THE REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON, B.D.
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Reverend David Clarkson HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
1622
February (1621, Old Style): David Clarkson was born in Bradford, Yorkshire, England, a son of a respectable yeoman of that town, Robert Clarkson (it appears that this family was among the straitest of Puritans).
March 3, Sunday (1621, Old Style): David Clarkson was baptized. Since he would go young to the University of Clare Hall, Cambridge, we hypothesize that he would be a grammar scholar at the school founded in his native place by the munificence of Edward VI. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1640
It was probably during this year of the meeting of the Long Parliament, that David Clarkson entered Clare Hall, Cambridge.
At this point it was being reported in England that Catholic Irish butchers were hamstringing or knee-capping their Protestant rival butchers, who were retaliating by hanging Catholic Irish butchers from meat hooks. Some of this, presumably, was exaggeration.
WHAT I’M WRITING IS TRUE BUT NEVER MIND YOU CAN ALWAYS LIE TO YOURSELF
Reverend David Clarkson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
1641
1641 Events of the English Civil War: • 16th February: The Triennial Act. • 3rd May: The 1st Army Plot was revealed. • 10th May: The Act of Attainder against Strafford. • 12th May: Strafford was executed. • 24th June: The Ten Propositions. • 14th August: King Charles I went to Edinburgh to ratify the treaty of London. • 23rd October: An Irish rebellion broke out. • 30th October: The 2nd Army Plot was revealed. • 1st December: The Grand Remonstance was presented to King Charles I.
NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT
Reverend David Clarkson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1642
1642 Events of the English Civil War: • 5th January: King Charles I failed to arrest 6 of his leading opponents. • 5th March: The Militia Ordinance. • 23rd April: Hotham barred Hull to the king. • 1st June: The Nineteen Propositions. • 11th June: The Commissions of Array. • 15th July: There was fighting in Manchester. • 4th August: The Battle of Marshall’s Elm. • 22nd August: The royal standard was raised at Nottingham. • 22d September: The Episcopacy was suspended. The Royalists won the Battle of Powick Bridge. • 23rd October: The initial battle of Edgehill. • 12th November: The Storm of Brentford. • 13th November: The Royalists turned back at Turnham Green.
January (1641, Old Style): The town of Bradford in Yorkshire was being defended for the Parliament by Sir Thomas Fairfax and his soldiers. When Royalists under Sir William Saville approached, they were compelled to retreat to Leeds. Young David Clarkson must have returned from Cambridge to visit his family after this alarm, for he would be trapped in his native town when the Royalists returned a few months later under the Earl of Newcastle and took the town by storm. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
June: Royalists led by the Earl of Newcastle returned to the town of Bradford, Yorkshire, this time took the town by storm. At first David Clarkson escaped capture by hiding himself in a thick holly-tree, but it is likely that they got their hands on him and took him as a prisoner to Leeds to exchange for one or another Royalist prisoner held by the Parliamentarians (he then would return to Cambridge, eventually to be exalted to competency and honor). HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1643
1643 Events of the English Civil War: • 1st February: Negotiations opened at Oxford. • 23rd February: Queen Henrietta returned from Europe with arms and ammunition. • 27th March: The 1st Odinace for Sequestration. • 14th April: The Oxford talks broke down. • 24th May: The Treatise of Monarchy was published. • 24th June: The Battle of Chalgrove Field. • 30th June: The Battle of Adwalton Moor. • 1st July: The Westminster Assembly of Divines met. • 5th July: The Battle of Lansdown. • 13th July: The Battle of Roundway Down. • 27th July: The army of Oliver Cromwell won at Gainsborough. • 6th September: The Earl of Essex relieved Gloucester. • 20th September: The Parliamentarians won the 1st battle at Newbury. • 25th September: The Solemn League and Covenant. • 11th October: The Battle of Winceby. • 8th December: John Pym died. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
