them converted, 
the rest of them confounded, weak Christians confirmed, poor 
Christians relieved, our faith justified, our reward in heaven by 
God s free grace amplified ; angels rejoice for them, devils re 
pine at them, God himself is glorified in them. Oh, therefore, 
that it were in my power to exhort my countrymen to pursue 
good works with all earnestness, which will add so much to 
their account. 

Some will say, if the English be so forward in deeds of charity 
as appeareth by what you said before, any exhortation there 
unto is altogether superfluous. 

I answer, the best disposed to bounty may need a remem 
brancer ; and I am sure that nightingale which would wake 
will not be angry with the thorn which pricketh her breast when 
she noddeth. Besides, it is a truth what the Poet saith, 

Qui monct ut facias quod jam facis, ipse monen lo 
Laudat, el Iiortatu comprobat acta suo. 

" Who, what thou dost, thee for to do doth move, 
Doth praise thy practice, and thy deeds approve. 1 

Thus the exhortations of the Apostles at Jerusalem were 
commendations of St. Paul, " Only they would that we should 
remember the poor, the same which I also was forward to 
do."J 

Lastly, though many of our nation be free in this kind, there 
want not those who, instead of being zealous are jealous of good 
works ; being so far from shining themselves, that they enviously 
endeavour to extinguish the light of others, whose judgments I 
have laboured to rectify herein. 

* 2 Sara. xxiv. 15. f Exod. xxx. 12. J Gal. ii. 10. 



54 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

THE STATING OF THE WORD "REFORMATION/ WITH THE 
EXTENSIVENESS THEREOF, 

No word occurs oftener in this our book than Reformation. 
It is, as it were, the equator, or that remarkable line dividing 
betwixt eminent prelates, learned writers, and benefactors to the 
public who lived before or after it. 

Know then that this word, in relation to the Church of Eng 
land, is of above twenty years extent. For the Reformation was 
not advanced here as in some foreign free states, suddenly, not 
to say rapidly, with popular violence, but leisurely and treatably, 
as became a matter of so great importance. Besides, the meet 
ing with much opposition retarded the proceedings of the Re 
formers. 

We may observe, that the Jews returned from the captivity 
of Babylon at three distinct times, under the conduct of several 
persons. 1. When the main body of the captives was brought 
home by Zerubbabel,* by whom the second Temple was built. 

2. When a considerable company returned with Ezra,t by whom 
the church part, as I may term it, was settled in that nation. 

3. When Nehemiah,t no doubt with suitable attendance, came 
home, and ordered the state moiety, repairing the walls of Jeru 
salem. 

In like manner we may take notice of three distinct dates and 
different degrees of our English Reformation ; though, in rela 
tion to the Jewish, I confess the method was altogether inverted. 
For, 1 . The civil part thereof, when the Pope s supremacy was 
banished in the reign of king Henry the Eighth. 2. When the 
Church Service was reformed, as far as that age would admit, in 
the first year of king Edward the Sixth. 3. When the same, 
after the Marian interruption, was resumed and more refined in 
the reign of queen Elizabeth. 

The first of these I may call the morning star ; the second, 
the dawning of the day ; the third, the rising of the sun ; and I 
deny not but that since that time his light and heat hath been 
increased. 

But now the question will be, what is to be thought of those 
prelates, writers, and benefactors, which lived in the aforesaid 
interval betwixt the beginning and perfecting of this Reforma 
tion. For these appear unto us like unto the bateable ground 
lying betwixt England and Scotland, whilst as yet two distinct 
kingdoms, in so dubious a posture it is hard to say to which side 
they do belong. 

It is answered, the only way to decide this difference is to 
observe the inclinations of the said persons so far forth as they 
are discovered in their writings and actions : such as appear in 

* Ezraii. 2. f Ezra viii. l 14. J Nehem. ii. 6. 



MEMORABLE PERSONS. 



55 



some good degree favourers of the Gospel are reputed to be 
since, whilst those who are otherwise are adjudged to be before, 
the Reformation. 



CHAPTER XII. 

OF MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

THE former heads were like private houses, in which persons 
accordingly qualified have their several habitations. But this 
last topic is like a public inn,, admitting all comers and goers, 
having any extraordinary, not vicious, remark upon them, and 
which are not clearly reducible to any of the former titles. 
Such, therefore, who . are over, under, or beside the standard of 
common persons, for strength, stature, fruitfulness, vivacity, 
or any other observable eminence, are lodged here under the 
notion of memorable persons, presuming the pains will not be 
to me so much in marking, as the pleasure to the reader in know 
ing them. 

Under this title we also repose all such mechanics, who in 
any manual trade have reached a clear note above others in 
their vocation. 

Objection. It is deforme spectacidum, an uncouth sight, to 
behold such handy craftsmen blended with eminencies in inge 
nious professions ; such a motley colour is no good wearing. 
How would William Cecil, Lord "Treasurer of England, and Ba 
ron of Burleigh, be offended, to behold James York the black 
smith set with him at the same table amongst the natives of 
Lincolnshire ? 

Answer. I am confident, on the contrary, that he would be 
highly pleased, being so great a statesman, that he would coun 
tenance and encourage his industrious countryman, accounting 
nothing little, without the help whereof greater matters can ei 
ther not be attained, or not long subsist. Yea, we see what 
signal notice the Spirit of God takes of the three sons of La- 
mech,* the first founders of tent-making, organs, and iron 
works ; and it is observable, that whereas all their names are 
forgotten which built the Tower of Babel, though done on de 
sign to get them a name,t these three mechanics, viz. Jabal, 
Jubal, and Tubal-cain, are nominatim recorded to all posterity. 
Thus is it better to bottom the perpetuity of one s memory on 
honest industry and ingenuous diligence, than on stately struc 
tures and expensive magnificence. 

I confess it is easier to add to any art, than first to invent 
it ; yet, because there is a perfection of degrees, as well as kinds, 
eminent improvers of an art may be allowed for the co-invent 
ors thereof being founders of that accession which they add 

* Gen. iv. 2 22, 23. f Gen. xi. 4. 



5G WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

thereunto, for which they deserve to be both regarded and re 
warded. 

I could name a worshipful family in the south of England, 
which for sixteen several descents, and some hundreds of years, 
have continued in the same stay of estate, not acquiring one 
foot of land, either by match, purchase, gift, or otherwise, to 
their ancient patrimony. The same may be said of some 
handicrafts, wherein men move in the same compass, but make 
no further progress to perfection, or any considerable improve 
ment; and this I impute generally to their want of competent 
encouragement. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

OF LORD MAYORS OF LONDON. 

I HAVE concluded this work with these chief officers in that 
great city ; a place of so great honour and trust, that it hath 
commonly been said, that, on the death of an English king, 
the Lord Mayor is the subject of the greatest authority in Eng 
land ; many other offices determining with the king s life, till 
such time as their charters be renewed by his successor ; where 
as the Lord Mayor s trust continueth for a whole year, without 
any renewing after the interregnum. 

Objection. Such persons had better been omitted, whereof 
many were little better than ynar^tg apyol, though by good for 
tune they have loaded themselves with thick clay ; and will be 
but a burden in your book to the readers thereof. 

Answer. All wise men will behold them under a better no 
tion, as the pregnant proofs of the truth of two proverbs, not 
contradictory, but confirmatory one to another. Prov. x. 22 : 
"The blessing of the Lord maketh rich." Prov. x. 4 : 
" The hand of the diligent maketh rich." The one as the prin 
cipal, the other as the instrumental cause ; and both meeting in 
the persons aforesaid. 

For though some of them were the younger sons of worship 
ful and wealthy parents, and so had good sums of money left 
them , yet being generally of mean extraction, they raised 
themselves by God s providence, and their own painfulness ; 
the city, in this respect, being observed like unto a court where 
elder brothers commonly spend, and the younger gain, an es 
tate. 

But such Lord Mayors are here inserted, to quicken the in 
dustry of youth, whose parents are only able to send them up 
to, not to set them up in, London. For what a comfort is it 
to a poor apprentice of that city, to see the prime magistrate 
thereof, riding in his majoralibus, with such pomp and attend 
ance, which another day may be his hap and happiness I 



LORD MAYORS OF LONDON. 5^ 

Objection. It cometh not to the share of one in twenty 
thousand, to attain to that honour ; and it is as impossible for 
every poor apprentice in process of time to prove Lord Mayor, 
as that a minim with long living should become a whale. 

Answer. Not so ; the latter is an utter impossibility as de 
barred by nature,, being fishes of several kinds : whereas there 
is a capacity in the other to arrive at it, which puts hopes, the 
only tie which keeps the heart from breaking, into the hearts 
of all of the attainableness of such preferment to themselves. 

Dr. Hutton, archbishop of York, when he came into any 
great grammar school, which he did constantly visit in his vi 
sitations, was wont to say to the young scholars, "Ply your 
books, boys, ply your books, for bishops are old men/ And 
surely the possibility of such dignity is a great encouragement 
to the endeavours of students. 

Lord Mayors being generally aged, and always but annual, 
soon make room for succession, whereby the endeavours of all 
freemen in companies are encouraged. But if they should 
chance to fall short, as unable to reach the home of honour, I 
mean the mayoralty itself, yet, if they take up their lodgings at 
Sheriff, Alderman, and Common-Councillor, \vith a good estate, 
they will have no cause to complain. 

I confess some counties, in our ensuing discourse, will appear 
Lord Mayor-less, as Cumberland, Dorsetshire, Hampshire, &c. 
However, though hitherto they have not had, hereafter they 
may have, natives advanced to that honour ; and it may put a 
lawful ambition into them, to contend who shall be their leader, 
and who should first of those shires attain to that dignity. As 
lately Sir Richard Cheverton, skinner, descended, I assure you, 
of a right ancient and worshipful family, was the first in Corn 
wall, who opened the door for others, no doubt, to follow after 
him. 

Nor must it be forgotten that many have been Lord Mayors 
mates, though never remembered in their catalogues ; viz. such 
w r ho by fine declined that dignity : and as I am glad that some 
will fine, that so the stock of the chamber of London may be 
increased, so I am glad that some will not fine, that so the state 
of the city of London maybe maintained. 

I begin the observing of their nativities, from Sir William 
Sevenoke, grocer, Lord Mayor 1418. For though there were 
Lord Mayors 200 years before, yet their birth-places generally 
are unknown. It was, I confess, well for me in this particular, 
that Mr. Stow w r as born before me, being herein the heir of 
endeavours, without any pain of my own ; for, knowing that 
cuilibet artifici in sud arte est credendum, I have followed him, 
and who him continued, till the year 1G33, at what time their 
labours do determine. Since which term, to the present year, 
I have made the catalogue out by my own inquiry, and friends 
intelligence. To speak, truth to their due praise, one may be 



58 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

generally directed to their cradles, though by no other candle 

than the light of their good works and benefactions to such 
places. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

A CATALOGUE OF ALL THE GENTRY IN ENGLAND, MADE IN THE 
REIGN OF KING HENRY THE SIXTH, WHY INSERTED IN OUR 
BOOK. 

AFTER we have finished the catalogue of the worthy natives of 
every shire, we present the reader with a list of the Gentry of 
the land, solemnly returned by select commissioners into the 
chancery, thence into the records in the Tower, on this occasion. 

The Commons in Parliament complained that the land then 
swarmed with pilours, robbers, oppressors of the people, man- 
stealers, felons, outlaws, ravishers of women, unlawful haunters 
of forests and parks, &c. Whereupon it was ordered, for the 
suppressing of present and preventing of future mischiefs, that 
certain commissioners should be empowered, in every county, to 
summon all persons of quality before them, and tender them an 
oath, for the better keeping of the peace, and observing the 
king s laws both in themselves and retainers. 

Excuse me, reader, if I be bold to interpose my own conjec 
ture, who conceive, whatever was intended to palliate the busi 
ness, the principal intent was, to detect and suppress such who 
favoured the title of York : which then began to be set on foot, 
and afterwards openly claimed, and at last obtained the crown. 

OF THE METHOD GENERAL USED IN THIS CATALOGUE. 

The first amongst the commissioners is the Bishop of their 
diocese, put before any Earl ; partly because he was in his own 
diocese, partly because giving of oaths, their proper work, was 
conceived to be of spiritual cognisance. 

Besides the bishop, when they were three (as generally) com 
missioners, the first of them was either an Earl, or at least 
(though often entituled but Chivaler) an actual Baron, as 
will hereafter appear ; and which will acquaint us partly with the 
peerage of the land in that age. 

Next follow those who were Knights for the Shire in the par 
liament foregoing ; and if with the addition of Chivaler, or Miles, 
were Knights by dubbing, before of that their relation. 

All commissioners expressed not equal industry and activity 
in prosecution of their trust ; for, besides the natural reasons, 
that in all affairs some will be more rigorous, some more remiss, 
by their own temper, some more, some less fancied their 
employment, insomuch as we find some shires, 1. Over done; 
as Oxford and Cambridge-shires, whose catalogues are too 



GENERAL METHOD USED IN THIS CATALOGUE. 59 

much allayed, descending to persons of meaner quality. 
2. Even done ; as generally the most are, where the returns bear 
a competent proportion to the populousness and numerousness 
of the counties. 3. Underdone ; as Shropshire, Yorkshire, Nor 
thumberland, &c., where the returns do not answer to the extent 
of those shires. 4. Not done ; which I sadly confess, and 
cannot help ; being twelve in number, as hereafter will appear. 

I dare not conjecture the cause of this casualty ; whether in 
such shires the oaths were never tendered, or tendered and not 
taken, or taken and not returned, or returned and not recorded, 
or recorded and not preserved, or preserved but misplaced 
in some roll which hitherto it hath not been my hap to light 
upon. 

It is possible that some disgusted the king s design, as who, 
under the pretence of keeping the peace, endeavoured to 
smother and suppress such who should appear for the title of 
York ; Avhereof more in the respective counties. 

May the reader be pleased to take notice that, in the reign of 
Henry the Sixth, de such a place began then to be left off, and 
the addition of Knight and Squire to be assumed, Yet, because 
no fashion can be generally followed at first, such additions are 
used in the returns of some shires, and neglected in others. 

In some counties we have the names of a few mechanics re 
turned, with their trades, Brazier, Smith, Ironmonger, &c. ; who, 
no doubt, were considerable, either in themselves, as robustious 
persons ; or in their servants, as numerous ; or in their popular 
and tumultuous influence of others. And grant these passing 
under the name of Valecti (whereof formerly), it appears, by the 
penalty imposed on their recusancy of the oath, that they were 
substantial people, which stood (and probably could make others 
go) on their own account. 

Some clergymen, not only regular, as abbots and priors, but 
secular parochial priests, are inserted in some returns. These, 
some will say, might well be omitted, as nothing informative to 
the gentry of the land, because dead stakes in the hedge ; then 
unconcerned in posterity, because forbidden marriage. How 
ever, I have here presented as I found them, intending neither 
to mingle nor mangle ; conceiving that, if I were found guilty 
either of omissions or alterations, it might justly shake the cre 
dit of the whole catalogue. Indeed if the word superstition im- 
porteth not trespassing on religion, and if the bare signification 
be adequate to the etymology thereof, a super stando, for stand 
ing in his own opinion .too curiously, on a thing which in the 
judgment of others may not merit so much exquisiteness, I here 
voluntarily confess myself superstitious in observing every 
punctilio according to the original. 

May the reader be pleased to take notice, that in men s pro 
per names, some letters of like sound are confounded in vulgar 
pronunciation, as V for F, Fenner and Venner, K and C, Kary 



60 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

and Gary; F and Ph., as Purfrey and Purphrey, though the 
name be the same in both. Sometimes the name is spelt, not 
truly, according to orthography, but according to the common 
speaking thereof, which melteth out some essential letters, as 
Becham for Beauchamp. 

Again, there is such an allusion betwixt the forms of some let 
ters (nothing symbolizing in sound) that as they are written 
(though not in ordinary) in record-hand, they may easily be mis 
taken by a writer or reader, through the similitude of their cha 
racter ; as, 




This hath put us many times to a stand, and sometimes to a 
loss, what letter it hath been. But we have in all particulars 
conformed our transcript to the original in all possible exact 
ness, though afterwards taking the boldness to interpose our 
opinion in our observations. 

A later list might be presented of the English gentry, towards 
the end of the reign of king Henry the Eighth ;* but such would 
be subject to just exception. For, as the Gibeonites, though by 
their mouldy bread, and clouted shoes, pretending to a long pe 
regrination, were but of the vicinage ; so most of those gentry, 
notwithstanding their specious claim to antiquity, will be found 
to be but of one descent, low enough in themselves, did they 
not stand on the vantage ground, heightened on the rubbish of 
the ruins of monasteries. 



CHAPTER XV. 

OF SHIRE-REEVES, OR SHERIFFS. 

REEVE, which hath much affinity with the Dutch Grave, sig- 
nifieth an officer to oversee and order, being chief in the Shire ; 
in Latin Vice-comes or Vice-count. And seeing shadows in 
effect are as ancient as the bodies, they may be believed as old 
as Counts, and Counts as Counties, and Counties as king Alfred, 
who first divided England into Shires about the year of our 
Lord 888. 

The late fashion was, that the clerk of the peace for each 
county, in Michaelmas term, presented to the lord chief justice 
of the King s Bench six or more names of able persons for that 
office. The lord chief justice calling the other judges into the 
Exchequer Chamber, where the attorney-general and solicitor 
attend, presented three out of that number unto the king, out 

* This List, if it could be discovered, and it is probably in some of the Record 
Offices, would be a valuable article in continuation of " The Worthies of 
England." 



SHERIFFS. 61 

of which the king pricks one, who stands sheriff of the 
county. 

His power is sufficiently known; to suppress riots, secure 
prisoners, distrain for debts, execute writs, return the choice of 
knights and burgesses for parliament, empannel juries, attend 
the judge, see the execution of malefactors, &c. 

Several statutes have provided, that no man should be sheriff 
in any county, except he hath land sufficient in the same county 
to answer the king and his people.* And it is remarkable that, 
since the beginning of that office, it appeareth not upon any 
record, that ever any sheriff, pro tempore, failed in his estate, 
but was responsible in his place ; whereas it is too plain by sad 
precedents, that some receivers (being men of meaner estates) 
have. 

Sheriffs are bound to abide in their proper persons within the 
county, that they may the more effectually attend their office, t 
And in our remembrance, some great persons, whose activity in 
parliament was suspected, have been made sheriffs, to keep 
them out of harm s Avay, and confine them at home. But later 
years have dispensed with such critical niceties ; unreasonable 
that the sheriff himself should be a prisoner in his own county, 
allowing him more liberty, on the providing of an able deputy 
in his absence. 

Though I will not avouch it true, there may be somewhat of 
truth in their spiteful observation, who maintain, that the shriev 
alty in ancient times was honos sine onere, in the middle times 
honos cum onere, and in our days little better than onus sine 
honore ; though I trust the office will now be restored to its 
former honour. 

Honos sine onere, " an honour without a burden." As when 
prince Edward the First was for many years together high- 
sheriff of Bedford and Buckinghamshire ; and many prime peers 
of the land were honorary sheriffs, gracing the place with ac 
cepting it ; living where they pleased themselves, and appoint 
ing their substitutes to transact the business of the county. 

Honos cum onere, " an honour with a burden ;" from king 
Edward the Third, till within our remembrance. For the prin 
cipal gentry in every shire, of most ancient extractions and best 
estates, were deputed for that place, keeping great attendance 
and hospitality : so that as some transcripts have, for the fair 
ness of their character, not only evened but exceeded the 
original, the Vice-comites have, pro tempore, equalled the count 
himself, and greatest lords in the land, for their magnificence. 

Onus sine honore, " a burden without honour ;" when it was 
obtruded on many as a punishment for the trouble and charge 
thereof, and laid as a burden, not on the back of that horse 
which was best able to carry it, but who was least able to cast it 

* 9 Edward II. Lincoln. 4 Edward III, 9. 5 Edward III. 4. 
f 4 Henry IV. 5. 



62 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

off, great persons by friends and favour easily escaping it, whilst 
it was charged on those of meaner estates : though I do believe 
it found all them Esquires, and did not make any so, as some 
will suggest. 

Hence was it, that many sheriffs were forced to consult prin 
ciples of thrift, not being bound so to serve their country, as to 
disserve themselves, and ruin their estates ; and instead of keep 
ing open houses, as formerly, at the assizes, began to latch, 
though not lock, their doors, providently reducing it to an ordi 
nary expence ; and no wise man will conclude them to be the 
less loyal subjects, for being the more provident fathers. 

At the end of every shire, after the forenamed catalogue of 
the gentry, in the reign of king Henry the Sixth, I have set 
down a list of the sheriffs from the beginning of king Henry 
the Second until the end of king Charles, carefully collected out 
of the Records. For I hope that by the former, which I call 
my broad (representing the gentry of one generation all over 
England), and this which I term my long catalogue, extending 
itself successively through many ages ; I hope, I say, both being 
put together, may square out the most eminent of the ancient 
gentry in some tolerable proportion. Most eminent ; seeing, I 
confess, neither can reach all the gentry of the land : for as in 
the catalogue of king Henry the Sixth, many ancient gentlemen 
w r ere omitted, who were minors in age, and so incapable of 
taking an oath ; so doth not the list of sheriffs comprehend all 
the gentry in the shire, rinding three sorts of people excluded 
out of the same: such who were, 1. Above discharging the 
office : 2. Besides discharging the office : 3. Beneath discharg 
ing the office. 

Above. Such were all the Peerage in the land, which since 
the reign of king Edward the Third were excused, I am sure, de 
facto, not employed in that place, as inconsistent with their 
attendance in parliament. 

Secondly, such who were besides the place, privileged by their 
profession from that office ; which may be subdivided into 
1. Swordmen, employed in w r ars beyond the seas. Thus Sir 
Oliver Tngham, and Sir John Fastoffe, both great men, and 
richly landed in Norfolk, were never sheriffs thereof, because 
employed in the French wars, the one under king Edward the 
Third, the other under king Henry the Fifth. 2. Gownmen ; as 
judges, sergeants at law, barristers, auditors, and other officers 
in the Exchequer, &c. 3. Cloakmen;* such courtiers as were 
the king s servants, and in ordinary attendance about his person. 

Lastly, such as were beneath the place, as men of too narrow 
estates to discharge that office, especially as it was formerly in 
the magnificent expensiveness thereof, though such persons 
might be esquires of right ancient extraction. 

* In relation to the present mode ; otherwise they also were gownmen anciently. 



SHERIFFS. 63 

And here under favour I conceive, that if a strict inquiry 
should be made after the ancient gentry of England, most of 
them would be found amongst such middle-sized persons as are 
above two hundred, and beneath a thousand pounds of annual 
revenue. It was the motto of wise Sir Nicholas Bacon, medio- 
criajirma, " moderate things are most lasting." Men of great 
estates, in national broils, have smarted deeply for their visible 
engagements, to the ruin of their families, whereof &gt;ve have had 
too many sad experiments, whilst such persons who are mode 
rately mounted above the level of common people into a com 
petency, above want and beneath envy, have, by God^s blessing 
on their frugality, continued longest in their conditions, enter 
taining all alterations in the state with the less destructive 
change unto themselves. 

Let me add, that I conceive it impossible for any man, and 
difficult for a corporation of men, to make a true catalogue of 
the English gentry ; because, what mathematicians say of a line, 
that it is divisibilis in semper divisibilia, is true hereof, if the 
Latin were (which, for aught I know, if as usual is) as elegant, 
addibilis in semper addibilia* Not only because new gentry will 
every day be added, and that as I conceive justly too ; for why 
should the fountain of honour be stopped, if the channel of 
desert be running ? but because ancient gentry will daily be 
newly discovered, though some of them perchance for the pre 
sent but in a poor and mean condition, as may appear by this 
particular. 

It happened in the reign of king James, when Henry Earl of 
Huntingdon was lieutenant of Leicestershire, that a labourer s 
son in that county was pressed into the wars, as I take it to go 
over with count Mansfield. The old man at Leicester requested 
his son might be discharged, as being the only staff of his age, 
who by his industry maintained him and his mother. The earl 
demanded his name, which the man for a long time was loath 
to tell, as suspecting it a fault for so poor a man to confess a 
truth. At last he told his name was Hastings. "Cousin Hast 
ings," said the earl, "we cannot all be top branches of the tree, 
though we all spring from the same root : your son my kinsman 
shall not be pressed." So good was the meeting of modesty in a 
poor, with courtesy in an honourable person, and gentry I believe 
in both. And I have reason to believe, that some who justly own 
the surnames and blood of Bohuns, Mortimers, and Plantagenets, 
though ignorant of their own extractions, are hid in the heap of 
common people ; where they find that under a thatched cottage, 
which some of their ancestors could not enjoy in a leaded castle, 
contentment with quiet and security. 

To return to our catalogue of sheriffs. I have been bold to 
make some brief historical observations upon them, which I hope 
will not l)e unpleasing to the reader, whom I request first to 



64 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

peruse our notes on Berkshire, because of their public influence 
on the rest,, facilitating some difficulties which return in the 
sheriffs of other counties. 

After we have presented the sheriffs names, we have annexed 
their addition, either of estate, as Esquire ; or degree, as Knight, 
Baronet, &c. ; and this we have always done after, sometimes 
before, king Henry the Sixth. For although the statute of Addi 
tions was made in the first of king Henry the Fifth, to indivi- 
duifij, as I may say, and separate persons from those of the 
same name ; and although it took present effect in such suits 
and actions where process of outlawry lieth, yet was it not 
universally practised in other writings till the end of the reign 
of king Henry the Sixth. 

After their additions, we have, in a distinct columel, assigned 
the places of their habitation, w T here we could proceed with any 
certainty, leaving some blanks to employ the industry of others. 
We have endeavoured, as near as we could, to observe propor 
tion of time in denoting their places, lest otherwise our there be 
confuted by our then, the date of the king s reign which is pre 
fixed. If sometimes we have made a prolepsis with Virgil s 
Lavinia litora, (I mean if we have placed some sheriffs too 
early in their possessions, a little before their families were 
fixed there,) I hope the candid reader will either wink or smile 
at the mistake. 

It often cometh to pass that the same sheriff in the same 
shire hath two or more fair seats. This should raise their grati 
tude to God, whose own Son was not so well provided, not having 
"whereto lay his head." In this variety our catalogue pre- 
senteth but one ; sometimes the oldest, sometimes the fairest, 
and sometimes, freely to confess, what comes first to my me 
mory. The best is, truth doth not abate thereby ; knowing so 
much law, that where a man hath an household in two places 
he shall be said to dwell in both of them ; so that this addition 
in one of them doth suffice. 

Next to the place of sheriffs we set down their arms ; whereof 
largely in the next chapter. We conclude the catalogue of 
sheriffs with a comment upon them, presenting their most re 
markable actions. Our husbandmen in Middlesex make a dis 
tinction between dodding and threshing of wheat ; the former 
being only the beating out of the fullest and fairest grain, leav 
ing what is lean and lank to be threshed out afterwards. Our 
comment may be said to have dodded the sheriffs of several 
counties, insisting only on their most memorable actions which 
are extant in our printed histories; otherwise my eyes could 
not look into locked chests I mean, pierce into the private 
records of families, carefully concealed and kept in their choicest 
cabinet. Besides such unprinted records are infinite (under 
stand it in the same sense in which the strength of Tyre is 



OF ARMS. 65 

called " infinite,"*) too many for one author to manage, and 
therefore are left to such as undertake the description of several 
counties. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

OF THE COATS OF ARMS AFFIXED TO SUCH WHO HAVE BEEN 

SHERIFFS OF COUNTIES. 

SOMETHING must be premised of Arms in general. They 
may seem in some sort to be jure divino to the Jews, having a 
precept for the practice thereof : (&lt; Every man of the children 
of Israel shall pitch by his own standard, with the ensign of their 
father s house."* 

The use thereof is great, both in war and peace. I begin 
with war, because Arms had their first rise from arms, and had 
a military origin. Without these an army cannot be methodised, 
and is but an heap of men. " Like an army," saith the Scrip 
ture, i( terrible with banners ;"J without which an army is not 
terrible, but ridiculous, routing itself with its own confusion. 
Now as no army without banners, so no banner without arms 
therein. " If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall 
prepare himself to the battle ? " Now, as the trumpet tells 
the time, so the banner proclaims the place of meeting ; and if 
it have not distinguishable emblems therein, who shall know 
whither to repair to his captain or company. 

Arms are also useful in peace, to distinguish one man from 
another. They B be termed nomina visibilia, f&lt; visible names." 
For as a name notifieth a man to the ear, so his arms do signify 
him to the eye, though dead many years since ; so signal the 
service of arms on tombs to preserve the memory of the de 
ceased. 

Arms anciently were either assumed or assigned : for at first 
men took what arms they pleased, directed by th eir own fancy ; a 
custom still continuing in the Low Countries, where the burgers 
choose their own arms with as great confidence as tradesmen make 
their mark, or inn-keepers set up their signs in England. As 
signed arms were such as princes, or their officers under them, 
appointed to particular persons, in reward of their service. And 
whereas assumed arms were but personal, these generally were 
hereditary, and descended to their families. 

It is the rule general in arms, that the plainer the ancienter ; 
and so consequently more honourable : " Arma prim 6 nuda sine 
ornatu." And when a memorable gentleman (understand me, 
such an one the beginning of whose gentry might easily be re 
membered) was mocking at the plain coat of an ancient esquire, 

* Nahum iii. f Num. ii. 2. J Cant. vi. 4. 1 Cor. xiv. 8. 

VOL. I. F 



66 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

the esquire returned, (( I must be fain to wear the coat which my 
great great grandfather left me ; but had I had the happiness to 
have bought one, as you did, it should have been guarded after 
the newest fashion." Two colours are necessary and most 
highly honourable ; though both may be blazoned with one 
word, as Varrey (formerly borne by the Beauchamps, of Hatch 
in Wiltshire, and still quartered by the duke of Somerset). 
Three are very honourable ; four commendable ; five excusable ; 
more, disgraceful. Yet I have seen a coat of arms (I mean 
within the escutcheon) so piebald, that if both the metals and all 
the colours, seven in all, were lost elsewhere, they might have 
been found therein. 

Such coats were frequently given by the heralds, not out of 
want of wit, but will to bestow better, to the new gentry in the 
end of the reign of king Henry the Eighth. One said of a coat 
that it was so well victualled, that it might endure a siege ; such 
the plenty and variety of fowl, flesh, and fish therein : though 
some done so small, one needed a magnifying glass to discover 
them ; but such surfeited coats have since met with a good 
physician,* who hath cured many of them. 

I can not but smile at his fancy, who counting himself no 
doubt wonderfully witty, would be a reformer of our heraldry, 
and thought it fine, if it were thus ordered, that all, 1. Descend 
ed of ancient nobility should give their field Or ; 2. Extracted 
from undoubted gentry, Argent ; 3. Advancing themselves by 
sea-adventures, Azure ; 4. Raised by their valour in war, Gules ; 
5. Gownmen preferred for learning, Sable ; 6. Countrymen 
raised by good husbandry, Vert. 

Indeed, as these Metals and Colours are reckoned up in 
order, so are they reputed in honour, save that the contest be 
twixt Azure and Gules is not so clearly decided. 

Or and Azure in composition are conceived the richest, Ar 
gent and Sable the fairest coat ; because setting off each other 
discernible at the greatest distance. The lion and eagle are 
reputed the most honourable, the cross the most religious bear 
ing ; a bend is esteemed the best ordinary, being a belt borne 
in its true posture athwart, as a fess is the same worn about the 
middle. Things natural in the charge presented in their pro 
per colour are best; and herbs Vert far better than Or, as 
flourishing better than fading; even stained are no stained 
colours when natural. But, seeing the whole mystery of he 
raldry dwells more in the region of fancy than judgment, few 
rules of assurance can be laid down therein. 

We meet with some few coats which have reasons rendered 
of their bearing. Thus, whereas the earls of Oxford anciently 
gave their coat plain, Quarterly, Gules and Or; they took 
afterward in the first a mullet, or star Argent, because the chief 

* Mr. Cam den. 






OF ARMS. 67 

of the house had a falling-star, as my author* saith, alighting on 
his shield, as he was fighting in the Holy Land. But it were a 
labour in vain for one to offer at an account for all things borne 
in armoury. 

This mindeth me of a passage in the north, where the ancient 
and worthy family of the Gascoignes gave for their arms the 
head of a lucie, or pike, cooped in pale ; whereon one merrily, 

" The Lucy is the finest fish 
That ever graced any dish ; 
But why. you give the head alone, 
I leave to you to pick this bone." 

A question which on the like occasion may be extended to 
beasts and fowl, whose single heads are so generally borne in 
several coats. 

After the names and places of sheriffs, exemplified in their 
respective counties, we have added their arms ever since the 
first of king Richard the Second. And, though some may 
think we begin too late (the fixing hereditary arms in England 
being an hundred years ancienter), we find it sometimes too soon 
to attain at any certainty therein. 

In perusing these arms, the reader will meet with much ob 
servable variety : viz. That the same family sometimes gives 
two paternal coats; as Spencer, in Northamptonshire, 1. Quar 
terly, Argent and Gules ; the second and third charged with a 
fret Or : over all, on a bend Sable, three escallops of the first. 
2. Azure, a fess Ermine betwixt six sea-mews heads erased 
Argent. 

Sometimes two distinct families and names give the self 
same coat ; as in Berkshire : Fettiplace and Hide, Gules, two 
chevrons Argent. 

The same name, but being distinct families, in several coun 
ties, give different arms : Grey, in Leicestershire, Barry of six, 
Argent and Azure ; in chief three torteaux : in Northumber 
land, Gules, a lion rampant with a border engrailed Argent. 

The same name, in the same shire, being distinct families, 
gives different coats ; as in Northamptonshire : Green, of Green s- 
Norton, Azure, three bucks trippant Or : of Drayton, Argent, 
a cross engrailed Gules. 

The same name and family, in the same shire, gives the same 
coat for essentials, but disguised in colours ; as in Northamp 
tonshire : Tresham, of Lifden and of Newton. 

The same family giveth a coat this day, bearing some general 
allusion to, but much altered and bettered, from what they gave 
some sixty years since ; and, forbearing to give an instance 
hereof, for some reason, I refer to the reader s discovery. 

Contented with the coat itself, I have not inserted the diifer- 
ences of younger houses, crescents, mullets, martlets, &c. ; 

t Camden s Remains, in the Title of Armory. 
F 2 



68 



WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 



chiefly because they are generally complained of, and confessed 
as defective, subject to coincidence, and not adequate to the 
effectual distinguishing of the branches from the same root. 

As the affixing of Differences, if done, were imperfect ; so the 
doing thereof is not only difficult, but also dangerous. Dan 
gerous, for it would bring many old houses (and new ones too) 
on his head who undertakes it ; so undistinguishable are the 
seniorities of some families, parted so long since, that now it is 
hard to decide, which the root and which the branch. I re 
member a contest in the court of honour, betwixt the two 
houses of Constable, the one of Flamborough-head, the other 
of Constable-Burton, both in Yorkshire, which should be the 
eldest. The decision was, it was never decided; both sides 
producing such ancient evidences, that in mounting up in anti 
quity, like hawks, they did not only lessen, but fly out of sight, 
even beyond the ken and cognizance of any record. The case, 
I conceive, occurs often betwixt many families in England. 

Some names we have left without arms. Physicians prescribe 
it as a rule of health, " to rise with an appetite ;" and I am 
loath the reader should fill himself with all which he might de 
sire. But, not to dissemble, I could not, with all mine own 
and friends skill and industry, attain their coats, as of families 
either extinct in those counties before the first, or only extant 
therein since the last visitation of heralds. Yet let not my 
ignorance be any man s injury, who humbly desireth that such 
vacuities may hereafter be filled up by the particular chorogra- 
phers of those respective counties. 

This I am sure, " A needle may be sooner found in a bottle 
of hay" (a task, though difficult, yet possible to be done,) than 
the arms of some sheriffs of counties be found in the herald s 
visitations of the said counties : for many were no natives of 
that shire, but came in thither occasionally from far distant 
places. Thus the arms of Sir Jervis Clifton (thrice high-sheriff 
of Kent, in the reign of king Henry the Sixth), are invisible in 
any Kentish herald s office, as not landed therein himself, 
though living at Braburn, on the jointure of Isabel his wife, 
the widow of William Scot, Esq.* And I doubt not but in 
stances of the same nature frequently are found in other 
counties. 

We will conclude this discourse of arms with this memorable 
record, being as ancient as the reign of king Henry the Fifth. 

Claus. 5, Henrici Quinti, membrana 15, in dor so, in Turre 

Londinensi. 
" Rex Vicecomiti, salutem, &c. Q,uia, prout informamur, 

J * 1 ..... ! 

diversi homines qui in viagns nostris ante haec tempora factis, 
Arma et Tunicas armorum vocat. Coat-Armours in se susce- 

* Villare Cantianum, p. 26. 



OF ARMS. 69 

perunt, ubi nee ipsi nee eorum antecessores hujusmodi armis 
ac tunicis armorum temporibus retroactis usi fuerint, et ea in 
present! viagio nostro in proximo, Deo dante, faciend exercere 
proponant ; et quanquam Omnipotens suam gratiam disponat 
prout vult in naturalibus, equalizer diviti et pauperi ; volentes 
tamen quemlibet ligeorum nostrorum predictorum juxta statfts 
sui exigentiam modo debito pertractari et haberi : Tibi preci- 
pimus, quod, in singulis locis intra ballivam tuam, ubi per breve 
nostrum nuper premonst. faciendis proclamari facias, quod 
nullus cujuscunque status, gradus, seu conditionis fuerit, hujus 
modi arma sive tunicas armorum in se sumat, nisi ipse jure 
antecessorio, vel ex donatione alicujus ad hoc sufficientem 
potestatem habentis, ea possideat aut possidere debeat. Et 
quod ipse arma sive tunicas illas ex cujus dono obtinet, die 
monstrationis sue, personis ad hoc per nos assignatis seu 
assignandis manifesto demonstret, exceptis illis qui nobiscum 
apud bellum de Agincourt arma portabant, sub pcenis non ad- 
missionis ad pronciendum in viagio predicto sub numero ipsius 
cum quo retentus existit, ac perditionis vadiorum suorum ex 
causa, predicts! preceptorum, necnon rasura et ruptura dictorum 
armorum et tunicarum vocat. Coat-Armours, tempore mon 
strationis sue predicto, si ea super ilium monstrata fuerint seu 
inventa. Et hoc nullatenus omittas. T. R. apud Civitatem 
Nov. Sarum, secundo die Junii." 

Per ipsum Regum, 

" The King to the Sheriff, health, &c. Because there are 
divers men, as we are informed, which before these times, in 
the voyages made by us, have assumed to themselves Arms and 
Coat-Armours, where neither they nor their ancestors in times 
past used such arms or coat-armours, and propound with them 
selves to use and exercise the same in this present voyage, 
which (God willing) we shortly intend to make: and although 
the Omnipotent disposeth his favours, in things natural, as he 
pleaseth, equally to the rich and poor ; yet we willing that every 
one of our liege subjects should be had and handled in due 
manner, according to the exigence of his state and condition ; 
we command thee, that in every place within thy bailiwick, 
where by our writ we have lately shewn, you cause to be pro 
claimed, that no man, of what state, degree, or condition soever 
he be, shall take upon him such arms, or coats of arms, save he 
alone who doth possess, or ought to possess, the same by the 
right of his ancestors, or by donation and grant of some who 
had sufficient power to assign him the same. And that he that 
useth such arms or coats of arms shall, on the day of his mus 
ter, manifestly shew to such persons assigned, or to be assigned 
by us for that purpose, by virtue of whose gift he enjoyeth the 
same ; those only excepted who carried arms with us at the 
battle of Agincourt j under the penalties not to be admitted to 



70 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

go with us in our foresaid voyage under his command by whom 
he is for the present retained, and of the loss of his wages, as 
also of the rasing out, and breaking off, the said arms called 
Coat-armours, at the time of his muster aforesaid, if they shall 
be shewed upon him, or found about him. And this you shall 
in no case omit. Witness the king, at the city of New Sarum, 
June the second." 

Consimilia brevia diriguntur Vicecomitihus Wilts, Sussex, Dorset, 

sub eadem data. 

I could wish a reviving of this instrument in our age ; many 
up-starts in our late civil wars having injuriously invaded the 
arms of ancient families. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

OF THE OFTEN ALTERING OF SURNAMES, AND THE VARIOUS 

WRITING THEREOF. 

HAVING dealt so largely in Surnames, it is necessary to 
observe, that Surnames of families have been frequently altered ; 
some families deposing their old and assuming new names on 
several occasions ; but chiefly for, 

1 . Concealment, in time of civil wars. A name is a kind of 
face whereby one is known ; wherefore taking a false name is a 
visard, whereby men disguise themselves, and that lawfully 
enough, when not fraudulently done to deceive others ; but dis 
creetly, in danger, to secure themselves. Thus, during the 
contest betwixt York and Lancaster, Carington in Warwick 
shire took the name of Smith ; La Blunt the name of Croke in 
Buckinghamshire ; with many others. 

2. For Advancement, when adopted into an estate ; as New 
port, the name of Hatton, in Northamptonshire ; Throckmor- 
ton, the name of Carew, at Beddington in Surrey ; as, long 
before, Westcoat, the name of Littleton, in Staffordshire. 

Besides, the same surname continued hath been variously 
altered in writing. First, because time teacheth new orthogra 
phy ; altering spelling, as well as speaking. Secondly, the best 
gentlemen anciently were not the best scholars, and, minding 
matters of more moment, were somewhat too incurious in their 
names. Besides, writers engrossing deeds were not over-critical 
in spelling of names ; knowing well, where the person appeared 
the same, the simplicity of that age would not fall out about 
misnomer. 

Lastly, ancient families have been often removed into several 
counties, where several writings follow the several pronuncia 
tions. What scholar knoweth not that Zet/e, their Greek name 
for Jupiter, is, by their seven dialects, written ten several ways ; 
and, though not so many dialects in England, there is a real 



OF MODERN BATTLES. i L 

difference bewixt our southern, western, and northern pronun 
ciations. 

Hence it is that the same name hath been so often disguised 
unto the staggering of many, who have mistook them for dif 
ferent. 

Idem non idem, queeruntque in nomine nomcn. 

" The same they thought was not the same ; 
And in their name they sought their name." 

Thus I am informed, that the honourable name of Villiers is 
written in fourteen several ways in their own evidences ; and the 
like, though not so many, variations may be observed in others. 

And the name of Roper, in Derbyshire, changed from Musard 
to Rubra-Spatha, Rospear, Rouspee, Rooper, Roper. I insist 
the longer on this point, because in our catalogue of sheriffs the 
same surname is variously written ; which some, without cause, 
may impute to my carelessness, being the effect of my care, con 
forming the orthography exactly to the original, where such 
variation doth plainly appear ; and however such diversity ap- 
peareth in the eye of others, I dare profess that I am delighted 
with the prospect thereof. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

OF MODERN BATTLES. 

IMMEDIATELY before our Farewell to the respective counties, 
we have inserted a breviate of modern battles since our civil 
distempers. I need here premise nothing of the difference be 
twixt a skirmish, being only the engagement of parties, and a 
battle, being an encounter betwixt generals with their armies. 
Nor yet of the difference betwixt prcelium a fight or battle, 
and bellum a war ; the former being a fight in field ; the latter 
the continuance of hostility, which may be for many years, 
whilst the difference dependeth undecided. " Peracto preelio, 
manet bellum." And though a truce may give a comma or 
colon to the war, nothing under a peace can put a perfect 
period thereunto. 

In describing these battles, I am, for distinction sake, necessi 
tated to use the word Parliament improperly, according to the 
abusive acception thereof for these latter years. Let us think 
and judge with the wise ; but, if we do not speak with the vul 
gar, we shall be dumb to the vulgar. Otherwise I know a 
parliament properly is a complete syllogism, the lords and 
commons being the two propositions, the king the conclusion 
thereof; and our English tongue wanteth one word to express 
the dissenting part of a parliament ; and I trust in God, as our 
language doth not afford the name, so our land shall not here 
after behold the nature thereof. 

These battles are here inserted, not with any intent (God 
knows my heart) to perpetuate the odious remembrance of our 



72 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

mutual animosities; that heart-burnings may remain, when 
house-burnings are removed ; but chiefly to raise our gratitude 
to God, that so many battles should be fought in the bosom of 
so little a land, and so few scars and signs thereof extant in 
their visible impressions. Such who consider how many men 
we have lost, would wonder we have any left ; and such who 
see how many we have left, that we had any lost. In a word, 
as it is said of the best oil, that it hath no taste, that is, no tang, 
but the pure natural gust of oil therein ; so I have endeavoured 
to present these battles according to plain historical truth, 
without any partial reflections. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

OF THE NUMBER OF MODERN SHIRES OR COUNTIES IN ENG 
LAND ; AND WHY THE WORTHIES IN THIS WORK ARE DIGESTED 
COUNTY-WAYS. 

I SAY modern, not meaning to meddle with those antiquated 
ones, which long since have lost their names and bounds : as 
Winchelcombshire united to Gloucestershire,* Howdonshire 
annexed to Yorkshire, and Hexamshire to -Northumberland.t 
As little do we intend to touch on those small tracts of ground, 
the County of Poole and the like, being but the extended limits 
and liberties of some Incorporations. 

We add Shires, or Counties, using the words promiscuously 
as the same in sense. I confess, I have heard some critics 
making this distinction betwixt them, that such are Shires 
which take their denomination from some principal town : as 
Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, &c. ; whilst the rest, not wearing 
the name of any town, are to be reputed Counties, as Norfolk, 
Suffolk, &c. But we need not go into Wales to confute their 
curiosity, where we meet Merionethshire and Glamorganshire, 
but no towns so termed, seeing Devonshire doth discompose 
this their English conceit \ I say English Shires and Counties, 
being both Comitatus in Latin. 

Of these there be nine and thirty at this day, which by the 
thirteen in Wales, $ are made up fifty two; England largely 
taken, having one for every week in the year. 

Here let me tender this for a real truth, which may seem a 
paradoxy, that there is a County in England, which, from the 
Conquest till the year 1607 (when Mr. Camden s last Latin 
Britannia was set forth) never had Count or Earl thereof, as 
hereby may appear. In his conclusion of Berkshire, " Heec de 
Barkshire, quse hactenus Comitis honore insignivit neminem." 

* Rob. de Gloucester, & Codex Wigorniensis. f Camden s Britannia. 

+ Monmouthshire being 1 now considered as an English County, there are at 
present 40 in England, and only 12 in Wales. ED. 



WORTHIES DIGESTED COUNTY-WAYS. 73 

Immediately it followeth, "In hujus Comitatus complexu sunt 
Parochiee 140." 

Now this may seem the more strange, because Comes and Co 
mitatus are relative. But, under favour, I humbly conceive, 
that though Berkshire never had any titular, honorary, or here 
ditary Earl till the year 1620, (when Francis Lord Norris was 
created first Earl thereof) ; yet had it in the Saxons time, when 
it was first modelled into a Shire, an Officiary Countj whose 
deputy was termed Vice-comes as unto this day. 

WHY THE WORTHIES IN THIS WORK ARE DIGESTED 

COUNTY-WAYS. 

First, this method of marshalling them is new ; and there 
fore, I hope, nevertheless acceptable. Secondly, it is as infor 
mative to our judgments, to order them by Counties according 
to their place, as by Centuries, so oft done before, according to 
the time ; seeing where is as essential as when to a man s being. 
Yea, both in some sort may be said to be jure divino, (under 
stand it ordered by God s immediate providence,) and therefore 
are coupled together by the Apostle : " And hath determined 
the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation/ * 
If of their habitation in general, then more especially of the most 
important place of their nativity. 

The Spirit of God in Scripture taketh signal notice hereof : 
"The Lord shall count when he writes up the people, that this 
man was born there."f " Philip was of Bethsaida, the city of 
Andrew and Peter ."J And all know how St. Paul got his best 
liberty, where he saw the first light, "in Tarsus, a city of Cilicia/^ 

When Augustus Ceesar issued out a decree to tax the whole 
world, it was ordered therein, that " every one should go into 
his own city," || as the most compendious way to prevent con 
fusion, and effectually to advance the business. I find the same 
to expedite this work, by methodizing the Worthies therein ac 
cording to the respective places of their nativities. If some 
conceive it a pleasant sight, in the city of London, to behold 
the natives of the several Shires, after the hearing of a sermon, 
pass in a decent equipage to some Hall, there to dine together, 
for the continuance and increase of love and amity amongst 
them ; surely this spectacle will not seem unpleasant to ingenu 
ous eyes, to see the heroes of every particular county modelled 
in a body together, and marching under the banners of their 
several eminencies. 

Here may you behold how each County is innated with a par 
ticular genius, inclining the natives thereof to be dexterous, some 
in one profession, some in another ; one carrying away the cre 
dit for soldiers, another for seamen, another for lawyers, another 
for divines, &c., as I could easily instance ; but that I will not 

* Acts xvii. 26. f Psalm Ixxxvii. 6. J John i. 44. Acts xxii. 3. || Luke ii. 3. 



74 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

forestal the reader s observation ; seeing some love not a rose 
of another s gathering, but delight to pluck it themselves. 

Here also one may see how the same County was not always 
equally fruitful in the production of worthy persons ; but, 5 
trees are observed to have their bearing and barren years, 
Shires have their rise and fall in affording famous persons : on. 
age being more fertile than another, as by annexing the dates 
their several worthies will appear. . 

In a word, my sei^us desire is, to set a noble emulation b 
tween the several Counties, which should acquit themselve 
most eminent in their memorable offspring. Nor let a small 
Shire be disheartened herein, to contest with another larger i 
extent, and more populous in persons, seeing viri do not always 
hold out in proportion to homines. Thus we find the irit 
Simeon more numerous than any in Israel ( Judah and Dan only 
excepted) as which, at their coming out of Egypt, afforded nc 
fewer than "fifty-nine thousand and three hundred. Yet 
that tribe did not yield prince, priest, prophet, or any remai 
able person: Apocrypha, Judith only excepted; "mult 
rii, pauci egregii ; " and multitude with amplitude is never 
true standard of eminency, as the judicious reader, by per 
and comparing our County catalogues, will quickly perceive. 

A CASE OF CONCERNMENT PROPOUNDED, AND SUBMITTED 
TO THE EQUITY OF THE READER. 

It is this. Many families, time out of mind, have been cer 
tainly fixed in eminent seats in their respective Counties, whei 
the ashes of their ancestors sleep in quiet, and their names are 
known with honour. Now possibly it may happen, that 
chief mother of that family, travelling in her travail by the way 
side, or by some other casualty, as visit of a friend, &c., may 
there be delivered of the heir of her family. The question is, 
whether this child shall be reputed the native of that place where 
his mother accidentally touched, or where his father and 
father of his fathers have landed for many generations. 

On the one side, it seemeth unreasonable to any man, accord 
ing to his historical conscience, that such a casual case should 
carry away the sole credit of his nativity. This allowed, et 
tola Anglia Londinizabit ; a moiety almost of the eminent per 
sons in this modern age will be found born in that city, as the 
inn-general of the gentry and nobility of this nation ; whither 
many come to prosecute law-suits, to see and to be seen, and on 
a hundred other occasions, among which I will not name a sav 
ing of house-keeping in the country. 

One instance of many. I find by the Register of St. Dun- 
stan s in the West, London, that Thomas Wentworth, after 
wards Earl of Strafford, was born in that parish, and christened 



* Numb. i. 23. 






THE CLERGY. -&gt; 

in the Church aforesaid : his mother, big with child, probably 
coming thither for the conveniency of a midwife. Now what a 
wrong is it to deprive Woodhouse Wentworth in Yorkshire, 
where his family hath continued in a noble equipage for many- 
years, there possessed of a large revenue, of the honour of his 
nativity ! 

On the other side, it is clear in the rigour of the law, (and I 
question whether Chancery in this case will or can afford any 
remedy) that the minute of the birth of any person at any place 
truly entitles the same to his nativity. This is plain by the sta 
tutes of those colleges in either University, that confine fellow 
ships to Counties ; and it will be said, transit onus cum honor e, 
the burthen as well as the profit is to be conveyed on the same 
occasion. 

Reader, the case thus stated is remitted to thy own arbitra 
tion. However, thus far I have proceeded therein in this fol 
lowing work, that when such alterations (for I can give them no 
better term) and accidental stragglings from the known place of 
their family shall appear unto me, I am resolved to enter them 
in those places accordingly. But, until I receive such intelli 
gence, I will confidently admit them in that place which is ge 
nerally known in persons of honour for the principal habitation 
of their familv. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THAT CLERGYMEN FORMERLY CARRIED THE REGISTER OF THEIR 
BIRTH-PLACE IN THEIR SURNAMES, AND WHY ; AS ALSO THAT 
(SINCE THE REFORMATION) THE SONS OF THE MARRIED CLERGY 
HAVE BEEN AS SUCCESSFUL AS OTHERS. 

IT was fashionable for the clergy, especially if regulars, 
monks, and friars, to have their surnames (for syr-names they 
were not) or upper-names, because superadded to those given 
at the font, from the places of their nativity ; and therefore they 
are as good evidence to prove where they were born, as if we 
had the deposition of the midwife, and all the gossips present at 
their mother s labours. Hence it is that in such cases we sel 
dom charge our margin with other authors, their surname being 
author enough to avow their births therein. 

Some impute this custom to the pride of the clergy, whose 
extraction generally was so obscure, that they did t^ai^vvtaQai 
TOVQ iraTspae, were ashamed of their parentage : an uncharitable 
opinion, to fix so foul a fault on so holy a function ; and most 
false, many in orders appearing of most honourable descent. 
Yet Richard bishop of London quitted Angervill, though his fa 
ther Sir Richard Angervil* was a knight of worth and worship, 

* Burton in his Description of Leicestershire. 



WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 



to be called of Bury, where he was born ; and William bishop 
of Winchester waived Pattin to wear Waynfleet, though he was 
eldest son to Richard Pattin,* an esquire of great ancientry. 

Others say, that the clergy herein affected to be Levi-like, 
" who said to his father and to his mother, I have not seen him/ t 
practising to be mimics of Melchisedech, ATraroip, a^rwp, 
ayivEa\6yr}TOQ, "without father, without mother, without de 
scent/ % so to render themselves independent in the world, with 
out any coherence to carnal relations. Surely some were well 
minded herein, that as they might have no children, they would 
have no fathers, beholding the place of their birth, as co-heir at 
least to their estates, to which many did airoSovvai ra rpo^ia, 
plentifully pay for their nursing therein. 

Question. But oftentimes it comes to pass, that there be 
many towns in England, the same to a tittle both in spelling 
and calling ; so that, on such uncertain evidence, no true ver 
dict can be found for their nativity. One instance of many, 
William of Wickham was the famous founder of New College 
in Oxford. But how can his cradle be certainly fixed in any 
place, when it is equally rocked betwixt twenty villages of the 
same denomination ? 



Shire. 

1. Wickham, Berks, 

2. High Wickham, Bucks, 

3. West Wickham, Bucks, 

4. Wickham West, Camb. 

5. Wickham, Essex, 

6. Wickham, St. Paul, Essex, 

7. Wickham Bonant, Essex, 

8. Wickham, Hants, 

9. Wickham-brux, Kent, 

10. Wickham East/ Kent, 

11. Wickham West, Kent, 
Wickham, Line. 
Wickham Brook, Suffolk, 
Wickham, Suffolk, 
Wickham Skeyth, Suffolk, 
Wickham, Oxford, 

17- Wickham, Sussex, 

18. W T ickham, York, 

19. Wickham, York, 

20. Wickham Abbey, York, 



12 
13 
14 
15 
16 



Hundred. 
Kentbury. 
Burnham. 
Disborough. 
Chilforde. 
Thurstable. 
Hinckford. 
Uttlesford. 
Titchfield. 
St. Austin s. 
Sutton. 
Ibidem. 
Ellowe. 
Risbridge. 
Wilforde. 
Hartesmer. 
Banbury. 
Bramber. 
Ridall. 
Pickering. 
Ibidem. 



See here a lottery ; and who dare assure himself of the prize, 
having nineteen blanks against him. Indeed if election should 
be made by the eminency of the place, High Wickham 
Buckingham-shire would clearly carry it, as an ancient borougl 






in 



Godwin, in his Catalogue of the Bishops of Winchester. 
J Heb. vii. 3. Collected out of the useful Book of " 



f Deut. xxxiii. 9. 
Villare Anglicanum." 



ON SURNAMES. 77 

town, sending burgesses to parliament. But all these being 
Wickhams alike, bring in their claims to the aforesaid William ; 
and how shall the right be decided ? The same question may 
be demanded of several other persons on the same occasion. 

Answer. I confess the case often occurs, though seldom 
so many places be competitors ; wherefore herein we have our 
recourse to the circumstances in the history of such a contro 
verted person, and consult the most important of them with our 
greatest diligence and discretion. 

Noscitur e socio qid non noscetur ab ipso. 

We by their company do own 
Men by themselves to us unknown." 

Such circumstances may be called the associates of a man s 
life, as wiiere they most conversed, had their kindred, got their 
preferment, &c. And these, though not severally, jointly serve 
as so many lights to expound the place of his birth, and clear 
ing the homonymy of many places, state that town justly where 
in he was born. 

Thus are we not only in bivio or trivio, but, as I may say, in 
vigentwio, being to find Wickham s birth amongst twenty of his 
namesake villages. But discovering John Perrot s father 
richly landed about Winchester, and the principal actions of his 
life presented thereabouts, with some other remarks, all meeting 
on the same scene ; one may safely conclude, that Wickham in 
Hampshire (the eighth in the aforesaid catalogue) is that indi 
vidual Wickham wherein this prelate took his first degree I 
mean proceeded into the light of this world, The like evidence 
(though not always so clear) hath, upon diligent search, directed 
us in differences of the same nature. 



AN EXPEDIENT WHEN SEVERAL PLACES CLAIM THE BIRTH 

OF THE SAME PERSON. 

It often cometh to pass that two or more places entitle them 
selves to the nativity of the same man. Here my endeavour is, 
to keep the peace, as well as I may, betwixt them as in the in 
stance here inserted : 

"Bradwardin Castrum, unde ortum et nomen T. Bradwardinus, Arch. Cant, ha- 

buit. Camden, Brit, in Herefordshire " T. Bradwardinus jHartfeldise natus in 

Diocoesi Cicestriensi." J. Sale de Script. Brit. Cent. 5. page 435. " Tho. Brad 
wardinus Patria Southsaxia, ex civitate Cicestria oriundus." Joh. Pitts, de Angl. 

Scrip, anno 1350 " Natus fertur Bradwardinus Hatfeldise, in comitatu Suffolci- 

ensi." Godwin, in Catal. Episc. Londini impress, anno 1616. 

See here four places challenge one man ; and I am as unwill 
ing to accuse any of falsehood, as I am unable to maintain all in 
the truth. 

However, the difference may thus be accommodated : Brad- 
wardin s ancestors fetched their name from that place in Here 
fordshire, according to Camden ; though he himself was born 



^S WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

(as Bale saith) at Hartfield in Sussex; within the city (saith 
Pitts) of Chichester, interpret him extensively not to the walls, 
but diocese and jurisdiction thereof. As for Suffolk in Bishop 
Godwin, I understand it an erratum in the printer for Sussex. 

Our usual expedient in the like cases is this, to insert the cha 
racter at large of the controverted person in that county which 
(according to our apprehension) produceth the best evidence 
for him : yet so, that we also enter his name with a reference 
in the other respective places, which with probability pretend 
unto him. 

If equal likelihood appear unto us on all sides, that county 
clearly carries away his character, which first presenteth itself 
to our pen in the alphabetical order. Thus lately, when the 
same living was in the gift of the Lord Chancellor, Lord Trea 
surer, and Master of the Wards, that clerk commonly carried 
it who was first presented to the bishop. However, though in the 
disputable nativities of worthy men, " first come, first served," 
a caveat is also entered in other counties, to preserve their titles 
unprejudiced. 

It must not be forgotten, that many, without just cause, by 
mistake, multiply differences in the places of men s births. The 
papists please themselves with reporting a tale of their own in 
venting, how the men of two towns in Germany fell out, and 
fought together, whilst one of them was for Martin, the other 
for Luther, being but the several names of the same person. If 
one author affirms Bishop Jewel born at Buden, another at Be- 
rinerber, let none make strife betwixt these two writers ; the 
former naming the house and village, the latter the parish wherein 
he was born, a case which often occurs in the notation of nati 
vities. 

THAT THE CHILDREN OF CLERGYMEN HAVE BEEN AS SUC 
CESSFUL AS THE SONS OF MEN OF OTHER PROFESSIONS. 

There goeth a common report, no less uncharitable than un 
true, yet meeting with many believers thereof, as if clegymen s 
sons were generally signally unfortunate, like the sons of Eli, 
Hophni and Phinehas,* dissolute in their lives, and doleful in 
their deaths ;f this I may call a libel indeed, according to Sir 
Francis Bacon s description thereof: for first, it is a lie, a no 
torious untruth : and then a bell, some loud and lewd tongue 
hath told, yea rung it out, and perchance was welcome music 
to some hearers thereof. 

It is first confessed, that the best saints and servants of God 
have had bad as well as good children extracted from them. It 
is the note of Illiricus on those words of St. John to the Elect 
Lady : " I rejoiced greatly, when I found of thy children walk 
ing in the truth."! He saith not all thy, but of thy children ; 

* I Sam. ii. 12. f 1 Sam. iv. 11. 2 John 4. 



CHILDREN OF THE CLERGY. 79 

intimating that she had mingled ware, corn, and tares, in those 
who were descended from her. Thus Aaron (for I desire to re 
strain myself in instances of the priests) had Nadab and Abihu, 
two " strange fire offerers/ * as well as his godly sons Eliazar 
and Ithamar. Yea, I find one of the best fathers, having two 
(and those I believe all he had) of the worst sons,f even Samuel 
himself. 

Nor do we deny but that our English clergy have been un 
happy in their offspring (though not above the proportion of 
other professions) ; whereof some have not unprobably assigned 
these causes. First, if fellows of colleges, they are ancient 
before they marry. Secondly, their children then are all Ben 
jamins ; I mean, " the children of their old age/ and thereupon 
by their fathers (to take off as much as we may the weight of 
the fault from the weaker sex) cockered and indulged, which I 
neither defend or excuse, but bemoan and condemn. Thirdly, 
such children, after their father s death, are left, in their minority, 
to the careless care of friends and executors, who too often dis 
charge not their due trust in their own education; whence it is, 
such orphans too often embrace wild courses to their own de 
struction. 

But, all this being granted, we maintain that clergymen s 
children have not been more unfortunate, but more observed, 
than the children of the parents of other professions. There 
is but one minister at one time in a whole parish ; and there 
fore, the fewer they are, the easier they are observed, both in 
their persons and posterities. Secondly, the eminency of their 
place maketh them exposed and obvious to all discoveries. 
Thirdly, possibly malice may be the eye-salve to quicken men s 
sight, in prying after them. Lastly, one ill success in their 
sons maketh (for the reasons aforesaid) more impression in the 
ears and eyes of people, than many miscarriages of those chil 
dren whose fathers were of another function (I speak not this 
out of intent to excuse or extenuate the badness of the one by 
the badness of the other, but that both may be mutually pre- 
voked to amendment). In a word, other men s children would 
have as many eye-sores, if they had as many eyes seeing them. 
Indeed, if happiness be confined unto outward pomp and 
plenty, and if those must be accounted unfortunate, which I in 
the true meaning of the word must interpret unprovidenced, 
M 7 ho swim not in equal plenty with others, then that epithet may 
be fixed on the children of the clergy ; whose fathers coming 
late to their livings, and surprised by death, not staying long on 
them, which at the best afforded them but narrow maintenance, 
leave them oft-times so ill provided, that they are forced, without 
blame or shame to them, as I conceive, to take sometimes poor 
and painful employments for their livelihood. 

* Levit. x. l. f i Sam. viii. 3. 



80 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

But, by our following endeavours it will plainly appear, that 
the sons of ministers have, by God s blessing, proved as eminent 
as any who have raised themselves by their own endeavours. 
For statesmen, George Carew, Privy Councillor of England, 
Scotland, and Ireland, and as able a man (absit invidia) as the 
age he lived in produced,, was earl of Totnes, the same place 
whereof his father was archdeacon. Sir Edward Sandys, son to 
archbishop Sandys, will be acknowledged even by his enemies 
a man of such merit, that England could not afford an office 
which he could not manage. For lawyers, Sir Thomas Richard 
son,* lately, and the never sufficiently to be commended Sir 
Orlando Bridgeman,t now Lord Chief Justice, with many 
others. For seamen, Sir Francis Drake, J that great scourge 
and terror to the Spanish pride. 

If any say, these are but thin instances out of so thick a num 
ber, de tot modo millibus units, "few of so many hundreds ;" 
know, we have only taken some eminent persons, leaving the 
rest for fear to be counted forestallers to the collection of the 
reader in our ensuing book. 

But the sons of ministers have never been more successful 
than when bred in the professions of their fathers, as if some 
peculiar blessing attended them whilst they continue therein. 
Thus, of the prelatical clergy, we have Francis Godwin, a bishop, 
the son of a bishop ; and Doctor John King, son to his reverend 
father the Bishop of London. And of other clergymen we have 
three generations of the Wards in Suffolk ; as many of the 
Shutes in Yorkshire, no less painful than pious and able in their 
professions. 

Let me add, that there were at one time three Fellows of 
King s College, sons of eminent Divines, and afterwards Doc 
tors of Divinity : 1. Samuel Collings : 2. Thomas Goad : 3. 
William Sclater. And I believe there were not severally, in 
their generations, men more signal in their different eminen- 
cies. 

It is easy for any to guess out of what quiver this envenomed 
arrow was first shot against the children of clergymen ; namely, 
from the Church of Rome ; who, in their jurisdiction, forbid 
the banns of all clergymen, against the law of nature, scripture, 
and the practice of the primitive church ; and in other places 
unsubjected to their power, bespatter the posterity of the clergy 
with their scandalous tongues. Yet be it known unto them, the 
sons of English priests or presbyters may be as good as the ne 
phews of Roman cardinals. However, because antidotes may 
be made of poisons, it is possible that good may be extracted 

* Of whom see under Norfolk. 

f Sir Orlando Bridgman, who had been a short time Lord Chief Baron of the 
Exchequer, was appointed Lord Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, Oct. 22, 1660. 
t See under Devonshire. 



RULES FOR AUTHOR AN T D READER DATES. 81 

out of this false report ; namely, if it maketh clergymen more 
careful to go before their children with good examples, to lead 
them with good instructions, to drive and draw them (if need 
so requireth) with moderate correction seasonably used, putting 
up both dry and wet prayers to God for his blessing on their 
children. As also, if it maketh the children of clergymen to be 
more careful, by their circumspect lives, to be no shame to the 
memory and profession of their fathers. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

GENERAL RULES FOR THE AUTHOR S AND READER S EASE. 

I HAVE ranked all persons under their respective titles, ac 
cording to their seniorities, of the ages they lived in. Good the 
method of the sons of Jacob, sitting down at the table of their 
[unknown] brother, Joseph, " the first according to his birth 
right, and the youngest according to his youth."* If, therefore, 
on this account a mean man take place of a mighty lord, the 
latter (as being dead) I am sure will not, and the living reader 
should not, be offended thereat. 

OF THE DATES OF TIME ANNEXED TO THE PERSONS AND 

THEIR ACTIONS. 

The sun, that glorious creature, doth serve mankind for a 
double use; to lighten their eyes with his beams, and minds 
with his motion. The latter is performed by him as appointed 
(( for signs and for seasons ;"t as he is the great regulator of 
time, jointed into years and months, carved into weeks and days, 
minced into hours and minutes. 

At what a sad loss are such, who, living in lone houses, in a 
gloomy winter day, when the sun doth not at all appear, have 
neither the benefit of watches, silent clocks ; nor of clocks, 
speaking watches ; being ready oft-times to mistake noon for 
night, and night for noon ! Worse errors are committed by 
those who, being wholly ignorant in chronology, set the grand 
children before their grandfathers, and have more Hysteron- 
Proterons than of all other figures in their writings. 

The maxim, " He who distinguished well instructeth well," is 
most true in the observing of the distinction of time. It will 
pose the best clerk to read (yea to spell) that deed, wherein sen 
tences, clauses, words, and letters, are without points or stops, 
all continued together. The like confusion ariseth, when per 
sons and their actions are not distanced by years, nor pointed 
with the periods of generations. 

I have endeavoured, in my following work, to time eminent 

* Gen. xliii. 33. f Gen. i. 14. 

VOL I G 



WGHTIIIES OF ENGLAND. 

persons by one of these notations ; first, that of their morning, 
or nativity ; the second, that of their noon, or flourishing ; the 
last, that of their night, or death. The first is very uncertain, 
many illustrious men being of obscure extraction ; the second 
more conspicuous, when men s lustre attracts many eyes to take 
notice of them. Many see the oak when grown, (especially if a 
standard of remark) ; whilst few, if any, remember the acorn 
when it was set. The last is not the least direction, as which is 
generally observed. It cometh to pass sometimes, that their 
deaths acquaint us with their births, viz. when attended on their 
tomb w T ith intelligence of their age ; so that, by going backward 
so many years from their coffins, we infallibly light on their cra 
dles. 

Some persons in our work are notified by all of these indica 
tions, most with two, and all with one of them. When we find 
a contest amongst chronologers, so that, with the mutinous 
Ephesians, " some cry one thing, and some another/ * being as 
much dispersed in their opinions, as the Amonites in their per 
sons, when defeated by Saul, so " that two of them were not left 
together ;"t in such a case, I have pitched on that date, xmder 
correction of better judgments, which seemed to me of greatest 
probability. 

AN APOLOGY FOB QUALIFICATIVES USED, AND BLANKS LEFT 

IN THIS HISTORY. 

I approve the plain country by-word, as containing much in 
nocent simplicity therein : 

" Almost and very nigh, 
Have saved many a lie." 

So have the Latins their prope, fere, juseta, circiter, plus minus, 
used in matters of fact by the most authentic historians. Yea, 
we may observe, that the spirit of truth itself, where numbers 
and measures are concerned, in times, places, and persons, useth 
the aforesaid modificatives, save in such cases where some mys 
tery contained in the number requireth a particular specification 
thereof. 

In Times. Dan. v. 31 : " Darius being about threescore and two years old." 
Luke iii. 23 : " Jesus began to be about thirty years of age. 

In Places Lukexxiv. 13: "From Jerusalem about sixty furlongs." Johnvi. 
19 : " And rowed about five and twenty furlongs." 

In Persons. Exod. xii. 37 : " About six hundred thousand men on foot." Acts 
ii. 41 : " Added to the church about three thousand souls." 

None, therefore, can justly find fault with me, if on the like 
occasion I have secured myself with the same qualificatives. 
Indeed such historians who grind their intelligence to the 
powder of fraction, pretending to cleave the pin, do sometimes 
miss the but. Thus one reporteth how in the persecution un 
der Dioclesian there were neither under nor over, but just nine 

* Acts xix. 32. f l Sam. xi. 11. 



WHAT " AMPLIANDUM " DOTH IMPORT. 83 

hundred ninety-nine martyrs. Yea, generally those that trade 
in such retail- ware, and deal in such small parcels, may by the 
ignorant be commended for their care, but condemned by the 
judicious for their ridiculous curiosity. 

But such who will forgive the use of our foresaid qualifica- 
tives, as but limping and lameness, will perchance not pardon 
the many blanks which occur in this book, accounting them no 
better then our flat falling to the ground, in default of our in 
dustry for not seeking due information. But let such know, 
that those officers, who by their place are to find out persons 
inquired after, deserve neither to be blamed nor shamed, when, 
having used their best diligence, they return to the court a " Non 
est inventus." 

For my own part, I had rather my reader should arise hungry 
from my book, than surfeited therewith; rather uninformed 
than misinformed thereby ; rather ignorant of what he desireth, 
than having a falsehood, or, at the best, a conjecture for a truth, 
obtruded upon him. 

Indeed, I humbly conceive that vacuity, which is hateful in 
nature, may be helpful in history : for such an hiatus beggeth 
of posterity, to take pains to fill it up with a truth, if possible 
to be attained ; whereas, had our bold adventure farced it up 
with a conjecture (intus existens prohibuerit extraneum) no room 
had been left for the endeavours of others. 

WHAT "AMPLIANDUM," so OFTEN OCCURRING IN THIS BOOK, 

DOTH IMPORT. 

It is sufficiently known to all antiquaries, that causes brought 
to be heard and determined before the Roman judges were re 
ducible to two kinds : 

1 . Liquets. When the case, as clear and plain, was presently 
decided. 2. Ampliandums. When, being dark and difficult, 
they were put off to farther debate, somewhat alluding to 
our demurs. Hence it is, that we find the Roman orator com 
plaining of an unjust judge, " cum causam non audisset, 
et potestas esset ampliandi, dixit sibi liquere"* 

1 should be loath to be found guilty of the like offence in rash 
adjudging men s nativities to places on doubtful evidence : and 
therefore, when our presumptions do rather incline than satisfy, 
we have prefixed AMP. before the names of such persons. For, 
when they appear undoubted English, and eminent in their re 
spective qualities, it would be in us a sin of omission not to in 
sert them ; and yet, being ignorant of the exact place of 
their birth, it would be presumption peremptorily to design it 
without this note of dubitation, though on the most tempting 
probabilities. Know also that when AMP. is used in the arms 
of sheriffs, it is only done in such an exigent, where there are 

* Pro Csec. 290, a. 



84 WORTHIES OF EXGLAXD. 

different coats of very ancient families, and largely diffused, as 
[Nevil, Ferrers, Basset, &c.] j so that it is hazardous for me to fix 
on one in such great variety. 

WHAT " S. N." FREQUEXTLY APPEARIXG PREFIXED TO MEX J S 

NAMES DOTH SIGXIFY. 

When we cannot by all our endeavours inform ourselves of 
the nativities of some eminent persons, we are forced to this re 
fuge (so creditable, that I care not what eyes behold us entering 
under the roof thereof) to insert such persons in those counties 
where we find them either first or highest preferred : and this 
we conceive proper enough, and done upon good consideration. 
For the wild Irish love their nurses as well as (if not better 
than) their own mother, and affect their foster-brothers, which 
sucked the same breast, as much as their natural-brothers which 
sprang from the same womb. If any say these are the wild 
Irish, whose barbarous customs are not to be imitated, I defend 
myself by the practice of more civilized people. 

The Latins have a proverb, &lt;f non ubi nascor, sed ubi pascor;" 
making that place their mother, not which bred but which fed 
them. The Greeks have but one word, Boe, both for life and live 
lihood. The Hebrews accounted that place was to give a man his 
native denomination, where he had his longest and most visible 
abode, from (though not sometimes in) his infancy ; by which 
common mistake Jesus was intituled on the cross of Nazareth 
instead of Bethlehem, 

Yea, we may observe that though generally our English clergy 
were denominated from their birth-places, yet some few quitted 
them, to be named from those places where they found their 
best preferment, especially if convents or dignities of signal note ; 
as Henry of Huntingdon, not born, but archdeacon there ; 
William of Malmsbury and Matthew of Westminster, no natives 
of those towns, but monks of the monastries therein. 

However, to prevent cavils and avoid confusion, and to dis 
tinguish those from the former, their names are marked with S.N. 
for Second Nativity, to shew that whencesoever they fetch their 
life, here they found their best livelihood. But when a person 
plainly appears born beyond the seas, we take no notice of him, 
though never so highly advanced in England, as without our 
line of communication, and so not belonging to this subject. 

WHAT " REM." FOR " REMOVE," WHEX AFFIXED IX THE 
MARGIX, DOTH DEXOTE. 

We meet with some persons in this our work whose nativities 
we cannot recover with any great probability, neither by help 
of history, or heraldry, or tradition, or records, or registers, or 
printed or written books, which hitherto have come to our hands. 
Now if such persons be of no eminence, we intend not to trou 
ble ourselves and reader with them. Let obscurity even go to 



PERSONS HOW RANKED. 85 

obscurity: when we find no great note in them we take not any 
notice of them. But in case they appear men of much merit, 
whose nativities are concealed by some casualty, we are loath 
that their memories, who whilst living were Worthies, now dead 
should be vagrants, reposited in no certain place. 

Wherefore we have disposed them in some shire or other, 
not as dwellers, no, nor so much as sojourners therein, but only 
as guests ; and we render some slight reasons why we invited 
them to that place rather than another, seeing a small motive 
will prevail with a charitable mind to give a worthy stranger a 
night s lodging. 

However, that these may not be confounded with those of 
whose nativities we have either assurance or strong pre 
sumption, we have in the margin charactered them with a 
" REM." for ce Remove ; * it being our desire that they 
should be transplanted on the first convincing evidence which 
shall appear unto us, to their proper place. And therefore I 
behold them as standing here with a staff in their hands, ready 
to pack up and go away whither any good guide shall give them 
direction. 

Always provided, that as they are set here with little, they 
be not removed hence with less probability ; an unset bone is 
better than a bone so ill set that it must be broken again, to 
double the pain of the patient. And better it is these persons 
should continue in this their loose and dislocated condition, than 
to be falsely fixed in any place from whence they must again be 
translated. 

Now, reader (to recollect our marginal or prefixed characters), 
know it is the best sign when no sign at all is added to a 
name : for then we proceed on certainty, at leastwise on the 
credit of good authors, for the place of his nativity. Thus the 
best of the house giveth his coat plain, whilst the following 
differences are but the diminutions of the younger brothers : 
viz. 

1. "AMP." Where our evidence of a person s birth is but 
conjectural, and craveth further instruction. 

2. " S. N." When, having no aim at the place of their birth, 
we fix them according to their best livelihood. 

3. "REM." When, wholly unsatisfied of their position, we 
remit their removal to the reader s discretion. 

Now seeing order only makes the difference betwixt a wall 
and a heap of stones ; and seeing " qui bene distinguit bene 
docet ;" we conceive ourselves obliged to part, and not jumble 
together, the several gradations. 

HOW PERSONS BELONGING TO SEVERAL TOPICS ARE 

RANKED. 

It often cometh to pass that the same person may justly be 
entituled to two or more topics, as by the ensuing may appear. 



86 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

Two of bishops, writers ; as Arthur Lakes. Physicians, bene 
factors ; as Jo. Caius. Three of bishops, writers., benefactors ; 
as Lancelot Andrews. Martyrs, bishops, writers; as Thomas 
Cranmer. Four of saints, bishops, writers, statesmen ; as Tho 
mas Becket. Confessors, bishops, writers, benefactors; as 
Edward Grindall. Two of seamen, soldiers; as Sir Francis 
Drake, Statesmen, soldiers ; as Sir Ralph Sadler. Three of 
statesmen, lawyers, benefactors ; as Sir Nicholas Bacon. States 
men, lawyers, writers ; as Sir Francis Bacon. Four of lawyers, 
statesmen, writers, benefactors; as William Lord Cecil. Sol 
diers, seamen, statesmen, writers ; as Sir Walter Raleigh. 

The question is now under what head they shall be properly 
placed, seeing so many lay claim unto them. 

Some will say, let them be ranked in that capacity wherein 
they excelled. This I humbly conceive is an invidious work for 
any to perform : seeing none have made me, I will not make 
myself, a judge in this case, many appearing equally eminent in 
their several capacities ; but have embraced the following order. 

First, the titles of saints and martyrs carrieth it clearly from 
all others : I behold them as heavenly honours ; and glory out 
shines gold. Next, I deny not I have an affection for benefac 
tors to the public, and much indulge that topic clean through 
this work. David saith to God himself, " Thou art good ; there 
is a clear spring, and thou doest good : there is a comfortable 
stream."* Benefaction, therefore, being a God-like act, blame 
me not if under that title those have been ranked who other 
wise had more outwardly honourable relations. For the rest, I 
am not ashamed to confess, that casualty in such who came first, 
and conveniency in such who agreed best with my present oc 
casion, regulated them in their method ; and so be it they be 
here, the placing of them is not so much material. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

AN ACCOMMODATION TO PREVENT EXCEPTIONS ABOUT THE 
PRECEDENCY OF SEVERAL PROFESSIONS. 

I AM sadly sensible that being to treat of the Worthies in 
several professions, I shall incur many men s displeasure, in not 
ranking them according to their own desires ; the rather because 
there always hath been a battle royal about precedency betwixt 
1. Swordtnen and Gownmen: 2. Swordmen and Swordmen : 
3. Gownmen and Gownmen. 

Concerning the first couple, the question, " An Doctor pree- 
cedat Militem ? " hangeth as yet on the file, and I believe ever 

* Psal. cxix. 



OF PRECEDENCY. 87 

will, as which is often determined affirmatively in time of peace, 
but always negatively in time of war. 

Nor less is the contest betwixt swordmen and swordmen (I 
mean of the same side and interest) about priority, whether land 
or sea-captains should take place. The former they plead, that 
they fight on a fixed element, not so subject as the sea to casual 
advantages, which being a settled theatre of valour, men may 
indifferently try their courage upon it. The sea-captain 
allegeth, that the greater danger the greater dignity ; and pre 
cedency therefore due to their profession, w r ho encounter the 
winds and the water, besides the fierceness and fury of their 
enemies. Besides, it is very difficult, if possible, for a ship 
engaged in fight to escape by flight, whereby many in land 
battles easily preserve themselves. 

I confess that custom, the best herald in controversies of this 
kind, hath adjudged the precedency to land-captains, but not 
without the great grudge and regret of seamen therein. We 
may observe in nature, that, though the water and earth make 
one globe, and though Providence preserveth the earth from 
being overflown by the water; yet the water, as the lighter 
element, challengeth the highest place to itself, and watcheth 
all opportunities, especially when great rains meet with low 
banks, to regain its superiority by inundations. Sea-captains, 
in like manner, though depressed by practice and custom to 
give place to land-captains, do it with that distaste and dislike, 
that thereby, though they cannot recover their right, they con 
tinue their claim to precedency, watching their opportunity, and 
now (in our so many naval expeditions) not altogether out of 
hope to regain it. 

Nor less the difference betwixt gownmen and gownmen, who 
should take the upper hand. Witness the contest betwixt the 
Doctors of Physic and of Canon Law, on that account : the for 
mer pleading the following instrument in their behalf : 

" Memorandum quod anno Domini 1384, in vigilia Purifica- 
tionis BeatcE Marise Virginis, in plena convocatione regentiurn 
et non regentium, per fidem convocatorum declaratum est, quod 
Doctor in Medicina dextram partem cancellarii in congrega- 
tionibus et convocationibus retineret, et non sinistram ; Doctor 
vero in Jure Civili partem sinistram, et non dextram. Facta 
est haec declaratio ex prsecepto regis Ricardi Secundi post Con- 
questum, anno regni sui octavo." * Add to this what a great 
professor of philosophy, living in Padvia anno 1482, concludeth 
after a long debating of the question : " Dicamus ergo cum 
Sancta Romana Ecclesia, quod Medicina est nobilior Jure Civili, 
quodque Medicinse professores Domini mereantur dici ; Juristse 
vero praecones." t 

* Caius de Antiq. Cantab, p. 20. 

f Nicholaus Vcrnias Theatinus, in prsefatione in Burleum super Physicis Aris- 
totelis. 



88 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

But for all this, the doctors of the canon,, since in England 
united with the civil law, will not yield unto them ; pleading 
for themselves, first, that professions are to take place accord 
ing to the dignity of the subject they are employed about. 
Secondly, that the soul is more worth than the body, which 
is the sphere of the physician. Thirdly, that canonists meddle 
with many cases of soul concernment, and therefore ought to 
have the precedency. 

Wherefore, to prevent all exceptions about priority, may the 
reader acquaint himself with this our method therein. 

1. We place PRINCES ; and both loyalty and civility will 
justify us therein. 

2. SAINTS ; as our Saviour said, (&lt; My kingdom is not," so 
their dignity " is not of this world ;" * and therefore none, I 
hope, will repine thereat. 

3. 4. MARTYRS and CONFESSORS. If any grudge them this 
their high place, let them but give the same price they paid for 
it, and they shall have the same superiority. 

5. EMINENT PRELATES ; a distance which they might justly 
claim in those days above others, as generally the Lord Chancel 
lors and Treasurers of the land. 

6. STATESMEN ; whose eminent offices do warrant and avouch 
this their station against all opposition. 

7. CAPITAL JUDGES ; to whom this place doth of right 
belong. 

These premised, in the next four we have observed an order 
without order. Some will maintain that sometimes a riot is as 
good as a diet ; when at a feast all meats cast together help one 
to digest another. " Qui vivit medice, vivit misere." Sure I 
am, " scribit misere, qui scribit methodice " I mean, when tied 
up to such strict terms of method, in such cases that every 
misplacing is subject to exception. 

I commend the no less politic than peaceable custom of the 
Skinners and Merchant Tailors 7 of London, who, after many 
long and costly suits betwixt their Companies for precedency, to 
prevent future quarrels, agreed with themselves at last, to go 
first by turns, or alternately. The same method I embrace in 
ranking soldiers, seamen, civilians, physicians, sometimes one 
first, sometimes another, ringing no artificial but a merely casual 
change in the ordering their professions. These thus ranked, 
next follow, 

12. LEARNED WRITERS. Though many of these since the 
Reformation, being Doctors of Divinity, may challenge pre 
cedency of some name before, -yet they will not be discontented 
to come last, having learned the Apostle s rule, " in honour 
preferring one another ; "f and God make us as humble as we 
are humbled. 

* John xviii. 36. t Rom. xii. 10. 



OF THE AUTHORITIES. 89 

13. BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. It is good to conclude 
and go out with a good savour ; on which account these worthy 
persons are placed last, to leave the grateful perfume of their 
memory behind them. 

As for MEMORABLE PERSONS, they are last ; last placed, 
because (as that title is taken by us) they are cast in as super- 
pondium, or overweight, our work being ended before. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

OF THE AUTHORS FROM WHOM OUR INTELLIGENCE IN THE 
FOLLOWING WORK HATH BEEN DERIVED. 

THE plain English saying hath very much of downright truth 
therein ; " I tell you my tale, and my tale-master ;" which is 
essential to the begetting of credit to any relation. Indeed, 
when one writeth with St. John, waving his infallible inspira 
tion, " that which we have heard, which we have seen with our 
eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have han 
dled," * such clogging a book with authors were superfluous ; 
which now is necessary in him that writeth what was done at 
distance, far from, in time long before him. 

First, to assert and vindicate the writer. When Adam com 
plained that he was naked, God demanded of him, " W T ho told 
thee that thou wast naked ?"t Intimating thus much, that if he 
could not produce the person who first so informed him, he 
might justly be suspected, as indeed he was, the author as well 
as utterer of that sad truth. Our Saviour said to Pilate, 
" Sayest thou this thing of thyself, or did others tell thee ?" f 
And all things reported are reducible to this dichotomy : 
1. The Fountain of Invention ; 2. The Channel of Relation. If 
one ignorantly buyeth stolen cattle, and hath them fairly 
vouched unto him, and publicly in an open fair payeth toll for 
them, he cannot be damnified thereby : the case I conceive of 
him who writeth a falsehood, and chargeth his margin with the 
author thereof. 

Secondly, to edify and inform the reader ; " frustra creditur, 
quod sine agnitione originis creditur." (" It is vainly believed, 
which is believed without the knowledge of the original thereof.") 
Yea, properly it is no rational belief, but an easy, lazy, supine 
credulity. 

Such as designingly conceal their authors, do it either out of 
guiltiness or envy. Guiltiness, when conscious to themselves, 
that, if inspection be made of such quotations, they will be 
found defectively, redundantly, or injuriously cited, distorted 
from their genuine intention. 



* 1 John i. l. f Gen. iii. 11. $ John xviii. 34. 



90 WORTHIES OP ENGLAND. 

Or else they do it out of envy. Tyrants commonly cut off 
the stairs by which they climb up unto their thrones (witness 
king Richard the Third beheading the duke of Buckingham) ; 
for fear that, if still they be left standing,, others will get up the 
same way. Such the jealousy of some writers, that their readers 
would be as, if not more, knowing than themselves, might they 
be but directed to the original, which they purposely intercept. 

Some, to avoid this rock of envy, run on as bad of ostenta 
tion ; and, in the end of their books, muster up an army of 
authors (though, perchance, they themselves have not seriously 
perused one regiment thereof) ; so that the goodness of their 
library, not greatness of their learning, may thence be con 
cluded, that they have (if with the prophet s axe* some were 
not borrowed), for I will not say have read, many books in their 
possession. 

I have endeavoured to steer my course betwixt both these 
rocks ; and come now to give in the particulars whence I have 
derived my information, knowing full well, quantus author tanta 
fides. These may be referred to three heads ; first, Printed 
Books ; secondly, Records in Public Offices ; thirdly, Manu 
scripts in the possession of private gentlemen. To which we 
may add a fourth, viz., Instructions received from the nearest 
Relations to those persons whose lives we have presented. 

We pass by printed books, cited in the margin, and obvious 
to all who are pleased to consult them, and first pitch on the 
Records of the Tower. Master William Riley was then master 
of those jewels ; for so they deserve to be accounted, seeing a 
scholar would prefer that place before the keeping of all the 
prisoners in the Tower. I know not whether more to com 
mend his care in securing, dexterity in finding, diligence in 
perusing them, or courtesy in communicating such copies of 
them as my occasions required, thanks being all the fees ex 
pected from me. 

I place next the Records in the Exchequer ; for, although I 
had a catalogue of the sheriffs of England lent me by Master 
Highmore, of the Pipe-office, which I compared with another 
of that learned knight Sir Winkefield Bodenham ; yet, being 
frequently at a loss, I was forced to repair to the originals in 
the Exchequer. Here let not my gratitude be buried in the 
graves of Master John Witt, and Master Francis Boyton, both 
since deceased ; but, whilst living, advantageous to my studies. 

To these authentic records let me add the Church Registers 
in several parishes, denied indeed by our common s-lawyers, but 
stickled for by some canonists to be records-fellows at least, 
and having, though not the formality in law, the force thereof 
in history, very useful to help us in many nativities. 

And here I cannot but bemoan the /ue ya X 00 "^ ; that great 

* 2 Kings vi. 



OF THE AUTHORITIES. 91 

gulf, or broad blank, left in our registers during our civil wars, 
after the laying aside of bishops, and before the restitution of 
his most sacred majesty. Yea, hereafter this sad vacuum is 
like to prove so thick, like the Egyptian darkness, that it will 
be sensible in our English histories. 

I dare maintain that the wars betwixt York and Lancaster, 
lasting by intermission some sixty years, were not so destruc 
tive to church records, as pur modern wars in six years : for 
during the former, their differences agreed in the same religion, 
impressing them with reverence of all sacred muniments ; whilst 
our civil wars, founded in faction, and variety of pretended 
religions, exposed all naked church records a prey to their 
armed violence. 

Let me add, that it conduced much to the exactness of 
Jewish genealogies, that their children were solemnly circum 
cised and named on the eighth day. On the contrary, the 
omitting the baptizing of infants till they be adult (which 
causeth, that though the weekly births exceed the burials, the 
burials exceed the christenings in London), will perplex those 
who in the next age shall write the nativities of such persons. 
Say not it matters not though their nativities be utterly for 
gotten : for though their fathers were factious fanatics, the sons, 
by God s grace, may prove sober Christians, and eminent in 
their generations. 

The last port to which I trafficked for intelligence, towards 
our issuing work, was by making my addresses, by letters and 
otherwise, to the nearest relations of those whose lives I have 
written. Such applications have sometimes provecl chargeable ; 
but, if my weak pains shall find preferment (that is, acceptance) 
from the judicious reader, my care and cost is forgotten, and 
shall never come under computation. 

Here I cannot but condemn the carelessness, not to say in 
gratitude, of those (I am safe whilst containing myself in 
general terms) who can give no better account of the place 
where their fathers or grandfathers were born, than the child 
unborn ; so that sometimes we have been more beholden to 
strangers for our instructions herein, than to their nearest kin 
dred. And although some will say sons are more comfortably 
concerned to know the time of their father s death than place 
of their birth, yet I could almost wish that a moderate fine 
were imposed on such heirs, whose fathers were born before 
them, and yet they know not where they were born. How 
ever, this I must gratefully confess, I have met with many who 
could not, never with any who w r ould not, furnish me with 
information herein. 

It is observable, that men born an hundred years since, and 
upwards, have their nativities fixed with more assurance, than 
those born some eighty years since. Men s eyes see worst in 
the twilight, in that interval after the sun is set, and natural 



92 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

light ended, and before candles are set up, and artificial light 
begun. In such a crepusculum of time those writers lived, who 
fall short of the history of Bale and Leland, yet go before the 
memory of any alive, which unhappy insterstice hath often per 
plexed us, and may easier be complained of than amended. 

To conclude, should I present all with books, who cour 
teously have conduced to my instruction, the whole impression 
would not suffice. But I remember the no less civil than 
politic invitation of Judah to the tribe of Simeon, " Come up 
with me into my lot [to conquer the Canaanites], and I like 
wise will go with thee into thy lot." * If such who have lent 
me theirs, shall have occasion to borrow mine assistance, my 
pains, brains, and books, are no more mine than theirs to com 
mand ; which, besides my prayers for them, and thanks to them, 
is all my ability in requital can perform. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

A DOUBLE DIVISION OF THE ENGLISH GENTRY 1. ACCORD 
ING TO THE NATION WHENCE THEY WERE EXTRACTED. - 
2. ACCORDING TO THE PROFESSION WHEREBY THEY WERE 
ADVANCED. 

THIS discourse I tender the reader, as a preparative to dis 
pose him for the- better observing and distinguishing of our 
English gentry, in our ensuing lives and catalogue of Sheriffs. 

We begin with the Britons, the Aborigines, or native inha 
bitants of the south of this Island, but long since expelled by 
the Saxons into the West thereof; none then remaining in, 
some since returning into our land, of whom hereafter. 

We confess, the Romans conquered our country, planted co 
lonies, and kept garrisons therein ; but their descendants are not 
by any character discernible from the British. Indeed, if any 
be found able to speak Latin naturally, without learning it, we 
may safely conclude him of Roman extraction. Meantime, it is 
rather a pretty conceit than a solid notion of thatf great anti 
quary, who, from the allusion of the name, collecteth the noble 
family of the Cecils (more truly Sytsilts) descended from the 
Cecilii, a Senatorian family in Rome. 

The Saxons succeed, whose offspring at this, day are the main 
bulk and body of the English (though not gentry) nation ; I 
may call them the whole cloth thereof, though it be guarded 
here and there with some great ones of foreign extraction. 
These Saxons, though pitifully depressed by the Conqueror, by 
God^s goodness, king Henry the First s favour, their own 
patience and diligence, put together the planks of their ship- 

* Judges!. 3. t Verstegan, of Decayed Intelligence, p. 313. 



ENGLISH GENTRY. 93 

wrecked estates, and afterwards recovered a competent con 
dition. 

The Danes never acquired in this land a long and peaceable 
possession thereof, living here rather as inroaders than inhabi 
tants, the cause that so few families (distinguishable by their 
surnames) are descended from them, extant in our age. 
Amongst which few, the respected stock of the Denizes, (often 
sheriffs in Devon * and Gloucestershire) appear the principal. 
As for Fitz-Hardinge, the younger son of the king of Denmark, 
and direct ancestor of the truly honourable George Lord 
Berkeley, he came in long since, when he accompanied the 
Conqueror. 

I must confess that, at this day, there passeth a tradition among 
some of the common people, that such names which terminate in 
son, as Johnson, Tomson, Nicolson, Davison, Saunderson, are 
of Danish origination. But this fond opinion is long since 
confuted by Verstegan,t that ingenious and industrious anti 
quary. Yea, he urgeth this as an argument (which much pre- 
vaileth with me) why those surnames were not derived from the 
Danes, because they had no such name in use amongst them as 
John, Thomas, Nicholas, David, Alexander, from whence they 
should be deduced. 

Yea, he further addeth, that it is more probable that they 
made the child s name, by adjecting the syllable son to the 
appellation of the father (a custom which is usual even at this 
time amongst the vulgar sort of the Dutch). Yet is there not 
remaining any sign thereof amongst the names of our age ; 
which probably might have been, Canutson, Ericson, Gormoson, 
Heraldson, Rofolson, &c. 

The Normans, or French, under the Conqueror, swarmed in 
England ; so that then they became the only visible gentry in 
this nation ; and still continue more than a moiety thereof. 
Several catalogues of their names I have so largely exemplified 
in my " Church History," that some have taxed me for tedious- 
ness therein ; and I will not add a new obstinacy to my old 
error. 

But, besides these, we have some surnames of good families 
in England, now extant, which, though French, are not by any 
diligence to be recovered in the lists of such as came over with 
the Conqueror ; and therefore we suppose them to have remain 
ed of those gentlemen and others which from Renault attended 
queen Isabel, wife unto king Edward the Second. Of this 
sort was Devreux, Mollineux, Darcy, Corners, Longchamp, 
Henage, Savage, Danvers, with many more. 

Of the British or Welsh, after their expulsion hence by the 
Saxons, some signal persons have returned again ; and, by the 
king s grant, matches, purchases, &c. have fixed themselves in 

Camden s Britannia, in Devonshire. f Of Decayed Intelligence. 



94 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

fair possessions in England, especially since the beginning of 
the reign of their countryman king Henry the Seventh, reward 
ing the valour of many contributing to his victory in the battle 
of Bosworth. Of the Welsh, now re-estated in England, and 
often sheriffs therein, some retain their old surnames, as the 
Griffins in Northamptonshire, the Griffiths and Vaughans in 
Yorkshire ; some have assumed new ones, as the Caradocks, 
now known by the new name of the Newtons* in Somersetshire. 

Many Scotch (long before the union of the two kingdoms 
under king James) seated themselves in this land, flying hither 
for succour from their civil wars ; and surely it was against 
their mind, if they all went back again. Distress at sea hath 
driven others in, as the Stewards, high-sheriffs in Cambridge 
shire ; as other accidents have occasioned the coming in of the 
Scrimpshires, an hundred years since high-sheriffs in Stafford 
shire ; more lately the Nappers in Bedfordshire j and before 
both, the Scots of Scots-hall in Kent. 

I much admire, that never an eminent Irish native grew in 
England to any greatness ; so many English have prospered in 
that country. But, it seems, we love to live there, where we 
may command ; and they care not to come where they must 
obey. 

Our great distance from Italy, always in position, and since 
the reformation in religion, hath caused that few or none of that 
nation have so incorporated with the English, as to have founded 
families therein. Yet have we a sprinkling of Italian Protes 
tants ; Castilian, a valiant gentleman of Berkshire. The Bassa- 
noes, excellent painters and musicians, in Essex, which came 
over into England under king Henry the Eighth ; and since, in 
the reign of queen Elizabeth, Sir Horatio Palavicine (receiver of 
the Pope s revenues) landed in Cambridgeshire, and the Caesars 
(alias Dalmarii) still flourishing in Hertfordshire, in worshipful 
estates ; though I never find any of these performing the office 
of sheriff. 

The High-Dutch of the Hans Towns, antiently much conversed 
in our land, (known by the name of Easterlings) invited hither 
by the large privileges our kings conferred upon them, so that 
the Steel-yard proved the Gold-yard unto them, But these 
merchants moved round in their own sphere, matching amongst 
themselves, without mingling with our nation. Only we may 
presume, that the Easterlings (corruptly called Stradlings) for 
merly sheriffs in Wiltshire, and still famous in Glamorganshire, 
with the Westphalings, lately sheriffs of Oxfordshire, were ori 
ginally of German extraction. 

The Low Country-men, frighted by Duke d Alva s tyranny, 
flocked hither under king Edward the Sixth, fixing themselves 

* Camden s Britannia, in Somersetshire. 



ENGLISH GENTRY. 95 

in London, Norwich, Canterbury, and Sandwich. But these 
confined themselves to their own church discipline, and, for 
ought I can find, advanced not forward by eminent matches 
into our nation. Yet I behold the worthy family of De la Fon 
taine in Leicestershire, as of Belgian original, and have read 
how the ancestors of Sir Symonds d Ewes in Suffolk came 
hither under king Henry the Eighth, from the Dunasti or 
D us in Guelderland. 

As for the Spaniards, though their king Philip matched with 
our queen Mary, but few of any eminence now extant (if I well 
remember) derive their pedigrees from them. This I impute to 
the shortness of their reign, and the ensuing change of religions. 
Probable it is, we might have had more natives of that king 
dom to have settled and flourished in our nation, had he 
obtained a marriage with queen Elizabeth (of blessed memory), 
which some relate he much endeavoured. 

As for Portugal, few of that nation have as yet fixed their 
habitations, and advanced families to any visible height in our 
land. But it may please God hereafter we may have a happy 
occasion to invite some of that nation to reside, and raise fami 
lies in England. Meantime the Mays (who have been sheriffs 
in Sussex) are all whom I can call to mind of the Portugal 
race, and they not withoxit a mixture of Jewish extraction. 

Come we now to the second division of our gentry, accord 
ing to the professions whereby they have been advanced. And 
here, to prevent unjust misprision, be it premised, that such 
professions found most of them gentlemen, being the (though 
perchance younger) sons of wealthy fathers, able to give them 
liberal education. They were lighted before as to their gentility, 
but now set up in a higher candlestick, by such professions 
which made a visible and conspicuous accession of wealth and 
dignity, almost to the eclipsing their former condition. Thus 
all behold Isis, increased in name and water, after its conjunc 
tion with Thame at Dorchester ; whilst few take notice of the 
first fountain thereof, many miles more westward in Glouces 
tershire. 

The study of the Common Law hath advanced most ancient ex 
tant families in our land. It seems they purchased good titles, 
made sure settlements, and entailed thrift with their lands on 
posterity. A prime person of that profession* hath prevented 
my pains, and given in a list of such principal families ; I say 
principal, many being omitted by him in so copious a subject. 
Miraculous the mortality in Egypt " where there, was not a 
house wherein there was not one dead."f But I hope, it will 
be allowed marvellous, that there is not a generous and nume 
rous house in England, wherein there is not one (though 
generally no first-born, but a younger brother) anciently or at 

* Sir Edward Coke. f Exod. xii. 30. 



96 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

this day living, thriving, and flourishing, by the study of the 
law; especially if to them, what in justice ought, be added 
those who have raised themselves in courts relating to the law. 

The city hath produced more than the law in number ; and 
some as broad in wealth, but not so high in honour, nor long 
lasting in time, who like land-floods, soon come, and soon gone, 
have been dried up before the third generation. 

Yet many of these have continued in a certain channel, and 
carried a constant stream, as will plainly appear in the sequel of 
our Worthies. 

The church, before the Reformation, advanced many fami 
lies : for, though bishops might not marry, they preferred their 
brothers sons to great estates ; as the Kemps in Kent, Peck- 
hams in Sussex, Wickham in Hampshire, Meltons in Yorkshire. 
Since the Reformation, some have raised families to a knightly 
and worshipful estate ; Hutton, Bilson, Dove, Neil, &c. But 
for sheriff s, I take notice of Sandys in Worcester and Cam 
bridgeshire, Westphaling in Herefordshire, Elmar in Suffolk, 
Rud in Caermarthenshire, &c. 

Sure I am, there was a generation of people of the last age, 
which thought they would level all clergymen, or any descen 
dants from them, with the ground. Yea, had not God s arm 
been stretched out in their preservation, they had become a prey 
to their enemies violence, and what they had designed to them 
selves, and in some manner effected, had ere this time been 
perfectly completed. 

As for the inferior clergy, it is well if their narrow main 
tenance will enable them to leave a livelihood to their little 
ones. I find but one, Robert Johnson* by name, attaining such 
an estate, that his grandson was pricked sheriff of a county, but 
declined the place, by pleading himself a deacon, and by the 
favour of Archbishop Laud. 

The study of the Civil Law hath preferred but few ; the most 
eminent in that faculty, before the Reformation, being persons 
in orders, prohibited marriage. However, since the Reforma 
tion, there are some worshipful families which have been raised 
by the study in this faculty. 

Yet have our wars (which perhaps might have been advo 
cated for in Turks and Pagans, who bid defiance to all huma 
nity, but utterly misbeseeming Christians,) been a main cause of 
the moulting of many eminent and worthy persons of this 
profession. Nor could it be expected that the professors of 
human laws should have been allowed favour during our un 
natural dissensions, the promoters thereof having a constant 
pique at whatever bore but the resemblance of order and civi 
lity, when the true dispensers of God s laws, yea the law of 
God, yea God himself, was vilified and contemned. 

* See " Benefactours to the Publique " in Lincolnshire. 



ENGLISH GEXTJIY. 97 

The best is, that, as Divine Providence hath in his mercy 
been pleased to restore our sovereign, so with him we have 
received both our ancient laws and liberties. And now it 
begins to be fair weather again, as with this so with all other 
necessary and useful avocations, which in due time may repair 
their decayed fortunes. 

Physic hath promoted many more, and that since the reign of 
king Henry the Eighth. Indeed, before his time, I find a doc 
tor of physic, father to Reginald, first and last Lord Bray. But 
this faculty hath flourished much the three last fifty years ; it 
being true of physic, what is said of Sylla, " suos divitiis exple- 
vit." Sir William Butts, physician to king Henry the Eighth, 
doctor Thomas Wendy and doctor Hatcher to queen Elizabeth, 
raised worshipful and wealthy families in Norfolk, Cambridge, 
and Lincolnshire, having borne the office of sheriff in their 
respective counties. 

Some have raised themselves by sea-service, and letters of 
mart, especially in the reign of queen Elizabeth, when we had 
war with the Spaniard. But such estates, as flowing so have 
ebbed with the tide, seldom of long continuance. Such prizes 
have been observed best to prosper, whose takers had least of 
private revenge and most of public service therein. Amongst 
these, most remarkable the baronet s family of Drakes in De 
vonshire, sometimes sheriffs of that county. 

Some have raised themselves by their attendance at court, 
rewarded by the king s favour ; court, where many have car 
ried away more, for bringing the less to it. Here some younger 
brothers have found their lost birth-right, mending their pace 
to wealth, though they started late by their nativity. But I 
only generally point at, without touching them, that I may not 
forestal the reader, whose pains may be pleasant unto him, in 
his own discovery thereof. 

Many have advanced themselves by their valour in foreign 
wars, especially in France, as the Knolls, a noble family ; and 
the Calveleys, often sheriffs in Cheshire ; so that Mars in this 
sense may be said to be the father of Plutus, his steel weapons 
procuring to his followers the more acceptable metals of gold 
and silver. But the worst is, where foreign wars have raised 
one, our late civil ones have ruined ten families. 

Some may object, that as they have destroyed so they have 
raised many families (which before in themselves were mean 
and contemptible) to high titles and large possessions. All I 
shall return in answer thereunto is, that as most alive saw them 
rise, per saltum, by unwarrantable means to such a pitch of 
preferment ; so there is but few alive, but may, if not willingly 
and wilfully blind, see them deservedly thrown down with dis 
grace and contempt, to their former mean and despicable con 
dition. 

VOL. I. H 



98 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

Clothing, as it hath given garments to millions of people, 
hath conferred coats of arms, and gentility therewith, on many 
families in this land ; as on the Springs, high-sheriffs of Suf 
folk. 

The country, with her two full breasts, Grazing and Tillage, 
hath raised many families. Josephus rendereth a reason, as 
weak in itself as wide from the truth, why Abel s sacrifice was 
preferred before Cain s ; viz. because Abel fairly took what Na 
ture freely tendered in the increase of his cattle, whilst Cain 
violently wounded the earth with his ploughing. But St. Paul 
teacheth us better doctrine, that faith caused the reception of 
the one, and unbelief the rejection of the other.* Surely, both 
callings are equally acceptable to God, who hath so blessed their 
endeavours, that thereby many have gained estates, enabling 
them to serve sheriffs of their county. But I forbear to instance 
them, lest what was the honour of their ancestors to raise such 
families, be counted in this captious age to be a dishonour to 
their posterity, to be raised by so plain, though honest and 
necessary, an employment. 

Some, the surer to hit the mark of wealth, have had two 
strings to their bow, a complication of professions concurring 
to their advancement. Thus the Chichleys in Cambridgeshire 
are descendants from a lord mayor ; allied also collaterally to an 
archbishop of Canterbury. 

On the main, we may observe, how happy a liberal (at least 
lawful) vocation hath proved to younger brethren, whereby 
Ephraim hath outgrown Manasseh, the younger outstript the 
heir of the family. I knew a school-boy, not above twelve years 
old, and utterly ignorant in all logical terms, who was com 
manded to English the following distich : 

" Dat Galenus opes, dat Justinianus honores ; 
Cum genus, et species, cogitur ire pedes." 

Only they favoured the boy so far, to inform him, that Galenus 
did signify the profession of physic, Justinianus of law ; on which 
ground he thus proceeded : 

" Galenus, the study of physic, dat giveth, opes wealth ; Jus 
tinianus, the study of law, dat giveth, honores honours : cum 
when, genus high birth, et species and beauty, [having no 
other calling (saith the boy) to maintain them,] cogitur is com 
pelled, ire pedes to go on foot." 

To prevent such foot-travelling, it is good .to be mounted on 
a gainful vocation, to carry one out of the mire, on all occasions. 

* Hebrews xi. 4. 



OX THE STYLE AND MATTER. 99 



CHAPTER XXV. 

SOME GENERAL EXCEPTIONS AGAINST THE STYLE AND 
MATTER OF THE AUTHOR PREVENTED. 

Exception 1. You usurp the style of princes, speaking often 
in the plural : " come we now ;" " pass we now " " proceed 
we now," &c. ; which is false grammar from a single, ill ethics 
from a. private, person. 

Answer. First, I appeal to any exercised in reading of books, 
whether the same be not used in other authors. 

Secondly, we in such cases includeth the writer and reader ; 
it being presumed that the eye of the one goeth along with the 
pen of the other. 

Thirdly, it also compriseth all other writers out of whom 
anything is transcribed, and their names quoted in the margin. 

Let me add, to God s glory, my friends credit, and my own 
comfort, that our we is comprehensive of all my worthy friends, 
who, by their pains or purses, have been contributive to my 
weak endeavours. 

Exception 2. The WORTHIES of ENGLAND being your 
subject, you have mingled many Unworthies among them, ra 
ther notorious than notable, except in the same sense wherein 
Barabbas is termed notable in the Gospel. * 

Answer. Such persons are so few, their number is not 
considerable. Secondly, they are so eminent in their gene 
rations, that their omission would make a maim in history. 
Thirdly, how bad soever their morals their naturals and artifi 
cials were transcendant, and the oracle-like wisdom of wicked 
Achitophel found praise from the pen of the Holy Spirit, t 
Lastly, the worst of such men have a black line (serving pro 
nigro carbone) prefixed to their name, for distinction sake. 

Exception 3. You might better have omitted the mention 
of some modern persons, reputed Malignants by the present 
power, and blasted by these times in their estates. J 

Answer. All persons unhappy must not presently be ac 
counted unworthy, especially in distracted times. Have you not 
heard of that humorous waterman on the Thames, who would 
carry none in his boat save such who would go along with the 
tide, till, by feeding his humour, he had almost starved himself 
for want of employment. I should be as peevish as partial, 
should I admit those only into my Catalogue of WORTHIES, 
who of late years did swim in plenty, seeing many have been 
great sufferers, deservedly commendable by the testimony of 
their adversaries. 

" Matthew xxvii. 16. f 2 Samuel xvi. 23. 

% Reader, this being written in the midnight of our miseries, I could not com 
mand my hand to expunge it. F. 

H 2 



100 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

Exception 4. You only report the virtues, but conceal the 
faults of many persons within our own memories. 

Answer. I conceive myself bound so to do, by the rules of 
charity. When an orator was to praise a person deceased, 
generally and justly hated for his viciousness, it was suspected 
that he would, for his fee, force his conscience by flattery, to 
commend him whose expectations he thus defeated. " This 
dead person," saith he, ff must in one respect be spoken well of 
by all, because God made him ; and in another respect should 
not be spoken ill of by any, because he is dead ; et de 
mortuis nil nisi bonum/^ How much more, when men have 
many good virtues, with some faults, ought the latter to be 
buried in their graves with forgetfulness ! 

Exception 5. You make many uncivil and unsatisfactory 
references of your reader, to those books which you have for 
merly printed, remitting them to be there further informed ; as 
if, when you had invited guests, you consigned them over 
(coming to dine with you) to fetch a dinner at an house they do 
not know ; it being probable that many may read this your 
book, who never had your former works. 

Answer. Such references are very sparing, only to avoid 
repetition in those lives which I have formerly written at large ; 
as St. Dunstan s, Cardinal Wolsey, Thomas Lord Cromwell, 
Sir John Cheke, Archbishop Whitgift, Mr. Perkins, &c. And 
I appeal to all writers of many books (of which fault I myself 
am guilty) whether such references be not usual in the like 
cases. I will not add that I have passed my promise (and that 
is an honest man^s bond) to my former stationer, that I will 
write nothing for the future, which was in my former books so 
considerable as may make them interfere one with another to 
his prejudice. 

Exception 7. You often apply the word create to men ; as, 
to create a cardinal, an earl, &c. ; whereas conscientious people 
allow that word appropriable to God alone, as importing the 
making of something out of nothing. 

Answer. I hope our common lawyers will plead for me in 
this case, having the phrase so frequent in their mouths, to 
create right, to create a title. Besides, I observe, that such who 
scruple the using the single verb, boggle no whit at the com 
pound, to recreate and recreations. Now seeing to recreate is 
to create twice, I understand not how the using this word once 
should be a sin, whilst it is no sin in the repetition or reaction 
thereof. In a word, in words of this nature, I conceive one may 
conform himself to the custom of common language. 

Exception 8. You, out of flattery, conceal the mean extrac 
tion of many (especially modern) men, who have attained to 
great preferment, pointing at the place of their birth, but sup 
pressing their parentage. 



ON THE STYLE AND MATTER. 101 

Answer. I conceive myself to have done well in so doing, 
If inquiry be made into all men s descents, it would be found 
true what the poet doth observe : 

Mttjorum primus quisquisfuit ille luorum, 
Aut pastor fult, aut illud quod dicere nolo. 

" The first of all thine ancestors of yore 
Was but a shepherd, or I say no more." 

Besides, it plainly proveth the properness of their parts, and 
tallness of their industry, who thereby, and by God s blessing 
thereon, reached so high preferment, though disadvantaged by 
standing on so low ground of their extraction. 

Exception 9. " Haste makes waste." You have huddled 
your book too soon to the press, for a subject of such a nature. 
You should have sent to the gentry of several counties, to have 
furnished you with memorables out of their own pedigrees, and 
should have taken a longer time to compose them. 

Nonumque prematur in annum. 

" Eight years digest what you have rudely hinted, 
And in the ninth year let the same be printed." 

Answer. That ninth year might happen eight years after my 
death, being sensible of the impression of age upon me ; and a 
stranger to my method would hardly rally my scattered and 
posthumed notes. By the difficulty to get some few, I conclude 
the impossibility to procure all the observables out of gentle 
men s records ; and therefore leave the task to the industry of 
others in their respective counties. 

Exception 10. Some instructions have lately been sent you, 
concerning some persons which appear not in this your work. 

Answer. Lately, indeed, though neither many nor consider 
able, since such shires were put under the press. In Holland, 
waggons go to and return from their stages at set hours, though 
carrying but one passenger, and sometimes altogether empty. 
Such the condition of the press, it stays for no man ; nor will 
attend the leisure (not to say lagging) of any ; but proceedeth 
on with what it hath in present, be it never so little. 

Exception 11. In your Protestant writers you promiscuously 
mingle some very zealous for Episcopacy, others as active for 
Presbytery. These ought to have been sorted severally by 
themselves, seeing the great distance of judgment betwixt them. 

Answer. I hope such conjoining of them may happily pre 
sage a comfortable expedient betwixt them, who differ not in 
fundamentals of religion. 2. I had rather privately bemoan 
than publicly proclaim the difference betwixt them when alive ; 
charitably believing that being dead, 

Jam bene conveniunt, et in una scde moranlur. 

" Now they are agreed well, 
And in bliss together dwell." 

However it is not without precedents in the best authors, to 
conjoin those in history who dissent in opinion. Witness 



102 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

TlmanuSj when concluding every year with the funerals of emi 
nent persons, though fervent in opposite persuasions. 

Exception 12. There is great disproportion betwixt your ca 
talogue of statesmen ; beginning the lord treasurers under king 
Henry the Seventh ; the lord chancellors under king Henry the 
Eighth ; other statesmen at other epochs : whereas had you ob 
served the same era in all of them, it had added much to the 
uniformity of your work. And as all start not from the same 
place, they run not to the same mark ; some being continued to 
this day, some concluded seven years since ; such imparity 
making the list seem lame, like the legs of a badger. 

Answer. I hope that a more charitable fancy, with as good a 
judgment, will compare it to the pipes of an organ, which though 
of an uneven length, contribute to the better melody. A rea 
son is rendered in the respective places where these general 
topics are premised, why such several catalogues begin and end 
at such times. And I do believe that they will prove satisfac 
tory to such ingenuous readers that come with no cavilling pre 
meditation. 

Exception 13. In your catalogue of learned writers you have 
omitted many, as may appear by Pitseus s " Appendix Illus- 
trium Angliae Scriptorum." For of the four hundred by him 
mentioned, not fifty appear in your list of them. 

Answer. Pitseus himseif shall plead for me, who in his Pre 
face to his Appendix ingenuously confesseth : " Eos adhuc 
efficere non valeo dignos, qui inter illustres Scriptores locum ob- 
tineant." So that one may call them obscuros illustres; little 
being known of the books which they wrote, less of the times 
when they lived, nothing of the places where they were born. 
However, seeing some persons of eminence have straggled 
amongst them, I have selected such with my best care, and pre 
sented them in my catalogue. 

Exception 14. Of some men you have little save their name, 
life, and death : and yet you term such Eminent Persons. 

Answer. Surely they were so in themselves, and deserve 
more should be than is left written of them, through the injury of 
time. All that I will plead in my own defence is this : there is an 
officer in the Exchequer called Clericus Nihilorum, or the Clerk 
of the Nichils, who maketh a roll of all such sums as are nichilled 
by the sheriff upon their estreats of the green wax, when such 
sums are set on persons either not found, or not found solvable. 
This roll he delivereth into the treasurer s Remembrancer s 
Office, to have execution done upon it for the king ; and thus 
the clerk hath done his duty, leaving it to them to see if they 
can make any thing of his return. 

I conceive in like manner I have performed my utmost, in 
that I return such persons to have nothing more to be said of 
them, findable by all my endeavours. However I consign them 
over to more able historians, whose pains I will neither prejudice 



ON THE STYLE AND MATTER. 103 

nor discourage ; but if they be pleased to begin where I ended, 
I wish them more happy success in their discoveries. 

Exception 15. Your book is surcharged with Scripture ob 
servations, and reflections in divinity, even when no necessity 
leadeth you thereunto. 

Answer. The reader hath confitentem ; but I will never ac 
knowledge reum, pleading custom and conscience in my just ex 
cuse : custom, being habited by my profession therein. The 
learned observe of St. Luke, that, being a physician by his func 
tion, and describing the difference between Paul and Barnabas, 
he -made use of an expression in his own faculty, " and there was 
betwixt them a dissension "* "[in Greek -jrapo^va poo] : that is, 
" the height and heat of a burning fever." So that the Spirit 
of God, guiding his pen, permitted him to make use of the 
language proper to his vocation. And I presume the same fa 
vour will be indulged to me by all ingenuous persons, to have 
(I will not say a partiality, but) an affection to the expressions of, 
and excursions into, my own calling. Secondly, I plead con 
science, that seeing some may cavil this work to be a deviation 
from my function (and I myself perchance sensible of some 
truth therein), I will watch and catch all opportunity to make 
a fair regress to my profession. 

Exception 16. You lay down certain rules for the better re 
gulating your work, and directing the reader, promising to con 
fine yourself to the observation thereof, and break them often 
yourself. For instance, you restrain the topic of lawyers to 
capital judges and writers of the law ; yet under that head insert 
judge Paston and others, who were only puny judges in their 
respective courts. You limit statesmen to lord chancellors, 
treasurers, English secretaries of state, &c., and put in Sir 
Edward Waterhouse, who was secretary but in Ireland. In a 
word, few heads are preserved pure according to their constitu 
tion, without the mixture of improper persons amongst them. 
Why did you break such rules, when knowing you made them ? 
Why did you make such jrules, when minding to break them ? 
And this is an exception of exceptions against you. 

Answer. I never intended to tie myself up so close, without 
reserving lawful liberty to myself upon just occasion. Indeed 
we read of St. Egwin the Third, bishop of Worcester,f that he 
made for himself a pair of iron shackles, and locking them close 
unto his legs, cast the key thereof into the Severn, desiring never 
to be loosed till he had made satisfaction for his sins. Returning 
from Rome, a fish leaped into the ship, in whose belly was 
found the key ; and so Egwin was miraculously restored to his 
liberty. 

Had I in like manner fettered myself to the topics propound 
ed, on presumption of so strange a release, none would have 

* Acts xv. 39. f Ranulphus Cestrensis, in ejus vita ; Matth. Westm. anno 

712. Fiorent. Wigorn. anno 708. 



104 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

pitied my restraint, wilfully contracted on myself. But the best 
is, I resolved to keep the key in my own hands, to enlarge myself 
when I apprehended a just cause thereof. However I have not 
made use of this key to recede from my first limitations, save 
where I crave leave of and render a reason to the reader ; such 
anomalous persons being men of high merit, under those heads 
where they are inserted. 

Exception 17- You have omitted many memorable persons 
still surviving, as meriting as any you have inserted. 

Answer. The return of Martial,* in a case not much unlike, 
may much befriend me herein : 

Miraris veteres, Vacerra, solos, 
Nee laudas nisi mortuos poetas. 
Ignoscas petimus, Vacerra ; tanti 
JVbn est, ut placeam tibi, perire. 

" Deceased authors thou admir st alone, 
And only praisest poets dead and gone. 
Vacerra, pardon me, I will not buy 
Thy praise so dear, as for the same to die." 

All men being like-minded with Martial herein, none surviv 
ing will distaste their omission in a work, for reasons afore- 
alleged (save in some cases) confined to the memories of the 
departed. 

Exception 18. Speaking of the commodities of several 
counties, you say the wool of Herefordshire is best, and yet 
Gloucestershire is best : the wheat of Herefordshire is best, and 
yet Middlesex best: the lead of Derbyshire best, and yet 
Somersetshire best : the iron of Sussex best, and Stafford 
shire best. The same may be observed in your praising of 
persons ; making several men at the same time the best poets, 
divines, schoolmen, &c. ; and this must be both falsehood and 
flattery together. 

Answer. Impute it (I pray) to my peaceable disposition, unwil 
ling to occasion discord betwixt eminencies, the rather because 
things of the same kind may severally be the best in sundry 
qualities. Some wool best for cloth, other for hats ; some 
wheat best for yielding of most, other finest flower ; some lead 
best for bullets, other for sheeting houses ; some iron best for 
ordnance, other for nails, keys, and smaller utensils. 

Neither is it without precedent in Scripture, to character seve 
ral men best in the same profession, both Hezekiahf and JosiahJ 
being commended to have had none like unto them, neither be 
fore nor after them. 

Exception 19. During the later years of king Charles of 
blessed memory, you have for the most part omitted the sheriffs 
in your catalogue. 

Answer. There was then (as I may say) a schism in that 
office, betwixt the sheriffs and anti-sheriffs. As for the former, 

* Lib. viii. Epig. 69. f 2 Kings xviii. 5. J Ibid, xxiii. 25. 



OF THE STYLE AND MATTER. 105 

made by the king s designation, and beheld as the only legal 
ones, I durst not name them, as the times then stood when I 
collected that catalogue, for fear lest thereby I might betray 
some of them (till that time concealed) to a sequestration. I 
therefore preferred to leave a void space in my list, and wish it 
were the worst breach or desolation made by our late civil 
wars. 

Exception 20. But, since the happy turn of the times, you 
might have inserted them, not only without any danger, but with 
great honour unto them. 

Answer. When the danger was removed, the difficulty did 
deter me. For in those tumultuary times, the royal sheriffs did 
not regularly (according to ancient custom) pass their accounts 
in the Exchequer at London : so that I was at a loss to recover 
certainty herein. Wherefore, according to my general motto, 
"a blank is better than a blot," I left a vacuity for them. For 
which bald place, the reader (if so pleased) may provide a peri 
wig, and with his pen insert such sheriffs as come to his cogni 
zance. 

Exception.^. It was expected that you should have pre 
sented the maps of all shires, which would have added much 
light and lustre to your work (which now is, as an house with 
out windows, very dark and uncomfortable) ; as also that you 
should have cut the arms of all gentlemen in copper (at the 
least in wood) which would have been more satisfactory to them, 
and ornamental to your book. 

Answer. Cuts are cuts, as I have found by dear experience. 
Besides, when they are done, they are not done, the working 
them off at the rolling press being as expensive as the graving 
them ; both which will mount our book to an unreasonable 
price. Secondly, it would be disgraceful to cut those maps 
worse, and difficult (if not impossible) to do them better, than 
they are done already. Thirdly, such gentlemen (not formerly 
furnished therewith) may procure them at a cheaper rate than I 
could afford them. Lastly, such new re-graving them would 
be injurious to the owners of the old maps : and I will not bot 
tom my profit on another man s prejudice. 

Exception 22. You betray unworthy partiality in omitting 
and inserting of persons. For John of Gaunt, though son to a 
king, and worthy warrior, can get no room in your book, whilst 
Simon de Gaunt, a bishop of Salisbury (both of them by their 
surnames equally appearing foreigners) hath a place found for 
him therein. It seems a prelate finds more favour from you 
than a prince. 

Answer. Is there not a cause, and that a satisfactory one ? 
I prefer not a prelate before a prince, but truth before both ; 
and the methodical regulation of my book, according to the 
rules premised, without which all will fall to confusion. It is 



106 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

as notoriously known, that John of Gaunt was born at Gaunt 
in Flanders (and so an alien from our subject) ; as plainly it ap- 
peareth, that Simon de Gaunt (though his father was a Fleming) 
was born in London : " Magister Simon de Gaunt," saith Mat 
thew of Westminster, " editus Londini, vir in arte Theologies 
peritus." 

Exception 23. You discover much negligence in dating of 
particular persons, instancing the time only when they flou 
rished, without observing when they were born or died ; and 
this mindeth me of a passage in Tully, charging Verres, the de 
puty of Sicily, with notorious laziness, (( quod nunquam solem 
nee orientem nee occidentem viderat,"* (" that he never saw the 
sun rising, being in bed after : nor setting, being in bed before 
it.") Thus your pen is altogether a sluggard, only taking notice 
of them when shining in the vertical height, without either 
beholding them rising out of their cradle, or setting in their 
coffin. 

Answer. Let Tully tell out his story : and it will befriend 
and furnish me with a just defence. Sicily (saith he) enjoyeth 
so clear a sky, that the sun is seen there every day in the year 
rising or setting. Intolerable therefore the sloth of Verres 
(noble at nothing but oppression) that he never saw the sun 
either to rise or set, as roosted after or before. Were it so 
that either the rising or setting of eminent persons (their birth 
and death) were (with the Sicilian sun) ever visible, as always 
recorded by authors, I would confess myself justly taxed with 
inexcusable laziness; but seeing sometimes a panic silence 
herein, not meeting either with the midwife or sexton, who de 
livered or buried such people, we conceive ourselves have 
satisfied, if instancing only the time wherein such persons 
flourished. 

Exception 24. It had been more proper and more satisfac 
tory for you to have placed your Exceptions and Answers ra 
ther at the end than beginning of your book, when the reader 
had wholly perused it ; only premising, you will be responsible 
to such objections as would be made against your endeavours 
herein. 

Answer. I am of his opinion, who said, "premising is bet 
ter than promising." Sure it is a safer way to prevent a dis 
ease than to remove it. Besides, I hope that, clearing these ob 
structions in the front of my book, I shall smooth the reader s 
way, and invite him the rather to peruse it. However, these an 
swers (wherever placed) are placed aright, if meeting (which I 
desire) a candid acceptance thereof. 

Exception 25. It is easy for one to cast down a pillar of his 
own erection ; but let another set it up, and then let him try 
his strength thereat. None will pinch themselves so as to fetch 

* Tully in Verrem Orut. 



APOLOGY FOR OMISSIONS. 107 

blood, though others may do it. Your exceptions are all of 
your own making, to your own advantage. 

Answer. I have endeavoured to propound them without any 
partiality. However, if my labours meet with greater and more 
exception from others against them, I hope they shall also meet 
with the general courtesy, and candour of course, which custom 
hath in some sort made due to authors, to forgive their smaller 
faults ; on which comfortable confidence I proceed. 



CHAPTER XXVJ 

AN APOLOGY FOR THE INVOLUNTARY OMISSIONS IN THIS 

BOOK. 

WHEN I first communicated my design herein to a person of 
honour,* he offered this grand objection against it ; that no in 
dustry could be so circumspect, or intelligence so comprehen 
sive, but that many memorable persons would escape his obser 
vation ; and then exception will be taken at such omissions. 
This objection many since have renewed and enforced, alleging 
that the omitting of one shall get me more anger, than the in 
serting of many gain me good will. 

To this I answer first, in general. It is the privilege of Di 
vine Writ alone, to be so perfect that nothing may be taken 
thence, or added thereunto. The best human authors have 
had their failings in their best performances. Far be it from 
me to pretend my dim eyes more quick sighted than St. Ber 
nard 5 s, who notwithstanding non vidit omnia ; I trust therefore, 
that favour will be indulged to my endeavours, for my many in 
firmities. 

To come to particulars. Some seeming omissions will ap 
pear to be none, on better inquiry ; being only the leaving of 
many persons, which belong not to our land, to their foreign 
nativities. If any ask, why have you not written of John & 
Gaunt ? I answer, because he was John of Gaunt, born in that 
city in Flanders. Thus, whilst our kings possessed large do 
minions in France, from king William the Conqueror to king 
Henry the Sixth, many eminent men had their birth beyond 
the seas, without the bounds of our subject. 

Secondly, I hope real omissions will neither be found many 
nor material. I hope I shall not appear like unto him, who, under 
taking to make a description of the planets, quite forgot to make 
mention of the sun. I believe most of those who have escaped 
our pen, will be found stars of the lesser magnitude. 

Thirdly, I protest in the presence of God, I have not wit 
tingly, willingly, or wilfully, shut the door against any worthy 

* The truly Noble Robert Lord Bruce, 



108 WORTHIES OF ENGLAND. 

person which offered to enter into my knowledge ; nor was my 
prejudice the porter in this kind, to exclude any (of what per 
suasion soever) out of my book who brought merit for their ad 
mission. Besides, I have gone, and rid, and wrote, and sought 
and searched with my own and friends eyes, to make what dis 
coveries I could therein. 

Lastly, I stand ready with a pencil in one hand, and a spunge 
in the other, to add, alter, insert, expunge, enlarge, and dilate, 
according to better information. And if these my pains shall 
be found worthy to pass a second impression, my faults I will 
confess with shame, and amend with thankfulness, to such 
as will contribute clearer intelligence unto me. 

These things premised, I do desire in my omissions the par 
don especially of two sorts, concerned in my History : 

First, writers since the Reformation (having those before it 
completely delivered unto us) who cannot be exactly listed : 

1st, For their numerousness, and therefore I may make use 
of the Latin distich, wherewith John Pitseus* closeth his book of 
English writers : 

Plura voluminibus jungenda volumina nostris, 
Nee mihl scribendi terminus ullus erit. 

" More volumes to our volumes must we bind ; 
And when that s done, a bound we cannot find." 

2nd, For the scarceness of some books, which I may term 
publici privati juris, because though publicly printed, their copies 
were few, as intended only for friends, though it doth not follow 
that the writers thereof had the less merit, because the more 
modesty. 

I crave pardon, in the second place, for my omissions in the 
list of benefactors to the public ; for, if I would, I could not 
complete that catalogue, because no man can make a fit garment 
for a growing child, and their number is daily increasing, 

Besides if I could, I would not. For I will never drain (in 
print) the spring so low, but to leave a reserve ; and some whom 
I may call breeders for posterity, who shall pass un-named ; in 
which respect, I conceive such benefactors most perfectly 
reckoned up, when they are imperfectly reckoned up. 

All I will add is this. When St. Paul, writing to the Phi- 
lippians, had saluted three by name, viz. Euodias, Syntyche, and 
Clement, he passeth the rest over with a salutation general, 
"whose names are in the book of life.^f Thus I have endea 
voured to give you the most exact catalogue of benefactors ; but 
this I am sure, what is lost on earth by my want of industry, 
instruction, &c. will be found in Heaven, and their names are 
there recorded, in that register which will last to all eternity. 

As for my omitting many rarities, and memorables in the re 
spective counties, I plead for myself, that, mine being a general 

* Page 923. f Phil. iv. 3. 



A COROLLARY ABOUT " ALUMNUS." 109 

description, it is not to Le expected that I should descend to 
such particularities which properly belong to those who write the 
topography of one county alone. He shewed as little ingenuity 
as ingeniousness, who cavilled at the map of Grecia for imper 
fect, because his father s house in Athens was not represented 
therein. And their- expectation in effect is as unreasonable, who 
look for every small observable in a general work. Know also, 
that a mean person may be more knowing within the limits of his 
private lands than any antiquary whatsoever. I remember a 
merry challenge at court, which passed betwixt the king s porter 
and the queen s dwarf; the latter provoking him to fight with him, 
on condition that he might but choose his own place, and be al 
lowed to come thither first, assigning the great oven in Hamp 
ton court for that purpose. Thus easily may the lowest domi 
neer over the highest skill, if having the advantage of the ground 
within his own private concernments. 

Give me leave to fill up the remaining vacuity with 

A COROLLARY ABOUT THE RECIPROCATION OF " ALUMNUS." 

The word Alumnus is effectually directive of us (as much as 
any) to the nativities of eminent persons. However, we may 
observe both a passive and active interpretation thereof. I put 
passive first, because one must be bred before he can breed ; 
and Alumnus signifieth both the nursed child and the nurse ; 
both him that was educated, and the person or place which gave 
him his education. Wherefore Laurentius Valla (though an ex 
cellent grammarian) is much deceived, when not admitting the 
double sense thereof, as by the ensuing instances will appear. 

Passive. Pro Educato. Cicero Dolabellee : " Mihi vero glori- 
osum, te juvenem Consulem florere laudibus, quasi Alumnum 
discipline meae." De Finibus, 122. b: " Aristoteles, cseterique 
Platonis Alumni." 

Active. Pro Educatore. Pliny, lib. 3. de Italia: "Terra om 
nium terrarum Alumna, eadem et parens numine Deum electa." 
Augustinus, lib. 70 : " Civit. Jovem Alumnum cognominaverunt, 
quod omnia aleret." 

The design which we drive on in this observation, and the use 
which we desire should be made thereof, is this ; viz. that such 
who are born in a place may be sensible of their engagement 
thereunto : that, if God give them ability and opportunity, they 
may express their thankfulness to the same. 

Quisyitis Alumnus erat, grains Alumnus erit. 

" A thankful man will feed 

The place which did him breed." 

And the truth hereof is eminently conspicuous in many per 
sons, but especially in great prelates before, and rich citizens 
since, the Reformation. 



BARKSHIRE, OR BERKSHIRE. 



BERKSHIRE hath Wiltshire on the west, Hampshire on the 
South, Surrey on the east, Oxford and Buckinghamshire 
(parted first with the Isis, then with the flexuous river of 
Thames) on the north thereof. It may be fancied in a form 
like a lute lying along, whose belly is towards the west, whilst 
the narrow neck or long handle is extended toward the east. 
From Coleshull to Windsor, it may be allowed in length forty 
miles. But it amounteth to little more than half so much in 
the broadest part thereof. It partaketh as plentiful as any 
county in England of the common commodities, grass, grain, 
fish, fowl, wool, and wood, &c. ; and we will particularly 
instance on one or two of them. 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
OAKS. 

It was given in instruction to the spies sent to search the land 
of Canaan, that, amongst other inquiries, they should take par 
ticular notice, "whether there be wood therein or not ?*" An 
important question, the rather because at that time the Israelites 
were in Arabia the Desert, where they saw not a tree in many 
months^ travel, (insomuch that it is recorded for a wonder, 
that in Elim were " seventy Palm trees "t) an d now knew the 
worth of wood by wanting it. 

But Berkshire affordeth abundance of trees of all kinds, 
though her oaks in Windsor forest for the present come only 
under our commendation. 

First, for their firmness, whereof our ships are made. The 
oak in other kingdoms may be called cowardly, as riving and 
splitting round about the passage of the bullet, fearing as it 
were the force thereof; whilst our English, as heart of oak 
indeed, though entered with bullet, remaineth firm round 
about it. 

Secondly, for the convenience of portage. The wealth of a 
covetous man (wanting an heart to make use thereof) may not 
unfitly be compared to the oaks and fir-trees (good and plenti- 

v 

* Num. xiii. 20. f Exod. xv. 27. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES MANUFACTURES. Ill 

ful indeed) in the highlands in Scotland,, but growing on such 
inaccesible mountains, no strength or art can render them use 
ful, Nature in this kind having given them full coffers, but no 
key to unlock them. 

Whereas, so indulgent is Divine Providence to England, that 
our four principal forests lie either on the sea, or navigable 
rivers ; viz. New Forest on the sea, Shire Wood on the Trent, 
Dean on the Severn, and this Windsor Forest on the Thames ; 
and I could wish more care were taken for preserving the tim 
ber therein. 

BARK. 

The very name of this shire justly entitles us here to handle 
this commodity (though common to other counties), because 
Barkshire (as some will have it) was so called from a stripped 
or bark-bared oak,* to which signal place the people repaired in 
time of trouble to make their general defence. It is essential 
for making good leather, though lately one hath propounded a 
way to tann it solid and saleable without the help thereof, on 
condition (and good reason too) he may be allowed reasonable 
profit for so rare an invention. But many think that " he that 
waits for dead men s shoes," and he that stays for leather shoes 
" made without bark," may both of them " go a long time bare 
foot." 

TROUTS. 

This is a pleasant and wholesome fish, as whose feeding is pure 
and cleanly, in the swiftest streams, and on the hardest gravel. 
Good and great of this kind are found in the river of Kennet 
nigh Hungerford, though not so big as that which Gesner 
affirms taken in the Leman lake, being three cubits in length. 
They are in their perfection in the month of May, and yearly 
decline with the buck. Being come to his full growth, he 
decays in goodness, not greatness, and thrives in his head till 
his death. Note by the way, that an hog-back and little head 
is a sign that any fish is in season. 

Other commodities of this, return in other counties, where 
they may be mentioned with more convenience. 

THE MANUFACTURES. 
CLOTHING. 

It is plied therein ; and because we meet with the best of 
our manufactures in the first of our shires, a word of the anti 
quity thereof. 

1. Cloth sure is of the same date with civility in this land. 
Indeed the ancient Britons are reported to go naked, clothed 

* Caraden, Britannia, in this county. 



112 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

only with colours painted, custom making them insensible of 
cold, with the beggar, who being demanded how he could go 
naked, returned, " All my body is face." But no sooner had 
the Romans reduced this island, but cloth, though coarse, such 
as would hide and heat, was here generally made and used. 

2. Fine Cloth (though narrow) for persons of worth at home 
to wear, and for foreign exportation, began in England about 
the beginning of the reign of king Edward the Third ; before 
which time our statutes take no cognizance of clothing, as 
inconsiderable (wool being transported in specie), and needing 
no rules to regulate it, save what prudence dictated to private 
husbands with their own families. 

3. Broad Cloth (wherein the wealth of our nation is folded 
up) made with broad looms, two men attending each of them, 
began here in the reign of king Henry the Eighth. And I have 
been informed that Jack of Newberry was the first that intro 
duced it into this county. Well may the poets feign Minerva 
the goddess of wit and the foundress of weaving, so great is the 
ingenuity thereof. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

Windsor Castle was a royal seat ever since the Conquest, but 
brought to the modern beauty chiefly at the cost of king Edward 
the Third. It is a castle for strength, a palace for state ; and 
hath in it a college for learning, a chapel for devotion, and an 
almshouse (of decayed gentlemen) for charity. In this palace 
most remarkable, the hall for greatness, Winchester tower for 
height, and the terrace on the north side for pleasure, where a 
dull eye may travel twenty miles in a moment. Nor boasteth 
so much, that it consisteth of two great courts, as that it con 
tained two great kings (John of France, and David of Scotland,) 
prisoners therein together; as also that it was the seat of the 
honourable order of the Garter. 

Many neat houses and pleasant seats there be in this county, 
both on the Kennet and Thames, which seem dutifully to attend 
at distance on Windsor Castle ; as Aldermaston, Inglefield, &c. 
most sweet in their situations. 

PROVERBS. 

I meet with but one in this county, but either so narrow that 
they stretch not beyond the bonds thereof, or else so broad, 
that all other counties equally share in the cause and usage of 
them. Wherefore seeing this is the first English shire in the 
alphabetical order, to avoid a vacuity, we will here insert such 
proverbs, wherein England or Englishmen are by express men 
tion concerned^ 



PROVERBS. 



113 



But first we will dispatch that sole proverb of this county 
viz. 

" The Vicar of Bray will be Vicar of Bray still."] 

Bray, a village well known in this count} , so called from the 
Bibroces, a kind of ancient Britons inhabiting thereabouts. The 
vivacious vicar hereof living under king Henry the Eighth, king 
Edward the Sixth, queen Mary, and queen Elizabeth, was first a 
Papist, then a Protestant, then a Papist, then a Protestant again. 
He had seen some martyrs burnt (two miles off ) at Windsor, 
and found this fire too hot for his tender temper. This vicar 
being taxed by one for being a turncoat and an inconstant 
changeling, " Not so," said he ; " for I always kept my prin 
ciple, which is this, to live and die the vicar of Bray." Such 
many now-a-days, who though they cannot turn the wind will 
turn their mills, and set them so, that wheresoever it bloweth 
their grist shall certainly be grinded. 

Proceed we now to the proverbs general of England : 

" When our lady falls in our lord s lap 
Then let England beware a j ^ h ^ ap ,. 

alias, 
" Then let the clergyman look to his cap."] 

I behold this proverbial prophecy, or this prophetical menace, 
to be not above six score years old, and of Popish extraction 
since the Reformation. It whispereth more than it dares speak 
out, and points at more than it dares whisper ; and fain would 
intimate to credulous persons as if the blessed Virgin, offended 
with the English for abolishing her adoration, watcheth an op 
portunity of revenge on this nation. And when her day (being 
the five and twentieth of March, and first of the Gregorian year) 
chanceth to fall on the day of Christ s resurrection, then, being 
as it were fortified by her Son s assistance, some signal judg 
ment is intended to our state, and churchmen especially. Such 
coincidence hath happened just fifteen times since the Conquest, 
as Elias Ashmole, Esquire, my worthy friend and learned mathe 
matician, hath exactly computed it ; and we will examine, by our 
chronicles, whether on such years any signal fatalities befel 
England. 

D. L. G. N. 
G 13 



A. D. Anno RegnL 
1095 W. Rufus 8. 



1106 Henry I. 6. G 



1117 Henry I. 17. G 
1190 Richard I. 2. G 



16 



13 



Signal Disasters. 

King Rufus made a fruitless 
invasion of Wales. 

King Henry subdueth Nor 
mandy, and duke Robert 
his brother. 

He forbiddeth the Pope s 
legate to enter England. 

King Richard conquereth 
Cyprus in his way to Pa 
lestine. 



VOL. I. 



114 



WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 



A.D. 
1201 



Anno Regni. 

K. John 2. 



1212 K. John 13. 



D. L. 
G 

G 



G.N. 
5 

16 



Signal Disasters. 

The French invade Nor 
mandy. 



King 



1285 Edward I. 13. 



John resigneth his 
kingdom to the Pope. 
G 13 Nothing remarkable but 

peace and plenty. 
War begun with Scotland, 

which ended in victory. 
The Scots do much harm to 

us at Peryth Fair. 
G 16 Lancastrians worsted by the 

Yorkists in fight. 

G 5 King Henry entered Scot 

land, and burnt Edin 
burgh. 

Hitherto this proverb hath had but intermitting truth at 
the most, seeing no constancy in sad casualties. But the sting, 
will some say, is in the tail thereof ; and I behold this proverb 
born in this following year. 
1554 Q. Mary 2. G 16 



1296 Edward I. 24. AG 5 
1380 Richard II. 4. AG 13 
1459 Henry VI. 38. 
1543 Henry.VIII. 34 



1627 Charles 3. 
1638 Charles 14. 



1649 



Queen Mary setteth up Po 
pery, and martyreth Pro 
testants. 
G 13 The unprosperous voyage to 

the Isle of Rees. 
G 5 The first cloud of trouble in 

Scotland. 

G 16 The first complete year of 
the English common 
wealth (or tyranny ra 
ther) which since, bless 
ed be God, is returned 
to a monarchy. 

The concurrence of these two days doth not return till the 
year 1722 ; and let the next generation look to the effects thereof. 
I have done my part in shewing, remitting to the reader the cen 
suring of these occurrences. Sure I am so sinful a nation de 
serves that every year should be fatal unto it. But it matters 
not though " our Lady falls in our Lord s lap," whilst " our 
Lord" sits at " his Father s " right hand, if to him we make our 
addresses by serious repentance. 

" When HEMPE is spun, 
England is done. ] 

Though this proverb hath a different stamp, yet I look on it 
as coined by the same mint-master with the former, and even of 
the same age. It is faced with a literal, but would be lined 
with a mystical, sense. " When Hempe is spun ;" that is, when 
all that necessary commodity is employed, that there is no more 
left for sails and cordage, England (whose strength consists in 
shipping) would be reduced to a doleful condition. But know 



PROVERBS. 115 

under HEMPE are couched the initial letters of Henry the Eighth, 
Edward the Sixth, Mary, Philip, and Elizabeth, as if with the 
life of the last the happiness of England should expire, which 
time hath confuted. Yet, to keep this proverb in countenance, 
it may pretend to some truth, because then England, with the 
addition of Scotland, lost its name in Great Britain by royal pro 
clamation. 

When the black fleet of Norway is come and gone, 
England build houses of lime and stone, 
For after wars you shall have none. ] 

There is a larger edition hereof, though this be large enough 
for us, and more than we can well understand. Some make it 
fulfilled in the year eighty-eight, when the Spanish fleet was 
beaten, the surname of whose king, as a learned author * doth 
observe, was Norway. Others conceive it called the black fleet 
of Norway, because it was never black (not dismal to others, 
but woful to its own apprehension) till beaten by the English, 
and forced into those coasts : according to the English historian : 
e They betook themselves to flight, leaving Scotland on the 
west, and bending towards Norway ill-advised (but that necessity 
urged, and God had infatuated their councils) to put their shaken 
and battered bottoms into those black and dangerous seas."f 

I observe this the rather, because I believe Mr. Speed, in 
this his writing, was so far from having a reflection on, that I 
question whether ever he had heard of, this prophecy. 

It is true that afterwards England built houses of lime and 
stone ; and our most handsome and artificial buildings (though 
formerly far greater and stronger) bear their date from the de 
feating of the Spanish fleet. As for the remainder, " After wars 
you shall have none ;" we find it false as to our civil wars, by 
our woful experience. 

And whether it be true or false as to foreign invasions here 
after we care not at all ; as beholding this prediction either made 
by the wild fancy of one foolish man : and then why should the 
many wise men attend thereunto ? Or else by him who always 
either speaks what is false or what is true with an intent to de 
ceive ; so that we will not be elated with good, or dejected with 
bad, success of his foretelling. 

" England is the ringing island. 1 ] 

Thus it is commonly called by foreigners, as having greater, 
more, and more tunable bells than any one country in Christen 
dom, Italy itself not excepted ; though Nola be there, and bells 
so called thence, because first founded therein. Yea, it seems 
our land is much affected with the love of them, and loath to 
have them carried hence into foreign parts, whereof take this 
eminent instance. When Arthur Bulkley, the covetous bishop 

* The Lord Bacon, in his Essays, p. 215. 

f J. Speed, in his History of Great Britain, in the year 1588. 

i 2 



116 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

of Bangor,* in the reign of king Henry the Eighth, had sacri 
legiously sold the five fair bells of his cathedral, to be transport 
ed beyond the seas, and went down himself to see them shipped, 
they suddenly sank down with the vessel in the haven, and the 
bishop fell instantly blind, and so continued to the day of his 
death. Nought else have I to observe of our English bells, save 
that in the memory of man they were never known so long free 
from the sad sound of funerals of general infection ; God make 
us sensible of and thankful for the same ! 

" When the sand feeds the clay, England cries Well-a-day :f 
But when the clay feeds the sand, it is merry with England."] 

As Nottinghamshire is divided into two parts,J the sand and 
the clay, all England falls under the same dicotomy ; yet so as the 
sand hardly amounteth to the fifth part thereof. Now a wet year, 
which drowneth and chilleth the clay, makes the sandy ground 
most fruitful with corn, and the general granary of the land, 
which then is dearer in other counties ; and it is harder for one 
to feed four, than four to feed one. It is furthermore observed, 
that a drought never causeth a dearth in England, because (though 
parching up the sandy ground) the clay, being the far greatest 
moiety of the land, having more natural moisture therein, afford- 
eth a competent increase. 



England were but a fling, 



Save for the crooked stick and the gray-goose wing."] 

" But a fling," that is, a slight, light thing, not to be valued, 
but rather to be cast away, as being but half an island. It is of 
no great extent. Philip the Second, king of Spain, in the 
reign of queen Elizabeth called our English ambassadors unto 
him (whilst as yet there was peace betwixt the two crowns) ; 
and, taking a small map of the world, laid his little finger upon 
England (wonder not if he desired to finger so good a country) ; 
and then demanded of our English ambassador, " where Eng 
land was ?" Indeed it is in greatness inconsiderable to the 
Spanish dominions. 

" But for the crooked stick," &c. That is, use of archery. 
Never were the arrows of the Parthians more formidable to the 
Romans than ours to the French horsemen. Yea, remarkable is 
Divine Providence to England, that since arrows are grown out 
of use, though the weapons of war be altered, the Englishman^ 
hand is still in use as much as ever before ; for no country 
affords better materials of iron, saltpetre, and lead ; or better 
workmen to make them into guns, powder, and bullets; or 
better marksmen to make use of them being so made : so that 
England is now as good with a straight iron, as ever it was witU 
a crooked stick. 

" England is the paradise of women, hell of horses, purgatory of servants." 

For the first, billa vera ; women, whether maids, wives, or 

* Godwin, in his Bishops of Bangor. f An old interjection of lamentation. 

| Camden, Britannia, in Nottinghamshire. 



PROVERBS. ]17 

widows, finding here the fairest respect and kindest usage. 
Our common-law is a more courteous carver for them than the 
civil law beyond the seas, allowing widows the thirds of their 
husbands estates, with other privileges. The TrpoTOK\Hriat, or 
highest seats, are granted them at all feasts ; and the wall (in 
crowding, most danger to the weakest ; in walking, most dig 
nity to the worthiest,) resigned unto them. The indentures of 
maid-servants are cancelled by their marriage, though the term 
be not expired ; which to young men in the same condition is 
denied. In a word, betwixt law and (law s co-rival) custom, 
they freely enjoy many favours ; and we men, so far from en 
vying them, wish them all happiness therewith. 

For the next, " England s being a hell for horses ;" Igno 
ramus ; as not sufficiently satisfied in the evidence alleged. 
Indeed the Spaniard, w r ho keeps his gennets rather for show 
than use, makes wantons of them. However, if England be 
faulty herein in their over-violent riding, racing, hunting, it is 
high time the fault were amended ; the rather, because " the 
good man regardeth the life of his beast."* 

For the last, " Purgatory for servants ;" we are so far from 
finding the bill, we cast it forth as full of falsehood. We have 
but two sorts, apprentices and covenant servants. The parents 
of the former give large sums of money to have their children 
bound for seven years, to learn some art or mystery ; which 
argueth their good usage as to the generality in our nation : 
otherwise it were madness for men to give so much money to 
buy their children s misery. As for our covenant servants, they 
make their own covenants ; and if they be bad, they may thank 
themselves. Sure I am, their masters, if breaking them, and 
abusing their servants with too little meat or sleep, too much 
work or correction (which is true also of apprentices) are liable 
by law to make them reparation. 

Indeed, I have heard how, in the age of our fathers, servants 
were in far greater subjection than now-a-days, especially since 
our civil wars hath lately dislocated all. relations ; so that now 
servants will do whatsoever their masters enjoin them, so be it 
they think fitting themselves. For my own part, I am neither 
for the tyranny of the one, nor rebellion of the other, but the 
mutual duty of both. 

As for Vernte, slaves or vassals, so frequent in Spain and 
foreign parts, our land and laws (whatever former tenures have 
been) acknowledge not any for the present. 

To conclude, as purgatory is a thing feigned in itself; so in 
this particular it is false in application to England. 

" A famine in England begins first at the horse-manger."] 

Indeed it seldom begins at the horse-rack ; for, though hay 
may be excessive dear, caused by a dry summer, yet winter 
grain (never impaired with a drought) is then to be had at rea- 

* Prov. x. 12. 



118 WORTHIES OF BERSHIRE, 

sonable rates. Whereas, if peas or oats, our horse-grain (and 
the latter man s grain also generally in the north for poor people) 
be scarce, it will not be long ere wheat, rye, &c. mount in our 
markets. Indeed, if any grain be very dear, no grain will be 
very cheap soon after. 

The king of England is the king of devils."] 

The German emperor is termed the " king of kings, " having 
so many free princes under him. The king of Spain, " king of 
men" because they willingly yield their sovereign rational 
obedience. The king of France, "king of asses," patiently 
bearing unconscionable burdens. But why the king of England 
" king of devils," I either cannot, or do not, or will not under 
stand. Sure I am, St. Gregory gave us better language when 
he said, " Angli velut Angeli" for our fair complexions ; and it 
is sad we should be devils by our black conditions. 

" The English are the Frenchmen s apes."] 

This anciently hath been, and still is, charged on the English, 
and that with too much truth, for ought I can find to the con 
trary. 

dolebat, 

Et dici poluisse, et non pohdsse refelli. 

" It is to us a pain 

This should be said, and not gain said again." 

We ape the French chiefly in two particulars : 

First, in their language (" which if Jack could speak, he would 

be a gentleman,") which some get by travel, others gain at 

home with Dame Eglinton in Chaucer : * 

" Entewned in her voice full seemly, 
And French she spake full feteously 
After the scole of Stratford at Bowe, 
For French of Paris was to her unknow." 

Secondly, in their habits, accounting all our fineness in con 
formity to the French fashion, though following it at greater 
distance than the field-pease in the country the rath-ripe pease 
in the garden. Disgraceful in my opinion, that, seeing the 
English victorious arms had twice charged through the bowels 
of France, we should learn our fashions from them to whom we 
taught obedience. 

" The English glutton."] 

Gluttony is a sin anciently charged on this nation, which we 
are more willing to excuse than confess, more -willing to confess 
than amend. Some pretend the coldness of climate in excuse of 
our sharp appetites ; and plead the plenty of the land (England 
being in effect all a great cook j s-shop, and no reason any should 
starve therein) for our prodigious feasts. They allege also that 
foreigners, even the Spaniards themselves, coming over hither, 
acquit themselves as good trencher-men as any ; so that it seems 
want, not temperance, makes them so abstemious at home. 

* In his Prologue of the Prioress. 



PROVERBS. 119 

All amounts not to any just defence, excess being an ill- 
expression of our thankfulness to God for his goodness. Nor 
need we with the Egyptians to serve up at the last course " a 
dead man s head " to mind us of our mortality, seeing a feast 
well considered is but a charnel-house of fowl, fish, and flesh ; 
and those few shell-fish that are not killed to our hands are 
killed by our teeth. It is vain, therefore, to expect that dead 
food should always preserve life in the feeders thereupon. 

" Long beards heartless, painted hoods witless ; 
Gay coats graceless, make England thriftless."*] 

Though this hath more of libel than proverb therein, and is 
stark false in itself, yet it will truly acquaint us with the habits 
of the English in that age. 

" Long beards heartless" Our English did use nutrire comam, 
both on their head and beards, conceiving it made them more 
amiable to their friends, and terrible to their foes. 

" Painted hoods witless." Their hoods were stained with a 
kind of colour, in a middle way betwixt dying and painting 
(whence Painters-stainers have their name), a mystery vehe 
mently suspected to be lost in our age. Hoods served that age 
for caps. 

" Gay coats graceless" Gallantry began then to be fashion 
able in England ; and perchance those who here taxed them 
therewith would have been as gay themselves, had their land 
been as rich and able to maintain them. 

