“1706, April 23. Noell Whiteing, son of Noell and Ann Whiteing, linendraper, baptized.”—St. Dionis Backchurch.
Again the Reformation, apart from Puritanism, had much to do with the decay of these names.
(d.) The Last of some Old Favourites.
There were some old English favourites that the Reformation and the English Bible did not immediately crush. Thousands of men were youths when the Hebrew invasion set in, and lived unto James’s reign. Their names crop up, of course, in the burial registers. Others were inclined to be tenacious over family favourites. We must be content, in the records of Elizabeth’s and even James’s reign, to find some old friends standing side by side with the new. The majority of them were extra-Biblical, and therefore did not meet with the same opposition as those that savoured of the old ecclesiasticism. Nevertheless, this new fashion was telling on them, and of most we may say, “Their places know them no more.”
Looking from now back to then, we see this the more clearly. We turn to the “Calendar of State Papers,” and we find a grant, dated November 5, 1607, to Fulk Reade to travel four years. Shortly afterwards (July 15, 1609), we come across a warrant to John Carse, of the benefit of the recusancy of Drew Lovett, of the county of Middlesex. Casting our eye backwards we speedily reach a grant or warrant in 1603, wherein Gavin[26] Harvey is mentioned. In 1604 comes Ingram Fyser. One after another these names occur within the space of five years—names then, although it was well in James’s reign, known of all men, and borne reputably by many. But who will say that Drew, or Fulk, or Gavin, or Ingram are alive now? How they were to be elbowed out of existence these very same records tell us; for within the same half-decade we may see warrants or grants relating to Matathias Mason (April 7, 1610) or Gersome Holmes (January 23, 1608). Jethro Forstall obtains licence, November 12, 1604, to dwell in one of the alms-rooms of Canterbury Cathedral; while Melchizedec Bradwood receives sole privilege, February 18, 1608, of printing Jewel’s “Defence of the Apology of the English Church.” The enemy was already within the bastion, and the call for surrender was about to be made.
Take another specimen a few years earlier. In the Chancery suits at the close of Elizabeth’s reign, we find a plaintiff named Goddard Freeman, another styled Anketill Brasbridge, a defendant bearing the good old title of Frideswide Heysham, while a fourth endeavours to secure his title to some property under the signature of Avery Howlatt. Hamlett Holcrofte and Hammett Hyde are to be met with (but we have spoken of them), and such other personages as Ellice Heye, Morrice Cowles, and Gervase Hatfield. Within a few pages’ limit we come across Dogory Garry, Digory Greenfield, Digory Harrit, and Degory Hollman. These names of Goddard, Anketill, Frideswide, Avery, Hamlet, Ellice, Morrice, Gervase, and Digory were on everybody’s lips when Henry VIII. was king. Who can say that they exist now? Only Maurice and Gervase enjoy a precarious existence. A breath of popular disregard would blow them out. Avery held out, but in vain:
“Avery Terrill, cooke at ye Falcon, Lothbury, 1650.”—“Tokens of Seventeenth Century.”
But what else do we see in these same registers? We are confronted with pages bearing such names as Esaye Freeman (Isaiah), or Elizar Audly (Eliezer), or Seth Awcocke, or Urias Babington, or Ezekias Brent,—and this not forty years after the Reformation. These men must have been baptized in the very throes of the great contest.
Another “Calendar of State Papers,” bearing dates between 1590 and 1605, contains the names of Colet Carey (1580) and Amice Carteret (1599), alongside of whom stands Aquila Wyke (1603). Here once more we are reminded of two pretty baptismal names that have gone the way of the others. It makes one quite sad to think of these national losses. Amice, previous to the Reformation, was a household favourite, and Colet a perfect pet. Won’t somebody come to the rescue? Why on earth should the fact that the Bible has been translated out of Latin into English strip us of these treasures?
Turn once more to our church registers. Few will recognize Thurstan as a baptismal name: