PURITAN ECCENTRICITIES.
"And we have known Williams and Richards, names not found in sacred
story, but familiar to our country, prove as gracious saints as any
Safe-deliverance, Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith, or such like, which
have been rather descriptions than names."--THOMAS ADAMS, _Meditations
upon the Creed_, 1629.
"In giving names to children, it was their opinion that _heathenish
names_ should be avoided, as not so fit for Christians; and also the
names of God, and Christ, and angels, and the peculiar offices of the
Mediator,"--NEAL, _History of the Puritans_, vol. 1, ch. v. 1565.
I. INTRODUCTORY.
There are still many people who are sceptical about the stories told
against the Puritans in the matter of name-giving. Of these some are
Nonconformists, who do not like the slights thus cast upon their spiritual
ancestry; unaware that while this curious phase was at its climax,
Puritanism was yet within the pale of the Church of England. Others,
having searched through the lists of the Protector's Parliaments,
Commissioners, and army officers, and having found but a handful of odd
baptismal names, declare, without hesitation, that these stories are
wicked calumnies. Mr. Peacock, whose book on the "Army Lists of Roundheads
and Cavaliers" is well worth study, says, in one of the numbers of _Notes
and Queries_--
"I know modern writers have repeated the same thing over and over
again; but I do not remember any trustworthy evidence of the
Commonwealth time, or that of Charles II., that would lead us to
believe that strange christian names were more common in those days
than now. What passages have we on this subject in the works of the
Restoration playwrights?"
This is an old mistake. If Mr. Peacock had looked at our registers from
1580 to 1640, instead of from 1640 to 1680, he would never have written
the above. There is the most distinct evidence that during the latter
portion of Elizabeth's reign, the whole of James's reign, and great part
of Charles's reign, in a district roughly comprising England south of the
Trent, and having, say, Banbury for its centre, there prevailed, amongst a
certain class of English religionists, a practice of baptizing children by
scriptural phrases, pious ejaculations, or godly admonitions. It was a
practice instituted of deliberate purpose, as conducive to vital religion,
and as intending to separate the truly godly and renewed portion of the
community from the world at large. The Reformation epoch had seen the
English middle and lower classes generally adopting the proper names of
Scripture. Thus, the sterner Puritan had found a list of Bible names that
he would gladly have monopolized, shared in by half the English
population. That a father should style his child Nehemiah, or Abacuck, or
Tabitha, or Dorcas, he discovered with dismay, did not prove that that
particular parent was under any deep conviction of sin. This began to
trouble the minds and consciences of the elect. Fresh limits must be
created. As Richard and Roger had given way to Nathaniel and Zerrubabel,
so Nathaniel and Zerrubabel must now give way to _Learn-wisdom_ and
_Hate-evil_. Who inaugurated the movement, with what success, and how it
slowly waned, this chapter will show.
There can be no doubt that it is entirely owing to Praise-God Barebone,
and the Parliament that went by his name,[30] the impression got abroad in
after days that the Commonwealth period was the heyday of these
eccentricities, and that these remarkable names were merely adopted after
conversion, and were not entered in the vestry-books as baptismal names at
all.
The existence of these names could not escape the attention of Lord
Macaulay and Sir Walter Scott. The Whig historian has referred to
Tribulation Wholesome and Zeal-of-the-land Busy almost as frequently as to
that fourth-form boy for whose average (!) abilities to the very end of
his literary life he entertained such a profound respect. Two quotations
will suffice. In his "Comic Dramatists of the Restoration" he says,
speaking of the Commonwealth--
"To know whether a man was really godly was impossible. But it was
easy to know whether he had a plain dress, lank hair, no starch in his
linen, no gay furniture in his house; whether he talked through his
nose, and showed the whites of his eyes; whether he named his children
_Assurance_, _Tribulation_, and _Maher-shalal-hash-baz_."
Again, in his Essay on Croker's "Boswell's Life of Johnson," he declares--
"Johnson could easily see that a Roundhead who named all his children
after Solomon's singers, and talked in the House of Commons about
seeking the Lord, might be an unprincipled villain, whose religious
mummeries only aggravated his fault."
In "Woodstock," Scott has such characters as _Zerrubabel_ Robins and
_Merciful_ Strickalthrow, both soldiers of Oliver Cromwell; while the
zealot ranter is one _Nehemiah_ Holdenough. Mr. Peacock most certainly has
grounds for complaint here, but not as to facts, only dates.
II. ORIGINATED BY THE PRESBYTERIAN CLERGY.
In Strype's "Life of Whitgift" (i. 255) we find the following statement:--
"I find yet again another company of these fault-finders with the Book
of Common Prayer, in another diocese, namely, that of Chichester,
whose names and livings were these: William Hopkinson, vicar of
Salehurst; Samuel Norden, parson of Hamsey; Antony Hobson, vicar of
Leominster; Thomas Underdown, parson of St. Mary's in Lewes; John
Bingham, preacher of Hodeleigh; Thomas Heley, preacher of Warbleton;
John German, vicar of Burienam; and Richard Whiteaker, vicar of
Ambreley."
I follow up the history of but two of these ministers, Hopkinson of
Salehurst, and Heley of Warbleton. Suspended by the commissary, they were
summoned to Canterbury, December 6, 1583, and subscribed. Both being
married men, with young families, we may note their action in regard to
name-giving. The following are to be found in the register at Salehurst:
"Maye 3, 1579, was baptized Persis (Rom. xvi. 12), the daughter of
William Hopkinson, minister heare.
"June 18, 1587, was baptized Stedfast, the sonne of Mr. William Bell,
minister.
"Nov. 3, 1588, was baptized Renewed, the doughter of William
Hopkinson, minister.
"Feb. 28, 1591, was baptized Safe-on-Highe, the sonne of Will{m}.
Hopkinson, minister of the Lord's Worde there.[31]
"Oct. 29, 1596. Constant, filia Thomae Lorde, baptisata fuit.
"March, 1621. Rejoyce, filia Thomae Lorde, baptisata fuit die 10, et
sepulta die 23.
"November, 1646. Bethshua, doughter of Mr. John Lorde, minister of
Salehurst, bapt. 22 die."
These entries are of the utmost importance; they begin at the very date
when the new custom arose, and are patronized by three ministers in
succession--possibly four, if Thomas Lorde was also a clergyman.
Heley's case is yet more curious. He had been prescribing grace-names for
his flock shortly before the birth of his first child. He thus practises
upon his own offspring:
"Nov. 7, 1585. Muche-merceye, the sonne of Thomas Hellye, minyster.
"March 26, 1587. Increased, the dather of Thomas Helly, minister.
"Maye 5, 1588. Sin-denie, the dather of Thomas Helly, minister.
"Maye 25, 1589. Fear-not, the sonne of Thomas Helly, minister."
Under rectorial pressure the villagers followed suit; and for half a
century Warbleton was, in the names of its parishioners, a complete
exegesis of justification by faith without the deeds of the law.
_Sorry-for-sin_ Coupard was a peripatetic exhortation to repentance, and
_No-merit_ Vynall was a standing denunciation of works. No register in
England is better worth a pilgrimage to-day than Warbleton.[32]
Still confining our attention to Sussex and Kent, we come to Berwick:
"1594, Dec. 22. Baptized Continent, daughter of Hugh Walker, vicar.
"1602, Dec. 12. Baptized Christophilus, son of Hugh Walker."--Berwick,
Sussex.
I think the father ought to be whipped most incontinently in the open
market who would inflict such a name on an infant daughter. They did not
think so then. The point, however, is that the father was incumbent of the
parish.
A more historic instance may be given. John Frewen, Puritan rector of
Northiam, Sussex, from 1583 to 1628, and author of "Grounds and Principles
of the Christian Religion," had two sons, at least, baptized in his
church. The dates tally exactly with the new custom:
"1588, May 26. Baptized Accepted, sonne of John Frewen.
"1591, Sep. 5. Baptized Thankful, sonne of John Frewen."--Northiam,
Sussex.
_Accepted_[33] died Archbishop of York, being prebend designate of
Canterbury so early as 1620:
"1620, Sep. 8. Grant in reversion to Accepted Frewen of a prebend in
Canterbury Cathedral."--"C. S. P. Dom."