This sing-song was made on the English by the Scots, after 
they were flushed with victory over us in the reign of king 
Edward the Second. Never was the battle at Cannae so fatal to 
the Romans as that at Sterling to the nobility of England ; and 
the Scots, puffed up with their victory, fixed those opprobrious 
epithets of heartless, witless, graceless, upon us. For the first, 
we appeal to themselves, whether Englishmen have not good 
hearts, and, with their long beards, long swords. For the 
second, we appeal to the world, whether the wit of our nation 
hath not appeared as considerable as theirs in their writings and 
doings. For the third, we appeal to God, the only searcher of 
hearts, and trier of true grace. As for the fourth, thriftless, I 
omit it, because it sinks of itself, as a superstructure on a foun 
dered and failing foundation. 

All that I will add is this, that the grave, sage, and reduced 
Scottish-men in this age, are not bound to take notice of such 
expressions made by their ancestors ; seeing, when nations are 
at hostile defiance, they will mutually endeavour each other s 
disgrace. 

" He that England will win, 
Must with Ireland first begin."] 

This proverb importeth that great designs must be managed 
yradatirn, not only by degrees, but due method. England, it 

* Fox, Stow, Speed, all our English historians in the first year of king Edward 
the Third. 



120 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

seems, is too great a morsel for a foreign foe to be chopped up 
at once ; and therefore it must orderly be attempted, and Ireland 
be first assaulted. Some have conceived, but it is but a conceit 
(all things being in the bosom of Divine Providence), that, had 
the Spanish Armada in eighty-eight fallen upon Ireland, when 
the well-affected therein were few and ill-provided, they would 
have given a better account of their service to him who sent 
them. To rectify which error, the king of Spain sent afterward 
John de Aquila into Ireland, but with what success is sufficiently 
known. And if any foreign enemy hath a desire to try the 
truth of this proverb at his own peril, both England and Ireland 
lie for climate in the same posture they were before. 

" In England a bushel of March dust is worth a king s ransom."] 

Not so in southern sandy counties, where a dry March is as 
destructive as here it is beneficial. How much a king s ransom 
amounteth unto, England knows by dear experience, when pay 
ing one hundred thousand pounds to redeem Richard the First, 
which w r as shared between the German emperor and Leopoldus 
duke of Austria. Indeed a general good redounds to our land 
by a dry March ; for if our clay-grounds be over-drowned in 
that month, they recover not their distemper that year, 

However, this proverb presumeth seasonable showers in 
April following ; or otherwise March dust will be turned into 
May ashes, to the burning up of grass and grain ; so easily can 
God blast the most probable fruitfulness. 

" England a good land, and a bad people. ] 

This is a French proverb ; and we are glad that they, being 
so much admirers and magnifiers of their own, will allow any 
goodness to another country. 

This maketh the wonder the less, that they have so much 
endeavoured to get a share in this good country, by their former 
frequent invasions thereof; though they could never, since the 
Conquest, peaceably possess a hundred yards thereof for twenty 
hours, whilst we for a long time have enjoyed large territories 
in France. 

But this proverb hath a design to raise up the land, to throw 
down the people ; gracing it to disgrace them. We Englishmen 
are, or should be, ready humbly to confess our faults before 
God, and no less truly than sadly to say of ourselves, " Ah, 
sinful nation ! K However, before men, we will not acknowledge 
a visible badness above other nations. And ,the plain truth is, 
both France and England have need to mend, seeing God 
hath formerly justly made them by sharp wars alternately to 
whip one another. 

" The High-Dutch pilgrims, when they beg, do sing ; the Frenchmen whine 
and cry ; the Spaniards curse, swear, and blaspheme ; the Irish and Eng 
lish steal."] 

This is a Spanish proverb ; and I suspect too much truth is 
suggested therein ; the rather because the Spaniards therein 



PRINCES. 121 

spare not themselves, but impartially report their own black 
character. If any ask why the Italians are not here mentioned,, 
seeing surely their pilgrims have also their peculiar humours ; 
know that Rome and Loretta, the staples of pilgrimages, being 
both in Italy, the Italians very seldom (being frugal in their 
superstition) go out of their own country. 

Whereas stealing is charged on our English, it is confessed 
that our poor people are observed light-fingered ; and therefore 
our laws are so heavy, making low felony highly penal, to re 
strain that vice most, to which our peasantry is most addicted. 

I wish my country more true piety than to take such tedious 
and useless journeys ; but, if they will go, I wish them more 
honesty than to steal; and the people by whom they pass, more 
charity than to tempt them to stealth, by denying them neces 
saries in their journey. 

PRINCES. 

JOHN, eldest son of king Edward the First and queen Elea 
nor, was born at Windsor before his father s voyage into Syria. 
His short life will not bear a long character, dying in his in 
fancy,* 1273 (the last year of the reign of king Henry the 
Third) ; and was buried August the 8th, in Westminster, under 
a marble tomb, in-laid with his picture in an arch over it. 

ELEANOR, eldest daughter to king Edward the First and 
queen Eleanor, was born at Windsor, anno Dom. 1266.f She 
was afterwards married by a proxy, a naked sword being in bed 
interposed betwixt him and her body, to Alphonso king of Arra- 
gon, with all ceremonies of state. And indeed they proved but 
ceremonies, the substance soon miscarrying, the said king Al 
phonso dying anno Dom. 1292, before the consummation of the 
marriage. But, soon after, this lady found that a living earl was 
better than a dead king, when married to Henry the third earl 
of Berry in France, from whom the dukes of Anjou and kings 
of Sicily are descended. This lady deceased in the seven and 
twentieth of her fathers reign, anno Dom. 1298. 

MARGARET, third daughter of king Edward the First and 
queen Eleanor, was born at Windsor, in the third year of her 
father s reign, 12754 When fifteen years old she was married 
at Westminster, July 9th, 1290, to John the second duke of 
Brabant, by whom she had issue John the third duke of Bra 
bant, from whom the dukes of Burgundy are descended. 

MARY, sixth daughter of king Edward the First and queen 
Eleanor, was born at Windsor, April the 12th, 1279. Being but 



* Speed, History, page 563. 
J Speed s Chronicle, p. 564. 



f Ibid. p. 564. 



122 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

ten years of age, she was made a nun at Amesbury in Wiltshire 
without her own, and at the first against her parents consent, 
merely to gratify queen Eleanor her grandmother.* Let us 
pity her, who probably did not pity herself, as not knowing a 
veil from a kerchief ; not understanding the requisites to, nor 
her own fitness for, that profession ; having afterwards time too 
much to bemoan, but none to amend, her condition. 

As for the other children of this king, which he had by Elea 
nor his queen, probably born in this castle, viz. HENRY, AL- 
PHONSE, BLANCHE, dying in their infancy immediately after 
their baptism, it is enough to name them, and to bestow this 
joint epitaph upon them. 

" Cleansed at font we drew untainted breath, 
Not yet made bad by life, made good by death." 

The two former were buried with their brother John (of whom 
before) at Westminster in the same tomb : but where Blanche 
was interred is altogether unknown. 

EDWARD the Third, son to Edward the Second and queen 
Isabel, was born at Windsor, October 13, 1312, (and proved 
afterwards a pious and fortunate prince). I behold him as 
merely passive in the deposing of his father, practised on in his 
minority by his mother and Mortimer. His French victories 
speak both of his wisdom and valour ; and though the conquests 
by king Henry the Fifth were thicker (achieved in a shorter 
time), his were broader (in France and Scotland by sea and 
land), though both of length alike, as lost by their immediate 
successors. 

He was the first English king which coined gold,t which with 
me amounts to a wonder, that before his time all yellow pay 
ments in the land should be made in foreign coin. He first 
stamped the rose-nobles, having on the one side, 

IESVS AVTEM TRANSIENS PER MEDIVM ILLORVM IBAT. 

And on the reverse, his own image with sword and shield, sit 
ting in a ship waving on the sea. Hereupon an English rhymer, 
in the reign of king Henry the Sixth, 

" For four things our Noble sheweth to me 
King, Ship, and Sword, and Power of the See. I 

He had a numerous and happy issue by Philippa his queen ; 
after whose death, being almost seventy years old, he cast his 
affection on Alice Pierce his paramour, much to his disgrace ; 
it being true what Epictetus returned to Adrian the emperor, 
asking of him what love was, " In puero, pudor ; in yiigine, ru- 
bor ; in fcemina, furor ; in juvene, ardor ; in sene, risus." (" In a 
boy, bashfulness ; in a maid, blushing ; in a woman, fury ; in a 
young man, fire ; in an old man, folly/ ) However take this king 

* Speed s Chronicle. f Camden s Remains, under the title of " Money." 

J Manuscript in Bibl, Cotton. 



PRINCES SAINTS. 123 

altogether, at home, abroad, at church, in state, and he had few 
equals, none superiors. He died anno Dom. 1378. 

WILLIAM, sixth son of king Edward the Third and queen 
Philippa, was born at Windsor.* Indeed his second son, born 
at Hatfield, was of the same name, who died in his infancy, and 
his mother had a fond affection for another William, because 
her father s, brother s, and a conquering name, till his short life 
also, dying in his cradle, weaned her from renewing her desire. 
As for king Edward s female children, Isabel, Joan, Blanch, 
Mary, and Margaret, there is much probability of their French, 
and no assurance of their English nativity. 

HENRY the Sixth, son to Henry the Fifth, was born in Wind 
sor Castle, against the will of his father, by the wilfulness of his 
mother. He was fitter for a cowl than a crown ; of so easy a 
nature, that he might well have exchanged a pound of patience 
for an ounce of valour ; being so innocent to others, that he was 
hurtful to himself. He was both over subjected and over-wived : 
having married Margaret the daughter of Reinier king of Jeru 
salem, Sicily, and Arragon, a prince only puissant in titles, 
otherwise little able to assist his son-in-law. Through home 
bred dissensions, he not only lost the foreign acquisitions of his 
father in France, but also his own inheritance in England to the 
house of York. His death, or murder rather, happened in 1471. 

This Henry was twice crowned, twice deposed, and twice bu 
ried (first at Chertsey, then at Windsor), and once half sainted. 
Our Henry the Seventh cheapened the price of his canonization 
(one may see for his love, and buy for his money, in the court of 
Rome), but would not come up to the sum demanded. How 
ever, this Henry was a saint (though not with the Pope) with 
the people, repairing to this monument from the farthest part of 
the land, and fancying that they received much benefit thereby. 
He was the last prince whom I find expressly born at Windsor. 
It seems that afterwards our English queens grew out of conceit 
with that place, as unfortunate for royal nativities. 

SAINTS. 

MARGARET and ALICE RICH were born at Abbington in this 
county, and were successively prioresses of Catesby in North- 
amptonshire.f They were sisters to St. Edmund, whose life 
ensueth, and are placed before him by the courtesy of England, 
which alloweth the weaker sex the upper hand. So great the 
reputation of their holiness, that the former dying anno 1257, 
the latter in 1270, both were honoured J for saints, and 

Speed s Hist. p. 602. 

T The English Martyrology, in the 15th and 24th of August. 
+ Matthew Paris, in Hist. Majori. ad ann. Dom. 1217, et deinceps. 



124 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

many miracles reported by crafty, were believed by credulous, 
people, done at their shrine by their reliqnes. 

St. EDMUND, son to Edward Rich and Mabel his wife, was 
born at Abbington in Berkshire,* and bred in Oxford. Some 
will have Edmund s-hall in that university built by his means, 
but others (more probably) named in his memory. He became 
canon of Salisbury ; and from thence, by the joint consent of 
pope, king, and monks (three cords seldom twisted in the same 
cable), advanced archbishop of Canterbury, where he sate al 
most ten years, till he willingly deserted it ; partly because of 
fended at the power of the pope s legate, making him no more 
than a mere cipher, signifying only in conjunction (when con 
curring with his pleasure) ; partly because, vexed at his polling 
and peeling of the English people, so grievous, he could not en 
dure, so general, he could not avoid to behold it. For these 
reasons he left the land, went (or, shall I say, fled ?) into France, 
where he sighed out the remainder of his life, most at Ponti- 
niac, but some at Soissons, where he died anno 1240. 

Pope Innocent the Fourth canonized him six years after his 
death, whereat many much wondered, that he should so much 
honour one, a professed foe to papal extortions. Some con 
ceived he did it se defendendo, and for a ne noceat, that he might 
not be tormented with his ghost.f But what hurt were it, if all 
the enemies of his Holiness were sainted, on condition they took 
death in their way thereunto ? Sure it is that Lewis king of 
France a year after translated his corpse, and, three years after 
that, bestowed a most sumptuous shrine of gold, silver, and 
crystal upon it ; and the 16th of November is the festival ap 
pointed for his memorial. 

MARTYRS. 

It appeareth, by the confession of Thomas Man (martyred in 
the beginning of king Henry the Eighth) that there was at New- 
berry, in this county, as glorious and sweet society of faithful 
favourers, \vho had continued the space of fifteen years together, 
till at last, by a certain lewd person whom they trusted and made 
of their council, they were betrayed ; and then many of them, to 
the number of six or seven score, were abjured, and three or 
four of them burnt. J Now although we know not how to call 
these martyrs who so suffered, " their names/ no doubt, " are 
written in the Book of Life." 

We see how the day of the Gospel dawned as soon in this 
county as in any place in England. Surely seniority in 
this kind ought to be respected, which made Paul a puisne in 

* Antiq. Brit. p. 165. 

t "Veritus, ne manes ipsius mortui Romanam sedem ob tot acceptas injurias 
vindicarent." M. Parker, Antiq. Brit. p. 173. 
J Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 817. 



MARTYRS. 125 

piety to " Andronicus " and " Junia," his kinsman, to enter th is 
caveat for their spiritual precedency, "who were in Christ before 
me."* On which account let other places give the honour to 
the town of Newberry, because it started the first (and I hope 
not tire for the earliness thereof) in the race of the Reformed re 
ligion. Yea, Doctor William Twiss, the painful preacher in that 
parish, was wont to use this as a motive to his flock, to quicken 
their pace, and strengthen their perseverance in piety, because 
that town appears the first-fruits of the Gospel in England. 
And Windsor, the next in the same county, had the honour of 
martyrs ashes therein, as by the ensuing list will appear. 

There was in Windsor a company of right godly persons, who 
comfortably enjoyed themselves, until their enemies designed 
their extirpation, though it cost them much to accomplish it, one 
of them confessing that for his share he expended an hundred 
marks, besides the killing of three geldings. These, suspecting 
that the judges itinerant in their circuit would be too favourable 
unto them, procured a special session, got four arraigned and 
condemned by the commissioners, whereof the three following 
were put to death on the statute of the Six Articles. 

1. Anthony Persons, a priest and profitable preacher, so that 
the great clerks of Windsor thought their idleness upbraided by 
his industry. Being fastened to the stake, he laid a good deal 
of straw on the top of his head, saying, " This is God s hat ; I 
am now armed like a soldier of Christ,"f 

2. Robert Testwood, a singing-man in the choir of Windsor. 
There happened a contest betwixt him and another of that so 
ciety, singing an anthem together to the Virgin Mary : Robert 
Philips on the one side of the choir, " O Redemtrix et Salvatrix \" 
Robert Testwood on the other side of the choir, " Non Redemtrix, 
nee Salvatrix." 

I know not which sung the deepest base, or got the better for 
the present. Sure I am that since by God s goodness the Nons 
dave drowned the Ohs in England. Testwood was also accused 
for dissuading people from pilgrimages, and for striking off the 
nose of the image of our Lady. 

3. Henry Fillmer, churchwarden of Windsor, who had arti 
cled against their superstitious vicar for heretical doctrine. 

These three were burnt together at Windsor, anno 1544 ; 
and when account was given of their patient death to king 
Henry the Eighth, sitting on horseback, the king turning the 
horse s head, said, " Alas, poor innocents ! " a better speech 
from a private person than a prince, bound by his place not 
only to pity but protect oppressed innocence. However, by 
this occasion other persecuted people were pardoned and pre 
served, of whom hereafter, under the ensuing title of Confessors. 

This storm of persecution thus happily blown over, Berkshire 

* Rom. xvi. 7. -f- Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 1211, &c. 



126 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

enjoyed peace and tranquillity for full twelve years together, 
viz. from the year of our Lord 1544 till 1556 ; when Dr. Jeffrey, 
the cruel chancellor of Salisbury, renewed the troubles at New- 
berry, and caused the death of 

JULIUS PALMER, (see his character, being born in Coven 
try, in Warwickshire) : JOHN GWIN : THOMAS ASKIIVE. These 
three, July 16, 1556, were burnt in a place nigh Newberry, 
called the Sandpits, enduring the pain of the fire with such in 
credible constancy, that it confounded their foes, and confirmed 
their friends in the truth.* 

CONFESSORS. 

JOHN MARBECK was an organist in the choir of Windsor? 
and very skilful therein ; a man of admirable industry aud inge 
nuity, who not perfectly understanding the Latin tongue, did 
out of the Latin, with the help of the English Bible, make an 
English Concordance, which bishop Gardiner himself could not 
but commend as a piece of singular industry : professing that 
there were no fewer than twelve learned men to make the 
first Latin Concordance. And king Henry the Eighth hearing 
thereof, said that " he was better employed than those priests 
which accused him." Let, therefore, our modern Concordances 
of Cotton, Newman, Bernard, &c., as children and grand-chil 
dren, do their duty to Marbeck s Concordance, as their parent 
at first endeavoured in our language. 

This Marbeck was a very zealous Protestant, and of so sweet 
and amiable nature, that all good men did love, and few bad 
men did hate, him. Yet was he condemned, anno 1544, on the 
statute of the Six Articles, to be burnt at Windsor, had not his 
pardon been procured, divers assigning divers causes thereof : 
1. That bishop Gardiner bare him a special affection for his skill 
in the mystery of music. 2. That such who condemned him 
procured his pardon out of remorse of conscience, because so 
slender the evidence against him; it being questionable whether 
his Concordance was made after the statute of the Six Articles 
or before it ; and if before, he was freed by the king s general 
pardon. 3. That it was done out of design to reserve him for 
a discovery of the rest of his party. If so, their plot failed them : 
for being as true as steel (whereof his fetters were made which 
he wore in prison for a good time), he could not be frighted 
or flattered to make any detection. 

Here a mistake was committed by Mr. Fox in his first edition, 
whereon the Papists much insult, making this Marbeck burnt 
at Windsor for his religion, with Anthony Persons, Robert Test- 
wood, and Henry Filmier. No doubt Mr. Fox rejoiced at his 
own mistake, thus far forth ; both for Marbeck s sake who es- 

* Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 1934. 



CONFESSORS CARDINALS. 127 

caped with his life, and his enemies,, who thereby drew the less 
guilt of blood on their own consciences. But hear what he 
pleads for his mistake : 

1. Marbeck was dead in law, as condemned; whereon his 
error was probably grounded. 2. He confessing that one of 
the four condemned was pardoned his life, misnaming him, Fill- 
mer instead of Marbeck. 3. Let Papists first purge their lying 
legend from manifest and intentional untruths, before they cen 
sure others for casual slips and unmeant mistakes. 4. Recog 
nizing his book in the next edition, he with blushing amended 
his error. And is not this penance enough, according to the 
principles of his accusers, confession, contrition, and satisfac 
tion? 

All this will not content some morose cavillers, whom I have 
heard jeeringly say, "that many who were burnt in Fox in the 
reign of queen Mary, drank sack in the days of queen Elizabeth. 
But enough is said to any ingenuous person. An d it is impos 
sible for any author of a voluminous book, consisting of several 
persons and circumstances (Reader, in pleading for Master Fox, 
I plead for myself) to have such ubiquitary intelligence, as to 
apply the same infallibly to every particular. When this Mar- 
beck died, is to me unknown ; he was alive at the second En 
glish edition of the Book of Martyrs, 1583 : thirty and nine 
years after the time of his condemnation. 

ROBERT BENET was a lawyer, living in Windsor, and a zea 
lous professor of the true religion. He drank as deep as any 
of the cup of affliction, and no doubt had been condemned with 
Testwood, Persons, and the rest, had he not at the same time 
been sick of the plague sore, in the prison of the Bishop of 
London, which proved the means of preservation.* Thus, "it 
is better to fall into the hands of God, than into the hands of 
men." And thus, as " out of the devourer came food, out of 
the destroyer came life ; " yea the plague sore proved a cordial 
unto him ; for, by the time that he was recovered thereof, a 
pardon was freely granted to him ; as also to Sir Thomas Car- 
dine, Sir Philip Hobby, (both of the king s privy chamber) with 
their ladies, and many more designed to death by crafty bishop 
Gardner, had not his majesty s mercy thus miraculously inter 
posed. 

CARDINALS. 

I have read of many, who would have been Cardinals, but 
might not. This county afforded one, who might have been 
one, but would not, viz. William Laud ; the place being no 
less freely proffered to than disdainfully refused by him, with 
words to this effect : " That the church of Rome must be much 

* Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 1220. 



128 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

mended, before he would accept any such dignity." An ex 
pression which in my mind amounted to the emphatical peri 
phrasis of Never. But we shall meet with him hereafter under 
a more proper topic. 

PRELATES. 

WILLIAM of READING, a learned Benedictine, employed by 
king Henry the Second in many embassies, and by him pre 
ferred Archbishop of Bourdeaux, where he died in the reign of 
king Richard the First.* 

[AMP.] JOHN DE BRADFIELD, sive de Lato-campo. Find 
ing fifteen villages of the name, I fixed his nativity at Bradfield 
in Berks, as (in my measuring) the nearest to Rochester, where 
he was chanter and bishop,t 1274. If mistaken, the matter is 
not much, seeing his surname is controverted, and otherwise 
written, JOHN DE HOE. However, being charactered " vir 
conversations honestse, decenter literatus, et in omnibus mori- 
geratus," I was desirous to crowd him into our book where I 
might with most probability. 

RICHARD BEAUCHAMP was brother, saith Bishop Godwin, 
to Walter Beauchamp (mistaken for William, as may appear 
by Mr. Camden %} Baron of St. Amand, whose chief habitation 
was at Wydehay in this county. He was bred Doctor in the 
Laws, and became bishop first of Hereford, then of Salisbury. 
He was Chancellor of the Garter, which office descended to his 
successors ; Windsor Castle, the seat of that order, being in 
the diocese of Salisbury. He built a most beautiful chapel (on 
the south side of St. Mary s Chapel) in his own Cathedral, 
wherein he lieth buried. His death happened anno Dom. 1482. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

THOMAS GODWIN was born at Oakingham in this county, 
and first bred in the free school therein. Hence he was sent 
to Magdalen College in Oxford, maintained there for a time by 
the bounty of Doctor Layton, Dean of York, till at last he was 
chosen fellow of the college. This he exchanged on some terms 
for the school-master s place of Berkley in Gloucestershire, where 
he also studied physic, which afterwards proved beneficial unto 
him, when forbidden to teach school, in the reign of queen 
Mary. Yea, Bonner threatened him with fire and faggot, which 
caused him often to obscure himself and remove his habitation. 
He was an eloquent preacher, tall and comely in person ; quali 
ties which much endeared him to queen Elizabeth, who loved 

* Matth. Westm. in Flor. Hist. 

t Bishop Godwin, in his Bishops of Rochester. 

J In his Britannia, in this county. 

Francis Godwin, his son, in his catalogue of the Bishops of Bath and Wells. 



PRELATES. 129 

good parts well, but better when in a goodly person. For 18 years 
together he never failed to be one of the select chaplains which 
preached in the Lent before her Majesty. He was first dean 
of Christ Church in Oxford, then dean of Canterbury, and at 
last bishop of Bath and Wells. 

Being infirm with age, and diseased with the gout, he was 
necessitated, for a nurse, to marry a second \vife, a matron of 
years proportionable to himself. But this was by his court ene 
mies (which no bishop wanted in that age) represented to the 
queen, to his great disgrace. Yea, they traduced him to have 
married a girl of twenty years of age, until the good earl of 
Bedford, casually present at such discourse ; " Madam/ said he 
to her Majesty, (i I. know not how much the woman is above 
twenty ; but I know a son of hers is but little under forty."* 

Being afflicted with a quartern fever, he was advised by his 
physicians to retire into this county, to Oakingham, the place 
of his birth, seeing in such cases native air may prove cordial 
to patients, as mothers milk to (and old men are twice) children. 
Here he died (breathing his first and last in the same place,) 
November 19, 1590 ; and lieth buried under a monument in the 
south side of the chancel. 

THOMAS RAM ME was born at Windsor in this county, and 
admitted in King s College in Cambridge, anno Dom. 1588 : 
whence he was made chaplain first to Robert earl of Essex, 
then to Charles Lord Mountjoy, both lord lieutenants in Ire 
land. After many mediate preferments, he was made bishop 
of Femes and Laghlin in that kingdom, both which he peace 
ably enjoyed in the year 1628.f 

WILLIAM LAUD was born at Reading in this county, of ho-- 
nest parentage, bred in St. John s College in Oxford, whereof 
he became president : successively bishop of St. David s, Bath 
and Wells, London, and at last archbishop of Canterbury. 
One of low stature, but high parts ; piercing eyes, cheerful coun 
tenance, wherein gravity and pleasantness were well compound 
ed ; admirable in his naturals, unblameable in his morals, be 
ing very strict in his conversation. Of him I have written in 
my " Ecclesiastical History : " though I confess it was some 
what too soon for one with safety and truth to treat of such a 
subject. Indeed I could instance in some kind of coarse veni 
son, not fit for food when first killed ; and therefore cunning 
cooks bury it for some hours in the earth, till the rankness 
thereof being mortified thereby, it makes most palatable meat. 
So the memory of some persons newly deceased are neither fit 
for a writer s or reader s repast, until some competent time 

Sir John Harrington, in his additional supply to Bishop Godwin, p. 115. 
) Sir James Ware, de Prsesulibus Lageniac. 

VOL. I. K 



150 AVORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

after their interment. However, I am confident that impartial 
posterity, on a serious review of all passages, will allow his name 
to be reposed amongst the heroes of our nation, seeing such as 
behold his expense on St. Paul s as but a cipher, will assign 
his other benefactions a very valuable signification ; viz. his 
erecting and endowing an almshouse in Reading, his increasing 
of Oxford library with books, and St. John s College with beau 
tiful buildings.* He was beheaded Jan. 10, 1644. 

STATESMEN. 

Sir JOHN MASON, knight, was born at Abingdon (where he 
is remembered among the benefactors to the beautiful alms- 
houses therein), bred in All-souls in Oxford. King Henry the 
Eighth, coming thither, was so highly pleased with an oration 
Mr. Mason made unto him, that he instantly gave order for his 
education beyond the seas, as confident he would prove an able 
minister of state. This was the politic discipline of those days, 
to select the pregnancies of either universities, and breed them 
in foreign parts for public employments. He was privy coun 
cillor to king Henry the Eighth and king Edward the Sixth. 
One maketh him his secretary of state,t which some suspect too 
high ; another, but master of the requests, J which I believe as 
much beneath him. He continued councillor to queen Mary, 
and queen Elizabeth, to whom he was treasurer of the house 
hold, and chancellor of the University of Oxford. Mr. Camden 
gives him this true character, " Vir fuit gravis, atque eruditus " 
which I like much better than that which followeth, so far as 
I can understand it : " Ecclesiasticorum || beneficiorum incuba 
tor maximus." Surely he could be no canonical incumbent in 
any benefice, not being in orders, which leaveth him under the 
suspicion of being a great engrosser of long leases in church- 
livings, which then used to be let for many years, a pitiful pen 
sion being reserved for the poor curate : though possibly in his 
younger time he might have tonsuram primam, or be a deacon, 
which (improved by his great power) might qualify, at least 
countenance, him for the holding of his spiritual promotions. 
He died 1566, and lieth buried in the choir of St. Paul s (over 
against William Herbert, first earl of Pembroke) ; and I re 
member this distich of his long epitaph : 

Tempore quinque tuo regnanles online vidit, 
Horum a consiliis quatuor illefuit. 

He saw five princes, which the sceptre bore ; 
Of them, was privy-councillor to four." 

* Mr. Gutch, in his History of the Colleges in Oxford, mentions Laud s legacy to 
this College of " 500/. to be laid out in lands ; besides what he had before laid out 
in building, and other matters." ED. 

f Sir John Hayward, in his Edward the Sixth, p. 105. 

t Stow s Annals. Edward VI. p. 612. 

Camden, Elizabeth, anno 1566, suhji.nem. 

II These words are absurdly rendered by Abraham Darcy (who understood not 



SOLDIERS. 131 

It appears by his epitaph, that he left no child of his own 
body, but adopted his nephew to be his son and heir. 

Sir THOMAS SMITH, knight, was born at Abingdon, bred in 
the university of Oxford. God and himself raised him to the 
eminency he attained unto, unbefriended with any extraction. 
He may seem to have had an ingenuous emulation of Sir Tho 
mas Smith, senior, secretary of state, whom he imitated in many- 
good qualities , j and had no doubt equalled him in preferment, 
if not prevented by death. He attained only to be master of 
the Requests, and secretary to king James for his Latin letters ; 
higher places expecting him, when a period was put to his life, 
November 28, 1609. He lieth buried in the church of Fulham, 
in Middlesex, under a monument erected by his lady, Frances, 
daughter to William Lord Chandos, and afterwards countess of 
Exeter. 

SOLDIERS. 

HENRY UMPTOX, knight, was born (as by all indications in 
the Heralds Office doth appear) at Wadley, in this county. He 
was son to Sir Edward Umpton, by Anne (the relic of John 
Dudley, earl of Warwick, and) the eldest daughter of Edward 
Seymour, duke of Somerset. He was employed by queen 
Elizabeth ambassador into France, where he so behaved himself 
right stoutly in her behalf, as may appear by this particular. 

In the month of March, anno 1592, being sensible of some 
injury offered by the duke of Guise to the honour of the queen 
of England, he sent him this ensuing challenge.* 

" Forasmuch as lately, in the lodging of my lord Du Mayne, 
and in public elsewhere, impudently, indiscreetly, and over- 
boldly, you spoke badly of my sovereign, whose sacred person 
here in this country I represent : to maintain both by word and 
weapon her honour (which never was called in question among 
people of honesty and virtue) ; I say you have wickedly lied, in 
speaking so basely -of my sovereign ; and you shall do nothing 
else but lie, whensoever you shall dare to tax her honour. 
Moreover that her sacred person (being one of the most com 
plete and virtuous princesses that lives in this world) ought not 
to be evil-spoken of by the tongue of such a perfidious traitor 
to her law and country as you are. And hereupon I do defy 
you, and challenge your person to mine, with such manner of 
arms as you shall like or choose, be it either on horseback or on 
foot. Nor w r ould I have you to think any inequality of person 
between us, I being issued of as great a race and noble house 
(every way) as yourself. So, assigning me an indifferent place, 
I will there maintain my words, and the lie which I gave you, 

Latin, and translated Camden out of the French translation), " He was diligent 
and careful to the preservation of benefits." 

Exemplified in Mills s " Catalogue of Honour," in the edition of royal paper, 
in the list of the Earls of Warwick. 

K 2 



132 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

and which you should not endure if you have any courage at all 
in you. If you consent not to meet me hereupon, I will hold 
you, and cause you to be generally held, for the arrantest coward 
and most slanderous slave that lives in all France. I expect 
your answer/ 5 

I find not what answer was returned. This Sir Henry, dying 
in the French king s camp before Lofear, had his corpse brought 
over to London, and carried in a coach to Wadley, thence to 
Faringdon, where he was buried in the church on Tuesday the 
8th of July, 1596. He had allowed him a baron s hearse, be 
cause dying ambassador leigier.* 

WRITERS. 

[S.N.] HUGH of READING quitted his expectancies of a 
fair estate, and, sequestering himself from worldly delights, em 
braced a monastical life, till at last he became abbot of Reading. 
Such who suspect his sufficiency will soon be satisfied, when 
they lead the high commendation which Petrus Blesensis, arch 
deacon of Bath (one of the greatest scholars of that age) 
bestoweth upon him. He wrote a book (of " No Trivial Ques 
tions") fetched out of the Scripture itself; the reason why 
J. Balef (generally a back-friend to monks) hath so good a cha 
racter for him, who flourished anno Dom. 1180. 

ROGER of WINDSOR! was undoubtedly born in this town ; 
otherwise he would have been called Roger of St. Alban s, be 
ing chanter in that convent. Now in that age monks were 
reputed men of best learning and most leisure ; the cause why 
our English kings always chose one of their order (who passed 
by the name of Historwus Ret/ius, the king s historian) to write 
the remarkable passages of his time. Our Roger was by king 
Henry the Third selected for that service, and performed it to 
his own great credit and the contentment of others. He flou 
rished in the year of our Lord 1235. 

ROBERT RICH, son to Edward and Mabell his wife, brother 
of St. Edmund, archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Abing- 
don in this county. He followed his brother at very great 
distance both in parts and learning (though accompanying 
him in his travels beyond the seas), and wrote a book of the 
Life, Death, and Miracles of his brother, being much to blame 
if he did not do all right to so near a relation. He died about 
the year of our Lord 1250. 

RICHARD of WALLINGFORD was born in that market-tow r n, 

* Funerals by Lee, Clarencieux, marked fol. 45. 
t De Script. Brit. Cent. 3. num. 20. 

i I vehemently suspect this man, merely made by the mistake of Pitseus (anno 
1235), for Roger Wendovcr. 



WRITERS. 133 

pleasantly seated on the river Thames, wherein his father was a 
blacksmith. He went afterwards to Oxford,, and was bred in 
Merton College ; then a monk ; and at last abbot of St. Alban s, 
where he became a most expert mathematician, especially for 
the mechanical part thereof, and (retaining somewhat of his 
father s trade) was dexterous at making pretty engines and in 
struments. 

His masterpiece w r as a most artificial clock, made (saith my 
author*) magno labore, majore sumptu, arte vero maxima, (with 
much pain, more cost, and most art.) It remained in that mo 
nastery in the time of John Bale (whom by his w r ords I collect an 
eye-witness thereof) ; affirming that Europe had not the like ; 
so that it seemed as good as the famous clock at Strasburg in 
Germany ; and in this respect better, because ancienter. It was 
a calendar as well as a clock, shewing the fixed stars and pla 
nets, the ebbing and flowing of the sea, minutes of the hours 
and what not ? 

I have heard that when monopolies began to grow common 
in the court of France, the king s iester moved to have this 
monopoly for himself, viz. a gardcsque of every one who carried 
a watch about him, and cared not how he employed his time. 
Surely the monks of Saint Alban s were concerned to be careful 
how they spent their hours, seeing no convent in England had 
the like curiosity ; this their clock gathering up the least crumb 
of time, presenting the minutary fractions thereof ; on which 
account, I conceive Richard the maker thereof well prepared for 
the time of his dissolution, when he died of the leprosy, anno 
Dom. 1326. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

[AMP.] HENRY BULLOCK was most probably born in this 
county, where his ancient name appears in a worshipful estate. 
He was bred fellow and doctor of divinity in Queen s College in 
Cambridge, a good linguist, and general scholar, familiar with 
Erasmus (an evidence of his learning, it being as hard to halt 
before a cripple, as to deceive his judgment) calling him Bo- 
villum in his epistles unto him. 

By the way, our English writers, when rendering a surname in 
Latin, which hath an appellative signification, content them to 
retain the body of the name, and only disguise the termination ; 
as Cross, Peacok, Crossus, Peacocus, &c. But the Germans, 
in such a case, do use to mould the meaning of the name, either 
into Latin ; as J. Fierce they translate J. Ferus ; Bullock, Bo- 
villus ; or into Greek, as Swarts they render Melancthon ; 
Peecklin, Capnio. 

Tis confessed our Bullock, compelled by Cardinal Wolsey, 
wrote against Luther ;t but otherwise his affections were biassed 
to the Protestant party. The date of his death is unknown. 

* Bale, de Script. Brit. Cent. 5. num. 19. f Idem. 9. num. 7. 



134 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

WILLIAM Twis was born at Spene in this county, which 
was an ancient Roman city, mentioned by Antonine in his 
Itinerary by the name of Spina.* This mindeth me of a passage 
in Clemens Alexandrinus,t speaking of sanctified afflictions; 
" Nos quidem e spinis uvas colligimus." And here, in another 
sense, God s church gathered grapes ; this good man out of this 
thorny place. Hence he was sent by Winchester School to 
New College in Oxford, and there became a general scholar. 
His plain preaching was good, solid disputing better, pious living 
best of all. He afterwards became preacher in the place of his 
nativity (Spinham lands is part of Newberry) ; and though ge 
nerally our Saviour s observation is verified, " A prophet is not 
without honour save in his own country }y (chiefly because " mi 
nutiae omnes pueritias ejus ibi sunt cognitee,") yet here he met 
with deserved respect. Here he laid a good foundation ; and 
the more the pity, if since some of his fanciful auditors have 
built hay and stubble thereupon. And no wonder if this good 
doctor toward his death was slighted by secretaries, it being 
usual for new-lights to neglect those who have borne the heat of 
the day. His Latin works give great evidence of his abilities 
in controversial matters. He was chosen prolocutor in the 
late assembly of divines, w r herein his moderation was very much 
commended; and dying in Holborn, he was buried at West 
minster, anno Dom. 164 . 

WILLIAM LYFORD was born at Peysmer in this county, and 
bred in Magdalen College, in Oxford, where he proceeded bache 
lor of divinity 1631. He was also a fellow of that foundation, 
on the same token that his conscience post factum was much 
troubled about his resigning his place for money to his succes 
sor, but (as his friends have informed me) he before his death 
took order for the restitution thereof. 

The modesty of his mind was legible in the comeliness of his 
countenance, and the meekness of his spirit visible in his courteous 
carriage. He was afterwards fixed at Sherborne, in Dorset 
shire, where his large vineyard required such an able and pain 
ful vine dresser. Here he laid a good foundation (before the 
beginning of our civil wars) with his learned preaching and 
catechising; and indeed, though sermons give most sail to 
men s souls, catechising layeth the best ballas.t in them, keeping 
them steady from "being carried away with every wind of doc 
trine," Yet he drank a deep draught of the bitter cup with the 
rest of his brethren, and had his share of obloquy from such 
factious persons as could not abide the wholesome words of 
sound doctrine. But their candle (without their repentance) 
shall be put out in darkness, whilst his memory shall shine in 

* Camden s Britannia, in Berkshire. 

"f Lib. 2. Padagogi ; rjij.il; fj.lt/ It- ixscvJu v rpvyu ftw ffry^v). ^. 



WRITERS BENEFACTORS. 135 

his learned works he hath left behind him. He died about the 
year of our Lord 1652. 

ROMISH EXILE WRITERS. 

THOMAS HYDE was born at Newberry, in this county, and 
bred a Master of Arts in New College in Oxford :* he was after 
wards canon of Winchester, and chief master of the school 
therein. He, with John Martial, the second master, about the 
beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth, left both their school 
and their land, living long beyond the seas. This Hyde is 
charactered by one of his own persuasion " to be a man of 
upright life, of great gravity and severity ."t He wrote a book 
of consolation to his fellow-exile ; and died anno Dom. 1597. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

ALFRED, the fourth son to king Athelwolf, was born at 
Wantage, a market-town in this county ; J an excellent scholar, 
though he was past twelve years of age before he knew one 
letter in the book. And did not he run fast, who starting so 
late came soon to the mark ? He was a curious poet, excellent 
musician, a valiant and successful soldier, who fought seven 
battles against the Danes in one year, and at last made them 
his subjects by conquest, and God s servants by Christianity. 
He gave the first institution, or (as others will have it) the best 
instauration, to the university of Oxford. A prince who can 
not be painted to the life without his loss, no words reaching 
his worth. 

He divided, 1. Every natural day (as to himself) into three 
parts ; eight hours for his devotion, eight hours for his employ 
ment, eight hours for his sleep and refection. 2. His revenues 
into three parts ; one for his expences in war, a second for the 
maintenance of his court, and a third to be spent on pious 
uses. 3. His land into thirty-two shires, which number since 
is altered and increased. 4. His subjects into hundreds and 
tithings, consisting of ten persons, mutually pledges for their 
good behaviour ; such being accounted suspicious for their life 
and loyalty that could not give such security. 

He left learning, where he found ignorance ; justice, where 
he found oppression ; peace, where he found distraction. And, 
having reigned about four and thirty years, he died, and was 
buried at Winchester, anno 901. He loved religion more than 
superstition, favoured learned men more than lazy monks ; 
which, perchance, was the cause that his memory is not loaden 
with miracles, and he not solemnly sainted with other Saxon 
kings who far less deserved it. 

" Register of New College, anno 1543. f Pits, de Script. Brit, anno 1597 

J Camden, Britannia, in Berkshire. 

Mr. Selden, in his notes on Polyolbyon, page 192. 



136 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 



SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

PETER CHAPMAN was born at Cokeham, in this county, bred 
an ironmonger in London, and at his death bequeathed five 
pounds a year to two scholars in Oxford; as much to two in 
Cambridge ; and five pounds a year to the poor in the town of 
his nativity ; besides threescore pounds to the prisons in Lon 
don, and other benefactions.* The certain date of his death 
is to me unknown, 

JOHN KENDRICK was born at Reading in this county, and 
bred a draper in the city of London. His state may be com 
pared to the mustard-seed, very little at the beginning, but 
growing so great, that the birds made nests therein ;t r rather 
he therein made nests for many birds, which otherwise, being 
either unfledged or maimed, must have been exposed to wind 
and weather. 

The worthiest of David s Worthies were digested into ter- 
nions, and they again subdivided into two ranks. J If this dou 
ble dichotomy were used to methodize our Protestant benefactors 
since the Reformation, sure I am that Mr. Kendrick will be (if 
not the last of the first) the first of the second three. His cha 
rity began at his kindred ; proceeded to his friends and servants 
(to whom he left large legacies) ; concluded with the poor, on 
whom he bestowed above twenty thousand pounds : Reading 
and Newberry sharing the deepest therein. And if any 
envious and distrustful miser (measuring other men s hearts by 
the narrowness of his own) suspecteth the truth hereof, and if he 
dare hazard the smarting of his bleared eyes to behold so bright 
a sun of bounty, let him consult his will publicly in print. He 
departed this life on the 30th day of September, 1624 ; and 
lies buried in St. Christopher s, London ; to the curate of which 
parish he gave twenty pounds per annum for ever. 

[S. N.] RICHARD WIGHTWICK, bachelor of divinity, was rec 
tor of East Ilsley in this county. What the yearly value of his 
living was I know not, and have cause to believe it not very 
great. However, one would conjecture his benefice a bishopric, 
by his bounty to Pembroke College in Oxford, to which he gave 
one hundred pounds per annum, to the maintenance of three 
fellows and four scholars. When he departed this life, is to me 
unknown. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

THOMAS COLE, commonly called the rich clothier of Reading. 
Tradition and an authorless pamphlet make him a man of vast 

* Stow s Survey of London, page 98. f Matth. xiii. 32. 

I 2 Sam. xxiii. 19. Stow s Survey of London, p. 193. 



MEMORABLE PERSONS LORD MAYORS. 137 

wealth, maintaining an hundred and forty menial servants in his 
house, besides three hundred poor people whom he set on 
work ; insomuch that his wains with cloth filled the highway 
betwixt Reading and London,, to the stopping of king Henry 
the First in his progress ; who notwithstanding (for the encou 
raging of his subjects industry) gratified the said Cole, and all 
of his profession, with the set measure of a yard, the said king 
making his own arm the standard thereof, whereby drapery was 
reduced in the meting thereof to a greater certainty. 

The truth is this; monks began to lard the lives of their 
saints with lies, whence they proceeded in like manner to 
flourish out the facts of famous knights (king Arthur, Guy of 
Warwick, &c.) ; in imitation whereof some meaner wits in the 
same sort made description of mechanics, powdering their lives 
with improbable passages, to the great prejudice of truth ; seeing 
the making of broad-cloth in England could not be so ancient, 
and it was the arm (not of king Henry) but king Edward the 
First, which is notoriously known to have been the adequation 
of a yard. 

However, because omnis fabula fundatur in Historia, let this 
Cole be accounted eminent in this kind ; though I vehemently 
suspect very little of truth would remain in the midst of this 
story, if the gross falsehoods were pared from both sides thereof. 

JOHN WINSCOMBE, called commonly Jack of Newberry, 
was the most considerable clothier (without fancy and fiction) 
England ever beheld. His looms were his lands, whereof he 
kept one hundred in his house, each managed by a man and 
a boy. In the expedition to Flodden-field, against James king 
of Scotland, he marched with an hundred of his own men (as 
well armed and better clothed than any), to shew that the pain 
ful to use their hands in peace, could be valiant, and employ 
their arms in war. He feasted king Henry the Eighth and his 
first queen Katharine at his own house, extant at Newberry at 
this day, but divided into many tenements. Well may his 
house now make sixteen clothiers houses, whose wealth would 
amount to six hundred of their estates. He built the church of 
Newberry from the pulpit westward to the tower inclusively ; 
and died about the year 1520; some of his name and kindred 
of great wealth still remaining in this county. 

LORD MAYORS. 

1. John Parveis, son of John Parveis, of Erlgeston, fish 
monger, 1432. 

2. Nicholas Wyfold, son of Thomas Wyfold, of Hertley, 
grocer, 1450. 

3. William Webbe, son of John Webbe, of Reading, salter, 
1591. 



138 



WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 



4. Thomas Bennet, son of Thomas Bennet, of Wallingford, 
mercer, 1603. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING HENRY 

THE SIXTH, 1433. 

Robert bishop of Sarum, and William Lovel, Chivaler, Com 
missioners to take the oaths. 

Robert Shotsbroke, and William Fyndern, knights for the 
shire. 

Johan. Prendegest, Preeceptor Thomas Lanyngton. 
Hospitalis St. Johan. Jerus. Thomas Denton. 



in AngM, de Grenham. 
Johannis Golefre, armigeri. 
Williemi Warbelton, arm. 
Willielmi Danvers, arm. 
Johannis Shotesbrooke, arm. 
Thomas Foxle, arm. 
Philippi Inglefeld. arm. 
Thomas Rothewellj arm. 
Willielmi Perkyns, arm. 
Thomas Drewe, arm. 
Richardi Ristwold, arm. 
Richardi Makeney, arm. 
Johannis Rogers, arm. 
Willielmi Stanerton, arm. 
Willielmi Floyer, arm. 
Thomae Bullok, arm. 
Richardi Bullok, arm. 
Johannis Estbury, arm. 
Johannis Kentwode, arm. 
Richardi Hulcote, arm. 
Johannis Gargrave, arm. 
Johannis Chaumpe, arm. 
Willielmi Baron, arm. 
Willielmi Fitzwaryn, arm. 
Johannis Stowe. 
Willielmi Hales. 
Johannis Hyde. 
Johan. Stokys de Brympton. 
Willielmi Fachell. 
Roberti Vobe. 
Thomee Pynchepolc. 
Johannis Yorke. 
Johannis Ildesle. 
Thomas Ildesle. 
Johannis Colle. 
Richardi Wydeford. 
Richardi Abberbury. 



Nicholai Whaddon. 

Petri Delamare. 

Johannis Martyn. 

Thomae Frankeleyn. 

Willielmi Felyce. 

Richardi Hamwell. 

Roberti Wodecok. 

Johannis Warvyle. 

Johannis Rokys. 

Johannis Seward. 

Willielmi Walrond. 

Johannis Medeford. 

Rogeri Merlawe. 

Willielmi Latton. 

Richardi Shayle. 

Thomae Coterell. 

Johannis George, 

Johannis Sewalle. 

Johannis Sturmy, 

Thomas Hammes. 

Johannis Wering. 

Roberti Beche. 

Johannis Coventre. 

Johannis Lokwode. 

Johannis Fitzwarwin. 

Henrici Samon. 

Thomas Plesance. 

Edwardi Gybbes. 

Will. Coke de Kingeston Lyle. 

Johannis Firry. 

Nicholai Hunt, 

Hugonis Mayne. 

Willielmi Newman senioris. 

Davidis Gower. 

Johannis Dienys. 

Richardi Dancastre. 

Willielmi Drew de Hungforcl. 



GENTRY. 



139 



Johannis Parker de Doington. 

Willielmi Standard. 

Richardi Collis. 

Nicholai Long. 

Roberti Chevayn. 

Richardi Walker. 

Walteri Canonn, de Crokeham 

Parke. 

Roberti Rove de Abendon. 
Johannis Richby de Reding. 
Johannis Stokes de Abendon. 
Johannis Whitwey. 
Willielmi Umfray. 
Simonis Kent. 
Johannis Hatter. 
Willielmi Brusele. 
Richardi Irmonger. 
Richardi Vayre. 
Gilbert! Holeway. 
Johannis London. 
Willielmi Pleystow. 
Johannis Bancbury. 
Thomee Liford. 
Henrici Ildesle. 
Johannis Chebeyn. 
Johannis Mortymer. 
Johannis Spynache. 
Johannis Moyn de Faryndon. 
Johannis Ely. 
Johannis Goddard. 
Willielmi Ditton. 
Walteri Sutton. 
Nicholai Barbour. 
Willielmi Jacob. 
Johannis Benet de Newberry. 
Johannis Magot. 
Willielmi Croke de Newberry. 
Willielmi Clement. 
Johannis Moyn de Moryton. 
Roberti Freman. 
Johannis Lewes. 
Thomee Steward. 
Willielmi Sydmanton. 
Richardi Waltham. 
Johannis Babeham. 
Johannis Clere. 
Johannis Botele de Newberry. 
Richardi Meryvale. 
Willielmi Walevs. 



Johannis Beneton. 
Willielmi Croke de Welford. 
Willielmi Charectour. 
Willielmi Hertrugge. 
Johannis Kybe. 
Willielmi Wylton. 
Richardi Coterell. 
Laurent!! Alisandre. 
Thomee Bevar. 
Vincentii Bertilmewe. 
Johannis Pynkeney. 
Thomas Attevyne. 
Johannis Crouchfeld. 
Johannis Smewyn. 
Johannis Sifrewast. 
Johannis Batell. 
Johannis Bythewode. 
Thomee Bo well. 
Thomee Hony. 
Walter! Waryn. 
Johannis Yernemouth. 
Henrici Russell. 
Roberti Ivenden. 
Henrici Berkesdale. 
Johannis Absolon. 
Johannis Berkesdale. 
Johannis Clerk de Inkpenny. 
Richardi Bertlot. 
Gilbert! CohenhulL 
Gilbert! Vyell. 
Gilbert! Attewyke. 
Richardi Attepitte. 
Thomse Padbury. 
Hugonis Rose. 
Johannis Woderove. 
Thomee Pert. 
Johannis Merston. 
Richardi Grove. 
Rogeri Burymill. 
Thomae Grece. 
Richardi Pekke. 
Richardi Mullyng, 

o 

Johan. Parker de Vv ukingham. 

Johannis Whitede. 

Johan. Sherman de Wyndesor. 

Willielmi Wodyngton. 

Rogeri Felter. 

Willielmi Felde. 

Johannis Billesbv. 



110 WORTHIES -OF BERKSHIRE. 

Johannis Gunter. Richard! Rissul. 

Johannis Glover. Johannis Yatynden. 

Richardi Atteforde. J ohannis Kete. 

Johannis Stacy. Johannis Pernecote. 

Johannis Baron deWytenham. Rogeri Gunter. 

Johannis Horwode. Thomse Swyer. 

Willielmi More. Richardi Bocher de Thacham. 

Willielmi At-mille. Johannis Elys de Thacham. 

Henrici de la River. Thomse Mery. 

Johannis Poting. Richardi Phelipp. 

Henrici Brown. Johannis Thoursey, and 

Johannis Brown. Johannis Bassemore. 

Gardeners complain that some kind of flowers and fruits will 
not grow prosperously and thrive kindly in the suburbs of Lon 
don. This they impute to the smoke of the City, offensive there 
unto. Sure I am that ancient gentry in this county, sown thick 
in former, come up thin in our, age. 

Anliqua e multis nomina pauca manent. 

" Of names which were in days of yore, 
Few remain here of a great store. 

I behold the vicinity of London as the cause thereof: for though 
Berkshire be conveniently distanced thence (the nearest place 
sixteen, the farthest sixty miles from the same), yet the goodness 
of the ways thither, and sweetness of the seats there (not to speak 
of the river Thames, which uniteth both in commerce) setteth 
Berkshire really nearer than it is locally to London ; the cause, 
I believe, that so few families remain of the forenamed cata 
logue. 

The paucity of them maketh such as are extant the more re 
markable ; amongst whom William Fachel, or Vachel (the 29th 
in number), was right ancient, having an estate in and about 
Reading, as by the ensuing deed will appear : 

" Sciant presentes et futuri, quod ego Joannes Vachel dedi, 
concessi, et hac present! charta mea confirmavi Rogero le Dub- 
bare, pro servicio suo, et pro quadam summa pecunie quam 
mihi dedit primo in manibus, totum et integrum illud tenemen- 
tum, cum pertinentiis suis, quod habui in veteri vico Rading, inter 
tenementum quod quondam fuit Thome Goum in parte Boreali, 
et tenementum quod quondam fuit Jordani le Dubbar in parte 
Australi, habend. et tenend. dicto Rogero, et heredibus suis vel 
assignatis, liber e, quiete, integre, in bona pace, in perpetuum, 
de capitalibus dominis illius feodi, per servicium inde debitum 
et consuetum; reddendo inde annuatim mihi, et heredibus vel 
assignatis meis, duos solidos et sex denarios, ad festum Sancti 
Michaelis, pro omni servicio seculari, exactione, et demanda. 
Et ergo predictus Johannes, et heredes mei, vel mei assignati, 
totum predictum tenementum, cum omnibus suis pertinentiis, 
dicto Rogero, et heredibus vel assignatis suis, warrantizabimus, 
et contra omnes gentes defenclemus in perpetuum, per servitium 



SHERIFFS. 



141 



predictum. In cujus rei testimonium, present! charte sigillum 
meum apposui. Hiis testibus ; Radulpho de la Batili, Thonia 
de Lecester, Nicliolao Bastat, Waltero Gerard, Roberto le Taylur, 
Johanne le Foghel, Bardolpho le Foghellar, Gilberto de Heg- 
feild, et aliis. Dat. apud Rading, duodecimo die Februarii, anno 
regni regis Edwardi filii regis Henrici vicesimo nono." 

The descendants of this name are still extant in this county, 
at Coley, in a worshipful condition. 



SHERIFFS. 



Anciently this county had sometimes the same, sometimes a 
distinct sheriff from Oxfordshire, as by the ensuing catalogue 
will appear, so well as we can distinguish them. 



HEXRY II. 



Of Berkshire. 



Of both. 



Of Oxfordshire. 



ANNO 



ANNO 



Willielm. de Pontearch 
Richardus de Charvill. 
Gilbertus de Pinchigen. 



1 
2 

3 

4 

5 Gulielmus Pinchigen. 

6 

7 Richard. Lucy. 

8 Adam, le Cadinus. 

9 Adam, de Catmer. 
10 Idem. 

11 
12 
13 
14 
15 



1 

2 
3 
4 
5 
6 

7 

8 

9 

10 



Restoldas. 
Henr. de Oille. 
Henricus de Oille. 

* 

Henricus de Oile. 

Manassar Arsic. 

Idem. 

Idem. 
Thomas Basset. 



Adam, de 
Idem. 
Idem. 
Idem. 
Idem. 



Catmer. 



16 
17 

18 
19 



Hugo de Bockland. 



Idem. 
Idem. 
Idem. & H. de Bockland. 



20 Hugo de Bockland. 

21 Idem. 

22 Idem. 

23 Hugo. 

24 Idem. 

25 Hugo de S to Germano. 

26 Idem. 

27 Idem. 

28 Idem. 

29 Idem. 

30 Idem. 



16 Adam. Banaster. 

17 Idem. 

18 Idem. 

19 Idem. 

20 Alard. Banaster. 

21 Idem. 

22 Rob. de Tun-ill. 

23 Idem. 

24 Idem. 

25 Idem. 

26 Galf. Hose. 

27 Galf. Hosatts. 

28 Idem. 

29 Rob. Witefield. 

30 Idem. 



142 



WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 



Of Berkshire. 

ANNO. 

31 Hugo de S to Germano. 

32 

33 Rogerus films Renfr. 



Of both. Of Oxfordshire. 

ANNO. 

31 Alan, de Furnell. 

32 Idem. 

33 Idem. 



1 Rob. fil. Renfr. 



7 Willielmus filius Rad. 

8 Philippus filius Rob. 
Alan, de Marton. 

9 Philip, filius Rob. 
Alan, de Man ton. 

10 Stephan. de Turnham. 
Johannes de Ferles. 



RICHARD I. 

1 Rob. de la Mara. 

2 Robertus de la Mara. 

3 Willielmus Briewere. 

4 Idem. 

5 Idem. 

6 Idem. 

7 Henricus de Oille. 

8 Henr. de Oille, and 
Pag. de Chaderington. 

9 Hugo de Nevill. - 
Galf. de Savage. 

10 Hugo, de Nevill. 
Galfr. de Salvage. 



JOHANNES. 



1 Stephan. de Turnham. 
Johannes *de Ferles. 

2 Gilbert. Basset. 
Richard. Caverton. 

3 Will. Briewere. 



1 Hugo de Nevill. 
Galfr. Slavagius. 

2 Rob. de Cantelu. 
Fulk. de Contelu. 
Nich. de Kent. 

3 Will. Briewere, and 
Rich, de Parco. 

5 Jo. de Wickeneholt, jun. 

6 Thorn. Banaster. 



5 Hubert, de Burgo. 
6 

7 Rich, de Tus. 

8 Tho. Basset. 

9 Rob. de Amnari. 

Richardus de Tus. 10 Tho. Basset. 

Robert de Magre. 11 Idem. 

Joan, de Wikenholton. 12 Idem, and Rob. de Magre. 

Idem. 13 Idem. 

14 Johan. de Wikenholton. 
Johan. de Wikenholton. 15 Tho. Basset. 

Rob. e Magre. 
16 Tho. Basset. 
Rich. Letus. 
17 Johan. de Wikenholton. 



10 
11 
12 
13 

15 



16 Idem. 



1 

2 Richardus filius Reg. 
Hen. de Saio. 

3 Idem. 



HENRY III. 

1 
2 



Fulco de Breantee. 
Rad. de Bray. 
Idem. 



SHERIFFS. 143 

Of Berkshire, Of both. Of Oxfordshire. 

ANNO. ANNO. 

4 Henry cle Saio. 4 Rad. de Bray. 

5 Ideni, cum filiis Radulph. de Bray. 

6 Hen. de Saio. 6 Rad. de Bray. 

7 Idem. 7 Falkesius de Breantee. 

Ric. de Brakele. 

8 Fakesius de Breantee. 8 Ric. de Ripariis. 

9 Hen. de Saio. 9 Ric. de Brakele. 

10 Henricus de Saio. 

11 Hugo de Batonia. 11 Galfr. de Craucombe. 

Rob. de Haya. 

12 Hugo de Bada. 12 Phillippus de Albritaco. 

13 Rob. de Haya. 13 Galfr. de Craucombe. 

14 Hen. de Saio. 14 Idem. 

Rob. de Haya. 

Idem. 15 Uem. 

16 Idem. is Idem. 

17 Johan. de Hulcot. 

18 Rob. de Maplederham. 

19 Engelard de Cicomaco, 19 Johan. Bruus. 
Nich. de Hedington. 

20 Idem. 20 Idem. 

21 Rob. Bren. 21 Johan. de Thve. 

22 Simon de Lauchmore. 22 Idem. 

23 Idem. 23 Idem. 

24 Sim. de Lauchmore. 24 Johan. de Plesseto. 

Will. Hay. 

Idem. 25 Will. Hay. 

Idem. 26 Idem. 

27 Idem. 27 Idem. 

28 Alanus de Farnham. 28 Will. Hay. 

29 Idem. 29 Idem. 

SHERIFFS OF BERKSHIRE AXD OXFORDSHIRE. 

ANNO. HENRY III. ANNO. 

30 Aland, de Farnham. 50 John de S to Walerico. 

31 Idem. 51 Idem. 

32 Widom. filius Roberti. 52 Nich. de Wiffrewash. 

33 Idem. 53 Tho. de Sto Wi g0 re. 

34 Idem. 54 Idem. 

35 Nich. de Henred, for nine 55 Will, de Insula. 

years together. Rog. Epis. Cov. and Lich. 

44 Walter, de la Knivere. 56 Idem. 

Idem. EDWARD i. 

Idem. 1 Gilb. Kirkby. 

4/ Fulco de Kucot. 2 Idem. 

Idem. 3 Idem. 

49 John de S* Walerico. 4 Hen. de Shoctebroke. 



144 



WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 



ANNO. 

5 Hen. de Shoctebroke. 

6 Jacob, de Patebery. 

7 Hen. de Shoctebroke. 
Alanus filius Hoi. 

8 Idem. 

9 Jac. Croke. 

Job. de Ciidemers. 

10 Johan. de Cridemers. 

11 Idem. 

12 Idem. 

13 Johan. de Tudemers. 
Radul. de Beauyes. 

14 Radul. de Beauyes. 

15 Thorn, de Duners. 

16 Idem. 

17 Idem. 

18 Willielmus de Gresmull. 

19 Richar. de Wilniescote. 

20 Will, de Bremchele, for 

four years together. 
24 Hen. de Thistelden, for 

five years together. 
29 Nich. de Spershete, for 

seven years together. 

EDWARD II *. 

1 Tho. Danvers. 

2 Rich, de Ameray. 

3 Idem. 

4 Tho. Danvers. 

5 Idem. 

6 Idem. & Phil, de la Beach. 

7 Phil, de la Beach. 

8 Richar. de Windsor. 

9 Richar. de Poltiampton. 

10 Idem. 

1 1 Otvelus Pursell, & Richar. 

de la Bere. 

12 Richar. de la Bere, & Job. 

de Brumptoii. 

13 Johan. de Brumpton. 

14 Idem. 

15 Drogo Barentine, for five 

years together. 



ANNO. 



EDWARD III. 



1 Johan. de Brumpton. 

2 Idem. 

3 Johan. de Bockland. 

4 Philip, de la Beach. 

5 Rich, de Colshul. 

6 Idem. 

7 Johan. de Brumpton. 

8 Willielm. de Spershalt. 

9 Johan. de Alveton. 

10 Willielm. de Speshalt. 

11 Johan. de Alveton, for four 

years together. 

15 Edward, de Morlins. 

16 Robert. Fitz-Ellis. 

17 Johan. de Alveton, for five 

years together. 

22 Johannes Laundeles, for six 
years together. 

28 Johan. de Alveton. 
Richar. de Nowers. 

29 Johan. de Willamscot. 

30 Johan. Laundeles. 

31 Idem. 

32 Idem. 

33 Robert, de Moreton. 

34 Idem. 

35 Roger, de Elmerugg, 

36 Idem. 

37 Roger, de Cottesford. 

38 Idem. 

39 Idem. 

40 Roger, de Elmerugg,for three 

years together. 

43 Roger, de Cottesford. 

44 Tho. de la Mare. 

45 Idem. 

46 Gilbert. Wace. 

47 Roger de Elmer ugg. 

48 Johan. James. 

49 Gilbert. Wace. 

50 Regind. de Maliris. 

51 Johan. de RothwelL 



Reader, let me freely confess myself to thee, had I met with 
equal difficulty in the sheriffs of other counties as in this the 
first shire., it had utterly disheartened me from proceeding. 



SHERIFFS. 145 

The sheriffs of Berkshire and Oxfordshire are so indented, or 
(pardon the metaphor) so entangled with elflocks, I cannot comb 
them out. 

I will not say that I have done always right in dividing the 
sheriffs respectively; but have endeavoured my utmost; and 
may be the better believed, who in such a subject could meet 
with nothing to bribe or bias my judgment to partiality. 

Be it premised, that though the list of sheriffs be the most 
comprehensive catalogue of the English gentry, yet it is not 
exactly adequate thereunto : for I find in this county the family 
of the Pusays so ancient, that they were lords of Pusay (a vil 
lage nigh Faringdon) long before the Conquest, in the time of 
king Canutus, holding their lands by the tenure of cornage (as 
I take it) ; viz. by winding the horn which the king aforesaid 
gave their family, and which their posterity, still extant, at this 
day do produce.* Yet none of their name (though persons of 
regard in their respective generations) appear ever sheriffs of 
this county. 

I am glad of so pregnant an instance, and more glad that it 
so seasonably presenteth itself in the front of our work, to con 
fute their false logic, who will be ready to conclude negatively, 
for this our catalogue of sheriffs excluding them the lines of 
ancient gentry whose ancestors never served in this office. On 
the other side, no ingenuous gentleman can be offended with 
me if he find not his name registered in this roll, seeing it can 
not be in me any omission whilst I follow my commission, 
faithfully transcribing what I find in the Records. 

RICHARD I. 

3. WILLIELMUS BRIEWERE. He was so called (saith my 
author f) because his father was born upon an heath; though by 
the similitude of the name, one would have suspected him born 
among briers. But see what a poor man s child may come to. 
He was such a minion to this king Richard the First, that he 
created him Baron of Odcomb, in Somersetshire. Yea, when 
one Fulk Paynell was fallen into the king s displeasure, he gave 
this William Briewere the town of Bridgewater, to procure his 
reingratiating. His large inheritance (his son dying without 
issue) was divided amongst his daughters, married into the 
honourable families of Breos, Wake, Mohun, Lafert, and Percy. 

8. PIHLIPPUS filius ROBERTI. ALAx.de MARTOX. It is 
without precedent, that ever two persons held the shrievalty of 
one county jointly, or in co-partnership, London and Middlesex 
alone excepted, whereof hereafter. However, if two sheriffs 
appear in one year, as at this time and frequently hereafter, 

* Camdcn s Britannia, in this county. f Ibid, in Somersetshire. 

VOL. I. L 



14G WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

such duplication cometh to pass by one of these accidents : 
1. Amotion of the first, put out of his place for misdemeanor 
(whereof very rare precedents), and another placed in his room. 
2. Promotion. When the first is advanced to be a baron in 
the year of his shrievalty, and another substituted in his office. 
3. Mort. The former dying in his shrievalty, not privileged 
from such arrests to pay his debt to Nature. 

In these cases two, and sometimes three, are found in the 
same year, who successively discharged the office. But, if no 
such mutation happened, and yet two sheriffs be found in one 
year, then the second must be understood Sub-vice-comes (whom 
we commonly also call Mr. Sheriff, in courtesy), his deputy 
acting the affairs of the county under his authority. However, 
if he who is named in this our catalogue in the second place 
appear the far more eminent person, there the intelligent reader 
will justly suspect a transposition, and that by some mistake 
the deputy is made to precede him whom he only represented. 

Be it here observed, that the place of under-sheriffs in this 
age was very honourable, not hackneyed out for profit. And 
although some uncharitable people (unjustly I hope) have now- 
a-days fixed an ill character on those who twice together dis 
charged the place, yet anciently the office befitted the best 
persons; little difference betwixt the high-sheriff and under- 
sheriff, save that he was under him, being otherwise a man of 
great credit and estate. 

HENRY III. 

2. FULCO de BREANTEE, Oxf. This Fulco, or Falkerius, 
or Falkesius de Breantee, or Breantel, or Brent, (so many seve 
ral ways is he written), was, for the first six years of this king, 
high- sheriff of Oxford, Cambridge, Huntingdon, Bedford, Buck 
ingham, and Northampton shires (counties continued together) ; 
as by perusing the catalogues will appear. What this Vir tot 
locorum, " man of so many places," was, will be cleared in Mid 
dlesex,* the place of his nativity. 

56. ROG. EPIS. COVENT. et LICH. That bishops in this 
age were sheriffs of counties in their own dioceses, it was usual 
and obvious. But Berkshire lying in the dioceses of Sarum, 
Oxfordshire, and Lincoln, that the far distant bishop of Coven 
try and Lichfield should be their sheriff, may seem extraordinary 
and irregular. 

This first put us on the inquiry who this Roger should be ; 
and, on search, we found him surnamed De Molend, alias Long- 
espe, who was nephew unto king Henry the Third,f though 
how the kindred came in I cannot discover. No wonder then 
if his royal relation promoted him to this place, contrary to the 

* In the title SOLDIERS. f Godwin, on the Bishop^ of Coventry and Lichfield. 



SHERIFFS. 



147 



common course ; the king, in his own great age, and absence of 
his son prince Edward in Palestine, desiring to place his confi 
dants in offices of so high trust. 

EDWARD II. 

6. PHIL, de la BEACH. Their seat was at Aldworth in this 
county, where their statues on their tombs are extant at this 
day,* but of stature surely exceeding their due dimension. It 
seems the Grecian officers have not been here, who had it in 
their charge to order tombs, and proportion monuments to the 
persons represented. I confess, corpse do stretch and extend 
after their death ; but these figures extend beyond their corpse ; 
and the people there living extend their fame beyond their 
figures, fancying them giants, and fitting them with propor 
tionable performances. They were indeed most valiant men ; 
and their male issue was extinct in the next king s reign, whose 
heir general (as appeareth by the herald s visitation) was mar 
ried to the ancient family of Whitlock. 

SHERIFFS OF BERKSHIRE AN T D OXFORDSHIRE. 

RICHARD II. 

Anno Name. Place. 

1 Edmund Stoner. 

Arms : Az. two bars dancettee O. a chief G. 

2 Thomas Barentyn. 

S. two eaglets displayed Arg. armed O. 

3 Gilbertus Wace. 

4 Johannes Jeanes. 

5 Richardus Brines. 

6 Thomas Barentyn . ut prius. 

7 Johan. Hulcotts 

Fusilee O. and G. a border Az. 

8 Robertus Bullocke . Arborfield. 

G. a chevron twixt three bulls heads Arg. armed O. 

9 Johannes Holgate. 

10 Thomas Barentyn . ut prius. 

11 Gilb. Wace, mil. 

12 Thomas Pool. 

13 Williel. Attwood. 

14 Hugo Wolfes. 

15 Robertus Bullock . ut prius. 

16 Williel, Wilcote. 

17 Thomas Farington. 

S. three unicorns in pale, current, Arg. armed O. 

18 Thomas Barentyn . ut prius. 

19 Edrum. Spersholt. 

" " Effigies justo majores impositse." Camden s Britannia, in Berkshire. 

L 2 



148 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

20 Williel. Attwood. 

21 Johannes Golafre. 

22 Idem. 

HENRY IV. 

1 Willielm. Wilcote. 

2 Thomas Chaucer . Ewelme, Oxf. 

Partee per pale Arg. and G. a bend counterchanged. 
Johannes Wilcote. 

3 Robertas James. 

4 Idem. 

5 Thomas Chaucer . ut prius. 

6 Williel. Langford. 

7 Rob. Corbet, mil. 

O. a raven proper. 

8 Johannes Wilcote. 

9 Th. Harecourt, mil. . Stanton, Oxf. 

G. two bars O. 

10 Petrus Besiles r . * Lee, Berkshire. 

Arg. three torteauxes. 

11 Rob. Corbet, mil. . ut prius. 

12 Williel. Lisle, mil. 

O. a fess betwixt two chevrons S. 

HENRY V. 

1 Thomas Wykham 

Arg. two chevrons S. betwixt three roses G. 

2 Johannes Golofre. 

3 Johannes Wilcote . ut prius. 

4 Robertus Jeames. 

5 Tho. Wilkham, mil. . ut prius, 

6 Robertus Andrews. 

7 Johannes Wilcote. 

8 Willielmus^Lysle . ut prius. 

9 Idem . . ut prius. 

HENRY VI. 

1 Willielmus Lisle . ut prius. 

2 Thomas Stonore . ut prius. 

3 Joh. Gowfre, at. 

4 Ric. Walkested, mil. 

5 Thomas Wykham . ut prius. 

6 Thomas Stonar . . ut prius. 

7 Robertus James. 

8 Philip. Englefield . Inglefield. 

Barry of six, G. and Arg. on a chief O. a lion passant Az. 

9 Tho. Wikham, mil. . ut prius. 

10 Williel. Finderne. 

11 Willielmus Darrell. 

Az. a lion rampant Arg. crowned O. 



SHERIFFS. 149 

Anno Names. Place. 

12 Steph. Haytfield. 

13 Rich. Restwold. 

Arg. three bends S. 

14 Thomse Fetiplace . Childre. 

G. two chevrons Arg. 

15 Ric. Quatermayns . OXFORD. 

G. a fess betwixt four hands Q. 

16 Johannes Norys. 

Quarterly, Arg. and G. a fret O. with a fess Az. 

17 Edwardus Rede. 

G. a saltire twixt four garbs O. 

18 Walter Skull. 

Arg. a bend between six lions -head erased of the field. 

19 Johan. Stokes. 

20 Petrus Fetiplace . ut prius. 

21 Johannes Norys . ut prius. 

22 Johan. Charles. 

23 Johan. Lidyard . Benham 

Arg. on a chief O. a flower de luce G. 

24 Joh. Roger, juri. 
35 Edw. Langford. 

26 Idem. 

27 Johannes Penicock 

28 Williel. Wikham . ut prius. 

29 Edwardus Rede , ut prius. 

30 Joha. dialers, mil. 

31 Johan. Roger, arm. . ut prius. 

32 Thomas Stonore . ut prius. 

33 Ric. Quatermayns . ut prius. 

34 Rob. Harecourte . ut prius. 

35 Wai. Mantell. 

36 Johannes Noris, arm. . ut prius. 

37 Williel. Brocas, arm. 

38 Tho. de la More, arm. 

Arg. six martlets three two and one S. 

EDWARD IV. 

1 Rich. Harecourte . ut prius. 

2 Ric. Restwood, arm. . ut prius. 

Idem. . . . ut prius. 

4 Thomas Roger, arm. . ut prius. 

5 Jo. Barantyn, arm. . ut prius. 

6 Tho. Stonore, arm. . ut prius. 

7 Ric. Harecourt, arm. . ut prius. 

8 Joh. Howard, mil. . NORFOLK, 

G. a bend inter six crosslets fitchee Arg. 

9 Will. Norys, mil. . ut prius. 
10 Thomas Prout, arm. 



150 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

11 Edw. Langford, arm. 

12 Williel. Staverton. 

13 Will. Bekynham. 

14 Johann. Langston. 

15 Hump. Forster, arm. . Aldermaston. 

S. a chevron between three arrows Arg, 

16 Thomas de la Moremi ut prius. 

17 Thomas Restwold . ut prius. 

18 James Vyall. 

19 Johan. Norys, arm. , ut prius. 

20 Hum. Talbot, mil. 

G. a lion rampant, within a border engrailed O, 

21 Tho.de la More -\ ut prius. 

22 Will. Norys, mil. . tit prius. 

ANN RICHARD III. 

1 Thomas Kingeston. 

2 Johannes Barantyn -V ut prius. 

3 Edwardus Franke. 

ANXO HENRY VII. 

1 Edw. Mountford. 

2 Will. Norys, mil. , ut prius, 

3 Thomas Say. 

4 Willielm. Besilles ! V- ut prius. 

5 Th. Delamore, mi. . ut prius, 

6 Johan. Home, mil. 

7 Williel. Harecourt . ut prius. 

8 Ro, Harecourt, arm. . ut prius. 

9 Geo. Gainford, arm, 

10 Idem, 

11 Joh. Ashfield, arm. 

12 Hugo Shirley, arm. 

Paly of six, O. and Az. a canton Erin. 

13 Ant. Fetiplace, arm . ut prius. 

14 Ge. Gainsford, arm. 

15 Johannes Basket. 

Az. a chevron E. betwixt three leopards heads O. 

16 Willi. Besilles, arm. . ut prius. 

17 Rich. Flower, mil. 

18 Jo. Williams, mil. . Tame, Oxford. 

Az. an organ-pipe in bend sinister saltirewise surmounted 
of another dexter betwixt four crosses patee Arg. 

19 Williel. Harecourt . ut pr ms. 

20 Edw. Grevill, arm. 

21 E. Chamberlain 

G. a chevron Arg. betwixt three escallops O. 

22 Jo. Home, arm. 



SHERIFFS. 151 

Anno Name. Place. 

23 Jo. Home, arm. 

24 Jo. Langford. mil. 

HENRY VIII. 

1 Williel. Essex, arm. . Lamborn. 

Az. a chevron Erm. betwixt three eagles displayed Arg. 

2 Williel. Harecourt . ut prius. 

3 Will. Barantin, arm. . ut prius. 

4 Thos. Haydock, arm. 

5 Wai. Raducy, mil. 

6 Simon. Harecourt, mil. . ut prius. 

7 Jo. Dauncy, mil. 

Az. a dragon O. and lion combatant Arg. 

8 Geor. Foster, mil. . ut prius. 
Ed. Chamberlain, mil. . ut prius. 

10 Williel. Essex, mil. . wi prius. 

11 Tho. Englefeld, arm. . ut prius. 

12 Hen. Brugges, arm. 

Arg. on a cross S. a leopard s head O. 

13 Jo. Oswalston, arm. 

14 Simon Harecourt . ut prius. 

15 Jo. Fetiplace, arm. . ut prius. 

16 Williel. Essex, mil. . ut prius. 

1 7 Will. Barantin, mil. . ut prius. 

18 Thos. Denton, arm. 

G. a chevron betwixt three crescents Arg. 

19 Thorn. Ellyot, arm. 

20 Si. Harecourt, mil. . ut prius. 

21 Will. Stafford, arm. . Bradfield. 

O. a chevron G. and a canton Erm. 

22 Hen. Brugges, arm. . ut prius. 

23 Thomas Umpton, arm. Wadley. 

Az. on a fess engrailed O. between three spear-heads Arg. 
a greyhound cursant S. 

24 Hum. Forster, mil. 

25 Will. Farmar, arm. 

Arg. a fess S. betwixt three leopards* heads erased G. 

26 Walt. Stoner, mil. . ut prius. 

27 Thomas Carter, arm. 

28 Anth. Hungerford 

S. two bars Arg. in chief three plates. 

29 Si. Harecourt, mil. . ut prius. 

30 Joh. Williams, mil. . ut prius. 

31 Rich. Brigges, arm. . ut prius. 

32 Williel. Essex, mil. . ut prius. 

33 Walt. Stoner, mil. . ut prius. 

34 Wil. Barantin, mil. . ut prius. 

35 Williel. Farmer, arm. . ut prius. 



152 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

36 Job. Williams, arm. . ut prius. 

37 Hum. Foster, mil. . ut prius. 

38 Le. Chamberlain . ut prius. 

EDWARD VI. 

1 Fra. Englefeld, mil. . ut prius. 

2 Anth. Cope, mil. . Hanwel 

Arg. on a chevron Az. between three roses G. slipp d 
and leav d V. three flowers de luce O. 

3 Will. Rainsf. mil. 

4 Richard Fines, arm. . Broughton 

Az. three lions rampant O. 

5 Willielm. Hide, arm. . S. Denchw. 

G. two chevrons Arg. 

6 Le. Chamberl. mil. . ut prius. 

REX PHILIP, Ct MAR. REGINA. 

. f Jo. Williams, mil. . ut prius. 

let Jo. Brome, mil. jj ut prius. 

I, 2 Ric. Brigges, mil. . ut prius. 

2. 3 Will. Rainsford. 

3. 4 Thomas Brigges, arm. . ut prius. 

4. 5 Johan. Denton, arm. . ut prius. 
5, 6 Richard. Fines, arm. . ut prius. 

ELIZABETH. 

1 Edw. Ashfeld, arm. 

2 Edw. Fabian, arm. 

3 Job an. Doyle, arm. 

O. two bendlets Az. 

4 Henric. Norys, arm. . ut prius. 

5 Ric. Wenman, arm. 

Quarterly G. and Az. a cross patonce O. 

6 Job. Croker, arm. . Tame P. Ox. 

Arg. on a chevron engrailed G. between three crows, as 
many mullets O. pierced. 

7 Tho. Stafford, arm. . ut prius. 

8 Christ. Brome. 

HENRY IV. 

2. THOMAS CHAUCER. He was sole son to Geffery Chau 
cer, that famous poet, from whom he inherited fair lands at 
Dunnington Castle in this county, and at Ewelme in Oxford 
shire. He married Maude, daughter and co-heir of Sir John 
Burwash, by whom he had one only daughter named Alice, mar 
ried unto William de la Pole, duke of Suffolk. He lieth buried 
under a fair tomb in Ewelme church, with this inscription : 
" Hie jacet Thomas Chaucer, Armiger, quondam dominus istius 



SHERIFFS. 153 

villee etPatronus istius Ecclesiae, qui obiit 18 diemensis Novem- 
bris, anno Dom. 1434 ; et Matilda uxor ejus, quee obiit 28 men- 
sis Aprilis, anno Domini 1436." 

HENRY V. 

1. THOMAS WIKHAM. I behold him as kinsman and next 
heir to William Wykham, that famous Bishop of Winchester, 
to whom the Bishop left, notwithstanding above * six thousand 
pounds bequeathed by him in legacies (for the discharge whereof 
he left ready money), one hundred pound lands a year. As for 
his arms, viz. Argent, two chevrons Sable between three roses 
Gules, a most ingenious Oxfordian t conceiveth those che 
vrons (alias couples in architecture) given him in relation to the 
two colleges he built, the one in Oxford, the other in Winches 
ter. It will be no sin to suspect this no original of but a post- 
nate allusion to his arms, who was (whatever is told to the con 
trary) though his parents were impoverished, of a knightly ex 
traction. J But if it was his assigned and not hereditary coat, 
it will be long enough ere the Herald s office grant another to 
any upon the like occasion. 

HENRY VI. 

3. JOHANNES GOWFRE, Arm. No doubt the same with him 
who 2 Henry V. was written John Golofre. He is the first per 
son who is styled Esquire, though surely all who were before 
him were (if not Knights) Esquires at the least, and 
afterwards this addition grew more and more fashionable in 
the reign of king Henry the Sixth : for, after that Jack Straw 
(one of the grand founders of the Levellers) was defeated, the 
English gentry, to appear above the common sort of people, 
did, in all public instruments, insert their native or acquired qua 
lifications. 

EDWARD IV. 

8. JOHN HOWARD, Miles. He was son to Sir Robert How 
ard, and soon after was created a Baron by this king, and Duke 
of Norfolk by king Richard the Third, as kinsman and one of 
the heirs of Anne, Duchess of York and Norfolk, whose mother 
was one of the daughters of Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Nor 
folk. Soon after he lost his life in his quarrel who gave him 
his honour, in Bosworth field. 

From him descended the noble and numerous family of the 
Howards, of whom I told four earls and two barons sitting in 
the last parliament of king Charles. I have nothing else for 
the present to observe of this name, save that a great antiquary 

* Bishop Godwin, in Bishops of Winchester, 
fr Sir Isaac Wake, in his Musae Regnantes. 
Harpfield, Ecclesiastical History, p. 550. 
Earls Arundel, Nottingham, Suffolk, Berkshire. Barons Moubray, Estrick. 



154 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

will have it originally to be Holdward ; * (L and D being omit 
ted for the easier pronunciation) which signifieth the keeper of 
any castle, hold, or trust committed unto them, wherein they 
have well answered unto their name. Did not Thomas Howard 
Earl of Surrey well hold his ward by land, when in the reign 
of king Henry the Eighth he conquered the Scots in Flodden 
field, and took James the Fourth their king prisoner ? And did 
not Charles Howard (afterwards Earl of Nottingham) hold his 
ward by sea in 88, when the armada was defeated ? But hereof 
(God willing) hereafter. 

15. HUMPHRY FOSTER, Arm. This must be he (consent of 
times avowing it) who was afterwards knighted, and lieth buried 
in St. Martinis in the Fields, London, with the following in 
scription : t " Of your charity, pray for the soul of Sir Hum 
phrey Foster, knight, whose body lieth buried here in earth un 
der this marble stone : which deceased the 1 8th day of the 
month of September, 1500; on whose soul Jesu have mercy. 
Amen." 

HENRY VII. 

8. ROBERT HARECOURT, Miles. Right ancient is this fa 
mily in France, having read in a French herald, f who wrote in 
the reign of king Edward the Sixth, that it flourished therein 
eight hundred years, as by a genealogy drawn by him should ap 
pear. 

Of this family (for both give the same coat at this day, viz. 
Gules two barrs Or,) a younger branch, coming over at the Con 
quest, fixed itself in the Norman infancy at Staunton Hare- 
court in Oxfordshire. And I find that in the reign of king 
John, Richard de Harecourt of Staunton aforesaid, marrying 
Orabella daughter of Saer de Quincy Earl of Winchester, had 
the rich manor of Bos worth in Leicestershire bestowed on him 
for his wife s portion. 

I cannot exactly distinguish the several Harecourts contem 
poraries in this county, and sheriffs thereof, so as to assign them 
their several habitations ; but am confident that this Robert 
Harecourt (sheriff in the reign of king Henry the Seventh) was 
the same person whom king Edward the Fourth made knight 
of the Garter. From him lineally descended the valiant knight 
Sir Simon Harecourt, lately slain in the wars against the rebels 
in Ireland, whose son, a hopeful gentleman, enjoys the manor 
of Staunton at this day. 

15. JOHN BASKET. He was an esquire of remark and mar 
tial activity in his younger days, who in some years after re- 

* Verstegan, of Decayed Intelligence, p. 320. 

t Weaver s Funeral Monuments, p. 447. 

t Jean Le Feron, en le Chapter des Mareschaviz, de France. 



SHERIFFS. 155 

moved to Devenish in Dorsetshire, to whom king Henry the 
Eighth, going over into France, committed the care of that 
county, as by his following letter will appear. 

" By the King. 

" Trusty and well-beloved, We greet you well. And whereas 
we at this time have written as well to the sheriff of that our 
shire, as also to the justices of our peace within our said shire, 
commanding and straightly charging, that as well the said she 
riff as the said justices, endeavour them for the keeping of our 
peace and the entertainment of our subjects, in good quiet and 
restfulness, during the time of our journey into the parties of 
beyond the sea ; to the which we entend to dispose us about 
the latter end of this present month of May : and forasmuch 
also as we have for your great ease spared you of your attend 
ance upon us in our said journey, arid left you at home to do us 
service in keeping of our peace, and good rule amongst our said 
subjects : We will therefore and command you, that during the 
time of our said absence out of this our realme, ye have a spe 
cial oversight, regard, and respect, as well to the sheriff as to the 
said justices, how and in what diligence they do and execute 
our commandement, comprised in our said letters. And that 
ye also from time to time, as ye shall see meet, quickly and sharply 
call upon them in our name, for the execution of our said com 
mandement ; and if you shall find any of them remiss or negli 
gent in that behalf, we will that ye lay it sharply to their charge ; 
advertising, that in case they amend not their defaults, ye will 
thereof advertise our councell remaining with our dearest daugh 
ter the princess, and so we charge you to do indeed. And if 
our said sheriff or justice, or any other sheriff or justice of any 
shire next to you, upon any side adjoining, shall need or require 
your assistance, for the execution of our said commandements, 
we will and desire you that what the best power ye can make of 
our subjects in Harneys, ye be to them aiding and assisting from 
time to time as the case shall require. Not failing hereof as 
you intend to please us, and as we specially trust you. Given 
under our signet, at our manor of Greenwich, the 18 day of 
May." 

HEXBY VIII. 

1. WILLIAM ESSEX, Arm. He was a worthy man in his ge 
neration, of great command in this county (whereof he was four 
times sheriff), and the first of his family who fixed at Lambourn 
therein, on this welcome occasion. He had married Elizabeth, 
daughter and sole heir of Thomas Rogers of Benham, whose 
grandfather, John Rogers, had married Elizabeth, daughter and 
heir of John Shotesbroke of Bercote in this county (whose an 
cestors had been sheriffs of Berkshire in the fourth, fifth, and 
sixth of king Edward the third), by whom he received a large 
inheritance. 



156 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

Nor was the birth of this Sir William (for afterwards he was 
knighted) beneath his estate, being son unto Thomas Essex, 
Esquire, Remembrancer and Vice-Treasurer unto king Edward 
the Fourth; who died November 1, 1500; lieth buried with a 
plain epitaph in the church of Kensington, Middlesex. He de 
rived himself from Henry de Essex, Baron of Rawley in Essex, 
and standard-bearer of England (as I have seen in an exact 
pedigree attested by Master Camden) ; and his posterity have 
lately assumed his coat, viz. Argent, an orle Gules. There was 
lately a baronet of this family, with the revenues of a baron ; 
but " riches endure not for ever,"* if providence be not as well 
used in preserving as attaining them, 

24. HUMPHRY FORSTER, Knight. He bare a good affection 
to Protestants, even in the most dangerous times, and spake to the 
quest in the behalf of Master Marbeck, that good confessor :f 
yea, he confessed to king Henry the Third, that never any thing 
went so much against his conscience, which under his Grace s 
authority he had done, as his attending the execution of three 
poor men martyred at Windsor. J 

EDWARD VI. 

1. FRANCIS INGLEFIELD, Mil. He afterwards was Privy- 
councillor unto queen Mary, and so zealous a Romanist, that after 
her death he left the land, with a most large inheritance, and 
lived for the most part in Spain. He was a most industrious 
agent to solicit the cause of the queen of Scots, both to his Holi 
ness and the Catholic king ; as also he was a great promoter of 
and benefactor to the English college at Valladolid in Spain, 
where he lieth interred : and a family of his alliance is still 
worshipfully extant in this county. 

QUEEN MARY. 

1. JOHN WILLIAMS, Miles. Before the year of his shrievalty 
was expired, queen Mary made him Lord Williams of Tame in 
Oxfordshire ; in which town he built a small hospital and a very 
fair school ; he with Sir Henry Bennyneld were joint keepers 
of the lady Elizabeth, whilst under restraint, being as civil as the 
other was cruel unto her. Bishop Ridley, when martyred, re 
quested this lord to stand his friend to the queen, that those 
leases might be confirmed which he had made to poor tenants ; 
which he promised, and performed accordingly. || His great 
estate was divided betwixt his two daughters and co-heirs, 
one married to Sir Henry Norrice, the other to Sir Richard 
Wenman. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

4. HENRY NORRICE, Arm. Son-in-law to the Lord Williams 

* Prov. xxvii. 24. f Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 1219. 

J Idem. p. 1221. Camden s Britannia, in Oxfordshire. 

II See the picture of Bishop Ridley s burning, in Mr. Fox. 



SHERIFFS. 157 

aforesaid. He was by queen Elizabeth created Baron Norrice 
of Ricot in Oxfordshire. It is hard to say whether this tree of 
honour was more remarkable for the root from whence it sprang, 
or for the branches that sprang from him. He was son to Sir 
Henry Norrice, who suffered in the cause of queen Anne Bullen, 
grandchild to Sir Edward Norrice, who married Fridswide, sister 
and coheir to the last Lord Lovell. He was father (though him 
self of a meek and mild disposition) to the martial brood of the 
Norrices, of whom hereafter.* 

Elizabeth, his great grandchild, sole daughter and heir unto 
Francis Norrice, Earl of Berkshire, and Baroness Norrice, 
was married unto Edward Wray, Esquire, whose only daughter, 
Elizabeth Wray, Baroness Norrice, lately deceased, was married 
unto Montague Bertie, Earl of Lindsey ; whose son, a minor, 
is Lord Norrice at this day. 

SHERIFFS OF BERKSHIRE ALONE. 

REG. ELIZ. 

Anno Name. Place. 

9 Edw. Unton, mil. . Wadley. 

Arms : Az. on a fess eng. O. twixt three spear-heads Arg. 
a hound cursant S. collared G. 

10 Jo. Fetiplace, arm. . Chilrey. 

G. two chev. Arg. 

11 Will. Forster, arm. . Aldermerston. 

Sable, a chev. betwixt three arrows Arg. 

12 Will. Dunch, arm. . Litlewitham. 

O. a chev. betwixt two towers in chief and a fleur-de-lis in 
base Arg. 

13 Joha. Winchcomb . Budebury. 

14 Hen. Nevill, mil. . Billingber. 

15 Tho. Essex, arm. . Limborn. 

Az. a chevron betwixt three eagles Arg. 

16 Ric. Lovelace, arm. . Hurley. 

G. on a chief indented S. three marvets O. 

17 Anth. Bridges, arm. . Hemsted-Marshal. 

18 Thorn. Parry, arm. 

19 Jo. Fetiplace, mil. . ut prius. 

20 Tho. Stafford, arm. . Bradfield. 

O. a chev. and canton E. 

21 Tho. Stephans, arm. 

22 Hum. Foster, arm. . ut prius. 
23^Tho. Bullock, arm. . Arborfield. 

G. a chev. twixt three bulls heads Ar. armed O. 

24 Tho. Read, arm. . Abingdon. 

G. a saltire twixt four garbs O. 

25 Mich. Molens, arm. . Clapgate. 

* In the description of Oxfordshire, title SOI.DIKKS. 



158 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Plac?. 

26 Be. Fetiplace, arm. . id prius. 

27 Edw. Fetiplace, arm. . ut prius, 

28 Chris. Lillcot, arm. . Rush comb. 

O. two bars vairy Arg. and S. 

29 Edm. Dunch, arm. . ut prius. 

30 Thomas Parry, arm. . ut prius. 

31 Tho. Dolman, arm. . Shaw. 

Az. a fess dancette inter six garbes Or. 

32 Johan. Latton, arm. 

33 Rich. Ward, arm. 

34 Fr. Winchcombe . ut prius. 

35 -Hum. Forster, arm. . ut prius. 

36 Ricar. Hide, arm. . S. Denchw. 

G. two chevrons Arg. 

37 Hen. Nevill, arm. . ut prius. 

38 Edm. Wiseman, arm. . Stephenton. 

S. a chev. twixt three bars of spears Arg. 

39 Chri. Lidcotte, mil. . ut prius. 

40 Hen. Pool, mil. 

41 Tho. Reede, mil. . ut prius. 

42 Sa. Backhouse, arm. * Swallofield. 

43 Johan. Norris, mil. 

44 Ed. Fettiplace, mil. . ut prius. 

45 Ed. Dunch, arm. and 1 .Ta. ut prius. 

JAC. REX. 

1 Edm. Dunch, arm. 

S. a chev. betwixt three towers Arg. 

2 Ant. Blagrave, arm. 

O. on a bend S. three greaves erased at the ancle Ar. 

3 Thomas Read, arm. . ut prius. 

4 Will. Stonhou. arm. . Radley. 

Arg. on a fess S. between three falcons volant Az, a leo 
pard s head and two mullets O. 

5 Fr. Winchcombe. . ut prius. 

6 Will. Foster, mil. . ut prius. 

7 Anth. Barker, mil. . Suning. 

8 Ric. Lovelace, mil. . ut prius. 

9 Tho. Vachell, mil. . Colly. 

Bendy of six pieces, Erm. and Az, 

10 Tho. Hinton, arm. 

11 Car. Wiseman, arm. . ut prius. 

12 Jo. Ayshcombe, arm. 

13 Will. Young, mil. 

14 Will. Standin, arm. . Arborfield. 

15 Val. Knightley, mil. 

Quarterly, Erm, and O. three pales G. 

16 Joh. Catcher, arm. 

17 Hum. Foster, arm. . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 159 

Anno Name. Place. 

18 Gabriel Pyle, mil. . Compton. 

19 Jo. Winchcombe. . ut prius. 

20 Jo. Marrycot, arm. 

21 William Hide, arm. . ut prius. 

22 Jo. Blagrave, mil. . ut prius. 
23 

24 

CAR. I. REX. 

1 Job. Darrel, Bar. . W. Woodh. 

Az. a lion rampant O. crowned Arg. 

2 Edr. Clark,, mil. . Ardigton. 

3 Gor. Willmot, arm. . Charlton. 

4 Edw. Yates, Barr. . Buckland. 

5 Sam. Dunch, arm. . ut prius. 

Per fess embattled Arg. and S. three yates counterchanged. 

6 Jo. Fetiplace, arm. . ut prius. 

7 Hen. Samborn, mil. . Moulsford. 

8 Henry Powle, arm. 

9 Edm. Dunch, arm. . ut prius. 

10 Hum. Dolman, arm. . ut prius. 

11 Will. Barker, arm. . lit prius. 

1 2 Ric. Harrison, mil. . Hurst. 

O. on a chief S. three eagles displayed of the first. 

13 Geo. Stonhouse, bar. . ut prius. 

14 Humph. Hide, arm. . ut prius. 

15 Gea. Puresy, arm. . Wadley. 

S. three pair of gauntlets dipping, Arg. 

16 Peregrine Hobby. . Bisham. 

Arg. three fusiles upon slippers G. 

17 Tanfield Vachel. . ut prius. 
18 

19 
20 
21 
22 Jo. Southleg, arm. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

9. EDWARD UNTON, or UMPTON, Miles. This ancient and 
worshipful name was extinct in the days of our fathers for want 
of issue male, and a great part of their lands devolved by an 
heir-general to George Purfey, of Wadley, Esquire, whose care 
is commendable in preserving the monuments of the Umptons 
in Faringdon church, and restoring such as were defaced in the 
war to a good degree of their former fairness. 

26. BESILIUS FETIPLACE. Some may colourably mistake 
it for Basilius, or Basil, a Christian name frequent in some fami- 



160 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

lies, whereas indeed it is Besil, a surname. These lived in 
great regard at Lee, thence called Besiles-Lee, in this county, 
until Elizabeth, daughter and heir of William Besiles, last of 
that name, was married unto Richard Fetiplace, whose great- 
great-grandchild was named Besile, to continue the remem 
brance of their ancestors. 

Reader, I am confident an instance can hardly be produced 
of a surname made Christian in England, save since the Refor 
mation ; before which time the priests were scrupulous to admit 
any at font, except they were baptized with the name of a 
Scripture or legendary saint. Since, it hath been common ; 
and although the Lord Coke was pleased to say he had noted 
many of them prove unfortunate, yet the good success in others 
confutes the general truth of the observation. 

KING JAMES. 

8. RICHARD LOVELACE, Knight. He was a gentleman of 
metal; and in the reign of queen Elizabeth, making use of 
letters of mart, had the success to light on a large remnant of 
the king of Spain s cloth of silver, I mean his West-Indian 
fleet ; wherewith he and his posterity are the warmer to this 
day. King Charles created him Lord Lovelace, of Hurley. 

KING CHARLES. 

1. SIR JOHN DARELL, Baronet. He being the first who, 
in the catalogue of sheriffs, occurreth of that order, a word of 
the institution thereof. We meddle not with ancient baronets, 
finding that word formerly promiscuously blended with Ban 
nerets (Sir Ralph Fane, in a patent passed unto him, is expressly 
termed a baronet) ; but insist on their new erection in the ninth 
of king James. 

Their Qualifications. 1. They were to be persons morum 
probitate spectati. 2. Descended at least of grandfather, by the 
father s side, that bare arms. 3. Having a clear estate of one 
thousand pounds per annum ; two-thirds thereof at least in 
possesion, the rest in reversion expectant on one life only, 
holding in dower or in jointure. 

Their Service. 1 . Each of them was to advance, towards the 
planting of the province of Ulster in Ireland, with colonies 
and castles to defend them, money enough to maintain thirty 
foot for three years, after the rate of eight-pence a day for every 
one of them. 2. The first year s wages was to be paid down on 
the passing of their patent ; the remainder, as they contracted 
with the king s commissioners authorized to treat and conclude 
thereof. 

Their Dignity. 1. They were to take place, with their wives 
and children respectively, immediately after the sons of barons ; 

* Rot. Pat. qiinrto EiUvardi Sexti. 



BATTLES. 161 

and before all Knights-bachelors of the Bath, and Bannerets ; 
save such solemn ones as hereafter should be created in the 
field by the king there present, under the standard royal dis 
played. 2. The addition of Sir was to be prefixed before theirs ; 
of Madam, their wives names. 3. The honour was to be here 
ditary ; and knighthood not to be denied to their eldest sons of 
full age, if desiring it. 4. For an augmentation in their arms, 
they might bear a bloody hand, in a canton or escutcheon, at 
their pleasure. 

The king did undertake that they should never exceed two 
hundred ; which number completed, if any chanced to die with 
out issue male, none were to be substituted in their place ; that 
so their number might daily diminish, and honour increase. 
He did also promise, for himself and his heirs, that no new order 
under another name should be superinduced. 

THE BATTLES. 

NEWBURY; the first, 1643, Sept. 20. The Earl of Essex, 
having raised the siege of Gloucester, and returning towards Lon 
don, was rather followed than overtaken by the king s army. 
Both sides might be traced by a track of bloody footsteps, espe 
cially at Auborn in Wilts, where they had a smart encounter. 
At Newberry the earl made a stand. Here happened a fierce 
fight on the east side of the town, wherein the Londoners did 
shew that they could as well use a sword in the field as a met- 
ward in a shop. The Parliament was conceived to lose the 
most, the king the most considerable, persons : amongst whom 
the Earls of Carnarvon and Sunderland, the Viscount Falkland, 
colonel Morgan, &c. Both armies may be said to beat and 
be beaten, neither winning the day, and both the twilight. 
Hence it was that both sides were so sadly filled with their sup 
per over night, neither next morning had any stomach to break 
fast ; but, keeping their stations, were rather contented to face, 
than willing to fight, one another. 

NEWBURY ; the second, 1644, Oct. 27- One would wonder 
where the Earl of Essex, so lately stripped out of all his infan 
try in Cornwall, so soon reinvested himself with more foot, save 
that London is the shop general of all commodities. Recruited 
with fresh (but not fresh-water) soldiers, he gave the king battle. 
This fight was as long and fierce as the former ; but the conquest 
more clear on the Parliament s side. The Cornish (though be 
having themselves valiantly) were conceived not to do so well, 
because expected to have done better. 

The Royalists were at night fain to hang lighted matches on 
the hedges (so to similate their abode thereabouts) ; whilst they 
drew off, securing their cannon in Durmington castle (the gover 
nor whereof, Sir J. Bois, did the king knight s service) ; and so, 
in a pace slower than a flight and faster than a retreat, returned 
in as good order as their condition was capable of. Many here 

VOL. I. M 



162 WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE. 

lost their lives, as if Newbury "were so named by a sad prolepsis, 
fore-signifying that that town should afford a new burying place 
to many slain in two bloody battles. 

THE FAREWELL. 

Being to take my leave of this shire, I seriously considered 
what want there was therein, that so I might wish the supply 
thereof. But I can discover no natural defect ; and I therefore 
wish the inhabitants a thankful heart to that God who hath given 
them a country so perfect in profit and pleasure. Withal it is 
observed, that the lands in Berkshire are very skittish, and often 
cast their owners ; which yet I impute not so much to the un- 
ruliness of the beasts, as to the unskilfulness of the riders. I 
desire heartily that hereafter the Berkshire gentry may be better 
settled in their saddles, so that the sweet places in this county 
may not be subject to so many mutations. 



WORTHIES OF BERKSHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE 
THE TIME OF FULLER. 

Charles ABBOT, first Lord Colchester, Speaker of the House 
of Commons : born at Abingdon 1757 ; died 1829. 

James Pettit ANDREWS, a learned miscellaneous writer ; bom 
at Newbury 1737 ; died 1797- 

Dr. Phannel BACON, a dramatic poet; born at Reading 1737; 
died 1783. 

Sir John BARNARD, patriotic alderman of London ; born at 
Reading 1685 ; died 1764. 

Dr. Joseph BUTLER, Bishop of Durham, and author of " Ana 
logy of Religion ;" born at Wantage 1692 ; died 1752. 

Charles COATES, historian of his native town of Reading ; died 
1813. 

Henry Edward DAVIS, author of the " Defender of Christianity, " 
against the historian Gibbon; born at Windsor 1756. 

William DODWELL, a learned divine and author ; born at Shaftes- 
broke 1710; died 1785. 

John FELL, Bishop of Oxford; born at Langworth 1625; died 
1686. 

John FOSTER, Master of Eton, the great classical scholar; born 
at Windsor 1731 ; died 1773. 

Thomas GODWIN, Bishop of Bath and Wells ; born at Woking- 
ham 1517; died 1590. 

James GRANGER, a divine, collector of engraved portraits, au 
thor of a " Biographical History of England," and some ser 
mons; died 1776, aged about 60. 

Thomas HEARNE, an antiquary, historian, and classical editor; 
born at Littleford Green in White Waltham; died 1735. 



SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 163 

Sir Thomas HOLT, a lawyer,, and recorder of his native town of 

Reading. 
Issac KIMBER, historian and biographer ; born at Wantage 

1692; died 1758. 
William LLOYD, Bishop of St. Asaph, one of the seven bishops 

imprisoned by James II. ; born at Tilehurst 1627 ; died 171 7- 
James MERRICK, a divine, poet, and translator of the Psalms ; 

born at Reading 1719; died 1769. 
Edward MOORE, a dramatic poet, author of "The World," 

"Gamester," and "Fables for the Female Sex;" born at 

Abingdon 1712 ; died 1757- 
Henry NEVILL, a republican, and author of " Plato Redivivus ;" 

born at Billingbeare 1620; died 1694. 
William NEWCOME, Archbishop of Armagh, of great learning 

and exemplary manners; born at Buxton-le-Clay 1729; died 

1800. 
Sir Constantine PHIPPS, Lord Chancellor of Ireland; born at 

Reading; died 1723. 
Henry James PYE, Poet-laureat ; born at Farringdon 1745; 

died 1813. 
George SE WELL, a physician, poet, and miscellaneous writer ; 

born at Windsor ; died 1726. 
Sir John SOANE, F.R.S., S.A., &c. Professor of Architecture in 

the Royal Academy, architect to the Bank of England, &c. ; 

born at Reading 1752; died 1837. 
Sir Thomas STAMPLE, Lord Mayor of London in 1692 ; born 

at Reading. 

William Bagshaw STEVENS, a poet and divine ; born at Abing 
don about 1755 ; died 1800. 

Sir John STONEHOUSE, a physician and divine; born 1716. 
The Rev. Dr. VALPY, classical scholar and divine, master of 

Reading School; born 1774; died 1836. 

John WORRAL, author of " Bibliotheca Legum ;" born at Read 
ing; died I77l 
Edward YOUNG, Dean of Salisbury, a theologian, and father of 

the poet, born at Woodhay ; died 1705. 



%* The principal Works published since Dr. Fuller s time, relative to thiscounty, 
are the History of Berkshire, by Elias Ashmole (1736) ; History of Windsor Castle, 
by J. Pote (1749); History of : the Beauties of England (1801) ; Lyson s Britan 
nia (1813) ; Histories of Reading, by the Rev. C. Coates (1802), and by J. Man 
(1816) ; and the History of Windsor, by J. Hakewell (1813). ED. 



M 2 



BEDFORDSHIRE. 



BEDFORDSHIRE hath Northamptonshire on the north, Hun 
tingdon and Cambridgeshires on the east, Hertfordshire on the 
south, Buckinghamshire on the west thereof. It heth from 
north to south in an oval form, and may be allowed two and 
twenty miles in length, though the general breadth thereof ex- 
tendeth not to full fifteen. 

The soil consisteth of a deep clay, yet so that this county may 
be said to wear a belt, or girdle of sand, about, or rather athwart 
the body thereof (from Woburn to Potton), affording fair and 
pleasant, as the other part doth fruitful and profitable, places for 
habitation, which partakes plentifully in the partage of all 
lish conveniences. 

Here let this caveat be entered, to preserve its due 
invaded] right to much grain growing in this county : for corn- 
chandlers (the most avouchable authors in this point) will in 
form you, that when Hertfordshire wheat and barley carries the 
credit in London, thereby much is meant (though miscalled) 
which is immediately bought in and brought out of Hertfordshire, 
but originally growing in Bedfordshire, about Dunstable and 
elsewhere. But let not the dry nurse, which only carried the 
child in her arms and dandled it in her lap, lay claim to that 
babe which the true mother did breed and bear in her body. 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
BARL.EY. 

White, large, plump, and full of flower. The countryman will 
tell you, that of all our grains this is most nice, and must be 
most observed in. the several seasons thereof. . It doth not only 
allay hunger, but also in a manner quencheth thirst, when or 
dered into malt. It is (though not so toothsome) as wholesome 
as wheat itself, and was all the staff of bread, which Christ s 
body leaned on in this life; eating, to attest his humanity, 
barley loaves to evidence his humility.* 

* John vi. 9. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES. 165 

MALT. 

This is barley with the property thereof much altered, hav 
ing passed both water and fire, steeped and dried on a kiln. That 
the use hereof was known to the Greeks, plainly appears by the 
proper word wherewith they express it, BuV?? ; and no maltster 
of Bedford can better describe the manner thereof than is done 
by Aetius j " Est hordeum madefactum, quod germen emisit, 
deinde cum ligulis enatis tostum est."* Besides, we read of 
Olyos Kpidivoc, and Atheneeus maketh mention of such who were 
~K.plQivov TrcTrwKoYte olvov,-\ "drinkers of barley wine," a liquor 
probably more wholesome for northern bodies than that which 
groweth in grapes. 

What great estates malsters got formerly in this county, may be 
collected from the wealth of the ale-brewers therein, there being 
so near a relation betwixt the two callings. For I read in the reign 
of king Henry the Fifth, of William Murfley, an ale brewer of 
Dunstable (accounted, I confess, a Lollard, and follower of the 
Lord Cobham,) who when taken had two horses trapped with 
gilt armour led after him, and had a pair of gilt spurs in his bo 
som, expecting (say they) knighthood from the Lord Cobham. % 
And although I believe not the report in full habitude, it is 
enough to intimate unto us that in that age it was a wealthy em 
ployment. 

FULLERS-EARTH. 

Great store of this is digged up not far from Woburn in this 
county, whence it is commonly called Woburn earth. Such 
the use thereof in drapery, that good cloth can hardly be made 
without it, foreign parts affording neither so much, nor so good 
of this kind. No wonder then if our statutes strictly forbid 
the transportation thereof, to preserve the perfection of clothing 
amongst ourselves. But were this fullers-earth like terra lemnia, 
or sigillata, and all the parcels thereof locked up under a seal, 
yet the Dutch (so long as they are so cunning, and we so care 
less) will stock themselves hence with plentiful proportions 
thereof. 

LARKS. 

The most and best of these are caught and well dressed about 
Dunstable in this shire. A harmless bird whilst living, not 
trespassing on grain ; and wholesome when dead, then filling 
the stomach with meat, as formerly the ear with music. In 
winter they fly in flocks, probably the reason why Alauda signi- 
fieth in Latin both a lark and a legion of soldiers ; except any 
will say a legion is so called because helmeted on their heads 
and crested like a lark, therefore also called in Latin Galerita. 

* Lib. x. c. 29. t Lib. i. et x. 

t Harpfield, History of Wickliffe, p. 708 ; avid Ilollinshed, p. 544. 

See more hereof iii Surrey, title Natural Commodities. 



166 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

If men would imitate the early rising of this bird, it would con 
duce much unto their healthfulness. 

THE MANUFACTURES. 

Fat folk (whose collops stick to their sides) are generally lazy, 
whilst leaner people are of more activity. Thus fruitful coun 
tries (as this is for the generality thereof) take to themselves a 
writ of ease ; the principal cause why Bedfordshire affords not 
any trades peculiar to itself. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

This county affordeth no cathedral, and the parochial churches 
entitle not themselves to any eminency. Only I hear such high 
commendations of a chapel and monument erected at Maldon 
by Thomas Earl of Elgin to the memory of his deceased lady 
Diana Cecil, that I am impatient till I have beheld it, to satisfy 
myself whether it answereth that character of curiosity which 
credible persons have given thereof. 

Taddington, Amphtill, and Woburn carrv away the credit 
amongst the houses of the nobility in this county. 

WONDERS. 

At Harleswood, commonly called Harold, in this county, the 
river of Ouse, anno 1399, parted asunder ; the water from the 
fountain standing still, and those towards the sea giving way, so 
that it was passable over on foot for three miles together, not 
without the astonishment of the beholders.* It was an ominous 
presage of the sad civil wars betwixt the two houses of York and 
Lancaster. 

There is a rivulet in this county (though confining on Buck 
inghamshire) near a village called Aspeley ; and take the strange 
operation thereof from his pen, who (though a poet) is a credi 
ble author : 

" The Brook which on her bank doth boast that earth alone, 
Which, noted of this isle, converteth wood to stone. 
That little Aspeley s earth we anciently instyle, 
Mongst sundry other things, A Wonder of the Isle."f 

But, by his leave, there is another of the same nature in North 
amptonshire ; Avhich because less known I will there enlarge 
myself on that subject. 

PROVERBS. 
"As plain as Dunstable road. 1 ] 

It is applied to things plain and simple, without either welt 
or guard to adorn them, as also to matters easy and obvious to 
be found without any difficulty or direction. Such this road ; 

* Hypodagma, p. 163. f Drayton s Poly-olbion ; the 22nd Song. 



PROVERBS PRINCES. 167 

being broad and beaten, as the confluence of many leading to 
London from the north and north-west parts of this land. 
" As crooked as Crawley brook."] 

This is a nameless brook arising about Woburn, running by 
Crawley, and falling immediately into the Ouse. But this pro 
verb may better be verified of Ouse itself in this shire, more 
mceandrotts than Mceander, which runneth above eighty miles in 
eighteen by land. Blame it not, if, sensible of its sad condition, 
and presaging its fall into the foggy fens in the next county, it 
be loath to leave this pleasant place ; as who would not prolong 
their own happiness ? 

" The Bailiff of Bedford is coming."] 

This proverb hath its original in this, but use in the next, 
county of Cambridge. The river Ouse running by is called the 
Bailiff of Bedford, who, swelling with rain, snow-Avater, and tri 
butary brooks in the winter, and coming down on a sudden, ar- 
resteth the Isle of Ely with an inundation. But I am informed 
that the drainers of the Fens have of late, with incredible care, 
cost, art, and industry, wrested the mace out of this Bailiff s 
hand, and have secured the country against his power for the 
future. 

PRINCES. 

MARGARET BEAUFORT, Countess Richmond and Derby. 
No person of judgment or ingenuity will find fault with her 
posture under this title, who was great-great-grandchild to king 
Edward the Third, and mother to king Henry the Seventh, 
besides her (almost incredible) alliance to so many foreign 
princes.* 

Thus, reader, I am confident I have pleased thee as well as 
myself, in disposing her in this place. And yet I am well as 
sured that, were she alive, she would (half-offended hereat) be 
more contented to be ranked under another and lower topic of 
benefactors to the public ; yea, (if left to her o\vn liberty) would 
choose that reposing-place for her memory. This is not only most 
consonant to her humility and charity (desiring rather to be 
good than great) : but also conformable to her remarkable 
expression (according to the devotion of those darker days) 
" that, if the Christian princes would agree to march with an army 
for the recovery of Palestine, she would be their landress." 
This is she who, besides a professor of divinity placed in both 
universities, founded the two fair colleges of Christ and Saint 
John in Cambridge. By the way be it observed, that Cam 
bridge hath been much beholden to the strength of bounty in 
the weaker sex. Of the four Halls therein, two, viz. Clare and 
Pembroke, were (as I may say) feminine foundations ; and of 
the twelve colleges, one third, Queen s, Christ s Saint John s, 

* See their number in her Funeral Sermon, preached by Bishop Fu acr. 



168 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

and Sidney, owe their original to worthy women : whereas no 
female ever founded college in Oxford (though bountiful bene 
factors to many) ; seeing queen s college therein, though com 
mended to the queens of England for its successive patronesses, 
had Robert E;lesfield for the effectual founder thereof. 

o 

And Cambridge is so far from being ashamed of, she is joy 
ful at, and thankful for, such charity ; having read of our Saviour 
himself, that " Mary Magdalen, and Joanna, and Susanna, and 
many other women, ministered unto him of their substance."* 
But this worthy Lady Margaret, being too high for a mean man 
to commend, is long since gone to the great God to reward, dy 
ing in the beginning of the reign of her grand-child king Henry 

the Eighth. 

SAINTS. 

AINULPHUS, of royal British blood, \vas an holy hermit, who, 
waving the vanities of this wicked world, betook himself in this 
county to a solitary life, renowned for the sanctity (or rather 
sanctimony) thereof. The age he lived in is not exactly 
known ; but sure it is, that Ainulphsbury (a town in the con 
fines of this and Huntingdonshire), was erected in his memory, 
pait whereof (corruptly called Ainsbury) is extant at this day, 
and the rest is disguised under the new name of Saint Neot s. 

MARTYRS. 

THOMAS CHASE, an ancient and faithful labourer in God s 
vineyard, led his life most in Buckinghamshire, but found his 
death in this county, long kept in durance, and hanged at last, 
in the bishop s prison at Woburn. His executioners, to palli 
ate their murder, and asperse his memory, gave it out that he 
had destroyed himself; a loud lie, seeing he was so loaden with 
chains, that he could not lift up his own body-t But the clear 
ing hereof must be remitted to that day wherein all things done 
in secret shall be made manifest. His martyrdom happened in 
the reign of king Henry the Seventh, anno Domini 1506. 

PRELATES. 

SILVESTER de E\ r ERTON,for so is he written in the Records 
of Carlisle! (though Eversden and Everseen in other books) 
which are most to be credited, as passing under the pens of the 
best (and to his particular the most knowing) clerks, no doubt, 
took his name from Everton, a village in this (but the confines 
of Cambridge) shire. He was a man memorable for his pre 
ferment, and very able to discharge the lay part thereof, re 
ceiving the great seal, anno the 29th of king Henry the Third, 
1246, and is commended for one most cunning in customs of 
Chancery. The same year he was chosen bishop of Carlisle, 

* Luke viii. 3. f Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 775. 

t Whence Bishop Godwin transcribed his Catalogue of Bishops. 
John Philipot, in his Chancellors of England, p. 20. 



RELATES JUDGES WRITERS. 169 

though demurring on the acceptance thereof (conscious to him 
self, perchance, as unqualified) his consecration was deferred 
until the next year. 

He, with the rest of the English bishops, addressed them 
selves to king Henry the Third, and boldly enough requested- 
required of him, that all foreigners and insufficient persons 
might be put out of their bishoprics. Now, as to the point of 
insufficiency, the king, singling out this Silvester, thus bespake 
him :* 

"Ettu, Silvester Carliolensis, qui diu lambens Cancellariam, 
clericorum meorum clericulus extitisti, qualiter post-positis mul- 
tis theologis, et personis reverendis te in episcopum sublimavi, 
omnibus satis notum est." " And thou, Silvester of Garlile, 
who, so long licking the Chancery, was the little clerk of 
my clergyman, it is sufficiently known to all, how I advanced 
thee to be a bishop, before many reverend persons, and able 
divines." 

His expression " licking the Chancery " hath left posterity to 
interpret it, whether taxing him for ambition, liquorishly longing 
for that place ; or for adulation, by the soft smoothing of flat 
tery making his way thereunto ; or for avarice, licking it so, 
that he gained great (if good) profit thereby. As for his ex 
pression " little clerk," it is plain it referred not to his stature, 
but dwarfness in learning. However, all this would not per 
suade him into a resignation of his bishopric, though it was not 
long before he lost both it and his life, by a fall from a skittish 
horse, anno Domini 1254. 

I find no bishop born in this county since the Reformation ; 
and therefore we may go on in our propounded method. 

CAPITAL JUDGES AND WRITERS OF THE LAW. 

SIR JOHN COKEYN, Knight, Chief Baron of the Exchequer 
in the reign of king Henry the Fourth, founded a worshipful 
family at, and imparted his surname to, Cokeyn Hatley, in this 
county. But, being convinced that he w;as born at Ashbourn, 
in Derbyshire, I have reserved his character for that county. 

EDMOND WINGATE, Esq. was a native of this county, whose 
family flourisheth at Hartington therein. He was bred in Grey s 
Inn in the study of our common law, whereof he wrote, besides 
others, a book entitled, " The Reason of the Common Law " and 
is lately deceased. 

WRITERS. 

JOHN of D UNSTABLE, so called from a market-town in this 
county, wherein he was born. If hitherto the reader hath not, 
it is high time for him now, to take notice of a person of such 
perfection. Indeed at first my pen feared famishing, finding so 

* Matthew Paris, anno 1253. 



170 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

little ; since surfeiting, meeting so much of this man. For this- 
John of Dunstable was John of all arts, as appeareth by his 
double epitaph, one inscribed on his monument, the other writ 
ten on his memory. But be it premised of both, that we will 
not avouch the truth of the Latin,, or quantity in these verses ; 
but present them here as we find them, with all their faults, 
and his virtues on whom they were made. 

On his tomb in St. Stephen s, Wnllbrook, London. 

" Clauditur hoc tumulo qui ccelum pectore clausit, 
Dunstable I., juris astrorum conscius ille, 

novit . . . abscondita pondere cceli ; 
Hie vir erat tua laus, tua lux, tua musica princeps 
Quique tuas fulces per mundum sparserat artes. 

* 

Suscipiant proprium civem coeli sibi cives." 

The second, made by John Jr/ieathamsted, Abbot of Saint Albans.* 

" Musicus hie Michalus alter, novus et Ptolomseus. 
Junior ac Atlas supportans robore coelos. 
Pausat sub cinere ; melior vir de muliere 
Nunquam natus erat, vitii quia labe carebat. 
Et virtutis opes possedit unicus oranes. 
Perpetuis annis celebretur fama Johannis 
Dunstable ; in pace requiescat et hie sine fine." 

What is true cf the bills of some unconscionable tradesmen, 
"if ever paid, over paid;" maybe said of this hyperbolical 
epitaph, " if ever believed, over believed." Yea, one may safely 
cut off a third in any part of it, and the remainder will amount 
to make him a most admirable person. Let none say that these 
might be two distinct persons, seeing (besides the concurrence 
of time and place) it would bankrupt the exchequer of Nature 
to afford two such persons, one phoenix at once being as much 
as any will believe. This Dunstable died anno 1455. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

GEORGE JOY was born in this county, though the exact 
place be not expressed. t He was a great friend to Master 
Tindall,J and therefore perfectly hated by Wolsey, Fisher, and 
Sir Thomas More. The particulars of his sufferings, if known, 
would justly advance him into the reputation of a confessor. 
He translated some parts of the Bible into English, and wrote 
many books reckoned up by Bale ; notwithstanding many ma 
chinations against his life, he found his coffin where he fetched 
his cradle, "in sua patria sepultus," being peaceably buried 
in his native country 1553, the last year of king Edward the 
Sixth. 

FRANCIS DIL.LINGIIAM was born at Dean in this county, 
and bred fellow in Christ College in Cambridge. He was an 

* Extant in Weaver s Funeral Monuments, p. 577. 

t Bale, de Script. Brit. Cent. 9. 

f Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 1027. 



WRITERS. 1 

excellent linguist, and subtle disputant. My father was present 
in the Bachelors schools, when a Greek Act was kept, between 
him and William Alabaster, of Trinity College, to their mutual 
commendation ; a disputation so famous that it served for an 
era or epoch for the scholars in that age thence to date their 
seniority. 

He was afterwards chosen, anno 1607, to be one of the trans 
lators of the Bible ; and, being richly beneficed at Wilden in 
this county, died a single man, leaving a fair estate to his bro 
ther Master Thomas Dillingham, who was chosen one of the 
late assembly ; (though, for age, indisposition, and other rea 
sons, not appearing therein) ; and for many years was the hum 
ble, painful, and faithful pastor of Dean, the place of his nati 
vity. 

WILLIAM SCLATER was born at Layton-buzzard in this 
county,* son to Anthony Sclater, the minister thereof for fifty 
years together, who died well nigh an hundred years of age. 
This William his son was bred in Eaton, then in King s Col 
lege in Cambridge, where he commenced Bachelor, and (after 
many years discontinuance) Doctor of Divinity. Hence he was 
invited to be preacher at Walsall in Staffordshire, where he be 
gan his sermons (afterwards printed) on the three first chapters 
of the Romans. Afterwards, John Coles, Esquire, of Somerset 
shire, over-entreated him into the Western parts, where he pre 
sented him vicar of Pitmister. Here he met with manifold and 
expensive vexations, even to the jeopardy of his life ; but, by 
the goodness of God, his own innocency and courage, with the 
favour of his diocesan, he came off with no less honour to him 
self, than confusion to his adversaries. 

He was at first not well affected to the ceremonies of the 
Church : but afterwards, on his profound studying of the point, 
he was reconciled to them, as for order and decency ; and, by 
his example, others were persuaded to conform. 

Constancy of studying contracted the stone upon him, which 
he used to c&\\ flayellum studiosorum. Nor was his health im 
proved by being removed to a wealthier living, when John Lord 
Paulet of Hinton (at the instance of Elizabeth his lady, in whose 
inheritance it was, a worthy favourer of piety and pious men) 
preferred him to the rich parsonage of Limpsam in Somerset 
shire, where indeed there was scarce any element good, save 
.the earth therein. Whereupon, for his own preservation, 
he was re-persuaded to return to Pitmister, there con 
tinuing till the day of his death, which happened in 
the year of our Lord 1627, in the fifty-first year of his age, 
leaving many learned \vorks behind him ; as, his " Comment 

* So was I informed by his son Doctor Sclater, late minister of Peter s Poor, 
London F. 



172 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

on the Romans/ and on " the Thessalonians," " Sermons at 
Paul s Cross/ and the Treatise of Tithes, styled " the Minister s 
Portion/ with other posthume works, some since set forth by, 
more remaining in, the hand of his son, William Sclater, Doctor 
of Divinity, and minister at London, lately deceased. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

Sir WILLIAM, son to William HARPER, was born in the 
town of Bedford, but bred a Merchant Tailor in the city of 
London ; where God so blessed his endeavours, that, anno 1561, 
he was chosen Lord Mayor thereof. In gratitude to God and 
the place of his nativity, he erected and endowed a free school 
in Bedford, in which town he lieth buried.* 

HENRY GREY, son to Henry Grey, was born at Wrest in 
this county. Something must be premised of his extraction. 
Richard Grey, third earl of Kent of that family, was so profuse 
a person, that he wilfully wasted his estate ; giving away what 
he could not spend, to the king and others ; so little he reflected 
on Sir Henry Grey his brother (but by a second venter) of 
Wrest in this county. Hereupon the said Sir Henry, though 
heir to his brother Richard after his death, yet perceiving him 
self over-titled, or rather under-stated, for so high an honour 
(the undoubted right whereof rested in him) declined the assum 
ing thereof. Thus the earldom of Kent lay. (though not dead) 
asleep in the family of the Greys almost 50 years : viz. from 
the 15th of king Henry the Eighth till the 13th of queen Eliza 
beth, when she advanced Reginald Grey, grandchild to Sir 
Henry Grey aforesaid (who had thriftily recruited himself with 
competence of revenues) to be Earl of Kent, anno 1571- 

This Reginald dying issueless within the year, Henry his 
brother (the subject of our present description) succeeded to 
his honour ; a person truly noble, expending the income of his 
own estate and of his lady s fair jointer (Mary the relic of Ed 
ward Earl of Derby) in hospitality, 

He was a most cordial Protestant, on the same token that, 
being present at the execution of the queen of Scots, when she 
requested the nobility there to stand by and see her death, he 
(fearing something of superstition) hardly assented thereunto. 
Yet was he as far from the faction as superstition,! deserving 
the character given unto him, "Omnibus verae nobilitatis orna- 
mentis vir longe honoratissimus."t He left no issue, except 
some will behold him in some sort parent of Sidney College in 
Cambridge, as one of the executors to the foundress thereof, 
who did both prove and improve her will, besides his personal 
benefaction thereunto ; and being the surviving executor, he 

* Stow s Survey of London, p. 62. f Camderi s Elizabeth, anno 1587. 

J Idem, in his Britannia, in Kent. 



BENEFACTORS MEMORABLE PERSONS. 173 

did perpetuate the fellowships (formerly temporary) according 
to the implicit trust deposited in him, to the advantages of that 
foundation. He died anno Domini 1613. 

FRANCIS CLEARK, Knight, was born at Eaton-socon in this 
shire, near to Saint Neot s, in the lordship there commonly 
called The Parsonage. He was a noble benefactor to Sidney 
College, augmenting all the scholarships of the foundation, and 
erecting a fair and firm range of building. Such his skill in 
arithmetic and architecture, that, staying at home, he did pro 
vide to a brick what was necessary for the finishing thereof. 
He founded four new fellowships : and, had he been pleased to 
consult with the College, the settlement with the same expence 
might have proved more advantageous : for though, in gifts to 
private persons, it be improper that the receiver should be the 
director thereof, a corporation may give the best advice to im 
prove the favours conferred upon it. But it is a general prac 
tice that men desire rather to be broad than thick benefactors. 

However, seeing every one may do with his own as he pleas- 
eth, blessed be the memory of this worthy knight, whose gift 
in effect was felt by the College before the giver thereof was 
seen, being himself a mere stranger unto it. Some say, that 
because this was the youngest foundation in the University (ge 
nerally the last child hath the least left it), his charity pitched 
upon it. But I have been informed, that Sir Francis coming 
privately to Cambridge, to see unseen, took notice of Doctor 
Ward s daily presence in the hall, with the scholars conformity 
in caps, and diligent performance of exercises ; which endeared 
this place unto him. Thus the observing of old statutes is the 
best loadstone to attract new benefactors. His death happened 
anno Domini 163. .. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

A woman, whose name I cannot recover, lived, died, and is 
buried at Dunstable in this county. It appeareth by her epitaph* 
in the church, that she had nineteen children at five births : 
viz. three several times three children at a birth, and five at 
a birth two other times. How many of them survived 
to man s estate is unknown.f Here I must dissent from 

* HakewilTs Apology, p. 253. 

f The Epitaph to which Dr. Fuller here alludes (first published by Hakewill, 
and since by Brown Willis) is simply that of Mr. Mulso, who, by two wives, was 
father of nineteen children. The words are these : 

" Hie William Mulso sibi quern sociavit et Alice, 
Marmore sub duro conclusit mors generalis. 
Ter tres, bis quinos hie natos fertur habere 
Per sponsas binas. Deus his clemens miserere. 1 

This, Dr. Fuller by mistake ascribes to one woman having 19 children at five 
births ; and the tradition of the place confirms the error. Bishop Gibson also, in 
his Additions to Camden, repeats it implicitly, gravely adding " that after the co 
ronation of King Charles II. the wives of two blacksmiths were at the same time de- 



174 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

an author maintaining that more twins were born in the first age 
of the world, than now-a-days ; * whereas we meet with none 
but single births in the patriarchs before the flood ; and, more 
than six hundred years after the Deluge, Esau and Jacob were 
the first twins mentioned in Scripture. 

LORD MAYORS. 

1 . Thomas Chalton, son of Thomas Chalton, of Dunstable, Mer 
cer, 1449. 

2. William Stoker, son of Thomas Stoker, of Eaton, Draper, 
1484. 

3. William Butler, son of Rich. Butler, of Bidenham, Grocer,1515. 

4. William Harper, son of William Harper, of Bedford, Mer 
chant Taylor,, 1561. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING HENRY 

THE SIXTH. 

William Bishop of Lincoln, and John de Fanhope, chevalier, 

Commissioners. 
John Wenlock, arm., and John Gascoigne, arm., knights for the 

shire, Commissioners. 
Abbatis de Woborn, et sui ce- Johannis Fitzgeffrey. 

lerarii Johannis Rad\vell. 

Abbatis de Wardon. Johannis Fyse. 

Prioris de Dunstable. Johannis Coldington. 

Prioris de Chekesond. Christophori Preston. 

Prioris de Nunham. Stephani Cruker. 

Prioris de Chaldwell. Thomse Roxston, 

Prioris de Buschemede. Willielmi Lancelin. 

Simonis Filbrigge, chevalier. Henrici de Lye. 

Henrici Bronnfiete, chevalier. Joh. Conquest de Houghton. 

Thomae Wanton, chevalier. Thomse Lonnde. 

Thomce Maningham . Walteri Lonnde. 

Thomae Hoo. Johannis Lonnde. 

Johannis Broughton. Richardi Merston. 

Johannis Enderby. Johannis Peeke, junioris. 

Roberti Mordant. Thomse Peeke. * 

Johannis Hertusherne. Willielmi Peeke. 

Henrici Godfrey. Johannis Glove, junioris. 

Johan. Boteler de Northzele. Johannis Turvey de Turvey. 

Humphrei Acworth. Johannis Ferrour de Bedford. 

Johannis Ragon. Johannis Gerveys de Maldon. 

Thomee Ragon. Henrici Etewell. 

livered of three children each, one of three hoys, the other of three girls. See the 
" History of Dunstahle," in Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica, No. VIII. p. 
173 ED. 
f Huartes, in the " Trial of Wits." 



GENTRY. 



175 



Johannis Marram. 

Thomse Jakes. 

Johannis Pikot. 

Willielmi Molso. 

Johannis Sewell. 

Henri ci Sewell. 

Radulphi Falwell. 

Hugonis Billingdon. 

Johannis Baldoe. 

Willielmi Palmer. 

Roberti Davy, junioris. 

Johannis Stanlow. 

Richardi Lincoln. 

Walter! Taillard. 

Thomse Spencer de Geton. 

Johannis Spencer. 

Johannis King de Harrowdon. 

Johannis Wait. 

Willielmi Bochell. 

Thomse William. 

Roberti Ratull. 

Roberti Warner de la Hethe. 

Johannis Potter. 

Johannis Grecell. 

Willielmi Bocher de Henlow. 

Will. Halle de Chitingdon. 

Johannis Halle. 

Willielmi Ludsopp. 

Joh. Conquest de Houghton. 

Stephani Cruker. 

Thomee Rokeston. 

Willielmi Lancelein. 

Henrici de Lye. 

Thomee Ragon. 

Johannis Mepurshale. 

Johannis Eitz. 

Johannis Pekke, junioris. 

Hugonis Billingdon. 

Thomas Pekke. 

Willielmi Pekke. 

Johannis Glove, junioris. 



Roberti Bollock. 

Willielmi Wale. 

Nicholai Ravenlmll. 

Nicholai Low. 

Valentini Bailli de Luton. 

Willielmi White de eadem. 

Johannis Boughton. 

Hugonis Hasselden. 

Thomae Bailli de Houghton. 

Willielmi Trought. 

Henrici Manntell. 

Roberti Valence. 

Johannis Attehay. 

Willielmi Ypping. 

Johannis Petifer. 

ThomaB Purvey. 

Willielmi Purvey. 

Willielmi Shotfold. 

Willielmi Wingate. 

Willielmi Kene. 
Thomas Stokker. 

Ade Alford. 
Johannis Morton. 
Thomas Morton. 
Thomee Stratton. 
Thomaa Chamberlain. 
Radulphi Cleark. 
Math. Stepeing. 
Nicholai Harding. 
Willielmi Marham. 
Richardi Sampson. 
Roberti Warner. 
Johannis Coke de Crawley. 
Willielmi Sileham. 
Willielmi Purvey. 
Willielmi Rede. 
Thomoe Blondell. 
Willielmi Milward. 
Roberti Ratele. 
Johannis Kiggill de Todinton. 
Johannis Pestell de Nunham. 
Thomoj Chopper de Turvey. 

Hungry time hath made a glutton s meal on this catalogue of 
gentry, and hath left but a very little morsel for manners remain 
ing ; so few of these are found extant in this shire, and fewer 
continuing in a genteel equipage. Amongst whom I must not 
forget the family of the Blundels, whereof Sir Edward Blundell 
behaved himself right valiantly, in the unfortunate expedition 
to the Isle of Ree. 



176 



WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 



SHERIFFS OF BEDFORD AND BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 



ANNO HENRY II. 

1 Rich. Basset and Albertus 

de Veer, Rob. Carun. 

2 Henric. de Essex consti- 

tuit Simonem Fitz Petre 
Vicecomitem, for four 
years. 

6 Gal. films Radulph, 

7 Rich, filius Osberti, for 

three years. 

10 Hug. de la Lega, et Rich, 
filius Osberti, for six 
years, 

16 David. Archdea. and Will. 

filius Rich. 

17 Will, filius Rich, and Dav. 

Arch, for three years. 
20 Will, filius Rich, for six 

years. 
26 Williel. Rufus, for seven 

years. 
33 Will. Rufus, et Oger. 

filius Ogeri, pro dimid. 

anni. 

RICHARD I. 

1 W 7 ill. Rufus, for six years. 
7 Simon, de Belchampe, for 

three years. 

10 Will, de Albeny, et Rob. 
Braybrook. 

JOHANNIS R. 

1 Will, de Albeny. 

2 Galf. filius Petri, et Rob. 

de Braybrook, for four 
years. 

6 Rob. de Braybrook, et 

Rob. filius Hemer. 

7 Rob. et Rober. 

8 Rob. filius Hemeri. 
9. Idem. 

10 Rob. de Braybrook, for 

three years. 
13 Rob. de Braybrook, et 

Hen. filius ejus. 



ANNO 



14 Hen. Braybrook, et Rob. 

pater ejus. 

15 Idem. 

16 Hen. Braybrook. 

17 Idem. 

HENRY in, 
1 

2 Fulco de Breantel. 

3 Idem. 

4 Ful. de Breantel, et Rad. 

de Bray, for four years. 

8 Ful. de Breantel. 

9 Walt, de Pateshull de Ac- 

cestane, for four years. 

13 Steph. de Wegrave, and 

Will, de Martiwaste. 

14 Steph. de Segne. 

15 Steph. de Segne, et Rich. 

de Atteneston, for three 
years. 

18 Steph. de Segne, and Joh. 

Ulecot. 

19 Radus. filius Reginald. 

20 W T ill. de Bello Campo, and 

Ric. de Porchhalt. 

21 Will, de Bello Campo. 

22 Reginald, de Albo Monas- 

terio. 

23 Rob. de Hega. 

24 Paulus Penire. 

25 Idem. 

26 Joh. Grumband. 

27 Will. Holdwell, for seven 

years. 

34 Alex, de Hammeden, for 
three years. 

37 Nul.Titl. Com. in Rotulo. 

38 Simon de Glendon. 

39 Idem. 

40 Rov. le Savage, Rich, le 

Savage, filius Johan. 

41 Rob. de Tottenhall. 

42 Idem. 

43 Alex, de Hamden, for four 

years. 



SHERIFFS. 



177 



Anno 

47 Alex, de Hamden, et 
Simon de Pateshill, for 
five years. 

52 Edw. films Regis primo- 

genitus. 

53 Idem. 

54 Edw. filius primo-genitus, 

et Barthol. de Towen 
Subvic. ejus, for three 
years. 

EDWARD I. 

1 Thomas de Bray. 

2 Idem. 

3 Hugo de Stapleford, for 

four years. 
7 Johan. de Chedney, for 

four years. 
11 Radul. de Goldington, for 

three years. 
14 Will, de Boyvill, for three 

years. 

17 Will. deTarrevill. 

18 Joh. de Popham. 

19 Idem. 

20 Will, de Turrevill, for five 

years. 

25 Sim. de Bradenham. 

26 Walter.de Molesworth, for 

ten years. 

EDWARD II. 

1 Gil. de Holme, et Wai. 

de Molesworth. 

2 Will.Merre, for four years. 
6 Walt, de Molesworth, et 

Joh. de Pabenham, for 
three years, 
9 Joh. de la Hay. 

10 Idem. 

11 Joh. de la Hay, et Rog. 

de Tirringham. 

12 Phil, de Aylesbury, et 

Rich, de Cave. 

13 Rich, de Cave, et Ingil- 

ran de Berenger. 

14 Idem. 

15 Ingelramus Kerenger. 
VOL. i. 



Anno 



17 Rog. de Tiringham. 

18 Rog. de Tiringham, et 

Joh. de la Hay. 

19 Johan. de la Hay, et Phil. 

de Aylesbury. 



EDWARD III. 

1 Johan. de la Mareschall, 

et Phil, de Aylesbury. 

2 Idem. 

3 Joh. de Mareschall. 

4 Phil, de Aylesbury, for 

three years. 

7 Nul. Titl. Com. in Rotulo. 

8 Rad. de Wedon. 

9 Idem. 

10 Rich. Ward. 

11 Rad. de Wedon. 

12 Nich. de Passelow, et 

Will. Aloton. 

13 Idem. 

14 Nich. Passelow. 

15 Ger. de Bray brook. 

16 Henric. Chalfhunt, et Ger- 

rard. de Braybrook. 

17 Joh. Aygnell, et Hen. 

Chalfhunt. 

18 Hen. Chalfhunt, et Joh. 

Wignell. 

19 Tho. de Swinford. 

20 Idem. 

21 Will. Croyser. 

22 Idem. 

23 Tho. Fernibrand. 

24 Idem. 

25 Joh. Chastilion, et Tho. 

Fernibrand. 

26 Joh. Chastilion. 

27 Ger. de Braybrook. 

28 Idem. 

29 Pet. de Salford, et Ger. 

Braybrook. 

30 Pet. de Salford. 

31 Joh. de Hampden, et Hug. 

Chastilion. 

32 Joh. de Hampden. 

33 Idem. 

34 Pet. de Salford. 

N 



178 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

Anno Anno 

16 35 Joh. de Hampden. 

36 Pet. de Salford, for four 47 Johan. Ragoun. 

years. 48 Johan. Aylesbury. 

40 Joh. deAylesbury, for six 49 Johan. de Arden. 

years. 50 Johan. de Broughton. 

46 Johan. Chyne. -. 51 Johan. de Ollueyge. 

HENRY II. 

1. RICHARDUS BASSET, ET ALBERICUS de VEER. The 
catalogue of the sheriffs of Cambridge and Huntington-shires, as 
also of Essex and Hertfordshire, beginneth with the same 
names ; so that six counties (but all lying together) were under 
their inspection. None need to question, but that this Alberi- 
cus de Veer was the very same with him who by Maud the em 
press was made the first earl of Oxford, of whom hereafter this 
year in Cambridgeshire. Meantime we take notice of an Us- 
terosis, beholding Richard Basset (though first named) as his 
under-sheriff. 

2. HEXRY de ESSEX. He is too well known in our English 
chronicles, being Baron of Raleigh in Essex, and hereditary 
standard-bearer of England. It happened in the reign of this 
king there was a fierce battle fought in Flintshire, at Coleshull, 
betwixt the English and Welch, wherein this Henry de Essex, 
anlmum et signum simul abjecit, ( li betwixt traitor and coward 
cast away both his courage and banner together,") occasioning a 
great overthrow of English.* 

But he that had the baseness to do, had the boldness to deny 
the doing of, so foul a fact ; until he was challenged in combat 
by Robert de Momford, a knight, eye-witness thereof, and by 
him overcome in a duel ; whereupon his large inheritance was 
confiscated to the king, and he himself, partly thrust, partly go 
ing into a convent, hid his head in a cowl, under which, betwixt 
shame and sanctity, he blushed out the remainder of his life. 

16. DAVID ARCHIDIACONUS, &c. It may justly seem 
strange, that an archdeacon should be sheriff of a shire : and one 
would have sought for a person of his profession rather in a 
pulpit, than in a shire-hall. 

Some will answer, that in that age men in .orders engrossed 
not only places of judicature, but also such as had military and 
martial relations, whereof this sheriff did in some sort partake. 
But, under correction, I conceive, that though bishops (who had 
also temporal baronies) were sometimes sheriffs, yet no inferior 
clergymen, being in orders, were ever advanced to that office, 
neither in ancient nor in modern times. Sure I am that, in the 

* Compare Camdcn s Britannia in Essex with him in Flintshire. 



SHERIFFS. 179 

reign of king Charles, one being pricked sheriff of Rutland es 
caped, pleading that he was a deacon. 

Yet we meet with many, whose surnames sound of church- 
relation, both in the catalogue of ancient and modern sheriffs : 

1. Abbot of London ; 2. Archdeacon of Corn\vall ; 3. Bishop 
of Sussex; 4. Chaplain of Norfolk; 5. Clerk of Northampton- 
shire; 6. Dean of Essex; 7- Friar of Oxfordshire; 8. Moigne 
of Dorsetshire ; 9. Monk of Devonshire ; 10. Parson of Buck 
inghamshire ; 11. Pope of Oxfordshire; 12. Prior of London. 

It addeth to the difficulty, that whereas persons of their pro 
fession were formerly enjoined single lives, we find in this list 
some of their sons in the next generation sheriffs also. 

But take one answer to all. As these were laymen, so pro 
bably their ancestors were ecclesiastics, and did officiate accord 
ing to their respective orders and dignities. These afterwards, 
having their patrimony devolved unto them by the death of their 
elder brethren, were dispensed with by the Pope to marry, yet 
so that they were always afterwards called by their former profes 
sion, which was fixed asa surname on their posterity. Thus we read 
how in France Hugh de Lusignian, being an archbishop (and 
the last of his family), when, by the death of his brethren, the 
signiories of Partnay, Soubize, &c. fell unto him, he obtained 
licence to marry, on condition that his posterity should bear the 
name of Archevque, and a mitre over their arms for ever. 

As for the surname of Pope in England, it is such a tran- 
scendant, I cannot reach it with mine own, and must leave it to 
more judicious, conjectures, 

KING JOHN. 

13. ROB. de BRAYBROOK, et HEN. films ejus. 14. HEN. 
BRAYBROOK, et ROB. pater ejus. Here is a loving recipro 
cation. First, a son under-sheriff to his father; that was his 
duty. Secondly, the father under-sheriff to his son ; that was 
his courtesy. Indeed I can name one under-sheriff to his own 
father, being a gentleman of right worthy extraction and estate, 
which son afterwards (in my memory) became lord chief justice 
and treasurer of England. 

HENRY III. 

52. EDVARD. filius REGIS primo-genitus. It soundeth not 
a little to the honour of these two shires, that prince Edward, 
afterwards the most renowned king of England (first of his 
Christian name since the Conquest) was their sheriff for five 
years together. Yea, the imperial crown found him in that of 
fice, when it fell unto him, though then absent in Palestine. 
We may presume, that Bartholomew de Fowen, his under-she 
riff, was very sufficient to manage all matters under him. 



x 2 



180 WORTHIES OF BEDFORSHIRE. 

SHERIFFS OF BEDFORD AND BUCKINGHAM-SHIRE. 

RICHARD II. 
Anno Names and Arms. Place. 

1 Joh. de Aylesbury .- Aylesbury. 

Arms ; Az. a cross Arg. 

2 Thomas Peynere. 

3 Egidius Daubeny . SOMERSETSHIRE. 

G. four lozenges in fess Arg. 

4 Thomas Sackwell . SUSSEX. 

Quarterly O. and G. a bend vaire. 

5 Joh. de Aylesbury . ut prius. 

6 Idem ut prius. 

7 Joh. Widevill . Northam. 

Arg. a fess and canton G. 

8 Rob. Dikes well. 

9 Thomas Covell. 

Az. a lion ramp. Arg. a file of three lambeaux G. 

10 Joh. de Aylesbury . ut prius. 

11 Rad. Fitz. Rich. " 

12 Thomas Peynere. 

13 Thomas Sackvill . . ut prius. 

14 Edm. Hampden . . Hampden, Buc. 

Arg. a saltire G. between four eaglets displayed Az. 

15 Will. Teringham . . Teringham, Buc. 

Az. a cross engrailed Arg. 

16 Thomas Peynere. 

17 Phil. Walwane. 

18 Johannes Longvile . Wolverton, Buc. 

G. a fess indented betwixt six crosslets Arg. 

19 Edm. Hampden . . ut prius. 

20 Regin. Ragon. 

21 Johannes Worship. 

22 Idem. 

HENRY IV. 

1 Thomas Eston. 

2 Edw. Hampden . . ut prius. 
Ro. Beauchamp . . . Eaton, Bed. 

G, a fess between six martlets O. 

3 Reg. Ragon. 

4 Johannes Boys . . KENT. 

O. a griffin segreant S. within two borders G. 

5 Idem. 

6 Edw. Hampden . . ut prius. 

7 Thomas Peynere. 

8 Richardus Hay. 

9 Bald. Pigott . . Stratton, Bed. 

S. three pick-axes Arg. 



SHERIFFS. 181 

Anno Name. Place. 

10 Tho. Strickland . . YORKSHIRE. 

G. a chev. O. between three crosses formee Arg. on a 
canton Erm. a buck s head erased S. 

1 1 Richardus Wyott. 

12 Bald. Pigott . . ut prius. 

HENRY V. 

1 Tho. Strickland . . ut prius. 

2 Edw. Hampden ; - ; . ut prius. 

3 Thomas Wauton. 

4 Richard Wyott. 

5 Joh. Gilford. 

6 Will. Massy. 

7 Walt. Fitz. Rich, 

8 Johan. Radwell. 

9 Joh. Radwellet. 

10 WiU. Massy. 

11 Idem. 

HENRY VI. 

1 Johan. Wauton. 

2 Joh. Cheney, mil. . . Cheneys, Buc. 

Cheeky O. and Az. a fess G. frettv Erin. 

3 Richardus Wyott. 

4 Johan. Cheney. . . ut prius. 

5 Will. Massy, arm. 

6 Hum. Stafford,, arm. 

O. a chev. G. a quarter Erm. 

7 Tho. Wauton, mil. 

8 Thomas Hoo. 

Quarterly S. and Arg. 

9 Joh. Cheney . . ut prius. 

10 Egid. Daubeny, mil. . ut prius. 

11 Tho. Wauton, mil. 

12 Johan. Glove. 

13 Joh. Hampden, arm. . ut prius. 

14 Joh. Broughton. 

15 Rob. Manfeld. 

16 Hum. Stafford, mil. . u t prius. 

17 Joh. Hampden . . ut prius, 

18 Walt. Strickland . . ut prius 

19 Joh. Brekenoll. 

20 Edw. Campden . . ut prius. 

21 Edw. Rede. 

22 Tho. Singleton. 

23 Joh. Wenlock. 

Arg. a chev. between three blackmore heads couped proper. 

24 Ihomas Rokes. 



182 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

25 Thomas Gifford. 

26 Gor. Longvile . . tit prius* 

27 Idem . . . ut prius. 

28 Will. Gedney. 

29 Job. Hampden . . ut prius, 

30 Ro. Whittingham. 

31 Rob. Olney. 

32 Edw. Rede, arm. 

Job.. Poulter . . HERTFORDSHIRE. 

Arg. a bend voided S. 

33 Tho. Singleton. 

34 Tho. Charlton, mil. 

35 Job. Hampden . . ut prius* 

36 Job. Maningham. 

37 Job. Heyton, arm. 

38 Johan. Broughton. 

Arg, a cbev. betwixt three mullets G. 

EDWARD IV. 

1 Edw. Rede, arm. 

2 Thomas Reynes, 

3 Idem. 

4 Pet. House, arm. 

5 Job. Broughton . . lit prius. 

6 Job. Bottiler, mil. . Biddenham, Bed. 

G.a fess compone Arg. and S. betwixt six crosses crosslets O. 

7 Tho. Hampden . . ut prius. 

8 Job. Foster, arm. . BERKSHIRE. 

S. a chev. engrailed between three arr. A. 

9 Will. Lucy, arm. 

G. crusuly O. three pikes bauriant Arg. 

10 Rob. Dooth, arm. . CHESHIRE. 

Arg. three boars heads erased S. tusked O. 

11 Regin. Grey . . . Wrestlingw. Bed. 

Barry of six Ar. and Az. in chief three torteauxes. 

12 Job. Lanoston, arm. 

13 John Botiler, mil. . lit prius. 

14 Rich. Bulstrode. 

(See our Notes in BUCKS.) 

15 Hugo Brudenell . BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

Arg. a chevron G. between three chappews Az. 

16 Edward Molinen. 

17 Jo. Rotheram, arm. . Luton, Bed. 

V. three roebucks tripping O. a baton G. 

18 Thomas Rokes. 

19 Thomas Fowler. 

20 Rich. Enderby, arm. 

Arg three bars dancette S. a pale in chief E. 



SHERIFFS. 183 

Anno Name. Place. 

21 Job. Verney. 

j 

Az. on a cross Arg. five mullets G. 

22 Tho. Hampden . . ut prius. 

RICHARD III. 

1 Dru. Brudnell . . ut prius. 

2 Thomas Fowler. 

3 Job. Boone, mil. 

HENRY VII. 

1 Gor. Ingledon. 

2 Tho. Rokes. 

3 Tho. Fowler. 

4 Joh. Rotheram . . tit prius. 

5 Rich. Godfrey. 

6 Joh. Laneston, sen. 

7 Rich. Restwood . . La Vache, Bed. 

8 Edw. Cokaine, arm. . Hatley, Bed. 

Arg. three cocks G. 

9 Rich. Godfrey, arm. 

10 Will. Rede. 

11 Thomas Darell . . Lillingston, Bed. 

Az. a lion rampant O. crowned Arg. 

12 Thomas Langston. 

13 Joh. Gefford, arm. 

14 David Phillip, arm. 

15 Rich. Restwood. 

16 Hug. Conway, mil. 

S. on a bend betwixt two cotises Arg. a rose G. betwixt 
two annulets. 

17 Joh. St. John, mil. . Bletso, Bed. 

Arg. on a chief -G. two mullets pierced O. 

18 Rich. Blount, arm. 

Barry formy nebulee of six O. and S. 

19 Edw. Bulstrod, arm. . ut prius., 

20 Tho. Darell, arm. . ub prius. 

21 Joh. Cheyney, arm. . ut prius. 

22 Will. Gascoigne . . Cardinton, Bed. 

Arg. on a pale S. a lucie s head erected O. 

23 Joh. Longvile, mil. . ut prius. 

24 Geor. Harvey, arm. 

G. on a bend Arg. three trefoils V. 

HENRY VIII. 

1 Joh. Mordant, arm. . Turvey, Bed. 

Arg. a chevron inter three estoiles S. 

2 John Dive, arm. . . Brumham, Bed. 

Parti per pale Arg. and G. a fess Az. 

3 Rad. Verney, arm. . ut 

4 Tho. Dineham, arm. 



184 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

5 Will. Gascoigne . . ut prius. 

6 Edw. Bray, arm. 

Arg. a chev. between three eagles legs,, erased S. 

7 Job. St. John, mil. . ut prius. 

8 Gor. Harvey, mil. . ut prius. 

9 Will. Gascoigne . . tit prius. 

10 Mich. Fisher, arm. 

11 Will. Rede, mil. 

12 Job. Cheney, arm. . ut prius. 

13 Rob. Lee, mil. . . Quatendon, Buc. 

Arg. a fess between three crescents S. 

14 Rob. Dormer, arm. . Winge, Buc. 

Az. ten billets, four, three, two, and one O. in a chief of 
the second, a lion issuant S. 

15 Tho. Langston, arm. 

16 Rad. Verney . . ut prius. 

17 Tho. Rotheram . . ut prius. 

18 Edw. Grevill, mil. 

S. a bordure and cross engrailed O. therein five pellets. 

19 Fran. Pigote, arm. . ut prius. 

20 Job. Hampden, mil. . ut prius. 

21 Job. St. John, mil. . ut prius. 

22 Mich. Fisher. 

23 Rob. Dormer, arm. . ut prius. 

24 Edw. Dun, mil. 

25 Rob. Lee, mil. . . ut prius. 

26 Job. St. John, mil. . ut prius. 

27 Rog. Corbet, arm. . SHROPSHIRE. 

O. a raven proper. 

28 Tho. Longvile, arm. . ut prius. 

29 Will. Windsor, mil. . Bradenham, Buc. 

G. a saltier Arg. betwixt twelve cross crosslets O. 

30 Rob. Dormer, mil. . id prius. 

31 Tho. Rotheram . . ut prius. 

32 Rad. Verney, mil. . ut prius. 

33 Job. Gostwick, mil. . Willington, Bed. 

Arg. a bend G. cotised S. betwixt six Cornish choughs 
proper ; on a chief O. three mullets V. 

34 Idem . . . ut prius. 

35 Thomas Giffard, arm. 

36 Mich. Fisher, mil. 

37 Lod. Dyve, arm. . . ut prius. 

38 Rob. Drury, mil. 

Arg. on a chief V. the letter Tau betwixt two mullets 
pierced O. 

EDWARD VI. 

1 Fran. Russell, mil. . Cheneis, Buc. 

A lion ramp. G. on a chief S. three escallops of the first. 



SHERIFFS. 185 

Anno Name. Place. 

2 Fran. Pigott, arm. . ut prius. 

3 Joh. St. John, mil. . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Rotheram . . ut prius. 

5 Oliv. St. John, arm. . ut prius. 

6 Tho. Pigott, arm. . . ut prius. 

MARIA REG. 

1 Will. Dormer, mil. . ut prius. 

REX PHIL. ET MA. REGIXA. 

1 Arth. Longvile, arm. . ut prius. 

2 Rob. Drury, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 Rob. Peckham, mil. 

4 Tho. Pigott, arm. . . ut prius. 

5 Hum. Ratcliff, mil. 

Arg. a bend engrailed S. 

REG. ELIZA. 

1 Will. Hawtry, arm. . Checkers, Buc. 

Arg. four lioncels passant S. betwixt two gemews in bend. 

