Sense, a common name in Elizabeth and James’s reigns, looks closely connected with some of the abstract virtues, such as Prudence and Temperance. The learned compiler of the “Calendar of State Papers” (1637-38) seems to have been much bothered with the name:
“1638, April 23. Petition of Seuce Whitley, widow of Thomas Whitley, citizen, and grocer.”
The suggestion from the editorial pen is that this Seuce (as he prints it) is a bewildered spelling of Susey, from Susan! The fact is, Seuce is a bewildered misreading on the compiler’s part of Sense, and Sense is an English dress of the foreign Senchia, or Sancho, still familiar to us in Sancho Panza. Several of the following entries will prove that Sense was too early an inmate of our registers to be a Puritan agnomen:
“1564, Oct. 15. Baptized Saints, d. of Francis Muschamp.
“1565, Nov. 25. Buried Sence, d. of ditto.
“1559, June 13. Married Matthew Draper and Sence Blackwell.
“1570-1, Jan. 15. Baptized Sence, d. of John Bowyer.”—Camberwell Church.
“1651. Zanchy Harvyn, Grocer’s Arms, Abbey Milton.”—“Tokens of Seventeenth Century.”
“1661, June. Petition of Mrs. Zanchy Mark.”—C. S. P.
That it was familiar to Camden in 1614 is clear: