Chapter II: Preface (2)

With the assistance of Humphrey Llwyd, the physician and antiquary, who married Barbara, sister of Lord Lumley, Lord Arundel formed at his residence of Nonsuch a fine collection of books, many of which had once been the property of Archbishop Cranmer. An account of this mansion is given in the manuscript Life of Lord Arundel, to which we have already alluded, and it also contains a reference to his library. 'This Earle moreover continewed allwayes of a greate and noble mynde. Amonge the number of whose doings, that past in his tyme, this one is not the least, to showe his magnificence, that perceivinge a sumptuous house called Nonsuche to have bene begon, but not finished, by his first maister Kinge Henry the eighte, and thearfore in Quene Maryes tyme, thoughte mete rather to have bene pulled downe and solde by peacemeale then to be perfited at her charges, he, for the love and honour he bare to his olde maister, desired to buye the same house, by greace, of the Quene, for wch he gave faire lands unto her Highnes; and having the same, did not leave till he had fullye finished it in buildings, reparations, paviments and gardens, in as ample and perfit sorte as by the first intente and meaninge of the saide Kinge his old maister, the same should have bene performed, and so it is nowe evident to be beholden of all strangers, and others, for the honour of this Realme as a pearle thereof. The same he haith lefte to his posterity, garnished and replenished with riche furnitures; amonge the wch his Lybrarye is righte worthye of remembrance.'

Lord Arundel left Nonsuch, with its library and furniture, together with the greater part of his estates, to his son-in-law, Lord Lumley.

There are portraits of the Earl of Arundel by Holbein and Sir Anthony More. That by Holbein, which is in the collection of the Marquis of Bath, is engraved in Lodge's _Portraits of Illustrious Personages_.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: MS. Life of the Earl of Arundel, evidently written by one of his most intimate servants, probably a chaplain.--_Royal MSS._, 17 A ix., British Museum.]

[Footnote 11: _Complete Peerage of England, etc._ Edited by G.E.C.]

[Footnote 12: 'Th' erle of Arrundel committed to his house for certaine crimes of suspicion against him, as pluking downe of boltes and lokkes at Westminster, giving of my stuff away, etc., and put to a fine of 12,000 pound to be paide a 1000 pound yerely, of which he was after released.'--_Journal of King Edward VI._, Cotton MSS., C. x., British Museum.]

[Footnote 13: Strype, _Annals_ (London, 1709), i. 413.]

SIR THOMAS SMITH, 1513-1577

Sir Thomas Smith, who was Secretary of State to King Edward VI., and afterwards to Queen Elizabeth, was born at Saffron Walden, Essex, on the 23rd of December 1513. He was the son of John Smith of Saffron Walden and Agnes Charnock, a member of an old Lancashire family. When eleven years old he was sent to Queens' College, Cambridge, as he himself informs us in his _Autobiographical Notes_, now preserved in the British Museum,[14] which he wrote for the purpose of having his nativity cast: '1525. Sub fine II [=a]ni circa fest[=u] Mic[=h]is Cantabrigiam s[=u] missus ad bonas I[=r]as.' Here he so greatly distinguished himself that King Henry VIII. chose him and John Cheke, afterwards tutor to Prince Edward, to be his scholars, and allotted them salaries for the encouragement of their studies. Cheke makes mention of this honour in an epistle to the King prefixed to his edition of Two Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, published at London in 1543: 'Cooptasti me et Thomam Smithum socium atque aequalem meum, in scholasticos tuos.' Smith specially applied himself to the study of the Greek classics, and also to the reformation of the faulty pronunciation of the Greek language which then prevailed; and in a short time, so Strype, in his _Life of Sir T. Smith_, tells us, his more correct way 'prevailed all the University over.' He also endeavoured to introduce a new English alphabet of twenty-nine letters, and to amend the spelling of the time, 'some of the syllables,' he considered, 'being stuffed with needless letters.' As early as 1531 he had become a Fellow of his college, and in 1534 he was chosen University Orator. In 1540 Smith paid a visit to the Continent, and proceeded to Padua, where he took the degree of D.C.L. On his return to England in 1542 he was made LL.D. at Cambridge, and at the beginning of 1544 was appointed Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University. In the succeeding year he served as Vice-Chancellor, and also became Chancellor to Goodrich, Bishop of Ely, by whom in 1546 he was collated to the rectory of Leverington, Cambridgeshire, and also ordained priest, a fact unknown to Strype. About the same time he received a prebend from the Dean of Lincoln, and soon after he became Provost of Eton and Dean of Carlisle. Towards the end of February 1547, Smith was summoned to court, and 'mutata clericali veste, modoque, ac vivendi forma,'[15] he was made Clerk of the Privy Council, and Master of the Court of Requests of the Duke of Somerset, then Lord Protector. On the 14th of April 1548 he was sworn one of the King's Secretaries, and knighted in the beginning of the following year. Shortly after his appointment Smith was sent as ambassador to the Emperor Charles V., and in 1551 he took part in the embassy to France to arrange a match for the King with the French sovereign's eldest daughter. On the accession of Mary he lost all his offices and preferments, but he managed to pass through this dangerous reign in safety; and Strype says of him, 'that when many were most cruelly burnt for the profession of the religion which he held, he escaped, and was saved even in the midst of the fire, which he probably might have an eye to in changing the crest of his coat-of-arms, which now was a salamander living in the midst of a flame; whereas before it was an eagle holding a writing-pen flaming in his dexter claw.' When Elizabeth came to the throne, Smith returned to court, and was engaged in several embassies to France. In 1572 the Queen conferred on him the Chancellorship of the Order of the Garter; and shortly afterwards, on Lord Burghley's preferment to the office of Lord Treasurer, vacant by the death of the Marquis of Winchester, made him Secretary of State, a post which, four-and-twenty years before, he held under Edward VI. Smith died at his residence called Mounthaut, or Hill-hall, in Essex on the 12th of August 1577, and was buried in the parish church of Theydon Mount, where a monument was erected to his memory. He was twice married, but had no children by either of his wives.

Sir Thomas Smith possessed a fine library of about a thousand volumes. He bequeathed all his Latin and Greek books, as well as his great globe, of his own making, to Queens' College, Cambridge, or, if that college did not care to have them, to Peterhouse. Some of his Italian and French books he gave to the Queen's Library, and many volumes were also left to friends. Strype gives a list of the contents of the library at Hill-hall in 1566.

Smith was the author of several works, the principal one being _De Republica Anglorum; the Maner of Gouvernement or Policie of the Realm of England_, London, 1583, 4to. Between 1583 and 1640 this work passed through ten editions, and several Latin and other translations of it have been published.

A portrait of him by Holbein is at Theydon Mount, and another is preserved at Queens' College, Cambridge.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 14: Sloane MSS. 325, f. 2.]

[Footnote 15: _Autobiographical Notes_ by Sir T. Smith.]

WILLIAM CECIL, LORD BURGHLEY, 1520-1598

William Cecil, Lord Burghley, a relation of whose life would be the history of England during the reign of Elizabeth, was born in 1520 and died in 1598. This great statesman, who at the age of sixteen delivered a lecture on the logic of the Schools, and at nineteen one on the Greek language, found time amid the cares and anxieties attendant on his high position to form a library, which Strype tells us was a very choice one. The same authority also mentions that he gave many books to the University of Cambridge, 'both Latin and Greek, concerning the canon and civil law and physic.' In 1687 a considerable portion of his printed books and manuscripts was sold by auction. The title-page of the sale catalogue reads 'Bibliotheca Illustriss: sive Catalogus Variorum Librorum in quavis Lingua et Facultate Insignium ornatissimae Bibliothecae Viri Cujusdam Praenobilis ac Honoratissimi olim defuncti, Libris rarissimis tam Typis excusis quam Manuscriptis refertissimae: Quorum Auctio habebitur Londini, ad Insigne Ursi in Vico dicto Ave-Mary-Lane prope Templum D. Pauli, Novemb. 21, 1687. Per T. Bentley and B. Walford, Bibliopolas. Lond.'; and in the Preface we read:--'If the catalogue, here presented, were only of Common Books, and such as were easie to be had, it would not have been very necessary to have Prefac'd any thing to the Reader: But since it appears in the World with two Circumstances, which no Auction in England (perhaps) ever had before; nor is it probable that the like should frequently happen again, it would seem an Oversight, if we should neglect to advertise the Reader of them. The first is, That it comprises the main part of the Library of that Famous Secretary William Cecil, Lord Burleigh: which consider'd, must put it out of doubt, that these Books are excellent in their several kinds and well-chosen. The second is, That it contains a greater number of Rare Manuscripts than ever yet were offer'd together in this way, many of which are rendred the more valuable by being remark'd upon by the hand of the said great Man. This Auction will begin on Monday the 21st day of November next 1687, at the sign of the Bear in Ave-Mary-Lane, near the West-end of St. Paul's Church, continuing day by day the first five days of every Week, till all the Books are sold, from the Hours of Nine in the Morning till Twelve, and from Two till Six in the Evening.' There were three thousand eight hundred and forty-four lots of printed books, and four hundred and thirteen manuscripts in two hundred and forty-three lots in the sale. A copy of the catalogue, marked with the prices, is preserved in the British Museum. The printed books in the sale do not appear to have been exceptionally choice or rare, but there were some valuable manuscripts. A few of the most notable, together with the prices they fetched, are given in the following list:--

_Biblia Sacra Antiquissima_, folio magno, vellum--six pounds, twelve shillings; _Polychronicon vetus MS. per Radulphum Hygden, nunquam Latine impressum_, vellum--eleven pounds; _Wicklif's Book of Postils or Sermons in Old English_--seven pounds, two shillings and six pence; _Other Discourses by him_--ten pounds, two shillings and six pence; _Wilhelmus Malmesburiensis de gestis Regum Angliae_, vellum--seven pounds, three shillings; _L'Histoire du Roy Arthur, avec des Figures d'orees_, folio grand on vellum--three pounds, two shillings; _Le Chronique de Jean Froissart des guerres de France et D'Angleterre_, folio grand, _avec des belles Figures_, vellum--three pounds, nine shillings; _Norden . Speculum Britanniae_--four pounds, seven shillings. It is not known to whom these books belonged at the period of the sale, but it appears probable they were the property of James Cecil, fourth Earl of Salisbury (a descendant of Lord Burghley's younger son), who succeeded to the title in 1683, and died in 1694. He was mixed up in the troubles of the time, and was, says Macaulay, 'foolish to a proverb,' and the 'prey of gamesters.' John Cecil, Earl of Exeter, from 1678 to 1700, who was descended from Lord Burghley's elder son, was himself a book collector, and therefore not likely to part with the library of his illustrious ancestor.

