With the King at Oxford: A Tale of the Great Rebellion

by Alfred John Church

  CHAPTER III.

  OF THE PLAGUE AND OTHER MATTERS.

  I was well content both with my lodging at Master Rushworth's, thoughI thought, doubtless for want of grace, he was too puritanicallyinclined, and with the school. Our good parson had grounded me so wellin the rudiments of Latin that I took at the first a place beyond myyears; and I used such diligence and ability, if I may say so much ofmyself, that I lost not this advantage afterwards. Twice in the yearthere was held an examination of the scholars, or, as they call it,probation; and they that acquit themselves well therein are nominatedto a higher place. This promotion I never failed to gain, save thefirst time only, when I had been but three months in the school, andthis in a form which had none other so young as I. I do believe,indeed, that even then I had earned promotion; but the usher kept meback of set purpose, thinking this to be the best for me, for whichkindness, though it angered me at the time, I have since been mostgrateful. In the end it served me well, for, not to be tedious bydwelling over long on such matters, I had obtained at the firstprobation of 1636, of which year I shall shortly have more to say, amost excellent place in the school, being promoted into the fourthform, in which there was not, I remember, one scholar but had, at theleast, six months more of age than myself.

  But now there came a most grievous interruption, not to me only, whichhad been but a small matter, but to the prosperity of the wholenation. In the third year of my schooling (that is to say 1635) theplague broke out with no small violence in the City. And though itabated somewhat in the winter, as it commonly does, the cold seemingto discourage it, so that 'twas hoped it would depart altogether, yetin the year following, so soon as the spring-time began, it grew tosuch a height as had never before been known, so far as the memory ofliving man could reach. But there had been worse before, the BlackDeath, to wit, which left, 'twas said, scarce a tenth part of thepeople alive, and the Sweating sickness in the days of King HenryVIII. From this visitation the school suffered greatly. I do not saythat many scholars actually perished of the sickness, for of thesethere were not, I take it, more than three or four at the most. Butour numbers were sadly minished; for none came from the country,parents fearing to send their children into the midst of so deadly aninfection, and of the London scholars also many were kept at home,lest, mixing with their fellows, they should either take the diseaseor convey it upon their clothes. It was a dismal sight to see theclasses grow smaller, I may say, day after day. And when any boy wasseen to be absent, there were rumours that he was dead of the plague;and though these, as I have said, were, for the most part, not true,yet we that remained were not the less troubled. At the last, when ournumbers had dwindled down to a third or thereabouts of the full, camedown an order from the Court that the school be shut. And this wasdone on the seventeenth of May, 1636.

  I remember that we heard this news with a great shout of joy; for boyswould rejoice in holiday though it should be brought about by theending of the world; and now there was prospect of such a holiday asnever had been known; and indeed the scholars were not again assembledtogether for the space of a year and five months, though Mr. Edwards,the chief master, taught some boys during that whole time, lest theschool altogether ceasing to be, its property should be divertedelsewhere. But I was too young to be one of these.

  As for myself, there was no small questioning what had better be donewith me. My father indeed, as soon as there was talk of the schoolbeing shut up, had sent word that I should come home to him. But thiswas not easy to be done. For there was great fear throughout thecountry lest travellers from London should bring the infection of thedisease with them, so that the roads were diligently watched, and allthat were suspected of hailing thence were forthwith sent back,sometimes not without much maltreatment. This being so the river wasthe only highway that was left open. On this travellers were nothindered, provided only that they did not go forth from their boatinto the villages round about. And by this highway I did in the endreturn home.

