D.—Harrison’s Chronology.
Dr. Furnivall has told in a note to his “Forewords” that the manuscript of Harrison’s still unpublished “Chronology” was unearthed in the library of Derry diocese. How it came there is very evident. Harrison’s only son and heir, Edmund Harrison, was the first prebendary of the diocese, who is described in the Visitation as “a man very well qualified both for life and learning.” From the manuscript Dr. Furnivall extracted various entries relating to Harrison’s own time, which are of most picturesque quality if of rather meagre quantity. Those of especial bearing on the reign of Elizabeth, though beginning just before her advent, are as follows:—
Dearth and Sickness in England.
1556. Derth in England, wherein wheat is worthe liij sh: iiij d the quarter; malt, beanes, Rie, at 40 sh:; & peasen at 46 shillinges; but after harvest, wheate was sold for 5 shillinges the quarter, malt at a noble, Rie at 3 sh: 4 d. in London; & therefore the price was not so highe in the country....
Soche was the plenty of Saffron in this yere, that the murmuring Crokers envieng the store, said in blasphemous maner, in & aboute Waldon in Essex, that “God did now shite saffron”; but as some of them died afterward, starke beggars, so in 20 yeres after, there was so little of this Commodity, that it was almost lost & perished in England....
A generall sickenesse in England, where-of the third parte of the people of the land did tast; & many clergymen had their desire, who, suspecting an alteration in relligion to insue after the death of Quene Mary, & fearing to be called to accompt for their bloodshed made, & practize of the losse of Calais, craved of God in their daiely praiers, that they might die before her; & so they did; the Lord hearing their praiers, & intending therby to geue his churche a breathing time....
Harrison on Religious Hatred.
1560. The French Protestantes are exiled out of Frankeford, Aprillis 23, onely for that, in doctrine, they did not agree with Luther, the Augustane confession, pacification at Wittenberg, & reconciliation made at Frankeford: a slender cause, God wote! If it be well examined, you shall find it a thing onely diuised, thereby to put their brethren to incumbrauns. But when I consider what hatred the Lutheranes do here vnto the Calvinistes, & the Precisians to the Protestantes, I can liken the same to nothing better then that mallice which reigneth betwene the papistes & the gospellers....
The Spire of St. Paul’s struck by Lightning.
1560. The Rooffe, with the Spire & steple of Paules church in London, is consumed to ashes, Junij 4, by lightning. Certes the toppe of this Spire, where the wethercocke stode, was 520 foote from the ground, of which the spire was the one halfe. the bredth of the church also, saith Stow, is 130 foote, & the length 2690, or 836 yardes, 2 foote, at this present. Also an erthquake is felt in the kingdome.... (Stowe, p. 1095.—F.)
Queen Elizabeth at Oxford. “Falamon and Arcite.”
1565. The Queene of England beginneth hir progresse, & vpon the 31 of August cometh to Oxford, where she visiteth eche college after other, & making an oration vnto them in Latine, as she had done in Cambridge two yeres passed, to the gret comfort of all soche as are, or had bene, studentes there. During her being there also the Academicall exercises were holden as in their vsuall termes. Diuerse Commedies & plaies also were set forthe by the studentes of Christes Church, where her Majestie lodged; but of all the rest, onely that of “Arcite & Palemon”[239] had a tragicall successe; for, by the falle, of a walle & wooden gallery that leadeth from the staiers vnfinished to the hall, diuers persons were sore hurt, & 3 men killed out right, which came to behold the pastimes. [This paragraph takes up seven lines, and 1¼ inch of the height, of Harrison’s MS.; so close is the writing.—F.]....
Evils of Plays and Theatres.[240]
1572. Plaies are banished for a time out of London, lest the resort vnto them should ingender a plague, or rather disperse it, being alredy begonne. Would to god these comon plaies were exiled for altogether, as semenaries of impiety, & their theaters pulled downe, as no better then houses of baudrie. It is an euident token of a wicked time when plaiers wexe so riche that they can build[241] suche houses / As moche I wish also to our comon beare baitinges vsed on the sabaothe daies.[243]
Tobacco.
1573. In these daies, the taking-in of the smoke of the Indian herbe called “Tabaco,” by an instrument formed like a litle ladell, wherby it passeth from the mouth into the hed & stomach, is gretlie taken-vp & vsed in England, against Rewmes & some other diseases ingendred in the longes & inward partes, & not without effect / This herbe as yet is not so common, but that for want thereof diuers do practize for the like purposes with the Nicetian, otherwise called in latine, “Hyosciamus Luteus,” or the yellow henbane, albeit, not without gret error; for, althoughe that herbe be a souerene healer of old vlcers & sores reputed incurable outwardly, yet is not the smoke or vapour thereof so profitable to be receaued inwardly. The herbe [Tobacco] is comonly of the height of a man,[244] garnished with great leaues like the paciens,[245] bering seede, colloured, & of quantity like vnto, or rather lesse then, the fine margeronie; the herbe it self yerely coming vp also of the shaking of the seede; the collour of the floure is carnation, resembling that of the lemmon in forme: the roote yellow, with many fillettes, & therto very small in comparison, if you respect the substauns of the herbe.[246]
A monstrous fish.
1573. A monstrous fish is taken in Thenet vpon the xjth of July, of 66 foote in length; one of whose eies was a full cart lode, & the diameter or thickenesse thereof, full two yardes, or 6 of our english feete....
London Bridge Tower.
1576. The towre on the drawe bridge vpon london bridge is taken downe in Aprill, being in great decaie; & sone after made a pleasaunt & beautiful dwelling house / & whereas the heddes of soche as were executed for treason were wont to be placed vpon this towre, they were now remoued, & fixed ouer the gate which leadeth from Southwarke into the citie by that bridge....
A great Snowstorm.
1578. A Cold winter, & ere long there falleth a great snow in England, whose driftes, in many places, by reason of a Northest winde, were so depe that the mere report of them maie seme incredible. It beganne in the 4 of feb: & held on vntil the 8 of the same moneth; during which time some men & women, beside cattell, were lost, & not heard of till the snow was melted & gone, notwithstanding that some shepe & catle lived vnder it, & fedd in the places where they laie, vpon soche grasse as they cold come by. Vpon the xjth also of that moneth, the Thames did rise so highe, after the dissolution of this snow, that westminster hall was drowned, & moche fishe left there in the pallace yard when the water returned to her Channell, for who so list, to gather vp....
Plagues of Locusts or Grasshoppers, and Mice.
1583. Great harme done in England in diuerse shires, by locustes, or “grashoppers” as we call them, which deuoured the grasse, & consumed the pastures & medowes in very pitifull maner: soche great nombers of crowes also do come into those partes to fede vpon those creatures, that they tread downe & trample the rest, I meane, whatsoeuer the locust had left vntouched. Not long before, if not about this time, also some places of the hundredes in Essex were no lesse annoyed with mise, as report then went, which did gret hurt to corne & the fruites of the erth, till an infinite nomber of Owles were assembled into those partes, which consumed them all to nothing. Certes the report is true; but I am not sure whether it was in this, or the yere before or after this, for I did not enter the note when it was first sent vnto me, the lettre being cast aside, & not hard of after the receipt.
Stafford’s Conspiracy.[247]
1586. Another Conspiracy is detected vpon Newyeres daie, wherein the death of our Queene is ones againe intended, by Stafford & other, at the receipt of her Newyeres giftes; but, as God hath taken vpon him the defence of his owne cause, so hath he, in extraordinary maner, from time to time preserued her Majestie, his servant, from the treason & traiterous practizes of her aduersaries, & wonderfully bewraied their diuises./
A Star in the Moon. A wet Summer in Autumn.
1587. A Sterre is sene in the bodie of the mone vpon the of Marche, whereat many men merueiled, & not without cause, for it stode directly betwene the pointes of her hornes, the mone being chaunged, not passing 5 or 6 daies before; & in the later end of the Crabbe after this, also there insued a very moyst & wet somer, wherby moche haie was lost, & harvest in the begining grew to be very troublesome. There followed also a like Autumn; by meanes wherof, shepe & moche other cattell died in abundant maner in most places of our Iland,[248] wherby the residew grew to be very dere ... (“a reasonable good haruest for corne.”—Stowe, 1243.—F.)
The first skonses are made in England vpon the borders of the Thames, & in other places of the land, to kepe the Spanish powre from entrauns, whose chief purpose is, as most affirme, to invade Kent with one part of their navie, & to come by the River of Thames to sacke London with the other./....
The Spanish Armada. Leicester’s Death.
1588. The Spanish navie so long loked for, doth now at last show it self ouer against our coastes, vpon our 20 of July, where it is foughten withall vpon the morow, onely with 50 saile of our English shipps vnder the conduct of the lord Admirall[249] & Sir Fraunces Drake; afterward by our whole navie of 150 saile, for the space of 2 daies together: in thend whereof, they are put to flight before Calice, & driven to returne home about by Scotland, with great losse, so that, of 160 saile & more, which came out of Spaine, scasely 40 returned againe in safety vnto that king; God himself so fighting for vs, that we lost not 80 men, neither was there so moche as one vessell of oures sonke by the enemy, or taken, in all these skirmishes. In their returne also, & beside those 15 vesselles which they lost in our seas, 17 other of them did either perish vpon the coast of Ireland, or, coming thether for succour, were seized vpon also vnto her Majesties vse. The lieftenaunt of this great navie was the duke Medina of Cydonia, & with him were 210 noble men, among which, beside the kinges bastard sonne, were 2 marquesses, one prince, one duke, 4 erles, & 3 Lordes, which came to seeke aduentures, & winne honor vpon England, as they said; howbeit, as God would, they neuer touched the land, nor came nere vnto our shore by diuers miles. The duke of Parma should haue assisted them at this present with 80 or 100 saile prouided out of the Low Countries; but being kept in by wether, & a portion of our navie, & his mariners also forsaking him, he was inforced to staie & kepe vpon the land, where he abode in safety, & out of the roring gunshot / (Stowe’s Annals, 1605, pp. 1243-1258.—F.)
Robert, Erle of Leicester, dieth, who in his time became the man of grettest powre (being but a subiect) which in this land, or that euer had bene exalted vnder any prince sithens the times of Peers Gavestone & Robert Veer,[250] some time duke of Ireland. Nothing almost was done, wherein he had not, either a stroke or a commoditie; which, together with his scraping from the churche & comons, spoile of her maiesties thresure, & sodeine death of his first wife &c. procured him soche inward envie & hatred, that all men, so farre as they durst, reioysed no lesse outwardlie at his death, then for the victorie obteined of late against the Spanish nauie /.... (Stowe’s Annals, 1605, p. 1259.—F.)
A generall thankesgeuing thorow out England in euery church, for the victory of the Allmightie geuen by thenglish ouer the Spanish navie; in which, the Queene her selfe, & her nobility, came to St Paules churche in London, November the 19, where, after she had hard the divine service, & in her owne person geuen solemne thankes to God, in the hering of soche as were present, she hard the sermon at the Crosse preached by the bishop of Sarum, & then dined with the bishop of London in his pallace thereunto annexed. The kinges of Scotland, Denmarke, Sueden, Navarra, with the churches of Geneva & diuers other cities of Germany, had done the like also, a litle while before, in their churches, as we are credibly informed. The Spanierdes also, indeuoring to hide their reprochefull voiage from the eies of their comon people, do triumphe for their victory obteined ouer the Englishe nation, & send to the pope for a seconde million of gold, which he bound himself to geue them at their landing in England, they having alredy receaved the first at their departure from the Groyne in Maie past; but his intelligencers informed him, so that he kept his crownes at home/... (Stowe, p. 1260.—F.)
The Mad Parliament.
