A number of important errors concerning this once celebrated family have been made by different writers. Sir John Hawkins, in a note to his edition of Walton's Angler (edit. 1792, p. 24.), says:
"There were, it seems, three of the Tradescants, grandfather, father, and son: the son is the person here meant: the two former were gardeners to Queen Elizabeth, and the latter to King Charles I."
The epitaph above quoted satisfactorily proves, I think, that the Tradescants were never gardeners to the maiden Queen. "The rose and lily queen" was certainly Henrietta Maria, the queen of Charles the First. I have now before me (from the cabinet of a friend) a small silver medal struck to commemorate the marriage of Charles the First. It has on the obverse the busts of Charles and Henrietta, the sun shining from the clouds above
them: the inscription is CH: MAG: ET: HEN: MA: BRIT: REX: ET: REG. The reverse contains in the field, Cupid mixing lilies with roses; the legend being FVNDIT: AMOR: LILIA: MIXTA: ROSIS. In the exergue is the date 1625. The Tradescant mentioned by Walton in 1653 was the second of that name, not the son, as stated by Sir John Hawkins.
The editor of the last edition of Evelyn's Diary (vol. ii. p. 414.) says, speaking of the Tradescants:
"They were all eminent gardeners, travellers, and collectors of curiosities. The two first came into this country in the reign of James I., and the second and third were employed in the Royal Gardens by Charles I."
Here is a positive statement that the elder Tradescant and his son came into England in the reign of James I. But there is no proof of this given. It is merely the writer's assertion. At the end of the same note, speaking of Tradescant's Ark, the editor observes:
"It formed the foundation of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, and a catalogue of its contents was printed by the youngest John Tradescant in 1656, with the title of Museum Tradescantianum. He died in 1652."
It was not the youngest John Tradescant that died in 1652, but the oldest, the grandfather—the first of that name that settled in England.
The following is a list of the portraits of the Tradescant family now in the Ashmolean Museum; both father and son are in these portraits called Sir John, though it does not appear that either of them was ever knighted. Mr. Black, in his excellent catalogue of the Ashmolean Library, also calls the elder Tradescant Sir John. (See p. 1266.)