Chapter XXX: Sixteenth Century Women Students 295 (12)

I do well remember that skant ye were come to twelve yeres of age, but that ye were so rype in the Latin tonge, that rathe dothe happen to the women-sex, that your grace not only coulde perfectly rede, wright, and constrewe Laten, but farthermore translate eny harde thinge of the Latin into ower Englyshe tonge.

And he refers with praise to one of her works she had given him.

The translation itself, preserved in a missal, is entitled, “The prayer of Saynt Thomas of Aquine, translatyd oute of Latin ynto Englyshe by ye moste exselent Prynses Mary daughter to the most hygh and myghtie Prynce and Prynces Kyng Henry the VIII _and Quene Kateryn his wyfe_. In the yere of oure Lorde God 1527, and the xi yere of her age.” (See Cott. MS., Vesp. E, xiii, f. 72.)

That her studies were not limited to Latin we see in the quaint verses of William Forrest, priest:

Shee had to her sorted men well expert,
In Latyne, Frenche, and Spaynische also
Of whome, before they from her did revert,
Shee gathered knowledge, with graces other mo,
The thing atchieved, departed her not fro,
For as shee had promptness the thynge to contryue
So had shee memory passing ententyue.

Anthonie Crispin, Lord of Milherbe, a French gentleman resident in London, wrote in 1536 some verses also about her:

Souvent vaguant aux divines leçons
Souvent cherchoit des instruments des sons
Ou s’occupoit à faire quelque ouvrage
Ou apprenait quelqu’ estrange langage....

Puis à savoir raison des mouvements
Et le secret de tout le fermament
Du monde aussi la situation;
Des élémens l’association.

Puis sagement avec Mathématique
Mêloit raison, morale, politique....
Puis apprenoit Latine et Grecque lettre
Par oraison, par histoire, et par mêtre.

The wonder of the records of her learning is increased when we remember the frequent overtures of marriage that were laid before her, which must somewhat have occupied her thoughts, also the extraordinary fluctuations of her fortunes. The demands upon her hours, in the time both of her prosperity and adversity, must have been great. In 1525, when the Emperor broke off his engagement to her to marry Isabel of Portugal, she was sent to hold High Court with viceregal splendour, as the first Princess of Wales at Ludlow Castle. There she stayed for eighteen months. The Countess of Salisbury was still her State governess, and Mr. Featherstone her Latin tutor. She did not keep strictly to the advice of the prudent Vives; for she gave considerable time to dancing and playing on the virginals, and in her privy purse expenses there are many entries of her losses when _playing at cards_. On her return to her father’s Court, she is recorded not only to have danced with him, but to have danced in the ballets, and acted in the Court masques of the day, as well as in one of the comedies of Terence. It was a new and hitherto unheard-of proceeding for Royal ladies to appear as stage performers, but the example seems to have been followed. (Mary was always devoted to the Drama, and spent more on it in a year than did either her father or her sister.) In her sudden fall from her high estate, she relinquished only her gaieties, but continued her studies, including domestic economy, inculcated by Vives. Mary was restored to Court favour after the death of Anne Boleyn, and was on friendly terms with her later stepmothers, especially Katharine Parr. At the request of the latter she undertook the translation of the Latin paraphrase of St. John by Erasmus into the English language. She meant to have translated more, but an attack of illness laid her aside. Her rendering of St. John was printed and published in the same volume with the translations of the other paraphrases of Erasmus by the celebrated reformers, Kay, Cox, Udall, Old, and Allen, though her name was not affixed to the first edition.

Among her scientific tastes was the study of botany, and she imported many foreign plants and trees, striving to naturalize them. She also had a special interest in clock-making, like her relative Charles V. This was not, in her time, so commonplace a manufacture as it is to-day. Her value for time, and the exact measurement thereof, carry us back in thought to the days of her predecessor Alfred, with his candle-measured hours.

Prepared as she was for the throne, the misfortunes of her life make us almost believe in the power of evil stars. Her period of depression lasted too long for her health and spirits; the doctrine of the virtue of irresponsible feminine obedience prevented her from ever showing her true nature, except once. Her courage and prudence at the _coup d’état_ of Northumberland, her clemency afterwards, show what she might have been had she been allowed to act independently, as did the second royal student of the century.

Elizabeth was born on 7th September 1533. Her stars were fortunate, and the moon shone full upon her birth. Her physical health was excellent; her period of depression lasted just long enough to steady her flighty spirits and elevate her character. She was fortunate in the kind sympathy of Katharine Parr, that excellent and learned woman, who showed a genius for fulfilling wisely and tenderly the difficult duties of a stepmother. Elizabeth is said to have been very precocious, learning Latin, French, Italian, and music without difficulty. In a letter of the Princess Mary to her father, Henry VIII, 21 July 1536, she says: “My sister Elizabeth is well, and such a child toward as I doubt not but your Highness shall have cause to rejoice of in time coming.” She was four years old when her brother Edward was born, and Sir John Cheke, being appointed his tutor, sometimes gave her lessons. She was once reading with him when Leland called, and her tutor desired her to address the antiquary in Latin. She immediately did so, and the old scholar in return addressed to her four Latin verses of genuine admiration. By the age of twelve she had considerably advanced in history and geography, understood the principles of architecture, mathematics, and astronomy, was fond of poetry, and studied politics as a duty. She had a talent for languages, speaking French, Italian, Spanish, and Flemish with facility. Her tutor Ascham tells us what she had done in classics before she was sixteen. She had read almost the whole of Cicero and a great part of Livy, some of the Fathers, especially “St. Cyprian on the Training of a Maiden.” The select orations of Isocrates and the tragedies of Sophocles were her Greek text-books. During Mary’s reign Ascham wrote to John Sturmius:

The Lady Elizabeth and I are studying together, in the original Greek, the crown orations of Demosthenes and Æschines. She reads her lessons to me, and at one glance so completely comprehends not only the idiom of the language and the sense of the orator, but the exact bearings of the cause and the public acts, manners, and usages of the Athenian people that you would marvel to behold her.

