by John Aubrey
His Chaplain, he plyed his wonted Work,
He prayed like a Christian, and fought like a Turke,
Crying now for the King, and the Duke of York
With a thump, a thump, thump;
while at Dulwich College he noted that the Tradition concerning the Occasion of the Foundation runs thus; That Mr. Alleyne, being a Tragedian, and one of the Original Actors in the celebrated Shakespeare’s Plays, in one of which he play’d a Daemon, with six others, and was in the midst of the Play surpris’d by an Apparition of the Devil, which so work’d on his Fancy, that he made a Vow, which he performed at this Place. But it was at Croydon that Aubrey stumbled on a piece of information after his own heart. There was one Oak, he reports, in the great Wood call’d Norwood, that had Miselto, a Timber Tree, which was felled about 1657. Some Persons cut this Misselto, for some Apothecaries in London, and sold them a Quantity for Ten Shillings, each time, and left only one Branch remaining for more to sprout out. One fell lame shortly after: Soon after, each of the others lost an Eye, and he that fell’d the Tree, about 1678 (tho’ warned of these Misfortunes of the other Men) would not withstanding, adventure to do it, and shortly after broke his Leg; as if the Hamadryades had resolved to take an ample Revenge for the Injury done to that sacred and venerable Oak. Aubrey mentions elsewhere that When an Oake is felling (before it falles) it gives a kind of shriekes, or groanes, that may be heard a mile off, as if it were the Genius of the Oake lamenting. I cannot omit here taking Notice, he continues excitedly, of the great Misfortunes in the Family of the Earl of Winchelsea, who at Eastwell in Kent, felled down a most curious Grove of Oaks, near his noble Seat, and gave the First Blow with his own Hands. Shortly after, his Countess died in her Bed suddenly, and his eldest Son, the Lord Maidstone, was killed at Sea by a Cannon Bullet. It has been not unusually observed, that to cut Oak-Wood is unfortunate, Aubrey concludes, and this family should have been particularly wary of flouting any superstition, for had not My Lady Seymer dreamt, that she found a Nest, with Nine Finches in it. And so many Children she had by the Earl of Winchelsey, whose name is Finch.
Coming to the end of his Perambulation, Aubrey returned to London, where he noted an interesting sidelight on the Reformation. Robert de Wharton, he says, the last Prior of the Monastery dedicated to St. Saviour at Bermondsey, surrendered this Convent into the King’s Hands, 1 January 1538. He obtained a pension of £333. 6. 8d. per Annum. That this generosity could have its disadvantages for the throne, however, is shown by the subtle revenge wreaked by another dispossessed pensioner. The Last Lady Abbesse of Amesbury was a Kirton: who after the Dissolution married to one Appleton of Hampshire, Aubrey reports. She had during her life a Pension from King Henry IIX: she was one hundred and fourty yeares old when she dyed.
Aubrey finished his tour with a description of the Surrey side of the Thames, directly opposite the City of London. On the Bank Side were two Bear Gardens, he says, the Old and the New, wherein Bears, Bulls, Otters, &c. were kept to be baited by Dogs bred to that Sport, for the Diversion of the Spectators, the Destruction of the innocent Creatures, and the Gratification of a barbarous and savage Temper, which never more displays itself then in shewing a Complacency and Delight in these cruel Spectacles.
Near this Garden was a Theatre, known by the name of the GLOBE Play-House, to which Beaumont, Fletcher, and Philip Massinger belonged and wrote for; and though the most eminent Place for Tragedies, Comedies, and Interludes, was, because of its Situation, only used in the hot Summer Months.
Not far from this Place were the Asparagus-Gardens, and Pimblico-Path, where were fine walks, cool Arbours, &c. much used by the Citizens of London and their Families, and both mentioned by the Comedians at the Beginning of 1600. ‘To walk in Pimblico’ became Proverbial for a Man handsomely drest; as these walks were frequented by none else.
