Ralph Brooke, Rouge Croix pursuivant, and York herald, was contemporary with Camden and his violent adversary. His skill as a herald has rarely been questioned, but his whole career exhibits the character of a petulant, envious, mean, and dishonest person. He pretended to be a descendant of the antient family of Brooke of Cheshire; but it is unfortunate for his pretensions that his father’s name was not Brooke, but Brokesmouth. He was bred to the trade of a painter-stainer, and became free of that company in 1576. How he obtained his introduction to the College does not appear, though it is certain that it would have been better, both for himself and that body, had he never entered it. Noble characterizes him as “so extremely worthless and perverse that his whole mind seemed bent to malice and wickedness:” unawed by virtue or by station, none were secure from his unmerited attacks. His enmity towards Camden arose out of the circumstance of the antiquary’s having been appointed, on the demise of Richard Lee, to the office of Clarenceux, to which, from a long connexion with the College, and greater professional knowledge, he considered himself entitled; and it is but justice to admit that he certainly had some ground for complaint, though the mode in which he chose to give vent to his spleen cannot be defended. Camden’s great work, the ‘Britannia,’ had passed through several editions unimpeached as to its general accuracy, when Brooke endeavoured to bring its well-deserved popularity into contempt by a work entitled ‘A Discoverie of certaine Errours published in print in the much-commended Britannia,’ a production overflowing with personal invective. To this spiteful book Camden replied in Latin, treating his opponent with the scorn he deserved, exposing his illiteracy, and at the same time adroitly waiving such of the charges as were really well founded. Never was reviewer more severely reviewed. ‘A second Discoverie of Errours’ followed, and, as it remained unanswered, Brooke might in some sort have claimed a triumph, particularly as Camden, recognizing the maxim “Fas est ab hoste doceri,” availed himself, in the subsequent editions of the ‘Britannia,’ of his adversary’s corrections.
In 1619 Brooke published a ‘Catalogue and Succession of Kings, Princes, and Nobilitie since the Norman Conquest,’ a work of considerable merit, though it did not escape censure, for Vincent, Rouge Croix, an adherent of Camden, in a ‘Discovery of Errors,’ printed three years afterwards, controverted many of its statements. Brooke still continued his paltry and litigious proceedings, and was twice suspended from his office; and it was even attempted to expel him from the College.[292] He closed his unenviable life in 1625, and was buried in the twin-towered church of Reculver, co. Kent, where a mural monument informs us that
“quit of worldly miseries,
Ralph Brooke, Esq., late York herald, lies.
Fifteenth October he was last alive,
One thousand six hundred and twenty-five
Seaventy three years bore he fortune’s harmes,
And forty-five an officer of armes,” &c.
Robert Glover, Somerset, temp. Elizabeth, wrote a treatise entitled ‘Nobilitas Politica vel Civilis,’ which was posthumously published in 1608, the author having died in 1588. He was a most learned and industrious herald, and his authority in genealogy and heraldry is much relied on by the officers of arms of the present day. His MSS. are in the library of the College.
In 1610 appeared ‘The Catalogue of Honour, or Treasury of true Nobility peculiar and proper to the Isle of Great Britaine,’ by Thomas Milles, esq. of Davington-hall, co. Kent. This large folio of eleven hundred pages is professedly a compilation from the MSS. of Glover, to whom Mr. Milles was nephew; and although reliance is not to be placed upon all its statements, it constitutes a remarkable monument of the persevering labour and research of that herald.
Edmund Bolton, a retainer of Villiers, duke of Buckingham, was author of several works. His principal heraldric composition is a small volume entitled the ‘Elements of Armouries,’ to which are prefixed commendatory epistles by Segar and Camden, honourable testimonies of its merit. In his remarks upon the lines of partition, &c. he displays more geometrical than heraldric knowledge. His religious opinions are discovered by his wish for a new crusade. His style is highly pedantic, and the reader would scarcely thank me for a specimen.
John Guillim (Rouge Dragon pursuivant in 1617, in which office he died in 1621,) was of Welsh extraction, and a native of Herefordshire. His ‘Display of Heraldrie,’ one of the most popular of heraldric treatises, has passed through numerous editions. Anthony a Wood asserts that the real author of it was John Barkham, rector of Bocking in Kent, who composed it in the early part of his life, and afterwards thinking it somewhat inconsistent with his profession to publish a work on arms, communicated the manuscript to Guillim, who gave it to the world with his own name. What authority Wood had for this assertion does not appear, but from the erudition displayed in the work, it is evidently not the production of a very young man; and besides this, in the dedication to the king, Guillim himself does not hesitate to claim the merit of originality, for he says “I am the first who brought a method into this heroic art.” It is remarkable that three of the most celebrated books on our science, namely those of Dame J. Berners, William Wyrley, and John Guillim, should have been ascribed to other parties than those under whose names they have gone forth to the world. The highly complimentary verses prefixed to this volume by Guillim’s seniors in office can hardly be supposed to have been written to sanction a fiction in allowing him the merit of another’s labours.[293] The eulogium of one G. Belcher not only commends the work in the highest terms, but, after enumerating the several authors who had written on the same subject, namely Wynkenthewordius,[294] Leghus, Boswell, Fernus, and Wyrleius, adds
“At tu præ cæteris Guillime.”
The ‘Display’ may fairly claim to be considered the first methodical and intelligent view of heraldry published in England; and the addition of the name of the family to every coat of arms cited as an example (which in all earlier treatises is wanting) has conduced as much as its intrinsic merit to give to Guillim’s book the popularity it enjoys.[295]
Henry Peacham (whose name is more familiar to the non-heraldric reader than those of most other armorists of early date, in consequence of Dr. Johnson, in his Dictionary, referring exclusively to him as an authority for terms of blazonry,) wrote ‘The Compleat Gentleman,’ which professes to treat of every necessary accomplishment befitting that character, and of course, among other things, “of armorie or the blazon of armes.” The 13th chapter, devoted to this subject, is a compendious and scientific production. ‘The Compleat Gentleman’ was one of the most popular books of its time, and between 1622 and 1661 passed through six editions. In 1630 Peacham published another work called ‘The Gentleman’s Exercise, or an exquisite practise as well for drawing all manner of beasts in their true portraitures, as also the making of all kinds of colours to be used in lymming, painting, tricking and blazon of coates and armes, with diuers others most delightfull and pleasurable obseruations for all yong Gentlemen and others.’