One more instance before we pass on. In two separate wills, dated 1602
and 1604 (folio 25, Montagu, "Prerog. Ct. of Cant.," and folio 25, Harte,
ditto), will be found references to "More-fruite and Faint-not, children
of Dudley Fenner, minister of the Word of God" at Marden, in Kent.
Now, this Dudley Fenner was a thoroughly worthy man, but a fanatic of most
intolerant type. In 1583 we find him at Cranbrook, in Kent. An account of
his sayings and doings was forwarded, says Strype, to Lord Burghley, who
himself marked the following passage:--
"Ye shall pray also that God would strike through the sides of all
such as go about to take away from the ministers of the Gospel the
liberty which is granted them by the Word of God."
But a curious note occurs alongside this passage in Lord Burghley's hand:
"Names given in baptism by Dudley Fenner: Joy-againe, From-above,
More-fruit, Dust."--Whitgift, i. p. 247.
Two of these names were given to his own children, as Cranbrook register
shows to this day:
"1583, Dec. 22. Baptized More-fruit, son of Mr. Dudley Fenner."
"1585, June 6. Baptized Faint-not, fil. Mr. Dudley Fenner, concional
digniss."
Soon after this Dudley Fenner again got into trouble through his sturdy
spirit of nonconformity. After an imprisonment of twelve months, he fled
to Middleborough, in Holland, and died there about 1589.
The above incident from Strype is interesting, for here manifestly is the
source whence Camden derived his information upon the subject. In his
quaint "Remaines," published thirty years later (1614), after alluding to
the Latin names then in vogue, he adds:
"As little will be thought of the new names, Free-Gift, Reformation,
Earth, Dust, Ashes, Delivery, More-fruit, Tribulation,
The-Lord-is-near, More-triale, Discipline, Joy-againe, From-above,
which have lately been given by some to their children, with no evill
meaning, but upon some singular and precise conceite."
Very likely Lord Burghley gave Fenner's selection to the great antiquary.
Coming into London, the following case occurs. John Press was incumbent of
St. Matthew, Friday Street, from 1573 to 1612:
"1584. Baptized Purifie, son of Mr. John Presse, parson."
John Bunyan's great character name of _Hopeful_ is to be seen in Banbury
Church register. But such an eccentricity is to be expected in the parish
over which Wheatley presided, the head-quarters, too, of extravagant
Puritanism. We all remember drunken Barnaby:
"To Banbury came I, O prophane one!
Where I saw a Puritane one,
Hanging of his cat on Monday
For killing of a mouse on Sunday."
But the point I want to emphasize is that this _Hopeful_ was Wheatley's
own daughter:
"1604, Dec. 21. Baptized Hope-full, daughter of William Wheatlye."
Take a run from Banbury into Leicestershire. A stern Puritan was Antony
Grey, "parson and patron" of Burbach; and he continued "a constant and
faithfull preacher of the Gospell of Jesus Christ, even to his extreame
old age, and for some yeares after he was Earle of Kent," as his tombstone
tells us. He had twelve children, and their baptismal entries are worth
recording:
"1593, April 29. Grace, daughter of Mr. Anthonie Grey.
"1594, Nov. 28. Henry, son of ditto.
"1596, Nov. 16. Magdalen, daughter of ditto.
"1598, May 8. Christian, daughter of ditto.
"1600, Feb. 2. Faith-my-joy, daughter of ditto.[34]
"1603, April 3. John, son of ditto.
"1604, Feb. 23. Patience, daughter of Myster Anthonie Grey, preacher.
"1606, Oct. 5. Jobe, son of ditto.
"1608, May 1. Theophilus, son of ditto.
"1609, March 14. Priscilla, daughter of ditto (died).
"1613, Sept. 19. Nathaniel, son of ditto.
"1615, May 7. Presela, daughter of ditto."
Why old Antony was persuaded of the devil to christen his second child by
the ungodly agnomen of Henry, we are not informed. It must have given him
many a twinge of conscience afterwards.
Had the Puritan clergy confined these vagaries to their own nurseries, it
would not have mattered much. But there can be no doubt they used their
influence to bias the minds of godparents and witnesses in the same
direction. We have only to pitch upon a minister who came under the
archbishop's or Lord Treasurer's notice as disaffected, seek out the
church over which he presided, scan the register of baptisms during the
years of his incumbency, and a batch of extravagant names will at once be
unearthed. In the villages of Sussex and Kent, where the personal
influence of the recalcitrant clergy seems to have been greatest, the
parochial records teem with them.
Thus was the final stage of fanaticism reached, the year 1580 being as
nearly as possible the exact date of its development. Thus were English
people being prepared for the influx of a large batch of names which had
never been seen before, nor will be again. The purely Biblical names,
those that commemorated Bible worthies, swept over the whole country, and
left ineffaceable impressions. The second stage of Puritan excess, names
that savour of eccentricity and fanaticism combined, scarcely reached
England north of Trent, and, for lack of volume, have left but the
faintest traces. They lasted long enough to cover what may be fairly
called an epoch, and extended just far enough to embrace a province. The
epoch was a hundred years, and the province was from Kent to Hereford,
making a small arc northwards, so as to take in Bedfordshire,
Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire, and Oxfordshire. The practice, so far as
the bolder examples is concerned, was a _deliberate scheme_ on the part of
the Presbyterian clergy. On this point the evidence is in all respects
conclusive.
III. CURIOUS NAMES NOT PURITAN.
Several names found in the registers at this time, though commonly
ascribed to the zealots, must be placed under a different category. For
instance, original sin and the Ninth Article would seem to be commemorated
in such a name as Original. We may reject Camden's theory:
"Originall may seem to be deducted from the Greek _origines_, that is,
borne in good time,"
inasmuch as he does not appear to have believed in it himself. The name,
as a matter of fact, was given in the early part of the sixteenth century,
in certain families of position, to the eldest son and heir, denoting that
in him was carried on the original stock. The Bellamys of Lambcote Grange,
Stainton, are a case in point. The eldest son for three generations bore
the name; viz. _Original_ Bellamy, buried at Stainton, September 12,
1619, aged 80; _Original_, his son and heir, the record of whose death I
cannot find; and _Original_, his son and heir, who was baptized December
29, 1606. The first of these must have been born in 1539, far too early a
date for the name to be fathered upon the Puritans. _Original_ was in use
in the family of Babington, of Rampton. Original Babington, son and heir
of John Babington, was a contemporary of the first Original Bellamy
(Nicholl's "Gen. et Top.," viii.).
Another instance occurs later on:
"1635, May 21. These under-written names are to be transported to St.
Christopher's, imbarqued in the _Matthew_ of London, Richard Goodladd,
master, per warrant from ye Earle of Carlisle:
"Originall Lowis, 28 yeres," etc.--Hotten's "Emigrants," p. 81.
_Sense_, a common name in Elizabeth and James's reigns, looks closely
connected with some of the abstract virtues, such as Prudence and
Temperance. The learned compiler of the "Calendar of State Papers"
(1637-38) seems to have been much bothered with the name:
"1638, April 23. Petition of Seuce Whitley, widow of Thomas Whitley,
citizen, and grocer."
The suggestion from the editorial pen is that this Seuce (as he prints it)
is a bewildered spelling of Susey, from Susan! The fact is, Seuce is a
bewildered misreading on the compiler's part of Sense, and Sense is an
English dress of the foreign Senchia, or Sancho, still familiar to us in
Sancho Panza. Several of the following entries will prove that Sense was
too early an inmate of our registers to be a Puritan agnomen:
"1564, Oct. 15. Baptized Saints, d. of Francis Muschamp.
"1565, Nov. 25. Buried Sence, d. of ditto.
"1559, June 13. Married Matthew Draper and Sence Blackwell.
"1570-1, Jan. 15. Baptized Sence, d. of John Bowyer."--Camberwell
Church.
"1651. Zanchy Harvyn, Grocer's Arms, Abbey Milton."--"Tokens of
Seventeenth Century."
"1661, June. Petition of Mrs. Zanchy Mark."--C. S. P.
That it was familiar to Camden in 1614 is clear:
"Sanchia, from Sancta, that is, Holy."--"Remaines," p. 88.
The name became obsolete by the close of the seventeenth century, and,
being a saintly title, was sufficiently odious to the Presbyterians to be
carefully rejected by them in the sixteenth century. Men who refused the
Apostles their saintly title were not likely to stamp the same for life on
weak flesh.[35]
Nor can _Emanuel_, or _Angel_, be brought as charges against the Puritans.
