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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
Every cultivator of our national biography and literary antiquities must rejoice at the appearance of the first volume of the Athense Cantabrigienses. That a work which was so obviously suggested nearly two centuries ago by the Athense of the sister University, which has been contemplated by so many successive collectors, and for which such large, though imperfect, accumulations have been formed, should, in spite of ever-increasing difficulties, at length greet our view in substantial paper and print, is a victory over old Time of which any generation may fairly be proud; and I therefore cannot be thought to magnify its accomplishment too highly if, on this first public allusion to the work at the Society of Antiquaries, I hail its authors as conquerors who have overtaken the spoiler, and recovered from his grasp some of his most estimable treasures.
page 99 note a Cardano cast the King's nativity, and contemplated a long life for him. After the age of fifty-five years, three months, and seventeen days, he was to be attacked by several diseases. See the details at length in my memoir of the King, prefixed to The Literary Kemains of Edward VI. p. cexv.
page 99 note b The scheme of Cheke's nativity published by Cardano shows that he was born at Cambridge, on the 16th of June, 1514, at five hours and fifteen minutes after mid-day. Another horoscope of Cheke's nativity, calculated by Sir Thomas Smith, and published in Strype's Life, (from the book now the MS. Sloane 325,) states his birth to have occurred on the same day, but at five minutes past 2 p.m.
page 100 note a Cheke was examined respecting the lord Admiral's conduct, and his “confession,” dated on the 20th Feb. 1548-9, is printed by Mr. Tytler in his “England under Edward VI. and Mary,” vol. i. p. 154. Cheke had on several occasions received money from the lord Admiral, as was admitted by the latter and by the King.
page 101 note a See a portion of this engraved in fac-simile in Nichols's Autographs, 1829, Plate 20.
page 101 note b It was at the house of his friend Peter Osborne, (sometime a scholar of Cambridge, and afterwards remembrancer of the exchequer,) that Cheke breathed his last on the 13th Sept. 1557. Osborne resided in Wood-street, Cheapside, and Cheke was buried in his parish church of St. Alban, Wood-street.
page 101 note c Zurich Letters, second series, p. 465.
page 102 note a Cardano's works were collected by Charles Spon, and printed at Paris, in ten folio volumes, 1663. The fullest memoir hitherto compiled of him is that by Mr. Henry Morley, published in London, 1854, in two vols. 8vo.
page 102 note b King Edward's declamation, which was composed in or about the year 1551, is a defence of Astronomy, which had evidently shared in the bad repute earned by her illegitimate sister—Sunt enim qui tenent earn neque utilem esse corpori neque animo neque Reipublicse. Nor do we find the King properly instructed to separate these two branches of the study of the stars: for he asks, “Quid vero magis naturale quam cognitio elementorum cceli, astrorum, stellarum, planetarum, per quorum cursus nosira corpora, et non solum nostra sed etiam omnium bestiarum eis subjectarum, omnium herbarum, florum, arborum, frugum, vinorum, cceterorumque omnium gubernantur et reguntur?” See The Literary Eemains of King Edward VI. (printed for the Koxburghe Club,) Oratio XI B.
page 102 note c For Foxe's authority it would probably be vain now to inquire. John Vowell, alias Hoker, in his Life of Sir Peter Carewe, says nothing to the point, but he describes Sir John Cheke as being very dejected upon his apprehension. “They might speak the one to the other, but other comfort there was none. Howbeit Sir John Cheke, although very learned, but not acquainted with the cross of troubles, was still in great despair, great anguish, and heaviness, and would not be comforted, so great was his sorrow; but Sir Peter Carew, whose heart could not be broken, nor mind overthrown with any adversities, and yielding to no such matter, comforted the other, and encouraged him to be of a good stomach, persuading him (as though he had been a divine) to patience and good contentation.” The Life and Times of Sir Peter Carew, by John Maclean, Esq. F.S.A., 1857, 8vo. p. 65. Also in Archseologia, vol. XXVIII. from Sir T. Phillipps's MS.
page 104 note a Some of Strype's MS. notes to his Life of Smith, printed in the last Oxford Edition, seem to have been derived from this source, but without making reference to it. Mr. Cooper in his Athens Cantabr. has mentioned the existence of Smith's manuscript volume, but without having examined it.
page 105 note a This was, perhaps, the disputation described in one of Haddon's Latin letters to Coxe, quoted by Strype, and assigned by him “as near as I can guess” to the year 1546.
page 105 note b “In this office (writes Strype,) was Dr. Smith placed, and seems to hare been the second Master of Eequests to the Protector, as Cecil was the first.” But, in fact, Cecill did not obtain this office until Smith's resignation,—in Sept. 1548 ? The biographer of Cecill has followed the old error in stating that “Mr. Cecil did not hold the office long, being succeeded by the celebrated Sir Thomas Smith” Memoirs of Lord Burghley, by the Kev Edward Nares, D.D., 4to, 1828, i. 180.