The bindings of Lord Burghley's books are generally stamped with his arms, which are sometimes encircled by the order of the Garter, but a little volume preserved in the library of the British Museum simply bears his name and that of his second wife, his affectionate companion for forty-three years. Lord Burghley left an immense mass of papers, which are now preserved at Hatfield House, the Record Office, the British Museum, etc. Those in the British Museum, which consist of one hundred and twenty-one folio volumes of state papers and the miscellaneous correspondence of Lord Burghley, together with his private note-book and journals, passed from Sir Michael Hickes, one of the statesman's secretaries, to a descendant, Sir William Hickes, by whom they were sold to Chiswell, the bookseller, and by him to Strype, the historian. On Strype's death they came into the hands of James West, and from his executors they were acquired by William Petty, first Marquis of Lansdowne, whose manuscripts were purchased by the Trustees of the British Museum in 1807.[16]

THOMAS WOTTON, 1521-1587

Thomas Wotton was born in 1521 at Bocton or Boughton Place, in the parish of Boughton Malherbe, in the county of Kent, and succeeded his father, Sir Edward Wotton, in that estate in 1550. He was appointed sheriff of the county of Kent in the last year of Queen Mary, and in July 1573 he entertained Elizabeth and her court at his residence, Bocton Place, when she offered him knighthood, which he declined. Wotton was twice married. By his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir John Rudstone, he had three sons: Edward, knighted by Elizabeth, and afterwards raised to the peerage as Baron Wotton by James I.; and James and John, who were also made knights by Elizabeth. His second wife was Eleanora, daughter of Sir William Finch of Eastwell in Kent, and widow of Robert Morton, Esq., of the same county, by whom he had a son, Henry, the poet and statesman, who was knighted by James I. He died in London on the 11th of January 1587, and was buried in the parish church of Boughton Malherbe, where a monument was erected to his memory.

Wotton was celebrated for his hospitality, and was much beloved and respected by all who knew him. He was also a patron of learning, and possessed a fine and extensive collection of books, remarkable for their handsome bindings. They are generally ornamented in a style similar to that used on the volumes bound for Grolier, whose motto he adopted. Although the majority of the bindings executed for him bear the legend THOMAE WOTTONI ET AMICORVM as the only mark of their ownership, they are sometimes impressed with his arms.

Izaak Walton, in his _Life of Sir Henry Wotton_, states that Thomas Wotton 'was a gentleman excellently educated, and studious in all the liberal arts, in the knowledge whereof he attained unto great perfection; who though he had--besides those abilities, a very noble and plentiful estate, and the ancient interest of his predecessors--many invitations from Queen Elizabeth to change his country recreations and retirement for a court life:--offering him a knighthood, and that to be but as an earnest of some more honourable and more profitable employment under her; yet he humbly refused both, being a man of great modesty, of a most plain and single heart, of an ancient freedom, and integrity of mind.'

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 16: Edwards, _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_ (London, 1870), p. 426.]

DR. DEE, 1527-1608

Dr. John Dee, 'that perfect astronomer, curious astrologer and serious geometrician,' as he is styled by Lilly, was born in London on the 13th of July 1527. He was the son of Rowland Dee, who, according to Wood, was a wealthy vintner, but who is described by Strype as Gentleman Sewer to Henry VIII. In his _Compendious Rehearsal_ Dee informs us that he possessed a very fine collection of books, 'printed and anciently written, bound and unbound, in all near 4000, the fourth part of which were written books. The value of all which books, by the estimation of men skilful in the arts, whereof the books did and do intreat, and that in divers languages, was well worth 2000 lib.'; and he adds that he 'spent 40 years in divers places beyond the seas, and in England in getting these books together.' He specially mentions 'that four written books, one in Greek, two in French, and one in High Dutch cost 533 lib.' His library also contained a 'great case or frame of boxes, wherein some hundreds of very rare evidences of divers Irelandish territories, provinces and lands were laid up; and divers evidences ancient of some Welsh princes and noblemen, their great gifts of lands to the foundations or enrichings of Sundry Houses of Religious men. Some also were there the like of the Normans donations and gifts about and some years after the Conquest.' Dee, in a letter from Antwerp to Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burghley, dated February 16, 1563, also states that he had purchased a curious book (probably a manuscript), _Steganographia_, by Joannes Trithemius, which was so rare that '1000 crowns had been offered in vain' for a copy. Dee placed his library in his house at Mortlake, Surrey, and so great was its repute, that on the 10th of March 1575, Queen Elizabeth, attended by many of her courtiers, paid him a visit for the purpose of examining it; but learning that his wife had been buried that day, she would not enter the house, but requested him to show her his famous magic glass, and describe its properties, which he accordingly did 'to her Majesty's great contentment and delight.' In 1583, during his absence on the Continent, the populace, who execrated him as 'a caller of divels,' broke into his house and destroyed a great part of his furniture, collections, and library. On his return to his home in 1589, he succeeded in regaining about three-fourths of his books; but these were gradually dispersed in consequence of the pecuniary difficulties he was in during the latter years of his life. Lilly states that 'he died very poor, enforced many times to sell some book or other to buy his dinner with.' An autograph catalogue of both his printed and manuscript books, dated September 6, 1583, is preserved among the Harleian manuscripts in the British Museum.[17] His private diary, and a catalogue of his manuscripts, were edited in 1842 for the Camden Society by Mr. J.O. Halliwell, F.R.S., from the original manuscripts in the Ashmolean Museum and Trinity College, Cambridge. Another portion of his diary, preserved in the Bodleian Library, was edited by Mr. J.E. Baily, F.S.A., and printed (twenty copies only) at London in 1880. In 1556 Dee presented to Queen Mary 'A Supplication for the recovery and preservation of ancient Writers and Monuments.' In this interesting document he laments the spoil and destruction of so many and so notable libraries through the subverting of religious houses, and suggests that a commission should be appointed with power to demand that all possessors of manuscripts throughout the realm should send their books to be copied for the Queen's library, so that it might 'in a very few years most plentifully be furnished, and that without one penny charge to the Queen, or doing injury to any creature.' He himself undertook to procure copies of the famous manuscripts at the Vatican, St. Mark's, Venice, Bologna, Florence, Vienna, etc.

