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This bell, for many years previous to 1652, had been disused owing to the weakness of its frame and of the supporting floor.
The passage, above referred to, in George Evans’ diary runs as follows:
“June 11 [1652]. Present yᵉ Master, Mr. Woodcocke and Mr. Machin, fellows, with Mr. Thomas Buck, Thankfull Thomas and Robert Hitchcock digging, we digged up yᵉ treasury plate hidd in yᵉ Masters orchard. In all were seventeen peeces (then follows a list). Searched till prayers. But Quaerendm whether there be not yit other peeces and yᵉ treasure hidd by yᵉ former societie. Thomas saith Mr. Germyn cld avouch for more.”
On reading this extract, the name—for such it seemed to be—Thankfull Thomas, at once arrested my attention. It reminded me of a partially obliterated inscription on a flat gravestone which lies at the crossing of the transepts, close to the south-west pier of the tower—that one which is distinguished from the other piers by a dog-tooth moulding. The letters are so worn by treading that they can only be distinguished in certain lights, and indeed have altogether disappeared on the side of the stone which is furthest from the pier-base. What remains is to be read:—
nkfull
mas
followed by a date of which the figures 652 are legible.
I have searched the Register of the College for such a name, but, though it is complete for the years preceding 1652, I have been unable to find it. But in the College Order Book I have found, among other appointments of the year 1650, an entry, “Thomas constitutus est Custos Templi.” From which it would seem that Thomas was the surname of the Independent official corresponding to a verger or chapel-clerk. It is singular that he should have been buried, among Masters and Fellows, in such a conspicuous place in the Chapel.
The discovery of the plate in the Master’s orchard—brought about through the agency of Mr. Thomas Buck, of Catharine Hall, who was one of the Esquire Bedells—was matter for disappointment as much as congratulation to the Master and Fellows. They had a convinced belief that a much larger quantity of treasure remained concealed in some quarter of the College, and, as the passage in the diary shows, Thankfull Thomas suggested that Mr. Germyn probably knew something of the matter. Of him it is necessary to say a few words.
Gervase Germyn, of the county of Huntingdon, was admitted to the College in 1621, and in 1652 must have been a man of middle age. He was a Master of Arts, unmarried, and resided in Cambridge. He was not one of the expelled Fellows. He had acted as organist and choir-master in the mastership of Richard Sterne, and was passionately devoted to church music. After the removal of the organ and the installation of the new Master and Fellows, in 1643, his connection with the College ceased. He was miserably poor and supported himself by teaching music. His small, spare figure was ordinarily dressed in a thread-bare garb of semi-clerical appearance, and he had a quaintness of manner and speech which induced the belief that he was not of ordinary sanity.