2 Tho. Teringham . . ut prius. 

3 Rob. Drury, mil. . . ut prius. 

4 Joh. Goodwin, arm. 

5 Paul Damil, arm. 

6 Tho. Fleetwood . . Vache, Buc. 

Parti per pale nebule Az. and O. six martelets counter- 
changed. 

7 Hen. Cheyne, mil. . Tuddington, Bed. 

8 AMP. Joh. Cheny, arm. 

9 Joh. Burlacy, arm. 

10 Will. Dormer, mil. . ut prius. 

S. a fess engrailed between three flower-de-luce Arg. 

11 Edw. Ashfeld, mil. 

12 Lod. Mordant, mil. . ut prius. 

13 Tho. Pigott, arm. . ut prius. 

14 Lodo Dive, arm. . . ut prius. 

15 Gor. Peckham, mil. 

16 Rad. Astry, arm. . . Harlington, Bed. 

Barry-wavy of six Arg. and Az. ; on a chief G. three 
bezants. 

HENRY VI. 

8. THOMAS Hoo. If any ask me the place of his residence 
in these counties, I must return, Non sum informatus.* But 

* Dr. Fuller s want of information in this instance may be supplied from the 
History of Luton, in the " Bibliotheca Topographica Britannica," No. VIII. 
pp. 27, 53 ; where it will be seen that Luton Hoo, the residence of the Mar 
quis of Bute, was possessed by Robert (the grandfather of Thomas), who took 
the addition of de Hoo from this place. Thomas was created Lord Hastings and 



186 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 

this is he who is charactered by Master Camden, " Vir egre- 
gius," * whom king Henry the Sixth made Knight of the Garter, 
and Lord Hoo and Hastings. He left four daughters, thus 
married: 1. Anne to Sir Jeffery Bollen ; 2. Eleanor to Sir 
Richard Carew ; 3. Jane to Robert Cople, esq. ; 4. Elizabeth 
to Sir John Devenish. From the first of these was queen 
Elizabeth descended. Some of the issue male of the same 
family were very lately extant in Hertfordshire. 

23. JOHN WENLOCK. His surname seemeth to have something 
in it of a Salopian reference to a market town therein so called ; 
however his principal residence was (but where to me unknownf) 
in this county, whereof he was returned knight to the Parlia 
ment, in the twelfth of this king s reign ; the very same whom 
afterwards this king created Baron Wenlock, and Knight of the 
Garter, and who afterwards lost his life in his cause, valiantly 
fighting in the battle of Tewksbury. It is charity to enter this 
memorial of him, the rather because he died without issue (and 
his fair estate, forfeited to king Edward the Fourth, was quickly 
scattered amongst many courtiers) ; but from his cousin and heir 
general, the Lauleys in Shropshire are lineally descended. 

HENRY VII. 

17. Sir JOHN SAINT JOHN, Mil. There were three Sir 
John Saint Johns successively in the same family, since their 
fixing in this county : 1. The father (this year sheriff) being son 
to Sir Oliver Saint John, by Margaret daughter and sole heir 
to Sir John Beauchamp. This Margaret was afterwards mar 
ried to John Duke of Somerset, to whom she bare Margaret, 
mother to king Henry the Seventh. 2. The son (sheriff in the 
seventh year of king Henry the Eighth.) 3. The grandchild, 
sheriff in the third of Edward the Sixth, and father to Oliver (the 
first Lord Saint John. This we insert to avoid confusion ; it 
being the general complaint of heralds that such liomonymy 
causeth many mistakes in pedigrees. 

22. WILLIAM GASCOIGNE. Much wondering with myself 
how this northern name straggled into the south, I consulted one 

OO 

of his family, and a good antiquary : by whom I was informed 

Hoo in 1447 ; and settled ten parts of the tithes of the Hpo on the abbey of St. 

Alban s, for the use of strangers ED. * Britannia, in Sussex. 

f According to the Bibliotheca Topographica, pp. 25, 45, his mansion was at 
Somerys, about two miles to the north-west of Luton, where, as Leland informs us, 
Lord Wenlock had begun sumptuously a house, but never finished it. He was bu 
ried in a chapel of his own foundation, adjoining to the church of Luton; and on 
his tomb is said to have been a native of Wenlocke, " et hujus ville dominus." " At 
Luton," says Mr. Camden, " I saw a fair church, but the choir then roofless and 
overrun with weeds ; and adjoining to it an elegant chapel founded by Lord Wen 
locke, and well maintained by the family of Rotherham, planted here by Thomas 
Rotherham, archbishop of York and chancellor of England in the time of king 
Edward IV." &c ED. 



SHERIFFS. 187 

that this William was a younger brother of Gauthorpe House in, 
Yorkshire, and was settled at Cardington nigh Bedford, in this 
county, by marrying the inheritrix thereof. He was afterwards 
twice sheriff under king Henry the Eighth,, knighted, and con 
troller of the house of Cardinal Wolsey. A rough gentleman, 
preferring rather to profit than please his master. And although 
the pride of that prelate was far above his covetousness, yet his 
wisdom, well knowing thrift to be the fuel of magnificence, would 
usually digest advice from this his servant, when it plainly 
tended to his own emolument. The name and (which is worse) 
the estate, is now quite extinct in this county. 

HENRY VIII. 

1. JOHN MORDANT, Arm. He was extracted of a very an 
cient parent in this county, and married one of the daughters and 
heirs of Henry V ere, of Addington in Northamptonshire, whereby 
he received a great inheritance, being by aged persons in those 
parts remembered by the name John of the Woods (Reader, I 
was born under the shadow, and felt the warmth of them) ; so 
great a master he was of oaks and timber in that county, besides 
large possessions he had in Essex and elsewhere. King Henry 
the Eighth, owning him deservedly for a very wise man, created 
him Baron Mordant of Turvey. 

29. WILLIAM WINDSOR, Mil. He was descended from 
Walter Fitz Otho,* castle keeper of Windsor in the time of king 
William the Conqueror, and was by king Henry the Eighth 
created Baron Windsor of Bradenham in Buckinghamshire, an 
cestor to the present Lord Windsor, descended from him by an 
heir-general ; so that Hickman is his surname. 

EDWARD VI. 

1. FRANCIS RUSSEL, Mil. He was son to Lord John 
Russel, afterward Earl of Bedford. Succeeding his father in his 
honour, so great was his hospitality, that queen Elizabeth was 
wont to say pleasantly of him, "That he made all the beggars." 
He founded a small school at Woburn ; and dying in great age 
and honour, was buried at Cheneys, 1585. 

5. OLIVER SAINT JOHN, Arm. He was by queen Elizabeth 
made Lord Saint John of Bletso in this county, and left two 
sons, who succeeded to his honour. First, John, whose only 
daughter Anne was married to William Lord Effingham, and was 
mother to Elizabeth now Countess Dowager of Peterborough. 
His second son was Oliver, blessed Avith a numerous issue, and 
ancestor to the present Earl of Bullinbrook. 

* Camden s Britannia, in Berkshire. 



188 WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE. 



QUEEN MARY. 

1. WILLIAM DORMER, Mil. He was son to Sir Robert 
Dormer (sheriff the 14th of king Henry the Eighth) by Jane 
Newdigate his wife; which lady was so zealous a Papist, that 
after the death of queen Mary she left the land, and lived be 
yond the seas. This Sir William, by Mary Sidney his wife, had 
a daughter, married to the Count of Feria, when he came over 
hither with king Philip. 

This Count, under pretence to visit his sick lady, remaining 
here, did very earnestly move a match betwixt king Philip, his 
master, and queen Elizabeth, which in fine took no effect.* He 
then also mediated for Jane Dormer, his grandmother, and some 
other fugitives, that they might live beyond the seas, and receive 
their revenues out of England ; which favour the queen thought 
not fit to indulge : whereat the Count was so incensed, that he 
moved Pope Pius the Fourth to excommunicate her, though his 
wife did with all might and main oppose it.f 

SHERIFFS OF THIS COUNTY ALONE. 

REG. ELIZ. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

17 Ge. Rotheram, esq. . Farly. 

Arms : V. three roe-bucks tripping Or, a baton Gules. 

18 John Barnardeston . Jewelbury. 

G. a saltire engrailed Arg. 

19 Ge. Kenesham, esq. . Temesford. 

20 John Spencer, esq. . Cople. 

21 Nicholas Luke, esq. . Woodend. 

Arg. a bugle horn S. 

22 Henry Butler, esq. . Biddenham. 

G. a fess cheeky Ar. and S. bewixt six cross crosslets Arg. 

23 John Tompson, esq. . Crawley. 

24 Ric. Conquest, esq. . Houghton. 

Quarterly, Arg. and S. a label with three points. 

25 Lodo. Dive, esq. . . Brumham. 

Parti per pale Arg. and G. a fess Az. 

26 Job. Rowe, esq. and 

Ric. Charnock, esq. . Holcot. 

Arg. on a bend S. three crosses crosslet of the field. 

27 Oliver St. John, esq. 

Arg. on a chief G. two mullets O. 

28 Ric. Charnock, esq. . ut prius. 

29 Will. Butler, esq. . . ut prius. 

* Camden s Elizabeth, anno 1558. 

f " Uxore frustra obnitente." Idem, anno 1560. 



SHERIFFS. 189 

Anno Name. Place. 

30 Rad. Astry, esq. . . Westning. 

Barry wavy of six Arg. and Az. on a chief G. three be 
zants. 

31 Oliver St. John,, esq. . ut prim. 

32 Ge. Rotheram, esq. . ut prius. 

33 Ex. Hoddeson, esq. . ut prius. 

34 Will. Duncombe . Batlesden. 

Parti per chevron counterflore G. and Arg. three talbots 
heads crazed counterchanged. 

35 Nicholas Luke, esq. . tit prius. 

36 John Dive, esq. . .-. id prius. 

37 Will Gostwick, esq. . Wellington. 

Arg. a bend G. cotised S. betwixt six Cornish choughs 
proper ; on a chief O. three mullets V. 

38 Ric. Conquest, esq. . ut prius. 

39 Tho. Cheney, esq. . Sundon. 

40 Edr. Ratcliffe, knt. . Elstow. 

Arg. a bend engrailed S. 

41 Will. Butler, esq. . it t prius. 

42 John Croft, knt. 

43 Ri. Charnocks, esq. . tit prius. 

44 George Franklin . . Malvern. 

45 John Dive, knt. . . ut prius. 

JACOBUS REX. 

1 John Dive, knt. . . ut prius. 

2 John Leigh, esq. 

3 Edr. Sands, knt. . . Eaton. 

4 Fra. Anderson, esq. . E worth. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three cross crosslets S. 

5 Tho. Snagge, knt. . Marson. 

6 Edw. Mordant, esq. . Ockley. 

Arg. a chevron between three etoiles S. 

7 Tho. Ancell, esq. . Barford. 

G. on a saltire O. between four bezants a mascle of the 
first. 

8 Fran. Ventres, knt. . Campton. 

Az. a lucie between two bends wavy Arg. 

9 Robert Sandy, esq. 

10 Will. Beeclier, esq. . Hooberry. 

11 Ric. Sanders, esq. . Marson. 

Parti per chevron Arg. and S. three elephants heads 
erazed counterchanged. 

12 Edw. Duncombe . ut prius. 

13 Will. Plomer, esq. . Holms. 

V. a chevron between three lions heads erazed O. bil 
leted G. 



190 WORTHIES OP BEDFORDSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

14 Roger Burgoyne . . Sutton. 

G. a chevron O. between three talbots ; on chief embat 
tled Arg. as many martlets S. 

15 Oliver Luke, knt. . . ut prius. 

16 Ed. Conquest^ knt. . ut prius. 

17 Ge. Keynsham, esq. 

18 Fran. Stanton, esq. Birchmore. 

19 Will. Bryers, esq. . Woodbery. 

20 Wil. Hawkins, esq. . Tilbrook. 

21 Fran. Clerke, knt. 

22 Math. Denton, esq. . Barton. 

CAROLUS I. REX. 

1 John Wingate, esq. . Harlington. 

S. a bend E. cotised O. between six martlets Arg. 

2 Ed. Gostwick, knt. -V ut prius. 

3 John Moore, esq. 

4 Anth. Chester, bart. 

Per pale, Arg. and S. a chevron between three rams heads 
erased, armed O. within a border engrailed roundly, all 
counterchanged. 

5 Michael Grigg, esq. 

6 William Cater, esq. . Kempston. 

E. on a pile G. a lion passant gardant O. 

7 Edmund Anderson . ut prius. 

8 Ja. Beverley, esq. Clapwell. 

E. a rose G. 

9 Oufl. Winch, esq. . Everton. 

10 Hum. Monoux, esq. . Wootton. 

11 Richard Gery, esq. . Bushmede. 

12 Henry Chester, esq. . ut prius. 

13 Will. Boteler, esq. . ut prius. 

14 Will. Plomer, esq. . ut prius. 

15 Richard Child, esq. . Puddington. 

G. a chevron engrailed E. betwixt three doves Arg. 

16 Job. Burgogne, esq. . ut prius. 

17 Tho. Alston, knt. bart. . Wodhill. 

Az. ten stars O. 
18 
19 

20 Nich. Denton, esq. 
21 
22 Math. Taylor, esq. . Eaton. 

THE FAREWELL. 

Being to take my farewell of this county, I am minded of the 
mistake (what writer is free from them ?) in Mr. Stowe, telling 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 191 

us of tide-boats, till-boats, and barges, which come from Bed 
fordshire down the Thames to London,* which surely must 
row over many miles of dry-land in their passage thereunto. 
But, if there be a possibility of such a conveyance by art 
and industry to be effected, may his words prove true by way of 
prediction, seeing certainly such a conveniency must needs be 
advantageous to this county ! 

* Stowe, in Survey of London, p. 18, writing of the river Thames. 



WORTHIES OF BEDFORDSHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED 
SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 

John BUN Y AN, Anabaptist preacher, author of " The Pilgrim s 

Progress ;" born at Elstow 1628 ; died 1688. 
Hon. John BYNG, admiral ; born atSouthhill 1704 ; shot 1757- 
Edmund CHISHULL, divine, antiquary, and Latin poet ; born 

at Ey worth ; died 1733. 

Samuel PALMER, nonconformist ; born at Bedford 1740. 
John POMFRET, poet and classical scholar ; born at Luton 

1677; died 1703. 
William RICHARDSON, divine and ecclesiastical antiquary, 

editor of Godwin " De Prsesulibus ;" born at Wilhamstead 

1698; died 1775. 
Nicholas ROWE, dramatic poet ; born at Little Bockford 1673 ; 

died 1718. 
Nathaniel SALMON, divine, topographer, and antiquary ; born at 

Meppershall ; died 1742. 

Thomas SALMON, historian and geographer ; born at Mepper 
shall; died 1743. 
Elkanah SETTLE, poet, author of the " City Triumphs on Lord 

Mayor s Day," &c. ; born at Dunstable 1647-8 ; died 1724. 
Sir Christopher TURNOR, judge, born at Milton Ernest ; died 

1675. 
Samuel WHITBREAD, eminent brewer, public benefactor, and 

father of the distinguished statesman ; born at Cardington ; 

died 1796, aged 76. 



%* The Works which have been published relative to this county, since Ful 
ler s time, consist chiefly of Parry s History of Bedfordshire (1828), and of Woburn 
Abbey (1831), besides notices given in the Beauties of England, and Ly- 
sons Magna Britannia. There have also been published Accounts of Wimmington, 
by the Rev. O. St. John Cooper (1785), and of Odell, by the same author (1787). 
In 1812, Mr.Thos. Fisher likewise published Collections for Bedfordshire ED. 



BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 



IT is a long narrow county (the miles therein proportioned 
accordingly) stretching forty-four miles from North to South, 
whilst the breadth is content with fourteen at the most. A 
fruitful country, especially in the vale of Aylesbury, where one 
[lately] entire pasture, called Beryfield (now part of the inherit 
ance of Sir Robert Lee, baronet), in the manor of Quarendon, 
is let yearly for eight hundred pounds, the tenant not complain 
ing of his bargain. 

This county takes its name from Buckingham, the chief town 
therein ; as that from beeches (called in the Saxon tongue buc- 
cen) growing plentifully thereabouts, as in other places in this 
county, and therefore placed first amongst its 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 

BEECH. 

This was esteemed sacred amongst the Romans : " Manius 
Curius juravit se ex preeda nihil attigisse, prseter guttum faginum 
quo sacrificaret : " ("protested, that he touched nothing of the 
prey besides a beech-cup, wherewith he should sacrifice."*) It 
is also medicinal ; though we would wish none sore lips or eyes 
to try the truth of Pliny s report, whether beech-leaves cure 
the one, or the ashes of beech-mast heal the other.t Our ordi 
nary use thereof (besides making of many utensils) is for build 
ing of houses. One asked, when beech would make the best 
timber ? meaning what season of the year was^best to cut it down 
for that purpose. It was answered, " that beech would make 
the best timber when no oak was to be had; a time, I assure 
you, which daily approacheth in our land.J 

Hence it was, that such care was taken in the reign of king 
Henry the Eighth (when woods were in a far better condition 
than now-a-days) for the preserving of the standels of beech. 
As also it was provided in the first of queen Elizabeth, that no 
timber trees of oak, beech, and ash (where beech deservedly is 

Plin. lib. decimo sexto, p. 287. cap. 38. vcr. 44. 
f Plin. lib. vigesimo quarto, p. 442. cap. 5. ver. 37- 
j Stat. 35 Hen. VIII. cap. 17. Stat. 1 Eliz. cap. 15. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES MANUFACTURES. 193 

made second), being one foot square at the stub, and growing 
within fourteen miles of the sea, or any navigable river, should 
be converted to coal or fuel,* as the debasing of that which, 
if nature did not first intend, necessity must employ for better 
service. 

SHEEP. 

The best and biggest bodied in England are the Vale of Ayles- 
bury in this county, where it is nothing to give ten pounds or 
more for a breed-ram. So that, should a foreigner hear of the 
price thereof, he would guess that ram rather to be some Roman 
engine of battery, than the creature commonly so called. 

I know not whether his observation, with the reason thereof, 
be worth the inserting, who first took notice, that our cattle 
for food are English when feeding in the field, but French when 
fed on in a family. 

English. 1. Sheep. 2. Ox. 3. Calf. 4. Hog. 5. Pig. 

French. 1. Mutton. 2. Beef. 3. Veal. 4. Bacon. 5. Pork. 
Whereof he assigned this reason, that, after the Norman Con 
quest, the French so tyrannized over the English tenants, that 
they forced them to keep and feed their cattle ; but the Mon- 
sieurs ate all their good meat after it was slaughtered. 

Foreigners much admire at our English sheep, because they 
do not (as those beyond the seas) follow their shepherds like to 
a pack of dogs, but wander wide abroad ; and the popish priests 
tell their simple flocks, that this disobedience of our sheep hap- 
peneth unto us, because (risum teneatis., amid ?) we have left 
the great shepherd, the Pope ;* whereas they did so long before 
our separation from Rome, because, freed from the fear of 
wolves (infesting them in foreign parts), they feed safely in the 
fields, needing neither guide to direct, nor guard to defend 
them. 

TAME PHEASANTS. 

They first took their name from Phasis, a river in Asia ; and 
long their flight thence into England : a fowl fair in the feathers, 
a cock especially (males by nature, though female by art, the 
finest of both sexes), and dainty in the flesh. Abundance of 
these are kept about Wycombe ; the care being more than the 
cost, seeing their general repast is on pismires. Whether these 
tame be as good as wild pheasants, I leave to palate-men to de 
cide. 

THE MANUFACTURES. 

It is true of this county, that it liveth more by its lands than 
by its hands. Such the fruitfulness, venting the native commo 
dities thereof at great rates (thank the vicinity of London, the 

* Stat. l. Eliz. c. 15. f Sam. Hartlib s Legacie, p. 84. 

VOL. I. O 



194 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

best chapman), that no handicrafts of note, save what common 
to other countries, are used therein, except any will instance in 
bone-lace, much thereof being made about Owldney in this 
county ; though more, I believe, in Devonshire, where we shall 
meet more properly therewith. 

PROVERBS. 

" Buckinghamshire bread and beef. *] 

The former is as fine, the latter as fat, in this as in any other 
county. If, therefore, the inhabitants thereof come with hearty 
grace and hungry appetites, no doubt both strength and health 
will follow on their repast. 

" Here if you beat a bush, it s odds you Id start a thief."f] 

No doubt there was just occasion for this proverb at the ori 
ginal thereof, which then contained satirical truth, proportioned 
to the place before it was reformed ; whereof thus our great an 
tiquary : J 

" It was altogether impassable in times past by reason of 
trees, until that Leofstane abbot of St. Alban s did cut them 
down, because they yielded a place of refuge for thieves/ 

But this proverb is now antiquated as to the truth thereof, 
Buckinghamshire affording as many maiden assizes as any 
county of equal populousness. Yea, hear how she pleadeth 
for herself, that such highwaymen were never her natives, but 
fled thither for their shelter out of neighbouring counties. 

SAINTS. 

St. EDBURG, daughter unto Redwald, king of the East 
Angles, embraced a monastical life at Aylesbury in this county, 
where her body was deposited, and removed afterwards to 
Edburgton (now Edburton), in Suffolk, her native country. It 
seems her person would make one county proud, which made 
two happy: Aylesbury observing her memory on the day of 

, whilst Edburton was renowned for her miracles. By the 

way, it seems wonderful that in Scripture we only meet with 
one posthume miracle, viz. the grave-fellow of Elisha raised 
with the touch of his bones ; whilst most of popish miracles 
are [reported] born after the saints death, merely to mould 
men s minds to the adoration of their relics. 

St. RUMALD was the same with St. Rumbald (commonly 
called by country people St. Grumbald), and St. Rumwald, as 
others spell him ; but distinct from another St. Rumwald of 
Irish extraction, a bishop and martyr, whose passion is cele 
brated at Mechlin, in Brabant. This criticism, reader, I request 
thee to take on my credit for thy own ease, and not to buy the 
truth of so difficult a trifle with the trouble I paid for it. 

* Michael Drayton, in his Polyolbion. f Idem. 

J Camden s Britannia, in Buckinghamshire, 



SAINTS. 195 

Entering now on the legend of his life, I write neither what 
I believe, nor what I expect should be believed, but what I find 
written by others. Some make him son of a British king,* 
which is sufficiently confuted by his own Saxon name. More 
probable their tale who relate him son to a king of Northum 
berland, by a Christian daughter of Penda, king of Mercia. 
Being born at King s Sutton, in this county, as soon as he came 
out of his mother s womb, he cried three times, " I am a Chris 
tian ;t" then, making a plain confession of his faith, he desired 
to be baptized, chose his godfathers, and his own name Rum- 
wald. 

He also, by his fingers, directed the standers by to fetch him 
a great hollow stone for a font, which sundry of his father s 
servants essayed in vain, as much above their strength ; till the 
two priests (his designed godfathers) did go and fetch it easily 
at his appointment. J Being baptized, he for three days dis 
coursed of all the common-places of popery; and, having 
confirmed their truth, he bequeathed his body to remain at 
Sutton one year, at Brackly two, and at Buckingham ever after. 
This done, he expired. 

Reader, I partly guess by my own temper how thine is affected 
with the reading hereof, whose soul is much divided betwixt 
several actions at once: 1. Tofroivn at the impudency of the 
first inventors of such improbable untruths. 2. To smile at the 
simplicity of the believers of them. 3. To sigh at that well- 
intended devotion abused with them. 4. To thank God that 
we live in times of better and brighter knowledge. 

Now, although St. Rumwald was born in this county, he 
was most honoured at Boxley in Kent; and thereon a story 
depends. 

There was in the church of Boxley a short statue of St. Rum 
wald (as of a boy-saint), small, hollow, and light ; so that a child 
of seven years of age might easily lift it. The moving hereof 
was made the criterion of women s chastity. Such who paid the 
priest well might easily remove it, whilst others might tug at it 
to no purpose ; for this was the contrivance of the cheat that 
it was fastened with a pin of wood by an invisible stander 
behind. Now when such offered to take it who had been 
bountiful to the priest before, they bare it away with ease, which 
was impossible for their hands to remove who had been close- 
fisted in their confessions. " Thus," saith my author, " it 
moved more laughter than devotion ; and many chaste virgins 
and wives went away with blushing faces, leaving (without 
cause) the suspicion of their wantonness in the eyes of the 
beholders; whilst others came off with more credit (because 

The English Martyrology, on the 28th of August, 
t Camden s Britannia, in Buckinghamshire, 
t Nova Legenda Anglica, in the Life of Saint Rumwald. 
Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent, p. 187. 

o 2 



196 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

with more coin), though with less chastity."* The certain time 
of his life is unknown, but may be guessed about the year 680. 

MARTYRS. 

JOHN SCRIVENER was martyred at Amersham, anno Domini 
1521 ; on whom an extraordinary piece of cruelty was used, his 
own children being forced to set the first fire upon him ;f for 
which the law (Deut. xiii. 6) was most erroneously pretended, 
as will appear by the perusing thereof: 

" If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy 
daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend which is as 
thy own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve 
other gods, thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto 
him : but thou shalt surely kill him ; thine hand shall be first 
upon him to put him to death." 

See we here how in the case of idolatry one is to spare none 
related unto them, either as equals or inferiors. But this law 
enjoins not children to accuse or execute their own parents, as 
Scrivener s children were compelled to do ; a barbarous cruelty, 
especially seeing the civil law among the heathen Romans did pro 
vide, that " filius non torquetur in caput parentis," (" a son shall 
not be examined on the rack to accuse his father, in such cases 
wherein his life is concerned.") Others, besides Scrivener, were 
martyred, and more confessors molested in this small county, 
anno 1521, than in all England elsewhere for twenty years 
together .f 

PRELATES. 

RICHARD de WENDOVER (a place well known in this shire) 
was rector of Bromley, in Kent, where the Bishop of Rochester 
hath a palace; and, that see being vacant, he was lawfully 
chosen the bishop thereof. But Edmund, archbishop of Canter 
bury (afterwards sainted) refused to give him consecration, 
because he was rude and unlearned. Hereupon Wendover 
appealed to the Pope, whom he found his better friend, because 
Edmund (a bitter inveigher against papal extortions) was a foe 
unto him, and so was consecrated. Now none will grudge him 
his place amongst our WORTHIES, seeing what he lacked in 
learning he had in holiness ; and such his signal sanctity, || that, 
after his death, he was, by special mandate of king Henry the 
Third, buried in the church of Westminster (as another Jehoi- 
adah, for his public goodness,^) anno 1250. . 

JOHN BUCKINGHAM (for so his name is truly written), alias 
Bokingham and Bukingham, took his name and nativity, no 

* Lambarde, in his Perambulation of Kent, p. 187. 

f Fox s Acts and Monuments, p. 838. 

J See Fox s Acts and Monuments, in that year. 

Godwin, in the Bishops of Rochester. II Idem. 

U 2 Chron. xxiv. 16. 






PRELATES. 197 

doubt, from Buckingham, in this county, a-la-mode of that age. 
He was bred at the university of Oxford ; and, although since 
by some causelessly slandered for want of learning, was a great 
disputant, and well-studied scholar, as his works do declare.* 
He was afterwards preferred Bishop of Lincoln, where several 
contests happened betwixt him and Pope Boniface the Ninth, 
who, in revenge, ex plenitudine potestatis, removed him from 
Lincoln to Lichfield ; that is, from the hall into the kitchen ; a 
bishopric of less credit and profit. Buckingham grew sullen 
hereat, and would rather shut himself out than play at a less 
game ; and so, quitting^episcopacy, 1397, lived and died a private 
monk at Canterbury, where he lies buried the lowermost in the 
body of Christchurch, under a very fair grave-stone, as my 
industrious friend hath well retrieved his memory,t though the 
brass on his monument be worn or rather torn away. He 
indented with the prior and convent at Canterbury to build 
him a chantry-chapel near his sepulchre, which I find not 
performed. 

JOHN YOUNG was born at Newton-longville, in this county,J 
and bred in New College in Oxford, on the same token that 
there are no fewer than ten Youngs in their register, reckoned 
fellows of that foundation ; and one said, that " seeing the 
college was always new, well may many fellows be young 
therein." This John Young became warden thereof, and after 
wards was made bishop of the fair city of Callipolj, in Greece ; 
an excellent place to fat aneither camel nor lion but came- 
lion in ; and seeing the great Turk was his tenant, little the 
rent he paid to this his landlord. However, this titular bish 
opric gave him precedency, a vote in general councils, and 
power of ordination. But some English earth doth not well 
with such Grecian air ; and, for his better support, he was 
made Master of the Rolls, Jan. 12, in the first of king Henry the 
Eighth, and either died or resigned his office some eight years 
after. As I remember, he lieth buried, with a brass inscription, 
in New College chapel. 

JOHN HOLYMAN was born at Codington, in this county, 
bred in New College in Oxford, || and afterwards became a 
Benedictine in Reading, until that monastery was dissolved. 
Queen Mary, in the first of her reign, preferred him Bishop of 
Bristol, whilst his predecessor, Paul Bush (deprived for being 
married) was yet alive. He lived peaceably, not embruing 

* J. Bale and J. Pits, de Scriptoribus Britannicis. 
William Sommers, in his Antiquities of Canterbury, p. 181. 

New College Register, anno 1482. 

J. Philpot, in his Catalogue of the Masters of the Rolls. 
II New College Register, anno Domini 1512. 



198 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

his hands in Protestants blood ; and died, seasonably for him 
self, a little before the death of queen Mary, 1558. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

JOHN HARLEY was born in the parish of Newport-Pagnel 
in this county, as a learned antiquary* (a native of the same 
place) hath informed me, where some of his kindred were lately 
(if not still) in being. He was bred first fellow, then school 
master in Magdalen College in Oxford. In the dangerous days 
of king Henry the Eighth, he was an hearty but concealed Pro 
testant. 

In the first week of the reign of king Edward the Sixth, 
whilst most men s minds stood at a gaze (it being dead water 
with them which way the tide would turn,) Master Harley, in 
the parish church of Saint Peter s in Oxford, in a solemn Lent 
sermon, publicly preached anti-papal doctrine, and powerfully 
pressed justification by faith alone; whereupon the over-offi 
cious vice-chancellor hurried him up to London for an heretic, 
there to answer for his contempt.t 

But the case was soon altered : Harley was acquitted, com 
mended, preferred to be tutor to the sons of John Earl of 
Warwick, afterwards Duke of Northumberland. He was thence 
made Bishop of Hereford. 

It is said of Abraham, " he was buried in a good old age."| It 
cannot be said of our Harley, he died in an old age (finding him 
not above fifty j) though expiring in a good age, in two respects 
in relation to the piety of his life past, and in reference to the 
future troubles which immediately followed. Surely, had he 
survived a little longer, he had lost his life, as he did his bishop 
ric, for being married, in the first of queen Mary. 

Doctor Laurence Humphred, Harley s scholar in Magdalen 
College, hath consecrated this distich to the memory of his 
master, though the Muses in my mind looked very solemnly, 
without the least smile at the making thereof, 

" Flos domui Harlseus, socius ludique magister, 
Celsus deinde throno, celsior inde polo." 

He died anno Domini 1554, shifting from place to place, the 
cause why there is no certain intelligence where he was interred. 

ROBERT ALDRICH, although he lived but in the twilight of 
religion, he is justly to be placed not on the .dark but light side 
of Reformation ; for, though his actions were but weak, his 
affections were sincere therein. Born he was at Burnham in 
this county, bred in King s College, in Cambridge, proctor of that 

" Mr. Martin, beneficed near Northampton. 

t Laurence Humphred, in the Latin Life of Bishop Jewell. 

$ Gen. xv. 15. 

Bishop Godwin, in his Catalogue of the Bishops of Hereford. 



PRELATES. 199 

university, anno 1525 ;* about which time many letters passed 
betwixt him and his familiar friend Erasmus, who styleth him, 
"blandae eloquentise juvenem." He was afterwards school 
master, then fellow and provoster of Eaton, and at last made 
bishop of Carlile, anno 1537, by king Henry the Eighth. He 
was never a thorough-paced Papist (much less a persecutor of 
Protestants,) though a compiler with some superstitions. He 
died at Horncastle, in Lincolnshire (a house belonging to his 
see), in the reign of queen Mary, 1555.f 

WILLIAM ALLEY was born at Wickham, in this county, bred 
first at Eton, then in King s College, where he was admitted 
anno Domini 1528. J Hence he went away being bachelor of arts, 
and afterwards became lecturer in Saint Paul s ; I say lecturer, 
which name, though since it hath sounded ill in some jealous 
ears as infected with faction, was an ancient office founded 
in some cathedrals, to read divinity there ; and this Master 
Alley s learned lectures (according to that age) are extant in 
print. He was consecrated Bishop of Exeter, July 14, 1560 ; 
and dying 1576, lieth buried under a fair marble in his own 
cathedral. 

RICHARD Cox was born at Whaddon, in this county, and 
bred for some years in King s College, in Cambridge ; even 
when Cardinal Wolsey was erecting Christ Church, in Oxford. 
This great prelate; desiring that this his college should be as fair 
within as without, and have learning answerable to the building 
thereof, employed his emissaries to remove thither the most 
hopeful plants of Cambridge, and this Richard Cox amongst 
the rest. He became afterwards schoolmaster of Eton, which 
was happy with many flourishing wits under his endeavours, 
and Haddon amongst the rest, whom he loved with filial affec 
tion ; nor will it be amiss to insert the poetical pass betwixt 
them. 

Walter Haddon to Doctor Cox, his school master. 

" Vix caput attollens e lecto scribere carmen 
Qui velit, is voluit, scribere plura, Vale." 

Doctor Cox to Walter Haddon, his scholar. 

" Te inagis optarem salvum sine carmine, fill, 
Quam sine te salvo, carmina multa, Vale. 1 

Hence he was sent for to be instructor to prince Edward, 
which, with good conscience, to his great credit he discharged. 
Here, reader, forgive me in hazarding thy censure, in making 
and translating a distich upon them. 

Preeceptor doctus, docilis magis an puer ille? 
Ille pucr docilis, praceptor tu quoque doctus. 

Mr. Hatcher, in his Manuscript Catalogue of the Fellows of King s College, 
t Godwin, in his Catalogue of Bishops, 
t Mr. Hatcher, ut prius. $ Ibid. 



200 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

" Master more able, child of more docility ? 
Docile the child, master of great ability. " 

At last he was preferred Bishop of Ely, 1559, commendably 
continuing therein, whatever causeless malice hath reported to 
the contrary, twenty-one years, and dying anno Domini 1580. 

THOMAS BICKLEY was born at Stow, in this county, bred 
first chorister, then scholar, then fellow in Magdalen College 
in Oxford.* In the first of Edward the Sixth, his detestation 
of superstition may rather be commended, than his discretion in 
expressing it, when (before the public abolishing of Popery) at 
evening-prayer, he brake the consecrated Host with his hands, 
and stamped it under his feet, in the college chapel-t After 
wards he fled over into France, living an exile at Paris and Or 
leans all the reign of queen Mary. Returning into England, he 
became chaplain to Archbishop Parker, who preferred him 
warden of Merton College, wherein he continued twenty years. 
When passed the age of a man (eighty years old) he began the 
life of a bishop, and was rather contented than willing to accept 
the bishopric of Chichester, freely offered unto him :{ yet lived 
he eleven years therein, and died ninety years of age, April 30, 
1596, and had a most sumptuous funeral ; all the gentry of the 
vicinage doing their homage to " the crown of his old age, 
which was found in the way of truth." He led a single life, left 
an hundred pound to Merton College, and other moneys to 
pious uses. 

JOHN KING was born at Warnhall, nigh Tame, in this county ; 
Robert King, the last abbot of Osney, and first bishop of Ox 
ford, being his great uncle. He was first dean of Christchurch, 
then bishop of London, being full fraught with all episcopal 
qualities ; so that he who endeavoureth to give a perfect account 
thereof will rather discover his own defects, than describe this 
prelate s perfections. He died anno Domini 1618, being buried 
in the choir of Saint Paul s, with the plain epitaph of " Resur- 
gam ;" and I cannot conceal this elegant elegy made upon him : 

Sad Relique of a blessed soul whose trust 
We sealed up in this religious dust ; 
O do not thy low exequies suspect, 
As the cheap arguments of our neglect. 
T\vas a commanded duty that thy grave 
As little pride as thou thyself should have. 
Therefore thy covering is an humble stone, 
And but a word for thy inscription ; 
When those that in the same earth neighbour thee, 
Have each his chronicle and pedigree, 
They have their waving penons and their flags 
Of matches and alliance, formal brags ; 

* Godwin, in his Catalogue of Bishops of Chichester. 

f Dr. Humphred, in his Latin Life of Bishop Jewell, p. 73. 

j " Episcopatum oblatum ultro, non nimis cupidc accepit." k (Godwin, ut 

" Resurgam. 1 



PRELATES. 201 

When thou (although from ancestors thou came 
Old as the Heptarchy, great as thy name) 
Sleep st there enshrin d in thy admired parts, 
And hast no heraldry but thy deserts. 
Yet let not them their prouder marbles boast ; 
For they rest with less honour, though more cost. 
Go search the world, and with your mattock wound 
The groaning bosom of the patient ground ; 
Dig from the hidden veins of her dark womb 
All that is rare and precious for a tomb : 
Yet when such treasure, and more time is spent, 
You must grant his the nobler monument, 
Whose faith stands o er him for a hearse, and hath 
The Resurrection for his Epitaph." 

See more of the character of this most worthy prelate, in our 
"Ecclesiastical History," anno 1620, wherein he died. 

RICHARD MONTAGUE was born at Dorney (where his father 
was vicar of the parish), within three miles of Eaton, and so 
(though not within the reach) within the sight of that staple 
place for grammar-learning, wherein he was bred :* thence was 
he chosen successively fellow of kingVcollege in Cambridge, 
fellow of Eaton, parson of Stanford Rivers in Essex, canon 
of Windsor, parson of Petworth, elected bishop of Chichester, 
and at last of Norwich. He spent very much in repairing his 
parsonage-house at Petworth, as also on his episcopal house at 
Allingbourn near Chichester. 

He was most exact in the Latin and Greek ; and, in the vin 
dication of tithes, wrestled with the grand antiquary of England, 
and gave him a fair flat fall in the point of a Greek criticism, 
taxing him justly for mistaking a god (amongst the Egyptians) 
more than there was, by making a man amongst the gramma 
rians fewer than they should be. 

He hath many learned works extant against the Papists, some 
in English, some in Latin ; and one, called his " Appello Cae- 
sarem," which (without his intent and against his will) gave oc 
casion of much trouble in the land. He began an Ecclesiastical 
History, and set forth his apparatus, and, alas ! it was but an ap 
paratus; though, through no default of his, but defect of his 
health ; sickness, troublesome times, and then death, surprising 
him. Had it been finished, we had had church-annals to put 
into the balance with those of Baronius ; and which would have 
swayed with them for learning, and weighed them down for 
truth. He died anno Domini 1641. 

HENRY KING, D.D., son to John King (lately mentioned), 
bishop of London, and his wife (of the ancient family of the 
Conquests), was born in this county, in the same town, house, 
and chamber, with his father ; a local coincidence, which 
in all considerable particulars cannot be paralleled. 

We know the scripture proverb, used in exprobration, "As is the 

* So am I informed by his son-in-law, Doctor David Stokes. 



202 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

mother, so is the daughter ;"* both wicked, both woeful. But 
here it may be said, by way of thankfulness to God and honour 
to the persons, " As was the father, so is the son ;" both pious, 
both prosperous, till the calamity of the times involved the 
latter. 

Episcopacy, anno 1641, was beheld by many in a deep con 
sumption, which many hoped would prove mortal. To cure this 
it was conceived the most probable cordial, to prefer persons 
into that order, not only unblameable for their life, and eminent 
for their learning, but also generally beloved by all disengaged 
people; and amongst these, king Charles advanced this our 
doctor bishop of Chichester. 

But all would not do. Their innocency was so far from stop 
ping the mouth of malice, that malice almost had swallowed 
them down her throat; since God hath rewarded his patience, 
giving him to live to see the restitution of his order. 

David saith, that " the good tree [man] shall bring forth his 
fruit in due season ;"f so our doctor varied his fruits, according 
to the diversity of his age. Being brought up in Christ-church 
in Oxford, he delighted in the studies of music and poetry : more 
elder, he applied himself to oratory and philosophy ; and in his 
reduced age fixed on divinity, which his printed sermons on the 
Lord s-prayer, and others which he preached, remaining fresh in 
the minds of his auditors, will report him to all posterity. He 
is still living, anno Domini 1660. 

WRITERS ON THE LAW. 

Sir GEORGE CROOK, knight, son of Sir John Crook and 
Elizabeth Unton his wife, was born at Chilton in this county, J 
in the second year of the reign of queen Elizabeth, bred first in 
Oxford, then a double reader in the Inner Temple, serjeant at 
law, and the king s serjeant, justice first of the Common-bench, 
22 Jacobi, and then of the Upper-bench, 4 Caroli. 

His ability in his profession is sufficiently attested by his own 
printed " Reports \" eight eminent judges of the law, out of their 
knowledge of his great wisdom, learning, and integrity, approv 
ing and allowing them to be published for the common benefit. 

He was against the illegality of ship-money, both publicly in 
Westminster-hall, and privately in his judgment demanded by 
the king, though concluded to subscribe (according to the course 
of the court) by plurality of voices. The country-man s wit (le 
velled to his brain) will not for many years be forgotten " that 
ship-money may be gotten by Hook, but not by Crook ;" though 
since they have paid taxes (loins to the little finger, and 
scorpions to the rod of ship-money) ; but whether by Hook or 
Crook, let others inquire. 

His piety, in his equal and even walkings in the way of God 

* Ezek. xvi. 44. f Psalm i. % In his Life, prefixed to his Reports. 



WRITERS ON THE LAW SOLDIERS. 203 

through the several turnings and occasions of his life, is 
evidenced by his charity to man, founding a chapel at Beachley 
in Buckinghamshire, two miles at least distanced from the mo 
ther-church, and an hospital in the same parish, with a liberal 
revenue. 

Considering his declining and decaying age, and desiring to 
examine his life, and prepare an account to the Supreme Judge, 
he petitioned king Charles for a writ of ease ; which, though in 
some sort denied (what wise master would willingly part with a 
good servant?) was in effect granted unto him. He died at 
Waterstock in Oxfordshire, in the eighty-second year of his age, 
anno Domini 1641. 

EDWARD BULTSTRODE, Esq. (born in this county, bred in the 
studies of our municipal laws in the Inner Temple, and his High- 
ness s justice hVNorth Wales,) hath written a book of divers re 
solutions and judgments, with the reasons and causes thereof, 
given in the court of King s Bench, in the reigns of king James 
and king Charles ; and is lately deceased. 

SOLDIERS. 

SIR WILLIAM WINDSOR, Knight. I am confident herein 
is no mislocation, beholding him an ancestor to the Right 
Honourable Thomas Windsor Hickman, Lord Windsor, and 
fixed at Bradenham. He was deputed by king Edward the 
Third, in the forty-seventh year of his reign, Lord Lieutenant 
of Ireland, which country was then in a sad condition : for the 
king was so intent on the conquest of France (as a land 
nearer, fairer, and due to him by descent), that he neglected the 
effectual reduction of Ireland. 

This encouraged the Irish grandees (their O s and Mae s) to 
rant and tyrant it in their respective seigniories, whilst such 
English who were planted there had nothing native (save their 
surnames) left; degenerating by degrees to be Irish in their 
habits, manners, and language. Yea, as the wild Irish are ob 
served to love their nurses or fosters above their natural 
mothers, so these barbarizing English were more endeared to 
the interest of Ireland which fed, than of England which bare 
and bred them. 

To prevent more mischief, this worthy knight was sent over, 
of whose valour and fidelity the king had great experience. He 
contracted with the king to defray the whole charge of that 
kingdom (as appeareth by the instrument in the Tower) for 
eleven thousand two hundred and thirteen pounds, six shillings, 
and eight pence, per annum.* 

Now Sir William undertook not the Conquest, but custody of 
the land in a defensive war. He promised not with a daring 

* 47 Edward III. Glaus, pars 2, m. 24 and 26. 



204 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

mountebank to cure, but with a discreet physician to ease, this 
Irish gout. 

Indeed I meet with a passage in Froissart, relating how Sir 
William should report of himself, " that he was so far from sub 
duing the Irish, he could never have access to understand and 
know their countries, albeit he had spent more time in the ser 
vice of Ireland than any Englishman then living " * which to 
me seems no wonder, the Irish vermin shrouding themselves 
under the scabs of their bogs, and hair of their woods. How 
ever, he may truly be said to have left that land much improved, 
because no whit more impaired during those dangerous distrac 
tions, and safely resigned his office (as I take it) in the first of 
king Richard the Second. 

ARTHUR GRAY, Baron of Wilton, is justly reckoned amongst 
the natives of this shire, whose father had his habitation (not at 
Wilton, a decayed castle in Herefordshire, whence he took his 
title, but) at Waddon, a fair house of his family, not far from 
Buckingham. 

He succeeded to a small estate, much diminished on this sad 
occasion. His father William Lord Gray being taken prisoner 
in France, after long ineffectual soliciting to be (because capti 
vated in the public service) redeemed on the public charge, at 
last was forced to ransom himself with the sale of the best part 
of his patrimony. 

Our Arthur endeavoured to advance his estate by his valour, 
being entered in feats of war under his martial father, at the 
siege of Leith, 1560, where he was shot in the shoulder, which 
inspirited him with a constant antipathy against the Scotch.f 
He was afterwards sent over lord deputy into Ireland, anno 
1580 : where, before he had received the sword, or any emblems 
of command, ut acrioribus initiis terrorem incuteret,% (" to fright 
his foes with his fierce beginning/ ) he unfortunately fought the 
rebels at Glandilough, to the great loss of English blood. This 
made many commend his courage above his conduct, till he re 
covered his credit, and finally suppressed the rebellion of 
Desmund. 

Returning into England, the queen chiefly relied on his coun 
sel for ordering our land forces against the Spaniards in 88, and 
fortifying places of advantage. The mention of that year (criti 
cal in Church differences about discipline at home, as well as 
with foreign foes abroad) mindeth me that this lord was but a 
back friend to bishops, and in all divisions of votes in parlia 
ment, or council-table, sided with the anti-prelatical party. 

When secretary Davison, that state-pageant (raised up on 
purpose to be put down), was censured in the star-chamber 

* The same also in effect is found in Stow, in Richard the Second, 
f Camden s Elizabeth, anno notato. + Ibid, anno 1580. 



SOLDIERS WRITERS. 205 

about the business of the queen of Scots, this Lord Grey only 
defended him, as doing nothing therein but what became an able 
and honest minister of state. An ear-witness saith, " Heec 
fuse, oratorie, et animose, Greium disserentem audivimus."* 
So that besides bluntness (the common and becoming eloquence 
of soldiers) he had a real rhetoric, and could very emphatically 
express himself. Indeed this warlike lord would not wear " two 
heads under one helmet," and may be said always to have borne 
his beaver open, not dissembling in the least degree, but own 
ing his own judgment at all times what he was. He deceased 
anno Domini 1593. 

WRITERS. 

ROGER de WENDOVER was born at that market-town in this 
county, bred a benedictine in St. Alban s, where he became the 
king s historian. 

Know, reader, that our English kings had always a monk, 
generally of St. Alban s (as near London, the staple of news 
and books), to write the remarkables of their reigns. t One 
addeth (I am sorry he is a foreigner, and therefore of less credit 
at such distance), that their chronicles were locked up in the 
king s library ; so that neither in that king s nor his son s life 
they were ever opened. If so, they had a great encouragement 
to be impartial, not fearing a blow on their teeth, though com 
ing near to the heels of truth, which in some sort were tied up 
from doing them any hurt. 

This Roger began his chronicle at the Conquest, and con 
tinued it to the year 1235, being the 19th year of king Henry 
the Third. Indeed Matthew Paris doth quarter too heavily on 
the pains of Wendover, who only continuing his chronicle for 
some years, and inserting some small alterations,^ is entitled 
to the whole work. As a few drops of blood, because of the 
deep hue thereof, discoloureth a whole bason of water into 
redness ; so the few and short interpolations of Paris, as the 
more noted author, give a denomination to the whole history, 
-though a fabric built three stories high, whereof our Roger laid 
the foundation, finished the ground-room and second loft, to 
which by M. Paris was added the garret, as since the roof by 
W. Rishanger. This Wendover died about the year of our 
Lord 1236. 

JOHN AMERSHAM was born in that small corporation in this 
county, bred a monk in St. Alban s, where he contracted not 
only intimacy, but in some sort identity of affection, with John 
Weathamsted, abbot thereof; insomuch that what was said of 

* Camden s Elizabeth, anno 1587. 

t Ponticus Virunius, cited by J. Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. 4, 
num. 94. 

t ee Dr. Watts s Prefatory Notes to Matthew Paris. 



206 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

two other friends was true of them (ethics making good the 
grammar thereof;) "duo amici vixit in eodem conventu." 

Now there was a great faction in that convent against their 
abbot, which to me seemeth no wonder ; for the generality of 
monks being lewd, lazy, and unlearned, they bare an antipathy 
to their abbot, who was pious, painful, and a profound scholar. 
Nor did they only rail on his person whilst living, but also revile 
his memory when dead. Our Amersham, surviving his dear 
friend, wrote a book (besides other of his works), intituled, 
"The shield of Weathamsted," therein defending him from the 
undeserved darts of his enemies obloquy.* He flourished anno 
Domini 1450. 

MATTHEW STOKES was born in the town and bred in the 
school of Eton,f until he was admitted in King s College in 
Cambridge, anno Domini 1531. He afterwards became fellow 
of that house, and at last esquire beadle, and register of the 
university. 

A register indeed, both by his place and painful performance 
therein ; for he (as the poets feign of Janus with two faces) saw 
two worlds, that before and after the Reformation ; in which 
juncture of time, so great the confusion and embezzling of 
records, that, had not Master Stokes been the more careful, I 
believe, that though Cambridge would not be so oblivious as 
Massala Corvinus, who forgot his own name, yet would she 
have forgotten the names of all her ancient officers. 

To secure whose succession to posterity, Mr. Stokes, with 
great industry and fidelity, collected a catalogue of the chancel 
lors, vice-chancellors, and proctors. He was a zealous papist 
(even unto persecution of others) ; which I note, not to disgrace 
his memory, but defend myself, for placing him before the 
Reformation, though he lived many years in the reign of queen 
Elizabeth. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

WALTER HADDON was born of a knightly family in this 
county, bred at Eton,J afterwards fellow in King s College, 
where he proceeded Doctor of Law, and was the King s pro 
fessor in that faculty, chosen Vice-chancellor of Cambridge 1550 : 
soon after he was made President of Magdalen College in Ox 
ford, which place he waived in the reign of queen Mary, and 
sheltered himself in obscurity. Queen Elizabeth made him one 
of the Masters of her Requests, and employed him in several 
embassies beyond the seas. Her Majesty, being demanded whe 
ther she preferred him or Buchanan for learning, wittily and 
warily returned, " Buchananum omnibus antepono, Haddonum 

* Bale, de Scriptoribus Britarmicis ; and Pitsseus, setat. 14, num. 843. 
f Hatcher s MS. Catalogue of the Fellows of King s College. 
J Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent, nono, num. 87. 



WRITERS. 207 

nemini postpone." Indeed he was a most eloquent man, and 
a pure Ciceronian in his style, as appeareth by his writings, and 
especially in his book against Osorius. The rest may be learned 
out of his epitaph : 

" S. MEMORISE. 

" GUALTERO HADDONO, Equestri loco nato, Jurisconsulto, 
Oratori, Poetse celeberrinio, Grsecce Latineeque eloquentife sui 
temporis facile principi ; sapientia, et sanctitate vitee, in id 
invecto, ut reginse Elizabethae a supplicum libellis magister 
esset, destinareturque^majoribus nisi facto immaturius cessisset: 
interim in omni gradu viro longe eminentissimo. Conjugi suo 
optimo meritissimoque ANNA SUTTONA, uxqr ejus secunda, 
flens, moerens, desiderii sui signum posuit. Obiit anno Salut. 
hum. 1572, setatis 56." 

This his fair monument is extant in the wall at the upper end 
of the chancel of Christ s Church in London ; where so many 
ancient inscriptions have been barbarously defaced. 

LAURENCE HUMPHRED was born in this county,* bred in 
Magdalen College, in Oxford, a great and general scholar, able lin 
guist, deep divine, pious to God, humble in himself, charitable 
to others. In the reign of queen Mary he fled into Germany, 
and there was fellow-commoner with Mr. Jewell (whose Life he 
wrote at large in Latin) in all his sufferings. Here he trans 
lated Origen " de Recta Fide," and Philo " de N obilitate," out 
of Greek. 

Returning into England in the reign of queen Elizabeth, he 
was made President of Magdalen College in Oxford, and Dean 
of Winchester. Higher preferment he never attained, because 
he never desired it ; though a learned author seems to put it on 
another account, " fortasse eo quod de adiaphoris non juxta cum 
Ecclesia Anglicana senserit."f I deny not but he might scruple 
some ceremonies ; but sure I am he was much molested in his 
college with a party of fierce (not to say furious) Nonconformists 
from whom he much dissented in judgment. He died anno 
Domini 1589. 

Here I must confess a [mistake in my " Ecclesiastical His 
tory" (misguided therein with many others by general tradition), 
when I reported the gold lately found and shared amongst the 
president and fellows of Magdalen College in Oxford, to have 
been the gift of this Doctor Humphred, which since appeareth 
a legacy left by William Wainfleet, their founder. Would I had 
been mistaken in the matter as well as the person, that so un 
worthy an act had never been performed. But what said Jacob 
to his sons : " Carry back the money again ; peradventure it was 
an oversight."! Seasonable restitution will make reparation. 

* " Humfredus patria Buchingamensi." Baleus, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, 
Cent. xi. num. 93. 

f Camden s Elizabeth, in anno 1589. J Gen. xliii.12. 



208 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

ROGER GOAD was born at Houton in this county, and was 
admitted sholar in King s College in Cambridge 1555.* Leaving 
the college, he became a schoolmaster at Guilford in Surrey. 
But pity it is that a great candle should be burning in the 
kitchen, whilst light is lacking in the hall, and his public parts 
pent in so private a profession. He was made not to guide boys 
but govern men. Hence, by an unexpected election, he was 
surprised into the Provostship of King s College, wherein he 
remained forty years. He was thrice Vice-chancellor of Cam 
bridge ; a grave, sage, and learned man. He had many contests 
with the young fry in this college, chiefly because he loved their 
good better than they themselves. Very little there is of his in 
print, save what he did in conjunction with other doctors of the 
university. By his testament he gave the rectory of Milton to 
the college ; and dying on St. Mark s day, 1610, lieth buried in 
a vestry on the north side of the chapel. 

JOHN GREGORY \vas born November 10, 1607, at Amersham 
in this county, of honest though mean parents, yet rich enough 
to derive unto him the hereditary infirmity of the gout, which 
afflicted him the last twenty years of his life. He was bred in 
Christ Church in Oxford, where he so applied his book, that he 
studied sixteen hours of the four-and-twenty for many years to- 
gether.f He attained to be an exquisite linguist and general scho 
lar ; his modesty setting the greater lustre on his learning. His 
notes on Dr. Ridley s book of Civil Law gave the first testimony 
of his pregnancy to the world, and never did text and comment 
better meet together. 

He was first chaplain of Christ Church, and thence preferred 
by Bishop Duppa, Prebendary of Chichester and Sarum ; and 
indeed no church preferment compatible with his age was above 
his deserts. He died at Kidlington in Oxfordshire, 1646, and 
was buried at Christ Church in Oxford. I find a smart epitaph, 
made by a friend, on his memory ; and it was, in my mind, as 
well valiantly (consider the times) as truly indited : 

" Ne premas cineres hosce, viator, 
Nescis quot sub hoc jacet lapillo ; 

Grssculus, Hebraeus, Syrus, 
Et qui te quovis vincet idiomate. 

At ne molestus sis 

Ausculta, et causam auribus tuis imbibe : 

Templo exclusus, 

Et avita Religione 

Jam senescente (ne dicam sublata), 

Mutavit chorum, altiorem ut capesceret. 

Vade nunc, si libet, et imitare. R. W." 

* Mr. Hatcher, in his MS. Catalogue of the Fellows of King s College, 
t In his Life, prefixed to his book. 



WRITERS. 



209 



His " Opera Posthuma " are faithfully set forth by his good 
friend John Gurgain, and deservedly dedicated to Edward Bish, 
Esquire ; one so able that he could (charitable that he would, and va 
liant that he durst) relieve Master Gregory in his greatest distress. 

SAMUEL COLLINS, son to Baldwin Collins (born in Coventry, 
a pious and painful preacher, prodigiously bountiful to the poor, 
whom queen Elizabeth constantly called Father Collins) was 
born and bred at Eton ; so that he breathed learned air from the 
place of his nativity.* Hence coming to King s College in Cam 
bridge, he was chosen successively Fellow, Provost, and Regius 
Professor ; one of an admirable wit and memory, the most fluent 
Latinist of our age ; so that, as Caligula is said to have sent his 
soldiers vainly to fight against the tide, with the same success 
have any encountered the torrent of his tongue in disputation. 
He constantly read his lectures twice a week for above forty 
years, giving notice of the time to his auditors in a ticket on the 
school doors, wherein never any two alike, without some consi 
derable difference in the critical language thereof. When some 
displeased courtier did him the injurious courtesy to prefer him 
downwards (in point of profit) to the Bishopric of Bristol, he 
improved all his friends to decline his election. In these trou 
blesome times (affording more preachers than professors), he 
lost his church, but kept his chair ; wherein he died about the 
year 1651. 

WILLIAM OUGHTRED was (though branched from a right 
ancient family in the North) born in the town, bred in the 
school of Eton, became Fellow of King s College ; and at last 
was beneficed by Thomas Earl of Arundel at Albury in Surrey. 
All his contemporaries unanimously acknowledged him the 
prince of mathematicians in our age and nation. This aged 
Simeon had (though no revelation) a strong persuasion that 
before his death he should behold Christ s anointed restored to 
his throne : which he did accordingly, to his incredible joy ; 
and then had his Dimittis out of this mortal life, June 30, 1660. 

ROMISH EXILE WRITERS. 

THOMAS DORMAN was born at Ammersham in this county, 
being nephew unto Thomas Dorman of the same town, a con 
fessor in the reign of king Henry the Eighth. True it is, this 
his uncle, through weakness, did abjure (let us pity his, who de 
sire God should pardon our failings) ; but was ever a cordial 
Protestant. He bred this Thomas Dorman, junior, at Berkham- 
sted school (founded by Dr. Incent) in Hertfordshire, under 
Mr. Reeve, a Protestant school-master, f 

* Hence he styleth himself, in his books, Etonensis. 
t Fox s Acts and Monuments, p. 338. 

VOL. I. p 



210 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

But this Dorman turned tail afterwards, and became a great 
Romanist; running over beyond the seas, where he wrote a 
book, intituled, " Against Alexander Nowel, the English Calvin- 
ist." J. Pits doth repent that he affordeth him no room in the 
body of his book, referring him to his Appendix.* He nourished 
anno 1560. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

JOHN MATHEW, Mercer, son to Thomas Mathew, was born 
at Sherington in this county ; Lord Mayor of London, anno 
Domini 1490. He is eminent on this account, that he was the 
first bachelor that ever was chosen into that office. t Yea, it 
was above a hundred and twenty years before he was seconded 
by a single person succeeding him in that place, viz. Sir John 
Leman,J Lord Mayor 1616. It seemeth that a Lady Mayoress 
is something more than ornamental to a Lord Mayor ; their 
wives great portions, or good providence, much advantaging 
their estates, to be capable of so high a dignity. 

Dame HESTER TEMPLE, daughter to Miles Sands, Esquire, 
was born at Latmos in this county, and was married to Sir 
Thomas Temple, of Stow, Baronet. She had four sons and nine 
daughters, which lived to be married, and so exceedingly mul 
tiplied, that this lady saw seven hundred extracted from her 
body. Reader, I speak within compass, and have left myself a 
reserve, having bought the truth hereof by a wager I lost. Be 
sides, there was a new generation of marriageable females just 
at her death ; so that this aged vine may be said to wither, even 
when it had many young boughs ready to knit. 

Had I been one of her relations, and as well enabled as most 
of them be, I would have erected a monument for her thus de 
signed. A fair tree should have been erected, the said lady and 
her husband lying at the bottom or root thereof; the heir of the 
family should have ascended both the middle and top bough 
thereof. On the right hand hereof her younger sons, on the 
left her daughters should, as so many boughs, be spread forth. 
Her grandchildren should have their names inscribed on the 
branches of those boughs; the great grandchildren on the twigs 
of those branches ; the great great grandchildren on the leaves 
of those twigs. Such as survived her death should be done in 
a lively green, the rest (as blasted) in a pale and yellow fading 
colour. 

Pliny (who reports it as a wonder worthy the chronicle, 
that Chrispinus Hilarus, prcelata pompd, " with open ostenta 
tion/ 3 sacrificed in the Capitol seventy-four of his children 

* Pagina 914. t Stow s Survey of London, p. 573. 

t "This Mayor was the second batchlor," saith How, continuing Stow in his 
Survey of London, p. 195. Sed qusere ? F. Lib. vii. cap. 13. 



LORD MAYORS GENTRY. 2ll 

and children s children attending on him,) would more admire, 
if admitted to this spectacle. 

Vives telleth us of a village in Spain, of about an hundred 
houses, whereof all the inhabitants were issued from one cer 
tain old man who then lived, when as that village was so peo 
pled, so as the name of propinquity, how the youngest of the 
children should call him, could not be given.* " Lingua enim 
nostra supra abavum non ascendit ;" (" Our language/ saith 
he, meaning the Spanish, "affords not a name above the great 
grandfather s father.") But, had the offspring of this lady been 
contracted into one place, they were enough to have peopled 
a city of a competent proportion, though her issue w r as not so 
long in succession, as broad in extent, 

I confess very many of her descendants died before her 
death ; in which respect she was far surpassed by a Roman ma 
tron, on whom the poet thus epitapheth it, in her own person.f 

" Viginti clique novem, gc.mtrici Cnllicratece, 

Nullius sexus mars mild visafuit. 
Sed centum et quinque erplevi bene messibus annos, 
In tremulant baculo non subeunte manum. 

" Twenty-nine births Callicrate I told, 
And of both sexes saw none sent to grave, 
I was an hundred and five winters old, 
Yet stay from staff my hand did never ci ave." 

Thus, in all ages, God bestoweth personal felicities on some 
far above the proportion of others. The Lady Temple died anno 
Domini 1656. 

LORD MAYORS. 

1. John Brokle, son of William Brokle, of Newport Pagnel, 

Draper, 1433. 

2. Thomas Scot, son of Robert Scot, of Dorney, Draper, 1458. 

3. Henry Collet, son of Rob. Collet, of Wendover, Mercer, 1486. 

4. John Mathew, son of Thomas Mathew, of Sherington, Mer 

cer, 1490. 

5. John Mundy, son of William Mundy, of W r ycombe, Gold 

smith, 1522. 

6. John Coates, son of Thomas Coates, of Bearton, Salter, 1542. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KINO 
HENRY THE SIXTH, 1438. 

William bishop of Lincoln, -and Reginald de Gray de Ruthyan, 

Chivaler, Commissioners to take the oaths. 
Thomas Sakevile, Miles, and William Wapload, knights for the 

shire, Commissioners. 

* In Comment upon the 8th chapter of Lib. xv. de Civitate Dei. 
fAusonius, Epitaph. Heroum, num. 34. 

p 2 



212 



WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 



Reginald! Lucy, chiv. 
Walter! Lucy, chiv. 
Johannis Cheyne, chiv. 
Thomae Chetewode, chiv. 
Johannis Cheyne, arm. 
Johan. Hampden de Hampden 

arm. 

Andreae Sperling. 
Thomae Rokes, arm. 
Johannis Langeston, arm. 
Johannis Iwardby, arm. 
David Breknook, arm. 
Thomce Stokes, arm. 
Johan. Hampden de Kimbell. 
Walteri Fitz Richard, arm. 
Johannis Stretlee, arm. 
Thomae Shyngelton, arm. 
Thomce Cheyne, arm. 
Johannis Stokes, arm. 
Thomas Gifford, arm. 
Johan. Gifford de Whaddon, 

senioris, arm. 
Thomas Boteler, arm. 
Roberti Puttenham, arm. 
Rob. Olney de Weston, arm. 
Johannis Tyringham, arm. 
Johannis Brekenock, arm. 
Thoma3 Rufford, arm. 
Johannis Dayrell, arm. 
Nicola! Clopton. 
Edmund! Brutenell. 
Johannis Sewell. 
Johannis Watkins. 
Willielmi Brook de Chesham. 
Bernard! Sanderdon. 
Thomae More. 
Willielmi Fouler. 
Johannis Arches. 
Johannis Skydmore. 
Johannis Kimbell. 
Willielmi Joyntour. 
Rogeri More. 
Johannis Horewode. 
Johannis Baldewin. 
Thomse Atte Welle. 
Will. Chapman de Aylesbury. 
Thomae Turnour. 
Johan. Knight de Hampslape. 
Willielm! Watford. 
Thomas Oliver. 



Will. Colingryg de Toursey. 

Thomae Malins. 

Willielmi Parker de Eton. 

Willielmi Burton, persone Ec- 

clesiae de Crowle, 
, Johannis Clerke de Olney. 

Richardi Hawtreve. 

Johan. Giffard de Hardmede. 

Johan. Tapelo de Hampslape. 

Thomae Knight de eadem. 

Johannis Giffard de Whad 
don, junioris. 

Johannis Sapcote de Olney. 

Richardi Arnecok. 

Willielmi Edy. 

Nicholai Brackwell. 

Willielmi Sambroke. 

Johannis Edy, junioris. 

Thorns Edy. 

Johannis Puchas. 

Willielmi Berewell. 

Ade Asshinden. 

David. Whitchirche. 

Johannis Sweft. 

Will. Britwell de Cherdesle. 

Johannis Verney. 

Eustachii Grenvile. 

Johannis Fitz John. 

Willielmi Gerebray. 

Thomae Maucleleyn. 

Johannis Vesy. 

Thomae Wodewarde. 

Richardi Enershawe. 

Johan. Harewold de Weston. 

Henrici Loveden. 

Johannis Thorp. 

Johannis Parker de Fenny 
Stratford. 

Nicholai Baker de Crowle. 

Nicholai Hobbesson. 

Thomae Malette. 

Johannis Kerye. 

Thomas Tappe. 

Richardi Hoo de Snenston. 

Johannis Manchestre. 

Johannis Phelip. 

Henrici Hunkes. 

Richardi Miches. 

Willielmi Meridale. 

Thomas Edward. 



SHERIFFS. 213 

Johannis Vaux. Richard! Yaloude. 

Willielmi -Dun. Johannis Gold de Ailesbury. 

Henrici Toursey. Willielrai Clarke de eadem. 

Henrici Dicon. Willielmi Clarke de Culver- 

Willielmi Winslowe. don. 

Johannis Bilindon. Thomee Kene de Horsendon. 

Henrici Porter. Willielmi Symeon. 

Thomse Turgens. Willielmi Fether. 

Roberti Dalafeld. Johannis Caradons. 

Math. Colett. Willielmi Combe de Ayles- 

Johannis Hampden de Wy- bury. 

combe. Willielmi Gill. 

Johannis Wellesburn. Richardi Lamburn. 

Thomee Merston. Willielmi Hide. 

Willielmi Attegate. Thomae Bristow. 

Thomas Mery. Nicholai Baron. 

Richardi Milly. Willielmi Cook de Fertwell. 

Willielmi Wodeward. Johannis Glover de Kimbell. 

Thomee Pusey. Johannis Balke de Aylesbury, 
Roberti Broun de Beknesfeld. Johannis Lucy, et 

Johannis Jourdeley. Richardi Lucy. 
Thomas Houghton. 

SHERIFFS. 

This county had the same with Bedfordshire, until they 
were parted in the seventeenth year of queen Elizabeth. Since 
which time these have been the sheriffs of this county alone. 

REG. ELIZA. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

17 Joh. Croke, arm. . . Chilton. 

Arms : G. a fess between six martlets Arg, 

18 Griff. Hampden, arm. . Hampden. 

Arg. a saltire G. betwixt four eaglets Az. 

19 Mich. Blount, arm. 

Barry nebule of six O. and S. 

20 Rob. Drury, arm. . SUFFOLK. 

Arg. on a chief V. the letter Tau betwixt two mullets 
pierced O. 

21 Rich. Crafford, arm. 

22 Paul Darell, arm. . , Lillingstone. 

Az. a lion rampant O. crowned Arg. 

23 Th. Tasborough, arm. 

Az. on a cross Arg. five mullets G. 

24 Edm. Verney, arm. 

Arg. four lions passant S. betwixt two gemewes in bend. 

25 Will. Hawtrey, arm. . Checkers. 

Az. ten billets, four, three, two, and one, O. ; in a chief 
of the second a lion issuant S. 

26 Rob. Dormer, arm. . Wing. 



WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Pl ace 

27 Edw. Bulstrod, arm. . (See our Notes.) 

28 Job. Temple, arm. . Stow. 

Arg. on two bars S, six martlets O. 

29 Job. Goodwin, arm. . (See 21 of king James.) 

30 Job. Burlace, arm. 

Arg. on a bend S. two cubit arms issuant out of two 
petit clouds rayonated all proper, rending of a horse 
shoe O. 

31 Fran. Cheney, arm. . Chesham. 

^ Cheeky O. and Az. a fess G. fretty Erm. 

32 Geo. Fleetwood, arm. . the Vache. 

Partie per pale nebulee Az. and O. six martelets counter- 
changed. 

33 Ale. Hampden, arm. . ut prius. 

34 Hen. Longvile, arm. . Wolverton. 

G. a fess indented betwixt six crosses crosslets Arg 

35 Thomas Pigot, arm. . Doddershal. 

S. three pick-axes Arg. 

36 Mic. Harecourt, arm. 

O. two bars G. 

37 Edw. Tirrell, arm. . Thornton. 

Arg. two chev. Az. within a border engrailed G. 

38 An. Tirringham, arm. . Tirringham. 

Az. a cross engrailed Arg. 

39 Job. Dormer . u t prius. 

40 Will. Garrend, arm. 

(See our Notes in Northamptonshire.) 

41 Will. Clarke, mil. 

42 Tho. Denton, arm. 

G. a chevron between three crescents Arg. 

43 Will. Burlace, arm. . ut prius. 

44 Anth. Chester, arm. . Chichely. 

Per pale Arg. and S. a chev. between three rams heads 
erased armed O. within a border engrailed, roundelly, 
all counterchanged. 

45 Fran. Cheney, mil. . ut prius. 

REG. JAC. 

1 Fra. Cheney, mil. . u t prius 

2 [AMP.] W. Willoughby, mil. 

3 Ri. Ingoldesby, mil. . Lethenborough. 

Erm. a saltire engrailed S. 

4 Hen. Longvile, mil. . ut prius. 

5 Will. Andrews, mil. 

^ G. a saltire O. charged with another V. 

6 Fran. Fortescu, mil. 

Az. a bend engrailed Arg. cotised O. 

7 Anth. Green way, arm. 



SHERIFFS. 215 

Anno Name. Place. 

8 Rob. Lovet, mil. . Liscomb. 

Arg. three wolves passant in pale S. 

9 lero. Horsey, mil. 

Az. three horses heads couped O. bridled Arg. 

10 Edw. Tirrell, mil. . ut pr ius. 

11 Sim. Mayne, arm. 

Arg. on a bend engr. S. three dexter hands of the first. 

12 Bri. Johnson, arm. . Beaconfield. 

Quarterly, Az. and G. a cross patoncee, and a chief O. 

13 Edm. Wheeler, mil. . Riding Co. 

O. a chevron between three leopards heads S. 

14 Th. Temple, mil. et bar. ut prius. 

15 Joh. Laurence, mil. . Iver. 

Arg. a cross-knotted G. on a chief Az. three leopards 
heads O. 

16 Fra. Buncombe, arm. 

Partie per chev. counter-flory, G. and Arg. three talbots 
heads crazed counterchanged. 

17 Be. Winchcombe, arm. (See our Notes.) 

18 Hen. Lee, mil. et ba. . Quarrendon. 

Arg. a fess betwixt three crescents S. 

19 Joh. Denham. mil. 

G. three fusils Erm. 

20 Will. Fleetwood . . tit prius. 

21 Fra. Goodwin, mil. 

Per pale O. and G. a lion rampant, between three flower- 
de-luces counterchanged. 

22 Will. Pen, arm. . Pen. 

Arg. on a fess S. three plates. 

REG. CARO. 

1 Edw. Coke, mil. . . Stoke. 

Partie per pale G. and Az. three eagles Arg. 

2 Gil Gerrard, bar. 

Quarterly, the 1 and 4 Arg. a saltire G. 2 and 3 Az. a 
lion rampant Erm. crowned O. 

3 Tho. Darei, arm. . . ut prius. 
Fr. Catesby, arm. 

Arg. two lions passant S, crowned O. 

4 Tho. Lee, arm. . . ut prius. 

5 Will. Andrews, mil. . ut prius. 

6 Tho. Hide, bar. 

O. a chev. betwixt three lozenges Az. ; in chief an eagle 
of the first. 

7 Jaco. Dupper, arm. 

8 Rob. Dormer, arm. . ut prius. 

9 Fran. Cheney, mil. . ut prius. 



216 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

10 Pet. Temple, mil. . ut prius. 

11 Heneage Proby, arm. 

Erm. on a fess G. a lion passant, the tail extended O. 

12 Anth. Chester, bar. . ut prius. 
13 

14 

15 Thomas Archdale, arm. 

16 

17 Rich. Grevile, mil. 

S. a border and cross engrailed O. thereon five pellets. 
18 
19 

20 Hen. Beak, arm. 
21 
22 Will. CoUier, arm. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

17. JOHN CROKE, Arm. Being afterwards knighted. He 
was the son of Sir John Crook, a six-clerk in Chancery, and 
therefore restrained marriage until enabled by a statute of the 
14th of Henry the Eighth. His ancestors, in the civil wars 
between York and Lancaster, concealed their proper name Le 
Blount under the assumed one of Croke.* 

As for this Sir John Croke, first sheriff of Buckingham after 
the division of Bedfordshire, he was most fortunate in an issue 
happy in the knowledge of our municipal law ; of whom Sir 
John Croke, his eldest son, Speaker of the parliament in the 
43rd of queen Elizabeth, received this eulogium from her 
majesty : " That he had proceeded therein with such wisdom 
and discretion, that none before him had deserved better/ As 
for Sir George, his second son, we have spoken of him before. f 

26. ROBERT DORMER, Arm. He was, on the 10th of June, 
1615, made baronet by king James, and on the 30th day of the 
same month was by him created Baron Dormer of Wing, in 
this county. 

His grandchild, Robert Dormer, was by king Charles, in the 
4th of his reign, created Viscount Ascot and Earl of Carnarvon. 
He lost his life, fighting for him who gave him his honour, at 
the first battle of Newbury. Being sore woupded, he was de 
sired by a lord to know of him what suit he would have to his 
majesty in his behalf; the said lord promising to discharge his 
trust in presenting his request, and assuring him that his ma 
jesty would be willing to gratify him to the utmost of his 
power. To whom the Earl replied, " I will not die with a suit 
in my mouth to any king, save to the King of heaven." By 

" Preface to Croke s Reports. f In the " Writers of Law " in this County. 



SHERIFFS. 217 

Anne, daughter to Philip, Earl of Pembroke and Montgomery, 
he had Charles, now Earl of Carnarvon.* 

27. EDWARD BULSTROD, Arm. I have not met with so 
ancient a coat (for such it appeareth beyond all exception), so 
voluminous in the blazon thereof; viz. Sable, a buck s head 
Argent, attired O. shot the nose with an arrow of the third, 
headed and feathered of the second ; a cross patee fitchee 
betwixt the attire O. 

34. HENRY LONGVILE, Arm. He had to his fourth son 
Sir Michael Longvile, who married Susan, sole daughter to 
Henry Earl of Kent. Now, when the issue in a direct line of 
that earldom failed in our memory, Mr. Selden was no less 
active than able to prove that the barony of Ruthyn was 
dividable from the earldorn, and descended to the son of the 
said Sir Michael ; and thereupon he sat as Baron Ruthyn in 
our late Long Parliament. 

Since his death, his sole daughter and heir hath been mar 
ried unto Sir Henry Yelverton, of Easton, in the county of 
Northampton, Baronet, a worthy gentleman of fair estate ; so 
that that honour is likely to continue in an equipage of breadth 
proportionable to the height thereof. 

KING JAMES. 

17. BENEDICT WINCHCOMBE, Arm. His arms (too large 
for the little space allotted them) I here fully represent, in 
gratitude to the memory of his ancestor, so well deserving of 
Newbury ;f viz. Azure, on a chevron engrailed between three 
birds O. as many cinquefoils of the first; on a chief of the 
second a flower-de-luce between two spears heads of the first. 

KING CHARLES. 

1. EDWARD COKE, Knight. This was our English Trebo- 
nianus, so famous for his comments on our Common Law. This 
year a parliament was called, and the court party was jealous of 
Sir Edward s activity against them, as who had not digested his 
discontentments. Hereupon, to prevent his election as a mem 
ber, and confine him to this county, he was pricked sheriff thereof. 

He scrupled to take the oath, pretending many things against 
it, and particularly " that the sheriff is bound thereby to prose 
cute Lollards, wherein the best Christians may be included." 

It was answered, " that he had often seen the oath given to 
others without any regret ; and knew full well that Lollard, 
in the modern sense, imported the opposers of the present 
religion, as established by law in the land. "{ 

Who lived till 1709, when he died without male issue. El), 
t See Memorable Persons " in Berkshire. 

Sir Henry Spelman, in his Glossary, verbo Lollard. 



218 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 

No excuses would serve his turn, but he must undertake this 
office. However, his friends beheld it as an injurious degra 
dation of him, who had been Lord Chief Justice, to attend on 
the judges at the assises. 

FRANCIS CHENEY, Mil. It is an epidemical disease, to 
which many ancient names are subject, to be variously disguised 
in writing. How many names is it, Chesney, Chedney, Cheyne, 
Chyne, Cheney, &c. ? and all but one, de Casineto. A name 
so noble, and so diffused in the catalogue of sheriffs, it is harder 
to miss than find it in any county. 

Here, reader, let me amend and insert what I omitted in the 
last county. There was a fair family of the Cheneys flourishing 
in Kent (but landed also in other counties), giving for their 
arms, Azure, six lions rampant Argent, a canton Ermine. Of 
this house was Henry Cheney, high sheriff of this county and 
Bedfordshire, in the 7th of queen Elizabeth, and not long after 
by her created baron of Tuddington in Bedfordshire. In his 
youth he was very wild and venturous ; witness his playing at 
dice with Henry the Second, king of France, from whom he 
won a diamond of great worth at a cast. And being demanded 
by the king what shift he would have made to repair himself, 
in case he had lost the cast ; " I have, " said young Cheney, in 
an hyperbolical brave, "sheeps* tails enough in Kent, with 
their wool, to buy a better diamond than this. } His reduced 
age afforded the befitting fruits of gravity and wisdom; and 
this lord deceased without issue. 

As for Sir Francis Cheney, sheriff for this present year,* we 
formerly observed the distinct arms of his family. This worthy 
knight was father to Charles Cheney, Esq., who, by his exquisite 
travelling, hath naturalized foreign perfections unto himself, and 
is exemplarily happy in a virtuous lady, Jane, daughter to the 
truly noble William, Marquis of Newcastle, and by her of hope 
ful posterity. 

THE FAREWELL. 

On serious consideration, I was at a loss to wish to this 
county what it wanted ; God and the kings of England have so 
favoured it with natural perfections and civil privileges. In 
avowance of the latter, it showeth more borough towns (sending 
burgesses no fewer than twelve to the parliament) than any 
shire (though thrice as big) lying in the kingdom of Mercia. 
Now seeing, at the instant writing hereof, the general news of 
the nation is, of a parliament to be called after his majesty s 
coronation, my prayers shall be, that the freeholders of this 
county shall (amongst many therein so qualified) choose good 
servants to God, subjects to the king, patriots to the county, effec 
tually to advance a happiness to the Church and Commonwealth. 

" Viz., in the 3 1st year of queen Elizabeth. 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 219 



WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED 
SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 

George ANDERSON., a poor peasant, mathematician and ac 
countant-general; born at Weston 1760; died 1796. 

Francis ATTERBURY, Bishop of Rochester, a restless and as 
piring politician; born at Milton Keynes 1662; died 1731. 

Dr. Lewis ATTERBURY, elder brother, an amiable divine ; born 
at Caldecot 1656 ; died 1731. 

Giles AYRE, Dean of Winchester ; born at Burnham. 

John BISCOE, a nonconformist divine and author; born at 
Wy combe; died 1679. 

Owen BUCKINGHAM, Lord Mayor of London in 1705, bene 
factor to Reading in Berkshire ; born at Colebrooke. 

Knightley CHETWOOD, Dean of Gloucester, author; born at 
Chetwode 1650; died 1720. 

Euseby CLEAVER, Archbishop of Dublin ; died 1819. 

William CLEAVER, brother of Euseby, Bishop of St. Asaph, 
critic ; born at Twyford 1742 ; died 1815. 

John CROWDER, printer, Lord Mayor of London ; died 1830. 

Sir Kenelm DIGBY, an alchymist and philosophical writer ; 
born at Gothurst 1603 ; died 1665. 

Charles DUNCOMBE, Lord Mayor of London in 1709, an 
eminent banker ; born at Drayton Beauchamp. 

Phillip ELLIS, Bishop of Pavia, author of some sermons pub 
lished about 1686; born at Waddesdon. 

Welbore ELLIS, Bishop of Meath ; born at Waddesdon ; died 
1733. 

Heneage FINCH, Earl of Nottingham, Lord Chancellor of Eng 
land ; born at Ravenstone 1621 ; died 1682. 

George GRENVILLE, statesman; born at W r otton 1712; died 
.1770. 

Richard GREXVILLE-TEMPLE, Earl Temple, a statesman; 
born at Wotton 1711 ; died 1779. 

Josiah HOWE, an accomplished scholar, author of a sermon 
preached before Charles I. at Oxford, in 1644; born at 
Grendon Underwood; died 1701. 

Martin LISTER, physician, naturalist, and author ; born about 
1638; died 1712. 

Thomas MORELL, a divine, and writer on philology and 
criticism; born at Eton 1703; died 1784. 

Dr. William NICHO LS, a learned divine and polemical author ; 
born at Donnington 1664; died 1712. 

Thomas ODELL, a dramatic writer, about 1700. 

Thomas PHILLIPS, a Roman Catholic divine, biographer of 

Cardinal Pole; born at Ickford 1708; died 1774. 
Joseph RAWSON, a divine and author ; born at Avlesburv ; 
died 1719. 



220 WORTHIES OF BUCKINGHAMSHIRE. 



John THROCKMORTON, patron of Cowper, author; born at 
Weston Underwood ; di ed 1819. 

William WAGSTAFFE, a physician, and ingenious and humour 
ous writer; born at Cublington 1685 ; died 1725. 

Edward WESTON, statesman and author of " Sermons," 1700. 

Edward YOUNG, Bishop of Dromore ; born at Eton ; died 1772. 



* * 
* 



The principal Works appertaining to Buckinghamshire, besides the Magna 
Britannia and the Beauties of England, are the History of Buckingham, by Browne 
Willis, LL.D. (1755); the History of Desborough, Wycombe, c., by Thomas 
Langley, M.A. (1797) ; and the History of the County of Buckingham, by G. Lips- 
comb, M.D. [Hundred of Ashendon], which, we apprehend, is never likely to be 
completed . ED. 



CAMBRIDGESHIRE, 



CAMBRIDGESHIRE hath Lincolnshire on the north, Norfolk 
and Suffolk on the east, Essex and Hertfordshire on the 
south, Huntingdon and Bedford-shires on the west, being in 
length thirty-five, in breadth not fully twenty miles. The tables 
therein as well furnished as any ; the south part affording bread 
and beer, and the north (the Isle of Ely) meat thereunto. So 
good the grain growing here, that it out-selleth others some 
pence in the bushel. 

The north part of this county is lately much improved by 
draining, though the poorest sort of people will not be sensible 
thereof. Tell them of the great benefit to the public, because 
where a pike or duck fed formerly, now a bullock or sheep 
is fatted ; they will be ready to return, that if they be taken 
in taking that bullock or sheep, the rich owner inditeth them 
for felons ; whereas that pike or duck were their own goods 
only for their pains of catching them. So impossible it is that 
the best project, though perfectly performed, should please all 
interests and affections. 

It happened in the year 1657, upon the dissolution of the great 
snow, their banks were assaulted above their strength of resist 
ance, to the great loss of much cattle, corn, and some Christians. 
But, soon after, the seasonable industry of the undertakers did 
recover all by degrees, and confute their jealousies who sus 
pected the relapsing of these lands into their former condition. 

This northern part is called the Isle of Ely, which one will 
have so named from the Greek word "EXuoc, fenny or marshy 
ground.* But our Saxon ancestors were not so good Grecians ; 
and it is plain that plenty of eels gave it its denomination. Here, 
I hope, I shall not trespass on gravity, in mentioning a passage 
observed by the reverend professor of Oxford, Doctor Prideaux, 
referring the reader to him for the authors attesting the same.f 
When the priests in this part of the county would still retain 
their wives, in despite of whatever the Pope and monks could 
do to the contrary, their wives and children were miraculously 
turned all into eels (surely the greater into congers, the less into 

" Doctor Smith, in the Life of his father-in-law, Doctor Willet. 
f In his Comitiate Oration " De duobus Testibus," page 15. 



222 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

griggs) whence it had the name of Eely. I understand him a 
lie of Eels. No doubt the first founder of so damnable an 
untruth hath long since received his reward. However, for this 
cause, we take first notice, amongst this county s 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
OF EELS. 

Which, though they be found in all shires in England, yet 
are most properly treated of here, as most, first, and best; 
the courts of the kings of England being thence therewith 
anciently supplied. I will not engage in the controversy whe 
ther they be bred by generation as other fish ; or equivocally, 
out of putrefaction ; or both ways, which is most probable ; 
seeing some have adventured to know the distinguishing marks 
betwixt the one and other. I know the silver eels are gene 
rally preferred, and I could wish they loved men but as well 
as men love them, that I myself might be comprised within the 
compass of that desire. They are observed to be never out of 
season (whilst other fishes have their set times) ; and the biggest 
eels are ever esteemed the best. I know not whether the 
Italian proverb be here worth the remembering, (&lt; Give eels 
without wine to your enemies. " 

HARES. 

Though these are found in all counties, yet because lately 
there was in this shire an hare-park nigh Newmarket, preserved 
for the king s game, let them here be particularly mentioned. 
Some prefer their sport in hunting before their flesh for eating, 
as accounting it melancholic meat, and hard to be digested ; 
though others think all the hardness is how to come by it. All 
the might of this silly creature is in the flight thereof; and I 
remember the answer which a school-boy returned in a Latin 
distich, being demanded the reason why hares were so fearful : 

" Cur metuunt lepores ? Terrestris, nempe, marinus, 
. ^Ethereus quod sit, tartareusque canis." 

Whether or no they change their sex every year (as some have 
reported), let huntsmen decide. These late years of our civil 
wars have been very destructive unto them ; and no wonder if 
no law hath been given to hares, when so little hath been 
observed toward men. 

SAFFRON. 

Though plenty hereof in this county ; yet, because .1 conceive 
it first planted in Essex, we thither refer our description thereof. 

WILLOWS. 

A sad tree, whereof such who have lost their love make their 
mourning garlands ; and we know what exiles hung up their 



MANUFACTURES. 223 

harps* upon such doleful supporters. The twigs hereof are 
physic, to drive out the folly of children. This tree delighteth 
in moist places, and is triumphant in the Isle of Ely, where the 
roots strengthen their banks, and lop affords fuel for their fire. 
It groweth incredibly fast ; it being a by-word in this county, 
" that the profit by willows will buy the owner a horse, before that 
by other trees will pay for his saddle." Let me add, that if 
green ash may burn before a queen, withered willows may be 
allowed to burn before a lady. 

MANUFACTURES. 
PAPER. 

Expect not I should, by way of preface, enumerate the seve 
ral inventions, whereby the ancients did communicate and con 
tinue their notions to posterity. First, by writing in leaves of 
trees, still remembered when we call such a scantling of paper a 
folio or leaf. Hence from leaves men proceeded to the bark 
of trees, as more solid, still countenanced in the notation of the 
word liber. Next they wrote in labels or sheets of lead, where 
in the letters were deeply engraven, being a kind of printing 
before printing ; and to this I refer the words of Job (an author 
allowed contemporary with if not senior to Moses himself) ; 
" Oh that my words were now written, oh that they were print 
ed in a book !f" 

To omit many other devices in after-ages to signify their con 
ceptions, paper was first made of a broad flag (not unlike our 
great dock) growing in and nigh Canopus in Egypt, which it 
seems was a staple commodity of that country, and substantial 
enough to bear the solemn curse of the prophet : " The paper- 
reeds by the brooks shall wither, be driven away, and be no 
more.J" 

Our modern paper is made of grinded rags, and yet this new 
artificial doth still thankfully retain the name of the old natural 
paper. It may pass for the emblem of men of mean extraction, 
who by art and industry, with God s blessing thereon, come to 
high preferment. " He raiseth the poor out of the dust, and 
lifteth the needy out of the dunghill, that he may set him with 
his princes, even with the princes of his people. " One may 
find, if searching into the pedigree of paper, it cometh into the 
world at the doungate, raked thence in rags, which, refined by 
art (especially after precious secrets are written therein), is 
found fit to be choicely kept in the cabinets of the greatest 
potentates. Pity it is that the first author of so useful an 
invention cannot with any assurance be assigned. || 

There are almost as many several kinds of paper as condi 
tions of persons betwixt the emperor and beggar: imperial, 
royal, cardinal ; and so downwards to that coarse paper called 

* Psalm cxxxvii. 2. f Job. xix. 23. % Isaiah xix. 7. 

Psalm cxiii. 7. || P. Vergil, de Rerum Inventionibus, lib, ii. cap. 8. 



224 WORTHIES OP CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

emporetica, useful only for chapmen to wrap their wares therein. 
Paper participates in some sort of the characters of the country 
men which make it: the Venetian being neat, subtile, and 
courtlike ; the .French, light, slight, and slender ; the Dutch, 
thick, corpulent, and gross ; not to say sometimes also charta 
bibula, sucking up the ink with the sponginess thereof. 

Paper is entered as a manufacture of this county, because 
there are mills nigh Sturbridge-fair, where paper was made in 
the memory of our fathers. And it seemeth to me a proper 
conjunction, that seeing Cambridge I yieldeth so many good 
writers, Cambridgeshire should afford paper unto them. Pity 
the making thereof is disused ; considering the vast sums yearly 
expended in our land for paper out of Italy, France, and Ger 
many, which might be lessened were it made in our nation. To 
such who object that we can never equal the perfection of Venice 
paper, I return, neither can we match the purity of Venice 
glasses ; and yet many green ones are blown in Sussex, profit 
able to the makers, and convenient for the users thereof, as no 
doubt such coarser (home-spun paper) would be found very 
beneficial for the Commonwealth. 

BASKETS. 

These are made of the osiers plentifully growing in the moist 
parts of this county, an acre whereof turns to more profit than 
one of wheat ; a necessary utensil in an house, whereby many 
things are kept, which otherwise would be lost. Yea, in some 
sort it saved the life of St. Paul, when " let down by the wall of 
Damascus in a basket;* whence some (not improbably) conjec 
ture him hominem tricubitalem, " a man of low stature." Mar 
tial confesseth baskets to have been a British invention, though 
Rome afterwards laid claim thereunto : 

Barbara de piclis veni Bascauda Britannis, 
Sed me jam tnavult dicere Roma suam. 

" I, foreign basket, first in Britain known, 
And now by Rome accounted for her own." 

Their making is daily improved with much descant of art, 
splitting their wickers as small as threads, and dying them into 
several colours ; which daily grow a greater commodity. 

[ THE BUILDINGS. 

Cambridge is the chief credit of the county, as the University 
is of Cambridge. It is confessed, that Oxford far exceeds it for 
sweetness of situation ; and yet it may be maintained, that 
though there be better air in Oxford, yet there is more in the 
colleges of Cambridges ; for Oxford is an university in a town ; 
Cambridge a town in an university ; where the colleges are not 
surrounded with the offensive embraces of streets, but generally 
situated on the outside, affording the better conveniency of pri- 

* 2 Cor. xi. 33. 



BUILDINGS WONDERS. 225 

vate walks and gardens about them. But, having formerly writ 
ten of the fabrics of Cambridge,* I forbear any further enlarge 
ment. 

ELY MINSTER. 

This presenteth itself afar off to the eye of the traveller, and 
on all sides, at great distance, not only maketh a promise, bat 
giveth earnest of the beauty thereof. The lanthorn therein, 
built by Bishop Hotham, (wherein the labour of twenty years, 
and five thousand ninety-four pounds eighteen shillings ten 
pence half-penny farthing was expended), is a master 
piece of architecture. When the bells ring, the wood-work 
thereof shaketh and gapeth (no defect, but perfection of struc 
ture), and exactly chocketh into the joints again ; so that it may 
pass for the lively emblem of the sincere Christian, who, though 
he hath mohim trepidationis, of fear and trembling,t stands 
firmly fixed on the basis of a true faith. Rare also is the art in 
the chapel of Saint Mary s, the pattern or parent of that in King s 
College in Cambridge, though here (as often elsewhere) it hath 
happened, the child hath out-grown the father. Nor must the 
chapel of Bishop West be forgotten, seeing the master-masons 
of king James, on serious inspection, found finer stone-work 
herein, than in king Henry the Seventh s chapel at Westmin 
ster. 

It grieved me lately to see so many new lights in this church 
(supernumerary windows more than were in the first fabric), and 
the whole structure in a falling condition, except some good 
men s charity seasonably support it. Yet was I glad to hear a 
great antiquary employed to transcribe and preserve the monu 
ments in that church, as all others in the late-drowned land. 
And it is hard to say, which was the better office, whether 
of those who newly have dried them from the inundation 
of water, or of those who shall drain them from the deluge of 
oblivion, by perpetuating their antiquities to posterity. 

WONDERS. 

Let me here insert an artificial wonder, of what is commonly 
called Devil s-ditch ; countryfolk conceiting that it was made by 
the devil, when the devil he made it, being the work of some 
king or kings of the East Angles. See the laziness of posterity ; 
so far from imitating the industry of their ancestors, that they 
belibel the pure effects of their pains as hellish achievements. 
But, if the aforesaid kings merely made this ditch to get them 
selves a name, divine justice hath met with them, their names 
being quite forgotten. More probably it was made to divide 
and defend their dominions from the kingdom of Mercia, 

* In my History of that University. F. t Phil. ii. 12. 

VOL. I. Q 



226 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

or possibly to keep the people in employment, for diversion of 
mutinous thoughts ; laziness being the mother of disloyalty, in 
dustry of obedience. 

PROVERBS. 

Cantabrigia petit ^Equales ^Equalia. " Cambridge requires all to be equal." 

Some interpret this of their commons, wherein all of the same 
mess go share and share alike. Others understand it of the ex 
penses out of the hall, all being {aotrvpfioXoi in their collations, 
all paying alike ; which parity is the best preservative of com 
pany, according to the apophthegm of Solon, which Plutarch 
so commends* for the wisdom thereof, "laa iroXepov ov TTOIE I, 
"Equality breeds no battles." Otherwise it is a murthering 
shot, where one pays all the reckoning, as recoiling on him that 
dischargeth it : yea, such inequality is a certain symptom of an 
expiring society. 

Some expound the words, that graduates of the same degree 
(either within or without the university) are to be fellows well 
met one with another. Dido had a piece of state in her court 
peculiar to herself (which may be called an equipage indeed) ; 
where she had a hundred servants in ordinary attendance, " all 
of the same age/ f Thus the same degree in effect levels all 
scholars ; so that seniority of years ought not to make any dis 
tance betwixt them, to hinder their familiarity. I have nothing 
else to add of this proverb, saving that it is used also in Oxford. 

" Cambridgeshire Camels. ] 

I cannot reconcile this common saying to any considerable 
sense : I know a camel passeth in the Latin proverb either for 
gibbous and distorted, or for one that undertaketh a thing awk- 
ly or ungeenly (" Camelus saltat^J) ; or else for one of extraor 
dinary bulk or bigness : all inappliable in any peculiar manner 
to the people of this county, as straight and dexterous as any 
other, nor of any exorbitant proportions. 

All that I can recover of probability is this ; the fen-men 
dwelling in the northern part of this county, when stalking on 
their stilts, are little giants indeed, as master Camden hath well 
observed; However, that mathematician who measured the 
height of Hercules by the bigness of his foot, would here be 
much mistaken in his dimensions, if proportionably collecting 
the bulk of their bodies from the length of their legs. 

" A Boisten horse and a Cambridge Master of Art, are. a couple of creatures that 
will give way to nobody."] 

This Proverb we find in the letter of William Zoon written to 
George Bruin, in his " Theatre of Cities ;" and it is objected 

* In vita Solonis. 

f " Centumque pares setate ministri. (Virgil s ./Eneid, lib. i. juxtafinem.) 

I Hieronimus in Helvidium. Camden, in Cambridgeshire. 



PROVERBS. 2 2/ 

against us by an Oxford antiquary ;* as if our masters wanted 
manners to give place to their betters ; though, all things con 
sidered, it soundeth more to their honour than disgrace. 

For mark what immediately went before in the same author :f 
" In plateis ambulantes, dececli sibi de via, non a civibus solum, 
sed etiam a peregrine quovis nisi dignitate excellat, postulant :" 
(" Walking in the streets, they require, not only of the town s- 
meii, but also of every stranger, except they excel in dignity, 
that they go out of the way unto them.") Herein two things 
are observable in the scholars : 1. Their manners, or civility. 
If the party, whatever he be, appear dignified above them, they 
willingly allow him superiority. What is this but to give what 
is due to another? 2. Their manhood, or courage. If he seem 
beneath them, then they do uti jure suo, and take what is their 
own to themselves. 

What reason is it he should give place to a town s-man ; ut 
quid cedat plenum vacua, ftcientia ignorantiae ? This mindeth 
me of a passage in Plutarch concerning Themistocles : when a 
boy, going home from school, he met one of the Athenian Ty 
rants in the city, and the people cried out unto him to go out 
of the way ; " What," said Themistocles, " is not all the street 
broad enough for him, but I must be put out of my path and 
pace to make room for him ?" This was interpreted, by such 
as heard him, as a presage of his future magnanimity. And 
surely it shews not want of breeding, but store of spirit, when a 
a man will not be put out of his way for every swelling empti 
ness that meets him therein. 
"An Henry-Sophister."] 

So are they called, who, after four years standing in the uni 
versity, stay themselves from commencing Bachelors of Art, to 
render them (in some colleges) more capable of preferment. 
Several reasons are assigned of their name. 

That tradition is senseless (and inconsistent with his princely 
magnificence) of such who fancy, that king Henry the Eighth, 
coming to Cambridge, staid all the Sophisters a year, who ex 
pected a year of grace should have been given unto them. 
More probable it is, because that king is commonly conceived 
of great strength and stature, that these Sophistce Henriciani 
were elder and bigger than others. The truth is this : in the 
reign of king Henry the Eighth, after the destruction of monas 
teries, learning was at a loss, and the university (thanks be unto 
God ! more scared than hurt) stood at a gaze what would be 
come of her. Hereupon many students staid themselves, two, 
three, some four years, as who would see, how their degrees 
(before they took them) should be rewarded and maintained. 

* Br. Twin. Ant. Acad. Oxon. p. 3?,3. f Gulielmus Zoon, 



Q 2 



WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 
MARTYRS. 

WILLIAM FLOWER was born at Snowhill* in 



this county bred first a monk in Ely, till, relinquishing his ha 
bit, he became a secular priest and a Protestant ; and, after 
many removals, fixed at last at Lambeth. 

Wonder not, reader, to see a long black line prefixed before 
his name, which he well deserved, to distinguish him from such 
men who had an unquestionable title of martyrdom ; whereas 
this Flower dangerously wounded a Popish priest with a wood- 
knife (a mischievous weapon) in Saint Margaret s, Westminster, 
just at the ministration of the mass ; so that the blood of the 
priest spurted into the chalice ; a fact so foul, that the greatest 
charity would blush to whisper a syllable in the excuse thereof. 
As for such who, in his defence, plead the precedent of Elijah s 
killing of Baal s priests, they lay a foundation for all impiety in 
a Christian commonwealth. If in the old world giants were the 
product of those marriages, when the sons of God took to wives 
the daughters of men f (a copulation not unlawful because they 
were too near akin, but because they were too far off), what 
monsters will be generated from such mixtures, when extraor 
dinary actions by immediate commissions from God shall be 
matched unto ordinary persons of mere men, and heaven un 
justly alleged and urged for the defence of hell itself ? 

However, it plainly appears that Flower afterwards solemnly 
repented of this abominable act, and was put to death for the 
testimony of the truth. Grudge not, reader, to peruse this 
following parallel, as concerning the hands of the martyrs in the 
reign of queen Mary. 

The right hand of Thomas Tomkins was burnt off in effect 
(so as to render it useless,) by Bishop Bonner, some days before 
he was martyred. 

Archbishop Cranmer, at the stake, first thrust his right hand 
into the flame to be burnt, in penance for his subscription to a 
recantation. 

The right hand of William Flower, before he went to the 
stake, was cut off by order of the judges for his barbarous fact. 

Yet, though his right hand suffered as a malefactor, there 
want not those who maintained that martyr belongs to the rest of 
his body. There were but three more martyred in this county, 
whereof John Hullier, fellow of King s College, was most re 
markable. 

PRELATES. 

STEPHEN de FULBORN was born at Fulborn (no other of 
that name in England) in this county. Going over into Ire 
land to seek his providence (commonly nick -named his fortune), 

* So Mr. Fox spells it, in his Acts and Monuments, page 1573 ; called Snaile 
Well at this day. f Gen. vi. 2. 



PRELATES. 229 

therein he became, anno 1274, bishop of Waterford, and lord 
treasurer of Ireland.* Hence he was preferred archbishop of 
Tuam, and once and again was chief justice of that (allow me a 
prolepsis) kingdom. f He is reported to have given to the 
church of Glassenbury in England " indulgences of an hundred 
days ; " J which I cannot understand, except he promised par 
don of so many days to all in his province who went a pilgrim 
age to that place : and this also seems an over-papal act of a 
plain archbishop. He died 1288, and was buried in Trinity 
Church in Dublin. 

NICHOLAS of Ely was so called (say some) from being arch 
deacon thereof; which dignity so dyed his denomination in 
grain, that it kept colour till his death, not fading, for his future 
higher preferments, though others conjecture his birth also at 
Ely. When the bold barons obtruded a chancellor (a king s 
tongue and hands by whom he publicly speaks and acts) anno 
1260, they forced this Nicholas on king Henry the Third for 
that office, till the king some months after displaced him ; yet 
(knowing him a man of much merit) voluntarily chose him lord 
treasurer, || when ousted of his chancellor s place; so that (it 
seems) he would trust him with his coffers, but not with his 
conscience ; yea, he afterwards preferred.him bishop of Worces 
ter, then of Winchester. Here he sat twelve years ; and that 
cathedral may (by a synecdoche of a novel part for the whole) 
challenge his interment, having his heart enclosed in a wall, 
though his body be buried at Waverley in Surrey, 1280.^" 

WILLIAM of BOTLESHAM was born at Botlesham (contractly 
Botsam) in this county. This is a small village, which never 
amounted to a market town, some five miles east of Cambridge, 
pleasantly seated in pure air, having rich arable on the one and 
the fair heath of Newmarket on the other side thereof. It hath 
been the nursery of refined wits, affording a triumvirate of 
learned men, taking their lives there, and names thence : and to 
prevent mistakes (to which learned pens in this point have been 
too prone), we present them in the ensuing parallels. 

WILLIAM** of Bottlesham, made by the Pope first bishop of 
Bethlehem in Syria; afterwards, anno 1385, bishop of Llandaff, 
and thence removed to Rochester : a famous preacher, con 
fessor to king Richard the Second, and learned writer ; but by 

* Sir James Ware, in the Archbishops of Tuam. 

f Ireland properly was no kingdom til 1 the time of king Henry the Eighth. 

Sir James Ware, ut prius. 

John Philipot, in his Catalogue of Chancellors, p. 23. 

II Idem, in his Catalogue of Treasurers, p. 16. 

f Bishop Godwin, in the Bishops of Winchester. 

** Idem, in the Catalogue of Llandaff and Rochester. 



230 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

Walsingham and Bale called John by mistake. He died in 
February, anno 1399. Nor must we forget that he was once 
Fellow of Pembroke hall. 

JOHN of Bottlesham was bred in Peter-house in Cambridge, 
whereunto he was a benefactor, as also to the whole university, 
chaplain to Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury; by 
whose recommendation he was preferred to succeed his towns 
man in the see of Rochester ; which he never saw (saith my au 
thor*), as dying in the beginning of the year 1401. 

NICHOLAS of Bottlesham was a Carmelite, bred in Cambridge, 
afterwards removed to Paris, where in Sorbonne he commenced 
Doctor of Divinity. Returning to Cambridge, he became Prior 
of the Carmelites (since Queen s College), where he wrote many 
books, and lies buried in his own convent, anno Domini 1435, f 

Let all England shew me the like of three eminent men (all 
contemporaries at large) which one petty village did produce. 
Let Botlesham hereafter be no more famed for its single beacon, 
but for these three lights it afforded. 

THOMAS, of NEWMARKET was born therein; and though 
that town lieth some part in Suffolk, my author assures his na 
tivity in this county. He was bred in Cambridge, an excellent 
humanist and divine (having left some learned books to poste 
rity), and at last was advanced to be bishop of Carlisle.! 

Surely then he must be the same with Thomas Merks, con 
secrated anno 1397 ; consent of time most truly befriending the 
conjecture ; Merks also and Market being the same in effect. 
Neither doth the omission of New in the least degree discom 
pose their identity, it being usual to leave out the prsenomen of 
a town for brevity sake, by those of the vicinage (amongst whom 
there is no danger of mistake), commonly calling Westchester 
Chester, Southampton Hampton. If the same, he is famous in 
our English histories, because his devotion (in a transposed pos 
ture to public practice) worshipped the sun-setting king Richard 
the Second ; for which his memory will meet with more to com 
mend than imitate it.|| Yet was his loyalty shent, but not 
shamed; and king Henry the Fourth being sick of him, not 
daring to let him live, nor put him to death (because a prelate) 
found an expedient for him of a living death, confining him to a 
titular Grecian bishopric.^ He died about 1405. 

THOMAS THIRLBY, Doctor of Laws, was (as I am assured by 
an excellent antiquary)** born in the town, and bred in the uni- 

* Bishop Godwin, in the Bishops of Rochester. f Bale, p. 576. Fits, p. 625. 

J Bale, de Scriptoribus Angliae, Cent. 7, num. 60. 

Bale maketh him to flourish under king Henry the Fourth. 

II See his speech in Parliament, in Speed. 

^1 Godwin, in the Bishops of Carlisle. 

** Mr. Martin, beneficed near Northampton. 



PRELATES. 231 

versity of Cambridge,, most probably in Trinity-hall. He was 
very able in his own faculty, and more than once employed in 
embassies by king Henry the Eighth, who preferred him bishop 
of Westminster. Here, had Thirlby lived long, and continued 
the course he began, he had prevented queen Mary from dis 
solving that bishopric, as which would have dissolved itself for 
lack of land, sold and wasted by him. And though probably 
he did this to" raise and enrich his own. family, yet such the 
success of his sacrilege, his name and alliance is extinct. 

From Westminster he was removed to Norwich, thence to" 
Ely. He cannot be followed (as some other of his order) by 
the light of the faggots kindled by him to burn poor martyrs, 
seeing he was given rather to prodigality than cruelty ; it being 
signally observed that he wept at archbishop Cranmer s degra 
dation. After the death of queen Mary, he was as violent in 
his opinions, but not so virulent in his expressions ; always 
devoted to queen Mary, but never invective against queen Eli 
zabeth. He lived in free custody ; died, and is buried at Lam 
beth, 1570. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

GODFREY GOLDSBOROUGH, D. D. was born in the town of 
Cambridge, where some of his sirname and relation remained 
since my memory. He was bred in Trinity College (pupil to 
archbishop Whitgift) ; and became afterwards fellow thereof. 
At last he was consecrated bishop of Gloucester anno Domini 
1598. He was one of the second set of Protestant bishops, 
which were after those so famous for their sufferings in the 
Marian days, and before those who fall under the cognizance of 
our generation ; the true reason that so little can be recovered 
of their character. He gave a hundred marks to Trinity Col 
lege, and died anno Domini 1604. 

ROBERT TOWNSON, D. D. was born in Saint Botolph s parish 
in Cambridge, and bred a fellow in Queen s College, being 
admitted very young therein, but 12 years of age. He was 
blessed with an happy memory, insomuch that when D. D. he 
could say by art the second book of the ^neid, which he 
.earnt at School, without missing a verse. He was an excellent 
preacher, and becoming a pulpit with his gravity. He attended 
king James his chaplain into Scotland ; and after his return, 
was preferred dean of Westminster, then bishop of Salisbury, 

Hear what the author of a pamphlet, who inscribeth himself 
A. W., saith in a book which is rather a satire than a history, a 
libel than a character, of the " Court of King James ;" for, after 
he had slanderously inveighed against the bribery of those days 
in church and state, hear how he seeks to make amends for all : 
Some worthy men were preferred gratis to blow up their 



.. 



WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

[Buckingham and his party] fames (as Tolson, a worthy man, 
paid nothing in fine or pension, and so after him Davenant in 
the same bishopric). Yet these were but as music before every 
hound."* 

Now although both these persons here praised were my God 
fathers and uncles (the one marrying the sister of, the other 
being brother to, my mother), and although such good words 
seem a rarity from so railing a mouth ; yet shall not these con 
siderations tempt me to accept his praises on such invidious 
terms as the author doth proffer them. 

Oh were these worthy bishops now alive, how highly would 
they disdain to be praised by such a pen, by which king James, 
their lord and master, is causelessly traduced ! How would they 
condemn such uncharitable commendations, which are (if not 
founded on) accompanied with the disgrace of others of their 
order ! Wherefore I their nephew, in behalf of their memories, 
protest against this passage, so far forth as it casteth lustre on 
them, by eclipsing the credit of other prelates their contempo 
raries. And grant corruption too common in that kind, yet 
were there besides them at that time many worthy bishops 
raised to their dignity by their deserts, without any simoniacal 
compliances. 

Doctor Townson had a hospitable heart, a generous disposi 
tion, free from covetousness, and was always confident in God s 
providence, that, if he should die, his children (and those were 
many) would be provided for ; wherein he was not mistaken. 
He lived in his bishopric but a year ; and being appointed at 
very short warning to preach before the parliament, by unsea 
sonable sitting up to study, contracted a fever, whereof he died, 
and was buried in Westminster abbey, anno Domini 1622. 

THOMAS (son to William) WESTFEELD, D. D. was born anno 
Domini 1573, in the parish of Saint Mary s in Ely, and there 
bred at the Free-school under Master Spight, till he was sent 
to Jesus College in Cambridge, being first scholar, then fellow 
thereof. He was curate or assistant rather, to bishop Felton, 
whilst minister of Saint Mary-le-Bow in Cheapside, afterward 
rector of Hornsey, nigh, and Great Saint Bartholomew s in, 
London, where in his preaching he went through the four Evan 
gelists. He was afterwards made archdeacon of Saint Alban s, 
and at last bishop of Bristol, a place proffered to and refused 
by him twenty-five years before : for then the bishopric was 
offered to him to maintain him ; which this contented meek 
man, having a self-subsistence, did then decline ; though accept 
ing of it afterwards, when proffered to him to maintain the 
bishopric, and support the episcopal dignity by his signal devo 
tion. What good opinion the parliament (though not over-fond 

James s Court, y^. Ui&gt;, l.iu. 



PRELATES. 233 

of bishops) conceived of him, appears by their order ensuing :* 

" The thirteenth of May, 1643, From the Committee of Lords 
and Commons for Sequestration of Delinquents estates. 

tf Upon information in the behalf of the bishop of Bristol, that 
his tenants refuse to pay him his rents ; it is ordered by this 
committee, that all profits of his bishopric be restored to him, 
and a safe conduct be granted him to pass with his family to 
Bristol, being himself of great age, and a person of great learn 
ing and merit. Jo. WYLDE." 

About the midst of his life he had a terrible sickness, so that 
he thought (to use his own expression in his diary) that " God 
would put out the candle of his life, though he was pleased only 
to snuff it." By his will (the true copy whereof I have) he 
desired to be buried in his cathedral church, near the tomb of 
Paul Bush, the first bishop thereof. " And as for my worldly 
goods," (Reader, they are his own words in his will) " which (as 
the times now are) I know not well where they be, nor what 
they are, I give and bequeath them all to my dear wife Eliza 
beth, &,c." He protested himself on his death-bed " a true 
Pretestant of the Church of England ;" and dying Junii 28, 
1644, lieth buried according to his own desire above men 
tioned, with this inscription : 

" Hie jacet THOMAS WKSTFIELD, S. T. D. 

Episcoporum intimus, peccatorum primus. 

Obitt 25 Junii, anno MDCXLIV, senio et mrerore confectus. 

Tu Lector (quisquis es) vale, et resipisce. 

Epitaphium ipse sibi dictavit vivus. 

Monumentum uxor moestissima ELIZABETHA WESTFIELD 
Marito desideratissimo posuit superstes." 

Thus leaving such as survived him to see more sorrow, and 
feel more misery, he was seasonably taken away from the evil 
to come : and according to the anagram made on him by his 
daughter, "Thomas Westfield, I dwel the most safe;" enjoying 
all happiness, and possessing the reward of his pains, who con 
verted many, and confirmed more, by his constancy in his calling. 

STATESMEN. 

JOHN TIPTOFT, son and heir of John Lord Tiptoft and 
Joyce his wife (daughter and co-heir of Edward Charlton Lord 
Powis, by his wife Eleanor, sister and co-heir of Edmund 
Holland, Earl of Kent)f was born at Everton,J in this (but in 
the confines of Bedford) shire. He was bred in Baliol College 
in Oxford, where he attained to great learning; and by king 
Henry the Sixth was afterwards created first Viscount, then 

* The particulars of this were procured for me by my worthy friend Mathew 
Gilly. Esquire, from Elizabeth the bishop s sole surviving daughter. F. 

t Milluo s Catalogue of Honour, p. 1010. J Bale de Script. Brit. c. 8, n. 46. 



234 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

Earl of Worcester, and Lord High Constable of England, and 
by king Edward the Fourth Knight of the Garter. 

The skies began now to lower, and threaten civil wars ; and 
the house of York fell sick of a relapse. Meantime this earl 
could not be discourteous to Henry the Sixth, who had so much 
advanced him, nor disloyal to Edward the Fourth, in whom the 
right of the crown lay. Consulting his own safety, he resolved 
on this expedient ; for a time to quit his own, and visit the 
Holy Land. In his passage thither, or thence, he came to 
Rome, where he made a Latin speech before the Pope, Pius the 
Second, and converted the Italians into a better opinion than 
they had formerly of the Englishmen s learning ; insomuch that 
his Holiness wept at the elegancy of the oration. 

He returned from Christ s sepulchre to his own grave in 
England, coming home in a most unhappy juncture of time. If 
sooner, or later, he had found king Edward on that throne, to 
which now Henry the Sixth was restored, and whose restitution 
was only remarkable for the death of this worthy lord. Thus 
those who, when the house of the state is on fire, politicly hope 
to save their own chamber, are sometimes burned therein. 

Treason was charged upon him for secret siding with king 
Edward, who before and afterward de facto, and always de jure, 
was the lawful king of England. On this account he lost his 
life. Then did the axe at one blow cut off more learning in 
England that was left in the heads of all the surviving nobi 
lity. His death happened on S.aint Luke s-day 1470. 

Edward Lord Tiptoft, his son, was restored, by Edward 
the Fourth, Earl of Worcester. But, dying without issue, his 
large inheritance fell to his three aunts, sisters to the learned 
lord aforesaid ; viz. first, Phillippa, married to Thomas Lord 
Ross, of Hamlake. Second, Joan, wife of Sir Edmund Ingolds- 
thorp, of Borough-green, in this county. Third, Joyce, married 
unto Sir Edward Sutton, son and heir of John Lord Dudley, 
from whom came Edward Sutton, Lord Dudley, and Knight of 
the Garter.* 

JOHN CHEEKE, Knight, tutor to king Edward the Sixth, 
and Secretary of State, was born over against the Market-cross, 
in Cambridge. What crosses afterwards befel him in his course 
of life, and chiefly before his pious death, are largely related in 
our " Church History. " 

SOLDIERS. 

The courage of the men in this county before the Conquest 
plainly appeareth by this authentic passage in a memorable 
author, who reporteth that, when the rest of the East Angles 
cowardly fled away in the field from the Danish army, " homines 

* Milles, ut snpiu. 



WRITERS. 2.35 

comitatus Cantabrigise viriliter obstiterunt " (" the men of the 
county of Cambridge did manfully resist.") Our author addeth 
" unde Anglis regnantibus laus Cantabrigiensis Provinciee splen- 
dide florebat ;" ( e&lt; whence it was that, whilst the English did rule, 
the praise of the people of Cambridgeshire did most eminently 
flourish.")* 

Nor lost they their reputation for their manhood, at the 
coming in of the Normans ; who, partly by the valour of their 
persons, partly by the advantage of their fens, made so stout 
resistance, that the conqueror^ who did fly into England, was 
glad to creep into Ely. Yea, I have been credibly informed 
that Cambridgeshire men commonly passed for a current pro 
verb, though now, like old coin, almost grown out of request. 

Indeed the common people have most robustious bodies; 
insomuch that quarter- sacks were here first used, men com 
monly carrying on their backs (for some short space) eight 
bushels of barley ; whereas four are found a sufficient load for 
those in other counties. Let none say that active valour is ill 
inferred from passive strength ; for I do not doubt but (if just 
occasion were given) they would find as good hands and arms as 
they do backs and shoulders. 

WRITERS. 

[AMP.] MATTHEW PARIS is acknowledged an Englishman 
by all (save such who mistake Parisius for Parisiensis), and may 
probably be presumed born in this (as bred in the next) county, 
where the name and family of Paris is right ancient, even long 
before they were settled therein at Hildersham, which accrued 
unto them by their marriage with the daughter and heir of the 
Buslers.f Sure I am, were he now alive, the Parises would 
account themselves credited with his, and he would not be 
ashamed of their affinity. 

He was bred a monk of Saint Alban s, skilled not only in 
poetry, oratory, and divinity, but also in such manual as lie in 
the suburbs of liberal sciences, painting, graving, &c. But his 
genius chiefly disposed him for the writing of histories, wherein 
he \vrote a large Chronicle, from the Conquest unto the year of 
our Lord 1250, where he concludes with this distich : 

Siste lui melas studii, Matl/ifce, quietns : 
Nee Ventura pclas, quee postcra proferat (Etas. 

" Matthew, here cease thy pen in peace, and study on no more ; 
Nor do thou roam at things to come, what next age hath in store." 

However, he, afterwards resuming that work, continued it 
until the year 1259. This I observe, not to condemn him, but 
excuse myself from inconstancy ; it being, it seems, a catching- 
disease with authors, to obey the importunity of others, con 
trary to their own resolution. 

* Chronicon Jo. Brompton, p. 887. 

t Camden s Britannia, in Cambridgeshire. 



236 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

His history is impartially and judiciously written (save where 
he indulgeth too much to monkish miracles and visions) ; and 
no writer so plainly disco vereth the pride, avarice, and rapine of 
the court of Rome ; so that he seldom " kisseth the pope s toe 
without biting it," Nor have the Papists any way to waive his 
true jeers, but by suggesting, ha&gt;c non ab ipso scripta, sed ab 
aliisfalsb illi ascripta ;* insinuating a suspicion of forgery, in 
his last edition : understand them in what some eighty years 
since was set forth by Matthew Parker ; whereas it was done 
with all integrity, according to the best and most ancient 
manuscripts ; wherein all those anti-papal passages plainly ap 
pear, as since in a latter and exacter edition, by the care 
and industry of Doctor William Watts. This Matthew left off 
living and writing at the same time, viz. anno 1259. I will only 
add, that though he had sharp nails, he had clean hands ; strict 
in his own as well as striking at the loose conversations of 
others ; and, for his eminent austerity, was employed by Pope 
Innocent the Fourth, not only to visit the monks in the diocese 
of Norwich, but also was sent by him into Norway, to reform 
the discipline in Holui, a fair convent therein, but much cor 
rupted. 

HELIAS RUBEUS was born at Triplowf in this county, bred 
D.D. in Cambridge. Leland acquainteth us that he was a 
great courtier, and gracious with the king; not informing us 
what king it was, nor what time he lived in ; only we learn 
from him, that this Rubeus (conceive his English name Rouse, 
or Red), seeing many who were nobilitatis portenta (so that as 
in a tympany their very greatness was their disease) boasted (if 
not causelessly) immoderately of their high extraction, wrote a 
book contra nobilitatem inanem. He is conjectured to have 
flourished about the year 1266. 

JOHN EVERSDEN was born at one of the Eversdens, in this 
county, bred a monk in Bury Abbey, and the cellerar thereof; 
an officer higher in sense than sound, being by his place to 
provide diet for the whole convent, assigning particular persons 
their portions thereof. But our Eversden s mind, mounted 
above such mean matters, busied himself in poetry, law, his 
tory, whereof he wrote a fair volume from the beginning of the 
world, according to the humour of the historians of that age ; 
starting all thence, though they run to several marks. J Being 
a monk, he was not over-fond of friars ; and observeth that 
when the Franciscans first entered Bury, anno 1336, there hap 
pened a hideous hurricane, levelling trees and towers, and 
whatsoever it met with. The best was, though they came in 

" Pits, de illustribus Anglise Scriptoribus, p. 338. 
( Bale, de Seriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. 4, num. 48. 
j Idem, Cent. 5, num. 40. 



WRITERS. 237 

with a tempest, they went out with a calm, at the time of the 
dissolution. This John flourished under king Edward the 
Third, and died about the year 1338. 

[S. N.] RICHARD WETHERSET, commonly called of Cam 
bridge (saith Bale), because he was Chancellor thereof. But 
there must be more in it to give him that denomination, seeing 
many had that office besides himself. He was a great scholar 
and deep divine ; it being reported to his no small praise, " that 
he conformed his divinity to Scripture, and not to the rules of 
philosophy."* He flourished under king Edward the Third, 
anno 1350. 

WILLIAM CAXTON, born in that town (a noted stage betwixt 
Royston and Huntingdon). Bale beginneth very coldly in his 
commendation, by whom he is charactered, "vir non omnino 
stupidus, aut ignavia torpens;"f but we understand the lan 
guage of his liptote, the rather because he proceedeth to praise 
his diligence and learning. He had most of his education be 
yond the seas, living thirty years in the court of Margaret, 
duchess of Burgundy, sister to king Edward the Fourth, whence 
I conclude him an anti-Lancastrian in his affection. He con 
tinued " Polychronicon " (beginning where Trevisa ended) unto 
the end of king Edward the Fourth, with good judgment and 
fidelity. And yet, when he writeth that king Richard the 
Second left in his treasury money and jewels to the value of 
seven hundred thousand pounds,! I cannot credit him ; it is so 
contrary to the received character of that king s riotous pro 
digality. Caxton carefully collected and printed all Chaucer s 
works ; and on many accounts deserved well of posterity when 
he died, about the year I486. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

RICHARD HULOET was born at Wisbeach, in this county, 
and brought up in good learning. He wrote a book called 
" The English and Latin ABC;" and dedicated the same to 
Thomas Goodrich, Bishop of Ely, and Chancellor of England. 
Some will condemn him of indiscretion, in presenting so low a 
subject to so high a person, as if he would teach the greatest 
statesman in the land to spell aright. Others will excuse hirn, 
his book being, though of low, of general use for the common 
people, who then began to betake themselves to reading (long 
neglected in the land), so that many who had one foot in their 
grave, had their hand on their primer. But I believe that his 
book (whereof I could never recover a sight), though entitled 
an ABC, related not to literal reading, but rather to some 

Bale, &lt;le Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. 5, num. 88. 
f Idem, Cent. 8, num. 43. J Polychronicon, lib. ult. cap. 10. 

Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. 9, num. C7. 



238 WORTHIES OP CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

elemental grounds of religion. He flourished anno Domini 
1552. 

JOHN RICHARDSON was born of honest parentage, at Linton, 
in this county ; bred first fellow of Emanuel, then master of 
Saint Peter s, and at last of Trinity College in Cambridge, and 
was Regius Professor in that university. Such who represent 
him a dull and heavy man in his parts, may be confuted with 
this instance : 

An extraordinary act in divinity was kept at Cambridge be 
fore king James, wherein doctor John Davenant was answerer, 
and doctor Richardson amongst others the opposers. The 
question was maintained in the negative, concerning " the excom 
municating of kings." Doctor Richardson vigorously pressed 
the practice of Saint Ambrose excommunicating of the em 
peror Theodosius ; insomuch that the king, in some passion, 
returned, " Profecto fuit hoc ab Ambrosio insolentissime fac- 
tum." To whom Doctor Richardson rejoined, " Responsum 
vere Regium, et Alexandro dignum. Hoc non est argumenta 
dissolvere, sed desecare." And so, sitting down, he desisted 
from any further dispute. 

He was employed one of the translators of the Bible ; and 
was a most excellent linguist ; whose death happened anno 
Domini 1621. 

ANDREW WILLET, D.D. was born at Ely, in this county, 
bred fellow of Christ s College in Cambridge. He afterwards 
succeeded his father in the parsonage of Barley, in Hertfordshire, 
and became prebendary of Ely. He confuted their cavil who 
make children the cause of covetousness in clergymen, being 
bountiful above his ability, notwithstanding his numerous 
issue. No less admirable his industry, appearing in his " Sy 
nopsis," " Comments," and " Commentaries ;" insomuch that 
one, considering his polygraphy, said merrily, "that he must 
write whilst he slept, it being impossible that he should do so 
much when waking." Sure I am, he wrote not sleepily nor 
oscitanter, but what was solid in itself, and profitable for others. 

A casual fall from his horse in the highway near Hodsden, 
breaking his leg, accelerated his death. It seems that God s pro 
mise to his children, " to keep them in all their ways, that they 
dash not their foot against the stone,"* is (as other temporal 
promises) to be taken with a tacit cause of revocation, viz. if 
God s wisdom doth not discover the contrary more for his 
glory and his children s good. This doctor died anno Domini 
1621. 

Sir THOMAS RIDLEY, Knight, Doctor of the Laws, was born 

* Psalm xci. 11, 12. 



WRITERS. 239 

at Ely, in this county, bred first a scholar in Eton, then fellow 
of King s College in Cambridge. He was a general scholar in 
all kind of learning, especially in that which we call melior lite- 
ratura. He afterwards was Chancellor of Winchester, and the 
Vicar-general to the Archbishop of Canterbury. His memory will 
never die whilst his book called the " View of the Ecclesiastical 
Laws " is living ; a book of so much merit, that the common 
lawyers (notwithstanding the difference betwixt the professions) 
will ingeniously allow a due commendation to his learned per 
formance in that subject. He died anno Domini 1629, on the 
two and twentieth day of January. 

ARTHUR HILDERSHAM was born at Strechworth in this 
county, descended by his mother s side from the blood-royal, 
being great-great-grandchild to George Duke of Clarence, bro 
ther to Edward the Fourth. Yet was he not like the proud 
nobles of Tecoa, who counted themselves ee too good to put 
their hands to God s work." But, being bred in Christ s Col 
lege, in Cambridge, he entered into the ministry. How this 
worthy divine was first run aground with poverty, and after 
wards set afloat by God s providence ; how he often alternately 
lost and recovered his voice, being silenced and restored by the 
bishops ; how, after many intermediate afflictions, this just and 
upright man had peace at the last ; is largely reported in my 
" Ecclesiastical History," to which (except I add to the truth) I 
can add nothing on my knowledge remarkable. He died anno 
Domini 1631. 

R. PARKER, for so is his Christian name defectively written 
in my book, born in Ely, (therefore place-naming himself Eli- 
ensis), was son (as I am confident) to Master Parker, Arch 
deacon of Ely, to whom that bishopric in the long vacancy 
(after the death of Bishop Cox) was proffered, and by him re 
fused, " tantum opum usuram iniquis conditionibus sibi oblatam 
respuens." Our Parker was bred in, and became a fellow of, 
Caius College, an excellent herald, historian, and antiquary, 
author of a short, plain, true, and brief manuscript, called 
" Sceletos Cantabrigiensis ;" and yet the bare bones thereof are 
fleshed with much matter, and hath furnished me with the na 
tivities of several bishops who were masters of colleges. 

I am not of the mind of the Italian (from whose envy God 
deliver us !) Polidore Vergil, who, having first served his own 
turn with them, burnt all the rare English manuscripts of his 
tory he could procure, so to raise the valuation of his own 
works. But from my heart I wish some ingenious person 
would print Mr. Parker s book, for the use of posterity. He 
was a melancholy man, neglecting all preferment to enjoy him 
self; and died in the place of his nativity, as I conjecture, 
about 1624. 



240 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

MICHAEL DALTON, Esquire. He was bred in the study of 
our municipal law in Lincoln s Inn, and attained great skill in 
his own profession. His gravity graced the bench of justices 
in this county, where his judgment deservedly passed for an 
oracle in the law : having enriched the world with two excellent 
treatises, the one of the office of the sheriffs, the other of the 
justices of peace. Out of the dedicatory epistle of the latter I 
learnt this (which I knew not before), that king James was so 
highly affected with our English government by justices of peace, 
that he was the first who settled the same in his native country 
of Scotland. Mr. Dalton died before the beginning of our civil 
distempers. 

THOMAS GOAD, D.D. was son to Dr. Roger Goad (for more 
than forty years Provost of King s College) ; but whether born 
in the Provost s lodgings in Cambridge, or at Milton in this 
county, I am not fully informed. He was bred a Fellow under 
his father; afterwards chaplain to archbishop Abbot, rector of 
Hadley in Suffolk, prebendary of Canterbury, &c. ; a great and 
general scholar, exact critic, historian, poet, (delighting in making 
of verses till the day of his death) school-man, divine. He was 
substituted by king James in the place of Doctor Hall (indis 
posed in health), and sent over to the synod of Dort. He had 
a commanding presence, an uncontrollable spirit, impatient to 
be opposed, and loving to steer the discourse (being a good pi 
lot to that purpose) of all the company he came in. I collect 
him to have died about the year 1635. 

ANDREW MARVAIL was born at Mildred in this county,* and 
bred a Master of Arts in Trinity College in Cambridge. 

He afterwards became minister in Hull, where for his life-time 
he was well beloved : most facetious in his discourse, yet grave 
in his carriage ; a most excellent preacher, who, like a good hus 
band, never broached what he had new brewed, but preached 
what he had pre-studied some competent time before; inso 
much that he was wont to say, that he would cross the common 
proverb, which called " Saturday the working day, and Monday 
the holiday of preachers/ It happened that, anno Domini 
1640, Jan. 23, crossing Humber in a barrow-boat, the same was 
sand-warped, and he drowned therein, by the carelesness, not 
to say drunkenness, of the boatmen, to the great grief of all 
good men.t His excellent " Comment upon Saint Peter " is 
daily desired and expected, if the envy and covetousness of pri 
vate persons for their own use, deprive not the public of the 
benefit thereof. 

* So his son-in-law informed me. F. 

t With Mrs. Skinner (daughter to Sir Edward Coke), a very religious gentle 
woman F. 



BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 421 



BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

HUGO de BALSHAM (for so is he truly written) was born in 
this county, as may easily be spelled out of the four following 
probabilities put together : first, it was fashionable for clergy 
men in that age to assume their surnames from the place of their 
nativity : secondly, Balsham is an eminent village in this county, 
whereof an ancient author taketh notice, naming thence the 
neighbouring around " amcenissima Montana de Balsham :"* 
thirdly, there is no other village of that name throughout the 
dominions of England : fourthly, it is certain this Hugh was 
bred in this county, where he attained to be sub-prior, and after 
wards bishop, of Ely. 

This Hugh was he who founded Peter-house in the university 
of Cambridge, the first built (though not first endowed) college 
in England. This foundation he finished anno 1284, bestowing 
some lands upon it, since much augmented by bountiful bene 
factors. He sat 28 years in his see, and died June the 6th, 1286. 

Sir WILLIAM HORN, Salter, son to Thomas Horn, was born 
at Snailwell in this county. He was knighted by king Henry 
the Seventh ; and, anno 1487 3 was Lord Mayor of London. 
He gave bountifully to the preachers at Saint Paul s Cross, and 
bestowed five hundred marks to the mending of the highways 
betwixt Cambridge, the county town where he had his first life, 
and London, the city where he got his best livelihood.f 

Know, in that age, Horn s five hundred marks had in them 
the intrinsic value of our five hundred pounds, which in those 
days would go very far in the wages of labourers. 

Sir WILLIAM (son of John) PURCASE was born at Gamling- 
gay in this county, bred a mercer in London, and Lord Mayor 
thereof anno 1497. He caused Moorfields, under the Walls, 
to be made plain ground, then to the great pleasure, since to 
the greater profit, of the city. 

Sir THOMAS (son of John) KXEISWORTH was born at Kneis- 
worth in this county, bred a fishmonger in London, whereof 
he was Lord Mayor anno 1505. He appointed the water-con 
duit at Bishopsgate to be built, to the great convenience of the 
city, formerly much wanting that useful element. Be it here 
observed, for the encouragement of the industry of Cambridge 
shire apprentices, that by the premises it doth appear that this 
small county, in the compass of eighteen years, afforded three 
Lord Mayors and benefactors, which no other shire of equal or 
greater quantity ever produced. 

* Ileni-} of Huntington. f Stow s Survey of London, p. 5/5. 

VOL. r. R 



242 WORTHIES OP CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 



SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

JOHN CRANE was born in Wisbeach in this county, bred an 
apothecary in Cambridge, so diligent a youth, that some judi 
cious persons prognosticated that he would be a rich man. Dr. 
Butler took so great a fancy unto him, that he lived and died 
in his family ; yea, and left the main body of his rich estate 
unto him. 

This Mr. Crane had a large heart to entertain his friends, and 
annually very nobly treated all the Oxford men at the Com 
mencement. He gave at his death no less than three thousand 
pounds to charitable uses, bestowing the house he lived in (and 
that a very fair one), after his wife s death, on the public profes 
sor of physic ; and, in settlement of his other benefactions, dis 
creetly reflected on Wisbeach, where he was born (to which he 
gave 1001. to build a town hall) ; Cambridge, where he lived ; 
Lynn, where he was well acquainted ; Ipswich, where Dr. Butler 
(the first founder of his estate) was born : and Kingston, where 
his lands lay. He in some sort gives preventing physic to the 
scholars now he is dead, by giving 1001. to be lent gratis to an 
honest man, the better to enable him to buy good fish and fowl 
for the University, having observed much sickness occasioned 
by unwholesome food in that kind. He bequeathed to Dr. 
Wren bishop of Ely, and Dr. Brounrigg bishop of Exeter, one 
hundred pounds a-piece by his will, and as much by a codicil 
annexed thereunto. Besides his concealed charities, his hand 
was always open to all the distressed Royalists. He died in 

May 1650. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

WILLIAM COLLET was born at Over in this county, bred a 
clerk in London, till at last he attained to be Keeper of the Re 
cords in the Tower, none equalling him in his dexterity in that 
office. He went the same path with his predecessor in that 
place, Master Augustine Vincent ; but out- went him as survivor. 
And because method is the mother of memory, he orderly di 
gested all Records, that they were to be found in an instant. 
He abominated their course, who by a water would refresh a 
record, to make it useful for the present, and useless ever after. 
He detested, under the pretence of mending it, to practise with 
a pen on any old writing, preserving it in the pure nature there 
of. Indeed Master Selden and others, in their works, have pre 
sented posterity with a plentiful feast of English rarities ; but 
let me say that Collet may be called their caterer, who furnished 
them with provision on reasonable rates. He died, to the great 
grief of all antiquaries, anno Domini 1644. 

EDWARD NORGATE, son to Robert Norgate, D.D., master of 
Bene t College, was born in Cambridge, bred by his father-in- 
law (who married his mother) Nicholas Felton bishop of Ely, 



MEMORABLE PERSONS LORD MAYORS. 243 

who, finding him inclined to limning and heraldry, permitted 
him to follow his fancy therein ; for parents who cross the cur 
rent of their children s genius (if running in no vicious channels) 
tempt them to take worse courses to themselves. 

He was very judicious in pictures, to which purpose he was 
employed into Italy to purchase them for the Earl of Arundel. 
Returning by Marseilles, he missed the money he expected ; and 
being there unknowing of and unknown to any, he was observed 
by a French gentleman (so deservedly styled) to walk in the 
Exchange (as I may call it) of that city, many hours every 
morning and evening, with swift feet and sad face, forwards and 
backwards. To him the civil Monsieur addressed himself, 
desiring to know the cause of his discontent; and if it came 
within the compass of his power, he promised to help him with 
his best advice. Norgate communicated his condition ; to 
whom the other returned, " Take, I pray, my counsel ; I have 
taken notice of your walking more than twenty miles a-day in 
one furlong, upwards and downwards ; and what is spent in 
needless going and returning, if laid out in progressive motion, 
would bring you into your own country. I will suit you (if so 
pleased) with a light habit, and furnish you with competent 
money for a footman." Norgate very cheerfully consented, 
and footed it (being accommodated accordingly) through the 
body of France (being more than five hundred English miles) ; 
and so, leisurely, with ease, safety, and health, returned into 
England.* 

He became the best illuminer or limner of our age, employed 
generally to make the initial letters in the patents of peers, 
and commissions of ambassadors, having left few heirs to the 
kind, none to the degree, of his art therein. He was an excel 
lent herald, by the title of ,t and, which was the crown 

of all, a right honest man. Exemplary his patience in his 
sickness (whereof I was an eye-witness), though a complication 
of diseases, stone, ulcer in the bladder, &c., seized on him. He 
died at the Herald s office, anno Domini 1649. 

LORD MAYORS. 

1. Robert Clopton, son of Thomas Clopton, of Clopton, Draper, 

1441. 

2. William Horn, son of Thomas Horn, of Snaylewell, Salter, 

1487. 

3. William Purchase, son of John Purchase, of Gamelinghey, 

Mercer, 1497. 

4. Thomas Kneisworth, son of John Kneisworth, of Kneis 

worth, Fishmonger, 1505. 

5. Thomas Mirfine, son of George Mirfine, of Ely, Skinner, 1518. 

* This story is of his own relation. F. f Windsor Herald ED. 

R 2 



244 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

G. William Bowyer, son of William Bowyer, of Harstone, 1543. 
7. Richard Mallory, son of Anthony Mallory, of Papworthamus, 
Mercer, 1564. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAH OF KING HENRT 

THE SIXTH, 1433. 

John bishop of Ely, and John de Tiptoft, Chivaler ; William 

Allington, and John Burgoin, Miles, Knights for the Shire ; 

Commissioners to take the oaths. 

Willielmi Pole, mil. Edm. Bendisch de Barenton. 

Johannis Colvyle, mil. Johannis Ansty, junioris, de 
Willielmi Hazenhull, mil. Tanerisham. 

Willielmi Malory, mil. Radul. Hamelin de Sanston. 

Johannis Argenton, mil. Johannis Fulburn de Fulburn. 

Willielmi Alyngton, senioris, Johannis Borlee de Iselham. 

de Horseth. Johannis Bury de Stretelee. 

Laurencii Cheyne de Ditton. Magistri de Chepenham de 
Henrici Somer de Grancotre. Chepenham. 

Joh. Cheyne de Longstanton. Nich. Hamond de Swofham. 

Tho. Dischalers de Whaddon. Tho, Cantyes de Littillington. 

Willielmi Frevill de Shelford. Johannis Walter de Cranden. 

Johannis Hore de Childerle. Johannis West de Croxton. 

Johannis St. George de Haclee. Joh. Knesworth de Knesworth. 

Williel. St. George de eadem. Warini Ingrith de Melreth. 

Robertus Bernard de Iselham. Johannis Wilford, senioris, de 
Robertus Alyngton de Horseth. Badbrurgham. 

W r alt. Clovile de Pampisworth. Johannis Wilford, junioris, de 
Walteri Cotton de Ladevade. eadem. 

Williel. Burgoyne de Caxton. Sim. Hokington de Hokington. 

Johannis Moris de Trumpiton. Johannis Clopton de Clopton. 

Johannis Pigot de Aviton. Johannis Bungeye de Fulburn. 

Thomse Cotton de Lanwade. Johannis Mars de Abiton. 

Sim. Brunne de Wenelingham. Thomoe Danseth de Conyton. 

Edm. Seyntlowe de Malketon. Tho. Haneheech de Shelford. 

Alexandri Child de Horton, Henrici Calbech de Balsham. 

Johannis Keterich de Beche. Will. Sternede de Stapileford. 

Nicholai Caldecote de Melreth. Joh. Wizhton de Hokington. 

Walteri Huntydon de Trum- Roberti Anfleys de Eltislee. 

piton. Will. Eremilond de Iselham. 

Radulph. Sanston de Sanston. Johannis Vescey de Swanesey. 

Williel. Fulburne de Fulburn. Galf. Clopton de Clopton. 

Robert. Kingston de Berklow. Willielmi Baily de Saham. 

Richard. Stotevil de Brinkelee. Thomee Parker de Kertelenge. 

Rich. Foster de Bodekisham. Thomas Bulseham de Chenele. 

Johan. Ansty, senioris,deOvye. Johannis Bate de Reche. 

Johan. Totehill de Swafham. Johannis Taillour de Brinkle. 

Joh. Chirche de Bassingburn. Johannis Cotisford de Weston. 



GENTRY. 



245 



Roger! Hunte de Balseham. 
Johannis How de Sanston. 
Thomse Paris de eadem. 
Johan. Trope de Dokisworth. 
Jacob! Russil de Skelington. 
Ric. HoggepounddeWrotting. 
Johannis Palgrave de eadem. 
Tho. Cokeparker de Campis. 
Johannis Petzt. de eadem. 
Stephani Petiz de eadem. 
Johannis Lambard de eadem. 
Johannis Smith de eadem. 
Johan. Britsale de Berkelow. 
Willielmi Fuller de Lintone. 
Johannis Plukerose de eadem. 
Thomse Hamont de eadem. 
Johannis Person de eadem. 
Johannis Haberd de Onye. 
Johannis Orveye de Ditton. 
Philippus Grome de Hinton. 
Edm. Preston de Botisham. 
Thomee Bunte de eadem. 
Joh. Wilkin de "Wilburgham. 
Willielmi Thornton Warmer 

de Saham. 

Th. Stapleton de Badburgham. 
Johan. Ray de Novo Mercato. 
Henrici Attelane de Beche. 
Johannis Knith de eadem. 
Walteri Fote de Middilton. 
Joh. Andrew de Waterbeche. 
Roberti Bertelot de eadem. 
Johannis Tylly de eadem. 
Henrici Clerke de eadem. 
Johannis Annfleys de Critton. 
Johannis Fox" de eadem. 
Richardi Mably de Howis. 
Johan. Attechercke de eadem. 
Johannis Mably de eadem. 
Will. Colyn de Maddyngle. 
Johannis Custance de eadem. 
Thomee Mesynger de eadem. 
Willielmi Reynolt de eadem. 
Will. Knight de Chesterton. 
Johannis Bacon de eadem. 
Johannis Bernard de eadem. 
Henrici Speed de Hyston. 
Willielmi Page de eadem. 
Johannis Smith, sen. de eadem. 



Walter. Spernd de Cotenham. 

Henrici Mey de eadem. 

Hugonis Bernard de eadem. 

Williel. Burbage de Dray ton. 

Johannis Gifford de eadem. 

Roberti Salman de eadem. 

Henrici Roys de Lolworth. 

Johannis Asplen de eadem. 

Johannis Ganelock de Over. 

Jo. Sampson Bocher de eadem. 

Johannis Barby de eadem. 

Henrici Okeham de eadem. 

Wil. Shetere de Wenelingham. 

Johannis de Botre de eadem. 

Johannis Shetere de eadem, 

Willielmi Bakere de Swansey. 

Simonis Hurlpeny de eadem. 

Richardi Wright de eadem. 

Johannis Halton de eadem. 

Joh. Howesson de Ellysworth. 

Johannis Bole de eadem. 

Willielmi Fermour de eadem. 

Johannis Wareyan de eadem. 

Johannis Annfleys de Pap- 
worth Everard. 

Jo. Kent de Papworth Anneys. 

Johannis Daiitre de Granele. 

Johannis Annfleys de Cony ton. 

Thomee Crispe de eadem. 

Williel. Beton de Fendrayton* 

Willielmi Pecard de eadem. 

Johanni Grewere de eadem. 

Richardi Hemingtoii de Long- 
stanton. 

Henrici Rede de eadem. 

Johannis Page, jun. de eadem. 

Willielmi Driffeld de eadem. 

Johannis Hawkyn de eadem. 

Willielmi Attelow de eadem. 

Thomee Pelle de Hokington. 

Johannis Fulham de eadem. 

Johan. Williem. de Westwyk. 

Thomee Herward de eadem. 

Henrici Page de Rampton. 

Willielmi Page de eadem. 

Johannis Watesson de eadem. 

Johannis Bette de Herdewyk. 

Thomee Newman de Toft. 

Thomee Basely de eadem. 



246 



WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 



Thomae Crispe de Caldecote. 
Johannis Faceby de eadem. 
Thomae Adam de Everisdon 

Magna. 

Heiirici Bocher de eadem. 
Tho. Tant de Everisdon Parva. 
Willielmi Baron de eadem. 
Williel. Parnell de Kingston. 
Richard! Madingle de eadem. 
Johannis Couper de eadem 
Simonis Lavenham de Brunne. 
Galfridi Norman de eadem. 
Simon Wareyn de Stowe. 
Willielmi Semer de eadem. 
Thomae Bette de eadem. 
Johan. Freman de Esthatbee. 
Johannis Bradfeld de eadem. 
Tho. Fysher de Gamelingey. 
Jonannis Brampston de eadem. 
Walteri Aydrok de eadem. 
Johannis Smith de eadem. 
Johannis Draper de eadem. 
Johannis Goneld de Croxton. 
Willielmi Redford de eadem. 
Johannis Michell de Eltislee. 
Johannis Gylmyn de eadem. 
Thomae Bernard de eadem. 
Thomee Burgoyne de Caxton. 
Johannis Noris de eadem. 
Johannis Pachat de eadem. 
Willielmi Mold de Whaddon. 
Richardi Lylye de eadem. 
Johannis Oradle de eadem. 
Willielmi Adam de Melreth. 
Thomse Cosyn de eadem. 
Willielmi Lylye de eadem. 
Johannis Gentyng de eadem. 
Job.. Zokesle de Meldeburn. 
Johannis Turnere de eadem. 
Thomse Gentyng de eadem. 
Johannis Bayly de eadem. 
Nicholai Pulter de eadem. 
Will. Turpin de Knesworth. 
Johannis Street de eadem. 
Williel. Willwys de Royston. 
Thomas Mellman de eadem. 
Wai. King, jun, de Hungrihatle. 
Guidonis Moyn de eadem. 
Johannis Pynk de eadem. 



Joh Malbern de Stepilmorden. 

Johan. Crystmasse de eadem. 

Johannis Busshe de eadem. 

Will. Frost de Gyldemyorden. 

Johannis Lyly de eadem. 

Richardi Pern de eadem. 

Rich. Wolleys de Bassingburn. 

Johannis Parlet de eadem. 

Johannis Reymond de eadem. 

Johannis Bettele de eadem. 

Richardi Batte de Abiton. 

Thomae Lorkin de eadem. 

Johan. Gibbe de Litillington. 

Johannis Benizch de eadem. 

Willielmi Baker de Tadlow. 

Thomas Pelle de eadem. 

Johannis Goslin de Cranden. 

Willielmi Ward de eadem. 

Johan. Derby, sen. de Copton. 

Richardi Derby de eadem. 

Thomae Sherlee de Shengey. 

Johannis Smith de eadem. 

Willielmi Pink de Wendy. 

Prioris de Bernwell. 

Prioris de Angleseye. 

Prioris de Speneye. 

Prioris de Fordham. 

Willielmi Lasselys persone 
Ecclesiae de Over. 

Thomae Attewode persone Ec- 
clesiee de Ellisworth. 

Johannis Terinton persone Ec 
clesiae de Lolworth. 

Johannis Deping persone Ec- 
clesise de Critton. 

Nicholai Holey persone Ec 
clesiae de Swansey. 

Johannis Garaway persone Ec 
clesiae de Fulburn. 

Radulphi Wathe persone Ec 
clesiae deWillburgham parva. 

Willielmi Lavender persone 
Ecclesiae de Middilton. 

Richardi Drayton persone Ec 
clesiae de Kingston. 

Thomee Lawngham persone 
Ecclesise de Eltyslee. 

Roberti Dixon persone Eccle- 
siee de Shelford Magna. 



GENTRY SHERIFFS. 



247 



Adami persone Ecclesise de 
Dokisworth. 

Willielmi Midleton persone 
Ecclesiee de Clopton. 

Johannis Blak persone Eccle 
siee de Hungrihatlee. 

Willielmi Mows vicarii Eccle 
sise de Brunne. 

Johannis Camisby persone Ec 
clesiee de Sneyleswell. 



Johannis Smith persone Ec- 
clesiae de Brynkle. 

Johannis Bocher vicarii Eccle 
siee de Longstanton. 

Johannis Gotobed vicarii Ec 
clesiee de Swafham. 

Rectoris de Chenele vicarii de 
Dittons Valens. 

Persone Ecclesiee de Fiditton. 



SHERIFFS 
OF CAMBRIDGE AND HUNTINGDON-SHIRES. 



Anno 



HENRY II. 

1 Richardus Basset, Alberi- 

cus de Veer. 

2 Paganus, vie. et Rob. 

Grimball. 

3 Idem. 
4 

5 Idem. 
6 

7 Idem. 

8 Idem. 

9 Nicholai de Chenet. 

10 Hamo Petom, vie. 

11 Hamo Petom, vie. 

12 Hamo Petom, et Phil, de 

Daventre. 

13 Phil, de Daventre, for 

three years. 

16 Ebrar. de Beach, et War. 

de Basingborn. 

17 Idem. 

18 Ebrardus de Beach, for 



Anno 

4 Rich. Anglicus. 

5 Richard. Anglicus. 

6 Reginaldus de Argentuen. 

7 Idem. 

8 Tho. de Huntsdon. 

9 Merric. de Marignes. 
10 Rob. de Insula. 

JOHANNES R. 

1 Rob. de Insula. 

2 Idem. 

3 Hamo de Valoignes, et 
Rail, de Valoigne. 

4 Walt, de Stuieclea. 

5 Idem. 

6 Rob. de Tateshall, et 
Magister Aristoteles. 

7 Idem. 

8 Josteli. de Stuieclea. 

9 Idem. 

10 Fulco filius Theobald 

for six years, 

16 Will. Comes Sarisb. et 
Wer. de Marigny. 



six years. 

24 Walt, filius Hugonis, for 
three years. 

27 Walt, filius Hugonis, et *7 Will. Comes Sarisb. 
Will, filius Stephani. 

28 Walt, filius Hugonis. 

29 Rad. de Bardulff. 

30 Idem. 

31 Nich. filius Roberti, for 

three years. 



HENRY III. 



2 Fulco de Breante, 
Radul. de Bray. 



et 



RICHARD i. 

1 Nich. filius Roberti. 

2 Will. Muschet. 

3 Idem. 



3 Idem. 

4 Idem. 

5 Fulkesius de Breante, et 
Joh. de Ulicot, for four 

years. 
9 Galf. de Hacfield sive 



248 



WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 



Anno 



eight 



Hadfield, for 

years. 
17 Geremias de Caxton, for 

four years. 
21 Henri, de Colvel, for six 

years. 

27 Hugo de Hodeng. 

28 Rad. de Hereford, for 

three years. 

31 Phil, de Staunton, for 
three years. 

34 Henr. Colvile. 

35 Idem. 

36 Simon de Horton. 

37 Idem. 

38 Joh. de Moyne. 

39 Joh. de Moyne, et 
Joh. de Marines. 

40 Idem. 

41 Will, de la Stow. 

42 Idem. 

43 Will, le Moyne. 

44 Joh. de Scalarus. 

45 Joh. de Scalarus, et 
Joh. Lovell. 

4G Saer de Frivile. 
47 Johan. Lovellj for five 
years. 

52 Almaricus Pech. 

53 Saerus de Frivile. 

54 Idem. 

55 Rob. del Estre. 

56 Idem. 

EDWARD. I. 

1 Rob. del Estre. 

2 Rob. del Estre. 

3 Walt. Shelfhanger. 

4 Will, le Moyne, for three 

years. 

7 Bal. de S to Georgio. 

8 Will, de Rothing. 

9 Idem. 

10 Tho. de Belhus, for seven 

years. 
17 Hugo de Babington, for 

eight years. 

25 Will. de Mortuo Mari. 

26 Will, de Sutton. 



Anno 

27 Tho. de Gardinor. 

28 Idem. 

29 Rob. Hereward. 

30 Rob. de Bajose, for five 

years. 

EDWARD II. 

1 Joh. Crekes, et 

Rob. de Hoo. for three 

years. 

4 Joh. de Crekes, for three 
years. 

7 Tho. do Stolarus. 

8 Idem. 

9 Radul. Giffard, for three 

years. 

12 Math, de Bassingborne. 

13 Joh. de Crekes. 

14 Almaricus de Zouch, for 

five years. 

EDWARD III. 

1 Math, de Bassingborne. 

2 Idem. 

3 Almar. la Zouch. 

4 Idem. 

5 W T ill. de Moyne. 

6 Will, filius Joh. Muchett. 

7 Rich, de Bajocis, et 
Warr. de Bassing. 

8 

9 Joh. de Lymbery, et 
Will. Muschetts. 

10 Tho. de Lacy. 

11 Will, de Muschett. 

12 Idem. 

13 Warrin. de Basingborn. 

14 Idem. 

15 Joh. de Papworthj et 
Joh. de Lacy. 

16 Warr. de Bassingborn, 

for four years. 

20 Rob. de Engane. 

21 Idem. 

22 Guido de S to Cler. for 

four years. 

26 Johan. Lisle de Rubeo. 

Monts. 

27 Gui.de St. Clere. 



SHERIFFS. 249 

Anno Anno 

28 Gui. de St. Clerc. 46 Will, de Pappeworth. 

29 TJio. de Scalar. 47 Rog. Harlaston. 

30 Job. de Harewdon. 48 Tho. Sewalle. 

31 Nich. Stanell, for four years. 49 Tho. Torell. 

35 Joh. Furneux, et 50 Bald. St. George. 
Tho. Cheyne. 51 Joh. Deugayne. 

36 N. Suyvecle, for ten years. 

SHERIFFS OF CAMBRIDGE AND HUNTINGDON-SHIRES. 

RICHARD II. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

1 Joh. Avenel .... Gamlinggay. 

Arms ; Arg. a fess between six annulets G. 

2 Will. Moygne. 

Az. cresuly, a fess dansette Arg. 

3 Radu. Wykes. 

4 Hen. English. 

5 Tho. Sewale. 

6 Will. Moygne . . . ut prius. 

7 Phil. Tillney. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three griffins heads erased G. 

8 Hen. English. 

9 Joh. Heningford. 

G. three unicorns heads cooped Or. 

10 Rob. Paris .... Hildersham. 

11 Will. Pappeworth. 

12 Will. Chenye. 

Az. a fess inter three leopards faces Or. 

13 Edw. de la Pole. 

14 Rob. de Paris . . . ut prius. 

15 Nice. Steucle .... Stivele, H. 

16 Joh. Kinost. 

17 Will. Chenye, mil. 

18 Nich. Paris .... ut prius. 

19 Joh. Lakynghech. 

20 Joh. Harlington. 

21 Andr. Newport. 

Arg. a chevron G. betwixt three leopards heads S. 

22 Idem ut prius. 

HENRY IV. 