Dee wrote a large number of works, but comparatively few of them have been printed. No fewer than seventy-nine are enumerated in Coopers' _Athenae Cantabrigienses_. A catalogue of his writings, printed and unprinted, is given in his _Compendious Rehearsal_. Many of his manuscripts came into the possession of Elias Ashmole, the eminent antiquary.

Aubrey says of Dee that 'he was a great peace-maker; if any of the neighbours fell out, he would never let them alone till he had made them friends. He was tall and slender. He wore a gown like an artist's gown, with hanging sleeves, and a slit. He had a very fair, clear, sanguine complexion, a long beard as white as milk. A very handsome man.'

He died in December 1608, and was buried in the chancel of Mortlake Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 17: _Harl. MSS._ 1879.]

ROBERT DUDLEY, EARL OF LEICESTER, 1532?-1588

Robert Dudley, Baron Denbigh, and Earl of Leicester, the favourite of Elizabeth, was born on the 24th of June in 1532 or 1533. He was the fifth son of John Dudley, Duke of Northumberland, who was executed in August 1553 for maintaining the claims of Lady Jane Grey, his daughter-in-law, to the crown. He was himself condemned to death for the part he took in the attempt of his father to place Lady Jane upon the throne; but on the intercession of the Lords of the Council was pardoned by Queen Mary, who received him into favour, and appointed him master of the English ordnance at the siege of St. Quentin, where his brother Henry was killed. On the accession of Elizabeth, Dudley soon became a great favourite of the Queen, who advanced him to the highest honours, and, there is little doubt, at one time contemplated a marriage with him. Leicester was a generous supporter of learning, and his letters show that he was himself possessed of considerable literary ability. Geoffrey Whitney, in his dedication of his _Choice of Emblems_ to the Earl, mentions 'his zeale and honourable care of those that love good letters,' and states that 'divers, who are nowe famous men, had bin through povertie longe since discouraged from their studies if they had not founde your honour so prone to bee their patron.' Little is known respecting Leicester's library, which must have been a large and fine one, for many handsomely bound volumes which once belonged to it are found both in public and private collections. This dispersion of his books may probably be accounted for by the sale of his goods after his death, as mentioned by Camden in his _Annals of the Reign of Elizabeth_: 'But whereas he was in the Queen's debt, his goods were sold at a public Outcry: for the Queen, though in other things she were favourable enough, yet seldom or never did she remit the debts owing to her Treasury.' In the _Notices of London Libraries_, by John Bagford and William Oldys, it is stated: 'At Lambeth Palace over the Cloyster is a well-furnished library. The oldest of the books were Dudley's, Earl of Leicester.' Not more, however, than nine or ten which belonged to the Earl are to be found there now. Almost all his books have his well-known crest, the bear and ragged staff, stamped upon the covers, but a few of them bear his arms instead.

Leicester was suddenly seized with illness on his way to Kenilworth, and died at his house at Cornbury, in Oxfordshire, on the 4th of September 1588. The suddenness of his death gave rise to a suspicion that it was caused by poison; and Ben Jonson tells a story that he had given his wife 'a bottle of liquor which he willed her to use in any faintness, which she, not knowing it was poison, gave him, and so he died.' He was buried at Warwick.

JOHN, LORD LUMLEY, 1534?-1609.

John, Lord Lumley, was born in or about the year 1534. He was the only son of George Lumley of Twing, in the county of Yorkshire, who was executed in 1537 at Tyburn, for high treason. On the death of his grandfather, Lord Lumley, in 1544, John succeeded to the family estates, and in 1547 he was permitted to take the title of Baron Lumley. He matriculated in May 1549, as a fellow-commoner of Queens' College, Cambridge, and was also educated in the court of King Edward VI., whose funeral he attended. On the 29th of September 1553 he was created a Knight of the Bath, and, two days later, was present, together with his wife, at the coronation of Queen Mary;[18] Lady Lumley riding in the third chariot with five other baronesses.

On the accession of Queen Elizabeth, he, with other lords, was appointed to attend her Majesty on her journey from Hatfield to London. In 1559 his father-in-law, the Earl of Arundel, at that time Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, nominated him High Steward of the University. Lord Lumley was sent to the Tower in 1569 on suspicion of being implicated in intrigues to bring about the marriage of his brother-in-law the Duke of Norfolk with Mary, Queen of Scots, and to re-establish the Roman Catholic religion. In the next year he was released, but in October 1571 he was again imprisoned, and he did not obtain his liberty until April 1573, ten months after the execution of the Duke of Norfolk. At a later period he appears to have quite regained the favour of the Queen, for we read that she accepted as a New Year's gift from him in 1584 'a cup of cristall graven and garnished with golde,' and that at the New Year 1587 he presented to her 'a booke, wherein are divers Psalmes in Lattin written, the boards greate, inclosed all over on the outeside with golde enamuld cut-worke, with divers colours and one litle claspe.'[19] In 1580 Lord Lumley lost his father-in-law, who by a deed, dated March 14th, 1566, had conveyed a great part of his estates to Lord Lumley and Jane his eldest daughter, Lord Lumley's wife; and after her decease, Lord Arundel confirmed the same to Lord Lumley by his will, which he made a few months before his death. Among the estates bequeathed were the palace and park of Nonsuch, which in 1590 Lord Lumley conveyed to the Queen in exchange for lands of the yearly value of five hundred and thirty-four pounds. Lord Lumley died on the 11th of April 1609 at his residence on Tower Hill, in the parish of St. Olave, Hart Street, and was buried in Cheam church, in the county of Surrey, where a monument was erected to his memory in the Lumley aisle, which he had built. By his first wife, Jane, who died in 1577, Lord Lumley had three children, who all died in infancy. He had no issue by his second wife, Elizabeth, daughter of John, Lord Darcy of Chiche, who survived him nine years.