In addition to the tongues, she studied rhetoric, philosophy, and divinity, and history remained her favourite study. In Ascham’s “Scholemaster,” which was not published until after his death, he praised her as being far above the ordinary university students. Scaliger declared that she knew more than any of the great men of her time, which was certainly flattery. But there are many apparently genuine anecdotes of her prompt replies to foreign ambassadors in their own tongue or in Latin.

During her happy years with her brother Edward she shared his studies and read with him the Scriptures. He called her his “sweet sister Temperance,” probably in allusion to that name in John Hall’s “Court of Virtue,” in which, instead of the heathen muses, the Christian virtues are grouped around their Queen.

Elizabeth appears early not only as a student but as an _author_. Much of the literature of the period was translation. At the age of twelve she rendered out of English into Latin, French, and Italian the prayers and meditations collected out of prime writers by Queen Katharine Parr. About the same time she translated as a treatise, published in 1548, the “Godly Meditation of the Christian Soule, compiled in French by Lady Margaret, Queen of Navarre, aptlie translated into English by the ryght vertuous Lady Elizabeth, daughter to our Soveraigne Lord King Henrie the VIII.” Appended to this was her metrical rendering of the fourteenth Psalm; and thus, curiously enough, Queen Elizabeth appears as the versifier of the first metrical Psalm printed _with date_. This little volume was reprinted in 1595, again in Bentley’s “Monument of Matrons,” and a facsimile edition was brought out by Dr. Percy Ames in 1897. Other verses are ascribed to her, and translations from Boethius and Plutarch.

Elizabeth studied politics far more deeply than her sister; she remained unmarried; her frivolity and flirtation often veiled astute statecraft; she kept Lord Burleigh as her adviser, and fortune gave her health and a long life. She guided her country, through the difficult tides of the Reformation, into the harbour of prosperity and peace, and her people glorified her name. She inherited the great men born in her sister’s short reign, and other great men hastened to be born just after her accession. All other reigns put together do not contribute so much to the great Literature of the world.

These two remarkable sisters had two remarkable cousins, who may be called their political victims, destined to be so through the action of Henry VIII concerning the succession, which “made confusion worse confounded.” But it is only as _students_ that I now discuss them.

Lady Jane Grey (1537-1553-4) was eldest daughter of the new Duke of Suffolk, and Frances, eldest daughter of Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk, and Mary, daughter of Henry VII. She had a fine genius, and she was carefully educated under the care of Mr. Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London. Ballard says of her:

She understood perfectly both kinds of philosophy, and could express herself very properly in the Latin and Greek tongues. Sir Thomas Chaloner, her contemporary, says she was well versed in Hebrew, Chaldee, Arabic, French, and Italian. She played instrumental music well with a curious hand, and was excellent at her needle.

Roger Ascham, Queen Elizabeth’s tutor, tells a story of her. When he called on her to take leave before he went abroad, he found that the Duke and Duchess and all their household were hunting in the park.

I found her in the chamber reading “Phaedon Platonis,” in Greek. I asked her why she preferred this to the sport in the park, and she answered: “One of the greatest benefits that God ever gave me, is, that He sent me so sharp and severe parents, and so gentle a schoolmaster.”

She described how sharply they checked and corrected her, so that she wearied for the time to come that she must go to Mr. Aylmer,

who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, and with such fair allurements to learning, that I think the time all nothing while I am with him, and when I am called from him I fall on weeping, because, whatever I do else but learning is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me. And thus my book hath been so much my pleasure, that all other pleasures be but trifles and very troubles unto me.

Foxe says of her:

If her fortune had been but as good as her bringing up, joyned with fineness of wit, she might have been comparable ... not only to any other women that deserveth high praise for their singular learning, but also to the university men, which have taken many degrees of the schools.

The young king was devoted to her, and his personal affection prepared him to fall in with Northumberland’s designs to induce him to leave the crown to her. Her own judgment declared in favour of the accession of Mary, and she did not wish a crown for herself. It was through obedience to her parents only that she submitted to be proclaimed, and went to the Tower as Queen, to remain as prisoner. Mary was inclined to deal gently with her; she let her father go off scot-free. But when he associated himself anew with Wyat’s rising, he sealed not only his own fate, but that of his daughter.

The Lady Jane was one of the few who, having grasped and accepted the principles of Protestantism, remained firm at the hour of trial. Mary, anxious to convert her, sent her former tutor, then her chaplain, Feckenham, afterwards Abbot of Westminster, to discuss religious questions with her. Her firm and clear replies showed her acuteness and trained habits of thought, as well as the purity of her faith. She is the most wonderful illustration of that strange distinction between the cultured girls of that period and of our own--their early maturity in thought and action. Compare the tender, dignified, and tragic picture of the ten days’ queen, of little more than sixteen years of age, with the average upper-class High School girl of to-day of the same age, and no more need be said of sixteenth-century education and its results.

Dr. Fuller says of her:

She had the innocency of childhood, the beauty of youth, the solidity of middle-age, the gravity of old age, and all at sixteen; the birth of a princess, the learning of a clerk, the life of a saint, yet the death of a malefactor for her parents’ offences.

