DOCSLIB.ORG

1 John Hayward and His Life of Henry IV

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
1 John Hayward and His Life of Henry IV INTRODUCTION / John Hayward and his Life of Henry IV Dr. John Hayward - civil servant, lawyer, historian and author of the texts presented here - complained to the Prince of Wales in 1612 that men might safely write of others in manner of a tale; but in manner of a history, safely they could not: because, albeit they should write of men long since dead, and whose posterity is clean worn out; yet some alive, finding themselves foul in those vices which they see observed, reproved, and condemned in others, their guiltiness maketh them apt to conceive, that, whatsoever the words are, the finger pointeth only at them.1 Hayward's cynicism was rooted in experience. That writing history could prove a thankless craft, even a dangerous one, he had learned first-hand. Thirteen years before, in 1599, the publication of his first historical work, The First Part of the Life and Raigne of King Henrie HII, had subjected him to frightening scrutiny by powerful officials, who suspected him of collusion with the Earl of Essex, to whom he had dedicated the book in excessively flattering terms. His book (fairly titled, for it covered only 'the first part' of Henry's career: the causes and highlights of his insurgency and the events of his first regnal year) was burned and suppressed. In 1600, after Essex's disgrace, Hayward was imprisoned in the Tower, where he remained during the earl's rebellion and the subsequent trials and executions. He was released only after the death of the queen, who in 1599 had herself accused him at least twice of sedition. Several publications, especially those promoting unacceptable views on the succession question, upset Elizabeth greatly during the 1590s, and she despised Hayward's history in particular. Sensitive in her declining years to an array of criticisms, she was especially angered by efforts to compare her to Richard II, whose misfortunes occupy such a large part of Hayward's book; she tended to see in the dis- graceful behaviour of Essex, once her favourite, something of Henry Bolingbroke. 'I am Richard II, know ye not that?' she remarked 'Hayward reports this conversation with Prince Henry in his dedication (to Prince Charles) of The Lives of the III Normans, Kings of England (London, 1613). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.234, on 28 Sep 2021 at 03:44:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500001999 2 THE LIFE AND RAIGNE OF KING HENRIE IIII bitterly, only a few months after Essex's execution.2 Of her special and outspoken aversion to Hayward's book, voiced in 1599 (several months after its suppression, but more than a year before Essex would take to the streets of London with an armed band), Francis Bacon supplies a detailed account: Her majesty being mightily incensed with that booke which was dedicated to my lord of Essex, being a storie of the first yeare of king Henry the fourth, thinking it a seditious prelude to put into the peoples heades boldnesse and faction, said, she had an opinion that there was treason in it, and asked me if I could not find any places in it that might be drawne within case of treason: whereto I answered: 'For treason surely I found none, but for fellonie very many.' And when her Majesty hastily asked me 'wherein?' I told her, the author had committed very apparant theft: for he had taken most of the sentences of Cornelius Tacitus, and translated them into English, and put them into his text. Elizabeth would not be put off lightly; Bacon reports her continued irritation with Hayward and his book: Another time when the Queen would not be perswaded it was his writing whose name was to it, but that it had some more mischievous author; and said, with great indignation, that she would have him racked to produce his author: I replyed, 'Nay, madame, he is a doctor, never rack his person, but rack his stile; let him have pen, inke, and paper, and help of bookes, and be enjoined to continue the storie where it breaketh off, and I will undertake by collecting the stiles to judge whether he were author or no.3 As Bacon suggested, the very title of The First Part seemed to promise more to come. And indeed, many were calling for more of the story but, as we shall see, for reasons other than Bacon's. 'No book ever sold better,' recalled John Wolfe, its publisher, in testimony given the following year. 'The people divers times since called to procure the continuation of the history by the same author,' claimed Wolfe, who 2This remark to Willam Lambarde, her Keeper of the Rolls (4 August 1601), was first reported by John Nichols in The Progresses and Public Processions of Queen Elizabeth (2nd ed., 1823), iii, 552; cited by E. K. Chambers, The Elizabethan Stage, (4 vols., Oxford, 1961), ii, 206; See also Historical MSS Commission, Fourth Report (1874), col. 330. The exchange with Lambarde, cited by almost all commentators upon perceived parallels between Richard and Elizabeth, includes the queen's celebrated remark connecting the Essex rebellion with the theatrical popularity of the Richard story: '... this tragedy was played 40 times in open streets and houses.' 3 Sir Francis Bacon his Apologie, in Certain Imputations Concerning the Late Earle of Essex (1604), 34-5. Bacon dates the exchange at about the middle of Michaelmas term, 1599. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.234, on 28 Sep 2021 at 03:44:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500001999 THE LIFE AND RAIGNE OF KING HENRIE IIII 3 'entreated him to go forward with it, and thinks he hath done some part of it.'4 Wolfe - who probably knew more than he cared to admit - was correct in that belief. After all, he had published Hayward's effort under a title that anticipated a sequel. And Bacon seems to have at least suspected that Hayward had more to offer about Henry. He had noticed that Hayward's story, as published, does not terminate with the quarto text, but abruptly 'breaketh off.' The modern reader who would rack the doctor's style will have the advantage both of Bacon and of Wolfe's customers, for Hayward did in fact continue the controversial story 'where it breaketh off' The suppression of The First Part effectively doomed publication by Hayward of anything further on Henry IV, so the anticipated con- tinuation never saw print. But that sequel, which I have short-titled The Second Part, now appears for the first time below. The present edition, by marrying in print Hayward's two sequential texts as one continuous account, thus completes a union that for almost 400 years has remained ratum, sed non consummatum. The discovery of a sequel to Hayward's provocative published segment on Henry IV affords us a wider lens through which to survey an early modern historian's early work. To present both segments for the first time in a useful modern format is the principal goal of the present edition. The significance of this amplified material for the modern student is manifold, and it is hoped that this edition will stimulate a reassessment of this interesting historiographer. A good deal of the attention Hayward has received until now has understandably been focussed upon extrinsic matters. As set forth below, some of his contemporaries, with only The First Part to guide their judgments about his work, found it more political than scholarly, and it was their continuing emphasis upon its topicality that prompted the bitterness Hayward expressed to Prince Henry. It is difficult to fault them. The queen would naturally have thought a book focussed upon the overthrow and murder of a legitimate prince 'a seditious prelude.' Her attorney-general, Edward Coke, was deeply suspicious of a book limited to 'that story only' (a phrase repeated often in the record of offical inquiries into Hayward's motives); he wondered, in 1600, why Hayward selected 'a storie 200 yere olde, and publisheth it this last yere.'5 The controversy that greeted its publication (described below) secured The First Part not only a spectacular popularity, but inci- dentally an unusual bibliographical history as well. Its first edition sold 4Wolfe's testimony, July 1600: PRO SP 12/275, no- 2^. 5 PRO SP 12/275, no. 25. (Coke's investigation of the Hayward case is detailed below.) Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.234, on 28 Sep 2021 at 03:44:21, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0068690500001999 4 THE LIFE AND RAIGNE OF KING HENRIE IIII a thousand copies, before a much-altered second edition, reportedly an even larger press-run, was banned and burned. Even after its immedi- ate notoriety had passed and Elizabeth and Essex were dead, the book continued to acquire fresh political topicality. Several more editions, some counterfeit, were brought out during the next forty years in defiance of the early suppression order, and it was eventually published in 1642 as a companion-piece to Sir Robert Cotton's Life of Henry III (a deliberately topical book, itself unlicensed when it appeared in 1627). This uncommon notoriety offers the modern reader - as it imposed upon Hayward — dramatic instruction about public attitudes and preoccupations between the 1590s and the 1640s.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Francis Bacon, Shakespeare & the Earl of Essex
    Francis Bacon, Shakespeare & the Earl of Essex A historical sketch of Francis Bacon’s association with Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, the Shakespeare Circle, the Essex Rebellion and Essex’s Trial. Author: Peter Dawkins Francis Bacon and his brother Anthony, sons of Sir Nicholas Bacon, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, and his second wife, Lady Anne (née Cooke), had known Robert and Penelope Devereux from childhood, as they had once been neighbours, the Bacon family living in York House and the Devereux family living next door in Durham House. Also close to York House was Burghley House, home of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, who was married to Lady Mildred (née Cooke), Lady Anne’s sister. From a young age, Francis and Anthony Bacon were often at Burghley House, and, in this way, they also came to know and befriend Philip and Mary Sidney, who were many times left in the care of the Cecils during Sir Henry Sidney’s absences in Ireland during the years 1565-1571. When Walter Devereux, 1st Earl of Essex, died on 22 September 1576, his son Robert, now the 2nd Earl of Essex, became a ward of Sir William Cecil, Lord Burghley, and soon after, in 1577, came to live at Burghley House amongst the Cecil household. That same year (1577) Mary Sidney married Henry Herbert, 2nd Earl of Pembroke, and in 1578 the widowed Lady Essex (Lettice Knollys) married the Queen's favourite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Leicester was a major patron of poets, and it was at Leicester House that the English Areopagus of poets used to meet during the 1580s.
