THE ELDER WILLIAM TRUMBULL: A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH SONIA P.ANDERSON THE papers of William Trumbull the elder (d. 1635) are celebrated among readers of this journal as the most expensive section of the most expensive archive purchased up to that time by the British Library.^ Their historical value is equally well known. A glance at the catalogue prepared by Peter Beal against the eventuality of their sale in separate lots reveals their extraordinary richness and diversity.^ Unlike the papers of Sir William Trumbull, they have remained intact and for nearly forty years have been open for public inspection in Reading or London. About half of them have been calendared in the reports of the Historical Manuscripts Commission.^ And yet the man behind the papers has remained curiously elusive. Trumbull's date and place of birth remain unknown. He was probably born in the late 1570s (before the register starts) at Stirton in the parish of Skipton-in-Craven in the West Riding of Yorkshire. Hill country in the heart of the Pennines, it was a far cry from the flat lands where he was to spend the rest of his life. His father John Turnebull was a husbandman there like his father before him; four generations were to stay in the same farm. His mother Elizabeth Brogden also came from a family long settled in the district. Turnbull and Trumbull both occur as Yorkshire names from at least the fourteenth century.* But the family claimed descent from the Roxburghshire Turnbulls, a turbulent border clan, and acknowledged as a cousin a Roman Catholic priest, John Troumball or Turnebull, who called himself a Scotsman.^ William Trumbull was to play the Scottish card occasionally at court during Somerset's ascendancy, and after his death his elder son obtained a grant of arms identical to those of the Scottish Turnbulls, Argent j bulls' heads erased sable^ horned and langued azure (with a bull's head crest) on grounds of descent from 'the ancient family of the Trumbulls in Scotland'.^ But Trumbull himself had sported quite a different coat, Afess between j lions rampant (with a lion rampant crest)/ to which it seems unlikely that he was entitled.^ We can only speculate on why he and some other members of his family changed their name from Turnbull (or Turnebull) to Trumbull. It was not a natural progression, according to Reaney: 'OE Trumbeald developed naturally to Trumball^ also spelled Trumbull. It is much more likely that this should be corrupted to Turnbull than that Turnbull should become an unintelligible Trumbull^ Trumble. '^ Wills have survived of Trumbull's grandfather Thomas Turnbull of Stirton (d. 1563), his grandmother Elizabeth Turnbull (d. 1581) and his father John Turnebull (d. 1603)/" No mention is made of Trumbull's mother in his father's will;" by the custom and use of York she would have received a third of his estate if still alive, with the children entitled to a further third.^^ Of the third part at the testator's disposal, the eldest son, Thomas, received 40s., and the youngest, Roger, the reversion of the testator's lease and all his husbandry gear. The residue was to be divided between Roger and the middle son, William. Both were named as executors, although only Roger proved the will. John Turnebull signed with his mark, but was not necessarily illiterate since he was already sick when he made his will and died a few weeks later.^^ All three of his sons could write, and the similarity of their hand^^ suggests that they may have had the same teacher, perhaps at Skipton Grammar School, founded in 1548. They remained intermittently in touch. Thomas came over to Brussels in 1611 for the christening of William's second son John, and named his own daughter Debora after William's wife. Roger continued to correspond from Stirton, where he had stayed on to help his father with the farm. He married locally and several of his eight children did the same, continuing to farm at Stirton and nearby. He died shortly before William in 1635, and his widow in 1654.^^ There were of course occasional complaints of neglect from *yoMr ever lovinge though poore brother...',^^ but on the whole Trumbull's relatives gave him far less trouble than those of most self-made men in the seventeenth century. He was also fortunate in his marriage. The only letter that survives from him to his wife Debora was written after about thirty years of marriage. It opens 'My dearest', playfully assuages her fears about whether he got wet on his journey ('having mett with some rayne when I was within some 5 or 6 miles of this towne, yett itt did not wett me very much, howsoever the ioys to meete our freinds in good health would have qualified the moysture'), continues with the hope that he can finish his business soon 'that I may have some leave to enioye thee quietly', and ends 'Thy most affectionate & Faithfull husband & friend'.