Lord Lumley, Bishop Hacket says, 'did pursue Recondite Learning as much as any of his Honourable Rank in those Times, and was the owner of a most precious Library, the search and collection of Mr. Humfry Llyd.'[20] This fine library, which to a great extent was formed by the books bequeathed to him by his father-in-law in 1580, contained many volumes which had evidently been once the property of Archbishop Cranmer, as they bear his name, which is sometimes accompanied by the signature of Lumley, and in other instances by the signatures of both Arundel and Lumley. Lord Lumley also collected a number of portraits.

Lord Lumley made liberal donations of books to the University Library of Cambridge and the Bodleian Library during his lifetime, and also 'bestowed many excellent Pieces printed and manuscript upon Mr. Williams[21] for alliance sake.' After his death in 1609 the remainder of his library, 'which was probably more valuable than any other collection then existing in England, with the exception of that of Sir Robert Cotton,'[22] was purchased by Henry, Prince of Wales. At the Prince's decease in 1612 the books went to augment the old royal library of England, which was given to the nation in 1757 by King George II. A curious and interesting inventory of the 'moveables' found at Lumley Castle after the death of its owner is given in Surtees's _History of Durham_, vol. ii. pp. 158-163. The goods comprised pictures, sculptures, 'peeces of hangines of arras with golde of the Storie of Troye, Quene Hester, Cipio and Haniball,' etc., hangings of 'gilte leather,' 'Beddes' of gold, silver, and silk, splendid chairs, and velvet and Turkey carpets, and were valued at fourteen hundred and four pounds, seventeen shillings and eightpence, but no mention is made of any books. Most of these treasures were sold by auction at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Among the Royal MSS. preserved in the British Museum is a translation of Erasmus's _Institutio Principis Christiani_, signed 'Your lordshippes obedient sone, J. Lumley, 1550.' As Lord Lumley's own father was put to death in 1537, this was evidently addressed to his father-in-law, who has written his name Arundel on the first page. Lord Lumley was a member of the old Society of Antiquaries, and in conjunction with Dr. Caldwell[23] he founded a surgery lecture in the Royal College of Physicians, endowing it with forty pounds per annum.

The Lumley family was one of considerable importance and antiquity, and an amusing account is given by Pennant[24] and Hutchinson[25] of a visit paid by King James I. to Lumley Castle on the 13th of April 1603. In the absence of Lord Lumley the King was received by Dr. James, Dean of Durham, 'who expatiated on the pedigree of their noble host, without missing a single ancestor, direct or collateral, from Liulph to Lord Lumley, till the King, wearied with the eternal blazon, interrupted him, "Oh mon, gang na further; let me digest the knowledge I ha gained, for on my saul I did na ken Adam's name was Lumley."'

Lord Lumley's first wife was a very learned lady, and several volumes containing the exercises both of herself and her sister, the Duchess of Norfolk, are preserved among the Royal MSS. in the British Museum, having been handed down with the Lumley books. A quarto volume,[26] upon the first leaf of which is written 'The doinge of my Lady Lumley, dowghter to my L. Therle of Arundell,' contains Latin translations of several of the Orations of Isocrates, and 'The Tragedie of Euripides called Iphigeneia, translated out of Greake into Englisshe.' Among the royal manuscripts is also to be found a beautiful little volume of fourteen vellum leaves,[27] containing copies of moral apophthegms, in Latin, which Sir Nicholas Bacon had inscribed on the walls of his house at Gorhambury. On the first page, above the arms of Lady Lumley, which are splendidly emblazoned, is written in gold capitals, 'Syr . Nicholas . Bacon . Knyghte . to . his . very . good . ladye . the . ladye . Lumley . sendeth . this,' and on the second page this title, 'Sentences printed in the Lorde Kepar's Gallery at Gorhambury: selected by him out of divers authors, and sent to the good ladye Lumley at her desire.' The sentences, which are thirty-seven in number, are inscribed in gold capital letters upon grounds of various colours.

There are three portraits of Lord Lumley at Lumley Castle, and one at Arundel Castle. A fine engraving of another portrait, which was formerly in the Lumley aisle at Cheam, is in Stebbing's edition of Sandford's _Genealogical History_. There are also engravings of Lord Lumley by Fittler and Thane. Lumley Castle also contains a portrait of Lady Lumley, inscribed 'Jane Fitzalan, daughter to Henry Earle of Arundele, first wife to John Lord Lumley.'[28]

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 18: Cooper, _Athenae Cantabrigienses_, vol. ii. p. 517.]

[Footnote 19: Cooper.]

[Footnote 20: Humphrey Llwyd, physician and antiquary, Lord Lumley's brother-in-law.]

[Footnote 21: Afterwards Archbishop of York, a relative of Lord Lumley.]

[Footnote 22: Edwards, _Lives of the Founders of the British Museum_, p. 162.]

[Footnote 23: Richard Caldwell, M.D., elected President of the Royal College of Physicians in 1570.]

[Footnote 24: Pennant, _Tour in Scotland, etc_.]

[Footnote 25: Hutchinson, _History of County of Durham_.]

[Footnote 26: _Royal MSS._, 15 A ix.]

[Footnote 27: _Royal MSS._, 17 A xxiii.]

[Footnote 28: Cooper.]

