…. Bell, of Wilton, was sagbuttere to King Charles the First, and was the most excellent artist in playing on that instrument, which is very difficult, of any one in England. He dyed about the restauration of the King.
Humphrey Madge, of Salisbury, was servant bound to Sir John Danvers, and afterwards one of the violinists to King Charles the Second.
Will. Yokeney, a lutinist and a composer of songs, e. g. of Colonel Lovelace's songs, &c. was born at Lacock, 1646. Among other fine compositions of songs by Will. Yokeney, this following ought to be remembred, made 1646 or 1647, viz.:-
"What if the King should come to the city,
Would he be then received I trow?
Would the Parliament treat him with rigor or pity?
Some doe think yea, but most doe think no, &c."'
It is a lively, briske aire, and was playd by the lowd musick when
King Charles the Second made his entry in London at his restauration.
Captain Thomas Stump, of Malmesbury. Tis pity the strange adventures of him should be forgotten. He was the eldest sonn of Mr. Will. Stump, rector of Yatton Keynell; was a boy of a most daring spirit; he would climbe towers and trees most dangerously; nay, he would walke on the battlements of the tower there. He had too much spirit to be a scholar, and about sixteen went in a voyage with his uncle, since Sir Thomas Ivy, to Guyana, in anno 1633, or 1632. When the ship put in some where there, four or five of them straggled into the countrey too far, and in the interim the wind served, and the sails were hoist, and the stragglers left behind. It was not long before the wild people seized on them and strip's them, and those that had beards they knocked their braines out, and (as I remember) did eat them; but the queen saved T. Stump, and the other boy. Stump threw himself into the river Pronoun to have drowned himself, but could not sinke; he is very full chested. The other youth shortly died. He lived with them till 1636 or 1637. His narrations are very strange and pleasant; but so many yeares since have made me almost forget all. He sayes there is incomparable fruite there, and that it may be termed the paradise of the world. He says that the spondyles of the backbones of the huge serpents there are used to sit on, as our women sitt upon butts. He taught them to build hovels, and to thatch and wattle. I wish I had a good account of his abode there; he is "fide dignus". I never heard of any man that lived so long among those salvages. A ship then sayling by, a Portughese, he swam to it; and they took him up and made use of him for a seaboy. As he was sayling near Cornwall he stole out of a port-hole and swam to shore; and so begged to his father's in Wiltshire. When he came home, nobody knew him, and they would not own him: only Jo. Harris the carpenter knew him. At last he recounted so many circumstances that he was owned, and in 1642 had a commission for a Captain of Foot in King Charles the First's army.
PART II. - CHAPTER II.
OF THE GRANDEUR OF THE HERBERTS, EARLES OF PEMBROKE.
WILTON HOUSE AND GARDENS.
[AUBREY'S account of the famous seat of the Pembroke family at Wilton, and of its choice and valuable contents, will be found exceedingly interesting. His statements are based upon his own knowledge of the mansion before the Civil Wars, and upon information derived from Thomas Earl of Pembroke, Dr. Caldicot, who had been chaplain to the Earl's family, and Mr. Unlades, who also held some appointment in the establishment.