1644
1644 Events of the English Civil War: • 19th January: A Scottish army invaded England. • 22nd January: The Oxford Parliament met. • 25th January: The Battle of Nantwich. The Committee of both Kingdoms was set up. • 18th February: The defense of Hopton Castle. • 29th March: The Battle of Cheriton. • 11th April: The Battle of Selby. • 29th June: The Parliamentarians won the Battle of Cropredy Bridge. • 2nd July: The Parliamentarians won the Battle of Marston Moor. • 14th July: Queen Henrietta Maria left England. • 16th July: The surrender of York. • 1st September: Essex’s army surrendered to Carles at Lostwithiel. • 27th October: The 2nd Battle of Newbury. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1645
1645 Events of the English Civil War: • 4th January: Ordinance for Directory of Worship. • 10th January: Archbishop William Laud was executed. • 29th January: Uxbridge negotiations opened. • 2nd February: The Royalists won the Battle of Inverlochy. • 17th February: The New Model Army Ordinance. • 3rd April: The Self Denying Ordinance. • 9th May: The Royalists won the Battle of Auldearn. • 30th May: The Storm of Leicester. • 14th June: The Parliamentarians won the Battle of Naseby. • 10th July: The Parliamentarians won the Battle of Langport. • 1st August: The Parliamentarians won the Battle of Colby Moor. • 15th August: The Royalists won the Battle of Kilsyth. • 25th August: Glamorgan’s Treaty with the Irish. • 10th September: The Fall of Bristol. • 13th September: The Battle of Philiphaugh. • 20th September: Glamorgan’s second Treaty. • 24th September: The Parliamentarians won the Battle of Rowton Heath. • 1st November: The Parliamentarians won the Battle of Mold. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
May 5, Monday (Old Style): Mr. Peter Gunning departed to become Bishop of Ely and the Earl of Manchester appointed Mr. David Clarkson, who was a congregational dissenter in his views of church government, to succeed him as Bishop of Chichester. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1646
1646 Events of the English Civil War: • January: The exposure of King Charles I’s secret treaty with the Kilkenny government. • 3rd February: Chester surrendered to the Parliamentarians. • 21st March: The Parliamentarians won the Battle of Stow-on-the-Wold. • 5th May: King Charles I surrendered to the Scots besieging Newark. • 5th June: Confederation forces won the Battle of Benburb. • July: Parliament presented King Charles I with the Newcastle propositions. • 4th August: The treaty between Kilkenny and Ormund. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
1647
1647 Events of the English Civil War: • 30th January: The Scots surrendered King Charles I to the English. • 21st March: The 1st Saffron Walden meeting of Members of Parliament with army officers. • 15th April: The 2nd Saffron Walden meeting of Members of Parliament with army officers. • 28th April: Agitators addressed the House of Commons. • 7th May: The 3rd Saffron Walden meeting of Members of Parliament with army officers. • 4th June: King Charles I was removed to Newmarket. • 5th June: The Solemn Engagement. • 16th June: The New Model Army moved against Eleven Members. • 14th July: The Declaration of the New Model Army. • 23rd July: The Heads of Proposals was submitted to King Charles I. • 30th July: The Speaker and Independent MPs fled to the Army. • 6th August: The Army occupied London. • 8th August: The Battle of Dangan Hill. • 20th August: The Null and Void Ordinance. • 7th September: The Hampton Court Proposals. • 15th October: The Case of the Army Truly Stated. • 28th October: The Agreement of the People. The Putney Debates began. • 11th November: The Four Bills. • 24th December: The Four Bills were presented to King Charles I. • 25th December: There were riots due to the abolition of Christmas. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
• 26th December: King Charles I and the Scots entered into The Engagement.
April 29, Thursday (Old Style): Mr. David Clarkson was a fellow and a tutor at Clare Hall, Cambridge and received as his pupil John Tillotson (who would succeed him when he resigned his fellowship during about November 1651 and eventually would be made Archbishop of Canterbury).
CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT
Reverend David Clarkson “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
1648
1648 Events of the English Civil War: • 3rd January: The vote on No Addresses. • 23rd March: Laugharne’s revolt in Wales. • 8th May: The Battle of St Fagans. • 24th May: The House of Commons voted to negotiate with King Charles II. • 26th May: The failure of the Kentish revolt. • 27th May: The Navy revolted against the Parliament. • 1st June: The Battle of Maidstone. • 8th June: The rising in Essex. • 13th June: Colchester Castle was seized. • 10th July: The Battle of St Neots. • 17th August: The Battle of Preston. • 18th August: The Battle of Wigan. • 24th August: Repeal of the vote on No Addresses. • 25th August: The Duke of Hamilton surrendered. • 27th August: Colchestre Castle surrendered. • 11th September: The Leveller’s Humble Petition. • 18th September: The Newport Treaty talks began. • 29th October: The assassination of Rainsborough. • 16th November: The Remonstrance of the Army. • 2nd December: The Army occupied London. • 6th December: Pride’s Purge. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1649
1649 Events of the English Civil War: • 4th January: The assumption of full power by House of Commons. • 20th January: The commencement of the trial of King Charles I. • 30th January: The execution of Charles I. • 5th February: King Charles II was proclaimed in Scotland. • 8th February: The Eikon Basilike was printed. • 14th February: The Council of State. • 17th March: The abolition of the monarchy.
• 19th March: The abolition of the House of Lords. • 27th April: The execution of Lockyer the mutineer. • 15th May: A mutiny was suppressed at Burford. • 19th May: England proclaimed itself a Commonwealth. • 2nd August: The Battle of Rathmines. • 11th September: The Drogheda slaughter. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
• 11th October: The Wexford slaughter. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1651
November: At about this point Mr. David Clarkson resigned his fellowship at Clare Hall, Cambridge, presumably on account of his marriage with Elizabeth Holcroft,1 with his pupil John Tillotson succeeding him as fellow and tutor (Tillotson eventually would be made Archbishop of Canterbury).
1. It appears that the family would produce four children, one son, Robert, named after his grandfather, and three daughters, Rebecca, Gertrude, and Katherine. We know nothing of the son, but know that Rebecca, the eldest, married, while the other two daughters did not marry. Rebecca and Gertrude authored published accounts of their religious sensibilities. HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
1660
With the Convention Parliament restoring King Charles II to the throne of England and the royal court returning to London from exile in Paris, the religious freedom of Puritans such as the Reverend David Clarkson would be beginning to be restricted, by means of what was known as the Clarendon code. At the restoration of the Stuarts, the Puritan leaders Major-General William Goffe and his father-in-law Lieutenant- General Edward Whalley, having signed the death warrant of Charles I and being thus “regicides,” fled for their lives to Vevay, on the borders of the Lake of Geneva, but being in danger of capture they fled on, escorted by Daniel Gookin, to America, winding up for a brief period under Gookin’s protection in Cambridge in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and then for a longer period in New Haven.2
WALDEN: I have occasional visits in the long winter evenings, when PEOPLE OF the snow falls fast and the wind howls in the wood, from an old WALDEN settler and original proprietor, who is reported to have dug Walden Pond, and stoned it, and fringed it with pine woods; who tells me stories of old time and of new eternity; and between us we manage to pass a cheerful evening with social mirth and pleasant views of things, even without apples or cider, –a most wise and humorous friend, whom I love much, who keeps himself more secret than ever did Goffe or Whalley; and though he is thought to be dead, none can show where he is buried. An elderly dame, too, dwells in my neighborhood, invisible to most persons, in whose odorous herb garden I love to stroll sometimes, gathering simples and listening to her fables; for she has a genius of unequalled fertility, and her memory runs back farther than mythology, and she can tell me the original of every fable, and on what fact every one is founded, for the incidents occurred when she was young. A ruddy and lusty old dame, who delights in all weathers and seasons, and is likely to outlive all her children yet.