Youngest, fairest, and most unfortunate of the four remarkable cousins, Marie Stuart, born 1542, a queen at a week old, is more remembered for the charm of her personality than for her scholarship. More has been thought and written about her than about all the other queens of the century put together. Opinions are divided about her character, and I dare not touch the question now. But of her native genius and aptitude for study there is no doubt. The little Princess, with her four Maries, had even in the charming and sequestered island of Inchmahome, before she was six years old, commenced her studies in Latin,[108] French, Spanish, and Italian. Henry VIII wished to marry her to his son Edward VI, and sent an army with fire and sword to fetch her. The Scots “had no objection to the marriage, but misliked the manner of such rough wooing,” and sent her off to France, accompanied by her governess, Lady Fleming, and her four Maries, “Marie Beaton, Marie Seaton, Marie Carmichael, and _me_.”

There her studies were directed by Margaret, the sister of Henry II of France, one of the most accomplished and learned ladies of her time. The little Princess delighted in work, in religion, and was most amenable to discipline. She learned Greek and Italian with facility, but was not taught English or Scotch, that French might be paramount in her heart. Her Latin exercises in 1554 have been printed by the Warton Club. Her skill in elocution delighted the French Court, when in 1554 she gave a Latin oration. The subject she chose was intensely suggestive--“The Praise of Learned Ladies.” In this she stated her opinion that women were able to excel in anything if they only had an opportunity given them. She was fond of poetry, in which Ronsard taught her to essay her powers, had a taste for music, played well on several instruments, was a fine dancer, a graceful rider, and delighted in needlework. Accomplishments so varied are rarely found in one person. She married the Dauphin in 1558; his father died in 1559, and she became Queen, but her husband died in 1560. Fortune dealt hardly with her; her lot was cast in times too difficult for her and in circumstances discordant with her education.

Katharine Parr (1509-1548) was the elder daughter of Sir Thomas Parr, of Kendal, and Dame Maud, his wife, “who, following the example of Sir Thomas More and other great men, bestowed on her a learned education, as the most valuable addition he could make to her other charms.” She had been married twice before she became Queen, 12 July 1543, and was fortunate enough to survive her husband. She wrote several religious books and translations, and procured several learned persons to translate Erasmus’s “Paraphrase of the New Testament,” one of whom was her stepdaughter, the Princess Mary. She was deeply interested in the religious questions of the day, and very nearly suffered with Anne Askew. The Bishop of Winchester and Chancellor Wriothesley had conspired against her so artfully, persuading the King that she set up her judgement against his, that he had signed the warrant for her arrest. Warned by a friend, she so skilfully explained matters to the King, that his love and trust returned, and he reproached Wriothesley. The King left her Regent of the country when he went abroad, and she fulfilled her duties well; and her skill in nursing alleviated his sufferings till his death.

Anne Askew (1520-1546) was the daughter of Sir William Askew, of Kelsay in Lincolnshire, who educated her liberally, but married her against her will to Mr. Kyme. She demeaned herself as a Christian wife; but when, through reading the Scriptures, she saw the force of the Protestant doctrines, her husband drove her from his home and informed against her. She was seized, dragged before the Inquisitor, Christopher Dare, examined, brought before the King’s Council, tried at Guildhall, and condemned as a heretic, though she defended herself skilfully. They put her to the rack to find the names of other ladies of her opinion. She bore it, and was silent, and was burned on 16th July 1546. And this was the fate the last wife of Henry VIII escaped.

Sir Thomas More, Lord High Chancellor of England, preferred knowledge to all other riches. Erasmus wrote to a friend in Italy:

What is it, you say, which captivates me so much in England? It is because I have found a pleasant and salubrious air: I have met with humanity, politeness, and learning; learning not trite and superficial, but deep and accurate--true old Greek and Latin learning. When Colet discourses, I seem to hear Plato himself: In Grocyn I admire a universal compass of learning: Linacre’s acuteness, depth, and accuracy are not to be exceeded; nor did Nature ever form anything more elegant, exquisite, and accomplished than Sir Thomas More.

In a well-known letter to a friend about the choice of a wife Sir Thomas says:

May she be learned, if possible, or at least capable of being made so! A woman thus accomplished will be always drawing sentences and maxims of virtue out of the best authors of antiquity. She will infuse knowledge into your children with their milk and train them up in wisdom.

Such wives did he prepare his own daughters to be; Margaret Roper, Elizabeth Dancy, and Cecilia Heron. Erasmus described their home at Chelsea as a “little academe combined with a university of Christian religion.” The favourite was the eldest, Margaret (1508-44), who was most like her father. He procured some of the best linguists of the age to teach her the learned languages, as Dr. Clement and Mr. William Gonell, and other great masters to instruct her in the liberal arts and sciences, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, music, mathematics, astronomy, and arithmetic. Her letters and orations delighted the most learned of her contemporaries, as the great Cardinal Pole, John Voysey, Bishop of Exeter, and Erasmus, who called her “the ornament of Britain.” The tutor of the Duke of Richmond wrote to Sir Thomas More to express his regret that he had not been present when his daughter “disputed of philosophy before the King.” The love and tenderness of her father were equal to his wisdom, and the story of their lives is ideally beautiful. When she married Mr. William Roper, of Eltham, Kent, he kept up communion in correspondence. In one letter he says:

Farewell, dearest daughter, and commend me kindly to your husband, my loving sonne, who maketh me rejoice that he studieth the same things as you do, and whereas I am wont to counsel you to give place to your husband, now on the other side I give you licence to maister him in the knowledge of the spheres. Commend me to all your schoolfellows and to your maister especially.