Both flatly contradicted Cartwright's canon; yet both, and especially the
former, have been attributed to the zealots. No names could have been
more offensive to them than these. Even Adams, in his "Meditations upon
the Creed," while attacking his friends on their eccentricity in
preferring "Safe-deliverance" to "Richard," takes care to rebuke those on
the other side, who would introduce _Emanuel_, or even _Gabriel_ or
_Michael_, into their nurseries:
"Some call their sons _Emanuel_: this is too bold. The name is proper
to Christ, therefore not to be communicated to any creature."
_Emanuel_ was imported from the Continent about 1500:
"1545, March 19. Baptized Humphrey, son of Emanuell Roger."--St.
Columb Major.
The same conclusion must be drawn regarding _Angel_. Adams continues:
"Yea, it seems to me not fit for Christian humility to call a man
_Gabriel_ or _Michael_, giving the names of angels to the sons of
mortality."
If the Puritans objected, as they did to a man, to the use of Gabriel and
Michael as angelic names, the generic term itself would be still more
objectionable:
"1645, Nov. 13. Buried Miss Angela Boyce."--Cant. Cath.
"1682, April 11. Baptized Angel, d. of Sir Nicholas Butler,
K{nt}."--St. Helen, Bishopgate.
"Weymouth, March 20, 1635. Embarked for New England: Angell Holland,
aged 21 years."--Hotten's "Emigrants," p. 285.
In this case we may presume the son, and not the father, had turned
Puritan.
A curious custom, which terminated soon after Protestantism was
established in England, gave rise to several names which read oddly enough
to modern eyes. These were titles like Vitalis or Creature--names
applicable to either sex. Mr. Maskell, without furnishing instances, says
Creature occurs in the registers of All-Hallows, Barking ("Hist.
All-Hallows," p. 62). In the vestry-books of Staplehurst, Kent, are
registered:
"1 Edward VI. Apryle xxvii., there were borne ii. childre of Alex'nder
Beeryl: the one christened at home, and so deceased, called Creature;
the other christened at church, called John."--Burns, "History of
Parish Registers," p. 81.
"1550, Nov. 5. Buried Creature, daughter of Agnes Mathews, syngle
woman, the seconde childe.
"1579, July 19. Married John Haffynden and Creature Cheseman, yong
folke."--Staplehurst, Kent.
One instance of _Vitalis_ may be given:
"Vitalis, son of Richard Engaine, and Sara his wife, released his
manor of Dagworth in 1217 to Margery de Cressi."--Blomefield's
"Norfolk," vi. 382, 383.
These are not Puritan names. The dates are against the theory. They belong
to a pre-Reformation practice, being names given to _quick children before
birth_, in cases when it was feared, from the condition of the mother,
they might not be delivered alive. Being christened before the sex could
be known, it was necessary to affix a neutral name, and Vitalis or
Creature answered the purpose. The old Romish rubric ran thus:
"Nemo in utero matris clausus baptizari debet, sed si infans caput
emiserit, et periculum mortis immineat, baptizetur in capite, nec
postea si vivus evaserit, erit iterum baptizandus. At si aliud membrum
emiserit, quod vitalem indicet motum in illo, si periculum pendeat
baptizetur," etc.
Vitalis Engaine and Creature Cheeseman, in the above instances, both
lived, but, by the law just quoted, retained the names given to them, and
underwent no second baptism. If the sex of the yet breathing child was
discovered, but death certain, the name of baptism ran thus:
"1563, July 17. Baptizata fuit in aedibus Mri Humfrey filia ejus quae
nominata fuit Creatura Christi."--St. Peter in the East, Oxford.
"1563, July 17. Creatura Christi, filia Laurentii Humfredi
sepulta."--Ditto.
An English form occurs earlier:
"1561, June 30. The Chylde-of-God, filius Ric. Stacey."--Ditto.
Without entering into controversy, I will only say that if the clergy, up
to the time of the alteration in our Article on Baptism, truly believed
that "insomuch as infants, and children dying in their infancy, shall
undoubtedly be saved thereby (_i.e._ baptism), _and else not_," it was
natural that such a delicate ceremonial as I have hinted at should have
suggested itself to their minds. After the Reformation, the practice as to
unborn children fell into desuetude, and the names with it.
IV. INSTANCES.
(_a._) _Latin Names._
The elder Disraeli reminded us, in his "Curiosities of Literature," that
in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was common for our more
learned pundits to re-style themselves in their own studies by Greek and
Latin names. Some of these--as, for instance, Erasmus[36] and
Melancthon--are only known to the world at large by their adopted titles.
The Reformation had not become an accomplished fact before this custom
began to prevail in England, only it was transferred from the study to the
font, and from scholars to babies. Renovata, Renatus, Donatus, and Beata
began to grow common. Camden, writing in 1614, speaks of still stranger
names--
"If that any among us have named their children Remedium, Amoris,
'Imago-saeculi,' or with such-like names, I know some will think it
more than a vanity."--"Remaines," p. 44.
While, however, the Presbyterian clergy did not object to some of these
Latin sobriquets, as being identical with the names of early believers of
the Primitive Church, stamped in not a few instances with the honours of
martyrdom, they preferred to translate them into English. Many of my
examples of eccentricity will be found to be nothing more than literal
translations of names that had been in common vogue among Christians
twelve and thirteen hundred years before. To the majority of the Puritan
clergy, to change the Latin dress for an English equivalent would be as
natural and imperative as the adoption of Tyndale's or the Genevan Bible
in the place of the Latin Vulgate.
A curious, though somewhat later, proof of this statement is met with in a
will from the Probate Court of Peterborough. The testator was one Theodore
Closland, senior fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. The date is June
24, 1665:
"Item: to What-God-will Crosland, forty shillings, and tenn shillings
to his wife. And to his sonne What-God-will, six pound, thirteen
shillings, fourpence."
This is a manifest translation of the early Christian "Quod-vult-deus."
Grainger, in his "History of England" (iii. 360, fifth edition), says--
"In Montfaucon's 'Diarium Italicum' (p. 270), is a sepulchral
inscription of the year 396, upon Quod-vult-deus, a Christian, to
which is a note: 'Hoc aevo non pauci erant qui piis sententiolis nomina
propria concinnarent, _v.g._ Quod-vult-deus, Deogratias, Habet-deum,
Adeodatus.'"
Closland, or Crosland, the grandfather, was evidently a Puritan, with a
horror of the Latin Vulgate, Latin Pope, and Latin everything. Hence the
translation.
Nevertheless, the Puritans seem to have favoured Latin names at first. It
was a break between the familiar sound of the old and the oddity of the
new. Redemptus was less grotesque than Redeemed, and Renata than Renewed.
The English equivalents soon ruled supreme, but for a generation or two,
and in some cases for a century, the Latin names went side by side with
them.
Take Renatus, for instance:
"1616, Sep. 29. Baptized Renatus, son of Renatus Byllett, gent."--St.
Columb Major.
"1637-8, Jan. 12. Order of Council to Renatus Edwards, girdler, to
shut up his shop in Lombard Street, because he is not a goldsmith.
"1690, April 10. Petition of Renatus Palmer, who prays to be appointed
surveyor in the port of Dartmouth."--C. S. P.
"1659, Nov. 11. Baptized Renovata, the daughter of John
Durance."--Cant. Cath.
It was Renatus Harris who built the organ in All-Hallows, Barking, in 1675
("Hist. All-Hallows, Barking," Maskell). Renatus and Rediviva occur in St.
Matthew, Friday Street, circa 1590. Rediviva lingered into the eighteenth
century:
"1735, ----. Buried Rediviva Mathews."--Banbury.
Desiderata and Desiderius were being used at the close of Elizabeth's
reign, and survived the restoration of Charles II.:
"1671, May 26. Baptized Desiderius Dionys, a poor child found in Lyme
Street."--St. Dionis Backchurch.
Donatus and Deodatus, also, were Latin names on English soil before the
seventeenth century came in:
"1616, Jan. 29. Baptized Donate, vel Deonata, daughter of Martyn
Donnacombe."--St. Columb Major.
Desire and Given,[37] the equivalents, both crossed the Atlantic with the
Pilgrim Fathers.
_Love_ was popular. Side by side with it went _Amor_. George Fox, in his
"Journal," writing in 1670, says--
"When I was come to Enfield, I went first to visit Amor Stoddart, who
lay very weak and almost speechless. Within a few days Amor
died."--Ed. 1836, ii. 129.
In Ripon Cathedral may be seen:
"Amor Oxley, died Nov. 23, 1773, aged 74."
The name still exists in Yorkshire, but no other county, I imagine.
Other instances could be mentioned.[38] I place a few in order:
"1594, Aug. 3. Baptized Relictus Dunstane, a childe found in this
parisshe."--St. Dunstan.
"1613, Nov. 7. Baptized Beata, d. of Mr. John Briggs,
minister."--Witherley, Leic.
"1653, Sep. 29. Married Richard Moone to Benedicta Rolfe."--Cant.
Cath.
"1661, May 25. Married Edward Clayton and Melior[39] Billinge."--St.
Dionis, Backchurch.
"1706. Beata Meetkirke, born Nov. 2, 1705; died Sep. 10,
1706."--Rushden, Hereford.
(_b._) _Grace Names._
In furnishing instances, we naturally begin with those grace names, in all
cases culled from the registers of the period, which belong to what we may
style the first stage. They were, one by one, but taken from the lists
found in the New Testament, and were probably suggested at the outset by
the moralities or interludes. The morality went between the old
miracle-play, or mystery, and the regular drama. In "Every Man," written
in the reign of Henry VIII., it is made a vehicle for retaining the love
of the people for the old ways, the old worship, and the old
superstitions. From the time of Edward VI. to the middle of Elizabeth's
reign, there issued a cluster of interludes of this same moral type and
cast; only all breathed of the new religion, and more or less assaulted
the dogmas of Rome.
These moralities were popular, and were frequently rendered in public,
until the Elizabethan drama was well established. All were allegorical,
and required personal representatives of the abstract graces, and
doctrines of which they treated. The _dramatis personae_ in "Hickscorner"
are Freewill, Perseverance, Pity, Contemplation, and Imagination, and in
"The Interlude of Youth," Humility, Pride, Charity, and Lechery.
It is just possible, therefore, that several of these grace names were
originated under the shadow of the pre-Reformation Church. The following
are early, considering they are found in Cornwall, the county most likely
to be the last to take up a new custom:
"1549, July 1. Baptized Patience, d. of Will{m}. Haygar."--
"1553, May 29. Baptized Honour, d. of Robert Sexton."--St. Columb
Major.
However this may be, we only find the cardinal virtues at the beginning of
the movement--those which are popular in some places to this day, and
still maintain a firm hold in America, borne thither by the Puritan
emigrants.
The three Graces, and Grace itself, took root almost immediately as
favourites. Shakespeare seems to have been aware of it, for Hermione
says--
"My last good deed was to entreat his stay:
What was my first? It has an elder sister,
Or I mistake you--O would her name were Grace!"
"Winter's Tale," Act i. sc. 2.
"1565, March 19. Christening of Grace, daughter of -- Hilles."--St.
Peter, Cornhill.
"1574, Jan. 29. Baptized Grace, daughter of John Russell."--St. Columb
Major.
"1588, Aug. 1. Married Thomas Wood and Faythe Wilson."--St. Dionis
Backchurch.
"1565, ----. Baptized Faith, daughter of Thomas and Agnes
Blomefield."--Rushall, Norfolk.
"1567, Aprill 17. Christening of Charity, daughter of Randoll
Burchenshaw."--St. Peter, Cornhill.
"1571, ----. Baptized Charity, daughter of Thomas
Blomefield."--Rushall, Norfolk.
"1598, Nov. 19. Baptized Hope, d. of John Mainwaringe."--Cant. Cath.
"1636, Nov. 25. Buried Hope, d. of Thomas Alford, aged 23."--Drayton,
Leicester.
The registers of the sixteenth and seventeenth century teem with these;
sometimes boys received them. The Rev. Hope Sherhard was a minister in
Providence Isle in 1632 ("Cal. S. P. Colonial," 1632).
We may note that the still common custom of christening trine-born
children by these names dates from the period of their rise:[40]
"1639, Sep. 7. Baptized Faith, Hope, and Charity, daughters of George
Lamb, and Alice his wife."--Hillingdon.
"1666, Feb. 22. -- Finch, wife of -- Finch, being delivered of three
children, two of them were baptized, one called Faith, and the other
Hope; and the third was intended to be called Charity, but died
unbaptized."--Cranford. _Vide_ Lyson's "Middlesex," p. 30.
Mr. Lower says ("Essays on English Surnames," ii. 159)--
"At Charlton, Kent, three female children produced at one birth
received the names of Faith, Hope, and Charity."
Thomas Adams, in his sermon on the "Three Divine Sisters," says--
"They shall not want prosperity,
That keep faith, hope, and charity."
Perhaps some of these parents remembered this.
Faith and Charity are both mentioned as distinctly Puritan sobriquets in
the "Psalm of Mercie," a political poem:
"'A match,' quoth my sister Joyce,
'Contented,' quoth Rachel, too:
Quoth Abigaile, 'Yea,' and Faith, 'Verily,'
And Charity, 'Let it be so.'"
_Love_, as the synonym of Charity, was also a favourite. Love Atkinson
went out to Virginia with the early refugees (Hotten, "Emigrants," p. 68).
"1631-2, Jan. 31. Buried Love, daughter of William Ballard."--Berwick,
Sussex.
"1740, April 30. Buried Love Arundell."--Racton, Sussex.
"1749, May 31. Love Luckett admitted a freeman by
birthright."--"History of Town and Port of Rye," p. 237.
"1662, May 7. Baptized Love, d. of Mr. Richard Appletree."--Banbury.
Besides Love and Charity, other variations were Humanity and Clemency:
"1637, March 8. Bond of William Shaw, junior, and Thomas Snelling,
citizens and turners, to Humanity Mayo, of St. Martin-in-the-Fields,
in L100 0 0."--C. S. P.
"1625, Aug. 27. Buried Clemency Chawncey."--St. Dionis Backchurch.
Clemency was pretty, and deserved to live; but Mercy seems to have
monopolized the honours, and, by the aid of John Bunyan's heroine in the
"Pilgrim's Progress," still has her admirers. Instances are needless, but
I furnish one or two for form's sake. They shall be late ones:
"1702, Sep. 28. Married Matthias Wallraven and Mercy Waymarke."--St.
Dionis Backchurch.
"1716, May 25. Married Thomas Day and Mercy Parsons, of
Staplehurst."--Cant. Cath.
But there were plenty of virtues left. Prudence had such a run, that she
became Pru in the sixteenth, and Prudentia in the seventeenth century:
"1574, June 30. Buried Prudence, d. of John Mayhew.
"1612, Aug. 2. Married Robert Browne and Prudence Coxe."--St. Dionis
Backchurch.
Justice is hard to separate from the legal title; but here is an instance:
"1660, July 16. Richard Bickley and Justice Willington reported guilty
of embezzling late king's goods."--"Cal. St. P. Dom."
Truth, Constancy, Honour, and Temperance were frequently personified at
the font. Temperance had the shortest life; but, if short, it was merry.
There is scarcely a register, from Gretna Green to St. Michael's, without
it:
"1615, Feb. 25. Baptized Temperance, d. of -- Osberne."--Hawnes,
Bedford.
"1610, Aug. 14. Baptized Temperance, d. of John Goodyer."--Banbury.
"1611, Nov. --. Baptized Temperance, d. of Robert
Carpinter."--Stepney.
"1619, July 22. Married Gyles Rolles to Temperance Blinco."--St.
Peter, Cornhill.
Constance,[41] Constancy, and Constant were common, it will be seen, to
both sexes:
"1593, Sep. 29. Buried Constancy, servant with Mr. Coussin."--St.
Dionis Backchurch.
"1629, Dec. Petition of Captain Constance Ferrar, for losses at Cape
Breton."--"C. S. P. Colonial."
"1665, May 25. Communication from Constance Pley to the Commissioners
in relation to the arrival of a convoy."--C. S. P.
"1665, May 31. Grant to Edward Halshall of L225 0 0, forfeited by
Connistant Cant, of Lynn Regis, for embarking wool to Guernsey not
entered in the Custom House."--Ditto.
"1671, Sep. 2. Buried Constant Sylvester, Esquire."--Brampton, Hunts.