Next the Bear-Garden on this Bank was formerly the Bordello, or Stewes, so called from the severall licensed Houses for the Entertainment of lewd Persons, in which were Women prepared for all Comers. The Knights Templars were notable wenchers; for whose convenience and use these Stewes on the Bankside (over against the Temple) were erected and constituted. They were subject to several Laws and Regulations (viz. No single Woman to take Money to lye with any Man, except she lye with him all Night, till the Morrow) and their Manner of Life and priviledged Places received several Confirmations from the Crown, as one in 1345 from King Edward III. In 1506, King Henry VII, for some Time shut up these Houses, which were in Number Eighteen; and not long after renewed their Licence, and reduced them to Twelve; at which Number they continued till their final Suppression by Sound of Trumpet in 1546, by King Henry VIII, whose tender Conscience startled at such scandalous and open Lewdness. The single women that were Retainers to, or Inmates in, these Houses, were Excommunicate, not suffered to enter the Church while alive, or if not reconciled before their Death, prohibited Christian Burial, and were interred in a Peice of Ground called the Single-Women’s Church-Yard, set apart for their use only. These Houses were distinguished by several Signs painted on their Fronts, as, a Boar’s Head, The Crane, the Cardinal’s Hat, the Swan, the Bell, the Crosse-Keys, the Popes Head, and the Gun.
John Evelyn assured the author that “with incredible satisfaction have I perus’d your Natural History of Surrey, &c; and greatly admire both your Industry in undertaking so profitable a Work, and your Judgement in the several Observations which you have made. It is so useful a Piece, and so obliging that I cannot sufficiently applaud it. Something I would contribute to it, if it were possible; but your Spicilegium is so accurate, that you have left nothing almost for those who come after you.” But now that the tour was over and the rough draft made, the inevitable happened, and eighteen years later Aubrey was to write, In the Year 1673, it was my Intention to have describ’d the pleasant County of Surrey, which I am sorry I did not compleat. The notes themselves would probably have disappeared completely, had not Anthony Wood seen them and desired Aubrey to transcribe them fair, and to preserve them, there being many good Remarks that deserve not to be bury’d in Oblivion. I wish I had done it soon after my Perambulation, whilst the Idea of them was fresh and lively, Aubrey lamented, I should then have given it more Spirit. The Papers are like Sybillina Folia. I shall not take the Paines to digest them in better Order (which would require the Drudgery of another Transcribing) and I now set things down tumultuarily, as if tumbled out of a Sack, as they come to my Hand, Mixing Antiquities and Natural Things together, as I have here done them. They will be of some use to such as love Antiquities or Natural History; and on that Account I expose them to the View of the Candid Reader wishing him as much Pleasure in the Perusal of them, as I had in the Seeing of them. Vale. Despite this hopeful ending, the book was not printed until Aubrey had been dead for twenty-two years, and even then the learned Dr. Rawlinson had to put the work into some semblance of order; for it fell to him to collate it, as he said with justifiable exasperation, from two manuscripts “both wrote with the Author’s own Hand, and both huddled together in a very confused and immethodical Order.”
As soon as he had finished his Perambulation, Aubrey found himself surrounded by a multitude of jobs. First, a new edition of Camden’s “Britannia” was foreshadowed and a set of queries relating to it was printed and considered at several meetings by Christ. Wren, John Hoskyns, R. Hooke, J. Ogilby, John Aubrey, Gregory King. On top of this, Aubrey was assisting in the production of two more books, Dugdale’s “Monasticon” and the English version of Wood’s “Historia at Antiquitates Universitatis Oxoniensis.” His help with the latter work was so considerable that Anthony Wood, besides acknowledging it handsomely in the book itself, wrote Aubrey a special letter of thanks on its publication. “I am verie glad that you have satisfied me in so many things and cease not to send into divers parts for further information of other men: I speake in my conscience (for I have told other men of it already) that I have had, and shall have more from you as to these things than all people besi
des whatsoever. What I have had hitherto besides has been for the most part by mine owne industry and purse.” And all this time Aubrey was busy collecting the anecdotes for Wood’s other book “Athenae Oxoniensis” and the two antiquaries were at the peak of their friendship. “I am as carefull of your health and wellfare as any friend you have,” Wood assured Aubrey, and the latter so delighted in his company that he wished to share him with all his acquaintances. I sent you 2 lettres by my friend Mr. George Ent, together with a bundle of bookes, Aubrey wrote to Wood in August 1674. He is a very honest gentleman and his Rhodomantades you will easily pardon. And George Ent must have been prompt in his delivery of the letter of introduction which Aubrey had given him, for in November Aubrey wrote I am very glad you two good folke are acquainted; according to my desire. By March next year, however, matters were very different. I am exceeding sorry for Mr. Ent’s strangenesse to you, Aubrey wrote apologetically to Anthony Wood, but ’tis confesst his friends must beare with him; and he being cholerique, &c: I read only that paragraph, where He introduced into your company two Boy-bachelors, and upbraided you of dotage.
In the midst of all this work, moreover, disaster threatened. 1673, die Jovis, St. Martin 9h.15+P.M., Aubrey noted with excusable exactness, J.A. arrested by Gardiner, Sergeant, a lusty faire-haired solar Fellow, prowd, insolent, et omnia id genus. For his financial difficulties were upon him again, and in his plight he enlisted the aid of his friends in the Royal Society to obtain a post for him, for he had been not unhelpful to them. “They made him their drudge,” said one of his contemporaries, “for when any curious experiment was to be donne, they would lay the task on him.” He therefore expected great things from Mr. Secretary Wren’s indefinite Kindnesse, and from Lord Brouncker, the President, and by now he was ready to accept any kind of job. There are peaceable places among Souldiers, he mused, and now the navy offices thrive, and a man can nowhere so well hide himself in an office as there, ’cause ’tis out of the way. This last idea was doubly attractive because another member of the Royal Society, Samuel Pepys, was already firmly entrenched there.
Nothing came of these projects, however, and by 1675, even Aubrey had begun to despair of ever recovering his fortunes in England and so he turned his gaze towards the New World. But he was quite unable to make up his mind where to settle, for no sooner had Edmund Wyld offered to buy him an estate in New York, than the Earl of Thanet put him off it. “I perceive that Mr. Wild,” the Earl had written, “has a mind to buy some land in New-York, which place you suppose to be a Fine Country. You are the first that ever I heard terme that part a delicious Country. Corne, indeed I heare will grow there, and in the summer they may have fatt Beefe, and Mutton: But in the Winter, which is very long and tedious, They are like the Norvegians, that live upon Salt meates, and Fish, and have such vast Snowes, that they are forced to digge their wayes out of their houses else they will be stiffled.” Having by now thoroughly discouraged poor Aubrey, Lord Thanet continued: “If he will by land in America, lett it be in the Bermudas, where health abounds, and safety is had, two chiefe things which a wise Man, as he, should looke after, and soe much with my humble service pray let him knowe.” The truth of the matter was that Lord Thanet owned land in Bermuda and had tried before to persuade Aubrey to go out there, and he was not alone in his desire to have so pleasant a companion on his estates. Only the previous year, Aubrey had appalled Anthony Wood by saying, I am like to be spirited away to Jamaica by my Lord Vaughan, who is newly made Governor there, and mighty earnest to have me goe with him, and will look out some employment worth a Gentleman for me: an offer which Sir William Petty strongly advised Aubrey to accept. In Jamaica, he told him, 500 pounds gives 100 per annum: take a Chymist with me, Aubrey noted, for brandy, suger, etc. and goe halfe with him.
Cecil Calvert, Lord Baltemore, Absolute Lord and Proprietary of Maryland and Avalon, who had been at Aubrey’s college, made yet another offer and that the most tempting. Now if I would be rich, Aubrey day-dreamed, I could be a prince. I could goe into Maryland, which is one of the finest countrys of the world; same climate with France; between Virginia and New England. I can have all the favour of my Lord Baltemore I could wish. His brother is his Lieutenant there; and a very good natured gentleman. Plenty of all things: ground there is 2000 miles westwards. I could be able I believe to carry a colony of rogues; another of ingenious Artificers; and I doubt not one might make a shift to have 5 or 6 ingeniose companions, which is enough.
But somehow all these plans languished, probably from the very number of offers, and Aubrey made no move. For emigration was still a dangerous business and, as Professor Trevelyan has pointed out, “more than three quarters of the first colonists died prematurely, succumbing to the miseries of the voyage, or to disease, famine, exposure and Indian War.” Sir John Dugdale saith that John Davenport was a Non-Conformist, Aubrey told Anthony Wood, and he hath enquired of his Relations, who know nothing of him, if dead or alive, but they believe he is dead. He went over sea; he thinkes to the Barbadoes, or some of these plantations, or to Holland: whereas actually he was Pastor at New Haven in New England. And the sociable Aubrey was the last person to submit himself to an artificial death like this: if he had to be separated from his friends it would be by the grave, not by the sea. For why, he sensibly asked himself, should I at this time of day, and being of a Monastic humour, make my selfe a slave and roast my self for Wealth?