1588. A parliament is holden in London, which some doe call “the greene meting,” other, “the madde parliament,” because it consisted, for the most part, of yong burgesses, picked out of purpose to serue some secrete turne against the state present of the clergy; of whome no tale was there left vntold, that might deface their condicion. In this assembly, billes were put vp, as it is said, which required that the ministery of England should be subiect to service in the warres, & called to appeare at musters, sizes, &c. as laie subiectes of the land; that they should prouide furniture of armour & munition, according to the seuerall valuation of their livinges; that eche of them should haue but one living, & be resident vpon the same; & that all impropriations in spirituall mens handes onely, should be restored to the churche, with other like diuises; but in thend, none of them all went forward; & right good cause; for hereby most churches should quickely haue bene without their pastor, the Collegiate & cathedrall houses (the chief marke whereat they shot) rellinquished, & some of the spiritualty more charged then vj of the greattest of the nobility in the land, whose livinges are not valued in soche strict maner as those are of the clergy, who also in this parliament are charged with a doble subsidie to be paid in 6 yeres. (Stowe’s Annals, 1605, p. 1261.—F.)
The Parliament of Feb. 1592-3.
[Last entry, in a very tottery hand, 2 months before Harrison’s death or burial on 24 April 1593, six days after he’d ended his 59th year.—F.]
1592. A Parliament beginneth at London, feb. 19 [1592-3], being mondaie / many men looke for many thinges at the handes of the congregates, chiefly the precisiens for the ouerthrow of bishops & all ecclesiasticall regiment, and erection of soche discipline as thei themselues haue prescribed / the Clergy also feared some stoppage of former lawes provided for the wel [?] paiment of their tithes / but all men expect a generall graunt of money, the cheef end, in our time, of the aforesaid Assemblies; which being obserued, the rest will sone haue an ende / In the very begining of this parliament, there were more then 100 of the lower house, returned for outlawes, I meane, so well of knightes as of burgesses, & more are daiely loked for to be found in like estate / but is it not, thinke you, a likely matter, that soche men can be authors of good lawes, who, for their own partes, will obey no law at all? How gret frendes the precisians in ther practizes are to these men, the possession of their desire wold esily declare, if thei might ones obteine it. [a later entry: the Parliament broke up on April 10, 1593,[251] a fortnight before Harrison’s death.—F.] neuerthelesse, in the vpshot of that meting, it was found, that notwithstanding the money graunted—which was well nigh yelded vnto, in respect of our generall necessitie—there were so many good profitable lawes ordeined in this parliament as in any other that haue passed in former times, the mallicious dealinges also of the precisians, papistes, & comeling [?] provokers[252] was not a litle restreigned in the same, to the gret benefite of the country.
[“The rest is silence.”]
Printed by Walter Scott, Felling, Newcastle-on-Tyne.
Footnotes:
[1] Condensed from the first part of the edition of 1876 for the “New Shakspere Society.”—W.
[2] This does not apply to a small portion of Book I. used by Dr. F., and also somewhat in this reprint.—W.
[3] Who’ll write a like one for Victorian England? (Mr. Fyffe has since done this.) Oh that we had one for Chaucer’s England!—F.
[4] The Elizabethan sweep in this, as in so many other plans of the day.—F.
[5] See Holinshed’s Dedication to Lord Burghley in vol. iii. of his Chronicle.—F. (See Appendix.—W.)
[6] William Harrison’s Chronologie is mentioned on the last leaf of the Preface to vol. iii. of Holinshed, p. 1, at foot—“For the computation of the yeares of the world, I had by Maister Wolfes aduise followed Functius; but after his [Wolfe’s] deceasse, M. W[illiam] H[arrison] made me partaker of a Chronologie, which he had gathered and compiled with most exquisit diligence, following Gerardus Mercator, and other late chronologers, and his owne obseruations, according to the which I haue reformed the same.”—Holinshed, in the Preface to his Chronicles, vol. iii. sign A 4, ed. 1587,—and in his Description, “I haue reserued them vnto the publication of my great Chronologie, if (while I liue) it happen to come abroad.” It was never publisht. My search for the MS. of it results in my having just received (Aug. 28) its large folio vols. 2, 3, 4, from the Diocesan Library of Derry, in Ireland. The Rev. H. Cotton, Thurles, Ireland (Dec. 21, 1850), said where it was, in I. Notes and Queries, iii. 105, col. 2; and after two fruitless searches it was found, and lent me by the Bishop, through his Librarian, the Rev. B. Moffett of Foyle College, Londonderry, as well as a curious and terribly corrected MS. of an English work on Weights and Measures, Hebrew, Greek, English, etc., dated 1587, which must be Harrison’s too.
The 3 folio volumes of the Chronologie are 8 inches deep as they lie, each being 10¾ inches broad, by 17½ high, with 73, and sometimes more, lines to a page. An enormous amount of work is in them, and all of them are in Harrison’s own hand, at different times of his life. Vol. 2, “The second part of the English Chronologye written by Wm. Harrison,” runs from the Creation to Christ’s birth. Vol. 3, “The third part of the Chronology conteining a just & perfite true &c. as followeth in the next Leafe, to thend of the title, & to be brought hether,” stretches from the birth of Christ to William the Norman’s Conquest of England. Vol. 4, “The iijth and Last part of the great English Chronology written By Wm. H.,” [title in another hand?] goes from the beginning of William the Conqueror’s reign, Oct. 14, 1066, to the February of 1592-3, only two months before Harrison’s own death (or burial) on April 24, 1593. And each volume tells, in Chronicle fashion, what went on all over the world in each successive year, so far as Harrison knew. The contemporary part of vol. 4 is of course the most interesting: “A William Harrison wrote some Latin lines on the deaths of the Brandons, Dukes of Suffolk, printed with the collection published on that occasion, 4to, London, 1552.”—F.
[7] Holinshed, iii. 1499; extract in my edition of Thynne’s Animadversions, 1875, p. lxxxv.—F.
[8] In his account of the rivers, etc., Harrison sometimes quotes other people in the first person, “I, we,” as if he had himself been to the places they describe.—F.
[9] Folio Harrison, p. 103, col. 2, ed. 1587.—F.
[10] Folio Harrison, p. 107, col. 2 (ed. 1587).—F. [See Appendix.—W.]
[11] He complains of help promist, and never given: see in the folio Harrison, p. 45, col. I (beginning of cap. II, Book I., about the Thames).—F. [See Appendix.—W.]
[12] Still you get his side-note—I suppose ’tis his—at p. [254] below, on the report of two old British books being found in a stone wall at Verolamium, “This soundeth like a lie.” Other bits of wholesome doubt turn up elsewhere.—F.
[13] The Thames “hieth to Sudlington, otherwise called Maidenhead, and so to Windleshore (or Windsore), Eaton, and then to Chertseie.... From Chertseie it hasteth directlie vnto Stanes, and receiuing an other streame by the waie, called the Cole (wherevpon Colbrooke standeth), it goeth by Kingstone, Shene, Sion, and Brentford or Bregentford.”... Bk. I. p. 46, col. 1, l. 30, vol. i., folio ed. 1587.—F.
[14] The extracts quoted by Dr. F. will be mostly found in the modernised text. Here they are printed in the old spelling, giving an idea of the original volume, saving the black letter type.—W.
[15] Still, I find it very hard that he spoke so harshly of Andrew Boorde.—F.
[16] Harrison doesn’t scold the women for painting their faces and wearing false hair, in the persistent way that Shakspere does. These two bits of falseness (in town women only?) evidently made a great impression on the country-bred Shakspere’s mind. Stubbes complaind bitterly of them too.
[17] “Before the earliest date of Parish Registers (1538). I have all the Marriage Licences issued by the Bishop of London, beginning as early as 1521; but they do not include that of Harrison’s father.”—J. L. Chester.
[18] As Harrison left by his will twenty shillings to the poor of St. Thomas the Apostle in London, Colonel Chester thinks he may have been born in that parish.——P.S. Aug. 31, 1876. I’ve just found in Harrison’s MS. Chronologie, under 1534, “The Author of this boke is borne, vpon ye 18 of Aprill, hora 11 minut 4, Secunde 56, at London, in Cordwainer streete, otherwise called bowe lane in ye [crosst thro’: house next to ye holly lambe towards chepeside, & in ye] parish of St. Thomas the Apostle.”—F.
[19] Dr. Scott, the present Head-Master, tells me that the early registers are not. “My dear Sir,—I regret to say that no early records of Westminster School are known to be in existence anywhere, except the names of those admitted to the Foundation, and even these merely from an old “Buttery Book” in the earliest times, to which Noel belongs; only those who were elected to Ch. Ch. or Trinity are recorded. There is no trace of such a name as Harrison. I have done my best to hunt up old records, but with very small result.—Faithfully yours, Chas. B. Scott.” After Harrison’s days, Dean Goodman gave the School for a time a Sanatorium at Chiswick—“Cheswicke, H. 14, belonging to a prebend of Paules now in the handes of Doctor Goodman, Deane of Westminster, where he hath a Faire house, whereunto (in the time of any common plague or sicknes, as also to take the aire) he withdraweth the schollers of the colledge of Westminster.” 1596. Jn. Norden’s Description of Middlesex, p. 17, ed. 1723.
[20] Alexander Nowell was one of the most famous divines of the Reformation. Born in Lancashire about 1507, he got a fellowship at Brasenose in 1540; in 1543 became second master of Westminster School; and in 1551 Prebendary of Westminster. He was elected M.P. for Looe in Cornwall, in the first Parliament of Queen Mary, but his election was voided because he was a Church dignitary. He then went to Strassburg; returnd on the accession of Elizabeth, and was made Dean of St. Paul’s in 1560. He publisht his celebrated Larger Catechism, and an abridgment of it, both in Latin, in 1570; and is supposed to have written the greater part of the Church of England Catechism. He was elected Master of Brasenose in 1595, and died 13 February, 1601-2. (Cooper.).—F.
[21] Cooper, in his Athenæ Cantabrigienses, says of Harrison—“He was a member of this university [Cambridge] in 1551, and afterwards studied at Oxford. We are unable to ascertain his house at either university.” ? Merton, Oxf. see p. xvi. (There’s no Merton Admission book so early as Harrison’s time, the Bursar says.)
[22] He us’d his eyes too at both places, and at school; for he says of the buildings: “The common schooles of Cambridge also are farre more beautifull than those of Oxford, onelie the diuinitie schoole at Oxford excepted, which for fine and excellent workemanship, commeth next the moold of the kings chappell in Cambridge, than the which two, with the chappell that king Henrie the seauenth did build at Westminster, there are not (in mine opinion) made of lime & stone three more notable piles within the compasse of Europe.”—F.
[23] Mr. Luard of Trinity, the Registrar of the University, has kindly copied the grace for me:—“1569. Grace Book Δ, fol. 97 b: Conceditur 10 Junii magistro Willelmo Harryson ut studium 7 annorum in Theologia postquam rexerit in artibus Oxoniæ cum oppositionibus etc. perficiendis etc. sub pœna x librarum ponendarum etc. sufficiat ei tam ad opponendum quam ad intrandum in sacra Theologia, præsentatus per D. Longeworth[24] et admissus 17 Junii.”—F.
[24] Master of St. John’s.
[25] Wood’s Ath. Ox., ed. Bliss., i. col. 537; Cooper’s Ath. Cant. ii. 164.
[26] The Manor and advowson of Great Radwinter had been part of the property of the Cobham family since 1433, if not before. (See Wright’s Hist. of Essex, II. 92; Morant’s do., II. 535.).—F.
[27] See his defence of pluralism. [In the chapter on “The Church of England.”—W.] It was vehemently condemnd by most of his contemporaries.—F.