Patience, too, was male as well as female. Sir Patience Warde was Lord
Mayor of London in 1681. Thus the weaker vessels were not allowed to
monopolize the graces. How familiar some of these abstract names had
become, the Cavalier shall tell us in his parody of the sanctimonious
Roundheads' style:
"'Ay, marry,' quoth Agatha,
And Temperance, eke, also:
Quoth Hannah, 'It's just,' and Mary, 'It must,'
'And shall be,' quoth Grace, 'I trow.'"
Several "Truths" occur in the "Chancery Suits" of Elizabeth, and the Greek
Alathea arose with it:
"1595, June 27. Faith and Truth, gemini, -- John Johnson,
bapt."--Wath, Ripon.
Alathea lasted till the eighteenth century was well-nigh out:
"1701, Dec. 4. Francis Milles to Alathea Wilton."--West. Abbey.
"1720, Sep. 18. Buried Alydea, wife of Will{m}. Gough, aged 42
years."--Harnhill, Glouc.
"1786, Oct. 6. Died Althea, wife of Thomas Heberden,
prebendary."--Exeter Cath.[42]
Honour, of course, became Honora, in the eighteenth century, and has
retained that form:
"1583, Aug. 24. Baptized Honor, daughter of Thomas Teage."--St. Columb
Major.
"1614, July 4. Baptized Honour, d. of John Baylye, of
Radcliffe."--Stepney.
"1667, Oct. 9. Christened Mary, d. of Sir John and Lady Honour
Huxley."--Hammersmith.
"1722, Oct. 4. Christened Martha, d. of John and Honoria Hart."--St.
Dionis Backchurch.
Sir Thomas Carew, Speaker of the Commons in James's and Charles's reign,
had a wife Temperance, and four daughters, Patience, Temperance, Silence,
and Prudence (Lodge's "Illust.," iii. 37). Possibly, as Speaker, he had
had better opportunity to observe that these were the four cardinal
parliamentary virtues, especially Silence. This last was somewhat popular,
and seems to have got curtailed to "Sill," as Prudence to "Pru," and
Constance to "Con." In the Calendar of "State Papers" (June 21, 1666), a
man named Taylor, writing to another named Williamson, wishes "his brother
Sill would come and reap the sweets of Harwich." Writing again, five days
later, he asks "after his brother, Silence Taylor."
This was one of the names that crossed the Atlantic and became a fixture
in America (Bowditch). It is not, however, to be confounded with Sill,
that is, Sybil, in the old Cavalier chorus:
"'And God blesse King Charles,' quoth George,
'And save him,' says Simon and Sill."
Silence is one of the few Puritan names that found its way into the north
of England:
"1741, Dec. 9. Married Robert Thyer to Silence Leigh."--St. Ann,
Manchester.
The mother of Silence Leigh, who was a widow when she married, was Silence
Beswicke ("Memorials of St. Ann, Manchester," p. 55).[43] The name is
found again in the register of Youlgreave Church, Derbyshire (_Notes and
Queries_, Feb. 17, 1877). Curiously enough, we find Camden omitting
Silence as a female name of his day, but inserting Tace. In his list of
feminine baptismal names, compiled in 1614 ("Remaines," p. 89), he has
"Tace--Be silent--a fit name to admonish that sex of silence."
Here, then, is another instance of a Latin name translated into English. I
have lighted on a case proving the antiquary's veracity:
"Here lieth the body of Tacey, the wife of George Can, of Brockwear,
who departed this life 22 day of Feb., An. Dom. 1715, aged 32
years."--Hewelsfield, Glouc.
Tace must have lasted a century, therefore. Silence may be set down to
some old Puritan stickler for the admonition of Saint Paul: "Let the woman
learn in silence, with all subjection" (1 Tim. ii. 11).
The Epistle to the Romans was a never-failing well-spring to the earnest
Puritan, and one passage was much applied to his present condition:
"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith unto this
grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And
not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that
tribulation worketh patience; and patience, experience; and
experience, hope: and hope maketh not ashamed."--v. 1-5.
There is scarcely a word in this passage that is not inscribed on our
registers between 1575 and 1595. Faith, Grace, and Hope have already been
mentioned;[44] Camden testified to the existence of Tribulation in 1614;
Rejoice was very familiar; Patience, of course, was common:
"1592, July 7. Buried Patience Birche."--Cant. Cath.
"1596, Oct. 3. Baptized Pacience, daughter of Martin Tome."--St.
Columb Major.
"1599, April 23. Baptized Patience, d. of John Harmer."--Warbleton.
Even _Experience_ is found--a strange title for an infant.
"The Rev. Experience Mayhew, A.M., born Feb. 5, 1673; died of an
apoplexy, Nov. 9, 1758."
So ran the epitaph of a missionary (_vide_ _Pulpit_, Dec. 6, 1827) to the
Vineyard Island. It had been handed on to him, no doubt, from some
grandfather or grandmother of Elizabeth's closing days.
A late instance of _Diligence_ occurs in St. Peter, Cornhill:
"1724, Nov. 1. Buried Diligence Constant."
Obedience had a good run, and began very early:
"1573, Sep. 20. Bapt. Obedience, dather of Thomas Garding.
"1586, Aug. 28. Bapt. Obedyence, dather of Richard Ellis."--Warbleton.
"1697, April 30. Bapt. Robert, son of James and Obedience Clark."--St.
James, Picadilly.
Obedience Robins is the name of a testator in 1709 (Wills: Archdeaconry of
London), while the following epitaph speaks for itself:
"Obedience Newitt, wife of Thomas Newitt, died in 1617, aged 32.
"Her name and nature did accord,
Obedient was she to her Lord."--Burwash, Sussex.
"Add to your faith, virtue," says the Apostle. As a name this grace was
late in the field:
"1687, May 25. Married Virtue Radford and Susannah Wright."--West.
Abbey.
"1704, Oct. 20. Buried Virtue, wife of John Higgison."--Marshfield,
Glouc.
"1709, May 6. Buried Vertue Page."--Finchley.
Confidence and Victory were evidently favourites:
"1587, Jan. 8. Baptized Confydence, d. of Roger Elliard."--Warbleton.
"1770, Nov. 17, died Confidence, wife of John Thomas, aged 61
years."--Bulley, Glouc.
"1587, Feb. 8. Buryed Vyctorye Buttres."--Elham, Kent.
"1618, Dec. 9. Buryed Victorye Lussendine."--Ditto.
"1696, May 17. Bapt. Victory, d. of Joseph Gibbs."--St. Dionis
Backchurch.
_Perseverance_ went out with the emigrants to New England, but I do not
find any instance in the home registers. _Felicity_ appeared in one of our
law courts last year, so it cannot be said to be extinct; but there is a
touch of irony in the first of the following examples:--
"1604-5, March 15. Baptized Felicity, d. of John Barnes,
vagarant."--Stepney.
"1590, July 5. Baptized Felycyte Harris."--Cranbrook.
_Comfort_ has a pleasant atmosphere about it, and many a parent was
tempted to the use of it. It lingered longer than many of its rivals.
Comfort Farren's epitaph may be seen on the floor of Tewkesbury Abbey:
"Comfort, wife of Abraham Farren, gent., of this Corporation, died
August 24, 1720."
Again, in Dymock Church we find:
"_Comfort_, wife to William Davis, died 14 June, 1775, aged 78 years.
"_Comfort_, their daughter, died 9 Feb., 1760, aged 24 years."
Nearly 150 years before this, however, Comfort Starr was a name not
unknown to the more heated zealots of the Puritan party. He was a native
of Ashford, in Kent, and after various restless shiftings as a minister,
Carlisle being his head-quarters for a time, went to New Plymouth in the
_Mayflower_, in 1620. There he became fellow of Harvard College, but
returned to England eventually, and died at Lewes in his eighty-seventh
year.
Perhaps the most interesting and popular of the grace names was
"Repentance." In a "new interlude" of the Reformation, entitled the "Life
and Repentance of Marie Magdalene," and published in 1567, one of the
chief characters was "Repentance." At the same time Repentance came into
font use, and, odd as it may sound, bade fair to become a permanently
recognized name in England:
"1583, Dec. 8. Married William Arnolde and Repentance Pownoll."--Cant.
Cath.
"1587, Oct. 22. Baptized Repentance, dather of George
Aysherst."--Warbleton.
"1588, June 30. Baptized Repentance Water."--Cranbrook.