1 Tho. Hasdden. 

2 Will. Rees and 
Jo. Howard. 

G. a bend betwixt six cross crosslets fitchee Arg. 

3 Idem. 

4 Joh. Hobildon . . . ut prius. 

5 Idem. 



250 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

6 Rob. Scotte. 

7 Joh. Bernakes. 

8 Joh. Hobildon. 

9 Joh. Paniel. 

10 Bald. St. George . . . Hatley, C. 

Arg. a chief Az. ; over all a lion rampart G. crown 
ed O. 

11 Will. Allein. 

12 Rob. Scotte. 

HENRY V. 

1 Rob. Hockshecho. 

2 WiU. Alington ;. . . Horsheath. 

S. a bend betwixt six billets Arg. 

3 Tho. Reviles. 

4 Rob. Scott. 

5 Walt. Pole, mil. . . ut prius. 

6 Will. AsconhaU. 

7 Tho. Reviles. 

8 Rob. Scott. 

9 Idem ut prius. 

10 Idem ut prius. 

HENRY VI. 

1 Rob. Scott, and 

Will. Alington . . . ut prius. 

2 Wai. de la Pole, mil. . ut prius. 

3 Nich. Slyvebley. 

4 Joh. Hore .... Childerley. 

5 Tho. Dischalers . . . Whaddon. 

G. six scallops, 3, 2, 1, Arg. 

6 Nich. Alington ... ut prius. 

7 Walt, de la Pole . . . ut prius. 

8 [AMP.] Lavi. Cheyney Ditton, C. 

9 Jo. Austey. 

10 Jo. Shardelow, mil. 
Joh. Clopton. 

S. a bend Arg. between two cotisses dancette O. 

1 1 Rob. Stonham. 

Arg. on a cross S. five escallops O. 

12 Rog. Hunt. 

13 Idem. 

14 Rob. Stonham . . . ut prius. 

15 Idem. 

16 Will. Alington . . . ut prius. 

17 Gilb. Hore .... ut prius. 

18 Hen. Langley. 

19 Idem. 

20 Will. Lee. 



SHERIFFS. 251 

Anno Name. Place. 

21 Tho. Peyton .... Isleham. 

S. a cross engrailed O. in the first quarter a mullet Arg. 

22 WiL St. George, mil. . ut prius. 

23 Idem ut prius, 

24 Job. Chalers .... ut prius. 

25 Idem. 

26 Tho. Bernard. 

Arg. a bear rarhpant, and border engrailed S. 

27 Wai. Trump ington . . Trumpington. 

Az. cresulee two trumpets O. 

28 Job. Harlaston. 

Arg. a fess E. erased S. 

29 Will. Alington . . . ut prius. 

30 Tho. Tresham . . . Northampton. 

Partie per saltire, S. and O. six trefoils of the first. 

31 Tho. Peyton .... ut prius. 

32 WilL Hasdden. 

33 Hen Paris, arm. . . . ut prius. 
34 

35 

36 Tho. Tresham, arm. . ut prius. 

37 Job. Colvill, mil. 

Az. a lion rampant Arg. ; over all a label G. 

38 Tho. Findern, mil. 

EDWARD IV. 

1 Job. Alington, arm. . ut prius. 

2 Job. Stuke, arm. 

3 Idem. 

4 Job. Cheyne. 

5 Job. Boughton, jun. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three mullets G. 

6 Job. Berleley, mil. 

G. a chevron betwixt ten crosses, form six and four, Arg. 

7 Job. Forster, arm. 

S. a chevron betwixt three arrows Arg. 

8 Will. St. George . . . ut prius. 

9 Rich. Sapcote, mil. . . Elton. 

S. three dove-coats Arg. 

10 Tho. Gray, arm. 

Barry of six Arg. and Az. ; three torteaux in chief. 

11 Tho. Gray, mil. . . . ut prius. 

12 Job. Austy. 

13 Tho. Pigott .... Abingdon, C. 

S. three pickaxes Arg. 

14 Jo. Broughton, mil. . ut prius. 

15 Job. Cheyne, mil. 

16 Tho. Cotton, arm. . . Ladwade, C. 

S. a chevron betwixt three griffins heads erased Arg. 



252 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

17 Will. Alington, jun. . ut prius. 

18 Will. Frevill, arm. . . Sheford, Camb. 

G. three crescents Erm. 

19 Rob. Paris, arm. . . . ut prius. 

20 Tho. Huntingdon. 

21 Gal. Bloodwell. 

22 Rob. Tilney . . . . ut prius. 



RICHARD III. 

1 Rob. Tanfield. 

2 Job. Wake,, arm. . . . Salston., C. 

O. two bars G. three torteaux in chief. 

3 Jo. Hudleston, mil. 

G. fretty Arg. 

HENRY VII. 

1 Will. Finden. 

2 Tho. Oxenburgg. 

G, a lion rampant queuee forche Arg. within a border V. 
charged en entour of eight escallops O. 

3 Will. Taillard. 

Quarterly, Arg. and S. a cross patonce quarterly pierced 
counterchanged. 

4 Job. Hafilden. 

5 Will. Wentworth. 

S. a chevron,, betwixt three leopards 5 heads O. 

6 Tho. Cheyney, mil. 

7 Will. Cheyney, arm. 

8 Job. Burgoyne . . . Caxton, Camb. 

Az. a talbot passant Arg. 

9 Tho. Cotton, arm. . . ut prius. 

10 Gerrard Steukly. 

11 Tho. Cheney, mil. 

12 Chri. Peyton, arm. . . ut prius. 

13 Rich. Stutvill, arm. . . Brynklo, Camb. 

Barruly Arg. and G. a lion rampant S. 

14 Rob. Peiton, mil. . . . ut prius. 

15 Tho. Cotton, arm. . . ut prius. 

16 Jo. Clarevax 

17 Edw. Lucy, arm. 

G. crusuly O. three lucies (or pkes) hauriant Arg. 

18 Tho. Cheyne, mil. 

19 Chri. Druell, arm. 

20 Job. Frevile, arm . . . vt prius. 

21 Anth. Mallory, arm. 

O. a lion rampant G. collared of the first. 

22 Idem ut prius. 

23 Will. Findern, mil. 

24 Tho. Gery. 



SHERIFFS. 253 

HENRY VIII. 

Anno Name. Place. 

1 Fra Halisden, arm. 

2 Joh. Paris, arm. 

3 Egid. Alington, mil. . . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Cotton, arm. . . Connington. 

Az. an eagle displayed Arg. 

5 Tho. Throsby. 

6 Ra. Chamberlein. 

O. fretty S. on a chief of second three bezants. 

7 Joh. Paris, arm. . . . ut prius. 

8 Joh. Cutte, mil. . . . Childerley, Camb. 

Arg. on a bend engrailed S. three plates. 

9 Will. Tanfeld, arm. 

10 Anth. Malory, arm. . ut prius. 

11 Egid. Alenton, mil. . . ut prius. 

12 Fran. Alisdon, arm. 

13 Joh. Moor, arm. 

14 Joh. Huddleston . . . ut prius. 

15 Anth. Hansard. 

G. three mullets Arg. 

16 Joh. Huddleston . . . ut prius. 

17 Rob. Pay ton, arm. . . ut prius. 

18 Tho. Piggot, arm. . . tit prius. 

19 Rob. Aprice, arm. . . Washingly, Ha. 

S. three spears heads Arg. 

20 Joh. Paris, arm. . . . ut prius. 

21 Anth. Hansard, arm. . ut prius. 

22 Egi. Alington, mil. . . ut prius. 

23 Anth. Malory, arm. . . ut prius. 

24 Tho. Eliot, mil. . . . Carlton, Camb. 

25 Rich. Sapcotte, mil. . . ut prius. 

26 Tho. Chichele, arm. 

O. a chevron betwixt three cinqfoils G. 

27 Rob. Peyton, mil. . . ut prius. 

28 Tho. Crumwell, arm. 

[See our Notes in this year. F.] 

29 Tho. Megges, arm. 

30 Tho. Hutton, arm. 

31 Phu. Paris, arm. . . . ut prius. 

32 Rich. Crumwell . . . Hinchinbrook, H. 

S. a lion rampant Arg. 

33 Oliv. Leder, arm. 

34 Edw. North, mil. . . Catlidge. 

Az. a lion passant O. between three flowers-de-luce Arg. 

35 Rob. Aprice, arm. . . ut prius. 

36 Tho. Eliot, mil. . . . ut prius. 

37 Egid. Alington, mil. . . ut prius. 



254 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

38 Law. Tailard, mil. . . utprius. 

EDWARD VI. 

1 Tho. Cotton, arm. . . ut prius, 

2 Joh. Hudleston . . . ut prius. 

3 Joh. Cotton, arm. . . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Bolles, arm. 

Arg. on a chevron betwixt three boars heads couped S. 
as many scallops O. a border V. bezantee. 

5 Joh. Cutte, mil. 

6 Egi. Alington, mil. . . ut prius. 

MARIA REG. 

1 Rob. Peyton, arm. . . ut prius. 

REX PHIL. Ct MA. REGINA. 

2 Oliv. Leaden, mil. 

3 Law. Taylard, mil. . . ut prius. 

4 Joh. Cotton, mil. . . ut prius. 

5 Rob. Tirwhite, mil. . . LINCOLNSHIRE. 

G. three pewets O. 

6 Will. Laurence, arm. . St. Ives. 

Arg. a cross ragule G. on a chief of the second a lion pas 
sant gardant O. 

REG. ELIZA. 

1 Joh. Hutton, arm. 

Arg. a chief V. charged with an eagle displayed, within a 
border engrailed G. 

2 Tho. Cotton, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 Fran. Hynde, arm. . . Madenly, C. 

Arg. on a chev. G. three lozenges O. betwixt as many 
goats heads grazed Az. armed and collared of the third ; 
on a chief S. a lion passant guardaiit Erm. 

4 Hen. Darcy, arm. . . Leighton, H. 

Az. three cinq-foils betwixt nine crosses crosslets Arg. 

5 Cle. Chichiley, arm. . . ut prius. 

6 Will. Mallory, arm. . . utprius. 

7 Hen. Williams, alias 

Cromwell, mil. . . . utprius. 

8 Wil. Worthington. 

9 Rob. Peyton, arm. . . ut prius. 

10 Tho. Revell, arm. 

11 Hen. Longe, arm. . . Shengey, C. 

S. a lion ramp, betwixt eight crosses crossed Arg. 

12 Fran. Hynde, arm. . . ut prius. 

13 Hen. Crumwell . . ut prius. 

14 Joh. Cutts, mil. . . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 255 

Anno Name. Place. 

15 Tho. Wendy . . Hastinfield, Cam. 

Az. a chevron betwixt three lions heads erased within a 
border engrailed O. 

16 Joh Hutton, arm. . . ut prius. 

17 Will. Mallory, arm. . ut prius. 

18 Rob. Bevill, arm. . . Chasterton. 

G. a chevron O. betwixt three bezants. 

19 Tho. Reu, arm. 

20 Fitz Rad Chamberlaine ut prius. 

21 Tho. Holmes, arm. 

22 Henry Crumwell, mil. . ut prius. 

23 Rob. Taylor. 

24 Tho. Cotton, arm. . . ut prius. 

25 Hen. Darcy, mil. . . ut prius. 

26 Anth. Cage, mil. 

Partie per Pale Az. and G. ; over all a saltire O. 

27 Tho. Wendy, arm. . . ut prius. 

28 Rob. Peiton, arm. . . ut prius. 

29 Fran. Crumwell . . ut prius. 

30 Rad. Bevill, arm. . . ut prius. 

31 Fran. Hynde, mil. . . ut prius. 

32 Thomas Chichley, arm. ut prius. 

33 Joh. Cotton, arm. . . ut prius. 

34 Hen. Crumwell . . ut prius. 

35 Joh. Peyton, arm. . . ut prius. 

36 Tho. March, arm. . . Waresley, H. 

O. three pales A. ; on a chief G. three talbots heads crazed 
of the first. 

37 Rob. Brudenell . . Diddington, H. 

Arg. a chevron G. betwixt three caps Az. 

38 Anth. Cage, arm. . . ut prius. 

39 Jar. Clifton, mil. . . Leighton, H. 

S. semee de cinqfoils, a lion rampant Arg. 

40 Oli. Crumwell, mil. . ut prius. 

41 Egi. Allington, arm. . ut prius. 

42 Will. Hind, arm. . ut prius. 

43 Joh. Cutts, mil. . . ut prius. 

44 Tho. Wendy, arm. . . ut prius. 

45 Joh Bedell, mil. pri. 

Jaco. .... Hamarton, Hunt. 
G. a chev. engrailed betwixt three scollops Arg. 

REG. JAC. 

1 Joh. Bedell, mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Peyton, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 Rob. Bevill, mil. . . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Jermy, mil. . . Teversham, C. 

Arg. a lion rampant guardant G. 



256 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

5 Rob. Payne, mil. . . Medlow, H. 

Az. a bend trunked ragulee betwixt six etoiles O. 

6 Joh. Cage, arm. . . ut prim. 

7 Oliv. Cheney, mil. . . Steukley, H. 

8 Reg. Millicent, mil. 

9 Sim. Steward, mil. . . Sturney, C. 

Quarterly : first, France on a border G., eight fer malauxes 
O. ; the second, O. a fess cheeky Arg. and Az. a border 
engrailed G. 

10 Edw. Hind, arm. . . ut prius. 

11 Tho. Baldwyn, arm. 

12 Edw. Aldred, arm. 

13 Mi. Sands, mil. et bar. Wilburham. 

O. a fess indented betwixt three crosses-crosslets fitclie G. 

14 Fran. Brown, arm. 

15 Will. Wendy, arm. . ut prius. 

16 Tho. Steward, mil. . . ut prius. 

17 Joh. Cutts, mil. . . ut prius. 

18 Tho. Maples, arm. . . Stow. 

Az. a chevron quarterly O. and Arg. between three 
flowers-de-luce, of the second. 

19 Rob. Symonds . . Wichford, C. 

20 Ed. Peiton, mil. etbar. ut prius. 

21 Rob. Audley, arm. . . St. Ives. 

22 Jac. Reynold, mil. 

CAR. REG. 

1 Mart. Peirce, arm. . . CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

G. a chevron Erm. betwixt three dragons heads erased 
Arg. 

2 Joh. Goldsburgh . . Godman Chester A. 

3 Rob. Hagar, arm. . . Buyne-cast, Ca. 

Arg. on a bend S. three lions passant on the first. 

4 Tho. Parker, arm. 

5 Jacob Pedley, arm. 

6 Tho. Terrell, arm. . . Fulborn C. 

Arg. two chevrons Az. within a border engrailed G. 

7 Rich. Covil, arm. 

Az. a lion rampant Arg. a file of three lambeaux G. 

8 Capel. Bedell, arm. . ut prius. 

9 An th. Cage, arm. . . ut prius. 

10 Rob. Ballam, arm. 

11 Ludo. Dyer, bar. . . Gr. Stourton, Hu. 

O. a chief indented G. 

THE SHERIFFS OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE ALOXE. 

12 Joh. Carleton, bar. . . Chevely. 

Arg. on a bend S. three mascats of the first. 



SHERIFFS. 257 

Anno Name. Place. 

13 Tho. Chichesley . . ut prius. 

14 Tho. Wendy, arm. . . ut prius. 

G. a fess betwixt three escallops O. 

15 Tho. Pichard . . Trumpington. 

Arg. a fess betwixt three crosses fitchee G. 

16 Joh. Crane, arm. . . Kingston. 

S. a chevron betwixt three griffins heads erazed Arg. 

17 Joh. Cotton, mil. Landwad. 

THE SHERIFFS OF CAMBRIDGE AND HUNTINGDON-SHIRES 

AGAIN. 

18 Tho. Martin, mil. . . Barton. 

Arg. an eagle displayed G. 

19 Idem .... ut prius. 

20 Onslo. Winch, arm. 

21 Tris. Diumond . . . Wei. 

EDWARD IV. 

16. THOMAS COTTON, Arm. This Thomas Cotton (different 
in arms and descent from the Cottons of Huntingdonshire) was 
of Cambridgeshire, the same person who in the gentry of that 
county [Henrici VI. 12.] was returned the twenty-second in 
order. 

HENRY VIII. 

^ 24. THOMAS ELIOT, Mil. He was son to Sir Richard 
Eliot, and born (some say) in Suffolk ; but his house and chief 
estate lay in this county.* After his long sailing into foreign 
parts, he at last cast anchor at home ; and being well skilled in 
Greek and Latin, was the author of many excellent works. Of 
these, one in Latin was styled, " Defensorium bonarum mulie- 
rum," or " The defence of good women ;f " though some will 
say that such are hardly found, and easily defended. 

He wrote also an excellent dictionary of Latin and English, 
if not the first, the best of that kind in that age ; and England 
then abounding with so many learned clergymen, I know not 
which more to wonder at, that they missed, or he hit on so 
necessary a subject. Let me add, Bishop Cooper grafted his 
dictionary on the stock of Sir Thomas Eliot ; which worthy 
knight deceased 1546, and was buried at Carlton in this 
county. 

28. THOMAS CROMWELL, Arm. Here, reader, I am at a 
perfect loss, and do desire thy charitable hand to lead me. No 
Cromwell Thomas can I find at this time in this county, and 
can hardly suspect him to be the Cromwell of that age, because 
only additioned Armiger. Indeed, I find him this very year 

Bale, Descript. Brit. Cent. 8. num. 77. 
\ Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. 8. num. 77. 
VOL. I. s 



258 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

created Baron of Okeham ; but cannot believe that he was un- 
knighted so long, besides the improbability that he would con 
descend to such an office, having no interest I ever met with in 
Cambridgeshire, though (which may signify somewhat) he was 
at this time chancellor of the university of Cambridge. Thus 
I have started the doubt, which others may hunt down to their 
own satisfaction. 

34. EDWARD NORTH, Mil. He was a prudent person, and 
in managing matters of importance of great despatch ; not un 
skilled in the law, and eminently employed in the Court of 
Augmentation ; a court though short-lived (erected in the end 
of king Henry the Eighth, dissolved in the beginning of king 
Edward the Sixtlr s reign), yet very beneficial to the officers 
therein. This Sir Edward was made, by queen Mary, Baron of 
Catlidge, in this county ; and was a considerable benefactor to 
Peter-house, in Cambridge, where he is remembered in their 
parlour, with this distich under his picture : 

" Nobilis hie ver fuerat si nobilis ullus, 
Qui sibi principium nobilitatis erat." 

He was father to Roger Lord North, and great-grandfather to 
Dudley Lord North, now surviving.* 

EDWARD VI. 

2. JOHN HuDDLESTON.f He was highly honoured after 
wards by queen Mary, and deservedly. Such the trust she re 
posed in him, that (when Jane Grey was proclaimed queen) she 
came privately to him to Salston, and rid thence behind his ser 
vant (the better to disguise herself from discovery) to Framling- 
ham Castle. She afterwards made him (as I have heard) her 
privy-councillor, and (besides other great boons) bestowed the 
bigger part of Cambridge castle (then much ruined) upon him, 
with the stones whereof he built his fair house in this county. 
I behold his family as branched from the Huddlestones in 
Cumberland. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

14. JOHN CUTS, Mil. He was a most bountiful house 
keeper, as any of his estate ; insomuch that queen Elizabeth, in 
the beginning of her reign (whilst as yet she had peace with 
Spain), the sickness being at London, consigned the Spanish 
ambassador to this knight s house in this county. The ambas 
sador coming thither, and understanding his name to be John 
Cuts, conceived himself disparaged to be sent to one of so short 
a name ; the Spanish gentleman generally having voluminous 
surnames (though not so long as the deity in New Spain, called 
Yo ca huvaovamaorocoti) , usually adding the place of their habi- 

* Who died June 4, 1677 ; and was the immediate ancestor of the present Earl 

of Guildford ED. 

t Misprinted Sir Robert, in my " Ecclesiastical History." F. 



SHERIFFS. 259 

tation for the elongation thereof.* But soon after the Don 
found that what the knight lacked in length of name, he made 
up in the largeness of his entertainment. 

34. HENRY CROMWELL, Mil. This was the fourth time he 
was sheriff in the reign of the queen. He was son to Richard 
Cromwell, Esquire, sheriff in the thirty-second of king Henry 
the Eighth ; to whom his valour and activity so endeared him, 
that he bestowed on him so much abbey-land in this county, 
as at that day, at a reasonable rate, was worth twenty thousand 
pounds a year, and upwards. He was no whit at all allied to 
(though intimately acquainted with) Thomas Lord Cromwell 
(the mauler of monasteries ) ; which I knowingly affirm, though 
the contrary be generally believed : for, when Doctor Goodman, 
late Bishop of Gloucester, presented a printed paper to Oliver 
Cromwell (grandchild to this our sheriff), mentioning therein 
his near affinity to the said Lord Cromwell, the pretended pro 
tector, desirous to confute a vulgar error, in some passion 
returned, (e that lord was not related to my family in the least 
degree." 

39. JARVASIUS CLIFTON, Mil. He had a fair estate at 
Barrington, in Somersetshire, whence he removed to Hunting 
donshire, on his match with the sole daughter and heir of Sir 
Henry Darcy of Leightonbromswold, in that county. This Sir 
Jarvase was by king James created Baron of Leighton aforesaid ; 
and there began a beautiful house, which he lived not to finish. 
His sole daughter Katherine was married to Esme Steward, Duke 
of Lenox, to whom she bare the truly illustrious (by virtues and 
high extraction) James Duke of Richmond. 

KING JAMES. 

9. SIMON STEWARD, Mil. I remember he lived (after he 
was knighted) a fellow-commoner in Trinity-hall, where these 
his arms are fairly depicted in his chamber with this distich 
over them : 

Francorum Carolus voluit sic Stemmataferri, 
Singula cum valeant sunt meliora simuL 

" French Charles would have these Coats to be thus worn ; 
When singly good, they re better jointly borne. 

But how the royal name of Steward came first into this county, 
consult, I pray, the ensuing epitaph in Ely Minster (as my son 
hath informed me) by himself, exactly from his monument : 

" Premendo sustulit : Ferendo vlcit. 

" Secundum Redemptoris mundi adventum expectat hie Mar 
cus Steward, miles, filius heeresque Simionis Steward, armig. 

* Lord Herbert, in the Life of king Henry the Eighth, p. 181. 

s 2 



260 WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

Nicholao Steward, armig. geniti, qui patrem habuit Richardum 
Steward, armig. quern genuit Thomas Steward, armig. Johannis 
Steward, militis, films, cujus pater erat Johannes Steward, miles, 
ejus nominis in Anglia primus, qui cum Jacobo Roberti Scotiee 
regis filio in Franciam transfretans (regnante tune Henrico 
quarto) vento eorum propositis opposite, in Anglicano littore 
applicuerunt, ubi diu post pro obsidibus custodiebantur : Sed 
hie Johannes in amorem cujusdam virginis Anglicanse, nomine 
Talmach, incidens, obtentaque Johannes Reginse venia, cui 
ancilla inserviebat, earn in conjugem cepit, infidemque regis Hen- 
rici dum vixisset solenniter est juratus. Hujus pater erat Alex 
ander, quern genuit Andreas Steward, miles, Alexandri cogno- 
minati Ferocis filiorum natu minimus, cujus pater erat Wal- 
terus Steward, a Dundevale in Scotia dictus. Sed primus in 
genealogia hac summonitus, et hie sepultus, ex Anna una fili- 
arum et haeredum Roberti Huicke, armig. reginee Elizabethee 
medici primarii, varios habuit liberos, quos omnes inadultos 
Fata rapuere, prseter duos, Mariam scilicet Gulielmo Forster in 
com. Berke. militi nuptam, et Simionem Steward, militem, 
hseredem filiumque suum mo3stissimum, qui pii officii, singula- 
risque erga patrem amoris gratia, hoc posuit monumentum, ubi 
inscriptum legas, quod cum multos annos, et bello et pace, pro 
patria feliciter egisset, setate tandem confectus militari singulo, 
et auratis calcaribus a Jacobo Rege Serinissimo ornatus, senex 
pene octogenarius fatali necessitati concessit, 28 Februarii, 
anno Salutis 1603." 

THE FAREWELL. 

It is hard for a physician to prescribe proper physic to such 
a patient, who hath a hot liver and a cold stomach, because 
what is good for the one is bad for the other. As hard it is, for 
weather to please the concernments of this county, whose 
northern part, being moist and fenny, desires fair weather ; 
south and south-eastern, dry and heathy, delighteth so much 
rain, that it can well digest (save in harvest-time) one shower 
every day, and two every Sunday. But the God of heaven, 
" who can make it rain on one place, and not on another,"* can 
fit the necessity of both ; and I remit them both to his provi 
dence. 

* Amos iv. 7. 



WORTHIES OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED 
SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 

Edward BENTHAM, professor of divinity at Oxford; born at 
Ely 1707; died 1776. 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 261 

James BENTHAM, divine and architectural historian of Ely Ca 
thedral; born at Ely 1708; died 1794. 

Edmund CASTELL, orientalist, author of " Lexicon Heptaglot- 
ton," or dictionary of seven tongues; born at Hatley 1606; 
died 1685, 

William COLE, antiquarian collector; born at Little Abington 
1714; died 1782. 

Richard CUMBERLAND, dramatic and miscellaneous writer, the 
Terence of England; born at Cambridge 1732; died 1811. 

James DRAKE, physician, political writer, and translator of He 
rodotus; born at Cambridge 1667 ; died 1707-- 

James DUPORT, Master of Magdalen College, Dean of Peterbo 
rough, Greek professor, and critic ; born at Cambridge ; died 
1679. 

William GODWIN, author of (( Political Justice," and numerous 
other works ; born at Wisbeach 1756; died 1S6. 

Israel LYONS, son of a Polish Jew, mathematician and botanist; 
born at Cambridge 1739 ; died 1784. 

Lady Damaris MASHAM, amiable and learned ; born at Cam 
bridge 1658; died 1708. 

Catherine PEPYS, foundress of Cottenham School ; born at Cot- 
tenham; died 1707- 

Thomas RUTHERFORTH, divine and philosopher ; born at Pap- 
worth St. Everard 1712. 

Robert SHERRINGHAM, antiquary and Hebrew scholar ; born at 
Cambridge; died 1677- 

Sir Robert TABOR, physician, the first who used bark with 
success in fevers ; died 1681. 

Thomas TENISON, learned and pious Archbishop of Canterbury; 
born at Cottenham 1636; died 1715. 

William WHITEHEAD, poet laureat and dramatist; born at 
Cambridge 1715; died 1785. 



** Cambridgeshire is comparatively without a county historian, Carter s His 
tory being contained in a single volume ; and Blomefield s Collectanea Cantabri- 
giensia consisting of mere church notes. Several accounts and descriptions, how 
ever, of the University have been given to the world by different authors ; viz. 
Masters, Parker, Carter, Wall, Kilner, Dyer, &c. ; and the Magna Britannia and 
Beauties of England treat of the county generally. 



CHESHIRE. 



CHESHIRE lieth in form of an axe, Wirral being the handle 
thereof, having Lancashire (parted with the river Mersey) on 
the north ; a corner of Yorkshire on the north-east ; Derby and 
Stafford-shires (severed with mountains) on the east ; Shropshire 
on the south ; Denbigh, Flintshire, and the Irish Ocean, on the 
west thereof. The longest part (advantaged with excursions) is 
four and forty, the broadest twenty-five miles. 

This county was reputed a Palatinate before the Conquest, and 
since continued in the same dignity. It is much senior to Lan 
cashire in that honour, which relateth to Cheshire as the copy 
to the original, being Palatinated but by king Edward the Third, 
referring the duke of Lancaster to have his regal jurisdiction, 
"adeo integre et libere sicut comes Cestrise," &c. And 
whereas records are written in the common law, " contra coro- 
nam et dignitatem Regis," in this county they run thus, " con 
tra dignitatem gladii Cestriee." 

It aboundeth with all things necessary to man s life ; and it is 
observable that all the rivers and rivulets therein rise in, or run 
through, some meer or pool, as Cumber-meer, Bag-meer, Pick- 
meer, Ridley-pool, Petty-pool, &c. ; so that Cheshire hath more 
lakes in this kind, than all the neighbouring counties, affording 
plenty of carps, tenches, trouts, eels, &c. therein. 

The gentry of this county are remarkable upon a four-fold 
account: 1. For their numerousness, not to be paralelled in 
England in the like extent of ground. 2. Their antiquity, many 
of their ancestors being fixed here before the Norman Conquest. 
3. Their loyalty, especially against a northern enemy, heartily 
hating a Scot ;* understand it before the union of the two king 
doms. 4. Hospitality, no county keeping better houses, which, 
because all grows on their own, may be the better afforded. 

One said pleasantly, " that it appeared to all people that the 
Cheshire gentry were good house-keepers, because they gave so 
many wheat sheaves, bread being the staff of hospitality, 
wheaten the best of bread in their coats of arms." Indeed, I 
have told no fewer than six and twenty, called garbs in heraldry, 

" Vale Royal of England, page 1 9. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES. 263 

which are borne in the several coat-armours of the gentry of this 
county ; the original whereof is sufficiently known to be out of 
conformity to Hugh Kivelioc, the fifth Earl-Palatine of Chester, 
who gave Azure, six garbs Or. And many of the gentry of the 
county, being his dependants, had assigned them, or did assume 
in their shields, something in allusion thereunto. 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
SALT. 

This is most essential to man s livelihood, without which nei 
ther sacrifice was acceptable to God, nor meat is savory to man. 
It is placed on the board with bread, to shew that they are 
equally necessary to man s sustenance. 

A general in our late wars soundly chid a captain for his so 
soon surrendering of a castle, seeing he had store of powder 
therein. " I had," returned the captain, " plenty of black but 
no white powder at all." 

And here it is remarkable to observe the defects which sun 
dry places have herein : 

1. Some countries have salt without flesh within many miles ; 
as in the south part of Africa. 

2. Some have plenty of flesh, but no salt to make use thereof; 
as in many parts of Tartary. 

3. Some have flesh and salt, but the flesh utterly incapable 
of seasoning ; as about Nombre de Dios and other places near 
the meridian in America. 

4. Some have flesh, salt, and flesh capable thereof, but so 
unconscionably dear, that common people have little comfort 
therein ; as in France, no country having salt more plentiful, 
and (for reason of State) most excessive in the rate thereof. 

These things considered, we, who have flesh, salt, salt at rea 
sonable prices, and flesh capable thereof, have cause to profess, 

" O fortunati nimium bona si sua norint 
Angligenae!" 

The manner of making of salt in this county is so largely and 
exactly described by Mr. Camden, that nothing can be added 
thereunto. 

CHEESE. 

Poor men do eat it for hunger, rich for digestion. It seems 
that the ancient British had no skill in the making thereof, till 
taught by the Romans, and now the Romans may even learn 
of us more exactness therein.* This county doth afford the 
best for quantity, and quality ; and yet their cows are not (as in 
other shires) housed in the winter ; so that it may seem strange 

* Camden s Britannia, in Cheshire. 



264 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

that the hardiest kine should yield the tenderest cheese.* Some 
essayed in vain to make the like in other places, though hence 
they fetched both their kine and dairy-maids. It seems they 
should have fetched their ground too (wherein surely some 
occult excellency in this kind), or else so good cheese will not 
be made. I hear not the like commendation of the butter in 
this county : and perchance these two commodities are like 
stars of a different horizon, so that the elevatiou of the one to 
emmency is the depression of the other. 

MILL-STONES. 

Stones, they are natural j as fitted for that purpose, artificial. 
Very great and good are digged up at Mowcop-hill in this 
county, though one moiety thereof be in Staffordshire, out of 
which the river Trent doth arise. How necessary these are for 
man s sustenance, is proved by the painful experience of such 
aged persons, who wanting their molare teeth must make use 
of their gums for grinders ; and such bad shifts should men be 
put to, if wanting mills where stones turn corn into bread. 

Manufactures considerable I meet with none in this county, 
and therefore proceed. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

Beestone Castle, situated on a steep hill, carried away the 
credit of this county for building ; it was erected by Raynulf 
the third earl of Chester, when he returned victorious from the 
Holy Land. I am much taken with the neatness of the struc 
ture, though, I confess, my eye never did, and now never shall, 
behold it. 

When some justly quarrel at VirgiPs fiction, making Dido fall 
in love with Eneas, who indeed was dead many years before 
her cradle was made ; others have sought ingeniously to salve 
the anticronism in history, by the plea that she fell in love 
with his picture, which she saw in tapestry : yet I may truly 
allege for myself, that I was affected with the delight of this 
castle, though by me never seen, and now levelled to the ground 
(since the late wars), beholding the delineation thereof cut by 
the charge of John Savage, Esquire. 

Veraque cum desunt mania pictajuvant. 

" When real walls are vanish d quite, 
Painted ones do us delight. 1 

I confess, learned Leland is very confident that this castle 
shall see better times, deriving his intelligence from ancient 
predictions : 

Tempus erit quando rursus caput exeret altum, 
Vatibus antiquis si vas mihi credere vati, 

" Beestone in time its head aloft shall heave, 
If I, a prophet, prophets may believe." 

William Smith, in his Yale Royal, page 18. 



WONDERS PROVERBS. 265 

But I give credit to Leland s history, when he tells what is 
past, more than to his prophecy when he foretels what is to 
come. 

THE WONDERS. 

It is reported by credible and believed by discreet persons, 
that there is a pool adjoining to Brereton, the seat of the ho 
nourable family of the Breretons, wherein bodies of trees are 
seen to swim for certain days together before the death of any 
heir of that house. If so, let not all men look for so solemn 
summons to pay their debts to Nature. God grant us that 
grey hairs, dimness of sight; dulness of other senses, decay in 
general of strength, death of our dearest relations (especially 
when far younger than ourselves) before our eyes, &c. may 
serve us (instead of swimming logs), and be sanctified unto us, 
for sufficient and effectual monitors of our mortality ! 

We must not forget the many fir trees found here buried 
under ground, whereof largely hereafter in a more proper place.* 
The people of this county cut such pieces ,of wood very small, 
and use them instead of candles, which give a good light. My 
author adds, that " such wooden candles have long snuffs ; and 
yet," saith he, which to me amounts to a wonder, "in falling 
do no harm, though they light into tow, flax, or the like.t" 
Strange that the least fire should be so dead as not to be reviv 
ed with such cordials. Let not this encourage careless servants 
to tempt Providence with such combustible conjunctions: no 
county being more sadly sensible of casualties by fire; Nant- 
wich, a fair market therein, being twice burnt down to the 
ground within the compass of one hundred and fifty years. J 



PROVERBS. 

" Cheshire chief of men."] 

Say not that this proverb carries a challenge in it, and our 
men of Kent will undertake these chief of men, for engrossing 
manhood to themselves. And some will oppose to this nar 
row county-proverb, an English one of greater latitude, viz. 
" No man so good, but another may be as good as he." For, 
rather than any difference shall arise, by wise and peaceable 
men, many chiefs will be allowed. 

Indeed, the Cestrians have always demeaned themselves 
right valiantly in their undertakings. This was well known 
to king Richard the Second, who in dangerous times sent for 
t\vo thousand Cheshire men, all archers, to attend him;|| 
which number, in time of a suspicious parliament, was doubled 

* In the Wonders of Anglesea. 

t W. Smith, in his Vale Royal of England, p. 17. 

J Once anno 14..., and again anno 1583. 

See our Proverbs in Kent. II Holinshed s Chronicle, p. 489. 



266 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

by him, all having bouche of court, (bread and beer) and six 
pence a day,* large wages in that age. 

Pity it was that the valour of these Cheshire men was once 
wasted against themselves, in a terrible battle betwixt king 
Henry the Fourth, and Henry Percy surnamed Hotspur, not 
ill described by our author: 

" There Button, Button kills ; a Bone doth kill a Bone ; 
A Booth, a Booth ; and Leigh by Leigh is overthrown ; 
A Venahles against a Venables doth stand ; 
And Troutbeck fighteth with a Troutbeck hand to hand ; 
There Molineux doth make a Molineux to die ; 
And Egerton the strength of Egerton doth try ; 
O Cheshire, wert thou mad, of thine own native gore, 
So much until this day thou never shedst before !"f 

Nor doth this abate our former commendation of their loyalty, 
the cause they maintained being so intricate and perplexed ; 
one side fighting for Mortimer, who should be king by right ; 
the other for Henry the Fourth, who actually was so ; and po 
litic men, who know the one were loyal, will be loth to say that 
the other were traitons. 

Let no ill-natured wit urge, in opposition to the manhood of 
Cheshire men, their late miscarriage under a worthy knight, 
whom I forbear to name; partly because he nameth himself 
(though I say nothing of him) ; partly because, before my pains 
pass the press, he will probably be honourably additioned. For, 
had other counties seasonably contributed their promised assist 
ance, what now proved an abortive birth would have been a 
vital infant. Besides, better things were provided for our gra 
cious sovereign, that he the copy, as God the original, might not 
come in the tempestuous wind of war, fire of fury, or earthquake 
of open enmity, but in the still voicej of a peaceable composi 
tion. And, to shew that this should nofbe man s work, God 
suffered both the men of Kent, and Cheshire chief of men, to 
fail in their loyal endeavours, that it might only be God s work, 
and justly marvellous in our eyes. 

" Better wed over the Mixon than over the Moor."] 

Over the Mixon ; that is, hard by or at home, Mixon being 
that heap of compost which lieth in the yards of good husbands. 

Than over the Moor : that is, far off or from London ; the 
road from Chester leading to London over some part of the 
moor-lands in Staffordshire. The meaning is, the gentry in 
Cheshire find it more profitable to match within their county, 
than to bring a bride out of other shires. 1. Because better 
acquainted with her birth and breeding. 2. Because (though 
her portion perchance may be less) the expense will be less to 
maintain her. 
. Such intermarriages in this county have been observed, both 

* Stowe s Survey of London, p. 522. 

f Brayton s Polyolbion, Song 22. $ Kings xix. 12. 



CARDINALS PRELATES. 267 

a prolonger of worshipful families, and the preserver of amity 
betwixt them ; seeing what Mr. Camden reported of the citi 
zens of Cork* is verified of the Cheshire gentry they are all of 

an alliance. 

CARDINALS. 

WILLIAM MAKILESFIELD was, saith my author, t patria Cc- 
ventriensis. Bishop Godwin goeth a little further, natus [fer- 
tur] in civitate Coventriensi.% However, I conceive him born in 
this county, finding a fair market-town and forest therein so 
named ; though he was reputed a Coventrian, because Cheshire 
in that age was in the diocese of Coventry and Lichfield. But, 
because I dare not swim against the stream, I remit the reader 
to his character in Warwickshire. 

PRELATES. 

WILLIAM BOOTH was first bred in Gray s Inn in London, in 
the study of our Municipal Laws, till he quitted that profession 
on the proffer of a chancellor s place in Saint Paul s, and took 
orders upon him. It was not long before he was consecrated 
bishop of Lichfield, and six years after translated to York. 
He expended much money in repairing and enlarging his palace 
at York ; and, after twelve years, died, and was buried in Saint 
Mary s Chapel in Southwell 1464. 

LAURENCE BOOTH, brother (but by another mother) to Wil 
liam aforesaid, was bred and became master of Pembroke-hall in 
Cambridge, and was chancellor of that university. He made 
the composition betwixt the university and King s College to 
their mutual advantage ; and was an eminent benefactor to his 
own college, bestowing thereon all the tenements (since alienat 
ed) betwixt it and St. Botolph s Church, amongst which was St. 
Thomas Hostle. He exonerated the college of a pension of five 
pounds which he redeemed, and conferred thereon the manor 
and patronage of Overton Waterfield in Huntingdonshire. 

As it is God s, so it is all good men s method, in advancing 
their servants, " Be faithful in a little, and thou shalt rule over 
much." Doctor Booth, well performing his chancellor s place 
in Cambridge, was thence preferred chancellor to Margaret 
queen to Henry the Sixth. Well discharging that office, he was, 
in the 13th of king Edward the Fourth, made lord high chancel 
lor (it seems his public spirit was neither for York nor Lan 
caster, but England), having first been bishop of Durham, after 
wards archbishop of York, arid deserving well of both sees ; for 
he built in the first the gate of Aukland-college, and bought for 
the latter the manor of Battersea nigh London. 

It must not be forgotten that this archbishop kept the master 
ship of Pembroke-hall till the day of his death, and so did his 

In his Britannia, in Ireland. f Pits, de Ang. Script, p. 388. 

J In his Catalogue of Cardinals. 



268 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

successors in the same college, Bishop Fox, and Bishop Ridley ; 
not that they were covetous (what is a molehill to those that 
have mountains ?) of the place, but the place ambitious of them, 
to be guarded and graced with them, as it is this day by the 
right reverend father in God Benjamin Lany lord bishop of Pe 
terborough. This archbishop died anno Domini 1480. 

JOHN BOOTH, brother to Laurence aforesaid, bach el or of laws, 
was consecrated bishop of Exeter in the sixth of king Edward 
the Fourth, 1466. He built the bishop s chair, or seat, in his 
cathedral, which, in the judicious eye of Bishop Godwin, hath 
not his equal in England.* Let me add, that though this be 
the fairest chair, the soft cushion thereof was taken away, when 
Bishop Vescy alienated the lands thereof. The worst was, when 
Bishop Booth had finished this chair, he could not quietly sit 
down therein, so troublesome the times of the civil wars betwixt 
York and Lancaster ; so that, preferring his privacy, he retired 
to a little place of his own purchasing at Horsley in Hampshire, 
where he died April the first, 1478 ; and was buried in Saint 
Clement Danes, London. 

We must remember that these three prelates had a fourth and 
eldest brother, Sir Roger Booth, knight, of Barton in Lanca 
shire, father of Margaret, wife of Ralph Nevill third Earl of 
Westmoreland. And may the reader take notice, that thoiigh 
we have entered these bishops (according to our best inform 
ation) in Cheshire, yet is it done with due reservation of the 
right of Lancashire, in case that county shall produce better 
evidence for their nativities. 

THOMAS SAVAGE was born at Macclesfield in this county.f 
His father, being a knight, bred him a doctor of the law in the 
university of Cambridge. Hence was he preferred bishop 
of Rochester, and at last archbishop of York. He was a greater 
courtier than clerk, and most dexterous in managing secular mat 
ters, a mighty Nimrod, and more given to hunting than 
did consist with the gravity of his profession.^ 

No doubt, there wanted not those which taxed him 
with that passage in Saint Jerome, " Penitus non invenimus in 
scripturis sanctis sanctum aliquem Venatorem, Piscatores inve 
nimus sanctos."|| But all would not wean him from that sport, 
to which he was so much addicted. 

His provident precedent spared his successors in that see 
many pounds of needless expenses, by declining a costly installa 
tion, being the first who privately was installed by his vicar. 
Yet was he not covetous in the least degree, maintaining a most 

* In his Catalogue of Bishops of Exeter. 

| Bishop Godwin, in the Archbishops of York. 

J " Venationibus immodice delectatus est." Idem, ibidem, 

I! In his Comment on the 90th Psalm. 



PRELATES. 269 

numerous family, and building much,, both at Scroby and Ca- 
wood. Having sate seven years in his see, he died, 1508, 
his body being buried at York, his heart at Macclesfield, where he 
was born, in a chapel of his own erection, intending to have add 
ed a college thereunto, had not death prevented him. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

WILLIAM CHADERTON, D. D. Here I solemnly tender 
deserved thanks to my manuscript author, charitably guiding 
me in the dark, assuring that this doctor was. " ex preeclaro 
Chadertonorum Cestrensis comitatus stemmate prognatus."* 
And although this doubtful direction doth not cleave the pin, 
it doth not hit the white ; so that his nativity may with most 
probability (not prejudicing the right to Lancashire when pro 
duced) here be fixed. He was bred first fellow, then master of 
Queen s, and never of Magdalen College,, in Cambridge (as the 
Reverend Bishop Godwinf mistaketh), and chosen first the 
Lady Margaret s, then King s, professor in divinity ; and doctor 
Whitacre succeeded him immediately in the chair. He was, 
anno 1579, made bishop of Chester, then of Lincoln 1594 ; 
demeaning himself in both to his great commendation. He 
departed this life in April 1608. 

His grandchild, a virtuous gentlewoman of rare accomplish 
ments, married to Joceline, Esquire, being big with child, 
wrote a book of advice, since printed, and entitled, " The 
Mother s Legacy to her unborn Infant ;" of whom she died in 
travail. 

WILLIAM JAMES, D. D., was bom in this county, bred a 
scholar in Christchurch, in Oxford, and afterwards president of 
the university college. He succeeded Bishop Mathews in the 
deanery and bishopric of Durham. J 

He had been chaplain to Robert Dudly, earl of Leicester; 
and (I hope) I may lawfully transcribe what I read : " This 
hope of comfort came to his lordship thereby, that if it pleased 
God to impart any mercy to him (as his mercy endureth for 
ever ), it was by the especial ministry of this man, who was the 
last of his coat that was with him in his sickness." 

He was a principal means of recovering Durham-house unto 
his see. This house was granted by king Edward the Sixth to 
the lady (afterwards queen) Elizabeth (only for term of life) ; 
and lay long neglected during her reign, till Bishop James, 
about the sixth of king James, regained it, and repaired the 

" R. Parker, in Seel. Cant, in the Masters of Queen s College, 
t In his Catalogue of the Bishop of Lincoln, printed 1616. 
J " In Comitatu Cestriensi natus." Bishop Godwin, in the Bishops of 
Durham. 

Sir J. Harrington, View of the Church of England, p. 204. 



270 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

chapel (which he found not only profaned, but even defaced), 
to his great cost, and furnished it very decently. 

He once made so complete an entertainment for queen Eliza 
beth, that her majesty commended the order and manner 
thereof for many years after.* This maketh me the more to 
admire at what I have" heard reported, that, when king James, 
in his progress to Scotland, anno 1617? passed through the 
bishopric of Durham, some neglect was committed by this 
bishop s officers, for which the king secretly and sharply 
checked this bishop, who laid it so to heart, that he survived 
the same reproof not a full twelvemonth. 

JOHN RICHARDSON, of a family of good worship and great 
antiquity therein, was (as he told me) born in this county. 
After his hopeful education in country schools, he w r as bred in 
the university of Dublin, where he was graduated Doctor in 
Divinity, and afterwards was made bishop of Ardagh, in Ire 
land. In the late rebellion he came over into England, con 
tinuing for many years therein. Episcopal gravity was written 
in his countenance, and he was a good divine according to the 
rule, " Bonus Textuarius, bonus Theologus/ no man being 
more exact in knowledge of Scripture, carrying a Concordance 
in his memory. Great was his pains in the larger annotations, 
especially on Ezekiel. For let not the cloaks carry away the 
credit from the gowns and rochet in that work, seeing this 
bishop might say, " Pars ego magna fui ;" and Doctor Featley, 
with others of the episcopal party, bare a great share therein. 
Our Saviour, we know, lived on the charity of such good people 
as " ministered " unto him ;t and yet it may be collected that 
it was his constant custom (especially about the feast of " the 
Passover "}$ to give some alms to the poor. So our bishop, 
who was relieved by some, had his bounty to bestow on others ; 
and by his will (as I am informed) he bequeathed no inconsider 
able legacy to the college in Dublin. He died anno 1653, in 
the 74th year of his age. 

STATESMEN. 

Sir THOMAS EGERTON, knight, was extracted from the 
ancient family of the Egertons, of Ridley, in this county ; bred 
in the study of the Municipal Laws of our land, wherein he 
attained to such eminency, that queen Elizabeth made him her 
Solicitor, then Master of the Rolls, and at last Keeper of the 
Great Seal, May 6, in the thirty-eighth year of the reign, 1596. 

Olaus Magnus reporteth, that the emperor of Muscovia, at 
the audience of ambassadors, sendeth for the gravest and seem 
liest men in Musco and the vicinage, whom he apparelleth in 

* Sir J. Harrington, View of the Church of England, p. 206. 
f Luke viii. 3. J John xiii. 19. 



STATESMEN. 271 

rich vests, and, placing them in his presence, pretendeth to 
foreigners, that these are of his privy council, who cannot but 
be much affected with so many reverend aspects. But surely 
all Christendom afforded not a person which carried more gra 
vity in his countenance and behaviour, than Sir Thomas Eger- 
ton, insomuch that many have gone to the chancery on purpose 
only to see his venerable garb (happy they who had no other 
business !) and were highly pleased at so acceptable a spectacle. 

Yet was his outward case nothing in comparison of his in 
ward abilities, quick wit, solid judgment, ready utterance. I 
confess Master Camden saith he entered his office " magna 
expectatione et integritatis opinione," (" with a great expecta 
tion and opinion of integrity/ 3 )* But, no doubt, had he revised 
his work in a second edition, he would have afforded him a full- 
faced commendation, when this lord had turned his expectation 
into performance. 

In the first of king James, of lord keeper he was made lord 
chancellor, which is only another name for the same office ; and 
on Thursday the 7th of November, 1616, of Lord Ellesmere he 
was created Viscount Brackley. 

It is given to courts whose jurisdictions do border, to fall out 
about their bounds ; and the contest betwixt them is the hotter, 
the higher the spirits and parts of the respective judges. Great 
the contention for many years together betwixt this Lord of 
Equity and Sir Edward Coke, the oracle of Justice, at West 
minster-hall. I know not which of them got the better : sure 
I am such another victory would (if this did not) have undone 
the conqueror. 

He was attended on with servants of most able parts, and 
was the sole chancellor since the Reformation who had a chap- 
lain,f which (though not immediately) succeeded him in his 
place. He gave over his office, which he held full twenty years, 
some few days before his death ; and, by his own appointment, 
his body was brought down and buried at Duddleston in this 
county, leaving a fair estate to his son, who was afterwards 
created Earl of Bridgwater. 

When he saw king James so profuse to the Scots, with the 
grave fidelity of a statesman, he sticked not often to tell him, 
that as he held it necessary for his majesty amply to remu 
nerate those his countrymen, so he desired him carefully to pre 
serve his crown lands for his own support, seeing he or his suc 
cessors might meet with parliaments which would not supply 
his occasions but on such conditions as would not be very ac 
ceptable unto him. 

It was an ordinary speech in his mouth to say, "frost and 
fraud both end in foul"$ His death happened anno Domini 
1616. 

* In his Elizabeth, anno 1596. f Bishop Williams. 

J Alleged by Sir Francis Bacon, in his censure on the Earl of Somerset. 



272 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 



CAPITAL JUDGES. 

[AMP.] Sir HUMPHREY STARKEY was born, with most pro 
bability, in this county, where his name is in good, hath been 
in a better, esteem and estate. He in the study of our laws so 
profited, that (after some intermediate dignities) he was pre 
ferred chief baron of the Exchequer. I cannot with certainty 
fix his admission into that office (confused times causing con 
fused dates) ; but with as much certainty as we can collect, we 
conclude him preferred to that place 1 Henrici VII.* 

We need inquire no farther into his ability, finding him, by 
so wise and frugal a king, employed in a place belonging to his 
coffers ; who, though he was sometimes pleased to be remiss in 
matters which concerned his subjects, was ever careful in things 
wherein his own emolument was interested. Wonder not that 
we have so little left of this judge s actions, because Empsom 
and Dudley (loaders grinding more than the chief miller) were 
such instruments whose over-activity made all others seem 
slugs in that court. It doth sound not a little to the praise of 
our Starkey, that, whereas that age was justly complaining of 
the extortions of the king s officers, nothing of that nature (no 
hearmg, best hearing in this kind) is laid to his charge. He 
was buried in Leonard, Shoreditch, where this remains of his 
epitaph : &lt;( Orate pro animabus Humphredi Starkey, militis, 
nuper Capitalis Baronis de Scaccario domini regis Henrici 
Septimi, et Isabellas uxoris ejus, et omnium amicorum suorum, 
&c." 

The date of his death, defaced on his tomb, appeareth elsewhere f 
to be at the end of the reign of king Henry the Seventh ; so that 
his on the bench was parallel with his sovereign s sitting on the 
throne, begun in the first and ended in the last of his reign. 

Sir HENRY BRADSHAW, knight. This surname being dif 
fused in Derbyshire and Lancashire, as well as in this county, 
his nativity, advantaged by the alphabet (first come first served) 
is fixed herein. He became so noted for his skill in our Com 
mon Law, that in the sixth of king Edward the Sixth, in Hilary 
Term, he was made chief baron of the Exchequer, demeaning 
himself therein to his great commendation. 

Pity it is that Demetrius, who is " well reported of all menj : 
should suffer for his namesake Demetrius tfie silversmith, who 
made the shrines for Diana, and raised persecution against 
Saint Paul. And as unjust it is, that this good judge, of whom 
nothing ill is reported, should fare the worse for one of the 
same surname of execrable memory, of whom nothing good is 

* Sir Henry Spelman, in his Glossary, under the article Justiciarius," seems to 
assign him 1 Edward V. 1 Richard III. and 1 Henry VII F. Sir H. Starkey 
was appointed chief baron June 26, 1484, and resigned Oct. 29, 1 487- ED. 

f In Sir Henry Spelman, ut prius. J 3 John xii. Acts six. 24. 



JUDGES. 2J"3 

remembered. I have cause to conceive, that this judge was 
ousted of his place, for Protestant inclination, 1 Marioe, finding 
no more mention of him. 

Sir RANDAL CREW was born in this county, bred in the 
study of our Municipal Law ; wherein such his proficiency, that 
(after some steps in his way thereunto), in the twenty-second of 
king James, he was made Lord Chief Justice of the Upper 
Bench, and therein served two kings (though scarce two years 
in his office) with great integrity. 

King Charles s occasions calling for speedy supplies of money, 
some great-ones adjudged it unsafe to adventure on a parlia 
ment (for fear, in those distempered times, the physic would 
side with the disease), and put the king to furnish his neces 
sities by way of loan. Sir Randal being demanded his judg 
ment of that design, and the consequence thereof (the impri 
soning of recusants to pay it), openly manifested his dislike of 
such preter-legal courses; and thereupon, November 9, 1626, 
was commanded to forbear his sitting in the court, and the 
next day was by writ discharged from his office ; whereat he 
discovered no more discontentment than the weary traveller is 
offended when told that he is arrived at his journey s end. 

The country hath constantly a smile for him for whom the 
court hath a frown. This knight \vas out of his office, not out 
of honour, living long after at his house in Westminster, much 
praised for his hospitality. 

Indeed, he may the better put off his gown (though before he 
goeth to bed) who hath a warm suit under it ; and this learned 
judge, by God s blessing on his endeavours, had purchased a fair 
estate, and particularly Crew-hall in Cheshire (for some ages for 
merly the possession of the Falshursts), but which probably was 
the inheritance of his ancestors. Nor must it be forgotten, that 
Sir Randal first brought the model of excellent building into 
these remoter parts ; yea, brought London into Cheshire, in the 
loftiness, sightliness, and pleasantness of their structures. 

One word of his lady ; a virtuous wife being very essential to 
the integrity of a married judge, lest, what Westminster Hall 
doth conclude, Westminster Bed-chamber doth revoke. He 
married Julian, daughter and co-heir of John Clipsby, of 
Clipsby, in Norfolk, Esq. with whom he had a fair inheritance. 
She died at Kew, in Surrey, 1623 ; and lieth buried in the 
chancel of Richmond, with this epitaph : 

" Antiqua fuit orta domo, pia vixit, inivit 

Virgo pudica thorum, sponsapudica polum." 

I saw this worthy judge in health 1642 ; but he survived not 
long after. And be it remembered he had a younger brother, 
Sir Thomas Crew, a most honest and learned sergeant in the 
same profession ; whose son, John Crew, esquire (of his Ma 
jesty s privy council), having been so instrumental to the happy 

VOL. I. T 



274 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

change in our nation, is in general report (which no doubt will 
be effected before these ray pains be public) designed for some 
title of honour.* 

Sir HUMFREY DAVENPORT. His surname is sufficient to 
entitle this county unto him ; but I will not be peremptory till 
better information. He was bred in the Temple, had the repu 
tation of a studied lawyer, and upright person ; qualities which 
commended him to be chosen chief baron of the Exchequer. 
How he behaved himself in the case of the ship-money, is fresh 
in many men s memories. The reader cannot be more angry 
with me, than I am grieved in myself, that, for want of intel 
ligence, I cannot do the right which I would and ought, to this 
worthy judge s memory, who died about the beginning of our 
civil distempers. 

SOLDIERS. 

Sir HUGH CALVELY, born at Calvely, in this county. Tra 
dition makes him a man of teeth and hands, who would feed as 
much as two, and fight as much as ten men.f His quick and 
strong appetite could digest any thing but an injury ; so that 
killing a man is reported the cause of his quitting this county, 
making hence for London, then for France. Here he became 
a most eminent soldier, answering the character our great anti 
quary hath given him, " Arte militari ita in Gallia inclaruit, ut 
vividse ejus virtuti nihil fuit impervium/ J 

I find five of his principal achievements : 1. When he was 
one of the thirty English in France, who in a duel encountered 
as many Britons. 2. When, in the last of king Edward the 
Third, being governor of Calais, he looked on (his hands being 
tied behind him by a truce yet in force for a month), and saw 
the English slain before his eyes ; whose blood he soon after 
revenged. 3. When, in the first of king Richard the Second, 
after an unfortunate voyage of our English nobility, beaten 
home with a tempest, he took Bark-bulloigne, and five-and- 
twenty. other French ships, besides the castle of Mark, lately 
lost by negligence, which he recovered. 4. When, in the next 
year, he spoiled Estaples, at a fair-time, bringing thence so 
much plunder as enriched the Calicians for many years after. 
5. When he married the queen of Arragon ; which is most 
certain, her arms being quartered on his tomb, though I cannot 
satisfy the reader in the particularities thereof. 

The certain date of his death is unknown, which by propor 
tion may be collected about the year 1388 ; after which time, 
no mention of him : and it was as impossible for such a spirit 
not to be, as not to be active. 

Sir ROBERT KNOWLES, Knight, was born of mean paren- 

He was created Baron Crew, of Stene, co. Northampton, in 1661. ED. 
f Camden s Britannia, in Cheshire. J Camden, ibidem. 



SOLDIERS. 275 

, in this county ;* yet did not the weight of his low extrac 
tion depress the wings of his martial mind, who by his valour 
wrought his own advancement. He was another of the thirty 
English, who, for the honour of the nation, undertook to duel 
with as many Britons,t and came off with great reputation. 

He was afterwards a commander in the French war under 
king Edward the Third, where, in despite of their power, he 
drove the people before him like sheep, destroying towns, cas 
tles, and cities, in such manner and number, that, many years 
after, the sharp points and gable-ends of overthrown houses 
(cloven asunder with instruments of war) were commonly called 
Knowles s Mitres. J 

The last piece of his service was performed in suppressing 
Wat Tyler and his rebels. Then I behold aged Sir Robert, 
buckling on his armour, as old Priam at the taking of Troy, but 
with far better success, as proving very victorious ; and the 
citizens of London enfranchised him a member thereof, in 
expression of their thankfulness. 

His charity was as great as his valour ; and he rendered him 
self no less loved by the English, than feared of the French. 
He gave bountifully to the building of Rochester bridge, found 
ing a chapel and chantry at the east end thereof, with a college 
at Pontefract in Yorkshire, where Constance, his lady, was born, 
endowing it with one hundred and eighty pounds per annum. 

He died at his manor of Scone-Thorp in Norfolk, in peace 
and honour, whereas martialists generally set in a cloud, being 
at least ninety years of age (for he must be allowed no less than 
thirty years old when, anno 1352, he was a general under king 
Edward the Third, and he survived until the 15th of August 
1407), being buried in Whitefriars in London, to which he had 
been a great benefactor. 

JOHN SMITH, Captain, was born in this county, as Master 
Arthur Smith, his kinsman and my school-master, did inform 
me. But whether or no related unto the worshipful family of 
the Smiths at Hatherton, I know not. . 

He spent the most of his life in foreign parts. First in Hun 
gary, under the emperor, fighting against the Turks ; three of 
which he himself killed in single duels ; and therefore was 
authorized by Sigismund king of Hungary to bear three Turks 
heads, as an augmentation to his arms.|| Here he gave intel 
ligence to a besieged city in the night, by significant fire-works 
formed in the air, in legible characters, with many strange per- 

* Weever s Funeral Monuments, p. 436. 

t Sir Walter Raleigh, History of the World, lib. v. p. 545. 

+ Lambarde s Perambulation of Kent. 

Camden s Britannia, in this county. 

II So it is writ in the table over his tomb. 

T 2 



276 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

formances, the scene whereof is laid at such a distance, they are 
cheaper credited than confuted. 

From the Turks in Europe he passed to the pagans in Ame 
rica, where, towards the latter end of the reign of queen Eliza 
beth, such his perils, preservations, dangers, deliverances, they 
seem to most men above belief, to some beyond truth. Yet have 
we two witnesses to attest them, the prose and the pictures, 
both in his own book ; and it soundeth much to the diminution 
of his deeds, that he alone is the herald to publish and pro 
claim them. 

Two captains being at dinner, one of them fell into a large 
relation of his own achievements, concluding his discourse with 
this question to his fellow, " And pray, Sir," said he, " what 
service have you done ?" To whom he answered, " Other men 
can tell that." And surely such reports from strangers carry 
with them the greater reputation. However, moderate men 
must allow Captain Smith to have been very instrumental in 
settling the plantation in Virginia, whereof he was governor, 
as also admiral, of New England. 

He led his old age in London, where his having a prince s 
mind imprisoned in a poor man s purse rendered him to the 
contempt of such who were not ingenuous. Yet he efforted his 
spirits with the remembrance and relation of what formerly he 
had been, and what he had done. He was buried in Sepul 
chre s Church choir, on the south side thereof, having a rant 
ing epitaph inscribed in a table over him, too long to transcribe. 
Only we will insert the first and last verses, the rather because 
the one may fit Alexander s life for his valour, the other his 
death for his religion ; 

" Here lies one conquer d that hath conquer d kings !" 
" Oh, may his soul in sweet Elysium sleep." 

The orthography, poetry, history, and divinity in this epi 
taph, are much alike. He died on the 21st of June 1631. 

PHYSICIANS. 

If this county hath bred no writers in that faculty, the won 
der is the less, if it be true what I read, that if any here be 
sick, " they make him a posset, and tie a kerchief on his head ; 
and if that will not mend him, then God be merciful to him !"* 
But be this understood of the common people, the gentry hav 
ing the help (no doubt) of the learned in that profession. 

WRITERS. 

THOMAS ECLESTONE (a village in Broxton hundred) was 
born in this county, bred a Franciscan in Oxford. Leland saith 
of him, that, under the conduct of prudence and experience, he 
contended with many paces to pierce into the penetrales of 

* William Smith, Vale Royal, p. 16. 



WRITERS. 277 

learning. He wrote a book of the succession of Franciscans in 
England, with their works and wonders, from their first coming 
in to his own time, dedicating the same to (not G. Notingham, 
the provincial of his order, but to) his friend and fellow-friar ; 
his mortified mind (it seems) not aiming at honour therein. He 
wrote another book, intituled, " De Impugnatione Ordinis sui 
per Dominicanos," ("Of the assaults which the Dominicans 
made on his order;")* these two sorts of friars whipping each 
other with their cords or knotted girdles, to the mutual wound 
ing of their reputations. He died anno Domini 1340. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

RALPH RADCLIFFE was born in this county, who, travelling 
southward, fixed himself at Hitching in Hertfordshire, where he 
converted a demolished house of the Carmelites into a public 
grammar-school-t He here erected a fair stage, whereon, partly 
to entertain his neighbours, and partly to embolden his scholars 
in pronunciation, many interludes were acted by them. Pits 
praiseth him, being a school-master, that he confined himself 
to his own profession, not meddling with divinity ; J and yet, 
amongst his books, he reckoned up a treatise of " The Burning 
of Sodome ;" and another of " The Afflictions of Job." 

Nor must we forget his book entitled " De triplici Memoria," 
(Of the threefold Memory,) which (though I never met with any 
that saw it) may probably be presumed, of the 




very hardly, ) long 

He flourished under the reign of king Edward the Sixth, anno 
Domini 1552 ; and it is likely he died before the reign of queen 
Mary. 

JOHN SPEED was born at Farrington in this county, as his 
own daughter hath informed me. He was first bred to a han 
dicraft, and as I take it to a tailor. I write not this for his but 
my own disgrace, when I consider how far his industry hath 
outstript my ingenious education. Sir Fulk Grevill, a great 
favourer of learning, perceiving how his wide soul was stuffed 
with two narrow an occupation, first wrought his enlargement, 
as the said author doth ingenuously confess : 

Whose merits to me-ward I do acknowledge, in setting this 
hand free from the daily employments of a manual trade, 
and giving it his liberty thus to express the inclination of 
my mind, himself being the procurer of my present 
estate." || 

This is he who afterwards designed the maps and composed 

Pits, de Scrip toribus Britannicis, anno 1340. 
Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. 8, n. 98. 

Anglise Scriptores, num. 992. 

Mrs. Blackmore, a stationer s wife in Paul s Church-yard. 
II In his description of Warwickshire. 



278 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

the history of England, though much helped in both (no shame 
to crave aid in a work too weighty for any one s back to bear) 
by Sir Robert Cotton, Master Camden, Master Barkham, and 
others. He also made the useful genealogies preposed formerly 
to English Bibles in all volumes, having a patent granted him 
from king James, in reward of his great labours, to receive the 
benefit thereof to him and his. This was very beneficial unto 
them, by composition with the Company of Stationers, until 
this licentious age, neglecting all such ingenious helps to under 
stand Scripture, and almost levelling (if not prevented) the pro 
priety of all authors of books. He died in London, anno 1629 : 
and was buried in Saint Giles without Cripplegate, in the same 
parish with Master John Fox ; so that no one church in Eng 
land contain eth the corpse of two such useful and voluminous 
historians. Master Josias Shute preached his funeral sermon : 
and thus we take our leaves of Father Speed, truly answering 
his name, in both the acceptions thereof, for celerity and 
success. 

JOHN DOD was born at Shottliege, in this county (where his 
parents had a competent estate) ; bred in Jesus College in 
Cambridge, by nature a witty, by industry a learned, by grace a 
godly divine ; successively minister of Hanwell in Oxford, 
Fenny-Compton in Warwick, Canons-Ashby and Fawsley in 
Northamptonshire, though for a time silenced in each of them. 

A father (who shall pass nameless) is censured by some for his 
over-curiosity in his conceit, rather than comment, Matt. v. 2. 
" And he opened his mouth, and taught them." " For Christ," 
saith he, " taught them often, when he opened not his mouth, by 
his example, miracles, &c." Here I am sure, accordingly, Master 
Dod, when " his mouth was shut " (prohibiting preaching), in 
structed almost as much as before, by his holy demeanor and 
pious discourse ; a good chemist, who could extract gold out of 
other men s lead ; and how loose soever the premises of other 
men s discourse, piety was always his natural and unforced con 
clusion inferred thereupon. 

For the rest, I refer the reader to Master Samuel Clark, by 
whom his life is written, wherein are many remarkable pas 
sages : I say Master Samuel Clark, with whose pen mine never 
did or shall interfere. Indeed, as the flocks of Jacob were 
distanced " three days journeys " from those of Laban,* so 
(to prevent voluntary or casual commixtures) our styles are set 
more than a month s journey asunder. 

The Jewish Rabbins have a fond and a false conceit, that 
Methusalem, who indeed died in the very year (and his death a 
sad prognostic) of the deluge, had a cabin built him in the out 
side of Noah s ark, where he was preserved by himself, t But 
most true it is, that good Father Dod, though he lived to see 

* Genesis xxx. 3fi. f See Archbishop Usher s Chronicle. 



BENEFACTORS. 279 

the flood of our late civil wars, made to himself a cabin in his 
own contented conscience ; and though his clothes were wetted 
with the waves (when plundered) he was dry in the deluge, such 
his self-solace in his holy meditations. He died, being eighty- 
six years of age, anno 1645. 

When thieves break in a house and steal, the owner thereof 
knows for the present that he is robbed, but not of what or how 
much, till some days after he finds out by the want of such 
things which were taken from him. The vicinage of Fawsley, 
where Mr. Dod died, knew then they were bereft of a worthy 
treasure, though ignorant in the particulars of their losses, till 
daily discovery hath by this time made them sensible thereof. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

Sir RICHARD SUTTON was born at Presbury, in this county;* 
he is generally believed a knight, though some have suspected 
the same, but suppose him but esquire. He was one of a 
plentiful estate and bountiful hand. 

It happened that William Smith, bishop of Lincoln, began 
Brasen-nose College, but died before he had finished one nos 
tril thereof, leaving this Sutton his executor, who over-per 
formed the bishop s will, and completed the foundation with his 
own liberal additions thereunto. When the following verses 
were composed, in the person of Brasen-nose College, the Mu 
ses seemed neither to smile nor frown, but kept their wonted 
countenance. But take them as they are : 

" Begun by one, but finish d by another, 

Sutton he was my nurse, but Smith my mother : 
Or, if the phrase more proper seem, say rather, 
That Sutton was my guardian, Smith my father ; 
Cause equal kindness they to me exprest, 
Better I neither love, love both the best ; 
If both they may be call d, who had one will, 
What one design d, the other did fulfil. 
May such testators live who good intend ; 
But, if they die, heaven such exec tors send ! " 

This worthy knight, being born in this county, deservedly 
reflected upon his own countrymen, making them (and those of 
Lancashire) most capable of preferment. I collect his death to 
have happened about the middle of the reign of king Henry the 
Eighth. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

ROBERT BRASSY was born at Bunbury (contracted for Boni 
face-Bury) in this county ; bred D. D. in King s College in 
Cambridge, whereof he was elected the thirteenth provost.f 
He, being a learned and stout man, publicly protested against 
the visitors of the university in the reign of queen Mary, as to 

* So my good friend Dr. Yates, principal of Brasen-nose, hath informed me. F. 
f Mr. Hatcher, in his Manuscript Catalogue of the Fellows of King s College. 



280 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

his own college.* Say not he only opposed superstition with 
superstition, pleading popish exemptions : for, considering the 
times, he " drove the nail which would best go ;" and thereby 
took off the edge of those persecuting commissioners. 

But let none envy him a place under this title, who deserved 
so well of Cambridge : for, when many doctors therein, whose 
purblind souls saw only what was next them for the present, 
and either could not or would not look far forward to posterity, 
had resolved to sell their rights in Sturbridge-fair for a trifle to 
the towns-men (which if done, the vice-chancellor might even 
have held the stirrup to the mayor), he only opposed it, and 
dashed the designs, f He died anno Domini 1558 ; and lies 
buried on the south side of the chapel. 

GEORGE PALIN was (as I have cogent presumptions) born at 
Wrenbury, in this county ; bred a merchant in London, free of 
the company of Girdlers. Indeed, we may call his benefactions 
aureum cingulum charitatis, "the golden girdle of chanty." 
With our Saviour he " went about doing good," J completing 
the circuit of his bounty, continuing till he ended where he 
began : 

1. To Wrenbury (where we believe him born), two hundred 
pounds to purchase lands for the relief of the poor. 2. Nine 
hundred pounds for the building of alms-houses in or about 
London. 3. To Trinity College in Cambridge, three hundred 
pounds. 4. To the college of Saint John the Evangelist in 
Cambridge, three hundred pounds. 5. To the hospital of Saint 
Thomas in South wark, fifty pounds. 6. To the preachers at 
Paul s Cross, towards the bearing of their charges, two hundred 
pounds. 7- Toward the making of a sweet chime in Bow 
Church, one hundred pounds. 8. To six prisons in and abot;t 
London, sixty pounds. 9. To Brasen-nose College in Oxford, 
two scholarships, to each yearly four pounds. 10. To the col 
lege of Saint John Baptist in Oxford, two scholarships of the 
same value. 11. To Christchurch hospital, three hundred 
pounds. 12. To the church and poor (to buy them gowns) of 
Wrenbury, seventy pounds. With other benefactions. 

Verily, I say unto you, I have not met a more universal and 
impartial charity to all objects of want and worth. He died 
about the beginning of the reign of king James. 

JOHN BREWERTON, Knight, a branch of that well-spread 
tree in this county, was bred one of the first scholars of the 
foundation in Sidney College; and afterwards, being brought 
up in the study of the Common Law, he went over into Ireland, 
and at last became the king s serjeant therein. I say at last, 
for at his coming thither (in the tumults of Tyrone) neither rex 

Fox, Acts and Momxments, page 1958. f Mr. Hatcher, ut prius. 

+ Acts x, 38. 



BENEFACTORS. 281 

nor lex, neither king nor serjeant, were acknowledged, till 
loyalty and civility were by degrees distilled into that nation. 

He obtained a plentiful estate, and thereof gave well nigh 
three thousand pounds to Sidney College. Now as it is re 
ported of Ulysses, returning from his long travel in foreign 
lands, that all his family had forgot him ; so when the news of 
this legacy first arrived at the college, none then extant therein 
ever heard of his name (so much may the sponge of forty years 
blot out in this kind) ; only the written register of the college 
faithfully retained his name therein. 

This his gift was a gift indeed, purely bestowed on the college, 
as loaded with no detrimental conditions in the acceptance 
thereof. We read in the Prophet, " Thou hast increased the 
nation, and not multiplied their joy." * In proportion where- 
unto, we know it is possible that the comfortable condition of 
a college may not be increased, though the number of the fel 
lows and scholars therein be augmented, superadded branches 
sucking out the sap of the root ; whereas the legacy of this wor 
thy knight ponebatur in lucro, being pure gain and improve 
ment to the college. His death happened about the year 1633. 

JOHN BARNSTON, D. D. was born of an ancient family in 
this county ; bred fellow of Brasen-nose College, in Oxford ; 
afterwards chaplain to Chancellor Egerton, and residentiary of 
Salisbury ; a bountiful housekeeper, of a cheerful spirit and 
peaceable disposition, whereof take this eminent instance : He 
sat judge in the Consistory, when a church- warden, out of 
whose house a chalice was stolen, was sued by the parish to 
make it good to them, because not taken out of the church- 
chest (where it ought to have been reposited), but out of 
his private house. The church-warden pleaded that he took 
it home only to scour it ; which proving ineffectual, he retained 
it till next morning, to boil out the in-laid rust thereof. 

"Well," said the doctor, "I am sorry that the cup of union 
and communion should be the cause of difference and discord 
between you. Go home, and live lovingly together; and I 
doubt not but that either the thief out of remorse will restore 
the same ; or some other as good will be sent unto you ;" which, 
by the doctor s secret charity, came to pass accordingly. He 
founded an Hebrew lecture in Brasen-nose College; and de 
parted in peace, in the beginning of our wars, about the year 
1642, 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

WILLIAM SMITH was born in this county, wherein his sur 
name hath been of signal note for many ages. His genius in 
clined him to the study of heraldry, wherein he so profited, 
that anno .... he was made Pursuivant of Arms, by the name 

* Isaiah ix. 3. 



282 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

of Rouge-dragon. He wrote a description, geographical and his 
torical, of this county, left (it seems) in the hands of Raynulph 
Crew, knight, sometime lord chief justice of the King s 
Bench, and lately set forth by the favour of Mr. Raynulph 
Crew, grand-child to that worthy knight. The time of his 
death is to me unknown. 

WILLIAM WEBB, a native of this county, was bred a mas 
ter in arts, and afterwards betook himself to be a clerk of the 
Mayor s court in Chester. It appeareth also he was under- 
sheriff to Sir Richard Lee, high-sheriff of this county, in the 
thirteenth year of king James. He compiled a description of 
Cheshire and Chester, lately printed by procurement of that no 
less communicative than judicious antiquary Sir Simon Archer, 
of Tamworth in Warwickshire. I cannot attain the certain date 
of his death. 

RANDAL CREW, Esquire, second son to Sir Clipsby, grand 
child to Judge Crew. He drew a map of Cheshire so exactly 
with his pen, that a judicious eye would mistake it for printing, 
and the graver s skill and industry could little improve it. 
This map I have seen ; and, reader, when my eye directs my 
hand, I may write with confidence. This hopeful gentleman 
went beyond the seas, out of design to render himself by his 
travels more useful for his country ; where he was barbarously 
assassinated by some Frenchmen, and honourably buried, with 
general lamentation of the English, at Paris, 1656. 

LORD MAYORS. 

1. Hugh Witch, son of Richard Witch, of Nantwich, Mercer, 

1461. 

2. Thomas Oldgrave, son of William Oldgrave, of Knotysford, 

Skinner, 1467. 

3. Edmund Shaw, son of John Shaw, of Donkenfield, Gold 

smith, 1482. 

4. James Spencer, son of Robert Spencer, of Congleton, Vint 

ner, 1527. 

5. Thomas Offley, son of William Offley, of Chester, Merchant 

Tailor, 1556. 

6. Humfrey Weld, son of John Weld, of Eton, Grocer, 1608. 
7- Thomas Moulson, 1634. 

I am certainly informed that this Thomas Moulson founded a 
fair school in the town where he was born ; but am not in 
structed where this is, or what salary is settled thereon.* 

Reader, know this, that I must confess myself advantaged in 
the description of this county by Daniel King, a native of this 
county, whence it seems he travelled beyond the seas, where he 

* He founded a chapel at Hargrave-Stubbs, and endowed it with 401, a-year. 
He also endowed a school adjoining, with 20/. Lysoris s Cheshire, p. 798. ED. 



SHERIFFS. 283 

got the mystery both of surveying and engraving ; so that he 
hath both drawn and graven the portraiture of many ancient 
structures now decayed. 

I hope in process of time this Daniel King will outstrip king 
Edgar, erecting more abbeys in brass, than he did in stone, 
though he be said to have built one for every day in the year. 
But Cheshire is chiefly beholding to his pains, seeing he hath 
not only set forth two descriptions thereof (named " The Vale 
Royal of England ") with the praise to the dead persons the 
authors thereof duly acknowledged, but also hath enlivened the 
same with several cuts of heraldry and topography, on whom we 
will bestow this distich : 

Kingus Cestrensi, Cestrensis Patria Kingo, 
Lucem alternatim debet uterque sucun. 

" Cheshire to King, and King to Cheshire owes 
His light ; each doth receive what each bestows." 

What is amiss in my poetry, shall be amended in my prayers 
for a blessing on his and all ingenious men s undertakings. 

CHESHIRE is one of the twelve pretermitted counties, the 
names of whose gentry were not returned into the Tower, in the 
twelfth of king Henry the Sixth. 



SHERIFFS. 
Anno HENRY II. Anno 

30 Gilbert. Pipehard. 15 Rich, de Wilbraham. 

35 Rich, de Pierpoint. 26 Will, de Prayers. 

33 Robert, de Bressev. 

RICHARD I. 

1 (Recorda manca.J EDWARD n. 

2 Philip, de Egerton. 

JOHAN 5 David, de Egerton. 

1 Liulphus. 13 Will, de Mobberley. 

Ric. de Burham. 16 Rich. Filhurst. 

(anni incerti.} 

EDWARD III. 

HENRY III. 1 Joh de Wrenbury . 

15 Rich, de Sonbach. 10 Adam, de Parker. 

23 Rich, de Wrenbury. 19 Rich, de Oulton. 

52 Jordan, de Peulesdon. 22 Jacob. Audley, mil. 

56 Hugh de Hatton. 24 Tho. Daniers. 

33 Tho. le Young. 

EDWARD, i. 41 j ohan&gt; Scolehall. 

4 Patrick de Heselwall. 44 Lauren, de Duttori, mil. 

Will, de Spurstow. 



284 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

SHERIFFS. 
RICHARD II. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

1 Hu. de Venables . . . Kinderton. 
Arms : Az. two bars Arg. 

8 Tho. del. Wood. 

9 Hu. E. of Stafford. 

O. a chevron G. 

10 Idem ut prius, 

11 Job. Massy, mil. 

Quarterly, counterchanged G. and O. in tbe first a lion 
passant. 

12 Rob. Gravenour . . . Eton. 

Az. a garb O. 

17 Rob. Leigh .... High-leigh. 
Arg. five fusils bend-wise S. 

HENRY IV. 

1 Joh. Massy .... Puddington. 

ut prius, save that in the first quarter three flower-de-luces 
Arg. 

2 Idem. 

3 Hen. Ravenscroft. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three ravens heads crazed S. 
10 Will. Bruerton, mil. . Bruerton. 
Arg. two bars S. 

HENRY V. 

3 Tho. Leigh .... Adlington. 

Az. two bars Arg. a bend componee O. and G. 
10 Hugh Dutton .... Button. 

Quarterly, counterchanged Arg. and G. in the 2d and 3d 
quarters a fret O. 

HENRY VI. 

5 Rich. Warberton . . . Arley. 

Arg. two chevrons and a canton G. ; a mullet O. 
8 Ran. Bruerton, mil. . . ut prius. 

16 Joh. Troutbeck 

Az. three trouts fretted in triangle, tete & la queue Arg. 

17 Rob. Booth, mil. . . Dunham. 

Arg. three boars heads erased and erected S. 

18 Rob. Booth, mil. 

(prioris filius.) . . . ut prius. 

EDWARD IV. 

2 Will. Stanly .... Howton. 

Arg. on a bend Az. three stags heads cabossed O. 



SHERIFFS. 285 

RICHARD III. 

Anno Name. Place. 

1 Will. Stanly . . . . ut prius. 

HENRY VII. 

1 Idem ut prius. 

10 Joh. Warberton . . . ut prius. 
21 Ralp. Birkenhead. 

S. three garbs O. within a border engrailed Arg. 

HENRY VIII. 

1 Idem ut prius. 

17 Will. Stanly, mil. . . ut prius. 

18 Geo. Holford .... Holford. 

Arg. a grey-hound passant S. 

19 Tho, Venables . . . ut prius. 

20 Idem ut prius. 

21 Joh. Done. 

Az. two bars Arg. on a bend G. three arrows. 

22 Idem ut prius. 

23 Edw. Fitton .... Gowsworth. 

Arg. on a bend Az. three garbs O. 
33 Joh. Holford . . . . ut prius. 

EDWARD VI. 

1 Idem ut prius. 

REG. MARI. 

1 Wil. Brereton, knt. . . ut prius. 

PHIL, et MAR. 

2, 1 Pet. Leigh, knt. . . . ut prius. 
3,2Hu. Cholmley, esq. 

G. in chief two helmets Arg. ; in base a garb O. 

4,3Ri. Wilbraham, esq. . Wodey. 

Az. two bars Arg. on a canton S. a wolfs head erased of 
the second. 

5. 4 Tho. Venables, esq. . . ut prius. 

6. 5 Phil. Egerton, esq. . . Ridley. 

Arg. a lion rampant G. betwixt three pheons S. 

REG. ELIZA. 

1 Will. Cholmley, esq. . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Savage, esq. . . Rocksavage. 

Arg. six lions rampant S. 

3 Ral. Egerton, esq. . . ut prius. 

4 Jo. Warberton, esq. . ut prius. 

5 Rich. Brook, esq. 

Checquee O. and S. 

6 Will. Massey, esq. . . ut prius. 



286 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

7 Joh. Savage, esq. . . nt prius. 

8 Hu. Cholmly, esq. . . ut prius. 

9 Lau. Smith, esq. . . . Hough. 

Az. two bars wavee E. on a chief O. a demi-lion issuant S. 

10 Ral. Done, esq. 

Az. two bars Arg. on a bend G. three arrows of the second. 

11 Geo. Calveley, esq. 

Arg. a fess G. betwixt three calves S. 

12 Joh. Savage, esq. . . nt prius. 

13 Will. Booth, knt. . . Dunham Massey. 

Arg. three boars heads erected S. 

14 Tho. Stanley, esq. 

Arg. on a bend Az. three . . . 

15 Joh. Savage, knt. . . ut prius, 

16 Joh. Savage, mil. . . ut prius. 

17 Hen. Manwaring. 

Arg. two bars G. 

1 8 Row. Stanley, esq. . . ut prius. 

19 Joh. Warren, esq. 

Checquee Az. and O. on a canton G. a lion rampant Arg. 

20 Tho. Brook, esq. . . . ut prius. 

21 Joh. Savage, knt. . . ut prius. 

22 Ral. Egerton, esq. . . ut prius. 

23 Geo. Calveley, knt. . . ut prius. 

24 Will. Brereton, knt. . ut prius. 

25 Pet. Warberton, esq. . ut prius. 

26 Will. Leversage, esq. . Whelock. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three plow-shares S. 

27 Tho. Wilbraham . . . ut prius. 

28 Hug. Calveley, esq. . . ut prius. 

29 Ran. Davenport, esq. . Damport. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three cross crosslets fitchee S. 

30 Tho. Leigh, esq. . . . ut prius. 

31 Hu. Cholmley, knt. . . ut prius. 

32 Wil. Brereton, knt. . . ut prius. 

33 Joh. Savage, knt. . . ut prius. 

34 Tho. Brook, esq. . . ut prius. 

35 Tho. Venables, esq. . . ut prius. 

36 Pet. Warberton, esq. . ut prius. 

37 Per. Leigh, esq. . ut prius. 

38 Joh. Done, esq. . . ut prius. 

39 Geo. Booth, knt. . . ut prius. 
4.0 Edw. Warren, knt. . . ut prius. 

41 Tho. Holcroft, knt. 

Arg. a cross and border engrailed S. 

42 Tho. Smith, knt. . . ut prius. 

43 Tho. Ashton, knt. . . Ashton. 

Per chevron S. and Arg. 

44 Ric. Gravenor, knt. . . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 287 

JAC. REX. 

Anno Name. Place. 

1 Geo. Leicester . . Toft. 

Az. a fess Arg. frettee G. betwixt three flower-de-luces O. 

2 Wil. Davenport, knt. . utprius. 

3 Ra. Manwaring, knt. . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Vernon, knt. . Hasting. 

O. on a fret Az. three garbs of the first. 

5 Joh. Savage, knt. . ut prius. 

6 Hen. Bunbury, knt. . Staney. 

Arg. on a bend S. three chest-rooks of the first. 

7 Will. Brereton, esq. . . ut prius. 

8 Geff. Shakerly, esq. 

Arg. three molehills V. 

9 Tho. Dutton, esq. . . ut prius. 

10 Will. Brereton, knt. . utprius. 

11 Urian. Leigh, knt. . . ut prius. 

12 Geo. Calveley, knt. . utprius. 

13 Rich. Lea, knt. . . . Lea. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three leopards heads S. 

14 Ric. Wilbraham, knt. ut prius. 

15 Joh. Davenport . . utprius. 

16 Ralp. Calveley, esq. . ut prius. 

17 Ran. Manwaring . . ut prius. 

18 Rob. Cholmondely . ut prius. 

19 Tho. Marbury, esq. . Marbury. 

O. on a fess engrailed Az. three garbs of the first. 

20 Geo. Booth, bart. . ut prius. 

21 Tho. Smith, knt. . utprius. 

22 Ric. Gravenor, bart. . ut prius. 

CAR. REG. 

1 Tho. Brereton, knt. . utprius. 

2 Joh. Done, knt. . . ut prius. 

3 Joh. Calveley, esq. ut prius. 

4 Edw. Stanley, bart. . ut prius. 

5 Tho. Leigh, esq. . . utprius. 

6 Pet. Dutton, esq. . . ut prius. 

7 Tho. Stanley, esq. . . ut prius. 

8 Rich. Brereton, esq, . ut prius. 

9 Edw. Fitton, esq. . . ut prius. 

10 Pet. Venables . . . ut prius. 

1 1 Tho. Ashton, bart. . . ut prius. 

12 Will. Leigh, esq. . . ut prius. 

13 Tho. Delves, bart. . . Duddington. 

Arg. a chevron G. frettee O. betwixt three gadds of steel S. 

14 Tho. Cholmley. . . . ut prius. 

15 Phil. Manwaring. . . utprius. 

16 Tho. Powell, bart. . . Berkenhead. 



288 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

17 Job. Billot, esq. 

Arg. on a chief G. three cinquefoils of the field. 

18 Hug. Calvely, knt. . . ut prius. 

1 9 Tho. Leigh, esq. . . ut prius. 

20 Ri. Gravenor, bart. . ut prius. 

21 Rob. Totton, esq. . . Winthaw. 

Quarterly Arg. and G. four crescents counterchanged. 

22 Hen. Brood, esq. 

Reader, if thou discoverest any difference in the method be 
twixt this and the other catalogue of sheriffs, impute it to this 
cause ; that whilst I fetched the rest from the fountain in the 
Exchequer, I took these out of the cistern-, I mean, the 
printed book of " Vale Royal." I presume that the sheriff who 
is last named continued in that office all that interval of years, 
till his successor here nominated entered thereon. 

The reader may with the more confidence rely on their arms, 
imparted unto me by Mr. Daniel King, who to me really veri- 
fieth his own anagram, DANIEL KING, "i KIND ANGEL/ And 
indeed he hath been a tutelar one to me, gratifying me with 
whatsoever I had need to use, and he had ability to bestow. 

HENRY III. 

56. HUGH de HATTON. King William the Conqueror be 
stowed lands on one of his name and ancestors at Hatton in 
this county. From him is lineally descended that learned and 
religious (witness his pious meditations on the Psalms) Sir 
Christopher Hatton, Knight of the Bath, created, by king Charles 
the First, Baron Hatton of Kerby in Northamptonshire. The 
original of this grant of the Conqueror is still in this lord s pos 
session, preserved in our civil wars, with great care and diffi 
culty, by his virtuous lady ; on the same token that her lord 
patiently digested the plundering of his library and other rari 
ties, when hearing the welcome tidings from his lady that the 
said record was safely secured. 

QUEEN MARY. 

3. Sir HUGH CHOLMLY, or CHOLMONDELEIGH. This wor 
thy person bought his knighthood in the field at Leigh in Scot 
land. He was five times high sheriff of this county (and some 
times of Flintshire), and for many years one of the two sole de 
puties lieutenants thereof. For a good space he was vice-pre 
sident of the marches of Wales under the Right Honourable 
Sir Henry Sidney, knight ; conceive it during his absence in 
Ireland. For fifty years together he was esteemed a father of 
his country; and, dying anno 157 *, was buried in the church 

* He died 1596, aet. 83. Lysons s Cheshire, p. 451.- ED. 



BATTLES. 289 

of Malpasse, under a tomb of alabaster, with great lamen 
tation of all sorts of people, had it not mitigated their mourn 
ing, that he left a son of his own name, heir to his virtues and 
estate. 

2. JOHN SAVAGE, Arm. I behold him as the direct ancestor 
unto Sir Thomas Savage, knight and baronet, created by king 
Charles the first Baron Savage, of Rock-savage in this county. 
This lord (a very prudent statesman) married Elizabeth, eldest 
daughter and co-heir of Thomas Lord Darcy of Chich, Viscount 
Colchester, and Earl of Rivers, honours entailed on his poste 
rity, and now enjoyed by the Right Honourable Thomas Savage 
Earl Rivers. 

THE BATTLES. 

ROWTON HEATH, 1645, Sept. 24. His Majesty, being in 
formed that colonel Jones had seized the suburbs and strong 
church of St. John s in Chester, advanced northAvard for the re 
lief thereof. Poins, one of the parliament s generals, pursued 
his majesty. At Rowton-heath, within three miles of Chester, 
the king s army made an halt, whilst his majesty, with some 
prime persons, marched into the city. 

Next day a fierce fight happened on the heath, betwixt the 
king s and Poins s forces, the latter going off with the greater 
loss. Judicious persons conceive that, had the royalists pur 
sued this single enemy, as yet unrecruited with additional 
strength, they had finally worsted him; which fatal omission 
(opportunities admit of no after-games) proved their overthrow. 
For next day colonel Jones drew out his men into the field ; 
so that the royalists, being charged on the heath in front and 
rear, were put to the worst, the whole body of whose army had 
wings w r ithout legs, horse without foot, whilst the parliament 
was powerful in both. 

Immediately after, a considerable party of horse (the Lord 
Byron governor of the city being loth to part with any foot, as 
kept to secure the king s person,) came out of Chester, too late 
to succour their defeated friends, and too soon to engage them 
selves. Here fell the youngest of the three noble brethren, who 
lost their lives in the king s service, Bernard Stuart Earl of 
Lichfield, never sufficiently to be lamented. 

THE FAREWELL. 

To take my leave of Cheshire, I could wish that some of their 
hospitality were planted in the south, that it might bring forth 
fruit therein ; and in exchange I could desire, that some of ou&gt; 
southern delicacies might prosperously grow in their gardens, 
and quinces particularly, being not more pleasant to the palate 
than restorative of the health, as accounted a great cordial ; the 

VOL. I. U 



290 WORTHIES OF CHESTER. 

rather, because a native of this county, in his description thereof, 
could not remember he ever saw a quince growing therein.* 



CHESTER. 

CHESTER is a fair city on the north-east side of the river 
Dee, so ancient that the first founder thereof is forgotten ; much 
beholding to the Earls of Chester and others for increase and 
ornaments. The walls thereof were lately in good repair, espe 
cially betwixt the New-tower and the Water-gate : for I find how 
(anno 1569) there was a personal fight in this city betwixt the 
two sheriffs thereof, viz. Richard Massey and Peter Lycher- 
band (who shall keep peace, if aged officers break it ?) ; who 
deservedly were fined, for the forfeiting of their gravity, to re 
pair that part of the wall.f It seems it is more honour to be 
keeper of a gate in Chester, than a whole city elsewhere, seeing 
East-gate therein was committed to the custody formerly of the 
Earl of Oxford, Bridge-gate to the Earl of Shrewsbury, Water 
gate to the Earl of Derby, and North-gate to the mayor of the 
city. 

It is built in the form of a quadrant, and is almost a just 
square, the four cardinal streets thereof (as I may call them) 
meeting in the middle of the city, at a place called The Pentise, 
which affordeth a pleasant prospect at once into all four. Here 
is a property of building peculiar to the city, called the Rows, 
being galleries, wherein passengers go dry without coming into 
the streets, having shops on both sides and underneath ; the 
fashion whereof is somewhat hard to conceive. It is therefore 
worth their pains, who have money and leisure, to make their 
own eyes the expounders of the manner thereof; the like being 
said not to be seen in all England ; no, nor in all Europe again. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

Saint Wei-burg s church is a fair structure, and had been 
more beautiful if the tower thereof (intended some say for a 
steeple, the first stone whereof was laid 1508) had been finished. 
It was built long before the Conquest ; and, being much ruined, 
was afterward repaired by Hugh Lupus, first Earl of Chester. 
It was afterwards made by king Henry the Eighth one of his 
five royal bishoprics ; Oxford, Gloucester, Bristol, and Peter 
borough, being the other four. I say royal bishoprics, as whose 
ecclesiastical jurisdictions were never confirmed by the Pope, 
nor baronies by the parliament- 

The first is plain ; king Henry the Eighth erecting them after 
he had disclaimed the Pope s supremacy ; and in the days of 

* William Smith, in his Vale Royal, p. 18. 
f The Vale Royal of England, pp. 86. 199. 



PROVERBS MARTYRS PRELATES. 291 

queen Mary, when England was in some sort reconciled to 
Rome, the Pope thought not fit to contest with the queen about 
that criticism, because these five bishoprics -were erected with 
out his consent, but suffered them to be even as he found them. 
Their baronies also were not (though their bishoprics were) 
ever confirmed by act of parliament ; so that they owed their 
beings solely to the king s prerogative, who might as well create 
spiritual as temporal peers by his own authority ; and therefore, 
when some anti-prelatists, in the late Long Parliament, 1641, 
endeavoured to overthrow their baronies (as an essay and pre- 
ludium to the rest of the bishoprics) for want of parliamentary 
confirmation, they desisted from that design, as fond and un- 
feasable, on better consideration. 

PROVERBS. 

" When the daughter is stolen, shut Pepper-gate." *] 

Pepper-gate was a postern of this city, on the east side (as I 
take it) thereof; but in times past closed up and shut upon this 
occasion. The mayor of the city had his daughter (as she was 
playing at ball with other maidens in Pepper-street) stolen away 
by a young man, through the same gate ; whereupon, in revenge, 
he caused it to be shut up, though I see not why the city should 
suffer in her conveniences, for the mayor s want of care, or his 
daughter s^ lack of obedience. But what shall we say ? love will 
make the whole wall a gate, to procure its own escape. Pa 
rallel to this proverb is the Latin, Sero sapiunt Phryges, when 
men, instead of preventing, postvide against dangers. 

MARTYRS. 

GEORGE MARSH was condemned by Bishop Coats, and cru 
elly burnt without this city, near unto Spittle Boughton ; but, 
because he was born elsewhere, see his character in Lancashire. 

PRELATES. 

GEORGE DOUNHAM, D.D. son to John Dounham bishop of 
Chester, was born in this city, as by proportion of time may 
most probably be collected. He was bred in Christ s College in 
Cambridge, elected fellow thereof 1585, and chosen Logic pro 
fessor in the university, t No man was then and there better 
skilled in Aristotle, or a greater follower of Ramus, so that he 
may be termed the top-twig of that branch. 

It is seldom seen, that the clunch-nst of logic (good to knock 
down a man at a blow) can so open itself as to smooth and 
stroke one with the palm thereof. Our Dounham could do 
both ; witness the oration made by him at Cambridge (preposed 
to his book of Logic) full of flowers of the choicest eloquence. 
He preached the sermon, April 17, 1608, at the consecration 

" Vale Royal of England, written by William Webb, p- 22. 
t Christ s College Register. 

u 2 



292 WORTHIES OF CHESTER. 

of James Montague, bishop of Bath and Wells, irrefragably 
proving therein episcopacy jure divino. 

" He that receiveth a bishop in the name of a bishop, shall 
receive a bishop s reward." * It was not long before Doctor 
Dounham was made bishop of Derry, in Ireland, then newly 
augmented with the addition of Londonderry ; because so 
planted with English, it was easy to find London in Derry, but 
not Derry in Derry, so much disguised from itself with new 
buildings. But this learned bishop was the greatest beauty 
thereof, endeavouring by gentleness to cicurate and civilize the 
wild Irish, and proved very successful therein. The certain date 

of his death I cannot attain. 

i 

SEAMEN. 

DAVID MIDDLETON was born in this city, as his kinsmanf 
and my friend hath informed me. He was one of those who 
effectually contributed his assistance to the making of through 
lights in the world ; I mean, new discoveries in the East and West 
Indies, as we may read at large in his own printed relation. % 

The tender-hearted reader, whose affections go along with his 
eye, will sadly sympathize with his sufferings, so many and great 
his dangers, with cannibals and Portuguese, crocodiles and Hol 
landers, till at last he accomplished his intentions, and settled 
the English trade at Bantam : I meet with no mention of him 
after 1610. 

Sir HENRY MIDDLETON, Knight, was younger brother (as I 
take it) to the former, deservedly knighted for his great pains 
and perils in advancing the English trade. Amongst many, 
most remarkable is his voyage into the Red Sea, which had like 
to have proved the Dead Sea unto him; I mean, cost him his 
life. Here he was told to land at Moha, by the treacherous 
Aga, and then had eight of his men barbarously slain, himself 
and seven more chained up by the necks. The pretence was, 
because that port was the door of the holy city, which (though 
it be Jerusalem in the language of the Scripture) is Mecca in 
the phrase of the Alcoran, and it is capital for any Christian to 
come so near thereunto. Then was he sent eight-score miles and 
upwards to the bashaw at Zenan in Arabia, in the month 
of January 1611. This city of Zenan lieth but sixteen degrees 
and fifteen minutes of northern latitude from the equator ; and 
yet was so cold, that there was ice of a finger s thickness in one 
night, as the said Sir Henry did relate. || This confuteth the 
character of these countries, misapprehended by antiquity not to 
be habitable for the excess of heat therein. 

At last the Turkish bashaw gave him leave to depart ; and, 

* Matt. x. 41. f Master John Spencer, library keeper of Zion College. 

I Purchas s Pilgrims, part I. p. 226, et seq. Matthew iv. 5. 

|| Purchas s Pilgrims, lib. iii. p. 255. 



WRITERS. 293 

sailing eastwards, he repaired himself, by a gainful composition 
with the Indians, for the losses he had sustained by the Turks. 
His ship, called "The Traders Increase," well answered the 
name thereof, until it pleased God to visit his men therein with 
a strange disease, whereof one hundred English deceased ; the 
grief whereat was conceived the cause of this worthy knight s 
death, May 24, 1613, whose name will ever survive whilst Mid- 
dleton s Bay (from him so called) appeareth in the Dutch cards. 

WRITERS. 

ROGER of CHESTER was born and bred therein, a Bene 
dictine monk in Saint Werburg s. In obedience to the bishop 
of Chester, he wrote " A British Chronicle from the beginning 
of the world." This was the fashion of all historians of that 
age, running to take a long rise [from the creation itself], 
that so (it seems) they might leap the further with the greater 
force. Our Roger s Chronicle was like a ship with double 
decks ; first only continuing it to the year 1314 ; and then, re 
suming his subject, he superadded five and twenty years more 
thereunto, entitling it " Polycratica Temporum." 

Both Bale and Pitts praise him for pure Latin (a rarity 
in that age) ; and assign 1339 the time of his death, Chester the 
place of his burial. 

RANDAL, or RANULPH HYGDEN (commonly called Ranulph 
of Chester) was bred a Benedictine in Saint Werburg. He not 
only vamped the history of Roger aforesaid ; but made a large 
one of his own, from the beginning of the world, commendable 
for his method and modesty therein. 

Method; assigning in the margent the date of each action. 
We read, Genesis i. that light was made on the first and 
the sun on the fourth day of the creation; when the light 
(formerly diffused and dispersed in the heavens) was contracted, 
united, and fixed in one full body thereof. Thus the notation of 
times confusedly scattered in many ancient authors (as to 
our English actions) are by our Ranulphus reduced into 
an entire bulk of chronology. 

Modesty ; who, to his great commendation, " unicuique su- 
orum authorum honorem integrum servans,"* confesseth him 
self (to use his own expression), with Ruth the Moabite, " to 
have gleaned after other reapers." He calleth his book " Poly- 



cromcon/- 



He continued sixty-four years a monk, and, dying very aged, 
1363, was buried in Chester. 

HENRY BRADSHAW was born in this city, and lived a Bene 
dictine therein ; a diligent historian, having written no bad 

* Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. 6. n. 11. 



294 WORTHIES OF CHESTER. 

chronicle, and another book of the life of Saint Werburg 
in verse. Take a taste at once, both of his poetry and the 
original building of the city, both for beauty alike : 

" The founder of this city, as saith Polychronicon, 

Was Leon Gawer, a mighty strong giant, 
Which builded caves and dungeons many a one, 
No goodly building, ne proper, ne pleasant." 

These his verses might have passed with praise, had he lived 
(as Arnoldus Vion doth erroneously insinuate*) anno 1346 ; but, 
flourishing more than a century since [viz. 1513], they are hardly 
to be excused. However, Balef informeth us that he was (the 
diamond in the ring) "pro ea ipsa setate, admodum pius ;" and 
so we dismiss his memory with commendation. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

EDWARD BRIERWOOD was, as I am informed, born in this 
city, bred in Brazen-nose College in Oxford. Being candidate 
for a fellowship, he lost it without loss of credit ; for, where pre 
ferment goes more by favour than merit, the rejected have more 
honour than the elected. 

This ill success did him no more hurt than a rub doth to an 
over-thrown bowl, bringing it the nearer to the mark. He was 
not the more sullen, but the more serious in his studies, retiring 
himself to Saint Mary Hall, till he became a most accomplished 
scholar in logic; witness his worthy work thereof, Mathematics ; 
being afterwards a lecturer thereof in Gresham College; all 
learned and many modern languages, hereof he wrote a learned 
book, called his "Enquiries." No sacrilegious inquiries, 
whereof our age doth surfeit ; " it is a snare after vows to make 
inquiries ;"J but judicious disquisitions of the original and ex 
tent of languages. 

A little before his death, pens were brandished betwixt 
Master Byfield and him, about the keeping of the sabbath; 
Master Brierwood learnedly maintaining that the other exacted 
more strictness therein than God enjoined. Let me contribute 
my symbol on this subject. Our Saviour is said to be made 
"under the law," and yet he saith of himself, "The Son of 
man is Lord even of the sabbath." || Indeed he was 
made under the Fourth commandment, as under the rest of the 
law, to observe the dominion, not tyranny thereof usurped, 
partly by the misinterpretation of the priests, partly by the mis 
apprehension of the people ; and therefore, both by his life and 
doctrine, did manumiss men from that vassalage," that the day 
instituted for rest and repose should not be abused for self af 
fliction and torment. 

To return to our brierwood. I have heard a great scholar in 

Pits, de Angliae Scriptoribus, p. 690. 

De Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. 9. n. 17. J Prov. xx. 25. 

Gal. iv. 4. || Matth. xii. 8. 



BENEFACTORS. 295 

England say, " That he was the fittest man whom he knew in 
England, to sit at the elbow of a professor to prompt him." 
But, in my opinion, he was a very proper person to discharge 
the place himself. I conjecture his death about 1613. 

JOHN DOWNHAM, younger son of William Downham bishop 
of Chester, was, as far as my best inquiry can recover, born in 
this city ; bred in Cambridge, B. D. and afterwards became a 
painful and profitable preacher in London. He was the first 
who commendably discharged that eminent lecture, plentifully 
endowed by Master Jones of Monmouth ;* and is memorable 
to posterity for his worthy work of " The Christian Warfare." 
Well had it been for England, had no other war been used 
therein for this last twenty years, all pious persons being com 
fortably concerned in the prosecution thereof; seriously consi 
dering that their armour is of proof, their quarrel is lawful, their 
fight is long, their foes are fierce, their company are saints, their 
captain is Christ, their conquest is certain, their crown is 
Heaven. This grave divine died, very aged, about the year 
1644. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

WILLIAM ALDERSEY, a pious and godly man, was mayor of 
the city 1560, demeaning himself in his place with much gravity 
and discretion. He caused, with much cost and industry, the 
catalogue of the mayors of Chester to be completed ; and that on 
this occasion. He found by authentic evidences, that one Alan 
de Whetly had been four times mayor of Chester, and yet his 
name was never mentioned in the ordinary Book of Mayors. 
This put this good magistrate on the employment (detection of 
faults informs little without correction of them) to amend and 
complete that lame list out of their records. Thus imperfections 
may occasion perfection ; which makes me to hope that here 
after the defects of this my book (without prejudice to my pro 
fit or credit) will be judiciously discovered, and industriously 
amended by others. This William died the twelfth of October, 
anno 1577 ; and lieth buried in the chancel of Saint OswakPs, 
under a fair stone of alabaster. 

SIR THOMAS OFFLEY, son to William Offley, was born in the 
city of Chester ;t and bred a merchant-tailor in London, 
whereof he became lord mayor anno 1556. The useful custom 
of the night-bellman (preventing many fires and more felonies) 
began in his mayoralty. He was the Zacchaeus of London, not 
for his low stature, but his high charity, bequeathing the half of 
his estate (computed by a reverend divine to amount to five 

* In the church behind the Exchange. f Stow s Survey of London, p. 585. 



WORTHIES OF CHESTER. 

thousand pounds*) unto the poor,, although he had children of 
his own. Yea, he appointed that two hundred pounds should 
be taken out of the other half (left to his son Henry), and em 
ployed to charitable uses. He died 1560 : and was buried in 
the church of Saint Andrew s Undershaft. I am heartily sorry 
to meet with this passage in my author : f 

" Sir Thomas Offley bequeatheth one half of all his goods to 
charitable actions. But the parish (meaning St. Andrew s 
Undershaft) received little benefit thereby." 

If the testator s will were not justly performed, it soundeth 
to the shame and blame of his executors. But if the charity of 
Sir Thomas acted eminiis not comminus, I mean at some dis 
tance, and not at his own habitation, it was no injury for any 
to dispose of his own at his own pleasure. I find also two other 
of the same surname, not mutually more allied in blood, than in 
charitable dispositions: 

Master Hugh Offley, leather-seller, sheriff of London in the 
year 1588, buried also in Saint Andrew s aforesaid. Besides 
many other benefactions^ he gave six hundred pounds to this 
city, to put forth young men. 

Mr. Robert Offley, bred in London, and (as I take it) brother 
to the aforesaid Hugh Offley, did, in the year of our Lord 1596, 
bestow six hundred pounds on twenty-four young men in Ches 
ter, whereof twelve were apprentices. || I know not the exact 
date of his departure. 

It is hard to instance, in a lease, of kinsmen, born so far from, 
bred in London, meeting together in such bountiful perform 
ances. 

I believe it was the first of these three Offleys on whom the 
rhythm was made, 

" Offley three dishes had of daily roast ; 
An egg, an apple, and (the third) a toast." 

This I behold neither sin nor shame in him, feeding himself 
on plain and wholesome repast, that he might feast others by 
his bounty, and thereby deserving rather praise than a jeer from 
posterity. 

\ 

JOHN TERER, Gentleman, and a member of this city. He 
erected a seemly water-work, built steeple-wise, at the Bridge- 
gate, by his own ingenious industry and charge. This since 
hath served for the conveying of river water from the cistern, in 
the top of that work, through pipes of lead and wood, to the 
citizens houses, to their great conveniences. I could wish all 
designs in the like nature hopefully begun may as happily be 
completed. My industry cannot attain the exact time of his 

k Dr. Willett, in his " Catalogue of Good Works since the Reformation," p. 1226. 
t Stow s Survey of London, p. 152. J Ibidem, p. 154. 

Vale Royal of England, p. 207. || Ibid. 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 297 

death ; only I find that his son of the same name endeavoured 
the like, to bring water from a fine spring to the midst of this 
city, which, I believe, was effected. 

THE FAREWELL. 

And now being to take our leave of this ancient and honour 
able city, the worst that I wish it is, that the distance betwixt 
Dee and the New-tower may be made up; all obstructions 
being removed, which cause or occasion the same. That the 
rings on the New-tower (now only for sight) may be restor 
ed to the service for which they were first intended, to fasten 
vessels thereunto. That the vessels on that river (lately dege 
nerated from ships into barks) may grow up again to their 
former strength and stature. 



WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE 
THE TIME OF FULLER. 

Sir John BIRKENHEAD, M. P., loyal poet; born at Rudheath 
1615 ; died 1679. 

Thomas B RE RETON, dramatic writer ; died about 1721. 

William BROOME, poet, translator of Homer, associate of 
Pope ; died 1745. 

William BURGAYNIE, author; born at Pulford 1620; died 1689. 

Hugh CHOLMONDELEY, dean of Chester, antiquary and gene 
alogist ; born at Vale Royal 1772; died 1815. 

William COWPER, physician and antiquary ; born at Chester ; 
died 1767. 

Randle HOLMES, four antiquaries and collectors of the same 
name, father, son, grandson, and great grandson; born at 
Chester; the eldest died 1655, his son 1659, grandson 1699, 
and great grandson 1707. 

Samuel JOHNSON, dancing master, dramatist, and author of 
" Hurlothrumbo ;" died about 1773. 

Daniel KING, author of " Vale Royal;" 17th century. 

Nathaniel LANCASTER, divine, author of an " Essay on Deli 
cacy; 1700. 

Theophilus LINDSEY, Unitarian divine, born at Middlewich 
1723; died 1803. 

Samuel MOLYNEUX, astronomer, born at Chester, 1689. 

William SHIPPEN, " honest Shippen," leader of the Tories, 
born at Stockport; died 1741. 

John SwtNTON, learned antiquary; born at Bexton 1703 ; died 
1774. 

James UPTON, divine and critic ; born 1670. 

Sir John VANBURGH, architect and dramatist ; born at Chester 
1672 ; died 1726. 



298 WORTHIES OF CHESHIRE. 

John WATSON, historian of Halifax in Yorkshire ; born at 

Lyme-cum-Hanley 1724. 
John WHITEHURST, watchmaker, engineer, and philosopher ; 

born at Congleton 1713 ; died 1788. 
Thomas WILSON, learned bishop of Sodor and Man; born at 

Burton-in-Wirral 1663; died 1755. 



% The county of Chester has been fortunate in its historians. Even so early as 
the year 1656, a work entitled the " Vale Royal of England, or the County Pala 
tine of Chester illustrated, &c." was published in a folio volume by Messrs. Smith 
and Webb ; and in 1673, Sir Peter Leycester produced his " Historical Antiquities." 
In 1817, Mr. J. H. Hanshall brought out a history of the county in one 
volume 4to ; but the history of the county and city of Chester, by Mr. Geo. Orme- 
rod, in 3 vols. folio (1819), is one of the most splendid topographical works of 
modern times, and contains all the information that could be desired. Numerous 
local histories have also been published, at different times ; viz. of Lyme, by the 
Rev. W. Marriott (1810) ; of Macclesfield (1817) ; of Nantwich, by J. W. Platt 
(1818) ; of Congleton, by S. Yates (1819); of Chester (1830), &c ED. 



CORNWALL. 



IT hath its name partly from the form, partly from the inha 
bitants thereof. From the former it is so called, because narrow 
in fashion of a horn, which (by the way) is a word of all others 
passing through both learned and modern languages with the 
least variation : 1. Keren, Hebrew; 2. Keras, Greek; 3. Cornu, 
Latin; 4. Corn, French; 5. Cuerno, Spanish; 6. Corno, Italian ; 
7. Horn, English ; 8. Home, Dutch ; 9. Kerne, Welsh. 

The latter, Wale, signifies strangers, for such were the inhabi 
tants of this county reputed by their neighbours. 

It hath Devonshire on the west, divided from it generally with 
the river Tamer, encompassed with the sea on all other sides, 
affording plenty of harbours ; so that foreigners, in their passage 
to or from Spain, Ireland, the Levant, East or West Indies, 
sometimes touch herewith ; sometimes are driven hither against 
their will, but never without the profit of the inhabitants, ac 
cording to the common proverb, " Where the horse lieth down, 
there some hairs will be found." 

The language of the natives is a different tongue from the 
English, and dialect from the Welsh, as more easy to be pro 
nounced ; and is sufficiently copious to express the conceits of 
a good wit, both in prose and verse. Some have avouched it 
derived from the Greek, producing for the proof thereof many 
words of one sense in both : as kentron, a spur ; schaphe, a boat ; 
ronchi, snoring, &c. But the judicious behold these as no re 
gular congruities, but casual coincidences, the like to which may 
be found in languages of the greatest distance, which never met 
together since they parted at the confusion of Babel. Thus one 
would enforce a conformity between the Hebrew and English, 
because one of the three giant s sons of Anak was called Ahiman. 

The Cornish tongue affordeth but two natural oaths, or three 
at most ;* but whether each of them be according to the kinds of 
oaths divided by the schoolmen, one assertory, the other promis 
sory, to which some add a third, comminatory, is to me unknown. 
The worst is, the common Cornish supply this (I will not say 
defect) not only with swearing the same often over, but also by 
borrowing other oaths of the English. 



* Carcw s Survey of Cornwall, page 55. 



300 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
DIAMONDS. 

These of themselves sound high, till the addition of Cornish 
subtracteth from their valuation. In blackness and hardness 
they are far short of the Indian : yet, set with a good foil 
(advantaged hypocrisy passeth often for sincerity) may at the first 
sight deceive no unskilful lapidary. As their lustre is less than 
Orient diamonds, so herein they exceed them, that nature hath 
made both their face and their dressing, by whom they are 
pointed and polished. But enough hereof, the rather because 
some, from the Latin names of jewels, Jocalia, " things to be 
jested and played with," and Baubellce, " things which are trifles 
and baubles/ spitefully collect that stones, accounted precious, 
are more beholding to the consent of fancy, than their own in 
trinsic worth, for their high valuation. 

AMBERGRIS. 

. I confess this precious commodity is fixed to no place in the 
world, as too great a treasure for any one country to engross ; 
and therefore it is only fluctuating, and casually found by small 
parcels, sometimes in one place, and sometimes in another ; yet 
because the last, greatest, and best quantity thereof, that 
ever this age did behold, was found on the coasts of this county, 
we will here insert a little of the name, nature, and use thereof. 

It is called Ambra-gresia, that is, grey amber, from the co 
lour thereof; which modern name, utterly unknown to the 
ancients, doth speak it to be of later invention ; whereof a 
learned Doctor of Physic hath assigned this probable reason, 
because it was never found in the Midland sea (which was in 
effect all the seas to the ancients), but only in the main ocean, 
which was not navigated on till within this last two hundred 
years, since seamen have gotten the use of the chart and com 
pass. 

It is almost as hard to know what it is, as where to find it. 
Some will have it the sperm of a fish, or some other unctious 
matter arising from them ; others, that it is the foam of the sea, 
or some excrescency thence, boiled to such a height by the 
heat of the sun ; others, that it is a gum that grows on the 
shore. In a word, no certainty can be collected herein, some 
physicians holding one way, and some another. But this is 
most sure, that apothecaries hold it at five pounds an ounce, 
which some say is dearer than ever it was in the memory of 
man. 

It is a rare cordial for the refreshing of the spirits, and sove 
reign for the strengthening the head, besides the most fragrant 
scent, far stronger in consort when compounded with other 
things than when singly itself. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES. 301 

A mass of this ambergris was, about the third year of king 
Charles, found in this county, at low water, close to the shore 
of the manor of Anthony, then belonging to Richard Carew, 
Esquire. 

GARLIC. 

Here is a great and sudden fall indeed, from the sweetest of 
gums to the most stinking of roots. Yet is not the distance 
so great, if the worth of the garlic be such as some have avouched 
it. Not to speak of the murmuring Israelites,* who prized it 
before manna itself : some avow it sovereign for men and beasts 
in most maladies. Indeed the scent thereof is somewhat va 
liant and offensive ; but wise men will be contented to hold their 
noses, on condition they may thereby hold or recover their 
health. Indeed a large book is written de usu allii ; which if it 
hold proportion with truth, one would wonder any man should 
be sick and die, who hath garlic growing in his garden. Sure 
I am our palate people are much pleased therewith, as giving a 
delicious haut-gout to most meats they eat, as tasted and smelt 
in their sauce, though not seen therein. The best garlic is about 
Stratton in this county.f 

PILCHARDS. 

Plenty hereof are taken in these parts, persecuted to the 
shore by their enemies the tunny and hake, till, in pursuance of 
their private revenge, they all become a prey to the fisherman. 
The pilchard may seem contemptible in itself, being so small, 
though the wit of the vulgar here will tell you they have seen 
many pilchards an ell long, understand it laid at length, head 
and tail together. Their numbers are incredible, employing a 
power of poor people in polling (that is, beheading), gutting, 
splitting, powdering, and drying them ; and then (by the name of 
fumadoes], with oil and a lemon they are meat for the mightiest 
Don in Spain. I wish not only their nets, but fish, may hold, 
suspecting their daily decay, their shoals usually shifting coasts, 
and verging more westward to Ireland. Other fish here be, 
which turn to good account ; all welcome to fishermen s hooks, 
save the star-fish, esteemed contagious. 

BLUE SLATE. 

These are commonly found under the walling-slate, when the 
depth hath brought the workmen to the water. They are thin 
in substance, clear in colour, light in weight, and lasting in con 
tinuance. Generally they carry so good a regard, that (besides 
the supply of home-provisions) great store of them are imported 
into other parts of the land, and transported into France and 
the Low Countries. All that I have to say of slate is, that 

* Numbers xi. 5. t Camden s Britannia, in Cornwall. 



302 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

Cinyra, the son of Agriopee, is said first to have found them in 
Cyprus, for the covering of houses.* 

TIN. 

The most and best in Christendom this county doth produce. 
Yea, it was the only tin in Europe, until a fugitive mmer, run 
ning hence, discovered tin in Voiteland, in the confines of 
Bohemia. God may be said in this county " to rain meat " 
(suck the plenty thereof), "and give dishes too," made of pew 
ter, which hath tin for the father, and lead for the mother 
thereof, and in our age doth matrizare too much. Vast their 
expense in making their adits (understand them addresses and 
accesses to the mine) with dressing, breaking, stamping, drying, 
grazing, washing, and melting, all plentifully repaid in the sell 
ing of it. 

The discovery of many of these mines has been very re 
markable ; for some have gained more sleeping than others 
waking, having dreamt that in such (improbable) places, tin was 
to be found, and, pursuing such directions, have found it accord 
ingly. 

The poet, we know, feigneth two ports of dreams : 

Sunt gemince somni portce : quarum alteraferlur 
Cornea, qu& verisfacilis datur exitus umbris : 
Allera, candenti perfecla nitens elephanto, 
Sed falsa ad cesium mittunt insomnia manes.^ 

" Dreams have two gates : one made (they say) of horn ; 

By this port pass true and prophetic dreams : 
White ivory the other doth adorn ; 

By this false shades and lying fancy s streams." 

Strange that the best gate for matter (ivory) should present 
the worst (false) dreams. It seems these Cornish dreams 
passed through the Horny-gate, which fell out so happily, that 
thereby many have been enriched, and left great estates to their 
posterity. 

I cannot take my leave of these tinners, until I have ob 
served a strange practice of them, that once in seven or eight 
years they burn down (and that to their great profit) their own 
melting-houses. I remember a merry epigram in Martial on 
one Tongilian, who had his house in Rome casually (reputed) 
burnt, and gained ten times as much by his friends contribution 
to his loss : 

Collatum est decies ; rogo non poles ipse videri 
Incendisse tuam, Tongiliane, domum.+ 

" Gaining tenfold, tell truly, I desire, 
Tongilian, didst not set thy house on fire ? " 

But here the tinners avow themselves incendiaries of their 
own houses, on a profitable account : for, during the tin s melt- 

Polydore Vergil, de Inventione Rerum, in lib. iii. cap. 8. p. 251. 
Virgil, ^Eneid. vi. ver. 893. $ Lib. iii, Epig. 5 1 . 



BUILDINGS. 303 

ing in the blowing-house, " diverse light sparkles thereof are, 
by the forcible wind which the bellows sendeth forth, driven up 
to the thatched roof, on the burning whereof they find so much 
of this light tin in the ashes, as payeth for the new building, 
with a gainful overplus." 

THE BUILDINGS. 

Master Attorney Noy was wont pleasantly to say, that his 
house had no fault in it, save only that " it was too near unto 
London," though indeed distanced thence full three hundred 
miles, in the remoter part of this county. But seriously one 
may say, and defend it, that the distance of Cornwall from that 
metropolis is a convenient inconveniency. As for the structure 
of their houses, they are generally but mean, though the nobi 
lity and gentry have handsome habitations, and amongst them 
none excelleth. 

MOUNT-EDGECOMBE. 

It was built by Sir Richard Edgecombe, Knight. Take his 
character from one who very well knew him, " mildness and 
stoutness, diffidence and wisdom, deliberateness of undertakings, 
and sufficiency of effecting, made in him a more commendable 
than blazing mixture of virtue/ * In the reign of queen Mary 
(about the year 1555) he gave entertainment at one time, for 
some good space, to the admirals of the English, Spanish, and 
Netherland, and many noblemen besides. A passage the more 
remarkable, because I am confident that the admirals of those 
nations never met since (if ever before) amicably at the same 
table. Mount Edgecombe was the scene of this hospitality ; a 
house new built and named by the aforesaid knight, a square 
structure with a round turret at each end, garreted on the top. 
The hall (rising above the rest) yieldeth a stately sound as one 
entereth it ; the parlour and dining-room afford a large and di 
versified prospect both of sea and land. The high situation 
(cool in summer, yet not cold in winter) giveth health : the 
neighbour river wealth : two block-houses great safety : and the 
town of Plymouth good company unto it. Nor must I forget 
the fruitful ground about it (pleasure without profit is but a 
flower without a root) ; stored with wood, timber, fruit, deer, 
and connies, a sufficiency of pasture, arable, and meadow, with 
stone, lime, marl, and what not. 

I write not this to tempt the reader to the breach of the 
tenth commandment, " to covet his neighbour s house " and 
one line in the prevention thereof., I have been credibly in 
formed that the duke of Medina Sidonia, admiral of the Spanish 
fleet in the year eighty-eight, was so affected at the sight of this 
house (though but beholding it at a distance, from the sea) that 

* Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 100. 



304 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

he resolved it for his own possession in the partage of this king 
dom (blame him not if choosing best for himself), which they 
pre-conquered in their hopes and expectation. But he had 
catched a great cold, had he had no other clothes to wear than 
those which were to be made of a skin of a bear not yet killed. 

MEDICINAL WATERS. 

I know none in this county which are reported to be sovereign 
constantly for any diseases. Yet I meet with one so remarkable 
a recovery, that it must not be omitted. However, I remember 
his good counsel, "he that telleth a miraculous truth must 
always carry his author at his back/ I will only transcribe his 
words, speaking of the good offices which angels do to God s 
servants : " Of this kind was that (no less than miraculous) cure, 
which at Saint Madern s in Cornwall, was wrought upon a poor 
cripple, whereof (besides the attestation of many hundred of the 
neighbours) I took a strict and impartial examination in my last 
visitation. This man, for sixteen years together, was fain to 
walk upon his hands, by reason the sinews of his legs were so 
contracted ; and, upon monitions in his dream to wash in that 
well, was suddenly so restored to his limbs, that I saw him able 
both to walk and get his own maintenance, I found here was 
neither art nor collusion. The thing done (the author invisible) 
of God." * 

So authentical an author (without any other assistance ad 
corroborandum) is enough to get belief in any, save such surly 
souls who are resolved on infidelity of what their own eyes have 
not beheld. 

THE WONDERS. 

If the word be strained up to the height, I confess Cornwall 
affordeth none at all ; but if it be slackened, and let down a 
little, there are those things which this Duchy doth tender, and 
we all willing to take for WONDERS, for discourse sake, at the 
least; viz. 

THE HURLERS. 

These are stones competently distanced, whom tradition re- 
porteth to be formerly men metamorphosed into stones, for 
hurling (a sport peculiar to Cornwall) on, and so profaning of, 
the Lord s-day. Thus, unequally yoking Scripture and Ovid 
together, the tale is made up betwixt them. But, seeing such 
devotion is not durable which is founded on deceit, we protest 
against and reject this fiction ; the rather, because the same 
lawgiver, who enjoined us, " Remember thou keepest holy the 
Sabbath-day," gave us also in command, " Thou shalt not bear 
false witness against thy neighbour ; and we will not accept a 
false doctrine, to make a true use thereof. Yet surely conform- 

Doctor Joseph Hall, then bishop of Exeter, since of Norwich, in his book 
called " The Great Mystery of Godliness," p. 169.* 



THE WON 7 DERS. 305 

able to the judgment of those times was this tradition made ; 
and thence one may collect that boisterous exercises (or labours 
rather), so far from refreshing the weary, that they weary the 
refreshed, are utterly inconsistent with the conscientious keep 
ing of that day, and deserve heavy punishments, for profaning 
thereof. 

Otherwise we really believe, these stones were originally set 
up for limits and bounds ; or else a monument erected in 
memory of some victory here achieved. 

MAIN AMBER. 

Main is in Cornish the stone; and Amber, as some conceive, 
of Ambrosius that valiant Briton, erected probably by him on 
some victory achieved against the Romans, or some other 
enemies.* This is a master-piece of mathematics and critical 
proportions, being a great stone of so exact position on the top 
of a rock, that any weakness by touching it may move it, and 
yet no force can remove it, so justly it is poised. I have heard 
in common discourse, when this Main Amber hath been made 
the emblem of such men s dispositions, who would listen to all 
counsel, and seem inclined thereunto, but are so fixed, that 
no reason can alter them from their first resolution. 

But know, reader, that this wonder is now unwondered ; for 
I am credibly informed, that some soldiers of late have utterly 
destroyed it. Oh, how dangerous is it for art to stand in the 
way where ignorance is to pass ! Surely covetousness could 
not tempt them thereunto, though it did make one to deface 
a fair monument in Turkey, on this occasion : 

A tomb was erected near the highway (according to the 
fashion of that country) on some person of quality, consisting 
of a pillar ; and on the top thereof a chapiter, or great globe 
of stone, whereon was wTitten, in the Turkish tongue, 

" The brains are in the Head." 

This passed many years undemolished, it being piaculum there 
to violate the concernment of the dead, until one, not of more 
conscience, but cunning, than others, who had passed by it, 
resolved to unriddle the meaning of this inscription. Breaking 
the hollow globe open, he found it full of gold ; departed the 
richer, not the honester, for his discovery. Sure I am, if any 
such temptation invited the soldiers to this act, they missed 
their mark therein. 

Their pretence, as I understand, to this destructive design, 
was reformation ; some people, as they say, making an idol 
thereof: which if true, I pity the destroying of Main Amber, 
no more than the stamping and pulverizing of the brazen ser 
pent by king Hezekiah. But I cannot believe so much stu- 

* Camden s English Britannia, in Cornwall. 
VOL. I. X 



306 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

pidity in Christians. They took much pains, by cutting off the 
stone, to dislodge it from its centre, (in how few minutes may 
envy ruin what art hath raised in more hours) ; and now Corn 
wall hath one artificial wonder fewer than it had before ; except 
any will say that, to keep up the number, the unexampled envy 
of these soldiers may be substituted in the room .thereof. And 
let them sink into obscurity, that hope to swim in credit by 
such mis-achievements. 

PROVERBS. 

" By Tre, Pol, and Pen, 
You shall know the Cornish men."] 

These three words are the dictionary of such surnames which 
are originally Cornish ; and though nouns in sense, I may fitly 
term them prepositions. 

1 . Tre signifieth a town ; hence Tre-fry, Tre-lawny, Tre-va- 
nion, &c. 2. Pol signifieth an head ; hence Pol- whele. 3. Pen 
signifieth a top ; hence Pen-tire, Pen-rose, Pen-kevil, &c. 

Some add to these a fourth indication, viz. Car (which I 
guess to signify a rock) ; as Car-mino, Car-zew, &c. But I dare 
not make additions, but present it as I find it in my author. 
" To give one a Cornish hug."] 

The Cornish are masters of the art of wrestling ; so that if 
the Olympian games were now in fashion, they would come 
away with the victory. Their hug is a cunning close with their 
fellow-combatant ; the fruit whereof is his fair fall, or foil at the 
least. It is figuratively applicable to the deceitful dealing of 
such, who secretly design their overthrow whom they openly 
embrace. 

" Hen gs ten Down, well y wrought, 
Is worth London town, dear ybought." *] 

The truth hereof none can confirm, or confute : seeing under 
ground wealth is a nemo scit, and vast may the treasure be of 
tin in this down. Sure I am, that the gainful plenty of metal 
formerly afforded in this place is now fallen to a scant-saving 
scarcity. But, to make the proverb true, it is possible that the 
Cornish diamonds found therein may be pure and orient (as 
better concocted) in -the bowels thereof ; for, though crafty (not 
to say dishonest) chapmen put the best grain in the top, and 
worst in the bottom, of their sack; such is the integrity of 
Nature, that the coarsest in this kind are higher, and the purest 
still the lowest. 

" Tru-ru, Triveth-eu, Ombdma geveth 7Vy-ru."f ] 

Which is to say, " Truru consisteth of three streets ; and it 
shall in time be said, Here. Tru-ru stood." I trust the men 
of this town are too wise, to give credit to such predictions, 
which may justly prove true to the superstitious believers 

* Carew s Survey of Cornwall, fol. 115. f Idem, fol. 141. 



PROVERBS SAINTS. 307 

thereof. Let them serve God, and defy the devil with all his 
pseudo-prophecies. Like to this is another fond observation, 
presaging some sad success to this town, because ru, ru, which 
in English is woe, woe, is twice in the Cornish name thereof. 
But, let the men of Truru but practise the first syllable in the 
name of their town, and they may be safe and secure from any 
danger in the second. 

" He doth sail into Cornwall without a bark."] 

This is an Italian proverb, where it passeth for a description 
(or derision rather) of such a man who is wronged by his wife s 
disloyalty. 

I wonder the Italians should take such pains to travel so far 
to fetch this expression, having both the name and matter 
nearer home. Name ; having the field " Cornetus Campus in 
agro Falisco "* (called Cornet o at this day) ; and a people called 
Corni f in Latium, with the Cornicti monies near Tiber, not to 
speak of its two promontories, termed by good authors " Cor- 
nua duo Italics," f the two horns of Italy. Matter keeping 
their wives under restraint, as generally full of jealousy ; which, 
if just, I much bemoan the jailors ; if not, I more pity their 
prisoners. 

Whereas in our Cornwall the wives liberty is the due reward 
of their chastity, and the cause of their husbands comfortable 
confidence therein. 

" He is to be summoned before the Mayor of Halgaver. ] 
This is a jocular and imaginary court, wherewith men make 
merriment to themselves, presenting such persons as go slovenly 
in their attire, untrussed, wanting a spur, &c. ; where judgment 
in formal terms is given against them, and executed more to the 
scorn than hurt of the persons. But enough hereof, lest I be 
summoned thither myself. 

" When Dudman and Ramehead meet."] 

These are two Forelands, well known to sailors, well nigh 
twenty miles asunder; and the proverb passeth for the peri 
phrasis of an impossibility. However, these two points have 
since met together (though not in position) in possession of the 
same owner ; Sir Pierce Edgecombe enjoying one in his own, 
the other in right of his wife.j| 

SAINTS. 

SAINT KIBY was son to Solomon duke of Cornwall, whom 
several inducements moved to travel. First, because " a Pro 
phet hath the least honour in his own country." Secondly, 
because Britain at that time was infected with Arianisme. 
Thirdly, because he had read so much of the works, and heard 
more of the worth, of Saint Hilary, bishop of Poictiers in 

Vitruvius, lib. viii. cap. 3. f Halicarnassus. 

t Plin. lib. iii. cap. 5. Mela, lib. it. cap. 4. 
. Carew s Survey of Cornwall, fol. 126. || Ibid. fol. 141. 

X 2 



308 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

France. This main motive made him address himself to that 
worthy father, with whom he lived fifty years ; and afterwards, 
saith learned Leland, was by him made bishop of the Isle of 
Anglesey. 

Pardon me, reader, if, suspending my belief herein, seeing 
surely that holy and humble French saint would not pretend to 
any metropolitical power, in appointing a bishop in Britain. 
More probable it is that St. Hilary made him a bishop at large, 
sine titulo, whereof there are some precedents in antiquity. 
However into Wales he went, and there converted the northern 
parts thereof to, and confirmed the rest in, Christianity. 

A three-fold memorial is in the Isle of Anglesea, extant at 
this day. One of his master, in Point Hilary ; another of him 
self, in Caer-Guiby; and a third of both, in Holyhead. He 
flourished about the year of our lord 380. 

URSULA, daughter to Dinoth duke of Cornwall, was born in 
this county. This is she whose life is loaden with such anticro- 
nisms and improbabilities, that it is questionable whether this 
fable was ever founded in a truth, or hath any thing in history 
for its original. 

This Ursula is said to have carried over out of Britain eleven 
thousand maids of prime quality, besides threescore thousand of 
meaner rank (seventy-one thousand in all, a prodigious number) 
to be married to so many in little Britain in France.* Prepos 
terous, in my mind, to proffer themselves ; and it had argued 
more modesty if their husbands had fetched them hence. 

But blame them not, who paid so dear for their adventures. 
All shipped from London, some of them were drowned in their 
passage, the rest slain by the Huns of Colen, say some; at 
Rome, say others, by king Attila under Gratian the emperor : 
mendacium cequabile, observing equal temper of untruth, in time, 
place, and person. However, there is a church at Colen dedi 
cated to their memories, where the Virgin Earth (let the 
reporter t have the whetstone) will digest no other body, no not 
the corpse of an infant newly baptised (as good a maid, I believe, 
as the best of them) but will vomit it up in the night time again 
as if they had never been buried. This massacre is reported to 
have happened in the year of our Lord 383. 

SAINT MELIORUS was only son of Melianus, Duke of this 
county, who, being secretly made a Christian, was so maliced by 
Rinaldus, his Pagan brother-in-law, that he first cut off his right 
hand, and then his left-leg (no reason of this transposed method 
of cruelty, save cruelty), and at last his head, about the year 411; 
whose body being buried in some old church in this county, by 

* See Master Selden s Notes on Polyolbion, p. 181. 

t" Richard White of Basingstoke, in History of British Martyrs ; and English Mar- 
tyrology, on October 21. 



PRELATES. 309 

the miracles reported to be done thereat, procured the reputation 
of a Saint to his memory.* 

PRELATES. 

WILLIAM DE GREN-VIL was born of a worshipful family in 
this county ; and became canon of York, dean of Chichester, 
chancellor of England under king Edward the First, and arch 
bishop of York.f But the worst was, two years his confirma 
tion was deferred, until he had paid nine thousand five hundred 
marks. Let him thank the Pope, who gave him the odd five 
hundred, not mounting it to even ten thousand. Besides, he 
had this favour, not as many others to be consecrated by a 
proxy, but the very hands of Pope Clement the Fifth. This 
payment reduced him to such poverty, he was relieved by the 
clergy of his province, by way of benevolence. This not doing 
the deed, to make him a saver, he was fain to crave another help 
of the same hand, under the new name of a subsidy .J Indeed 
it was pity that the father of the diocese should want anything 
which his sons could contribute unto him. He highly favoured 
the Templars, though more pitying than profiting them, as per 
sons so stiffly opposed by the Pope and Philip king of France ; 
that there was more fear of his being suppressed by their foes, 
than hope of their being supported by his friendship. He was 
present in the council of Vienna, on the same token, that 
therein he had his place assigned next the archbishop of Triers ; 
and that, I assure you, was very high, as beneath the lowest 
elector, and above Wortzbury or Herbipolis, and other German 
prelates, who also were temporal princes. But now he is gone, 
and his pomp with him, dying at Cawood 1315, and buried in 
the chapel of Saint Nicholas, leaving the reputation of an able 
statesman and no ill scholar behind him. 

MICHAEL TREGURY was born in this county, and bred in 
the university of Oxford, where he attained to such eminency, 
that he was commended to king Henry the Fifth, fit to be a 
foreign professor. This king Henry, desiring to conquer 
France as well by arts as arms (knowing that learning made 
civil persons and loyal subjects) reflected on the city of Caen 
(honoured with the ashes of his ancestors) in Normandy, and 
resolved to advance it an university, which he did anno 1418, 
placing this Michael the first professor in the college of his 
royal erection. Hence king Henry the Sixth preferred him 
archbishop of Dublin in Ireland, wherein he continued 22 years, 
deceasing December 21, 1471 ; and is buried in the church of 

* Jo. Capgrave, in Catal. Sanct. Brit, anno Domini 411. 

t Carew s Survey of Cornwall, fol. 59. J Godwin, in the Archbishopg of York. 

Bale, dc Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. viii. num. 13. 



310 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

Saint Patrick in Dublin.* I am sorry to see the author of so 
many learned books disgraced on his monument with so bar 
barous an epitaph : 

" Prsesul Metropolis Michael hie Duhliniensis, 
Marmore tumbatus: pro me Christum flagitetis. f 

Allowing him thirty years old when professor at Caen, he 
must be extremely aged at his departure. 

JOHN ARUNDEL was born of right ancient parentage of Lan- 
hearn in this county, bred in the university of Oxford ; and was 
by king Henry the Seventh preferred bishop of Coventry and 
Lichfield, anno 1496 ; thence translated to his native Diocese 
of Exeter, 1501. J 

Impute it to the shortness of his continuance in that see, that 
so little is left of his memory (not enough to feed, much less 
feast, the pen of an historian). He died at London, anno 1503 ; 
and lieth buried, saith my author, in St. Clement s, not ac 
quainting us whether Clement s East-cheap, or Clement s 
Danes ; but I conclude it is the latter, because the bishops of 
Exeter had their inn or city house, now converted into Essex- 
house, within that parish. |[ 

CAPITAL JUDGES, AND WRITERS ON THE LAW. 

There passeth a pleasant tradition in this county, how there 
standeth a man of great strength and stature with a black bill 
in his hand, at Polston-bridge, the first entrance into Cornwall, 
as you pass towards Launceston, where the assizes are holden, 
ready to knock dow r ii all the lawyers that should offer to plant 
themselves in that county .^[ But, in earnest, few of that profes 
sion have here grown up to any supereminent height of learning, 
livelihood, or authority ; whether because of the far distance of 
this county from the supremer courts, or because of the multi 
plicity of petty ones nearer hand, pertaining to the Duchy, Stan- 
neries,** and other Franchises, enabling attorneys and the like 
of small reading to serve the people s turn, and so cutting the 
profit from better studied councillors. 

Some conceive that Sir Robert Tresillian, chief justice of 
the King s Bench in the fifth of king Richard the Second, to 
be this countryman, though producing no other evidence save 
Tre, the initial syllable of his surname, as a badge of Cornish 
extraction. However, we have purposely omitted him in this 



* Sir James Ware, de Scriptoribus Hibernicis, lib. ii. p. 132. 

f Idem, de Archiepiscopis Dublin, p. 30. 

% Carew s Survey of Cornwall, fol. 59 ; and Bishop Godwin in the Bishops of 
Exeter. 

Bishop Godwin, ut prius. || Stow s Survey. 

IT Carew s Survey of Cornwall, fol. 59. 

** These cannot now be pretended an hinderance, being put down by the long- 
lasting Parliament. :F. 



WRITERS ON LAW SOLDIERS. 311 

our catalogue ; partly, because not claimed by Mr. Carew, in his 
survey, and for their countryman, partly because no worthy, as 
justly executed by act of Parliament for pronouncing their acts 
revocable at the king s pleasure. 

As for one Cornish man (though neither writer nor actual 
judge) his worth commands us to remember him : namely, 

WILLIAM NOY, born in this county, was bred in Lincoln s 
Inn ; a most sedulous student, constantly conversant with 
ancient records, verifying his anagram, WILLIAM NOY, "i MOYL 

IN LAW." 

He was for many years the stoutest champion for the sub 
ject s liberty, until king Charles entertained him to be his 
attorney ; after which time, I read this character of him in an 
history written by an ingenious gentleman:* "He became 
so servilely addicted to the prerogative, as by ferreting old penal 
statutes, and devising new exactions, he became, for the small 
time he enjoyed that power, the most pestilent vexation to the 
subjects that this latter age produced." 

However, others behold his actions with a more favourable 
eye, as done in the pursuance of the place he had undertaken, 
who by his oath and office was to improve his utmost power to 
advance the profit of his master. Thus I see that, after their 
deaths, the memories of the best lawyers may turn clients, yea 
and sue too in forma pauperis, needing the good word of the 
charitable survivors to plead in their behalf. He died anno 
Domini 163 .. Let me add this passage from his mouth, that 
was present thereat. The goldsmiths of London had (and in 
due time may have) a custom once a year to weigh gold in the 
Star-chamber, in the presence of the privy council and the 
king s attorney. This solemn weighing, by a word of art, they 
call the pix ; and make use of so exact scales therein, that the 
master of the company affirmed, that they would turn with the 
two hundredth part of a grain. " I should be loath," said the 
attorney Noy f standing by, " that all my actions should be 
weighed in those scales." With whom I concur in relation of 
the same to myself. And therefore, seeing the balance of the 
sanctuary held in God s hand are far more exact, what need 
have we of his mercy, and Christ s merits, to make us passable 
in God s presence ! 

SOLDIERS. 

KING ARTHUR, son of Uther Pendragon, was born in Tin- 
tagel castle in this county ; and proved afterwards monarch of 
Great Britain. He may fitly be termed the British Hercules in 
three respects : 

" Hammond L Estrange, Esq. in his Life of King Charles. 

f Reader, I affirmed above, that Mr. Noy was no writer j but since I am inform 
ed, that there is a posthume book of his F. 



312 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

1 . For his illegitimate birth, both being bastards, begotten on 
other men s wives,* and yet their mothers honest women; de 
luded, the one by miracle, the other by art magic of Merlin, in 
others personating their husbands. 

2. Painful life ; one famous for his twelve labours, the other 
for his twelve victories against the Saxons ; and both of them 
had been greater, had they been made less, and the reports of 
them reduced within compass of probability. 

3. Violent and woeful death; our Arthur s being as lamenta 
ble, and more honourable ; not caused by feminine jealousy, 
but masculine treachery, being murdered by Mordred, near the 
place where he was born : 

" As though no other place on Britain s spacious earth 
Were worthy of his end, but where he had his birth."f 

As for his Round Table, with his knights about it, the tale 
whereof hath trundled so smoothly along for many ages, it never 
met with much belief amongst the judicious. He died about the 
year 542. 

And now to speak of the Cornish in general. They ever have 
been beheld men of valour. It seemeth in the reign of the 
aforesaid king Arthur they ever made up his van-guard, if I 
can rightly understand the barbarous verses of a Cornish poet :f 

Nobilis Arclurus nos primes Cornubiensei 
Helium facturus vocat (ut puta Ccesaris ensesj. 
A r obis (non aliis reliquisj dot primilus ictum. 

" Brave Arthur, when he meant a field to fight, 
Us Cornish men did first of all invite. 
Only to Cornish (count them Caesar s swords) 
He the first blow in battle still affords." 

But afterwards, in the time of king Canutus, the Cornish 
were appointed to make up the rear of our armies. Say not 
they were much degraded by this transposition from head to 
foot, seeing the judicious, in marshalling of an army, count the 
strength (and therefore the credit) to consist in the rear thereof. 

But it must be pitied, that this people, misguided by their 
leaders, have so often abused their valour in rebellions, and 
particularly in the reign of king Henry the Seventh, at Black- 
heath, where they did the greatest execution with their arrows, 
reported to be the length of a tailor s yard, the last of that pro 
portion which ever w r ere seen in England. || However, the 
Cornish have since plentifully repaired their credit, by their 
exemplary valour and loyalty in our late civil wars. 

SEAMEN. 

JOHN ARUNDEL, of Trerice, Esquire, in the fourteenth of 
king Henry the Eighth, took prisoner Duncan Campbell, a 

* Alcmena, wife to Arriphitryo ; and Tgern, wife to Gorloise, prince of Cornwall, 
t Drayton s Polyolbion, page 5. J Michael Cornubiensis. 

Joannes Sarisburiensis, de Nugis Curial. v. cap. 18. 
|| Lord Verulam, in King Henry the Seventh, p. 171. 



CIVILIANS PHYSICIANS. 313 

Scot, (accounted their admiral by his own countrymen, a pirate 
by the English, and a valiant man by all,) in a fight at sea.* 
This his goodly, valiant, and jeopardous enterprise (as it is 
termed) was represented with advantage by the duke of Nor 
folk to the king, who highly praised and rewarded him for the 
same. 

CIVILIANS. 

JOHN TREGONWELL was born in this county; bred in Oxford, 
where he proceeded Doctor of the Laws, both Canon and Civil ; 
and, attaining to great perfection in the theoretic and practical 
parts of those professions, he was employed to be proctor for 
king Henry the Eighth, in the long and costly cause of his 
divorce from queen Katherine dowager.f Now, as it was said 
of the Roman dictator Sylla, " suos divitiis explevit " so king 
Henry full fraught all those with wealth and rewards, whom he 
retained in that employment. This doctor he knighted; and 
because so dexterous and diligent in his service, gave him a 
pension of forty pounds per annum ; and upon the resignation 
thereof (with the paying down of a thousand pounds J) he con 
ferred on him and his heirs the rich demesne and site of Mid- 
dleton, a mitred abbey in Dorsetshire, possessed at this day by 
his posterity. This Sir John died about the year of our Lord 
one thousand five hundred and forty ; and is buried under a 
fair monument in the church of Middleton aforesaid. 

PHYSICIANS. 

Although this county can boast of no writer graduated in that 
faculty in the university, and that generally they can better 
vouch practice for their warrant than warrant for their practice, 
yet Cornish men would be offended if I should omit 

RAWE HAYES, || a blacksmith by his occupation, and fur 
nished with more learning than is suitable to such a calling : 
who yet ministered physic for many years, with so often success 
and general applause, that not only the home-bred multitude 
believed so mainly in him, but even persons of the better calling 
resorted to him from the remote parts of the realm, to make 
trial of his cunning by the hazard of their lives ; and sundry, 
either upon just cause, or to cloak their folly, reported that they 
have reaped their errand s ends at his hands. He flourished 
anno Domini 1602. 

ATWELL, born in this county, and parson of St. Tue 

* Carew s Survey of Cornwall. 
Ibid, fol.61. Speed s Chronicle, p. 780. 

J Prima parte Rot. 95, in the Remembrancer s (formerly called Osborno s) 
office. According to Hutchins s Dorset, vol. ii. 431, he died in 1565. ED. 

II Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, fol. 66. 



314 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

therein, was well seen in the theories of physic, and happy in 
the practice thereof, beyond the belief of most, and the reason 
that any can assign for the same ; for although now and then 
he used blood-letting, he mostly for all diseases prescribed milk, 
and often milk and apples, which (although contrary to the 
judgments of the best esteemed practitioners) either by virtue 
of the medicine, or fortune of the physician, or fancy of the pa 
tient, recovered many out of desperate extremities. This his 
reputation for many years maintained itself unimpaired, the ra 
ther because he bestowed his pains and charge gratis on the 
poor ; and, taking moderately of the rich, left one half of what 
he received in the households he visited. As for the profits of 
his benefice, he poured it out with both hands in pious uses. 
But for the truth of the whole, " sit fides penes authorem." * 
This Atwell was living in 1602. 

WRITERS. 

HUGARIUS the Levite was born in this county, and lived at 
St. German s therein.f All-eating time hath left us but a little 
morsel for manners of his memory. This we know, he was a 
pious and learned man (after the rate of that age) ; and it ap- 
peareth that he was eminent in his function of Divine service, 
because Levite was rar i^o\rjv fixed upon him. In his time (as 
in the days of Ely) " the word of God was precious ;" { which 
raised the repute of his pains, who wrote an hundred and ten 
Homilies, besides other books. He flourished 1040. 

JOHN of CORNWALL (so called from the county of his na 
tivity ) leaving his native soil, studied in foreign universities, 
chiefly in Rome, where his abilities commended him to the cog- 
nizancejof Pope Alexander the third. It argueth his learning, that 
he durst cope with that giant Peter Lumbard himself, commonly 
called The Master of the Sentences ; and who on that account 
expected that all should rather obey than any oppose his judg 
ment. Yea, it appeareth that the judgment of this Peter bishop of 
Paris was not so sound in all points, by a passage I meet with 
in Matthew Paris, || of Pope Alexander the Third writing a letter 
to an archbishop of France, " to abrogate the ill doctrine of Peter, 
sometime bishop of Paris, about Christ s Incarnation." But 
our John wrote against him,inhis life-time, a book "de Homine 
assumpto ;" and put Peter s pen to some pains to write his own 
vindication. He wrote also a book of Philosophy and Heresies. 
Wonder not at their conjunction, philosophy being in divinity 
as fire and water in a family a good servant, but bad master ; 
so sad it is, when the Articles of our creed must be tried by the 

* Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, fol. 60. 

f Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. ii. num. 47 ; and Pits, anno 1040. 

j 1 Sam. iii. 1. 

Bale, de Scriptoribus Anglise, Cent. iii. num. 6. || Anno 1179. 



WRITERS. 315 

touchstone of Aristotle. This John flourished under king Henry 
the second, anno 11 70. 

SIMON THURWAY was born in this county,* bred in our 
English universities, until he went over into Paris, where he be 
came so eminent a logician, that all his auditors were his 
admirers. Most firm his memory, and fluent his expression ; 
and was knowing in all things, save in himself : for profanely he 
advanced Aristotle above Moses, and himself above both. His 
pride had a great and sudden fall, losing at the same instant both 
language and memory,becoming completely a\oyoe,without reason 
or speech. Yet was his dumbness, to all intelligent people, a loud 
sermon on St. Paul s precept, " Not to think of themselves more 
highly than they ought to think, but to think soberly ."t Poly- 
dore Vergil saith of him, " Juvene nil acutius, sene nihil obtu- 
sius/ J whilst others add, he made an inarticulate sound like to 
lowing. This great judgment befell about the year of our Lord 
1201. 

\ 

MICHAEL BLAUNPAYX, born in Cornwall j| (some so com 
monly call him Michael the Master, that he had almost lost his 
native name), was bred in Oxford and Paris, and became as good 
a rhyming poet as any "in that age. It happened, one Henry of 
Normandy, chief poet to our Henry the Third, had traduced 
Cornwall as an inconsiderable county, cast out by nature in con 
tempt into a corner of the land. Our Michael could not endure 
this affront ; but, full of poetical fury, falls upon the libeller. 
Take a taste (little thereof will go far) of his strains : 

Non opus est ut opes numerare quibus est opulenta, 
Et per- guas inopes sustentat non ope lentft, 
Piscibus et slanno nusquam tamfertilis ora. 

" We need not number up her wealthy store, 
Wherewith this helpful hand relieves her poor, 
No sea so full of fish, of tin no shore." 

Then, as a valiant champion, he concludeth all with this ex 
hortation to his countrymen : 

Quid nos deterret 9 si jirmiter in pede stemus, 
Fraus ni nos superat, nihil est quod non superemus. 

" What should us fright, if firmly we do stand? 
Bar fraud, and then no force can us command." 

His pen, so luscious in praising when so pleased, was as bitter 
in railing when disposed : witness this his satirical character of 
his aforesaid antagonist : 



* Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. iii. num. 47. f Rom. xii. 3. 

J Lib. xv. Angl. Hist. Bale, ut prius. 

|| Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. iv. num. 10. 



316 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

Est tibi gctmbce * capri, cms passeris, et latus apri, 

Os leporis, catuli nasus, dens et gena muli, 

Frons vetulce, tauri caput, et color undique Maun, 

His argumentis quibus est argutia mentis, 

Quod non ft monstro differs, satis hie tibimonslro. 

" Gamb dlike a goat, sparrow-tbigh d, sides as boar, 

Hare mouth d, dog-nosed, like mule thy teeth and chin, 

Brow d as old wife, bull-headed, black as Moor. 
If such without, then what are you within ? 

By these my signs, the wise will easily conster, 

How little thou didst differ from a monster." 

He flourished anno 1350, though the certain time and place 
of his death is unknown. 

GODFREY of CORNWALL was bred a Doctor in Paris and 
Oxford, and afterwards became a Carmelite of no mean esteem 
amongst those of his own order. It happened in his time that 
Gerardus Bononiensis, a Frenchman, master general of the 
Carmelites, made two provincials (formerly but one) of that 
order in England, alleging that "two are better than one,"f 
and matters would be more exactly regulated by their double 
inspection. The plain truth was, the Frenchman did it out of 
covetousness, that so two loaders might bring double grists to 
his mill. Our Godfrey appeared a champion for the old way, 
that matters might run on in their ancient channel, and wrote 
a book to that purpose, as many others on several subjects.! 

John Baconthorpe, his contemporary, much esteemed him, 
and quoted him by the title of Doctor Solennis. 

I doubt not but this our Godfrey, in mannerly requital, re- 
gave Baconthorpe the courtesy of Doctor Resolutus. And here 
I would fain be satisfied how these received epithets [Doctor 
Profundus, Doctor Subtilis, &c.] came first to be fixed on such 
and such schoolmen. Surely they assumed them not themselves, 
which had argued too much pride and presumption. Nor could 
I ever, as yet, meet with any authentic record of Pope, or uni 
versity, which settled it upon them. Possibly one eminent 
writer gave it to another, his correspondent, who in reciproca 
tion of kindness (" title thou me, and I will title thee ") returned 
as splendid a style to him again. This our solemn Doctor flou 
rished anno Domini 1310. 

JOHN TREVISA was born at Caradoc in this county ; bred in 
Oxford ; afterwards vicar of Berkeley in Gloucestershire, and 
chaplain to Thomas Lord Berkeley, at whose instance, besides 
other histories writ by him, he translated the Bible into Eng 
lish ; a daring work for a private person in that age, without 
particular command from Pope or public council. 

* Hence a gammon. f Eccles. iv. 9. 

t Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. v. num. 6. 
Distinct. 29. Quaestiones Sententiarum. 



WRITERS. 317 

Some much admire he would enter on this work, so lately 
performed (about fifty years before) by John Wickliffe. What 
was this, but actum agere, to do what was done before ? Be 
sides, Wickliffe and Trevisa agreeing so well in their judgments, 
it was much he would make a re-translatioii. Such consider 
not, that in that age it was almost the same pains for a scholar 
to translate as transcribe the Bible. 

Secondly, the time betwixt Wickliffe and Trevisa was the 
crisis of the English tongue, which began to be improved in 
fifty, more than in three hundred years formerly. Many coarse 
words (to say no worse) used before are refined by Trevisa, 
whose translation is as much better than Wickliffe s, as worse 
than Tyndal s. Thus, though the fountain of the original hath 
always clearness alike therein, channels of translations will par 
take of more or less purity, according to the translator s age, 
industry, and ability. This Trevisa died, a thorough old man, 
about the year 1400. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

JOHN SKUISH was born in Cornwall, a man of much expe 
rience and general learning, He was, saith my author, a consi- 
liis to Cardinal Wolsey,* whereby I collect him learned of the 
laws, and of his counsel, except that that great prelate, like a 
prince, had council of state belonging unto him. This Skuish 
wrote a chronicle, being collected out of many several authors. 
I have some presumptions to conclude him inclined to the Pro 
testant Reformation. He flourished anno Domini 1530. 