page 106 note a In connection with the preceding note, it may be desirable to notice here the inaccuracy of Strype's passage in which he states that “in the year 1548 Dr, Smith was advanced to be Secretary of State; as in September the same year, William Cecil, Esq., was preferred to the like office, both having been servants to the Protector.” This statement is at first view supported by a passage of Cecill's own auto-biographical memoranda, “Sept. 1548, cooptatus sum in officium Secretarii:” but the truth is that Cecill, at that date, became secretary to the Protector, not secretary to the King. This point is discussed at length, but not decided, in Nares's Life of Burghley, vol. i. pp. 304 et seq. It was in September 1550 that Cecill first became Secretary of State, succeeding Dr. Edward Wotton, who had succeeded Smith (14 Oct. 1549). Another error made by Strype was that Smith continued Secretary until King Edward's death, and was then succeeded by Dr. John Boxall: this remains uncorrected in the Oxford edition of the Life of Smith, 1820, p. 46, except by Strype's own note to the previous chapter, p. 42.
page 106 note b Lemon's Calendar of State Papers, 1547—1580, p 14.
page 106 note c The “pathetic” letter which Smith wrote two days before to his fellow-secretary sir William Petre, has been published from the State Paper office by Mr. Tytler, in his “England under Edward VI. and Mary,” vol. i. p. 228. At this crisis he distinguished himself as the only councillor who faithfully stood by the Protector to the last: “For my part (he writes), I am in a moste miseiable case. I cannot leave the King's Majesty, and him who was my master, and of whom I have had all.”
page 106 note d The friends of Somerset were released under heavy fines, Sir Thomas Smith, Sir Michael Stanhope, and Mr. Fisher being mulcted in three thousand pounds, and Sir John Thynne in six thousand. (Tytler, i. 278.) As Smith received employment so soon after, it is probable that he paid but little, if any, of this fine.
page 107 note a This was the last occurrence of the peculiar epidemic called the Sweating Sickness, or Sudor Anglicus, which had before prevailed in England in the years 1486, 1507, 1517, and 1528. It was at its height in London in the middle of July 1551, when it drove the royal household to Hampton Court, as is particularly noticed by King Edward in his Journal: and it lasted during the remainder of the month, destroying more than 900 persons in the metropolis. The young duke of Suffolk and his only brother died of it at the bishop of Lincoln's palace at Buckden, on the 14th of July. At Lough borough, in Leicestershire, it prevailed at the end of June and beginning of July, and I take this opportunity to make public the following accurate copy of the curious record of its ravages in that then small town, which I recently copied from the parish register:
The familiar names of New acquaintance, and Stoop, knave, and know thy master, were not the only ones that were given to the disease. In the register of Uffculm, co. Devon, it is termed, “the hote sickness or Stup-gallant;” and Thomas Hancocke, whose autobiographical anecdotes are among the “Narratives of the Reformation,” printed for the Camden Society, calls it the “Posting-sweat, that posted from town to town thorow England, and was named Stop-Gallant, for it spared none.” One of the most interesting books published by the Sydenham Society, entitled “The Epidemics of the Middle Ages, from the German of J. F. C. Hecker, M.D., translated by B. G. Babington, M.D., F.E.S.,” 1846, contains an essay on the sweating sickness, together with a reprint of the contemporary treatise upon the subject by Dr. John Caius, first published in 1556; but there are in Blakeway's History of Shrewsbury some curious notices which escaped Dr. Hecker and his English editor. See also the Notes to Machyn's Diary, p. 319, and the Literary Remain;-of King Edward VI., p. 330.
page 108 note a He wrote first sponte, and then added quasi above the line.
page 108 note b The deanery of Carlisle was restored, on the accession of Mary, to Lancelot Salkeld, who had been the first dean of the church, and its former prior before the Reformation. On the accession of Elizabeth it reverted to Sir Thomas Smith, and he retained it until his death in 1577. He was followed in the preferment by two laymen, Sir John Wolley (sometime Latin secretary) and Sir Christopher Perkins; so that this dignity was secularised during the whole of Elizabeth's reigu, and not actually restored to the clergy until late in that of James the First. In the note at p. 44 (Oxford edit. 1820) of the Life of Smith, Strype states that in 1551 Sir Thomas “repaired to his deanery of Carlisle;” but the order of the council there quoted does not support the statement that Smith ever personally visited the church of which he was nominally the dean.
page 108 note c Morant's History of Essex, i. 156.
page 108 note d Not “of Zone, gentleman,” as misprinted in Strype's Life (edit 1820), p. 31 note. Smith introduces the name of his wife in the following curious passage of his treatise on The Common-Welth of England:— “Our daughters so soone as they be maried loose the surname of their father, and of the family and stocke where of they do come, and take the surname of their husbandes, as transplanted from their familie into another. So that if my wife was called before Philippe Wilford by her owne name and her father's surname, so soone as she is maried to me she is no more called Philippe Wilford, but Philip Smith, and so must she write and signe, and as she chaungeth husbandes, so she chaungeth surnames, called alwaies by the surname of her last husbande. Yet if a woman once marie a Lorde or a Knight, by which occasion she is called my Ladie, with the surname of her husbande, if hee dye, and shee take a husbande of a meaner estate by whom she shall not be called Ladie, (such is the honour we do give to women) she shall still be called Ladie with the surname of her first husband, and not of the second. (In a side-note,) Yet she is no Ladie by the common law, although so called of courtesie.”—The Common-Welth of England, and maner of Government thereof, 4to, 1569, p. 131.