"1597, Aug. 4. Baptized Repentance, daughter of Robert Benham, of
Lymhouse."--Stepney.
"1612, March 26. Baptized Repentance Wrathe."--Elham, Kent.
"1688, Dec. 23. Bapt. Repentance, son of Thomas and Mercy
Tompson."--St. James, Piccadilly.
In the "Sussex Archaeological Collections" (xvii. 148) is found recorded
the case of Repentance Hastings, deputy portreeve of Seaford, who in 1643
was convicted of hiding some wreckage:
"Repentance Hastings, 1 load, 1 cask, 2 pieces of royals."
Evidently his repentance began too early in life to be lasting; but infant
piety could not be expected to resist the hardening influence of such a
name as this.[45]
_Humiliation_ was a big word, and that alone must have been in its favour:
"1629, Jan. 24. Married Humiliation Hinde and Elizabeth Phillips by
banes."--St. Peter, Cornhill.
Humiliation, being proud of his name, determined to retain it in the
family--for he had one--but as he had began to worship at St. Dionis
Backchurch, the entries of baptism lie there, the spelling of his surname
being slightly altered:
"1630, Nov. 18. Baptized Humiliation, son of Humiliation Hyne."
This son died March 11, 1631-2. Humiliation _pere_, however, did not
sorrow without hope, for in a few years he again brings a son to the
parson:
"1637-8, Jan. 21. Baptized Humiliation, son of Humiliation Hinde."
Humility is preferable to Humiliation. Humility Cooper was one of a
freight of passengers in the _Mayflower_, who, in 1620, sought a home in
the West. A few years afterwards Humility Hobbs followed him (Hotten,
"Emigrants," p. 426):
"1596, March 13. Baptized Humilitye, sonne of Wylliam
Jones."--Warbleton.
"1688, May 5. Buried Humility, wife of Humphey Paget."--Peckleton,
Leic.
Had it not been for Charles Dickens, Humble would not have appeared
objectionable:
"1666-1667, Jan. 29. Petition of Dame Frances, wife of Humble Ward,
Lord Ward, Baron, of Birmingham."[46]--C. S. P.
All Saints, Leicester, records another saintly grace:
"Here lieth the body of Abstinence Pougher, Esq., who died Sept. 5,
1741, aged 62 years."
In some cases we find the infant represented, not by a grace-name, but as
in a state of grace. Every register contains one or two Godlies:
"1579, July 24. Baptized Godlye, d. of Richard Fauterell."--Warbleton.
"1611, May 1. Baptized Godly, d. of Henry Gray, and Joane his wife.
Joane Standmer and Godly Gotherd, sureties."--South Bersted, Sussex.
"1619, Nov. Baptized Godly, d. of Thomas Edwardes, of
Poplar."--Stepney.
"1632, Oct. 30. Married John Wafforde to Godly Spicer."--Cant. Cath.
Gracious is as objectionable as Godly. Gracious Owen was President of St.
John's College, Oxford, during the decade 1650-1660.
"Oct. 24, 1661. Examination of Gracious Franklin: Joshua Jones,
minister at the Red Lion, Fleet Street, told him that he heard there
were 3000 men about the city maintained by Presbyterian
ministers."--C. S. P.
_Lively_, we may presume, referred to spiritual manifestations. A curious
combination of font name and patronymic is obtained in Lively Moody, D.D.,
of St. John's College, Cambridge, 1682 (Wood's "Fasti Oxonienses").
Exactly one hundred years later the name is met with again:
"1782, July 3. Lively Clarke of this town, sadler, aged
60."--Berkeley, Gloucester.
At Warbleton, where the Puritan Heley ministered, it seems to have been
found wearisome to be continually christening children by the names of
Repent and Repentance, so a variation was made in the form of
"Sorry-for-sin:"
"1589, Jan 25. Baptized Sory-for-sine, the dather of John Coupard."
The following is curious:
"Thomas Luxford, of Windmill Hill, died Feb. 24, 1739, aged 72 years.
He was grandson of Thomas Luxford, of Windmill Hill, by _Changed_
Collins, his wife, daughter of Thomas Collins, of Socknash in this
county, Esq., and eldest son of Richard Luxford, of
Billinghurst."--Wartling Church.
Faithful[47] may close this list:
"1640, Oct. 18. Baptized Benjamin, son of Faithful Bishop."--St.
Columb Major.
Faithful Rouse settled in New England in 1644 (Bowditch). The following
despatch mentions another:
"1666, July 18. Major Beversham and Lieut. Faithful Fortescue are sent
from Ireland to raise men."--C. S. P.
Bunyan evidently liked it, and gave the name to the martyr of Vanity Fair:
"Sing, Faithful, sing, and let thy name survive;
For though they killed thee, thou art yet alive."
Speaking from a nomenclatural point of view, the name did not survive, for
the last instance I have met with is that of Faithful Meakin, curate of
Mobberley, Cheshire, in 1729 (Earwaker, "East Cheshire," p. 99, _n._). It
had had a run of more than a century, however.
The reader will have observed that the majority of these names have become
obsolete. The religious apathy of the early eighteenth century was against
them. They seem to have made their way slowly westward. Certainly their
latest representatives are to be found in the more retired villages of
Gloucestershire and Devonshire. A few like Mercy, Faith, Hope, Charity,
Grace, and Prudence, still survive, and will probably for ever command a
certain amount of patronage; but they are much more popular in our
religious story-books than the church registers. The absence of the rest
is no great loss, I imagine.
(_c._) _Exhortatory Names._
The zealots of Elizabeth's later days began to weary of names that merely
made household words of the apostolic virtues. Many of these sobriquets
had become popular among the unthinking and careless. They began to stamp
their offspring with exhortatory sentences, pious ejaculations, brief
professions of godly sorrow for sin, or exclamations of praise for mercies
received. I am bound to confess, however, that the prevailing tone of
these names is rather contradictory of the picture of gloomy sourness
drawn by the facile pens of Macaulay and Walter Scott. 'Tis true, Anger
and Wrath existed:
"1654. Wroth Rogers to be placed on the Commission of Scandalous
Ministers."--Scobell's "Acts and Ord. Parl.," 1658.
"1680, Dec. 22. Buried Anger Bull, packer."--St. Dionis Backchurch.
I dare say he was familiarly termed Angry Bull, like "Savage Bear," a
gentleman of Kent who was living at the same time, mentioned elsewhere in
these pages. Nevertheless, in the exhortatory names there is a general air
of cheerful assurance.
The most celebrated name of this class is Praise-God Barebone. I cannot
find his baptismal entry. A collection of verses was compiled by one
Fear-God Barbon, of Daventry (Harleian M.S. 7332). This cannot have been
his father, as we have evidence that the leatherseller was born about
1596, and, allowing his parent to be anything over twenty, the date would
be too early for exhortatory names like Fear-God. We may presume,
therefore, he was a brother. Two other brothers are said to have been
entitled respectively, "Jesus-Christ-came-into-the-world-to-save
Barebone," and "If-Christ-had-not-died-for-thee-thou-hadst-been-damned
Barebone." I say "entitled," for I doubt whether either received such a
long string of words in baptism. Brook, in his "History of the Puritans,"
implies they were; Hume says that both were _adopted_ names, and adds, in
regard to the latter, that his acquaintance were so wearied with its
length, that they styled him by the last word as "Damned Barebone." The
editor of _Notes and Queries_ (March 15, 1862) says that, "as his morals
were not of the best," this abbreviated form "appeared to suit him better
than his entire baptismal prefix." Whether the title was given at the font
or adopted, there is no doubt that he was familiarly known as Dr. Damned
Barebone. This was more curt than courteous.
Of Praise-God's history little items have leaked out. He began life as a
leatherseller in Fleet Street, and owned a house under the sign of the
"Lock and Key," in the parish of St. Dunstan-in-the-West. He was admitted
a freeman of the Leathersellers' Company, January 20, 1623. He was a Fifth
Monarchy man, if a tract printed in 1654, entitled "A Declaration of
several of the Churches of Christ, and Godly People, in and about the City
of London," etc., which mentions "the Church which walks with Mr.
Barebone," refers to him. This, however, may be Fear-God Barebone.
Praise-God was imprisoned after the Restoration, but after a while
released, and died, at the age of eighty or above, in obscurity. His life,
which was not without its excitements, was spent in London, and possibly
his baptismal entry will be found there.