GEORGE CAREW, EARL OF TOTNES, 1555-1629

George Carew, Baron Carew of Clopton and Earl of Totnes, was born in 1555. He was the son of George Carew, Dean of Windsor, by his wife Anne, daughter of Sir Nicholas Harvey. In 1564 he was sent to the University of Oxford, which he left in 1573, and in the following year went to Ireland and entered the service of his cousin Sir Peter Carew, who was then engaged in prosecuting his claims to his Irish property. Carew held various posts in that country, and remained there, save for visits to England and the Low Countries, until 1592, when he entered upon his duties as Lieutenant-General of the Ordnance, to which office he had been appointed in 1591. He took part in the expeditions of Essex to Cadiz in 1596, and to the Azores in 1597, and in 1599 returned to Ireland as Lord President of Munster, a post he held until 1603. In 1605 he was made Vice-Chamberlain to Queen Anne, and in the same year was created Baron Carew. Three years later he was made Master of the Ordnance, and in 1611 he again went to Ireland as 'Sole Commissioner for the reformation of the army and improvement of his majesties revenew.' On the 5th of February 1626, Carew, who had been knighted in 1585, was created Earl of Totnes, and later in the year received the appointment of 'Treasurer and receaver-general to queene Henriette Marie.'

He died at London on the 27th of March 1629, and was buried in the Church of Stratford-on-Avon, where a monument was erected to his memory by his widow, a daughter of William Clopton, of Clopton House, near Stratford-on-Avon. He left no children by her.

Carew, who was much attached to antiquarian pursuits, maintained a large correspondence with Camden, Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Robert Cotton, and Sir Thomas Bodley, and many of his letters have been printed by the Camden Society. He bequeathed his books and manuscripts, of which he had acquired a considerable number, to Sir Thomas Stafford, who was said to be his illegitimate son. They afterwards became the property of Archbishop Laud, who placed forty-two of the volumes of manuscripts, which principally relate to Irish history in the time of Queen Elizabeth, in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth, and four in the Bodleian Library. Others are preserved in the Department of M., British Museum, the State Paper Office, and at Hatfield.

SIR ROBERT BRUCE COTTON, BART., 1571-1631

Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, who is styled by Sir Symonds D'Ewes 'England's Prime Antiquary,' was born in 1571. He was the eldest son of Thomas Cotton, of Connington, Huntingdonshire, by his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Francis Shirley of Staunton-Harold, Leicestershire. He received his early education at Westminster School, and in 1581 matriculated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where four years later he took the degree of B.A. At a very early age he became a member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries, which met for many years at his residence in Westminster, near Palace Yard. It was in this house that he formed that magnificent collection of manuscripts and other antiquities which now ranks as one of the principal treasures of the British Museum. The dissolution of the monasteries in the reigns of Henry VIII. and Edward VI. afforded special facilities to Cotton in forming the collection which comprises such valuable manuscripts as the famous _Durham Book_ (a copy of the Gospels in Latin, written and illuminated in honour of St. Cuthbert by Eadfrith, Bishop of Lindisfarne, between the years 698 and 720, with an interlinear translation in Northumbrian Saxon), and the copy of the Gospels said to have been used to administer the oath at the coronation of King Athelstan. Other treasures are the original Bull of Pope Leo X. conferring on King Henry VIII. the title of Defender of the Faith; and a contemporary and official copy of Magna Charta, granted by King John, and dated at Runnymede, 15th June, in the seventeenth year of his reign, which was given to Cotton by Sir Edward Dering. Both these precious documents were unfortunately damaged by the fire at Ashburnham House, but have since been very skilfully repaired. More than two hundred volumes of the library consisted of letters of sovereigns and statesmen; but Cotton did not acquire these valuable documents without creating a strong feeling that such a large and important collection of official papers should rather be preserved in the Record Office than left in the possession of a private individual, and his library was twice sequestrated by the Government. On the first occasion his books were given back to him; but on the second, although he repeatedly petitioned the King for their restoration, he died before his applications were answered. His death took place at his house in Westminster on the 6th of May 1631, and he was buried in Connington Church, where a monument was erected to his memory. Cotton was knighted on the accession of James I., and was also one of the baronets created by that sovereign in 1611. Sir Robert Cotton gave directions in his will that his library should not be sold, and bequeathed it to his son, Sir Thomas Cotton, who on the decease of his father made great efforts to obtain its restoration, which were ultimately successful. He died in 1662, leaving the collection to his son, Sir John Cotton, who, having declined an offer for it of sixty thousand pounds from Louis XIV. in 1700, expressed his intention of practically giving it to the nation; and in the same year an Act was passed, enacting that on the death of Sir John (he died in 1702), Cotton House, together with the collection, should be vested in trustees, but at the same time continue in his family and name, and not be sold or otherwise disposed of. It was further ordered that the library should be kept and preserved for public use and advantage, and that a room should be provided for it, with 'a convenient way, passage, and resort to the same, at the will and discretion of the heirs of the family.' Obstacles, however, occurred in carrying out these directions, principally on account of the difficulty of access to the library, and the unsuitableness of the room in which it was deposited, it being described as 'a narrow little room, damp, and improper for preserving the books and papers.' An agreement was therefore made, by virtue of an Act of Parliament (5 Anne, cap. 30), with Sir John Cotton, grandson of the Sir John Cotton who died in 1702, for the purchase of the inheritance of the house where the library was deposited for the sum of four thousand five hundred pounds; and it was further provided that the library should continue to be settled in trustees, and a convenient room built in part of the grounds for its accommodation. This, however, was not done, and the dilapidated condition of Cotton House soon necessitated the removal of the collection, which was taken to Essex House, Essex Street, Strand, where it remained until 1730, when it was conveyed to Ashburnham House in Little Dean's Yard, Westminster, which was purchased by the Crown to receive it, together with the royal MSS. Here, on the 23rd of October 1731, the disastrous fire broke out in which one hundred and fourteen manuscripts were burnt, lost, or entirely spoiled, and ninety-eight damaged, but many of these have been cleverly restored. Those which were saved were placed in a new building designed for the dormitory of Westminster School, where they remained until they were transferred to the British Museum in 1757, having been included in the Act under which the Museum was founded in 1753.

