At last the long-hoped-for preferment was secured, and the Warden elect at once began to prepare for removal to his new sphere of duty. Though, as before stated, the building of the College had been acquired by the Earls of Derby, under the Confiscating Act of Edward VI., the Wardens continued to reside there. On the 11th June Dee “wrote to the Erle of Derby his secretary abowt Manchester College;” and on the 21st June he makes the entry:—
The Erle of Derby his letter to Mr. Warren for the Colledge.
Mr. Warren being apparently the agent of the Earl, and the “secretary” previously mentioned. Having thus put matters in train for the occupation of his new home, he set about the letting or disposal of the old one, for we read:—
July 1st.—The two brothers, Master Willemots, of Oxfordshere, cam to talk of my howse-hyring. Master Baynton cam with Mistress Katharyn Hazelwood, wife to Mr. Fuller.
Meantime the Manchester people, and more especially the fellows of the College, were curious to know something about the new Warden, of whom rumour had said so many strange things. On the 12th July he records that “Mr. Goodier, of Manchester, cam to me;” and on the 28th July he received “a letter from Mr. Oliver Carter, Fellow of Manchester College,” of whom we shall have more to say by-and-by. Mr. Goodier, it may be presumed, was not altogether uninfluenced by worldly considerations in thus paying his respects at Mortlake. The worthy burgher was a man of some consequence in his way, and much given, it is said, to the improvement of his temporal estate. He resided at the “Ould Clough House,” a building adjacent to the College, “over anendst the church,” as the Court Rolls of the day describe it, had served as senior constable, and had also filled the more important office of borough-reeve. He had, moreover, farmed the tithes of the Warden and Fellows, and seems to have made a somewhat wide interpretation of his lease, for shortly before he had prosecuted one of the Fellows for withholding the surplice fees, which he claimed to have of right. It is not unlikely, therefore, he had an ulterior object in journeying to London and offering his civilities to Dee. A year or two before, he had married a rich widow, Katharine, the relict of Ralph Sorrocold, and the mother of John Sorrocold, at whose house, the Eagle and Child, opposite Smithy Door, John Taylor, the “water poet,” when on his “Pennyless Pilgrimage,” lodged, and whose wife he immortalised in his homely rhymes—
I lodged at the Eagle and the Child,
Whereat my hostess (a good ancient woman)
Did entertain me with respect not common.
* * * * *
So Mistress Saracole, hostess kind,