She wrote and translated many works, especially Eusebius’s “Ecclesiastical History” out of Greek into Latin, which her daughter, Mary Roper, another learned student, translated afterwards out of Latin into English.

Leland the antiquary writes of Sir Thomas More’s daughters, verses translated thus:

The purest Latin authors were their joy
They loved in Rome’s politest style to write
And with the choicest eloquence indite.
Nor were they conversant alone in these
They turned o’er Homer and Demosthenes,
From Aristotle’s Store of Learning too
The mystic Art of reasoning well they drew.
Then blush ye men, if you neglect to trace
Those heights of learning which the Females grace.

Associated with them in their life and studies was Margaret Giggs (1508-70), a niece of Sir Thomas More. She is included in both of Holbein’s portrait-groups of the More family, and was also distinguished for her aptitude in learning. Algebra was her special study, and Sir Thomas More sent an algorism stone of hers from the Tower. She married their family tutor, Dr. John Clement, and Leland wrote her epithalamium. Her husband made her little inferior to himself in Latin and Greek, and she assisted him in his translations. She and her husband went abroad on Elizabeth’s accession. Her only daughter, Winifred, married William Rastell, nephew of Sir Thomas More.

Sir Anthony Cooke, one of the learned tutors of Edward VI, also gave his daughters an education so liberal that they became the wonder of their age. He considered that women should be educated on the same lines as men, and that they were quite as fit. Mildred (1526-89), was well skilled in the Greek and Latin tongues, particularly Greek. She delighted in reading the works of Basil the Great, Cyril Chrysostom, Gregory Nazianzen, and other similar writers. She translated part of St. Chrysostom into English. When she presented the Cambridge University Library with a great Bible in Hebrew and other languages, she sent with it a Greek letter. In 1546 she married Sir William Cecil, afterwards Lord Burleigh, and became the mother of Anne Countess of Oxford, and Robert Cecil, afterwards Earl of Salisbury. Her marriage was happy, and after her death her husband wrote “Meditations” upon her goodness, her private charity and helps to learning.

Anne, born 1528, second daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was also liberally educated, and distinguished among the _literati_ of the time. She was said to be “a choice lady, eminent for piety, virtue, and learning, and exquisitely skilled in the Greek, Latin, and Italian tongues,” and was associated with her father by being made governess to King Edward VI. She translated out of Italian into English twenty-five sermons written by Bernardino Ochino, 1550. She also rendered out of Latin into English Bishop Jewel’s “Apology for the Church of England,” for which she had great praise from the author and the Archbishop. “Besides the honour done to her sex, and to the degree of ladies, she had done pleasure to the author of the Latin book, by delivering him by her clear translation from the perils of ambiguous and doubtful constructions.” She married Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and had two sons, Anthony and Francis, whose great powers she cultivated from their earliest years.

Elizabeth, born 1529, third daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was also learned in languages and sciences. She translated out of French a tract on transubstantiation, afterwards printed, and was consulted by all the learned men of her age. She married, first, Sir Thomas Hoby, Ambassador in France; and second, Lord John Russel, son and heir to the Earl of Bedford, and carefully educated her children.

Katherine, born 1530, fourth daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, was also famous for learning in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and for her skill in poetry. A specimen of her talent is preserved in Sir John Harington’s notes to his “Ariosto,” and by Dr. Thomas Fuller in his “Worthies of England” (328). Probably a certain timidity of his own powers in this accomplishment induced one of her admirers to employ George Buchanan to write verses for him. These appear among George Buchanan’s epigrams and three short poems, “To the learned daughter of Sir Anthony Cooke, in the name of Henry Killigrew, Englishman.” This gentleman she afterwards married.

The three daughters of the unfortunate Duke of Somerset, Protector of England, under Edward VI, Lady Anne, Lady Margaret, and Lady Jane, were also widely famed for their learning and culture. They wrote 400 Latin verses on the death of Margaret of Valois, the Queen of Navarre, and it was said of them by Ronsard that if Orpheus had heard them sing, he would have become their scholar.

Lady Jane, the eldest daughter of the famous poet the Earl of Surrey, who married the unfortunate Charles Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, was a distinguished scholar. Foxe, the Martyrologist, was her tutor, and he said of her that “she might well stand in competition with the most learned men of the time, for the praise of elegancy both in Greek and Latin.”

Henry, Lord Maltravers, only son of the Earl of Arundel, one of the few representatives left of the ancient nobility, excelled in all manner of good learning and languages, and gave a learned education to his son and his two daughters, Mary, Duchess of Norfolk, and Jane, Lady Lumley. Mary translated selections from Greek into Latin, and Jane, “Isocrates,” the “Iphigenia” of Euripides and others referred to in Ascham’s “Schoolmaster.” Their exercise-books of translations are still preserved in the Royal MSS. The former died at the age of sixteen, after she had given birth to Philip, afterwards Earl of Arundel.

Mary, daughter of Sir Thomas Arundel, who was first married to Robert Ratcliff, secondly to Henry Howard, Earl of Arundel, was also a distinguished scholar. She translated from English into Latin “The Wise Sayings and Eminent Deeds of the Emperor Alexander Severus.” She also translated from Greek into Latin select “Sentences of the Seven Wise Grecian Philosophers,” and “Similes collected from the Books of Plato, Aristotle, Seneca, and other Philosophers.” These she dedicated to her father.

Lady Elizabeth Fane, wife of Sir Ralph Fane (who was sent to the Tower with the Duke of Somerset and suffered with him in 1551), was thoroughly educated, after the fashion of her time, though not so brilliant as many of her contemporaries. She translated and versified 21 Psalms and 102 Proverbs in English, printed by Robert Crowland, 1550.

Elizabeth Jane Weston, born about 1558, was gifted with fine talent, which was highly cultivated. She left England young, and settled in Prague. She wrote several Latin books in prose and verse, highly esteemed by the learned men of the time. She is ranked on the Continent with Sir Thomas More and the best Latin poets of the century, was highly praised by Scaliger, and complimented by Nicholas May in a Latin epigram. She married Mr. John Leon, a gentleman of the Emperor’s Court.

Catherine Tishem was a great linguist, and could read Galen in the original, which few physicians of her time could do. She married Gualterus Gruter of Antwerp, and was the chief instructor of her son John Gruter the famous philologist.

Elizabeth Legge, born 1580, was noted for her faculty of acquiring languages, having studied thoroughly the Latin, French, Spanish, and _Irish_ tongues, besides cultivating her poetical powers. Unfortunately, she could not make use of her acquirements, as she lost her sight in consequence of severe study. She never married, lived chiefly in Ireland, and died at the age of 105.

Ballard also mentions Esther Inglis as a scholar, though she is chiefly noted for her beautiful handwriting, which is preserved in the British Museum.

Many ladies of the century were known as writers, as Elizabeth Grimeston, and more as patrons of literature. But by far the greatest woman author of the later century was Mary, sister of Sir Philip Sidney, and wife of the Earl of Pembroke. She was carefully educated in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, and shared her distinguished brother’s literary tastes. She was married in 1577, and her eldest son, William, was born in 1580. About that time Sir Philip Sidney was in disfavour at Court, and stayed with her at Wilton House, where was a good library. They retired together in the summer to a small house at Ivychurch, where they continued their literary pursuits. Two years afterwards Sir Philip dedicated to her his romance, “the Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia,” first printed by Ponsonby. She did not like it as it stood, so corrected and expanded it much, and republished it. She also translated a “Discourse upon Life and Death” from the French of Plessis du Mornay, her brother’s friend, published 1590; and rendered very freely into English blank verse Robert Garnier’s French tragedy of Marcus Antonius, adding choral lyrics of her own. Some of the passages are finer than anything her brother produced. She edited and published her brother’s poems after his death, and completed the metrical translation of the Psalms which he had begun, and worked up to the forty-third, but she did not publish these. They lie in the British Museum, Add. MSS., 12047-8. She lost her father in May, her mother in August, and her brother in October 1586. She expressed her sorrow for his loss in a poem published by Spenser with his “Astrophel” (1595), and awkwardly named by him “The Dolefull Lay of Clorinda.”

Spenser says of her in “Colin Clout’s Come Home Again”:

Urania sister unto Astrophel
In whose brave mind as in a golden coffer
All heavenly gifts and riches locked are
More rich than pearls of Ind, or gold of Ophir,
And in her sex more wonderful and rare.

In a dedicatory sonnet to “The Faery Queene” he says:

Your brother’s goodly image lives
In the divine resemblance of your face.

and elsewhere he repeats:

The gentlest shepherdess that lived that day,
And most resembling in shape and spirit
Her brother dear.

He dedicates to her also his “Ruines of Time,” in which he praises her brother.

Abraham Fraunce extols her, and produces “The Countess of Pembroke’s Ivychurch, 1591,” and “The Countess of Pembroke’s Emmanuel.”

The poet Daniel became tutor to her sons, and to her he dedicated his “Delia,” a collection of sonnets (1592), and his tragedy of “Cleopatra” as companion to her “Mark Antony.”

Thomas Nash says of her, in prefatory lines to the 1591 edition of Sidney’s “Astrophel”: “The artes do adore her as a second Minerva, and our poets extol her as patroness of their inventions.” Osborne says of her:

She was that sister of Sir Philip Sidney’s to whom he addressed his “Arcadia,” and of whom he had no advantage but what he received from the partial benevolence of Fortune in making him a man.

Meres compares her to Octavia, Augustus’ sister and Virgil’s patroness; and describes her as being not only liberal to poets but a most delicate poet, worthy of the complimentary lines which Antipholus Sidonius addressed to Sappho.

Thomas Churchyard writes:

Pembroke a Pearl that orient is of kind,
A Sidney right shall not in silence sit,
A gem more worth than all the gold of Ind,
For she enjoys the wise Minerva’s wit,
And sets to school our poets everywhere
That do pretende the laurel crown to wear.
The muses nine and eke the graces three
In Pembroke’s books and verses you may see.

She died in 1621, and her family raised no monument to her, but Ben Jonson wrote the famous epitaph:

Underneath this sable hearse
Lies the subject of all Verse:
Sidney’s sister, Pembroke’s mother,
Death, ere thou hast slain another
Fair and wise and good as she,
Time shall throw a dart at thee![109]

Arabella Stewart, born 1577, the daughter of Charles Stewart Lennox, the youngest brother of Lord Darnley, was a very highly cultured woman, and was appointed by her cousin, James I, to be governess to his daughter the Princess Elizabeth, who loved her dearly. She wrote histories and had a great facility for poetical composition.

Two other names I would like to mention of ladies born in the sixteenth century, who carried into the next its culture with a difference, as the new spirit of science and mathematics, history, and political economy absorbed some of the time hitherto devoted to classics.

