by John Aubrey
Another abandonment of the Classics was to have even more far-reaching results. All old accounts are in numerall letters, Aubrey says. Even to my remembrance, when I was a youth, Gentlemen’s Bayliffs in the Country used no other, e.g. i. ii. iii. iiii. v. vi. vii. viii. ix. x. xi. etc: and to this day in the accounts of the Exchecquer. And the Shopkeepers in my Grandfathers times used to reckon with Counters: which is the best and surest way: and is still used by the French. But now, at last, these Roman numerals were abandoned and the bonds that had confined science for two thousand years were broken. For without mathematics there could be no theory, and the Greeks and Romans had been limited to practical matters, simply because their numerals, though sufficient for counting, were useless for calculating. But while Europe was covered by the Dark Ages, the Arabs had made what is probably the greatest single discovery in the history of thought, the invention of a symbol for nought, and the adoption of the Arabic numerals at the time of the Renaissance opened up a whole new world of thought, which the men of the seventeenth century explored with voluptuous delight.
For the Mathematicks was the most popular of all studies during the Stuart Century, and it was Edmund Gunter who, with his Booke of the Quadrant, Sector and Crosse-staffe did open men’s understandings and made young men in love with that Studie. Before, the Mathematicall Sciences were lock’t up in the Greeke and Latin tongues and there lay untoucht, kept safe in some libraries. After Mr. Gunter published his Booke, these Sciences sprang up amain, more and more to that height it is at now (1690).
Soldiers, sailors, courtiers, clerics, all devoted themselves to this intoxicating study, and many a young man was, like Henry Gellibrand, good for little a great while, till at last it happened accidentally, that he heard a Geometrie Lecture. He was so taken with it, that immediately he fell to studying it, and quickly made great progresse in it. The fine Diall over Trinity Colledge Library is of his owne doeing. This dialling, however, was so comparatively easy and other tricks so impressive and so common, that Thomas Hobbes felt obliged to issue a warning: “Not every one that brings from beyond seas a new Gin, or other jaunty devise, is therefore a Philosopher,” he said, “for if you reckon that way, not only Apothecaries and Gardiners, but many other sorts of Workmen will put-in for, and get the Prize.” Unabashed, however, some of Aubrey’s friends persisted in their unorthodox ways, like Seth Ward, Bishop of Salisbury, who when he was President of Trinity College, Oxon, did draw his Geometricall Schemes with black, red, yellow, green and blew Inke to avoid the perplexity of A, B, C, etc., and William Oughtred, who achieved undying fame with his invention of the multiplication sign, which, he said, came into my head, as if infused by a Divine Genius. And the controversies that raged over Arithmeticall Problemes reached such a pitch of emotion (particularly when Hobbes thought that he had squared the circle and Dr. Wallis knew that he had not) that poor Aubrey was driven to the conclusion: sure their Mercuries are in or opposition. Ludolph van Keulen, who had been first, by Profession, a Fencing-Master; but becomeing deafe, betooke himselfe to the studie of the Mathematiques wherin he became famous and wrote a learned booke in 4to of the Proportion of the Diameter of a Circle to the Peripherie, carried the obsession even further, for on his Monument (according to his last Will) is engraved the Proportion abovesayd.
The excitement caused by this serious study is not so surprising when one recalls that Professor Trevelyan has said, “every reader had in some sort to be a student, for apart from poetry and the stage, there was hardly any literature that was not serious…. Not newspapers and novels but ballads and songs were hawked about by Autolycus and his comrades to satisfy the common appetite in the city street and on the village green.” For the host of adult infants, for whom our magazines and films now cater, had not yet appeared, and the Bible held undisputed sway over the minds of men. “If there had been newspapers, magazines and novels,” Professor Trevelyan continues, “to compete with the Bible in manor-house, farm and cottage, there would have been no Puritan revolution.”
The result of this monopolising of men’s minds by the Scriptures was not long in coming; the battle of ideas mounted in violence until the first brush occurred between the Earl of Northampton and Lord Brooke, near Banbury, which was the latter end of July, or the beginning of August, 1642. But now Bellona thundered, and as a cleare skie is sometimes suddenly overstretched with a dismall Cloud and thunder, so was this Serene Peace by the Civill Warres through the Factions of those times.