BARTHOLOMEW TRAHERON. The first syllable of his name, 
and what is added thereunto by my author, " parentum stem- 
mate clarus,"t and the sameness of his name with an ancient 
family in this county, are a three-fold cable to draw my belief, 
that he was this countryman. He was bred in the university 
of Oxford : and, having attained to good learning therein, twice 
travelled beyond the seas. 

Once, for pleasure and curiosity, into France and Italy, 
whereby he much improved himself. Returning home, he be 
came library-keeper to king Edward the Sixth, and dean of Chi- 
Chester. The second time, for safety and necessity, in the first of 
queen Mary, getting (I believe) his best subsistence (being an 
exile in Germany) with making and translating of books, where 
he was living 1556, and may be rationally presumed to die be 
fore queen Elizabeth came to the crown, because, being a man 
of merit, and ecclesiastically dignified, we hear no more of his 
preferment. 

RICHARD CAREW, Esquire, son to Thomas Carew and Eliza- 
Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent ix. num. 19. t Ibid. p. 696. 



318 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

beth Edgecomb, was born at Anthony in this county, of right 
worshipful parentage, who honoured his extraction with his learn 
ing. He was bred a gentleman -commoner in Oxford, where, 
being but fourteen years old, and yet three years standing, he 
was called out to dispute extempore, before the earls of Leices 
ter and Warwick, with the matchless Sir Philip Sidney. 



si qticeritis hvjus 



Fortunam pugnte, non est superatus ab itto. 

" Ask you the end of this contest ? 

They neither had the better, both the best. 1 

He afterwards wrote the pleasant and faithful " Description of 
Cornwall ; " and I will not wrong his memory with my bar 
barous praise, after so eloquent a pen. 

" Sed haec planius et plenius docuit Richardus Carew de An- 
thonie, non minus generis splendore, quam virtute et doctrina 
nobilis, qui hujus regionis descriptionem latiore specie, et non 
ad tenue elimavit, quemque mihi prseluxisse non possum non 
agnoscere."* 

This his book he dedicated to Sir Walter Raleigh, with 
this modest compliment, " that he appealed to his direction, 
whether it should pass ; to his correction, if it might pass ; and 
to his protection, if it did pass ; " adding moreover, that duty, 
not presumption, drawing him to that offering, it must be fa 
vour, not desert, must move the other to the acceptance 
thereof." f This survey was set forth 1602 ; and I collect the 
author thereof died about the middle of the reign of king James. 
I know not whether he or his son first brought up the use of 
gambadoes, much worn in the west, whereby, whilst one rides 
on horseback, his legs are in a coach, clean and warm, in those 
dirty countries. 

CHARLES HERLE was born in this county, of an ancient and 
worshipful family, bred (though never fellow J) in Exeter Col 
lege, and at last richly beneficed in Lancashire. 

We read how Pharaoh removed all the Egyptians (the priests 
alone excepted) from one end of the borders of the land to the 
other end thereof : but we, the ministers in England, are of 
all men most and farthest removeable three hundred miles and 
more being interposed betwixt the place of Mr. Herle s birth 
and benefice. 

He was a good scholar, and esteemed by his party a deep di 
vine, and, after the death of Doctor Twiss, president of the as 
sembly. As I dare not defend all the doctrine delivered in his 
printed books ; so I will not inveigh against him, lest in me it 
be interpreted a revenge on his memory for licensing a book 
written against me,|| wherein I was taxed for popish compli- 

* Camden s Britannia, in Cornwall. f In his Dedicatory Epistle, 

t A mistake in my " Church History." F. Gen. xlvii. 21, 22. 

II By Mr. John Saltmargh. 



MEMORABLE PERSONS. 319 

ance, though since, in myself still the same man, I groan under 
a contrary representation. The best is, innocence doth turn 
such groans into songs of gladness. Mr. Herle departed this 
life about 1655. 

Having received no instructions of any eminent benefactors 
in this county, either before or since the Reformation, we may 
proceed to 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

KILTOR, in the last Cornish commotion,* (which was 

in the reign of king Edward the Sixth, anno Domini 1546) was 
committed to Launceston gaol, for his activity therein. This 
man lying there, in the Castle-green, upon his back, threw a 
stone of some pounds weight over the tower s top (and that I 
assure you is no low one) which leadeth into the park. 

JOHN BRAY, tenant to Master Richard Carew (who wrote 
the Survey of this county) carried upon his back, about the year 
1608, at one time by the space well near of a butt length, six 
bushels of wheaten meal, reckoning fifteen gallons to the 
bushel ; and upon them all the miller, a lubber of four and 
twenty years of age.f 

JOHN ROMAN, his contemporary, a short clownish grub, 
may well be joined with him. He may be called the Cornish 
Milo, so using himself to burdens in his childhood, that when a 
man he would bear the whole carcass of an ox, and (to use my 
author s words) yet never tugged thereat.J 

VEAL, an old man of Bodmin in this county, was so 
beholden to Mercury s predominant strength in his nativity, 
that, without a teacher, he became very skilful, in well-near all 
manner of handicrafts a carpenter, a joiner, a millwright, a 
freemason, a clockmaker, a carver, a metal-foundeiy^architect, et 
quid non ? yea, a chirurgeon, physician, alchymist, &c. So as 
that which Georgias of Leontium || vaunted of the liberal 
sciences, he may profess of the mechanical, viz. to be ignorant 
in none. He was in his eminency anno 1602. 

EDWARD BONE,^[ of Ladock in this county, was servant to 
Mr. Courtney therein. He was deaf from his cradle, and con 
sequently dumb (Nature cannot give out where it hath not 
received) ; yet could learn, and express to his master, any 
news that was stirring in the country ; especially if there went 
speech of a sermon within some some miles distance, he would 
repair to the place with the soonest, and setting himself directly 

* Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, fol. 63. j- Idem, fol. 63. 

t Idem, fol. 62. Idem, fol. 63. || Cicero de Oratore. 

If Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, p. 139. 



320 



WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 



against the preacher, look him stedfastly in the face, while his 
sermon lasted ; to which religious zeal, his honest life was also 
answerable. Assisted with a firm memory, he would not only 
know any party whom he had once seen, for ever after ; but also 
make him known to any other, by some special observation and 
difference. There was one Kempe, not living far off, defected 
accordingly, on whose meetings there were such embracements, 
such strange, often, and earnest tokenings, and such hearty 
laughters, and other passionate gestures, that their want of a 
tongue seemed rather an hindrance to others conceiving them, 
than to their conceiving one another. 

LORD MAYORS. 

I meet with but this one, and that very lately (Sir Richard 
Cheverton, Skinner), born in this county ; imputing it chiefly 
to their great distance from London ; insomuch that anciently 
when Cornish men went (or rather were driven up by the vio 
lence of their occasions) to that city, it was usual with them to 
make their wills, as if they took their voyage into a foreign 
country. 

Besides, the children of the Cornish gentry counted them 
selves above, and those of the poorer sort counted themselves 
beneath, a trade in London, as unable to attain it, by reason of 
the difference of their language, whose feet must travel far to 
come to London, whilst their tongues must travel further to get 
to be understood when arrived there. 

This is one of the twelve pretermitted counties, the names 
of whose gentry were not returned into the Tower in the twelfth 
of king Henry the Sixth. 

SHERIFFS. 



Anno HENRY II. 

1 (Recorda manca.) 
22 Eustachius fil. Stephani, 

for five years. 
27 Alanus de Furnee, for four 

years. 

31 Hug. Bardulph, Dapifer. 

32 Idem. 

33 Idem. 

RICHARD I. 

1 Will, de Bachland. 

2 Rich. Revel, for nine years. 

JOHAN. R. 

1 Joh. de Torrington. 

2 Hug. Bardolph. 



Anno 

3 Rich. Flandry. 

4 Idem. 

5 Idem. 

6 Will, de Botterel, for five 

years. 

1 1 Joh. filius Richard, for six 
years. 



HENRY III. 



Guliel. Lunet. 
Idem. 

5 Idem. 

6 Gul. de Pucot. 

7 Reg. de Valle Torta. 
Walt, de Treverden. 



SHERIFFS. 



319 



Anno 

8 Reg. de Valle Torta. 

9 Gul. Bregnen, junior. 
Rog. de Langford. 
Reg. de VaUe Torta. 

[A blank in the records to the 
end of this king s reign 
(being forty-four years), 
except any suppose 
(which is not very pro 
bable) that the three 
fore-mentioned persons, 
all, two, or one of them, 
continued so long in 
their office.] 

EDWARD I. 
1 

2 

3 Joh. Wigger. 

4 Idem. 

5 Rob. de Chini. 
6 

7 Will, de Munckton, for 
five years. 

12 Alex, de Sabridsworth. 

13 Idem. 

14 Idem. 

15 Simon, de Berkeley. 

16 Idem. 

17 Edw. Comes Cornubiee, for 

twelve years. 

29 Thorn, de la Hide, for 
seven years. 

EDWARD II. 

1 
2 

3 Pet. de Gaviston, Com. 

Cornubiee. 

4 Idem. 

5 Idem. 

6 Tho. de la Hide. 



Anno 

7 Tho. de Excedekney. 

8 Rich, de Polhampton. 

9 Rich, de Hewish. 
10 Hen. de Willington. 
11 

12 

13 I sab. Regina Angli^ 

(Nullus Titulus in Rotulo.) 

I sab. Reg. Angliee, Regis 

Consors. 
18 Idem. 

EDWARD III. 

1 Eliz. Regina, Regis mater, 
for five years. 

6 Will, de Botreaux. 

7 Idem. 

8 John Petit. 

9 Idem. 

10 Joh. de Chudeleigh. 

11 Joh. Hamly. 
Joh. Petit. 

12 Idem. 
13 

14 Edw. Dux Cornubise. 

15 Hen. Terrill. 
Rog. de Prideaux. 

16 Edw. Dux CornubicE. 

17 Idem. 

18 Guliel. Pipehard. 

19 Edw. Dux Cornubise, for 

nine years. 

28 Joh. Northcot. 
Will. Auncell. 

29 Idem. 

30 Idem. 

31 Guliel. Auncell. 

32 Edward. Dux Cornubiae, 

to the end of this king s 
reign. 



RICHARD II. 

Anno Name and Arms, 

1 Nich. Wampford. 



SHERIFFS. 
Place. 



? . T. 



320 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

Anno Name. Place. 

2 Rad. Carmino. 

Arms : Az, a bend O. a label of three points G. 

3 Oto. de Bodrigay. 

4 Will. Talbot [AMP.] 

5 Job. Bevill .... Gwarnack. 

Arg. a bull passant G. armed and tripped O. 

6 Wai. Archdeacon, mil. . Anthony. 

Arg. three chevrons S. 

7 Wil. Witzwanter, mil. 

8 Rich, de Kendall. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three dolphins S. 

9 Job. Bevill .... ut prius. 

10 Nich. Wamford. 

11 Job. Colyn. 

12 Rich. Sergeaux. 

13 Tho. Peverell. 

14 Will. Talbot . . . . ut prius. 

15 Job. Colyn. 

16 Job. Colshall. 

17 Job. Herle. 

Arg. a fess G. betwixt three sheldrakes proper. 

18 Ja. Chuddelegh. 

Erm. three lions rampant G. 

19 Will. Talbot .... ut prius. 

20 Job. Bevill ut prius. 

21 Job. Colshull. 

22 Gal. Seyntalbyn. 

Or, on a cross G. five bezants. 

HENRY iv. 

1 Hen. filius regis Hen. IV. primogenitus, et Job. Keynes. 

The Arms of England, with the difference of the heir ap 
parent. 

2 Idem ut prius. 

3 Idem ut prius. 

4 Idem ut prius. 

5 Pr. Henricus .... ut prius. 

6 Job. Cole. 

7 Pr. Henricus . . . . ut prius. 

8 Idem ut prius. 

9 Idem ut prius. 

10 Idem ut prius. 

11 Idem ut prius. 

12 Idem ut prius. 

r 

HENRY V. 

1 Job. Kederow. 

2 Idem. 



SHERIFFS. 321 

Anno Name. Place. 

3 Will. Talbot . . . . ut prius. 

4 Oto. Trevarthan, mil. 

5 Hen. Fullford. 

G. a chevron Arg. 

6 Joh. Arundel, mil. . . Lanhern. 

S. six swallows in pile Arg. 

7 Steph. Derneford. 

8 Joh. Arundel, mil. . . ut prius. 

9 Joh. Arundel, mil. . . Trerice. 

Ut prius, with due difference. 

HENRY VI. 

1 Joh. Arundel, mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Tho. Carmyno . . . ut prius. 

3 Will. Talbot . . . . ut prius. 

4 Joh. Herle, mil. . . . ut prius. 

5 Joh. Arundel, mil. . . ut prius. 
6 

7 Joh. Namson. 

8 Tho. Carmino .... ut prius. 

9 Ro. Chambleyn. 

10 Ja. Chuddeleigh . . . ut prius. 
11 

12 Joh. Herle, mil. . . . ut prius. 

13 Tho Bonevill. 

S. six mullets, three, two, and one, Arg. 

14 Joh. Yerd. 

15 Tho. Whalesbrew . . ut prius. 

16 Ren. Arundel .... ut prius. 

17 Joh. Collshull. 

18 Joh. Nanson. 

19 Joh. Mansdy. 

20 Tho. Whalesbrough. 

21 Joh. Blewet. 

O. a chevron betwixt three eagles displayed V. 

22 Joh. Arundel .... ut prius. 

23 Ni. vel Mic. Power. 

24 Joh. Champernoun. 

G. a saltire vairee betwixt three billets O. 

25 Joh. Austill. 

26 Hen. Fortescu. 

Az. a bend engrailed Arg. cotised O. 

27 Joh. Trevilyan. 

G. a demi-horse Arg. issuing out of the waves of the sea, 

28 Joh. Basset. 

29 Joh. Nanson. 

30 Tho. Butside. 

Y 2 



322 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

Anno Name. Place, 

31 Will. Dawbeney. 

Arg. a fess lozengee G. 

32 Tho. Walesbrough. 

33 Job. Petyt. 

34 Job. Conkwortb. 

35 Job. Nanson, arm. 

36 Job. Arundel .... ut prius. 

37 Job. Walesbrough. 

38 Job. Trevillian, arm. . ut prints. 

EDWARD IV. 

1 Rob. Champernon . . ut prius. 

2 Ren. Arundel .... ut prius. 

3 Ren. Arundel .... ut prius. 

4 Tho. Bere. 

5 Alver. Cordburgh. 

6 Will. Bere. 

7 Job. Collshull, mil. 

8 Job. Sturgeon, arm. 

9 Alver. Cornburgh. 

10 Job. Arundel, mil. . . ut prius. 

1 1 Job. Fortescu, arm. . . ut prius. 

12 Idem ut prius. 

13 Idem ut prius. 

14 Idem ut prius. 

15 Rich. Dux Glouc. vir, ad terminum vie. suee. 

France and England, on a label of three Erm. as many 
cantons G. 

16 Job. Fortescu, arm. 

17 Egid. Dawbeney . . . ut prius. 

18 Will. Cornsnyowe. 

19 Rob. Willoughby. 

20 Rich. Nanson. 

21 Tho. Greenvil. 

G. three rests O. 

22 Tho. Fullford. 

G. a chevron Arg. 

RICHARD III. 

1 Job. Treffey .... Foy. 

S. a chevron betwixt three hawthorns Arg. 

2 Ja. Tirrell, mil. . . . ESSEX. 

Arg. two chevrons Az. within a border engrailed G. 

3 Will. Houghton. 

HENRY VII. 

1 Tho. Grenevil. . . . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 323 

Anno Name. Place. 

2 Job. Tremayn. 

G. three arms in circle, joined at the tronks O. with 
hands proper. 

3 Alex. Carew .... Anthony. 

O. three lions passant gardant S. armed and langued G. 

4 Rich. Nanson. 

5 Joh. Treffey, mil. . . ut prius. 

6 Joh. Roscarrock . . . Roscarrock. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt two roses G. a sea-tench naiant 
proper. 

7 Th. Tregarthen, arm. 

Walt. Enderby, arm. . LINCOLN. 

Arg. three bars dancette S. ; a pale in chief Erm. 

8 Rich. Vivian. 

Arg. a lion rampant G. mounted on two bars wavy in 
base Az. 

9 Wai. Enderby, arm. 

10 PetrasBevell .... ut prius. 

11 Edw. Arandel, arm. , ut prius. 

12 Joh. Basset. 

13 Pe. Edgcombe, mil. . . Edgcombe. 

G. on a bend Erm. between two cotises O. three boars 
heads couped Arg. 

14 Idem ut prius. 

15 Joh. Treffey, mil. . . ut prius. 

16 Will. Treffey, arm. . . ut prius. 

17 Pet. Bevill .... ut prius. 

18 Wit. Trevanyon . . . Cary-hays. 

Arg. on a fess B. three escallops O. between two chevrons G. 
&gt; Jon. Godolphin . . . Godolghan. 

G. an eagle displayed with two heads, betwixt three 

flower- de-luces Arg. 
20 Rich. Vivian, arm. . . ut prius. 
Pet. Edgcombe, mil. . ut prius. -. 

22 Mich. Vivian, arm. . . ut prius. 

23 Will. Trevanion, arm. . ut prius. 

24 Th. Trevanion, mil. . . ut prius. 

HENRY VIII. 

1 Joh. Arundel, mil. . . Talvern. 
Ro. Graynfield, arm. . ut prius. 

3 Will. Carsew, arm. . . Bokelly. 

S. a goat passant Arg. attired and tripped O. 

4 Jac. Eryse, arm. 

S. a chevron betwixt three griffins segreant O. 

5 Joh. Carmyno . . . ut prius. 

6 Joh. Carew, arm. . . ut prius. 

7 Wit. Trevanion, mil. . ut prius. 



324 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 



Anno Name. Plao ,. 

8 Pe. Edgcombe, mil. . ut prius. 

9 Jo. Basset, mil. 

10 Ho. Greenfield, arm. . ut prius. 

11 Jo. Arundell de 

Trevise, arm. , . . ut prius. 

12 Joh. Skewys, arm. 

13 Joh. Basset, mil. . . ut prius. 

14 Ro. Greenfield, arm. . ut prius. 

15 Jo. Arundell de 

Trevise, arm. . . . ut prius. 

Az. a chevron engrailed O. between three roses Arg. 

16 Will. Lour, arm. 

Arg. three bends S. charged with nine rest of the field. 

17 Rich. Penrose, arm. 

18 Ri. Greenfield, arm. . ut prius. 

19 Hu. Trevanyon, arm. . ut prius. 

20 Jo. diamond, arm. . . Launcels. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three flower-de-luces G. 

21 Will. Godolphin, arm. 

22 Chri. Trednoke, arm. 

23 Jo. Arundell de 

Trevise, arm. . . . ut prius. 

24 Hu. Trevanion, mil. . ut prius. 

25 Wi. Godolphin, mil. 

26 Pe. Edgcombe, mil. . . ut prius. 

27 Joh. Reshymar, mil. . Hailford. 

Az. three bars Arg. in chief a wolf passant of the first. 

28 Joh. diamond, mil. . ut prius. 

29 Hu. Trevanyon, mil. 

30 Wi. Godolphin, mil. 

31 Joh. Reskymer, arm. . ut prius. 

32 Joh. Arundell, arm. . . ut prius. 

33 Joh. Arundell, mil. . . ut prius. 

34 Hu. Trevanyon, arm. . ut prius. 

35 Ric. Chamond, arm. . ut prius. 

36 Ric. Greenfield, arm. . ut prius. 

37 Tho. St. Albine, arm. . ut prius. 

38 Joh. Trelawney, arm. . Pool. 

Arg. a chevron S. betwixt three oak-leaves V. 

EDWARD VI. 

1 Joh. Milaton, arm. 

2 Pet. Chamond, arm. . ut prius. 

3 Wil. Godolphin, mil. . ut prius. 

4 Ric. Roscorrek, arm. . ut prius. 

5 Hu. Trevanyon, mil. . ut prius. 

6 Reg. Mohun, arm. 

O, a cross engrailed S. 



SHERIFFS. 325 



REG. MARIA. 

Anno Name. Place. 
1 Joh. Arundell de 

Trevise, mil. . . . ut prius. 

REX PHIL. ET MA. REGINA. 

1, 2 Joh. Arundell de 

Lanhern, mil. . . . ut prius. 

2, 3 Ric. Edgcombe, arm. . ut prius. 

3, 4 Jo. Reskymer, arm. . ut prius. 

4, 5 Joh. Bevil, arm. . . ut prius. 

5, 6 Jo. Carminoe, arm. . ut prius. 

REG. ELIZA. 

1 Reg. Mohun, arm. . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Trelawney, arm. . ut prius, 

3 Ric. Roscarrake, arm. . ut prius. 
^4 Ric. diamond, arm. . ut prius. 
^5 Hen. Chiverton, arm. 

Arg. a castle S. on a hill V. 

6 Hu. Trevanyon, arm. . ut prius. 

7 Will. Milliot, arm. 

8 Joh. TreJawny, arm. . ut prius. 

9 Joh. St. Albyen, arm. . ut prius. 

10 Wi. Godolphin, mil. . ut prius. 

1 1 Pet. Edgcombe, arm. . ut prius. 

12 Hen. Curwen, mil. . . CUMBERLAND. 

Arg. frette G. a chief Az. 

13 Will. Mohun, arm. . . ut prius. 

14 Pet. Courtney, arm. . Ladock. 

O. three torteaux and a file with as many lambeaux Az. 

15 Joh. Arundel de 

Trevise, arm. . . . ut prius. 

16 Joh. Bevil ut prius. 

17 Geo. Kerkwick, arm. . Catch-French. 

Arg. two lions in bend passant S. cotised G. 

18 Rich. Grevill, arm. 

19 Will. Mohun, arm. 

20 Will. Louer, arm. . . ut prius. 

21 Fr. Godolphin, arm. . ut prius. 

22 Joh. Arundel, arm. . . ut prius. 

23 Joh. 

24 Rich. Carew, arm. . . ut prius. 

25 Ge. Greenvill, arm. . . ut prius. 

26 Tho. Cosworth, arm. . Cosworth. 

Arg. on a chevron betwixt three wings Az. five bezants. 

27 Joh. Roscarroke, arm. . ut prius. 



326 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

Anno Name. Place. 

28 Job. Wray, arm. . . . Trebigh. 

S. a fess betwixt three battle-axes Arg. 

29 Ant. Rouse, arm. . . Halton. 

O. an eagle displayed B. pruning her wing, armed and 
langued G. 

30 Tho. St. Albin, arm. . ut prius. 

31 Will. Bevill, arm. . . ut prius. 

32 Walt. Kendall, arm. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three dolphins S. 

33 Geo. Kegwhich, arm. . ut prius. 

34 Ri. Champernown . . ut prius. 

35 Tho. Lower, arm. . . ut prius. 

36 Joh. Trelawne, arm. . ut prius. 

37 Car. Trevanion, arm. . ut prius. 

38 Ber. Grenvill, arm. . . tit prius. 

39 Pet. Courtney, arm. . . ut prius. 

40 Will. Bevill, arm. . . ut prius. 

41 Will. W T ray, arm. . . ut prius. 

42 Fran. Buller, arm. . . Tregarrids. 

S. on a plain cross Arg. quarter-pierced four eagles of 
the field. 

43 Hanibal Vivian . . . ut prius. 

44 Anth. Rouse, arm. . . ut prius. 

45 Arth. Harris, arm. et primo Jac. 

S. three croissants within a border Arg. 

JAC. REG. 

1 Arth. Karris, arm. . . ut prius. 

2 Fr, Godolphin, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 Nic. Predeaux, arm. . Padstow. 

A chevron S. ; in chief a file with three lambeaux G, 

4 Deg. Chamond, arm. . ut prius. 

5 Joh. Arundell, arm. . ut prius. 

6 Jo. Rashly, arm. mo. 

S. a cross betwixt two croissants Arg. 
Joh. Acland, mil. 

Cheeky Arg. and S. a fess G. 

7 Chri. Harris, mil. . . ut prius. 

8 Rich. Edgcombe, mil. . ut prius. 

9 Rich. Bullar, arm. . . ut prius. 

10 Will. Wrey, mil. . . . ut prius. 

1 1 Will. Coriton, arm. 

Arg. a saltire S. 

12 Rich, Roberts, arm. . . Truro. 

Az. three etoiles, and a chief wavy O. 

13 Jo. Chamond, arm. . . ut prius. 

14 Will. Dode, arm. 



SHERIFFS. 327 

Aimo Name. Place. 

15 Fran. Vivian, arm. 

Arg. a lion rampant G. 

16 Rich. Carsew, arm. . . ut prius. 

17 Reskmim. Boniton . . Cardew. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three flower-de-luces S. 

18 Nich. Glyn, arm. . . Glynfford. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three salmon-spears S. 

19 Sa. Pendervis, arm. 

S. a falcon rising between three mullets O. 

20 Joh. Speccot, arm. 

O. on a bend G. three millroinds Arg. 

21 Rich. Gedy, arm. 

22 Jo. Moyle, arm. vir. St. Germains. 

G. a moyle passant Arg. 

CAR. REG. 

1 Tho. Wivell, arm. 

2 Joh. Trefuses, arm. 

Arg. a chevron between three wharrow spindles S. 

3 Jo. Rashleigh, arm. . . ut prius. 

4 Geo. Hele, arm. 

G. a bend lozengee Erm. 
5 

6 Jo. Trelawney, mil. . ut prius. 

7 Jo. Prideaux, arm. . . ut prius. 

8 Nic. Loure, mil. . . . ut prius. 

9 Cha. Trevanion, arm. . ut prius. 

10 Hu. Bosgawen, arm. 

V. a bull passant Arg. armed O. ; in a chief Erm. a rose G. 

11 Jo. St. Albin, arm. . . ut prius. 

12 Rich. Buller, mil. . . ut prius. 

13 Fran. Godolphin, arm. . ut prius. 
14 

15 Rich. Trevill, arm. 

O. a cross engrailed S. in the first quarter a mullet G. 

16 Fran. Willear. 
17 

18 
19 
20 
21 
22 Eclw. Heile, arm. . . ut prius. 

EDWARD III. 

15. ROGER de PRIDEAUX. My eye cannot be entertained 
with a more welcome object, than to behold an ancient name, 
not only still continuing to, but eminently flourishing in, our 
age; on which account, I cannot but congratulate the hap- 



328 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

piness of this family, expecting a daily accession of repute from 
the hopeful branches thereof. 

EDWARD IV. 

10. JOHN ARUNDEL, Mil. This worthy knight was fore 
warned (by what Calker I wot not) that " he should be slain 
on the sands." * This made him to shun his house at Efford 
(alias Ebbing-ford] as too maritime, and remove himself to 
Trerice, his more inland habitation in this county. But he 
found it true, " Fata viam inveniant " for, being this year 
sheriff, and the earl of Oxford surprising Mount Michael (for 
the House of Lancaster), he was concerned by his office, and 
command from the king, to endeavour the reducing thereof, 
and lost his life in a skirmish on the sands thereabouts. Thus 
it is just with Heaven, to punish men s curiosity in inquiring 
after, credulity in believing of, and cowardice in fearing at, such 
prognostications. 

21. THOMAS GREENVIL. Be it entered (by way of caveat] 
that there is some difference in the blazoning of the coat of the 
Granvils, or Greenvils. What usually are termed therein rests, 
being the handles of spears (most honourable in tilting to break 
them nearest thereunto) are called by some critics surflues, 
being the necessary appendants to organs, conveying wind unto 
them. If (as it seemeth) their dubious form, as represented 
in the scutcheon, doth ex aquo answer to both, with me they 
shall still pass for the rests to spears : for, though I dare not 
deny but the Greenvils may be good musicians, I am assured 
they were most valiant soldiers in all their generations. 

But the merits of this ancient family are so many and great, 
that ingrossed they would make one county proud, which 
divided would make two happy. I am therefore resolved 
equally to part what I have to say thereof betwixt Cornwall 
and Devonshire. 

RICHARD III. 

The reader will take notice that (as it is in our catalogue) 
Richard duke of Gloucester was high-sheriff of this county ad 
terminum vitas ; a strange precedent (if it may be said to go be 
fore, which hath nothing to follow after), seeing for the last two 
years he was both king of England and sheriff of Cornwall. 
We therefore behold all the following perspns, unto the first 
of king Henry the Seventh, but as so many deputies under him ; 
and amongst these we take special notice of 

2. JAMES TIRRELL, Mil. This is he, so infamous in our 
English histories, for his activity in murdering the innocent sons 
of king Edward the Fourth, keeping the keys of the Tower, and 

* Carew s Survey of Cornwall, p. 119. 



SHERIFFS. 329 

standing himself at the foot of the stairs, whilst Mr. Forest and 
J. Dighton stifled them in their beds. I behold this Sir James 
as an Essex man, though now the prime officer of this county : 
for king Richard accounted Cornwall the back door of rebellion, 
and therefore made this knight the porter thereof. Indeed it 
is remote from London, and the long sides of this county afford 
many landing places, objected to Britain in France, whence the 
usurper always feared (and at last felt) an invasion ; and there 
fore he appointed him sheriff, to secure the county, as obliged 
unto him, by gratitude for favours received, and guilt for faults 
committed. This Tirrell was afterwards executed for treason, 
in the Tower-yard, in the beginning of king Henry the Seventh. 

HENRY VII. 

12. JOHN BASSET. This was a busy year indeed in this 
county, when the Cornish commotion began (headed by Flam- 
mock a lawyer, and Michael Joseph a blacksmith) at the town 
of Bodmin. Let none impute it to the neglect of this sheriff, 
that he suppressed them not, seeing (besides that they quickly 
quitted this county, and went eastward) it was not the work of 
posse comitatus, but posse regni, to encounter them. However, 
after long running (for they marched the breadth of the land, 
from Cornwall to Kent, before battle was bid them), they were 
overtaken and overcome at Blackheath. 

13. PETER EDGCOMBE, Mil. The names of Pierce (or Peter) 
and Richard have been (saith my author) successively varied in 
this family for six or seven descents.* Such chequering of 
Christian names serve heralds instead of stairs, whereby they 
ascend with assurance into the pedigrees of gentlemen ; and I 
could wish the like alternation of font-names fashionable in 
other families ; for, where the heirs of an house are of the same 
name for many generations together, it occasioneth much mis 
take; and the most cautious and conscientious heralds are 
guilty of making incestuous matches, confounding the father for 
the son, and so reciprocally. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

4. RICHARD CHAMOND, Esq. He received at God s hand 
an extraordinary favour of long life, serving in the office of a 
justice of peace almost sixty years.f He saw above fifty seve 
ral judges of the Western Circuit ; was uncle and great-uncle to 
three hundred at least ; and saw his youngest child above forty 
years of age. 

19. WILLIAM MOHUN. He was descended from the ancient 
lords of Dunster and earls of Somerset, of which one received a 

* Carew s Survey of Cornwall, fol. 101. t Idem, p. 118. 



330 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

great papal privilege, whereof largely in my " Church History." 
I behold him as grandfather to John Lord Mohun of Oakhamp- 
ton (descended by a coheir from the Courtneys earls of Devon 
shire) and great-grandfather to the Right Honourable Warwick 
Lord Mohun. 

29. ANTHONY ROUSE, Esq. Give me leave only to transcribe 
what I find written of him ;* " He employeth himself to a kind 
and uninterrupted entertainment of such as visit him, upon his 
not sparing inviting, or their own occasions ; who (without the 
self-guilt of an ungrateful wrong) must witness, that his frank 
ness confirmeth their welcome, by whatsoever means provision, 
the fuel of hospitality, can in the best manner supply." He was 
father to Francis Rouse, late provost of Eton, whose industry 
is more commendable than his judgment in his many treatises. 

KING JAMES. 

2. FRANCIS GODOLPHIN, Mil. Master Carew confesseth, in 
his " Survey " of this county, that " from him he gathered sticks 
to build that nest," who was assistant unto him in that playing 
labour, as he termeth it.f This ingenious gentleman entertain 
ed a Dutch mineral man ; and, taking light from his experience, 
built thereon far more profitable conclusions from his own in 
vention, practising a more saving way, to make tin of what was 
rejected for refuse before. 

And here the mention of his ingenuity minds me how heredi 
tary abilities are often entailed on families, seeing he was ances 
tor unto Sidney Godolphin, slain at in Devonshire, 

valiantly fighting for his lord and master. His Christian and 
surname divisim signify much ; but how high do they amount 
in conjunction ! There fell wit and valour never sufficiently to 
be bemoaned. 

10. WILLIAM WREY, Mil. He was direct ancestor to Sir 
Chichester Wrey, knight and baronet, who, though scarce a 
youth in age, was more than a man in valour, in his loyal service. 
He married Anne, one of the daughters and co-heirs of Bour- 
chier Earl of Bath, whose son Bourchier Chichester shall ever 
have my prayers, that he may answer the nobleness of his ex 
traction. 

12. RICHARD ROBERTS. He was afterwards created a ba 
ron ; and was father unto the Right Honourable the Lord Ro 
berts, one of his Majesty s most honourable privy council, lately 
designed deputy of Ireland, as a person of singular ability and 
integrity. 

* Carew, ut prius, p. 114. + P. 13. 



BATTLES. 331 



THE BATTLES. 

I shall enlarge myself the rather on this subject, because 
building my discourse therein, not on the floating sands of un 
certain relations, but the rock of real intelligence ; having got 
ten a manuscript of Sir Ralph Hopton s (courteously communi 
cated unto me by his secretary Master Tredui) interpolated with 
his own hand, being a memorial of the remarkables in the West, 
at which that worthy knight was present in person. 

I begin with that which is called the Battle_of Liskeard, tak 
ing the name from the next town of note thereunto ; otherwise 
Bradock-Down was the particular place thereof. Before the 
fight began, the king s side took it into their seasonable consi 
deration, that, seeing by the commission the Lord Mohun 
brought from Oxford four persons, viz. the said Lord Mohun, 
Sir Ralph Hopton, Sir John Berkeley, and colonel Ashburnham, 
were equally empowered in the managing of all military matters, 
and seeing such equality might prove inconvenient (which 
hitherto had been prevented with the extraordinary moderation 
of all parties) in ordering a battle, it was fittest to fix the power 
in one chief; and general consent settled it in Sir Ralph Hopton. 

He first gave order that public prayers should be had in the 
head of every squadron ; and it was done accordingly ; and the 
enemy, observing it, did style it saying of mass, as some of their 
prisoners afterwards did confess. Then he caused the foot tq 
be drawn up in the best order they could : placed a forlorn of 
musketeers in the little inclosures, winging them with the few 
horse and dragoons he had. 

This done, two small minion drakes, speedily and secretly 
fetched from the Lord Mohun s house, were planted on a little 
barrow within random-shot of the enemy ; yet so that they 
were covered from their sight, with small parties of horse about 
them. These concealed minions were twice discharged with 
such success, that the enemy quickly quitted their ground ; and 
all their army being put into a rout, the king s forces had the 
execution of them, which they performed very sparingly. They 
took twelve hundred and fifty prisoners, most of their colours, 
all their cannon, being four brass guns upon carriages, whereof 
two were twelve-pounders, and one iron saker, all their ammuni 
tion, most of their arms : and, marching that night to Liskeard, 
the king s forces first gave God public thanks, and then took 
their own private repose. 

STRATTON fight succeeds, on Tuesday, May 16, 1643. But 
first let us take a true account of the two armies respectively, 
with the visible inequality betwixt them. 

The king s forces were in want of ammunition, and were to 
hew out their own way up a steep hill with their valour, exposed 
to all disadvantages and dangers. Their horse andjdragoons ex- 



332 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

ceeded not five hundred ; their foot about two thousand four 
hundred in number. 

The Parliament army had plenty of all provisions, and had 
advantageously barricaded themselves on the top of a hill. 
Their horse indeed were not many (having lately sent away 
twelve hundred to surprise the sheriff and commissioners at Bod- 
min) ; but foot were five thousand four hundred by poll, as 
their major-general did acknowledge. 

As for the king s forces, order was given that by four several 
avenues they should force their passage to the top of the hill, 
which was very steep ; the enemy as obstinately endeavour 
ing to keep them down, as the other did valiantly strive to as 
cend. 

The fight continued doubtful, with many countenances of va 
rious events, from five of the clock in the morning till three in 
the afternoon; amongst which most remarkable the smart 
charge made by major-general Chudeleigh, with a stand of pikes, 
on Sir Bevill Greenfield, so that the knight was in person over 
thrown, and his party put into disorder: which would have 
proved destructive unto it, had not Sir John Berkeley (who led 
up the musqueteers on each side of Sir Bevill Greenfield) sea 
sonably relieved it, so re-inforcing the charge that major-gene 
ral Chudeleigh was taken prisoner. 

Betwixt three and four of the clock the commanders of the 
king s forces, who embraced those four several ways of ascent, 
met, to their mutual joy, almost at the top of the hill, which the 
routed enemy confusedly forsook. In this service, though they 
wereassailants, they lost very few men, and no considerable officer; 
killing of the enemy about three hundred, and taking seven 
teen hundred prisoners, all their cannon (being thirteen pieces 
of brass ordnance) and ammunition (seventy barrels of powder), 
with a magazine of biscuit, and other provisions proportionable. 
For this victory public prayer and thanksgiving was made on 
the hill ; and then the army was disposed of, to improve their 
success to the best advantage. For this good service, Sir Ralph 
Horton was afterwards, at Oxford, created Baron of Stratton, in 
form as followeth : * 

" Carolus, Dei gratia, Angliae, &c. Cum et nominis nostri et 
posteritatis interest, et ad clara exempla propaganda utilissime 
compertum, palam fieri omnibus premia apud nos virtuti sita, 
nee perire fidelium subditorum officia, sed memori et benevolo 
pectore fixissime insidere ; his preesertim temporibus, cum plu- 
rimorum (quibus antehac nimium indulsimus) temerata aut 
suspecta fides pretium aliorum constantise addidit : cumque 
nobis certo constat Radulphum Hopton, Militem de Balneo, 
splendidis et antiquis natalibus, turn in ceetera sua vita inte- 

* Reader, being chaplain to this worthy lord, I could do no less than (in grati 
tude to his memory) make this exemplification. F. 



BATTLES. 333 

gritatis et morum eximium, turn in Me novissima tempestate 
fatalique regni et rebelli motu, rari animi fideique exempluin 
edidisci, regiee dignitatis in eaque publice contra utriusque ad 
versaries assertorem et vindicem acerrimum : 

" Quippe, quia non solum nascenti huic furori (necdum omni 
bus manifesto) optimis consiliis fortis in curia senator restiteret ; 
sed, insinuante se latius veneno et crescente ferocia, domum ad 
suos reversus, fortior miles in agro suo Somersetensi et vicinis 
partibus, omni ope et manu iniquissimam causam oppugnaverit ; 
in arce prsesertim Sherborniana, sub auspiciis Marchionis Here- 
fordiae, egregiam operam navaverit. Mox ulterius progressus, 
pollenti in Devonia factionis tyrannide, et munitissima civitate 
in fosdus illecta, et jam undique bonis subditis perniciem 
minante, ipse pene in ilia regione hospes, contracto e Cornubia 
milite, et primoribus statim impetum eorum repressit, jacen- 
tesque et afflictas nostras partes mirifica virtute recreavit : et, 
licet summis necessitatibus conflictanti exigua pars negocii 
hostes erant, tantum abfuit ut vel illis vel istis succumberet, ut, 
contra copias auctiores et bellico apparatu instructissimos, 
seepius signis collatis in acie dimicans, semper superior exces- 
serit. 

" Testis Lanestonia, Saltash, Bradock, aliaque obscura olim 
nomina et loca, nunc victoriis illius et perduelfium cladibus no- 
bilitata. Vix etiam ab his respiraverat, cum novus belli furor, 
lassas jam fere et continuis prseliis luxatas vires numerosissimo 
exercitu adortus, uberiorem triumphandi dedit materiam. Cum 
ille in campis Strattonise, in difficillimas licet angustias redactus, 
inops militaris instrument!, et consumpto jam pulvere tormen- 
tario, armatos inermis, vallo munitos intectus, sola causa et 
virtute animatus, ita retudit, concidit, castris exuit, ut totum 
belli molem cum ipsis authoribus profligavit: quicquid fugee 
illius residuum erat, inter urbis unius mosnia eaque arcta ob- 
sidione astricta concluso. Qua quidem pugna memorabili, 
prseter quod miserum popellum jugo intollerabili levaverat, 
sedes suas expulsis, ecclesias pastoribus, pacem omnibus, et 
firmamentum pacis obsequium pristinum restituerit. Et jam 
sequenti armorum nostrorum felicitati, qua partes regni occiden- 
tales maturius ad officium et verum dominum redierunt, et viam 
aperuisse et momentum ingens extitisse, libentissime profitemur : 
in hac opera laudabili cum prsefatus Radulphus perstet adhuc 
invicto animo et industria indefessa, nullo arduo quantumvis 
labore et periculo excusatus ; cumque mille argumentis testatum 
fecerit, honorem salutemque nostram sibi omni fortuni et ca- 
pite potiorem, nos virum fortissimum optimeque affectum 
animum benigno studio prosequi, et amplius demereri volentes, 
hunc et preeconio merito : ornandum, et propriori ad nos gradu 
extollendum censuimus : Sciatis igitur nos, de gratia nostra 
speciali ac ex cert& scientia et mero motu, prsefatum Radulphum 
Hopton ad statum, gradum, stilum, dignitatem, titulum, et ho- 



334 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

norem Baronis Hopton, de Stratton, in comitatu nostra Cor- 
jiubiee, &c. In cujus rei testimonium, has literas nostras fieri 
fecimus patentes. 

" Teste meipso, apud Oxon. quarto die Septembris, anno 
regni nostri decimo nono." 

This honour determined in this lord dying issueless at Bruges 
in Flanders ; since which time king Charles the Second hath 
conferred the title of Baron of Stratton on Sir John Berkeley, 
younger son to Sir Maurice Berkeley, of Bruton in Somerset 
shire. This was he who was one of the first four Tetrarchs, or 
joint-managers in chief of Marshal matters in Cornwall ; this is 
he who was so highly instrumental in the reducing of Exeter, 
being afterwards deservedly appointed the governor. How 
since he hath shared in his Majesty s sufferings beyond the seas, 
is sufficiently known. 

As for the general disarming and disbanding of the Parlia 
ment army in this county, anno 1644, it was a conquest without 
a battle on this occasion. I have seen the head bow down, to 
take a thorn out of the foot. Such the proportion of Corn 
wall to England, and such was the condescension of the king to 
come into this county. Essex followed him with all his forces, 
till he penned himself in a narrow place (or rather large pound), 
so that he was surrounded on all sides with the sea and the 
king s soldiers. 

Hereupon Essex (with some prime commanders) shipped 
himself for Plymouth, thence for London ; whither also their 
horse forced their passage (without considerable loss) under the 
conduct of Sir William Belfore, whom the king s horse did 
"sequi, non assequi," (follow, but not overtake). The foot, 
left behind, submitted to the king, on such conditions as are 
generally known. 

His Majesty earnestly endeavouring (by the enemy s own 
confession) the exact observing of articles, which if some unruly 
royalist did violate (soldiers will hardly wear bad clothes whilst 
their foes, being in their power, have better on their backs), 
it was not so much an offering as returning of an injury ; some 
of them having formerly felt the same usage on the like occasion. 
The Parliament foot did not depose their disaffections with 
their arms, soon resuming (or rather retaining) their former 
principles, which made them add new arms to their old incli 
nations in the second battle at Newbury. 

THE FAREWELL. 

Being now to part with this county, I wish it all happiness, 
and particularly that flaw, or flaws, may either never come 
thither, or quickly depart thence; which, being a kind of 
English hericano, hath little civility therein, as throwing down 
some houses, more trees, and making more waste with the blast 
thereof. And may the same Divine Providence which is their 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 335 

./Eolus, be also Neptune unto it, to secure this county from the 
fury of water, as well as from the fierceness of the wind, that their 
Lioness may never get a Lion unto it, so to propagate inun 
dations betwixt them. 

And now, to wish an honour to this duchy, and therewith 
a happiness both to it and all England, the strength of my weak 
prayers (twisted with many millions more proceeding from loyal 
hearts in this land) shall never be wanting, that God would be 
pleased to bestow a duke of Cornwall of the loins of our gracious 
sovereign, to be possessed of the virtues, and to be heir apparent 
to the lands, of his father ; a duke, presumed in law to be of full 
age to all purposes and intents, the first minute of his birth ; 
which happy minute God in due time send, for the comfort of 
our nation ! 



WORTHIES OF CORNWALL WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE THE 

TIME OF FULLER. 

John ANSTIS, Garter King-at-arms, historian of the order of 

the Garter; born at St. Neot s 1669. 
Thomas Tregenna BIDDULPH, divine and theological writer; 

bom at Padstow 1763; died 1838. 
William BORLASE, divine, and historian of his native county; 

born at Pendeen 1695-6. 

Edward BOSCAWEN, admiral; born at Tregothnan 1711^ or 1712. 
Sir Francis BULLER, judge of the Common Pleas; born at 

Morval about 1750. 

William BULLER, bishop of Exeter ; born at Morval 1735. 
Sir Humphrey DAVY, Pres. Royal Soc., inventor of the safety 

lamp, &c. ; born at Penzance 1779; died 1829. 
Samuel DREW, Wesleyan minister and metaphysical writer; 

born at St. Austell 1765 ; died 1833. 
Samuel FOOTE, comedian and wit ; born at Truro 1721. 
Robert GLYNN, afterwards CLOBERY, physician and poet; born 

at Broads 1719. 
Thomas GRAVES, first Lord Graves, admiral ; born atThancks ; 

died 1802. 
Richard LANDER, African traveller, and discoverer of the course 

of the Niger; born at Truro 1804 ; died 1834. 
Edward LONG, historian of Jamaica ; born at Rosilian in St. 

Blaze 1734. 
Sir William LOWER, dramatist and loyalist ; born at Tremare ; 

died 1662. 

Stephen LUKE, physician; born at Penzance; died 1829. 
Jeremiah MILLES, dean of Exeter, and president of the Society 

of Antiquaries ; bornatDuloe; 17 13. 
Walter MOYLE, ingenious miscellaneous writer; born at Bake; 

1672. 

VOL. I. Z 



336 WORTHIES OF CORNWALL. 

Wm. OLIVER, physician and author ; born at Ludgvan : died 

1764. 

John OPIE, painter; born at St. Agnes 1761. 
Charles PETERS., divine, opponent of Warburton ; died 1775. 
William PITT, great Earl of Chatham ; bom atBoconnoc 1708. 
Theophilus POLWHELE, non-conformist divine and author; 

died 1689. 
Richard POLWHELE, divine, historian of Devon and Cornwall, 

poet, &c. ; born at Truro 1760; died 1838. 
Sir John ST. AUBYN, patriotic member of parliament ; born 

at Camborne ; died 1744. 
Cuthbert SYDENHAM, divine and cosmologist; born at Ken- 

wyn 1721. 
Thomas TONKIN, collector of Cornish topography; born at 

Trevannaner in St. Agnes ; died 1 742. 
Jonathan TOUP, classical critic; born at St. Ives 1713. 
Sir Jonathan TRELAWNEY, bishop of Winchester; born at 

Trelawn-house ; died 1721. 

Thomas VIVIAN, divine and cosmologist ; born at Kenwyn 1721. 
Sir Charles WAGER, admiral; born at Talland 1687. 
General WILLES, victorious over the Pretenders forces, at Pres 
ton in Lancashire, in 1715 ; born at Polgarran. 



** Since the time of Fuller, Cornwall has been fortunate in her historians and 
topographers. Among the most important Works are those published by Norden 
(1728); by Carew, and Borlase (1769); by the Rev. R. Polwhele (1816); by 
Samuel Drew (1824) ; and by Gilbert Da vies, late President of the Royal Society 
(4 vols. 8vo. 1838). Several Tours, Excursions, and Descriptions have also ap 
peared from the respective pens of Lipscomb, Warner, Stockdale, Wbitaker, Bond, 
Gorham, Forster, and Hedgeland. 



CUMBERLAND. 



CUMBERLAND hath Scotland on the north, Northumberland 
and Westmoreland on the east, Lancashire on the south, and 
the Irish sea on the west. It is not unlike a half moon in the 
form thereof ; which, from its tips north and south, may be 
allowed to be somewhat more than forty miles, though east 
and M r est it spreadeth not above twenty-six miles. The soil, 
though generally hard, and exacting much toil to improve it, is 
pleasant with the varieties, and profitable with these 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
PEARLS. 

These are found commonly by the river Irt, where muscles 
(as also oysters and other shell-fish) gaping for the dew, are in 
a manner impregnated therewith ; so that some conceive that 
as dew is a liquid pearl, so a pearl is dew consolidated in these 
fishes. Here poor people, getting them at low water, sell to 
jewellers for pence what they sell again for pounds. Indeed 
there is a Spanish proverb, that a lapidary who would grow rich 
must buy of those who go to be executed (as not caring h ow 
cheap they sell) ; and sell to those that go to be married, as not 
caring how dear they buy. But, waving these advantages, such 
of that mystery which trade with country-people herein, gain 
much by buying their pearls, though far short of the Indian in 
Orientness. But whether not as useful in physic, is not as yet 
decided. 

BLACK-LEAD. 

Plenty hereof is digged up about Keswick, the only place (as 
I am informed) where it is found in Europe ; and various is the 
use thereof : 1. For painters (besides some mixture thereof in 
making lead colours), to draw the pictures of their pictures f 
viz. those shadowy lines made only to be unmade again. 
2. For pens, so useful for scholars to note the remarkables they 
read, with an impression easily delible without prejudice to 
the book. 3. For feltmakers, for colouring of hats. 4. To 
scour leaden cisterns, and to brighten things made of iron. 
5. In Flanders and Germany they use it for glazing of stuffs. 

Besides these visible, surely there are other concealed uses 

z 2 



338 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

thereof, which causeth it daily to grow the dearer, being so 
much transported beyond the seas. 

COPPER. 

These mines lay long neglected (choked in their own rub 
bish) till renewed about the beginning of queen Elizabeth, 
when plenty of copper was here afforded, both for home use 
and foreign transportation. But copper itself was too soft for 
several military services, and could not alone (no single person 
can prove a parent) produce brass, most useful for that 
purpose. Here taste and see Divine Providence, which never 
doth its work by halves, and generally doubleth gifts by sea 
sonable giving them : Lapis calaminaris (whereof hereafter in 
due place) was then first found in England,* the mother of 
brass, as copper the father hereof. Hence came it to pass that 
queen Elizabeth left more brass than she found iron-ordnance 
in the kingdom ; and our wooden walls (so our ships are 
commonly called) were rough-casted over with a coat of a 
firmer constitution. 

We must not forget the names of the two Dutchmen (good 
frogs by sea, but better moles by land,) who re-found out these 
copper-mines, wherein also some silver (no new milk without 
some cream therein) ; viz. Thomas Shurland and Daniel 
Hotchstabter of Auspurge in Germany ; whose nephews, turn 
ing purchasers of lands hereabouts, prefer easily to take what 
the earth tenders in her hands above ground, then painfully to 
pierce into her heart for greater treasure. 

I am sorry to hear, and loath to believe, what some credible 
persons have told me, that within these twenty years the copper 
within this county hath been wholly discontinued, and that not 
for want of metal, but mining for it. Sad, that the industry of 
our age could not keep what the ingenuity of the former found 
out. And I would willingly put it on another account, that 
the burying of so much steel in the bowels of men, during our 
civil wars, hath hindered their digging of copper out of the 
entrails of the earth ; hoping that these peaceable times will 
encourage to the resuming thereof. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

This county pretendeth not to the mode of reformed archi 
tecture, the vicinity of the Scots causing them to build rather 
for strength than state. The cathedral of Carlile may pass for 
the emblem of the militant-church, black but comely, still 
bearing in the complexion thereof the remaining signs of its 
former burning. Rose-castle, the bishop s best seat, hath lately 
the rose therein withered ; and the prickles, in the ruins thereof, 
only remain. 

* Bishop Carleton s Thankful Remembrancer, cap. i. p. 4. 



WONDERS. 339 

The houses of the nobility and gentry are generally built 
castle-wise ; and in the time of the Romans this county 
(because a limitary) did abound with fortifications ; Mr. Cam- 
den taking notice of more antiquities in Cumberland and 
Northumberland than in all England besides. 

THE WONDERS. 

Although, if the word Wonders be strained up high and hard, 
this county affordeth none ; yet, if the sense thereof be some 
what let down, the compass thereof fetcheth in 

THE MOSS-TROOPERS; 

so strange the condition of their living, if considered in their 
original, increase, height, decay, and ruin. 

1. Original. I conceive them the same called Borderers in 
Mr. Cam den, and charactered by him to be a wild and warlike 
people. They are called Moss-troopers, because dwelling in 
the Mosses, and riding in troops together. They dwell in the 
bounds or meeting of two kingdoms, but obey the laws of nei 
ther. They come to church as seldom as the twenty-ninth of 
February comes into the Calendar. 

2. Increase. When England and Scotland were united in 
Great Britain, they that formerly lived by hostile incursions 
betook themselves to the robbing of their neighbours. Their 
sons are free of the trade by their fathers copy ; they are like 
unto Job (not in piety and patience, but) in sudden plenty and 
poverty, sometimes having flocks and herds in the morning, 
none at night, and perchance many again next day. They may 
give for their motto, Vivitur ex rapto, stealing from their honest 
neighbours what sometimes they regain. They are a nest of 
hornets; strike one, and stir all of them about your ears. 
Indeed, if they promise safely to conduct a traveller, they will 
perform it with the fidelity of a Turkish janizary ; otherwise 
woe be to him that falleth into their quarters. 

3. Height. Amounting forty years since to some thousands. 
These compelled the vicinage to purchase their security, by 
paying a constant rent unto them. When in their greatest 
height, they had two great enemies, the laws of the land, and 
the Lord William Howard, of Naworth. He sent many of them 
to Carlisle ; to that place where " the officer always doth his work 
by daylight." Yet these Moss-troopers, if possibly they could 
procure the pardon for a condemned person of their company, 
would advance great sums out of their common stock, who, in 
such a case, " cast in their lots amongst themselves, and all have 
one purse."* 

4. Decay ; caused by the wisdom, valour, and diligence of 
the right honourable Charles Lord Howard, earl of Carlisle, 

* Proverbs i. 14. 



340 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

who routed these English Tories with his regiment. His seve 
rity unto them will not only be excused but commended by 
the judicious, who consider how our great lawyer doth describe 
such persons who are solemnly outlawed : 

" Extunc gerunt caput lupinum, ita quod sine judiciali 
inquisitione rite pereant, et secum suum judicium portent, et 
merito sine lege pereunt, quia secundum legem vivere recusa- 
rent :"* (thenceforward [after they are outlawed] they wear a 
wolfs head ;f so that they lawfully may be destroyed, without 
any judicial inquisition, as who carry their own condemnation 
about them, and deservedly die without law, because they re 
fused to live according to law.) 

5. Ruin. Such the success of this worthy lord s severity, that 
he made a thorough reformation amongst them ; and, the ring 
leaders being destroyed, the rest are reduced to legal obedience, 
and so I trust will continue. 

PROVERBS. 

" - If Skiddaw hath a cap, 
Scruffell wots full well of that." J] 

These are two neighbour hills, the one in this county, the 
other in Annandale in Scotland. If the former be capped with 
clouds and foggy mists, it will not be long before rain falls on 
the other. It is spoken of such who must expect to sympathise 
in their sufferings, by reason of the vicinity of their habitation. 

Turn tua res agitur, paries cum proximus ardet. 

&gt; When thy neighbour s house doth burn, 
Take heed the next be not thy turn."] 

The Cumberlanders have found the truth hereof by their 
sad experience in our civil wars, paying dear for their vicinity 
Scotland. 



" Skiddaw, Lauvellin, and Casticand, 
Are the highest hills in all England. 1 ] 

I know not how to reconcile this rhyme with another which 
I meet with in the same author : || 

" Ingleborrow, Pendle, and Penigent, 
Are the highest hills between Scotland and Trent. 1 

But, in order of an expedient betwixt them, we may observe ; 
first, that every county is given to magnify (not to say altify) their 
own things therein. Secondly, that the survey goes according 
to the guess of men s eyes (as never exactly measured) variable 
according to several apprehensions. Thirdly, some hills are 
higher in view, rising almost perpendicularly of a sudden by 
themselves ; whilst the invisible greatness of others is not 
heeded so much, which mount with the country about them, 

1 Bracton, lib. tertio. tract. 2, cap. 11. 

f In the laws of king Edward, an out-lawed person is called " Woolfc-hefod. 
Lambarde, fol. 127, b. num. 7. 

J Camden s Britannia, in Cumberland. Ibidem. 

|| Idem, in Lancashire. 



SAINTS MARTYRS. 341 

creeping up insensibly by degrees. Meantime no mention of 
Plynillymon-hill, as being in Wales, and without compare, the 
monarch of all mountains south of Scotland. 

SAINTS. 

Saint HEREBERT, priest and confessor, may justly be referred 
to this county ; for there is a lake therein (Bede* calleth it pras- 
grande stagnum) nigh Keswick, made by the river Darwent, 
wherein three islands are found, in the least of which this Here- 
bert led an eremitical life. If he travelled hence, it was to visit 
his friend Saint Cuthbert, betwixt whom such intimacy, that, 
Cuthbert telling him how his own death approached, Herebert, 
falling down at his feet,t importunately requested him, that 
they might both pass out of this world together ; which, by 
Saint Cuthbert s prayers, is said to be obtained. Thus, " as 
they were loving in their lives, so in their death they were not 
divided " departing this world the same day and hour, anno 
Domini 688. 

Saint ALREKE, born and bred in this county, led an eremi 
tical life in a forest near to Carlisle. This man did not more 
macerate himself with constant fasting, than time since hath 
consumed his memory, which hath reduced it to nothing more 
than the skeleton of his name, without any historical passages 
to flesh and fill up the same ; for I account the report of Saint 
Goderick,J another hermit (and present at this man s death), 
not worth the remembering; viz. that he saw the soul of Alrike 
ascend to heaven, " as it were in a spherical form of a burning 
wind ; " but we listen unto it but as unto wind. He died anno 
1107. 

MARTYRS. 

This county affordeth none in the reign of queen Mary; 
(Thereof accept a double reason. First, the people thereof were 
nuzzled in ignorance and superstition. Secondly, such as 
favoured the Reformation were connived at by Owen Oglethorp, 
the courteous bishop of Carlisle, who crowned queen Elizabeth, 
and who in requital had a favour for him, had he lived any 
longer. However, Cumberland had one native, who, going up 
to London, first found a husband, and then met with mar 
tyrdom therein ; viz. 

ELIZABETH FORSTER was born at Graystock in this county, 
though her maiden surname be unknown. Travelling to Lon 
don, she was there married to one John Forster, cutler, of the 
parish of Saint Bride s in Fleet-street ; and, being summoned 
before Bonner for not coming to church, was imprisoned, and 
strictly examined. Being moved by the bishop to desert her 
answers, " I will not," said she, " go from them, by God s 

Lib. iv. cap. 9. Hist. Ang. f Idem, ibid. 

C t Matthew Paris, in anno 1170. Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 1857. 



I 



342 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

grace." Hereupon she was condemned ; and, being fifty-five 
years of age, accordingly suffered, with six other martyrs, all in 
one fire, in Smithfield, Jan. 27, 1556. 

PRELATES. 

ROGER WHELPDALE was born in the borders of this county 
(so that Westmoreland pretends to a share of him) j bred in 
Balliol College in Oxford, and afterwards became provost of 
Queen s College in that university. 

1. A good logician ; ^ witness his ( l Summulae Logicales ; 

2. A good mathematician j [ \T f &lt; 2. De Quanto et Continue ; 

3. A good divine ; } ( 3. De Deo Invocando. 

Bale ingeuously confesseth,* that he cannot find where this 
learned man, after his long labours in Oxford, led the rest of 
his life ; and Pits (who seeing with Bale s eyes, both are blind 
or sighted together) is at the same loss. But herein we are able 
to guide our guides, and light a candle to direct them ; for he 
was by king Henry the Fifth preferred bishop of Carlisle, 1419. 
He sat three years in that see ; and, dying at London, Feb. 4, 
1422, was buried in Saint Paul s. 

ROGER LAYBURN was born of a noble family, not living far 
from Carlisle.f A noble family indeed, expiring in the days of 
our grandfathers, when Elizabeth, sole daughter and heir of 
Sir Francis Layburn, was married to Thomas Dacre, last Baron 
of Gilsland and Graystock. This Roger was bred fellow of 
Pembroke-hall, doctor of divinity ; and at last was consecrated 
bishop of Carlisle, 1503. Two years after, he solemnly 
accepted of the mastership of Pembroke-hall in Cambridge ; 
which I have heard called Episcopate Collegium., not only because 
it hath bred so many bishops (for the proportion thereof), but 
chiefly because many prelates have held the mastership thereof, 
even until their death. Doctor Layburn died soon after, 1509, 
before he could express his good intentions to his college or 
cathedral. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

EDMUND GRINDALL was born at Saint Bees J in this county ; 
bred scholar, fellow and master of Pembroke-hall in Cambridge, 
and proctor of the university. In the reign of queen Mary he 
fled beyond the seas, and was no Violento in the troubles of 
Francfort ; but, with all meekness, to his might, endeavoured a 
pacification. Returning home, he was made successively bishop 
of London, archbishop of York and Canterbury, by queen 
Elizabeth, highly favouring him for his learning, piety, modesty, 
and single life ; till at last he lost her love, by the mischievous 
practices of his enemies. His fault was, for keeping others from 
breaking two of God s commandments, " Thou shalt not steal," 

* Cent. vi. num. 29. f Godwin, in the bishops of Carlisle. 
J Or rather at Hempingham, about three miles from St. Bees ED. 



PRELATES. 343 

when he would not let the lord of Leicester have Lambeth- 
house ; and " Thou shalt not commit adultery/ when he would 
not permit Julio, the earl s Italian physician, to marry another 
man s wife. 

But it was objected against him to the queen, that he was 
a fierce defender of factious prophesying, which in process of 
time would undermine the hierarchy ; though moderate men 
were of the opinion they might prove profitable, as by arch 
bishop Grindall limited and regulated. 

Being really blind, more with grief than age (dying at sixty- 
four), he was willing to put off his clothes before he went to 
bed, and in his lifetime to resign his place to doctor Whitgift, 
who refused such acceptance thereof.* And the queen, com 
miserating his condition, was graciously pleased to say, that, 
fe as she had made him, so he should die an archbishop ;" as 
he did, July 6, 1583. 

Worldly wealth he cared not for, desiring only to make both 
ends meet; and as for that little that lapped over, he gave 
it to pious uses in both universities, and the founding of a 
fair free-school at Saint Bees, the place of his nativity. 

HENRY ROBINSON, D.D., was born in Carlisle ;f bred fellow, 
and at last provost of Queen s College in Oxford ; and after 
wards, 1598, was consecrated bishop of the place of his nativity. 

When queen Elizabeth received his homage, she gave him 
many gracious words, of the good opinion which she conceived 
of his learning, integrity, and sufficiency for that place ; more 
over adding, " that she must ever have a care to furnish that 
see with a worthy man, for his sake who first set the crown on 
her head ;" J and many words to the like purpose. 

He was a prelate of great gravity and temperance, very mild 
in speech, but not of so strong a constitution of body as his 
countenance did promise ; and yet he lived to be a very old 
man. He died anno Domini 1616. 

RICHARD SENHOUSE, D.D. was born of worshipful parent 
age, at Netherhall in this county ; a valiant man in his younger 
days ; and I have heard that in his old age he felt the admo 
nitions of his youthful over-violent exercises. He was bred 
fellow of Saint John s College in Cambridge, and became an 
excellent preacher, his sermons losing no lustre by his good 
utterance and graceful delivering of them. He was chaplain 
to king Charles whilst prince, and preached his sermon at his 
coronation. He was preferred bishop of Carlisle, enjoying the 
place but a short time. He died anno Domini 1626. 

Sir George Paul, in Whitgift s Life, p. 27. 

So Mr. Robinson, stationer, and his countryman, informed me. F. 
j Sir John Harrington, in his View of the Church of England, p. 208. 
O. Oglethorp. 



344 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND, 



CAPITAL JUDGES, AND WRITERS ON THE LAW. 

Sir RICHARD HUTTON was born at Penrith, of a worshipful 
family (his elder brother was a knight) ; and bred in Jesus Col 
lege in Cambridge.* He intended his studies for divinity ; till, 
dissuaded by the importunity of his friends (amongst whom 
George Earl of Cumberland most eminent) he became barrister 
in Gray s Inn. But, in expression of his former affection to 
divinity, he seldom (if ever) took fee of a clergyman. After 
wards, being recorder of York, he was knighted, and made judge 
of the Common Pleas. In the case of ship money, though he 
was against the king, or rather for the Commons, yet his Majesty 
manifested not the least distaste, continuing to call him " the 
honest judge." 

This person, so pious to God, and charitable to his poor 
members, was dissolved about the beginning of our national 
misery. Thus God, before he new plougheth up a land with the 
furrows of a civil war, first cutteth down his old crop, and ga- 
thereth them like ripe sheaves into his barn. He died at Ser 
jeant s Inn ; and was buried, at his earnest desire, without any 
funeral sermon, save what his own virtues preached to posterity, 
at St. Dunstan s in the West, on the 27th day of February, anno 
Domini 1638. 



Sir JOHN BANKS was born at Keswick, of honest parents, 
who, perceiving him judicious and industrious, bestowed good 
breeding on him in Gray s Inn ; in hope he should attain to 
preferment; wherein they were not deceived. After he was 
called to the bar, for some years he solicited suits for others, 
thereby attaining great practical experience. He afterwards 
might laugh at them who then did smile at him, leaving many 
behind him in learning \vhom he found before him in time, un 
til at last he was knighted by king Charles, made first his attor 
ney, then chief justice of the Common Pleas, dying in the midst 
and heat of our civil dissensions. 

He ordered by his will (the copy whereof I have received from 
my good friend Mr. John Myriel, minister at Lamplugh) that 
his body should be buried under some plain monument, at the 
discretion of his executors ; and after an epitaph mentioning the 
several places he had held, this motto to be added. "Non 
nobis, Domine, non nobis, sed Nomini tuo da-gloriam." 

It must not be forgotten that by his said will he gave to the 
value of thirty pounds per annum, with other emoluments, to be 
bestowed in pious uses, and chiefly to set up a manufacture of 
coarse cottons in the town of Keswick ; which, I understand, 
hath good, and is in hopes of better, success. 

* It is pity his Manuscripts on the Law should be smotheied in private hands, 
which I hope will hereafter become publici juris F. 



CIVILIANS WRITERS. 345 



CIVILIANS. 

GEORGE PORTER was born at Weery Hall, in the parish of 
Bolton in this county, of gentle extraction. He was afterward 
fellow of Queen s College in Cambridge, doctor and professor of 
civil law therein for above thirty years ; so that he might have 
been made Comes imperil primi ordinis, according to the consti 
tution of Theodosius the emperor, allowing that honour to pro 
fessors in that faculty, " cum ad viginti annos observatione jugi, 
ac sedulo docendi labore pervenerint."* 

He was of a pitiful nature ; and we commonly called him (for 
I had oft the honour to be in his mess) " the patron of infirmi 
ties," whose discourse was always defensive and charitable, 
either to excuse men s failings, or mitigate their punishments. 
He was valiant as well as learned ; and, with his stern looks and 
long sword, frighted three thieves from setting upon him. He 
died anno Domini 163 ..; and Doctor Collins, who with Saint 
Chrysostom was in laudatoriis hyperbolicus, preaching his fune 
ral sermon, endeavoured to heighten his memory to his soul, 
mounting it above the skies for his modesty and learning. 

WRITERS. 

JOHN CANON. Some will have him so called, because canon 
of some cathedral church; and if so, there were hundreds of 
John Canons besides himself : others, because he was doctor of 
canon law, which leaves as great a latitude as the former for 
hundreds, with equal right, to jostle with him for the same sur 
name. I have cause to conceive, until I shall be clearly con 
vinced to the contrary, that he was born at Canonsby in this 
county, by being set by for brevity s sake. 

Bilious Bale bespattereth him more than any of his order. 
Hear how he ranteth : " He turned a Minotaurf (I should say 
Minorite) ; and, with his thrasonical boasting," &c. But I am 
not bound to believe him, the rather because Trithemius, a fo 
reign, judicious, and moderate writer, givethhim great commen 
dation ; whence I collect that his worth was not, like a candle 
in the house, only burning at home in England ; but a torch, 
blazing abroad beyond the seas, the university of Paris and 
other places taking signal notice of his learning. He flourished 
under king Edward the Second, 1320. 

WILLIAM EGREMONT. He hath almost lost his true sur 
name amongst the various writing thereof. Bale calleth him 
Egumonde,J though no such place in all England ; Pits reduc- 
eth it to a Saxon name, and calleth him Egmund ; Leland, for 
a reason immediately following, nameth him William of Stam- 

* Codex Theod. lib. vi. tit. 21. J Cent. v. num. 3. 

J De Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. vii. num. 12. 
De Anglise Scriptoribus, 1390. 



346 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

ford. But Egremont is the orthography of his name, from a 
small market-town (yet a barony of the late earls of Sussex) in 
this shire, where he was born. 

Quitting this cold country, he took his progress into the south, 
and, fixing himself at Stamford, became an Augustinian eremite, 
and proceeded doctor of Divinity. Going beyond the seas, he 
was by the Pope made Episcopus Pissinensis (some poor pitiful 
bishopric, so that one would scarce trouble himself to find it out 
to have the profit thereof), and therewith held the Suffragan- 
ship under Henry Beaufort bishop of Lincoln. Indeed that 
voluminous diocese (a full fourth part of England, before Ely, 
Peterborough, and Oxford were cantoned out of it) required a 
co-adjutor. Many are the learned works written by him, and, 
seeing he is doubly qualified, I thought fitter to repose him 
under the topic of " writers" than of " prelates/ being confident 
that he got more credit by his books, than profit by his bishop 
ric. He flourished under king Richard the Second, anno 1 390. 

JOHN SKELTON was a younger branch of the Skeltons, of 
Skelton in this county. I crave leave of the reader, hitherto 
not having full instructions, and preserving the undoubted title 
of this county unto him, to defer his character to Norfolk, where 
he was beneficed at Diss therein. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

RICHARD CRAKENTHORP, D. D. was descended of an ancient 
family in this county, as appeareth by their frequently being 
sheriffs thereof. He was bred fellow of Queen s College in Ox 
ford ; and afterwards, in the first of king James, went over 
chaplain to the Lord Evers, sent ambassador to the king 
of Denmark, and other prime princes of Germany. Here by use 
he got an easiness in the Latin tongue, and correspondency with 
several persons of eminent learning. 

He was an excellent logician, witness his work in that kind ; 
and became chaplain in ordinary to king James, rector of Black 
Notley in Essex ; greater preferments expecting him, had not 
his death prevented it. 

Pliny observeth, that posthume children, born after the death 
of their father, and Caesars (understand such who are cut out of 
the womb of their mother), prove very happy in success. What 
reason soever naturalists assign hereof, divines justly impute it 
to God s goodness, graciously remembering those orphans 
which cannot remember their own parents. 

The observation may be applied to the books of this worthy 
doctor, set forth after his death ; one called, " Vigilius Dormi- 
tans/ in defence of the emperor Justinian, and a general coun 
cil held by him anno 553, set forth by his brother George Cra- 
kenthorp ; the other being an answer to the manifesto of the 
archbishop of Spalato, set forth by that learned antiquary Dr. 



WRITERS. 347 

John Barkham ; and both of these books finding an universal 
and grateful reception among the learned and religious. I can 
not certainly fix the date of his death ; and be it here solemnly 
entered, that Westmoreland shall be unprejudiced, if he were 
born (as a most credible person hath informed me) at New Big 
gin in that county. 

JOHN SALKELD was a branch of a right worshipful family in 
this county ; bred a divine beyond the seas ; but whether Jesuit 
or secular priest I know not. Coming over into England to 
angle for proselytes, it seems his line broke, and he was cast 
into prison. Hence he was brought out, and presented to king 
James ; by whose arguments, (and a benefice bestowed on him 
in Somersetshire) he became a Protestant. 

This he used in all companies to boast of, " that he was a 
royal convert." 

Nobisque dedit solatia victor. 

" And was it not a noble thing, 
Thus to be conquer d by a king ?" 

Indeed his majesty, in some of his works, styleth him " the 
learned Salkeld ;" which the other much vaunted of, often tell 
ing it to such who well knew it before, for fear they might for 
get it. His preaching was none of the best ; and he retained 
some popish (though not opinions) fancies to the day of his 
death. I have heard much of his discourse, more of his own 
praise, than to his own praise in my judgment. But his true 
character may be taken out of the book he wrote " of Angels." 
He died about the year 1638. 

GERARD LANGBAIN, D. D. was born at Kirk-Banton in this 
county ; bred first fellow in, then provost of, Queen s College in 
Oxford; a skilful antiquary, ingenious, industrious, and judi 
cious in his writings, as by his works will appear. 

Whoso shall read over the " History of the Council of 
Trent," translated out of Italian by Sir Nathaniel Brent, will 
conceive it so complete a narration of all the concernments in 
that council, that nothing of consequence can be added there 
unto. Yet this his mistake will be confuted, by perusing the 
works set forth by Doctor Langbain, of the dissent of the Galli- 
can churches, from several conclusions in that council. 

As his brain was the mother of some, so was it the midwife 
to other, good books, which he procured to be published ; espe 
cially a book made by Sir John Cheeke, concerning " Rebellion 
and Loyalty," seasonably reprinted in the beginning of our 
civil wars. But alas ! such then was the noise of men s animo 
sities, that the- still voice of truth could not be heard amongst 
them. More excellent tracts were expected from him (parti 
cularly an edition of Brian Twine, with additions concerning 



348 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

the antiquity of Oxford,) when God was pleased, almost in the 
midst of his days, to put an end to his life, anno 1657- 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

ROBERT EAGLESFIELD, born in this county, was a pious and 
learned man, according to the rate of that age ; chaplain and 
confessor to Philippa, queen to Edward the Third. He founded 
a fair college in Oxford, by the name of Queen s College, for a 
provost and twelve fellows, whom he ordered to sit in the hall 
in purpura, and that they should be attended on more curiali. 
He appointed that those of Cumberland and Westmoreland 
should be proper for preferment in his foundation ; rendering 
this reason w r hy he reflected most on those Northern counties, 
" propter insolitam vastitatem, et melioris literatures infrequen- 
tiam." 

But, prevented by death, he finished not his intentions ; leav 
ing only to the college the manor of Renwick in this county, 
with the impropriation of burgh under Stanmore, and which I 
assure you was considerable ; most excellent statutes. 

To shew himself both courtier and scholar, he ordered that in 
the hall they should speak either Latin or French. He 
bequeathed his college to the honorary patronage of the queens 
of England ; and his surname is still extant in this county in 
persons of quality, but how to him related to me unknown. He 
died about the year of our Lord 1370. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

MAUD, the daughter of Thomas Lord Lucy, sister and heir 
of Anthony Lord Lucy, and baron of Cockermouth, the widow 
of Gilbert Humfrevile, Earl of Angus, was the second wife of 
Henry Percy, earl of Northumberland ; who, when she saw that 
she should die without issue, gave to earl Henry her husband 
the castle and honour of Cockermouth, with many other manors 
in Cumberland and Westmoreland, with condition that his issue 
should bear her arms of the Lucies [viz. Gules, three lucies (or 
pikes) hauriant Argent,] quartered, with their own arms of the 
Percies ; and for it levied a fine in the court of king Richard the 
Second. 

Hitherto verbatim out of Master Mills.* But, by his favour, 
his words are not sufficiently expressive of the agreement 
betwixt them. The earl conditioned, not only to quarter the 
Arms of the Lucies, (as the Percies now quarter many more 
besides, viz. Poynings, Fitz-Pain, Brians, &c.) ; but he also 
covenanted (as in the words of the instrument) deferre quateria- 
tim (to bear them quarterly) with his own Arms, incorporated 
into one coat in effect. This promise the Percies have bonajidc 

* Catalogue of Honour, p. 719: 



SHERIFFS. * 349 

performed, preserving so near a relation between the two coats, 
that, in a manner, mutuo se ponunt et auferunt ; so that, if 
either, both always appear together. 

This lady is entered amongst " Memorable Persons ;" partly 
because of her harmless device to perpetuate her memory ; 
partly because of her great affection to her husband ; she but a 
second, and no wife of his youth, bringing him no children ; and 
having (no doubt) heirs of her own name and blood, though she 
were barren, would be bountiful to endow that family with pos 
sessions, which she could not enrich with posterity. Say not 
the Percy s profit was the Lucy s loss ; for, what saith the 
Scripture, " Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine 
own }"* She died about the year of our Lord 1382. 

LORD MAYORS. 

I find none of this county ; nor is the wonder great, if it be 
true what credible persons have informed me, that there are no 
carriers (the post from Carlisle is excepted) which immediately 
come from this county to London. It seems Cumberland is 
terra suis contenta bonis, neither proud of the gaiety nor cove 
tous of the money of London. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING HENRY 

THE SIXTH, 1433. 

Marmaduke bishop of Carlisle, and Thomas de Dacre de Gils- 
land ; William Legh, chivaler, and William Laton, armiger, 
(knights for the shire) ; Commissioners. 

Tho. Barnby Prioris Carlioli. Joh. Broughton. 

Will. Reddekar Abbatis de Tho. Culwen. 

Holm. Tho. Delamore. 

Tho. Stanley Abbatis de Wed- Geor. Warthwyk. 

erhill- Will. Twates. 

Rog. Kirkeby Prioris de Seynt Joh. Eglisfeld, sen. 

Be ys- Will. Martindale, sen. 

Alex. Walton Prioris de Lane- Joh. Hoton. 

cos t. Hug. Forster. 

Rich. Hodleston. Joh. de Skelton. 

Christ. Culwan, sheriff. Will. Thirskeld. 

Pet. Tilioll. Will. Louther de Rosa. 

Joh. Penyngton. Joh. de Denton. 

Joh. Skelton. Will. Arlosch. 

Joh, Lamplewe. Rich, de Kirkebride. 

Nich. RadclyfF, mil. Will. Dykes. 

Hen. Fenwyk. Tho. de Stanewikes. 

Hug. de Louther. Joh. Blanerhasset. 

Will. Stapleton. Tho. Aglaonbly. 

* Matthew xx. 15. 



350 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

Tho. Appulby. Joh. Louther de Alwardby. 

Tho. Salkeld. Nich. Stanle. 

Tho. Beuchamp. Tho. Wodhall. 

Rol. Vaux. Will. Hodliston de Copland. 

Ade de Denton. Rob. Scot de Caldebeke. 

Tho. Grane. Will. Denton, Majoris Karlioli. 

Tho. Hethryngton. Will. Cardoile. 

Tho. de Sandes. Tho. Frankyssh, Ballivi ibid. 

Joh. Swynburn. Tho. Delmore. 

Joh. Eglisfeld, junioris. Will. Kelet. 

Rich. Eglisfeld. Joh. Graneson. 

Will. Martyndail, junioris. Galf. Barre. 

Joh. Culwen. Joh. Middilham, 

Tho. Senenhans. Joh. Person de Lowswater. 

Will. Osmonderlawe. Pet. Jakson de eadem. 
Will. Lowther de Crokdaile. Rich. Bristow. 

Nich. Irton. Leo. Howehonson. 

Alex. Heighmore. Will. Redman. 

Joh. Rybton, Tho. Rickman de Cokyrmouth, 
Rob. Bristow. Baker. 

Will. Aglanby. 

This is a comfortable catalogue for one delighting in ancient 
families to practise upon. It is the observation of Vitruvius 
(alleged and approved by Master Camden*) that northern men 
advancing southward, " non possunt durare sed dissolvuntur ; " 
(cannot endure the heat, but their strength melteth away and 
is dissolved ;) whilst southern people removing northward, " non 
modo non laborant immutatione loci valetudinibus, sed etiam 
confirmantur " (are not only not subject to sickness through the 
change of place, but are the more confirmed in their strength 
and health.) 

Sure I am, that northern gentry transplanted into the south 
by marriage, purchase, or otherwise, do languish and fade away 
within few generations ; whereas southern men on the like oc 
casions removing northward acquire a settlement in their estates 
with long continuance. Some peevish natures (delighting to 
comment all things into the worst sense) impute this to the 
position of their country, as secured from sale by their distance 
from London (the staple place of pleasure) ; whilst I would 
willingly behold it as the effect and reward, of their discreet 
thrift and moderate expence ; two thirds of this catalogue of 
Cumberland being still extant ; and the third extinct, for lack 
of issue and not estate. 

SHERIFFS. 
Anno HENRY II. Anno 

1 Hildretas. 2 (Recorda manca.) 

* In his Elizabeth, anno 1589. 



SHERIFFS. 



351 



Anno 

3 

4 

5 Rob. Fitz. Troit, for four 
teen years. 

19 Idem, et Adam films ejus. 

20 Adam filius Rob. Trutts. 

21 Rob. de Vans. 
22 

23 Rob. Trutt, Adam filius 

ejus pro eo. 

24 Rob. de Vallibus. 

25 Idem. 

26 Rob. de Vallibus and Rog. 

de Legeire. 

27 Rob. de Vallibus, for four 

years. 

31 Hug. de Morwich. 

32 Idem. 

33 Idem, et Nich. frater ejus. 

RICHARD I. 

1 Will, de Aldelin, for nine 
years. 

JOH. REX. 

1 Will, de Stuteivill et Jo- 

han. Laleman. 

2 Idem. 

3 Will, de Stutevill et Phus. 

Escrar. 

4 Idem. 

5 Idem. 

6 Rog. de Lasy, Constabul. 

Cestrie. 

7 Idem. 

8 Rog. de Lasy, Constabul. 

Cestrie, et Walt. Ma- 

rescallus, for four years. 
12 Hug. de Nevill, for four 

years. 
16 Rob. de Ros, et Alanus 

Candebec. 

HEN III. 

1 Walt. Mauclere, for seven 

years. 
8 Walt. Episc. Carliol. et 

Rob. filius Will, de 
VOL. r. 



Anno 

Hampton, for seven 
years. 

15 Walt. Episc. Carliol. et 

Tho. filius Johannis. 

16 Idem. 

1 7 Tho. de Muleton, for four 

years. 
21 Will, de Dacre, for twelve 

years. 
33 Job. Daylock, for eight 

years. 
41 Will. Com. Albemarl. et 

Remigius de Todington, 

for five years. 
46 Eustachius de Bayloel, for 

five years. 
51 Eustachius de Baylloel et 

Mathe. de Ebor. for 

four years. 
55 Rad. de Dacre. 

EDW. I. 

1 Rob. Carliol. Episc. Math. 

Cordil. et Rogeri de Pock- 
lington. 

2 Idem. 

3 Rob. de Hampton. 

4 Idem. 

5 Idem. 

6 Joh. de Windeburne et 

Mich, de Neilbigging. 

7 Ad. Newbegin, Gil. Cure- 

weune. 
Idem. 
9 Idem. 
10 Rob. de Brus, for four 

years. 
14 Mich, de Arcla (Harcla), 

for twelve years, 
26 Will, de Mulecaster, for 
five years. 

31 Joh. de Lucy. 

32 Idem. 

33 Will, de Mulcaster. 

34 Idem. 

EDW. II. 

1 Alex, de Wastwenthoyte. 
2 A 



352 



WORTHIES OP CUMBERLAND. 



Anno 

2 Andreas de Harcla, for 

four years. 
6 Andr. de Harcla et Alex. 

de Bastenthwayt, Mi. for 

seven years. 
13 Nul. Titulus Comitis in 

hoc Rotulo. 
14 
15 
16 

17 Hen. de Malton et Rob. le 

Brun. 

18 Hen. de Malton. 

EDW. III. 

1 Pet. Tillollet Rob. le Brun. 

2 

3 Pet. Tilloll. 



A lino 

20 
21 
22 
23 
24 
25 
26 

27 
28 
29 

30 
31 
32 
33 
34 
35 
36 



4 Rad. de Dacre (Ranulphus) , 37 

for six years. 38 

] Ric. de Denton. 39 

11 Anth. de Lucy et Roul. 40 

Vaux. 41 

12 Idem. 42 

13 Anth. deLucy. 43 

14 Idem. 44 

15 Hug. de Moriceby, et Anth. 45 

de Lucy. 46 

16 Idem. 47 

17 Hug. de Moriceby. 48 

18 Idem. 49 

19 Tho. de Lucy, et Hug. de 50 

Moriceby. 51 



Idem. 

Tho. de Lucy. 

Idem. 

Idem. 

Rich, de Denton. 

Idem. 

Hug. de Louthre. 

Idem. 

Idem. 

Nul. Titulus Comitis in 

Rotulo. 

Will, de Thirkeld. 
Rob.Tillioll. 
Idem. 

Will, de Lancaster. 
Chri. de Moriceby. 
Rob. de Tillioll. 
Idem. 

Chri. de Moriceby. 
Idem. 
Idem. 
Idem. 

Will, de Windesor. 
Idem. 

Adam. Puinges. 
Idem. 
Idem. 

Joh. de Denton. 
Rob. de Moubray. 
Joh. de Derwentwater. 
Joh. de Denton. 
Joh. de Derwentwater. 
Joh. Bruyn. 



KING HENRY II. 

21. ROBERTUS de VAUS; alias, de Vaux, or de Vallibus ; a 
right ancient name (still extant) in this county. There is a 
cross in the church-yard of Beu-castle, about twenty foot in 
height, all of one square stone, carved with the arms of Vaux ; 
whence Master Camden concludeth it (though otherwise the 
inscription thereon not legible) of their erection. I behold this 
Robert as father to John de Vallibus, of whom Matthew Paris* 
saith, that he was one of those that, "muneribus excsecati, a fi- 
dehtate, quam baronibus in commune juraverant, recesserunt ; " 
(blinded with bribes, they went back from the [some will say 
such breach no breach of] fidelity which they had jointly sworn 

* In his History, anno 1263. 



SHERIFFS. 353 

to the barons.)* Indeed the same author reckoneth him amongst 
those whom he termeth clarissimos milites, on whose loyalty and 
valour king Henry the Third relied. The Lord Vaux of Har- 
rowden in Northamptonshire doth hence fetch his extraction . 

KING HENRY III. 

8. WALT. Epis. CARLIOL. et ROB. filius WILL, de HAMP 
TON. This Walter bishop of Carlisle was he who commonly 
was called Male-clerk, English it as you please, Bad-scholar, or 
Clergy-man. It seems to me a strange transposition, that 
Henry the First, king of England, should be termed Beau-clerk, a 
good scholar, and our Walter a bad one, who was a bishop in 
orders. 

However, though Male-clerk, had he been bon-homme, a good 
man, the matter had been much mended. But I find little 
praise of his manners, Indee d he was lord treasurer of England, 
and found false both in word and deed ; avowing his accounts 
even, when he was justly charged with an hundred pound (a 
sum in that age in the purse of a poor king) debt to the Exche 
quer. This cost him much molestation ; so that at last he 
resigned his bishopric ; which by my author is beheld as no 
kindly act of mortification,t but that he came unjustly by his 
place, and was afraid to lose, though ashamed to keep it any 
longer. He afterwards became a friar at Oxford, as if, lacking 
learning in his youth, he w r ould recover it in his old age ; where 
he died, October 28th, 1248. 

EDWARD II. 

2. ANDREAS de HARCLA. Had his latter end answered 
his beginning, he might deservedly have been ranked amongst 
the worthies of Westmoreland (where he was born, at Harcla ) ; 
whereas now it shall suffice to make this oblique mention of him 
in this place. 

He behaved himself right handsomely in the service of king 
Edward the Second many years together, especially at the bat 
tle of Boroughbridge, where he killed Humphrey Bohun earl of 
Hereford, and took Thomas Plantagenet earl of Lancaster, with 
many others of the nobility, prisoners ; and delivered them to the 
king; in reward whereof, he was created, in the 19th year of 
that king, earl of Carlisle, and had the Isle of Man bestowed 
upon him. Next year, I know not upon what discontentment, 
he fell into private confederacy with the king s foes the Scots, for 
which he was taken and condemned. Now, lest the nobility of 
others should by secret sympathy suffer in his disgraceful death, 
the earl was first parted from the man, and his honour severed 
from his person, by a solemn degradation ; having his knightly 

" In his History, anno 1263. f Godwin, in the Bishops of Carlisle. 



2 



A 2 



354 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

spurs hewed off from his heels ; which done, he was hanged, 
drawn, and quartered. 

SHERIFFS. 

RICHARD II. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

1 Jo. Derwentwater. 

Arms : Ar. two bars G. ; on a canton of the second a 
cinquefoil of the first. 

2 Will, de Stapleton. 

Arg. a lion rampant S. 

3 Gilb. de Culwen . . . Warkinton. 

Arg. fretty G. a chief Az. 

4 J. de Derwentwater . ut prius. 

5 Ama. Mounceaux. 
5 Robert Parning. 

7 Ama. Mounceaux. 

8 Joh. Therlwall. 

9 Ama. Mounceaux. 

10 Joh. Therlwall. 

11 Pet. Tillioll. 

12 Joh. Ireby. 

Arg, fretty a canton S. 

13 Rich, Redman. 

G. three cushions Erm. buttoned and tasselled O. 

14 Chri. Moriceby. 

15 Joh. de Ireby . . . ut prius, 

16 Tho. de Musgrave. 

Az. six annulets O. 

17 Rich. Redman . . . ut prius. 

18 Pet. Tiliol. 

19 Joh. de Ireby . . . ut prius. 

20 Rich. Redman . . . nt prius. 

21 Wil. Culwen . . . , ut prius. 

22 Rich. Redman . . . ut prius. . 

HENRY IV. 

1 Will. Leigh. 

2 Will. Louther. 

O. six annulets S. 

3 Rich. Redman, et . . ut prius. 
Will. Osmunderlaw. 

Arg. a fess between three martlets S. 

4 Pet. Tillioll. 

5 Idem. 

6 Rich. Skelton. 

Vert, a fess betwixt three flower-de-luces O, 



SHERIFFS. 355 

Anno Name. Place. 

7 Will. Louther . . . ut prius. 

8 

9 

10 Joh. Delamore. 

11 Rob. Rodington. 

12 Rich. Redman, mil. . . ut prius. 

HENRY V. 

1 Ja. Harington, mil. 

S. fretty Arg. 

2 Will. Stapelton . . . ut prius. 

3 Chri. Culwen, mil. . . ut prius, 

4 Joh. Lancaster. 

Arg. two bars G. ; on a canton of the same a lion passant O. 

5 Wil. Osmunderlaw . . tit prius, 

6 Rob. Louther, mil. . . ut prius, 

7 Joh. Lamplough. 

O. two crosses floury S. 

8 Will. Stapilton . . . ut prius. 

9 Will. Stapleton et . . ut prius. 
Rich. Ratcliffe . . . Darwentwater. 

Arg. a bend engrailed S. 

HENRY VI. 

1 Will. Leigh, mil. 

2 Chri. Culwen, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 Chri. Moresby, mil. 

Arg. a cross S. ; in the first quarter a cinquefoil of the second. 

4 Nich. Ratcliffe, mil. . . ut prius. 

5 Jo. Penington, mil. 

O. five fusils in fess Az. 

6 Chri. Culwen .... ut prius. 

7 Chri. Moresby . . . ut prius. 

8 Tho. Delamore 

Arg. six martlets, three, two, and one, S. 

9 Joh. Penington . . . ut prius. 

10 Joh. Skelton. 

11 Joh. Lamplow, mil. . . ut prius. 

12 Chri. Culwen .... ut prius. 

13 Jo. Penington, mil. . . ut prius. 

14 Joh. Broughton. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three mullets G. 

15 Hen. Fenwick, mil. 

Per fess G. et Arg. six martlets counterchanged, 

16 Chri. Culwen, mil. . . ut prius. 

17 Chri Moresby . . . ut prius. 

18 Hug. Louther . . . ut prius. 

19 Joh. Skelton, arm. 

20 Will. Stapilton . . . ut 



356 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

Anno Name. Place. 

21 [AMP.] Tho. Beauchamp. 

22 Tho. Delamore . . . ut prius. 

23 Chri. Curwen .... ut prius. 

24 Joh. Skelton, arm. . . ut prius. 

25 Joh. Broughton . . . ut prius. 

26 Tho. Delamore . . . ut prius. 

27 Tho. Crakenthorp. 

O. a chev. betwixt three mullets pierced Az. 

28 Tho. Curwen, mil. . . ut prius. 

29 Joh. Skelton, arm. . . ut prius. 

30 Roul. Vaux, arm. . . ut prius. 

Cheeky, O. and G. 

31 Tho. Delamore . . . ut prius. 
32 

33 Joh. Hodilston, arm. . ut prius. 

G. fretty Arg. 

34 Hug. Louther, arm. . . ut prius. 

35 Tho. Curwen . . . . ut prius. 

36 Rich. Salkeld. 

Vert, fretty Arg. 

37 Hen. Fenwick, mil. . . ut prius. 

EDWARD IV. 

1 Rich. Salkeld, arm. . . ut prius. 

2 Roul. Vaux, arm. . . ut prius. 

3 Idem ut prius. 

4 Joh. Hudleston, mil. . ut prius. 

5 Th. Lamplough, arm. . ut prius, 

6 Rich. Salkeld, arm. . . ut prius. 

7 Roul. Vaux, arm. . . ut prius. 

8 Joh. Hodilston, mil. . ut prius. 

9 Idem ut prius. 

10 Will. Leigh, mil. 

11 Chri. Moresby, mil. . ut prius. 

12 Will. Parr, mil. . . WESTMORELAND. 

Arg. two bars Az. a border engrailed S. 

13 Joh. Hodilston, mil. . . ut prius. 

14 Will. Leigh, mil. 
15 

16 Ric. Dux Glouc. 

France and England, on a label of three Erin, as many 

cantons G. 

J. Hodilston, mil. sub. . ut prius. 

17 Idem. 

18 Rich. Dux Glouc. . . ut prius. 

19 Nul. Titulus Comitis in Rotulo. 

20 Rich. Dux Glouc. . . ut prius. 

21 Idem ...... ut prius. 

22 Idem ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 357 

Anno Name. Place. 

RICHARD III. 

1 Rich. Salkeld . . . . ut prius, 

2 

3 

HENRY VII. 

1 Chri. Moresby, mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Nul. Titulus Comitis in Rotulo. 

3 Chri. Moresby, mil. . . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Beauchamp, arm. . ut prius. 
5 

6 Nul. Titulus Comitis in Rotulo. 

7 Joh. Musgrave, mil. . ut prius. 

8 Nul. Titulus Comitis in Rotulo. 

9 Edw. Redman . . . ut prius. 

10 Rich. Salkeld, mil. . . ut prius. 

11 Chri. Moresby, mil. . ut prius. 

12 Tho. Beachamp . . . ut prius. 

13 Chri. Dacre, arm. 

G. three escallop shells Arg. 

14 Idem ut prius. 

15 Idem ...... ut prius. 

16 Idem ut prius. 

17 Idem ut prius. 

18 Idem ut prius. 

19 Idem ut prius. 

20 [AMP.] Hug. Hutton,arm. 

21 Chri. Dacre, arm. . . ut prius. 

22 Jo. Hudleston, mil. . . ut prius. 

23 Joh. Ratcliffe, arm. . . ut prius. 

24 Idem ...... ut prius. 

HENRY VIII. 

1 Joh. Curwen, mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Penington, mil. . ut prius. 

3 Joh. Shelton, mil. . . ut prius. 

4 Joh. Crakenthorp, arm. ut prius. 

5 Idem, et Edw. Musgrave ut prius. 

6 Joh. Radcliffe, mil. . . ut prius. 

7 Joh. Louther, mil. . . ut prius. 

8 Tho. Cur wen, mil. . . ut prius. 

9 Gawin. Eglesfeld. 

O. three eaglets displayed G. 

10 Joh. Radcliffe, mil. . . ut prius. 

1 1 Edw. Musgrave . . ut prius. 
12 

13 Christ. Dacre . . . ut prius. 



358 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

Anno Name. Place. 

14 

15 Joh. Rateliffe, mil. . . ut prim. 

16 Chri. Curwen, mil. ..,*, ut prius. 

17 Chri. Dacre, mil. . : ut prius. 

18 Joh. Ratcliffe, mil. . . ut prius. 

1 9 Edw. Musgrave, mil. . ut prius. 

20 Will. Penington . . . ut prius. 

21 Tho. Wharton, mil. 

S. a manche Arg. 

22 Rich. Ireton. 

Arg. a fess S. ; three mullets in chief G. 

23 Christ. Dacre, mil. . . ut prius. 

24 Will. Musgrave, mil. . ut prius. 

25 Christ. Curwen . . . ut prius. 

26 Cut. Hutton, arm. . . ut prius. 

27 Tho. Wharton, mil. . . ut prius. 

28 Tho. Curwen, mil. . . ut prius. 

29 Joh. Lamplo, mil. 

30 Tho. Thwaits, arm. 

Arg. a cross S. fretty O. 

31 Tho. Wharton, mil. . ut prius. 

32 Tho. Dalston, arm. . . Dalston. 

Arg. a chevron between three ravens heads S. billed O. 

33 Will. Musgrave, mil. . ut prius. 

34 Joh. Louther, mil. . ut prius. 

35 Tho. Salkeld, arm. , ut prius. 

36 Edw. Aglyonby, arm. 

Az. two bars ; and three martlets in chief S. 

37 Rob. Lamplo, arm. . .- ut prius. 

38 Tho. Sandford. 

Per chevron S. and Erm. two boars heads in chief 
couped O. 

EDWARD VI. 

1 Tho. Wharton, mil. , ut prius. 

2 Joh. Leigh, arm. 

3 Joh. Lamplow, arm. . ut prius. 

4 Joh. Louther, mil. . - ut prius. 

5 Ric. Eglesfeld, arm. . ut prius. 

6 Will. Penington r . ut prius. 

REG. MARI. 

1 Tho. Leigh, arm 

PHIL. AND MAR. 

1.2 Rich. Musgrave . . ut prius. 

2.3 Tho. jSandford, arm. 

3.4 Rob. Lamplow, arm. . ut 



SHERIFFS. 359 

Anno Name. Place. 

4. 5 Joh. Leigh, arm. , . V ut prius. 

5. 6 Will. Penington . .,, ut prius. 

ELIZ. REG. 

1 Th. Dacre, sen. mil. . ut prius. 

2 Th. Lamplough, arm. ut prius. 

3 Hug. Ascough, mil. 

S. a fess O. betwixt three asses passant Ar. maned and 

unguled of the second. 

Hen. Curwen, arm. . . ut prius. 

4 Will. Musgrave . . ut prius. 

5 Ant. Hudleston, arm. . ut prius. 

6 Chri. Dacre, arm. . . ut prius. 

7 Wil. Penington, arm. . ut prius. 

8 Rich. Louther, arm. . ut prius. 

9 Joh. Dalston, arm. . ut prius. 

10 Cut. Musgrave, arm. . ut prius. 

11 Sim. Musgrave, arm. . ut prius. 

12 Hen, Curwen . . . ut prius. 

13 Geo. Lamplough . . ut prius. 

14 Joh. Lamplough . . ut prius. 

15 Will. Musgrave . . ut prius. 

16 Anth. Hudleston : . , ut prius. 

17 Rich. Salkeld, arm. et . ut prius. 
Hen. Tolston, arm. 

Vert, on a chief Az. three martlets O. 

18 Joh. Dalston, arm. , . ut prius. 

19 Geo. Salkeld, arm. . ut prius. 

20 Fr. Lamplough, arm. . ut prius. 

21 Joh. Lamplough . . ut prius. 

22 Hen. Curwen, arm. . ut prius. 

23 Chri. Dacre, arm. f . . ut prius. 

24 Wilfr. Lawson, arm. 

Per pale, Arg. and S, a chev. counterchanged. 

25 Joh. Dalston, arm. . ut prius. 

26 Joh. Midleton, arm. 

27 Geo. Salkeld, arm. . ut prius. 

28 Joh. Dalston, arm. . . ut prius. 
29 

30 Rich, Louther, arm. . ut prius. 

31 Hen. Curwen, mil. . ut prius. 

32 Chr. Pickering, arm. 

Ermine, a lion rampant Az. crowned O. 

33 John Southwike, arm. 

34 Will. Musgrave, arm. . ut prius. 

35 Ger. Louther, arm. . . ut prius. 

36 Joh. Dalston, arm. . . ut prius. 

37 Lau. Salkeld, arm. . . nt prius. 



360 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 

Anno Name. Place. 

38 Chri. Dalston, arm. . ut prius. 

39 Wilfri. Lawson . . . ut prius. 

40 Tho. Salkeld, arm. . . ut prius. 

41 Jos. Penington, arm. . ut prius. 

42 Nich. Curwen, arm. . ut prius. 

43 Will. Orfener, arm. 

44 Edm. Dudley, arm. 

O. a lion rampant double queue Vert. 

45 Will Hutton, arm. et 

prim. Jac. . . ut prius. 

JAC. REG. 

1 Will. Hutton, arm. . ut prius. 

2 Job. Dalston, arm. . ut prius. 
B Chri. Pickering, arm. . ut prius. 

4 Wilf. Lauson, mil. . ut prius. 

5 Chri. Pickering, mil. . ut prius. 

6 Hen. Blencow, arm. 

S. on a bend three chaplets G. 

7 Will. Hutton, mil. ... ut prius. 

8 Jos. Penington, arm. . ut prius. 

9 Chr. Pickering, mil. . ut prius. 

10 Wilf. Lawson, mil. . ut prius. 

11 Th. Lamplough, arm. . ut prius. 

12 Edw. Musgrave, mil. . ut prius. 

13 Rich. Flecher, arm. . Hutton. 

Arg. a saltire engrailed betwixt four roundlets, each 
charged with a peon of the field. 

14 Will. Musgrave, mil. . ut prius. 

15 Will. Hudleston, arm. . ut prius. 

16 Geo. Dalston, arm. . ut prius. 

17 Hen. Curwen, mil. . ut prius. 

18 Jo. Lamplough, arm. . ut prius. 

19 Hen. Fetherston. 

G. a chev. betwixt three ostridge s feathers. 

20 Fran. Dudley, vid. . . ut prius. 

Admi. Tho. Dudley, . ut prius. 

arm. et Edw. Dudley, . ut prius. 
ar. defun. et Tho. Lamp 
lough, mil. 

21 Rich. Samford, mil. . ut prius. 

22 Rich. Fletcher, mil. . ut prius. 

CAR. REG. 

1 Hen. Blencowe, mil. . ut prius. 

2 Pet. Senhouse, arm. . Scascall. 

Arg. a popinjay proper. 

3 Chri. Daiston, arm. . . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 361 

Anno Name? Place. 

4 Will. Layton, arm. 

5 Will. Musgrave, mil. . ut prius. 

6 Chr. Richmond, arm. 

7 Leon. Dykes, arm. 

O. three cinquefoils S. 

8 Joh. Skelton, arm. . . ut prius, 

9 Will. Orfener, arm. 

10 Rich. Bands, arm. . . ut prius. 

11 Will. Lawson, arm. 

12 Patri. Curwen, arm. . . ut prius. 

13 Tho. Dacre, mil. . . . ut prius. 

14 Ti. Fetherston, mil. . ut prius. 
15 

16 Chri. Louther, arm. . . ut prius. 

17 Hen. Fletcher, bar. . . ut prius. 
18 

19 
20 
21 
22 Hen. Tolson, arm. . . ut prius. 

EDWARD IV. 

16. RICHARD DUKE OF GLOUCESTER. He is notoriously 
known to posterity, without any comment or character to de 
scribe him. In his Arms, it is observable, that the younger 
sons of kings did not use our common modern manner of dif 
ferences, by Crescents, Mullets, Martelets, &c. ; but assumed 
unto themselves some other differencing devices. 

Wonder not that his difference, being a label (disguised with 
some additions), hath some allusion to eldership therein, whilst 
this Richard was but the third son ; seeing, in his own ambition, 
he was not only the eldest but only child of his father, as 
appeareth by his project, not long after, to bastardize both his 
brethren. And now did he begin to cast an eye on, and fore 
cast a way to the crown, by securing himself of this county, 
which is the back (as Northumberland the fore) door of Scot 
land. In the meantime, Cumberland may count it no mean 
credit, that this duke was for six years together, and at that 
very time, her high-sheriff, when he was made (or rather made 
himself) king of England. 

HENRY VIII. 

21. THOMAS WHARTON. This must needs be that worthy 
person whom king Henry the Eighth afterwards created first lord 
Wharton, of Wharton in Westmoreland, and who gave so great 
a defeat to the Scots, at Solemn Moss, that their king James 
the Fifth soon after died for sorrow thereof. 



362 WORTHIES OP CUMBERLAND. 

Indeed the Scottish writers, conceiving it more creditable to 
put their defeat on the account of anger than of fear, make it 
rather a surrender than a battle ; as if their countrymen were in 
effect unwilling to conquer, because unwilling to fight; such 
their disgust taken at Oliver Sentclear, a man of low birth and 
high pride, obtruded on them that day by the king for their 
general; and, to humour their own discontentment, they pre 
ferred rather to be taken prisoners by an enemy, than to fight 
under so distasted a commander. 

As for the lord Wharton, I have read (though not able pre 
sently to produce my author ) that, for this his service, his arms 
were augmented with an Orle of Lions paws in saltire Gules, 
on a border Or. 

THE FAREWELL. 

I understand two small manufactories are lately set up 
therein ; the one of coarse broad-cloth at Cockermouth (vended 
at home) ; the other of fustians some two years since at Carlisle ; 
and I wish that the undertakers may not be disheartened with 
their small encouragement. Such who are ashamed of con 
temptible beginnings will never arrive at considerable endings. 
Yea, the greatest giant was (though never a dwarf) once 
an infant ; and the longest line commenced from a little point 
at the first, 



IWORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE 

THE TIME OF FULLER. 

Richard BATV, divine and author; born at Arthuret ; died 
1758. 

John BELL, divine and author; born at Dovenby 1715 ; died 
1793. 

William BENN, nonconformist divine and author; born at 

Egremont 1600; died 1680. 
James BOADEN, dramatic author; born at Whitehaven 1762 ; 

died 1839. 
Jonathan BOUCHER, divine, Saxon scholar, -and philologist; 

born at Blencogo 1738; died 1804. 
Dr. Joseph BROWN, biographer and editor of Cardinal Barbe- 

rini ; born at Water Millock 1/00 ; died 1767. 
Joseph Dacre CARLYLE, divine, traveller in the East, Arabic 

scholar, and poet; born at Carlisle 1759; died 1804. 
Dr. John DALTON, divine and poet; born at Deane 1709: 

died 1763. 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 363 

Richard DALTON, Eastern traveller; died 1/91. 

Thomas DENTON, divine and author ; born at Sebergham ; 

died 1777- 
Clement ELLIS, divine, poet, and author of " Scripture Cate- 

chist," &c. 1630; died 1700. 
John FELL, dissenting divine, author of (( Demoniacs," &c. ; 

born at Cockermouth 1735; died 1797- 

William GILPIN, divine and tourist, author on divinity, biogra 
phy, and picturesque scenery ; born at Scaleby Castle 1 724 ; 

died 1804. 
Dr. Anthony HALL, editor of Trivet s " Annales " and Le- 

land s " Scriptores;" born at Kirkbride 1679; died 1723. 
Thomas HARVEY, a learned divine and stenographist ; born at 

Dovenby 1740; died 1806. 
Captain Joseph HUDDART, hydrographer and navigator ; born 

at Allenby 1741 ; died 1816. 
John HUDSON, a learned divine and philologist, editor of Jose- 

phus; born at Widehope 1662 ; died 1719. 
Edward LAW, lord chief justice Ellenborough ; born at Great 

Salkeld 1750; died 1818. 
Jqhn LEAKE, physician, founder of the Westminster Lying-in 

Hospital; born at Ainstable 1729; died 1792. 
Sir William MUSGRAVE, sixth baronet, antiquary and collector; 

born at Hay ton Castle 1735. 
WiDiam NICOLSON, bishop of Carlisle, afterwards archbishop 

of Cashel, a scholar and antiquary ; born at Orton 1655 ; died 

1727. 
Rev. Josiah RELPH, " Cumberland poet ;" born at Sebergham 

1712; died 1743. 
Isaac RTTSON, poet and miscellaneous writer, translator of 

Homer s Hymn to Venus; born near Penrith 1761; died 

1789. 
Jeremiah SEED, a divine, able scholar, and ingenious writer ; 

born at Clifton near Penrith 1605 ; died 1747. 
Humphrey SENHOUSE, founder of Maryport ; born at Nether- 
hall; died 1770. 
Dr. Bolton SIMPSON, editor of Xenophon; born at Redmain 

1717. 
Dr. Joseph SIMPSON, editor of Epictetus and Theophrastus ; 

born at Redmain 17 10. 
Thomas TICKELL, a friend of Addison, writer in prose and 

verse; born at Bridekirk 1686; died 1740. 
Dr. Hugh TODD, a learned divine, antiquary, and miscellaneous 

writer; born at Blencowe about 1658; died 1728. 
Roger WHELPDALE, bishop of Carlisle, logician and mathema 
tician ; died 1822. 

Joseph WISE, a divine and poet; born at Holm Cultram ; died 
1810. 



3G4 WORTHIES OF CUMBERLAND. 



*,* The principal Works, illustrative of this county, published since Fuller s 
time, are the History of the Counties of Westmoreland and Cumberland, by J. 
Nicholson and Dr. R. Burn (1777) ; the History of Cumberland, by Wm. Hutchin- 
son (iTQ i) , Topographical Description of Cumberland, by J. Houseman (1800) ; 
Jollie s Cumberland Guide (1811); Directory and Gazetteer of Cumberland and 
Westmoreland, by Wm. Parson and Wm. White (1829); besides various Guides, 
Tours, &c., by West, Hutchinson, Clarke, Travers, Budworth, and others. The 
Beauties of England, and Lysons Magna Britannia, have also entered upon the 
subject ; and a splendidly illustrative W T ork has recently been published, in num 
bers, by Mr. T. Rose. ED. 



DERBYSHIRE. 



DERBYSHIRE hath Yorkshire on the north, Nottinghamshire 
on the east, Leicestershire on the south, Stafford and Cheshire 
on the west. The river South Darwent, falling into Trent, run 
neth through the middle thereof:! say South Darwent, for I 
find three more north thereof; Darwent, which divideth the 
west from the east riding in Yorkshire ; Darwent, which sepa- 
rateth the bishopric of Durham from Northumberland ; Dar 
went in Cumberland, which falleth into the Irish ocean, 

These I have seen by critical authors written all alike; 
enough to persuade me that dower, the British word for water 
had some share in their denomination. 

The two extremes of this shire, from north to south, extend 
to thirty-eight miles, though not fully twenty-nine in the broad 
est part thereof. The south and east thereof are very fruitful 
whilst the north part (called the Peak) is poor above, and rich 
beneath the ground. Yet are there some exceptions therein. 
Witness the fair pasture nigh Haddon (belonging to the earl of 
Kutland,) so incredibly battling of cattle, that one proffered to 
surround it with shillings to purchase it; which, because to be 
set side-ways (not edgeways), were refused. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
LEAD. 



The best in England (not to say Europe) is found in this 
unty. It is not churlish but good-natured metal, not curd 
ing into knots and knobs, but all equally fusile; and therefore 
most useful for pipes and sheets ; yea, the softness thereof will 
eceive any artificial impressions. The miners thereof may be 
led a commonwealth within our commonwealth, governed bv 
laws peculiar to themselves, often confirmed by act of parlia 
ment. And take a few of them. 

1. If any of this nation find a rake, or sione, or leading to the 
same, ne may set in any ground to get lead ore.* 

2. But churches, houses, and gardens, are free from this cus 
tom ofthemmery. 

* 3 and 4 Philip and Mary, Act -l. 



366 WORTHIES OP DERBYSHIRE. 

3. All miners ought to commence their suit for ore-debt in 
the Barge-moot court ; otherwise they must lose their debt, and 
pay cost too.* 

4. The barge master keeps his two great courts twice a year 
in Barge-moot hall ; the steward under him once in three weeks, 
to decide controversies, and punish offences betwixt miners. 

5. Plaintiffs or defendants, having three verdicts passed 
against them, are bound up for ever. 

6. He that stealeth ore twice, is fined; and the third time 
struck through his hand with a knife unto the haft into the 
Stow, and is there to stand until death, or loose himself by cut 
ting off his hand.f 

7. The lord, for lot, hath the thirteenth dish of ore, within 
their mine, and six-pence a load for cope. 

This manual (as other liberal) art hath terms peculiar to 
itself, which will not be understood without an interpreter of 
their own profession : 

Bunnings, polings, stemples, forks, and slydder, 

Stoprice, yokings, soletrees, roach and rider, 

Water holes, wind holes, veyns, coe-shafts, and woughs, 

Maine rakes, cross rakes, brown henns, buddies, and soughs, 

Break-offs, and buckers, randum of the rake, 

Freeings, and chasing of the stole to th stake, 

Starting of ore, smelting, and driving drifts, 

Prim-gaps, roof works, flat-works, pipe-works, shifts, 

Cauke, spar, lid-stones, twitches, claulings, and pees, 

Fell, bous, and knock -bark, forstid-oar and tees, 

Bing place, barmoot court, barge master and stowes, 

Crosses, holes, hange-benches, turntree and coes, 

Founder-meers, taker-meers, lot, cope, and sumps. 

Stickings, and stringes of oar, wash-oar, and pumps, 

Corfe, clivies, deads, meers, groves, rake-soil the gange, 

Binge-oar, a spindle, a lampturne. a fange, 

Fleaks, knockings, ccestid, trunks, and sparks of oar, 

Sole of the rake, smitham, and many more."J 

Let me add, that whereas miners complain that lead in So 
mersetshire (as the tin in Cornwall) doth daily decay, here it doth 
improve and increase : for, as if Phoebus himself had been their 
Vulcan, massy pieces of lead are frequently found (whereof 
lately I had one in my hand) so well ripened in the bowels of 
the earth, that they seemed refined, such the original purity 
thereof. 

THE MANUFACTURES. 
MALT. 

Though commonness causeth contempt, excellent the art of 
the first inventing thereof. I confess it facile to make barley- 

* 3 Edw. VI. Act. 5. f 16 Edw. I. c. 2. 

\. Composed by Edward Manlove, Esq. heretofore steward of the Barge-moot 
court for the lead mines within the said Wapentake. 

Even in the time of the Romans, the lead of Derbyshire was celebrated ; seve 
ral pigs of lead, marked with their stamps, having been found here ED. 



MANUFACTURES BUILDINGS. 



367 



water, an invention which found out itself, with little more than 
the bare joining the ingredients together. But to make malt 
for drink, was a master piece indeed. How much of philoso 
phy concurred to the first kill of malt ! and before it was turned 
on the floor, how often was it tossed in the brain of the first 
inventor thereof. 

First, to give it a new growth more than the earth had 
bestowed thereon. Swelling it in the water, to make it last the 
longer by breaking it, and taste the sweeter by corrupting it. 
Secondly, by making it to pass the fire, the grain (by art fer 
mented) acquiring a lusciousness (which by nature it had not), 
whereby it doth both strengthen and sweeten the water wherein 
it is boiled. 

ALE. 

Ceres being our English Bacchus, this was our ancestors 
common drink, many imputing the strength of their infantry (in 
drawing so stiff a bow) to their constant (but moderate) drink 
ing thereof. Yea, now the English begin to turn to ale (may 
they in due time regain their former vigorousness !) ; and 
whereas, in our remembrance, ale went out when swallows came 
in, seldom appearing after Easter; it now hopeth (having 
climbed up May hill) to continue its course all the year, Yet 
have we lost the preservative, whatever it was, which (before 
hops were found out) made it last so long in our land some two 
hundred years since, for half a year at the least after the brew 
ing thereof ; otherwise of necessity they must brew every day, 
yea pour it out of the kive into the cup, if the prodigious 
English hospitality in former ages be considered, with the mul 
titude of menial servants and strangers entertained. Now never 
was the wine of Sarepta better known to the Syrians, that of 
Chios to the Grecians, of Falernum to the Latins, than the 
Canary of Derby is to the English thereabout. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

Chatsworth., erected by the magnificent Lady Elizabeth Ca 
vendish, countess of Shrewsbury, is a stately structure, thus de 
scribed by the poet :* 

Stat Chatsworth, preeclara domus, turn mole superba, 
Turn Domino magno, celerem Derventis ad undam. 
Miranti similis portctm prceterfluit Amnis 
Hie tacitus, saxis infra supraque sonorus. 

" Chatsworth, which in its bulk itself doth pride 
And lord (both great), stands Derwent bank beside; 
Which slides still by the gate, as full of wonder, 
Though loud with stones above the house and under." 

The garden on the back side, with an artificial rock and wil 
derness, accomplisheth the place with all pleasure. 

* Hobbes, " De Mirabilibus Pecci." 
VOL. I. 2 B 



368 WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 



WONDERS. 

God, who is truly Qavparovpyoe, the only worker of wonders, 
hath more manifested his might in this than in any other 
county in England; such the heaps of wonders therein, 
amongst which we take special notice of 

MAIM TOR, OR MAM-TOR. 

Tor is a hill ascending steep, as Glassenbury Tor. Maim, 
saith one,* because maimed or broken in the top thereof. 
Others, following the vulgar pronunciation, will have it Mam- 
tor ; that is, the Mother-hill ; because it is always delivered, and 
presently with child again ; for incredible heaps of sandy earth 
constantly fall thence, yet is it not visibly diminished, having, 
it seems, (as a constant stream) such a spring of matter whence 
it is recruited. It may pass for the emblem of the liberal man, 
never impoverished by his well-bounded and grounded charity, 
his expences being re-supplied by a secret Providence. 

MEDICINAL WATERS. 

Buxton Well, dedicated to St. Anne, sending forth both cold 
and warm water, is little less than miraculous in the effects, 
thus described by our author :f 

HCEC resoluta senum confirmat membra trementum, 
Et refovet nervos lotrix hcec lympha gelatos. 
Hue infirma regunt baculis vestigia claudi, 
Ingrati referunt baculis vestigia spretis. 
Hue, mater fieri cupiens, accedit inanis, 
Plenaque disceclit, puto, nee veniente marito. 

" Old men s numb d joints new vigour here acquire, 
In frozen nerves this water kindleth fire. 
Hither the cripples halt, some help to find, 
Run hence, their crutches un thanked left behind. 
The barren wife here meets her husband s love J 
With such success she straight doth mother prove." 

This well is also famous for the abode of Mary queen of 
Scots thereby, who found much refreshing by the waters 
thereof. 

PRINCES. 

I find no prince, since the Conquest, who saw his first light in 
this county, probably because our English kings never made 
any long residence therein. 

SAINTS. 

St. ALKMUND, son to Aired king of Northumberland, slain 
in a battle on the behalf of Ethelmund viceroy of Worcester, 
pretending to recover lands against Duke Wolstan, who detain 
ed them, was therefore reputed saint and martyr. It would 

* Hobbes. f Ibid - 

J The Translator durst not be so bold as the author. F. 



MARTYRS CARDINALS. 369 

pose a good scholar to clear his title to the latter, who lost his 
life in a quarrel of civil concernment ; on which account, in all 
battles betwixt Christians, such as are slain on one side may 
lay claim to martyrship. However, it befriendeth his memory, 
that his body, translated to Derby, was believed to do miracles, 
being there with great veneration interred in a church called 
Saint Alkmund s, on the right hand, as passengers, from the 
south, go over the bridge, whither the Northern people made 
many pilgrimages, till discomposed by the Reformation. What 
relation Alkmundsbury, a town in Huntingdonshire, hath unto 
him, is to me unknown. 

MARTYRS. 

JOAN WAST was a blind woman in the town of Derby, and 
on that account the object of any man s alms, rather than the 
subject of his cruelty. Besides, she was seemingly a silly soul, 
and indeed an innocent, though no fool. And what saith our 
Saviour, " For judgment am I come into this world ; that they 
which see not might see, and that they which see might be 
made blind."* This poor woman had a clear apprehension of 
God s truth ; for the testimony whereof she was condemned, 
and burnt at the stake, by the command of Bishop Baines, who, 
as he began with the extremes, Mistress Joyce Lewis, one of 
the best, and this Joan Wast, one of the basest, birth in his 
diocese ; so no doubt (had not queen Mary died) he would 
have made his cruelty meet in persons of a middle condition. 

CARDINALS. 

ROGER CURSON was born, saith my author, "ex nobili quo- 
dam Anglorum genere," (of worshipful English extraction ).f 
Now I find none of his surname out of this county (except some 
branches lately thence derived) ; but in the same, two right an 
cient families, one formerly at Croxton, whose heir general in 
our age was married to the earl of Dorset, the other still flou- 

risheth at in this county; which moves me to make this 

Roger a native thereof. Bred he was, first a scholar in Oxford, 
then a doctor in Paris, and lastly a cardinal in Rome, by the 
title of Saint Stephen in Mount Celius. When the city of Da- 
mietta in Egypt was taken under John Brenn king of Jerusalem, 
our Cardinal Curson was there, accompanying Pelagius the 
pope s cardinal. He wrote many books, and came over into 
England as the pope s legate in the reign of kind Henry 
the Third.:}: The certain time of his death is unknown. 

PHILIP de REPINGDON took, no doubt, his name and birth 
from Repingdon, commonly contracted and called Repton, 
in this county ; and I question whether any other in England of 

* John ix. 39. f John Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis. 

J Matthew Paris, anno 1228. 

2 B 2 



370 WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 

the same name. He was bred, and commenced first bachelor, 
then doctor of divinity, in Oxford, where he became a great 
champion and assertor of the doctrine of John Wickliffe, which 
caused him much trouble and many strict examinations. But 
alas ! he became like the seed on stony ground, " which, not 
having root in itself, endured but for a while,"* and withered 
away in persecution : for he solemnly recanted his opinions, 
November 24, anno 1383. And, to give the better assurance 
that he was a true Anti-Wickliffite, from a professor he became 
a persecutor, and afterwards was termed Rampington by those 
poor people whom he so much molested.f 

Then preferment flowed in thick and threefold upon him. 
From a canon he became abbot of Leicester ; and, anno 1400, 
he was made chancellor of Oxford ; 1405, bishop of Lincoln ; 
1408, by Pope Gregory the Twelfth, he was created cardinal 
of Saint Nerius and Achilleius ; though the Pope had solemnly 
sworn he would make no more cardinals till the schism in Rome 
were ended. The best is, the Pope, being master of the oath- 
office, may give himself a pardon for his own perjury. What 
moved this Repington willingly to resign his bishopric, 1420, is 
to me unknown. 

PRELATES. 

WILLIAM GRAYJ was son to the lord Gray of Codnor in 
this county. He suffered not his parts to be depressed by his 
nobility ; but, to make his mind the more proportionable, he 
endeavoured to render himself as able as he was honourable. 
He studied first in Balliol College in Oxford, then at Ferrara in 
Italy, where he for a long time heard the lectures of Guarinus 
of Verona, that accomplished scholar. No man was better ac 
quainted with the method of the court of Rome, which made 
our king appoint him his Procurator therein. It is hard to say 
whether Pope Nicholas the Fifth, or our king Henry the Sixth, 
contributed most to his free election to the bishopric of Ely ; 
whilst it is out of doubt his own deserts concurred most effec 
tually thereunto. He sat in that see twenty-four years, and 
wrote many books, which the envy of time hath denied to 
posterity. Bishop Godwin, by mistake, maketh him chancellor 
of England; || whereas indeed he was lord treasurer in the 
ninth of king Edward the Fourth, anno 1469. Let me add, he 
was the last clergyman that ever discharged that office ; until 
bishop Juxton in our days was preferred thereunto. He died 
August 4, 1478 ; and lies buried between two marble pillars in 
his church, having bestowed much cost in the reparation of the 
famous belfry thereof. 

* Mark iv. 17. t Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 444. 

J Godwin, in Ms Bishops of Ely, out of Bale and Pits. 

Pits, in Appen. Viror. Illustrium. 

| See Sir Henry Spelman s Catalogue, in his Glossary; and John Philpot, p. 75. 



STATESMEN JUDGES WRITERS. 37l 



SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

GEORGE COOKE, D.D., brother to Sir John Cooke, Secretary 
of State, was born at Trusley in this county ; bred in Pembroke 
Hall in Cambridge. Afterwards he was beneficed at Bigrave in 
Hertfordshire, where a lean village (consisting of but three 
houses) maketh a fat living. Hence he was successively made 
bishop of Bristol and Hereford. A meek, grave, and quiet man, 
much beloved of such who were subjected to his jurisdiction. 
He was in the same condemnation with the rest of his brethren, 
for subscribing the Protest in Parliament in preservation of 
their privileges. The times trod so heavily upon him, that 
(though he ever was a thrifty person) they not only bruised the 
foot, but brake the body of his estate : so that he had felt want, 
if not relieved by his rich relations, dying about the year 1650. 

STATESMEN. 

Sir JOHN COOKE, younger brother to Sir Francis Cooke, 
was born at Trusley (in the hundred of Appletree) in this 
county, of ancient and worshipful parentage, allied to the best 
families in this county. He was bred fellow of Trinity College 
in Cambridge ; and being chosen rhetoric lecturer in the uni 
versity, grew eminent for his ingenious and critical readings in 
that school on that subject : he then travelled beyond the seas 
for some years ; returning thence rich in foreign language, ob 
servations, and experience. 

Being first related to Sir Fulk Greville Lord Brook, he was 
thence preferred to be secretary of the navy, then master of 
the requests, and at last secretary of state for twenty years 
together. He was a very zealous Protestant, and did all good 
offices for the advancement of true religion ; and died the 8th 
of September 1644. 

CAPITAL JUDGES, AND WRITERS OF THE LAW. 
JOHN STATHOM. He was born in this, county, in the reign 
of king Henry the Sixth ; and was a learned man in the laws, 
whereof he wrote an "Abridgment," much esteemed at this day 
for the antiquity thereof: for otherwise lawyers behold him (as 
soldiers do bows and arrows since the invention of guns) rather 
for sight than service. Yea, a grandee in that profession hath 
informed me that little of Stathom (if any at all) is law at this 
day ; so much is the practice thereof altered : whereof the 
learned in that faculty will give a satisfactory account ; though 
otherwise it may seem strange, that, reason continuing always, 
the same law grounded thereon should be capable of so great 
alteration. The first and last time that I opened this author I 
lighted on this passage : 

Molendinarius de Matlock tollavit bis, eo quod ipse audivit 



C( 



372 WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 

rectorem de eadem villa dicere in Dominica Ram. Palm. Tolle, 
tolle ; " * (the miller of Matlock took toll twice, because he 
heard the rector of the parish read on Palm Sunday, Tolle, 
tolle : i. e. Crucify him, crucify him. &gt; )f 

But if this be the fruit of Latin service, to encourage men 
in felony, let ours be read in plain English. 

Sir ANTHONY FITZ-HERBERT, son of Ralph Fitz-Herbert, 
Esquire, was born at Norbury, in this county. He was first 
the king s serjeant-at-law; and was afterwards, in the four 
teenth of king Henry the Eighth, made one of the justices of 
the Common Pleas; so continuing until the thirtieth year of 
the said king, when he died. He wrote the excellent book 
" De Natura Brevium," with a great and laborious " Abridge 
ment of the Laws/ and a Calendar and Index thereunto ; 
monuments which will longer continue his memory, than the 
flat blue marble stone in Norbury church, under which he lieth 
interred. 

SEAMEN. 

Sir HUGH WILLOUGHBY was extracted from a right worthy 
and ancient stock, at Risley, in this county. J He was in the 
last year of the reign of king Edward the Sixth, employed for the 
north-east passage ; and, by the king and merchants of London, 
made captain general of a fleet for discovery of regions and 
places unknown. 

Their fleet consisted of three ships, the Bona Esperanza 
(Admiral), of one hundred and twenty tons ; the Edward Bona- 
venture (whereof Richard Chancellor pilot-major) of one 
hundred and sixty tons ; and the Good Confidence, of ninety 
tons. A large commission was granted unto them, which com 
mission did not bear date from the year of our Lord, but from 
the year of the world, 5515, because in their long voyage they 
might have occasion to present it to Pagan princes. 

They departed from Deptford, May 10, 1553, and, after 
much foul weather, steered up north-north-east. But, on the 
second day of August, a tempest arose ; and their ships with 
the violence of the wind were much shattered, and the Bona- 
venture scattered from the other two ships, which never saw it 



again. 



Sir Hugh, holding on his course, descried a land (which for 
ice he could not approach) lying from Synam (an island belong 
ing to the king of Denmark) one hundred and sixty leagues, 
being in latitude seventy-two degrees. This was -then called 
Willoughby-land, as well it might, seeing it had neither then or 

* Stathom, Tit. Toll, last case of the title, 
f It is the Gospel appointed for the day. 

* Camden s Britannia, in Derbyshire. 

Exemplified in Hackluit s Voyages, vol. i. p. 231. 



SEAMEN. 373 

since any owner or inhabitant pretending to the propriety 
thereof. 

It appeareth by a will found in the ship which was the 
Admiral, in the pocket of a person of quality, how, in January 
1554, Sir Hugh and most of his company were then in health, 
though all soon after frozen to death in a river, or haven, called 
Arzina in Lapland. We are bound in charity to believe them 
well prepared for death, the rather because they had with them 
a minister, Mr. Richard Stafford by name * (one of the twelve 
councillors to manage the design), who read constantly every 
morning and evening the English service to those who were in 
the Admiral, with the Bible and paraphrases thereon ; so that 
this may be termed the first Reformed Fleet, which had the 
English prayers and preaching therein. 

However, seeing nocumenta, documenta; and that the ship 
wrecks of some are sea-marks to others; even this knight s 
miscarriage proved a direction to others. As for the Bonaven- 
ture, which, answering its name, was only found by losing itself, 
it returned safe, and performed afterwards most excellent ser 
vice, in opening the traffic to Muscovy. 

Thus, as the last dog most commonly catcheth the hare 
which other dogs have turned and tired before ; so such who 
succeed in dangerous and difficult enterprises, generally reap 
the benefit of the adventures of those who went before them. 
As for Sir Hugh and his company, their discoveries did thaw, 
though their bodies were frozen to death ; the English, the 
summer following, finding a particular account of all passages of 
their voyages remaining entire in the ship wherein they pe 
rished. 

Lapland hath since been often surrounded (so much as 
accosts the sea) by the English ; the west part whereof belong- 
eth to the king of Sweden, but the east moiety to the Mus 
covite. They were generally heathen, as poor in knowledge as 
estate, paying their tribute in furs, whose little houses are but 
great holes, wherein generally they live in the ignorance of 
money. 

Here let me insert a passage (to refresh the reader after this 
long and sad story) of a custom in this barbarous country, from 
the mouths of creditable merchants, whose eyes have beheld it. 
It is death in Lapland to marry a maid without her parents or 
friends consent. Wherefore, if one bear affection to a young 
maid, upon the breaking thereof to her friends, the fashion is, 
that a day is appointed for their friends to meet, to behold the 
two young parties to run a race together. The maid is allowed, 
in starting, the advantage of a third part of the race ; so that it 
is impossible, except willing of herself, that she should ever be 
overtaken. If the maid overrun her suitor, the matter is ended ; 

* Hackluit s Voyages, vol. i. p. 230. 



3/4 WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 

he must never have her, it being penal for the man again to 
renew the motion of marriage. But if the virgin hath an affec 
tion for him, though at the first running hard, to try the truth 
of his love, she will (without Atalanta s golden balls to retard 
her speed) pretend some casualty, and make a voluntary halt 
before she cometh to the mark, or end of the race. Thus none 
are compelled to marry against their own wills ; and this is the 
cause that in this poor country the married people are richer in 
their own contentment, than in other lands, where so many 
forced matches make feigned love, and cause real unhappi- 
nes.s. 

PHYSICIANS. 

THOMAS LINACER, doctor of physic, was born in the town of 
Derby,* bred in Oxford, whence he afterwards travelled be 
yond the seas, residing chiefly at Rome and Florence. Return 
ing into England, he brought languages along with him, and was 
the first restorer of learning in our nation. It is questionable 
whether he was a better Latinist or Grecian, a better gram 
marian or physician, a better scholar or man for his moral 
deportment. By his endeavours, Galen speaks better Latin in 
the translation, than he did Greek in the original; the last 
volume whereof Linacer promised to dedicate to archbishop 
Warham, and excuseth his failing therein by a Latin letter, 
which, for several reasons, I have here exemplified : first, for 
the quickness of conceit and purity of style therein : secondly, 
because never formerly printed : thirdly, because there is but 
one copy thereof written with Linacer s own hand, prefixed to 
that numerical book which he presented to the said archbishop, 
bestowed by my old friend doctor George Ent on the college 
of physicians : lastly, because doctor Christopher Merrick hath 
been pleased carefully to compare it with the original. 

v Reverendissimo in Christo Patri ac Domino, Domino Gu- 
lielmo, Dei gratia Cantuariensi Archiepiscopo, totius 
Angliae Primati, et Apostolicee Sedis Legato, Thomas 
Linacrus, Medicus, salutem cum debita dicit observantia. 

" Quod tibi (Archiepiscope clarissime !) opus hoc, sicuti 
promiseram, non dedicavi, sed ejus duntaxat exemplum ad te 
misi, nolis, obsecro, pro spectata humanitate tua, me magis aut 
promissi putare immemorem, aut ejus levem habuisse curam, 
quin id implere maxime cupientem, facere tamen non potuisse. 
Nam cum in ea sententia sic perstitissem, ut ex ea me, prseter 
unum, nemo hominum dejicere potuisset, is profecto, nee alius, 
earn mutavit. Quippe Rex ipse, cum ex certorum hominum 
sermone, qui nimio studio mei, mea omnia nimio plus praedi- 
cant, intellexisset, e tribus partibus, quibus tota medicines ars 

* Weever s Funeral Monuments, p. 370. 



PHYSICIANS. 375 

integrator, hanc, quse hoc codice continetur, esse reliquamj 
earn quoque, veluti justam sibi, nee a reliquis nuncupatione dis- 
trahendam, vendicavit: jussitque Domino Johanni Chambre, 
observantissimo paternitatis tuee famulo, turn preesenti atque 
audienti, ut sibi earn inscriberem. Itaque cum te perspicere 
non dubitem, quantum apud me valere, quamque legis instar 
haberi debeat ejus voluntas ; non difficulter, ut spero, a te im- 
petrabo (id quod etiam magnis precibus contendo) ut alio 
quopiam, ex iis quse in manibus sunt, opere, et studiosis (ut 
opinor) futuro non ingrato, oppigrieratam tibi fidem reluere 
liceat. Quod si concedes, utrumque per te simul fiet, ut et 
voluptate, quam ex requisitis a tanto principe vigiliis meis con 
cept ea fruar ; et solicitudine, qua pro redimenda fide angebar, 
ea liberer. Nee eo spectat (reverendissime prsesul!) haec tarn 
sedula excusatio, quasi ullas meas nugas sic censeam, ut tibi 
usquam expetitas, expetendasve putem. Sic earn potius intel- 
Hgi postulo, cum tu mini primus ad otium literarium beneficiis 
tuis aditum patefeceris, justissimum existimasse me, tibi ejus 
otii rationem aliquam esse reddendam, ex qua me intelligeres 
non omnino id frustra conterere : sed cum id, partimj instituen- 
dis quibusdam, partim his, qualiacunque sunt, ad usum studio- 
sorum scribendis impendam, hoc agere imprimis, ut qui ex eo 
audientes legentesve fructum aliquem percipient, tibi, quern non 
minimum ejus autorem ubique profiteer, bonam ejus partem 
acceptam referant. Quod utique turn in his, quee jam edidimus, 
velim faciant, turn quse alias unquam scribam ; nedum quae tibi 
nominatim (modo vita supersit) dicabuntur. Diu valeas, pater 
amplissime." 

No Englishman in that age had so learned masters, viz. 
Demetrius, Politian, and Hermolaus Barbarus ; so noble 
patrons, viz. Laurence de Medicis, duke of Florence, whilst he 
was beyond the seas, king Henry the Seventh and Eighth (to 
whom he was chief physician) after his return into England ; 
so high-born scholars, prince Arthur, with many lords^ sons his 
contemporaries; so learned friends, Erasmus, Melancthon, 
Vives, &c.* 

This Linacer founded two public lectures in Oxford, and one 
in Cambridge (dutifully his respect to his mother, double above 
his aunt), for the study of physic ; and, that students of that 
faculty of both universities may meet the more conveniently 
together, he founded the college of physicians in London. 

I much wonder at what I find in good authors,f that Linacer, 
a little before his death, turned priest, and began to study the 
Scripture, with which he formerly was unacquainted, insomuch 
that, reading the fifth, sixth, and seventh chapters of Saint Mat 
thew, he vowed, " that either this was not the gospel, or we were 

Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. viii. n. 65 ; and J. Pits, in anno 1524. 
7 Idem, ut prius. 



376 WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 

not Christians," which speech (though much condemned by the 
relater* thereof) is capable of a charitable sense, as taxing men s 
practice so much different from God s precepts. 

He died anno Domini 1524, on the twelfth of October; and 
lieth buried in Saint Paul s, under a stately monument built to 
his memory by doctor John Caius, and a phosnix is erected on 
the top thereof. Yea, I may call these two doctors the two 
phoenixes of their profession in our nation, and justify the ex 
pression, seeing the latter in some sort sprang of the ashes 
of the former, and Caius came not into general credit till after 
the decease of Linacer. 

WRITERS. 

THOMAS ASHBURNE was born at that well-known market- 
town in this county (and not in Staffordshire, as both Bale and 
Pits mistake), and became an Augustinian therein. Going 
afterwards to Oxford, he was doctorated in divinity. He was 
a great adversary to Wickliffe, and in that Synod wherein his 
doctrines were condemned for heresy, by ten bishops, twenty 
lawyers, and four-and-forty divines, our Ashburne made up one 
of the last number. 

Yet once he did some good, or rather diverted much evil. It 
happened that one Peter Pateshul, an Augustinian, preaching 
in London, had some passages in favour of Wickliffe, which so 
displeased those of his own order, that they plucked him out of 
the pulpit, dragged him into the convent of Augustines (near 
Broad-street), intending more violence to his person. 

This alarmed the Londoners (amongst whom a considerable 
party of Wickliffites) to rescue poor Pateshul, who in their rage 
had burnt the convent about the friars ears, had not our Ash 
burne, with his prayers and tears, seasonably interceded.f He 
flourished under king Richard the Second, 1382. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

ELIZABETH HARDWICK was daughter to John Hardwick, of 
Hardwick in this county, Esquire ; a lady of an undaunted spirit, 
and happy in her several marriages to great persons ; first, to 
Sir William Cavendish, then to Sir William Saintloo, and at 
last to George earl of Shrewsbury. She left two sacred (be 
sides civil) monuments of her memory in this county ; one that 
I hope will not [her tomb in All-Hallows], th,e other that I am 
sure cannot, be taken away, as registered in the court of Hea 
ven her stately alms-house for twelve poor people in Derby. 

It will not be amiss here to relate a passage which is report 
ed of this countess. Mary queen of Scots being committed to 
the keeping of her husband George earl of Shrewsbury, the 
custody of so great a princess on the earl s cost, was found not 

* Johan. Cheek, de Pronunciatione Grseca. 

t Thomas Walsingham ; et ex illo Bale, Cent. vi. n. 77. 



BENEFACTORS GENTRY. 

only chargeable but dangerous ; the popish party daily prac 
tising her enlargement. Now it happened that this countess 
coming to court, queen Elizabeth demanded of her how the 
queen of Scots did, " Madam/" said she, " she cannot do ill 
while she is with my husband ; and I begin to grow jealous, 
they are so great together." The queen, who disliked any 
familiarity of that royal prisoner with so great a peer, presently 
ordered her removal thence into the custody of others. * This 
countess died anno Domini [1607, in extreme old age]. 

There is a free school in the town of Derby, built, as I un 
derstand, by that corporation, and endowed with threescore 
pounds a year ; and I conjecture Mr. R. Fletcher, thrice bailiff 
of the town, (I say, by his laudatory epitaph, I conjecture him) 
very instrumental to this work. I understand also that the 
said town hath large privileges, insomuch that Londoners in 
some cases pay toll at Derby, but Derby men in no case toll at 
London. I grudge them not their great privileges, so long 
as they employ their public stock to pious uses. 

To conclude this topic, I meet with this memorable passage 
in one who continueth the work of an industrious author, f 
which I will not, yea must not, omit : 

" Divers well-disposed citizens of London, desirous (as yet) 
not to be named, being born in or near to Ashburne in 
the Peak, in the county^of Derby, combining their loving 
benevolence together, have built there a fair school- 
house, with convenient lodgings for a master, and liberal 
maintenance allowed thereto." 

I hope that their forwardness hath since provoked many ; 
and that their charity (to allude to their staple commodity of 
this county), but in the oar in the times of our fathers, hath 
since been refined to perfection. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING 
HENRY THE SIXTH, 1433. 

William bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, and Henry de Grey 
de Codnore j Richard Vernon, and John Cokayne, (knights 
for the shire) ; Commissioners to take the oaths. 

Roberti Carrington. Johannis Strelley. 

Nicolai May sham. Johannis Allibon. 

Thomee Stokkes. Johannis Chester. 

Johannis Wyther. Johannis Wandell. 

Thomee Henster. Johannis Houghton. 

Rogeri Wolley. Willielmi Orme. 



* In my computation of time, this is more proportionable that some ascribe this 
passage to Gertrude, the first wife of George earl of Shrewsbury. F. 
f Stow s Survey of London, p. 67. 



378 



WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 



Willielmi Burton. 
Willielmi Rossel. 
Henvici Sanky. 
Thomse Hye. 
Willielmi Peek. 
Thomas Peek. 
Thomse Roberd, brazier. 
Roberti Warpeley. 
Johannis Fassakirley. 
Henrici Bancroft. 
Johannis Hegge. 
Roberti Shore. 
Henrici Crabbe. 
Johannis Cooke. 
Richardi Peek. 
Roberti Hewster. 
Johannis Tykhull. 
Edmundi Johnson. 
Johannis Stretton. 
Henrici Shepherd. 
Thomse Draper. 
Willielmi Thorstell. 
Johannis Burton. 
Willielmi Maskyr. 
Willielmi Satteby. 
Roberti Stanley, smith. 
Thomse Stanley, ironmonger. 
Henrici Cook. 
Edmundi Lacy. 
Johannis Pesall. 
Johannis Peek, currier. 
Johannis Benet, brazier. 
Nicholai Lacy. 
Johannis By Watyr. 
Johannis Spicer. 
Johannis Lockyer, sen. 
Johannis Lockyer, jun. 
Richardi Baker. 
Johannis Dunston. 
Thomse Stanley, smith. 
Willielmi Smith, tailor. 
Johannis Wodecok. 
Roberti Clerk, smith. 
Johannis Manyashe, glover. 
Nicholai Cust. 
Roberti Hudgray. 
Johannis Greaterler. 
Richardi Walker. 
Johannis Butler. 



Johannis Chestirshire. 
Johannis Bower, sen. 
Johannis Bower, jun. 
Johannis Halom. 
Nicholai Baxter. 
Willielmi Cartwright. 
Richardi Brown, skinner. 
Henrici Derley. 
Roberti Potter. 

Hankeston. 

Johannis Potter. 
Richardi Whitehalls. 
Johannis Wode, plasterer. 
Johannis Persal, tailor. 
Johannis Hoke. 
Richardi Wright. 
Johannis Somer. 
Radulphi Batesson. 
Johannis Litlechirch. 
Willielmi Johnson. 
Richardi Talliour. 
Richardi Colleman. 
Roberti Nundi. 
Johannis Hegge. 
Johannis Hatton. 
Willielmi Goldsmith. 
Willielmi Bullock. 
Rogeri Spicer. 
Richardi Mody. 
Willielmi Seler. 
Johannis Stone. 
Henrici Shore. 
Willielmi Walker. 
Johannis West. 
Johannis Pen. 
Willielmi Cutteler. 
Richardi Keye. 
Willielmi Shepherd. 
Johannis Deye, cooper. 
Roberti Euyngton. 
Henrici Perpoint, chevalier. 
Thomse Folliambe, armigeri. 
Nicholai Johnsill, armigeri. 
Johannis Leek, armigeri. 
Willielmi Ulkerthorpe, arm. 
Johannis Lynacre, armigeri. 
Simonis Ulgerthorpe, gent. 
Thomas Caus, gentleman. 
Roberti Newbolt, gent. 



GENTRY. 



379 



Radulphi Clappewell. 
Willielmi Hardwick, gent. 
Willielmi Lynacre, gent. 
Willielmi Ulgerthorp, gent. 
Joh. Halmworth de Stanley. 
Johannis Whitington, gent. 
Joh. Bothe de Elmeton, gent. 
Joh. Barker de Dore, gent. 
Richardi Seliok, gent. 
Roherli Wennesley, gent. 
Joh. Marshal de Egynton, ge. 
Th. Marshal de Onlecotes, ge. 
Wil. Smith de Egynton, gent. 
Roberti Parker de Norton. 
Thomse Fox de Aston. 
Joh. Noble de Holmeffeld. 
Johannis Parker de Norton. 
Thomse Cook de eadem. 
Will. Del More de Grenhul. 
Willielmi Botonne. 
Will. Parker de Shirlond. 
Ric. Stykland de Ashover. 
Rad. Huchonson de eadem. 
Rob. Seriount de Dronfield. 
Will. Outrem de Holmefeld. 
Johannis Fox de Barleylees. 
Radulphi Atte Wode. 
Joh. Shanghe de Somersale. 
Johannis Shagheuoc. 
Willielmi Roudolf. 
Willielmi Budde. 
Johannis Capronn. 
Johannis Brailesforth. 
Roberti Shoter. 
Ric. Callcroft de Chesterfeld. 
Richardi Delkere de eadem. 
Ely Dikkesson de eadem. 
Thomoe Callcroft de eadem. 
Hen. de Brythrechefold, arm. 
Tho Hugate de Chesterfeld. 
Johannis Harison de Egynton. 
Johannis Spynkhull. 
Roberti Hasellherst. 
W. Grene de Ken Walmersho. 
Sannyer Atkin de eadem. 
Thomse Walshe de Stanley. 
Roberti Bishangh de Sutton. 
Joh. Webster de Bellesouer. 
Thomse Mariori de eadem. 



Johannis Wodeword. 

ThoniEe Withwyth. 

Willielmi Aleyn de Norton. 

Williemi Bullok de eadem. 

Rogeri Pynder de Pilleslay. 

Willielmi Pynder de eadem. 

Johannis Amori. 

Thomse Gresley, chevalier. 

Roberti Francys, armigeri. 

Johannis Curson de Croxhale. 

Henrici Holland de Caldwale. 

Johannis Abbeny. 

Thomee Stokes. 

Johan. Franceys de Tykenall. 

Willielmi Lymster. 

Johannis Waren. 

Johannis Perfy. 

Richardi Eyton. 

Thomas Tronche. 

Nicholai Chaloner. 

Johannis Elton. 

Johannis Godhale, sen. 

Johannis Elton, jun. 

Willielmi Pont. 

Richardi Twigg. 

Thomse Paynter. 

Johannis Moseley. 

Johannis Smith, ferrour. 

Johannis Smith, baker. 

Johannis Ely son. 

Johannis Sharp. 

Richardi Madley. 

Johannis Baker. 

Radulphi Gyles. 

Rogeri Wilkinson. 

Johannis Bate. 

Johannis Pees. 

Roberti Vernonn. 

Rogeri Cowhope. 

Richardi Smalley. 

Roberti Twy forth. 

Walteri Twy forth. 

Johannis Stathum. 

Thomse Makworth. 

Johannis Lathebury. 

Johannis Welbek. 

Johannis Leymestyr. 

Richardi Keys. 

Ingram Frannceys. 



380 



WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 



Jerardi Moynell. 
Henrici Mak worth. 
Robert! Smalley. 
Rich. Frannceys de Stanton. 
Robert! Cokfeld. 
Gilbert! Keys de Spondon. 
Johannis Grandon de eadem. 
Johannis Grandon de Denby. 
Henrici Slack de Stanley. 
Roberti Winter. 
Thomse Babyngton. 
Johannis Sancheverell. 
Willielmi Lemestre. 
Roberti Kneton. 
Johannis Roleston de Lee. 
Walteri Wolley. 
Johannis Gretray de Elton. 
Joh. Richardeson de Alsop. 
Rogeri Hawe de Elton. 
Nicholai Mountgomery, chev. 
Henrici Kneton, armigeri. 
Radulphi Shirley, armigeri. 
Henrici Bradbourne. 
Henrici Bothe, armigeri. 
Johannis Curson, armigeri. 
Tho. Kneton de Mircaston. 
Will. Dethyh de Braidesall. 
Nicholai Fitz-Herbert. 
Johannis Fitz-Herbert. 
Willielmi Mountgomere. 
Roberti Shanghe. 
Johannis Ronyngton. 
Joh. Roleston de Swarston. 
Willielmi Lemestyr. 
Johannis Crewker. 
Henrici de Sale. 
Galfridi de Sale. 
Rob. Miller de Roddesley. 
Rob. Millner de Roddesley. 
Thomse Prynce de Trusseley. 
Thomse Saperton. 
Johannis Dantre de Hatton. 
Will, de Crosse de Hilton. 
Roberti Weyke de Hatton. 
Rich. Slater de Brailesforth. 
Rob. Bradshaugh de Wyneley. 
Thomse Prince de eadem. 
Richard! Millner de Hagge. 
Petri de la Pole. 



Radulphi de la Pole. 

Henrici de la Pole. 

Johannis Mountgomery. 

Henrici Rolleston. 

Johannis Rollesley, sen. 

Johannis Rollesley, jun. 

Johannis Northwode. 

Johannis Cooke de Edensore. 

Rogeri Caltoii de eadem. 

Willielmi Hikedonne, sen. 
de eadem. 

Willielmi Hikedonne, jun. 

Rogeri North de Babynhall. 

Willielmi Jackson de Hassop. 

Rogeri Cok de Edensore. 

Joh. Stafford de Midleton. 

Joh. Stafford de Eyham. 

Richardi Cobyn de Eyham. 
Johannis Shakerley de par. 

Longesdon. 

Oliveri Halley de Aston. 
Johannis Balgy de Aston. 
Roberti Hayr de Padley. 

Radulphi Leche de Padley. 
Willielmi Hayr de eadem. 
Thurstani de Hall. 
Thomas Woderoffe. 
Nicholai Scaley. 
Nicholai del Eyre de Hope. 
Willielmi Kingesson. 
Roberti Ratcliff de Mellehour. 
Johannis Hide de Longlee. 
Nicholai Hollond de Lyes. 
Tho. Wolley de Chalesworth. 
Willielmi Wolley de eadem. 
Johannis del Bothe de Chales 
worth. 

Tho. Wagstaffe de Glossop. 
Nich. Wagstaffe de eadem. 
Rad. Bradbury de Oldresset. 
Rogeri Bradbury de eadem. 
Jacobi de Lye de Fernley. 
Joh. Shaleros de Shaleros. 
Willielmi Ragge de Bondon. 
Edw. Bradshaugh de eadem. 
Nicholai Bronn de Mershe. 
Egidii Claybrook, Vicarii Ec- 

clesise de Castelton. 
Thomas Claybrook de eadem. 



GENTRY SHERIFFS. 



381 



Radulphi Newham de eadem. 
Thomse Newham de eadem. 
Thomse Newham de Flixton. 
Rich. Newham de Castelton. 
Thomse Nedham de Foxlowe. 
Rob. Woderof de Wormhill. 
Johannis Tunsted de eadem. 
Johanriis Nedham de eadem. 
Hug. Willesson de Lytton. 
Richardi Ropere de eadem. 
Willielmi Bradshaugh de Tid- 

deswall. 

Hugonis Strelley de Burg. 
Will. Manyashe de Manyashe. 
Thomse Fletcher de eadem. 
Johannis Delmere de eadem. 
Richardi None de Hurdelow. 



Nicholai Bradshaugh de Tid- 

deswall. 

Hen. Bradshaugh de eadem. 
Rogeri Massy de Highlowe. 
Richardi Stafford de eadem. 
Henrici Stafford de Derley. 
Thomse Fox de Banford. 
Rad. Bagshaugh de Cunbes. 
Willielmi Bagshaugh de ca- 

pella supra le Fryth. 
Thomae Bagshaugh de Rigge. 
Radulphi Stanley personee de 

Kirke-Ireton. 
Johannis Stepyngstones Ca- 

pellani, et Vicarii Ecclesise 

de Penteryche. 



SHERIFFS 
OF DERBY AND NOTTINGHAM-SHIRES. 



Anno 



HENRY II. 



1 Osbertus Silvan. 

2 Radul. films Engelrami. 

3 Idem. 
4 

5 Idem. 

6 

7 Radius films Engelrami, for 

five years. 
12 Rob. films Radulphi, for 

four years, 

16 Will, films Radulphi, for 
eight years. 

24 Will, films Rad. et Serlo 

de Grendon. 

25 Serlo de Grendon. 

26 Will, filius Rad. et Serlo 

de Grandon. 

26 Radulphus Mordach, for 
seven years. 

RICHARD I. 

1 Rad. Murdach. 

2 Null. Tit, Com. in Rotulo. 
3 

4 
5 



Anno 

6 Willielm. Breewerre, for 
five years. 

JOHAN. 

1 Willielmus Bryewerr. 
2 

3 Hugo Bardulph, et Wil 

lielmus de Lech. 

4 Idem. 

5 Hugo Bardul. et Regin. 

de Carduill. 

6 Rob. de Veteri ponte et 
Rich de Bello Campo. 

7 Idem. 

8 Idem. 

9 Idem. Ut Custos. 
10 

11 Idem. 

12 Ph. Marc, et Pet. Markes, 

for four years. 
12 Ph. de Marc, et Eustach. 

de Ludenham. 
17 Ph. de Marc. 

HENRY III. 



382 



WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 



Anno 

2 Ph. Marc, for six years. 

8 Radulph. filius Nicholai. 

9 Idem. 

10 Idem. 

11 Rad. filius Nicolai, et 
Hugo le Bell, for eight 

years. 

19 Rad. filius Nicholai, et 

Will, de Derley. 

20 Idem. 

21 Hugo filius Radulphi, et 
Rob. le Vavesor. 

22 Idem. 

23 Idem. 

24 Williel. de Cantilupo, et 

Bald, de Pannton. 

25 Idem. 

26 Baldwin, de Pannton, for 

five years. 

31 Roberti de Vavesor, for 
eight years. 

39 Roger de Lunetal. 

40 Idem. 

41 Idem. 

42 Simon de Heydon. 

43 Idem. 

44 Simon de Aslacton. 

45 Johannes de Baylloel et 

Simon de Heidon. 

46 Idem. 

47 Will, filius Herberti, ut cus- 

tos Hen. fil. ejus. 
Hugo de Stapilford, cleri- 
cus ejus. 

48 Idem. 

49 Regin. Grey, et Hugo de 

Stapelford, for five years. 

54 Hugo de Stapilford, cleri- 

cus. 

Walterus Eborac. Archi- 
episcopus. 

55 Idem. 

EDWARD I. 

1 Walt. Eborac. Archiep. 

2 Walt, de Stirchesley, for 

five years. 



Anno 
7 Gervasius de Clifton, for 

seven years. 
14 Johan. de Arasle, for five 

years. 

19 Will. Chetworth. 

20 Idem. 

21 Ph. de Pannton. 

22 Walt. Goufle, for four years. 

26 Johannes de Harington. 

27 Radulphus de Shirle. 

28 Idem. 

29 Rich, de Turneaus. 

30 Rad. de Shirle. 

31 Petrus Picot, for four years. 
35 Williel. de Chelardeston. 

EDWARD. II. 

1 Petrus Picot et Williel. de 

Chelaston. 

2 Johan. de Strichesley. 

3 Rad. de Crophul. 

4 Idem. 

5 Idem, etJohan.de la Beach. 

6 

7 Idem. 

8 Johan. de Bellaside, for 

four years. 

12 Idem, et Hugo de Stokes. 

13 Johan. Darcy. 

14 Idem. 

15 Idem. 
16 

17 Hen. de Taucombye. 

18 Idem. 

EDWARD III. 

1 Rob. Ingram. 

2 Idem. 

3 Johan. Greet, et Mundus 

Cressey. 
Tho. Languilers. 

4 Idem. 

5 Rob. de Jorce. 

6 Idem. 

7 

8 Johan. de Oxon. 

9 Tho. de Bickeringe, et 



SHERIFFS. 383 

Anno Anno 

Job. de Oxon. Johan. Walleys. 

10 Idem. 30 Rog. Michal. 

11 Tho. de Beckeringe. 31 Rich, de Grey, et 

12 Egidius de Meyguil, et Jo- Rogerus Michael. 

han. de Oxon. 32 Johan. de Gresley.. 

13 Idem. 33 Hen. de BralesforcL 

14 Egidius de Meyguil. 34 Rob. de Morton. 

15 Hugo de Hercy. 35 Rog. Beler. 

16 Nich. de Langforde. 36 Idem. 

17 Idem. 37 Rich, de Bingham. 

18 Johannes de Musters et 38 Simon de Leykes. 

Nich. de Langford. 39 Rob. de Twiford. 

19 Gervasius de Clifton. 40 Idem. 

20 Tho. de Bickeringe. 41 Idem. 

21 Johan. de Vaux. 42 Sampson de Strelley. 

22 Idem. 43 Roger. Belor, for five years. 

23 Idem. 48 Johan. Francis. 

24 Johan. Walleys, for five 49 Samp, de Strelley. 

years. 50 

29 Walt, de Monte Gomeri, et 51 

SHERIFFS OF DERBY AND NOTTINGHAM-SHIRES. 
RICHARD II. 

All the reign of this king (Recorda mancaj. 

HEN. IV. 

From the first to the last year of this king (Recorda manca.) 

HEN V. 

This king s whole reign (Recorda manca}. 

HEN. VI. 
Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

1 Joh. Cokain, mil. . . Ashdown. 

Arg. three cocks G. 

2 Tho. Chaworth, mil. . Wiverton. 

Az. two chevrons O. 

3 Rich. Vernon, mil. . . Haddon. 

Arg. fretty S. a canton G. 

4 Joh. la Zouch, mil. . . Haringworth. 

G. ten bezants, a quarter E. 

5 Tho. Greisly, mil. . . Greisly C. 

Vairy E. and G. 

6 Norm Babington, arm. . Dethick. 

Arg. ten torteaux, 4, 3, 2, and 1. 

7 Joh. Cokain, mil. . . ut prim. 
8 Joh. Cakfeld, ar. 

VOL. I. 2 C 



384 WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

9 Hu. Willoughby, mil. . Risley. 

O. on two bars G. three water-bougets Arg. 
10 Nic. Montgom. mil. 

G. a chevron between three flower-de-luces Or. 
] 1 Will. Meringe. 

12 Rob. Markham, mil. 

Az. in a chief O. a lion issuant G. and border Arg. 

13 Joh. Kokain, mil. . . ut prius. 

14 Tho. Darcy. 

15 Joh. Curson Kedliston. 

Arg. on a bend S. three popingays O. collared V. 

16 Joh. Hikeling. 

17 Will. Meringe. 

18 Joh. Cockfeld. 

19 Tho. Stannton. 

Vairee Arg. and S. a canton G. 

20 Jo. Walbyes. 

21 Jo. Pole Radburne. 

Per Pale O. and S. a saltire engrailed counterchanged. 

22 Tho. Nevil. 

G. a saltire Erm. 

23 Jo. Stathum. 

24 Rob. Strelley. 

25 Tho. Blount. 

Barry, nebulee of six O. and S. 

26 Nich. Fitz-Herbert . Norbury. 

Arg. a chief vairee O. and G. a bend S. 

27 Tho. Stannton . . . ut prius. 

28 Rich. Willoughby . . ut prius. 

29 Rob. Clifton . . . Clifton, Nottinghamshire. 

S. semee de cinquefoils, a lion rampant Arg. 

30 Rob. Strelley. 

31 Will. Plumpton, mil. 

32 Joh. Grisley, mil. . . ut prius. 

33 Joh. Stanop . . . Shelford. 

Quarterly, E. and G. 

34 Will. Babington . . ut prius. 

35 Joh. Wastneis. . . . Hendon. 

S. a lion rampant Arg. collared G. 

36 Will. Chaworth, arm. . ut prius. 

37 Will. Fitz-Herbert . ut prius. 

38 Rob. Clifton, ar. . . ut prius. 

EDW. IV. 

1 Rich. Willoughby. . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Stanhop, arm. . ut prius. 

3 Idem ut prius. 

4 Rob. Strelley, mil. 



SHERIFFS. 

Anno Name. Place. 

5 Ph. Okere, mil. 

6 Nic. Fitz-Herbert, arm. ut prius. 

7 Nic. Kniveton, arm. . Mercaston. 

G. a chevron vairee Arg. and S. 

8 Rob. Clifton, mil. . . ut prius. 

9 Hen. Perpoint, mil. . Holme Perpoint. 

Arg. a lion rampant S. in an orle of cinquefoils G. 

10 Will. Blount, ar. . . ut prius. 

11 Hen. Perpoint, mil. . ut prius. 

12 Ger. Clifton, arm. . . ut prius. 

13 Joh. Curson, arm. . . ut prius. 

14 Ph. Oker. 

15 Hen. Stathum, arm. 

16 Will. Basset, arm. . . Brailesford. 

O. three piles G. a canton Erm. 

17 Rad. Pole, arm. . . . ut prius. 

18 Gerv. Clifton, arm. . ut prius. 

19 Joh. Babington, arm. . ut prius. 

20 Rob. Markham, mil. . ut prius. 

21 Rob. Eyre. 

22 Car. Pilkinton. 

RICHARD III. 

1 Gerv. Clifton, mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Johc Curson, arm. . . ut prius. 

3 Nich. Montgomery . . ut prius. 

HENRY VII. 

1 Joh. Byron, mil. 

2 Joh. Curson, arm. . . ut prius. 

3 Gerv. Clifton .... ut prius. 

4 Joh. Leeke, arm. . . Sutton, D. 

Arg. on a saltire engrailed S. nine annulets O. 

5 Nich. Knifton, sen. . . ut prius. 
6 

7 Jacobus Savage, arm. 

8 Nich. Byron, arm. 

9 Nich. Knifton, jun. . . ut prius. 

10 Bri. Stamford, arm. 

11 H. Willoughby, mil. ut prius. 

12 Rad. Shirley, mil. . . Shirley, D. 

Paly of six, O. and Az. a canton Erm. 

13 Tho. Babington . . . ut prius. 

14 Will. Bothe, arm. 

15 Humf. Hercy, arm. 

16 Rad. Longford, mil. 

17 Gerv. Clifton, mil. . . ut prius. 

18 Will. Perpoint, arm. . ut prius. 

2 c 2 



385 



386 



WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 



Anno Name. Place. 

19 Hen. Vernam, mil. . . ut prius. 

20 Simon. Digby, arm. 

Az. a flower-de-luce Arg. 

21 Will. Mering, mil. 

22 Idem. 

23 Edw. Stanhope, mil. . ut prius. 

24 Idem ut prius. 



HENRY VIII. 

1 Br. Stapulon, mil. 

2 Will. Zouch, arm. 

3 Rich. Basset, arm. . 

4 Geo. Chaworth, arm. 

5 Roger Minars. 

6 Will. Mering, mil. 

7 Joh. Zouch, mil. . . 

8 Rob. Browne, arm. 

9 Br. Stapulton, mil. 

10 Joh. Markham, mil. . 

11 God. Fuliamb, mil. . 

12 Joh. Cokain, mil. 

13 Wil. Perpoint, mil. . 

14 Joh. Vernon, arm. . 

15 Joh. Byron, mil. 

16 Godf. Fuliamb, mil. 

17 Joh. Markham, mil. 

18 Joh. Vernon, arm. 

19 Joh. Byron, mil. 

20 Nich. Strelley, arm; 

21 Tho. Cokain, mil. 

22 Hen. Sacheverel, mil. 

Arg. a saltire Az. five 

23 Will. Coffin, arm. 

24 Joh. Hercy, arm. 

25 Anth. Babington, mil. 
26 

27 Rad. Langford, mil. 

28 Godf. Fuliamb, mil. 

29 Nich. Strelley, mil. 

30 Joh. Markham, mil. 

31 Will. Basset, mil. 

32 Gerv. Clifton, mil. . 

33 Hen. Sacheverel, mil. 

34 Joh. Byron, mil. 

35 Joh. Hercy, arm. 

36 Joh. Zouch, arm. 

37 Joh. Markham, mil. 

38 Gerv. Clifton, mil. . 



ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 



. ut prius. 



ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 

ut prius. 
ut prius. 



. ut prius. 
water-bougets Arg. 

. ut prius. 

. ut prius. 

. ut prius. 

. ut prius. 

. ut prius. 

. ut prius. 



. ut prius. 
. ut prius. 
. ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 



387 



EDWARD VI. 

Anno Name. 

1 Fran. Leeke . . 

2 Joh. Hercy, mil. 

3 Tho. Cokain, mil. 

4 Hen. Sotton, mil. 

5 Joh. Byron, mil. 

6 Anth. Nevil, mil. 



PHIL. AND MARY. 

M. 1 Joh. Port^ mil. 

1, 2 Geo. Clifton, mil. . . 

2, 3 Ja. Fuliamb, mil. . . 

3, 4 Jo. Chaworth, mil. 

4, 5 Will. Hollis, mil. . . 

Erm. two piles S. 

5, 6 Gerv. Perpoint, mil. . 

ELIZ. REG. 



Place. 
. . ut prius. 

. . ut prius. 



ut prius. 



ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 
Houghton. 

utprius. 



ut prius. 



1 Tho. Kockeyne, mil. 

2 Will. Mering, mil. 

3 Joh. Zouch, mil. . . . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Stanhop, mil. . . ut prius* 

5 Humf. Bradborn, arm. 

6 Fr. Molineux, arm. 

Az. a cross moline quarter pierced O.. 

7 Tho. Gerard, mil. 

8 Godf. Fuliamb, mil. . . ut prius. 

9 Fr. Curzon, arm. et . . ut prius. 
Anth. Strelly. 

SHERIFFS OF DERBYSHIRE ALONE. 
ELIZ. REG. 

10 Nich. Langford. 

11 Tho. Dokayn, mil. . . Ashburne. 

Arg. three cocks G. 

12 Pet. Freeh vile, arm. 

Az. six scallops Arg. 

13 Joh. Zouch, mil. 

G. ten bezants, a quarter Erm. 

14 Fra. Leke, arm. . . . Sutton. 

Arg. on a saltire engrailed S. nine annulets O. 

15 Humf. Bradborn. 

16 Germ. Pole, arm. 

17 Joh. Manners, arm. . Haddon. 

O. two bars Az. ; on a chief quarterly two flower-de-luces 
of France, and a lion of England. 



388 WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

18 Fran. Wortley, arm. . Yorkshire. 

Arg. a bend with three besants betwixt six martlets G. 

19 Will. Basset, arm. 

O. three piles G. a canton Erm. 

20 Godf. Fuliamb, arm. . Walton. 

S. a bend between six scallops O. 

21 Tho. Cockain, miL . . ut prius. 

22 Joh. Zouch, mil. . . . ut prius. 

23 Joli. Harper, arm. . . Calke. 

Arg. a lion rampant within a border engrailed S. 

24 Hen. Cavendish, arm. . Chatsworth. 

S. three bucks heads cabossed Arg. attired O. 

25 Fran. Curson, arm. . . Kedliston. 

Arg. on a bend S. three popinjays O. collared V. 

26 Joh. Vernon, arm. 

Arg. fretty S. a canton G. 

27 Tho. Cockayn, mil. . . ut prius. 

28 Fran. Leake, arm. . . ut prius. 

29 Will. Kniveton, arm. . Mircaston. 

30 Joh. Manners, arm. ut prius. 

31 Godf. Fuliamb, arm. . ut prius. 

32 Humf. Dethick, arm. 

Arg. a fesse vairy O. and G. between three water-bougets S. 

33 Tho. Gresley, arm. . . Greisley, C. 

Vairy Erm. and G. 

34 Will. Basset, arm. . . ut prius. 

35 Fr. Cockain, arm. . . ut prius. 

36 Joh. Rodes, arm. . . Balbrough. 

Arg. a lion passant bend-ways, G. dot-fessed Erm. be 
tween three acorns Az. 

37 Will. Cavendish, arm. . ut prius. 

38 Geo. Curson, arm. . . ut prius. 

39 Joh. Manners, arm. . . ut prius. 

40 Hen. Sacheverel, arm. 

Arg. a saltire Az. five water-bougets Arg. 

41 Jo. Willoughby, arm. . Risley. 

O. on two bars G. three water-bougets Arg. 

42 Edw. Cockain, arm. . . ut prius. 

43 Pet. Frechvile, arm. . ut prius. 

44 Fran. Fitz-Herbert . . Norbury. 

Arg. a chief vairy O. and G. a bend S. 

45 Tho. Gresley, mil. . . ut prius. 

JACOBUS. 

1 Tho. Gresley, mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Fran. Leake, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 Joh. Harper, mil. . . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 389 

Atmo Name. Place. 

4 Hen. Willoughby, arm. ut prius. 

5 Rich. Harper, arm. , : . ut prius. 

6 Hen. Cavendish, arm. . ut prius. 

7 Joh. Curson, arm. . . ut prius. 

8 Tho. Burdet, arm. 

Az. on two bars O. six martlets G. 

9 Geo. Fulwood, mil. 

10 Hen. Leigh, mil. 

G. a cross engrailed, in the first quarter a lozenge Arg. 

11 Tho. Reresby, mil. 

G. on a bend Arg. three crosses patee S. 

12 Will. Kniveton, bar. . ut prius. 

13 Joh. Bullock, arm. 

14 Hen. Agard, arm. 

15 Fran. Munday, arm. 

16 Rog. Manners, mil. . . ut prius. 

17 Godf. Tacker, arm. 

18 Joh. Mil ward, arm. 

Erm. on a fess G. three plates. 

19 Tho. Eyre, arm. 

20 Jacinth. Sacheverel. 

Arg. on a saltire Az. five water-bougets of the field. 

21 Gilf. Kniveton, mil. . . ut prius. 

22 Joh. Fitz-Herbert . . ut prius. 

CABOLUS I. 

1 Hen. Harper, arm. . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Fitz-Herbert, mil. . ut prius. 

3 Edw. Vernon, mil. . . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Burton, arm. 

5 Joh. Stanhope, mil. . . ut prius. 

6 Fra. Bradshaw, arm. 

7 Humf. Oakeover, arm. 

8 Joh. Manners, arm. . . ut prius. 

9 Fran. Foliamb, bar. . ut prius. 

10 Joh. Gell, arm. 

11 Joh. Millward, arm. . ut prius. 

12 Joh. Harpur, mil. . . ut prius. 

13 Joh. Harpur, bart. . . ut prius. 

14 Joh. Curson, bart. . . ut prius. 

15 Joh. Agard, arm. 
16 

1 7 Joh. Harpur, bart. . . ut prius. 

18 

19 

20 Edw. Cooke, bart. 

Party per pale G. and Az. three eagles Arg. 
21 
22 Mich. Bartonar. 



WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 



HENRY VIII. 

18. JOHN VERNON, Arm. Indeed I meet with many Ver- 
nons in this catalogue of sheriffs, Henry, John, &c. ; but cannot 
find him I seek for, viz. Sir George Vernon of Haddon in this 
county. I assign myself this reason, that he never executed 
that office, because it was beneath a prince to be a sheriff; and 
such his vast revenues and retinue, that, in the beginning of 
queen Elizabeth, he was called the King of the Peak. This Sir 
George left two daughters, coheirs ; Elizabeth, married to Sir 
John Manners, ancestor to the present earl of Rutland, and 
Margaret, to Sir Thomas Stanley, younger son of the house of 
Derby, deriving a vast inheritance to their husbands. 

How this Sir John, this year sheriff, stood to him related, is 
to me unknown : sure I am, some of his surname and alliance 
still flourish in this and the neighbouring counties, where they 
have a fair estate. Yet will they remember their motto, " Ver 
non semper floret ; so ill it is to trust in the fading spring of 
human felicity. 

THE FAREWELL, 

I understand that it is fashionable in this county for adven 
turers to begin a mine with this solemn expression : 

" For the grace of God, and what I there can find. 1 * 

By the grace of God understanding good success ; otherwise 
saving grace is not to be sought for by mining of earth, but 
mounting up to heaven by faith and repentance. This their ex 
pression I approve ; " The earth being the Lord s, and the ful 
ness thereof, both beneath and above ground, belongeth unto 

him."t 

I have read that the vicars in that country do receive every 

tenth dish of ore for their due, being obliged thereby to pray 
heartily for the miners. Now though no such place or profit 
belongeth unto me, yet, treating of this subject, I conceive my 
self bound, if not in conscience, in courtesy, to wish these work 
men a good-speed in their lawful endeavours, whilst they only 
undermine the earth, and not their neighbours right by fraudu 
lent practices. May their lot prove a prize unto them, that 
they may gain, at the least, no blank to lose thereby. Particu 
larly, may Divine Providence secure the persons of their labour 
ers from damps and other casualties, which .have happened to 
many, when the earth, though cruel to kill, was courteous to 
bury, them by the same mischance. 

* Edward Manlove, Esq. in his Customs of the Barge-moot Court, 
t Psalm xxiv. 1. 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 391 



WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE THE 

TIME OF FULLER. 

Sir Thomas ABNEY, Lord Mayor of London, one of the found 
ers of the Bank of England; born at Willesley 1639; died 
1722. 

Sir Richard ARKWRIGHT, mechanic; died 1792. 

John ASHBRIDGE, divine ; born at Heath 1788; died 1820. 

John ASHBRIDGE, dissenting divine, biographer of Bagshaw; 
born at Malcalf 1671 ; died 1735. 

Dr. Charles ASHTON, master of Jesus College, Cambridge, 
divine and critical scholar; died 1752. 

Robert BAGE, novelist; born at Darley 1728; died 1801. 

William BAGSHAW, "Apostle of the Peak," nonconformist 
divine, and author, born at Litton 1628; died 1702. 

Robert BARKER, divine and author ; born at Darley 1741 ; died 
1822. 

Robert BARKER, divine and antiquary; born at Bakewell 1736; 
died 1796. 

Francis BASSANO, herald painter and antiquary ; born at Derby 
1675; died 1746. 

Sir Hugh BATEMAN, political writer; born at Derby 1756; 
died 1824. 

William BENNET, dissenting divine and polemic ; born at Chin- 
ley 1752; died 1821. 

John BILLINGSLEY, presbyterian divine, author on popery and 
schism; born at Chesterfield 1657; died 1722. 

Anthony BLACK WALL, divine, schoolmaster; born at Kirk Ire- 
ton 1674; died 1730. 

Thomas BLORE, topographer; born at Ashbourn 1764; died 
1818. 

Mrs. Dorothy BLORE, poetess; born at Chesterfield 1758 ; died 
1808. 

Abraham BOOTH, dissenting divine and author; born at Black- 
well 1734; died 1806. 

Miss Hill BOOTHBY, correspondent of Dr. Johnson; born at 
Ashbourn 1708; died 1756. 

Sir Brook BOOTHBY, poet and political writer; born at Ash 
bourn 1747; died 1824. 

William BOTT, topographer of Buxton ; born at Chelmorton 
1735 ; died 1804. 

Thomas BOTT, divine and author; born at Derby 1688 ; died 
1754. 

Samuel BOURNE, dissenting divine and author; born at Derby 
1647; died 1719. 

Dr. Nicholas BURTON, president of St. John s College ; born at 
Cambridge; died 1759. 



392 WORTHIES OF DERBYSHIRE. 

Jedediah BUXTON, day labourer, extraordinary calculator; born 
at Elmeton 1707 ; died 1777. 

William CARSON, poetical woolcomber; born at Youlgrave 
1744; died 1822. 

Sir Aston COCKAIN, poet; born at Ashbourn 1608; died 1683. 

Sir William COKE, justice of Ceylon ; born at South Norman- 
ton 1775 ; died 1818. 

Jonathan COTES, mineralogical editor ; born at South Norman- 
ton; died 1826. 

Daniel DAKEYNE, poet; born at Darley 1763 ; died 1806. 

Joseph DENMAN, physician and author ; born at Bakewell 
1731; died 1812. 

Dr. Thomas DENMAN, physician, and author; born at Bake- 
well 1733; died 1815. 

John DRINKWATER, divine and poet; born at Ashford 1789; 
died 1824. 

George EYRE, "The Derbyshire Hudibras," mathematician, 
astronomer, and musician; born at Castleton : died 1787&gt; 
aged 83. 

Ellis FARNEWORTH, divine and translator ; born at Bonteshall 
about 1710; died 1763. 

Sir William FITZHERBERT, first baronet, author on revenue 
laws; born at Tissington ; died 1791. 

John FLAMSTEED, astronomer-royal; born at Derby 1646 ; died 

1719. 

John GELL, admiral; born at Hopton; died 1806. 

John GRATTON, poetical and suffering quaker, born at Tides- 
well 1642 ; died 1712. 

Thomas GREATOREX, organist to Westminster Abbey, musical 
composer; died 1831. 

Samuel HALIFAX, bishop of St. Asaph, professor of Arabic and 
Civil Law at Cambridge, erudite prelate, born at Mansfield 
1733; died 1790. 

Ralph HARRISON, author of " Sacred Harmony," born at Chin- 
^ley 1748; died 1810. 

Francis HUTCHINSON, bishop of Down and Connor; born at 
Carsington 1659; died 1739. 

William HUTTON, bookseller, antiquarian tourist, and self-edu 
cated writer; born at Derby 1723 ; died 1815. 

Thomas INCE, poet; born at Chesterfield 1768; died 1815. 

Michael JOHNSON, bookseller, father of Dy. Samuel Johnson, 
born at Cubley 1656; died 1731. 

Thomas Wickham KENT, sculptor and musician ; born at Brad- 
well 1744; died 1817. 

James MANDER, mineralogical writer; born at Bakewell 1758 ; 
died 1829. 

John MAWE, mineralogical writer, born at Derby 1 766 ; ob. 
1829. 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 393 

Thomas Fanshawe MIDDLETON, bishop of Calcutta; born at 

Kedleston 1769 ; died 1822. 
Joshua OLDFIELD, presbyterian divine and author ; born at 

Carsington 1656; died 1729. 

Thomas OLDFIELD, historian ; born 1755 ; died 1822. 
Dr. Samuel PEGGE, divine, and erudite and industrious anti 
quary, born at Chesterfield 1704; died 1796. 
John REYNOLDS, topographer and antiquary, born at Plaistow 

1724; died 1780. 
Samuel RICHARDSON, printer, novelist, author of " Pamela," 

" Clarissa," &c. born 1689 ; died 1761. 
Samuel SANDERS, topographer ; born at Ireton or Caldwell 

1641 ; died 1688. 
Anna SEWARD, poetess and anecdotist; born at Eyam 1747; 

died 1809. 
George STANHOPE, dean of Canterbury, theologian; born at 

Hartshorn 1660; died 1728. 
Samuel STURGES, divine and polemist; born at Sudbury 

165 7-8; died 1736. 
Sir Hugh WILLOUGHBY, naval discoverer; born at Risley; 

died 1554. 
Sir John Eardley WILMOT, Chief Justice of the Common Pleas ; 

born at Osmaston 1709 ; died 1792. 
John WRIGHT, mineralogist and poet, born at Wirksworth : 

died 1828. 



%* The County of Derby may be said to be without a general historian ; though 
many works connected with its local history have made their appearance since the 
time of Fuller, viz. Bray s Tour (1783) ; Views of Derbyshire by James Pilkington 
(1789), and by the Rev. D. P. Davies (1811) ; History of Derby by W, Hutton, 
F.S.A. (1817) ; a Picturesque Tour by E. Days (1825) ; and a history and gazetteer 
of the county, by Glover and Noble, recently published in numbers. All these will 
materially aid the future historian of the county. ED. 



DEVONSHIRE. 



DEVONSHIRE hath the narrow sea on the south, the Severn 
on the north, Cornwall on the west, Dorset and Somerset-shires 
on the east : a goodly province, the second in England for 
greatness, clear in view without measuring, as bearing a square 
of fifty miles. Some part thereof, as the South-Hams, is so fruit 
ful it needs no art ; some so barren, as Dartmoor, it will hardly 
be bettered by art ; but generally (though not running of itself) 
it answers to the spur of industry. No shire shows more 
industrious, or so many, husbandmen, who by marl (blue and 
white), chalk, lime, sea-sand, compost, soap-ashes, rags, and 
what not ? make the ground both to take and keep a moderate 
fruitfulness ; so that Virgil, if now alive, might make additions 
to his " Georgics," from the plough-practice in this county. As 
for the natives thereof, generally, they are dexterous in any em 
ployment ; and queen Elizabeth was wont to say of their gentry, 
" They were all born courtiers with a becoming confidence." 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
SILVER. 

This formerly was found in great plenty in the parish of Comb- 
Martin (miners being fetched out of Derbyshire for the digging 
thereof) in the reign of king Edward I. (which, as appeareth by 
record on the account of those trusted therein)* turned to a con 
siderable profit. 

In the two and twentieth year of the reign of king Edward the 
First, William Wymondham accounted for two hundred and se 
venty pounds weight of silver. It was forged for the lady Eleanor 
duchess of Barr, and daughter to the said king, married the year 
before. 

In the twenty-third year of the said king, were fined five hun 
dred and twenty-one pounds ten shillings weight. 

In the four and twentieth year of his reign, there were brought 
to London, in fined silver in wedges, seven hundred and four 
pounds, three shillings, and one penny weight. 

* Extant in the Tower, in the years here noted. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES. 395 

In the twenty-fifth year of his reign, though three hundred 
and sixty miners were impressed out of the Peak and Wales, 
great was that year s clear profit in silver and lead. 

In the reign of Edward the Third, it appeareth by the record 
of particular accountants, that the profits of the silver were very 
considerable towards the maintainance of the king s great ex- 
pences in the French war. 

These mines long neglected (as I conjecture, by reason of the 
civil wars betwixt York and Lancaster) were re-entered on by 
an artist in the reign of queen Elizabeth, who presented a silver 
cup made thereof to the earl of Bath, with this inscription : 

" In Martin s-Comb long lay I hid, obscure, deprest with grossest soil ; 
Debased much with mixed lead, till Bullmer came, whose skill and toil 
Reformed me so pure and clean, as richer no where else is seen." 

These mines have not as yet recovered their former credit ; 
though I understand that some are still pursuing this design, 
and I do wish well to their endeavours : not that private men 
should lose by their lead, but the public gain by their silver. 

TIN. 

God said to Israel, by the mouth of his prophet, " And I will 
take away all thy tin."* Sad the case of this county, if so 
served. But what went before ? " Thy silver is become 
dross. "f It seemeth, the kings of Israel, being reduced] to 
poverty, debased their coin (the last refuge of princes), adulte 
rating it with tin; and herein God promised that their 
coin should be refined to the true standard. This, the literal 
meaning of the promise, mystically importeth, that God would 
restore the primitive purity of his service, purged from errors 
and vices. 

In this mystical sense, it will not be amiss to wish that God 
would take away the tin from Devonshire, seeing such taking it 
away may consist with the continuance and advance of the 
metal therein. 

As for their literal tin, so plentiful herein, I wish some arti 
fice might be found out (hitherto unknown) to sever the gold 
and silver from the tin without wasting. Till this be done, I 
desire some invention might prepare sea coals for the melting 
thereof; hereby much wood would be saved, and the product of 
the tin not diminished, and not so much wasted in the blast, 
which now they are fain to run over three or four times : I am 
encouraged in the feasibility thereof, because a learned che 
mist J (no empiric, but well experimented) affirmed that it may 
be done, on his own knowledge, by many trials which he hath 
made upon it. 

HERRINGS. 

These still are taken in great, and were formerly in greater, 

Isaiah i. 25. f Ibid. ver. 21. 

J Doctor Jordan, in his History of Baths, page 60. 



396 WORTHIES OP DEVONSHIRE. 

plenty in this county : for I read of great quantities of them for 
six or seven years together taken at Limmouth, until the proctor 
(as it is said), not contented with reasonable and indifferent tithes, 
vexed the poor fishermen with unusual and extraordinary pay 
ment.* Whether since the God of nature, to condemn such 
covetousness, hath withdrawn such store of fish, or whether the 
fishermen, disheartened with such exactions, withdrew their own 
industry, I know not. This I know, that light gains, as in all 
other commodities, so especially in tithes of this nature, make the 
heaviest purses. But we shall speak more conveniently of her 
rings in Norfolk. 

STRAWBERRIES. 

In Latin fraga, most toothsome to the palate (I mean if with 
claret wine or sweet cream), and so plentiful in this county, that 
a traveller may gather them, sitting on horseback, in their hol 
low highways. They delight to grow on the north side of a 
bank, and are great coolers. These, small and sour, as grow 
ing wild (having no other gardener than nature) quickly acquire 
greatness and sweetness if transplanted into gardens, and 
become as good as those at Porbery in Somersetshire, where 
twenty pounds per annum (thank the vicinity of Bristol) have 
been paid for the tithe thereof. I would not wish this county 
the increase of these berries, according to the proverb ; " Cut 
down an oak, and set up a strawberry/ 

HURTBERRIES. 

In Latin vaccinia, most wholesome to the stomach, but of a 
very astringent nature ; so plentiful in this shire, that it is a 
kind of harvest to poor people, whose children, nigh Axminster, 
will earn eight-pence a day for a month together in gathering 
them. First, they are green, then red, and at last a dark blue. 
The whitest hands amongst the Romans did not disdain their 
blackness ; witness the poet, 

" Vaccinia nigra leguntur."f 

Nothing more have I to observe of these berries, save that 
the ancient and martial family of the Baskervills in Hereford 
shire give a chevron betwixt three hurts proper for their arms. 

THE MANUFACTURES. 
BONE-LACE. 

Much of this is made in and about Honiton, and weekly 
returned to London. Some will have it called lace, a lancinia, 
used as a fringe on the borders of cloths. Bone-lace it is 
named, because first made with bone (since wooden) bobbins. 
Thus it is usual for such utensils, both in the Latin and English 

* Manuscript of Baronet Northcott. f Virgil, Eclog. ii. 



BUILDINGS WONDERS. 397 

names, gratefully to retain the memory of the first matter they 
were made of ; as cochleare, a spoon (whether made of wood or 
metal,) because cockle-shells were first used to that purpose. 

Modern the use thereof in England, not exceeding the middle 
of the reign of queen Elizabeth : let it not be condemned for a 
superfluous wearing, because it doth neither hide nor heat, 
seeing it doth adorn. Besides, though private persons pay for 
it, it stands the State in nothing ; not expensive of bullion, like 
other lace, costing nothing save a little thread descanted on by 
art and industry. Hereby many children, who otherwise would 
be burthensome to the parish, prove beneficial to their parents. 
Yea, many lame in their limbs, and impotent in their arms, if 
able in their fingers, gain a livelihood thereby ; not to say that 
it saveth some thousands of pounds yearly, formerly sent over 
seas to fetch lace from Flanders. 

THE BUILDINGS. 
BEDIFORD BRIDGE 

Is a stately structure, and remarkable in many respects. 
1 . It standeth out of, and far from, any public road, in a cor 
ner of the county ; so that Bediford bridge is truly Bediford 
bridge, intended solely for the convenience of that town. 2, It 
is very long, consisting of twenty-four piers ; and yet one Wil 
liam Alford (another Milo) of Bediford, carried on his back, for 
a wager, four bushels,* salt-water measure, all the length 
thereof. 3. It is very high, so that a barge of sixty tons may 
pass and repass (if taking down her masts) betwixt the piers 
thereof. 4. The foundation is very firmly fixed ; and yet it 
doth (or seems to) shake at the slightest step of a horse. 5. The 
builder of so worthy a work is not (the more the pity) punc 
tually known. 

Yet tradition (the best author where no better is to be had) 
maketh that finished by the assistance of Sir Theobold Green- 
vill, the Goldneyes and Oketenets (persons of great power in 
those parts) ; Peter Ciuivill, bishop of Exeter, granting indul 
gences to all such as contributed to the forwarding thereof, 

As for the houses of the gentry in this county, some may 
attract, none ravish the beholder ; except it be Wenbury, the 
house of the Heales, near Plymouth, almost co-rival with 
Greenwich itself, for the pleasant prospect thereof. 

THE WONDERS. 

Not to speak of a river about Lidford, whose stream sinketh 
so deep that it is altogether invisible, but supplying to the ear 
that it denies to the eye, so great the noise thereof. 

There is in the parish of North Taunton (near an house called 

* A bushel is two strikes in this county. F. 



398 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

Bath) a pit, but in the winter a pool, not maintained by any 
spring, but the fall of rain water (in summer commonly dry.) 
Of this pool it hath been observed, that, before the death or 
change of any prince, or some other strange accident of great 
importance, or any invasion or insurrection (though in an hot 
and dry season), it will, without any rain, overflow its banks, 
and so continue till it be past that is prognosticated. Be the 
truth hereof reported to the vicinage (the most competent 
judges thereof) seeing my author, (who finished his book 1648) 
reporteth that it overflowed four times within these last thirty 
years.* 

Some will be offended at me, if I should omit the Hanging 
Stone, being one of the bound stones which parteth Comb-Mar 
tin from the next parish. It got the name from a thief, who, 
having stolen a sheep and tied it about his own neck to carry it 
on his back, rested himself for a while upon this stone, which is 
about a foot high, until the sheep, struggling, slid over the stone 
on the other side, and so strangled the man.f Let the lawyers 
dispute whether the sheep in this case was forfeited to the king s 
almoner as a deodand. It appeareth rather a providence than a 
casualty, in the just execution of a malefactor. To these won 
ders I will add, and hazard the reader s displeasure for the same, 

THE CUBBINGS. 

So now I dare call them (secured by distance), which one of 
more valour durst not do to their face, for fear their fury fall 
upon him. Yet hitherto have I met with none who could ren 
der a reason of their name. We call the shavings of fish (which 
are little worth) gubbings ; and sure it is they are sensible that 
the word importeth shame and disgrace. As for the suggestion 
of my worthy and learned friend Mr. Joseph Maynard, bor 
rowed from Buxtorfius,J that such who did " inhabitare montes 
gibberosos" were called Gubbings, such will smile at the inge 
nuity, who dissent from the truth, of the etymology. 

I have read of an England beyond Wales ; but the Gubbings- 
land is a Scythia within England, and they pure heathens 
therein. It lieth nigh Brent-Tor, in the edge of Dartmoor. It 
is reported, that some two hundred years since, two strumpets 
being with child, fled hither to hide themselves, to whom cer 
tain lewd fellows resorted, and this was their first origi 
nal. They are a peculiar of their own making, exempt from 
bishop, archdeacon, and all authority either ecclesiastical or civil. 
They live in cots (rather holes than houses) like swine, having 
all in common, multiplied without marriage into many hundreds. 
Their language is the dross of the dregs of the vulgar Devonian ; 
and the more learned a man is, the worse he can understand 

* Manuscript of Baronet Northcott. * From the same Author. 

J In his Talmudical Rabbinical Dictionary, upon the word 
See Camden s Britannia, in Pembrokeshire. 



PROVERBS. 399 

them. During our civil wars, no soldiers were quartered 
amongst them, for fear of being quartered amongst them. Their 
wealth consisteth in other men s goods, and they live by steal 
ing the sheep on the moor ; and vain it is for any to search their 
houses, being a work beneath the pains of a sheriff, and above 
the power of any constable. Such their fleetness, they will out 
run many horses ; vivaciousness, they outlive most men ; living 
in the ignorance of luxury, the extinguisher of life. They hold 
together like burs ; offend one, and all will revenge his quarrel. 
But now I am informed, that they begin to be civilized, and 
tender their children to baptism, and return to be men, yea 
Christians again. I hope no civil people amongst us will turn 
barbarians, now these barbarians begin to be civilized. 

PROVERBS. 



" To Devonshire ground. 1 ] 

It is sad w r hen one is made a proverb by way of derision ; but 
honourable to become proverbial by w r ay of imitation ; as here 
Devonshire hath set a copy of industry and ingenuity to all 
England. To Devonshire land is to pare off the surface or top 
turf thereof, then lay it together in heaps and burn it, which 
ashes are a marvellous improvement to battle barren ground. 
Thus they may be said " to stew the land in its own liquor," to 
make the same ground to find compost to fatten itself; an hus 
bandry, which, wherever used, retains the name of the place 
where it was first invented, it being usual to Devonshire land in 
Dorsetshire and in other counties. 
" A Plymouth Cloak."] 

That is, a cane, or a staff, whereof this the occasion. Many 
a man of good extraction, coming home from far voyages, may 
chance to land here, and being out of sorts, is unable, for the 
present time and place, to recruit himself with clothes. Here 
(if not friendly provided) they make the next wood their dra 
per s shop, where a staff cut out serves them for a covering. 

" He may remove Mort-stone."] 

There is a bay in this county called Mort-bay; but the har 
bour in the entrance thereof is stopped with a huge rock, called 
Mort-stone ; and the people merrily say that none can remove* 
it, save such who are masters of their wives. If so, wise Sc- 
crates himself (with all men who are yvvalKo-K^arov^voi, under 
covert-feme, as I may say) will never attempt the removal 
thereof. 



First hang and draw, 



Then hear the cause by Lidford law. ] 

Lidford is a little and poor but ancient corporation in this 
county, with very large privileges, where a court of the Stan- 
neries was formerly kept. This libellous proverb would suggest 
unto us, as if the townsmen thereof, generally mean persons, were 

VOL. I. 2 D 



400 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

unable to manage their own liberties with necessary discretion, 
administering preposterous and prepfoperous justice. 

I charitably believe, that some tinners, justly obnoxious to 
censure, and deservedly punished, by fine or otherwise, for their 
misdemeanors, have causelessly traduced the proceedings of that 
court, when they could not maintain their own innocence. 

SAINTS. 

WENFRIDE BONIFACE was born at Crediton (corruptly Kir- 
ton) once an episcopal see in this county ; bred a monk under 
Abbot Woolfhard in Exeter. Hence he went to Rome, where 
Pope Gregory the Second (perceiving the ability of his parts) 
sent him to Germany, for the converting of that stiff-necked na 
tion. This service he commendably performed, baptising not 
fewer than a hundred thousand, in Bavaria, Thuringia, Hassia, 
Friesland, Saxony, &c. 

But here I must depart from Bale,* because he departeth (I 
am sure) from charity, and I suspect from verity itself. Cha 
rity, who (according to his bold and bald apocalyptical conjec 
tures) maketh him " the other beast ascending out of the earth 
with two horns."t And why so ? Because, forsooth, he was 
made by the Pope Metropolitan of Mentz, and kept the church 
of Colen in commemdam therewith. 

Secondly, Verity, when saying that he converted men " terrore 
magis quam doctrina ;" it being utterly incredible that a single 
man should terrify so many out of their opinions. And if his 
words relate to his ecclesiastical censures (with which weapons 
Boniface was well provided), such were in themselves, without 
God s wonderful improving them on men s consciences, rather 
ridiculous than formidable, to force Pagans from their former 
persuasions. But if Bale (which is very suspicious) had been 
better pleased Math the Germans continuing in their Pagan prin 
ciples than their conversion to corrupted Christianity, he will 
find few wise and godly men to join with his judgment therein. 
Yet do I not advocate for all the doctrines delivered and cere 
monies imposed by Boniface ; beholding him as laying the true 
foundation, " Jesus Christ," which would last and remain ; but- 
building much hay and stubble of superstition thereon. But he 
himself afterwards passed a purging fire in this life ; killed at 
Borne in Friesland, with fifty-four of his companions, anno Do 
mini 755, in the sixtieth year of his age, after he had spent 
thirty-six years, six months, and six days, in his German em 
ployment. 

WILLIBALD, descended of high parentage, was born in this 
county,J nephew to St. Boniface aforesaid, whom he followed in 

De Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. ii. num. 13. f Revel, xiii. 11. 

* Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. ii. num. 16. 



SAINTS. 

all respects ; later in time, lower in parts, less in pains ; but pro 
fitable in the German conversion ; wherein he may be termed 
his uncle s armour-bearer, attending him many a mile, though 
absent from him at his death. Herein he was more happy than 
his uncle, that, being made bishop of Eystet in Germany, as he 
lived in honour, so he died in peace, anno Domini 781. 

MARTYRS. 

AGNES PIREST, or PREST, was the sole martyr under the 
reign of queen Mary ; wherefore, as those parents which have 
but one child may afford it the better attendance, as more at 
leisure ; so seeing, by God s goodness, we have but this single 
native of this county, yea of this diocese, we will enlarge our 
selves on the time, place, and cause of her siiffering. 

1. Her Christian name, which Mr. Fox could not learn, we 
have recovered from another excellent author.* 2. I am in 
formed by the inhabitants thereabouts, that she lived at North- 
cott, in the parish of Boynton, in the county of Cornwall ; but 
where born is unknown. 3. She was a simple woman to 
behold, thick, but little and short in stature ; about fifty-four 
years of age. 4. She was indicted on Monday, the fourth week 
in Lent, an. Philip and Mary 2 and 3, before W. Stanford, 
justice of the assizef (the same, as I conceive, who wrote on the 
Pleas of the Crown) : so that, we may observe, more legal form 
ality was used about the condemnation of this poor woman, than 
any martyr of far greater degree. 5. Her own husband and 
children were her greatest persecutors ; from whom she fled, 
because they would force her to be present at mass, j 6. She 
was presented to James Troublefield, bishop of Exeter, and by 
him condemned for denying the sacrament of the Altar. 7- 
After her condemnation, she refused to receive any money from 
well affected people ; saying, " she was to go to that city where 
money had no mastery." 8. She was burnt without the walls 
of Exeter, in a place called Sothenhay, in the month of Novem 
ber 1558. 

She was the only person in whose persecution bishop Trou 
blefield did appear ; and it is justly conceived that Blackstone, 
his chancellor, was more active than the bishop, in procuring 
her death. 

CONFESSORS. 

This county afforded none either in or before the reign of 
queen Mary ; but in our age it hath produced a most eminent 
one, on an account peculiar to himself. 

JOHN MOLLE was born in or nigh South Molton,|| in this 

* Mr. Vovell, in Holinshed, p. 1309. f Idem, ibid. 

t Fox s Acts and Monuments, p. 2050. Idem, p. 2052. 

|| The ensuing relation I had from his son, Mr. Henry Molle, late orator of 
Cambridge F. 

2 D 2 



402 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

county ; bred in France, where he attained to such perfection in 
that tongue, that he made a dictionary thereof for his own use. 
After his youth spent in some military employments of good 
trust, he was, in his reduced age, made, by Thomas lord Burgh- 
ley and president of the north, one of the examiners in that 
court. 

Going afterwards governor to the lord Ross, he passed the 
Alps (contrary to his own resolution), prising his fidelity to his 
charge above his own security. No sooner were they arrived at 
Rome, but the young lord was courted and feasted, Mr. Molle 
arrested and imprisoned in the Inquisition. Thus at once 
did he lose the comfort of his wife, children, friends, own land, 
and liberty, being kept in most strict restraint. Add to all these 
vexations, visits of importunate priests and Jesuits, daily hack 
ing at the root of his constancy with their objections ; till, 
finding their tools to turn edge, at last they left him to his own 
conscience. 

What saith the Holy Spirit ? Revel, xviii. 4. " Come out of 
Babylon, my people." But here, alas ! was he who would, but 
could not, come thence, detained there in durance for thirty 
years together. How great his sufferings were, is only known 
to God, who permitted ; his foes, who inflicted ; and himself, 
who endured them ; seeing no friend was allowed to speak with 
him alone. He died, in the eighty- first year of his age, about 
the vear of our Lord 1638. 

w 

CARDINALS. 

WILLIAM COURTNEY was born (probably at Okehampton) 
in this county ; son to Hugh Courtney, earl of Devonshire ; 
successively bishop of Hereford, Winchester, and Canterbury.* 
The credit of T. Walsingham, an exact historian (and born 
before Courtney was buried) maketh me confident, that the 
Pope made him a cardinal ; and Ciaconius and Onuphrius, two 
Italians, confirm the same ; that a bishop of London (though 
mistaking his name, Adam for William) was at this time re 
warded with a red hat. 

How stoutly he then opposed John of Gaunt (Wickliffe s 
patron) in his church of St. Paul is largely related in my 
" Church History ; " and I can add nothing thereunto. For if 
the men of Laconia (whose work was to study conciseness) 
punished him severely for speaking in three what might have 
been said in two words, critics will severely censure_ me for 
such tedious repetition. 

Only we may observe, that, when archbishop of Canterbury, 
his metropolitical visitation charged through and through every 
diocese in his own province, no resistance being of proof against 

* Godwin, in the Archbishops of Canterbury. 



PRELATES. 



403 



him, all opposers giving some trouble to him, but disgrace to 
themselves ; soon suppressed by his high blood, strong brains, 
full purse, skill in law, and plenty of powerful friends in the 
English and Romish court. The difficulty which he underwent 
herein made the work easy to his successors ever after. He 
deceased July 31, anno Domini 1396. 

PRELATES. 

ROBERT CHICHESTER. Here I had been at a perfect loss, 
had I not met with a good guide to direct me : for I had cer 
tainly, from his surname, concluded him born at Chichester in 
Sussex, according to the custom of other clergymen. But this 
single swallow (which makes no summer) had a flight by him 
self, retaining his paternal name, descended from a noble and 
ancient family (saith my author) ;* still flourishing [at Raw- 
leigh] in this county. He was first dean of Salisbury, then, 
anno 1128, consecrated bishop of Exeter; highly commended 
by many writers for his piety, though the principal thereof 
consisted in his pilgrimages to Rome, and procuring relics 
thence. He bestowed much money in building and adorning his 
cathedral ; and, having sat therein two and twenty years, died, 
and was buried, 1150, on the south side of the high altar, nigh 
a gentleman of his own surname, whose inscribed arms are the 
best directory to this bishop s monument. 

GILBERT FOLIOT was born at Tamerton-Foliot, in this 
county ;t abbot of Gloucester (Bale saith Exeter) ; then suc 
cessively bishop of Hereford and London. 

He was observed, when a common brother of his convent, to 
inveigh against the prior ; when prior, against the abbot ; when 
abbot, against the pride and laziness of bishops: but when 
he himself was bishop, all was well, and Foliot s mouth, when 
full, was silent;J whether because all things do rest quiet in 
their centre, or because age had abated his juvenile animosity, 
or because he found it more facile to find faults in others than, 
mend them in himself. Indeed, oft-times mere moroseness of 
nature usurps the reputation of zeal ; and what is but a bare 
disgust of men s persons, passeth for dislike of their vices. 
However, our Foliot, the less he had in Satires, the more he 
had of Elegies afterwards, secretly bemoaning the badness of the 
age he lived in. Hear a pass betwixt him and a strange voice : 



SATAN S CHALLENGED 

" O Gilberte Foliot, 

Dum revolvis tot et tot, 
Deus tuus est Ashtarot." || 



FOLIOf s ANSWER. 

" Mentiris, daemon j qui est Deus 
Sabaoth, est ille meus." 



Godwin, in the Bishops of Exeter. f Manuscript of Baronet Nort V. 

Johannes Sarisburiensis, in Polycraticon, cap. 7. 

Godwin, in the Bishops of London. 

The goddess of the Sidonians, 1 Kings xi. 5. 



404 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

He finds little favour from our historians of his age, because 
they do generally Becketize ; whilst Foliot was all for the king, 
being a professed enemy to the (not person, but) pride of that 
prelate.* This wise and learned bishop died Feb. 18, 1187. 

ROBERT FOLIOT, archdeacon of Oxford, was near cousinf 
(and therefore is placed countryman) to Gilbert aforesaid. He 
was bred first in England, then in France, where he got the 
surname of Robertus Melundinensis, probably from the place of 
his longest abode. He was first tutor to Becket, and Becket 
afterwards was patron to him, by whose procurement he suc 
ceeded his kinsman in the see of Hereford. He wrote several 
books, whereof one of " the sacraments of the old law " is most 
remarkable. 

Hitherto we have followed Bale with blind obedience, 
until bishop Godwin, whom we rather believe hath open 
ed our eyes in two particulars : 1 . That Robert de Melune (bi 
shop also of Hereford) was a distinct person from our Robert. 
2. That our Foliot was advanced bishop after the death of 
Becket,:}: probably for the affectibn he bore unto him, not the 
assistance he received from him. His death happened anno 
1186. Nor must we forget, there was also one Hugh Foliot, 
archdeacon of Shrewsbury, afterwards bishop of Hereford ; of 
whom nothing remains but his name, and the date of his death, 
1234. 

WILLIAM BREWER was born in this county (or in Somerset 
shire), whereof William his father was several years sheriff un 
der king Henry the Second, where we shall insist on the occa 
sion of his surname. 

Bishop Godwin informeth us, that he was brother to Sir Wil 
liam Brewer, knight, if there be not an error therein ; seeing 
two brethren surviving their parents together, both of a name, 
are seldom seen in the same family. He was preferred bishop 
of Exeter, anno 1224. 

A great courtier, and employed in such embassies proper for 
a person of prime quality ; || as when he was sent to conduct 
Isabel, sister to king Henry the Third, to be married to Frede 
ric the emperor; wiiom he afterwards attended to the Holy 
Land. Returning to his see, he set himself wholly to the adorn 
ing and enriching thereof; founding a dean and twenty-four 
prebendaries, allowing the latter the annual stipend of four 
pounds, which they receive at this day. But I am lately in 
formed that the dean and residenciaries of Exeter have since 
augmented the salary of all the prebendaries at large to twenty 

* Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. iii. num. 8. f Ibid. 

t Godwin, in the Bishops of Hereford. 

See our Catalogues of Sheriffs in Henry the Second. 

|| Godwin, in the Bishops of Exeter. 



PRELATES. 405 

pounds a year; which intelligence if false, they are not injured; 
if true, they are courteously used. This bishop died anno Do 
mini 1244. 

WILLIAM de RALEIGH was born at that well known town in 
this county ; preferred first canon of St. Paul s, then successively 
bishop of Norwich and Winchester ;* the last of which cost him 
much trouble, his election being stiffly opposed by king Henry 
the Third, intending a Valentinian (uncle to the queen) for that 
bishopric, whom the monks of Winchester refused; terming 
him vir sanguinum, (a man of blood.) Whether in that sense 
wherein David is so termed (and on that account prohibited the 
building of the temple) because a martial man ; or whether only 
because descended of high blood, whose descent was all his de 
sert ; so that they rigidly adhered to the election of Raleigh. 

King Henry, who seldom used to be angry, and more seldom 
to swear, sware in his anger, " that he would have his will at 
last, or they should never have bishop ; " and how his consci 
ence came off without perjury herein, his own confessor was 
best able to satisfy him. 

Raleigh had (besides his own merits) two good friends, his 
purse and the Pope, the former procuring the latter. He pre 
sented his Holiness with six thousand marks, which effected 
his work. Here two persons were at once deceived ; the Pope 
not expecting so great a sum should be tendered him, and Ra 
leigh not suspecting he would take all, but leave at least a mor 
sel for manners. But his hands will take whatever is tendered 
him, if not too hot or too heavy. 

Raleigh thus run in debt, could never creep out thereof, 
though living very privately, and dying very penitently ; for, 
when the priest brought the eucharist unto him, lying on his 
death-bed, Raleigh, expressing himself in language like to that 
of John Baptist, " I have need to come to thee, and comest 
thou to me ? "f would rise out of his bed to meet him. His 
death happened anno Domini 1249. 

RICHARD COURTNEY was one of great lineage J (allied to 
the earl of Devonshire) and no less learning (excellently skilled 
in the knowledge of both laws) : so that, at the instant suit of 
king Henry the Fifth, he was preferred bishop of Norwich, anno 
1413. His person (the inn of his soul had a fair sign) was 
highly favoured by his prince, and beloved by the people ; yet 
all this could not prolong his life, so that he died of a flux, at 
the siege of Harflew in Normandy, in the second year of his 
consecration; and his corpse, brought over, was honourably 
entombed in Westminster. 

The effect of what followeth is taken out of Bishop Godwin, in his Bishops of 

Winchester F. 

t Matth. iii. 14. J Bishop Godwin, in the Bishops of Norwich. 



406 



WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 



JAMES GARY was born in this county, his name still flourish 
ing at Cockington therein. He was at Rome made bishop of 
Lichfield ; and, travelling thence homewards towards England, 
did again light on the Pope at Florence, just at the news of the 
vacancy of Exeter ; and the same see was bestowed on him, the 
more welcome because in his native county. Say not this was 
a degradation ; for, though in our time Lichfield is almost twice 
as good as Exeter, Exeter then was almost four times as good 
as Lichfield. This appeareth by their valuations of their in 
come into first-fruits ; Exeter paying the Pope six thousand du 
cats, whilst Lichfield paid only seventeen hundred at the most.* 
But, whatever the value of either or both was, Gary enjoyed 
neither of them ; dying and being buried in Florence. Thus, 
though one may have two cups in his hand, yet some intervening 
accident may so hinder, that he may taste of neither. He died 
1419. 

JOHN STANBERY was (saithBalef out ofLeland)"in oc- 
cidentali Regni parte natus." But, the western parts being a 
wide parish, thanks to our author, he hath particularized the 
place of his nativity, viz. the farm of Churchill, within the pa 
rish of Bratton or Broad-Town in this county,J where some of 
his name and kindred remain at this day. He was bred a Car 
melite in Oxford, and became generally as learned as any of 
his order, deserving all the dignity which the university did or 
could confer upon him. King Henry the Sixth highly favoured 
and made him the first provost of Eton, being much ruled by 
his advice in ordering that, his new foundation. He was by the 
king designed bishop of Norwich ; but William de la Pole, 
duke of Suffolk (see the presumption of a proud favourite, or 
minion rather) got it from him for his own chaplain ; and Stan- 
bery was forced to stay his stomach on the poor bishopric of 
Bangor, till, anno 1453, he was advanced bishop of Hereford. 

Leland doth condemn him for his over-compliance with the 
Pope in all his intolerable taxes ; and others commend him as 
much for his fidelity to his master king Henry, whom he desert 
ed not in all his adversity ; so that this bishop was taken pri 
soner in the battle of Northampton. Say not to this prelate as 
Eliab to David, " Why earnest thou down hither ? with whom 
hast thou left those few sheep in the wilderness ? I know the 
pride and the malicp of thy heart, for thou art Come down to see 
the battle." For Stanbery being confessor to king Henry, 
he was tied by his oath to such personal attendance. After long 
durance in Warwick castle, he was set at liberty ; and, dying 
anno 1474, was buried in the convent of Carmelites, at Ludlow; 
where his barbarous and tedious epitaph (ill suiting with the 

* Compare Bishop Godwin, p. 331 with p. 415. 

t De Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. viii. num. 34. 

1 Manuscript of Baronet iSorthi ott. 1 Sam. xvii. 2S, 



PRELATES. 40? 

author of such learned and pithy books,) is not worth the in 
serting. 

PETER COURTNEY, son to Sir Philip Courtney, was born 
at Powderham, in this shire.* He was first preferred arch 
deacon, then bishop of Exeter ; expending very much money 
in finishing the north tower, giving a great (called Peter) bell 
thereunto. He was afterwards, anno 1486, translated to Win 
chester ; where he sat five years. It is much one of so 
illustrious birth should have so obscure a burial ; bishop God 
win confessing that he knew not whereabouts in his church he 
lieth interred. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

JOHN JEWEL, bearing the Christian name of his father, 
grandfather, and great grandfather, was born at Buden (a farm 
possessed more than two hundred years by his ancestors) in the 
parish of Berynbert, nigh Ilfracombe, in this county, on the 
24th of May 1552. His mother s surname was Bellamy, who 
with her husband John Jewel lived happily fifty years together 
in holy wedlock, and at their death left ten children behind 
them. 

It may be said of his surname, nomen, omen ; Jewel his name 
and precious his virtues ; so that, if the like ambition led us 
Englishmen, which doth foreigners, speciously to render our 
surnames in Greek or Latin, he may be termed Johannes Gem 
ma., on better account than Gemma Frisius entitleth himself 
thereunto. 

He was chiefly bred in the school of Barnstable; where 
John Harding, afterwards his antagonist, was his school-fellow ; 
and at fifteen years of age was admitted in Merton College, 
under the tuition of John Parkhurst, afterwards bishop of Nor 
wich. Such his sedulity, rising always at four of the clock, and 
not going to bed till ten, that he was never punished for any 
exercise, and but once for absence from chapel. Hence he w r as 
removed to Corpus Christi College, where he proved an excel 
lent poet (having all Horace by heart), linguist, and orator. 

Thus having touched at all human arts, he landed at divi 
nity ; being much assisted by Peter Martyr, the king s professor 
therein. St. Jeromef telleth us, that so great was the intimacy 
betwixt Pamphilius that worthy martyr, a priest, and Eusebius 
the bishop of Csesarea, "ut ab uno alter nomen acceperet," 
(that they mutually were surnamed the one from the other), 
Pamphilius Eusebii, and Eusebius Pamphilii. No less the 
unity of affections betwixt these two, who accordingly might 
be called martyr s Jewel, and Jewel s martyr ; as seldom in body 
and never in mind asunder. 

Godwin, in the Bisliops of Winchester, 
t In his " Apologia adversus Ruffinum." 



408 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

What eminent changes afterwards befel him in the course of 
his life, how he fled into Germany, lived at Zurich, returned 
into England, was preferred bishop of Salisbury, wrote learnedly, 
preached painfully, lived piously, died peaceably, anno Domini 
1572, are largely related in my " Ecclesiastical History ;" and 
I will trouble the reader with no repetitions. 

JOHN PRIDEAUX was born at Hartford, in the west part of 
this county ; bred scholar, fellow, and rector of Exeter College, 
in Oxford, canon of Christ- Church, and above thirty years 
king s professor in that university. An excellent linguist ; but 
so that he would make words wait on his matter, chiefly aiming 
at expressiveness therein ; he had a becoming festivity, which 
was Aristotle s, not St. Paul s, EuVp aTreXza. 

Admirable his memory, retaining whatever he had read. 
The Welch have a proverb (in my mind somewhat uncharitable) 
" He that hath a good memory, giveth few alms ; " because he 
keepeth in mind what and to whom he had given before. But 
this doctor crossed this proverb, with his constant charity to all 
in want. 

His learning was admired by foreigners, Sextinus Amma, 
Rivet, &c. He was not vindictive in the least degree; one 
intimate with him* having assured me, that he would forgive 
the greatest injury, upon the least show of the party s sorrow, 
and restore him to the degree of his former favour ; and though 
politicians will thence collect him no prudent man, divines will 
conclude him a good Christian. 

Episcopacy in England being grievously wounded by male 
volent persons, king Charles the First conceived that the best 
wine and oil that could be poured into these wounds was, to 
select persons of known learning and \inblameable lives, to 
supply the vacant bishoprics; amongst whom Dr. Prideaux 
was made bishop of Worcester. But, alas ! all in vain, such 
the present fury of the times. 

He died of a fever, 1650 ; and I have perused a manuscript 
book (but alas ! not made by Oxford, but Worcestershire Muses) 
of verses on his funeral ; amongst which I take notice of these : 

" Desine mirari csecos errasse tot ignes ; 

In promptu causa est, lux Prideauxus obit." 

" Mortuus est Prideaux 9 scriptis post funera vivit ; 
Aufertur letho mitra, corona datur." . 

To these we may add the chronogram, which I meet with 
amongst the same verses. 

" Johannes PrIDeaVXVs EpIsCopVs| lft , ft 
VVIgornlae MortVVs est. J" 

He was buried at Bredon in Worcestershire, August the 16th. 
Such as deny bishops to be peers, would have conceived this 

* Mr. Joseph Maynard, fellow of Exeter College. 



STATESMEN. 409 

bishop a prince, if present at his interment, such the number 
and quality of persons attending his funeral. 

STATESMEN. 

Sir ARTHUR CHICHESTER, Knight, was descended of a right 
ancient family, dwelling at Rawley, in this county. He spent 
his youth first in the university, then in the French and Irish 
wars ; where, by his valour, he was effectually assistant, first to 
plough and break up that barbarous nation by conquest ; and 
then to sow it with seeds of civility, when by king James made 
lord deputy of Ireland. 

Indeed good laws and provisions had been made by his pre 
decessors to that purpose ; but, alas ! they were like good 
lessons set for a lute out of tune, useless until the instrument 
was fitted for them. Wherefore, in order to the civilizing of 
the Irishry, in the first year of his government he established 
two new circuits for justices of assize, the one in Connaught, 
the other in Munster. And whereas the circuits in former 
times only encompassed the English Pale (as the Cynosura doth 
the Pole), henceforward, like good planets in their several 
spheres, they carried the influence of justice round about the 
kingdom. Yea, in short time, Ireland was so cleared of thieves 
and capital offenders, that so many malefactors have not been 
found in the two and thirty shires of Ireland, as in six English 
shires in the western circuit. * 

He reduced the mountains and glens on the south of Dublin 
(formerly thorns in the sides of the English Pale) into the 
county of Wicklow ; and, in conformity to the English custom, 
many Irish began to cut their mantles into cloaks. So observant 
his eye over the actions of suspected persons, that Tyrone 
was heard to complain, "that he could not drink a full carouse of 
sack, but the state was within a few hours advertised thereof, t 

After he had been continued many years in his deputyship, 
and deservedly made a lord, king James recalled him home, and 
(loath to leave his abilities unemployed) sent him ambassador 
to the emperor, and other German princes. Being besieged in 
the city of Mainchine (a place much indebted to his prudence, 
for seasonably victualling it) by count Tilley, he sent him word, 
" that it was against the law of nations to besiege an ambas 
sador." Tilly returned, that he took no notice that he was an 
ambassador, The lord Chichester replied to the messenger ; 
" Had my master sent me with as many hundred men as he 
hath sent me on fruitless messages, your general should have 
known that I had been a soldier, as well as an ambassador." 

King James, at his return, entertained him with great 
commendation, for so well discharging his trust ; and he died, 

* Sir John Davis, in his discoxirse of Ireland, p. 270. f Idem, p. 271. 



41CV WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

in as great honour as any Englishman of our age, anno Do 
mini 162... 

CAPITAL JUDGES. 

Sir WILLIAM HERLE, Knight, was made, by king Edward 
the Third, chief justice of the King s Bench, in Hilary Term, 
the first year of his reign ; and before the term ended (viz. Ja 
nuary the 29th) was made chief judge of the Common Pleas, by 
his own free consent, as I have cause to conceive ; he standing 
fair in the king s favour : for, whereas sixty marks were in that 
age the annual salary of that place, the king granted him an 
augmentation of two hundred and forty marks a year, so long 
as he kept that office.* This was some four years ; for I find 
Sir John Stoner put into his place, f in the fourth of the king s 
reign ; yet so, that this Sir William was his successor the year 
after, such alterations being usual in that age. I collect him to 
die in the ninth of king Edward the Third (the mention of him 
sinking in that year) ; and is placed here, because, if not born 
at (which is most probable) he was owner of Ilfracombe, in this 
county, the manor whereof was held by his issue till the reign 
of king Henry the Seventh ; and I understand that a family of 
his name, and I believe of his lineage, hath still a worshipful 
existence in Cornwall. 

Sir JOHN GARY, Knight, was born at Cockington, in this 
county ; and, applying himself to the study of the laws, was 
made chief baron of the Exchequer in the tenth year of king 
Richard the Second. The greatest fault I find charged on him 
was, loyalty to his lord and master ; which if any dare call a 
disease, I assure you it is a catching one, among conscientious 
people. On this honourable account, this judge lost his office, 
goods, and lands, in the first of king Henry the Fourth ; whose 
losses, not long after, Providence plentifully repaid to his 
posterity, on this occasion : a knight-errant of Arragon, coming 
into England, and challenging any to tilt with him, was under 
taken by Sir Robert Gary, son to Sir John aforesaid ; who van 
quished the vain-glorious Don ; so that king Henry the Fifth, out 
of a sympathy of valour, restored all his estate unto him. This 
judge died about the year of our Lord 1404. 

Sir WILLIAM HANKFORD was born at Amerie in this 
county (a manor, which, from owners of the same name, by 
their daughter and heir, descended to the Hankfords) ; bred in 
the study of the laws, till he became chief justice of the King s 
Bench, in the first of king Henry the Fifth ; which place he 
adorned with great learning and integrity, though doleful the 
manner of his death, on this occasion : coming home discon- 

1 Edward III. Pat. iv. pars i. memb. 35. 

f Sir Henry Spelman s Glossary, tit. " Justiciarius ;" p. 417. 



CAPITAL JUDGES. 411 

tented from London, he expressed extreme anger (somewhat 
trespassing on his judicial gravity) against his keeper ; for that 
(as he said) his deer were stolen, and charged him to shoot any 
man in the park whom he should find there, and stood not, 
being spoken unto, and he would discharge him. The next 
night, being dark, he presents himself; and, refusing to stand, 
the keeper, according to his injunction, shot and killed him. 
The stump of the oak, nigh which this sad accident happened, 
hath been shewn to some eminent lawyers riding that circuit, 
which are yet alive. 

However, no violent impression is intimated in this his peace 
able epitaph on his monument in Amerie church : 

11 Hie jacet Will. Hankford, Miles, quondam Capitalis 
Justiciarius Domini R. de Banco, qui obiit duodecimo 
die Decembris, anno Domini 1422 : cujus, &c." 

His figure is portrayed kneeling ; and out of his mouth, in a 
label, these two sentences do proceed : 1 . " Miserere mei deus, 
secundum magnam misericordiam tuam." 2. " Beati qui cus- 
todiant judicium, et faciunt justitiam omni tempore." 

No charitable reader, for one unadvised act, will condemn his 
memory, who, when living, was habited with all requisites for a 
person of his place. 

Sir JOHN FORTESCUE was born of a right ancient and wor 
thy family in this county; first fixed at Wimpstone in this 
shire, but since prosperously planted in every part thereof. 
They give for their motto, " Forte scutum salus ducum ; " and 
it is observable that they attained eminency in what profession 
soever they applied themselves. 

In the field : Sir HENRY FORTESCUE, a valiant and for 
tunate commander under king Henry the Fifth in the French 
wars, by whom he was made governor of Meux in Berry. 

Sir ADRIAN FORTESCUE, porter of the town of Calais, 
came over with king Henry the Seventh ; and, effectually assist 
ing him to regain the crown, was by him deservedly created 
knight-banneret. 

In Westminster Hall : Sir HENRY FORTESCUE was lord chief 
justice of Ireland, and justly of great esteem for his many vir 
tues ; especially for his sincerity in so tempting a place. 

Sir JOHN FORTESCUE, our present subject, lord chief justice 
and chancellor of England in the reign of king Henry the Sixth, 
whose learned " Commentaries on the Law " make him famous 
to all posterity. 

In the Court : Sir JOHN FORTESCUE, that wise privy council 
lor, overseer of queen Elizabeth her liberal studies ; and chan 
cellor of the Exchequer and Duchy of Lancaster. 

Sir LEWIS POLLARD, of King s Nimet in this county, 
sergeant of the law, and one of the justices of the King s Bench 



412 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

in the time of king Henry the Eighth, was a man of singular 
knowledge and worth ; who, by his lady Elizabeth, had eleven 
sons; whereof four attained the honour of knighthood: Sir 
Hugh ; Sir John, of Ford ; Sir Richard ; Sir George, who got 
his honour in the defence of Boulogne. 

Eleven daughters, married to the most potent families in this 
county, and most of them knights ; so that (what is said of 
Cork in Ireland, that all the inhabitants therein are kin) by 
this match almost all the ancient gentry in this county are 
allied. 

All the rest, especially John, archdeacon of Sarum, and canon 
of Exeter, were very well advanced. 

The portraiture of Sir Lewis and his lady, with their two and 
twenty children, are set up in a glass window at Nimet-Bishop. 
There is a tradition continued in this family, that the lady, 
glassing the window in her husband s absence at the term in 
London, caused one child more than she then had to be set up, 
presuming (having had one and twenty already, and usually con 
ceiving at her husband s coming home) she should have another 
child ; which, inserted in expectance, came to pass accordingly. 
This memorable knight died anno 1540. 

Sir JOHN DODERIDG, Knight, was born at in this 

county ; bred in Exeter College in Oxford ; where he became 
so general a scholar, that it is hard to say whether he was better 
artist, divine, civil, or common lawyer, though he fixed on the 
last for his public profession ; and became second justice of the 
King s Bench. His soul consisted of two essentials, ability and 
integrity, holding the scale of Justice with so steady an hand, 
that neither love nor lucre, fear or flattery, could bow him on 
either side. 

It was vehemently suspected that, in his time, some gave 
large sums of money to purchase places of judicature ; and Sir 
John is famous for the expression, " That, as old and infirm as 
he was, he would go to Tyburn on foot to see such a man 
hanged, that should proffer money for a place of that nature :" 
for certainly those who buy such offices by wholesale, must sell 
justice by retail, to make themselves savers. He was com 
monly called the sleeping judge, because he would sit on the 
bench with his eyes shut, which was only a posture of atten 
tion, to sequester his sight from distracting objects, the better 
to listen to what was alleged and proved. Though he had 
three wives successively, out of the respectful families of Ger- 
min, Bamfield, and Culme, yet he left no issue behind him. 
He kept a hospital house at Mount- Radford near Exeter ; and, 
dying anno Domini 1628, the thirteenth day of September 
(after he had been seventeen years a judge) in the seventy-third 
year of his age, was interred under a stately tomb in our Lady s 
Chapel in Exeter. 



SOLDIERS. 413 

To take my leave of the Devonian lawyers, they in this 
county seem innated with a genius to study law ; none in Eng 
land (Northfolk alone excepted) affording so many. Cornwall 
indeed hath a famine, but Devonshire makes a feast of such, 
who by the practice thereof have raised great estates. Three 
sergeants were all made at one call ; sergeant Glanvil [the 
elder], Dew, and Harris, of whom it was commonly said (though 
I can nor care not to appropriate it respectively) : 

( Gained ^ 

One &lt; Spent &gt; as much as the other two gave. 
C Gave 3 

One town in this shire, Tavistock by name, furnisheth the 
bar at this present with a constellation of pleaders, wherein the 
biggest stars, sergeant Glanvil, who shineth the brighter for 
being so long eclipsed ; and sergeant Maynard, the bench seem 
ing sick with long longing for his sitting thereon. As it is the 
honour of this county to breed such able lawyers ; so is it its 
happiness that they have most of their clients from other shires ; 
and the many suits tried of this county proceed not so much 
from the litigiousness as populousness of her inhabitants. 

SOLDIERS. 

SIR RICHARD GREENVIL, Knight, lived and was richly landed 
at Bediford in this county. He was one of the twelve peers 
which accompanied Robert Fitz-Haimon in his expedition 
against the Welsh ; when he overthrew Rhese ap Theodore, 
prince of South Wales, and Justine, lord of Glamorgan ; and 
divided the conquered country betwixt those his assistants. 

This Sir Richard, in my apprehension, appears somewhat like 
the patriarch Abraham ;* for he would have none " make him 
rich, but God alone " though, in his partage, good land was at 
Neath (Nidum, a city in Antoninus) in Glamorganshire allotted 
unto him. Indeed Abraham gave the tenth to God in Melchis- 
edec, and restored the rest to the king of Sodom, the former 
proprietary thereof. This knight (according to the devotion of 
those darker days) gave all to God, erecting and endowing a 
monastery (dedicated to the Virgin Mary) at Neath, for Cister 
cians, bestowing all his military acquests on them for their 
maintenance, so that this convent was valued at 150. per 
annum at the Dissolution. Thus having finished and settled 
this foundation, he returned to his own patrimony at Bediford 
in this county, where he lived in great repute, 1100, under the 
reign of king William Rufus ; and may seem to have entailed 
hereditary valour on his name and still nourishing posterity. 

JAMES LORD AUDLEY is challenged by several counties 
(Staffordshire, Herefordshire, Dorsetshire, &c.), and that with 

* Gen. xiv. 



414 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

almost equal probability, to be their native : but my author, 
well versed in the antiquities of this shire, clearly adjudgeth his 
birth thereunto ; avouching the castle of Barnstaple the place 
of his principal mansion and inhabitance. 

This is that Lord Audley, so famous for his valiant service in 
France, at the battle of Poictiers, where the Black Prince re 
warded him with a yearly pension of 500 marks, which presently 
the Lord Audley gave as freely to his four esquires ; having (as 
he said) received this honour by their means. The news of this 
largess being quickly brought to the prince s ears, he questioned 
the lord, whether he conceived his gift not worthy his esteem ; 
as beneath his acceptance ? To whom the lord replied, " These 
squires have done me long and faithful service, a nd now espe 
cially in this battle, without whose assistance I, being a single 
man, could have done little. Besides, the fair estate left me by 
my ancestors enableth me freely to serve your highness ; 
whereas these my men may stand in need of some support. 
Only, I crave your pardon for giving it away without your 
licence/ The prince, highly pleased thereat, praised his bounty 
as much as his valour, and doubled his former pension into a 
thousand marks. This noble lord, by my computation, died 
about the beginning of the reign of king Richard the Second ! 

THOMAS STUCKLEY. Were he alive, he would be highly 
offended to be ranked under any other topic than that of 
princes ; whose memory must now be content, and thankful too, 
that he will afford it a place amongst our soldiers. 

He was a younger brother, of an ancient, wealthy, and wor 
shipful family, nigh Ilfracombe in this county, being one of 
good parts ; but valued the less by others, because over-prized 
by himself. Having prodigally mis-spent his patrimony, he 
entered on several projects (the issue-general of all decayed 
estates) ; and first pitched on the peopling of Florida, then 
newly found out in the West Indies. So confident his ambi 
tion, that he blushed not to tell queen Elizabeth, " that he pre 
ferred rather to be sovereign of a mole-hill, than the highest 
subject to the greatest kingpin Chistendom ;" adding, moreover, 
" that he was assured he should be a prince before his death." 
" I hope/ said queen Elizabeth, " I shall hear from you, when 
you are stated in your principality." " I will write unto you, * 
quoth Stuckley. " In what language ?" said- the queen. He 
returned, " In the style of princes ; To our dear Sister." 

His fair project of Florida being blasted for lack of money to 
pursue it, he went over into Ireland, where he was frustrated of 
the preferment he expected, and met such physic that turned 
his fever into frenzy ; for hereafter resolving treacherously to 
attempt what he could not loyally achieve, he went over into 
Italy. 

It is incredible how quickly he wrought himself through the 



SOLDIERS. 415 

notice into the favour, through the court into the chamber, yea 
closet, yea bosom of pope Pius Quintus ; so that some wise 
men thought his holiness did forfeit a parcel of his infallibility, 
in giving credit to such a glorioso, vaunting that with three 
thousand soldiers he would beat all the English out of Ireland. 

The Pope, finding it cheaper to fill Stuckley s swelling sails 
with airy titles than real gifts, created him baron of Ross, vis 
count Murrough, earl of Wexford, marquis of Leinster; and 
then furnished this title-top-heavy general with eight hundred 
soldiers, paid by the king of Spain, for the Irish expedition. 

In passage thereunto, Stuckley lands at Portugal, just when 
Sebastian the king thereof, w r ith two Moorish kings, were under 
taking a voyage into Africa. Stuckley, scorning to attend, is 
persuaded to accompany them. Some thought he wholly 
quitted his Irish design, partly because loath to be pent up in 
an island (the continent of Africa affording more elbow-room 
for his achievements); partly because so mutable his mind, he 
ever loved the last project (as mothers the youngest child) best. 
Others conceive he took this African in order to his Irish 
design ; such his confidence of conquest, that his breakfast on 
the Turks would the better enable him to dine on the English 
in Ireland. 

Landing in Africa, Stuckley gave council, which was safe, 
seasonable, and necessary ; namely, that for two or three days 
they should refresh their land soldiers ; whereof some were sick, 
and some were weak, by reason of their tempestuous passage. 
This would not be heard; so furious was Don Sebastian to 
engage ; as if he would pluck up the bays of victory out of the 
ground, before they were grown up ; and so, in the battle of 
Alcaser, their army was wholly defeated : where Stuckley lost 
his life. 

" A fatal fight, where in one day was slain, 

Three kings that were, and one that would be fain." 

This battle was fought anno 1578, where Stuckley, with his 
eight hundred men, behaved himself most valiantly, till over 
powered with multitude. 

I hope it will be no offence, next to this bubble of emptiness, 
and meteor of ostentation, to place a precious pearl, and maga 
zine of secret merit, whom we come to describe. 

GEORGE MONCK. Some will say he being (and long may 
he be) alive, belongs not to your pen, according to your premised 
rules. But, know, he is too high to come under the roof of my 
regulations, whose merit may make laws for me to observe. 
Besides, it is better that I should be censured, than he not com 
mended. Pass we by his high birth (whereof hereafter) and 
hard breeding in the Low Countries, not commencing a captain 

VOL. I. 2 E 



416 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

pei saltum (as many in our civil wars), but proceeding by degrees 
from a private soldier, in that martial university. Pass we also 
by his employment in Ireland, and imprisonment in England, 
for the king ; his sea service against the Dutch ; posting to 
speak of his last performance ; which, should I be silent, would 
speak of itself. 

Being made governor of Scotland, no power or policy of Oli 
ver Cromwell could fright or flatter him thence. Scotland was 
his castle, from the top whereof he took the true prospect of 
our English affairs. He perceived that, since the martyrdom 
of king Charles, several sorts of government (like the sons of 
Jesse before Samuel) passed before the English people ; but 
" neither God nor our nation had chosen them." He resolved, 
therefore, to send for despised David out of a foreign field ; as 
well assured that the English loyalty would never be at rest till 
fixed in the centre thereof. He secured Scotland in faithful 
hands, to have all his foes before his face, and leave none behind 
his back. 

He entered England with excellent foot ; but his horse so 
lean, that they seemed tired at their first setting forth. The 
chiefest strength of his army consisted in the reputation of the 
strength thereof, and wise conduct of their general. The loyal 
English did rather gaze on, than pray for him, as ignorant of 
his intentions ; and the apostle observeth, " that the private 
man knoweth not how to say Amen to what is spoken in an un 
known language/ 

Now the scales began to fall down from the eyes of the Eng 
lish nation (as from Saul, when his sight was received,) sensible 
that they were deluded, with the pretences of religion and liberty, 
into atheism and vassalage. They had learnt also from the sol 
diers (whom they so long had quartered) to cry out " one and 
all ; " each shire setting forth a remonstrance of their grievances, 
and refusing further payment of taxes. 

Lambert cometh forth of London, abounding with more out 
ward advantages than general Monck wanted ; dragon-like, he 
breathed out nought but fire and fury, chiefly against the church 
and clergy. But he met with a Saint George, who struck him 
neither with sword nor spear; but gave his army a mortal 
wound, without wounding itl His soldiers dwindled away ; and 
indeed a private person (Lambert at last was little more) must 
have a strong and long hand on his own account, to hold a 
whole army together. 

The hinder part of the Parliament sitting still at Westminster, 
plied him with many messengers and addresses. He returned 
an answer, neither granting nor denying their desires ; giving 
them hope, too little to trust, yet too much to distrust, him. He 
was an absolute riddle ; and no ploughing with his heifer to ex 
pound him. Indeed, had he appeared what he was, he had ne- 



SEAMEN. 417 

ver been what he is, a deliverer of his country. But such must 
be as dark a midnight, who mean to achieve actions as bright as 
noon-day. 

Then he was put on the unwelcome office to pluck down the 
gates of London, though it pleased God that the odium did not 
light on him that acted, but those who employed him. Hence 
forward he sided effectually with the City ; I say the City, which, 
if well or ill affected, was then able to make us a happy or un 
happy nation. 

Immediately followed that turn of our times, which all the 
world with wonder doth behold. But let us not look so long on 
second causes, as to lose the sight of the principal, Divine Pro 
vidence. Christ, on the cross, said to his beloved disciple, 
Behold thy mother ; " and said to her, " Behold thy son." 
Thus was he pleased effectually to speak to the hearts of the 
English, " Behold your sovereign ; " which inspirited them 
with loyalty, and a longing desire of his presence ; saying like 
wise to our gracious sovereign, " Behold thy subjects ; " which 
increased his ardent affection to return ; and now, blessed be 
God, both are met together, to their mutual comfort. 

Since the honours which he first deserved have been con 
ferred upon him, completed with the title of " the Duke of Albe- 
marle, and Master of his majesty s horse," &c. Nor must it be 
forgotten that he carried the sceptre with the dove thereupon 
(the emblem of peace) at the king s coronation. But abler pens 
will improve these short memoirs into a large history. 

SEAMEN. 

WILLIAM WILFORD was a native nigh Plymouth in this 
county, a valiant and successful seaman. It happened, in the 
reign of king Henry the Fourth, that the French out of Britain, 
by a sudden invasion, burnt sixteen hundred houses in Plymouth, 
if there be not a mistake in the figures, which I vehemently sus 
pect. Sure it was a most sad desolation, remembered at this 
day in the division of Plymouth, whereof the one part is called 
The Briton s side," the other "The Old Town." 

But let the French boast their gain when the game is ended, 
which now was but begun. This fire inflamed all the English, 
and especially our Wilford, with desire of revenge. Within a 
short time he made them to pay, besides costs and charges, 
more than sixfold damages, by taking forty ships on the coast 
of Britain, and burning as many at Penarch ; besides many towns 
and villages for six leagues together. I collect the death of 
this William Wilford to be about the beginning of the reign of 
king Henry the Fifth. 

Sir HUMPHREY GILBERT, or Jilbert, or Gislibert, was born 
at Greenway in this county, the pleasant seat of his family for 

2 E 2 



418 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

a long continuance. He was famous for his knowledge both by 
sea and land. In the year 1569 he valiantly and fortunately 
served in Ireland. Afterwards he led nine companies to the 
assistance of the Hollanders. In the year 1583 he set forth 
with five ships to make discoveries in the North of America, 
where he took seisin and possession of Newfoundland (according 
to the ancient solemn ceremony of cutting a turf) for the crown 
of England. 

He resolved to adventure himself in his return in a vessel of 
forty tons ; and with two ships (the only remains of five) did 
make for England. In the instant of their winding about (I 
may confidently report what is generally in this county averred 
and believed), a very great lion, not swimming after the manner 
of a beast with the motion of his feet, nor yet diving sometimes 
under water and rising again (as porpoises and dolphins do), but 
rather gliding on the water with his whole body except legs in 
sight, shunned not the ship, nor the mariners, who presented 
themselves in view ; but, turning his head to and fro, yawning 
and gaping wide, made a horrible roaring. It is conceived no 
spectrum or apparition, but a real fish ; seeing we read that 
such like a lion in all lineaments was taken at sea, anno 1282, 
and presented to Pope Martyn the Fourth. 

Instantly a terrible tempest did arise ; and Sir Humphrey 
said cheerfully to his companions, " We are as near heaven here 
at sea as at land." Nor was it long before his ship sank into 
the sea with all therein, though the other recovered home, like 
Job s messengers, to bring the tidings of the destruction of their 
companions. This sad accident happened 158 ... 

T 

[AMP.] COCK. I am sorry I cannot add his 

Christian name, and more sorry that I cannot certainly avouch 
his nativity in this county (though inclined with many motives 
to believe it) being a cock of the game indeed : for in the eighty- 
eight, " Solus cockus Arfglus in sua inter medios hostes navicula, 
cum laude periit."* And whereas there was not a noble family 
in Spain but lost either son, brother, or nephew, in that fight ; 
this cock was the only man of note of the English, who, fighting 
a volunteer in his own ship, lost his life, to save his queen and 

country :f 

" Unus homo nobis pereundo restituit rem." 

Pity it is his memory should ever be forgotten ; and my pen 
is sensible of no higher preferment, than when it may be per 
mitted to draw the curtains about those who have died in the 
bed of honour. 

Sir FRANCIS DRAKE. Having formerly, in my "Holy 
* Camden s Elizabeth, hoc anno. f Meteran, in Historia Belgica. 



... 



SEAMEN. 419 

State," written his life at large, I will forbear any addition ; and 
only present this tetrastic, made on his corpse when cast out of 
the ship (wherein he died) into the sea : 

Religio quamvis Roniana resurgeret olim, 

Effoderet tumulum non puto Drake tuum. 
Non est quod meluas, ne te combusseril ulla 

Posteritaa, in aqua tutus ab igne manes.* 

" Though Rome s religion should in time return, 

Drake, none thy body will ungrave again : 
There is no fear posterity should burn 
Those bones which free from fire in sea remain." 

He died (as I am informed) unmarried ; but there is of his 
alliance a worshipful family extant in this county, in the con 
dition of a baronet. 

Sir WALTER RALEIGH. " The sons of Heth said unto 
Abraham, Thou art a great prince amongst us ; in the choice of 
our sepulchres bury thy dead ; none shall withhold them from 
thee."f So may we say to the memory of this worthy knight, 

Repose yourself in this our catalogue under what topic you 
please, of statesman, seaman, soldier, learned writer, and what 
not ? " His worth unlocks our closest cabinets ; and provides 
both room and welcome to entertain him. 

He was born at Budley in this county, J of an ancient family, 
but decayed in estate, and he the youngest brother thereof. 
He was bred in Oriel College in Oxford ; and thence coming 
to court, found some hopes of the queen s favours reflecting 
upon him. This made him w r rite in a glass window, obvious to 
the queen s eye, 

" Fain would I climb, yet fear I to fall." 

Her majesty, either espying or being shown it, did under 
write, 

" If thy heart fails thee, climb not at all." 

However he at last climbed up by the stairs of his own desert. 
But his introduction into the court bare an elder date from this 
occasion : this captain Raleigh coming out of Ireland to the 
English court in good habit (his clothes being then a consider 
able part of his estate) found the queen walking, till, meeting 
with a plashy place, she seemed to scruple going thereon. Pre 
sently Raleigh cast and spread his new plush cloak on the 
ground ; whereon the queen trod gently, rewarding him after 
wards with many suits, for his so free and seasonable tender of 
so fair a foot cloth. Thus an advantageous admission into the 
first notice of a prince is more than half a degree to preferment. 

It is reported of the women in the Balearic Islands, that, to 
make their sons expert archers, they will not, when children, 
give them their breakfast before they had hit the mark. Such 
the dealing of the queen with this knight, making him to earn 

H. Holland, Herwologia Anglica, p. 110. 
t Gen. xxiii. 6. J The house was called Hayes. 



420 WORTHIES Of DEVONSHIRE. 



honour, and, by pain and peril, to purchase what places of 
credit or profit were bestowed upon him. Indeed it was true 
of him, what was said of Cato Uticensis, " that he seemed to 
be born to that only which he went about ;" so dexterous was 
he in all his undertakings, in court, in camp, by sea, by land, 
with sword, with pen ; witness in the last his " History of the 
World," wherein the only default (or defect rather) that it 
wanted one half thereof. Yet had he many enemies (which 
worth never wanteth) at court, his cowardly detractors, of whom 
Sir Walter was wont to say, " If any man accuseth me to my 
face, I will answer him with my mouth ; but my tail is good 
enough to return an answer to such who traduceth me behind 

my back." 

CIVILIANS. 

JOHN COWEL \vas born at Yarnesborough in this county ; 
bred first at Eton, then in King s College in Cambridge. He 
was proctor thereof 1586, doctor of the law, master of Trinity- 
hall, vice-chancellor in the years 1603 and 1614, doctor of the 
Arches, and vicar-general to archbishop Bancroft. Though civil 
was his profession, such his skill in common law, he was as well 
able to practise in Westminster-hall as Doctors Commons. 

In his time the contest was heightened betwixt [the j civilians 
and common lawyers, Cowel being the champion of the former, 
whom king James countenanced as far as he could with con- 
veniency. Indeed, great were his abilities, though a grand 
oracle of the common law was pleased in derision to call him 
Doctor Cow-heel ; and a cow-heel (I assure you) well dressed, 
is good meat, that a cook (when hungry) may lick his fingers 
after it. 

Two chief monuments he hath left to posterity; his book 
intituled " Institutionis Juris Anglicani," and his " Interpre 
ter " of the hard words in the common law. Indeed he had 
both the essentials of an interpreter, who was both gnarus and 
fidus. Many slighted his book, who used it ; it being question 
able whether it gave more information or offence. Common- 
lawyers beheld it as a double trespass against them ; first, 
pedibus ambulando, that a civilian should walk in a profession 
several to themselves ; secondly, that he should pluck up the 
pales of the hard terms wherewith it was enclosed, and lay it 
open and obvious to common capacities. 

But a higher offence was charged upon him ; that he made 
the king to have a double prerogative, the one limited by law, 
the other unlimited ; which being complained of in parliament, 
his book was called in, and condemned. Some other advantages 
they got against him, the grief whereof (hearts sunk down are 
not to be buoyed up) hastened his death anno Domini 1611 ; 
and he lieth buried in Trinity-hall chapel. 

ARTHUR DUCK was born of wealthy parentage at Heavy- 



WRITERS. 421 

tree in this county. He was bred in Oxford, fellow of All-souls 
College, and wrote the life of archbishop Chicheley, the founder 
thereof, in most elegant Latin. Proceeding doctor of law, he 
became chancellor of Wells and London, and master of the 
Requests ; designed also master of the Rolls, had not an inter 
vening accident diverted it. One of most smooth language, but 
rough speech ; so that what the comedian saith of a fair maid in 
mean apparel was true of him : 

" ni vis boni 

In ipsa inesset forma, vestes formam extinguerent."* 

Had there not been a masculine strength in his matter, it 
had been marred with the disadvantage of his utterance. He 
died on the LordVday, and, in effect, in the church, f about 
1648 ; leaving a great estate to two daughters, since married to 
two of his name and kindred. 

WRITERS. 

ROGER the CISTERCIAN lived (near the place of his birth) at 
Ford Abbey in this county. Here the judicious reader will 
please himself to climb up the two following mountains of ex 
tremes (only with his eye), and then descend into the vale of 
truth, which lieth betwixt them. 

Leland : " Doctis artibus et pietati, insolito quodam animi 
ardore, noctes atque dies invigilavit." 

Bale, (Cent. iii. num. 23) : " Invigilavit fallaciis atque im- 
posturis diabolicis, ut Christi gloriam obscuraret." 

I believe that bilious Bale would have been sick of the yellow 
jaundice, if not venting his choler in such expressions. But to 
speak impartially : the works of this Roger concerning the 
revelations of Elizabeth, abbess of Schonaugh, and the legend 
that he wrote of St. Ursula, with her thousands of maids killed 
at Colen, are full (to say no worse) of many fond falsities. He 
lived mostly in the Low Countries ; and flourished, 1180, under 
king Henry the Second. 

JOHN de FORD was probably born at, certainly abbot of, 
Ford in this county ; esteemed insignis theologus in his age ; 
following in the footsteps of his friend and patron Baldwin 
archbishop of Canterbury. He travelled into foreign parts, 
which he did not, as too many, weed, but gathered the flowers ; 
returning stored with good manners, and stocked with good 
learning. He endeavoured that all in his convent should be like 
himself; and Ford Abbey in his time had more learning therein 
than three convents of the same bigness. He was confessor to 
king John ; wrote many pious works ; and, dying, was buried 
in his own convent, without any funeral pomp, about the 
year 1215. 

" Terentius, in Phormione, I. ii. 58. f At Chiswick, in Middlesex. 



422 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRR. 

RICHARD FISHAKER, or FIZACRE, (Matthew Paris* termeth 
him FISHACLE) was, saith Bale,t born in Exoniensi patrid, 
which I English, in Devonshire. He was bred first in Oxford, 
then in Paris, and became a Dominican friar, for his learning and 
preaching as highly esteemed as scny of that age. He was (saith 
learned Leland) as fast linked in friendship to Robert Bacon 
(of whom hereafter*) as ever Brithus to ^Bacchius, or Theseus 
to Perithous ; so that one may say of them, " there were two 
friends." This Richard, disdaining to survive Robert aforesaid, 
hearing of his death, expired in the same year, 1248 ; and was 
buried at Oxford. 

JOHN CUT-CLIF was born at the manor of Gammage, in this 
county, where his name and family do continue owners thereof. 
Now, because that which is pretty is pleasing, and w r hat is little 
may be presumed pretty ; we will insert the short (and indeed 
all the) information we have of him : 

" In the time of king Edward the Third, Johannes Rupe- 
Scissanus, or de Rupe scissa [Cutclif] being a very 
sincere and learned man, opposed himself against the 
doctrine and manners of the clergy, and wrote against 
the Pope himself." 

I see Baleus non vidit omnia. For Pitzeus, it is no wonder if 
he be pleased to take no notice of a w r riter of an opposite judg 
ment to himself. When we receive, then will we return more 
intelligence of this author. 

RICHARD CHICHESTER was not born at Chichester in Sus 
sex, as his name doth import, but was an extract of that ancient 
family still flourishing at Raleigh in this county. || He became 
a monk in Westminster ; seldom spending any spare time in 
vanity, but laying it out in reading Scripture and good history. 
He wrote a chronicle from Hengistus the Saxon to the year of 
our Lord 1348, done indeed Jide historicd. His death happened 
about the year 1355. 

ROBERT PLYMPTON was born at Plympton in this county, 
and bred an Augustinian in the town of his nativity. He was 
afterwards preferred archdeacon of Totness, conscientiously dis 
charging his place ; for, perceiving people extremely vicious, he 
was another John Baptist in his painful preaching repentance 
unto them, which sermons he caused to be written ; and it is 
conceived they wrought a very good effect on the Devonians. 
The time wherein he flourished is not certainly known. 

k In anno Domini 1248, p. 747- 

f De Scriptoribus Britaimicis, Cent. iv. num. 6. 

t In the " WRITERS " of Oxfordshire. 

Manuscript of Baronet Northcott. || Ibidem. 



WRITERS. 423 

NICHOLAS UPTON was born in this county, of an ancient 

family, still flourishing therein at He was bred 

doctor in the canon law ; and became canon of Salisbury, Wells, 
and St. Paul s. Humphrey, duke of Gloucester, the Mcecenas- 
general of goodness and learning, had him in high esteem, and 
gave him great rewards. Hereupon Upton, in expression of his 
gratitude, presented his patron with a book (the first of that 
kind) of heraldry, and the rules thereof; a book since set forth 
in a fair impression by Edward Bish, Esquire, a person com 
posed of all worthy accomplishments. He flourished under 
king Henry the Sixth, 1440. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

RICHARD HOOKER was born at Heavitree nigh Exeter ;* 
bred in Corpus Christi College in Oxford ; and afterwards was 
preferred by archbishop Whitgift, master of the Temple, whilst 
at the same time Mr. Walter Travers was the lecturer thereof. 
Here the pulpit spake pure Canterbury in the morning, and 
Geneva in the afternoon, until Travers was silenced. 

Hooker s style was prolix, but not tedious ; and such who 
would patiently attend and give him credit all the reading or 
hearing of his sentences, had their expectations over-paid at the 
close thereof. He may be said to have made good music with 
his fiddle and stick alone, without any resin ; having neither 
pronunciation nor gesture to grace his matter. 

His book of " Ecclesiastical Politie " is prized by all gene 
rally, save such who out of ignorance cannot, or envy will not, 
understand it. But there is a kind of people who have a pique 
at him, and therefore read his book with a prejudice ; that, as 
Jeptha vowed to sacrifice the first living thing which met him, 
these are resolved to quarrel with the first word which occur- 
reth therein. 

Hereupon it is, that they take exception at the very title 
thereof, * Ecclesiastical Politie," as if unequally yoked : church 
with some mixture of citiness ; that the dicipline, jure divino, 
may bow to human inventions. But be it reported to the 
judicious, whether, when all is done, a reserve must- not be left 
for prudential supplies in church government. 

True it is, his book in our late times was beheld as an old 
almanack grown out of date ; but, blessed be God, there is now 
a revolution, which may bring his works again into reputation. 

Mr. Hooker leaving London (no inclination of his own, but 
obedience to others, put him on so public a place) retired to a 
small benefice in Kent, where he put off his mortality, anno 
1599, leaving the memory of an humble, holy, and learned 
divine. Here I must retract (after a fatherf no shame for a 
child) two passages in my " Church History." For, whereas I 

Manuscript of Baronet Northcott. t St. Augustine. 



424 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

reported him to die a bachelor, he had wife and children, 
though indeed such as were neither to his comfort when living, 
nor credit when dead.* But parents cannot stamp their chil 
dren from their heads or hearts. 

Secondly, his monument was not erected by Sir Edwin Sandys 
a person as probable as any man alive for such a perform 
ance) ; but by Sir William Cooper, now living in the castle of 
Hertford j and let the good knight have the due commendation 
thereof. 

JOHN REINOLDS was born in this county; bred in Corpus- 
Christi College, in Oxford, of whom I have spoken plentifully 
in my " Church History." 

I 

NATHANIEL CARPENTER, son to a minister, was born in this 
county ; bred fellow of Exeter College in Oxford. He was 
right-handed in the Cyclopaedia of all arts ; logic, witness his 
Decades ; mathematics, expressed in the book of his Geography ; 
and divinity, appearing in his excellent sermons called " Achi- 
tophel." As for his optics, it had been a master-piece in that 
kind, if truly and perfectly printed. 

I have been informed, that, to his great grief, he found the 
written preface thereof casing Christmas pies in his printer s 
house (pearls are no pearls when cocks or coxcombs find them) ; 
and could never after, from his scattered notes, recover an origi 
nal thereof. 

He went over into Ireland, where he became chaplain to 
James Usher archbishop of Armagh, and schoolmaster of the 
King s Wards in Dublin ; a place of good profit, greater credit, 
greatest trust ; being to bring up many Popish minors in the 
Protestant religion, who, under his education, grew daily out of 
the nonage of their years, and vassalage of their errors. 

He died in Dublin. Robert Usher (soon after bishop of Kil- 
dare) preached his funeral sermon, on that text, " Behold a true 
Israelite, wherein there is no guile ; " showing how he was truly 
a Nathaniel, God s gift; and a carpenter, a wise builder of 
God s house, until the dissolution of his own tabernacle, about 
the year 1636. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

PETER BLUNDELL, of Tiverton, in this county, was a clothier 
by his profession ; and, through God s blessing on his endea 
vours therein, raised unto himself a fair estate. Nor was he 
more painful and industrious in gaining, than pious and prudent 
in disposing thereof; erecting a fair free-school in the town of 
his nativity. By his will he bequeathed thereto a competent 
maintenance (together with conveniency of lodging) for a mas- 

From the mouth of his sister, lately living at Hogsden, nigh London F. 



MEMORABLE PERSONS. 425 

ter and usher. And, lest such whose genius did incline, and 
parts furnish them for a further progress in learning should, 
through want of a comfortable subsistency, be stopped or dis 
heartened, he bestowed two scholarships and as many fellow 
ships on Sidney College in Cambridge ; carefully providing that 
the scholars bred in his school at Tiverton should be elected into 
the same. I cannot attain to a certainty in the time of his 
death, though it be thought to have happened about the year 
1596. 

WILLIAM BURGOIN, Esquire, must not be forgotten ; find 
ing this his epitaph on his marble stone in the church of 

Arlington : 

" Here lies Will. Burgoin, a squire by descent, 
Whose death in this world many people lament. 
The rich for his IQVC ; the poor for his alms ; 
The wise for his knowledge ; the sick for his balms. 
Grace he did love, and vice controul : 
Earth hath his body, and heaven his soul." 

He died on the twelfth day of August, in the morning, 1623-; 
as the inscription on his said tomb doth inform us. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

HENRY DE LA POMERAY lived at, and was lord of, Berry- 
Pomeray, in this county. This Henry, taking heart at the im 
prisonment of Richard the First by Leopaldus duke of Austria, 
surprised and expulsed the monks out of Michael s Mount in 
Cornwall, that there he might be a petty prince by himself. 
But, being ascertained of his sovereign s enlargement, and fear 
ing deserved death, to prevent it, he laid violent hands on him 
self, as Roger Hoveden doth report. 

But the descendants from this Pomeray make a different rela 
tion of this accident;* affirming, that a sergeant at arms of the 
king s came to his castle at Berry- Pomeray, and there received 
kind entertainment for certain days together ; and, at his depar 
ture, was gratified with a liberal reward. In counterchange 
whereof, he then, and no sooner, revealing his long concealed 
errand, flatly arrested his host, to make his immediate appear 
ance before the king, to answer a capital crime. Which unex 
pected and ill-carried message the gentleman took in such 
despite, that, with his dagger, he stabbed the messenger to the 
heart. 

Then, despairing of pardon in so superlative an offence, he 
abandoned his home, and got himself to his sister, abiding in 
the island of Mount-Michael in Cornwall. Here he bequeathed 
a large portion of his land to the religious people dwelling there, 
to pray for the redeeming of his soul ; and lastly (that the re- 

Carew s Survey of Cornwall, p. 155. 



426 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

mainder of his estate might descend to this heir) he caused 
himself to be let blood unto death. 

JOHN de BEIGNY, Knight, lived lord of Ege-Lifford in this 
county ; who, having been a great traveller and soldier in his 
youth, retired home, married, and had three sons in his reduced 
age. Of these, the third put himself on foreign action, in the 
war against the Saracens in Spain ; whereof fame made a large 
report, to his father s great contentment ; which made him the 
more patiently dispense with his absence. But, after that 
death had bereft him of his two elder sons, he was often heard 
to say, " Oh that I might but once embrace my son, I would be 
contented to die presently !*" His son soon after returning 
unexpectedly, the old man instantly expired with an extasy of 
joy. An English father, I see, can be as passionate as the 
Italian mother, who died for joy after the return of her son 
from the battle of Cannae.f Thus, if all our random desires 
should hit the mark, and if heaven should always take us at 
our word, in our wishes ; we should be tamed with our wild 
prayers granted unto us, and be drowned in the deluge of our 
own passions. This knight, as I take it, flourished under king 
Edward the Third. 

CHILD (whose Christian name is unknown) was 

a gentleman, the last of his family, being of ancient extraction 
at Plimstock in this county, and great possessions. It happen 
ed that he, hunting in Dartmoor, lost both his company and 
way in a bitter snow. Having killed his horse, he crept into 
his hot bowels for warmth ; and wrote this with his blood : 

" He that finds and brings me to my tomb, 
The land of Plimstock shall be his doom." 

That night he was frozen to death ; and being first found by 
the monks of Tavistock, they with all possible speed hasted to 
inter him in their own abbey. His own parishioners of Plim 
stock, hearing thereof, stood at the ford of the river to take his 
body from them. But they must rise early, yea not sleep at 
all, who over-reach monks in matter of profit. For they cast 
a slight bridge over the river, whereby they carried over the 
corpse, and interred it. In avowance whereof, the bridge (a 
more premeditate structure, I believe, in the place of the former 
extempore passage) is called Guils Bridge to this day. And 
know, reader, all in the vicinage will be highly offended with 
such who either deny or doubt the credit of this common tradi 
tion. And sure it is, that the abbot of Tavistock got that rich 
manor into his possession. The exact date of this Child s death 
I cannot attain. 

* Manuscript of Baronet Northcott. f Livius, in Bello Punico. 



LORD MAYORS GENTRY. 427 

NICHOLAS and ANDREW TREMAINE were twins, and 
younger sons to Thomas Tremaine, of Colacombe in this 
county, Esquire. Had they preceded Hippocrates in time, pos 
terity would have presumed them the sympathising twins, 
whereof he maketh so large mention. Such their likeness in 
all lineaments, they could not be distinguished but by their seve 
ral habits ; which, when they were pleased on private confede 
racy to exchange for disport, they occasioned more mirth 
ful mistakes than ever were acted in the Amphitryo of Plautus. 
They felt like pain though at distance ; and, without any intel 
ligence given, they equally desired to walk, travel, sit, sleep, eat, 
drink together, as many credible gentry of the vicinage (by 
relation from their father) will attest. In this they differed, 
that at Newhaven in France, the one was a captain of a troop, 
the other but a private soldier. Here they were both slain, 
1564 ; death being pitiful to kill them together, to prevent the 
lingering languishing of the survivor. 

LORD MAYORS. 

Never one of this office was a Devonshire man by birth, on 
my best inquiry ; whereof some assign these reasons : 

1. The distance of the place, whose western part is removed 
from London two hundred miles. 

2. Because the Devonians have a little London (understand 
it Exeter) in their own county (besides other haven towns), 
wherein wealth is gained near at hand. 

But, whatever be the cause this county hath made so little 
use of the exchange in London, no English shiremen have ap 
plied themselves more profitably to the king s court, and inns 
of court therein, or hath attained greater wealth and honour by 
living in those places. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING HENRY 

THE SIXTH, 1433. 

Edmund bishop of Exeter ; Roger Champernoune, knight, 
and Philip Gary, knight, (knights for the shire) ; Commis 
sioners to take the oaths. 

Philip. Courtney, chiv. Baldewini Foleford, arm. 

Nicholai Carru, chiv. Johannis Speake, arm. 

Thomae Brook, chiv. Johannis Wise, arm. 

Johannis Dynham, chiv. Johannis Crokker, arm. 

Roberti Chalonns, chiv. Ricardi Fortescu, arm. 

Johannis Herle, chiv. Andree Hille, arm. 

Thomee Carmynowe, arm. Waited Reynell, arm. 

Roberti Hille, arm. Ricardi Holand, arm. 

Johannis Chichester, arm. Johannis Bamfield, arm. 

Jacobi Chuddelegh, arm. Nicholai Keynes, arm. 

Roberti Cornn, arm. 



428 



WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 



Johannis Prideaux de Orcher- 

ton, arm. 
Johannis Prideaux de Ades- 

ton, arm. 

Johannis Gorges, arm. 
Thomee Denys, arm. 
Philip Lacy, arm. 
Ricardi Yard, arm. 
Walteri Polard, arm. 
Johannis Holand, arm. 
Johannis Caylleway, arm. 
Thomae Werthe, arm. 
Willielmi Malerbe, arm. 
Johannis Malerbe, arm. 
Johannis Yeo, arm. 
Edwardi Saint John, arm. 
Thomse Boneville, arm. 
Willielmi Wanard. 
Johannis Copleston. 
Nicholai Radeford. 
Johannis Mulys. 
Henrici Fortescu. 
Henrice Drewe. 
Johannis Lauerance. 
Willielmi Mey. 
Henrici Whiting. 
Ricardi Piperoll. 
Johannis Marshal. 



Rogeri Baron. 
Stephani Giffard. 
Willielmi By shop. 
Nicholai Coterell. 
Willielmi Blenche. 
Johannis Bolter. 
Nicholai Trebarth, arm. 
Petri Frie. 
Ricardi Yeo. 
Nicholai Tyrant. 
Johannis Gambon, sen. 
Walteri Whitelegh, arm. 
Willielmi Holeway. 
Thomse Kyngeslond. 
Thomse Perot. 
Petri Eggecombe, arm. 
Johannis Harry. 
Thomse Prons. 
Thomse Latom. 
Willielmi Colyn. 
Johannis Cokeworthy. 
Henrici Merwoode, arm. 
Walteri Elyot. 
Johannis Chapwyk, arm. 
Henrici Beard. 
Edwardi Pomeray, arm. 
Roberti Kirkham. 



SHERIFFS. 



Anno 



HEN. II. 



1 Galfridus de Furnell. 

2 Richardus Com. 

3 Richardus de Ridner, et 
Williel. Boterell. 

4 

5 Williel. de Botterell. 
6 

7 Hugo de Ralega, for four 
years. 

11 Robertus films Bernardi. 
Hugo de Ralega. 

12 Robertus films Bernardi. 

13 Hugo Ralega. 

14 Robertus films Bernardi, 

for four years. 
18 Comes Reginaldus. 



Anno 

19 Idem. 

20 Idem. 

21 Comes Regin. Paganus, 

Capels et Alan de Fur 
nell. 

22 Williel. Ruffus. 

23 Idem. 

24 Hugo de Gunds. 

25 Idem. 
26 

27 Willielmus Bruer, for seven 
years. 

RICHARD I. 

1 Willielmus de Brewere. 
G Idem, et Mathew Fer- 
years. 



SHERIFFS. 



429 



Anno 



JOH. REX. 



1 Willielmus de Wratham. 

2 OsVt. films Willielmi. 

3 Radulp. Morin. 

4 Idem. 

5 Willielmus Brieuere, et 
Radus de Mora. 

6 Willielmus Brieuere. 

7 Idem. 

8 Williel. Brieuere, et Ra 

dus de Mora, for four 
years. 
12 Robertus de Vetere Ponte. 

Guido de Bello-campo. 
13 

14 Robertus de Vetere Ponte. 
Guido de Bello-campo. 

15 Idem. 

16 Idem. 
17 

HEN. III. 

2 Robertus de Curteney. 

3 Idem. 

4 Robertus de Courtney. 

5 Rob tus de Courtne. 
Waler de Pohier. 

6 

7 . 

8 Walterus de Trererd. 
Walterus de Pohier. 

9 Regin. de Villa torta. 

10 Williel. Raleg. 

11 Williel. de Boleia. 

12 Idem. 

13 Rogerus la Zouch. 

14 Tho. de Cicencester, et 
Tho. de Lawill. 

15 Idem. 

16 Idem. 

17 Tho. de la Wile. 

18 Robertus de Valibus, et 
Ric. de Langford. 

19 Nic us de Molis, et 
Walterus de Bada. 

20 Idem. 

21 Walterus de Bada, for 

thirteen years. 



Anno 

34 Walterus de Bathond. 

35 Idem. 

39 Williel. de Englefeurd. 

37 Idem. 

38 Idem. 

36 Rad us de Wilton. 

40 Ger. de Horton, et 
Hen. de Horton, filius. 

41 Idem. 

42 Willielmus de Curcensay. 

43 Idem. 

44 Rad us Lodescomb. 

45 Idem, et Johan. de Mus- 

cegros. 

46 Rad us de Esse, for seven 

years. 
53 Williel. de Bikels. 

EDW. I. 

1 Thomas Delpin. 

2 Idem. 
3 

4 

5 Matthew de Egglesheill. 

6 Thomas Delpin. 

7 Warinus de Sechevile. 

8 Idem. 

9 Thomas Delpin, for six 

years. 

15 Williel. de Munketon, et 
Rog. de Ingepen. 

16 Robertus de Wodton. 

17 Mathew filius Johannis. 

18 Idem. 

19 Idem, etTho. de Scobhull. 

20 Mathew et Tho. 

21 Gilber. de Knovill, for 

eight years. 
29 Thomas de Ralegh, for six 

years. 
35 

EDW. II. 

1 Thomas de Ralegh. 

2 Nich. de Kirkham. 

3 Nich. de Tukesbury, for 

three years. 

6 Idem, et Mathew Fer- 
neaux. 



430 



WORTHIES OP DEVONSHIRE. 



Anno Anno 

7 Mathew de Furneaux. 

8 Math, de Furneaux, et 
Rob. de Horton. 

9 

10 Mathew de Cliveden. 

11 Math, de Cliveden, et 

Rob. de Bendon. 

12 Rob. de Bendon. 
Joh. de Bikkebur. 

13 Idem. 

14 Rob. Bendon, et 
Nic. Cheigne. 

15 Nul. Tit. Com. in Rotulo. 
16 

17 Matheus de Crowthorne. 

18 Math, de Crowthorne, et 
Jacob, de Cokington. 



EDW. III. 

1 James de Cokington. 

2 Williel. de Chiverston. 
3 

4 Williel. de Fawconb ge. 

5 Mathew de Crowthorne. 

6 Idem. 

7 Regin. de Moveforti. 

8 Willielmus de Alba Maria. 

9 Idem. 
10 

11 Johannes de Ralegh de 

Grandeport. 

12 Johan. Ralegh de Grand- 

port. 

13 Idem. 
14 

15 Johan. Ralegh de Charles. 

16 Williel. Pupard. 



17 

18 Edward. Dux Cornubiee, et 
Walt. Horton. 

19 Hen. Tirell. 
Johan, Childston. 

20 Idem. 

21 Rad us Brit. Rad. Peaupell. 
22 

Almaricus Fitz Warren. 

Idem. % 

llobertus Atte Haach. 

Williel. Auncel. 

Idem. 

Ric us Chambeuon. 

Idem. 

Idem. 

Johan. Daubernonn. 

Williel. Yoo. 

Ric us de Brankescomb, 

for three years. 
Almaricus Fitz Warren. 
Martin. Fitzacre. 

38 Williel. de Brighele. 

39 Johannes Boyes. 

40 Williel. de Servington. 
41 

42 Ric us de Brankescomb, et 

Ric. Channbuon. 
43 
44 
45 
46 

47 
48 
49 



23 
24 
25 
26 
27 
28 
29 
30 
31 
32 
33 

36 
37 



Tho. Chavubuon. 
Ric us Beaumond. 
Nich us Whitting. 
Ric us Chusden. 
Johannes Damuarle. 
Rich us de Brandescomb- 



50 Nich us la Pomeray. 

51 Johan. de Ralege. 



I cannot deny but I have a catalogue of the sheriffs of this 
county (beginning but anno 1349, the 24th of king Edward the 
Third) whence and by whom collected to me unknown, some 
what differing from this list now by us exemplified ; though I 
shall forbear the nominating of them, as sticking to the cata 
logue communicated unto me out of the Pipe-office. 

HENRY II. 

2. RICHARDUS COMES. This is but a blind and lame indi 
cation ; Richard the Earl, not telling us whereof, as if there had 



SHERIFFS. 431 

been but one English Earl Richard in that age. Whereas there 
was Richard Fitz-Gilbert earl of Clare, and Richard de Ripariis 
[or Rivers], both flourishing at this time. But here, the latter of 
these must be meant, who was earl of this county, the self-same 
who married Avis, daughter and heir of Reginald earl of Corn 
wall, the base son of king Henry the First.* 

27. WILLIELMUS BREWER. His mother, unable (to make 
the most charitable constructions) to maintain, cast him in 
brewers f (whence he was so named), or in a bed of brakes, in 
New Forest. In him the words of David found performance, 
" When my father and mother forsake me, the Lord taketh me 
up." King Henry the Second, riding to rouse a stag, found 
this child, and caused him to be nursed and well brought up 
till he became a man, arid (the honour of all foundlings) a prime 
favourite to king Henry and Richard the First ; made baron of 
Odcomb ; and his issue male failing, his large inheritance was 
by daughters derived to Breos, Wake, La Fort, and Percy. 

EDWARD III. 

32. WILLIAM Yoo. His family is still extant in this county 
in a worshipful condition, on the same token that they give for 
their arms, Argent, a chevron sable, between three turkey-cocks 
in their pride proper. J 

Let no over-critic causelessly cavil at this coat, as but a mo 
dern bearing, because turkey-cocks came not into England till 
about the tenth year of the reign of king Henry the Eighth ; 
being here formerly shewn as rarities, though not* fed on as table- 
foul till that time. Besides, heralds have ever assumed that 
privilege to themselves, to assign for Arms both those creatures 
which are found only in foreign countries (leopards, tigers, &c.), 
and those whose sole existence is in the fancy of poets and 
painters, as a phoenix, || harpy, and the like. 

SHERIFFS. 

RICHARD II. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

1 Joh. Damerell .... Throwley. 

2 Joh. Fitzpayn. 

Arms : O. three piles Az. 

3 Joh. Strech. 

4 Wai. Corn. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three bugle-horns, garnished S. 

5 Ric. Champernoun . . Modberie. 

G. a saltire vairee, betwixt twelve billets Arg. 

* Camrlen s Britannia, in Somerset. 

f An old English word. GAiillim s Display of Heraldry, p. if,]. 

Stem s Chronicle, p. 1038. |l The Crest of the Marquis of Hertford. F. 

VOL I. 2 F 



432 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

6 Ric. Kendall. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three dolphins S. 

7 Will, de Hasthorpt. 

8 Ja. Chudleygh. 

Erm. three lions rampant G. 

9 Ric. Whitiley. 

. Az. on a bend O. three torteaux. 

10 Ric. Champernoun . . ut prius. 

11 John Pawlet. 

S. three swords in pile Arg. 

12 Nic. Kerckham. 

Erm. three lions rampant G. within a border engrailed S. 
alias Arg. 

13 Will. Bonevile . . . Wiscombe. 

S. six mullets Arg. pierced G. 

14 Will. Carminow. 

Az. a bend O. ; a label of three points G. 

15 Joh. Green vile ... Bediford. 

G. three rests O. 

16 Tho. Rawleigh . . . Rawleigh. 

G. a bend lozengee Arg. 

17 Tho. Brook. 

18 Will. Ferers. 

Arg. abend G. on a chief V.rect. two cinquefoils of the field. 

19 Will. Maleherb. 

O. a chevron G. between three nettle leaves proper. 

20 Tho. Peverell. 

G. a fess Arg. betwixt six crosses patee O. 

21 Will. Beaumont. 

Az. semee O. flower-de-luce ; a lion rampant O. 
22 
23 

HEN. IV. 

1 Joh. Keynes. 

2 Tho. Pomeroy . . . Bery Pom. 

O. a lion rampant G. 

3 John Herle, mil. . . Ilfracombe. 

Arg. a fess G. betwixt three sheldrakes proper. 

4 John Keneys. 

5 John Wike .... North wick. 

6 John Bevil .... CORNWALL. 

Arg. a bull passant G., armed and tripped O. 

7 John Cheseldon. 

8 Phil. Cole. 

Arg. a bull passant S. armed O. within a border of the se 
cond bezantee. 

9 Joh. Herle, mil. . . ut prius. 

10 Edw. Pine. 

G. a chevron Erm. between three pine-apples O. 



SHERIFFS. 433 

Anno Name. Place. 

11 Will. Cheney . . . Pineho. 

G. on a fess of four lozenges Arg. as many escalops S. 

12 Robert 

13 Ric. Pomeroy . , . ut prius. 

14 Ric. Peveril .... ut prius. 

HEN. V. 



Tlio. Beaumond . . . ut prius. 

2 Tho. Pomeroy . . ; ut prius. 

3 Job. Arundell" . . . CORNWALL. 

S. six swallows in pile Arg. 

4 Job. Bevill . . . . ut prius. 

5 Will. Talbot .... Talbotswick. 

6 Ste. Dumeford. 

7 Hug, Courtnay . . . Powderham. 

O. three torteaux, 

8 Tho. Beaumont . . . ut prius. 

9 Rob. Challons. 

10 Tho. Beaumond . . . ut prius. 

HEN VI. 

1 Tho. Beaumond, et . . ut prius. 
Sir. Wil. Bonvile . . ?// prius. 

2 Ric. Hanckford. 

3 Tho. Brook. 

4 Wil. Palton de . . . UmberL 

5 Joh. Bampfyld . . . Polmore. 

O. on a bend G. three mullets Arg. 

6 Tho. Beaumond . . . ut prius. 

7 Rob. Hill. 

8 Ja. Chudleigh . . . ut prius. 

9 Joh. Bozome. 

Arg. three bolts G. 

10 Edw. Pomeroy . . . ut prius. 

11 Edw. Pine ut prius. 

12 Joh. Cheynede . . . ut prius. 

13 Tho. Stowell. 

G. a cross lozengee Arg. 

14 Rog. Champernoun . ut prius. 

15 Tho. Beaumont . . . ut prius. 

16 Tho. Arundell . . . ut prius. 

17 Ja. Chudleigh . . . ut prius. 

18 Will. Beauchamp. 

G. a fess betwixt six martlets O. 

19 Rob. Burton. 

Arg. three palmer-staves in fess Az. 

20 Will. Wadham . . . SOMERSET. 

G. a chevron betwixt three roses Arg. 

2 r,2 



434 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE, 

Anno Name, Place. 

21 Rich. Yeard .... Yeard Col. 

Arg. a chevron G. betwixt three water bougets of the first 

22 Joh. Cheny .... ut prius. 

23 Joh. Bluet. 

O. a chevron betwixt three eagles displayed G. 

24 Nic. Broughton. 

Arg. a chevron between three mullets G. 

25 Hen. Fortescue. 

Az. a bend engrailed Arg. cotised O. 

26 Tho. Budcokshed . . St. Budcox. 

S. three lozenges in ;fess between three bucks heads 
cabossed Arg. 

27 Hugh Stukley .... Affeton. 

Az. three pears O. 

28 Jer. Chudleigh . & . ut prius. 
29 

30 Edw. Hall. 

31 Hen. Fortescue . . . ut prius. 

32 John Cheney .... ut prius. 

33 Rich. Hales. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three griffin s heads erased S. 

34 And. Hillingdon. 

35 Edw. Landford. 

36 John Nanfan. 

37 Rich. Hales .... ut prius. 

38 Bald. Sutford, mil. 

39 John Dinham. 

G. three fusils in fess, within a border Erm. 

40 Walt. Dennis .... Holcombe. 

Erm. three battle-axes G. 

EDWARD IV. 

1 John Cheney . . . . ut prius. 

2 Idem ut prius. 

3 John Chichester. 

Cheeky O. and G. a chief vairy. 

4 John Arun die . . . ut prius. 

5 Christop. Wolsey. 

6 Will. Dynis, arm. . . ut prius. 

7 Phil. Beaumont . . . ut prius. 

8 Rich. Chichester . . ut prius. 

9 Nich. Carew, arm. 

O. three lions passant S. armed and langued G. 

10 Phil. Courtnay . . . ut prius. 

11 Phil. Copleston . . . Warley. 

Arg. a chevron engrailed G. between three leopards heads 

Az. 
] 2 John Cheney .... ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 435 

Anno Name. Place. 

13 Rich. Pomeray . . . ut prius. 

14 Rich. Chichester . . . ut prius. 

15 Otho. Gilbert. 

Arg. on a chevron S. three roses of the field. 

16 Cha. Dinham .... ut prius. 

17 John Sapcote 

S. three dovecots Arg. 

18 Edw. Courtnay . . . ut prius. 
19 

20 Rob. Willoughby. 

21 Giles Daubeney. 

G. four lozenges in fess Arg. 

22 Will. Courtnay . . . ut prius. 

RICHARD III. 

1 Will. Courtney . . . ut prius, 

2 Hamath. Malevorer . YORKSHIRE. 

S. three hounds cursant, in pale Arg. 

3 Tho. Malevorer . . . ut prius. 
Joh. Maheel. 

HENRY VII. 

1 John Hawell, mil. 

O. on a bend S. three goats passant Arg. armed of the 
field. 

2 Rich. Edgcombe . , M. Edgcomb. 

G. on a bend Erm. betwixt two cotises O. three boars 
heads couped Arg. 

4 Roger Holand. 

Az. five fleurs-de-lis, a lion rampant gardant Arg. 

5 John H ally well . . ut prius. 

6 Will. Stonor, mil. 

7 Walter Enderby. 

8 Rich. Pomeray, mil. . ut prius. 

9 Roger Holand, arm. . ut prius. 

10 Pet. Edgcombe, mil. . ut prius. 

1 1 Jo. Fortescue, arm. . . ut prius. 

12 Will. Carew, mil. . . ut prius. 

13 Pet. Edgcomb, mil. . . ut prius. 

14 Roger Holand, arm. . ut prius. 

15 Jas. Chudleigh, arm. . ut prius. 

16 Rich. Whytley, arm. . ut prius. 

17 Rich. Wadham, arm. . ut prius. 

18 Rich. Hallywell, arm. . ut prius. 

19 John Fortescue . . . ut prius. 

20 Will. Norwood, arm. 

21 John Kyrcham . . . ut prius. 

22 John Fortescue . . . ut prius. 



436 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

23 Thorn. Denys, arm. . . ut prius. 

HENRY VIII. 

1 Tho. Denys, arm. . . ut prius. 

2 John Crocker, arm. . . Linam. 

Arg. a chevron engrailed betwixt three crows proper. 

3 Thorn. Goodman. 

4 Thorn. Denys, mil. . : . ut prius. 

5 Will. Carew, arm. . . ut prius. 

6 Nich. Wadham, arm. . ut prius. 

7 John Clifton, mil. 

S. semee of cinquefoils, a lion rampant Arg. 

8 John Speak, mil. 

Arg. two bars Az. over all an eagle displayed G. 

9 Peter Edgcombe . . . ut prius. 

10 Thomas Dennys . _ . ut prius. 

1 1 Ralph Paxsal. 

12 Tho. Stukley, arm. . &gt; , ut prius. 

13 William Courtney . . ut prius. 

14 Thomas Dennis . . . ut prius. 

15 John Kirckham, mil. . ut prius. 

16 John Basset, mil. 

Arg. three bars wavy G. 

17 W. Courtney, mil. . . ut prius. 

18 Phi. Champernoun . . ut prius. 

19 Tho. Dennys, mil. . . ut prius. 

20 Peter Edgcomb, mil. . ut prius. 

21 Joh. Chamond, arm. . CORNWALL. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three flower-de-luces G. 

22 George St. Leoger. 

Az. frettee Arg. a chief G. 

23 Tho. Dennys, mil. . . ut prius. 

24 Rich. Grenvile . . . ut prius. 

25 Will. Courtney . . . ut prius. 

26 John Fulford. 

G. a chevron Arg. 

27 Hugh Pollard . . - ut prius. 

Arg. a chevron S. between three escalop-shells G. 

28 Geo. Carew, arm. . . ut prius. 

29 Rich. Pollard .... ut prius. 

30 Hugh diamond . . . ut prius. 

31 Hugh Pollard .... ut prius. ,* 

32 John Fulford, mil. . . ut prius. 

33 Hugh Paulet, mil. . . ut prius. 

34 George Carew . . . ut prius. 

35 Rich. Edgcombe . . . ut prius. 

36 Hugh Stukeley . . . ut prius. 

37 Hugh Pollard . . . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 



437 



EDWARD VI. 
Anno Name. 

1 Peter Carew, mil. . . 

2 Gwin. Carew, mil. . , 

3 Peter Courtney . . , 

4 Tho. Dennys, mil. . , 

5 John Chichester . . , 

6 Rich. Chudleigh, arm. . 

PHIL. AND MAR. 

1 Rich. Edgcombe . . 

1, 2 Tho. Dennys, mil. . t . 

2, 3 James Cortenay, arm. 

3, 4 Rob. Gary, arm. . ^i 

Arms, ut prius. 

4, 5 John Fullford, mil. 

ELIZ. REG. 

1 Rob. Dennys, mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Tho. Southcoat, arm. 

Arg. a chevron G. betwixt three coots S. 

3 Arth. Champernoun . ut prius. 

4 John St. Leger, mil. . ut prius. 

5 Chr. Coppleston, arm. . ut prius. 

6 Rich. Fortescue, arm. . ut prius. 

7 Richard Duke, arm. . Otterton. 

Partie per fess Arg. and Az. three chaplets counter- 
changed. 

8 Thos. Mounck, arm. 

G. a chevron betwixt three lions heads erased Arg. 



Place. 

ut prius. 
ut prius, 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 



ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 
Cockington. 

ut prius. 



ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 



9 Pet. Edgcombe, arm. 

10 Lewis Stukeley, arm. 

11 Robert Dennys, arm. 

12 Will. Stroade, arm. 

Arg. three conies S. 

13 John Mallet, arm. 

Az. three escalops O. 

14 Tho. Southcote, arm. 

15 John Parker, arm. . 

16 John Gilbert, mil. 

17 Tho. Carew, arm. 

18 Arthur Basset . . 
19 

20 Richard Bamfield 

21 John Chichester, arm. 

22 Rog. Prideaux, arm. 

Arg. a chevron S. a label G. 

23 Will. Cortenay, mil. . ut prius. 

24 John Clifton, mil. . . ut prius. 



ut prius. 
Burrington. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 
ut prius. 

ut prius. 
ut prius. 






438 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE, 

Anno Name. Place. 

25 John Fitz, arm. 

Arg. a cross G. gutte de sang. 

26 Hugh Fortescue . . . ut prius. 

27 Ed. Seimour, mil. . . Bmy-Castle. 

G. two angels wings pale-ways inverted O. 

28 Richard Reynell. 

Masonry Arg. a chief indented. 

29 Humph. Specote. 

O. on a bend G. three mill-roinds Arg. 

30 Will. Kyrcham, arm. . ut prius. 
31 

32 
33 

34 Ric. Champernoun . . ut prius. 

35 Will. Strowd, arm. . . ut prius. 

36 Tho. Dennis, mil. . . ut prius. 

37 Ed. Seimour, arm. . . ut prius, 

38 Will. Walrond, arm. 

Arg. three bulls heads cabossed S. armed O. 

39 Joh. Coplestone, mil. 

40 Will. Fortescue, arm. . ut prius. 

41 Henry Roll .... ut prius. 

42 Tho. Rugway, arm. . . Torre. 

43 Edm. Parker, arm. 

S. three bucks heads cabossed, between two flanches O. 

44 Thorn. Heal, arm. 

G. a bend lozengee Erm. alias Arg. five lozenges in pale. 

45 William Pool, arm. . . Shute. 

G. on the middlemost a leopard s head O. 

46 Ami. Bamfield, arm. . ut prius. 

JACOB. 

1 Ami. Bamfield, arm. . ut prius. 

2 John Drake, arm. . . Ash. 

Arms, ut infra. 

3 Edward Semour, arm. . ut prius. 

4 John Abbot, arm. 

G. a chevron betwixt three pears O. 

5 Robert Rolles, arm. . . ut prius. 

6 John Acland, mil. 

Cheeky Arg. and S. a fess G. 

7 Will. Grymes, arm. 

8 Hugh Acland, arm. . . ut prius. 

9 Thomas Wise, mil. . . Mountwise. 

S. three chevrons Erm. 

10 Edw. Gyles, mil. 

Per. chevron, Arg. and P. a lion rampant counter- 
changed. 

1 1 George Smith, mil. 






SHERIFFS. 439 

Anno Name. Place. 

12 John Specot, mil. . . nt prius. 

13 John Gefford, arm. 

S.. three lozenges in fess Erm. 

14 George Southcoate . . ut prius. 

15 Thomas Hearle, arm. . ut prius. 

16 Wari. Heale. mil. .. . ut prius. 

17 Christ. Savory, mil. 

18 Samp. Heale, arm. . . ut prius. 

19 Edmond Parker, arm. . ut prius. 

20 Edm. Fortescue, arm. . ut prius. 

21 Henry Tottle, arm. 

Az. on a bend Arg. cotised O. a lion passant S. 

22 Simon Leach. 

CAR I. 

1 Michael Fry, arm. . . Yarty. 

V. three horses in pale courant Arg. 

2 John Northcoate, arm. 

Arg. three crosslets bend-wise S. 

3 Walter Young, arm. 

4 Henry Rouswel, mil. . Ford-abbey. 

5 John Davy, arm. 

Arg. a chevron S. betwixt three mullets G. pierced. 

6 Henry Ashford, arm. . Ashford. 

Arg. three pine-apples V. betwixt two chevronels S. 

7 Edward Arscot, arm. . Anery. 

Partie per chevrons Az. and Erm.two stags heads cabossedO . 

8 Francis Drake, bar. . . Buckland. 

S. a fess wavy between the two pole-stars Arg. alias a 
wivern s wings elevated G. 

10 Thomas Drew, mil. 

Erm. a lion passant G. 

1 1 Thomas Heale, bar. . . Fleet. 

Arms, ut prius. 

12 Dennys Roll, arm. . . ut prius. 

13 Thomas Wise, arm. . . ut prius. 

14 Joh. Poole, bar. . . . ut prius. 

15 Nichol. Martyn, mil. . Oxon. 

O. two bars G. 

16 Nicholas Putt . . . Gitsham. 

Arg. a lion rampant, impounded within a mascle S. 

17 Richard Collums, arm. 

Az, a chevron Erm. betwixt three pelicans vulning them 
selves O. 
Edmorid Fortescue . . ut prius. 

18 Henry Careye . . . nt prius. 

19 John Acland, arm. . . ut prius. 



440 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

20 Richard Greenvile . . ut prius. 

21 Francis Drake, mil. . . ut prius. 

22 , 

RICHARD II. 

1. JOHN DAMEREL. Throwley, in Dartmoor, his chief ma 
nor, came to his family by match with the eldest daughter and 
coheir of Moeles (who married Avis, sole heir to Sir William 
le Prowze, in the reign of king Edward the Second) ; her two 
younger sisters being married to Northcoat and Wibery, amongst 
whom a great inheritance was divided. And by writ of partition 
(sued out in the 14th of king Edward the Third) Throwley fell 
to the share of Damerel. 

HENRY VII. 

2. RICHARD EDGCOMBE. He was a knight, and memorable 
in his generation ; for, being zealous in the cause of Henry earl 
of Richmond (afterwards king Henry the Seventh) he was in the 
time of king Richard the Third so hotly pursued, and narrowly 
searched for, that he was forced to hide himself in his thick 
woods, at his house at Cuttail in Cornwall. Here extremity 
taught him a sudden policy, to put a stone in his cap, and tum 
ble the same into the water, whilst these rangers were fast at his 
heels ; who, looking down after the noise, and seeing his cap 
swimming thereon, supposed that he had desperately drowned 
himself; and, deluded by this honest fraud, gave over their far 
ther pursuit, leaving him at liberty to shift over into Britain.* 
Nor was his gratitude less than his ingenuity, who, in remem 
brance of his delivery, after his return, built a chapel (lately ex 
tant) in the place where he lurked, and lived in great repute 
with prince and people. King Henry the Seventh rewarded his 
loyalty, by bestowing the castle of Totness in this county upon 
him.f 

EDWARD VI. 

1. PETER CAREW, Miles. This active gentleman had much 
ado to expedite himself, and save his life, being imprisoned for 
his compliance with Sir Thomas Wyate. Afterwards he did 
signal service in the Irish wars. This memorial remaineth for 
him: 

"Viro 

Nobilissimo D. PETRO 

CAREW, Equiti Aurato 

Est hoc structum Monumentum : 

Qui obiit Rosee in Laginia Hyberniae, 27 Novembris, 

* Carew s Survey of Cornwall, fol. 114. 
f Camden s Britannia, in Devonshire. 



SHERIFFS. 441 

Sepultus autem Waterfordiee, 15 Decembris, 15/5. 

Terra cadaver habet." 
The rest of the epitaph is not legible. 

QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

11. ROBERT DENNIS, Miles. This worthy knight, anno 
1592, erected a fair alms-house, in the suburbs of Exeter, for 
twelve poor aged men, allowing to each a plot of ground for an 
herber, and twelve -pence weekly. This family, so ancient in 
this county (deriving its name and original from the Danes), is 
now extinct ; the heir-general being married into the house of 
the Holies. 

45. AMIAS BAMPFIELD, Arm. Right ancient and worthy 
his extraction, especially since one of his ancestors married one 
of the daughters and co-heirs of the Lord Semaur, or de Sancto 
Mauro, whereby a fair inheritance at South Molton in this county 
accrued into this family, in which church this Amias, with his 
father, lieth interred ; and their joint epitaph will acquaint us 
with the numerosity of their issue then living or dead : 

" Twelve of seventeen are not, of fifteen are eleven 

Proceeding from this stock, praise be to God in heaven." 

However, Pottimore near Exeter is their prime habitation, and 
hath been ever since the time of king Edward the First ; witness 
this inscription on a monument in that church : " Hie jacet Joh. 
Bampfield et Agnes uxor ejus, pater et mater Will. Bampfield, 
qui hujus ecclesise maximam campanam fieri fecerunt, 1310." 
As for Sir Coplestone Bampfield (now sheriff of this county) 
and so cordial to the king s cause in the worst of times, he doth 
by his virtues add new lustre to his ancient extraction. 

KING CHARLES. 

12. DENNIS ROLLS, Arm. His mother was co-heir to Sir 
Thomas Dennis, knight, of right ancient extraction. As for this 
worthy esquire, ! remember the old sentence, "Prestat nullaquam 
pauca dicere de Carthagine ; " on which account I forbear fur 
ther praise of him. He was the last of his house, not in the 
sense wherein Sallust is called ultimus suce domus, because he 
lavished away all his lands in luxury, but God denied his male 
issue to attain to man s estate. 

THE FAREWELL. 

I am most credibly informed, that a rock, lately (so lately that 
as yet it is not named) hath been discovered by an Hamburger, 
being master of a ship, who made the first report thereof, on his 
own oath, and the oaths of all in his company, to the corpora 
tion of seamen at the Trinity-house nigh London. It lieth one 
league off from the start in Devonshire. It is more than suspi 
cious, that many hundreds have here had their silent deaths, 



442 WORTHIES OF EXETER. 

never landing to relate the cause of their destruction ; for it is 
very dangerous for a ship that draweth above eleven for twelve 
foot water, if it should chance to strike upon it at a low water, 
with an indifferent sea. It is the more dangerous, because 
picked the form thereof ; so that, if you chance to heave one 
cast upon it, the next cast shall be no less than fourteen or fif 
teen fathom water. 

I am sorry if the discoverer hereof met not with a proportion 
able reward ; understanding that he had made a better bargain 
if he had addressed himself first to the Dutch (most bountiful 
in such cases) ; though our nation be most concerned therein. 
Let all ships passing thereby be fore-armed because forewarned 
thereof, seeing this rock can no otherwise be resisted than by 
avoiding. 



EXETER. 

IT is of a circular (and therefore most capable) form, sited on 
the top of a hill, having an easy ascent on every side thereunto. 
This con duceth much to the cleanness of this city; Nature being 
the chief scavenger thereof, so that the rain that falleth there 
falleth thence by the declivity of the place. The houses stand 
sideways backward into their yards, and only endways with 
their gables towards the street. The city therefore is greater in 
content than appearance, being bigger than it presenteth itself 
to passengers through the same. 

MANUFACTURES. 

Clothing is plied in this city with great industry and judg 
ment. It is hardly to be believed, what credible persons attest 
for truth, that the return for serges alone in this city amounteth 
weekly (even now, when trading, though not dead, is sick) to 
three thousand pounds, not to ascend to a higher proportion. 

But the highest commendation of this city is for the loyalty 
thereof; presenting us with a pair-royal of services herein, 
when besieged by 1. Perkin Warbeck, in the reign of king 
Henry the Seventh: 2. The western rebels, in the reign of 
king Edward the Sixth : 3. The Parliament forces, in the reign 
of king Charles the First. 

Their valour was invincible in the two first, and their loyalty 
unstained in the last, rewarded by their enemies with the best 
made and best kept articles ; yea, in the very worst of times, 
a depressed party therein were so true to their principles, that 
I meet with this epithaph in the chancel of St. Sidwell s : 

"Hie jacet Hugo Grove, in comitatu Wilts, armiger, in 
restituendo Ecclesiam, in asserendo Regem, in propugnando 



BUILDINGS. 443 

legem ac libertatem Anglicanam, captus et decollatus 6 Mail, 
1655." 

THE BUILDINGS. 

The cathedral, dedicated to St. Peter, is most beautiful, having 
the west end thereof adorned with so lively statues of stone, 
that they plainly speak the art of those who erected them. 

There is in this city a castle, whitherto king Richard the 
usurper repaired, and for some days reposed himself therein. 
He demanded of the inhabitants, how they called their castle : 
who returned the name thereof was Rugemont., though I confess 
it a rarity that the castle in a city should be called by any 
other name than a castle. Hereat the usurper was much 
abashed, having been informed by wizards, that he should 
never prosper after he had met a thing called Rugemont. It 
seems Satan either spoke this oracle low or lisping, desirous to 
palliate his fallacy and ignorance ; or that king Richard (a guilty 
conscience will be frighted with little) mistook the word, see 
ing not Rugemont, but Richmond (the title of king Henry the 
Seventh) proved so formidable to this usurper. 

As for parish churches in this city, at my return thither this 
year I found them fewer than I left them at my departure 
thence fifteen years ago. But the demolishers of them can give 
the clearest account, how the plucking down of churches con- 
duceth to the setting up of religion. Besides, I understand that 
thirteen churches were exposed to sale by the public crier, and 
bought by well-affected persons, who preserved them from 

destruction. 

THE WONDERS. 

When the city of Exeter was besieged by the Parliament s 
forces, so that only the south side thereof towards the sea was 
open unto it, incredible number of larks were found in that 
open quarter, for multitude like quails in the wilderness, though 
(blessed be God) unlike them both in cause and effect, as not 
desired with man s destruction, nor sent with God s anger, as 
appeared by their safe digestion into wholesome nourishment : 
hereof I was an eye and mouth witness. I will save my credit 
in not conjecturing any number; knowing, that herein though 
I should stoop beneath the truth, I should mount above belief. 
They were as fat as plentiful ; so that, being sold for two-pence 
a dozen, and under, the poor (who could have no cheaper, as 
the rich no better meat) used to make pottage of them, boiling 
them down therein. Several natural causes were assigned 
hereof: 1. That these fowl, frighted with much shooting on the 
land, retreated to the sea-side for their refuge : 2. That it is 
familiar with them in cold winters (as that was) to shelter them 
selves in the most southern parts : 3. That some sorts of seed 
were lately sown in those parts, which invited them thither for 
their own repast. However, the Cause of causes was Divine 



444 WORTHIES OF EXETER. 

Providence, thereby providing a feast for many poor people, 
who otherwise had been pinched for provision. 

PRINCES. 

HENRIETTA, youngest child of king Charles and queen Mary, 
was born at Bedford-house in this city, anno 1644, on the six 
teenth day of June. After her long and sad night of affliction, 
the day dawned with her, in her brother s happy return. Since, 
she is married to the duke of Orleans. I hope that I, once 
related unto her as a chaplain, may ever pray for her, that her 
soul may be sanctified with true grace, and she enjoy both the 
blessings of this and a better life. 

PRELATES. 

BARTHOLOMEUS ISCANUS, born in this city, was accounted 
in that age the oracle of learning and religion, so that in all 
conventions to that purpose his suffrage clearly carried it.* He 
became afterwards bishop in the place of his nativity, being in 
timate with his cityman, whose character next followeth, Bald 
win of Devonshire, then but abbot of Ford, afterwards ad 
vanced to higher preferment. These mutually dedicated books 
to each other s commendation, so that neither wanted praise, 
nor praised himself. This, Leland calleth pulcherrimum certa- 
men. Indeed, this alternation of reciprocal encomiums became 
them the better, because it was merit in both, flattery in nei 
ther. This Bartholomew was an opposer of Becket s insolence : 
and, having sat bishop fourteen years, ended his life anno 1185. 

BALDVINUS DEVONIUS was born in this city, of poor parent 
age, save that in some sort a worthy man may be said to be 
father to himself. His preferment increased with his learning 
and deserts, being first a schoolmaster, then an archdeacon, then 
abbot of Ford; afterwards bishop of Worcester, and lastly 
archbishop of Canterbury; an eloquent man, and a pious 
preacher, according to the devotion of those days ; so that the 
errors which he maintained may justly be accounted the faults 
of the times, and in him but infirmities. When king Richard 
the First went to Palestine, he conceived himself bound, both 
in conscience and credit, to partake of the pains and perils of 
his sovereign ; whom he attended thither, but not thence ; dying 
there, and being buried at Tyre anno Domini 1190. 

WALTER BRONSCOMBE was son to a very mean man in this 
city, and therefore the more remarkable, that, taking no rise 
from his extraction, he raised himself by his own industry to 
be bishop of Exeter. t Here he built and endowed an hospital 
for poor people, and also founded a fair college at Perin in 

* Godwin, in his Catalogue of Bishops. 

f Hooker, alias Vowel, in his Catalogue of the Bishops of Exeter. 



WRITERS. 445 

Cornwall. The angel Gabriel was very much beholden to him, 
for instituting an annual festival unto him (observed, as I hum 
bly conceive, only in his own cathedral, or own diocese at the 
most); and, lest people should complain of the dearness of their 
devotion, he left good land to defray the cost of that solemnity. 
He is much blamed for compassing the manor of Bishop s- 
Clift to his church by indirect means; to which I can say 
nothing, but only observe, that this small city, within eighty 
years, did afford three eminent prelates (whereof two Episcopi 
in Patria) the natives thereof, which will scarcely be paralleled 
in any place of the same proportion. He died anno 1280. 

WRITERS. 

JOSEPHUS ISCANUS was born at this city, anciently called 
Isca, from the river Isc (now named Eske) running thereby. A 
golden poet in a leaden age ; so terse and elegant were his con 
ceits and expressions. This our English Maro had for his Mae 
cenas Baldwin archbishop of Canterbury. But I revoke my 
words, and desire to turn Maro into Cornelius Nepos, under 
whose name the Dutchmen have lately printed a poem, made 
by this Josephus, "De Bello Trojano." It soundeth much to a 
man^s honour, even to be mistaken for another man of eminency ; 
for, though there may be much of error in the mistake, there must 
be something of truth in the error, especially with the judicious ; 
yea, in such case, a general conformity betwixt the persons is 
not enough to build the mistake on, without some particular 
assimilation ; as here the affinity of phrase and fancy betwixt 
these two poets. 

This Cornelius Nepos, under whose name the poems of this 
Josephus were printed, flourished in the time of Tully. Indeed 
I find not any poems made by him, though having to that pur 
pose perused all Scaliger, " De Arte Poetica," as a most pro 
bable author. But most sure it is, that this Cornelius was most 
judicious in that art, because Valerius Catullus dedicated his 
poem unto him, as best able to pass a learned censure thereon. 
This Josephus Iscanus flourished under king John, anno 1210, 
being archbishop of Bourdeaux. 

I have nothing more to observe of him, save what, with the 
reader s pardon, I cannot omit ; viz. that this Josephus always 
minded me of another Josephus Iscanus ; I mean Joseph Hall, 
lately bishop of Exeter ; a witty poet, when young, a painful 
preacher and solid divine, in his middle, a patient sufferer in 
his old age ; of whom, God willing, more in due place.* 

WILLIAM of Exeter was born in this city ; bred a doctor of 
divinity in Oxford, and afterwards became canon of the cathe- 

* See WRITERS, in Leicestershire, 



446 WORTHIES OF EXETER. 

dral in the place of his nativity.* Now in his age, some Fran 
ciscan friars so praised the perfection of poverty, that they 
touched the Pope s copyhold of inheritance ; for, if poverty was 
so essential to piety, papal pomp and plenty must needs argue 
profaneness. In confutation hereof, this William of Exeter 
undertook William of Ockam, though indeed impar congressus 
betwixt them ; for Exeter, a fair city, did not more exceed 
Ockam, a small village in Surrey, in beauty and building, than 
that Ockam W 7 illiam excelled this Exeter William in parts and 
learning. However, what he wanted in brains, he had in a good 
back to assist him; and William of Exeter, with John thethree- 
and-twentieth Pope of Rome, was able to undertake any author 
of that age. He flourished in the year of our Lord 1330, under 
the reign of king Edward the Third. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

RICHARD MARTIN was born in this city ; and bred partly 
in the court, partly in the inns of court ; and at last betook him 
self to the study of the law. He was accounted one of the high 
est wits of our age and his nation ; king James being much de 
lighted with his facetiousness : a quality which (with other of 
his abilities) commended him to be chosen Recorder of London. 
He is eminent, as for many speeches, so especially for that he 
made in parliament in the tenth year of king James, when ac 
count was taken of forty gentlemen in the house which were not 
twenty, and some of them not sixteen, years of age. " Formerly/ 
said this Recorder Martyn, " it was the custom of old men to 
make laws for young ones ; but now nature is invaded and in 
verted, seeing young men enact laws to govern their fathers." 
He had an excellent pen, and wrote very much ; and the more 
the pity that they are suppressed from public use. His death 
happened about the year 1616. 

WILLIAM MARTIN, kinsman to the aforesaid Recorder, was 
born in this city, and bred a student in the laws of the land. 
He wrote a short and clear " History of the Kings of England 
since the Conquest." I have been credibly informed, that king 
James took some exceptions at a passage therein, sounding ei 
ther to the derogation of his own family or of the Scotch nation, 
which he took so tenderly, that Mr. Martin was brought into 
trouble for the same ; and though he weathered out the king s 
displeasure, and was reconciled to his majesty, yet he never re 
covered his former cheerfulness. It seems that a prince s anger 
is a disease which though cured is not cured, grief for the same 
being conceived to hasten his death, which happened about the 
year 1616. 

* Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. v. p. 405 ; and Pits, anno 1330. 



WRITERS BENEFACTORS. 447 

WILLIAM TUCKER was born in this city; bred fellow of 
New College in Oxford ;* and after became doctor in divinity, 
canon of Salisbury, archdeacon of Barnstable, and dean of Lich- 
field. The purity of his Latin pen procured his preferment, 
writing and dedicating a book to queen Elizabeth, " De Charis- 
mate," (Of our kings of England their gracious healing the evil,) 
being the best that I have seen on that subject, vindicating such 
cures from all imposture, unlawful magic, and from some French 
writers, bold usurpations, who lay claim to it as originally be 
longing to their kings alone : whereas, under correction, I con 
ceive that the word sovereign, which properly importeth the 
supreme majesty, doth also in our English tongue, in a secon 
dary sense, signify what is cordial to cure and heal diseases or 
sores, ever since such sanative power hath been annexed to the 
crown of England. This doctor may be said to have worn half 
a mitre, seeing his conge d elire was signed (if not sent) to elect 
him bishop of Gloucester ; but afterwards, by order from king 
James, it was revoked, on what occasion I list not to inquire. 
I conjecture the date of his death was much about the year 
1617. 

JOHN BARKHAM, born in this county, was bred in Corpus 
Christi College in Oxford, whereof he was fellow ; chaplain after 
wards to Archbishop Bancroft, and parson of Booking in Essex. 
Much his modesty, and no less his learning ; who (though ne 
ver the public parent of any) was the careful nurse of many 
books, which otherwise had expired in their infancy, had not 
his care preserved them. He set forth D . . . . Crackenthorp sf 
posthume book against Spalato ; and was helpful to John Speed 
in the composing of his " English History ; " yea, he wrote the 
whole life of the reign of king John (which is the king of all the 
reigns in that book, for profound penning) discoverable from 
the rest on account of the different style, and much Scripture 
cited therein. Mr. Guillim, in his " Heraldry," was much be 
holden to this doctor s emendations. 

He was a greater lover of coins than of money ; rather curi- 

** 

ous in the stamps than covetous for the metal thereof. That 
excellent collection in Oxford library was his gift to the arch 
bishop, before the archbishop gave it to the university. He 
died March 25, 1641. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

JOAN TUCKVILE, a merchant s widow in this city, first pro 
cured the possession, then the consecration, of a parcel of 
ground, which she had fairly compassed about, for the inter 
ment of such as were executed at Heavi-tree hard by, allowing 
land to buy a shrine for every one of them ; that such as died 

New College Register, in anno 1577. 
t Dr. Richard Crakenthorp, a distinguished writer ED. 
VOL. I. 2 G 



448 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

malefactors might be buried as men, yea, as Christians ; who, 
having passed under the hand of justice, received a boon from 
her hand, who was merciful to the dead. This I may call exem 
plary charity indeed, as which set a copy for others, but such 
as hitherto hath not (to my knowledge) by any been transcribed. 
She died about the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth. 

THE FAREWELL. 

Malice knoweth no other heaven than to do mischief to others, 
though thereby no good to itself. Such the spite of the Cor 
nish rebels besieging Exeter, who, to damnify the city, dammed 
and stopped up the channel of the river Ex (near to a village 
thence called Weare at this day)* to such a degree, that thereby 
the access of lesser vessels is much hindered, and of the greater 
ships wholly debarred. 

Some, knowing Sir Simon Baskervile (a physician and native 
of this place) to have a plentiful purse and public spirit, wished 
he would have taken the work in hand, to cure this obstruction : 
but it was no physician s work to meddle therewith ; nor is it 
either powder of steel, or gilded pills, which can do the deed ; 
but only pills of massy gold and silver ; so expensive is the per 
formance. 

Indeed several Acts of Parliament have ordered the removal 
of these stoppages ;f but nothing is effected in this kind, these 
real remor&s remaining as before. 

It is urged as an argument of Aristotle, against the conceit of 
Plato s having all women in common, and their children to be 
brought up on the public charge, that then the education of 
such children will be neglected ; because what is every man s 
work is no man s work. The truth hereof appeareth in the 
slow avoiding of these steam-suffocations. 

I could heartily wish, that one Act of Parliament more (an 
eunuch, yet not barren) may be made; eunuch, that it may beget 
no more acts to cause the retarding and elongation of this work ; 
yet not barren, that it may effectually remedy this grievance, 
and that a general good be no longer postponed to men s pri 
vate profit. 



WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE THE 

TIME OF FULLER. 

Samuel BADCOCK, divine and critic; born at South Molton 

1747; died 1788. 
John BIDLAKE, divine and poet, author of "Virginia," a 

tragedy; born at Plymouth 1755 ; died 1814. 

* Camden s Britannia, in Devonshire. j- Idem. 







- 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 449 

Jacob BRYANT, learned mythologist ; born at Plymouth about 

1725; died 1804. 
John BURTON, divine, author of " Opuscula Miscellanea; 

bom at Wembworthy 1696; died 1771. 
Bamfylde Moore CAREW, celebrated "king. of the beggars; 

born at Bickleigh ; died about 1770, aged 77- 
N. T. CARRINGTON, the Devonian bard; born at Plymouth 

1777; died 1831. 
John CHURCHILL, duke of Marlborough, and prince of Milden- 

heim, soldier and statesman, born at Ashe near Colyton 

1650; died 1722. 
S. T. COLERIDGE, poet; born at Ottery St. Mary 1773 ; died 

1834. 
John CONYBEARE, bishop of Bristol, defender of Revelation ; 

born at Pinhoe 1692 ; died 1755. 
Mrs. Hannah COWLEY, dramatic writer, author .of " The Belle 

Stratagem;" born at Tiverton in 1743 ; died there in 1809. 
John DUNNING, Lord Ashburton, advocate ; born at Ashbur- 

ton 1732; died 1783. 
John GAY, poet and dramatist, author of the " Beggar s 

Opera ;" born at Barnstaple, 1688 ; died 1732. 
Lord Robert GIFFORD, master of the Rolls, born at Exeter 

1779; died 1826. 
William GIFFORD, originally a shoemaker, poet, translator of 

Juvenal, and editor of the Quarterly Review ; born at Ashbur 
ton 1756; died 1826. 
Sir Vicary GIBBS, chief justice of the Common Pleas; born at 

Exeter 1752; died 1820. 
Joseph GLANVIL, divine, philosophical writer, and defender of 

the belief in witchcraft; born at Plymouth, 1636 ; died 1680. 
George GRANVILLE, viscount Lansdowne, poet ; born 1667 ; 

died 1785. 
Robert HAWKER, eloquent divine and author; born at Exeter 

1753. 
Charles HOPKINS, poet and tragic writer; born at Exeter 

1664; died 1699. 
Benjamin KENNICOTT, orientalist, editor of the Hebrew Bible ; 

born at Totnes, 1718; died 1783. 
Peter KING, lord chancellor, and theological writer, born at 

Exeter 1669; died 1734. 

Edward LYE, author of the Saxon dictionary; born at Totnes 17 04. 
Sir John MAYNARD, lawyer and statesman ; born at Tavistock ; 

died in 1690. 
John MUDGE, physician and ingenious philosopher; born at 

Plymouth; died 1793. 
James NORTHCOTE, painter and author; born at Plymouth 

1746; died in 1831. 
Simon OCKLEY, divine and orientalist ; born at Exeter 1678; 

died 1720. 

2 G 2 



450 WORTHIES OF DEVONSHIRE. 

James PARSONS, physician and antiquary; born at Barnstaple 

1705 ; died 1770. 
Major John RENNELL, F.R.S. engineer and antiquary; born at 

Chudleigh 1743 ; died 1830. 
Sir Joshua REYNOLDS, painter, author, and president of the 

Royal Academy; born at Plympton Earl s 1723 ; died 1792. 
John Rows, non-conformist divine and author ; born at Tiver- 

ton; died 1677- 
Richard SAUNDERS, non-conformist divine and author ; born 

at Peyhambury; died 1692. 
Dr. John SHEBBEARE, physician, political writer, author of 

Chrysal ;" born at Bideford 1709 ; died 1788. 
Sir Barthol. SHOWER, lawyer and reporter; born at Exeter; 

died 1701. 

Joanna SOUTHCOTE, fanatical religious impostor; born at Exe 
ter about 1750; died 1814. 
Thomas SPRAT, bishop of Rochester, poet ; born at Tallaton 

1636 ; died 1713. 

Sir Richard John STRACHAN, admiral; born 1760. 
Edward UPH AM, antiquary and historian; died 1834. 
Stephen WESTON, scholar and antiquarian author; born at 

Exeter 1747. 
Dr. John WOLCOT, known by the name of " Peter Pindar," 

satirical political poet; born at Dodbroke; died 1819. 