[28] The Vicarage of Wimbish not being a “competent maintenance,” and the adjoining vicarage of Thunderley being so small that no one would accept of it, Dr. Kemp, Bishop of London in 1425, united the two. The presentation to these incorporated vicarages was made alternate in the Rector of Wimbish (it is a sinecure rectory) and the Priory of Hatfield Regis (who had the great tithes and advowson of Thunderley). In 1547, Ed. VI. granted this Priory’s advowson or right of presenting alternately to Wimbish, to Ed. Waldgrave, Esq.; and it passed on in private hands, so that from 1567 to 1599 it belonged to Francis de la Wood, who thus, it would seem, must have been the patron who presented William Harrison. See Morant’s Hist. of Essex, pp. 560, 561. By the Valor Ecclesiasticus of Hen. VIII. the clear yearly value of Wimbish Vicarage was £8; tithes 16s. That of Radwinter Rectory £21 11s. 4d.; tithes £2 3s. 2½d. Some of the parson of Radwinter’s tithes were made up thus:—“to the parson of Radwynter forseid for the yerely tythes of the said maner [Bendish Hall, in the parish of Radwinter], one acre of whete in harvest price x s, one acre of otes price v s iiij d, a lambe price viij d, a pigg, price iiij d, and in money iij s iiij d.”—Valor Eccl., Vol. I. p. 85, col. 2.—F.
[29] I assume that Harrison had once more children, whom he floggd occasionally. When speaking of mastiffs in Bk. 3, chap. 7, p. 231, col. 1, l. 60, ed. 1587, he says, “I had one my selfe once, which would not suffer anie man to bring in his weapon further than my gate, neither those that were of my house, to be touched in his presence. Or if I had beaten anie of my children, he would gentlie haue assaied to catch the rod in his teeth, and take it out of my hand, or else pluck downe their clothes to saue them from the stripes: which in my opinion is not vnworthie to be noted. And thus much of our mastiffes, creatures of no lesse faith and loue towards their maisters than horses.” Still, girls were floggd in Elizabeth’s days, no doubt (compare Lady Jane Grey’s case, in Ascham), as well as a hundred years before. See how Agnes Paston beat her daughter Elizabeth in 1449, Paston Letters, ed. Gairdner, vol. i., Introd., p. cxvi.—F. [See Chapter XVI., “Of our English Dogs and their Qualities.”—W.]
[30] Gerard had above a thousand—
“Gerard’s Catalogue of his Garden.—A reprint of ‘the first professedly complete catalogue of any one garden, either public or private, ever published’ certainly deserves putting on record here. Gerard’s Herball is by no means a rare book; but the Catalogus arborum fruticum ac plantarum tam indigenarum quam exoticarum in horto Johannis Gerardi civis et chirurgi Londinensis nascentium is exceedingly rare. This reprint, therefore, which we owe to the liberality of Mr. B. Daydon Jackson, will be extremely welcome to all interested in the early introduction of exotic plants. The reprint consists of a limited number of copies for private circulation only. Without being an absolute fac-simile it is almost an exact reproduction of the original, the first edition of which was published in 1596. A second edition appeared in 1599, which Mr. Jackson also reprints, together with some of his own remarks and notes on the Herball, and a Life of Gerard. But what will be found especially useful is the list of modern names affixed to the old ones. Gerard’s physic garden was in Holborn, and included upwards of a thousand different kinds of plants.... There are several other lists of this kind we should be glad to see reprinted—Tradescant’s, among others, as the younger Tradescant made a voyage to Virginia and introduced many American trees.”—(Academy, July 1876.)—F.
[31] (Note by the late Dr. Goodall): Erat quidem Gulielmus Harrison Socius Etonensis Mar. 3, 1592, Vice præpositus Collegii et Rector de Everdon in Comitatu Northampt. Ut ille mortuus est Etonæ, et ibidem Sepultus Dec. 27, 1611.—F.
[32] Mr. J. Higgs, of Sheet Street, Windsor, has kindly searcht the Parish Register of Burials, which dates from 1564, but he finds no entry of Canon Harrison’s burial.—F. [At Radwinter. See Appendix.—W.]
[33] See his defence of priests leaving “their substances to their wives and children,” in his Description.—F. [In “Church” chapter.—W.]
[34] Compare the smart red dress with blue hood and long blue liripipe from it, of the Nun’s Priest, in the colourd illumination of the Ellesmere MS. given in my Six-Text Canterbury Tales.—F.
Proude preestes coome with hym, Mo than a thousand,
In paltokes and pyked shoes, And pisseris long knyves.
Vision of Piers Plowman, Pass. xx. l. 14,360, ii. 438, ed. Wright.—F.
[36] William Rede or Reade, made Bp. of Chichester 1369, died 1385, “is said to have been a native of Devonshire, and to have received his early education in Exeter Coll., Oxford, from whence he removed to Merton, having been elected a fellow. He soon discovered a singular genius for the sciences, as they were then known and practised, and excelled in geography, astronomy, and architecture. About the year 1349, he gave a design for a library at Merton College, and superintended the building, which is very spacious, if considered as a repository of MSS. only.... He contributed greatly to furnishing the library with valuable MSS., adding his own, which consisted of several scientific treatises, astronomical tables, and maps. He was a great encourager of learning, particularly by procuring many rare MSS. from the continent, which were transcribed at his expense.” He built Amberley Castle, an episcopal residence for Chichester.—Dallaway’s History of the Western Division of the County of Sussex, 1832, vol. i. pp. 54, 55.—F.
[37] Cambridge studies. 1516, Aug. 31. Er. Ep. II. 10. Erasmus to Bovill. Thirty years ago, nothing was taught at Cambridge except Alexander’s parva Logicalia, some scraps from Aristotle, and the Quæstiones of Duns Scotus. In process of time improved studies were added; mathematics, a new Aristotle, a knowledge of Greek letters. What has been the consequence? The University can now hold its head with the highest, and has excellent theologians. Of course they must now study the New Testament with greater attention, and not waste their time, as heretofore, in frivolous quibbles.—Brewer’s Calendar of Henry VIII.’s Time, vol. ii., pt. i., p. 716.—F.
[38] As a usually accurate friend of mine always calls this name “Asham,” I note that it’s often spelt “Askham” in old writers.—F.
[39] Harrison repeats his warning in stronger terms. [See Chapter I.—W.] “This neuerthelesse is generallie to be reprehended in all estates of gentilitie, and which in short time will turne to the great ruine of our countrie, and that is the vsuall sending of noblemens & meane gentlemens sonnes into Italie, from whence they bring home nothing but meere atheisme, infidelitie, vicious conuersation, & ambitious and proud behauiour, wherby it commeth to passe that they returne far worsse men than they went out.” See the sequel.—F.
[40] See Sir T. More’s Utopia, “a huge number of idle fellows, who never learned any art by which they may gain their living,” etc.—F.
[41] On the finest kind of bread, manchet, note that Queen Elizabeth’s was made from Heston wheat, Middlesex:—“Heston, H. 10, a most fertyle place of wheate, yet not so much to be commended for the quantitie, as for the qualitie, for the wheat is most pure, accompted the purest in manie shires. And therefore Queene Elizabeth hath the most part of her provision from that place for manchet for her Highnes own diet, as is reported.” 1596. Jn. Norden, Description of Middlesex, p. 25, ed. 1723.—F.
[42] But he speaks, at p. 69, “of the common sort, whose mouthes are alwaies wide open vnto reprehension, and eies readie to espie anie thing that they may reprooue and carpe at.” Still, Harrison took more kindly to the common sort than Shakspere did in his plays.—F.
[43] Now Chapter VIII.—W.
[44] De Republica Anglorum. The maner of Gouernement or policie of the Realme of England, compiled by the Honorable Sir Thomas Smyth, Knight, Doctor of both the lawes, and one of the principal Secretaries vnto the two most worthy Princes, King Edward the sixt, and Queen Elizabeth ... London ... 1584 (some copies 1583). A posthumous publication.—Hazlitt.—F.
[45] Did Shakspere ever turn out and chevy a Stratford thief, I wonder? He must have been able to hit and hold hard.—F.
[46] Made of tree or wood.—F.
[47] See an instance in Burleigh House.
[48] Of hostlers, Harman says, “not one amongst twenty of them but haue well left their honesty, as I here a great sorte saye.”—Harman’s Caueat, p. 62, ed. Viles and Furnivall.—F.
[49] Harrison wasn’t the only man who felt thus. See Arthur Standish’s two tracts: “The Commons Complaint. Wherein is contained two speciall Grievances: The first, the generall destruction and waste of Woods in this Kingdome.... The Second Grievance is, The extreame dearth of Victvals. Fovre Remedies for the same, etc. London Printed by William Stansby, 1611.” 4o. F 2 in fours. “New Directions of Experience to the Commons Complaint by the incouragement of the Kings most excellent Maiesty, as may appeare, for the planting of Timber and Fire-wood. With a neere Estimation what Millions of Acres the Kingdome doth containe, what Acres is waste ground, whereon little profit for this purpose will arise.... Inuentid by Arthur Standish. Anno Domini. MDCXIII. 4o. A—D in fours; E, 4 leaves, and a leaf of F.”—Hazlitt’s Collections and Notes, p. 401-2. Also Massinger’s Guardian, II. iv—F.
[50] “If woods go so fast ... I have knowne a well burnished gentleman that hath borne threescore at once [weren’t they trees?] in one paire of galigascons, to shew his strength and brauerie.” Brick-burning also consumd much wood: compare Harrison, bk. 3, chap. 9, p. 234, col. 2, l. 46, ed. 1587:—“such is the curiositie of our countrimen, that notwithstanding almightie God hath so blessed our realme in most plentifull maner, with such and so manie quarries apt and meet for piles of longest continuance, yet we, as lothsome of this abundance, or not liking of the plentie, doo commonlie leaue these naturall gifts to mould and cinder in the ground, and take vp an artificiall bricke, in burning whereof a great part of the wood of this land dailie consumed and spent, to the no small decaie of that commoditie, and hinderance of the poore that perish off for cold.” See, too, chap. 10, p. 236, col. 2, l. 44, “Of colemines we have such plentie in the north and westerne parts of our Iland, as may suffice for all the realme of England: and so must they doo hereafter in deed, if wood be not better cherrished than it is at this present.”
[51] Of the 1876 reprint.—W.
[52] See Dr. Furnivall’s “Forewords.”—W.
[53] This apology for “faults escaped herein” was of course omitted in 1587.—W.
[54] See “The English Courtier” ... and “The Court and Country.” Both reprinted in Mr. W. C. Hazlitt’s “Roxburghe Library.”—F.
[55] Here follow etymologies of the terms “Duke,” “Marquess,” and “Baron.”—W.
[56] 1 Sam. ii. 15; 1 Kings i. 7.—H.
[57] Here follows a long paragraph on the character of the clergy which is more appropriate to the chapter on “The Church.”—W.
[58] Every peer ceases to be a legislator the moment the Crown considers the advice and aid of such peer unnecessary. The historic meeting between Elizabeth Woodville and Edward Plantagenet (which incidentally has made the lady ancestress to nearly every royal house in Europe), when she declared herself
“too mean to be your queen,
And yet too good to be your concubine,”
was occasioned by the mean estate left by her late husband, Sir John Grey, to his orphan children. Sir John was by right Lord Grey of Groby, but never sat at Westminster as such, being killed at Saint Albans. His children would have had small chance of writs of summons had not their beautiful mother ensnared the monarch who (much to his crook-backed brother’s disgust, at least in the play) would “use women honourably.” The heir of the Birminghams was not only evicted from the House of Peers, but from Dudley Castle, because he was poor. The heir of the Staffords had the old barony taken from him by Charles I. (simply because he, Roger Stafford, was poor), and saw it given to a court favourite, one of the honour-hooking Howards.—W.
[59] Here follows a learned disquisition upon “Valvasors.”—W.
[60] Here follows a discourse upon Equites Aurati.—W.
[61] Here is a description of dubbing a knight.—W.
[62] Long details are given of Garter history, very inaccurate, both here and in the last omitted passage.—W.
[63] Derivations of “Esquire” and “Gentleman” are given.—W.
[64] The proper spelling of what is now called kersey. It is really “causeway cloth,” and causeway is still pronounced (as it should be) karsey by the homely people who are not tied to the tail of the dogmatic dictionary man, whose unnecessary ingenuity (in place of a small knowledge of “country matters”) has in this case set up a phantom phalanx of busy looms in the harmless little village of Kersey in Suffolk. The Scotch have the full phrase still. The French causie is nearer to carsie than to book-made causeway.—W.
[65] This etymology of a much-disputed word is doubtless accurate. Thus Piers Plowman’s
“Thoruh ziftes haven zemen to rennen and to ride.”
The peculiar “z” stood the Saxon “ge.” In fact Geo, old Mother Earth, stares us in the face. A yeoman is an “earth-man.” We may literally say our modern English sabremen of the shires, at a periodical muster on caracoling steeds, are “racy of the soil.”—W.
[66] Harrison was quick to catch a true idea of the authors he delights in, and his weakness for displaying his fund of classical lore is therefore generally a pleasure instead of a bore. The phrase from the distinguished Roman youth, Aulus Persius Flaccus, occurs in the Prologue to his poems:
“Heliconidas pallidamque Pirenen
Illis remitto quorum imagines lambunt
Hederæ sequaces: ipse semipaganus
Ad sacra vatum carmen adfero nostrum;”
which may be thus Englished:
“Those Helicon-births and pallor-breeding Pirenes
Must remit I to them o’er whose countenance traileth
The ivy up-clinging: myself, half-breed of the soil,
To the shrine of our prophets my song I deliver.”
Almost every annotator of Persius has handled this passage as though the poet simply prosaically alluded to his being half of rustic birth. As a fact, he was of the bluest blood of the Augustine age. Harrison makes a happy hit in understanding the passage as alluding to a semi-connection with the territory of the Muses, as I have treated it.—W.
[67] Capite censi, or Proletarii.—H.
[68] The Ceylonese. The Greek name for the island of Ceylon was Taprobane, which Harrison used merely as a classical scholar.—W.
[69] The wise and learned Secretary of State in the dangerous days of Edward VI., who under Elizabeth had the task of furnishing Burleigh with brains (thus heaping “coals of fire” on the man who had stolen his place when Reform was triumphant and danger past), was himself born within a gunshot of Harrison’s Radwinter rectory, at Saffron Walden. Though Sir Thomas Smith’s own seat was a dozen miles to the south, at Theydon, Harrison was evidently very intimate with the Secretary. Some of the foregoing chapter (and much more which has been omitted) are literal transcripts from Smith’s De Republica Anglorum. This work was still in manuscript in 1577 (the year of the first “Holinshed”), and late in the summer of that year Sir Thomas himself committed suicide. In 1583, before the second “Holinshed,” the first edition of De Republica was issued, probably edited by our Harrison. The very title breathed the spirit of Elizabethan politics. Secretaries of State do not now talk about the “English Republic.” The Hampdens were closely connected with Sir Thomas Smith, and De Republica was a text-book of John Hampden. In 1589 the title for Smith’s work was first Englished (without doubt Harrison’s own handiwork), and that title has been made immortal in English history by Hampden’s disciples: The Commonwealth of England.—W.
[70] If Harrison means to give us the impression that a city has any direct connection with episcopal affairs, he is quite in error. Cities are distinctly royal and imperial institutions. The accident of the number of cities and sees being the same comes from the natural tendency of the two institutions to drift together, though of distinct origin.—W.
[71] Here follows a long and learned disquisition upon the Roman and other early towns, especially about St. Albans, a portion of which will be found in the Appendix.—W.
[72] The regalia which denoted sovereign right within the city limits, even to excluding kings at the head of their armies as the “scroyles of Angiers” do in King John, much to the Bastard’s disgust.—W.
[73] The cutters have not been heard from for the three centuries intervening. These would have been the most valuable set of Elizabethan maps ever known had they been executed as Harrison expected.—W.
[74] Here follows an allusion to the decay of Eastern cities.—W.
[75] See on this my Ballads from MSS., i.; Mr. Cowper’s edition of Life in Tudor England; Four Supplications; and Crowley’s Select Works for the Early English Text Society; More’s Utopia, etc.—F.
[76] The old and proper form of the modern pumpkin.—W.
[77] The historic seat of the De Veres is thus a by-word even before the line had risen to its most glorious achievements and gone out in a blaze of military honour.—W.
[78] Harrison must have been given access to Leland’s manuscripts, as the “Commentarii” were not published until 1709, or one hundred and fifty-seven years after the author died in the madhouse.—W.
[79] The first is a variant on a Keltic, the second on a Saxon, word, both relating to matters sufficiently indicated in the text.—W.
[80] Harrison may refer to Camden, then a young man starting out on the life-mission which has made him immortal. The chief works of Abraham Ortelius were not as yet published, 1577; but Harrison seems to have had early information on various forthcoming publications.—W.
[81] This chapter (misnumbered 19) does not appear anywhere in the edition of 1577.—F.
[82] In a chapter on “Vineyards,” for an extract from which see Appendix.—W.
[83] No vegetables are mentioned by John Russell in his different bills of fare for dinners in his “Boke of Nurture,” ab. 1440 A.D., Babees Book, pp. 164-175.—F.
[84] Skirret is in my book, p. 214, 1. I, Sium Sisarum, an umbelliferous plant with a small root like a little carrot, no longer cultivated in England, or very rarely.—R. C. A. Prior.
[85] Navew, Brassica Napus, is probably only a variety of the turnip, from which it differs in the smaller and less orbicular root, and the leaves being glabrous and not rough. It is that which is cultivated for making Colza oil, and for sheep-feed. The differences between Brassica Napus, B. campestris, and B. Rapa (the turnip) are really very slight, as you will see in any botanical work on British plants.—R. C. A. Prior.
[86] See John Russell’s list of those for the bath of Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester, in The Babees Book, pp. 183-185.—F.
[87] Harrison makes a distinction between “dunghill” and “laistowe” (or laystowe, laystall, etc.), again upsetting the theories of the dictionary men.—W.
[88] This was about the epoch when Captain Price, the “salt sea dog,” was smoking the first pipe ever seen on London streets. Harrison seems to know of tobacco only as a medicine.—W.
[89] “Corn-trees” are probably cornels, from one of which, the C. ras, L., the berries are commonly eaten in Italy, and sherbet made from them in the East. In Italy they are called cornia and corniola.—R. C. A. Prior.
[90] Of these four examples, in four shires, surrounding London, west, south, north, and east, not one remains as Harrison had it in view. The famous grounds of Hampton Court are of William III., Wolsey work being effaced. Nonsuch in Surrey, near Epsom race-course, is a mere memory. In Harrison’s time it was a favourite resort of Elizabeth, being designed by her father as the child of his old age, but really built as a “labour of love” by the last of the Fitzalans, who saved it from destruction by Mary (who loved not her father’s works), making it the scene of many an act in the tragic drama of the royal sisters and their cousin of Scotland. Theobald’s, in Herts, known to all readers of Izaac Walton, was just before Harrison’s day the seat of the family of Burbage, the “original Hamlet,” being bought in 1564 by Cecil, made the favourite haunt of the Stuarts, and finally was destroyed by the Commonwealth people. Cobham, near Gravesend in Kent, was the seat of the Brookes, the ill-starred patrons of Harrison himself. It is still famous in horticultural annals, just as Nonsuch will be immortal from its luscious apples.—W.
[91] Harrison may be said to have made this word his own, and a classic in the language. Its meaning is sufficiently indicated in the text, but the published definition and etymologies are evidently incomplete. A bodger was probably a (tax) collector in his bodge or budget, before he was a buyer and seller.—W.
[92] What a pity the poor men couldn’t co-operate, imitate the rich buyer, and have their own bodger to buy for them!—F.
[93] Victorian writers can say this too. I recollect fresh butter at 8d. and 10d. a pound here at Egham, and now we pay 20d. The imported Italian butter that we get in London, from Ralli, Greek Street, Soho, is 19d.—F.
[94] An interesting anticipation of John Stuart Mill’s point of the evil of a large middleman class checked only by competition. Co-operation, with a few middlemen, the agents and servants of the co-operators, is what we want.—F.
[95] Elizabethan England was the transition period when the slavery of money rents was fastened upon an unsuspecting people, leading to the great famines and revolts of the Stuart period.—W.
[96] The ancient London counterpart of the more modern “Rag Fair” known to literary fame.—W.
[97] The Kermess, or literally, “Church mass,” so famous in “Faust.”—W.
[98] Here follows a long treatise on the “Law of Ordeal.” Habam was at the mouth of the Trent, where the Romans crossed the Humber; Wannetting is Wantage; Thundersley survives still in Essex; Excester is Exeter; Crecklade (misprinted Grecklade) is Cricklade. All are of historic foundation.—W.
[99] A good deal of this chapter and the following one is mere compilation; but there are interesting bits of Harrison’s own self in his “old cock of Canterbury,” the prophecies or conferences then lately begun, and soon blessed, the taxes on parsons, the Church being the “ass for every market man to ride on,” the then state of the churches, and abolition of feast and guild-days, the popish priest “dressed like a dancing peacock,” the contempt felt for the ministry and their poverty.—F. [Some of the merely historical recapitulation has been banished altogether, along with the next chapter referred to, that upon “Bishoprics.”—W.]
[100] The Welsh name for England, as distinct from their own Cambria, usually written “Lloegr,” and poetically derived from the eldest of the three sons of Brute, Locrine of Loegria, Camber of Cambria, and Alban of Albania (Albany, Alban, or Scotland), the adventures of this trio furnishing all the island with names, as King Humber of the Huns defeated and drowned in the Humber, his beautiful protegée Estreldis and her daughter Sabra (by Locrine) thrown into the Severn (from Sabrina) by the jealous and discarded Queen Gwendolen after she had settled accounts with Locrine himself by the banks of the Sture. See Spenser, Milton, the old play of “Locrine,” and the new one by Swinburne: “How Britain at the first grew to be divided into three portions.”—W.
[101] In his first book and in this chapter.—W.
[102] This “authority” was for ever chopped off in the next generation with the head of William Laud.—W.
[103] “There can be no reasonable doubt that there existed an episcopal see at Caerleon in early times. It is pretty certain that it disappeared about the sixth century, and that the bishoprics of St. David’s, Llandaff, and Llanbadarn were founded about the same time. Nor have we, with a single doubtful exception, any indication of sees in any part of South Wales, with the sole exception of Caerleon. We may therefore regard the change to a certain extent as a portion of the spiritual jurisdiction between the three chief principalities into which South Wales seems at this time to have been divided, and partly as an imitation of the policy of St. Martin, by transferring it from the city to the wilderness. Or, if we please, we may regard St. David’s and Llanbadarn as new sees, Llandaff being the legitimate representative of Caerleon. The question remains whether a metropolitan jurisdiction resided with any of these sees, and with which of them. It was claimed in after times by the bishops of Llandaff, as well as by those of St. David’s,” etc. (History and Antiquity of St. David’s, by W. B. Jones and E. A. Freeman.)—W.
[104] This is a minor error, Canterbury having assumed the functions of St. David’s archiepiscopate over a century before Archbishop Lanfranc of the Conquest came to assert the primacy over York, which was doubtless in Harrison’s mind here.—W.
[105] Harrison had doubtless a special antipathy to Saint Dunstan, because that great autocrat of Canterbury, along with his busy labours of humbling kings, enforcing celibacy on the priesthood, building the “church triumphant” over the whole body politic, found time to usurp the archiepiscopal functions of Saint David’s in the year 983, thus bringing Welshmen for the first time under English ecclesiastical rule, where (much to their disgust) they remain to our own time.—W.
[106] The details of the well-known story of Earl Godwin, as rendered by Harrison, here follow. The great interest of these recapitulations of English clerical history is in the utterance of a mind fresh from the great wrench of the Reformation.—W.
[107] The last clause was significantly deleted in the edition of 1587. The Armada was looming in the horizon, and the poor printer was obliged to mind his Protestant p’s and q’s for the nonce.—W.
[108] “As appeareth by these letters.” Giving letter of Pope Eugenius to King Stephen.—W.
