[SIR WALTER RALEIGH’S ‘NOTE OR REMEMBRANCE’
for his speech on the Scaffold Oct. 29 1618.]
Two fits of an agew.
Thankes to god.
of calling god to witness.
note
That He Speake iustly & truely.
I.) Concerning his loyalty to ye
King. French Agent,
& Comission fro ye french King.
2.) of Slanderous fpeeches touching
his majty. a french man.
Sr L. Stukely.
3.) Sr L. Stukely. My lo: Carewe.
4.) SrL. Stukely. My lo: of Danchaster.
5.) Sr L. St: S’ Edward Perham.
6.) Sr L. St. A letter on london hyway l0000li.
7.) Mine of Guiana.
8.) Came back by constreynt.
9.) My L. of Arundell.
10.) Company ufed ill in ye Voyadge.
11. Spotting of his face & counterfeiting sicknes.
12 The E. of Eflex.
Lastly, he deiired ye company to ioyne with him in prayer. &c.
[Brit. MM. Add. MSS. 6789.]
Every paragraph of the speech is noted, but not quite in the order of the speech as variously reported by those who witnessed the execution and heard it. Circumstances occurred after Sir Walter began to speak, which may have caused the slight change in the order as here set down. This argues in favor of its being a note prepared beforehand. If so It must have been written shortly before the speech, because the order for the execution was not given in the King’s Bench Court till the afternoon of the 28th, and the execution was fixed for early the next morning.
There is a little confusion of the tenses, but this is not strange considering that the note was penned by a third person. The last two lines, below the number 12, may have been added by Hariot afterwards, as they are in the past tense and third person, and are separated from the rest of the note by a dash. This point is not numbered. It is possible that thefirst five lines were also added subsequently, as they are not numbered, and are placed near the top of the paper, as if interpolated, but they are in the same handwriting, and apparently were written with the same pen and ink.
At all events, whether written by Hariot before or after the deed, it is a precious contemporary document, and is another proof, if any more be needed, of the genuineness of the reported dying speech, and, consequently, that the famous ‘Spanish papers’ recently reproduced are forgeries and false. It requires no great stretch of the imagination with this little messenger in hand to believe that the ingenious teacher and friend of his youth, and for nearly two score years the constant companion of his manhood, passed that dreadful night with Sir Walter in the Gate House at Westminster, and after ‘dear Bess’ had taken her leave at midnight, penned out this note of remembrance for his friend’s morning guidance, that nothing should be forgotten in case the ague returned, which he feared even more than death.
A little more than a month after the execution of his friend, Hariot is found in his observatory at Sion taking observations of the comet of December 1618. His valuable observations are preserved among his mathematical papers. During the eleven years following his primitive observations of the ‘Hariot’ comet of 1607, first at Ilfracombeand later at Kidwely, great advances had been made in the science of astronomy, chiefly in consequence of the invention of the telescope, and the discoveries by means of it. No mathematician in Europe was probably further advanced in this science than Hariot.
What particular discoveries belonged to him and what to Galileo, Kepler and other contemporaries, it is very difficult to determine, since it is now positively known that from 1609 or 1610 Hariot was a manufacturer and dealer in lenses, or perspective glasses, as well as in perspective trunks or telescopes; and that he was in correspondence with Kepler, and probably with Galileo. He was easily the chief of astronomers in England, and is known to have possessed the earliest books of Galileo and to have sent them to his disciples, Lower and Protheroe, in Wales. Respecting this comet of 1618, he was in correspondence with Alien and Standish of Oxford and other scholars at home and abroad.
In ‘Certain Elegant Poems, Written By Dr. [Richard] Corbel, Bishop of Norwich. R. Cotes for Andrew Crooke, 1647, 16°- The mirth-loving Bishop, in ‘A Letter sent from Doclor Corbetto MaJler [Sir Thomas] Ailebury, Decem. 9. 1618’ [on the Comet of that year] is the following allusion to Hariot:
Burton to Gunter Cants, and Burton heares
From Gunter, and th’ Exchange both tongue & eares
By carriage : thus doth mired Guy complaine,
His Waggon on their letters beares Charles Waine,
Charles Waine, to which they fay the tayle will reach
And at this diftance they both heare, and teach.
Now for the peace of God and men, advise
(Thou that haft wherewithall to make us wise)
Thine owne rich ftudies, and deepe Harriots mine,
In which there is no drosse, but all refine,
O tell us what to trust to, lest we wax
All stiffe and tupid with his paralex ;
Say, shall the old Philofophy be true ?
Or doth he ride above the Moone think you ? etc.
After the departure of the ‘Blazing Starr’ of December 1618, very little is known of Hariot, except that he lived at Sion while his patron the Earl was still in the Tower, where he was probably frequently visited by his man of science. The following letter, dated the 19th of January 1619, to him at Sion from Sir Thomas Aylesbury is interesting as showing the great interest taken in his old master by his ‘loytering scholar.’ Many other letters of this stamp, breathing love and ardent friendship, are found among the Hariot papers, from Sir William Lower, Sir John Protheroe, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, Dr Turner, and Sir Thomas Aylesbury. Here is a sample:
Sr, Though I have bene yet soe little a while att New Mar-kett, that I have not any thing of moment to ympart; yet I thinke it not amisse to write a bare salutacons, and let yo know, that in theise wearie journeys I am often times comforted wth the remembraunce of yor kind love and paynes bestowed on yor loytering scholar, whose little credit in the way of learning is all-waits underpropped wt the name of soe worthie a Maister.
The Comet being spent, the talke of it still runnes current here; The Kings ma before mycumming spake w’ one of Cambridge called Olarentia, (a name able to beget beleefe of some extraordinarie qualities) but what satisfaction he gave, I cannot yet learne; here are papers out of Spayne about it, yea and fro Roome, wc I will endevor to gett, and meane yt yo shall partake of the newes as tyme serves.
Cura ut valeas et me ames, who am ever trulie and unfaynedlyr
yors att Commaund. THO: AYLESBURIE.Newmarkett. 19, Jan. 1618/1619
Addressed: To my right woorthie frend Mr. THOMAS HARRIOT
att Syon, theise, fro Newmarkett.