"Decem. 12, 1659. Mr. Tredescant and his wife told me they had
been long considering upon whom to bestow their close of
curiosities when they died, and at last resolved to give it unto
me."
Two days afterwards (on the 14th) they had given their scrivener
instructions to prepare a deed of gift to that effect, which was
executed by Tredescant, his wife being a subscribing witness on the
16th, as Ashmole records with astrological minuteness, "5 hor. 30
minutes post meridian." On May 30th, 1662, little more than a month
after John Tredescant's death, he records--
"This Easter term, I preferred a bill in Chancery against Mrs.
Tredescant, for the rarities her husband had settled on me."
Dr. Hamel succeeded in finding the protocols in this suit among the
records of the Court of Chancery, in which Ashmole sets forth, that in
December, 1659, he visited the Tredescants in South Lambeth, and that he
was entertained by Tredescant and his wife with great professions of
kindness. That Mrs. Tredescant told him that her husband had come to the
determination to bequeath to him "the rarities and antiquities, bookes,
coynes, medalls, stones, pictures, and mechanicks contained in his
Closett of Raryties, knowing the great esteeme and value he put upon
it." That Tredescant himself had afterwards said to him, that in
acknowledgment of his (Ashmole's) previous trouble concerning the
preparation of the catalogue of his museum and gardens[2], he purposed
to do so, and that in effect Ashmole and Mrs. Tredescant, as long as she
lived, should enjoy it together. Ashmole also says, Tredescant had made
it a condition that he should, after Mrs. Tredescant's decease, pay a
certain Mary Edmonds, or her children, one hundred pounds sterling. That
he did then actually let a deed be prepared, by which he made over to
him his collection of every kind of curiosities of nature and art within
or near the house (Ashmole here cunningly includes the botanic garden);
Mrs. Tredescant was to have the joint proprietorship, and nothing was to
be abstracted from the collection.
[Footnote 2: In the preface to the catalogue the assistance of two
friends is mentioned; it appears that the other was Dr. Thomas
Warton.]
This deed Tredescant had, on the 16th of December (1659), confirmed
under his hand and seal. Mrs. Tredescant fetched a Queen Elizabeth's
milled shilling, which Tredescant handed over to him, together with the
conveyance, and thereby he came into possession of the collection.[3]
[Footnote 3: Ashmole says, "It was not thought fit to clogge the
deed with the payment of the said hundred pounds to Mrs. Edmonds
or her children, to the end that the same might better appear to
be a free and generous gift, and therefore the consideracion of
the deed was expressed to be for the entire affeccion and singular
esteeme the said John Tredescant had to him (Ashmole), who he did
not doubt would preserve and augment the said rarities for
posterity." He declares that he will pay the money; and in his
Diary we find that after Mrs. Tredescant's death, in 1678, he pays
to a Mrs. Lea, probably one of the daughters of Mrs. Edmonds, one
hundred pounds.]
Mrs. Tredescant had signed the deed as witness; but, when Ashmole was
about to leave the house, she had requested him to leave it with her, as
she wished to ask some of her friends whether, by having signed it as
witness, her right as joint proprietress of the collection might not be
diminished. He left the document with her, in expectation that it would
soon be restored to him, but this was never done. Now, after the death
of Tredescant, she maintains that her husband never made such a
conveyance; but the truth is she has burnt or destroyed it in some other
manner.
Against this Mrs. Tredescant refers to her husband's last will and
testament of the 4th of May, 1661, by which all previous dispositions of
his property, of whatever kind, were declared invalid, and strongly
urges that the museum was expressly bequeathed to her and her alone,
with the stipulation that she should leave it either to the University
of Oxford or to that of Cambridge. And she adds, that she had determined
to leave it to the University of Oxford.
I must not now further trespass upon your space; you shall have the
sequel for your next Number.