Elizabeth Stewart, mentioned above, was born in 1596, at Falkland Palace. When her father came to England she was sent to the charge of Lord Harington at Coombe Abbey, Warwickshire. That nobleman followed the plan of Sir David Lindsay, of the Mount, surrounded her by cultured companions, explained to her the meaning of everything, and taught her the foundations of the Christian religion. Mr. Beauchamp was her writing master, and the famous Dr. Bull, the composer, her teacher in music. Lord Harington himself taught her much in history, literature, and geography. She was very fond of animals and of natural history, and she had a little corner of the park, with a lake in it, to preserve her treasures. She built a little cottage for a widow and her children to attend to her animals, and designed it herself. Near it was her fairy farm, with the smallest kind of cattle that could be bought. She studied the changes of insects through the microscope, then newly invented. When ten years old a portrait was painted of her, inexplicable without knowing all this. She has a monkey and a dog at her feet, a love-bird in her hand, a macaw on one shoulder and a parrot on the other. She was familiar also with the use of the telescope, and studied mathematics and astronomy. Her home at Coombe Abbey suggested to Dr. Johnson “The Happy Valley of Rasselas.” She was devoted to her brother Henry, and inconsolable at his death, in 1612. In the following year she married the Count Palatine, and great festivities took place in London. The poets Donne and Daniel call her “the pearl of Britain,” and Sir Henry Wotton wrote verses in her praise:

Tell me, if she were not designed
Th’ Eclipse and glory of her kind.

Her chief fault was extravagance, which increased her pecuniary troubles with her unfortunate husband. But they were happy together and had many children, one of whom was that Elizabeth who became the pupil and friend of the philosophic Descartes.[110]

Anne Clifford, born 1589, daughter and heir of the Earl of Cumberland, had been forbidden by her father to learn Latin, much to her chagrin. She made up for it by studying all that she could find to read in English, and by that time through translations she found a good deal. Her diary still remains at the British Museum. She gives a beautiful description of her mother’s character, and of her moral virtues, prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. She was not a linguist, but a reader, a thinker, and a _chemist_, and possessed “many excellent knowledges, human and divine.”

Her tutor was Samuel Daniel, “that religious and honest poet who composed the Civil Wars of England in verse,” and he led her to the study of history, old archives, armorial bearings, and the laws regarding inheritance, whereby she was able to sustain the noble fight against her King and her husband concerning the right of heiresses to transmit property undiverted to their heirs. What she had received from her father she wished to leave to her daughters. In this _she_ succeeded, though the laws drifted after her date to the exclusions and disabilities from which modern women have so much suffered.

She was capable in land estate management and architecture, in which Cromwell gave her practical lessons by demolishing her castles for her fidelity to the King. Each time he destroyed them she rebuilt them stronger, until, fired with admiration at her courage, he bade his officers desist from further molestation.

Her funeral sermon, preached by Bishop Rainbow, was an eloquent oration, in which he said that the life of this great, good woman was fitter for a history than a sermon. He alluded to her studies and her conversation with admiration. “She could speak well on anything, from predestination to slea-silk.”

Thus, I think the women of the sixteenth century proved to their successors that they were fit, in the words of the little Marie Stuart, to study anything, if so be they were granted opportunity.

The lives of these illustrative individuals, who became illustrious because they _excelled_ many others, suggest the probability of a much more general culture, and that of a higher standard, than has been hitherto realized. It is to be hoped that more research may yield more information, and account for the tidal backdraw in the position of women between these times and our own. Men grow great, and poets become inspired in proportion to the influence of the other sex, and it is only reasonable to add to the causes of the special glory of the sixteenth century, the greatness of its women.

_Lecture delivered before the Royal Society of Literature,
1904. See Proceedings R.S.L., vol. xxv._

FOOTNOTES:

[106] Hall’s “Chronicle,” p. 730.

[107] A MS. Brit. Mus. (MS. Reg. 2, A. xviii A) gives a calendar of special events, and under 29th October 1537 it is stated: “This day dysseasyd Elizabethe Lukar, dowghter of Paul Withypoll.” A note to this adds that a Sarum Missal, in possession of Mr. Douce, contained that and other entries, _e.g._ “XII Kl. Feb., 1509. This day was Pol Withypol, married to me Anne Cursonne his wife.” The above-mentioned Elizabeth was born in 1510, her brother Edward in 1512 (Brit. Mus. 5524, f. 94).

[108] Buchanan had been at one time her tutor and dedicated to her his Latin Psalms, though he turned against her afterwards.

[109] These lines are sometimes supposed to be written by Browne, on the strength of an inferior second verse by him.

[110] In the Preface to his works he said he had met some who understood the mathematical side of his philosophy, and others who understood the metaphysical side; but he had met but _one_ who understood both sides, and that was she whose intellect he therefore reckoned _the incomparable_.

NOTES TERMINAL

NOTE TO ARTICLE III

ANOTHER DEBT OF JOHN SHAKESPEARE

Since my article on “Shakespeare and Asbies” appeared (“Athenæum,” 14th and 21st March) I have had two communications about the Shakespeares. The later, from Mr. Young, seems to suggest another mysterious debt of some John Shakespeare.

Henry Higford, gent., of Solihull, Warwickshire, in his own person appeared on the fourth day against John Shakysper, formerly of Stratford-upon-Avon in county Warwick, “whyttawer,” and against John Musshen, formerly of Walton Dobell in said county, on the plea that each of them should pay him £30 which they owed him; and against John Wheler, formerly of Stratford-on-Avon in said county, yeoman, on the plea that he should pay him 80_s._ which he owed him, and unjustly detained. And if they did not come and pay, that the Sheriff should bring their bodies here on Easter Day in five weeks (Common Pleas, Roll 1313, membrane 399, Easter 15 Eliz., 1573).