[109] “Calf,” meaning a fool (as witness Cotgrave’s definition of “Veau, a calfe or veale; also a lozell, hoydon, dunce, jobbernoll, doddipole”), had divers owners put before it, of whom Waltham seems to have been the best known: “Waltham’s calf. As wise as Waltham’s calf—i.e., very foolish. Waltham’s calf ran nine miles to suck a bull.” (Hallwell’s Glossary.)—F.
[110] “As appeareth by the same letter here ensuing.” Companion letter to Maud of Boulogne.—W.
[111] Ostia, referring to Leo Marsicanus, cardinal-archbishop of Ostia.—W.
[112] The letter of Marsicanus is given in full.—W.
[113] Thomas Fitzalan, son of the Earl of Arundel, and great-grandson of Edmund Crouchback, and third cousin of the Black Prince and John of Gaunt, fathers of the king and his rival Bolingbroke, but closely allied to the latter, being cousin-german of John of Gaunt’s first wife, Bolingbroke’s mother. The printers misprinted his name as “John.” He has been handed down as the great persecutor of the Lollards, whom John of Gaunt patronised.—W.
“Bell, book, and candle shall not drive me back
While gold and silver beck me to come on,”
blurts out the Bastard in King John. Shakespeare was not above taking a hint from Harrison.—W.
[115] William the Lion, who at Cœur de Lion’s death came into England to do feudal homage for his English lands to the wily John Lackland, a visit which John, after his fashion, turned to account by imposing on William the impossible task of following him across the Channel and making war upon Philip Augustus, and, on King William’s refusal to drag Scotland into a quarrel which was not even English, John declared the English lands of William forfeited, and started a feud which had momentous issue in after years.—W.
[116] Harrison has here shown less than his usual broad-mindedness. All agree in praising John de Stratford as being gentle enough to match his illustrious townsman yet to be, Avon apparently breeding nothing but “sweet swans.” The archbishop’s quarrel with Edward about his friendship for the Spencers has always been his glory, not his disgrace.—W.
[117] The “vain prophecy of Nicholas Hopkins” was not the only outbreak of that soul-stirring century, Harrison here alluding to the great birth of the Puritans, who (contrary to usual belief, and as their historian particularly insisted upon) were a party in the Church of England—its whole life, in fact—for one generation, and not by any means non-conformists or dissenters.—W.
[118] Writing on March 25, 1574, to one Matchet, his chaplain, parson of Thurgarton, in the diocese of Norwich, Archbishop Parker requested him to repair to his ordinary, and to show him how the Queen willd the Archbishop to suppress those vain prophesyings, and requird the ordinary, in her Majesty’s name, to stop them. This not being acceptable to the Bishop of Norwich, an altercation between the Archbishop and the Bishop ensu’d. But eventually the prophesyings were stopt,—the following order being sent by the Bishop of Norwich to his Chancellor on the 7th of June, 1574:—“After my hearty commendations: whereas by the receipt of my Lord of Canterbury’s letter, I am commanded by him, in the Queen her Majesty’s name, that the prophesyings throughout my diocese should be suppressed; these are therefore to will you, that, as conveniently as you may, you give notice to every of my Commissaries, that they, in their several circuits, may suppress the same. And so I leave you to God.”—Strype’s Life of Abp. Parker, vol. ii. p. 362. See more about them in these references to Strype’s Works, from the Index:—“Prophesyings, certain exercises expounding the Scriptures, so called, P. II. 358, A. II. i. 133; orders respecting their use in the church of Northampton, 136, G. 260; this exercise set up at Bury, A. II. i. 325; Bishop Parkhurst’s letter of permission, ii. 494; generally used by the clergy, i. 472; Bishop Cooper’s regulations and allowance for them in Herefordshire, ib. 476; Bishop Parkhurst stops them in the diocese of Norwich, 477-480, P. II. 358-362; some privy counsellors write to him in their favour, ib.; he communicates with Archbishop Parker and some bishops upon the matter, ib.; they are suppressed, ib.; the contentions of the ministers, the occasion thereof, ib.; directions for this exercise in the diocese of Chester, A. II. i. 481, ii. 544; III. i. 476; the permission of Bishop Chaderton, II. ii. 546; III. i. 477; Bishop Cox’s opinion of them, II. ii. 13; the Queen’s letter to the Bishop of Lincoln to stop them in his diocese, 114, 612; abuses of these exercises, G. 326; Archbishop Grindal’s orders for their reformation, 327; the Queen orders the Archbishop to put a stop to them, 328; his expostulations with her on the subject, 329, 558; the Queen’s letter for their suppression, 574, W. I. 163.”—Index to Strype’s Works, vol. ii. p. 208 (1828 edit.). There are frequent allusions to the Prophesyings “in the Bishops’ Injunctions and Questions, the whole of which are printed in the Appendix to the 2nd Report of the Ritual Commission. See page 432, par. 25; p. 435, par. 20; p. 445, par. 26; p. 447, par. 18.”—F.
[119] John Parkhurst, Bishop of Norwich, writing to his friend Henry Bullinger, on April 28, 1562, says:—“And that you might not think I had forgotten you (since I was unable to write through illness), I sent you a small present. Whenever I shall have paid my first fruits, and extricated myself from debt, you shall know who and what kind of a man is your friend Parkhurst.”—Parker Society’s Zürich Letters, i. 107.—F.
[120] The Act of Henry VIII. for restraining pluralities contains a clause making employment at court an excuse for non-residence and pluralities; see Tyndale’s Expositions, etc., 256, 336. Bradford contends that they are hurtful to the Church, Writings, ii. 395; so does Jewel, ii. 984; Whitgift defends them, i. 528, etc. See also Bullinger’s Decades, iv. 144; Hutchinson’s Works, 5; Latimer’s Works, i. 122; Whitgift’s Works, i. 506, etc., Parker Society (Index).—F.
[121] See W. Stafford’s argument against pluralities in his Compendious Examination, 1581, fol. 53. “What reason is it that one man should haue two mens liuinges and two mens charge, when he is able to discharge but one? Then, to haue more, and discharge the cure of neuer a one, is to farre agaynst reason. But some percase will say, ‘there be some of vs worthy a greater preferment then others, and one benefice were to litle for such a one.’ Is there not as many degrees in the variety of benefices as there is in mens qualities? Yes, forsooth, there is yet in this realme (thanked be God) benefices from M. markes to XX. markes a yeare of sundry value to endow euery man with, after his qualities and degree. And if a meane benefice happen to fal, let euery man be contented therewith til a better fal,” etc., etc.—F.
[122] “It would pytye a mans heart to heare that that I heare of the state of Cambridge: what it is in Oxforde I can not tell. Ther be few do study diuinitie, but so many as of necessiti must furnish the Colledges. For their lyuynges be so small, and vytaylee so dere, that they tarry not ther, but go other where to seke lyuynges, and so they go aboute. Nowe there be a fewe gentylmen, and they studye a little diuinitie.... There be none nowe but greate mens sonnes in Colledges, and theyr fathers loke not to haue them preachers, so euerye waye thys offyce of preachynge is pyncht at.”—Latimer’s 5th Sermon before Edward IV., A.D. 1549, p. 140, ed. Arber. The scarcity of preachers in the time of Queen Elizabeth is lamented by Jewel in his Works, ii. 999, 1000, and by Archbp. Sandys, Works, p. 154 (Parker Soc.). He also complains of the ignorance of ministers in Elizabeth’s time, Works, ii. 1012 (Parker Soc).—F.
[123] Here follows a story about the bootless errand of a pope’s legate in 1452.—W.
[124] “But what do you patrons? Sell your benefices, or give them to your servants for their service, for keeping of hounds or hawks, for making of your gardens. These patrons regard no souls, neither their own nor other men’s. What care they for souls, so they have money, though they [souls] perish, though they go to the devil?” (Latimer’s Sermon at Stamford, 9th Nov. 1550, Works, i. 290).—On the general character of the ministers of England, see the Parker Society’s Zürich Letters, ii. 63. Harding calls them tinkers, tapsters, fiddlers and pipers, Jewel’s Works, iv. 873, 209; Jewel admits their want of learning, ib. 910; many of them were made of “the basest sort of the people,” Whitgift’s Works, i. 316; artificers and unlearned men were admitted to the ministry, Archbp. Parker’s Correspondence, p. 120; many had come out of the shop into the clergy, Fulke’s Works, ii. 118; an order was given to ordain no more artificers, Archbp. Grindal’s Remains, p. 241, note; some beneficed ministers were neither priests nor deacons, Archbp. Parker’s Corr., pp. 128, 154, 308; laymen were presented to benefices, and made prebendaries, ib. 371, 312; and an Archdeacon was not in orders, ib. 142, note.—Parker Society’s Index, p. 537—F.
[125] “I will not speak now of them that, being not content with their lands and rents, do catch into their hands spiritual livings, as parsonages and such like; and that under the pretence to make provision for their houses. What hurt and damage this realm of England doth sustain by that devilish kind of provision for gentlemen’s houses, knights’ and lords’ houses, they can tell best that do travel in the countries, and see with their eyes great parishes and market towns, with innumerable others, to be utterly destitute of God’s word; and that, because that these greedy men have spoiled the livings, and gotten them into their hands; and instead of a faithful and painful preacher, they hire a Sir John, which hath better skill in playing at tables, or in keeping of a garden, than in God’s word; and he for a trifle doth serve the cure, and so help to bring the people of God in danger of their souls. And all those serve to accomplish the abominable pride of such gentlemen, which consume the goods of the poor (the which ought to have been bestowed upon a learned minister) in costly apparel, belly-cheer, or in building of gorgeous houses.” 1562. A. Bernher’s Dedication to Latimer’s Sermons on the Lord’s Prayer of A.D. 1552. Latimer’s Works, i. 317 (Parker Soc.).—F.
[126] On the neglect of their duties by the Elizabethan clergy, and shifting the consequences of it on to the laity, see the Doctor’s speech, on leaves 51-53 of Wm. Stafford’s Compendious Examination, 1581 A.D.—F.
[127] See Chaucer, description of his Monk, Prologue to Canterbury Tales, lines 165-207, and my Ballads from Manuscripts, vol. i. pp. 193, 194.—F.
[128] See Ballads from Manuscripts, vol. i. pp. 59-78.—F.
[129] Long side-note here in edition of 1577, as follows:—“The very cause why weauers pedlers & glouers haue been made Ministers, for the learned refuse such matches, so that yf the Bishops in times past hadde not made such by oversight friendship I wote not howe such men should haue done wyth their aduousons, as for a glouer or a tayler will be glad of an augmentation of 8 or 10 pound by the yere, and well contented that his patrone shall haue all the rest, so he may be sure of this pension.”—F.
[130] Such a classical expert as Harrison makes a curious error here. Cæsar, in his Commentaries, tells of the way in which the Britons instantly apprehended his weakness, perceiving during the truce his army’s lack of corn, and thereupon plotting to secretly break the truce and annihilate the Mightiest Julius and his little following (teaching all future invaders a lasting lesson to beware the chalk cliffs of Albion). Cæsar also notes how he himself quietly neutralised these efforts by gathering in corn from the country thereabouts. The Britons, just as much as himself, understood corn as the staff of life, the mainstay of war as well as of peace. The fact is that Harrison thought with two brains, his Welsh one and his Latin one, and, lost in the mists of Welsh fictions, sometimes forgot the most incontrovertible of Latin authorities. Man’s written records of things British start with Cæsar.—W.
[131] By omitting a comma (upon which the fate of empires may sometimes turn), our brother printers of 1587 (for this Scotch paragraph is not in the edition of 1577) have made pope Harrison bestow a mitre upon Hector Boece. That remarkable native of Dundee (who may be said to have invented Macbeth as we moderns know him) was a doctor of theology, and learned in every art, as becomes the first implanter of the tough fibres of Aberdonian scholarship (for, when one has the rare fortune to overcome the capacious skull and strong brain of a son of Aberdeen, the victor well may cry—
“Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain”),
but was never much of an ecclesiastic, although he held a canonry. Note, by the way, that Harrison (and not John Bellendon, as generally stated) was the channel through which Boece’s History of Scotland came into the magic cauldron of Shakespearian transformation. Cardinal Wardlaw, the founder of the oldest of Scottish schools, was a very different man from Boece, being the glow-worm to the grub.—W.