    [Show full text]
  • November 26, 2018
    November 26, 2018 REBECCA LEMON Mailing Address: website: rebeccalemon.org Department of English email: [email protected] University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-0354 CURRENT ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT Professor, Department of English, University of Southern California PUBLICATIONS Books Addiction and Devotion in Early Modern England. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018. In uncovering contradictory but related understandings of addiction as devotion and compulsion in the early modern period, this book illuminates a previously-buried conception of addiction as a form of devotion at once laudable, difficult, extraordinary, and even heroic. Surveying the sixteenth century invocations of addiction – in dramatic literature and poetry, as well as political, theological and legal tracts – reveals that one might be addicted to study, friendship, love, or God. Yet this book also uncovers an early modern understanding of addiction to alcohol, evident in medical, theological and literary texts, at least a century earlier than medical historians and lexicographers have posited. Reviews: The American Interest (April, 2018) Reading Religion: A Publication of the American Academy of Religion (June, 2018) King Richard III: Language and Writing. Bloomsbury Arden Shakespeare. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2018. In his play King Richard III, Shakespeare presents a masterful study in the language of deception and manipulation in the character of Richard, who lies, persuades and kills on his path to the throne. This book provides insight into the rhetoric of key speeches and pays specific attention to the changing perceptions of King Richard III in history and art. The final section of this volume focuses on giving students the necessary tools and skills needed for writing effective and comprehensive essays.
    [Show full text]
  • Life of Sir Francis Bacon
    The Life of Sir Francis Bacon A brief historical sketch of the life of the poet, philosopher, statesman and lord chancellor, Sir Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam of Verulam, Viscount St Alban. Author: Peter Dawkins Birth, Upbringing and Education Francis Bacon was born at York House, Charing Cross, London, on 22 January 1561. He was baptised at St Martin-in-the-Fields on 25 January 1561 as second son of Sir Nicholas and Lady Ann Bacon. His father was Lord Keeper of the Great Seal of England and his mother was one of the most highly educated and accomplished women of her time, second daughter of the great scholar and humanist, Sir Anthony Cooke, and sister of Sir Anthony’s eldest daughter, Mildred, wife of Sir William Cecil, Principal Secretary of State, who later became Lord Burghley (1571) and the Queen’s Lord High Treasurer (1572). Both Sir Nicholas and Sir William, besides holding the highest political offices under Queen Elizabeth, were patrons and active promoters of the arts and sciences. The two families, the Cecils and the Bacons, maintained close contact with each other and often visited each other’s homes. As a child Francis showed more than unusual promise and attracted the attention of Queen Elizabeth, who liked to call him her “young Lord Keeper”. Together with his brother Anthony, he was given a privileged private education by the best teachers of the time, which took place mainly at York House, the Lord Keeper's London residence—a thriving hub of State business that adjoined York Place, the Queen's Palace of Whitehall, or in the vacations at Sir Nicholas’ country home of Gorhambury, St Albans, with visits to Theobalds House, Sir William Cecil’s nearby country estate, and Gidea Hall, the country home of Sir Anthony Cook, Francis’ learnèd grandfather and principal tutor.1 Francis also had regular access to Cecil House, the London mansion of his uncle, which operated as a school for young noblemen who included, at one time or another, the Earls of Oxford, Surrey, Rutland, Southampton and Essex, plus Fulke Greville and Sir Philip Sidney.