The outbreak of the Great Rebellion was the more depressing because of the long peace that had preceded it. As far back as living memory could reach, since the fires of Smithfield had died out on Queen Mary’s death eighty-four years before, the country of England had been at quiet within itself, and for the first time in history a man could have lived out his whole life in peace. England had been involved in wars, it is true, but none had touched her shores, and the fighting on the continent had really increased the tranquillity of this country, by drawing off the more bellicose of her sons into the service of some foreign prince. But now the wars which had plagued England ever since the Romans left broke out again, and the mercenary ruffians who made up the continental armies of those days were to transfer their attentions to this prosperous land. No wonder William Oughtred cried out that he was “daunted and broken with these disastrous times.” For the people of England had been so long unused to violence that the results of the conflict were unusually severe; The Lady Jordan being at Cirencester, when it was besieged (Anno aetatis 75°) was so terrified with the Shooting, that her understanding was so spoyled, that She became a tiny-child, that they made Babies for her to play withall.
Though the causes of the war were largely intellectual (and Aubrey mentions in the life of Thomas May that Mr. Decretz was present at the debate at their parting before Sir Richard Fanshawe went to the King, where both Camps were most rigorously banded) the rebellion gave an excuse for private grudges and family quarrels to flare up into unexampled savagery. Henry Martin sat as one of Charles’ judges, because of an insult delivered by the King many years before, and even Sir John Danvers, a great friend of the King’s partie and a Patron to distressed and cashiered Cavaliers, abandoned his principles to spite his family. To revenge himselfe of his sister, the Lady Gargrave, explains Aubrey, and to ingratiate himselfe more with the Protector to null his brother, Earl of Danby’s, Will, he contrary to his owne naturall inclination, did sitt in the High Court of Justice at the King’s Triall.
In these circumstances the savagery of man, about which our ancestors shared none of our perfectionist illusions had full play. On this Oake, says Aubrey in his Naturall Historie of Wiltshire, Sir Francis Dodington hung up thirteen after quarter. He made a Sonn hang his Father or e contra. And this bestiality was to continue for half a decade, until the King was beaten out of the field.
The result of the first brush on Aubrey was immediate. In August following, he reports, my father sent for me home, for feare. But it was not only Aubrey’s life that was interrupted: the very continuity of English culture was broken. When I was a little Boy (before the Civill Warns) Aubrey was to repeat over and over again in talking of the vanished customs and beliefs of the so-recent past, for a whole way of life disappeared in the convulsion; a way of life which Aubrey has crystallised in a single sentence: When I was a Boy every Gentleman almost kept a Harper in his house: and some of them could versifie. But now the harpers were no more, for it was the life of the rich which suffered annihilation first; a life which could be traced back as far as history would reach. After the comeing in of the Goths, the Roman Games and Cirques, were turned into Tilts and Turnaments. Tilting breath’d its last when King Charles Ist left London. The Tilt-yard was where the Guardhouse is now, opposite to White-hall. In those dayes all Gentlemen of a thousand pounds per annum kept a Horse or Horses for a Man at Arms.
It was not only the rich who were to suffer, though, and as soon as the whole people was involved, the customs and beliefs of the past col
lapsed before the storm. When I was a Boy (before the Civill-warres), Aubrey says again, I heard ’em tell that in the old time, they used to put a Penny in the dead persons mouth to give to St. Peter: and I thinke that they did doe so in Wales and in the North Country; and in Yorkshire, too, in the Countrey churches, at Christmas in the Holy-daies after Prayers, they will dance in the Church, and as they doe dance, they cry (or sing) Yole, Yole, Yole. For, as Aubrey explains, in the Infancy of the Christian Religion it was expedient to plough (as they say) with the heifer of the Gentiles, i.e. to insinuate with them and to let them continue and use their old Ethnick Festivals which they new named with Christian names, e.g. Floralia, they turnd to the Feast of St. Philip and Jacob, etc, the Saturnalia into Christmas. Had they donne otherwise, they could not have gain’d so many Proselytes or established their Doctrine so well, and in so short a time. The Gentiles would not perfectly relinquish all their Idols; so, they were persuaded to turne the Image of Jupiter with his thunderbolt to Christ crucifixus, and Venus and Cupid into the Madonna and her Babe, which Mr. Th. Hobbes sayth was prudently donne. But now these links with Imperial Rome, which had survived first the coming of the Catholic Church and then the Reformation, were finally destroyed; and many native myths perished at the same time. It was a Custome for some people that were more curious then ordinary to sitt all night in their church porch of their Parish on Midsomer-eve; and they should see the apparitions of those that should die in the parish that yeare come and knock at the dore. As these regional customs vanished under the stress of war, uniformity began to spread across the land, until at last even the shepherds of Aubrey’s native Wiltshire were affected: Their Habit (I believe) is that of the Roman or Arcadian Shepherds too, he says, sc. a long white Cloake with a very deep cape, which comes downe half way their backs, made of the locks of the Sheep; their Armature was a Sheep Crooke, a Sling, a Scrip, their Tar-box, a Pipe (or Flute) and their Dog. But since 1671 they are grown so luxurious as to neglect their ancient warme, and usefull fashion, and goe a la mode. Every one of these changes was resented by Aubrey as a personal blow, until he was sadly led to conclude that the Civill Warres comeing on have putt out all these Rites, or customs quite out of fashion. Warres doe not only extinguish Religion and Lawes: but Superstitition; and no Suffimen is a great fugator of Phantosmes, than Gun-powder.
By far the worst result of the Rebellion for an antiquary like Aubrey was the acquisition of power by the Puritans, those Philistines whom he despised so much and who, in their turn, despised his kind. Speaking of Robert Sanderson, Lord Bishop of Lincoln, he says scornfully that the very Parliamentarians reverenced him for his Learning and his vertue: so that he alwayes kept his living. The accidental destruction of antiquities had been bad enough in the past, for the wanton use of the monastical manuscripts, which he had witnessed as a child, still preyed upon his mind. In my grandFather’s dayes, the Manuscripts flew about like Butter-flies, he repeated sadly. All Musick bookes, Account-bookes, Copie bookes, etc, were covered with old Manuscripts, as wee cover them now with blew Paper, or Marbled Paper. And the Glovers at Malmesbury made great Havock of them, and Gloves were wrapt up no doubt in many good pieces of Antiquity. Before the late Warres a World of rare Manuscripts perished here about; for within half a dozen miles of Easton-Piers were the Abbey of Malmesbury, where it may be presumed the Library was as well furnished with choice Copies, as most Libraries of England: Broadstock-Priory, Stenley-Abbey, Farleigh-Abbey, Bath-Abbey and Cyrencester Abbey. One may also perceive by the Binding of old Bookes how the old Manuscripts went to wrack in those dayes. About 1647, I went to see Parson Stump out of curiosity to see his Manuscripts, whereof I had seen some in my Child-hood; but by that time they were lost and disperst; His sonns were gunners and souldiers, and scoured their gunnes with them. But at least this destruction had been due to ignorance, and not to policy. The Puritans, on the other hand, knew what they were doing and destroyed on purpose and on principle. My old cosen Parson Whitney told me that in the Visitation of Oxford in Edward VI’s time they burned Mathematical bookes for Conjuring bookes, and, if the Greeke Professor had not accidentally come along, the Greeke Testament had been thrown into the fire for a Conjuring booke too. This had happened during the only reign in which the Puritans had so far held power, but since then any form of unnecessary destruction had been discouraged: Neer Dunnington Castle was an Oake, under which Sir Jeofry Chaucer was wont to sit, called Chaucer’s oake, which was cutt downe, tempore Caroli Imi, Aubrey says, and so it was, that … was called into the Starre chamber and was fined for it. Judge Richardson harangued against him long, and like an orator, had topiques from the Druides, etc.
It was against idolatry, however, that the fury of the Puritans was chiefly turned and, long before the Civil War, untoward incidents had begun to occur again. In St. Edmunds Church at Salisbury were curious painted Glasse-windowes (especially in the Chancell) where there was one Window (I think the East window) of such exquisite worke, that Gundamour the Spanish Ambassadeur did offer some hundreds of Pounds for it, if it might have been bought. In one of the Windowes was the Picture of God the Father, like an Old Man (as the fashion then was) which much offended Mr. Shervill, the Recorder, who out of Zeale came, and brake some of these Windowes about 1631; and clambering upon one of the Pews (to be able to reach high enough) fell downe and brake his Legg; but that did not excuse him for being question’d in the Starre-chamber for it, and had a great Fine layd upon which I thinke did undoe him. But soon the Star Chamber was abolished, and the Puritans, having achieved power, set about their iconoclasm with such a will that Aubrey noted sadly: But what Mr. Shervill left undonne, the Soldiers since have gonne through with, that there is not a piece of glass-painting left. And as the war continued, the merchants of London put the whole thing on a proper business footing, for Aubrey mentions that at Croydon in Surrey in the Rebellion, one Bleese was hir’d, for half a Crown per Day, to break the painted Glass-Windows, which were formerly fine.
When the glass was finished, the zealots turned their attention to the altars and the statues, the vestments, painted tombs and organs, until Aubrey could write of Corston: In the Church nothing to be found, the modern zeale has been a reforming here, as hereabout. For at nearby Slaughterford, he had noted: Here is a prettie small Church, the most miserably handled that ever I saw, the very barres are taken out of the windowes by the fanatique rage of the late times; here have been two good South windowes, and the doores are gone and the paving, and it serves for any use, viz. Weavers. The Font has gone to make a trough.
Having gutted the churches, the Parliamentarians then turned their attention to the buildings themselves. Churches were pulled-downe to the ground, that the Enemie might not shelter themselves against the Garrison; castles, like Dunnington, which had been Sir Geoffrey Chaucer’s, a noble seate and strong castle, which was held by the King, were dismanteled; tuneable Bells were converted into Ordinance; and many houses were burnt. The destruction in fact was so widespread, that it led Aubrey, though he was only eighteen, to make his first practical antiquarian move: I gott Mr. Hesketh, Mr. Dobson’s man, a Priest, to drawe the Ruines of Osney, 2 or 3 wayes before ’twas pulled down, he says. Now the very foundation is digged up. And thirty years later, one of these drawings, the only record of the Abbey, was to be reproduced in Dugdale’s “Monasticon,” with the following inscription: “The Noble Ruines of this Fabrick were drawn from a love to Antiquity, while yet a Youth at Oxford, and (which was not a little lucky) but a short time before they were entirely destroyed in the Civil War, secured now and as it were revived, are dedicated to Posterity, by John Aubrey of Easton Piers in the Country of Wilts, Esq.”
In February, 1643, Aubrey says, with much adoe I gott my father to lett me to beloved Oxon againe, then a Garrison pro Rege, and a very different place from the University which he had left a few short months before. For the Court had come to Oxford in the preceding November, taking the colleges for its lodgings and driving the older dons, like Dr.
Kettell of Aubrey’s own college, into a premature grave.
Like Aubrey, most of the scholars had left Oxford on the outbreak of the war. The few who had remained were, according to one don, “debauched by bearing Armes, and doing the Duties belonging to Soldiers, as Watching, Warding, and sitting in Tipling-Houses for whole Nights together.” So the atmosphere of the city cannot have been conducive to work, especially for someone so easily distracted as Aubrey. First, there was the King to be seen: When I was a Freshman at Oxford, Aubrey says, I was wont to go to Christ Church to see King Charles I. at Supper: Where I once heard him say, that as he was Hawking in Scotland, he rode into a Quarry, and found the Covey of Partridge falling upon the Hawk: and I do remember this expression further, viz. and I will swear upon the Book ’tis true. When I came to my Chamber, I told this Story to my Tutor: said he, That Covey was London. And then there was the Court itself, which in those days was particularly fascinating for a young scholar. For at Court, as Professor Trevelyan has pointed out, “the gentleman of England learnt not only the intrigues of love and politics, but music and poetry, and a taste for scholarship and the arts, seeds which they took back to their rural homes to plant there.” For “the mediæval distinction between the learned clerk and the barbarous fighting baron was coming to an end, blending in the ideal of the all-accomplished ‘gentleman’.” In this ideal, the Stuart sovereigns led the way, although at their real “business as King” they were to prove either woefully incompetent or grossly corrupt. James I, indeed, was so much of a scholar that he was moved to say on his first visit to the Bodleian Library at Oxford: “If I were not a King, I would be a University man; and if it were so that I must be a prisoner, if I might have my wish, I would desire to have no other prison than that Library, and to be chained together with so many good Authors and dead Masters.” Charles, his son, that great Antiquary, was also the finest connoisseur of painting in his realm and the first Englishman to value paintings as art, instead of simply as likenesses or curios. King Charles II was of a more practical bent, but though he dabbled in chemistry, he achieved little of worth: He had a Mathematicall genius, Aubrey admitted, but wanted early education. Of James II, that lamentable monarch, however, Aubrey could find nothing better to say than that he was acquainted fully with the State of our Naval Power, and knew as much, if not more than the meanest Sailor; and his consort was distinguished by a single feat: Colonel Popham’s great tankard, the Dutches Y: dranke it (almost) off at a draught.