MAJOR-GENERAL WILLIAM GOFFE LT.-GENERAL EDWARD WHALLEY
Gookin would serve Cambridge as Selectman from 1660 to 1672. A “King’s Commission” would report to London that he had been less than cooperative in their inquiry as to the whereabouts of the two regicides — in that he had declined to deliver up some cattle they were supposing to be the property of this pair.
2. For more on the regicides, consult Alexander Winston’s “The Hunt for the Regicides” in the anthology A SENSE OF HISTORY (NY: American Heritage, 1985, pages 60-71). Sometimes it is good for us to practice being non-Eurocentric, therefore please take note that all the New England Puritans were regicides, the king they murdered being one they were terming King Phillip, who was otherwise known as Metacom or Metacomet. After they shot him in the back while he was trying to flee through a swamp practically naked, they quartered his body and hung the quarters in a tree, and took off his crippled hand for exhibition in local saloons, and took off his head to stick upon a pole in their capital town. Here’s a parallel that those of us who find this sort of thing interesting will find interesting: A number of years later, presumably after the skull of Metacomet had been pretty well cleaned off and had stopped stinking, a Puritan reverend reached up and pulled off this American king’s lower jaw, and took it home to his family as a souvenir. Meanwhile, in England, an aristocratic family was being discovered to have in its possession a salt-cellar made from a human neck vertebra neatly sliced through — and so the Queen of England had this grisly object confiscated, and interred it with her ancestor Charles I. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON HDT WHAT? INDEX
REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON DAVID CLARKSON
1662
August 24, Sunday (Old Style), Bartholomew’s-day: The Restoration had produced an Act of Uniformity, which came into operation on this date and removed about 2,000 other divines from their pulpits, including the Reverend David Clarkson, who up to that point had held the living of Mortlake in the county of Surrey, a living amounting to £40 per year paid out of the great tithes. For a decade after this ejectment the Reverend would devote himself to reading and meditation, shifting from one place of obscurity to another — “till the times suffered him to appear openly.”
Unable to swear that the Solemn League and Covenant they had taken was not binding on those who had taken it, as required by the “Bartholomew Act” of 1662, 13 Cambridge fellows needed to resign their fellowships. The Reverend John Wray or Ray also resigned, although this was for him a matter of conscience only as he had not himself taken this oath and had not been in fellowship with it — he considered nevertheless that upon his colleagues who had subscribed to it, such a pledge might indeed be morally binding. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1672
March 15, Friday (1671, Old Style): Publication of the 1st Declaration of Indulgence. At some point after this, the Reverend David Clarkson would emerge from his retirement and take part in anti-Papist activities, such as a sermon to dissenters on the topic “the Doctrine of Justification is dangerously corrupted in the Roman Church.” He would refrain from Jesuit-bashing with the thought that actually they weren’t more corrupt than the other elements of this Catholic church. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1682
July: The Reverend David Clarkson, who was in his 60th year, was elected as a co-pastor with Dr. Owen, who was ill. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1683
August 24, Friday (Old Style): Dr. Owen died. The Reverend David Clarkson, who up to this point had been his co- pastor, would offer a funeral sermon on the following Lord’s-day. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1686
June 13, Sunday (Old Style): The Reverend David Clarkson made his will: “If Robert will prove a scholar I give unto him all my Bookes excepting what English Bookes his Mother thinks fitt to take to her selfe.”
June 14, Monday (Old Style): David Clarkson died. His funeral sermon would be preached by the Reverend William Bates. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
1688
A DISCOURSE OF THE SAVING GRACE OF GOD, BY THE LATE REVEREND AND LEARNED DAVID CLARKSON, MINISTER OF THE GOSPEL (London: Printed by J. Astwood, for Tho. Parkhurst).
