The design was carried on in secrecy through confidential servants, who at first buried the volumes as they collected them; but they soon became too numerous for such a mode of concealment. The owner, dreading that the ruling government would seize on the collection, watched the movements of the army of the Commonwealth, and carried this itinerant library in every opposite direction. Many were its removals, northward or westward, but the danger became so great, and the collection so bulky, that he had at one time an intention to pass them over into Holland, but feared to trust his treasure to the waves. He at length determined to place them in his warehouses, in the form of tables round the room, covered with canvas. It is evident that the loyalty of the man had rendered him a suspected person; for he was once dragged from his bed, and imprisoned for seven weeks, during which time, however, the collection suffered no interruption, nor was the secret betrayed.
The secret was, however, evidently not unknown to some faithful servants of the king; for when, in 1647, his Majesty at Hampton Court desired to see a particular pamphlet, it was obtained for him from this collection, though the collector was somewhat chary of the loan, fearing the loss of what he felt as a limb of his body, not probably recoverable. The king had the volume with him in his flight towards the Isle of Wight; but it was returned to the owner, with his Majesty’s earnest exhortation, that he should diligently continue the collection. A slight accident which happened to the volume occasioned the collector to leave this interesting incident on record.[1]
When Cromwell ruled, a place of greater security was sought for than the owner’s warehouses: a fictitious sale was made to the University of Oxford, who would be more able to struggle for their preservation than a private individual, if the Protector discovered and claimed these distracted documents of the history of his own times.
Mr. Thomason lived to complete his design; he witnessed the restoration, and died in 1666, leaving his important collection, which was still lodged at Oxford, and which he describes in his will “as not to be paralleled,” in trust to be sold for the benefit of his children. His will affords an evidence that he was a person of warm patriotic feelings, with a singular turn of mind, for he left a stipend of forty shillings for two sermons to be annually preached, one of which was to commemorate the destruction of the Armada.
The collection continued at Oxford many years awaiting a purchaser;[2] and at length appears to have been bought by Mearne, “the king’s stationer,” at the command of the Secretary of State for Charles the Second; but Charles, who would little value old pamphlets, and more particularly these, which only reminded him of such mortifying occurrences, by an order in council in 1684 munificently allowed the widow of Mearne to dispose of them as well as she could. In 1709 we find them offered to Lord Weymouth,[3] and in 1732 they were still undisposed of; but in those times of loyal rebellion, either for the assumption or the restoration of the throne, that of the Commonwealth excited so little interest, and this extraordinary collection was so depreciated, that Oldys then considered it would not reach the twentieth part of the four thousand pounds which it was said that the collector had once refused for it.[4] In 1745 a representative of the Mearne family still held the volumes,[5] and eventually they were purchased at the small price of three or four hundred pounds by George the Third, and by him were presented to the national library, where they now bear the name of the King’s Pamphlets.
Thus having escaped from seizure and dispersion, this noble collection remained in the hands of those who priced it as a valueless incumbrance, and yet seem to have respected the object of the enterprise, for they preserved it entire. It may be some consolation to such intrepid collectors that their intelligence and their fervour are not in vain, and however they may fail in the attainment of their motive, a great end may fortunately be achieved.
[1] In vol. 100, small quarto, we find the following memorandum:—
“Mem’dum that Coll Will Legg and Mr. Arthur Treavor were employed by his Majese K. Ch. to gett for his present use a pamphlt which his majestie had then occasion to make use of, & not meeting with it, they both come to me, having heard that I did employ myself to rake up all such things from the beginning of that Parliament, and finding it with me, told me it was for his majestys own use. I told them all I had were at his majy command and service, & withal told them if I should part with it & loose it—presuming that when his majestie had done with it, that little account would be made of it, and that if I should loose it, by that loss a limb of my collection, which I should be very loath to see, well knowing it would be impossible to supplie it if it should happen to be lost; with which answer they returned to his majese at Hampton Ct (as I take it) & tould him they had found the person which had it, & withal how loath he that had it was to part with it, he much fearing its loss. Whereupon they came to me again from his maje to tell me that upon the word of a king (to use the king’s own expressions) they would safely return it, whereupon immediately by them I sent it to his majestie. Who having done with it, & having it with him when he was going towards the Isle of Wight, let it fall in the durt, and then calling for the two persons (who attended him) delivered it to them with a charge as they would answer it another day, that they should both speedily & safely return it to him from whom they had received it, and withal to desire the party to go on & continue what had begun. Which book, together with his Majties signification to me, by these worthy and faithful gents, I received both speedily and safely. My volume hath that mark of honour which no other volume in my collection hath, & vy diligently and carefully I continued the same until that most hapie restoration & coronation of his most gratious majestie King Charle ye 2d, whom God long preserve.