The Cottonian Collection originally consisted of 958 volumes. A catalogue of it was compiled by Dr. Thomas Smith in 1696, and a more ample one by Mr. Joseph Planta, Principal Librarian of the British Museum, in 1802.

'Omnis ab illo
Et Camdene tua, et Seldeni gloria crevit.'[29]

WILLIAM LAUD, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, 1573-1645

William Laud, Archbishop of Canterbury, whose eventful history is well known, was born at Reading on the 7th of October 1573. He was the son of a clothier of that town, and was first educated in the free grammar school of his native place, and afterwards proceeded to St. John's College, Oxford, where he successively obtained a scholarship and a fellowship, and in 1611 became President of the College. In 1616 James I. conferred on him the Deanery of Gloucester, on the 22nd of January 1621 he was installed as a prebendary of Westminster, and on the 29th of June in the same year he obtained the See of St. David's. On the accession of Charles I. to the throne Laud's influence became very great, and in 1626 he was made Bishop of Bath and Wells, and two years later Bishop of London. In 1630 he was elected Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and in 1633 he was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Shortly after the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640 Laud was impeached of treason by the House of Commons, and committed to the Tower. After an imprisonment of three years he was brought to trial before the Lords, but as they showed an inclination to acquit him, the Commons passed an ordinance of attainder, declaring him guilty of treason, to which they compelled the Peers to assent, and on the 10th of January 1645 he was brought to the scaffold on Tower Hill. His body was interred in the chancel of All Hallows, Barking, where it remained until 1663, when it was removed to the Chapel of St. John's College, Oxford.

Archbishop Laud was an ardent collector of books, especially of manuscripts, but Wood in his _Athenae Oxonienses_ says he was 'such a liberal benefactor towards the advancement of learning that he left himself little or nothing for his own use.' The Bodleian Library is indebted to him for a large portion of its choicest treasures, especially of Oriental literature. Between the years 1635 and 1640 he enriched the Library with repeated gifts of valuable manuscripts. In 1635 he presented four hundred and sixty-two volumes and five rolls. Among these were forty-six Latin manuscripts, 'e Collegio Herbipolensi [Wuerzburg] in Germania sumpti, A.D. 1631, cum Suecorum Regis exercitus per universam fere Germaniam grassarentur.' This gift was followed, in 1636, by another of one hundred and eighty-one manuscripts. In the next year five hundred and fifty-five additional manuscripts were given by him to the Library, and in 1640 eighty-one more. This splendid donation of nearly thirteen hundred manuscripts comprised works in Oriental and many other languages; a large number of them being of exceptional value and interest. Among them was a manuscript of the Acts of the Apostles in Greek and Latin, of the end of the seventh century, which is believed to have been once in the possession of the Venerable Bede. Other notable manuscripts were an Irish vellum manuscript containing the Psalter of Cashel, Cormac's Glossary, Poems attributed to St. Columb-Kill and St. Patrick, etc., and a copy of the _Anglo-Saxon Chronicle_, which ends at the year 1154, and appears to have been written in, and to have formerly been the property of, the Abbey of Peterborough. In addition to the manuscripts, the Archbishop presented the Library with a collection of coins, and other antiquities and curiosities.[30] Archbishop Laud was also a great benefactor to his own college, St. John's. Sir Kenelm Digby in a letter to Dr. Gerard Langbaine, dated Gothurst, November 7th, 1654, writes: 'As I was one day waiting on the late King, my master, I told him of a collection of choice Arabic Manuscripts I was sending after my Latin ones to the University. My Lord of Canterbury [Laud] that was present, wished that they might go along with a parcel that he was sending to St. John's College: whereupon I sent them to his Grace, as Chancellor of the University, beseeching him to present them in my name to the same place where he sent his. They were in two trunks (made exactly fit for them) that had the first letters of my christian and sirname decyphered upon them with nails; and on the first page of every book was my ordinary motto and name written at length in my own hand. The troubles of the times soon followed my sending these trunks of books to Lambeth-house, and I was banished out of the land, and returned not until my lord was dead; so that I never more heard of them.'[31]

Some curious entries in the Journals of the House of Commons show that the books which the Archbishop retained for his own use fell into the hands of Hugh Peters, the regicide.

'Ao. 1643-4, March 8. Ordered, That a Study of books to the value of one hundred pounds out of such books as are sequestered, be forthwith bestowed upon Mr. Peters.'

'Ao. 1644, 25 April. Whereas this House was formerly pleased to bestow upon Mr. Peters, Books to the Value of an Hundred Pounds, it is this day ordered, that Mr. Recorder, Mr. Whitlock and Mr. Hill, or any Two of them, do cause to be delivered unto Mr. Peters Books of the Value of an Hundred Pounds, out of the particular and private study of the Archbishop of Canterbury, and out of the Books belonging to the said Archbishop, in his own particular.'

'Ao. 1644, 27 Junij. Whereas formerly Books to the Value of an Hundred Pounds were bestowed upon Mr. Peters, out of the Archbishop of Canterbury's particular private Study: And whereas the said Study is appraised at a matter of Forty Pounds more than the said Hundred Pounds; It is this day ordered, That Mr. Peters shall have the whole Study of Books freely bestowed upon him.'

These books, however, appear to have been recovered after the Restoration, for we find an entry in the Journals of the date of May 16, 1660, ordering 'That it be referred to the Committee to whom the Business of Secretary Thurloe is referred, to take Order, that all the Books and Papers, heretofore belonging to the Library of the late Archbishop of Canterbury, and now, or lately, in the Hands of Mr. Hugh Peters, be forthwith secured.'