The expansion of the English race oversea was a comparatively recent development. Until Elizabeth’s reign every English sovereign had tried to make England a great Continental power, and the titles which Mary Tudor accumulated on her marriage to Philip II show how near that ideal came to realisation. A book that Aubrey mentions is dedicated to the most mightie and most puissant Princess Marie, by the grace of God, Queen of England, Spaine, both Sicilies, France, Jerusalem, and Ireland: Defender of the Faith: Archduchesse of Austria; Duchess of Milaine, Burgundie and Brabant: Countesse of Haspurge, Flanders, Tyroll, etc. But Mary died childless and left England free to pursue her true destiny. In the next reign, England changed her national weapon, substituting the broadside for the long-bow, and this revolution in naval tactics, and the consequent advantage in sea fighting which it gave her, caused England to turn towards the Western Ocean and the lands beyond it as her rightful domain. The other powers remained peculiarly blind to the possibilities of these floating batteries, and “as late as 1511,” Professor Trevelyan says, “the Spaniards fought the Turks at Lepanto, by sea tactics the same as those by which the Greeks had defeated the Persians at Salamis.” The English, however, were fully conscious of the potentialities of the new weapons, and with them they laid the foundations of their sea power and their Empire.
Aubrey’s continual hesitations had by now begun to irritate his friends. “Weare not I a married man,” the Earl of Thanet told him crossly, “and so consequently tyed by the Legg in England, or at the best my Chain being to reach noe further, then a voyage to Bourbon, or Provence; I would infallibly waite upon that noble kinsman of mine, my Cousin Charles Howard, in that Voyage for the Bermudas.” But Aubrey, though unmarried, was no less firmly “tyed by the Legg” to London and Oxford, to the Royal Society and to his friends. For he had come now to dread even the suggestion of a job: if I should have it, he said on one occasion, I should be like the weaned child, to leave Mr. Wyld: who are inseparable, and dote together till 12 or 1, at night.
Even when he had himself become a landowner in the colonies, Aubrey could not be tempted out of England. Captain Poyntz (for service that I did him to the Earle of Pembroke and the Earl of Abingdon) did very kindly make me a Grant of a Thousand acres of Land in the Island of Tobago, anno Domini 1686. Febr. 2d. He advised me to send over people to plant and to gett Subscribers to come in for a share of these 1000 Acres, for 200 Acres would be enough for me. But still he made no move, even though he knew that in this delicate Island is Lac lunae (the mother of Silver).
In the selfsame year, another windfall came his
way. William Penn, Lord Proprietor of Pennsylvania, did ex mero motu et ex gratia speciali [from a genuine impulse and as a mark of his special favour] give me a Graunt under his seale, of Six hundred acres in Pennsylvania, without my seeking or dreaming of it. He adviseth me to plant it with French Protestants for seaven yeares gratis and afterwards make them to pay such a Rent. Also he tells me, for zoo Acres ten pounds per annum Rent for ever, after three veares. This generous gift was Penn’s last attempt to persuade Aubrey to join him in his experiment in the New World. But before making this grant, he had tried both persuasion and direct invitations, and among Aubrey’s papers is a letter, the intention of which is obvious, in which William Penn paints as alluring a picture as possible of his territory.
Dated “Philadelphia, 13th of the 4th Month, called June, 1683,” it runs as follows: “Esteemed Friend, We are the wonder of our neighbours as in our coming and numbers, so to our selves in our health, Subsistence and Success: all goes well, blessed by God, and provision we shall have to spare, considerably, in a year or Two, unless very great quantitys of People croud upon us. The Aier, heat and Cold Resemble the heart of France: the Soyls good, the Springs many and delightfull, the fruits, roots, corns and Flesh, as good as I have commonly eaten in Europe, I may say most of them better. Strawberry’s ripe in the woods in Aprill, and in the Last Month, Peas, beans, Cherrys and mulberrys. Much black walnutt, Chesnutt, Cyprus, or white Cedar and mulberry are here. The Sorts of fish in these parts are excellent and numerous. Sturgeon leap day and night that we can hear them a bow Shot from the Rivers in our beds. We have Roasted and pickeled them, and they eat like veal one way, and Sturgeon the other way. Mineral here is great Store, I shall send some suddainly for Tryall. Vines are here in Abundance everywhere, some may be as bigg in the body as a man’s thigh. I have begun a Vineyard by a French man of Languedock, and another of Poictou, near Santong. Severall people from other Colonys are retireing hither, as Virginia, Mary Land, New England, Road Island, New York &c: I make it my businesse to Establish vertuous Economy and therefore Sett twice in Councell every week, with good Success, I thank god. My Reception was with all the show of Kindness the rude State of the Country could yield; and after holding the Genrll Assemblys, I am not uneasy to the People. They to express their Love and gratitude gave me an Impost that might be worth 500 pounds per annum, and I returned it to them with as much Creditt. This is our present posture. I am Debtor to thy kindness for two Letters: wether this be pay or no, pray miss not to Continue to yield that Content And Liberality to Thy very True Freind William Penn.”