^'' Her background was slightly superior to his own. Her father, Walter Downe of Beltring in the parish of East Peckham, Kent, was a yeoman with parcels of land in East Peckham and Yalding, on the Medway between Tonbridge and Maidstone. In 1591, when he made his will shortly before his death, his wife was dead and his elder son William already provided for. He left £5 to his other son John, and eight acres of land equally between his three daughters Joan, Anne and Debora. They also shared his moveable property with his daughter-in-law.^^ When Trumbull married Debora Downe (the date is unknown) he adopted Kent as his county and began to add to Debora's inheritance with further purchases in the same district. At his death he owned four houses and adjacent land in the parishes of East Peckham, Yalding, Wateringbury, Tudeley and Brenchley.^^ In 1623 he appears to have paid off £200 worth of debts incurred by Debora's brother William Downe, at his own suggestion.^^ Downe was the tenant of Otterbourne Manor near Winchester, a substantial farm belonging to Magdalen College, Oxford. He raised cattle and corn and also acted as rent collector for the college. For generations the Trumbulls visited their relatives in Hampshire, where the Downes still held Otterbourne 116 Fig. I. William Trumbull the elder; detail from an engraving by George Vertue of the 1617 portrait by Otto van Veen. By courtesy of the Trustees of the British Museum Manor Farm in 1720.^^ It can be no coincidence that the earliest known instance of William Trumbull's signature occurs on a letter of attorney which he witnessed on 4 September 1594 concerning rent collection at Otterbourne.^^ The principal signatory was William Dutson, who was to be his master for the next five years. The document is endorsed in Sir William Trumbull's hand, 'Mr. William Trumbull was an Apprentice to Mr. Dutson, or Dodson at Hampton on Thames who was an Attorney 4 Sept. 1594.' If the Downes were already tenants at Otterbourne, Trumbull may have met his wife through his work; if the marriage came first, Trumbull may have procured the tenancy for his brother-in-law. Dutson (or Dudson or Dodson) was employed at Hampton Court and occupied a lodge in the park. Trumbull may have lived either with him or with the Keeper of Hampton Court, who from 1593 was Charles Howard, Lord Howard of Effingham (created Earl of Nottingham in 1597). Our only information about this connection comes from an episode in 1615, when Trumbull interceded with the English government on behalf of Nottingham's great-grandson Hugh O'Donnell, titular Earl of Tyrconnell, an eight-year-old exile at the court of the Archdukes in Brussels. One of Trumbull's most trusted Irish informants, Fergus Donnell, carried a letter to England to put the old Lord 117 High Admiral in the picture. Nottingham received the information gratefully, reported Donnell; spoke very highly of Trumbull, and ' was pleased to discourse with me of your cariadg and great towardlines in your youthful dais when you were brought up in his Lordships house, where you begane to learne Spanishe of a copple of gentlemen Spaniards that weare taken by his Lordship at seae. '^^ They must have been taken either on the Cadiz expedition of 1596, or during Nottingham's last seagoing command in August 1599. By then Trumbull had become established as a useful young man about court, receiving occasional payments as a courier and enjoying a degree of competition for his services. One undated testimonial survives in the form of a letter from Thomas Trevor (also in Nottingham's service)^* to William Dudson, explaining that he has a vacancy for a clerk for which he has already turned down many applicants:' And as I am sought unto by others soe I am bold to make my self a playne sutor unto you for to bestowe your Master Trumbull on me for he is one soe well made & framed by you voide of all ill conditiones that I fancie hym more then any I knowe'.^^ Trumbull's lute book, now in Cambridge University Library,^^ which is thought to date from circa iS9S/^ provides further evidence of his contacts in the Elizabethan civil service around this time. The first name in the book is that of John Reynolds of Melcombe Regis, and the other names belong to the same circle. We know that another of Trumbull's oldest friends was Owen Reynolds, of the same family, who was the Privy Council's archivist - Keeper of the Council Chest - until his death in 1610, when he was succeeded by his assistant Thomas Locke, another long-standing friend.^^ By the summer of 1599 Trumbull was increasingly being called on when the Privy Council staff were overworked.