** So early as 1714, a Chorographical or Descriptive Survey of Devonshire was 
published by Tristam Risdon. In 1791, Sir William Pole brought out his collec 
tions towards a description of the county ; and in 1797, the Rev. Richard Polwhele 
published his history of Devonshire, which may be considered as the topographical 
vade-mecum of the county. Antiquarian notices and descriptions of Exeter have 
also been published by Rich. Izacke (.1677) ; by John Vowell (1765) ; by Alex. 
Jenkins (1806) ; and by the Society of Antiquaries ED. 



DORSETSHIRE. 



IT hath Devonshire on the west, Somerset and Wiltshire on 
the north, Hampshire on the east, and the narrow sea on the 
south, extending from east to west about forty miles, though 
not past six-and-twenty the broadest part thereof. 

It hath a self-sufficiency of all commodities necessary for 
man s temporal well-being ; and needs not be beholding to any 
neighbouring county; for it can 1. Feed itself with fine 
wheat, fat flesh, dainty fowl, wild and tame, fresh fish from sea 
and rivers. To this meat it yieldeth that sauce, without which 
all the rest is little worth ; I mean, salt made here in some mea 
sure, but which hath been, and may be, in more abundance, 
2. Clothe itself with its own wool, and broad-cloth made there 
of; and it is believed that no place in England affordeth more 
sheep in so small a compass as this county about Dorchester. 
And as they are provided for warmth in their woollen, so for 
cleanliness with their linen cloth, great store of good flax and 
hemp growing therein. 3. Build its own houses with good tim 
ber out of Blackmoor Forest, and with (if not better, I am sure 
more) free-stone out of Portland, most approaching that of 
Normandy (as in position, so) in the purity thereof. Nor waiit- 
eth it veins of marble in the Isles of Purbeck. And to all this 
an excellent air, and the conveniency of a sea, to export for 
their profit, and import for their pleasure, as whose necessities 
were provided for before. 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
TENCHES. 

Plenty hereof are bred in the river Stour ;* which is so much 
the more observable, because generally this fish loveth ponds 
better than rivers, and pits better than either.f It is very plea 
sant in taste, and is called by some the physician of fishes : 
though in my opinion may better be styled the surgeon ; for it 
is not so much a disease as a wound that he cureth ; nor is it 

* Camden s Britannia, in this county. 

t Mr. Walton, in his Complete Angler, p. 245, 



52 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

any potion but a plaster which he affordeth ; viz. his natural 
unctuous glutinousness, which quickly consolidateth any green 
gash in any fish. 

But the pike is principally beholding unto him for cures in 
that kind ;* and some have observed, that that tyrant, though 
never so hungry, forbeareth to eat this fish, which is his physi 
cian ; not that pikes are capable (which many men are not) of 
gratitude ; but that they are endued with a natural policy, not 
to destroy that which they know not how soon they may stand 
in need of. 

TOBACCO-PIPE-CLAY. 

This is a fine clay, which will burn white (while others turn 
red), found in several parts of England ; but so far from the 
sea, it will not quit cost of portage to London, save from two 
places : 

1 . Poole, in this county. This, wrought alone, makes a 
hard pipe ; but so shrunk and shrivelled, it is unhandsome to 
the eye. 

2. Isle of Wight. This wrought alone, makes a fair and full 
pipe ; but so brittle, that it is unserviceable for use. 

Both compounded together make these utensils both hard 
and handsome. This clay brought to London by ship for bal 
last, is there worth about thirty shillings the ton. 

HEMP. 

England hath no better than what groweth here betwixt Be- 
mister and Bridport, the use whereof is of absolute necessity for 
cordage, clothing, &c. ; so that a man may admire that, the seed 
being so profitable, and our land affording so much strong and 
deep ground proper for the same, so little is sown thereof. 

The rather, because hemp in effect secureth itself, first 
against cattle, against which it is its own fence, seeing none 
(deer only excepted) will offer to eat thereof. Secondly, from 
thieves, not because it is ominous for them to steal that which 
is the instrument of their execution, but because much pains 
(w r hich idle persons hate at their hearts) is required to reduce 
hemp to profit : whilst wheat and barley, left in the field, are 
more subject to felony, as which, when threshed, will render a 
present profit. But see more of this commodity in Lincolnshire. 

To these we may add rubia silvestris, wild madder, which 
groweth at Hodhill in this county, on the next side of the river 
at Stour-Paine (two miles from Blandford), at Warham likewise, 
and at other places, and at a place called Somervill, near to 
Chappel, which, by the landing place, as ye come from Altferry 
to Chesil, is in great abundance. t It is an assumed remedy 
for the yellow jaundice, openeth the obstructions of the spleen, &c. 

* Camden s Britannia, in Middlesex. f Parkinson, p. 285. 



BUILDINGS PROVERBS SAINTS, 453 



BUILDINGS. 

The houses of the gentry herein are built rather to be lived 
in,, than to be looked on; very low in their situation (for 
warmth and other conveniences). Indeed the rhyme holds 
generally true of the English structures, 

" The north for greatness, the east for health ; 
The south for neatness, the west for wealth." 

However, amongst the houses in this county, Lulworth cas 
tle and Sherburn lodge are most eminent, escaping pretty 
well in the late war, so that they have cause neither to brag nor 
complain. 

PROVERBS. 

" As much a-kin as Lenson-hill to Pilsen-pen."] 

That is no kin at all. It is spoken of such who have vicinity 
of habitation or neighbourhood, without the least degree of con 
sanguinity or affinity betwixt them : for these are two high hills, 
the first wholly, the other partly, in the parish of Broad Wind 
sor, whereof once I was minister.* 

Yet, reader, I assure thee, that seamen make the nearest rela 
tion betwixt them, calling the one the cow, the other the calf ; 
in which forms, it seems, they appear first to their fancies, 
being eminent sea-marks to such as sail along these coasts. 
And although there be many hills interposing betwixt these and 
the sea, which seem higher to a land traveller ; yet these sur 
mount them all : so incompetent a judge, and so untrue a sur 
veyor, is an ordinary eye of the altitude of such places. 
" Stabb d with a Bridport dagger."] 

That is, hanged, or executed at the gallows ; the best, if not 
the most hemp (for the quantity of ground) growing about 
Bridport, a market town in this county. And hence it is, that 
there is an ancient statute (though now disused and neglected) 
that the cable ropes for the navy royal were to be made there 
abouts, as affording the best tackling for that purpose. 

" Dorsetshire dorsers,"] 

Dorsers are peds, or panniers, carried on the backs of horses, 
on which hagglers used to ride and carry their commodities. It 
seems this homely but most useful implement was either first 
found out, or is most generally used, in this county, where fish- 
jobbers bring up their fish in such contrivances above a hundred 
miles, from Lime to London, 

SAINTS. 
EDWARD, son to Edgar king of England, was in his child- 

Dr. Fuller was presented to Broad Windsor in 1634; and was ousted at the 
grand rebellion : he seems to have come in again at the Restoration, and held it to 
his death, in 1661 ED. 



454 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

hood bred under the cruel correction of Elfrida his mother-in- 
law, who used for small faults to whip him with wax candles ; 
insomuch that, it is reported, it made such an impression in this 
young prince s memory, that, when a man, he could not endure 
the sight of wax candles.* 

But Edward afterwards outgrew his mother s tuition, and 
succeeded his father in his throne. However, such her ambition, 
that, advantaged with the other s easiness of nature, she ma 
naged most matters of state, leaving her son-in-law little more 
than the bare title of sovereign. Not contented herewith, and 
to derive the sceptre to her own son Ethelred, she caused him 
to be stabbed at Corfe Castle, in this county, coming in a civil 
visit unto her. His hidden body, being miraculously discovered, 
was first buried at Wareham, and thence removed to Shaftsbury, 
which town for a time was termed Saint Edward s, from his 
interment.t His murder happened about the year of our 
Lord 978. 

CARDINALS. 

JOHN MORTON was born at Saint Andrew s, Milborne, in 
this county, of a right worshipful family still extant therein. 
He was bred in Oxford ; and after many mediate preferments, 
made bishop of Ely, anno 1578. Not long after, when many 
groaned under the tyranny of king Richard the Third, this 
prelate first found out the design of marrying Elizabeth eldest 
daughter to Edward the Fourth, of the house of York, to Henry 
earl of Richmond, the last \vho was left of the line of Lancaster. 
Indeed the earl s title to the crown was not enough to make a 
countenance therewith, much less a claim thereto ; but, as the 
lady had a title, and wanted a man to manage it, the earl was 
man enough to manage any design, but wanted a title ; and, 
pursuing this advice, by God s blessing, he gained the crown, 
by the name of Henry the Seventh. In expression of his 
gratitude, he made this bishop chancellor of England, and after 
wards archbishop of Canterbury. He was a great instrument in 
advancing a voluntary contribution to the king through the 
land ; persuading prodigals to part with their money, because 
they did spend it most ; and the covetous, because they might 
spare it best ; so making both extremes to meet in one medium, 
to supply the king s necessities ; who, though prodigiously rich, 
may be said always to need, because never satisfied. This 
bishop, with vast cost, cut a new channelin the fens, for the 
public good ; but it neither answered his expectation nor ex- 
pence. He was magnificent in his buildings, and bountiful to 
poor scholars, enjoining his executors to maintain twenty poor 
scholars in Oxford, and ten in Cambridge, twenty years after 
his death, which happened in October 1500. 

! ?, obert of Gloucester, cited by Mr. Selden in his notes upon Polyolbion, Song 12. 
t. Malmsbury, lib. de Pontific. 2. 



WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 455 



PRELATES. 

JOHN STAFFORD, son to Humphrey Stafford, sixth earl of 
Stafford, was born at Hooke,* in this county (then a most 
stately house belonging to this family), and bred a doctor of the 
laws in Oxford. He was afterwards dean of the Arches, and 
dean of Saint Martin s. This was a fair college near Alders- 
gate in London, founded anno 1056 by Ingelricus and Edvar- 
dus his brother ; privileged by our kings of England with 
great immunities ; the cause of many and high contests betwixt 
this college and the city of London. Afterwards- he was made 
bishop of Wells, and for eighteen years (a continuance hardly 
to be paralleled) was chancellor of England. At last he was 
advanced archbishop of Canterbury ; and no prelate (his peer in 
birth and preferment) hath either less good or less evil recorded 
of him. He died at Maidstone, 1452 ; and lies buried in 
Canterbury. 

ROBERT MORTON was brother s sonf to cardinal Morton 
(of whom before) ; whose father had a fair habitation at Saint 
Andrew s Milborn, in this county. His relation to so good 
an uncle, mixed with his own merits, preferred him to the 
bishopric of Worcester. Of whom we have little more than 
the date of his consecration, 1486 ; and of his death, 1497- 
He lieth buried in the body of Saint Paul s church in London. 

JAMES TURBEVIL, or De turUda villa, was born of a wor 
shipful family, who long have lived in great account in this 
county.J First a monk, but afterwards brought up in New 
College in Oxford. He was consecrated bishop of Exeter 1556, 
and deserved right well of that see. When he entered thereon, 
it was most true what his successor therein since said, " that 
the bishop of Exeter was a baron, but a bare one : " so mise 
rably that cathedral had been pilled and polled. But Bishop 
Turbervil recovered some lost lands, which Bishop Voysey had 
vezed;\\ and particularly obtained of queen Mary the restitution 
of the fair manor of Crediton. But who can stay what will 
away ? It was afterwards alienated again in the reign of queen 
Elizabeth. 

This Bishop Turbervil carried something of trouble in his 
name, though nothing but mildness and meekness in his nature. 
Hence it was, that he staved off persecution from those in his 
jurisdiction, so that not so many as properly may be called some 
suffered in his diocese. He, being deprived in the beginning of 

* Godwin, in his Catalogue of Archbishops of Canterbury. 

f Godwin, in the Bishops of Worcester. 

+ At Bere. Camden s Britannia, in Gloucestershire. 

Bishop Hall, in his asserting Episcopacy. 

II " Driven away," in the dialect of the West. 



456 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

queen Elizabeth, lived peaceably for many years in great liberty; 
the privacy of whose life caused the obscurity of his death, and 
the uncertainty of the date thereof. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

THOMAS WINNIFFE was born at Sherborne, in this county, 
and was bred contemporary with Doctor Hackwell in Exeter 
College in Oxford ; and we may observe a three-fold parallel 
betwixt these two eminent persons. . First, they were fellows 
of the same foundation. Secondly, chaplains to the same 
illustrious master, prince Henry. Thirdly, both, out of (indis 
cretion at the -worst) no ill intent, ran on the same rock, though 
not to the same degree of damage. Dr. Hackwell, for opposing 
the Spanish match, was unchaplained, and banished the court ; 
Doctor Winniffe, for a passage in his sermon (not against, but) 
about Gondomer, was committed close prisoner to the Tower, 
and there for some days remained. 

During which time, a great lord (who shall pass nameless) 
with preat importunity endeavoured to beg away all his church- 
preferment, to dispose of it at his pleasure. " No," said king 
James, " I mean not thus to part with the man." The lord, 
perceiving his suit hopeless, vowed most solemnly that he did 
it only to try his royal resolution, protesting that his majesty 
had not one of more merit amongst all his chaplains. Indeed he 
was observed to run (with emulation without envy) in the race 
of virtue even with any of his order, striving to exceed them by 
fair industry, without offering proudly to justle their credit, 
much less falsely to supplant their reputation. 

He was first dean of Gloucester, afterwards of Saint Paul s ; 
and lastly was chosen bishop of Lincoln, 1642 ; being one of 
those six choice persons elected, "ut nutantis Episcopates 
molem pietatis ac probitatis suee fulcimine sustentarent." All 
in vain, being borne down under the ruins thereof. Since, that 
government hath been happily resumed ; and long may it flou 
rish in its full lustre ! He died anno Domini 1654 ; and was 
buried at Lamborne in Essex, having formerly been the painful 
minister thereof. He was seventy-eight years of age, and hath 
a handsome monument erected to his memory, the epitaph 
whereof, being too long to transcribe, thus beginneth : 

" Effare, marmor silens, 
Quid et quern luges ; 

" Funus non privatum, sed publicum, Anglicanae Ecclesise (nisi Deus antevertat) 
pene cadaver, Thomam Wynnyffum," &c. 

I would add more in his just commendation ; but because I 
am prohibited by his epitaph, whereof this the conclusion : 
" Anima haec in ccelos recepta non laudationem quserit sed imitationem." 

Nor will we forget that, for some years before, his aged father 
was buried in the same grave. 






WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 457 



SOLDIERS. 

THOMAS BASKET, Esquire, of Divelish in this county. How 
much king Henry the Eighth confided in his wisdom and valour, 
will plainly appear by the letter he wrote unto him, exemplified 
by us in our observations of the sheriffs of this county in the 
twelth year of the reign of the king aforesaid. He was com 
monly called little Mr. Basket, the great soldier. He died 
about the year of our Lord 1530. 

JOHN RUSSEL, son of Russel, Esq. was born at 

Kingston-Russel in this county ;* and, being bred beyond the 
seas, arrived at great accomplishments, and returned home 
about the time when Philip king of Castile (father to Charles 
the Fifth emperor) was forced by foul weather into the haven of 
Weymouth. But, " it is an ill wind that blows no body profit ;" 
this accident proving the foundation of Mr. RusseFs prefer 
ment. 

For, when Sir Thomas Trenchard bountifully received this 
royal guest, Mr. Russel was sent for, to complete the entertain 
ment ; king Philip taking such delight in his company, that, at 
his departure, he recommended him to king Henry the Seventh, 
as a person of abilities, " fit to stand before princes, and not 
before mean men." Indeed he was a man of spirit, carrying a 
badge of valour (no blemish, but a beauty) in his face, the loss 
of an eye at the siege of Montreuil. 

King Henry the Eighth much favoured him, making him 
controller of the household, and privy councillor; and, anno 
1538, created him Lord Russel, and made him keeper of the 
privy seal. A good share of the golden shower of abbey lands 
fell into his lap ; two mitred ones, viz. Tavistock in Devonshire, 
and Thorney in Cambridgeshire, being conferred upon him, and 
at this day possessed by his posterity. King Edward the Sixth 
(who made him earl of Bedford) sent him down to suppress the 
western commotion, and relieve the besieged city of Exeter, 
which difficult service he performed with no less wisdom than 
valour, success than either. This worthy lord died in the 
month of March 1554 ; and lieth interred at Cheineys in Buck 
inghamshire. 

Sir RICHARD BINGHAM was born at Bingham s-Melcolm in 
this county, of as ancient a family as any therein, having myself 
seen an inquisition of lands, taken out of the Tower Rolls, which 
William de Bingham his ancestor held in Dorsetshire in the 
reign of king Henry the Third. In his youth he traced most 
parts of the world, to search for service, and find fit objects for 
his valour. He was at the siege of Saint Quintin in France, 

* The inheritance whereof is still possessed by his family, F. 



458 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

the sacking of Leith in Scotland, served in Candia under the 
Venetian against the Turk ; then returned into the Netherlands, 
being observed to be fortis et felix in all his undertakings. 
His judgment was much relied on in eighty-eight, about 
ordering the land army in Tilbury camp. 

After long travelling, his feet were fixed in Ireland, where he 
was not beboggM (as some, otherwise his equals) with ill 
success; but, being president of Connaught, conquered and 
drove away O Rorke, that most dangerous rebel. 

Sir William Fitz-Williams, lord Deputy of Ireland, was 
offended at that service, though he could find no fault therewith, 
save that it was not done by himself.* Indeed Bingham met 
with that which all men of merit must expect (except they will 
be surprised unawares), envy from others, suspecting that their 
own bays did wither, because his did seem so verdant. Here 
upon they accused him of cruelty to the queen and her council, 
who, being employed in Connaught (the very Ireland of Ireland 
in that age), was necessitated into severity for his own security. 
For this cause he was brought over into England, ousted his of 
fices, and kept for some time in restraint ;t all which he, being 
inured to hardship, as who had not eat his bread, nor fasted 
neither, all in a place, bare with invincible courage. 

But neglected worth will come into fashion once in seven 
years. Tyrone begins to trouble Munster ; and none found fit 
for to order him but Sir Richard Bingham, who is sent over 
Math more honour and power, marshal of Ireland, and general of 
Leinster ; to undertake that service, whereof no doubt he had 
given a good account, had not death overtaken him at Dublin. 
Wherever buried, he hath a monument of mention in the south 
side of Westminster Abbey. 

SEAMEN. 

RICHARD CLARK, of Weymouth in this county, was a most 
knowing pilot, and master of the ship called the Delight, which, 
anno 1583, went with Sir Humphrey Gilbert for the discovery 
of Norembege.J Now it happened (without any neglect or de 
fault in the same Richard) how that ship struck on ground, and 
was cast away, in the year aforesaid, on Thursday August 29. 
Yet wave followed not wave faster than wonder wonder, in the 
miraculous preservation of such as escaped this shipwreck : 

l. Sixteen of them got into a small boat, of a ton and half, 
which had but one oar to work withal. 2. They were seventy 
leagues from land ; and the weather so foul, that it was not pos 
sible for a ship to brook half a course of sail. 3. The boat 
being over-burdened, one of them, Mr. Hedly by name, made a 
motion to cast lots, that those four which drew the shortest 

Pro rege indignante hanc gloriam sibi areptam. Camden s Elizabeth, anno 1590. 

Camden s Elizabeth, anno 1598. 

Hackluit g English Voyages, vol. III. p. lG3. Idem, p. 164. 



SEAMEN. 459 

should be cast overboard ; provided, if one of the lots fell on 
the master, he notwithstanding should be preserved, as in whom 
all their safety were concerned. 4. Our Richard Clark their 
master disavowed any acceptance of such privilege ; replying, 
"they would live or die together." 5. On the fifth day Mr. 
Hedly (who first motioned lot-drawing) and another died, 
whereby their boat was somewhat alightened. 6. For five days 
and nights they saw the sun and stars but once ; so that they 
only kept up their boat with their single oar, going as the sea 
did drive it. "J. They continued four days without any suste 
nance, save what the weeds which swam in the sea, and salt 
water, did afford. 8. On the seventh day, about eleven a clock, 
they had sight of, and about three they came on the south part 
of, Newfoundland. 9. All the time of their being at sea, the 
wind kept continually south (which if it had shifted on any 
other point, they had never come to land) ; but came contrary 
at the north within half an hour after their arrival. 10. Being 
all come safe to shore, they kneeled down, and gave God praise 
(as they justly might) for their miraculous deliverance. 
11. They remained there three days and nights, having their 
plentiful repast upon berries and wild peason. 12. After five 
days rowing along the shore, they happened on a Spanish ship of 
Saint John de Lus, which courteously brought them home to 
Biscay. 13. The visitors of the Inquisition, coming aboard the 
ship, put them on examination ; but, by the master s favour, 
and some general answer, they escaped for the present. 
14. Fearing a second search, they shifted for themselves ; and, 
going twelve miles by night, got into France, and so safely ar 
rived in England. 

Thus we may conclude with the Psalmist, l&lt; They which go 
down into the sea, and occupy in the great waters ; these men 
see the works of the Lord, and his wonders in the deep."* 

GEORGE SUMMERS, Knight, was born in or near Lyme, though 
on my best inquiry (living some years within seven miles of 
the place) I could not attain the exactness thereof. He after 
wards was a successful voyager into far distant countries, and 
first discovered the Bermudas, from and by him named The 
Summer Islands ; a plantation, though slighted of late (whether 
for want of industry in the planters, or stapled commodities, I 
know not), yet were it in the hand of the Spaniard (as by God s 
blessing never shall) it would be over-considerable unto us. Yea, 
that which now is quarrelled at for not feeding us with any pro 
vision, might then stop the mouths, yea knock out the teeth, 
of such who now so undervalue it. I say, they were called The 
Summer Islands from this knight ; which I conceive necessary 
to observe. 

* Psalm cvii. 3. 



460 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

For I find, that though the county of Somerset is undoubtedly 
so called from Sommerton, once the principal town therein ; 
yet, because that town at this day is mean and obscure, some 
have strongly fancied, and stiffly defended, it so named from 
the summer, the fruitfulness whereof so appeareth therein. 
Possibly in process of time (with a more probable cover for their 
mistake) these Summer Islands may be conceived so named be 
cause there winter doth never appear. 

This Sir George Summers was a lamb on the land, so patient 
that few could anger him ; and (as if entering a ship he had 
assumed a new nature) a lion at sea, so passionate, that few 
could please him. He died (modest conjectures are better than 
confident untruths) about the year of our Lord 1610. 

Before we take our final farewell of the seamen in this county, 
I conceive fit, that the following note should not be forgotten. 
Anno 1587, when Thomas Cavendish, Esq. was in the pursuit 
of his voyage about the world, some of his men, August 1, went 
ashore at Cape Quintero to fetch fresh water, when two hundred 
Spanish horsemen came pouring from the hills upon them. 
They being hard at work, in no readiness to resist, suddenly 
surprised, and overpowered in number, were slain, to the num 
ber of twelve men, a third of which loss fell on this county, 
whose names ensue : 1 . William Kingman, of Dorsetshire, in 
the Admiral. 2. William Bret, of Wey mouth, in the Vice- Ad 
miral. 3. Henry Blacknals, of Weymouth. 4. William Pit, 
of Sherborne, both in the Hugh-Gallant, But their surviving 
countrymen (being but fifteen in number who had any weapons 
on the shore) soon revenged their death ; who, coming from 
the w r orks, not only rescued the rest, but also forced the enemy 
to retire with the loss of twenty-five of his men, and then wa 
tered there in despite of all opposition. 

CIVILIANS. 

Sir THOMAS RYVES, doctor of the laws, was born at Little 
Langton in this county ; bred in New College in Oxford ;* a 
general scholar in all polite learning, a most pure Latinist (no 
hair hanging at the nib of his pen) ; witness his most critical 
book of " Sea Battles ; " a subject peculiar, I think, to his en 
deavours therein. He was at last made the king s advocate ; 
and indeed he formerly had been advocate to the King of hea 
ven, in his poor ministers, in his book entitled, " The Vicar s 
Plea," wherein much law, learning, and reason, and equity, is 
shewn in their behalf; a grievance oftener complained of than 
heard, oftener heard than pitied, and oftener pitied than redressed; 
so unequal is the contest betwixt a poor vicar s plea, and a 
wealthy impropriator s purse. He was a man of valour as well 
as of much learning ; and gave good evidence thereof (though 

* The Register of New College. 



BENEFACTORS MEMORABLE PERSONS. 461 

well stricken in years) in our late wars. He died in his native 
county, about the year 1652. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

ROBERT ROGERS, born at Poole in this county, was after 
wards a leather-seller in London,* and, dying a rich bachelor, 
bequeathed a great part of his estate to pious uses, viz. 

For the building of almshouses in Pool, 3331. 

For the relief of poor prisoners (neither atheists nor papists) 
each man at the sum of twenty nobles, 150/. 

For poor preachers (allowing to each man ten pound), IOOL 

To decayed artificers, charged with wife and children, IOOL 

To the merchant adventurers, for the relief of old, and support 
of young freemen, 400/. 

To Christ s Hospital, 500Z. 

To erect alms-houses in and about London, 6007. 

For a weekly dole of bread to the poor, 200/. 

For the maintaining of two scholars in each university, in 
trusting the Leather-sellers with the managing thereof, 400/. 

I have only gathered the greatest clusters of his charity which 
the top boughs thereof did produce, purposely concealing the 
smaller bunches of his bounty, growing Jon the under branches. 
He died anno Domini 1601,tandlieth buried in Christ s Church 
in London. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

THOMAS de la L YND, a gentleman of a fair estate in this 
county, killed a white hart in Blackmoor Forest, which king 
Henry the Third, by express will, had reserved for his own chase. 
Hereupon a mulct was imposed upon him and the whole county 
(as accessory for not opposing him), w r hich is paid, called White- 
Hart-Silver, to this day into the Exchequer. Myself hath paid 
a share for the sauce, who never tasted any of the meat ; so that 
it seems king s venison is sooner eaten than digested. Let the 
Latin proverb, " Albo gallo," &c. in Dorsetshire, be turned into 
" Albo cervo ne manum admoliaris." 

ARTHUR GREGORY, of Lyme in this county, had the admi 
rable art of forcing the seal of a letter ; yet so invisibly, that it 
still appeared a virgin to the exactest beholder. Secretary Wal- 
singham made great use of him about the packets which passed 
from foreign parts to Mary queen of Scotland. He had a pen 
sion paid unto him for his good service out of the Exchequer : 
and died at Lyme, about the beginning of the reign of king 
James. 

WILLIAM ENGLEBERT, born at Sherborne,J was an incom- 

Stow in his Survey of London (continued by How) p. 97. t Idem, p. 347. 
: So was I informed by Mr. William Swettenham (being himself born in Sher- 
borne) eminently known as an Under-teller in the Exchequer, who for many years 
paid this pension. F. 



4G2 



WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 



parable engineer, and much used in the eighty-eight. Queen 
Elizabeth (an excellent housewife of her treasure) allowed him 
a pension of one hundred marks per annum, which was paid him 
until the day of his death. He requested of king James s Privy 
Council leave to serve foreign princes and states (long peace 
rendering him useless in England) proffering to wave his pen 
sion on that condition ; but they utterly denied him licence to 
depart, who lived and died in Westminster, about the year 1634. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING 

HENRY THE SIXTH. 

William bishop of Bath and Wells, chancellor of England ; 
William de Botreaux, chevelier ; John Chedyok, knight, and 
William Turbervill, (knights for the shire) ; Commission 
ers to take the oaths. 



Humf. Stafford, chev. 
Johannis Newburgh, sen. 
Radulphi Bush. 
Johannis Latymer. 
Johannis Neburgh, jun. 
W T illielmi Bronning. 
Robert! Frampton. 
Nicholai Latymer. 
Walteri Gonis. 
Thomse Manston. 
Johannis Caramel. 
Johannis Frantleroy. 
Henrici Sherard. 
Willielmi Anketill. 
Johannis Hering. 
Johannis Carent. 
Roberti Turbervile. 
Richardi Fitton. 
Johannis Mone. 
Johannis Peterel. 
Richardi Strode. 
Johannis de la Lynde. 
Roberti Rempston. 
Willielmi Gerrard. 
Willielmi Godwyn. 
Willielmi Dakcombe. 
Roberti Savage. 
Roberti Bannet. 
Edwardi Stone. 
Roberti Larkestoke. 
Johannis Frampton de Dor 
chester. 



Rogeri Rochford. 

Johannis Stamford. 

Roberti Hymerford. 

Stephani Russel. 

Henrici Russel. 

Roberti Tredosa. 

Willielmi Chetil. 

Walteri Hayngstrigge. 

Johannis Talbot. 

Simonis Talbot. 

Richardi Byle. 

Willielmi Hornsbow. 

Radulphi Bel ton. 

Johannis Phillippe. 

Thomse Anketill. 

Willielmi Clavil de Feme. 

Willielmi Morton de Ches- 
tesbury. 

Willielmi Cole. 

Willielmi Bontley. 

Johannis Butt. 

Rogeri Grogge de Lyme. 

Willielmi Warner de Pole. 

Roberti Bertram de Dor 
chester. 

Thomas Tinam de Lyme. 

Roberti Abbot de Mel combe 
Regis. 

Richardi Kaynell. 

Johannis Hillary de Shirborn. 

Joh. Scryveyn de Shirborn. 



WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 



463 



SHERIFFS 



OF DORSET AND 
Anno HENRY II. 

1 Warinus. 

2 Rich, de Raddona. 

3 Warinus de Lisoris. 
Rich, de Raddona. 

4 

5 Rich, de Raddona. 
Warinus de Lisoris. 
6 

7 Warinus de Lisoris. 

8 Idem. 

9 Robertus de Bello Campo, 

10 Gilbertus Percy. 

11 Rich, de Raddon. 
Gilb. de Percy. 

12 Rob. de Pucherel, for four 

years. 
16 Alud. de Lincolne, for six 

years. 
22 Rob. de Bello Campo, for 

seven years. 

29 Will, de Bendenger. 

30 Idem. 

31 Rob. films Pag. 

32 Idem. 

33 Idem, 

RICHARD I. 

1 Hugo Bardulph. 

2 Rob. 

3 Williel. de Chahaignes. 
Rad. de Chahaignes, for 

four years. 
7 Will. Chahaignes. 



SOMERSET-SHIRES. 
Anno 

Walt, de Giffardus. 
8 
9 Will, de Chaignes. 

Pet. de Schidemore. 
10 Will, de Cahaignes. 

JOHAX. 

1 Pet. de Schidemore. 

2 Rob. Belet. 
Hen. de Stokes. 

3 Hubert, de Burge. 
Alanus de W T igton. 

4 Idem. 

5 Idem. 

6 Will, de Monte Acuto, for 

four years. 

10 Will. Briewre. 
Rad. de Brey. 

11 Idem. 

12 Will. Mallet, sive Malet, 

for four years. 
16 Rich, de Marisco. 
Rog. de Pealton. 

HENRY III. 
1 

2 Pet. de Malo Lacu. 

3 et 4. Idem. 

5 Rog. de Forda. 
Ralph. Clericus. 

6 Rog. de Forda. 
Ralph. Clericus. 



SHERIFFS OF DORSETSHIRE. 

7 Radus Germein. 
Ermegundus de Wenham. 

8 Rad us Germin. 

Rich. Episcopus Saresb. 
Gilbert, de Staplebigg. 

9 Ric us Episcopus Saresb. 
Gilbert, de Staplebig. 

10 Rich. Episcopus Saresb. 
Gilbert, de Staplebigg. 

VOL. I. 



SHERIFFS OF SOMERSETSH. 

7 Rob. de Ford. 

Rich. Abbas de Michelem. 

8 Johan. Russel, et Rad us 

Russel. 

Joscel. Bathon. Episcopus. 
Lucas Russel. 

9 Joscel. Bathon. Episcopus. 
Lucas Russel. 

10 Joscel. Bathon. Episcopus. 
Will, de Schorewell. 



464 



WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 



SHERIFFS OF DORSET AND SOMERSET-SHIRES. 



Anno 

11 Will, films Henrici. 

12 Idem. 

13 Tho. de Cirencester. 

14 Idem. 

15 Idem, et Hen. de Campo 

Florido. 

16 Tho. de Cirencester. 
Hen. de Campo Florido. 

17 Tho. de Cirencester. 

18 Idem. 

19 Idem, et Hen. de Campo 

Florido. 

20 Tho. de Cirencester. 
Hen. de Campo Florido. 

21 Tho. de Cirencester. 

22 Idem. 

23 Idem. 

24 Jordan Oliver. 

25 Hugo de Vinon, for six 

years. 
31 Hugo de Vinon. 

Barth. Peach, for four 
years. 

35 Hen. de Derleg. 

36 Elias de Cabian. 

37 Idem. 

38 Idem. 

39 Idem, et Walterus de 

Burges. 

40 Steph. de Hasseton. 

41 Idem. 

42 Walt, de Burges. 

43 Williel. Everard. 
Humf. Chaehet. 

Will. Lecombe Clericus. 

44 Phil, de Cerve. 

45 Idem. 

46 Johan. Basset. 

46 Johan. Basset. 
Hen. Aultun. 

47 Phil. Basset. 

Hen. Aulton, for five years. 

53 Tho. de Sancto Vigor. 

54 Idem. 

55 Joh. de Sancto Waller. 
Tho. de Sancto Vigorc. 



EDWARD I. 



Anno 



1 Joh. de Sancto Valerno. 

2 Rich, de Coleshul, for five 

years. 

7 Joh. de Cormailess. 

8 Idem. 

9 Idem. 

10 Joh. de Cormailes. 
Pet. de Bolemer. 

11 Joh. de Cormailes. 

12 Joh. de Sancto Laudo, for 

six years. 

18 Rich, de Burghunt. 

19 Idem. 

20 Walt, de Lovene. 

21 Idem. 

22 Walt, de Glouc. for five 

years. 

27 Nich. de Chednoy. 

28 Joh. Gerbert. 

29 Idem. 

30 Joh. de la Lee. 

31 Joh, Gerberte. 

32 Idem. 

33 Math. Fornius. 
Johan. de Monte Acuto. 

34 Idem. 

35 Nich. de Langland. 

EDWARD II. 

1 Nich. de Cheney. 
Walt, de Easthidmore. 

2 Rich, de Chiseldon. 

3 Idem. 

4 Idem. 

5 Walt. Esquidemor. 
Tho. de Marleberge. 

6 Walt, de Esquidemore. 

7 Joh. de Chidiokes. 

8 Joh. de Earle. 

9 Math, de Furneaux. 

10 Joh. de Kingston. 

11 Idem. 

12 Tho. de Marleberge. 
Nich. de Cheigney. 



SHERIFFS. 



465 



Anno 

13 Tho. de Marleberge. 
Nich. de Cheigney. 

14 Joh. Tichburne. 

15 Tho. de Marleberg-e. 
16 

17 Idem. 

18 Idem. 

19 Idem. 

EDWARD III. 

1 Will, de Whitfeld, for four 

years. 

2 Will, de Whitfeld. 
Hugo de Langland. 

6 Joh. de Wraxhale. 

7 Idem. 

8 Hildebrand. de London. 
Joh. de Wroxhall. 

9 Hildebrand. de London. 
Joh. de London. 

10 Walt, de Rodney. 

Hildebrand. de London. 



eight 



12 



13 



14 



Walt, de Rodney. 

A^7"r,l4-,x,, _i. TT 



Walter, et 
Walterus. 

Walter, et 
Walterus. 

Walter, et 
Walterus. 



Hildebrand. 
Hildebrand. 
Hildebrand. 



15 Joh. de Durburgh. 



Anno 

16 Hugo Tirell. 

17 Edw. de Stradlinger 

18 Tho. de Gary, for 

years. 

26 Johan. de Palton. 

27 Idem. 

28 Idem. 

29 Joh. de Sancto Laudo. 
Joh. de Palton. 

30 Joh. de Sancto Laudo. 

31 Rich, de Turbuil. 

32 Idem. 

33 Joh. de Raleigh. 

34 Idem. 

35 Theobald, de Gorges. 
Edrius de Chivedon. 

36 Tho. de Bridport. 

37 Joh. Atte Hall. 

38 Idem. 

39 Joh. Langland, for four 

years. 

43 Edw. Cheyne. 

44 Idem. 

45 Will, de Winterborne. 

46 Roger. Mamugford. 

47 Joh. Hameley. 

48 Hugo de Durburgh. 

49 Will. Latymer. 

50 Edw. Fitz-Herbert. 

51 Hugo Burburgh. 



SHERIFFS OF DORSET AND SOMERSET-SHIRES. 
RICHARD II. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

1 Joh. de la Mare . . . Nunny, C. 

Arms : G. two lions passant srardant Aro-. 

2 Will. Cogan. 

G. three oak leaves Arg. 

3 Joh. Burgherst. 

G. a lion rampant with two tails O. 

4 Will. Latymer. 

G. a cross potence O. 

5 Will. Bonevile . . . Chuton. 

S. six mullets Arg. pierced G. 

6 Edw. Fitz-Herbert. 

Per pale Az. and G. three lions rampant Are;. 

7 Joh. Streche. 

8 Joh. Burgherst , . . ut prius. 

2 H 2 



466 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

9 Job. Copleston . . . Devon. 

Arg. a chevron engrailed G. betwixt tbree leopards 
heads Az. 

10 Humf. de Stafford . . Hoke, D. 

O. a chevron G. on a cant. Erm. 

11 Job. Rodney .... Rodney. 

O. three eaglets displayed Purp. 

12 Job. Moygne. 

Arg. two bars and three mullets in chief S. 

13 Tho. Brooke. 

G. on a chevron Arg. a lion ramp. S. crowned O. 

14 Job. Berkeley. 

G. a chevron betwixt ten crosses formee Arg. 

15 Humf. de Stafford . . ut prim. 

16 Job. Beach. 

17 Theob. Wiekham. 

18 Tho. Berkeley. . . . ut prius. 

19 Job. Moygne .... ut prius. 

20 Job. Rodney .... ut prius. 

21 The*. Dacombe . . . Steepleton. 

V. a griffin surgeant Arg. 
22 

HENRY IV. 

1 Tho. Arthur, mil. 

2 Rich. Boyton, et 

Job. Lutterel, mil. . . Dunster, C, 
O. a bend between six martlets S. 

3 Job. Frome. 

4 Will. Worth. 

5 Idem ut prius. 

6 Rich. Boyton. 

7 Walt. Rodney . . . ut prius. 

8 Job. Horsey .... Clifton, D. 

Az, three horses heads couped O. bridled Arg. 

9 Math. Coker .... Coker. 

Arg. on a bend G. three leopards heads O. 

10 Rich. Boyton. 

11 Humf. Stafford, mil. . ut prius. 

12 Job. Horsey .... ut prius. 

HENRY v. 

1 Walt. Hungerford. 

S. two bars and three plates Arg. 

2 Job. Warre. 

3 Humf. Stafford, mil. . ut prius. 

4 Rich. Boyton. 

5 Math. Coker .... ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 46/ 

Anno Name. Place. 

6 Joh. Flory Comb Flory. 

7 Rob. Hill. 

G. a chevron engrailed E. betwixt three garbs O. 

8 Joh. Neuburgh. 

9 Rob. Hill . . . . . ut prius. 

HENRY VI. 

1 Rob. Hill, et . . . . ut prius. 
Rob. Coker .... ut prlus. 

2 Humf. Stafford . . . ut prius. 

3 Edw. Stradling. 

Paleways of six Arg. and Az. ; on a bend G. three 
cinquefoils O. 

4 Egid. Daubeny . . . S. Pederton. 

G. four lozenges in fess Arg. 

5 Will. Fynderne. 

Arg. chevron betwixt three crosses patee fitchee S. 

6 Will. Carrant. 

Arg. three round chevrony of six G. and Az. 

7 Joh. Stourton, mil. . . Candel. 

S. a bend O. betwixt three fountains proper. 

8 Joh. Warre. 

9 Joh. Pawlet .... Nonny, C. 

S. three swords in pile Arg. hilts and pomels O. 

10 Joh. Stourton . . . ut prius. 

11 Joh. Seyndowe. 

12 Joh. Seymor .... Haahbech. 

G. two angels wings paleways inverted O. 

13 Will. Carrant .... ut prius. 

14 Tho. Thame. 

15 Joh. Sentelo. 

16 Will. Stafford . . . ut prius. 

17 Edw. Hall, or Hull. 

Arg. a chevron engrailed between three talbots heads 
erased S. 

18 Walt. Rodney . , . ut prius. 

19 Will. Carrant .... ut prius. 

20 Will. Stafford . . . ut prius. 

21 Joh. Saint Lowe. 

22 Edw. Hall, mil. . . , ut prius. 

23 Rob. Capps. 

24 Joh. Norys. 

Quarterly, Arg. and G. a fret O. with a fess Az. 

25 Will. Carrant .... ut prius. 

26 Tho. Chidiokes ... Chidiok, D. 

G. an inescutcheon between an orle of martilets Arg. 



468 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

27 Edw. Hall, mil. . . . id prius. 

28 Job. Austil. 

Arg. a saltire ragule V. 

29 Will. Carrant, arm. . . id prius, 

30 Tho. Tame. 

31 Rich. Warjre. 

32 Nich. Latymer . . . ut prius. 

33 Joh. Cheney, arm. . . Plume. 

Cheeky O. and Az. a fess G. frettee Erin. 

34 Jo. Willoughby, arm. 

S. a cross engrailed O. 

35 Nich. Saint Low, arm. 
36* Rob. Warre, arm. 

37 Joh. Seintbarbe. 

38 Joh. Carrant, jun. arm. ut prius. 

EDW. IV. 

1 Humf. Stafford . . . ut prius. 

2 Tho. Herbert, arm. . . ut prius. 

3 Idem .... . ut prius. 

4 Will. Browinge, arm. 

5 Christoph. Worsley. 

Arg. a chevron S. between three Cornish choughs proper. 

6 Jo. Sydenham, sen. . . Brimpton. 

S. three ravens Arg. 

7 Geo. Barrel, mil. 

Az. a lion rampant O. crowned Arg. 

8 Rob. Stowel, arm. . . Stowel. 

G. a cross lozenge Arg. 

9 Rog. Stourton, mil. . . ut prius, 

10 Christ. Worsly, mil. . ut prius. 

11 Nich. Latimer, mil. . . ut prius. 

12 Joh. Cheverel, arm. 

Arg. on a saltire Az. five water-bougets O. a chief G. 

13 Joh. Baconell. 

14 Rob. Palmer, arm. 

15 Egid. Daubeney . . . ut prius. 

16 Will. Colingborne. 

17 Tho. Norton, arm. 

V. a lion rampant O. ; alibi Arg. 

18 Will. Beckley. 

19 Will. Say, arm. 

20 Edw. Hardgile. 

21 Egid. Daubney, arm. . ut prius. 

22 Rich. Moreton . . . S. Andr. Milbornc. 

Quarterly, G. and Erm. a goat s head erased Arg. on the 
first and last quarter. 



SHERIFFS. 469 

RICHARD III. 

Anno Name. Place. 

1 Nich. Crowmer. 

2 Edw. Redwaine. 

G. three cushions Erm. buttoned and tasselled O. 

3 Tho. Fulford. 

G. a chevron Arg. 

HENRY VII. 

1 Amic. Paulet ut prius. 

2 Edw. Turbervile . . . Bere, Dorset. 

Erm. a lion rampant G. crowned O. 

3 Jam. Daubney . . . ut prius. 
4 

5 Will. Maruen .... Pertword. 

6 Amic. Paulet, mil. . . ut prius. 

Arg. a demi-lion rampant couped S. charged on the 
shoulder with a flower-de-luce O. 

7 Will. Knole, arm. 

8 Walt, Enderby. 

9 Edw. Carew .... Devonshire. 

O. three lions passant gardant S. armed and langued G. 

10 Samp. Norton, arm. . ut prius. 

11 Edw. Gorges, mil. 

Masculy O. and Az. 

12 Rog. Newbourgh . . . ut prius. 

13 Ric. Pudsey, mil. 

14 Nich. Wadham, arm. . Merifeld. 

G. a chevron betwixt three roses Arg. 

15 Amic. Paulet, mil. . . ut prius. 

16 Will. Marrin, arm. . . ut prius. 
Will. Carew, mil. . . ut prius. 

17 Joh. Trevilion, mil. . . Nettle, C. 

G. a demi-horse Arg. issuing out of the waves of the sea. 

18 Edw. W r adham, arm. . ut prius. 

19 Hen. Uvedale, arm. 

Arg. a cross moline G. 

20 Joh. Horsey, arm. . . ut prius. 

21 Joh. Sidenham, arm. . ut prius. 

22 Joh. Carew, mil. . . . ut prius. 

23 Joh. Williams, mil. . . Oxfordshire. 

Az. an organ-pipe in bend sinister saltire-wise, surmounted 
of another dexter, between four crosses patee Arg. 

24 Rich. Weston, arm. 

HEN. VIII. 

1 Tho. Trenchard, mil. . Wotton, Dors. 
Per pale Arg. and Az. three palets S. 



470 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

2 Job. Speake, mil. . . Whitlack. 

Arg. two bars Az. ; over all an eagle displayed G. 

3 Walt. Rodney . . . . ut prius. 

4 Egid. Strangways . . Melbury. 

S. two lions passant Arg, 

5 Will. Compton, mil. 

S.. a lion passant O. inter three helmets Arg. 

6 Edw. Gorges, mil. . . ut prius. 

7 Job. Seymor, mil. . . ut prius. 

8 Tho. de la Lynd, mil. 

G. three bucks heads couped Arg. 

9 Egid. Stangways . . . ut prius. 

10 Edw. Hungerford . . ut prius. 

1 1 Job. Bourchier, arm. 

Arg. a cross engrailed G. between four water-bougets S. 

12 Will. Wadham, arm. . ut prius. 

13 Job. Rogers, mil. 

14 Will. Carrant, arm. . . ut prius. 

15 Tho. Trenchard, mil. . ut prius. 

16 Egid. Strangways . . ut prius. 

17 Geo. Speke, arm. . . ut prius. 

18 Job. Seymor, mil. . . ut prius. 

19 Job, Russel, mil. . . Kingston. 

Arg. a lion rampant G. ; on a chief S. three escalops of the 
first. 

20 Andr. Lutterel, mil. 

Arg. a fess between three otters S. 

21 Edw. Gorges, mil. . . ut prius. 

22 Tho. Arundel, arm. . . Wiltshire. 

S. six swallows, three, two, and one, Arg. 

23 Edw. Seymor, mil. . . ut prius. 

24 Tho. More, mil. . . . Melplash. 

Erm. on a chevron betwixt three Moors heads proper, 
two swords Arg. 

25 Egid. Strangways, mil. . ut prim. 

26 Nich. Wadham, mil. . ut prius. 

27 Fran. Dawrel, arm. . . ut prius. 

28 Hugo Pawlet, mil. . . ut prius. 

29 Tho. Horsey, mil. . . ut prius. 

30 Hen, Long, mil. . . . Wiltshire. 

S. a lion rampant betwixt eight crosses crossed Arg, 

31 Tho. Speke, mil. . . . ut prius. 

32 Tho. Arundel, mil. . , ut prius. . 

33 Egid. Strangways, mil. . ut prius f 

34 Hugo Pawlet, mil. . . ut prius. 

35 Job. Pawlet, mil. . , . ut prius. 

36 Job. Horsey, mil. . . ut prius. 

37 Nic. Fitz- James, arm, . Redlinch. 

Az. a dolphin naiant embowed Arg. 



SHERIFFS. 



471 



Anno Name. Place. 

38 Joh. Sidenham, arm. . utprius. 

EDW. VI. 

1 Hugo Pawlet, mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Thinn, mil. . . . Wiltshire. 

Barry of ten O. and S. 

3 Tho. Speke, mil. . . . ut prius. 

4 Gor. de la Lynd, arm. . ut prius. 
5 

6 Joh. Rogers, mil. . . . utprius. 

PHIL, et MAR. 

1 Joh. Tregonwel, mil. . Middleton. 

Arg. three ogresses between two cotises in fess S. as 
many Cornish choughs proper. 

2 Joh. Sidenham, mil. . ut prius. 

3 Hen. Ashley, mil. . . S. G. Win. 

Az. a cinquefoil Erm. a border engrailed O. 

4 Joh. Wadham, arm. . ut prius. 

5 Humf. Colles, arm. 

6 Joh. Horssey, mil. . . ut prius. 

ELIZ. REG. 

1 Tho. Dyer, mil. C 

O. a chief indented G. 

2 Ja. Fitz- James, mil. . ut prius. 

3 Joh. Wadham, mil. . ut prius. 

4 Geo. Speke, mil. . . . ut prius. 

5 Joh. Horner, arm. . . Melles. 

S. three talbots passant Arg. 

6 Hen. Ashlej^, mil. . . ut prius. 

7 Hen. Uvedall, arm. . . ut prius. 

8 Tho. Morton, arm. . . utprius. 

SHERIFFS OF DORSETSHIRE ALONE. 
ELIZ. REG. 

9 Rob. Coker, arm. . . Maypouder. 

Arg. on a bend G. three leopards heads O. 

10 Rob. Williams, arm. . Herringston. 

Arg. a grey-hound currant between three birds within a 
border engrailed S. 

11 Joh. Young, arm. 

12 Will. Hadeley, arm. 

Arg. a cross moline G. 

13 Hen. Uvdall, arm. 

14 Joh. Strode, arm. . . Parnham. 

Erm. on a canton S. a crescent Arg. 



472 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

15 Rich. Rogers,, arm. . . Brianstone. 

Arg. a mullet S. on a chief G. a flower-de-luce O. 

16 Joh. Horsey, mil. . . Clifton. 

Az. three horses heads couped O. bridled Arg. 

17 Math. Arundel, mil. . Wiltshire. 

S. six swallows, three, two, and one, Arg. 

18 Will. Web, arm. . . Motcomb. 

G. a cross between four eaglets close O. 

19 Nich. Turbervil, arm. . Bere. 

Erin, a lion rampant G. crowned O. 

20 Tho. Mulliiis, arm. 

21 Tho. Chafin, arm. . . Chettle. 

Per pale Arg. and Az. in the first three palets S. 

22 Geo. Trenchard, arm. . Woolton. 

23 Nich. Martin, arm. 

Az. three bendlets Arg. a chief Erm. 

24 Joh. Williams, arm. . ut prius. 

25 Tho. Strangways, arm. . ut prius. 

26 Hen. Coker, arm. . . ut prius. 

27 Joh. Horsey, arm. . . ut prius. 

28 Christ. Percy, arm. 

O. a lion rampant Az. quartered with G. 
hauriant Arg. 

29 Rich. Rogers, arm. . . ut prius. 

30 Rob. Frampton, arm. 

S. two lions paws issuing out of the dexter and sinister 
base points erected in form of a chevron Arg. armed Lr. 

31 Joh. Brown, arm. . . Frampton. 

32 Tho. Chaffin, arm. 

33 Rad us Horsey, arm. . ut prius. 

34 Joh. Williams, arm. . ut prius. 

35 Geo. Morton. . . . ut infra. 

36 Rob. Strod, arm. . .. ut prius. 

37 Tho. Hussy, arm. . . Shopwick. 

Barry of six, Erm. and G. 

38 Geo. Trenchard, mil. . ut prius &lt; 

39 Tho. Freke, arm. . . Shrowton. 

40 Gor. Morton, arm. . Clenston. 

Quarterly, G. and Erm. a goat s head erased Arg. m 1 
first and last quarter. 

41 Rob. Miller, arm. . . Briddie. 

Az. four mascles O. 

42 Tho. Uvdall, arm. . . ut prius. 

43 Joh. Stoker, arm. 

44 Joh. Rogers, arm. . . ut prius. 

JACOB. 

1 Joh. Fitz- James, arm. . Lewston. 
Az. a dolphin naiant embowed Arg. 



SHERIFFS. 



Anno Name. Place 

2 Joh. Tregonwel, arm. . Milton. 

3 Joh. Ryves, arm. . . . Blanford. 

4 Rob. Napper, mil. . . Middle-M. 

Arg. a saltire S. between four roses G. 

5 Will. Web, mil. . . . ut prim. 

6 Christ. Auketil, arm. 

Arg. a saltire ragule V. 

7 Edr. Uvedall, mil. . . ut prius. 

8 Joh. Hening, arm. . . Pokeswell. 

Barry wavy of six pieces ; on chief G. three plates. 

9 Tho. Freke, mil. 

10 Joh. Strangways, mil. . ut prius. 

11 Rob. Coker, arm. , . . ut prius. 

12 Joh. Hanham, mil. . . Wimborn. 

13 Joh. Brewyne, arm. . Addle-M. 

Az. a cross moline O. 

14 Joh. Tregonwel, arm. . ut prius. 

15 Joh. Browne, mil. 

16 Walt. Earl, mil. . . . Charborough. 

G. three escalops and a border engrailed Arg 

17 Anth. Ashly, mil. . . St. Giles Wim. 

Az. a cinquefoil Erm. a border engrailed O. 

18 Nath. Napper, mil, . . ut prius. 

19 Edw. Lawrence, mil. 

Erm. a cross ragulee G. a canton Erminois. 

20 Joh. Harbyn, arm. 

21 W T il. Francis, arm. . . Comb Flory. 

Arg. a chevron between three mullets G. pierced. 

22 Bam. Chafin, arm. 

CAR. I. 

1 Fran. Chaldecot, arm. 

2 Will. Uvedell, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 ... Fitz-James, arm. . ut prius. 

4 Tho. Still, arm. . . . Redlinch. 

Az. a dolphin naiant embowed Arg. 

5 Angel. Grey, arm. . . Stinsford. 

6 Joh. Mellet, mil. . . ut prius. 

7 Bria. Williams, mil. . ut prius. 

8 Joh. Brown, arm. 

9 Will. Colyer, arm. . . Pidle. 
10 Tho. Trenchard. 

Per pale Arg. and Az. three palets S. 
Joh. Feele, arm. 

12 Rich. Rogers, arm. . . ut prius. 
13 

14 Rich. Bingham, arm. . Melcombe. 

Az. a bend cotised between six crosses patee O. 



474 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

15 Will. Churchil, arm. 

S. a lion rampant Arg. debruised with a bend G. 
16 
17 Ed. Lawrence, mil. . ut prius. 

18 ) 
19f 

20 rJoettum nobis fuse otia fecit, 

VI J 

21 V 

22 

HENRY V. 

8. JOHN NEWBURGH. This family of the Newburghs, or 
De Novo Burgo, is right ancient, as which derive their pedigree 
from a younger son of Henry the First, earl of Warwick, of the 
Norman line. Yea, Master Camden saith, that they held 
Winfrot, with the whole hundred, by the gift of king Henry the 
First, " per servitium Camerarii in capite de Domino Rege " 
that is, in service of chamberlain in chief from the king ; 
though afterwards, under the reign of king Edward the First it 
was held by sergeanty, namely, by holding the laver or ewer for 
the king to wash in, upon his coronation-day. 

HENRY VIII. 

4. EGIDIUS STRANGWAYS. Thomas Strangways was the 
first advancer of this family in this county, who, though born in 
Lancashire, was brought into these parts by the first marquis of 
Dorset, and here raised a very great inheritance. Nor was it a 
little augmented through his marriage with one of the daughters 
and inheritances of Hugh Stafford, of Suthwich, by whom there 
accrued unto him Woodford, where Guy Brent, a baron and 
renowned warrior, once had a castle. The heirs of this Thomas 
built a fair seat at Milbery. 

24. THOMAS MORE, Mil. He dwelt at Melplash, in the 
parish of Netherbury, and by tradition is represented a very 
humorous person. Aged folks have informed me (whilst I 
lived in those parts) by report from their fathers, that this Sir 
Thomas, whilst sheriff, did, in a wild frolic, set open the prison, 
and let loose many malefactors. Afterwards, considering his 
own obnoxiousness for so rash an act, he seasonably procured 
his pardon at court, by the mediation of William Pawlet, lord 
treasurer (and afterwards marquis of Winchester) ; and a match 
was made up betwixt Mary, this sheriff s daughter and co-heir, 
and Sir Thomas Pawlet, second son to the said lord, by whom 
he had a numerous issue. 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 475 



THE FAREWELL. 

And now being to take our leave of this county, I should, 
according to our usual manner, wish it somewhat for the com 
pleting of its happiness. But it affording in itself all neces 
saries for man s subsistence; and being, through the conve- 
niency of the sea, supplied with foreign commodities ; I am at 
a loss what to beg any way additional thereunto. Yet, seeing 
great possessions may be diminished by robbery, may the hemp 
(the instrument of common execution) growing herein be a 
constant monitor unto such who are thievishly given, whither 
their destructive ways tend ; and mind them of that end which 
is due unto them, that they, leaving so bad, may embrace a 
better (some industrious) course of living ! 



WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE 

THE TIME OF FULLER. 

George BINGHAM, divine, and answerer of Lindsay ; born at 

Melcomb Bingham 1715. 
William CHAFIN, divine, anecdotist of Cranbourn Chase ; born 

at Chettle 17-33 ; died 1818. 
John CHAPMAN, divine and critic-; born at Wareham 1704; 

died 1784. 
Sir Winston CHURCHILL, loyalist, author of "Divi Britannici," 

and father of the great duke of Marlborough, and of Arabella, 

mistress of James II.; born at Wootton Glanville 1620; 

died 1688. 
Anthony Ashley COOPER, first earl of Shaftesbury, statesman ; 

born at Wimborne St. Giles 1621 ; died 1683. 
Thomas CREECH, translator of " Lucretius," &c. ; born at 

Blandford 1659; destroyed himself in 1700. 
George Bubb DODDINGTON, Lord Melcombe, a poet, patron 

of learned men, and author of the celebrated " Diary/ 1691 ; 

died 1762. 
John HUTCHIXS, divine, and historian of the county; born at 

Bradford Peverel 1698 ; died 1773. 
James MILLER, divine, dramatic poet, and political writer; 

born 1703; died 1744. 
Christopher PITT, poet, translator of Virgil s ^Eneid, and the 

friend of the poet Young ; born at Blandford 1699 ; died 1748. 
Thomas PITT, governor of Madras, possessor of the Pitt Dia 
mond, and grandfather of the great earl of Chatham ; born at 

Blandford St. Mary 1653 ; died 1726. 

Matthew PRIOR, statesman and poet; born at Wimborne Min 
ster 1664; died 1721. 
Thomas RUSSEL, poet and divine; born at Beminster 1762. 



476 WORTHIES OF DORSETSHIRE. 

Bruno RYVES, dean of Windsor, author of the " Mercurius 

Rusticus," a periodical against the Parliament; born at 

Blandford 1596; died 1677. 
Edward STILLINGFLEET, bishop of Worcester, author of " Ori- 

gines Sacrse ;" bom at Cranbourn 1635 ; died 1699. 
Thomas SYDENHAM, physician, and medical writer; born at 

Winford Eagle 1624 ; died 1689. 
Peter TEMPLEMAN, pupil of Boerhaave, physician and author; 

born at Dorchester 1711 ; died 1769. 
Sir Peter THOMPSON, antiquary and collector; born at Poole 

1698. 
Sir James THORNHILL, painter, Hogarth s father-in-law ; born 

at Weymouth or Melcombe Regis 16/5 or 76; died 1734. 
William WAKE, archbishop of Canterbury, a learned polemical 

writer; born at Blandford 1657; died 1737- 
Horace WALPOLE, earl of Orforcl, miscellaneous and polite 

writer; born at W r areham I7l7orl8; died 1797- 
Samuel WESLEY, divine and poet, father of the founder of the 

sect of W r esleyans; born at W T interborn Whitchurch 1666; 

died 1735. 
Maurice WHELER, divine, and first publisher of the Oxford 

Almanac in 1673 ; born at Wimborne St. Giles. 
Browne W r ILL is, M.P., voluminous antiquarian author; born 

at Blandford St. Mary, 1682 ; died 1760. 



** The Rev. J. Hutchins s History of Dorsetshire, as re-edited by Mr. Gough 
in 1796, is the only standard edition of the county ; and is held in high esteem by 
topographers. The Rev. Mr. Coker, in 1732, also published a Survey of the 
County; and .in the Beauties of England and Wales will be found some general 
notices. ED. 



DURHAM. 



THIS bishopric hath Northumberland on the north (divided 
by the rivers Derwent and Tyne), Yorkshire on the south, the 
German sea on the east ; and on the west (saith Mr. Speed) it 
is touched by Cumberland (touched he may well say, for it is 
but one mile) and Westmoreland. The form thereof is trian 
gular, the sides not much differing, though that along the sea 
coasts is the shortest, as not exceeding twenty-three miles. 
However, this may be ranked amongst the middling shires of 
England. And yet I can remember the time when the people 
therein were for some years altogether unrepresented in the 
parliament ; namely, in the interval after their bishop was de 
prived of his vote in the House of Lords, and before any in the 
House of Commons were appointed to appear for them. 

PRINCES. 

CICELY NEVIL. Though her nativity cannot be fixed with 
any assurance (whose father s vast estate afforded him a man 
sion-house for every week in the year) ; yet is she here placed 
with most probability, Raby being the prime place of the Nevil s 
residence. She may pass for the clearest instance of human 
frail felicity. 

Her happiness. She was youngest daughter and child to Ralph 
earl of Westmorland (who had one and twenty) ; and exceed 
ed her sisters in honour, being married to Richard duke of York. 

She was blessed with three sons (who lived to have issue), 
each born in a several kingdom ; Edward, at Bordeaux, in 
France ; George, at Dublin in Ireland ; Richard, at Fothering- 
hay in England. 

She beheld her eldest son Edward king of England, and 
enriched with a numerous posterity. 

Her miseries. She saw her husband killed in battle ; George 
duke of Clarence, her second son, cruelly murdered ; Edward, 
her eldest son, cut off by his own intemperance, in the prime 
of his years ; his two sons butchered by their uncle Richard, 
who himself, not long after, was slain at the battle of Boswortii. 

She saw her own reputation murdered publicly at Paul s- 
Cross, by the procurement of her youngest son Richard taxing 
his eldest brother for illegitimate. 



478 WORTHIES OF DURHAM. 

Yet our chronicles do not charge her with elation in her good, 
or dejection in her ill success ; an argument of an even and 
steady soul in all alterations. Indeed she survived to see Eliza 
beth her grand-child married to king Henry the Seventh ; but 
little comfort accrued to her by that conjunction, the party of 
Yorkists were so depressed by him. 

She lived five and thirty years a widow; and died, in the 
tenth year of king Henry the Seventh, 1495 ; and was buried 
by her husband in the choir of the collegiate church of Fo- 
theringhay, in Northamptonshire ; which choir being demolished 
in days of king Henry the Eighth, their bodies lay in the 
church-yard without any monument, until ,queen Elizabeth, 
coming thither in progress, gave order that they should be inter 
red in the church, and two tombs to be erected over them.* 
Hereupon, their bodies, lapped in lead, were removed from 
their plain graves, and their coffins opened. The duchess 
Cicely had about her neck, hanging in a silver ribband, a par 
don from Rome, which, penned in a very fine Roman hand, was 
as fair and fresh to be read as if it had been written but yester 
day ,f But, alas ! most mean are their monuments, made of 
plaister, wrought with a trowel ; and no doubt there was much 
daubing therein, the queen paying for a tomb proportionable to 
their personages. The best is, the memory of this Cicely hath 
a better and more lasting monument, who was a bountiful 
benefactress to Queen s College in Cambridge. 

SAINTS. 

BEDE. and (because some nations measure the worth of the 
person by the length of the name) take his addition, Venerable. 
He was born at Girwy, now called Yarrow) in this bishopric ; 
bred under Saint John of Beverley, and afterwards a monk in 
the town of his nativity. He was the most general scholar of 
that age. Let a sophister begin with his axioms, a bachelor of 
art proceed to his metaphysics, a master to his mathematics, 
and a divine conclude with his controversies and comments on 
Scripture ; and they shall find him better in all, than any Chris 
tian writer in that age, in any of those arts and sciences. He 
expounded almost all the Bible ; translated the Psalms and New 
Testament into English ; and lived a comment on those words 
of the apostle, " shining as a light in the world, in the midst of 
a crooked and perverse generation." He was no gadder- 
abroad, credible authors avouching that he never went out of 
his cell; though both Cambridge and Rome pretend to his 
habitation. Yet his corpse, after his death, which happened 
anno 734, took a journey, or rather was removed, to Durham, 
and there enshrined. . 

| * Camden s Britannia, in Northamptonshire. 

Peacham s " Complete Gentleman," p. 169. 
t Camden s Britannia, in this Bishopric. Phil. ii. 15. 



WORTHIFS OF DURHAM, 4/9 



CONFESSORS. 

JOHN WICKLIFFE. It is a great honour to this small 
county, that it produced the last maintainer of religion (before 
the general decay thereof), understand me, learned Bede ; and 
the firm restorer thereof, I mean this Wickliffe, the subject of 
our present discourse. 

True it is, his nativity cannot be demonstrated in this bishop 
ric ; but, if such a scientia media might be allowed to man, 
which is beneath certainty and above conjecture, such should I 
call our persuasion, that Wickliffe was born therein. 

First, all confess him a northern man by extraction. Second 
ly, the antiquary allows an ancient family of the Wickliffes in 
this county, whose heir-general, by her match, brought much 
wealth and honour to the Brakenburies of Celaby.* Thirdly, 
there are at this day in these parts of the name and alliance, 
who continue a just claim of their kindred unto him. 

Now he was bred in Oxford; some say in Baliol; others more 
truly in Merton College ;f and afterwards published opinions 
distasteful to the church of Rome, writing no fewer than two 
hundred volumes (of all which largely in our " Ecclesiastical 
History"),- besides his translating of the whole Bible into 
English. 

He suffered much persecution from the popish clergy. Yet, 
after long exile, he, by the favour of God and good friends, re 
turned in safety, and died in quietness at his living at Lutter- 
worth in Leicestershire, anno 1387, the last of December; 
whose bones were taken up and burnt forty-two years after his 
death. J 

Disdain not, reader, to learn something by my mistake. I 
conceive that Mr. Fox, in his Acts and Monuments, had enter 
ed ;he names of our English martyrs and confessors, in his Ca 
lendar, on that very day whereon they died. Since, I observe, 
he observeth a method of his own fancy, concealing the reasons 
thereof to himself ; as on the perusing of his catalogue will 
appear. Thus Wickliffe, dying December the last, is by him 
placed January the second, probably out of a design to grace 
the new year with a good beginning ; though it had been more 
true, and (in my weak judgment) as honourable, for Wickliffe to 
have brought up the rear of the old as to lead the front of the 
new year to his Calendar. 



* Camden s Britannia, in this Bishopric. 

t Wickliffe was first of Queen s College ; afterwards scholar of Merton ; but 
before he was admitted fellow became master of Baliol College. He died, not in 
1387, but in 1384. ED. 

Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. vi. num. l. 

Master Fox would not put out the Feast of the Circumcision. 

VOL. I. 2 I 



480 WORTHIES OF DURHAM, 



PRELATES. 1 
THE NEVILS. 

We will begin with a quaternion of Nevils, presenting them 
in parallels,* and giving them their precedency before other 
prelates (some their seniors in time) because of their honourable 
extraction. All four were born in this bishopric, as I am in 
formed by my worthy friend Mr. Charles Nevil, vice-provost of 
King s in Cambridge, one as knowing in universal heraldry 
as in his own college ; in our English nobility, as in his own 
chamber; in the ancient, fair, and far-branched family of the 
Nevils, as in his j&gt;wn study. 

RALPH NEVIL f was born at Raby in this bishopric ; was 
lord chancellor under king Henry the Third (none discharging 
that office with greater integrity and more general commenda 
tion), and bishop of Chichester 1223. He built a fair house 
from the ground in Chancery Lane, for himself and successors, 
for an inn, where they may repose themselves when their occa 
sions brought them up to London. 

How this house was afterwards aliened, and came into the 
possession of Henry Lacy, earl of Lincoln (from whom it is 
called Lincoln s inn at this day) I know not. Sure I am, that 
Mr. Montague (late bishop of Chichester) intended to lay claim 
thereunto, in right of his see. But alas, he was likely to follow 
a cold scent (after so many years distance) and a colder suit, 
being to encounter a corporation of learned lawyers, so long in 
the peaceable possession thereof. 

Bishop Nevil was afterwards canonically chosen by the monks 
(and confirmed by king Henry the Third) archbishop of Can 
terbury ; being so far from rejoicing thereat, that he never gave 
any EvayyeXtov (or reward for their good news) to the two monks 
which brought him tidings, nor would allow anything toward 
the discharging their costly journey to Rome; foreseeing, per 
chance, that the Pope would stop his consecration. For 
some informed his Holiness, that this Ralph was a prelate 
of high birth, haughty stomach, great courtship, gracious with 
the king, and a person probable to dissuade him from paying 
the pension (promised by his father king John) to the court of 
Rome ; and then no wonder if his consecration was stopped 
thereon. But was it not both an honour and happiness to our 
Nevil thus to be crost with the hands of his Holiness himself? 
Yea, it seems that no crosier (save only that of Chichester) 

* Here printed in paragraphs ; the parallels being thus presented horizontally 
instead of perpendicularly E D . 

f All the remarkable passages of these four lives are taken out of Bishop Godwin, 
in his respective Catalogue of Bishops. F. 



PRELATES. 481 

would fit his hand ; being afterwards elected bishop of Win 
chester, and then obstructed by the king, who formerly so 
highly favoured him. He built a chapel without the East-gate- 
of Chichester, dedicated to St. Michael; and, having merited 
much of his own cathedral, died at London, 1244. 

ALEXANDER NEVIL, third son of Ralph lord Nevil, was 
born at Raby ; became first canon, then archbishop, of York, 
where he beautified and fortified the castle of Cawood with many 
turrets. He was highly in honour with king Richard the 
Second, as much in hatred with the party opposing him. 

These designed to imprison him (putting prelates to death 
not yet in fashion) in the castle of Rochester, had not our 
Alexander prevented them by his flight to Pope Urban to 
Rome, who, partly out of pity (that he might have something 
for his support), and more out of policy (that York might be 
in his own disposal upon the removal of this archbishop) 
translated him to Saint Andrew s in Scotland, and so dismissed 
him with his benediction. 

Wonder not that this Nevil was loath to go out of the Pope s 
blessing into a cold sun, who could not accept this his new 
archbishopric, in point of credit, profit, or safety. 

1. Credit. For this his translation was a post-ferment, seeing 
the archbishopric of Saint Andrew s was subjected in that age 
unto York. 

2. Profit. The revenues being far worse than those of York. 

3. Safety. Scotland then bearing an antipathy to all English 
(and especially to the Nevils, redoubted for their victorious 
valour in those northern parts), and being in open hostility 
against them. 

Indeed half a loaf is better than no bread ; but this his new 
translation was rather a stone than half a loaf, not filling his 
belly, yet breaking his teeth, if feeding thereon. This made 
him prefer the pastoral charge of a parish church in Lovaine 
before his Arch-no-bishopric, where he died in the fifth year of 
his exile, and was buried there in the convent of the Carmelites. 

ROBERT NEVIL, sixth son of Ralph, first earl of Westmor 
land, by Joane his second wife, daughter of John of Gaunt, 
bred in the university of Oxford, and provost of Beverley, was 
preferred bishop of Salisbury in the sixth of king Henry the 
Sixth, 1427. 

During his continuance therein, he was principal founder of a 
convent at Sunning in Berkshire (anciently the bishops see of 
that diocese) valued at the Dissolution (saith bishop Godwin) at 
682. 145. *Jd. ob., which I rather observe, because the estima 
tion thereof is omitted in my (and I suspect all other) Speed s 
Catalogue of Religious Houses. 

From Salisbury he was translated to Durham, where he built 

2 i 2 



482 WORTHIES OF DURHAM. 

a place called the Exchequer, at the Castle-gate, and gave (in 
allusion to his two bishoprics, which he successively enjoyed) 
two annulets innected in his paternal coat. He died anno 
Domini 1457. 

GEORGE NEVIL, fourth son of Richard Nevil earl of Salis 
bury, was born at Middleham in this bishopric ; bred in Baliol 
College in Oxford ; consecrated bishop of Exeter, when he was 
not as yet twenty years of age ; so that in the race, not of age, 
but youth, he clearly beat Thomas Arundel, who at twenty-two 
was made bishop of Ely. Some say this was contrary not only 
to the canon law but canonical scripture ; Saint Paul * forbid- 
ing such a neophyte, or novice, admission into that office ; as if, 
because Richard, the make-king earl of Warwick, was in a man 
ner above law, this his brother also must be above canons. 
His friends do plead that nobility and ability supplied age in 
him ; seeing fire years after, at twenty-five, he was made lord 
chancellor of England, and discharged it to his great commen 
dation. 

He was afterwards made archbishop of York ; famous for the 
prodigious feast at his installing ; wherein, besides flesh, fish, 
and fowl, so many strange dishes of jellies. And yet, amongst 
all this service, I meet not with these two. 

But the inverted proverb found truth in him, " one glutton 
meal makes many hungry ones :" for, some years after, falling 
into the displeasure of king Edward the Fourth, he was slen 
derly dieted, not to say famished, in the castle of Calais ; and, 
being at last restored, by the intercession of his friends, died 
heart-broken at Blyth, and was buried in the cathedral of 
York, 1476. 

Besides these, there was another Nevil (brother to Alexander 
aforesaid), chosen bishop of Ely ; but death, or some other in 
tervening accident, hindered his consecration. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

ROBERT HORN was born in this bishopric,f bred in Saint 
John s College in Cambridge. Going thence, under the reign of 
king Edward the Sixth, he was advanced dean of Durham. In 
the Marian days he fled into Germany ; and fixing at Frankfort, 
became the head of the episcopal party, as in my e( Ecclesiastical 
History " at large doth appear. 

Returning into England, he was made bishop of Winchester, 
Feb. 16, 1560. A worthy man, but constantly ground betwixt two 
opposite parties, papists and sectaries. Both of these, in their 
pamphlets, sported with his name, as hard in nature, and crook 
ed in conditions ; not being pleased to take notice, how horn in 

* 1 Tim, iii. 6. f Bale de Scriptoribus Angliae, Cent. ix. num. 95. 



PRELATES. 483 

Scripture importeth power, preferment, and safety, both twitted 
his person, as dwarfish and deformed ; to which I can say no 
thing (none alive remembering him) save that such taunts, 
though commonly called ad hominem, are indeed ad Deum ; and, 
though shot at man, does glance at " Him who made us, and 
not we ourselves." Besides, it shews their malice runs low for 
might (though high for spite) who carp at the case when jthey 
cannot find fault with the jewel. For my part, I mind not the 
mould wherein, but the metal whereof, he was made, and listen 
to Mr. Camden s character of him,* "Validoet foecundo ingenio," 
(of a sprightful and fruitful wit.) He died in Southwark, June 
1, 1589; and lieth buried in his own cathedral, near to the 
pulpit, f 

And now, reader, I crave leave to present thee with the cha 
racter of one who (I confess) falls not under my pen according 
to the strictness of the rules which we proposed to follow, as 
not being of the number of those bishops who may not unfitly 
be termed (with Noah) righteous in their generations, having 
seen two sets (if I may so speak) of their order, but preferred 
to that dignity since our late happy revolution. He is here 
fixed (though no native of this county) because the fittest place, 
I conceive (it is happy when the antidote meets the poison 
where it was first sucked in) ; seeing formerly, treating (in my 
" Church History ") of this cathedral, I delivered his character 
(to his disadvantage) very defectively. 

JOHN COSEN, D.D. was born in the city of Norwich ; bred 
in Caius College in Cambridge, whereof he was Fellow. Hence 
was he removed to the mastership of Peter House in the same 
university. One whose abilities, quick apprehension, solid 
judgment, variety of reading, &c. are sufficiently made known 
to the world in his learned books, whereby he hath perpetuated 
his name to posterity. 

I must not pass over his constancy in his religion, which 
rendereth him amiable in the eyes not of good men only but of 
that God with whom there is no variableness, nor shadow of 
changing. It must be confessed that a sort of fond people sur 
mised as if he had once been declining to the popish persuasion. 
Thus the dim-sighted complain of the darkness of the room, 
when, alas, the fault is in their own eyes ; and the lame, of the 
unevenness of the floor, when indeed it lieth in their unsound 
legs. Such were the silly folk (their understandings, the eyes 
of their minds, being darkened, and their affections, the feet 
of their soul, made lame by prejudice), who have thus falsely 
conceited of this worthy doctor. 

However, if any thing that I delivered in my " Church His- 

* In his Elizabeth, anno 1559. 

t Bishop Godwin, in the Bishops of Winchester. 



484 WORTHIES OF DURHAM. 

tory " (relating therein a charge drawn up against him for urg 
ing of some ceremonies, without inserting his purgation, which 
he effectually made, clearing himself from the least imputation 
of any fault,) hath any way augmented this opinion, I humbly 
crave pardon of him for the same. 

Sure I am, were his enemies now his judges (had they the 
least spark of ingenuity), they must acquit him, if preceding 
according to the evidence of his writing, living, disputing. Yea, 
whilst he remained in France, he was the Atlas of the Protestant 
religion, supporting the same with his piety and learning, con 
firming the wavering therein, yea, daily adding proselytes (not 
of the meanest rank) thereunto. 

Since the return of our gracious sovereign, and the reviving of 
swooning episcopacy, he was deservedly preferred bishop of 
Durham. And here the reader must pardon me, if willing to make 
known my acquaintance with so eminent a prelate. When one in his 
presence was pleased with some propositions, wherein the Pope 
condescended somewhat to the Protestants, he most discreetly 
returned (in my hearing), " We thank him not at all for that 
which God hath always allowed us in his word ;" adding withal, 
" He would allow it us so long as it stood with his policy, and 
take it away so soon as it stood with his power." And thus we 
take our leave of this worthy prelate, praying for his long life, 
that he may be effectual in advancing the settlement of our yet 
distracted Church. 

CIVILIANS. 

RICHARD COSIN, Doctor of Law, was born at Hartlepool 
(a well known harbour for the safety) : and some observe a Pro 
vidence, that he, who afterwards was to prove the grand cham 
pion of episcopacy, should (amongst all the counties of England) 
be born in this bishopric. His father was a person of quality, 
a captain of a company at Musselburgh field, whence his va 
lour returned with victory and wealth ; when, crossing the river 
Tweed (oh, the uncertainty of all earthly happiness !) he was drown 
ed therein, to the great loss of his son Richard ; and greater, be 
cause he was not sensible thereof, as left an infant in the cradle. 

His mother afterwards married one Mr. Meddow, a Yorkshire 
gentleman, who bred this his son-in-law at a school at Skipton 
in the Craven : wherein such his proficiency, that before he was 
twelve years old (little less than a wonder .to me in that age 
from so far a country) he was admitted in Trinity College in 
Cambridge. Some of his friends in Queen s College in that 
university had a design to fetch him thence, had not Doctor 
Beamont prevented the plot, in making him scholar and fellow 
as soon as by his age, degree, and the statutes, he was capable 
thereof. 

He was a general scholar, geometrician, musician, physician, 
divine, but chiefly civil and canon lawyer. By archbishop 
Whitgift he was preferred to be first chancellor of Worcester 



CIVILIANS WRITERS. 485 

(in that age a place " non tarn gratiosus quam negotiosus"), and 
afterwards dean of the Arches, wherein he carried himself without 
giving (though many took) offence at him. 

Of these one wrote a book against him called, " The Abstract " 
(abstracted, saith my author, from all wit, learning, and charity) ; 
to whom he returned such an answer, in the defence of the high 
commission, and oath ex officio, that he put his adversary to si 
lence. 

Others lay to his charge, that he gave many blank licences, 
the common occasions of unlawful marriages j and the procurer 
herein is as bad as the thief, robbing many a parent of his dear 
child thereby. But always malice looks through a multiply ing- 
glass. Euclio complained, " Intromisisti sexcentos coquos,"* 
(Thou hast let in six hundred cooks), when there were but two 
truly told (Anthrax and Congrio) ; so here was there but one 
M r hich a fugitive servant stole from the Register, to make his 
private profit thereby. 

God, in his sickness, granted him his desire which he made 
in his health, that he might be freed from torture, which his 
corpulency did much suspect, bestowing evOavaffia upon him, 
a sweet and quiet departure. Pious his dying expressions ; " I 
desire to be dissolved, and to be with Christ/ 7 Phil. i. ; "The 
wages of sin is death/ 7 Rom. vi. ; " Come, Lord Jesus, come 
quickly/ Revel, xii. ; and his last words were these, " Farewell, 
my surviving friends ; remember your mortality and eternal life." 

He gave forty pounds to the building of a chamber in Trinity 
College, and fifteen pounds per annum for the maintenance of 
two scholarships therein : a good gift out of his estate, who left 
not above fifty pounds a year clear to his heir ; a great argument 
of his integrity, that he got no more in so gainful a place. Dy 
ing at Doctors Commons, he was buried, by his own appoint 
ment, in Lambeth church ; and Doctor Andrews preached his 
funeral sermon. Amongst the many verses made by the uni 
versity of Cambridge, this (with the allowance of poetical licence) 
came from no bad fancy : 

Magna Deos inter lis est exorta : creatas 

Horum qui lites dirimit, ille deest. 

Cosinum petiere Dii componere tantas 

Lites, quod vero jure peritus erat. 

It must not be forgotten that Dr. Barlow (afterwards bishop 
of Lincoln) was bred by Dr. Cosin at his charge, in his own fa 
mily, who, in expression of his thankfulness, wrote this Dr. Co- 
sin s life, out of which most of our aforesaid character hath been 
excerpted. 

WRITERS. 

WILLIAM SHIRWOOD was born in this bishopric (being 
otherwise called William of Durham) ; bred first in University 

* Plautus, in Aularia. 



486 WORTHIES OF DURHAM. 

College in Oxford, then in Paris, and afterwards was made 
Chancellor of Lincoln.* In his time the university of Oxford 
was interdicted, for some affronts offered to the Pope s legate ; 
and had lain longer under that burden, had not the hands of 
this William helped to remove it, shewing therein no less his 
love to his mother, than his power with the Pope.f 

In that age the English clergy did drive a great trade of pre 
ferment in France (king Henry the Third having large domi 
nions therein) ; and amongst the rest this William was advanced 
archbishop of Rouen, where he died anno Domini 1249. 

JOHN of DARLINGTON was born in this bishopric, at a town 
so called, needing no other indication, than the road passing 
through it into Scotland. He was bred a Dominican, and a 
great clerk. Matthew Paris J giveth him this testimony, that 
he was one, " qui literatura pollebat excellenter et eonsilio." 
King Henry the Third made him his confessor (which argueth 
his piety, that so devout a prince used him in so conscientious 
an office) : and afterwards he became archbishop of Dublin in 
Ireland on this occasion. 

The prior and convent of Trinity church chose William de 
la Corner, the king s chaplain, whilst the dean and chapter of 
Saint Patrick s elected Fromund le Brun, the Pope s chaplain, 
into that see. 

Hence ensued a hot and high contest ; and Pope John XXL 
(unwilling to engage therein) cassated both their elections, and 
pitched on our Darlington as a good expedient. 
. A person in whom king and Pope met in some equal propor 
tion, seeing he was (as we have said) confessor to the one, and 
to the other his collector of Peter-pence (as also to his two suc 
cessors, Nicholas the Third and Martin the Fourth) through all 
Ireland. Many books he wrote to posterity ;|| and, returning 
into England, sickened, died, and was buried in Preaching Fri 
ars in London, 1284. 

WILLIAM SIVEYER was born at Shincliffe in this bishopric, 
where his father was a siveyer or sieve-maker ;^[ and I commend 
his humility in retaining his father s trade for his surname, to 
mind him of his mean extraction. He was bred in Merton Col 
lege, whereof he became warden, and provost of Eton, and af 
terwards bishop of Carlisle, 1496, whence -five years after he 
was translated to Durham. His surname, so contemptible in 
English, sounds imperially, and episcopally when Latinized; in 
which language he is rendered Gulielmus Severus, severity well 

* J. Pits, de Anglias Scriptoribus, in anno 1249. 

f John Rouse of Warwick. J Ad annum 1256. 

Sir James Ware, in his Archbishops of Dublin. 

| Reckoned up by J. Bale and J. Pits. 

Bishop Godwin, in his Catalogue of Bishops. 



WRITERS. 487 

agreeing with the gravity of his function. He died anno Domini 
1505. 

AU I will add is this, that England neither before nor since 
saw two sieve-maker s sons at the same juncture of time advanced 
to so high a dignity ; this William in the Church, Sir Richard 
Empson in the Commonwealth. 



SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

THOMAS JACKSON, born of a good family in this county, was 
designed to be a merchant in Newcastle, till his parents were 
diverted by Ralph Lord Eure, and persuaded to make him a 
scholar. He was admitted first in Queen s College in Oxford, 
and then became candidate of a fellowship in Corpus Christi ; 
knowing of the election but the day before, he answered to ad 
miration, and was chosen by general consent. 

Soon after, in all likelihood, he lost his life, being drowned in 
the river, and taken out rather for desire of decent burial, than 
with hope of any recovery. He was wrapped in the gowns of his 
fellow-students (the best shroud which present love and need 
could provide him) ; and, being brought home to the college, 
was revived, by God s blessing on the care of Doctor Chenil, 
equally to all people s joy and admiration. His gratitude to the 
fishermen, who took him up, extended to a revenue unto them 
during his life. Thus thankful to the instrument, he was more 
to the principal, striving to repay his life to that God who gave 
it him. 

He was afterwards vicar of Newcastle, a factor for heaven in 
the place where he was designed a merchant, a town full of men 
and opinions ; wherein he endeavoured to rectify their errors, 
and unite their affections. At this distance was he chosen pre 
sident of Corpus Christi College, never knowing of the vacancy 
of the place, till by those letters which informed him it was re 
filled with his election. 

Here he lived piously, ruled peaceably, wrote profoundly, 
preached painfully. His charity had no fault ; if not of the 
largest size, oftentimes making the receiver richer than it left 
him that was the donor thereof. Learn the rest of his praise 
from the learned writer of his life, in whom nothing wanting, 
save the exact place of his birth, and date of his death, which 
happened about the year 1640. 

SAMUEL WARD was born at Bishop s Middleham in this 
county, his father being a gentleman of more ancientry than 
estate. He was first scholar of Christ s, then fellow of Ema- 
nuel, and afterwards master of Sidney College in Cambridge, 
and Margaret Professor therein for above twenty years. Now, 
because the pen of a pupil may probably be suspected of par 
tiality, of an historian I will turn a translator, and only endea- 



488 WORTHIES OF DURHAM. 

vour to English that character, which one* who knew him as 
well as most men, and could judge of him as well as any man, 
doth bestow upon him : 

Age, perge Calhedram ornare (quodfacis) sacram 
Subtititate non levi, rapidA, vagA ; 
Sed orthodoxa quam coronat veritas, 
Etjustajirmat soliditas, patiens libra : 
Antiquitatis crypto, tu penetrasfrequens, 
Scholasticorum tu profundos vortices, 
Te nullafaUit, nulla te seium latet 
Distinctionum tela, rationum stropha 
Tarn persjncacem mente,judicio gravem, 
Linguis peritum, tamque nervosum stylo : 
His addo genium temperatum, tlpyvixw, 
Placidum, modestum, lite rixosA procul. 

" Go to, go on, deck (as thou doest) the chair, 
With subtilty not light, slight, vague as air ; 
But such as Truth doth crown, and, standing sure, 
Solidly fix d will weighing well endure. 
Antiquities hid depths thou oft doest sound, 
And school-men s whirl-pools which are so profound. 
Distinction s threads none can so finely weave, 
Or reason wrench, thy knowledge to deceive ; 
None thy quick sight, grave judgment, can beguile, 
So skill d in tongues, so sinewy in style ; 
Add to all these that peaceful soul of thine, 
Meek, modest, which all brawlings doth decline. 

He turned with the times, as a rock riseth with the tide ; and, 
for his uncomplying therewith, was imprisoned in Saint John s 
College in Cambridge. In a word, he was counted a Puritan 
before these times, and popish in these times ; and yet, being 
always the same, was a true Protestant at all times. He died 
anno 1643, and was the first man buried in Sidney College 
chapel. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

ANTHONY Lord GRAY, and eighth earl of Kent of that sir- 
name, son of George Gray, esq. and Margery Salvam his wife, 
son to Anthony Gray, esq. and Bridget Holland his wife, son to 
George Gray second earl of Kent of that family (who died in 
the twentieth year of king Henry the Seventh) was born at 
Brancepeth in this bishopric.t If any ask what occasion drew 
his ancestors into the north, know that his grandfather was in 
vited thither to enjoy the company of his friend and kinsman, 
the earl of Westmorland. 

This gentleman being bred in the university of 

applied himself to the study of divinity, and became rector of 
Burbach in Leicestershire, where he preached constantly, and 
kept an hospitable house for the poor according to his estate. 
It happened that, by the death of Henry Gray his kinsman, and 
the seventh earl of Kent, that earldom descended upon him, 
anno Domini 1639. 

Dr. Thomas Goad, in his licensing his sermon called " Gratia discriminans." 
f Out of his private pedigree, communicated unto me. F. 



MEMORABLE PERSONS SHERIFFS. 489 

We read of Sigismund the emperor, that when he had 
knighted a doctor of the laws, the knight-doctor sequestered 
himself from the company of doctors, and associated wholly 
with knights ; whereat the emperor smiled, and taxed his folly, 
" For I," said he, " can make many knights at my pleasure, 
though indeed I cannot make one doctor." Not so this good 
lord, who, after the accession of his title, did not in the least de 
gree disdain the society of his fellow ministers, to converse with 
the nobility; yea, he abated nothing in the constancy of his 
preaching, so long as he was able to be led up into the pulpit. 
He had read in Scripture this character given to the Bereans, 
"These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that 
they received the word with all readiness,* and counted it most 
noble to labour in God s vineyard, and to deliver his word to 
others. 3 However, a diamond is best when set in gold ; and 
goodness is most illustrious when supported with greatness. 

He was summoned as a peer to parliament, but excused him 
self by reason of indisposition and age. Such his humility, that 
honours did not change manners in him. Thus a mortified 
mind is no more affected with additions of titles, than a corpse 
with a gay coffin. By Magdalene Purefoy his wife, he had 
(besides other children) Henry ninth earl of Kent. He died 
anno Domini 1643. 

SHERIFFS. 

Expect not that, to make this bishopric uniform with other 
counties, I should present a catalogue of the sheriffs thereof: 
for the princely prelate of this bishopric (his seal not oval like 
others, but round, the more princely proportion ; and as I re 
member, gave a crowned mitre for his crest) was himself always 
paramount sheriff, deputing one, often his own servant, under 
him to execute the office. This deputy never accounted at the 
Exchequer ; but made up his audit to the bishop, to whom all 
perquisites and profits of this place did belong. 

Since, after a long discontinuance, this county hath obtained 
its ancient sheriff, the bishop thereof, of whom formerly. 

THE FAREWELL. 

I understand that there is an intention of erecting an univer 
sity in Durham,f and that some hopeful progress is made in 
order thereunto, which I cannot but congratulate ; for I listen 
not to their objection, alleging it monstrous for one face to 
have three eyes [one land three universities] ; seeing I could 
wish that, Argus-like, it had an hundred in it. Would all men 
were Moses-minded, " that all the people of God might pro 
phesy "\ the rather, because I am sure that ignorance is no more 

* Acts xvii. 11. 

f This object has been accomplished within the last few years. ED. 

t Num. xi. 28. 



490 WORTHIES OF DURHAM. 

the mother"of devotion, than the lying harlot, which pleaded 
before Solomon, was mother to the living child.* 

I confess I was always much affected with their fears, who 
suspect that this convenience for the north would be a mischief 
for the south ; and this new one in process of time prove detri 
mental to the old universities. Nor were these jealousies, when 
moved, removed in my serious consideration, not being well 
satisfied of the intentions and design of some prime persons 
undertaking the same. 

But, since this fresh-man college lived not to be matriculated, 
much less (not lasting seven years) graduated, God in his wis 
dom seeing the contrary fitter ; the worst I should have wished 
this new spring (if continuing) was pure water, pious and or 
thodox professors, to have principled and elemented the mem 
bers therein with learning and religion. 



WORTHIES OF DURHAM WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE THE 

TIME OF FULLER. 

Thomas BAKER, antiquary, author of the history of St. John s, 

Cambridge; born at Crook or Lanchester 1656; died 1740. 
James CRAGGS, secretary of state and postmaster-general temp. 

George I. ; born at Holbeck. 
Brass CROSBY, lawyer, patriotic lord mayor of London ; born 

at Stockton-upon-Tees 1725-6; died 1793. 
William EDEN, first Lord Auckland, statesman ; born at Dur 
ham; died 1814. 
George EDWARDS, physician, writer on political economy; 

born at Barnard Castle 1751 ; died 1823. 
William EMERSON, mathematician; born at Hurworth, 170 

died 1782. 
Sir Samuel GARTH, poet and physician; born at Bolam in 

Gainsforth; died 17 18. 
Richard GREY, divine and scholar, author of te Memona Tech- 

nica;" born at Durham 1693; died 1771- 
Sir John HULLOCK, baron of the Exchequer, and author ; born 

at Barnard Castle 1764 ; died 1829. 
Christopher HUNTER, physician and antiquary; born at Me- 

domsley 1675; died 1757- 
William HUTCHINSON, author of the History and Antiquities 

of Durham; born at Barnard Castle 1732 ; died 1814. 
Robert LAMBE, divine, historian of the game of Chess, &c. ; 

born at Durham 1711 ; died 1795. 
Joseph REED, dramatic writer; bom at Stockton-upon-1 ees 

1723; died 1787- 

* 1 Kings iii. 22. 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 491 

Joseph RITSON, lawyer, poetical antiquary, and critic ; born at 

Stockton-upon-Tees 1752 ; died 1803. 
William RoMAiNE,Calvinistic divine and author; born at Har- 

tlepool 1714; died 1795. 
Robert SANDERSON, antiquary; born at Eggleston Hall 1660; 

died 1741. 
Granville SHARP, philanthropist; born at Durham 1735 ; died 

1813. 
William SHIELD, musical composer; born at Swalwell or 

Whickham 1749; died 1829. 
Elizabeth SMITH, linguist, and translator of the book of Job ; 

born at Burnhall 1776; died 1806. 

George SMITH, Saxon scholar, editor of Bede; born at Dur 
ham 1603. 
Lord STOWELL, civil law judge; born at He worth in 1745; 

died 1836. 
Robert SURTEES, antiquary and topographer, author of the 

history of the county; born at Durham 1779 5 died 1834. 



%* The County of Durham has been fortunate in her topographical historians ; 
most of whom have been men of deep research and literary discrimination. In 
1785, a History of the County of Durham was published by Wm. Hutchinson, 
in three vols. quarto; and in 1816, Mr. Robert Surtoes, F.S.A., brought out the 
first volume, in folio, of his County History ; two other volumes appearing succes 
sively in 1816 and 1820 ; but the author s lamented death prevented the completion 
of the concluding volume, which has since, however, been given to the world, it is 
to be feared, in an imperfect state, by Messrs. Nichols the publishers. In 1833, the 
Rev. James Raine published an elaborate Account of Durham Cathedral ; and for the 
last twenty years he has been assiduously engaged in compiling a History of North 
Durham ; of the greatest portion of which the Editor has had the revision, while 
passing through the press, and can vouch for the industry, taste, and judgment of 
its author. Several local histories have also been published, viz. the History of 
Ashton-upon-Tees, by the Rev. John Brewster (1796) ; the History of Hartlepool, 
by Sir C. Sharp (1816); an Historical View of Monkwearmouth, &c., by George 
Garbutt (1819); Local Records, by John Sykes (1833); a Collection of Tracts 
relating to Durham, by George Allan, &c. ED. 



ESSEX. 



ESSEX hath Kent on the south, divided by the river Thames ; 
Suffolk on the north, severed by the river Stour ; Cambridge, 
Hertfordshire, and Middlesex on the west ; the two latter gene 
rally parted by the river Lea ; and the German Ocean on the 
east. 

A fair county, bearing the full proportion of five and thirty 
miles square, plentifully affording all things necessary to man s 
subsistence, save that the eastern part is not very healthful in 
the air thereof. 

Those parts adjoining to the sea are commonly called " The 
hundreds of Essex," and are very fruitful in cattle. However, the 
vulgar wits of this county much astonish strangers with the stock 
of poor people in these parts, five hundred cows, nine hundred 
sheep, which indeed are but five co\vs, and nine sheep, in this 
part of the county called The Hundreds. 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 
SAFFRON. 

Plenty hereof in this county, growing about Walden, a fair 
market town, which saffron may seem to have coloured with the 
name thereof. It is called (as Serapione affirmeth) sahafaran 
by the Arabians, whence certainly our English word is derived. 
In itself, it is a most admirable cordial ; and, under God, I owe 
my life, when sick of the small-pox, to the efficacy thereof. 
Now because our own writers may probably be challenged of 
partiality, hear what foreigners speak in the praise of English 
saffron : 

" Anglia et Hibernia laudatissimum crocum ferunt, quo Bel 
gium, Germania, aliique vicini, cibos condiunt, ac medicamentis 
miscent."* 

t( Propagatur (inter alia loca) etiam in Brittannise insulee me- 
ridionali parte, quam Angliam vocant. Natus ex altera vero et 
septentrionali, quam Picti et Scoti tenent, reprobus est."t 

No precious drug is more adulterated with cartamus, the 
inward pilling of willow, and generally all yellow flowers, when 
it is bought in great parcels, which ought to quicken the care of 

* Johannes Bauhinus, Hist. Plant. Univers. torn. II. lib. xix. cap. 5. 
t Johannes Bodeus, in Theophrastum. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES. 493 

chapmen herein. In a word, the sovereign power of genuine 
saffron is plainly proved by the antipathy of the crocodiles 
thereunto : for the crocodile s tears are never true, save when 
he is forced where saffron groweth (whence he hath his name of 
Xpo/co-c&gt;Ei\oc,or the saffron-fearer), knowing himself to be all poi 
son, and it all antidote. 

OYSTERS. 

The best in England, fat, salt, green-finned, are bred near 
Colchester, where they have an excellent art to feed them in 
pits made for the purpose. King James was wont to say, " he 
was a very valiant man who first adventured on eating of oys 
ters." Most probably mere hunger put men first on that trial. 
Thus necessity hath often been the purveyor to provide diet for 
delicacy itself; famine making men to find out those things 
which afterwards proved not only wholesome, but delicious. 
Oysters are the only meat which men eat alive, and yet account 
it no cruelty. Sometimes pearls, considerable both in bulk 
and brightness, have been found within them. 

HOPS. 

In Latin, lupulus, or the little wolf; which made a merry 
man complain, that this wolf did too often devour the innocent 
malt in beer. Gerard observes, they grow best in those coun 
tries where vines will not grow ; intimating, that Nature point - 
eth at their use therein. 

They are not so bitter in themselves, as others have been 
against them, accusing hops for noxious ; preserving beer, but 
destroying those who drink it. These plead the petition pre 
sented in parliament in the reign of king Henry the Sixth, 
against the wicked weed called hops. Their back-friends also 
affirm, the stone never so epidemical in England, as since the 
general reception and use of hops in the beginning of king 
Henry the Eighth. 

But hops have since out-grown and over-topped all these 
accusations, being adjudged wholesome, if statutable and " un 
mixed with any powder, dust, dross, sand, or other soil what 
soever,"* which made up two parts of three in foreign hops 
formerly imported hither. 

They delight most in moist grounds. No commodity starteth 
so soon and sinketh so suddenly in the price ; whence some will 
have them so named from hopping in a little time betwixt a 
great distance in valuation. In a word, as elephants, if orderly, 
were themselves enough alone to gain, if disorderly, to lose a 
victory ; so great parcels of this commodity, well or ill bought, 
in the crisis of their price, are enough to raise or ruin an estate. 

* See the statute, 1 Jacobi cap. 18. 



494 WORTHIES OP ESSEX. 



PUETS. 

There is an island of some two hundred acres, near Harwich, 
in the parish of Little Oakley, in the manor of Matthew Gilly, 
esquire, called the Puet Island, from puets, in effect the sole 
inhabitants thereof. Some affirm them called in Latin upupa, 
whilst others maintain that the Roman language doth not reach 
the name, nor land afford the bird. On Saint George s day 
precisely they pitch on the island,* seldom laying fewer than 
four, or more than six, eggs. 

Great their love to their young ones : for, though against foul 
weather they make to the main land (a certain prognostic of 
tempests), yet they always weather it out in the island when 
hatching their young ones, seldom sleeping whilst they sit on 
their eggs (afraid, it seems, of spring-tides), which signifieth 
nothing as to securing their eggs from the inundation, but is an 
argument of their great affection. 

Being young, they consist only of bones, feathers, and lean- 
flesh, which hath a raw gust of the sea. But poulterers take 
them then, and feed them with gravel and curds (that is, physic 
and food) ; the one to scour, the other to fat them in a fort 
night ; and their flesh, thus recruited, is most delicious. 

Here I say nothing of eringo roots, growing in this county, 
the candying of them being become a staple commodity at Col 
chester. These are sovereign to strengthen the nerves; and 
pity it is, that any vigour acquired by them should be otherwise 
employed than to the glory of God ! 

MANUFACTURES. 

This county is charactered like the good wife described by 
Bathsheba, " She layeth her hand to the spindle, and her hands 
hold the distarf."t Bays, and says, and serges, and several 
sorts of stuffs, which I neither can nor do desire to name, are 
made in and about Colchester, Coggeshall, Dedham, &c. I say, 
desire not to name, because hoping that new kinds will daily be 
invented (as good reason), and by their inventors intituled. I 
know not whether it be better to wish them good wares to vent, 
or good vent for their wares ; but I am sure that both together 
are the best. It will not be amiss to pray that the plough may 
go along, and wheel around ; that so, being fed by the one and 
clothed by the other, there may be, by God s -blessing, no dan 
ger of starving in our nation. 

GUNPOWDER. 

Why hereof in this, rather than in other counties ? Because 
more made by mills of late erected on the river Lea, betwixt 

So am I informed by Captain Farmer, of Newgate-market, copyholder of the 
island F. f Prov. xxxi. 19. 



MANUFACTURES BUILDINGS. 495 

Waltham and London, than in all England besides. Though 
some suppose it as ancient as Archimedes in Europe (and anci- 
enter in India) ; yet generally men behold the friar of Mentz 
the first founder thereof, some three hundred years since. It 
consisteth of three essential ingredients : 1 . Brimstone, whose 
office is to catch fire and flame of a sudden, and convey it to the 
other two : 2. Charcoal, pulverized, which continueth the fire, 
and quencheth the flame, which otherwise would consume the 
strength thereof : 3 . Saltpetre, which causeth a windy exhala 
tion, and driveth forth the bullet. 

This gunpower is the emblem of politic revenge ; for it biteth 
first, and barketh afterwards, the *bullet being at the mark befoi e 
the report is heard ; so that it maketh a noise, not by way of 
warning, but triumph. As for white powder, which is reported to 
make no report at all, I never could meet with artist who would 
seriously avouch it ; for, though perchance the noise may be less 
and lower, yet no sound at all is inconsistent with the nature of 
saltpetre, and the ventosity thereof, causing the violent explo 
sion of the bullet. It is questionable, whether the making of 
gunpowder be more profitable or more dangerous ; the mills in 
my parish having been five times blown up within seven years, 
but, blessed be God ! without the loss of any one man s life. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

This county hath no cathedral ; and the churches therein 
cannot challenge to themselves any eminent commendation. 
But as for private houses, Essex will own no shire her superior ; 
whereof three most remarkable : 1 . Audley-End ; built by Tho 
mas Howard, earl of Suffolk, and treasurer of England, as with 
out compare the best subject s house in this island. Yet is the 
structure better than the standing thereof; as low on one side, 
so that it may pass for the emblem of modest merit, or con 
cealed worth ; meaner houses boasting more, and making 
greater show afar off in the eyes of passengers. 2. New-Hall ; 
built by the Ratcliffs earls of Sussex, but bought from them by 
George Villiers duke of Buckingham ; surpassing for the plea 
sant shady approach thereunto, and for the appurtenances of 
parks round about it. 3. Copt-Hall (in records Coppice-Hall, 
from the woods thereabouts) ; highly seated on a liill in the 
midst of a park, built by the abbot of Waltham, enlarged by Sir 
Thomas Heneage and others ; and it is much that multiform 
fancies should all meet in so uniform a fabric. Herein a gallery, 
as well furnished as most, more proportionable than any in 
England ; and on this a story doth depend. 

In the year of our Lord 1639, in November, here happened 
an hirecano, or wild-wind, which, entering in at the great east- 
window, blew that down, and carried some part thereof, with 
the picture of lord Coventry (singled from many more which 
hung on both sides untouched), all the length of the gallery 

VOL. I. 2 K 



496 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

(being about fifty-six yards) out of tbe west-window, which it 
threw down to the ground. It seems the wind, finding this 
room in form of a trunk, and coarctated therein, forced the 
stones of the first window, like pellets, clean through it. I 
mention this the rather, because pious Doctor Jackson, head of 
Corpus Christi College, in Oxford, observed the like wind about 
the same time, as ominous, and presaging our civil dissensions. 

THE WONDERS. 

This shire affordeth none properly so called, unless some 
conceive the bones reducible thereunto digged out of this county 
at the Ness, near Harwich,* which with their bigness and length 
amazed the beholders. I cannot see how such can maintain 
them to be the bones of men, who must confess that, according 
to the proportion of the doors and roofs of ancient buildings 
(either as extant or read of), they must ingredi et incedere prom, 
(go in stooping, not to say lie along ;) except the avouchers be as 
incurious of their credit as the traveller was, who, affirming that 
he saw bees as big as dogs, and yet their hives of our ordinary 
size ; and being demanded what shift they made to get in, " Let 
them," said he, " look to that." 

More probable it is that they were bones of elephants, store 
whereof were brought over into England by the emperor Clau 
dius. Indeed, some sciolists will boast to distinguish bones of 
beasts from men by their porosity, which the learned deride as 
an undifferencing difference. Indeed, when a scull may be pro 
duced of such magnitude (which, by its form, is secured from 
mistake, as appropriate to man alone), then the Wonder will 
begin indeed : till which time, I behold these shanks and thigh 
bones, pretended to men, to be of elephants. 

To these Wonders it will not be amiss to add the ensuing 
relation, written by the pen of Master Thomas Smith, of Se- 
wardstone, in the parish of Waltham Abbey, a discreet person, 
not long since deceased : 

" It so fell out that I served Sir Edward Denny (towards the 
latter end of the reign of queen Elizabeth, of blessed memory,) 
who lived in the abbey of Waltham-cross, in the county of 
Essex, which at that time lay in ruinous heaps, and then Sir 
Edward began slowly now and then to make even and re-edify 
some of that chaos : in doing whereof, Tomkins, his gardener, 
came to discover (among other things) a fair marble stone, the 
cover of a tomb hewed out in hard stone ; this cover, with some 
help, he removed from off the tomb, which having done, there 
appeared to the view of the gardener, and Master Baker, mini 
ster of the town (who died long since), and to myself and Mas 
ter Henry Knagg (Sir Edward s bailiff) the anatomy of a man 
lying in the tomb abovesaid, only the bones remaining, bone to 

* Camden s Britannia, in Essex. 



WONDERS PROVERBS. 497 

his bone, not one bone dislocated ; in observation whereof, we 
wondered to see the bones still remaining in such due order, and 
no dust or other filth besides them to be seen in the tomb : we 
could not conceive that it had been an anatomy of bones only 
laid at first into the tomb ; yet, if it had been the whole carcass 
of a man,* what became of his flesh and entrails ? for (as I have 
said above) the tomb was clean from all filth and dust be 
sides the bones. 

" This when we had all well observed, I told them, that if 
they did but touch any part thereof, that all would fall asunder, 
for I had only heard somewhat formerly of the like accident. 
Trial was made, and so it came to pass. For my own part, I 
am persuaded, that as. the flesh of this anatomy to us became 
invisible, so likewise would the bones have been in some longer 
continuance of time. Oh ! what is man then, which vanisheth 
thus away like unto smoke or vapour, and is no more seen ? 
Whosoever thou art that shalt read this" passage, thou mayest 
find cause of humility sufficient. 

PROVERBS. 

" Essex miles."] 

These are cried up for very long, understand it comparatively 
to those in the neighbouring county of Middlesex ; otherwise 
the northern parts will give Essex odds, and measure miles 
therewith. The truth is this : good way and a good horse 
shorten miles, and the want of either (but both especially) pro 
long them, in any country whatsoever. 
" Essex styles."] 

See the PROVERBS in Suffolk. 
" Essex calves."] 

A learned authorf telleth us that Italy was so calleth, quasi 
vitula, because the best calves were bred therein. Sure this 
will be condemned as a far-fetched and forced deduction ; but, 
if true, Essex may better pretend to the name of Italy, pro 
ducing calves of the fattest, fairest, and finest flesh in England 
(and consequently in all Europe) ; and let the butchers in East- 
cheap be appealed unto as the most competent judges therein. 
Sure it is, a Cumberland cow may be bought for the price of an 
Essex calf in the beginning of the year. Let me add, that it 
argueth the goodness of flesh in this county, and that great gain 
was got formerly by the sale thereof, because that so many 
stately monuments were erected anciently therein for butchers 
(inscribed carntftces in their epitaphs) in Coggeshall, Chelms- 
ford church, and elsewhere, made of marble, inlaid with brass 
(befitting, saith my author,! a more eminent man), whereby it 

" It is generally conceived the body of king Harold F. 
f Festus, lib. ix. See Mercator s Atlas, p. 298. 
j AVeever s Funeral Monuments, p. 641. 

2 K 2 



498 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

appears that these of that trade have in this county been richer 
or at least prouder) than in other places. 

" The weavers beef of Colchester."] 

These are sprats, caught hereabouts, and brought hither in 
incredible abundance, whereon the poor weavers (numerous in 
this city) make much of their repast, cutting rands, rumps, sir 
loins, chines, and all joints of beef out of them, as lasting in 
season well nigh a quarter of a year. They are the minims of 
the sea ; and their cheapness is the worst thing (well considered 
the best) which can be said of them. Were they as dear, they 
would be as toothsome (being altogether as wholesome) as an 
chovies ; for then their price would give a high gust unto them 
in the judgment of palate-men. True it is, that, within these 
last sixteen years, better men than weavers have been glad of 
worse meat than sprats (and thankful to God if they could get 
it), in the city of Colchester. 

" Jeering Coxhall." *] 

How much truth herein, I am as unable to tell, as loth to be 
lieve. Sure I am, that no town in England, of its bigness, 
afforded more martyrs in the reign of queen Mary, who did not 
jeer or jest with the fire, but seriously suffered themselves to be 
sacrificed for the testimony of a good conscience. If since they 
have acquired a jeering quality, it is time to leave it, seeing it is 
better to stand in pain till our legs be weary, than sit with ease 
in the chair of the scorners. 

" He may fetch a flitch of bacon from Dunmow."] 

This proverb dependeth on a custom practised in the priory 
of Dunmow, which was founded, saith Speed,f by Juga, a noble 
lady, anno 1111, for Black Nuns. But, it seems, afterwards the 
property thereof was altered into a Male monastery ; the mor 
tified men wherein were mirthful sometimes, as hereby may 
appear. 

Any person, from any part of England, coming hither, and 
humbly kneeling on two stones at the church-door (which are 
et to be seen), before the prior or convent, might demand, at 
is own pleasure, a gammon or flitch of bacon, upon the solemn 
taking of the ensuing oath : 



I 



" You shall swear by the custom of our confession, 
That you never made any nuptial transgression, 
Since you were married man and wife, 
By household brawls, or contentious strife ; 
Or otherwise, in bed or at board, 
Offended each other in deed or word -. 
Or since the parish-clerk said Amen, 
Wished yourselves unmarried again ; 
Or, in a twelve-month and a day, 
Repented not in thought any way ; 

* Alias Cogshall, or Cog;eshall. ED, 

f In his Catalogue of Religious Houses in Essex. 



PRINCES SAINTS. 499 

But continued true and in desire, 

As when you join d hands in holy quire. 

If to these conditions, without all fear, 

Of your own accord you will freely swear ; 

A gammon of bacon you shall receive, 

And bear it hence with love and good leave. 

For this is our custom at Dunmow well known, 

Though the sport be ours, the bacon is your own. 1 

It appeareth, in an old book on record,* that Richard Wright 
of Badesnorth in Norfolk, in the twenty-third of Henry the 
Sixth, when John Canon was prior ; that Stephen Samuel, of 
Little-Easton in Essex, the seventh of Edward the Fourth, 
when Roger Rullcot was prior ; and that Thomas Lee, of Cox- 
hall in Essex, the second of Henry the Eighth, when John Tay 
lor was prior, demanded their bacon on the premises, and re 
ceived it accordingly. 

PRINCES. 

HENRY FITZROY, natural son to king Henry the Eighth. 
Here we confess our trespass against our own rules, who con 
fined ourselves to the legitimate issue of kings ; presuming that 
the worth of this Henry will make amends for our breach of 
order herein. He was begotten on the body of the Lady Tal 
bois, and born at Blackmore-Manor in this county, anno 1519 ;f 
being afterwards created earl of Nottingham and duke of Rich 
mond. He confuted their etymology who deduced bastard from 
the Dutch words boes and art,% that is, an abject nature ; and 
verified their deduction, deriving it from besteaerd,^ that is, the 
best disposition : such was his forwardness in all martial activi 
ties, with his knowledge in all arts and sciences ; learned Le- 
land dedicating a book unto him. He married Mary, daughter 
to Thomas duke of Norfolk; and, dying anno 1536 (in the 
seventeenth year of his age), was buried at Framlingham in 
Suffolk with great lamentation. 

SAINTS. 

Saint HELEN was born at Colchester in this county, daughter 
to Coel king thereof, as all our British authors unanimously do 
report. She was mother of Constantine the first Christian em 
peror; and is famous to all ages for finding out Christ s cross 
on Mount Calvary. Hence it is that, in memorial hereof, the 
city of Colchester giveth for its arms a cross engrailed between 
four crowns. || A scandal is raised on her name, that she was 
stubidaria (stableress); whereof one rendereth this witty 
reason, because her father was comes stabuli (a high office, 
equivalent to the Constable in France) unto the emperor.^f 
Others, more truly, make her so nick-named by pagan malice, 

* Now in the possession of the Earl of Warwick. F. 

f J. Speed, History, p. 708. J Cujacius. Kilianus. 

|| Camden, in Essex. ^ Ric. Vitus Basing, ad lib. 5. Antiq. Brit. not. 26. 



500 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

for her officious devotion in finding out the stable of Christ s 
Nativity. 

Heathen pens have much aspersed her, calling her ywaiKa. 
tbav\riv KOI aaripov, whose tongues are no slander, seeing the dis 
ciple is not above his master. More was I moved, when first 
finding this passage in Paulinus, the pious bishop of Nola, (Pau- 
lin. Epist. xi. ad Severum) ; " Prompto filii Imperatoris ad- 
sensu mater Augusta, patefactis ad opera sancta thesauris, toto 
abusa fisco est." This Englished ad verbum : " She being 
mother empress, the treasuries being set open to pious works, 
by the ready consent of her son the emperor, she wholly abused 
the exchequer." 

I wondered to see Paulinus charging such abuses upon her, 
being a person so prodigiously charitable, that he is said to have 
sold himself to redeem a widow s son from captivity ; but, con 
sulting the best of orators,* I find abuti sometimes fixing no 
fault, and importing no more than uti ;t so that abusing the ex 
chequer signifieth no more than a full and free usage thereof. 
She died at Rome, being eighty years of age, anno Domini 337. 

Saint CONSTANT/INK, son to the aforesaid Saint Helen, was 
born also at Colchester ; one sufficiently known to all posterity 
by the mere mentioning of him. My pen shall now do penance 
with its silence, to expiate its tediousness in describing his cha 
racter in our " Ecclesiastical Historv." He died anno Domini 
339. 

Saint ETHELBURGH, sister to Erkenwald bishop of London, 
was by him appointed first abbess of the nunnery of Barking in 
this county, by him built and endowed. Here she led a very 
austere life ; and obtained the veneration of a Saint after her 
death, which happened 676. 

HILDETHA, sister to Saint Ethelburgh aforesaid, succeeded 
her in the government of the said nunnery for the term of four 
and twenty years ; so that she died very aged, with the reputa 
tion of a Saint, anno 700. 

THEORITHOID (the first of whose name soundeth Greek, the 
second Saxon) was in this respect inferior to the two former, 
because no abbess, but only a nun of Barking. Yet did she 
equal them in some sort in the holiness of her life, and her me 
mory may accompany them in the classes of Saints. She died 
678. 

EDILBURGE, wife to Ina king of the West-Saxons, by the 

See Nizolius, in observations on Tully, on the word nbnii. 

f Thus St. Jerome, " Apostolicis plerumque testimoniis abutuntur quse jam fue- 
rant in gentibus divulgata. 



SAINTS MARTYRS. 501 

consent of her husband, who went a pilgrim to Rome, became a 
nun at Barking ; and after her death, anno 740, room was made 
for her memory amongst the rank of Saints. Afterwards Bark 
ing-nunnery, destroyed by the Danes, was rebuilt by king 
Edgar. 

WOLFHILD, daughter to Wulfhelme earl of the West-Saxons 
(born after the eighteenth year of her mother s barrenness), was 
by king Edgar made abbess of Barking, which was the first nun 
nery of England, the richest, valued at above .1,000 a year 
rent at the Dissolution, and the fruitfullest of Saints, as by this 
parallel doth appear. St, Wolfhild died anno 989. 

Saint OSITH. She was daughter to the king of the East-An 
gles, and wife to Suthred last king of East-Saxons ; by whose 
consent forsaking the world, she was veiled, and at last became 
abbess of a monastery of her own founding at Chich in this 
county ; until the Danes, infesting these sea coasts, cut off her 
head in hatred of religion. 

Yet this her head, after it was cut off, was carried by Saint 
Osith [oh wonder ! oh lie !] three furlongs ; and then she fell 
down, and died. The same, mutatis mutandis,* is told of Saint 
Dionys in France, Saint Winefride in Wales, and others ; such 
being the barrenness of monkish invention, that, unable to fur 
nish their several Saints with variety of fictions, their tired 
fancy is fain to make the same miracle serve many Saints. She 
was martyred about the year of our Lord 870. 

Saint NEOT S (why surnamed Adulphus I know not) was born 
(saith Bale)f either in Essex or Kent; but Pits,J who wrote 
sixty years after him, saith positively he was born in Essex. It 
seemeth he met with some evidence to sway down the even 
beam to preponderate on the side of this county. Waving the 
pleasures of the world, he lived long an eremite in Cornwall ; 
and then, leaving his solitary life, he became a painful and pro 
fitable preacher of the gospel. He was a Zaccheus for his sta 
ture, and with him, tall in piety and charity. He moved king 
Alfred to found, or restore, the university of Oxford, on which 
account his memory is sacred to all posterity. He died anno 
Domini 883, whose body was buried by one Barry, his scholar, in 
Eynesbury, since St. Neot s, in Huntingdonshire, and, some say, 
was afterwards removed to the abbey of Crowland. 

MARTYRS. 

Of the forty-four martyrs in this shire, three were most 
remarkable : 

English Martyrology, on October 7, p. 272. 
f* De Scriptoribus Brilannicis, Cent. ii. num. 23. 
J De Anglise Scriptoribus, in anno 883. 



502 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

1. JOHN LAURENCE, who at the stake was permitted a pos 
ture peculiar to himself ; for, being so enfeebled with long du 
rance and hard usage, that he could not stand, he had a chair 
allowed him, and had the painful ease to sit therein.* Nor 
must we forget, how little children, being about the fire, cried 
unto him, " God strengthen you ! God strengthen you ! " which 
was beheld as a product of his providence, who " out of the 
mouth of babes and sucklings ordained strength ; " as also it 
evidenced their pious education. To say " Hosanna," is as soon 
learnt by children, as " Go up, thou bald-head," if it be as surely 
taught unto them. 

2. THOMAS HAWKES, gentleman, first brought into trouble 
for refusing to christen his child after the popish fashion. This 
man, going to the stake, promised his friends to give them some 
solemn token of the clearness and comfort of his conscience ; 
in performance whereof, whilst his body was burning, he raised 
up himself; and though having the sense, having no fear of the 
fire, joyfully clapped his hands over his head, to the admiration 
of all the beholders. 

3. ROSE ALLIX, a virgin, who, being in her calling (fetching 
beer for her bed-rid mother), was intercepted by justice (or 
rather un-justice) Tyrrell, who, with a candle, most cruelly burnt 
her wrists, which her fire-proof patience most constantly en 
dured. What was said of the Roman Scaevola, when he burnt 
his hand before Porsenna, is more appliable to this maid, " Ma- 
num amisit, sed palmam retinuit." Tyrrell did this merely by the 
law of his list ; otherwise no statute (except written on the back 
side of the book) did authorize him for so tyrannical an act. 
Some days after, the fire, which here took livery and seisin of 
her hand, brought her whole body into the possession thereof. 

CONFESSORS. 

RICHARD GEORGE, labourer, of West-Barfold, is most emi 
nent amongst the many confessors in this shire ; for he had 
successively three wives, whereof two were burnt, and the third 
imprisoned for religion ;f viz. 1 . Agnes George, burnt at 
Stratford-Bow, June 27, 1556. 2. Christian George, burnt at 

Colchester, May 26, 1558. 3 George, imprisoned in 

Colchester, and escaped by queen Mary s death, November 17? 
1558. 

Some, who consult the dates of his wives deaths, will con 
demn him for over-speedy marriage ; and the appetite to a new 
wife is not comely, before the grief for the former be well di 
gested. Such consider not that their glorious death in so good 

* These, as the following observables, are taken out of Mr. Fox s Acts and 
Monuments, in their respective Martyrdoms. F. 

* Fox s Acts and Monuments, p. 2037. 



CONFESSORS CARDINALS. 503 

a cause was the subject rather of his joy than grief, and that, 
being necessitated (for his childrens sake) to marry, he was care 
ful, as it appears, to " marry in the Lord." Nor did he thrust 
his wives into the fire, and shrink back from the flames himself, 
who, being imprisoned in Colchester,* had followed his two 
first, and gone along with his last, to the stake, had not Divine 
Providence, by queen Mary s death, prevented it. 

CARDINALS. 

THOMAS BOURCHIER was son to Sir William Bourchier, who 
(though but an English knight) was a French earl, of Ewe in 
Normandy, created by king Henry the Fifth, and had a great 
estate in this county, with many mansion-houses ; Hawsted 
being the place of their principal residence, f where, I presume, 
this prelate was born. 

He was bred in the university of Oxford, whereof he was 
chancellor 1454 ; dean of Saint Martin s ; then successively 
bishop of Worcester, Ely, archbishop of Canterbury, and car 
dinal, by the title of " Saint Cyriacus in the Baths." A pre 
late, besides his high birth aforesaid, and brotherhood to Henry 
Bourchier, first earl of Essex of that surname, remarkable on 
many accounts : 

First, for his vivacity, being an old man, and proportionably 
an older bishop. 1. Being consecrated bishop of Worcester J 
1435, the fourteenth of Henry the Sixth. 2. Dying archbishop 
of Canterbury 1486, the second of king Henry the Seventh. 
Whereby it appeareth, that he wore a mitre full fifty-one years, 
a term not to be paralleled in any other person. 

Secondly, he saw strange revolutions in state ; the civil wars 
between Lancaster and York begun, continued, and concluded : 
for though Bishop Morton had the happiness to make the 
match, archbishop Bourchier had the honour to marry king 
Henry the Seventh to the daughter of king Edward the Fourth : 
so that his hand first solemnly held that sweet posy, \vherein 
the white and red roses were tied together. 

Thirdly, for his wary compliance, that he lost not himself in 
the labyrinth of such intricate times, applying himself politicly 
to the present predominant power. However, it may be said 
of him, 

( sanguine ~) 

" Prsestitit hie Prsesul nil tanto &lt; munere &gt; dignum." 

C tempore j 

He left no monument to posterity proportionable (what was 
a hundred pounds, and a chest, given to Cambridge ? ) to his 
great blood, rich place, and long continuance therein. But this 
my author imputeth unto the troublesomeness of the times, 

* Fox s Acts and Monuments, p. 2037. f Camden s Britannia, in Essex. 

J Godwin, in his Catalogue of Bishops. 
Idem, in the Archbishops of Canterbury. 



5O4 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

seeing peace was no sooner settled,, and the land began to live, 
but he died, March 30, 1486. 

I know not what generous planet had then influence on the 
court of Rome. This I know, that England never saw such a 
concurrence of noble prelates ; who as they were peers by their 
places, were little less by their descent. I behold their birth a 
good buttress of episcopacy in that age, able in Parliament to 
check and crush any anti-prelatical project by their own rela 
tions. But let us count how many were contemporaries with 
Thomas Bourchier, from his first consecration at Worcester till 
the day of his death : John Stafford, son to the earl of Stafford, 
archbishop of Canterbury : Robert Fitz-hugh, bishop of Lon 
don : Henry Beauford, son to John duke of Lancaster, bishop 
of Winchester : William Gray, son to the lord Gray, of Codnor, 
bishop of Ely : Marmaduke Lumley, extracted from the lord 
Lumley, bishop of Lincoln : Richard Beauchamp, brother to 
lord Saint Amand, bishop of Sarum : Lionel Woodvile, son to 
the earl of Rivers, bishop of Sarum : Peter Courtney, extracted 
from the earls of Devon, bishop of Exeter : Richard Courtney, 
of the same extraction, bishop of Norwich : John Zouch, de 
scended of the lord Zouch, bishop of Llandaff : George Nevile, 
brother to the make-king earl of Warwick, archbishop of York : 
William Dudley, son to the lord Dudley, bishop of Durham : 
William Piercy, son to the earl of Northumberland, bishop of 
Carlisle. 

But, after the death of Bourchier, T meet with but three 
bishops of noble extraction ; viz. James Stanley, Edmond Aud- 
ley, and Cardinal Pole. However, they were, though of lower 
lineage, of no less learning and religion. 

PRELATES. 

RICHARD de BARKING took his name (according to the 
clergymen s heraldry in that age) from that well-noted town in 
this county. In process of time he became abbot of Westmin 
ster for twenty-four years.* He was so high in favour with 
king Henry the Third, that he made him one of his special 
councillors, chief baron of the Exchequer, and for a short time 
lord treasurer of England.f He died anno 1246; buried in 
Westminster church, whose marble tomb, before the middle of 
the altar, was afterwards pulled down (probably because taking 
up too much room) by friar Combe, sacrist of the house, who 
laid a plain marble-stone over him, with an epitaph too tedious 
and barbarous to be transcribed. 

JOHN de CIIESILL. There are two villages so called in this 
county, where the north-west corner thereof closeth with Cam 
bridgeshire. 1 will not define in which this John was born, 

k Vitae Abb. Westm. MS. ] J. Philipot, Catalogue of Treasurers, p. 13. 



PRELATES. 505 

time having left us nothing of his actions, saving the many pre 
ferments through which he passed, being dean of St. Paul s, 
successively archdeacon and bishop of London,* and twice 
chancellor of England; viz. anno Domini, 1264, in the 48th of 
king Henry the Third ; anno Domini in the 53rd of king 
Henry the Third. 

He was afterwards also lord treasurer of England : and died 
anno Domini, 1279, in the seventh year of the reign of king 
Edward the First.f 

JOHN of WALTHAM was so named from the place of his 
nativity ; and attained to be a prudent man, and most expert in 
government of the state, so that he became master of the rolls, 
keeper of the privy seal, and, anno 1388, was consecrated bishop 
of Salisbury. 

But he missed his mark, and met with one who both matched 
and mastered him, when refusing to be visited by Courtney, 
archbishop of Canterbury, on the criticism that Pope Urban 
the Sixth, who granted Courtney his commission, was lately 
dead, till the archbishop excommunicated him into more know 
ledge and humility, teaching him that his visitations had a self- 
support, without assistance of papal power, cast in only by the 
way of religious compliment. J This John of Waltham was 
afterwards made lord treasurer; and Richard the Second had 
such an affection for him, that, dying in his office, he caused 
him to be buried (though many muttered thereat) amongst 
the kings, and next to king Edward the First, in Westminster. 
His death happened 1395. 

ROGER WALDEN, taking his name from his birth, in that 
eminent market-town in this county, was as considerable as any 
man in his age, for the alternation of his fortune. First, he was 
the son of a poor man ; yet, by his industry and ability, attained 
to be dean of York, treasurer of Calais, secretary to the king, 
and treasurer of England. 

Afterwards, when Thomas Arundell, archbishop of Canter 
bury, fell into the disfavour of king Richard the Second, and 
was banished the land, this Roger was, by the king, made arch 
bishop of Canterbury, and acted to all purposes and intents, 
calling of synods, and discharging of all other offices. How 
ever, he is beheld as a cipher in that see, because holding it by 
sequestration, whilst Arundell, the true incumbent, was alive, 
who, returning in the first of king Henry the Fourth, resumed 
his archbishopric. 

And now Roger Walden was reduced to Roger Walden, and 

Godwin, in the Bishops of London, 
t J. Philipot, Catalogue of Treasurers, p. 17. 

Godwin, in the Archbishops of Canterbury, in the Life of Courtney. 
Tho. Walsingham, in anno 1395. 



506 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

as poor as at his first beginning : for, though all maintained that 
" the character of a bishop was indelible" this Roger found 
that " a bishopric was dealable" having nothing whereon to 
subsist, until archbishop Arundell, nobly reflecting upon his 
worth, or want, or both, procured him to be made bishop of 
London. But he enjoyed that place only so long as to be a 
testimony to all posterity of Arundell s civility unto him, dying 
before the year was expired, 1404. 

He may be. compared to one so jaw-fallen with over-long 
fasting, that he cannot eat meat when brought unto him ; and 
his spirits were so depressed with his former ill fortunes, that 
he could not enjoy himself in his new unexpected happiness. 
Why he was buried rather in Saint Bartholomew s in Smith- 
field, than his own cathedral church, is too hard for me to 
resolve. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

RICHARD ROWLAND was born at Newport-Ponds in this 
county;* first fellow of Peter-house, then chosen, 1575, master 
of Magdalen, and next year master of Saint John s College, in 
Cambridge. He was twice vice-chancellor of the university ; 
in the year 1584 he was consecrated bishop of Peterborough, 
in which place he continued sixteen years,f and died in 
June 1600. 

JOHN JEGON was bom in this county, at Coxhall;J fellow 
first of Queen s, then master of Bennet College, in Cambridge, 
and three tiznes vice-chancellor of the university. A most 
serious man, and grave governor ; yet withal of a most face 
tious disposition ; so that it was hard to say whether his counsel 
was more grateful for the soundness, or his company more ac 
ceptable for the pleasantness, thereof. Take one eminent 
instance of his ingenuity. 

Whilst master of the college, he chanced to punish all the 
under-graduates therein for some general offence; and the 
penalty was put upon their heads in the buttery. And because 
that he disdained to convert the money to any private use, it 
was expended in new whiting the hall of the college. Where 
upon a scholar hung up these verses on the screen : 

" Doctor Jegon, Bennet College master, 

Brake the scholars head, and gave the walls a plaister." 

But the doctor had not the readiness of his parts any whit im 
paired by his age ; for, perusing the paper, extempore he sub 
scribed, 

" Knew I but the wag that writ these verses in a bravery, 

I would commend him for his wit, but whip him for his knavery." 

Queen Elizabeth designed him, but king James confirmed 
him, bishop of Norwich ; where, if some in his diocese have 

* Parker, Scelet. Cant. MS. in the Masters of St. John s. 

t Godwin, in the Bishops of Peterborough. \ Parker, ut prius. 



PRELATES STATESMEN. 50/ 

since bestowed harsh language on his memory, the wonder is 
not great, seeing he was a somewhat severe presser of confor 
mity ; and died anno Domini 1618. 

SAMUEL HARESNET was born at Colchester, in the parish 
of Saint Butolph ; bred first scholar, then fellow, then master, 
of Pembroke-hall in Cambridge. A man of great learning, 
strong parts, and stout spirit. He was bishop, first of Chichester, 
then of Norwich, and at last archbishop of York, and one of 
the privy council of king Charles ; the two last dignities being 
procured by Thomas earl of Arundell, who much favoured him, 
and committed his younger son to his education. 

Dying unmarried, he was the better enabled for public 
and pious uses ; and at Chigwell in this county (the place 
of his first church preferment) he built and endowed a fair 
grammar school. He conditionally bequeathed his library to 
Colchester, where he was born, as by this passage in his will* 
may appear : 

" Item, I give to the bailiffs and corporation of the town of 
Colchester all my library of books, provided that they 
provide a decent room to set them up in, that the clergy 
of the town of Colchester, and other divines, may have 
free access for the reading and studying of them." 
I presume, the town corresponding with his desire, the legacy 
took due effect. He died anno Domini 1631, and lieth buried 
at Chigwell aforesaid. 

AUGUSTINE LINSELL, D.D., was born at Bumpsteed, in this 
county ; bred scholar and fellow in Clare-Hall in Cambridge. 
He applied himself chiefly to the studies of Greek, Hebrew, 
and all antiquity, attaining to great exactness therein. He was 
very knowing in the ancient practices of the Jews ; and from 
him I learned, that they had a custom, at the circumcising of 
their children, that certain undertakers should make a solemn 
stipulation for their pious education, conformable to our god 
fathers in baptism. 

He was afterwards made bishop of Peterborough, where (on 
the joint cost of his clergy) he procured "Theophylact on the 
Epistles " (never printed before) to be fairly set forth in Greek 
and Latin. Hence he was removed to Hereford, where he 

died 1634. 

STATESMEN. 

[S. N.] Sir THOMAS AUDLEY, knight; where born, my best 
industry and inquiry cannot attain. He was bred in the study 
of the laws till he became attorney of the Duchy of Lancaster, 
and serjeant at law (as most affirm) ; then speaker of the parlia 
ment : knighted, and made keeper of the Great Seal, June 4, 

* Proved, June 8, i6:u. 



508 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

1532, being the twenty-fourth of king Henry the Eighth ; and 
not long after was made Lord Chancellor of England, and ba 
ron Audley ; of Audley End in this county. 

In the feast of Abbey lands, king Henry the Eighth carved 
unto him the first cut (and that, I assure you, was a dainty mor 
sel) ; viz. the priory of the Trinity * in Aldgate \vard London, 
dissolved 1531, which, as a van -courier, foreran other abbeys by 
two years, and foretold their dissolution. This I may call (after 
wards called Duke s Place) the Covent Garden \vithin London, 
as the greatest empty space within the walls, though since filled, 
not to say pestered, with houses. He had afterwards a large 
partage in the Abbey lands in several counties. 

He continued in his office of Chancellor thirteen years ; and 
had one only daughter, Margaret, who, no doubt, answered the 
pearl in her name, as well in her precious qualities as rich in 
heritance which she brought to her husband, Thomas, last duke 
of Norfolk. This Lord Audley died April 30, 1544; and is bu 
ried in the fair church of Saffron- Walden, with this lamentable 
epitaph : 

" The stroke of death s inevitable dart 
Hath now, alas 1 of life bereft the heart 
Of Sir Thomas Audley, of the Garter knight, 
Late Chancellor of England under our prince of might 
Henry the Eighth, worthy of high renown, 
And made him Lord Audley of this town." 

This worthy lord took care, that better poets should be after 
than were in his age ; and founded Magdalen College in Cam 
bridge, giving good lands thereunto, if they might haA^e enjoyed 
them according to his donation. 

[AMP.] Sir RICHARD MORISIN, knight, was born in this 
county, as J. Bale, his felloAV exile, doth acquaint us :f yet so, as 
that he qualifieth his intelligence with ut fertur, which I have 
commuted into our marginal note of dubitation. J Our foresaid 
author addeth, that " per celebriora Anglorum gymnasia artes 
excoluit ;" bred probably first in Eton or Winchester, then in 
Cambridge or Oxford, and at last in the inns of court. In those 
he attained to great skill in Latin and Greek, in the common 
and civil law ; insomuch that he Avas often employed ambassa 
dor, by king Henry the Eighth and EdAvard the Sixth, unto 
Charles the fifth Emperor, and other princes of Germany, ac 
quitting himself both honest and able in those negociations. 

He began a beautiful house at Cashiobury in Hertfordshire, 
and had prepared materials for the finishing thereof ; but, alas, 
this house proved like the life of his master who began it, I 
mean king Edward the Sixth, broken off, not ended, and that 
before it came to the middle thereof. Yea, he Avas forced to fly 

Stow s Survey of London, p. 146. 

Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. viii. num. 9. 
t Sir K. Baker, in his Chronicle, p. 469, saith he was born in Oxfordshire. 



STATESMEN. 509 

beyond the seas ; and, returning out of Italy,. died at Strasburgh, 
on the 17th of March, anno Domini 1556, to the grief of all good 
men.* Yet his son Sir Charles finished his father s house in 
more peaceable times, whose great grand-daughter (augmented 
by matches with much honour and wealth), a right worthy and 
virtuous lady, lately deceased, was wife to the first Lord Capel, 
and mother to the present earl of Essex. 

Sir ANTHONY COOK, knight, great grandchild to Sir Thomas 
Cook, Lord Mayor of London, was born at Giddy Hall in this 
county, where he finished a fair house, begun by his great grand 
father, as appeareth by this inscription on the frontispiece 
thereof : 

" -&lt;Edibus his fronteni proavus Thomas dedit olim, 
Addidit Antoni csetera sera manus." 

He was one of the governors to king Edward the Sixth, when 
prince ; and is charactered by Master Camden, " vir antiqua 
severitate."t He observeth him also to be happy in his daugh 
ters, learned above their sex in Greek and Latin : namely, 
1. Mildred, married unto William Cecil, lord treasurer of 
England ; 2. Anne, married unto Nicholas Bacon, lord chan 
cellor of England ; 3. Katherine, married unto Henry Killi- 
grew, knight; 4. Elizabeth, married unto Thomas Hobby, 
knight ; 5. , married unto Ralph Rowlet, knight. 

Indeed they were all most eminent scholars, (the honour of 
their own, and the shame of our sex) both in prose and poetry ; 
and we will give an instance of the latter. 

Sir Henry Killigrew was designed by the queen ambassa 
dor for France, in troublesome times, when the employment, 
always difficult, was then apparently dangerous. Now Kathe 
rine his lady wrote these following verses to her sister Mildred 
Cecil, to improve her power with the lord treasurer her husband, 
that Sir Henry might be excused from that service : 

" Si mihi quern cupio cures, Mildreda, remitti, 

Tu bona, tu melior, tu mihi sola soror. 
Sin male cunctando retines, vel trans mare mittes, 

Tu mala, tu pejor, tu mihi nulla soror. 
It si Cornubiam, tibi pax sit, et omnia laeta j 
Sin mare, Cecili, nuntio bella. Vale." 

We will endeavour to translate them, though I am afraid 
falling much short of their native elegance : 

" If, Mildred, by thy care, he be sent back whom I request, 

A sister good thou art to me, yea better, yea the best. 

But if with stays thou keep st him still, or send st where seas may part, 

Then unto me a sister ill, yea worse, yea none thou art. 

If go to Cornwall he shall please, I peace to thee foretell; 

But, Cecil, if he set to seas, I war denounce. Farewell. 

This Sir Anthony Cook died in the year of our Lord 15 76, 
* Sir R. Baker, ibidem. f Camden s Elizabeth, anno 1576. 



510 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

leaving a fair estate unto his son, in whose name it continued 
until our time. 

Sir THOMAS SMITH, knight, was born at Saffron Walden in 
this county ;* and bred in Queen s College in Cambridge, where 
such his proficiency in learning, that he was chosen out by Henry 
the Eighth to be sent over and brought up beyond the seas. It 
was fashionable in that age, that pregnant students were main 
tained on the cost of the state, to be merchants for experience 
in foreign parts ; whence, returning home with their gainful ad 
ventures, they were preferred (according to the improvement of 
their time) to offices in their own country. Well it were if 
this good old custom were resumed ; for if, where God hath 
given talents, men would give but pounds I mean encourage 
hopeful abilities with helpful maintenance able persons would 
never be wanting, and poor men with great parts would not be 
excluded the line of preferment. 

This Sir Thomas was afterwards secretary of state to queen 
Elizabeth, and a grand benefactor to both universities, as I have 
formerly declared at large.f He died anno Domini 1577- 

[S. N.] THOMAS HOWARD, wherever born, is justly reputed 
of this county, wherein he had his first honour, and last habita 
tion. He was second son to Thomas last duke of Norfolk, but 
eldest, by his wife Margaret, sole heir to Thomas Lord Audley. 
Queen Elizabeth made him baron of Audley, and knight of 
the Garter ; and king James (who beheld his father a state-mar 
tyr for the queen of Scots), in the first of his reign, advanced 
him lord chamberlain and earl of Suffolk ; and in the twelfth 
of his reign, July 12, lord treasurer of England. 

He was also chancellor of Cambridge, loving and beloved of 
the university. When, at his first coming to Cambridge, Mas 
ter Francis Nethersole, orator of the university, made a Latin 
speech unto him, this lord returned, " Though I understand not 
Latin, I know the sense of your oration is, to tell me that I am 
welcome to you ; which I believe verily, thank you for it hear 
tily, and will serve you faithfully in anything within my power. 

Doctor Hasnet, the vice-chancellor, laying hold on the han 
dle of so fair a proffer, requested him to be pleased to entertain 
the king at Cambridge ; a favour which the .university could 
never compass from their former great and wealthy chancellors. 
" I will do it," saith the Lord, " in the best manner I may, 
with the speediest conveniency." Nor was he worse than his 
word ; giving his majesty not long after so magnificent a treat 
ment in the university, as cost him five thousand pounds and 
upwards. 

Hence it was, that, after his death, Thomas, his second son, 

* Camden s Elizabeth, 1577. | In my " History of Cambridge." 



STATESMEN . 511 

earl of Berkshire, not suing for it (not knowing of it) was cho 
sen to succeed him, losing the place (as some suspected) not for 
lack of voices, but fair counting them. He died at Audley-End, 
anno Domini 1626, being grandfather to the right honourable 
James earl of Suffolk. 

[AMP.] RICHARD WESTON. I behold him son to Sir 
Jerome Weston, sheriff of this county in the one and fortieth 
of queen Elizabeth ; and cannot meet with any of his relations, 
to rectify me if erroneous. In his youth he impaired his estate, 
to improve himself with public accomplishment ; but came off 
both a safer and a gainer at the last, when made chancellor of 
the Exchequer, and afterwards (upon the remove of the earl of 
Marlborough), July 15, in the fourth of king Charles, lord 
treasurer of England. 

But I hear the cock s crow proclaiming the dawning day, 
being now come within the ken of many alive ; and when men s 
memories do arise, it is time for history to haste to bed. Let me 
only be a datary, to tell the reader, that this lord was created 
earl of Portland, February 17? in the eighth of king Charles ; and 
died March 12, anno Domini 1634, being father to the right 
honourable Jerome, now earl of Portland.* 

CAPITAL JUDGES. 

SIR JOHN BRAMSTOXE, knight, was born at Maldon in this 
county ; bred up in the Middle Temple, in the study of the 
common law, wherein he attained to such eminency, that he 
was by king Charles made lord chief justice of the King s Bench. 
One of deep learning, solid judgment, integrity of life, gravity 
of behaviour ; in a word, accomplished with all qualities requi 
site for a person of his place and profession. 

One instance of his integrity I must not forget, effectually 
relating to the foundation wherein I was bred. Serjeant Bruer- 
ton (of whom formerly*) bequeathed by will to Sidney college 
well nigh three thousand pounds ; but (for haste or some other 
accident) so imperfectly done, that (as doctor Samuel Ward 
informed me) the gift was invalid in the rigour of the law. Now 
judge Bramstone, who married the Serjeant s widow, gave him 
self much trouble (gave himself indeed, doing all things gratis) 
for the speedy payment of the money to a farthing, and the legal 
settling thereof on the college, according to the true intention 
of the dead. He deserved to live in better times ; the deliver 
ing his judgment on the king s side in the case of ship-money 
cost him much trouble. The posting press would not be per 
suaded to stay till I had received farther instructions from the 
most hopeful sons of this worthy judge, who died about the 
year 1646. 

1 Who died in March 16G2. f Benefactors fo the Public, in Cheshire. 

VOL. I. 1? L 



512 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 



SOLDIERS. 

ROBERT FITZ-WALTER. It is observable what I read in my 
author,* that in the reign of king John there were three most 
eminent knights in the land, famous for their prowess ; viz. 
Robert Fitz-Roger, Richard Mont-Fitchet,f and this Robert 
Fitz- Walter ; two of which three (a fair proportion) fall to be 
natives of this county. 

This Robert was born at Woodham- Walters ; and behaved 
himself right valiantly on all occasions, highly beloved by king 
Richard the First and king John, until the latter banished him 
the land, because he would not prostitute his daughter to his 
pleasure. But worth will not long want a master. The French 
king joyfully entertained him, till king John recalled him back 
again, on this occasion : five years truce being concluded 
betwixt the two crowns of England and France, an English 
man challenged any of the French, to joust a course or two on 
horseback with him, whom Fitz- Walter (then on the French 
party) undertook, and, at the first course, J with his great spear, 
felled horse and man to the ground. Thus then and ever since 
Englishmen generally can be worsted by none but Englishmen. 
Hereupon, the king next day sent for him, restored his lands, 
with licence for him to repair his castles (and particularly Bay- 
nard s castle in London), which he did accordingly. He was 
styled of the common people, " The marshal of God s army and 
holy church." He died anno Domini 1234, and lieth buried 
in the priory of Little Dunmow. 

SIR JOHN HAWKEWOOD, knight, son to Gilbert Hawke- 
wood, tanner, was born in Sible Heningham.|| This John was 
first bound an apprentice to a tailor in the city of London ;^f 
but soon turned his needle into a sword, and thimble into a 
shield, being pressed in the service of king Edward the Third 
for his French wars, who rewarded his valour with knighthood. 
Now that mean men, bred in manual and mechanic trades, may 
arrive at great skill in martial performances, this Hawkewood, 
though an eminent, is not the only, instance of our English 
nation. 

The heat of the French wars being much remitted, he went 
into Italy, and served the city of Florence, which as yet was a 
free state. Such republics preferred foreigners rather than 
natives for their generals, because, when the service was ended, 
it was but disbursing their pay, and then disbanding their 
power, by cashiering their commission ; such foreigners having 
no advantage to continue their command, and render them 
selves absolute, because wanting an interest in alliances and 

* Stow s Annals in the reign of King John. 

f Of Stanstead-Mont-Fitchet, in this county. J Stow, ut prius. 

Stow, ut prius. |j Camden s Britannia, in Essex. *jf Stow, ut prius. 



SOLDIERS . 513 

relations. Thus a single stake, if occasion serves, is sooner 
plucked up than a tree fastened to the earth, with the many 
librae appendant to the root thereof. 

Great the gratitude of the State of Florence to this their 
general Hawkewood, who in testimony of his surpassing valour 
and singular faithful service to their state, adorned him with the 
statue of a man of arms, and sumptuous monument, wherein 
his ashes remain honoured at this present day. Well it is that 
monument doth remain; seeing his cenotaph, or honorary 
tomb, which sometimes stood in the parish church of Sible- 
Heningham (arched over, and, in allusion to his name, berebussed 
with hawks flying into a ivood),* is now quite flown away and 
abolished. 

This Sir John Hawkewood married Domina, daughter of Bar- 
naby the warlike brother of Galeasius lord of Milan (father to 
John the first duke of Milan), by whom he had a son named 
John, born in Italy, made knight and naturalized in the seventh 
year of king Henry the Fourth, as appeareth by the record : 
" Johannes, filius Johannis Haukewood, Miles, natus in parti- 
bus Italiae, factus indigena anno 8 Hen. IV. ; mater ejus nata in 
partibus transmarinis."* 

This valiant knight died very aged, anno 1394, in the eigh 
teenth of king Richard the Second; his friends founding two 
chantries, to pray for his and the souls of John Oliver and 
Thomas Newenton, esquires, his military companions, and, 
which probably may be presumed, born in the same county. 

THOMAS RATCLIFF, Lord Fitz Walter, second earl of Sus 
sex of that surname, twice lord deputy of Ireland, was a most 
valiant gentleman. By his prudence he caused that actual re 
bellion brake not out in Ireland ; and no wonder if in his time 
it rained not war there, seeing his diligence dispersed the clouds 
before they could gather together. Thus he who cures a disease 
may be the skilfullest, but he that prevents it is the safest, phy 
sician. 

Queen Elizabeth called him home to be her lord chamber 
lain, and a constant court faction was maintained betwixt him 
and Robert earl of Leicester; so that the Sussexians and the 
Leicesterians divided the court, whilst the Cecilians, as neuters, 
did look upon them. Sussex had a great estate left him by his 
ancestors, Leicester as great given or restored him by the queen : 
Sussex was the honester man and greater soldier, Leicester the 
more faceit courtier and deep politician ; not for the general 
good, but his particular profit. Great the animosity betwixt 
them ; and what in vain the queen endeavoured, death perform 
ed, taking this earl away ; and so the competition was ended. 
New Hall in this county was the place, if not (as I believe) of 

* Weever s Funeral Monuments, p. 623. 

t In Bibl. Cotton, and in Archivis Turris Lond. 1 par-, Pat. 8. Hen. IV. m, 10. 

2 L 2 



514 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

his birth, of his principal habitation. He died anno Domini 
1583 ; and lieth buried in the church of Saint Olaves, Hart Street, 
London. 

Sir FRAXCIS and Sir HORACE VERB, sons of Geffrey Vere, 
esquire, who was son of John Vere, the fifteenth earl of Oxford, 
were both born in this county, though several places (Hening- 
ham castle, Colchester, Tilbury juxta Clare) be by sundry men 
assigned for their nativity. We will first consider them seve 
rally, and then compare them together. 

Sir Francis was of a fiery spirit and rigid nature, undaunted 
in all dangers, not over- valuing the price of men s lives, to pur 
chase a victory therewith. He served on the scene of all Chris 
tendom where war was acted. One master-piece of his valour 
was at the battle of Newport, when his Ragged Regiment (so 
were the English then called from their ragged clothes) helped 
to make all whole, or else all had been lost. Another was, when 
for three years he defended Ostend against a strong and nume 
rous army, surrendering it at last a bare skeleton to the king of 
Spain, who paid more years purchase for it than probably the 
world will endure. He died in the beginning of the reign of 
king James, about the year of our Lord 16 ... * 

Sir Horace had more meekness, and as much valour as his 
brother ; so pious, that he first made his peace with God before 
he went out to war with man. One of an excellent temper, it 
being true of him what is said of the Caspian Sea, " that it doth 
never ebb nor flow ; " observing a constant tenor, neither elated 
nor depressed with success. Had one seen him returning from 
a victory, he would, by his silence, have suspected that he had 
lost the day : and had he beheld him in a retreat, he would have 
collected him a conqueror, by the cheerfulness of his spirit. He 
was the first baron of king Charles s creation. f Some years 
after, coming to court, he fell suddenly sick and speechless, so 
that he died before night, anno Domini 163 . . No doubt he 
was Avell prepared for death, seeing such his vigilancy that ne 
ver any enemy surprised him in his quarters. 

Now to compare them together (such their eminency, that 
they would hardly be paralleled by any but themselves). Sir 
Francis was the elder brother, Sir Horace lived to be the older 
man. Sir Francis was more feared, Sir Horace more loved, by 
the soldiery. The former in martial discipline was oft-times 
" rigidus ad ruinam ; " the latter seldom exceeded " ad terrorem." 
Sir Francis left none, Sir Horace no male, issue, whose four co 
heirs are since matched into honourable families. Both lived 
in war, much honoured ; died in peace, much lamented. 

* Sir Francis Vere died in 1603, ret. 54 ED. 

f He was created, in 1625, Baron Vere of Tilbury ; a title which became extinct 
at his death, ED. 



PHYSICIANS. 515 

HENRY VERE was son of Edward Vere, the seventeenth ear 
of Oxford, and Anne Trentham his [second] lady, whose prin 
cipal habitation (the rest of his patrimony being then wasted) 
was at Heningham Castle in this county. A vigorous gentle 
man, full of courage and resolution, and the last lord chamber 
lain of England of this family. His sturdy nature would not 
bow to court-compliants, who would maintain what he spake, 
spake what he thought, think what he apprehended true and just, 
though sometimes dangerous and distasteful. 

Once he came into court with a great milk-white feather about 
his hat, which then was somewhat unusual, save that a person 
of his merit might make a fashion. The reader may guess the 
lord who said unto him in some jeer, " My lord, you wear a very 
fair feather." " It is true," said the earl ; " and, if you mark 
it, there s ne er a taint in it." Indeed his family was ever loyal 
to the crown, deserving their motto, " VERO NIL VERIUS." 

Going over one of the four English colonies into the Low 
Countries, and endeavouring to raise the siege of Breda, he so 
over-heated himself with marching, fighting, and vexing (the de 
sign not succeeding), that he died a few days after, anno Domini 
1625. He married Diana, one of the co-heirs of William earl 
of Exeter (afterwards married to Edward earl of Elgin), by whom 
he left no issue. 

PHYSICIANS. 

WILLIAM GILBERT was born in Trinity Parish in Colches 
ter ;* his father being a councillor of great esteem in his pro 
fession, wh6 first removed his family thither from Clare in Suf 
folk, where they had resided in a genteel equipage some centu 
ries of years. 

He had (saith my informer) the clearness of Venice glass, 
without the brittleness thereof; soon ripe, and long lasting, in 
his perfections. He commenced doctor in physic, and was phy 
sician to queen Elizabeth, who stamped on him many marks of 
her favour, besides an annual pension to encourage his studies. 
He addicted himself to chemistry, attaining to great exactness 
therein. One saith of him, " that he was stoical, but not cyni 
cal ;" which I understand reserved but not morose ; never mar 
ried, purposely to be more beneficial to his brethren. Such his 
loyalty to the queen, that, as if unwilling to survive, he died in 
the same year with her, 1603. His stature was tall, complexion 
cheerful ; an happiness not ordinary in so hard a student and 
retired a person. He lieth buried in Trinity church in Col 
chester, under a plain monument. 

Mahomet s tomb at Mecca is said strangely to hang up, at-: 
tracted by some invisible load-stone ; but the memory of this 
doctor will never fall to the ground, which his incomparable 
book " De Magnete " will support to eternity. 

* I received the ensuing intelligence from his near kinsman Mr. William Gil 
bert, of Brental- Ely in Suffolk F. 



516 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 



WRITERS. 

GERVASE of TILBURY, born at that village in this county 
(since famous for a camp against the Spaniards in 88), is re 
ported nephew to king Henry the Second.* But, though Ne- 
pos be taken in the latitude thereof (to signify son to brother, 
sister, or child,) I cannot make it out by the door, and am loth 
to suspect his coming in by the window. This Gervase may be 
said, by his nativity, to stand but on one foot (and that on tip 
toes) in England, being born on the sea side, at the mouth of 
Thames ; and therefore no wonder if he quickly conveyed him 
self over into foreign parts. He became courtier and favourite 
to his kinsman Otho the fourth emperor, who conferred on him 
the marshalship of the archbishopric of Aries (which proveth the 
imperial power in this age over some parts of Provence) ; an 
office which he excellently discharged. Though his person was 
wholly conversant in foreign air, his pen was chiefly resident 
on English earth, writing a chronicle of our land, and also add 
ing illustrations to Geffrey Monmouth. He flourished, anno 
1210, under king John. 

ADAM of BARKING (no mean market in this county) was so 
termed from the town of his nativity. Wonder not, that being 
born in the east of England, he went westward as far as Sher- 
borne (where he was a Benedictine) for his education ; it being 
as usual in that age for monks, as in ours for husbandmen, to 
change their soil for the seed, that the grain may give the greater 
increase. He was a good preacher and learned writer; and 
surely would have soared higher, if not weighed down with the 
ignorance of the age he lived in, whose death happened anno 
1216. 

RALPH of COGSHALL in this county was first canon of Barn- 
well nigh Cambridge, and afterwards turn d a Cistercian monk. 
He was a man " incredibilis frugalitatis et parsimoniee ;" : but 
withal of great learning and abilities. These qualities com 
mended him to be abbot of Cogshall (the sixth in order after the 
first foundation thereof), where he spent all his spare hours in 
writing of chronicles, and especially of additions to Radulphus 
Niger. Afflicted in health, he resigned his place, and died a 
private person about the year 1230. 

ROGER of WALTHAM was so called from the place of his na 
tivity. I confess there be many Walthams in England, and 
three in Essex : but as in heraldry the plain coat speaks the 
bearer thereof to be the best of the house, whiles the younger 
brethren give their arms with differences j so I presume that 

Bale, de Scriptoribus Britantricis, Cent. iii. p. 250 ; and Pits, de Illustr. Ang. 
xiii. p. 274. f l its &gt; de Scriptoribus Anglic, anno 1218. 