    [Show full text]
  • Shakespeare's <I>Richard II</I> and <I>Henry V</I> and Political
    University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Honors Scholar Theses Honors Scholar Program Spring 5-9-2010 Shakespeare's Richard II and Henry V and Political Rebellions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I Sarah J. Scannell University of Connecticut - Storrs, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses Part of the Literature in English, British Isles Commons Recommended Citation Scannell, Sarah J., "Shakespeare's Richard II and Henry V and Political Rebellions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I" (2010). Honors Scholar Theses. 138. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses/138 Shakespeare’s Richard II and Henry V and Political Rebellions in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth I Sarah Scannell April 30, 2010 University of Connecticut (Storrs) Advisors: Professors Elizabeth Hart and Jonathan Hufstader Scannell 1 I. Introduction Although she was beloved by her subjects during her reign, Queen Elizabeth I was not immune to attacks and conspiracies against her rule. There were a number of treasonous plots to usurp her, but perhaps the two most memorable incidents involved the attempts by Mary, Queen of Scots and the failed coup by the Second Earl of Essex, Robert Devereux. These two events left a strong impression on the queen as well as her subjects, and they inevitably made their way into the literature of the time. William Shakespeare, a well-educated and well-connected playwright, often used contemporary events or popular sentiments in his plays – sometimes for comedic effect or sometimes to create a critical commentary on the government or the country. His plays Richard II and Henry V are especially good examples of such uses.
    [Show full text]
  • Men Born in Britain Are Britons": the Development of Britishness During the Long Sixteenth Century, 1502-1615
    Georgia State University ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University History Theses Department of History Spring 5-9-2015 "All Men Born in Britain Are Britons": The Development of Britishness During the Long Sixteenth Century, 1502-1615 Zachary Bates Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_theses Recommended Citation Bates, Zachary, ""All Men Born in Britain Are Britons": The Development of Britishness During the Long Sixteenth Century, 1502-1615." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2015. https://scholarworks.gsu.edu/history_theses/91 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of History at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in History Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. “ALL MEN BORN IN BRITAIN ARE BRITONS”: THE DEVELOPMENT OF BRITISHNESS DURING THE LONG SIXTEENTH CENTURY, 1502-1615 by Zachary Bates Under the direction of Jacob Selwood, PhD ABSTRACT The sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries saw the development of a British identity that was contingent upon a shared dynasty through intermarriage and the composite monarchy of James VI and I, religious developments that led to both Scotland and England breaking with the Roman Catholic Church, and especially England’s overseas colonial empire. Using sources representative of the nascent print culture, the Calendar of State Papers , the Letters and Papers of Henry VIII , and Journals from the House of Commons, this project argues that contrary to prior historical analysis of Britain, empire, and English imperialism that British identity in the sixteenth century became a collaborative process which included both Scots and English.
    [Show full text]
  • Introduction Alexandra Gajda and Paul Cavill
    Chapter 1 - Introduction Alexandra Gajda and Paul Cavill he Speaker of the House of Commons had a difficult brief when he Taddressed James VI and I and the House of Lords at the prorogation of the new king’s first parliament on 7 July 1604. After a tetchy session, Sir Edward Phelips attempted to re-establish the rapport between the monarch and the Commons. Faced with this tricky assignment, Phelips began his speech with an unobjectionable platitude: HISTORY, most high and mighty Sovereign, is truly approved to be the Treasure of Times past, the Light of Truth, the Memory of Life, the Guide and Image of Man’s present Estate, Pattern of Things to come, and the true Work-mistress of Experience, the Mother of Knowledge; for therein, as in a Crystal, there is not only presented unto our Views the Virtue, but the Vices; the Perfections, but the Defects; the Good, but the Evil; the Lives, but the Death, of all precedent Governors and Government, which held the Reins of this Imperial Regiment.1 The king and most of Phelips’s audience doubtless recognised that he was quoting Cicero’s praise of history.2 By then extolling the settled laws of kingdoms, Phelips encouraged James to respect the time-hallowed political arrangements of his new southern realm. England, he stated, ‘hath ever been managed with One Idea, or Form of Government’, a happy blend of princely, senatorial and magisterial virtues. Yet the session had demonstrated that history, far from illuminating truth, rather served or even exacerbated disa- greements over the Union of the Crowns and over the king’s ancient preroga- tive rights of purveyance and wardship.
