Part 27

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