Notes and Queries, Vol. V, Number 130, April 24, 1852 / A Medium of Inter-communication for Literary Men, Artists, Antiquaries, Genealogists, etc.

When found, make a note of. —CAPTAIN CUTTLE.
VOL. V.—No. 130.
SATURDAY, APRIL 24. 1852.
Price Fourpence. Stamped Edition, 5 d.
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MISCELLANEOUS:—
Whether it was Ashmole's influence, or that the equity of the case was on his side, is uncertain; but the Court of Chancery decided in his favour, and he was declared the proprietor of the Tredescantian Museum. He obtained, without being able to produce any written document which declared his right to the possession, all that the two Tredescants, father and son, had with inexpressible trouble, and by means of many voyages, brought together in their Museum and Botanic Garden.
He, Ashmole, shall have and enjoy all and singular the bookes, coynes, medalls, stones, pictures, mechanicks, and antiquities, and all and every other the raryties and curiosities, of what sort or kind soever, whether naturall or artificiall, which were in John Tredescant's Closett, or in or about his house at South Lambeth the 16th December, 1659, and which were commonly deemed, taken, and reputed as belonging or appertaining to the said Closett, or Collection of Rarities, an abstract whereof was heretofore printed under the tytle of 'Museum Tredescantianum.'
Mrs. Tredescant was adjudged to have merely during her life a kind of custody of, or guardianship over the collection, subject to the Trust for the Defendant during her life.
The Lord Chancellor further decreed that a commission should be named to inquire whether everything was forthcoming which was named in the Catalogue ; in order that if anything was missing she should be constrained to replace it, and give security that nothing should be lost in future. The commissioners appointed to carry into effect the Chancellor's decree were however two persons with whom Ashmole must have been on terms of intimate friendship, namely, Sir Edward Bysh and Sir William Dugdale, both Heralds like himself; and with the latter he at length became most intimately connected by marrying his daughter. To them was also added, in his official capacity, Sir William Glascock, a Master in Chancery. Tredescant's widow, as may be imagined, did not very quietly submit to this, as it seemed to her, unjust decree; but all her endeavours at opposition were fruitless; she was constrained to yield; and it seems probable that the depressing influence of this struggle affected her so much as to cause her death. She was found drowned in the pond in the garden cultivated by her husband and his father at South Lambeth, on the 3rd of April, 1678.