    [Show full text]
  • Copyright by Matthew Bran Davies
    Copyright by Matthew Bran Davies The Dissertation Committee for Matthew Bran Davies certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: The 2nd Earl of Essex and the History Players: the Factional Writing of John Hayward, William Shakespeare, Samuel Daniel, and George Chapman. Committee: ____________________________________ Frank Whigham, Supervisor ____________________________________ James Loehlin ____________________________________ J.K. Barret ____________________________________ Alan Friedman ____________________________________ Brian Levack The 2nd Earl of Essex and the History Players: the Factional Writing of John Hayward, William Shakespeare, Samuel Daniel, and George Chapman By Matthew Bran Davies, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin December 2012 To my mother, For her impeccable timing The 2nd Earl of Essex and the History Players: the Factional Writing of John Hayward, William Shakespeare, Samuel Daniel, and George Chapman Matthew Bran Davies, Ph.D. The University of Texas at Austin, 2012 Supervisor: Frank Whigham Robert Devereux, 2nd Earl of Essex, Queen Elizabeth’s last favorite and the last man she executed for treason, has been harshly treated by posterity. Given his leading role at court in what Patrick Collinson calls the “nasty nineties,” Essex has taken much of the blame for the divisive factional politics of Elizabeth’s final decade. However, leading recent efforts to salvage Essex’s reputation, historian Paul Hammer has uncovered a sophisticated bureaucracy operated by highly educated scholars and led by an intelligent, cultivated statesman. A considerable number of high-profile literary figures, moreover, willingly engaged with this ambitiously expanding Essex faction.
    [Show full text]
  • January 2014 Newsletter
    The Felixstowe Society Newsletter Issue Number 105 Contents 1 January 2014 2 The Felixstowe Society 3 Notes from the Chairman 4 Special Meeting with MP 4 Speaker Meetings for 2014 5 Social Events for 2014 6 Heritage Week End 6 Annual Quiz 7 Felixstowe Walkers - diary 9 Environmental Awards 10 Report on Visit to Sandringham 11 Report on Visit to Woodbridge 12 Report on Visit to Essex 13 Talk on Felixstowe’s Carnivals 14 Talk on Middle Ages in Felixstowe 16 The Honorable Douglas Tollemache 19 Colonel George Tomline 21 Sir John Hayward 24 I do like to be beside the seaside 27 Research Corner 19 - 1954 Town Guide 31 Planning applications 34 U3A Local History Talks 35 Join the Society Registered Charity No. 277442 Founded 1978 The Felixstowe Society is established for the public benefit of people who either live or work in Felixstowe and Walton. Members are also very welcome from the Trimleys and the surrounding villages. The Society endeavours to: stimulate public interest in these areas, promote high standards of planning and architecture and secure the improvement, protection, development and preservation of the local environment. ! Chairman: Roger Baker, 5 Princes Gardens, Felixstowe, IP11 7RH, 282526 ! Vice Chairman: Philip Hadwen, 54 Fairfield Ave., Felixstowe, IP11 9JJ, 286008 ! Secretary: Trish Hann, 49 Foxgrove Lane, Felixstowe, IP11 7JU, 271902 ! Treasurer: Susanne Barsby, 1 Berners Road, Felixstowe, IP11 7LF, 276602 Membership Subscriptions !!!Annual Membership - single £7!! ! ! !!!Joint Membership - two people at same address £10 !!!Corporate Membership (for local organisations !!!!who wish to support the Society) !!!!Non - commercial £15!! ! ! ! !!! !! Commercial £20!! ! ! ! ! !!! Young people under the age of 18 free!! !!!! ! The subscription runs from the 1 January.
    [Show full text]
  • John Trussell in Literary London (1575-1596)
    University of Southampton Research Repository ePrints Soton Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF HUMANITIES Department of History John Trussell: A Life (1575-1648) by Robert Frederick William Smith Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy July 2013 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF HUMANITIES History Doctor of Philosophy JOHN TRUSSELL: A LIFE (1575-1648) by Robert Frederick William Smith John Trussell of Winchester (1575-1648) was a poet, historian and civic official. His life and works have been little studied, but they are broad in scope, and provide a fascinating insight into early modern religious and political affiliations and the role that manuscript literature of several kinds could play in provincial urban society. Using his extensive unpublished writings as well as printed works, this, the first full-length biography of Trussell, describes his career and the place of literature within it.
    [Show full text]
  • Was Shakespeare an Essex Man?