  On the eleventh of June, for I remember that it was election day atthe school, though the customary festivities were intermitted byreason of the plague, comes Richard Beasley with his barge, havingwith him a load of timber, and what I counted of more worth by far,the commandment from my father that I should return with him. And thisI did about a sennight after, when he had finished the unloading ofhis cargo. We were six days on our journey, and I think that I neverhad so delightful a time. First it was no small joy to be quit for atime of London, which was indeed in those days a most dreadful place.None were seen in the streets save such as had urgent business; andthese walked at such speed as if death were after them, (as indeed ina sense it was,) holding a handkerchief or pomander with some scent,recommended by the faculty, to their noses, as a safeguard againstinfection. As for the gallants in their brave attire and the fairmatrons and damsels that had been wont to throng the public ways, theywere invisible, and the church bells never gave forth a merry peal,but were tolling continually, till indeed this was forbidden asaugmenting the terror of the citizens. And there passed continuallyalong the streets the funerals of the wealthier sort of people andtheir families. But as for the poorer, the dead-cart carried them totheir burying places, and this I, lying awake at night, have oftenheard rumbling awfully along, and also the cry of the men asking,whenever they saw a house shut up, whether there was anything forthem. And I must confess, though it be to my discredit, that MasterRushworth and his wife wearied me with over long exercises of prayersuch as they thought fitted for the occasion, not remembering mytender years. It may easily be concluded therefore that I wassufficiently glad to depart from London. And for the journey itself,it was, as I have said, delightful beyond all compare. We set out onthe nineteenth of June, being, as I remember, a Saturday, for Robert,though he had all things ready, would not begin his journey on aFriday, a scrupulousness at which I was not a little offended, beingabove all things desirous to depart. That night we lay at Richmond,and the day following also, being a Sunday, on which day WilliamBeasley was steadfast not to travel. He would say that, if a man carednot for his own soul, knowing it not to be worth a groat, he shouldhave regard to his beast, which must be priced at twenty shillings atthe least.

  We travelled without any mischance save that at Bray, where the riveris more than ordinary shallow, William Beasley's son having had therudder in charge, ran the barge on a shoal, and would have had a greatwhipping from his father but that I took the blame on myself; whichwas indeed but fair, for I was distracting the lad with my talk whenhe needed all his wits for his work. At some of the ferries we had toserve ourselves, for the ferrymen would not venture themselves near tothose that might be bringing, as they thought, the infection of thedisease from London. And when we would buy anything from the town andvillages, as eggs and milk, or the like, we left the money at anappointed place (the custom having grown up in former visitations),dropping it into a bowl of water; and the country folk afterwardsbrought their goods. And then, with a "God save you!" given andreturned, we went on our way. 'Twas a doleful thing to be so shunned,as if we had been lepers; yet I could not blame the people, knowingthat the plague had been carried down from London to the utterdestruction of many villages. For a village, if it once take theinfection, will often, for lack of ministration to the sick, sufferworse than the town. But once only did the riverside people show usany hostility; and this was at Wallingford, where they stoned us fromthe bridge, but without doing any considerable hurt.

  But notwithstanding these incommodities, 'twas a most delightsome timesuch as I have ever remembered with pleasure, and shall remember solong as life be left to me. I have seen evil days since then--Thamesrunning red with civil blood, if I may so speak, and all this fairland of England disturbed with the strife of brothers fighting againstbrothers. But these days had not then come; and if there were signsand tokens of the storms that were gathering, and such doubtless therewere for them that had discerning eyes. I was too young to take noteof them. And I was newly come from a city where there wa
s but littletalk of aught but pestilence and death, and doleful sights and soundsabout me on every side, so that the country scenes, full of gladnessand life, into which I had, as it were, escaped, were the moreexceedingly delightful. Nor is there, methinks, a fairer thing inEngland, when one is once past the environs of the city, than Thames,nor any season in which Thames is more to be admired than that earlysummer in which we were then journeying. For the trees are in theirfullest leaf and not yet withered at all by the heat, and the riverbanks are bright with flowers, as the forget-me-nots and the flags,both yellow and purple, and the water-plants, of more kinds than I canname, gay with blossom; also one may see the water-hens and thegrebes, leading about their newly hatched broods, and the swans,carrying on their backs their cygnets, whose brown plumes show forthtenderly from out the silvery white, and the halcyons with theircomely colours of green and red, carrying food to their young. Allthese and many more things that I have not the wit duly to describedid I see and note, young though I was, during our voyage.