WRITERS. 517 

Waltham here, without any other addition (of Much-Waltham, 
Wood- Waltham, &c.) is the chief in that kind; viz. Waltham 
in this county, within twelve miles of London, eminent in that 
age for a wealthy abbey. The merit of this Roger being, saith 
Bale, "terse, nitide, et eleganter eruditus,"* endeared him to 
Fulke Basset bishop of London, who preferred him canon of 
Saint PauPs. He wrote many worthy works, flourishing under 
king Henry the Third, anno Domini 1250. 

[S. N.] JOHN GODARD, wherever born, had his best being at 
Cogshall in this county, where he became a Cistercian monk.t 
Great was his skill in arithmetic and mathematics, a science 
which had lain long asleep in the world, and now first began to 
open its eyes again. He wrote many certain treatises thereof, 
and dedicated them unto Ralph abbot of Cogshall. He nou 
rished anno Domini 1250. 

AUBREY DE VERB, extracted from the right honourable earls 
of Oxford, was born, saith my authors,J in Bonacled villa Tre- 
novantum, three miles from Saint Osith, by which direction we 
find it to be Great Bentley in this county. Now, although a witty 
gentleman saith, that " Noblemen have seldom any thing in 
print, save their clothes ;" yet this Aubrey so applied his studies, 
that he wrote a learned book of the eucharist. In his old age 
he became an Augustinian of Saint Osith s, preferring that be 
fore other places, both because of the pleasant retireness thereof, 
and because his kindred were great benefactors to that convent ; 
witness their donation de septem libratis terra thereunto. || 
This Aubrey, the most learned of all honourable persons in that 
age, flourished anno Domini 1250. 

THOMAS MALDON was born at Maldon, no mean market 
town in this county, anciently a city of the Romans, called Ca- 
mulodunum.^f He was afterwards bred in the university of 
Cambridge, where he commenced doctor of divinity, and got 
great reputation for his learning, being a quick disputant, elo 
quent preacher, solid in defining, subtle in distinguishing, clear 
in expressing. Hence he was chosen prior of his own monas 
tery in Maldon, where he commendably discharged his place 
till the day of his death, which happened 1404. 

THOMAS WALDENSIS was son to John and Maud Netter, 
who, declining the surname of his parents, took it from Walden, 
the noted place in this county of his nativity ;** so much are 

* De Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. iv. p. 302. 

f Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. iv. num. 11. compared with Pits, in 
anno 1550. % Bale, num. 13 and Pits, 1259. 

Sir John Suckling s verses on the right honourable and learned earl of Mon- 
month. 

|| Mills s Catalogue of Honour, p. 677. \ J. Bale, Pits. 

* Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. vii. num. 84. 



5 IB WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

they mistaken, that maintain that this Waldensis s name was 
Vuedale, and that he was born in Hantshire. 

In some sort he may be termed Anti-Waldensis, being the 
most professed enemy to the Wicklevites, who for the main re 
vived and maintained the doctrine of the Waldenses. Being 
bred a Carmelite in London, and doctor of divinity in Oxford, 
he became a great champion of, yet vassal to, the Pope ; witness 
his sordid compliment, consisting of a conjunction, or rather 
confusion and misapplication, of the words of Ruth to Naomi, 
and David to Goliah : " Perge, Domine Papa, perge quo cupis : 
et ego tecum ubicunque volueris, nee deserarn, in authoritate 
Dominorum meorum incedam, et in armis eorum pugnabo."* 

He was in high esteem with three succeeding kings of Eng 
land ; and might have changed his cowl into what English mitre 
he pleased, but refused it. Under king Henry the Fourth, he 
was sent a solemn ambassador, 1410, about taking away the 
schism, and advancing an union in the church ; and pleaded 
most eloquently before the Pope, and Sigismund the emperor. 
He was confessor and privy councillor to king Henry the Fifth, 
who died in his bosom, and whom he taxed for too much lenity 
to the Wicklevites ; so that we behold the breath of Waldensis 
as the bellows which blew up the coals, for the burning of those 
poor Christians in England under king Henry the Sixth. He 
was employed to provide at Paris all necessaries for his solemn 
coronation ; and, dying in his journey thither, anno 1430, was 
buried at Rouen. He was sixteen years Provincial of his order 
throughout all England, and wrote many books against the 
Wicklevites. 

Bale citeth four (all foreign) authors, which make him so 
lemnly sainted ; whilst Pits,t more truly and modestly, only 
affirmeth, that he died " non sine sanctitatis opinione." Indeed, 
as the Pagans had their Lares and Penates, Dii minorum gentium : 
so possibly this Thomas, though not publicly canonized, might 
pass for a Saint of the lesser size in some particular places. 

SI!s 7 CE THE REFORMATION. 

THOMAS TUSSER was born at Rivenhall in this county, of an 
ancient family, since extinct, if his own pen may be believed. J 
Whilst as yet a boy, he lived in many schools, Wallingford, 
Saint Paul s, Eton, whence he went to Trinity-hall in Cam 
bridge ; when a man, in Staffordshire, Suffolk, Norfolk, Cam 
bridgeshire, London, and where not ? so that this stone of Sisy 
phus could gather no moss. He was successively a musician, 
schoolmaster, serving-man, husbandman, grazier, poet; more 
skilful in all than thriving in any vocation. He traded at large 
in oxen, sheep, dairies, grain of all kinds, to no profit. Whe 
ther he bought or sold, he lost ; and, when a renter, impove 
rished himself, and never enriched his landlord. Yet hath he 

* Inlibrode Sacramentis, cap. 17. f & e Angliae Scriptoribus, in anno H30" 

J In his History, at the end of his Book of Husbandry. 



WRITERS. 519 

laid down excellent rules in his " Book of Husbandry and House 
wifery" (so that the observer thereof must be rich) in his own 
defence. He spread his bread with all sorts of butter; yet 
none would stick thereon. Yet I hear no man to charge him 
with any vicious extravagancy, or visible carelessness, imputing 
his ill success to some occult cause in God s counsel. Thus 
our English Columella might say with the poet, 

" Monitis sum minor ipse meis " 

none being better at the theory, or worse at the practice, 
of husbandry. I match him with Thomas Churchyard ; they 
being marked alike in their poetical parts, living in the same 
time, and statured alike in their estates ; both low enough, I as 
sure you. I cannot find the certain date of his death, but col 
lect it to be about 1580. 

FRANCIS QUARLES, esquire, son to James Quarles, esquire, 
was born at Stewards, in the parish of Romford, in this county, 
where his son, as I am informed, hath an estate in expectancy. 
He was bred in Cambridge ; and going over into Ireland, became 
secretary to the Reverend James Usher, archbishop of Armagh. 
He was a most excellent poet, and had a mind biased to devo 
tion. Had he been contemporary with Plato (that great back 
friend to poets), he would not only have allowed him to live, 
but advanced him to an office in his commonwealth. 

Some poets, if debarred profaneness, wantonness, and satiri- 
calness (that they may neither abuse God, themselves, nor their 
neighbours,) have their tongues cut out in effect. Others only 
trade in wit at the second hand, being all for translations, no 
thing for invention. Our Quarles was free from the faults of 
the first, as if he had drank of Jordan instead of Helicon, and 
slept on Mount Olivet for his Parnassus ; and was happy in his 
own invention. His visible poetry ( I mean his emblems) is 
excellent, catching therein the eye and fancy at one draught, so 
that he hath out-Alciated * therein, in some merits judgment. 
His verses on Job are done to the life, so that the reader may 
see his sores, and through them the anguish of his soul. 

The troubles of Ireland, where his losses were great, forced 
his return hither, bearing his crosses with great patience ; so 
that (according to the advice of Saint Hierome) " verba vertebat 
in opera;" and practised the Job he had described, dying 
about the year 1643. 

JOSEPH MEDE was born in this county, a little east of Bishop- 
Stortford. Men in Scripture generally are notified by their fa 
thers ; as Johnadab the son of Rechab, Simon the son of Jonas. 
Some few are described by their sons, as Simon of Cyrene, the 
father of Alexander arid Rufus,t wherein it is presumed that 

Alciati was a celebrated delineator of emblems. ED. 
f Mark xv. 2. 



520 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

their sons were most eminent, and their branches not known 
by the root, but the root by the branches. Such the case here, 
where the parents, obscure in themselves, may hereafter be 
known for having Joseph Mede to their son. 

He was bred in. Christ s College in Cambridge, where he at 
tained to great learning by his own industry. R, was Shiboleth 
unto him, which he could not easily pronounce ; so that a set 
speech cost him the double pains to another man, being to fit 
words as well to his mouth as his matter. Yet, by his in 
dustry and observation, he so conquered his imperfection, that, 
though in private discourse he often smiled out his stammering 
into silence, yet, choosing his words, he made many an excellent 
sermon without any considerable hesitation. 

The first-fruits of his eminent studies was a written treatise, 
" De Sanctitate Relativa," which he presented to bishop An 
drews, who besteaded him with the king s favour, when his elec 
tion into his fellowship met with some opposition. He after 
wards became an excellent linguist, curious mathematician, ex 
act textman ; happy in making Scripture to expound itself by 
parallel places. He was charitable to poor people with his 
alms, and to all people with his candid censure. 

Of one who constantly kept his cell, (so he called his chamber) 
none travelled oftener and farther over all Christendom. For 
things past he was a perfect historian ; for things present, a ju 
dicious novilant ; and for things to come, a prudential (not to 
say prophetical) conjecturer. 

To his private friends he would often insist on the place of 
Scripture, Judges iii. 30, " and the land had a rest fourscore 
years ; " which was the longest term of peace which he ever 
observed the church of God to enjoy ; after which many troubles 
did ensue. And seeing the same lease of halcyon days was ex 
pired in England since the first of queen Elizabeth, he griev 
ously suspected some strange concussion in Church and State, 
which came to pass accordingly. I confess, his memory hath 
suffered much in many men s judgments, for being so great a 
fauter of the fanciful opinion of the Millenaries. Yet none can 
deny but that much is found in the ancient Fathers tending that 
way. Besides, I dare boldly say, that the furious factors for 
the fifth monarchy hath driven that nail which Master Mede 
did first enter, farther than he ever intended it, and doing it with 
such violence, that they split the truths round about it. Thus, 
when ignorance begins to build on that foundation which learn 
ing hath laid, no wonder if there be no uniformity in such a 
mongrel fabric. He died in the fifty-third year of his age, anno 
Domini 1638, leaving the main of his estate to the college, about 
the value of 300 ; a large sum to issue out of the purse of a 
scholar. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

RICHARD BADEW, born of a knightly family at Great Badew 



BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 521 

(commonly called Great Baddow, nigh Chelmsford), was bred 
in the university of Cambridge.* He so profited in literature, 
that by general consent, anno 1326, the scholars therein chose 
him their chancellor : in which year this Richard purchased two 
tenements in Milne street, and in their place erected a small 
college, by the name of University Hall, wherein scholars living 
under a Principal had their chambers gratis (a great favour in 
that age), though otherwise maintaining themselves on their own 
expences. 

Sixteen yenrs after, by a sad accident, this college was casually 
burnt down 1:o the ground ; whereupon Doctor Badew, with the con 
sent of the university^ resigned all his interest therein into the 
hands of Elizabeth countess of Clare, who fairly refounded this 
college ; as in due place hereafter, God willing, shall he related.f 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

WALTER MILDMEY, knight, was born at Chelmsford in this 
county, where he was a younger son to Thomas Mildmey, es 
quire. He was bred in Christ s College in Cambridge, where he 
did not (as many young gentlemen) study only in compliment, 
but seriously applied himself to his book. 

Under king Henry the Eighth and king Edward the Sixth, 
he had a gainful office in the Court of Augmentations. During 
the reign of queen Mary, he practised the politic precept, " Bene 
vixit qui belie latuit." No sooner came queen Elizabeth to 
the crown, but he was called to state employment ; and it was 
not long before he was made chancellor of the Exchequer. 

It is observed, "that the Exchequer never fareth ill, but 
under a good prince ; " such who out of conscience wih 1 not 
oppress their people; whilst tyrants pass not for what they 
squeeze out of their subjects. 

Indeed queen Elizabeth was very careful not to have her 
coffer swelled with the consumption of her kingdom, and had 
conscientious officers under her, amongst whom Sir Walter was 
a principal. 

This knight, sensible of God s blessing on his estate, and 
knowing that "omne beneficium requirit officium," cast about 
to make his return to God. He began with his benefaction to 
Christ s College in Cambridge, only to put his hand into prac 
tice ; then his bounty embraced the generous resolution (which 
the painful piety of St. Paul propounds to himself, viz.) " not 
to build on another man s foundation ; " but, on his own cost, 
he erected a new college in Cambridge, by the name of Ema- 
nuel. 

A right godly gentleman he was, though some of his back 
friends suggested to the queen, that he was a better patriot 
than subject ; and that he was over popular in parliaments, in- 

* R. Parker, in Sceletos Cantabrigiensis, in MS. 
f See Suffolk, in the title of BENEFACTORS. 



522 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

somuch that his life did set sub nubeculd, under a cloud of the 
royal displeasure. Yet was not the cloud so great, but that the 
beams of his innocence, meeting those of the queen s candour, 
had easily dispelled it, had he survived longer, as appeared by 
the great grief the queen professed for the loss of so grave a 
councillor; who, leaving two sons and three daughters, died 
anno Domini 1589. 

DOROTHY PETRE, daughter to Sir William Petre, Secretary 
of State, and sister to John Lord Petre, was certainly born in 
this county ; but uncertain whether at Thorndon, Writtle, or 
Engerstone, three fair houses in Essex of that wealthy family. 
Thus variety of habitations render the nativities of great persons 
doubtful, whilst we are led with more assurance to the cradles of 
meaner people. 

She was married to Nicholas Wadham, of Merrifield, in So 
mersetshire, esquire. We read of Ahab, that " he sold himself 
to work wickedness, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up :* but 
this worthy man gave himself over to all actions of bounty and 
charity, whom his wife, answering her name (" a gift of God " 
indeed) encouraged therein. He founded, she finished, both 
richly endowed, Wadham College in Oxford ; by whose joint 
bounty it is become as rich as most, more uniform than any col 
lege in England. 

THOMAS EDEN, D. L. was born in the south part of Sud- 
bury, within this county, where his name and family are 
continued in a worshipful degree in Ballington Hall. He was 
bred fellow, and then master, of Trinity Hall, in Cambridge ; a 
singular good advocate, chancellor of Ely, commissary of Sud- 
bury and Westminster, professor of law in Gresham Col 
lege, &c. 

But, leaving his ability in his own profession to be praised by 
others, his charity here comes under our cognizance; who 
bestowed one thousand pounds on Trinity Hall, therewith 
purchasing lands to maintain wax candles in the chapel, an 
annual commemoration with a Latin speech, and other excellent 
benefactions. He died anno Domini 164 . . leaving a consider 
able estate, and making Mr. James Bunce, alderman of Lon 
don, his executor (though an utter stranger unto him), on this 
occasion. The alderman repaired to him for -his advice on a 
will, wherein he was executor, desiring from him the true mean 
ing of a clause therein. The doctor returned, " that the passage 
in question was equally capable of two several senses." " But 
tell me," said Mr. Bunce, " what do you believe in your con 
science was the very mind of the testator, being my resolution 
to perform it whatever it cost me." A speech which stayed 

* l Kings ii. 25. 



MEMORABLE PERSON S. 523 

with the doctor after the speaker thereof was departed, making 
such impression in his spirit, that hence he concluded the 
alderman a conscientious person ; and deputed him the 
executor to his own will. I am informed that, since the doc 
tor s death, a match hath been made between their nearest 

relations. 

MEMORABLE PERSONS. 

MATILDA FITZ-WALTER, by some surnamed the fair, by 
others, the chaste, (qualities admirable w r hen united), was 
daughter to that strenuous knight, Sir Robert Fitz-W T alter, of 
Woodham Fitz-Walter, in this county, of whom before.* 

Some would persuade us, that as the Trojan w r ar was occa 
sioned by Helena in revenge of her wantonness ; so the Barons 3 
war, in the reign of king John, by this Matilda, in reward of 
her chastity, which the king in vain did assault ; though surely 
the same was too private and personal to cause a national 
engagement ; especially the fact being only attempted, not 
effected. 

The king banishing her father beyond the seas (in hope by 
his absence the easier to compass his desires) renewed his suit 
w r ith more earnestness, and the same success. For Matilda 
still answered her anagram, " Tal Maid/ both in stature and 
stoutness of her virtuous resolution ; till at last the king, " quia 
noluit consentire, toxicavit eam,"f procuring one to poison her 
in a poached egg ; meat which in the shell may safely be eaten 
after a sluttish (out of it) not after a malicious hand. 

I much admire she was not made a saint (a dignity in those 
days conferred on some of less desert) ; and conceive she had 
surely been sainted if veiled, and found the less favour for 
being no votary, but a virgin at large. She was murdered 
1213, and lieth buried betwixt two pillars in the choir of Little 
Dunmow church. I have nothing to add to this story, save to 
observe, that he who procured her poisoning in her meat, was 
poisoned in his own drink afterwards. 

SIMON LYNCH, son of William Lynch, gentleman, was born 
at Groves, in the parish of Staple, in Kent, December 1562 ; 
bred a student in Queen s College, in Cambridge ; and after 
wards bishop Ay 1m ere his kinsman bestowed on him a small living 
(then not worth above 40. per annum) at North Weale, nigh 
Epping, in this county ; and pleasantly said unto him, " Play, 
cousin, with this awhile, till a better comes." But Mr. Lynch 
continued therein (the first and last place of his ministry) sixty- 
four years. The bishop afterwards preferred him to Brent- 
Wood-Weale, three times better than North- Weale, to whom 
Mr. Lynch (to use his own words) returned this answer, "that 
he preferred the weal of his parishioners souls before any other 

* In the title of SOLDIERS. 

t Abstract of the Chronicle of Dunmow, in Biblioth. Cotton. 



524 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

Weal whatsoever." He lived sixty-one years in wedlock with 
Elizabeth Seane his wife. He was an excellent house-keeper, 
and yet provided well for his ten children. He was buried at 
North Weale, anno Domini 1656. 

LORD MAYORS. 

1. William Edwards, son of William Edwards, of Hoton, Gro 

cer, 1471. 

2. Robert Basset, son of Robert Basset, of Billerikei, Salter, 

1475. 

3. John Shaa, son of John Shaa, of Rochford, Goldsmith, 1501. 

4. Laurence Aylmer, son of Thomas Aylmer, of Allesham, 

Draper, 1507. 

5. William Baily, son of John Baily, of Thackstead, Draper, 

1524. 

6. John Allen, son of Richard Allen, of Thackstead, Mercer, 

1525. 

7. Richard Martin, son of Thomas Martin, of Saffron Walden, 

Goldsmith, 1593. 

8. Thomas Skinner, son of John Skinner, of Walden, Cloth- 

worker, 1596. 

9. Richard Deane, son of George Deane, of Much Dunmow, 

Skinner, 1628. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING HENRY 

THE SIXTH, 1433. 

Ralph bishop of London, or his vicar-general (the bishop being 
absent beyond the seas), and John Earl of Oxford ; Henry 
Bourchier, chevalier, and John Tyrill, chevalier, (knights for 
the shire) ; Commissioners to take the oaths. 

Johannis Montgomery, chev. Johannis Helyon, arm. 

Nicholai Thorle, chev. Thomas Batyll, arm. 

Maur. Bruyn, chev. Thomse Hevenyrigham, arm. 

Edmundi Benst, chev. Johannis Godmanston, arm. 

Johannis Fitz-Sim. chev. Roberti Hunte, arm. 

Willielmi Goldingham, chev. Johannis Leventhorp,jun. arm. 

Ludovici Joh. arm. Thomse Barington, arm. 

Johannis Doreward, arm. Thomas Pynthon, arm. 

Roberti Darcy, arm. Thomse Pykenham, arm. 

Thomse Terell, arm. Galf. Robell,- arm. 

Edvardi Torell, arm. Henrici Chaterton, arm. 

Willielmi Loveney, arm. Thomse Storkedale, arm. 

Thomse Rolf. Willielmi Senklere, arm. 

Johannis Teye, arm. Johannis Godeston, arm. 

Thomse Knevet, arm. Rogeri Spyce, arm. 

Henrici Langley, arm. Thomae Bendysh, arm. 

Georgii Langham, arm. Hugo Nayllingh, arm. 

Richardi Fox, arm. Thomse Rigedon. 



GENTRY. 



525 



Ricardi Priour. 

Johannis Green. 

Johannis Basset. 

Roger! Deyncourt. 

Johannis Poynes. 

Johannis Santon. 

Johannis Malton. 

Thomee Basset. 

Johannis Walchif. 

Edmund. Preston. 

Roberti Sudbury. 

Johannis Baryngton. 

Willielmi Ardale. 

Nicholai Mortimer. 

Henrici Aleyn. 

Roberti Weston. 

Johannis Chamber. 

Thomee Chittern. 

Willielmi Aleyn. 

Johannis Beche. 

Roberti Priour, Ballivi Burgi 

Colcesteri. 
Richardi Beamond. 
Williel. Gorge, Balivi Burgi 

de Maldon. 

Roberti Simond de Hatfield. 
Thomee Hardekyn. 
Thomse Mullyng. 
Johannis Gale de Farnham. 
Johannis Stodehawe. 
Thomee Aldres. 
Egidii Lucas. 
Johannis Stanford. 
Roberti Wade. 
Thomee Blosme. 
Willielmi Gatton. 
Roberti Wright de Thurrok. 
Johannis Barowe. 
Roberti Brook de Dedham. 
Johannis Stephenede de El- 

mestede. 
Thomee Andrew. 
Richardi Dykeleygh. 
Willielmi Cony. 
Johannis Rouchestre. 
Johannis Marlere. 
Roberti de Bury. 
Thomee Stanes. 



Joh. a Benham de Witham. 
Richardi Jocep. 
Johannis Berdefeld. 
Thomee Brentys. 
Thomee Selers. 
Johannis Boreham. 
Roberti Seburgh. 
Henrici Maldon. 
Johannis Caweston. 
Thomee Mars, de Dunmow. 
Johannis Hereward de Thap- 

stede. 
Johannis fil. Will. Attee Fan. 

de eadem. 

Reg. Bienge de eadem. 
Walteri Goodmay. 
Willielmi Spaldyng. 
Hugonis Dorsete. 
Richardi Atte More. 
Radulphi Bonyngdon. 
Thomee Barete. 
Radulphi de Uphavering. 
Johannis Gobyon. 
Willielmi Scargoyll. 
Johannis Shynnyng. 
Willielmi Higham. 
Johannis Riche. 
Johannis Veyle, senioris. 
Johannis Hicheman. 
Edmundi Botere. 
Johannis Westle. 
Willielmi Admond. 
Johannis Compion. 
Richardi Sewale. 
Walteri Tybenham. 
Joh. Marshant de Peldon. 
Richardi Eylotte. 
Johannis Baderok. 
Joh. Wayte de Branketre. 
Joh. Parke de Gestmyngthorp. 
Willielmi Manwode. 
Henrici Hoberd. 
Rogeri Passelwe. 
Willielmi Atte Cherche. 
Willielmi Reynold. 
Johannis Sailler. 
Richardi Billingburgh. 
Allani Bushe. 



526 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

Johannis Wormele. Martini Stainer. 

Johannis Glyne. Roberti Beterythe. 

Roberti Ferthyng. Roberti Smyth de Waltham. 

OBSERVATIONS. 

Some part of this county lieth so near London, that the 
sound of Bow-bell (befriended with the wind) may be heard into 
it ; a bell that ringeth the funeral knell to the ancient gentry, 
who are more healthful and longer lived in counties at greater 
distance from the city. 

R. Bishop of London being absent beyond the seas, was 
Robert Fitz-Hugh, who was twice sent ambassador into Ger 
many, and once unto the Pope.* 

John earl of Oxford was John de Vere, second of that name, 
and eleventh earl of Oxford ; beheaded afterwards, anno 1462, 
in the fifth of king Edward the Fourth, for his loyalty to the 
house of Lancaster. 

HENRY BOURCHIER. Here additioned chevalier, appears 
by all proportion of time and place the self-same person who 
married Elizabeth, sister to Richard Plantagenet, duke of York, 
and who, by his nephew king Edward the Fourth, was created 
earl of Essex. He died, an aged person, 1483. I conceive 
that his father William Lord Bourchier (earl of Ewe in Nor 
mandy), was living when this Henry Bourchier was chosen 
knight for the shire ; a place usually conferred on the eldest 
sons of peers in the life-time of their fathers. 

JOHN TYRRELL, chevalier, Was chief of that family, rich 
and numerous in this county, of exemplary note and principal 
regard. Great Thorndon was the place of their sepulture, 
where their monuments to the church, both ruinous. This 
name (if still alive) lies gasping in this county, but continuing 
healthful in Buckinghamshire. 

JOHN MOUNTGOMERY, chevalier. I find him supervisor to 
the will of Sir Robert Darcy, anno 1469; and conceive that 
surname since utterly extinct. 

MAURICE BRUYN, chevalier. He had his seat at South 
Okenton. From the two heirs-general of this family often mar 
ried, Charles Brandon duke of Suffolk, the Tirrels, Berners, 
Harleston, Heveninghams, and others, are descended. A 
branch of the heir-male removed into Hantshire, since into 
Dorsetshire, where they subsist in a right worshipful equipage. 

WILLIAM GOLDINGHAM, chevalier. Though the great 

* Godwin, in his Catalogue of Bishops. 



GENTRY. 527 

tree be blasted, a small sprig thereof still sprouteth in this 
county. 

JOHN DOREWARD, Esq. He lived at Booking Dorewards 
in this county ; and was patron of the rich parsonage therein, 
which no ingenious person will envy to the worthy incumbent, 
Doctor John Gauden. This John Doreward lieth buried in the 
church, with this inscription : 

" Hie jacet Johannes Doreward, Armiger, qui obiit xxx die 
Januarii, anno Domini Mil. cccc. Ixv. et Blancha uxor ejus, quee 

obiit .... die mens anno Domini Mil. cccc. Ix. quorum 

animabus propitietur Deus. Amen. 

" Claviger ^Ethereus nobis sit Janitor almus." 

ROBERT DARCY, Arm. An ancient name in this county, 
having Danbury (whilst living) for their residence ; and the 
church in Maldon (when dead) for their sepulture, where there 
be many of their shamefully defaced monuments. 

This Robert Darcy, afterwards knighted, by his will, made 
the fifth of October 1469, bequeathed his body to be buried in 
Allhallows-church in Maldon, before the altar, where his father 
lay in a tomb of marble. He willed that forty marks should 
be disposed for two thousand masses (four-pence a mass) to be 
said for his soul, and the souls of his relations, within six weeks 
after his decease ; willing also that every priest in Pembroke 
Hall, in Cambridge, should have a share of that money, &c. 
He made Elizabeth his wife and others his executors ; the earl 
of Essex, the lord Dinham, Thomas Mountgomery, Thomas 
Terryll, supervisors of his will ; beseeching them to help his son 
Thomas and all his children. He willed the earl of Essex and 
the lord Dinham should have a butt of malmsey, Sir Thomas 
Mountgomery and Sir Thomas Terryll, a pipe of red wine, for 
their pains. Thomas Darcy his son, esquire of the body to 
king Henry the Sixth and Edward the Fourth, married Mar 
garet, one of the daughters and heirs of John Harleton of Suf 
folk, esquire. He died 25th of September 1485, as appears by 
his epitaph on his tomb in the church aforesaid. 

HENRY LANGLEY, Esq. He lived at Langley-Wilebores, in* 
the parish of Rickling, in the church whereof he lieth buried, 
with this inscription : 

" Hie jacet Henricus Langley, Armiger, qui obiit xx Septemb. 
M. cccc. Iviii. ; etMargareta uxor ejus, una nliarum et hseredum 
Johannis Waldene, Armigeri, quae obiit v. Martii, M. cccc. liii." 

There is in the same church a monument for his son, the 
more remarkable, because the last of his family : 

" Here lyeth Henry Langley, Esq. and Dame Catherine hisi 
wife, which Henry departed this life ii. April, M. cccc. Ixxxviii. 
and Dame Catherine died .... the year of our Lord God M. . ." 

VOL. \. 2 M 



528 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

It is not usual for the wife of an esquire to be styled Dame, 
except she was daughter to an earl, or relict to a knight. This 
Henry left three daughters (portraited on his marble tomb), 
betwixt whom his inheritance was divided. 

THOMAS HEVENINGHAM. His family flourisheth in Norfolk. 

JOHANNES LEVENTHORP, jun. Arm. His posterity flou 
risheth in Hertfordshire. 

THOMAS BARINGTON, Arm. He lived at Barington Hall in 
the parish of Hatfield-Broad-Oak, and lieth buried in the 
church, with this inscription : 

"Hie jacet Thomas Barington, Armig. et Anna uxor ejus, qui 
quidem Thomas obiit v. Aprilis M. cccc. Ixxii, et Anna proximo 
die sequenti, quorum animabus propitietur Altissimus." 

See here a sympathizing wife, dying the next day after 
her husband, of whom it may be said, 

" He first deceased ; she for few hours tried 
To live without him, liked it not, and died. 1 

The family is of signal nativity ; enriched with large posses 
sions, in the reign of king Stephen, by the barons of Montfit- 
chet ; and since received an accession of honour and estate, by 
marrying with Winifred, daughter and coheir of Henry Pole 
Lord Montague, son of Margaret Plantagenet countess of Salis 
bury, descended of the blood royal. At this day there is a ba 
ronet thereof, with other branches of good account. 

THOMAS BENDYSH, Arm. Bomsted in this county was, and 
is, the habitation of his family. 

EGIDIUS LUCAS. The name is honourable at this day, and 
hath a seat with fair possessions near Colchester ; but how re 
lated to this Giles I know not. Sure I am, that it appeareth 
on a window, in the north side of the church of Saxham Parva 
in Suffolk, that, anno Domini 1428, five years before this return 
of gentry, one Thomas Lucas, kneeling there with his wife in 
their coat-armours, was servant, secretary, and one of the coun 
cil, to Jasper duke of Bedford and earl of Pembroke. 

THOMAS BARRET was an esquire of signal note ; and the en 
suing nameless manuscript* will acquaint us with the time of 
his death : 

" Thomas Barryt, squyr to kyng Harry the Sixt, oftentimes 
employed in the French warrs, under the command of John due 
of Bedford, as also John due of Norfolk; being alway trew 
leigeman to his soveraign lord the king ; having taking sanctu- 

* Exemplified in Weaver s Funeral Monuments, p. 417. 



GENTRY. 



529 



ary at Westminstre to short the fury of his and the king s ene- 
myes, was from thense hayled forth, and lamentably hewyn 
a-peces : about whilke tym, or a lityl before, the Lord Skales, 
late in an evening, entrying a wherry-bott with three persons, 
and rawghing toowards Westminstre, there likewise to have 
taken sanctuary, was descride by a woman, where anon the 
wherryman fell on him, murthered him, and cast his mangled 
corpes alond by Saint Marie Overys." 

As for the date of his death, we may learn it out of his epi 
taph on his tomb in the church of Saint Martin s in the Fields, 
London : 

" Hie jacet Thomas Barret, prenobilis Armiger ; qui quidem 
Thomas erat abstractus de sanctuario Beati Petri Westmonas- 
terii, et crudeliter interfectus per manus impiorum, contra le 
ges Angliae, et totius universalis Ecclesie privilegia et jura, anno 
Domini 1461, et anno illustrissimi Regis Edwardi Quart! post 
Conquestum primo. Sub eodem quoque marmoreo lapide Jo 
hannes Barret ejusdem Thome primogenitus sepelitur, qui qui 
dem Johannes obiit die anno . . . ." 

This family of the Barrets received much wealth by the 
daughter and heir of Bellhouse, of Bellhouse (an ancient and 
fair seat in the parish of Averly in this county) ; and some few 
years since determined in Sir Edward Barret, knight, lord baron 
of Newburg in Scotland, chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster ; 
a hospital housekeeper, and founder of an alms-house in Avely 
aforesaid. He adopted ....... Lennard, esquire (son to the 

Lord Dacres by the daughter of the Lord North) heir to his es 
tate, on condition he should assume the surname of Barret. 



SHERIFFS 
OF ESSEX AND HERTFORDSHIRE. 



Anno HEN. II. 

1 Rich. Basset, et Albericus 

de Verr. 

2 Rich, de Lucy. 

3 Mauricus. 
4 

5 Mauricus de Tireter, for 
five years. 

10 Tullus Bovilla. 

11 Nich. Decanus, for four 

years. 
15 Nich. Decanus et Steph. 

de Bell. Campo dimid. 

anno. 
1 6 Rob. Mantellus, for twelve 

years. 



Anno 

28 Oto films 
six years. 



Willielm. for 



RICH. I. 

1 Oto filius Willielm. 

2 Idem. 

3 Galf. filius Petri. 

4 Galf. filius Petri, et 
Rich. Heriett. 

5 

6 Galf. filius Petri, et 
Simon Pateshalla. 

7 Will, de Long. Campo, 

Cane. Dom. Regis. 

8 Reginall. de Argento. 



530 



WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 



Anno 

9 Regind. de Argent, et 
Hug. de Nevil, et 
Hum. de Barton. 
10 Hugo de Nevill, et 
Johan de Nevill. 

JOHAN. 

1 Hugo de Nevill, et 
Johan de Nevill. 

2 Idem. 

3 Rich de Montfitchet, et 
Joh. de Cornheard. 

4 Rich, de Montfichet. 

5 Rich, de Montfitchet, et 
Joh. de Cornheard. 

6 Math. Mantell Com. for 

four years. 

10 Joh. Mantell. 

11 Albic. Willielm. filius Ful- 

conis. 

12 Comes Aibericus, et 
Idem Willielm. for four 

years. 

16 Math. Mantell, et 
Galf. Roinges. 

17 Rob. Mantell fr. et 
H. Matheus Mantell. 

HEN. I ll. 
1 

2 Will. Marescallus, et 
Joh. de Cornerd. 

3 Walt, de Udon. 

4 Rob. Mantell. 

5 Steph. de Segne, et 
Rad. filius Reginal. 

6 Idem. 

7 Steph. de Segne, et 
Petr. de S to Edward. 

8 Rich, de Argentoem, et 
Will, de Culcword, for 

nine years. 

17 Rob. de Walsh. 

18 Will, de Hollewell. 

19 Will de Coleworth. 

20 Petr. de Tany, for four 

years. 
24 Bartr. de Crioll. 



Anno 

25 Joh. de Walton. 

26 Idem. 

27 Rich, de Munfichet, for 

four years. 

31 Will, filius Regind. for four 
years. 

35 Rich, de Whitsand. 

36 Hen. de Helegton. 

37 

38 Idem. 

39 Rad,. de Ardene. 

40 Idem. 

41 Tho. de Dameden. 

42 Hub. de Monte Cam. 

43 Idem. 

44 Rich, de Taney. 

45 Rich, de Taney, et 
Math, de la Mare. 

46 Math, de la Mare. 

47 Idem. 

48 Idem. 

49 Nich. le Epigornell. 

50 Nich. de Sathrich. 

51 Idem. 

52 Idem. 

53 Joh. de Kammell, et 
Walt, de Essex. 

54 Will, de Blunvill. 

55 Idem. 

56 Walt, de Essex. 

EDW. I. 

1 Walt, de Essex. 

2 Idem. 

3 Tho. de Sandivic. - 

4 Laur. de Scio. 

5 Idem. 

6 Idem. 

7 Will. de-San. Caro. 

8 Regin. de Ginges, for five 

years. 

13 Idem, et 

Will, de Lamburne. 

14 Idem. 

15 Hugo de Blound. 

16 Idem. 

17 Rad. de Boxstede. 

18 Idem. 



.SHERIFFS. 



531 



Anno 

19 Hen. Grapnill. 

20 Idem. 

21 Will, le Grose. 

22 Will, de Sutton. 

23 Idem. 

24 Idem. 

25 Simon de Bradenham. 

26 Idem. 

27 Idem. 

28 Joh. de Le. 

29 Idem. 

30 Will, de Harpden. 

31 Joh. de Bassenburne. 

32 Idem. 

33 Joh. de la Le. 

34 Idem. 

35 Joh. de Harpessend. 

EDW. II. 

1 Wall, de Bauds. 

2 Alanus de Goldingham. 

3 Idem. 

3 Gafr. de la Le, et 

Joh. de la Hay. 
5 Idem. 
6*Joh. Aignell. 

7 Joh. Ward de Hoo. 

8 Rich. Perers, for four 

years. 

12 Johan. de Vouret, et 
Rad. Giffard. 

13 Idem. 

14 Nich. Engayn. 

15 Idem. 

16 Adam Frances. 

17 Tho. Gobium. 

18 Rich, de Perers. 

19 Idem. 

EDWARD III. 

1 Rich. Perers. 

2 Will. Baud. 

3 Rich, de Perers. 

4 Idem. 



Anno 

5 Joh. de Wanton. 

6 Joh. de la Hay, et 
Joh. de Wanton. 

7 Joh. de la Hay, et 
Adam de Bloy. 

8 Will. Baud et Adam Bloy. 

9 Joh. de Coggeshall, for five 

years. 

14 Idem et Will, de Wanton. 

15 Will. Atte Moore. 

16 Hen. Gernet. 

17 Idem. 

18 Joh. de Cogeshall. 

19 Idem. 

20 Joh. de Cogeshall, for four 

years. 

24 Pet. de Boxstede. 

25 Tho. Lacy. 

26 Joh. de Cogeshall. 

27 Idem. 

28 Idem. 

29 Hugo Fitz-Simond. 

30 Will, de Enefeld. 

31 Tho. de Chabham. 

32 Idem. 

33 Roger le Louth. 

34 Idem. 

35 Hugo Blount. 

36 Will, de Leyre. 

37 Guido de Boys. 

38 Tho. Fittling. 

39 Joh. Jernoun. 

40 Tho.. de Helpeston. 

41 Joh. Oliver. 

42 Tho. Chardlowe. 

43 Joh. Heuxteworth. 

44 Idem. 

45 Tho. Basingborn. 

46 Will. Baud. 

47 Joh. de Broumpton. 

48 Joh. Filiol. 

49 Edw. Fitz Simond. 

50 Joh. Battail. 

51 Rob. Fitz Williams. 



RICHARD I. 



7- WILL, de LONGO CAMPO, CANCELLARIUS DOM. REGIS. 
This is that insolent bishop of Ely, our chroniclers having so 
much anger at his pride, and no pity at his downfall. He seems 



532 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

a riddle to me, who was lord chancellor of England (a Norman 
by birth), and could not speak a word of English.* It seems 
chancery-suits in that age were penned and pleaded in French. 

KING JOHN. 

1. HUGO de NEVIL, et JOHAN. de NEVIL. Hugh was he 
who attended king Richard the First, and slew a lion in the 
Holy Land ; a great benefactor to Waltham Abbey, in which 
church he was buried. t John was his son, to whom Matthew 




persons in my " Ecclesiastical History 
tors of (who were but the allies to) the honourable family of the 
Nevills ; being since informed, that the issue-male of this Hugh 
and John is long since extinct. 

EDWARD II. 

1. WALTER de BAUD, This ill-sounding surname is both 
ancient and honourable. Some do deduce it from Baden, a 
marquisate in Germany ; and most sure it is, that they here 
have flourished twelve generations, as followeth : 1. Sir Si 
mon Baud, or Bauld, knight, died in the Holy Laud, 1174.|| 

2. Sir Nicholas Baud, knight, died at Galicia in Spain, 1189. 

3. Sir Walter Baud, knight, died at Coringham (in this county) 
1216. 4. Sir William Baud, knight, died at Coringham, 1270. 
5. Sir Walter de Baud, sheriff this year, died at Coringham, 
1310. 6. Sir. William de Baud, died at Coringham, 1343. 
7. Sir John de Baud, knight, died in Gascoigne, lJ-i&lt;3. 8. Sir 
William de Baud, knight, died at Hadham. Parva, 1375, thrice 
sheriff under king Edward the Third. 9. Thomas Baud (the 
first esquire of his line) died at Hadham aforesaid, 1420. 10. 
Thomas Baud, the second esquire, died at Hadham, 1449 ; he 
was sheriff in the 25th of king Henry the Sixth. 11. Sir Tho 
mas Baud, knight, died in London, 1500. 12. John Baud, 
esq. died at Coringham, 1550. 

The Bauds held land in this county of the dean and chapter 
of Saint Paul s, by paying a fee-buck and doe in their seasons. 
They were brought (alive, as I take it) in procession to the 
high altar in the church, where the dean and chapter met 
them, apparelled in copes (embroidered with bucks and does, 
the gift of the Bauds to their church) with garlands of roses 
on their heads ; and then the keeper who brought them 
blowed their deaths, which was answered by the company 
of Homers in London resounding the same.^f Other cere 
monies were used, better befitting their mouths who cried out 

* Godwin, in Ep. EHen. Anglicanse linguae omnino ignarus. 

I Matthew Paris, anno 1222. I Ad annum 1245. 
Verstegan, in names of Contempt. 

II Weaver s Funeral Monuments, p. 602. 

Tf Stow s Survey of London, in Farringdon ward. 



SHERIFFS. 533 

" Great is Diana of the Ephesians," * than the ministers of 
the Gospel. Some seemed to excuse it, as done in comme 
moration of the property of that place, altered to a Chris 
tian church,, from a temple of Diana.f I suspect the Bauds 
extinct in Essex, and understand them extant in Northamp- 
amptonshire. 

SHERIFFS OF ESSEX AND HERTFORDSHIRE. 

RICHARD II. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

1 Rob. Goldington. 

Arg. two lions passant Az, 

2 Joh. Fitz-Simonds. 

Arg. three escutcheons G. 

3 Edw. Bensted. 

4 Joh. Seawale. 

S. a chevron betwixt three gad-bees Arg. 

5 Will. Godmanston. 

6 Galf. de Dersham. 

7 Tho. Battaile. 

G. a griffin segreant within a border engrailed O. 

8 Joh. Walton. 

Arg. a flower-de-luce G. 

9 Galf. Brockhole. 
10 Joh. Rigwin. 

it Idem. 

12 Hen. English. 

13 Walt, atte Lee. 

14 Galf. Michell. 

15 Will. Cogeshall, mil. . Coggeshall. 

Arg. a cross between four escalops S. 

16 Adam Frances. 

17 Tho. Cogeshall . . , ut prius. 

18 Tho. Sampkin. 

19 Will. Bateman. 

S. three lions dormant Arg. 

20 Idem ut prius. 

21 Idem ut prius. 

22 Idem ut prius. 

HENRY IV. 

1 Edw. Bensted. 

2 Joh. Reward, et 
Will. Marvy. 

3 Helmingus Legett. 

Erm. a lion rampant G. 

. * Acts xix. 28. f Camden s Britannia, in Middlesex. 



534 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

Anno Name. Place. 

4 Tho. Swinborn. 

G. three boars heads couped, and crusyle of crosses Arg. 

5 Idem ut prius. 

6 Edw. Bensted. 

7 Gerar. Braibrooke, 

Arg. six mascles conjoined, 3, 2, and 1, G. 

8 Elming. Legett . . . ut prius. 

9 Will. Loveney. 

10 Joh. Walden. 

11 Tho. Aston. 

Per fess Arg. and S. in fess two flower-de-luces, lying 
each to other between three mullets counterchanged. 

12 Will. Cogeshall . . . ut prius. 

HENRY V. 

1 Joh. Tirrel .... Heron. 

Arg. two chevrons Az. within a border engrailed G. 

2 Joh. Hayward, mil. 

3 Tho. Barre, mil. 

4 Lodovi. Johan. 

5 Regin. Malyns. 

6 Joh. H award, mil. 

7 Rob. Darcy .... Danbury. 

Arg. three cinquefoils G. 

8 Lodov. Johan. 

9 Idem, et 
Will. Loveny. 

* 

HENRY VI. 

1 Joh. Tirrell .... ut prius. 

2 Maur. Bruyn, mil. . . S. Okenton. 

Az. a cross moline O. 

3 Joh. Barley. 

Erm. three bars wavy S. 

4 Joh. Doreward . . . Booking. 

5 Conandus Aske. 

6 Tho. Tirrell .... ut prius. 

7 Joh. Hotoft. 

8 Nich. Rikhall. 

9 Hen. Langley . . . Rickling. 

10 Nich. Thorley, mil. 

11 Joh. Durward. 

12 Rob. Whittington. 

13 Galf. Rokhill. 

14 Maur. Bruyn, mil. . . ut prius. 

15 Edw. Tirrell ut prius. 

16 Rich. Alread. 

17 Rob. Whittington. 



SHERIFFS. 



535 



Anno 



Name. 



Place. 



18 Rich. Whitherton. 

19 Job. Tirrell ./ . . . ut prius. 

20 Rad. Astley. 

21 Nich. Morley. 

Arg. a lion rampant S, crowned O. 

22 Job. Hende. 

23 Tho. Tirrell .... ut prius. 

24 Tho. Pigot. 

25 Tho. Baud .... Coringham. 

G. three chevrons Arg. 

26 Joh. Hende, jun. 

27 Geo. Langham. 

Arg. a fess G. and a label of three points Az. 

28 Galf. Rockhill. 

29 Phil. Bottiller . . . Wood-hall. 

G. a fess compone Arg. and S. betwixt six crosses 
crosslets O. 

30 Tho. Barington, arm. . Barrington-hall. 

Arg. three chevrons G. a label of three points Az. 

31 Joh. Godmanston. 

32 Tho. Cobham, mil. 

33 Hum. Bahun. 

34 Rich. Bothe. 

35 Joh. Hende, jun. 

36 Lodovi. John. 

37 Rad. Darcy . . . . ut prius. 

38 Tho. Tirrell, mil. . . ut prius. 

EDWARD IV. 

1 Tho. Juce. 

2 Tho. Langley, arm. 

3 Idem. 

4 Joh. Clay, mil. 

5 Rog. Ree, arm. 

6 Lau. Rainford, mil. 

7 Hen. Barley, arm. . . ut prius. 

8 Will. Firlon, mil. 

9 Walt. Writell, arm. 

10 Rad. Bamde, arm. 

11 Walt. Writell, arm. 

12 Rog. Ree, mil. 

13 Alur. Cornbrugh, arm. 

14 Job. Sturgion, arm. 

15 Rich. Hant, arm. 

16 Hen. Langley, arm. 

17 Will. Green, arm. 

Arg. a cross engrailed G. 



536 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

Anno Name. Place. 

18 Alur. Cornburgh. 

19 Job. Wode. 

20 Job. Sturgion. 

21 Tho. Tirrell . . . . ut prius. 

22 Job. Fortescue, arm. 

Az. a bend engrailed Arg, cotised O. 

RICHARD III. 

1 Will. Say. 

Quarterly, O and G. 

2 Job. Sturgeon. 

3 Rob. Percy, mil. et 

Job. Fortescu, mil. . ut prius. 

HENRY VII. 

1 Job. Fortescue, mil. . ut prius. 

2 Hen. Marny, arm. 

G. a lion rampant gardant Arg. 

3 Will. Pirton, mil. 

Erm. on a chevron engrailed Az. three leopards 5 heads O. 

4 Hen. Teye, arm. 

Arg. a fess between three martlets in chief, and a chevron 
in base Az. 

5 Job. Bottiler, arm. . ut prius. 

6 Rob. Turbervile . . . DORSET. 

Erm, a lion rampant G. crowned O. 

7 Job. Berdefeild, arm. 

8 Hen. Marny . . . . ut prius. 

9 Ri. Fitz-Lewis, mil. . Thorndon, E. 

S. a chevron betwixt three trefoils Arg. 

10 Rob. Plummer. 

11 Will. Pulter .... Hitching. 

Arg. a bend voided S. 
Rob. Newport, arm. . Petha 5 Furnis. 

13 Tho. Perient, arm. . . Diggeswell. 

G. three crescents Arg. 

14 Job. Verney, mil. 

Az. on a cross Arg. five mullets G. 

15 Rog. Wentworth, mil. 

S. a chevron betwixt three leopards 5 heads O. 

16 Hen. Teye, mil. . . . ut prius. 

17 Will. Pirton, arm. . . ut prius. 

18 Hum. Torrell, arm. 

G. three bulls 5 heads couped O. 

19 Will. Skipwith, arm. . LINCOLNSHIRE. 

Arg. three bars G. ; in chief a greyhound coursant S. 

20 Idem. .^ nt prius. 






SHERIFFS. 537 

Anno Name. Place. 

21 Rob. Darcy, arm. . . ... ut prim. 

22 Job. Broket, arm. . . Broket-hall. 

O. a cross patonce S. 

23 Idem ut prius. 

24 Hum, Torel!, arm. . . ut prius. 

HENRY VIII. 

1 Job. Levinthorpe, arm. 

Arg. a bend gobonated G. and S. between two cotises of 
the second. 

2 Will. Litton, arm. . . Kebworth. 

Erm. on a cbief indented Az. three crowns ducal O. 

3 Anth. Darcy, arm. . . ut prius. 

4 Edw. Tirrell, arm. . . ut prius. 

5 Job. Seintler, arm. 

6 Will. Fitz Williams. 

Lozengee, Arg. and G. 

7 Job. Veer, arm. 

Quarterly, G. and O. ; in the first a mullet Arg. 

8 Wist. Browne, mil. 

9 Tho. Tirrell, mil. . . ut prius. 

10 Joh. Cut, mil. 

Arg. on a bend engrailed S. three plates. 

11 Joh. Veer, mil. . . . ut prius. 

12 Tho. Bonham, arm. 

13 Tho. Teve, mil. . . . ut prius. 

14 Joh. Christmas, arm. 

15 Hen. Barley, arm. . . ut prius. 

16 Joh. Veer, mil. . . . ut prius. 

17 Tho. Leventhorp, arm. . ut prius. 

18 Tho. Bonham, arm. 

19 Edw. Tirrell, arm. . . ut prius. 

20 Egid. Capell, mil. . . Hadham. 

G. a lion rampant betwixt three crosses botonne fitche O. 

21 Joh. Bollis, arm. . . . Wallington, H. 

Arg. on a chevron betwixt three boars heads couped S. 
as many scallops O. within a border V. bezantee. 

22 Joh. Broket, arm. . . ut prius. 

23 Joh. Smith, arm. 

24 Phil. Butler, mil. . . ut prius. 

25 Bri. Tuke, mil. 

Partie per fess indented Az. and G. three lions passant in 
pale O. 

26 Will. West, mil. 

27 Tho. Perient, sen. arm. ut prius. 

28 Hen. Parker, mil. 

Arg. a lion passant G. between two bars S. thereon three 



538 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

Anno Name. Place. 

besants j in chief as many bucks heads cabossed of the 
third. 

29 Joh, Rainsford, mil. 

30 Joh. Smith, arm. 

31 Phil. Butler, mil. . . ut prius. 

32 Joh. Mordant, mil. . . BEDFORDSHIRE. 

Arg. a chevron inter three etoiles S. 

33 Rad. Rowlet, arm. . . St. Alban s, H. 

34 Joh. Bowles, et . . . ut prius. 
Joh. Sewstes. 

35 Joh. Wentwarth, arm. . ut prius. 

36 Anth. Cook, arm. . . Gidy-hall, E. 

O. a chevron cheeky G. and Az. betwixt three cinque- 
foils of the last. 

37 Rob. Litton, arm. . . ut prius. 

38 Joh. Coningsby . . . South Mims. 

G. three conies seiant within a border engrailed Arg. 
Edw. Broket .... ut prius. 

EDWARD VI. 

1 Edw. Broket, arm. . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Cook, arm. . . . ut prius. 

3 Joh. Gates, mil. . . . High Easter. 

4 Geo. Norton, mil. 

5 Hen. Tirrell, mil. . . . ut prius. 

6 Tho. Pope, mil. 

Partie per pale O. and Az. ; on a chevron between three 
griffins heads erased, four flower-de-luces all counter- 
changed. 

PHIL. ET MARY. 

1 Jo. Wentworth, mil. . ut prius. 

2 Edw. Broket, arm. . . ut prius. 

3 Will. Harris, arm. et 
Tho. Sylesden, arm. 

O. on a bend Az. three cinquefoils of the field. 

4 Joh. Botler, mil. . . . ut prius. 

5 Tho. Pope, mil. . . . ut prius. 

6 Tho. Mildmay, arm. . Chelmsford. 

Arg. three lions rampant Az. 

ELIZ. REG. 

1 Rad. Rowlet, mil. 

2 Edw. Capell, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 Tho. Golding, mil. 

G. a chevron O. inter three besants. 

4 Tho. Barington, arm. . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 539 

Anno Name. Place. 

5 Hen. Fortescu, arm. . ut prim. 

6 Will. Ayliffe, arm. 

S. a lion rampant O. collared G. between four crosses 
patee of the second. 

7 Rob. Chisler, arm. 

8 Joh. Buket, arm. 

SHERIFFS OF THIS SHIRE ALONE. 
ELIZ. REG. 

9 Geo. Tuke, esq. . . . ut priiis. 

10 Tho. Lucas, esq. . . . Colchester. 

Arg. a fess betwixt six annulets G. 

11 Tho. Golding, knt. . . ut prius. 

12 Jam. Altham, esq. . . Mark-hall. 

[See his Arms, p. 371.] 

13 Edw. Barret, esq. . . Bell-house. 

14 Tho. Mildrnay, knt. . . ut prius. 

15 Arth. Harris, esq. . . ut prius. 

16 Edw. Pirton, esq. . . ut prius. 

17 Joh. Peter, knt. . . . Writtle. 

G. a bend between two escalops Arg. 

18 Wistan Brown, esq. 

19 Gab. Pointz, esq. 

Barry of eight, O. and G. 

20 Ed. Huddleston, esq. . CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 

G. frettee Arg. 

2 1 Henry Capell, esq. . . ut prius. 

22 Tho. Barington, knt. et . ut prius. 
Tho. Darcy, esq. . . ut prius. 

23 Joh. Wentworth . . . ut prius. 

24 Thomas Tay, esq. . . ut prius. 

25 Tho. Lucas, knt. . . . ut prius. 

26 Hen. Apleton, esq. 

Arg. a fess engrailed betwixt three apples G. slipped V. 

27 Bria. Darcy, esq. . . . ut prius. 

28 Arth. Harris, esq. . . ut prius. 

29 Rob. Wroth, esq. . . Loughton. 

Arg. on a bend S. three leopards heads erased of the first, 
crowned O. 

30 Edm. Hudleston, knt. . ut prius. 

31 Gabr. Poyns, esq. . . ut prius. 

32 Rad. Wiseman, esq. 

S. a chevron Erm. betwixt three cronels of spears Arg. 

33 Rich. Warren, esq. 

34 Joh. Wentworth, esq. . ut prius. 

35 Hum. Mildmay, esq. . ut prius. 

36 Will. Ayloffe, esq. . . Braxted. 

Arms, ut prius. 



540 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

Anno Name. Place. 

37 Edw. Saliard, esq. 

38 Geo. Harvey, esq. 

39 Tho. Mildmay, esq. . . ut prius. 

40 Will. Harris, esq. . . ut prius. 

41 Jer. Western, esq. 

O. an eagle displayed S. the head regardant. 

42 Tho. Meade, knt. 

G. a chevron Erm. betwixt three trefoils Arg. 

43 Hen. Smith, esq. 

44 Rich. Franke, esq. 

45 Hen. Maynard, knt. 

et 1 Jac. . . . Easton. 
Arg. a chevron Az. betwixt three hands G. 

JAC. REX 

1 Hen. Maynard, knt. . ut prius. 

2 Tho. Rawlins, esq. 

S. three swords bar-ways, blades Arg. hilts O. 

3 Joh. Sammes, knt. 

O. a lion rampant S. vulnerated in the mouth. 

4 Gam. Capel, knt. * . ut prius. 

5 Hen. Maxey, knt. 

G. a fess betwixt three talbots* heads erased Arg. 

6 Rog. Apleton, esq. . . ut prius. 

7 Tho. Mildmay, knt. . . ut prius. 
S Joh. Dean, knt. 

S. a fess Erm. betwixt three chaplets Arg. 
9 Tho. Wiseman, knt. ... ut prius. 

10 Hen. Leigh, knt. 

1 1 Ro. Worth, mort. et 

Edr. Elrington, esq. . ut prius. 

Arg. a fess dancette S. bezanty, bet\veen five Cornish 
choughs, three above, two below. 

12 Har. Grimston, knt. . Bradfield. 

Arg. on a fess S. three spur-rowels O. 

13 Will. Smith, esq. 

14 Tho. Lucas, esq. . . ut prius. 

15 Pau. Bayning, k. et b. . Bentley. 

16 Tho. Bendish, bar. . . Bumsted. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three rams heads erased Az. 

17 Will. Smith, knt. 

18 Will. Pert, esq. 

Arg. on a bend Az. three mascles O. 

19 Ste. Soame, knt. 

20 Tho. Gourney,knt. 

21 Caro. Prat, esq. 

22 Edr. Botelar, esq. . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 541 

CAR. REX. 

Anno Name. Place. 

1 Arth. Harris, knt. . . ut prius. 

2 Hug. Everard, esq. . . Much-Waltham. 

Arg. a fess wavy between three stars G. 

3 Tho. Nightingale, esq. . Newport-P. 

Erm. a rose G. 

4 Hen. Mildmay, knt. . Graces. 

Arms, ut prius. 

5 Edr. Allen, bar. . . . Hatfeld Pri. 

S. a cross potent O. 

6 Tho. Bendish, bar. 

Arms, ut prius. 

7 Joh. Meade, knt. . . ut prius. 

8 Hen. Smith, esq. 

9 Ric. Saltonstall, knt. 

10 Cran. Harris, knt. . . Woodham-Mortimere. 

Arms, ut prius. 

11 Hum. Mildmay, knt. . Danbury. 

Arms, ut prius. 

12 Joh. Lucas, esq. . . . ut prius. 

13 Will. Lucking, bar. . . Waltham. 

S. a fess indented betwixt two leopards 5 heads O. 

14 Will. Wiseman, bar. . Canfield-hall. 

Arms, ut prius. 

15 Marl. Lumley, esq. . Bardfield M. 

16 Rob. Luckin, esq. . . ut prius. 

17 Rob. Smith, esq. 
18 

19 Tim. Middleton, esq. 

20 Rich. Everardj bar. . . ut prius. 

21 Ri. Harlakenden, esq. 

Az. a fess Erm. betwixt 3 lions heads erased O. 

22 Joh. Pyot, esq. 

Az. on a fess O. a lion passant G. ; in chief three bezants. 

HENRY VI. 

29. PHILIP BOTTILLER. He was son to Philip Bottiller, 
knight, who lieth buried in Walton church in Hertfordshire, 
with the following inscription : 

" Hie jacet corpus Domini Philippi Butler, Militis, quondam 
Domini de Woodhall, et hujus Ecclesie Patroni, qui obiit in 
Festo Sancti Leonardi, anno Domini M.CCCC.XXI. et Regis Hen- 
rici Quinti post Conquestum ultimo. Cujus anime propitietur 
Deus. Amen/ 

These Butlers are branched from Sir Ralph Butler, baron of 
Wem in Shropshire, and his wife, heir to William Pantulfe, lord 
of Wem, soon after the entry of the Normans ; and still flourish 
in deserved esteem, at Woodhall in Hertfordshire. 



542 "WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 



HENRY VII. 

2. HENRY MARNY, Arm. Till disproved with clear evidence 
to the contrary, this Henry Marny, esquire, shall pass with me 
for him who was then servant, afterwards executor, to the king s 
mother, the Lady Margaret, countess of Richmond ; the very 
same who afterwards was knighted, made chancellor of the du 
chy, and created Lord Marny, by king Henry the Eighth ; and 
whose daughter and sole heir, Elizabeth, was, with a fair inherit 
ance, married to Thomas Howard, Viscount Bindon. 

HENRY VIII. 

6. WILLIAM FITZ WILLIAMS, Arm. I cannot exactly design 
his habitation ; but conceive it not far from Waltham Abbey, 
in the south-west part of this county ; because he bequeathed 
fifty pounds to mend the highways betwixt Chigwell and Co 
pers-hall.* He was afterwards knighted by king Henry the 
Eighth, on a worthy occasion ; whereof hereafter, in his Sheriff- 
alty of Northamptonshire, in the fifteenth of king Henry the 
Eighth. He bequeathed one hundred pounds to poor maids 
marriages ; forty pounds to the university, &c. ; and delivering 
a catalogue of his debtors into the hands of his executors, he 
freely forgave all those over whose names he had written " Amore 
Dei remitto."t 

4 

14. JOHN CHRISTMAS, Arm. Such will not wonder at his 
surname, who have read the Romans cognominated Januarius, 
Aprilis, &c. Yea, Festus himself is well known in Scripture,^ 
probably so called from being born on some solemn festival ; 
the occasion, no doubt, of this sheriff s surname at the first. 

If the name be extinct in Essex, it remaineth in other coun 
ties ; and the city of London, where Christmas, esquire 

(a great promoter of my former and present endeavours) must 
not by me be forgotten. 

25. BRIAN TUKE, Knight. He was treasurer of the chamber 
to king Henry the Eighth (as appears by his epitaph) ; and dy 
ing anno 1536, lieth buried with Dame Grissel his wife (deceas 
ing two years after him) under a fair tomb in the north aisle of 
the choir of St. Margaret s in Lothbury, Londpn. Leland giv- 
eth him this large commendation, that he was " Anglicse linguae 
eloquentia mirificus." Bale saith, that he wrote observations 
on Chaucer : as also against Polidore Vergil, for injuring the 
English; of whom, then still alive, he justly and generously de 
manded reparations ; though since, his unresponsible memory 
can make us no satisfaction. 

* Stow s Survey of London, p. 90. f Idem, ibidem. J Acts xxiv. 27. 

In his book entitled " Scriptores nostri temporis." 



SHERIFFS. 543. 



EDWARD VI. 

3. Sir JOHN GATES. He was descended from Sir Geffry 
Gates, knight, who, as appears by his epitaph in the church of 
High Eastern, bought the Manor of Garnets, in that parish, of 
one Koppenden, gentleman. This Sir Geffry was six years 
captain of the Isle of Wight, and marshal of Calais; "and 
there kept with the Pikards worshipful Warrys " (reader, it is 
the language of his epitaph) ; and died anno Domini 1477- 

As for this Sir John Gates, knight, descendant from the 
said Sir Geffry, he is heavily charged with sacrilege in our 
histories ; and, engaging with John Dudley duke of Northum 
berland in the title of queen Jane, he was beheaded the 22nd of 
August, the first of queen Mary, 1553. 



QUEEN ELIZABETH. 

1. RALPH ROWLET, Knight. He married one of the learned 
daughters of Sir Anthony Cook, sister to the wives of the lord 
chancellor Bacon and treasurer Cecil.* His family is now 
extinct ; one of his daughters marrying into the then worshipful 
(since honourable) family of the Maynards, and with her de 
volved a fair inheritance. 

12. JAMES ALTHAM, Esq. His arms (casually omitted in 
our list) were, Paly of six, Erm. and Az. ; on a chief G. a lion 
rampant O. His namesake, and direct descendant, now living 
at Mark-hall, made Knight of the Bath at the coronation of 
king Charles the Second, addeth with his accomplished civility 
to the honour of his ancestors. 

KING JAMES. 

1. HENRY MAYNARD, Knight. He was father to William 
Maynard, bred at Saint John s College in Cambridge (where he 
founded a logic professor) ; created baron of Wicklow in Ire 
land, and Easton in this county ; whose son William lord May 
nard hath been so noble an encourager of my studies, that my 
hand deserveth to wither, when my heart passeth him by with 
out a prayer for his good success. 

15. PAUL BAYNING, Knt. and Bar. No doubt the same 
person who afterwards was created viscount Bayning of Sud- 
bury.f His son was bred in Christ-church, of most hopeful 
parts (descended from the Sackvils by the mother s side) and 
promising high performance to his country ; but, alas ! cut off 
in the prime of the prime of his life. He left two daughters, 
which (though married) left no issue ;f so that his large estate 

* Camden s Elizabeth, in anno 1576. f In 1627 ED. 

J Sir Paul Bayning died in 1640. His widow was the only daughter and heiress 
of Sir Robert Nautiton. ED. 

VOL I. 2 N 



544 WORTHIES OF ESSEX. 

will be divided betwixt the children of his four sisters, wives to 
the marquis of Dorchester, viscount Grandison, the lord Dacres 
of the south, and Henry Murray, esquire of the bedchamber 
to king Charles. 

KING CHARLES. 

12. JOHN LUCAS, Esq. This worthy person, equalling his 
extraction with his virtues, was at Oxford made baron by king 
Charles the First. I understand he hath one sole daughter (to 
whom I wish a meet consort, adequate to her birth and estate) ; 
seeing the barony, begun in this lord, is suspicious in him 
to determine. 

THE BATTLES. 

Though none in this county (the heart of the eastern asso 
ciation), yet the siege (anno 1648) of Colchester must not be 
forgotten. Know then that the remnant of the royalists, routed 
in Kent, with much difficulty recovered this county, the parlia 
ment s forces pursuing them. March much farther they could 
not, such their weariness and want of accommodation : bid 
battle to their numerous foes they durst not, which was to run in 
the jaws of ruin ; wherefore they resolved to shelter themselves 
for a time in Colchester. 

Reader, pardon a digression. Winchester castle was by the 
Long Parliament ordered to be made untenable ; but the over- 
officious malice of such who executed the order (wilfully mis 
taking the word) made it untenantable. To apply the distinction 
to Colchester ; all men beheld it as tenantable, full of fair 
houses ; none as tenable in an hostile way for any long time, 
against a great army. 

But see what diligence can do. In a few days they fortified 
it even above imagination. Indeed the lining of the wall was 
better than the facing thereof, whose stone outside was ruinous, 
but the inside was well filled up with earth, which they valiantly 
maintained. Nor was it general Fairfax they feared so much, 
as general famine (that grand conqueror of cities) ; having too 
much of the best sauce, and too little of the worst meat ; inso 
much that they were fain to make mutton of those creatures 
which kill sheep, and beef of cattla which never wore horns, till 
they were forced to submit to the worst (but best they could get) 
of conditions. 

Here these two worthy knights, Sir Charles Lucas and Sir 
George Lisle (the one eminently a whole troop of horse, the 
other a company of foot) were cruelly sentenced, and shot to 
death ; whose bodies have since had a civil resurrection, re 
stored to all possible outward honour, by public funeral solem 
nities. 

THE FAREWELL. 

I wish the sad casualties may never return, which lately 
have happened in this county; the one, 1581, in the hundred 



WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 545 

of Dengy,* the other, 1648, in the hundred of Rochford and 
Isle of Foulness (rented in part by two of my credible 
parishioners, who attested it, having paid dear for the truth 
thereof) ; when an army of mice, nesting in ant-hills, as conies 
in burroughs, shaved off the grass at the bare roots, which 
withering to dung was infectious to cattle. The March follow 
ing, numberless flocks of owls from all parts flew thither, and 
destroyed them, which otherwise had ruined the country, if 
continuing another year. Thus, though great the distance 
betwixt a man and a mouse, the meanest may become for 
midable to the mightiest creature by their multitudes ; and this 
may render the punishment of the Philistines more clearly to 
our apprehensions, at the same time pestered with mice in their 
barns, and pained with emerods in their bodies.f 

* Stow s Chronicle, anno citat. f l Sam. vi. 11. 



WORTHIES OF ESSEX WHO HAVE FLOURISHED SINCE THE 

TIME OF FULLER. 

Thomas COOKE, miscellaneous writer; born at Braintree 1/97- 
Sir William DAWES, archbishop of York; born at Lyons 1670. 
Mary Wollstonecraft GODWIN, author of " Rights of Women ;" 

born 1759; died 1798. 
John HARRIOTT, agricultural author and experimentalist ; born 

at Great Stanbridge 1745. 

Sir Richard JEBB, physician; born at Stratford 1729. 
Smart LETHIEULLIER, antiquary ; born at Aldersbroke 1701 ; 

died 1760. 
John MASON, author of " Self Knowledge/ dissenting divine ;, 

born at Dunmow 1706 ; died 1763. 
Margaret duchess of NEWCASTLE, voluminous writer ; born at 

St. John s near Colchester; died 1673. 
Henry WINSTAJVLEY, architect (destroyed with his light-house 

at Eddystone 1703). 



** Since the time of Fuller, this county has been fertile in historians. We have 
Histories of Essex, by the Rev. N. Tindal, the Rev. P. Morant (1768), P. Muil- 
man (1770), and Eliz. Ogborne (1814). There have also been published Dale s 
History of Harwich and .Dover court, &c. (1730) ; Farmer s History of Waltham 
Abbey (1735) ; Strutt s History of Colchester (1789); and Cough s History of 
Pleshy (1803) ED. 



2 N 2 



GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



GLOUCESTERSHIRE hath Worcester and Warwick-shire on the 
north, Oxford and Wilt-shire on the east, Somersetshire on the 
south, Herefordshire, with the river Wye, on the west ; extend 
ing from her South to North Avon 48 miles ; but lessened in 
her broadest part, from east to west, to twenty eight. The Se 
vern runneth through it, entering this county as a river, in 
creasing in it to an estuary, and becometh little less than a sea 
before it departs out of it. 

Some affirm that this county was anciently like the land of 
Gerar,* wherein Isaac sowed and reaped an hundred fold t (the 
greatest proportion of increase which the good ground in the 
parable brought forth. J) But the same men seem to insinuate 
that this shire, tired out with its over-fruitfulness, hath become 
barren in these later times. True it is, as lions are said to be 
tamed by watching, not suffering them to take any sleep, so the 
most generous and vigorous land will in time be embarrened, 
when always pinched with the plough, and not permitted to 
slumber at all, and lie fallow some competent time ; otherwise, 
with moderate respite and manuring, some tillage in this county 
is as fruitful as in any other place. As for pasturage, I have 
heard it reported from credible persons, that such the fruitful- 
ness of the land nigh Slimbridge, that in spring time, let it be 
bit bare to the roots, a wand laid along therein over night will 
be covered with new grown grass by the next morning. 

NATURAL COMMODITIES. 

TOBACCO. 

This lately grew in this county, but now may not. It was 
first planted about Winchcomb, and many got great estates 
thereby, notwithstanding the great care and cost in planting, 
replanting, transplanting, watering, snailing, suckering, topping, 
cropping, sweating, drying, making, and rolling it. But it hath 
been prohibited of late by Act of Parliament, as hindering our 
English plantation in the West Indies, abating the revenues of 

* From whom Mr. Camden, in his Britannia, doth di.sent. 
f Genesis xxvi, 12. J Matthew xiii. 8. 



NATURAL COMMODITIES MANUFACTURES. 547 

the state in customs and impost, and spoiling much of our good 
ground, which might be employed for corn or cattle. As for 
the praise of tobacco, with the virtues thereof, they may better 
be performed by the pens of such writers whose palates have 
tasted of the same. 

OAK. 

England hath the best in the world, not for fineness, but 
firmness. Indeed outlandish oaks have a smaller grain, and 
therefore fitter for wainscot; and whilst they make the best 
linings, our English oak is the substantial outside. 

The best in England is in Dean Forest in this county, and most 
serviceable for shipping ; so tough that, when it is dry, it is 
said to be as hard as iron. I have read,* that, in the reign of 
queen Elizabeth, the Spaniard sent an ambassador over pur 
posely to get this wood destroyed (by private practices and cun 
ning contrivances) : who, had he effected his embassy, deserved 
a good reward at his return. It is suspicious, if not timely pre 
vented, carelessness and waste will gratify the Spaniard with 
what then he could not accomplish. 

STEEL, 

It is eldest brother of iron, extracted from the same ore, 
differing from it not in kind, but degree of purity, as being the 
first running thereof. It is more hard and brittle (whilst iron 
is softer and tougher), useful for the making of English knives, 
sithes, scissars, shears, &c.; but fine edges cannot be made 
thereof, as lancets for letting of blood, incision knives, dissect 
ing knives, razors, &c. I have been informed that Sir Basil 
Brooke (the great steel maker in this county) his patent to pro 
hibit the importing of foreign steel was revoked on this account, 
because that no artist could make the aforesaid instruments of 
English steel, but must have it from Damascus, Spain, Flan 
ders/ &c. As for iron, though plentiful in this, it may be treat 
ed of in another county with more conveniency. 

MANUFACTURES. 
CLOTHING. 

As good as any in England, for fineness and colour, is wrought 
in this county, where the clothiers have a double advantage. 
First, plenty of the best wool growing therein on Cotswold hills ; 
so that whereas clothiers in some counties fetch their wool far 
off, with great cost, it is here but the removing it from the 
backs of the sheep into their workshouses. Secondly, they have 
the benefit of an excellent Avater for colouring their cloth, being 



* Hartlib s Legacy, p. 49. 



548 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

the sweet rivulet of Stroud, which, arising about Branfield, 
runneth across this shire into the Severn. 

Now no rational man will deny occult qualities of perfection 
in some above other waters (whereby Spanish steel, non natura 
sed tinctura, becomes more tough than ours in England), as the 
best reds (a colour which always carried somewhat of magis 
tracy therein) are dyed in Stroud- water. Hence it is that this 
shire hath afforded many wealthy clothiers, whereof some may 
seem in their looms to have interwoven their own names into 
the clothes, called Webb s cloth and Clutterbuck s, after the 
names of the first makers of them, for many years after. 

MUSTARD. 

The best in England (to take no larger compass) is made at 
Tewkesbury in this county. It is very wholesome for the clear 
ing of the head, moderately taken ; and I believe very few have 
ever surfeited thereof, because not granted time, but demanded 
present payment for the penalty of excess, turning Democritus 
himself presently to Heraclitus, as the husbandman poet doth 
observe, 

" Seque lacessenti fletum factura sinapis. " 1 

It is generally used in England ; and the jest is well known, 
of two serving men contesting about superiority, " My master," 
saith the one, " spends more in mustard than thine does in 
beef." Whereunto the other returned, " The more saucy men 
his followers." 

But seriously, this should raise our gratitude to God for the 
plentiful provisions of flesh and fish spent in this land ; when 
mustard, a mere compliment to both, amounteth to more thou 
sands of pounds by the year than will be believed. 

WINE. 

This formerly grew in this county, but now doth not; witness 
the many places therein still called vineyards, whereof one most 
eminent nigh Gloucester, the palace of the bishop. And it ap 
pears by ancient records, that some towns in this shire paid 
rent-wines in great proportions ; so that England, though it 
doth notferre vinum, is ferax vini, capable (especially in a hot 
summer) to produce it to good perfection. But, in later ages, 
this commodity hath been disused ; partly because better and 
cheaper may be procured from beyond the seas, and partly be 
cause experience proveth other native liquors more healthful for 
our English bodies. 

CIDER. 

We must not forget cider, anciently a native of this, since a 

* Columella, in Hortulo. 



BUILDINGS. 549 

free denizen of all other counties, made of apples, here grown in 
hedge-rows (which both fence and feed) in great abundance. 
Such who deduce cider* from the Latin sicera, as that from the 
Hebrew "Dttf (signifying any liquor which immoderately taken 
doth intoxicate), make a more proper allusion therein, than true 
deduction thereof. The Portuguese call it Vinho contrafeyto ; 
and surely much claret and white is vended in England, which 
grew in no other grapes than what apple trees afford. Some 
maintain, that the coldness and windiness, easily correctable 
with spice, is recompensed by temperate looseness, caused by 
the moderate drinking thereof. But the staple use of cider is at 
sea, where it quencheth thirst better than other liquor ; and, if 
subject to corrupt in hot countries, quickly purgeth itself to a 
pure constitution. 

THE BUILDINGS. 

The abbey (since cathedral) church of Gloucester is a beauti 
ful building, advanced by several successive abbots. It consist- 
eth of a continued window work ; but hath the loudest praises 
from the whispering-place therein. Take its manner from that 
learned author, who, though it seems never seeing it, hath, by 
his steady aim in philosophy, better guessed and described it 
than I, who have been an ear and eye witness thereof: 

" There is a church at Gloucester (and, as I have heard, the 
like is in some other places) where, if you speak against a wall 
softly, another shall hear your voice better a good way off, than 
near hand. Enquire more particular of the fame of that place. 
I suppose there is some vault, or hollow, or isle behind the 
wall, and some passage to it, towards the farther end of that 
wall, against which you speak; so as the voice of him that 
speaketh slideth along the wall, and then entereth at some pas 
sage, and communicateth with the air of the hollow ; for it is 
preserved somewhat by the plain wall, but that is too weak to 
give a sound audible, till it hath communicated with the back 
air."f 

The church, in all the siege of the city, and our civil wars, 
was decently preserved ; which I observe to his commendation, 
who was the governor thereof. Since, I have read that, by act 
of parliament, it was settled on the city to maintain and repair, 
and hope their practice hath proved precedential to other places 
in the same nature. 

As for civil structures in this county, our late wars laid a fin 
ger on Berkley, their arm on Sudley Castle (seated where the 
vales and wolds meet), and the fair clasp to join them together 
being in part plucked down. But their loins have been laid on 
Cambden-house, one of the newest and neatest in England, built 

* J. Minshew, in his Dictionary, on the word. 

t Sir Francis Bacon, in his Natural History, Cent ii. num. 148. 



550 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

by Baptist Hickes Viscount Cambden, pressed down to the very 
foundation. 

THE WONDERS. 

There are frequently found, at Alderley in this county, oysters, 
cockles, and periwinkles of stone. Such who conceive these 
were formerly real shell-fish, brought so far by some accident 
into the land, engage themselves in a sea of inextricable diffi 
culties. Others more probably account them to be lusus na 
ture : and know, that as " the foolishness of God is wiser than 
men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men :"* so the 
disportings of the God of nature are more grave than the most 
serious employment of men : for such riddles are propounded 
on purpose to pose those profound shallow Rabbies, counting 
themselves of the cabinet, when they are scarcely of the com 
mon council, of Nature ; so unable to read such riddles, that they 
cannot put the letters thereof together with any probability. 

THE HIGRE, 

Men as little know the cause of the name, as the thing 
thereby signified. Some pronounce it the Eagre, as so called 
from the keenness and fierceness thereof. It is the confluence 
or encounter, as supposed, of the salt and fresh water in Severn, 
equally terrible with its flashings and noise to the seers and 
hearers ; and oh, how much more than to the feelers thereof ! 
If any demand why the Thames hath not an Higre as well as 
the Severn, where we find the same cause, and therefore why 
meet we not with the same effects ? I re-demand of them why 
is there not an Euripus with the same reciprocation of tides, as 
well about the other Cyclides, as Eubcea alone ? Thus, in cases 
of this kind, it is easier to ask ten than answer one question 
with satisfaction. But hear how the poet describeth this 
Higre :f 



Until they be imbrac t 



In Sabrin s sovereign arms : with whose tumultuous waves, 
Shut up in narrower bounds, the Higre wildly raves ; 
And frights the stragling flocks, the neighbouring shores to fly, 
Afar as from the main it comes with hideous cry. 
And on the angry front, the curled foam doth bring 
The billows gainst the banks, when fiercely it doth fling, 
Hurls up the slimy ooze, and makes the scaly brood 
Leap madding to the land, affrighted from the flood ; 
O erturns the toiling barge, whose steersman dbth not launch, 
And thrusts the furrowing beak into her ireful paunch. 
As when we haply see a sickly woman fall 
Into a fit of that which we the mother call ; 
When from the grieved womb she feels the pain arise, 
Breaks into grievous sighs, with intermixed cries, 
Bereaved of her sense ; and struggling still with those 
That gainst her rising pain their utmost strength oppose, 
Starts, tosses, tumbles, strikes, turns, touses, spurns, and sprawls, 
Casting with furious limbs her holders to the walls : 

1 Cor. i 25. f Michael Drayton, in his Polyolbion. 



TVOXDERS PROVERBS. 551 

But that the horrid pangs torments the grieved so, 

One well might muse from whence this sudden strength should grow." 

All that I will add is, that, had this been known to the Roman 
poet,* when he thus envied against his she-friend, 

Tu levior cortice, et improbo 
Irctcundior Adria 

" Thou art more light, more angry than 
The cork, and uncouth Adrian ;" 

I say, had it been known, he would have changed Adria, into 
Higrea, the former being a very calm in comparison of the latter. 
We will conclude all with that, which at first was a wonderV 
fellow, until the strangeness thereof abated by degrees. There 
is a kind of bird, as yet not known by any proper name, which 
cometh in great companies, but seldom in this county, yet 
oftener than welcome ; in bulk not much bigger than a sparrow, 
which may seem to carry a saw, or rather a sithe, on his mouth ; 
for, with his bill, which is thwarted crosswise at the end, he will 
shave or cut an apple in two at one snap, eating only the kernels 
thereof, spoiling more than he doth devour. They come about 
harvest-time, when apples begin to be ripe ; so that these birds 
may be said to drink up many hogsheads of cider, as destroying 
them in their causes, and preventing the making thereof. The 
like have been seen in Cornwall, where at first they were taken 
(saith my author) f for a forboden token ; understand him for a 
presage of ill success. 

PROVERBS. 

" As sure as God s in Gloucestershire."] 

This proverb is no more fit to be used than a toad can be 
wholesome to be eaten, which can never by mountebanks be so 
dieted and corrected, but that still it remains rank poison. 
Some, I know, seek to qualify this proverb, making God emi 
nently in this, but not exclusively out of other counties ; where 
such the former fruitfulness thereof, that, it is said to return the 
seed with increase of an hundred fold.J Others find a super 
stitious sense therein, supposing God, by his gracious presence, 
more peculiarly fixed in this county, wherein there were more 
and richer mitred abbeys than in any two shires of England 
besides. But, when all is done, the best use of this proverb is, 
totally and finally to banish it out of the mouths and minds of 
all mankind. 

" You are a man of Duresley."] 

It is taken for one that breaks his word, and faileth in per 
formance of his promises; parallel to Fides Grceca, or Fides 
Punica. Duresley is a market and clothing town in this 
county, the inhabitants whereof will endeavour to confute and 



" Horace. f Carew, Survey of Cornwall, fol. 25. 

William of Malmesbury, in his Book of Bishops. 



552 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

disprove this proverb ; to make it false now, whatsoever it was 
at the first original thereof. 

Besides, the worst places, in the midst of epidemical vicious- 
ness, have afforded some exceptions from the wicked rule 
therein. " The Cretans are always liars,"* was the observa 
tions of a poet, and application of the apostle ; yet we find 
some Cretans whom the Holy Spirit alloweth for " devout 
men. J t Thus, sure I am, there was a man of Duresley, who 
was a man of men, Edward Fox by name, a right godly and 
gracious prelate, of whom hereafter. + However, the men of 
Duresley have no cause to be offended with my inserting this 
proverb ; which if false, let them be angry with the author, the 
first man that made it ; if true, let them be angry with the 
subject, even themselves who deserve it. 

" It is long in coming as Cotswold barley."] 

It is applied to such things as are slow but sure. The corn 
in this cold county on the Wolds, exposed to the winds, bleak 
and shelterless, is very backward at the first ; but afterwards 
overtakes the forwardest in the county, if not in the barn, in 
the bushel, both for the quantity and goodness thereof. 

" He looks as if he had lived on Tewksbury mustard."] 

It is spoken partly of such who always have a sad, severe, and 
tetric countenance ; 

" Si, ecastor, hie homo sinapi victitet, 
Non censeam tarn tristem esse posse." 

Partly on such as are snappish, captious, and prone to take 
exceptions, where they are not given, such as will crispare 
nasum, in derision of what they slight or neglect. 

" The Trades have always the wind in their faces."] 

This is founded on fond and false tradition ; which reporteth, 
that, ever since Sir William Tracy was most active amongst the 
four knights which killed Thomas Becket, it is imposed on 
Tracies for miraculous penance, that whether they go by land 
or by water, the wind is ever in their faces. If this were so, it 
was a favour in a hot summer to the females of that family, and 
would spare them the use of a fan. But it is disproved by 
daily experience, there being extant at this day in this county 
two houses, the one honourable, the other worshipful, growing 
from the same root; so that we see it is not now, and there 
fore believe that it was never, true. If any say that, after so many 
generations, this curse at last is antiquated ; know that, accord 
ing to popish principles, it deserved rather to be doubted of 
late, seeing no gentile family in England, since the Reformation, 
have more manifested their cordial disaffection to Popery by 
their sufferings and writings, as hereafter will appear. 

* Titus i. 12. f Acts ii. 5-1 1. J Jn the title of PRELATES. 

Plautus, in Truculento. 



PRINCES SAINTS MARTYRS. 553 



PRINCES. 

I cannot discover any prince who took his first hansel of life 
in this county. Let not my unhappiness discourage the indus 
try of others in their inquiry herein. 

SAINTS. 

KENELME, son of Kenwolfe king of Mercia, succeeded his 
father therein, being a child but of seven years old ; so that his 
harmless years had not attained to any worldly guile, and his 
virtuous inclination promised great hopes, when Quenrid, his 
ambitious sister, caused him to be killed, as standing in her 
way to the crown. 

Solomon saith, " Curse not the king," (much less kill him) 
" no not in thy thought ; for a bird in the air shall carry the 
voice, and that which hath wing shall tell the matter ; "* that 
is, a discovery shall surely and swiftly be made, by remote, 
unsuspected, and improbable means ; whereby it is thought the 
murder of this infant king was revealed. 

But I cannot believe what the Golden Legend relates, how 
a white dove (which, belike, had seen the deed done) got it 
engrossed in parchment, and, posting to St. Peter s in Rome, 
laid it on the high altar to be read, where, in the Saxon cha 
racter, it was thus found. 

" At Clenc, in cow-pasture, Kenelme the king s child lieth beheaded under a 

thorn." 

Others say (agreeing in all other particulars) the discovery 
was made by an angel ;t and for fear they should fall out, it may 
be thus accommodated, that the angel was in a dove-like appa 
rition. As for his sister Quenrid, she was so far from getting 
the crown, that she is said to have lost her eyes, w r hich fell out 
of her head, and bloodied her primer (a woman s book, as it 
seems in that age), whilst her brother s corpse was solemnly 
buried at Winchcomb, and had in holy veneration. 

MARTYRS. 

JAMES BAYNAM, Esquire, son to Sir Alexander Baynam, 

Knight, was born at in this county, J bred in 

learning and knowledge of the Latin and Greek tongues. He 
afterwards became a student of the law in the Middle Temple ; 
and, when a pleader, was charitable to the poor in giving, to the 
rich in moderating, his fees ; and, what was the crown of all 
the rest, a true lover of the Gospel, in the dawning of Refor 
mation. 

Saint Paul saith, " It is appointed for all men once to die ; " 
and yet the same apostle saith of himself, "in deaths often," |j 

* Eccles. x. 20. f English Martyrology, in the l?th of July. 

: J Fox, Acts and Monuments, p. 1027. Heb. ix. 27. 

II 2 Cor. xi. 23. 

VOL. I. 2 N 6 



554 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

so many and great his pains and perils. And truly our Baynam 
encountered often with death, so that a little Book of Martyrs 
might be made of his sufferings. 

First; Sir Thomas More sent for him to Chelsea ; and, tying 
him to a tree in his garden (called by him the Tree of Truth), 
caused him to be most cruelly scourged, to make him renounce 
his opinion. This not succeeding, Sir Thomas himself saw him 
cruelly racked in the Tower, till at last he was persuaded to 
abjure, and solemnly carried a torch and a faggot in the church 
of St. Paul s. 

Hereby he rather exchanged than escaped the fire ; finding 
such a fire in his own conscience, he could not be at quiet, till, 
in the church of St. Augustine s, the next parochial church to 
St. PauFs (that the antidote might be brought as near as he 
could conveniently to the place of the poison), he publicly re 
canted his recantation : for which he was afterwards kept a fort 
night in stocks in the bishop of London s coal-house, with irons 
upon him, chained again by Sir Thomas More to a post two 
nights, cruelly handled for a seven-night at Fulham, scourged for 
a fortnight in the Tower, and at last sent to a second tree of 
truth I mean, to the stake ; whereat he was burned in Smith- 
field, April 30, 1532. 

Here Mr. Fox* reports a passage, which I cannot with credit 
insert or omit ; but take it as I find it. When his arms and 
legs were half consumed in the fire, he spake these words : 

" O ye Papists, behold ye look for miracles, and here now 
you may see a miracle ; for in this fire I feel no more pain, than 
if I were in a bed of down ; but it is to me as sweet as a bed of 



roses/ 



Soft and sweet both, to please the touch and smell ; a double 
wonder. I believe it might be a falsehood, but no lie, in the 
author reporting it, who possibly might be abused in his intel 
ligence. Secondly, it is possible that this good man, feeling so 
much pain before/ might, through God s goodness, have none at 
his death. Thirdly, this story may be kept on the deck, to 
counterpoise the scales, against that of father Briant, a popish 
priest, who reported himself cruelly racked in the Tower, and 
yet " se nihil quicquam doloris sensisse," (that he felt not any 
pain at all.)f Lastly, though our Saviour justly taxeth those 
who were fipaSe ig ry xapftiq. TOV TnaTtvf.iv% (slow in heart to 
believe) such things as were revealed in the Scripture, yet 
neither God nor man will be offended with the incredulous in 
such reports, attested only with human suspicious authority. 

PRELATES. 
TIDEMAN de WINCHCOMBE was born in this county, at the 

* Page 1030. 

\ Sanders, de Schismate Anglicana, in his Diary, anno 1581, month of March. 

1 Luke xxiv. 25. 



PRELATES. 555 

market-town formerly famous for a rich abbey, now for plenty 
of poor therein. He was preferred first abbot of Beule,* then 
bishop of Llandaff, and lastly of Worcester, by king Richard the 
Second s importunity to the Pope, notwithstanding one John 
Green was fairly elected thereunto. This Tideman was the 
king s physician, and very well skilled in that faculty. 

Be it observed by the way, that I am daily more confirmed in 
my opinion, that, till the last two hundred years, physic in Eng 
land was not a distinct profession from divinity, and the same 
persons physicians and confessors to princes. Say not these 
functions were inconsistent, the former usually departing, the 
latter commonly coming to dying men : for the several profes 
sions did not jostle, but succeed one another ; so that, when 
potion did end, unction did begin ; a practice continued by 
Popish priests in England at this day, gaining commodity and 
concealment by being such pluralists in their profession, having 
the most, best, and last privacy with their patients. This Tide 
man died anno Domino 1400. 

JOHN CHEDWORTH was born in this county,f and bred in 
King s College in Cambridge, being the third scholar^ that 
came thereinto by election from Eton school, though some (I 
confess) for a short time make him admitted into Merton Col 
lege in Oxford. He afterwards was the third provost of King s 
College, possessing the place six years, till at last he was elected 
bishop of Lincoln. He was joined in commission, by king 
Henry the Sixth, with bishop Wainfleet of Winchester, to revise 
and regulate the statutes of Eton and King s colleges. He sat 
bishop about eighteen years; and, dying 1471, lies buried in 
his own cathedral, under a marble monument. 

JOHN CARPENTER was (as my author rationally collecteth) 
horn at Westbury in this county; bred in Oriel College in 
Oxford, whereof he became provost, and chancellor of the 
university; thence preferred prefect of Saint Anthony s in 
London, and at last bishop of Worcester. He was so indulgent 
to Westbury, the place of his nativity, that of a mean he made 
it a magnificent convent, more like a castle than a college ; 
walling it about with turrets ; and making a stately gate-house 
thereunto. He had a humorous intent to style himself and 
successors (in imitation of Bath and Wells) bishops of Worces 
ter and Westbury ; which title (though running cleverly on the 
tongue s end) never came in request, because therein impar con- 
junctio, the matching of a collegiate and cathedral church toge 
ther. He died anno Domini 1475 ; and was buried in his native 
town of Westbuiy. His tomb since his death (I will use my 

* Beaulieu. ED. t Godwin, in the Bishops of Lincoln. 

J Hatcher s MS. in anno 1444. Godwin, in his Bishops of Worcester. 



556 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

author s words,* hoping their ignorance, if alive, understands no 
Latin) ; " & stolidis quibusdam nebulonibus pudendum in morem 
mutulatur." As for the college of Westbury, it is the inherit 
ance of the right worshipful and hospital housekeeper, Ralph 
Sadler, esquire ; and was, in these civil broils, unhappily burnt 
down ; though those, who esteemed themselves judicious in 
war, apprehended neither necessity thereof, nor advantage 
thereby. 

THOMAS RUTHALL, born at Cicester in this county j bred in 
Cambridge, where he commenced doctor of the laws, was by 
king Henry the Seventh, for his great abilities, preferred to be 
bishop of Durham. King Henry the Eighth made him of his 
privy council, notwithstanding the hatred which cardinal Wolsey 
bare unto him. 

It happened king Henry employed him as a politic per 
son to draw up a breviate of the state of the land, which he 
did, and got it fairly transcribed. But it fell out that, instead 
thereof, he, deceived with the likeness of the cover and binding, 
presented the king with a book containing an inventory of his 
own estate, amounting to an invidious and almost incredible 
sum of one hundred thousand pounds. f Wolsey, glad of this 
mistake, told the king, " he knew now where a mass of money 
was, in case he needed it." This broke RuthalPs heart, who 
had paid the third part of the cost of making the bridge of 
Newcastle-over-Tyne, and intended many more benefactions, 
had not death (1523) on this unexpected occasion surprised him. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

EDWARD Fox was born in Duresley in this county ;J bred 
first in Eton, then in King s College in Cambridge, whereof 
he was chosen provost, which place he kept until his death. 
He was afterwards almoner to king Henry the Eighth. He first 
brought doctor Cranmer to the knowledge of the king ; which 
doctor first brought the king to the knowledge of himself, how 
he stood in matter of marriage with the widow of his brother. 

This doctor Fox was after bishop of Hereford, and was 
(saith my author) " Reformationis ecclesiasticee illius tempore 
cceptae clanculiim fautor." Let me add, he was the principal 
pillar of the Reformation, as to the managery of the politic 
and prudential part thereof; being of more activity, and no less 
ability, than Cranmer himself. Martin Bucer dedicated unto 
him his " Comment on the Gospels ;" yea, this bishop wrote 
many books, whereof that " De differentia utriusque Potestatis " 
was his master-piece. He was employed by the king on seve- 

* Godwin, in the Bishops of Worcester. 

t Godwin, in his Catalogue of the Bishops of Durham. 

I Dr. Hatcher s MS. Catalogue of the Masters and Fellows of King s College. 

Godwin, in his Catalogue of tne Bishops of Hereford. 



STATESMEN JUDGES WRITERS ON THE LAW. 557 

ral embassies into France and Germany ; and died, to the great 
loss of God s church, May 8, 1538. 

STATESMEN. 

Sir RALPH BUTLER, Knight of the Garter, and LordSudeley 
in this county, was lord treasurer of England about three years ; 
viz. from the seventh of July in the 22nd year of king Henry 
the Sixth, being the year of our Lord 1544, until the 25th year 
of that king s reign. This lord built Sudeley castle in this 
county, which of subjects castles was the most handsome habi 
tation, and of subjects habitations the strongest castle. King 
Edward the Fourth sent for him with such summons, that this 
lord conjectured, and that truly enough, that it was but a pre 
face to his imprisonment : whereupon, going to London, and 
resting himself on a hill, whence he did behold his own castle ; 
" It is thou, Sudeley, it is thou," said he, " and not I, that am a 
traitor ;" and so resigned the same at last into the hand of the 
king, to procure his own liberty. So true it is, what Solomon 
saith, " The ransom of a man s life are his riches, but the poor 
heareth not rebuke."* I find not the certain date of his death. 

CAPITAL JUDGES, AND WRITERS ON THE LAW. 

ANTHONY FITZ-HERBERT, for a long time justice of the 
Common Pleas, was, as a good antiquaryf will have it, born 
about Dean Forest in this county ; but is by another^ (no whit 
his inferior) on better evidence referred to Derbyshire, where 
formerly we have placed his nativity. 

Yea, I have been informed from excellent hands, the natives 
of this county, that no capital judge of the three great courts 
(though many of the Marches) was ever born in this county : 
yet are they here as litigious as in other places. Sure I am, 
that Gloucestershire did breed, if no judge, yet a plaintiff and 
defendant of the primest quality, which betwixt them, with 
many alternations, traversed the longest suit that ever I read in 
England ; for^ a suit was commenced betwixt the heirs of Sir 
Thomas Talbot, Viscount Lisle, on the one party, and the heirs 

of Lord Barkley, on the other, about certain possessions 

lying in this county, not far from Wotton-under-Edge ; which 
suit, begun in the end of king Edward the Fourth, was depend 
ing until the beginning of king James, when (and was it not 
high time ?) it was finally determined. 

But the long barrenness of this county in judges may be re 
compensed with fruitfulness at last, the rather because Glouces 
tershire at this day sheweth two eminent ones, Mr. Justice At 
kins and Mr. Justice Hale, which grace the court of the Com 
mon Pleas || with their known ability and integrity. 

* Prov. xiii. 8. f David Powel, in his History of Wales. 

J Camden s Britannia, in Derbyshire. 
Camden s Britannia, in Gloucestershire. 

|| Sir Matthew Hale and Sir Edward Atkins were both made Barons of the Exche 
quer in 16GO ED. 



558 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

EDWARD TROTMAN, son of Edward Trotman, esquire, was 
born at Cam nigh Duresley in this county ; bred a student of 
the law till he became a bencher in the Inner Temple. He 
wrote an abridgment of Sir Edward Coke s eleven volumes of 
Reports, for the benefit of those who had not money to purchase 
or leisure to peruse them at large. Yea, such as have both 
may be profited thereby : for in my own profession, and in the 
Book of books, even those who are best acquainted with the 
chapters make also use of the contents. This gentleman, in his 
title-page, ingeniously wisheth that his compendium might not 
prove dispendium to the reader thereof. And I verily believe 
he hath had his desire ; being informed that his endeavours are 
well esteemed by the learned in that profession. He was buried 
in the Temple church,* May 29, anno Domini 1643. 

SOLDIERS. 

Sir WILLIAM TRACY, of Toddington in this county, was a 
gentleman of high birth, state, and stomach, much in favour 
with king Henry the Second, on whom he was a daily attendant. 
One fact hath made his memory, call it famous or infamous, be 
cause he was the first and forwardest of the four knights, who, 
at the encouragement, if not command, at leastwise at the con 
nivance, if not encouragement, of the aforesaid king, imbrued 
their hands in the blood of Thomas Becket. 

In his old age he went into Devonshire, where he had large 
possessions, as may appear by so many towns bearing his sur 
name : 1. Wollocdmb-Tracy. 2. Bovi-Tracy. 3. Nimet-Tracy. 
4. Bradford-Tracy, &c. 

It is reported that he intended a penitential pilgrimage to Je 
rusalem ; but, setting to sea, was ever crost with adverse winds. 
He is conceived to lie buried in the parish church of Mort in 
Devonshire, dying about the year of our Lord 1180. 

SEAMEN. 

This is scarcely a maritime shire ; rather bordering on the 
Severn than on the sea, having therein no considerable haven 
(Bristol being beheld as a city entire of itself) ; and therein emi 
nent seamen cannot be expected : yet one family herein hath 
been most fortunate in such voyages, having their chief seat at 
Lydney, in the forest of Dean ; which hath afforded, 

WILLIAM WINTER, Knight, and Vice-admiral of England, 
famous in his generation for several performances.t 1. Anno 
1559, being then but Machinarum classicarum pr&fectus (Eng 
lish it as you please), he frighted the French in Edinburgh 
Frith, assaulting their fort in the Island of Inchkeith. 2. Anno 
1567, be was sent with Sir Thomas Smith, with the sound of 
the trumpet, and shooting of some canons, to demand the resti- 

Register of the Burial, in the Temple. 

f See Camden s Elizabeth, in these respective years. 



SEAMEN WRITERS. 559 

tution of Calais of the French king. 3. Anno 1568, he con 
ducted a great treasure of the Genoan merchants safely into the 
Netherlands, in despite of the French opposing him. 4. Anno 
1576, he, with Robert Beale, clerk of the council, was employed 
into Zealand, to demand the restitution of our ships, which they 
had either taken, or did detain. 5. Anno 1588, he did signal 
service in the station appointed him, coming in, though not in 
the heat, in the cool of the day, when the Spanish fleet was 
fallen towards the shore of Zealand, and were sadly sensible of 
his valour. 

I conceive him not to survive long after, because, if in life, he 
would have been in action ; and, if in action, I should have 
found him in Camdsn s Elizabeth : and therefore, from no 
mention, I conclude no motion, that about this time he 
departed ; besides others of this family unknown to me, and 
justly referred to this county, as their chief habitation. And 
were the phrase as proper of men sailing, as fishes swimming in 
the sea, I should say that Lydney house hath brought forth a shoal 
of mariners ; so happy have they been in sea-voyages. One won 
dering how the English durst be so bold as to put to sea in all 
weathers, it was returned, " that they were provided to sail in 
all seasons, having both Winters and Summers on their side."* 
The more the pity, that this worthy family of the Winters did 
ever leave the element of water, to tamper with fire, especially 
in a destructive way to their king and country.f 

WRITERS. 

OSBERNUS CLAUDIANUS, or Osbern of Gloucester, was bred 
a Benedictine monk in the famous convent in that city. He 
was learned, saith Leland, prater illius tetatis sortem, (above 
the standard of that age.) He was a good linguist, philosopher, 
divine ; he used to give clearness to what was obscure, facility 
to what was difficult, politeness to what was barbarous. Nor 
wanted he a becoming facetiousness in his dialogues. He wrote 
many books, dedicating them to Gilbert Foliot bishop of He 
reford ; as " A comment on the Pentateuch, dialogue-wise *" as 
also " On the incarnation, nativity, passion, and resurrection of 
our Saviour/ He wrote also a book called " Pan-Ormia/ de 
dicating the same to Hamelin abbot of Gloucester.! 

The title of this book minds me of a pretty passage in Tully. 
At a public Plea in Rome, Sisenna, an orator who defended his 
client, affirmed, " that the crimes laid to his charge were but 
crimina sputatilica :" to whom Rufius (the orator who managed 

* Sir George Summers, of whom in Dorsetshire. 

f This remark probably alludes to Thomas Winter, who was concerned in the 
Popish plot, in the reign of James the First. En. 

J Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent. ii. num. 78. et Pits, in anno 1140. 
In his book De Claris Oratoribus, otherwise called Brutus, towards the latter end. 
VOT.. I. 2 O 



560 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

the accusation) rejoined, that he feared some treachery in so 
hard a word "quid Sputa sit scio, quid Tilica nescio." 

But I am at a worse loss in this uncouth word, though know 
ing both the parts thereof. I know what pan is, (all) ; what 
ormia is, (a line or hook) ; but of what subject Pan-ormia should 
treat, is to me unknown. But well fare the heart of J. Bale, 
who (I believe out of Leland) rendereth it a Dictionary, orVoca- 
bulary, hooking all words, it seems, within the compass thereof. 
This Osbern flourished, under king Stephen, anno 1140. 

ROBERT of GLOUCESTER, so called because a monk thereof. 
He is omitted (whereat I wonder) both by Bale and Pits, 
except disguised under another name, and what I cannot con 
jecture. They speak truly, who term him a rhymer; whilst 
such speak courteously who call him a poet. Indeed such his 
language, that he is dumb in effect to the readers of our age, 
without an interpreter, and such a one will hardly be procured. 
Antiquaries (amongst whom Mr. Selden) more value him for 
his history than poetry; his lines being neither strong nor 
smooth, but sometimes sharp, as may appear by this tetrastic, 
closing with a pinch at the paunch of the monks, which coming 
from the pen of a monk is the more remarkable ; 

" In the citie of Bangor a great hems tho was, 
And ther vndyr vij cellens* and ther of ther nas,f 
That C. C. C. moncks hadde othur mo 
And alle by hure travayle lyvede ; loke now if they do so." 

He flourished some four hundred years since, under king Henry 
the Second ; and may be presumed to have continued till the 
beginning of king John, 1200. 

ALAN of TEWKESBURY, probably born in this country, though 
bred at Canterbury, where he became first a monk of Saint 
Saviour s, and afterwards prior thereof. Very intimate he was 
with Thomas Becket, having some reputation for his learning. 
In his old age, it seems, he was sent back with honour into his 
native country ; and for certain was made abbot of Tewkesbury, 
when Stephen Langton so much endeavoured, and at last 
accomplished, the canonizing of Thomas Becket. Four au- 
thorsj were employed (Becket s Evangelists) to write the his 
tory of his mock-passion and miracles ; and our Allan made 
up the quaternion. He flourished, under king John, anno 1200. 

ALEXANDER of HALES was bred up in the famous monastery 
of Hales, founded by Richard king of the Romans. After his 
living some time at Oxford, he went over to Paris, it being 
fashionable for the clergy in that (as for the gentry in our) age, 

* Cells, or portions. f Ruler, or governor ; sed quaere ? 

| Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis, Cent, iii, num. 46. and Pits, in anno 1200. 



WRITERS. 561 

to travel into France ; that clerk being accounted but half- 
learned, who had not studied some time in a foreign university. 
But let Paris know, that generally our Englishmen brought 
with them more learning thither, and lent it there, than they 
borrowed thence. 

As for this our Alexander, as he had the name of that great 
conqueror of the world, so was he a grand captain and comman 
der in his kind : for, as he did follow Peter Lombard, so he did 
lead Thomas Aquinas, and all the rest of the schoolmen. He 
was the first that wrote a comment on the sentences, in a great 
volume, called " The Summe of Divinity," at the instance of 
Pope Innocent the Fourth, to whom he dedicated the same. 
For this, and other of his good services to the church of Rome, 
he received the splendid title of Doctor Irrefragabilis. He died 
anno Domini 1245 ; and was buried in the Franciscan church 
in Paris. 

THOMAS de la MORE was, saith my author,* born of a 
knightly family, "patria Gloucestrenci," (a Gloucestershire- 
man by his country) ; for which his observation I heartily thank 
him, who otherwise had been at an utter loss for his nativity. 
He thus further commendeth him : 

Pads et armorurn vir artibus undique clarus. 

" A man whose fame extended far 
For arts in peace, and feats in war. " 

Indeed he was no carpet knight ; as who brought his honour 
with him out of Scotland on his sword s point, being knighted 
by king Edward the First for his no less fortunate than valiant 
service therein. Nor less was his fidelity to his son Edward 
the Second, though unable to help him against his numerous 
enemies. But, though he could not keep him from being de 
posed, he did him the service faithfully to write the manner of 
his deposition, being a most rare manuscript extant in Oxford 
library. This worthy knight flourished anno Domini 1326. 

THOMAS of HALES came just a hundred years after Alex 
ander of Hales in time; but more than a thousand degrees 
behind him in ability, and yet following his footsteps at 
distance. First, they were born both in this county, bred 
Minorites in Hales monastery ; whence for a time they went to 
Oxford, thence to Paris, where they both proceeded doctors of 
divinity, and applied themselves to controversial studies, till 
this Thomas, finding himself not so fit for that employment, 
fell to the promoting positive or rather fabulous points of Po 
pery, for the maintenance of purgatory. He flourished under 
king Edward the Third, anno Domini 1340. 

* Pits, de Illustribus Angliae Scriptoribus, anno 1326. 
2 o 2 



562 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

THOMAS NEALE was born at Yate, in this county ;* bred 
first in Winchester, then New College in Oxford ; where he 
became a great Grecian, Hebritian, and public professor of the 
latter in the university. He translated some Rabbins into Latin, 
and dedicated them to cardinal Pole. He is charactered a man 
e natures mirum in modum timidee/ f (of a very fearful nature) ; 
yet always continuing constant to the Roman persuasion. He 
was chaplain (but not domestic, as not mentioned by Mr. Fox) 
to Bishop Bonner, and resided in Oxford. In the first of queen 
Elizabeth, fearing his professor s place would quit him, for pre 
vention he quitted it, and built himself a house over against 
Hart-hall, retaining the name of Neal s House many years after. 
Papists admire him for his rare judgment, and Protestants for 
his strange invention, in first feigning the improbable lie of 
Matthew Parker s consecration at the NagVhead in Cheapside, 
since so substantially confuted. J He was living in Oxford 1576; 
but when and where (here or beyond the seas) he died, is to me 
unknown. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

RICHARD TRACY, Esquire, born at Todington in this county, 
was son to Sir William Tracy, confessor, of whom before. He 
succeeded to his father s zeal ; in the defence whereof he wrote 
several treatises in the English tongue ; and that most remark 
able, which is entitled, " Preparations to the Cross." This he 
wrote experimentally, having suffered much himself in his estate 
for his father s reputed heretical will: as also he wrote pro 
phetically, anno 1550, few years before the beginning of queen 
Mary ; many being fore-warned, and so fore-armed, by his use 
ful endeavours. 

It must not be forgotten, how, during my abode in Cambridge, 
on Midsummer-eve, 1626, a book was found in the belly of a 
cod (brought into the market to be sold), containing therein 
three treatises ; whereof the first and largest was entitled, " A 
Preparation to the Cross." It was wrapped about with canvass, 
and probably that voracious fish plundered both out of the 
pocket of some shipwrecked seamen. The wits of the university 
made themselves merry thereat, one making a long copy of 
verses thereon, whereof this distich I remember : 

" If fishes thus do bring us books, then we 
May hope to equal Bodlyes library."|| 

But, whilst the youngsters disported themselves herewith, 
the graver sort beheld it as a sad presage : and some, who then 
little looked for the cross, have since found it in that place. 
This book was thereupon reprinted ; and the prefacer ^[ there 
unto entitleth John Frith the author thereof. But no such book 

* New College Register, anno 1540. f Pits, de Anglise Scriptoribus, p. 770. 
J Mason, de Monasteriis Anglise. Bale, de Scrip. Brit. Cent. ix. num. 58. 

|| Thomas Randolph. U Page 18. 



WRITERS. 563 

appears in Bale (though very accurate to give us a catalogue of 
his writings.*). Whereby we conclude,, it was the same made 
by this Richard Tracy, to which another treatise was annexed, 
" To teach one to die," made likewise by our Tracy, who him 
self died about a hundred years since. 

Sir THOMAS OVERBURY, Knight, son to Sir Nicholas Over- 
bury, one of the judges of the Marches, was born at Bourton on 
the Hill in this county ; bred in Oxford, and attained to be a 
most accomplished gentleman, which the happiness of his pen, 
both in poetry and prose, doth declare. In the latter he was the 
first writer of characters of our nation, so far as I have observed. 

But, if the great parts of this gentlemen were guilty of inso- 
lency and petulancy, which some since have charged on his 
memory, we may charitably presume that his reduced age would 
have corrected such juvenile extravagancies. 

It is questionable, whether Robert Carre, earl of Somerset, 
were more in the favour of king James, or this Sir Thomas 
Overbury in the favour of the earl of Somerset, until he lost it 
by dissuading that lord from keeping company with a lady (the 
wife of another person of honour), as neither for his credit here, 
or comfort hereafter. 

Soon after, Sir Thomas was by king James designed ambas 
sador for Russia. His false friends persuaded him to decline 
the employment, as no better than an honourable grave. Bet 
ter lie some days in the Tower, than more months in a worse 
prison a ship by sea, and a barbarous cold country by land. 
Besides, they possessed him, that, within a small time, the king 
should be wrought to a good opinion of him. But he who wil 
lingly goes into a prison out of hope to come easily out of it, 
may stay therein so long till he be too late convinced of another 
judgment. 

Whilst Sir Thomas was in the Tower, his refusal was repre 
sented to the king as an act of high contempt ; as if he valued 
himself more than the king s service. His strict restraint gave 
the greater liberty to his enemies to practise his death, which 
was by poison performed. 

Yet was his blood legally revenged, which cost some a violent, 
and others a civil death, as deprived of their offices. The earl 
\ras soon abated in king James s affection (oh, the short dis 
tance betwixt the cooling and quenching of a favourite !) ; being 
condemned and banished the court. The death of this worthy 
knight did happen anno Domini 1615, 

RICHARD CAPEL was born, as I am informed, in the city of 
Gloucester, whereof his father M as alderman, and left him a 
good temporal estate. He was bred fellow of Magdalen Col- 

* Cent. viii. num. 71. 



564 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

lege in Oxford, where he had many pupils of good quality ; and 
among the rest Mr. William Pemble, whose books he set forth, 
and, as I remember, finished his imperfect " Comment on Za- 
chary." 

Leaving the college, he was presented by Mr. Stephens to a 
good benefice in this county, where he made his excellent book, 
" Of Temptations ; " full fraught with practical piety : so that 
what judicious person soever readeth it, will experimentally say 
unto him, as once the lawyer to our Saviour, " Master, thou hast 
well spoken : " it carrieth in it such a truth by the confession 
of his conscience. 

One thing he hath irrefragably proved, that there is no temp 
tation which a man is subject to, but what might be suggested 
by our own corruption, without any injection of Satan. We 
have an English expression, " The devil he doth it, the devil he 
hath it ; " where the addition of devil amounteth only to a strong 
denial, equivalent to " he doth it not, he hath it not." My 
opinion is, if the phrase took not the original from, yet is it ap- 
pliable to, our common and causeless accusing of Satan with 
our own faults, charging him with those temptations, wherein 
we ourselves are always chiefly, and sometimes solely, guilty. 

When the reading of the Book of Sports on the Lord s-day 
was pressed upon him, he refused the same, as not comporting 
with his conscience : and willingly resigned his benefice, living 
afterwards on his temporal means, and preaching gratis in neigh 
bouring congregations. He died anno Domini 165 .. 

JOHN SPRINT was bred a student in Christ Church in Oxford ; 
and was afterward beneficed at Thornbury in this county ; a 
grave and godly divine, but for a long time much disaffected to 
the ceremonies of the Church. It happened that Mr. Burton, 
archdeacon of Gloucester, his collegiate and contemporary, took 
him to task, persuading him seriously to study the point; which 
he promised, and performed accordingly. He put in the one 
scale the woe pronounced to such who preach not the gospel ; 
and desert their flocks on pretended scrupulosity : in the other 
the nature of ceremonies, when things indifferent are enjoined 
by lawful authority. 

Weighing both exactly in the balance of his judgment, he 
found the former to preponderate, concluding it unlawful for 
any on such account to leave or lose the exercise of his minis 
terial function. 

Hereupon he not only conformed for the future, but also 
wrote a book (dedicated to archdeacon Burton) called " Cas- 
sander and Anglicanus," to persuade others to conformity. He 
died, as I am informed, about thirty years ago. 

JOHN WORKMAN was born about Lasbury in this county, 
where his father was a servant to Sir Thomas Escourt. He was 



BENEFACTORS. 565 

bred in Oxford, and afterwards became for many years the 
pious and painful preacher at Gloucester, being conformable to 
church discipline, both in judgment and practice, and in very 
deed. It happened that some pressed super-canonical ceremo 
nies, and such sesqui-conformists made Mr. Workman turn first 
but a semi-conformist, and then by degrees to renounce all con 
formity. 

He was prosecuted by G. G. * his diocesan, for preaching 
to the disparagement of the blessed Virgin Mary, though he 
pleaded his words were only these : " That the papists painted 
her more like a courtesan than a modest maid." Hereupon he 
was silenced, and not suffered to teach school ; seeing sheep 
and lambs differ not in kind, but age. At last (his good friend 
Dr. Baud furnishing him with instructions) he turned physician : 
and, if unable to preserve his patients in life, he could well pre 
pare them for death. He died about the year 1636. 

We have put them in parallels,t not so much because living 
at the same time in the same county, as because the one from 
disliking came to approve, the other from approving to dislike, 
conformity ; though both, no doubt, did follow the dictates of 
their consciences. 

BENEFACTORS TO THE PUBLIC. 

KATHARINE CLYVEDON, better known by the name of Dame 
KATHARINE BERKLEY, was daughter unto Sir John Clyvedon, 
richly landed in this county. She was first married to Sir Pe 
ter le Veale, and after to* Thomas, third of that Christian name, 
baron of Berkley, whom she survived, living a constant widow 
for four and twenty years ; great her inheritance, augmented 
with a large jointure, and yet she expended the profits thereof 
in hospitality and pious uses ; amongst which, the founding of 
the fair school of Wootton-under-Edge was most remarkable. J 

I have sometimes wondered with myself, to see the vast 
donations which the family of the Berkleys bestowed on monas 
teries : so that there was no religious house within twenty miles 
of their castle (besides others at greater distance) which did 
not plentifully partake of their liberality. All these now are lost 
and extinct, whilst the endowment of Wootton school doth still 
continue; whereof I render this private reason to my own 
thoughts, because monks were not of God s planting, whilst 
teaching of youth is jure divino, by a positive precept, " teach a 
child in the trade of his youth, and he will remember it when he 
is old." I behold Wootton school as of great seniority ; after 
Winchester, but before Eton, in standing. John Smith, late of 

* Godfrey Goodman, prebendary of Westminster, and canon of Windsor, who 
obtained the deanery of Rochester in 1620; became bishop of Gloucester 1 624 ; 
and died a Papist in 1655. ED. 

f Viz. JOHN SPRINT and JOHN WORKMAN : the notices of whom are here 
printed in common paragraphs. ED. 

J Patent. 7 Rich. If. part 2. memb. 2. 



566 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

Nibley, esquire, was effectually instrumental in recovering the 
lands to this school, which since hath been happy in good 
schoolmasters, as they in pregnant scholars. This lady died 
March 13, 1385 ; and is buried by her husband in Berkley 
church, in a monument grated about with iron bars. 

Sir WILLIAM HAMPTON, son to John Hampton, was born 
at Minchen-Hampton in this county; bred a fishmonger in 
London, where he thrived so well, that he became lord mayor 
thereof, anno 1472. He was the first that set up stocks in 
every ward, for the punishment of vagabonds and strumpets : 
on which account I enter him a public benefactor ; for a house 
of correction is a kind of alms-house, it being as charitable a 
work to reclaim the wicked, as to relieve the wanting; and, 
were it not for prisons, all the land would be but a prison. 

SINCE THE REFORMATION. 

THOMAS BELL, born in this county, was twice mayor of the 
city of Gloucester, and raised his estate by God s blessing on 
his industry and ingenuity, being one of the first that brought 
the trade of capping into the city. Hereby he got great wealth, 
sufficient to maintain the degree of knighthood, which king 
Henry the Eighth (as I take it) bestowed on him. He bought, 
from the crown, Blackfriars, by the south gate in this city, and 
reformed the ruins thereof into a beautiful house for himself ; 
and hard by it erected an alms-house, and endowed it with com 
petent revenues. His daughter and sole heir brought a fair 
estate into the families of Dennis. This Sir Thomas died in 
the beginning of the reign of queen Elizabeth. 

EDWARD PALMER, Esquire, (uncle to Sir Thomas Overbury) 
was born at Leamington in this county, where his ancestry had 
continued ever since the Conquest. Of his breeding I can give^ 
no exact account; for, as the growing of vegetables towards 
perfection is insensible ; so (for want of particular information) 
I cannot trace his gradual motions, but find him at last, answer 
ing the character given by Mr. Camden,* "a curious and a 
diligent antiquary." 

Great his store of coins, Greek and Roman, in gold, silver, 
and brass ; and greater his skill in them. 

His plentiful estate afforded him opportunity to put forward 
the ingenuity impressed in him by nature for the public good ; 
resolving to erect an academy in Virginia ; in order whereunto 
he purchased an island, called Palmer s Island unto this day ; 
but, in pursuance thereof, was at many thousand pounds ex- 
pence (some instruments employed therein not discharging their 
trust reposed in them with corresponding fidelity). He was 

* In his Description of Gloucestershire. 



BENEFACTORS LORD MAYORS GENTRY. 567 

transplanted to another world; leaving to posterity the memo 
rial of his worthy but unfinished intentions. 

He married one of his own name and neighbourhood, the 
daughter of Palmers of Compton Schorfm, esquire. 

" Palmero Palmera nubit : sic nubilis amnis 
Auctior adjunctis nobilitatis aquis." 

By her he had many children, but most of them deceased ; 
amongst whom, Muriel married to Michael Rutter of this 
county, esquire, inheriting her father s parts and piety, left a 
perfumed memory to all the neighbourhood. This Edward 
Palmer died at London about the year 1625. 

HUGH PIRRY was born in Wootton-under-Edge, a known 
market-town in this county; bred a merchant in London, 
whereof he was sheriff anno Domini 1632. He brought the 
best servant that ever hath or will come to the town of Woot- 
ton ; I mean, the water, which in his lifetime, on his own cost, 
he derived thither, to the great benefit of the inhabitants. 

He had read how " Job had warmed the poor with the fleece 
of his sheep ; "* and observed what sheep Job had left, he lost ; 
and what he had laid out, was left him ; that wool only remain 
ing his, which he had expended on the poor. Master Pirry, 
therefore, resolved on pious uses ; but, prevented by death, be 
queathed a thousand pounds and upwards for the building and 
endowing of a fair alms-house in Wootton aforesaid ; which is 
performed accordingly. God hath since visibly blessed him in 
his fair posterity, four daughters ; the eldest married to the lord 

Fitz- Williams of Northampton ; the second to Sir 

of Glamorgan ; the third to Sir Robert Benlowes of Lancaster ; 
and the youngest (the relict of viscount Camden s second son) to 
Sir William Fermoure of Northamptonshire. He died anno 
Domini 163 ... 

LORD MAYORS. 

1. Will. Hampton, son of John Hampton, of Minchen Hamp 

ton, Fishmonger, 1472. 

2. John Brug, or Bruges, son of Tho. Brug, or Bruges, of 

Dymmock, Draper, 1520. 

3. Leon. Holliday, son of William Holliday, of Redborough, 

Merchant-Taylor, 1605. 

4. Richard Ven, of Wootton-under-Edge. 

5. Thomas Viner, son of Thomas Viner, Goldsmith, 1653. 

THE NAMES OF THE GENTRY OF THIS COUNTY, 

RETURNED BY THE COMMISSIONERS IN THE TWELFTH YEAR OF KING 

HENRY THE SIXTH. 

The Keeper of the Spiritualities of the Bishopric of Worcester, 
sede vacante ; James de Berkeley, James Greyndore, and 
Robert Stanshaw (knights for the shire); Commissioners 
for taking the oaths. 

* Job. xxxi. 19. 



568 



WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 



Guidonis Whitington. 
Richard! Norman. 
Johannis Hurtesley. 
Thomee Hoke. 
Johannis Joce. 
Johannis Anne. 
Johannis Panncefote, cheva 
lier. 

Johannis Gassy. 
Edwardi Brugge. 
Rob. Whitington. 
Willielmi Boteler. 
Willielmi Moryn. 
Johannis Stoughton. 
Roberti Vobe. 
Johannis Morvan. 
Clementis de Mitton. 
Johannis Moryn. 
Johannis Sewell. 

Willielmi Pendock. 

Johan. Gifford, chevalier. 

Reginaldi Machyn. 

Walteri Frennsh. 

Thome Sloughter. 

Nicholai Eynesham. 

Radulphi Bottiller, chevalier. 

Johannis Grennell. 

Baldewini Rouse. 

Willielmi Somervile. 

Johannis Harewel. 

Walteri Eode. 

Rob. Bushel. 

Willielmi Ashton. 

Richardi Grevell. 

Willielmi Tracy, jun. 

Mauricii Berkeley de Bever- 
ston, chev. 

Johannis Langley. 

Egidii Brugge. 

Johannis de la Mare. 

Will. Prelat. 

Johannis Lymeck. 



Galfred. Hide. 
Johan. Solers. 
Johan. Hampton. 
Thome Leyney. 
Joh. Kendale. 
Henrici Clifford. 
Johan. Trye. 
Thome Harsefeld. 
Edmundi Rodebergh. 
Thome Stanton. 
Thome Sky. 
Richardi Venables. 
Johan. Poleyn. 
Roberti Volpenne. 
Joh, Lingescote. 
Joh. Stanre. 
Thome Ocle. 
Thome Bamvile. 
Roberti Clavile. 
Thome Skey. 
Johan. Roddely. 
Thome Berkeley de Glouces- 
tria. 

Roberti Frompton. 

Roberti Stronge. 

Richardi Richards. 

Mauricii Berkeley de Uley, 
chevalier. 

Nicholai Poyntz. 

Joh. Kemmys. 

Joh. Coderington. 

Nicholai Stanshaw. 

Nicholai Alderley. 

Johan. Blunt. 

Thome Bradston. 

Johan. Westow. 

Johan. Burnel, junioris. 

Willielmi Fourde. 

Thome Tanner de Dorfoleye. 

Johannis Basset de Nayles- 
worth. 



SHERIFFS. 



Anno HENRY II. 

1 Milo de Gloucester. 

2 Walter de Hereford. 

3 Will, de Bello Campo. 
4 

5 Idem. 



Anno 

6 

7 Idem. 

8 Idem. 

9 Idem. 

10 Will. Pypard for four years. 



SHERIFFS. 



569 



Anno 

14 Gilb. Pypard, for four years. 

18 Rad us films Stephan. 
Will, f rater ejus. 

19 Idem, for fifteen years. 

RICHARD I. 

1 Will, filius Stephani. 

2 Will. Marescallus. 
Rich, de Muegros. 

3 Idem. 

4 Will. Marescallus. 
Nich. de Avenel. 

5 Idem. 

6 Idem. 

7 Herbertus filius Herberti. 

8 Idem. 

9 Idem, et Will, de la Po- 

meray. 
10 Herbertus filius Herberti. 

REX JOHAN. 

1 Comes Will. Marescallus. 
Johan. Avenell. 

2 Idem. 

3 Will. Marescallus, et 
Tho. de Rochford. 

4 Idem. 

5 Idem. 

6 Will. Marescallus, et 
Rich, de Haseburn. 

7 Idem. 

8 Rich, de Muegros. 
Reginald Pintevolt. 

9 Idem. 

10 Gerard. Atia. 
Rich. Burgies. 

11 Engelard. de Cicomato. 
Rich. Burgies. 

1 2 Idem, for five years. 

HENRY III. 
1 

2 Rad us Musard, for four 
years. 

6 Rad us Musard. 
Petrus Egeword. 

7 Rad us Musard. 

8 Idem. 



Anno 

9 Idem. 
10 Will. Putot, for seven years. 

17 Hen. de Bada. 

18 Idem. 

19 Will. Talbot. 
Petrus de Egeword. 
Tho. de Sancto Martino. 

20 Idem. 

21 Will. Talbot. 

22 Thurstan. de Despenser. 

23 Idem. 

24 Johan. filius Galfri. 
Galfri de Derhurst. 

25 Johan. filius Galfri. 
Marsdatus Canoni. 

26 Johan. filius Galfri, for 

five years. 

31 Rob. de Valeram. 
Galf. de Derherst. 

32 Rob. de Valeram. 
Nic us de Monte Acuto. 

33 Rob. Valeram. 
Reginald de Eide. 

34 Rob. Valeram. 

35 Johan. de Fleminge. 

36 Idem. 

37 Adam de Hittested, for 

four years. 

41 Will, de Lesseberowe. 

42 Idem. 

43 Rob. de Maysy. 

44 Johan. de Brun. 

45 Idem. 

46 Idem. 

47 Matheus Werill. 

48 Idem. 

49 Idem. 

50 Regin. de Acle et Roger. 

de Chedney, Pet. de 
Chavent. 

51 Idem, for five years. 

EDWARD I. 

1 Petrus de Chavent. 
Walt, Bockking, cl icus. 

2 Reginald, de Acle. 

3 Adam de Buttiller, for 

five years. 



570 



WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 



Anno 



Anno 



8 Rich, de Ripariis. 2 

9 Walter de Stuchesley, for 3 

four years. 4 

13 Rogerus de Lakington. 

14 Idem. 5 

15 Idem. 

16 Galfrid. de Mandriacre. 6 

17 Idem. 7 

18 Fulco de Locy. 

19 Idem. 12 

20 Fulco de Locy. 
Tho. de Gardinis. 

21 Idem, for six years. 

27 Johan. de Langley. 15 

28 Rich. Talebot. 16 

29 Idem. 

30 Johan. de Novo Burgo. 25 

31 Tho. de Gardinis, for five 

years. 26 

27 

EDWARD II. 28 

1 Johan. Langley. 29 

2 Nich. de Kingston, et 
Johan. de Aunesley. 

3 Idem. 30 

4 Johan. Aunesley, et 

Johan. de Acton. 31 

5 Idem. 

6 Will. Mannsel, et 35 
Rob. Darcy. 36 

7 Idem. 37 

8 Rich, de la River, for four 38 

years. 

12 Johan. de Hampton, for 43 

four years. 44 

16 45 

17 Johan. Besmaunsel, et 46 
Will. Tracy. 47 

18 Idem. 48 

19 Idem. 49 

50 

EDWARD III. 51 

1 Tho. de Rodberg. 



Idem. 

Idem. 

Will. Gamage, et 

Tho. Rodberg. 

Tho. Berkeley de Cob- 

berly. 
Idem. 
Rich, de Foxcot, for five 

years. 

Tho. Berkeley de Cuberley. 
Rich, de Foxcot. 
Tho. de Berkeley. 
Idem. 

Walter Dastin. 
Simon Basset, for nine 

years. 

Walt. Dastin, et 
Ph. Mareschall. 
Johan. de Weston. 
Idem. 

Will, de Ledene. 
Tho. de Berkeley, de Cob- 

berly, et 
Will. Ledene. 
Tho. de Berkeley, de Cob- 

berly. 
Rob. de Herdesle, for four 

years. 

Thomas Moygne. 
Idem. 
Idem. 
Johan. Tracy, for five 

years. 

Johan. Points. 
Idem. 

Johan. Tracy, 
Johan. Clifford. 
Tho. de Ocle. 
Johan. Joce. 
Nich. de Berkeley. 
Petrus de Veel. 
Johan. Joce. 
Petrus de Chavent. 



i. 



EDWARD 

9. WALT, de STUCHESLY. The king directed his letters to 
this sheriff, enjoining him to take an exact account of the num 
ber and names of all the villages, within the several hundreds ot 



SHERIFFS. 571 

the county, with the persons, the present possessors thereof, and 
return his collection with speed and safety into the Exchequer, 
according to this tenor : 

1 Edwardus, Dei gratia, Rex Anglic, Dominus Hibernie, et 
Dux Aquitanie, Vicecomiti Glouc. salutem. Quia, quibus- 
dam certis de causis certiorari volumus, qui et quot hundredi 
sunt in balliva tua, et quorum sunt ; et que et quot civitates, 
burgi et ville sunt in quolibet hundredorum illorum, et qui sunt 
Domini eorundem : Tibi precipimus, firmiter injungentes, qu6d, 
modis et viis omnibus quibus plenius ac diligentius poteris, te 
informes de premissis. Ita quod super proxim. fafr. tentum 
apud scaccarium nostrum, thesaurarium et barones nostros de 
eodem scaccario possis plenius informare ; et tu ipse, in propria 
persona tua, sis ad dictum scaccarium, super prox. fafr. tentum 
ex hac causa, nisi tune licentiam a nobis habueris absens esse ; 
et tune per ilium quern super perfr. tuum per te mittes ad 
scaccarium predictum, thesaurarium et barones predictos de 
premissis plenius facias informare. Ita quod in te, vel in ipso 
quern pro te ad dictum scaccarium sic mittes, defectus aliquis 
non inveniatur, per quod ad te graviter capiamus. Et habeas 
ibi tune hoc breve. Teste meipso, apud Clypston, quinto die 
Martii, anno Regni nostri nono." 

In obedience to the king s command, this sheriff vigorously 
prosecuted the design, and made his return accordingly, on the 
same token that it thus began : " Nulla est civitas in comitatu 
Gloucestrie," (there is no city in the county of Gloucester.) 

Whence we collect, that Gloucester in that age (though the seat 
of a mitred abbey) had not the reputation of a city, until it was 
made an episcopal see by Henry the Eighth. The like letters were 
sent to all other sheriffs in England ; and their returns made 
into the exchequer, where it is a kind of Domesday-book junior, 
but commonly passeth under the name of Nomina Villarum, I 
have by me a transcript of so much as concerneth Gloucester 
shire (the reason why this letter is here exemplified), communi 
cated unto me with other rarities, advancing this subject, by my 
worthy friend Mr. Smith of Nibley. 

It must not be omitted, that though the aforesaid catalogue of 
Nomina Villarum was begun in this year, and a considerable 
progress made therein; yet, some unexpressed obstacles re 
tarding, it was not in all particulars completed until 20 years 
after, as by this passage therein may be demonstrated ; " Ber- 
tona Regis juxta Gloucester, et ibidem Hundredum, et Hundr. 
Margarette Regine Anglie." Now this Margaret queen of Eng 
land, daughter to Philip the Hardy, king of France, and second 
wife to this king Edward the First, w r as not married unto him 
until the 27th of her husband s reign, anno 1299. 



572 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 



EDWARD III. 

5. THO. BERKELEY de COBBERLEY. He is commended in 
our histories* for his civil usage of king Edward the Second, 
when prisoner at Berkeley Castle, at this day one of the scats of 
that right ancient family. 

And right ancient it is indeed, they being descended from Ro 
bert Fitz-Harding, derived from the kings of Denmark, as ap- 
peareth by an inscription on the college gate at Bristol :f " Rex 
Henricus secundus et Dominus Robertus films Hardingi filii 
Regis Dacie, hujus Monasterii primi fundatores extiterunt." 

This Robert was entirely beloved of this king, by whose 
means his son Maurice married the daughter cf the lord of 
Berkley, whereby his posterity retained the name of Berkley. 
Many were their mansions in this county, amongst which Cob- 
berley accrued unto them by matching with the heir of Chan- 
dos. Their services in the Holy War, alluded unto by the 
crosses in their arms, were many ; and many their benefactions 
(whereof in my " Church History") as signified by the mitre in 
their crest. 

Of this family was descended William Lord Berkley, who was 
honoured by king Edward the Fourth with the title of Viscount 
Berkley, created by king Richard III. earl of Nottingham, and, 
in the right of his wife, daughter of Thomas Mowbray, duke of 
Norfolk. Henry the Seventh made him Marquis Berkley, and 
marshal of England. He died without issue. 

At this day there flourisheth many noble stems sprung 
thereof; though George Lord Berkley, Baron Berkley, Lord 
Mowbray, Segrave, Bruce, be the top branch of this family; 
one who hath been so signally bountiful in promoting these, 
and all other, my weak endeavours, that I deserve to be dumb, 
if ever I forget to return him public thanks for the same. 

43. JOHN POINTS. Remarkable the antiquity of this name 
and family, still continuing in knightly degree in this county ; 
for I read in Domes-day-book, &lt;e Drugo films Ponz tenet de 
rege Frantone. Ibi decem hide geldant de hoc manerio." 
And again, se Walterus filius Ponz tenet de rege Lete. Ibi de 
cem hide geldant." 

I behold them as the ancestors of their family, till I shall be 
informed to the contrary ; though I confess they were not 
seated at Acton in this county until the days of king Edward 
the Second, when Sir Nicholas Points married the daughter 
and heir of Acton, transmitting the same to his posterity. 

* Stow s Annals, pag. 327. f Camden, in Somersetshire. 



WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 573 



SHERIFFS. 

RICHARD II. 

Anno Name and Arms. Place. 

1 Tho. Bradwell, 

2 Johan. Tracy .... Toddington. 

O. a scallop S. between two bends G. 

3 Radulph. Waleys . . Sodbury, 

Az. six mullets O. 

4 Tho. Bradewell. 

5 Joh. de Thorp, mil. 

Arg. a fess nebule S. between three trefoils G. 
6, Tho. Fitz Nichol. 

7 Radius Waleys . . . ut prius. 

8 Tho. Berkeley . . . Cobberley. 

G. a chevron betwixt ten crosses formee Arg. 

9 Tho. Burgg. 

Az. three flowers-de-luce Erm. 

10 Tho. Bradewell . . . ut prius. 

11 Tho. Berkeley . . . ut prius. 

12 Laur. Seabrooke. 

13 Tho. Burgg .... ut prius. 

14 Maur. de Russell . . Derham. 

Arg. on a chief G. three bezants. 

15 Hen. de la River. 

16 Joh. de Berkeley . . ut prius. 

17 Gilbertus Denis. 

G. a bend engrailed Az. between three leopards heads 
O. jessant flower-de-luces of the second. 

18 Will. Tracy .... ut prius. 

19 Maur. Russel .... ut prius. 

20 Rob. Poyns .... Acton. 

Barry of eight, O. and G. 

21 Johan. Berkeley . . . ut prius. 

22 Johan. Bronings. 

HENRY IV. 

1 Hen. de la River. 

2 Maur. Russel, et 

Rob. Sommerville . . ut prius. 

3 Rob. Whittington. 

G. a fess cheeky O. and Arg. 

4 Will. Beauchamp, mil. 

5 Idem. 

9 Johan. Grendore. 

Per pale O. and V. twelve gutties or drops counterchanged. 

7 Maur. Russel .... ut prius. 

8 Rob. Whittington . . ut prius. 



574 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

9 Rich. Mawrdin. 

10 Alex. Clivedon. 

11 Will. Wallwine. 

G. a bend within a border Erm. 

12 Joh. Grendore, mil. . ut prius. 

HENRY V. 

1 Will. Beauchamp . . Powkes. 

2 Joh. Berkley, mil. . . ut prius. 

3 Joh. Grevel .... ut prius. 

O. on a cross engrailed within the like border S. ten annu 
lets of the first, with a mullet of five points in the dex 
ter quarter. 

4 Idem ut prius. 

5 Will. Tracy .... ut prius. 

6 Will. Bishopeston. 

7 Joh. Brugg, arm. . . ut prius. 

8 Joh. Willecotts. 

9 Idem. 

HENRY VI. 

1 Joh. Panfote. 

G. three lions rampant Arg. 

2 Joh. Blacket, mil. 

3 Steph. Hatfild, mil. 

4 Joh. Grevil, arm. . . ut prius. 

5 Joh. Panfote .... ut prius. 

6 Guido Whittington . . ut prius. 

7 Rob. Andrew. 

S. a saltire engrailed Erm. on a chief O. three flower-de- 
luces of the first. 

8 Egidius Brigge. 

Arg. on a cross S. a leopard s head O. 

9 Maur. Berkeley, mil. . ut prius. 

10 Steph. Hatfield. 

11 Joh. Towerton. 

1 2 Guido W T hittington . . ut prius. 

13 Joh. Panfote .... ut prius. 

14 Maur. Berkeley, mil. . ut prius. 

15 Idem ut prius. 

16 Joh. Beauchamp, mil. 

17 Will. Stafford . . . Thornbury. 

O. a chevron G. 

18 Joh. Stourton, mil. 

S. a bend O. between three fountains proper. 

19 Idem ut prius. 

20 Joh. Botiller. 

21 Rob. Leversey. 



SHERIFFS. 575 

Anno Name. Place. 

22 Will. Tracy .... ut prim. 

23 Idem ut prius. 

24 Will. Gifford. 

25 Job. Botiller. 

26 Hen. Clifford .... Frampton on Severn. 

Cheeky O. and Az. on a bend G. three lioncels rampant 
of the first. 

27 Joh. Trye. 

Arg. a buck s head G. ; O. a bend Az. 

28 Joh. Gise Elmor. 

Lozengy Vairy and G. on a canton O. a mullet of six 
points S. 

29 Will. Tracy .... ut prius. 

30 Jac. Clifford .... ut prius. 

31 Joh. Vele. 

Arg. on a bend S. three calves O. 

32 Egidius Brigge . . . ut prius. 

33 Joh. Gise ut prius. 

34 Wai. Devereux, mil. 

Arg. a fess G. ; in chief three torteaux. 

35 Joh. Barre, mil. 

36 Edw. Hungerford, mil. 

S. two bars Arg. ; three plates in chief. 

37 Nich. Latymer. 

G. a cross patonce O. 

38 Tho. Hungerford . . ut prius. 

EDW. IV. 

1 Joh. Grivel, arm. . . ut prius. 

2 Maur. Denis . . . ut prius. 

3 Idem ut prius. 

4 Maur. Berkley, arm. . ut prius. 

5 Ed. Hungerford, mil. . ut prius. 
G Joh. Huggford, arm. 

7 Joh. Newton, arm. 

8 Joh. Grivel, mil. . . ut prius. 

9 Rob. Poynts, mil. . . ut prius. 

10 Joh. Cassy, arm. 

Arg. a chevron betwixt three griffins heads erased G. 

11 Ri. Beauchamp, mil. 

12 Idem. 

13 Humph. Forster. 

14 Joh. Botiller, mil. 

15 Tho. Whittington, arm. ut prius. 

16 Tho. Norton, arm. 

17 Rob. Poines .... ut prius. 

18 Tho. Baynam, arm. 

O. a chevron betwixt three bulls heads Arg. 
VOL. i. 2 P 



576 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

19 Edw. Langley. 

O. a cross saltire G. 

20 Walt. Denis .... ut prius. 

21 Jo. St. Lowe, mil. 

22 Rob. Poyntz, arm. . . ut prius. 

RICHARD III. 

1 Alex. Baynam . . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. Hudleston, arm. 

3 Will. Berkley, mil. et . ut prius. 
Rob. Poynts .... ut prius. 

HEN. VII. 

1 Rob. PoyntZj mil. . . ut prius. 

2 Joh. St. Low, mil. 

Joh. Welsh, arm. . . ut prius. 
3 

4 Tho. Moreton . . . ut prius. 

5 Chri. Throgmorton . . Tortworth. 

G. on a chevron Arg. three bars gemelle S, 

6 Tho. Hungerford, mil. . ut prius. 

7 Rich. Pole, arm. 

Az. semee de flower-de-luces O. a lion rampant Arg. 

8 Rob. Miles. 

9 Walt. Denis, mil. . . ut prius. 

10 Edw. Berkley, mil. . . ut prius. 

1 1 Joh. Whitington, arm. . ut prius. 

12 Rob. Poynts, mil. . . ut prius. 

13 Rich. Pole, arm. . . . ut prius. 

14 Alex. Baynam, mil. . . ut prius. 

15 Egidius Brugge, mil. . ut prius. 

16 Joh. Huddleston, mil. 

17 Rob. Poynts, mil. . . ut prius. 

18 Alex. Baynam, mil. . ut prius. 

19 Idem ut prius. 

20 Egidius Genel. 

21 Joh. Butiller, arm. 

22 Edw. Tame, arm. 

23 Joh. Panneffot . . . ut prius. 

24 Anth. Poyntz, arm. . . ut prius. 

HEN VIII. 

1 Maur. Berkley, mil. . ut prius. 

2 Tho. Poyntz, arm. . . ut prius. 

3 Christ. Baynam, arm. . ut prius. 

4 Rob. Morton, mil. 

5 Will. Tracy, mil. . . ut prius. 

6 Will. Kingston, mil. . Misterden. 

Az. a plain cross between four leopards heads O. 



SHERIFFS. 577 

Anno Name. Place. 

7 Maur. Berkley, mil. . ut prius. 

8 Alex. Baynam, mil. . . ut prius. 

9 Chris. Baynam, mil. . ut prius. 

10 Joh. Whittington, arm. ut prius. 

11 Will. Denis, mil. . . ut prius. 

12 Egidius Tame, mil. 

13 Tho. Poyntz, arm. . . ut prius. 

14 Tho. Berkley, mil. . . ut prius. 

15 Anth. Poyntz, mil. . . ut prius. 

16 Edw. Tame, mil. 

17 Edw. Wadham, mil. 

G. a chevron betwixt three roses Arg. 

18 Joh. Walsh, mil. . . ut prius. 

19 Will. Denis, mil. . . ut prius. 

20 Anth. Poyntz, mil. . . ut prius. 

21 Will. Throgmorton, arm. ut prius. 

22 Joh. Walsh, miL . . . ut prius. 

23 Edw. Wadham, mil. . ut prius. 

24 Walter Denis, mil. . . ut prius. 

25 Anth. Kingston, arm. . ut prius. 

26 Rich. Legon, mil. 

Arg. two lions passant G. 

27 Joh. Walsh, mil. . . ut prius. 

28 Joh. St. Lo, mil. 

29 Edw. Tame, mil. 

30 Walt. Denis, mil. . . ut prius. 

31 Nich. Poyntz, mil. . . ut prius. 

32 Joh. Walsh, mil. . . . ut prius. 

33 Edw. Wadham, mil. . ut prius. 

34 Edw. Tame, mil. 

35 Walt. Denis, mil. . . ut prius. 

36 Geo. Baynham, mil. . ut prius. 

37 Nich. Poyntz, mil. . . ut prius. 

38 Nich. Wikes, arm. 

Az. a lion rampant cheeky Arg. and G. 

EDWARD VI. 

1 Milo Petrich, mil. 

Cheeky Arg. and S. on a bend G. three escalops O. 

2 Arth. Porter, arm. . . Newark. 

G. five marlions* wings in saltire Arg. 

3 Tho. Briges, mil. . . . ut prius. 

4 Anth. Kingston, mil. . ut prius. 

5 Walt. Denis, mil. . . ut prius. 

6 Hugo Denis, arm. . . ut prius. 

PHIL, et MAR. 
M. 1 An. Hungerford, mil. ut prius. 



578 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

1, 2 Nich. Wikes, arm. . utprius. 

2, 3 Walt. Denis, mil. . . ut prius. 

3, 4 Nich. Pannefort . . ut prius. 

4, 5 Nich. Brayne, arm. . Little De. 

Az. a boar s head G. on a fess betwixt three hunters 
horns Arg. 

5, 6 Th. Throgmorton, mil. ut prius. 

ELIZ. REG. 



1 Rich. Arnold, mil. 

2 Rich. Tracy, arm. . . ut prius. 

3 Nich. Walsh, arm. . . utprius. 

4 Geo. Huntley, arm. . Frowcester. 

Arg. on a chevron between three stags heads couped 
S. as many bugles stringed of the first. 

5 Will. Read, arm. 

Az. a griffin rampant O. 

6 Rich. Berkley, arm. . . utprius. 

7 Egidius Pole, mil. ... utprius. 

8 Will. Palmer, arm. 

9 Will. Hungerford, arm. ut prius. 

10 Rob. Brane, arm. . . ut prius. 

11 Nich. Poynts, mil. . . ut prius. 

12 Rich. Baynam, arm. . ut prius. 

13 Tho. Smith, arm. 

14 Joh. Bigford, arm. 

15 Rob. Strange, arm. 

16 Tho. Porter, mil. . . ut prius. 

17 Tho. Wye, arm. 

] 8 Walt. Campton, arm. . Harthry. 

19 Tho. Chester .... Almondsbury.- 

20 Joh. Tracy, mil. . . . ut prius. 

21 Will. Read, arm. . . . ut prius. 

22 Rich. Pate, arm. 

23 Tho. Porter, mil. . . . ut prius. 

24 Tho. Baynham, arm. . ut prius. 

25 Tho. Smith, arm. . . Nibley. 

S. on a chevron engrailed betwixt six crosses patee 
fitchee O. three flowers -de-luce Az. each charged on the 
top with a plate. 

26 An. Hungerford, arm. . ut prius. 

27 Joh. Higford, arm. . . Dixton. 

28 Paul. Tracy, arm. . . Stanway. 

29 Th. Throgmorton, mil. . ut prius. 

30 Hen. Pole, mil. . . . ut prius. 

31 Tho. Lucy, arm. 

32 Will. Dutton, arm. 

Quarterly Arg. and G. ; in the second and third quarter a fret O. 

33 Joh. Poyntz, mil. . . ut prius. 



SHERIFFS. 579 

Anno Name. Place. 

34 Will. Chester, arm. 

35 Job. Davers, mil. . . Cirencester. 

G. a chevron inter three mullets O. 

36 Joseph Benham, arm. 

37 Hen. Winston, mil. 

38 Joh. Chamberlain, arm, Prestbury. 

G. an inescutcheon Arg. ; an orle of mullets O. 

39 Joh. Hungerford, mil. . ut prius. 

40 Edw. Winter, mil. . . Lidney. 

Cheeky O. and S. a fess G. 

41 Geo. Huntley. 

42 Th. Throgmorton, mil. . ut prius. 

43 Will. Dutton, arm. . . ut prius. 

44 Tho. Baynham, arm. . ut prius. 

JACOB. 

1 Hen. Pole, mil. . . . ut prius. 

2 Egid. Read, arm. . . ut prius. 

3 Tho. Seymer, mil. . . Button. 

G. two wings conjoined O. within a border gobo- 
nated Arg. 

4 Will. Norwood . . . Leckhampton. 

Erm. a cross engrailed G. 

5 Tho. Estcourt, mil. . . Lasbury. 

Erm. on a chief indented G. three stars. 

6 Rob. Woodroff, mil. 

Will. Guyes, arm. . . ut prius. 

7 Joh. Tracy, mil. . . . ut prius. 

8 Paul. Tracy, arm. . . ut prius. 

9 Rob. Bathurst, arm. . Lechlade. 

10 Joh. Carter, arm. . . Charlton. 

11 Will. Kingston, arm. . ut prius. 

12 Rich. Brent, arm. 

13 Hen. Finch, arm. 

14 Radius Cotton, arm. 

Az. a chevron between three cotton-wicks Arg. 

15 Tho. Chester, arm. . . Knolle. 

16 Rich. Hill, mil. 

17 Ph. Langley, arm. . . Mangotsfield. 

Arms, ut prius. 

18 Tho. Baker, mil. 

19 Tho. Thynn, mil. . . WILTSHIRE. 

Barry of ten, O. and S. 

20 Tho. Hodges, arm. . . Shipton. 

21 Rich. .Rogers, mil. . . Eastwood. 

22 Joh. Dowle, arm. 

CAROL. I. 

1 Will. Sandys, mil. . . Misterden. 



580 WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE. 

Anno Name. Place. 

2 Tho. Nicholas, arm. . Prestbury. 

3 Will. Masters, mil. . . Grencester. 

4 Rich. Tracy, mil. et bar. ut prius, 

5 Hen. Dennis, arm. . . Paule Ch. 

Arms, ut prius. 

6 RacPus Dutton, mil. . Standish. 

Arms, ut prius. 

7 Geo. Winter, mil. 

8 Hen. Poole, arm. . . ut prius. 

9 Egid. Fetiplace, mil. . Coin Alin. 

G. two chevrons Arg. 

10 Edw. Stephens, arm. . L- Sodbury. 

11 Will. Leigh, arm, 

12 Rich. Ducy, bar. .. . Frowcester. 

O. two lions passant G. 

13 Joh. Poyntz, mil. . . ut prius. 

14 Rob. Codrington, arm. . Coderington. 

Arg. a fess embattled S. between three lions passant G. 
15 
16 

17 Fr. Creswick, arm. . . Bristol. 
18 
19 
20 
21 
22 Will. Brown, arm. . . Hasfield. 

O. on a fess G. three chess-rooks of the first ; as many 
martlets in chief S. 

HENRY VIII. 

6. WILLIAM KINGSTON, Mil. I read, in an industrious au 
thor,* that Sir William Kingston was created by king Henry 
the Eighth knight of the Garter, which I humbly conceive to be 
a mistake, having several exact catalogues of all admitted into 
that order, amongst whom he doth not appear ; yet was he lieu 
tenant of the Tower, and captain of the guard to king Henry the 
Eighth, by whom he was much trusted and employed. Car 
dinal Wolsey had it given him in advice, to beware of Kingston ;f 
which he mistook for the market town in Surrey well know r n, 
and therefore declined going thither, though many miles his 
nearer way, in passage to the court. But at last he found this 
our Sir Anthony s formidable and fatal Kingston, when sent to 
fetch him out of the north, with some of the guard. And, 
though he treated the cardinal most courteously, saluting him on 
his knees, J yet the sight of him went to his heart, dying within 
few days after. 

* Burton, in his Description of Leicestershire, p. 320. 

t Lord Howard, in his Defensative against Prophesies, fol. 130. 

| Lord Herbert, ut prius. 



SHERIFFS THE FAREWELL. 581 

EDWARD VI. 

4. ANTHONY KINGSTON, Mil. This was that terrible provost 
marshal of the king s army in the execution of the western 
rebels, whose memory I find accused by Sir John Heywood* 
for his cruelty, and defended by Mr. Carew.f This Sir An 
thony, so frightful to all guilty persons, fell himself into the 
same fear, in the reign of queen Mary, on this occasion. Some 
were said to have a design to raise war against the queen ; and 
resolved to provide the sinews before the bones of war, money 
before men. In order whereunto, their design was, to rob the 
Exchequer, then furnished with 50,000. This being disco 
vered, many were accused as plotters, more as privy ; amongst 
whom Sir Anthony Kingston, being sent for to come up, he 
died, for fear of death, some suppose, in his way to London. J 

THE FAREWELL. 

I congratulate the felicity of this county in the return of the 
episcopal see to the chief city thereof ; the rather, seeing some 
questioned its charter, and would have had it uncitied, because 
unbishoped in our civil wars ; though, with their leave, by the 
courtesy of England, once a city and ever a city. May the 
same hereafter ever remain there, to take away all suspicion in 
that kind for the future ! 



WORTHIES OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE WHO HAVE FLOURISHED 
SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 

Right Hon. C. B. BATHURST, statesman; born at Cleve Hall; 

died 1831. 
Sir Robert ATKYNS, historian of the county ; born at Saperton 

1646 ; died 1711. 
Clement BARKSDALE, author of " Nympha Libethris ;" born at 

Winchcomb 1609 ; died 1687. 
James BRADLEY, astronomer royal ; born at Sherborne 1692 ; 

died 1762. 
Edward CHAMBERLAYNE, author of "Anglise Notitia;" born 

at Oddington 1616; died 1703. 
Thomas CHATTERTON, poet of superior talents, but brief and 

melancholy career; born at Bristol 1752; died 1770. 
Edward COLSTON, distinguished philanthropist ; born at Bristol 

1636; died 1721. 

John CORBET, historian; born at Gloucester 1620; died 1671. 
Sir William DRAPER, antagonist of Junius ; born at Bristol 

1721 ; died 1787. 
Richard GRAVES, author of " The Spiritual Quixote," born at 

Mickleton 1715 ; died 1807- 

* In his Life of King Edward the Sixth. f In his Survey of Cornwall. 

| Holinshed, in the fourth of Queen Mary, p. 1132 



582 WORTHIES SINCE THE TIME OF FULLER. 

Sir Mathew HALE, upright chief justice ; born at Alderley 1609 ; 

died 1676. 
Edward JENNER, physician, and discoverer of vaccination ; born 

at Berkeley 1749; died 1823. 
John KYRLE, Pope s "Man of Ross/ Whitehouse; born at 

Dymock 1637 ; died 1754. 
John LEWIS, divine, biographer, antiquary, and topographer; 

born at Bristol 1675 ; died 1746. 
Rev. D. LYSONS, author of the " Environs of London," &c. ; 

born at Hempsted Court; died 1834. 
Samuel LYSONS, author of the " Magna Britannia ;" born at 

Rodmarton 1763 ; died 1819. 
John MOORE, Abp. of Canterbury ; born at Gloucester ; died 

1804. 
Mrs. Hannah MORE, dramatic and moral writer; born at 

Stapleton 1744; died 1836. 

Robert RAIKES, establisher of Sunday schools ; born at Glou 
cester 1735 ; died 1811. 
Samuel SEYER, divine, and historian of his native place ; born 

at Bristol; died 1831. 
Robert STEPHENS, historiographer royal, born at Eastington ; 

died 1732. 
Joseph TRAPP, divine, poet, translator of Virgil ; born at Che- 

rington 1679; died 1747. 
George WHITFIELD, founder of the Calvinistic Methodists ; 

born at Gloucester 1714; died 1770. 
Sir Nath. W. WRAXALL, politician, and miscellaneous author; 

born at Bristol 1751 ; died 1831. 



* % * Various topographical Works relative to the county of Gloucester have made 
their appearance since the time of Fuller, the productions of different authors, viz. 
by Sir Robert Atkyns (1712) ; by S. Rudder (1779) ; by Ralph Bigland (1792) ; by 
the Rev. J. Rudge (1803) ; and by S. Lysons. The Rev. T. D. Fosbroke has also 
produced Histories of the city of Gloucester (1819) ; of Berkley (1821) ; and of Chel 
tenham (1826). Among the principal local histories may be enumerated the Bibli- 
otheca Gloucestriensis ; Histories of Bristol, by W. Barrett (1789), and J. Cory 
(1816) ; Griffith s Cheltenham (1826); History of Cirencester (1800) ; Account of 
Fairford (1791); Histories of Tewkesbury by W. Dyde (1798) ; and J. Bennet 
(1830), &c ED- 



END OF VOL. I. 



Nuttall and Hodgson, Printers, dough Square, London.
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