THE SAVING GRACE OF GOD
Henry Thoreau would have a copy of this in his personal library. It is not clear how this volume made its way to such a location, for it is clear that this Puritan dissenter was a “Christian Taliban.” According to the Reverend David Clarkson’s “The Children of God Should Not Be Partakers with Others in Their Sins” in THE WORKS OF DAVID CLARKSON (a publication of more than a thousand pages), the civil magistrate had an duty to execute idolaters: Magistrates are appointed to be ministers of God, that they may be a terror to evil works, and revengers to execute, Rom. 13:3- 4. That evil work which he is not a terror to he is guilty of. For this end he bears the sword, that those under him may be afraid to sin, and that the fear of suffering by him should be a restraint from sin. When he does not thus improve his power, the restraint is taken off, and sinners grow bold. This is the end of that great ordinance of justice, Deut. 13:11. The Lord commands that seducers, though they seem prophets, pretend visions, and work wonders ver. 1, shall be put to death, ver. 6, 9. And when justice is thus executed upon seducers, the Lord promises two happy issues and effects of such severity: all Israel shall hear and fear, ver. 11, and the evil shall be put away from them, ver. 5. It shall be put away, ye shall not be accessory to, charged with the guilt of it. Whereas the rule of contraries it follows, where such evil is tolerated, not put away, is chargeable upon them who tolerate it, suffer it to continue. HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
If the above were not to be construed as Christian Talibanism, it is hard to imagine how it might otherwise be construed. It is hard to imagine how a government thus constituted could avoid the execution of a person such as Thoreau, who would “sign off” from the officially sanctioned church community of his town. What might Thoreau have taken away from a reading such as this other than a profound distrust for all Puritanism?
“NARRATIVE HISTORY” IS FABULATION, HISTORY IS CHRONOLOGY
“Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project Reverend David Clarkson HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
COPYRIGHT NOTICE: In addition to the property of others, such as extensive quotations and reproductions of images, this “read-only” computer file contains a great deal of special work product of Austin Meredith, copyright 2014. Access to these interim materials will eventually be offered for a fee in order to recoup some of the costs of preparation. My hypercontext button invention which, instead of creating a hypertext leap through hyperspace —resulting in navigation problems— allows for an utter alteration of the context within which one is experiencing a specific content already being viewed, is claimed as proprietary to Austin Meredith — and therefore freely available for use by all. Limited permission to copy such files, or any material from such files, must be obtained in advance in writing from the “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project, 833 Berkeley St., Durham NC 27705. Please contact the project at
“It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.” – Remark by character “Garin Stevens” in William Faulkner’s INTRUDER IN THE DUST
Prepared: January 23, 2014 HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
ARRGH AUTOMATED RESEARCH REPORT
GENERATION HOTLINE
This stuff presumably looks to you as if it were generated by a human. Such is not the case. Instead, upon someone’s request we have pulled it out of the hat of a pirate that has grown out of the shoulder of our pet parrot “Laura” (depicted above). What these chronological lists are: they are research reports HDT WHAT? INDEX
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON
compiled by ARRGH algorithms out of a database of data modules which we term the Kouroo Contexture. This is data mining. To respond to such a request for information, we merely push a button.
Commonly, the first output of the program has obvious deficiencies and so we need to go back into the data modules stored in the contexture and do a minor amount of tweaking, and then we need to punch that button again and do a recompile of the chronology — but there is nothing here that remotely resembles the ordinary “writerly” process which you know and love. As the contents of this originating contexture improve, and as the programming improves, and as funding becomes available (to date no funding whatever has been needed in the creation of this facility, the entire operation being run out of pocket change) we expect a diminished need to do such tweaking and recompiling, and we fully expect to achieve a simulation of a generous and untiring robotic research librarian. Onward and upward in this brave new world.
First come first serve. There is no charge. Place your requests with
DAVID CLARKSON REVEREND DAVID CLARKSON