Now this was a “whyttawer nuper de Stratford.” Could this mean a leather-dresser for making _gloves_? Or could it mean a leather-dresser for making shoes? Was it the John Shakespeare who went to live in Clifford Chambers, and was confused with _our John_ by earlier writers? Or could he be the John Shakespeare who ran his race in Stratford as “corvizer” from 1580 till 1592?

All these questions might be asked, as well as the more important one: Is there any reason to believe that the language _at that date_ could fit John, William Shakespeare’s father? I should be glad to know.

_“Athenæum,” 25th April 1914._

PS. Some correspondence followed on as to the meaning of “Whittawer,” and Mr. Arthur Betts sent me his pamphlet on the white tawers, or tanners of white leather. They were held in some discredit owing to their frequently receiving the skins of poached game, and they were forbidden to dwell near a royal forest. I had been puzzled by the use of “nuper” in the citation, but I find it was used only in one of three descriptions, to prevent evasion. I therefore think it must refer to our John Shakespeare.

NOTE TO ARTICLE VII

“ADOLESCENS” AND “ADOLOCENTULA”

IN STRATFORD-ON-AVON REGISTER; IN RELATION TO GILBERT SHAKESPEARE

The application of the term “Adolescens” to “Gilbert Shakespeare,” in the Burial Register of Stratford-on-Avon, and the information it has been supposed to give concerning the poet’s family, make an examination of the context incumbent upon Shakespearean students. There are, indeed, some noteworthy peculiarities concerning the Stratford use of terms, which I have not seen in any other of the Registers which I have studied.

The Registers of Stratford are, however, like many others, a mixture of English and Latin entries. Sometimes Latin prevails for a page or two, and then English runs on for a like period, sometimes the entries are almost time about in each language, sometimes both languages are used in the same entry, as “Jane uxor John Davis als Keliam, she was Kild with a tinker on the Bridge, July 2ⁿᵈ 1599,” or “John filius William Walford Draper.” The commonest Latin terms are of course _filius_, _filia_, _uxor_, _Vidua_, _clericus_, _generosus_, but the writers were rarely careful with their genitives. There were occasional notes of a man’s trade, sometimes in Latin, much more frequently in English.

But there was one period during which Latin gained the upper hand, and that was the period after Mr. Bifield had finished his transcript of the early registers, and had given up signing its pages. The signature of “William Gilbard alias Higges minister” was a new one to the Register in 1603, though he had been known as assistant Schoolmaster and then as Curate, since 1563 at least. It is not clear whether there was a new Parish Clerk at the time, or whether the Curate wrote the notices himself, or if he gave any directions to aid the intelligence of the clerk. But coincident with this change of signature, there is a great increase in Latin phrases, many more qualifying adjectives are added, and attention is generally paid to the Latin _cases_. “Almsman” becomes “Elemosynarius,” or “Eliēmo;” “Bastard” becomes “Nothus” or “Notha”; trades are translated into Latin, as “Scissor,” “Lanio,” “Fab. lig.,” “Calcearius,” “Pistor.” Never before had there been any reference to age, or to condition, other than “Uxor,” “Vidua.” Now there is _one_ case of “Margaret Urlle, _Cælebs_, 8ᵗʰ April 1609” who does not seem to have been born in the town. Early in the period which we may suppose Sir William Gilbard alias Higges to have controlled the entries, occurs the first use of “_adolescens_” in the Registers, and the _only one_, excepting that of Gilbert Shakespeare. “Anna Yat, adolescens, Jan. 8ᵗʰ 1602,” (Burials), On referring back, I find that one Anne Yate, daughter of John Yate, was baptized on 20th September 1573, and that another of the same name, daughter of Richard Yate, was baptized on 29th September 1589. It might be assumed that it was the younger of these two who was buried at thirteen years of age, though why, among all the other young girls buried there, she alone should be singled out to be described as “adolescens,” baffles explanation. Her father was still alive, and absence of any reference to him is also strange. If it were applied to the elder Anne, who was twenty-nine years old, it would be less surprising to find her father unnoticed, but “adolescens,” in its ordinary sense, could hardly have been applied to her. The only other contemporary of the name was a wife, married as _Annys_, buried as _Anne_ Yate.

But if there are only two entries of “adolescens,” the first applied to a female, and the second to a male, there are many of a resembling word, “adolocentulus,” which should mean a very young man, but it is very difficult to guess what it really did mean in Stratford Latin.

“Isabella Rodes, Adolocentula” was buried 12th May 1604. She does not seem to have been born in the parish. There is no other mention of her name, so her age cannot be estimated, but as an “Annys Rodes, widow” had been buried a fortnight before, she might have been an orphan daughter. “Nicholas Lane, Adolocentulus, buried 16ᵗʰ Nov. 1604.” There was one Nicholas Lane, son of John Lane baptized in 1569, and another in 1584; the elder would have been thirty-five, the younger twenty. John Lane himself had been buried in 1600, so this entry would seem to fit the younger man. But on the other hand, “Richard Clarke, _adolocentulus_,” buried 10th June 1605, was the son of Henry Clarke, and had been baptized 11th March 1572, so that he would be in his thirty-third year. “Margaret Clarke, adolocentula,” buried 2nd June 1611, had been baptized in 1581 and was thus thirty years old. (She had an illegitimate son Thomas in 1605.) “Henry Ainge adolocentulus,” 24th December 1605, had been baptized on 5th February 1581 and was therefore twenty-four years old.