    01 Bate 1686.qxd 13/11/09 13:43 Page 1 SHAKESPEARE LECTURE Was Shakespeare an Essex Man? JONATHAN BATE Fellow of the Academy SIR GELLY MEYRICK, steward to the Earl of Essex, had a busy day on Saturday, 7 February 1601. We do not know his exact movements in the morning, though he gave a man named Bucke forty shillings, part of a former debt, for scouring and oiling muskets. About a hundred of these weapons were being prepared at Essex House, the Earl’s London home, on the north side of the Thames in the legal district along what is now the Strand, centrally positioned with the court at Whitehall and Westminster to its west, the city and the Tower to the east and the Globe Theatre directly across the river. Dinner was taken in the middle of the day. Sir Gelly went the short distance from Essex House to the much humbler dwelling of a friend named Gunter, who lived by the Temple Gate. His companions at table were Sir William Constable, Lord Mounteagle, Sir Christopher Blunt, Sir Charles Percy, Henry Cuffe, Edward Bushell, Ellis Jones and perhaps Sir John Davies and Sir Joscelyn Percy. It must have been a fairly early—and quick—dinner, because by two o’clock most of them were ensconced in the theatre. Between dinner and the play, Sir Gelly seems to have returned briefly to Essex House, presumably to check on business and tell his men where he could be found if required urgently in the course of the afternoon. He accordingly arrived some time after the performance had begun.
    [Show full text]
  • Annals of the First Four Years of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth
    FOR USE IN LIBRARY ONLY DA 20 C17 no. 7 cop. 3 c. ' ANNALS OF THE FIRST FOUR YEARS OF THE QUEEN ELIZABET I, ONTARiO. V' BY SIR JOHN HAYWARD, KNT. D.C.L. EDITED FROM A MS. IN THE HARLEIAX COLLECTION, BY JOHN BRUCE, ESQ. F.S.A. LONDON: PRINTED FOR THE CAMDEN SOCIETY, BY JOHN BOWYEB NICHOLS AND SON, PARLIAMENT STREET, M.DCCC.XL. COUNCIL OF THE CAMDEN SOCIETY, ELECTED MAY 2, 1839. President, THE RIGHT HON. LORD FRANCIS EGERTON, M.P. THOMAS AMYOT, ESQ. F.R.S. Treas. S.A. Director. THE REV. PHILIP BLISS, D.C.L., F.S.A., Registrar of the University of Oxford. JOHN BRUCE, ESQ. F.S.A. Treasurer. JOHN PAYNE COLLIER, ESQ. F.S.A. C. PURTON COOPER, ESQ. Q.C., D.C.L., F.R.S., F.S.A. RT. HON. THOMAS PEREGRINE COURTENAY. T. CROFTON CROKER, ESQ. F.S.A., M.R.I.A. THE REV. ALEXANDER DYCE. SIR HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S., Sec. S.A. THE REV. JOSEPH HUNTER, F.S.A. JOHN HERMAN MERIVALE, ESQ. F.S.A. JOHN GAGE ROKEWODE, ESQ. F.R.S., Director S.A. THOMAS STAPLETON, ESQ. F.S.A. WILLIAM J. THOMS, ESQ. F.S.A. Secretary. THOMAS WRIGHT, ESQ. M.A., F.S.A. INTRODUCTION. WHEN some future Hallam, or, I would rather say, when Mr. Hallam, in some future edition of his History of European Literature,, shall have bestowed a critical attention upon the works of our national historians, the author of the following Annals will be found to have occupied a prominent literary position.
    [Show full text]
  • Elite Prosopography in Elizabethan Legal History Michael Stuckey
    Prosopon: The Journal of Prosopography 1 (2006) ‘...this Society tendeth...’: Elite Prosopography in Elizabethan Legal History Michael Stuckey 1. Introduction The so-called Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries convened on a regular basis, mostly during Term times and always in London, during the fifteen-eighties and fifteen- nineties. The group’s routine meetings continued into at least the first few years of the seventeenth century, but in all likelihood these gatherings did not carry on very long into the reign of the new king, James I. Although the company never achieved any official sanction, this circle of associates included in their number many of the sharpest legal and historical intellects of the period: William Camden, John Dodderidge, John Stow, Robert Cotton, James Ley, William Lambarde, Francis Thynne, John Davies, and Henry Spelman were some of the more renowned participants of the apparent forty or forty-two members of the Society. Through its enquiries, the Society of Antiquaries encouraged the establishment of a scholarly environment amongst English thinkers which was eventually to become instrumental to the critical examination of legal and institutional history. The extant substantive product of the Society is a collection of papers, which appear to have originally been read by particular members at some of the group’s meetings. Collected and edited in the early eighteenth century, under the title Curious Discourses, these short pieces communicate a real inquisitiveness about the emergence and the history of English laws, customs, and institutions. The ‘discourses’ also demonstrate the adoption of novel methods of scholarly inquiry in that the papers evidence attempts to utilise what we now describe as primary source materials, which, after the dissolution of the monasteries, had become more readily available to a wider community of scholars.
    [Show full text]