  Also as we went along William Beasley would cast a bait--a moth, maybe, or a slug, or sometimes, to my no small wonder, a morsel ofcheese--under the boughs that hung over the water, and draw out thencemighty big chevenders, or, as some call them, chubs. This he did witha most dexterous hand; ay, and having caught them, he would cook themno less skilfully, so that this fish, which I have since found to betasteless, made as dainty meat as could be desired; or was it that theflavour was not in the dish but in its surroundings? And when we hadaccomplished our journey for the day, he would prepare an angle forme, and teach me to catch roaches and perches. And once, I remember,when I was pulling to me a roach that was on the hook, a pike of somesix or seven pounds laid hold upon him, and would not let go, so boldand ravenous was he. And William Beasley, in the deftest manner thatever I beheld (and I have seen the same thing oft attempted since, butnever accomplished), put a hand-net under the beast, and brought himin. And he would have it, being one of the kindest hearts that everlived, that I had caught the pike. And we had a great feast off him;'twas excellent meat, white and firm, though somewhat weedy, saidWilliam; but I noted nothing amiss. Near to Oxford my father met me,and carried me home, where I lived with much content until the timewhen, as I have said, the Merchant Taylors' School was opened again, aspace of fifteen months and more. 'Twas not lost time so far aslearning was concerned, for our good parson took me in hand again andtaught me. And, indeed, he had been teaching my sister Dorothy, sothat she was a match, ay, and more than a match, for me, being botholder and of a nimbler wit. But being the tenderest soul alive, andfearing that I should be grieved if she outstripped me too far, shewould hold back; and I, thinking that I could vanquish her, and beingsometimes by her suffered so to do, did my utmost. Verily I believethat I had not learned more at the school itself, though my preceptorsthere were diligent both with the voice and the rod, in which latterinstrument of learning they had such faith as Solomon himself, who,methinks, has much affliction of youth to answer for, could not haveexcelled. Nor did I gain in learning only, but also in strength ofbody and health, in which, haply, I had fared ill had I been coopedwithin the City walls.

  In the year 1643--for that I be not tedious to them that shall readthis history I shall say no more of my schooldays--I, being theneighteen years of age and not unfit, if I may say so much of myself,to compare with the best scholars of the said school, did hope for myelection to a vacancy in the College of St. John the Baptist atOxford. But of this hope I was disappointed, not altogether, methinks,of my own fault. It came about in this manner. About the beginning ofMay comes a letter from the President and Fellows of the College,wherein they write that they dare not, by reason of the troubles ofthe times, venture so far as to come to London that they might takepart, as their custom was, in the election of scholars to theirCollege. So it turned out, to cut the matter short, that the Companyheld the said election privately by themselves. Now my uncle, MasterHarland aforesaid, died about this time; and as during his life he hadbeen somewhat masterful, ruling most things according to his pleasure,so now, being dead, there was, so to speak, a turn of the tide againsthim and his, by which turn I suffered. They also to whom I looked forhelp, to wit the President and Fellows of St. John's College, wereabsent for the cause that I have already set forth. And so it happenedthat when it came to the election I had but two voices. And this I saynot by way of complaint against them that ordered the election, nor ofmurmuring against God, but because I desire to set forth what befellme, and, as far as I can, the causes of the same. As for murmuring,indeed, I doubt much whether I lost any great profit in this matter,though I will confess that it was at the time no small disappointmentand bitterness. For the same cause that hindered the Fellows of theCollege from coming to London, hindered also the scholars that werethen elected from going to Oxford; so that it was a long time beforethey were admitted to their preferment. And, in truth, when they wereadmitted, it was but an unprofitable matter, for the College wasalmost at the point of dissolution for lack of means, many of itstenants not being able to pay their rents, and some that had theability making pretence of the troubles of the times to cover theirdishonesty. And thus my schooldays came to an end.