A word or two about his surname. The elder Disraeli says ("Curiosities of
Literature")--
"There are unfortunate names, which are very injurious to the cause in
which they are engaged; for instance, the long Parliament in
Cromwell's time, called by derision the Rump, was headed by one
Barebones, a leatherseller."
Isaac Disraeli has here perpetuated a mistake. Barebone's Parliament was
the Parliament of Barebone, not Barebones. Peck, in his "Desiderata
Curiosa," speaking of a member of the family who died in 1646, styles him
Mr. Barborne; while Echard writes the name Barbon, when referring to Dr.
Barbon, one of the chief rebuilders of the city of London after the Fire.
Between Barebones and Barbon is a wide gap, and Barbon's Parliament
suggests nothing ludicrous whatsoever. Yet (if we set aside the baptismal
name) what an amount of ridicule has been cast over this same Parliament
on account of a surname which in reality has been made to meet the
occasion. No historian has heaped more sarcasm on the "Rump" than Hume,
but he never styles the leatherseller as anything but "Barebone."
But while _Praise-God_ has obtained exceptional notoriety, not so
_Faint-not_, and yet there was a day when Faint-not bade fair to take its
place as a regular and recognized name. I should weary the reader did I
furnish a full list of instances. Here are a few:
"1585, March 6. Baptized Faynt-not, d. of James Browne."--Warbleton.
"1590, Jan. 17. Baptized Faynt-not Wood."--Cranbrook.
"1631, ----. Thomas Perse married Faint-not Kennarde."--Chiddingly.
"1642, Aug. 2. Married John Pierce and Faint-not Polhill,
widow."--Burwash, Sussex.
This Faint-not Polhill was mother of Edward Polhill, a somewhat celebrated
writer of his day. She married her first husband December 11, 1616.
"1678, Feb. 12. Buried Faint-not Blatcher, a poor old
widdow."--Warbleton.
The rents of certain houses which provided an exhibition for the boys of
Lewes Grammar School were paid in 1692 as usual. One item is set down as
follows:
"Faint-not Batchelor's house, per annum, L6 0 0."--"Hist. and Ant.
Lewes," i. 311.
_Faint-not_ occurs in Maresfield Church ("Suss. Arch. Coll.," xiv. 151).
We have already referred to Faint-not, the daughter of "Dudley Fenner,
minister of the Word of God" at Marden, Kent.
Fear-not was also in use. The Rector of Warbleton baptized one of his own
children by the name; some of his parishioners copied him:
"1594, Nov. 10. Baptized Fear-not, sonne of Richard Maye.
"1589, Oct. 19. Baptized Fear-not, sonne of Will{m}. Browne."
Decidedly cheerful were such names as Hope-still or Hopeful. Both occur in
Banbury Church. Hopeful Wheatley has already been mentioned.
"1611, June 16. Baptized Hope-still, d. to Edward Peedle.
"1697, Dec. 30. Buried Hope-still Faxon, a olde mayde."
Whether or no her matrimonial expectations were still high to the end, we
are not told.
One of the earliest Pilgrim Fathers was Hope-still Foster (Hotten, p. 68).
He went out to New England about 1620. His name became a common one out
there. Two bearers of the name at home lived so long that it reached the
Georges:
"Near this place is interred the body of John Warden, of Butler's
Green in this parish, Esq., who died April 30, 1730, aged 79 years;
and also of _Hope-still_, his wife, who died July 22, 1749, aged
92."--Cuckfield Church, Sussex.
"Dec. 1, 1714. Administration of goods of Michael Watkins, granted to
Hope-still Watkins, his widow."--C. S. P.
In the list of incumbents of Lydney, Gloucestershire, will be found the
name of _Help-on-high_ Foxe, who was presented to the living by the Dean
and Chapter of Hereford in 1660. For some reason or other, possibly to
curtail the length, he styled himself in general as Hope-well, and this
was retained on his tomb:
"Hic in Cristo quiescit Hope-wel Foxe, in artibus magister, hujus
ecclesiae vicarius vigilantissimus qui obiit 2 die Aprilis,
1662."--Bigland's "Monuments of Gloucester."
How quickly such names were caught up by parishioners from their clergy
may again be seen in the case of Hope-well Voicings, of Tetbury, who left
a rentcharge of L1 for the charity schools at Cirencester in 1720.
Probably he was christened by the vicar himself at Lydney.
We have already mentioned Rejoice Lord, of Salehurst. The name had a
tremendous run:
"1647, June 22. Buried Rejoice, daughter of John Harvey.
"1679, Oct. 18. Baptized Rejoice, daughter of Nicholas
Wratten."--Warbleton.
_Rejoice_ reached the eighteenth century:
"1713, Sep. 29. Married John Pimm, of St. Dunstan's, Cant., to
_Rejoice_ Epps, of the precincts of this church."--Cant. Cath.
_Magnify_ and _Give-thanks_ frequently occur in Warbleton register:
"1595, Dec. 7. Buried Gyve-thanks Bentham, a child.
"1593, M{ch}. 11. Baptized Give-thanks, the dather of Thomas Elliard.
"1591, Feb. 6. Baptized Magnyfy, sonne of William Freeland.
"1587, Sep. 17. Baptized Magnyfye, sonne of Thomas Beard.
"1587, April 2. Baptized Give-thankes, sonne of Thomas Cunsted."
It is from the same register we obtain examples of an exhortatory name
known to have existed at this time, viz. "Be-thankful." A dozen cases
might be cited:
"1586, Feb. 6. Baptized Be-thankfull, the dather of Abell Tyerston.
"1601, Nov. 8. Baptized Be-thankfull, d. of James Gyles.
"1617, Nov. 27. Married Thomas Flatt and Be-thankefull Baker.
"1662, May 9. Buried Be-thankeful Giles."
Thus Miss Giles bore her full name for over sixty years: and, I dare say,
was very proud of it.[48]
Besides Be-thankful, there was "Be-strong:"
"1592, Nov. 26. Baptized Be-strong Philpott."--Cranbrook.
Many of the exhortatory names related to the fallen nature of man. One
great favourite at Warbleton was "Sin-deny." It was coined first by Heley,
the Puritan rector, in 1588, for one of his own daughters. Afterwards the
entries are numerous. Two occur in one week:
"1592, April 23. Baptized Sin-denye, d. of Richard Tebb.
" " 29. Baptized Sin-denye, d. of William Durant.
"1594, March 9. Baptized Sin-denye, d. of Edward Outtered."
This name seems to have been monopolized by the girls. One instance only
to the contrary can I find:
"1588, Feb. 9. Baptized Sin-dynye, sonne of Andrew Champneye."
Still keeping to the same register, we find of this class:
"1669, Jan. 21. Buried Refrayne Benny, a widdow.
"1586, May 15. Baptized Refrayne, dather of John Celeb.
"1586, April 24. Baptized Repent, sonne of William Durant.
"1587, July 16. Baptized Returne, sonne of Rychard Farret.
"1587, Aug. 6. Baptized Obey, sonne of Rychard Larkford.
"1587, Dec. 24. Baptized Depend, sonne of Edward Outtered.
"1588, Ap. 7. Baptized Feare-God, sonne of John Couper.
"1608, Aug. 14. Baptized Repent Champney, a basterd.
"1595. Maye 18. Baptized Refrayne, d. of John Wykes."
Many registers contain "Repent." Cranbrook has an early one:
"1586, Jan. 1. Baptized Repent Boorman."
_Abuse-not_ is quaint:
"1592, Sep. 17. Baptized Abuse-not, d. of Rychard Ellis.
"1592, Dec. 3. Baptized Abus-not, d. of John Collier."--Warbleton.
The last retained her name:
"1603, Maye 20. Buried Abuse-not Collyer."
Here, again, are two curious entries:
"1636, March 19. Baptized Be-steadfast, sonne of Thomas Elliard.
"1589, Nov. 9. Baptized Learn-wysdome, d. of Rychard Ellis."
These also are extracts from the Warbleton registers. None of them,
however, can be more strongly exhortatory than this:
"1660, April 15. Baptized Hate-evill, d. of Antony
Greenhill."--Banbury.
Doubtless she was related to William Greenhill, born 1581, the great
Puritan commentator on Ezekiel. This cannot be the earliest instance of
the name, for one Hate-evill Nutter was a settler in New England twenty
years before her baptism (Bowditch). I suspect its origin can be traced to
the following:--
"1580, June 25. Baptized Hatill (Hate-ill), sonne of Will{m}. Wood.