[132] There was no Parliament at Perth in 1433. The short session of that year was at Stirling. No official record of this remarkable law remains. In fact, Boece (from whom Harrison evidently quotes by memory) does not say either 1433 or that a law was made. He simply records the immediate effect of Cardinal Wardlaw’s speech. However, it had a short shift. Fate was against the patriotic Scot. James Stuart took matter more important than “divers English gentlemen” into Scotland: the royal troubadour carried something beside his batch of love rondels away from Windsor Castle as the fruit of his long captivity. He had not sung nor sighed in vain. The “mistress’ eyebrow” of his “woeful ballad” belonged to Joan of Somerset, one of the three fair Joans of the house of Plantagenet whose marriages were so wonderfully
“Auspicious to these sorrowing isles.”
From Joan of Kent, Princess of Wales, Joan of Beaufort, Countess of Warwick, and Joan of Somerset, Queen of Scotland, are descended most of our English, Irish, Welsh, as well as Scotch families. We may be said to owe most of our Joans, Johannas, Janes, Jeans, and Janets to these three women “big with the fate” of nations.—W.
[133] One would suppose Harrison himself had been “conserving the honour of Orestes” when he penned this passage. He doubtless quoted from the lost works of the Greek physician by means of his favourite Athenæus.—W.
[134] “As loathing those metals because of the plenty” sounds strangely to modern ears. Yet Harrison in this one phrase, by mere accident, lets in more light upon the secret of the towering supremacy of the Elizabethan age than have all the expounders, historians, and philosophers from that day to this. The comparative plenty of gold in the time of Elizabeth was brought about by the Spanish invasions of Peru and Mexico. England had far more gold than it had hitherto understood any use for, and she fortunately escaped being seized with that insatiable gold thirst which swiftly sapped the foundations of Spanish dominion as it had that of Rome and other empires of the past. We need seek no further for a reason why the England of Elizabeth surpassed all other communities. Having all material wealth beyond any other people, at no time has the doctrine of universal labour and repudiation of the fictitious riches of metallic hordes or usurious accumulations been so invariably denounced. Harrison’s simple evidence is supported by all the records of the time.—W.
[135] Roger Bacon.—H. [The philosopher’s stone is yet missing which is to accomplish this miracle of making malleable glass, something which has had a strange fascination as an inventor’s dream in all ages. The account of Tiberius Cæsar dashing out the brains of the all-too-clever mechanic (who had actually accomplished this feat), so as to prevent the Roman world from emancipating itself from the rule of iron (or of gold), is the most startling legend in the imperial annals. Old Friar Bacon, who devoted so much attention to optics, naturally put this feat in the forefront of the list of wonders to be accomplished by his great elixir; and Harrison’s slip yet remains beyond the eager grasp of men, though the grand desideratum has been again and again announced in our own time.—W.]
[136] This was the first English idea of the potato as instanced in the last scene of the Merry Wives of Windsor. This was not what is now generally understood as the potato, but the sweet potato of Virginia brought home by Raleigh. The common potato (which has been only common even in North America for less than a century) is often mixed historically with this other tuber. As a fact, our familiar vegetable of to-day is largely a creature of artificial development, and nowhere grows in the same quality wild, whereas the yam or sweet potato is very little altered from its native state.—W.
[137] Sweet cicely, sometimes miscalled myrrh. Mure is the Saxon word. At one time the plant was not uncommon as a salad.—W.
[138] Crosby Ravensworth in Westmorland is misnamed. It is either Raven’s thwaite or Raven’s swarth, but never worth, which is here meaningless. Swarth still lingers on the tongues of the mowers, and thwaite was the form adopted by a once famous family from this mountain fastness. The parish is notable as the home of the Addisons.—W.
[139] A famine at hand is first seen in the horse-manger, when the poor do fall to horse corn.—H.
[140] The size of bread is very ill kept or not at all looked unto in the country towns or markets.—H.
[141] The wine which Scott has (from the Gallic tinge to everything Caledonian) buried for all modern literature in the French form of malvoisie—
“Come broach me a pipe of malvoisie!”
It is evident from Harrison that a good English form was used.—W.
[142] Holinshed. This occurs in the last of Harrison’s prefatory matter.—W.
[143] This word is not obsolete. South-coast countrymen still eat nuntions and not luncheons.—W.
[144] Harrison must have got some of these out-of-the-way references at second hand—a valuable trick of the trade among learned pundits. The “Sophists” of Athenæus of Naucratis has never even to our day been handled by an English printer, a modern translation in a classical series excepted, but the Aldine edition was a favourite of European scholars long before the time of Harrison.—W.
[145] It was very wrong of Harrison to crib from the copy which Newberry, the printer, had in his office—that is, unless Sir Henry Savile gave permission. Henry of Huntingdon’s History of England was not issued until eight years after this, but the printers had it evidently in hand. It is not likely that Harrison used the original at Oxford.—W.
[146] Here follows a disquisition upon the table practices of the ancients.—W.
[147] Lettuce was brought over from the Low Countries along with various new notions in the days of Luther. Harrison does not seem to mention it as an English institution as yet however.—W.
[148] After three centuries we have not yet plucked up courage to spell this pet phrase of the bill-of-fare writers as an English word. Entry, as a tangible object, means something between, and not at the beginning; and if we contract entremets there is no reason why we should for ever talk French and say entrée, and use superfluous signs, meaningless to English eyes.—W.
[149] [Cut.]
“I am an English man and naked I stand here,
Musying in my mynde what rayment I shall were;
For now I will were thys, and now I will were that;
Now I will were I cannot tell what.
All new fashyons be plesaunt to me;
I wyl haue them, whether I thryve or thee.”
From Andrew Boorde’s Introduction (1541), and Dyetary (1542), edited by F. J. F. for Early English Text Society, 1870, p. 116. (A most quaint and interesting volume, though I say so.).—F.
[150] This is too harsh a character for Boorde; for a juster one, as I hope, see my preface to his Introduction, p. 105.—F.
[151] Almaine; see Halle, pp. 516-527.—F.
[152] There is no reason to suppose that Collyweston was ever in general English use. It is a Cheshire side-hit (and not common there), and all the Cheshire students cannot unravel the mystery. I have no doubt it belongs to one of the great baronial family of Weston, who were geniuses, and therefore of course “to madness near allied,” wits and cloaks awry.—W. [Weston Colvil is eleven miles from Cambridge, north of the Gogmagog Hills.—F.]
[153] See Wynkin de Worde’s Treatise of this Galaunt (? about 1520 A.D.) in my Ballads from Manuscripts (1520-54), vol. i., pp. 438-453 (Ballad Society, 1868 and 1872), a satire on the gallant or vicious dandy of the day.—F.
[154] Of the many of Shakespeare’s happiest hits which can be traced to Harrison’s fertile suggestion, this is one of the most apparent. Who can fail to appreciate that Petruchio’s side-splitting bout with the tailor had its first hint here?—W.
[155] Shakespeare complains of women painting their faces, and wearing sham-hair, in Love’s Labour’s Lost, IV. iii., and the locks from “the skull that bred them in the sepulchre,” in Merchant, III. ii.—F.
[156] The extravagant variety of woman’s attire in the days of the Virgin Queen (whose own legendary allowance of different habit for each day in the year is still a fondly preserved faith amongst the women and children) was the subject of rebuke from far more famous pulpits than Harrison’s modest retreat. No choice morsel of the “English Chrysostom” surpasses the invective against feminine vanities in his “Wedding Garment” of almost this very year. For instance: “Thus do our curious women put on Christ, who, when they hear the messengers of grace offering this garment, and preparing to make the body fit to be garnished with so glorious a vesture (as Paul did the Romans, first washing away drunkenness and gluttony, then chamberings and wantonness, then strife and envy, and so sin after sin), they seem like the stony ground to receive it with joy, and think to beautify their head with this precious ornament; but when he tells them that there is no communion between Christ and Belial, that if this garment be put on all other vanities must be put off, they then turn their day into darkness, and reject Christ, that would be an eternal crown of beauty to their heads, and wrap their temples in the uncomely rags of every nation’s pride.”—W.
[157] The etymology of the word is not known. Baret describes the colour as between russet and black.—Alvearie, A.D. 1586.—F. [In the Middle Ages country housewives mostly made their own colours, and this was most likely made from bilberries, which children still sometimes call “poke-berrys” or “puckers,” because of their astringent effect upon the lips.—W.]
[158] A jag was first a notch, a chink, then perhaps any ornamental pendant, ribbon, or other, to one’s dress. A saddler was a jagger.—W.
[159] Ver d’oye. Goose-turd greene; a greenish yellow; or a colour which is between a green and a yellow.—Cotgrave.—F.
[160] Verd gay. A popinjay greene.—Cotgrave.—F.
[161] For Chaucer’s complaints of the men and women’s dress of his day see his Parson’s Tale, Part II., of Confession, De Superbia. For a ballad on the fantastic dresses of Charles I.’s time see Roxburgh Collections, I. 476; Ballad Society’s Reprint, ii. 117 and 97. And on the point generally see the Percy Society’s Poems on Costume.—F.
[162] See Andrew Boorde’s Dyetary of Helth, 1542, Early English Text Society, 1870, for a description of how to build houses, and manage them and men’s income, and what food folk should eat.—F.
[163] Moss, in the Gawthorp Accounts.—F.
[164] This was in the time of general idleness.—H.
[165] See the interesting account in Holinshed, iii. 1081-82, of how the good young King Edward VI., mov’d by a sermon of Bishop Ridley’s, talkt with him about means for relieving the poor, and on his suggestion resolvd to begin with those of London, and wrote to the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Richard Dobs, about it. Dobs, Ridley, two aldermen, and six commoners, got up a committee of twenty-four. “And in the end, after sundrie meetings (for by meane of the good diligence of the bishop it was well followed), they agreed vpon a booke that they had deuised, wherein first they considered of nine speciall kinds and sorts of poore people, and those same they brought in these three degrees:
| Three degrees of poore | { | The poore by impotencie. Poor by casualtie. Thriftlesse poore. | |
| 1. The poore by impotencie are also diuided into three kinds, that is to saie: | { | 1. The fatherlesse poore mans child. 2. The aged, blind, and lame. 3. The diseased person, by leprosie, dropsie, etc. | |
| 2. The poore by casualtie are of three kinds, that is to saie: | { | 4. The wounded souldier. 5. The decaied housholder. 6. The visited with greeuous disease. | |
| 3. The thriftles poore are three kinds in like wise, that is to saie: | { | 7. The riotor that consumeth all. 8. The vagabond that will abide in no place. 9. The idle person, as the strumpet and others. |
For these sorts of poore were prouided three seuerall houses. First for the innocent and fatherlesse, which is the beggers child, and is in deed the seed and breeder of beggerie, they prouided the house that was late Graie friers in London, and now is called Christes hospitall, where the poore children are trained in the knowledge of God, and some vertuous exercise to the ouerthrowe of beggerie. For the second degree, is prouided the hospitall of saint Thomas in Southworke, & saint Bartholomew in west Smithfield, where are continuallie at least two hundred diseased persons, which are not onelie there lodged and cured, but also fed and nourished. For the third degree, they prouided Bridewell, where the vagabond and idle strumpet is chastised, and compelled to labour, to the ouerthrow of the vicious life of idlenes. They prouided also for the honest decaied housholder, that he should be relieued at home at his house, and in the parish where he dwelled, by a weekelie reliefe and pension. And in like manner they prouided for the lazer, to keepe him out of the citie from clapping of dishes, and ringing of bels, to the great trouble of the citizens, and also to the dangerous infection of manie, that they should be relieued at home at their houses with seuerall pensions.”—Holinshed, iii. 1082. The rest of the page should be read about “blessed king” Edward VI., and his thanking God that he’d given him life to finish “this worke” of relief to the poor “to the glorie of thy name”: two days after, the good young king died.—F.
[166] At whose hands shall the blood of these men be required?—H.
[167] Objection 2, sign. e. i. “I praie you shewe me by what occasion or meanes, this huge nomber of Beggers and Vacaboundes doe breede here in Englande. And why you appointe twelue of them to euery Shipp: I thinke they maie carie the Shippe awaie, & become Pirates. [Answer.] If you consider the pouerty that is and doth remaine in the Shire tounes, and Market tounes, within this Realme of England and Wales, which tounes, being inhabited with greate store of poore householders, who by their pouertie are driuen to bring vp their youth idlely; and if they liue vntil they come to mans state, then are they past all remedie to be brought to woorke. Therfore, at suche tyme as their Parentes fayles them, they beginne to shifte, and acquainte them selues with some one like brought vppe, that hath made his shifte, with dicyng, cosenyng, picking or cutting of purses, or els, if he be of courage, plaine robbing by the waie side, which they count an honest shift for the time; and so come they daiely to the Gallowes. Hereby growes the greate and huge nomber of Beggers and Vacaboundes, which by no reasonable meanes or lawes could yet be brought to woorke, being thus idely brought vp. Whiche perilous state and imminent daunger that they now stande in, I thought it good to auoide, by placeyng twelue of these poore people into euery fishynge Shippe, accordyng to this Platte.” 1580. Robert Hitchcok’s Pollitique Platt.—F.
[168] See the earliest known specimen of the Gipsy language, the “Egyptian rogues’” speech, in my edition of Andrew Boorde, Early English Text Society, first series, 1870, p. 218.—F.
[169] Thomas Harman. See the edition of his book, and Audeley’s prior one, by Mr. Viles and myself, in the Early English Text Society’s extra series, 1869, No. IX.—F.
[170] See Appendix.
[171] Law of the Marshal.—F.
[172] See my Ballads from MSS., 121-123, Ballad Society.—F.
[173] Harrison has confounded two very similar Keltic words. It should be a “d” in place of the second “c.”—W.
[174] Here lacks.—H.
[175] Principes longè magis exemple quàm culpa peccare solent.—H.
[176] The Lord Mountjoy.—H.
[177] Here ends the chapter entitled “Minerals,” and the one on “Metals” begins.—W.
[178] Here follow two stories about crows and miners. See Appendix.—W.
[179] Some tell me that it is a mixture of brass, lead, and tin.—H.
[180] Harrison substituted inkle in 1587 for packthread in 1577, a curious flight backward for modern readers. The inkle was a favourite pedlar-sold tape of the day, probably more at hand and more to the purpose than packthread.—W.
[181] Though boars are no longer bred, but only bred by, in Elizabethan days and before then the rearing of them for old English braun (not the modern substitute) was the chief feature of swine-herding; thus in “Cheape and Good Husbandry,” the author says: “Now, lastly, the best feeding of a swine for Lard or of a Boare for Braune, is to feed them the first week with Barley, sodden till it breake, and sod in such quantity that it may ever be given sweete: then after to feed them with raw Mault from the floore, before it be dried, till they be fat enough: and then for a weeke after, to give them drie Pease or Beanes to harden their flesh. Let their drinke be the washing of Hoggesheads, or Ale Barrels, or sweete Whay, and let them have store thereof. This manner of feeding breeds the whitest, fattest, and best flesh that may be, as hath beene approved by the best Husbands.” After this, Harrison’s maltbugs well might ask: “Who would not be a hog?”—W.
[182] The proper English name of the bird which vulgar acceptance forces us to now call bittern.—W.
[183] See more in the second chapter of the Description of Scotland.—H.
[184] Here ends the first chapter of “fowls,” that which follows being restricted to “hawks and ravenous fowls.”—W.
[185] This on “venomous beasts” will be found included in the “savage beasts” of the following.
[186] Here follows an account of the extermination of wolves, and a reference to lions and wild bulls rampant in Scotland of old.—W.
[187] Misprints for “pricket” and “sorel”; see Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, IV. ii. 58-63; The Return from Parnassus, etc., etc.—F.
[188] Here follows a discourse on ancient boar-hunting, exalting it above the degenerate sports of the day. This ends the chapter on “savage beasts.”—W.
[189] Galenus, De Theriaca ad Pisonem; Pliny, lib. 10, cap. 62.—H.
[190] Salust, cap. 40; Pliny, lib. 37, cap. 2.—H.
[191] See Diodorus Siculus.—H.
[192] The like have I seen when hens do feed upon the tender blades of garlic.—H.
[193] This gentleman caught such an heat with this sore load that he was fain to go to Rome for physic, yet it would not save his life; but he must needs hie homewards.—H.
[194] Compare Stubs’s Anatomie, p. 218. Turnbull.—F.
[195] See Percy Folio, Loose and Humorous Songs, p. 86, l. 31-4.—F.
[196] We’ve unluckily lost the distinction between rabbit and coney.—F.
[197] Called “suckers” in Babees Book and Henry VIII.’s Household Ordinances.—F.
[198] See Andrew Boorde’s amusing bit about venison in his Dyetary (my edition, p. 275).—F.
[199] Harrison was not quite up to the Dignity of Labour.—F.
[200] The decay of the people is the destruction of a kingdom: neither is any man born to possess the earth alone.—H.
[201] The fact is well known. See instances in W. de Worde’s “Kerving,” second edition, in Babees Book.—F.
[202] See the curious tract on this in Mr. John Cowper’s Four Supplications, Early English Text Society, extra series.—F.
[203] The chapter ends with the forest laws of Canute. Born Londoner though he be, Harrison dwells lovingly upon the least point connected with his country home. His Saffron Walden is ever a fruitful source of discourse, Saffron being a prolific theme in other places of the work, and Walden here made to “point the moral and adorn the tale.”—W.
[204] For her household in 1600-1601 see Household Ordinances, p. 281.—F.
[205] I suppose that Sir Thomas More, and Henry VIII., and Lady Jane Grey’s parents began “the higher education of women” in England by having their daughters properly taught. On “Education in Early England” see my Forewords (tho’ sadly imperfect) to the Babees Book (Early English Text Society).—F.
[206] Compare Chaucer’s Prologue: The Squire. On the evils of serving-men see Sir T. More’s Utopia, and my Ballads from MSS., i.—F.
[207] The chapter concludes with the special penal regulations for disturbers in the court precincts.—W.
[208] See Ascham’s Toxophilus. When our folk and government come to their senses every English boy and man’ll be taught rifle-shooting; ranges will be provided by compulsory powers; and every male over sixteen be made sure of his man in any invading force. If then any foreign force wants to come, let it, and find its grave.—F.
[209] “Our peaceable days” were on the eve of the greatest struggle for life ever known to England, but never before or since could she put a million men armed to the teeth into the field, and have still a reserve to fall back on. People who dream that the Spaniards would have fared better on land than sea are grievously out in their reckoning.—W.
[210] See the amusing extract from William Bulleyn in my Babees Book, pp. 240-243.—F.
[211] Here follows an account of Roman and Carthaginian galleys which “did not only match, but far exceed” in capacity our ships and galleys of 1587.—W.
[212] See my Ballads from MSS., i. 120, on this and Henry VIII.’s navy. There’s an engraving of this Great Henry, or Henry Grace (burnt August 27, 1553), in the British Museum.—F.
[213] Surely this statement was justified by facts. And Nelson, Dundonald, and their successors have shown that English sailors since have not degenerated.—F.
[214] See in Household Ordinances, pp. 267-270, “An account of all the Queen’s Ships of War; the musters taken in 1574 and 1575; the warlike stores in the Tower and aboard the Navy in 1578; the Custodes Rotolorum of every county in England and Wales, and the names of all the English fugitives.”—F.
[215] A name devised by her grace in remembrance of her own deliverance from the fury of her enemies, from which in one respect she was no less miraculously preserved than was the prophet Jonas from the belly of the whale.—H.
[216] So called of her exceeding nimbleness in sailing and swiftness of course.—H.
[217] The list of twenty-four ships (with their men and arms) in the 1578 list in Household Ordinances, pp. 267-270, contains all these in the note here except the Cadish, and adds to them the Primrose, and the Faulcon, Aibates (for Achates), and George, named above. The 1578 list has not the Revenge above. It calls the White Boare and Dreadnot the White Bear and Dreadnought (as above); and the Genet, Jenett. And adds, “The sum of all other, as well merchant shipps as other, in all places in England, of 100 tunns and upwards, 135. The sum of all barkes and shippes of 40 tunne and upward to an 100 tunne, 656. There are besides, by estimation, 100 saile of hoyes. Also of small barkes and fishermen an infinite number. So as the number of ... through the realme cannot be lesse than 600, besides London.” No doubt Mrs. Green’s Calendar of State Papers, temp Elizabeth, gives further details.—F. [The “note” to which Dr. Furnivall refers is one collating the 1577 text where the Cadish is inserted between the Forresight and Swift sute, and the last four above are not given.—W.]
[218] My friend, Mr. H. H. Sparling (who has made a special study of the English navy archives from Henry VIII.’s time downward) kindly furnishes the following navy list of the Armada year, dividing the boats into classes with wages descending in scale from these I have retained:
“The newe increase of sea wages to Maisters, Botswaynes, Gunners, Pursers, and Cookes, as also shall serue her matie. at the seas in any of thes her highnes shipps hereafter, as also what rates have bene & yet are payde, wc at this Present are servinge in any of these her Maties. shipes now in the narrow seas or ells wheare abroad, as followeth:
The Elizabet Jonas, Triumphe, Whit Beare, Merhonour, Arke Raughley, Victory; Mathewe and Andrewe, 2 Spanish shipps. In these viij shippes, yf any of her mgties vj mrs shalbe appointed to serue, then to haue—
| New rates per mensem. | Olde rates per mensem. | |||||||
| The Boteson | 4 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 6 | ||
| The Gonner | 1 | 12 | 6 | 0 | 15 | 0 | ||
| The purser | 1 | 6 | 8 | 1 | 0 | 0 | ||
| The Cooke | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 17 | 6 | ||
Repulse, Warspight, Garland, Defiance, Mary Roase, Lyon, Bonauentur, Hope, Vauntgard, Raynebowe, Nonperelia. Yf any of these xj shipps, then to have, etc.
····
Dreadnought, Swifsuer, Antelope, Swallowe, Foresight, Aduentur. Yf any, etc.
····
Ayde, Answere, Quittance, Crane, Aduauntage, Teiger. Yf any, etc.
····
Tremontaine, Scoute, Achates, The Gally Mercury. Yf any, etc.
····
Charles, Aduice, Moone, Frigett, Spye, Signet, Sonne, George hoye, Primrose.
····
Memorand: that these aduanced Rates doe onlie concerne the Queens maties vj maisters, and the Botesons, Gunners, Pursers, & Cooks, that daylie serue her Matie in the shipps in ordinarie in Harborow, and noe others: wch is so increased to them especiallie to containe them in true seruice and due obedience to her matie.”
This will be seen to differ somewhat from Harrison’s list of the previous year.—W.
[219] See Hakluyt’s record of the daring and endurance of our Elizabethan seamen.—F.
[220] “Confession by torment is esteemed for nothing, for if hee confesse at the iudgement, the tryall of the 12 goeth not vpon him; if hee deny the fact: that which he said before, hindreth him not. The nature of English-men is to neglect death, to abide no torment: and therefore hee will confesse rather to haue done anything, yea to haue killed his owne father, than to suffer torment: for death, our nation doth not so much esteeme as a meere torment. In no place shall you see malefactors goe more constantly, more assuredly, and with lesse lamentation to their death than in England.... The nature of our nation is free, stout, haulty, prodigall of life and blood; but contumely, beating, servitude, and seruile torment, and punishment; it will not abide. So in this nature & fashion, our ancient Princes and legislatoors haue nourished them, as to make them stout-hearted, couragious, and souldiers, not villaines and slaues; and that is the scope almost of all our Policie.”—Sir Thomas Smith’s Commonwealth of England, ed. 1621, p. 97, Book II., chap. 27 (not 25).—F.