“Jone Hadon, Adolocentula” does not seem to have been born in the parish. “Ales Brage, Adolocentula,” 8th January 1610, had been baptized in July 1576, and was therefore about thirty-four. “Susanna Daniel, Adolocentula,” 17th November 1608, had been baptized on 24th May 1593, and would be fifteen. Her father had died in 1596, and she might be alone. The only other “adolocentula” does not seem to have been baptized in the parish.

The result of studying “adolocentula,” therefore, is as unsatisfactory as that of studying “adolescens.”

William Gilbard alias Higges signed the Register pages till July 1610, and he _may_ have superintended them till May 1611, when the page was signed once by John Rogers, Vicar. In that year the curate, William Gilbert alias Higgs, died, and, strange to say, was buried the _very day before Gilbert Shakespeare_, _i.e._, on 2nd February 1611-2.

Does this imply that the clerk was left to his own classic inspirations or memories in writing the register, or that his superintendence was taken over by the succeeding assistant minister, Edward Woolmer? Under him the language of the text gradually simplified, until it took on a new varnish of Latin under Mr. Richard Watts.

But the fact remains, that “adolescens,” which had only _once_ appeared before, _never_ appears again, and it is difficult to gauge the extent of its meaning and use. It has been held by all writers to support Halliwell-Phillipps’ statement that the poet’s brother went to settle as a haberdasher in St. Bride’s, London, and lived to a great age. I have definitely proved that Halliwell-Phillips was mistaken in saying that Gilbert was a London haberdasher (see my article in the “Athenæum,” 29th December 1900, “John Shakespeare of Ingon, and Gilbert of St. Brides”), p. 62. The whole arguments of the family-wills tell against the notion of the survival of the poet’s brother, and my careful study in registers helps to convince me that the word “adolescens” is not here used in its normal and natural sense.

That should be “a youth” or “junior.” In either case if this is accepted as true of some unknown nephew of the poet, it would imply that Gilbert Shakespeare married _somewhere_, baptized this child _somewhere_, and died _somewhere_, and that the mother died _somewhere_, none of these facts having yet been proved. If it had its ordinary meaning, it would suggest that the father and mother were already dead, and the “youth” stood alone in the world. But if so, where was Gilbert buried? The name of Shakespeare would have been sure to have been noticed, either in London or in country registers.

The difficulties seem to me so great,[111] that the alternative seems a trifling one in comparison, that the word, for some inexplicable reason, has been unintelligently applied to the poet’s brother Gilbert. In this opinion I have taken much counsel from students of registers, and they agree that it is the most natural explanation of the puzzle. And therefore I believe firmly that Gilbert Shakespeare, the poet’s brother, died and was buried at the date recorded in the register (Feb. 3, 1611-2), which accounts for his not being mentioned in the poet’s will.

“_Sonderabdruck aus dem Archiv für das Studium der Neueren Sprachen und Literaturen_,” _Band cxxiii, Heft 1-2, 1909_.

NOTE TO ARTICLE XI (1)

WILLIAM COMBE AND THE PROPOSED WELCOMBE ENCLOSURES, 1614-19

The story of the attempted enclosures at Welcombe at the beginning of the seventeenth century has always been considered chiefly of interest because Shakespeare’s name was associated with it. But the incidents are of great importance in the history of Stratford-on-Avon and its relation to William Combe, entirely apart from the interest Shakespeare gives to the proceedings, The facts are worth recalling in relation to the great fires, which I discussed in this paper lately under the title of “Fires and Thatch at Stratford-on-Avon.” Just about the time of the disastrous fire of 9th July 1614, John Combe, the money-lender, died. After various charitable bequests, in his will dated 28th January 1612-13, he desires to be buried in the church near his mother, and a convenient tomb to be set over him of the value of threescore pounds. He leaves his brother George Combe the land “called Parson’s Close, or Shakespeare’s Close” in Hampton; to his brother John Combe his property in Warwick; residuary legatees were William and Thomas Combe his nephews (proved 10th November 1616). Hardly had they inherited (before even they had proved their uncle’s will), William took it into his head to enclose the Common Fields of Welcombe, over most of which he was chief landlord. We can find a good many details of the proceedings, preserved in the crabbed characters in which Thomas Greene made his memoranda, in a few leaves which have been called “His Diary,” now among the Stratford Records. This shows that Shakespeare went up to London on 16th November, and next day Thomas Greene, then staying in London, “went to see him how he did.” They were both full of “the enclosures,” and Shakespeare told Greene the latest news of the plan and the schemes, adding that “he thought nothing would be done.” That very night, however, Greene drew up the petition of the town, and “gave it to Edmund to write fair, so that Greene and Mr. Wyatt might see it before it was wrytten to be presented to the Lordes,” that is, the Lords of the Privy Council. On the 22nd Greene records that he heard that Lord Carew meant to oppose the enclosing all he might, and Mr. Mainwaring said if he did not do it _well_ he cared not to do it at all. This “Lord Carew” is he who married Joyce Clopton, and whose tomb is in the church at Stratford. Thomas Greene was Town Clerk, and he notes on 5th December that six of the company (himself among them) were to “go to Mr. Combe, and present their loves, and desire he would be pleased to forbeare the enclosing.” They went on the 9th, and were not satisfied with the results. William Combe said he would be glad of their loves, but the enclosure would not be hurtful to the town; indeed, there would be some profit in it. Thomas Combe said “they were all curres,” and spoke of “spitting one of the dogs.”