page 109 note a Morant's Essex, i. 157.
page 110 note a “Nam Astrologiam sic rapi, sic adamari et devorari a plerisque Nobilibus video, ut non opus habeant stimulo, sed freno: non buccinatore ad incitandum, sed vituperatore ad retardandum hunc vehementem impetum. Cui multi adeo fisi sunt, ut Deo propemodum diffisi, exitum sortiti sint non ita fcelicem, ab astris non prsesignificatum, nee ab ipsis expectatum. Artem in totum non damno: sed Nobiles ad ejus studium me nee suasorem habebunt, nee applausorem. Satis ubique prseconum est.” (Optimates, sive de Nobilitate. Laurentio Humfredo autore. Basilese, 1560, p. 347.) I append the translation of the passage, published in 1563: “But Astrology I see so ravened, embraced and devoured of many, as they neede no spurre to it, but rather a brydle from it, no trompetter to encourage them, but a chider to restrayne theyr vehement race. Whereto some have so much credyted, as almost dyscrediting God, they lyghted not on altogether luckyeende, nor foretolde of the starres nor foreseene of them. I condemne not universally the arte: but thereto get they me not counceller, nor favourer. It hath plenty enough of praysers.” (The Nobles, or of Nobilitye. By Lawrence Humfrey, D. of Divinity, and President of Magdaleine Colledge in Oxforde. London, 1563.)
page 110 note b This curious document is printed in the Annals of the Reformation, vol. ii. Appendix, No. IV. from the original said to be in the Burghley MSS “written by Secretary Cecil propria manu.” As I have not been able to find the original in the Lansdowne MSS. or elsewhere in the British Museum, it may perhaps exist at Hatfield. Dr. Nares has noticed some of its absurd prognostications, in his Memoirs of Lord Burghley, vol. ii. p. 534.
page 110 note e Life of Smith (Oxford edit. 1820), p. 82.
page 111 note a These are given in the Appendix to this paper.
page 111 note b In his chapters i., iii., iv., xvii. and xviii., at pp 5, 26, 28, 31, 32, 170, and 176 of the Oxford edition of 1820.
page 111 note c This is ascertained from his statements respecting the revenue of Eton College. He was made Provost at Christmas 1547, and two Midsummers had since occurred. In October 1549 he ceased to be Secretary of State.
page 113 note c Strype, in making use of this passage, in his third chapter, has unaccountably altered this word, stating that “he kept three servants, three guns, and three winter geldings.”—Oxford edit. 1820, p. 28.
page 115 note a Misprinted in Strype's Cheke, edit. 1820, “your good Graces mind.”
page 116 note a Misprinted in Strype's Cheke, edit. 1820, “and sich we pitty.”
page 116 note b Ibid. “required.”
page 116 note c Ibid., “plenteous.”
page 117 note a Here lie has subsequently inserted this astrological Mém. 
page 121 note a i.e. if it be meant.
page 121 note b i.e. the executors of King Henry the Eighth.
page 121 note c The duke of Somerset.
page 122 note a This house was in Philpot Lane, in the city of London, and is again mentioned presently.
page 122 note b Sir William Paget; Strype states incorrectly that it was let to him for thirty pounds a year, instead of thirty shillings. See another passage, hereafter.
page 122 note c That of Master of Requests, in which Cecill had succeeded him.
page 122 note d Sir John Thynne, steward of the Duke of Somerset's household.
page 123 note a Queen Katharine (Parr.), the marquess of Northampton's sister.
page 123 note b Of course at the coronation of Edward the Sixth, not, as Strype imagined, “at the coronation of Queen Katharine.” The “book” was a list or schedule of lands, made preparatory to a grant by letters patent.
page 122 note c His first wife, Elizabeth Carkek.
page 122 note d Lancelot Salkeld.
page 125 note a i.e. his chamber at Court.
page 125 note b Sir Ealph Sadler, master of the wardrobe.
page 126 note a Strype states that Smith lived in this house in the reign of Elizabeth, and that this was the house where the commissioners met in the first year of that queen, to consult for the reformation of religion, and preparing the Book of Common Prayer. But Strype has overlooked the fact that Smith's “little house” in the same locality, which was let to Mr. Comptroller, was a different tenement to that which he bought of Sir Kalph Sadler. Strype has confused the two, and, as already noticed, has mis-stated the sum for which the little house was let.—Oxford edition, 1820, p. 31.
page 126 note b Sir William Paget.
page 126 note c The meaning of this passage, put into other words, is,—Carlisle House, were it once removed to this side of the river, might be of some use to me: as it is, inconvenient, and on the Surrey side, it is on many accounts unavailable.
page 126 note d i. e. the protectorate of the Duke of Somerset.
page 126 note e Bartholomew Traheron, mentioned in a former page as the duke of Suffolk's preceptor. He was made dean of Chichester 1551, though a layman like Smith. See Athens Cantabrigienses, i. 180.