[221] But see how felons who won’t confess are pressed to death by heavy weights.—F.
[222] A.D. 1586. Hol. iii. 1434, col. 2. “On the one and twentith daie of Ianuarie, two Seminarie preests (before arreigned and condemned) were drawne to Tiburne, and there hanged, bowelled, and quartered. Also on the same daie a wench was burnt in Smithfield, for poisoning of hir aunt and mistresse, and also attempting to haue doon the like to hir vncle.”——A.D. 1577. “The thirtith daie of Nouember, Cutbert Maine was drawne, hanged, and quartered at Lanceston in Cornewall for preferring Romane power ... 1577-8. The third daie of Februarie, John Nelson, for denieng the queenes supremasie, and such other traitorous words against hir maiestie, was drawne from Newgate to Tiburne, and there hanged, bowelled, and quartered. And on the seuenth of the same moneth of Februarie, Thomas Sherewin was likewise drawne from the tower of London to Tiburne, and there hanged, bowelled, and quartered for the like offense.”—Holinshed iii. 1271, col. 1, l. 15, l. 47—F.
[223] A.D. 1540. “The eight and twentith of Julie (as you have heard before), the Lord Cromwell was beheaded, and likewise with him the Lord Hungerford of Heitesburie, who at the houre of his death seemed vnquiet, as manie iudged him rather in a frensie than otherwise: he suffered for buggerie.”—Holinshed, iii. 952, col. 2, l. 21. See the rest of the column for other executions for heresy, for affirming Henry VIII.’s marriage with his first queen, Katherine, to be good, for treason, and for robbing a lady.—F.
[224] A.D. 1580, ann. Elizabeth 23. “The eight and twentith daie of Nouember, were arreigned in the King’s [Queen’s] Bench, William Randoll for coniuring to know where treasure was hid in the earth, and goods felloniouslie taken, were become: Thomas Elks, Thomas Lupton, Rafe Spacie, and Christopher Waddington, for being present, aiding, and procuring the said Randoll to the coniuration aforesaid: Randoll, Elks, Spacie, and Waddington, were found guiltie, and had iudgement to be hanged: Randoll was executed, the other were repriued.”—Holinshed, iii. 1314, col. 2, l. 68.——A.D. 1587. “The thirteenth of Januarie, a man was draune to Saint Thomas of Waterings, and there hanged, headed and quartered, for begging by a licence whereunto the queenes hand was counterfeited.”—Holinshed, iii. 1315, col. 1, l. 46.—F.
[225] Cap. 8, Record Commission Statutes.—F.
[226] Sir John Falstaff.—F.
[227] Mr. William Shakspere.—F.
[228] A.D. 1569-70. “The seven and twentith of Januarie, Philip Mestrell, a Frenchman, and two Englishmen, were draune from Newgate to Tiburne, and there hanged, the Frenchman quartered, who had coined gold counterfeit; the Englishmen, the one had dipped silver, the other, cast testons of tin.”—Hol., iii. 1211, col. 1, l. 65.——A.D. 1577-8. “The fiue and twentith of Februarie, John de Loy, a Frenchman, and fiue English gentlemen, was conueied from the tower of London towards Norwich, there to be arreigned and executed for coining of monie counterfeit.”—Hol., iii. 1271, col. 1, l. 55.—F.
[229] See note [p. [227]], A.D. 1575. “The ninteenth of Julie, a woman was burnt at Tunbridge in Kent for poisoning of hir husband: and two daies before, a man named Orleie was hanged at Maidstone, for being accessarie to the same fact.”—Holinshed, iii. 1262, col. 1, l. 70.—F.
A.D. 1571. “On the sixteenth of Julie, Rebecca Chamber, late wife to Thomas Chamber of Heriettesham, was found culpable [= guilty] of poisoning the said Thomas Chamber hir husband, at the assises holden at Maidstone in the countie of Kent. For the which fact, she (hauing well deserued) was there burnt on the next morrow.”—Hol., iii. 1226, col. 2, l. 30. See like instances in Stowe’s Annales.—F.
[230] Note folio 388, A.D. 1583. “On the eighteenth daie of September, John Lewes, who named himself Abdoit, an obstinate heretike, denieng the godhead of Christ, and holding diuers other detestable heresies (much like to his predecessor Matthew Hamont), was burned at Norwich.”—Holinshed, iii. 1354, col. 2, l. 62.—F.
[231] A.D. 1577-8.—“On the ninth of March seven pirats were hanged at Wapping in the ouze, beside London.”—Holinshed, iii. 1271, column 1, lines 59-61.—F.
[232] On serving-men, see the striking passage in Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, pp. 27-29, edition of 1852, and “A Health to the Gentlemanly Profession of Seruing-men; or, The Seruing-man’s Comfort: with other thinges not impertinent to the Premises, as well pleasant as profitable to the courteous Reader,” 1598, reprinted in W. C. Hazlitt’s Roxburghe Library, Inedited Tracts, 1868. Also “The Serving-man and the Husbandman: a Pleasaunt New Dialogue,” Roxburgh Ballads, Ballad Society, 1870, i. 300.—F.
[233] Here follows a paragraph about the legendary foundation of the universities. See Appendix.—W.
[234] Cambridge burned not long since.—H.
[235] Here follows an account of Oxford and Cambridge castles, and the legend of the building of Osney Abbey by Robert and Edith D’Oyley. See Appendix.—W.
[236] This Fox builded Corpus Christi College, in Oxford.—H.
[237] So much also may be inferred of lawyers.—H.
[238] He founded also a good part of Eton College, and a free school at Wainfleet, where he was born.
[239] Compare the later, and no doubt distinct, Two Noble Kinsmen by Shakspere and Fletcher.—F.
[240] See the notes on Theatres in the “New Shakspere Society” reprint.—W. [Also the notes to John Lane in my Tell-Trothe volume.—F.]
[241] Unless this can be shown to have been written later, it must modify Mr. Halliwell’s argument and statement, in his Illustrations, pp. 36, 42, against the early theatres and houses—those before “The Theatre” (Burbage’s) in 1576—being “built” for play-acting. He says, p. 36, “In Northbrooke’s Treatise, 1577-8, Youth asks,—‘doe you speake against those places also whiche are made uppe and builded for such playes and enterludes, as the Theatre and Curtaine is, and other suche lyke places besides?’ By ‘other suche lyke places,’ that is, similar places, the writer perhaps alludes [or perhaps does not] to houses or taverns in which interludes were performed, speaking of such buildings generally, the construction of the sentence not necessarily implying that he refers to other edifices built especially for dramatic representations.” (Yet surely the fair and natural inference from the words is that the “other lyke places” were built for the same purpose as “the Theatre and Curtaine.”) Again, at p. 42, “When Gosson, in his Playes Confuted, c. 1580, speaks of ‘Cupid and Psyche plaid at Paules, and a greate many comedies more at the Blacke friers and in every playe house in London,’ he unquestionably refers to houses or taverns temporarily employed for the performances alluded to.” And, after quoting Rawlidge’s Monster Late Found out, 1628,—“some of the pious magistrates made humble suit to the late Queene Elizabeth of ever-living memorie, and her Privy Counsaile, and obteined leave from her Majesty to thrust those players out of the Citty, and to pull downe the dicing houses; which accordingly was affected; and the play-houses in Gracious street, Bishopsgate street, nigh Paules, that on Ludgate hill, the Whitefriars, were put downe, and other lewd houses quite supprest within the liberties, by the care of those religious senators”—Mr. Halliwell says, “The ‘play-houses’ in Gracious or Gracechurch Street, Bishopsgate Street, and on Ludgate Hill, were the yards respectively of the well-known taverns called the Cross Keys, the Bull, and the Belle Savage.[242] There is no good reason for believing that the other ‘play-houses’ mentioned, those near St. Paul’s and in the Whitefriars, were, at the period alluded to, other than buildings made for the representation of plays, not edifices expressly constructed for the purpose.”—F.
[242] He quotes from Flecknoe’s Short Discourse of the English Stage, 1664, “about the beginning of queen Elizabeths reign they began here to assemble into companies and set up theaters, first in the city, as in the inn-yards of the Cross-Keyes and Bull, in Grace and Bishopsgate street, at this day is to be seen.”—Illustrations, p. 43.—F.
[243] See Crowley’s Epigrams on this, E. E. T. Soc. p. 17.—F.
[244] Very short men or very tall tobacco.—W.
[245] Passions or Patience, a dock so called, apparently from the Italian name under which it was introduced from the South, Lapazio, a corruption of L. lapathum, having been mistaken for la Passio, the Passion of Jesus Christ, Rumex Patientia, L. Dr. Prior, Popular Names of British Plants, p. 175.—F.
[246] The use of tobacco spread very fast in England, to the disgust of Barnaby Rich, James I., and many others. Rich, in The Honestie of this Age, 1614, pp. 25-6, complains of the money wasted on it. He also contests the fact admitted by Harrison above, of tobacco doing good; says it’s reported that 7000 houses live by the trade of tobacco-selling, and that if each of these takes but 2s. 6d. a-day,—and probably it takes 5s.—the sum total amounts to £399,375 a year, “all spent in smoake.” “They say it is good for a cold, for a pose, for rewms, for aches, for dropsies, and for all manner of diseases proceeding of moyst humours: but I cannot see but that those that do take it fastest, are as much (or more) subject to all these infirmities (yea, and to the poxe itself) as those that have nothing at all to do with it.... There is not so base a groome that commes into an ale-house to call for his pot, but he must have his pipe of tobacco; for it is a commoditie that is nowe as vendible in every taverne, inne, and ale-house, as eyther wine, ale, or beare; and for apothicaries shops, grosers shops, chandlers shops, they are (almost) never without company that, from morning till night, are still taking of tobacco. What a number are there besides that doe keep houses, set open shoppes, that have no other trade to live by, but by the selling of tobacco!” See Sir John Davies’s Epigram ‘Of Tobacco, xxxvi.’ (Marlowe’s Works, ed. Cunningham, p. 268) singing its praises in 1598; and also that ‘In Syllam, xxviii.’, p. 267, on the boldness of the man who horrified ‘society’ then, “that dares take tobacco on the stage,” ‘dance in Paul’s,’ etc. (and contrast with him the capital description of a Gull in Epigram II., p. 263). Also the Epigram ‘In Ciprium, xxii.’, 7, p. 266, col. 1.—F.
[247] Lady Dorothy Stafford’s son, and not the William Stafford who wrote the Compendious & briefe Examination, 1581. See my Forewords to the Society’s edition.—F.
[248] Will the memory of this do for the Midsummer Night’s Dream contagious fogs, corn rotted (II. i. 88-100), and empty fold? The rainfloods of 1594 suit better, no doubt; see the end of my Stafford Forewords.—F.
[249] Charles Howard, afterwards Earl of Nottingham, a half-cousin of the poet Surrey.—W.
[250] The respective “minions” (i.e., “darlings”) of the second Edward and the second Richard; but both, unlike Dudley, died wretchedly, one in exile, the other by the block.—W.
[251] “The 10. of Aprill the Parliament brake vp at Westminster, for the time, wherein was granted three subsidies of 2.s. 8.d. the pound goods, and foure s. lands, and 6. fifteenes.”—Stowe’s Annals, ed. 1605, p. 1272. (A good ‘Oration of her maiesty to the parliament men’ follows.)—F.
[252] MS. corrected. I’m not sure of either word. ‘Comeling’ is Harrison’s word for ‘foreigner’; ‘homeling’ for ‘native.’ Can’t we revive ’em? They’re a nice pair.—F.