Dan John Lydgate, as Warton truly observes, was not only the poet
of his monastery, but of the world in general. Yet how has he been
treated by his biographers? Ritson, in his _Bibliographia Poetica_,
says, "he died at an advanced age, after 1446." Thomson, in his
_Chronicles of London Bridge_, 2nd edition, p. 11., says, "Lydgate
died in the year 1440, at the age of sixty;" and again, at p. 164. of
the same work, he says, "Lydgate was born about 1375, and died about
1461!" Pitt says that he died in 1482; and the author of the _Suffolk
Garland_, p. 247., prolongs his life (evidently by a typographical
blunder), to about the year 1641! From these conflicting statements,
it is evident that the true dates of Lydgate's birth and decease are
unknown. Mr. Halliwell, in the preface to his _Selection from the
Minor Poems_ of John Lydgate, arrives at the conclusion from the
MSS. which remain of his writings, that he died before the accession
of Edward IV., and there appears to be every adjunct of external
probability; but surely, if our record offices were carefully
examined, some light might be thrown upon the life of this industrious
monk. I am not inclined to rest satisfied with the dictum of the
Birch MS., No. 4245. fo. 60., that no memorials of him exist in those
repositories.
The only authenticated circumstances in Lydgate's biography (excepting
a few dates to poems), are the following:--He was ordained subdeacon,
1389; deacon, 1393; and priest, 1397. In 1423 he left the Benedictine
Abbey of Bury, in Suffolk, to which he was attached, and was elected
prior of Hatfield Brodhook; but the following year had license to
return to his monastery again. These dates are derived from the
Register of Abbott Cratfield, preserved among the Cotton MSS. Tiber,
B. ix.
My object in calling the attention of your readers to the state of
Lydgate's biography is, to draw forth new facts. Information of
a novel kind may be in their hands without appreciation as to its
importance.
I take this opportunity of noticing the different dates given of Myles
Coverdale's death.
Strype says he died 20th May, 1565, (_Annals of Reformation_, vol.
i. pt. ii. p. 43., Oxf. ed.), although elsewhere he speaks of his as
being alive in 1566. Neale (_Hist of Pur._, vol. i. p. 185.) says, the
20th May, 1567. Fuller (_Church Hist._, p. 65. ed. 1655) says he died
on the 20th of January, 1568, and "Anno 1588," in his _Worthies of
England_, p. 198., ed. 1662.
The following extract from "The Register of Burials in the Parish
Church of St. Bartholomew's by the Exchange" sets the matter at rest.
"Miles Coverdall, doctor of divinity, was buried anno 1568., the 19th
of February."
That the person thus mentioned in the register is Miles Coverdale,
Bishop of Exeter, there can be no doubt, since the epitaph inscribed
on the tomb-stone, copied in _Stow's Survey_, clearly states him to be
so. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to observe that the date mentioned in
the extract is the old style, and, therefore, according to our present
computation, he was buried the 19th of February, 1569.
Can any of your correspondents throw any light upon the authorship of
a work frequently attributed to Myles Coverdale, and thus entitled,
"A Brieff discours off the Troubles begonne at Frankford in Germany,
Anno Domini, 1554. Abowte the Booke off common prayer and Ceremonies,
and continued by the Englishe Men theyre, to the ende off Q. Maries
Raigne, in the which discours, the gentle reader shall see the verry
originall and beginninge off all the contention that hathe byn, and
what was the cause off the same?" A text from "Marc 4." with the
date MDLXXV. Some copies are said to have the initials "M.C." on the
title-page, and the name in full, "Myles Coverdale," at the end of the
preface; but no notice is taken of this impression in the excellent
introductory remarks prefixed by Mr. Petheram to the reprint of 1846.
If the valuable work was really written by Myles Coverdale (and it
is much in his style), it must have been interspersed with remarks by
another party, for in the preface, signed, as it is said by Coverdale,
allusion is made to things occuring in 1573, four years after his
death.