In addition to his other benefactions to the University of Oxford, Archbishop Laud founded in that university a Professorship of Arabic, and endowed it with lands in the parish of Bray, in the county of Berks.

The works written by Laud are but few in number. They are _Officium Quotidianum, or a Manual of Private Devotions_; _A Summary of Devotions_; his _Diary_; and _A History of his Troubles and Tryal_; together with some smaller pieces, sermons, and speeches. _A Relation of the Conference between him and Fisher the Jesuit_, by Laud's chaplain John Baily, was printed in 1624. A collected edition of his works, edited by Henry Wharton, was printed in 1695-1700, and a second one in the Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology, in six volumes in 1847-49.

Portraits of him are to be found in St. John's College, Oxford, and at Lambeth Palace. A copy of the last portrait, by Henry Stone, is in the National Portrait Gallery.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 29: Preface to Weaver's _Funeral Monuments_.]

[Footnote 30: Macray, _Annals of the Bodleian Library_, pp. 61-65.]

[Footnote 31: Walker, _Letters by Eminent Persons_. London, 1813.]

ROBERT BURTON, 1576-1640

Robert Burton, the author of _The Anatomy of Melancholy_, who is numbered by Dibdin 'among the most marked bibliomaniacs of the age,' was the second son of Ralph Burton of Lindley in the county of Leicester, and was born on the 8th of February 1576. He received the early part of his education at the grammar schools of Nuneaton and Sutton Coldfield. In 1593 he was admitted a commoner at Brasenose College, Oxford, and in 1599 was elected a student of Christ Church. He took the degree of B.D. in 1614. The last-named college presented him with the vicarage of St. Thomas, in the west suburb of Oxford, in 1616, and some years later George, Lord Berkeley, gave him the rectory of Segrave in Leicestershire. The first edition of his famous work, _The Anatomy of Melancholy_, appeared in 1621. Burton, about whose life little is known, died in his chamber at Christ's Church on the 25th of January 1639-40, 'at, or very near that time,' Anthony a Wood writes, 'which he had some years before foretold from the calculation of his own nativity. Which being exact, several of the students did not forbear to whisper among themselves, that rather than there should be a mistake in the calculation, he sent up his soul to heaven thro' a slip about his neck.' Wood adds that he was buried in the north aisle of Christ Church Cathedral, and over his grave 'was erected a comely monument on the upper pillar of the said isle with his bust painted to the life: on the right hand of which, is the calculation of his nativity, and under the bust this inscription made by himself; all put up by the care of William Burton, his brother.

'Paucis notus, paucioribus ignotus, hic jacet Democritus junior, cui vitam dedit & mortem Melancholia. Obiit viii. Id. Jan. A.C. MDCXXXIX.'

Burton's monument and bust have been engraved for Nichols's _History and Antiquities of Leicestershire_, and his portrait hangs in the hall of Brasenose College.

Wood gives the following character of Burton:--'He was an exact mathematician, a curious calculator of nativities, a general-read scholar, a thorough-paced philologist, and one that understood the surveying of lands well. As he was by many accounted a severe student, a devourer of authors, a melancholy and humourous person, so by others who knew him well, a person of great honesty, plain dealing and charity. I have heard some of the ancients of Christchurch often say that his company was very merry, facete and juvenile; and no man in his time did surpass him for his ready and dexterous interlarding his common discourses among them with verses from the poets, or sentences from classical authors; which, being then all the fashion in the university, made his company more acceptable.'

Burton left behind him a large and curious collection of books, the nature of which he well describes in his Address to the Reader of his _Anatomy of Melancholy_: 'I hear new news every day, and those ordinary rumours of war, plagues, fires, inundations, thefts, murders, massacres, meteors, comets, spectrums, prodigies, apparitions, of towns taken, cities besieged in France, Germany, Turkey, Persia, Poland, etc., daily musters and preparations, and such like, which these tempestuous times afford, battles fought, so many men slain, monomachies, shipwrecks, piracies, and sea-fights; peace, leagues, stratagems, and fresh alarms.... New books every day, pamphlets, currantoes, stories, whole catalogues of volumes of all sorts.... Now come tidings of weddings, maskings, mummeries, entertainments, jubilies, embassies, tilts and tournaments, trophies, triumphs, revels, sports, plays: then again, as in a new shifted scene, treasons, cheating tricks, robberies, enormous villanies in all kinds, funerals, burials, deaths of princes, new discoveries, expeditions, now comical, then tragical matters.' He appears to have purchased indiscriminately almost everything that was published.

In his will, dated August 15th, 1639, he gives directions for the disposal of his books:--

'Now for my goods I thus dispose them. First I give an Cth pounds to Christ Church in Oxford where I have so long lived to buy five pounds Lands per Ann. to be Yearly bestowed on Books for the Library. Item I give an hundreth pound to the University Library of Oxford to be bestowed to purchase five pound Land per Ann. to be paid out Yearly on Books.... If I have any Books the University Library hath not, let them take them. If I have any Books our own Library hath not, let them take them.' After bequeathing books to various friends, he directs, 'If any books be left let my Executors dispose of them with all such books as are written with my own hands and half my Melancholy Copy for Crips hath the other half. To Mr. Jones Chaplin and Chanter my Surveying Books and Instruments.'

In addition to _The Anatomy of Melancholy_, Burton wrote a Latin comedy, entitled _Philosophaster_, which was acted at Christ Church on Shrove Monday, February the 16th, 1618, and which was first printed in 1862 for the Roxburghe Club at the expense of the late Rev. W.E. Buckley, of Middleton Chaney, the possessor of one of two manuscripts of it which have been preserved.

JAMES USHER, ARCHBISHOP OF ARMAGH, 1581-1656