"1608, Nov. 17. Baptized Hatill, sonne to Antony
Robinson."--Middleton-Cheney.
As Middleton-Cheney is a mere outlying parish from Banbury, I think we may
see whence Hate-evil Greenhill's name was derived.
Returning once more to Warbleton, _Lament_ is so common there, as in other
places, that it would be absurd to suppose the mother had died in
childbirth in every instance. A glance at the register of deaths disproves
the idea. The fact is _Lament_ was used, like Repent, as a serious call to
godly sorrow for sin:
"1594, July 22. Baptized Lament, d. of Antony Foxe.
"1598, May 14. Baptized Lament, d. of John Fauterell.
"1600, M{ch} 29. Baptized Lament, d. of Anne Willard."
But we must not linger too much at Warbleton.
_Live-well_ commanded much attention. Neither sex could claim the monopoly
of it, as my examples prove. At the beginning of Charles II.'s reign, a
warrant was abroad for the capture of one Live-well Chapman, a seditious
printer. In such a charge it is possible he fulfilled the pious injunction
of his god-parent:
"1662-3, March 9. Warrant to apprehend Live-well Chapman,[49] with all
his printing instruments and materials."--C. S. P.
He is mentioned again:
"1663, Nov. 24. Warrant to Sir Edward Broughton to receive Live-well
Chapman, and keep him close prisoner for seditious practices."--C. S.
P.
This is no unique case. Live-well Sherwood, an alderman of Norwich, was
put on a commission for sequestering papists in 1643 (Scobell's "Orders of
Parl.," p. 38).
Again the name occurs:
"1702, Oct. 15. Thomas Halsey, of Shadwell, widower, to Live-well
Prisienden, of Stepney."--St. Dionis Backchurch.
_Love-God_ is found twice, at least, for letters of administration in the
case of one Love-God Gregory were granted in 1654. Also is found:
"1596, March 6. Baptized Love-God, daughter of Hugh Walker,
vicar."--Berwick, Sussex.
_Do-good_ is exhortatory enough, but it rather smacks of works; hence,
possibly, the reason why I have only seen it once. A list of the trained
bands under Lord Zouch, Lord Warden of Hastings, 1619, includes--
"_Musketts_, James Knight, Doo-good Fuller, Thomas Pilcher."--"Arch.
Soc. Coll." (Sussex), xiv. 102.
_Fare-well_ seems a shade more worldly than Live-well, but was common
enough:
"1589, July 16, Baptized Fare-well, son of Thomas Hamlen, gent."--St.
Dunstan-in-the-West, London.
"1723, Sep. 5. Buried Mr. Fare-well Perry, rector of St.
Peter's."--Marlborough.
A writer in _Notes and Queries_, September 9, 1865 (Mr. Lloyd of
Thurstonville), says--
"A man named Sykes, resident in this locality, had four sons whom he
named respectively Love-well, Do-well, Die-well, and Fare-well. Sad to
say, Fare-well Sykes met an untimely end by drowning, and was buried
this week (eleventh Sunday after Trinity) in Lockwood churchyard. The
brothers Live-well, Do-well, and Die-well were the chief mourners on
the occasion."
It seems almost impossible that the father should have restored three of
the Puritan names accidentally. Probably he had seen or heard of these
names in some Yorkshire church register. One of these names, Farewell, is
still used in the county, as the directories show. I see Fare-well
Wardley, in Sheffield, in the West Riding Directory for 1867.
This closes the exhortatory class. It is both numerous and interesting,
and some of its instances grew very familiar, and looked as if they might
find a permanent place in our registers. The eighteenth century saw them
all succumb, however.
(_d._) _Accidents of Birth._
Evidently it was a Puritan notion that a quiverful of children was a
matter for thanksgiving. There is a pleasant ring in some of the names
selected by religious gossips at this time, or witnesses, as I should
rather term them. _Free-gift_ was one such, and was on the point of
becoming an accepted English name, when the Restoration stepped in, and it
had to follow the way of the others. It began with the Presbyterian
clergy, judging by the date of its rise:[50]
"1616, ----. Buried Mary, wiffe of Free-gift Mabbe."--Chiddingly,
Sussex.
"1621, ----. Baptized John, son of Free-gift Bishopp."--Ditto.
"1591, Jan. 14. Baptized Fre-gift, sonne of Abraham
Bayley."--Warbleton.
The will of Free-gift Stacey was proved in 1656 in London; while a
subsidy obtained by an unpopular tax on fires, hearths, and stoves in
1670, rates a resident in Chichester thus:
"Free-gift Collins, two hearths."--"Suss. Arch. Coll.," xxiv. 81.
The last instance I have seen is:
"Dec. 4, 1700. The petition of Free-gift Pilkington, wife of Richard
Pilkington, late port-master of Ipswich, county Suffolk."--C. S. P.
_Good-gift_ was rarer:
"1618, March 28. Bapt. John, sonne of Goodgift Gynninges."--Warbleton.
One of the earliest Puritan eccentricities was _From-above_, mentioned by
Camden as existing in 1614:
"1582, March 10. Baptized From-above Hendley."--Cranbrook.
A subsidy collected within the rape of Lewes in 1621 records:
"From-above Hendle, gent, in landes, 30 4 0."--"Suss. Arch. Coll.,"
lx. 71.
Many of these names suggest thanksgiving for an "addition to the family."
_More-fruit_ is one such:
"1587, June 6. Baptized More-fruite Stone, of Steven."--Berwick,
Sussex.
"1592, Oct. 1. Baptized More-fruite Starre."[51]--Cranbrook.
"1599, Nov. 4. Baptized More-fruite, d. of Richard
Barnet."--Warbleton.
"1608, Aug. 28. Baptized More-frute, d. of Rychard Curtes."--Ditto.
We have already referred to More-fruit Fenner, christened about the same
time.
The great command to Adam and Eve was, "Multiply, and replenish the
earth." Some successor of Thomas Heley thought it no harm to emphasize
this at the font:
"1677, May 14. Buried Replenish, ye wife of Robert French."
But "Increase" or "Increased" was the representative of this class of
thanksgiving names, in palpable allusion to Psa. cxv. 14:
"The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children."
I could easily furnish the reader with half a hundred instances. It is
probable Thomas Heley was the inventor of it. The earliest example I can
find is that of his own child:
"1587, March 26. Baptized Increased, dather of Thomas Helley,
minister.
"1637, Sep. 15. Buried Increase, wife of Robard Barden.
"1589, Apr. 13. Baptized Increased, d. of John Gynninges."--Warbleton.
One or two instances from other quarters may be noted:
"1660, June. Petition of Increased Collins, for restoration to the
keepership of Mote's Bulwark, Dover."--C. S. P.
Dr. Increase Mather, of the Liverpool family of that name, will be a
familiar figure to every student of Puritan history. In 1685 he returned
from America to thank King James for the Toleration Act. Through him it
became a popular name in New England, although Increase Nowell, who
obtained a charter of appropriation of Massachusetts Bay, March 4, 1628,
and emigrated from London, may have helped in the matter (Neal's "New
England," p. 124).
The perils of childbirth are marked in the thanksgiving name of
Deliverance. So early as 1627 the will of Deliverance Wilton was proved in
London. Camden, too, writing in 1614, says "Delivery" was known to him;
while Adams, whose Puritan proclivities I have previously hinted at,
preaching in London in 1626, asserts that Safe-deliverance existed to his
knowledge ("Meditations upon the Creed"). Deliverance crossed the Atlantic
with the Pilgrim Fathers (Bowditch), and I see one instance, at least, in
Hotten's "Emigrants:"
"1670, Feb. 18. Buried Deliverance Addison."--Christ Church, Barbados.
"Deliverance Hobbs and Deliverance Dane were both examined in the
great trial for witchcraft at Salem, June 2, 1692."--Neal, "New
England," pp. 533, 506.
The last instance, probably, at home is--
"1757, Jan. 7. Buried Deliverance Branan."--Donnybrook, Dublin (_Notes
and Queries_).
This "Deliverance" must have been especially common. One more instance: in
the will of Anne Allport, sen., of Cannock, Stafford, dated March 25,
1637, mention is made of "my son-in-law Deliverance Fennyhouse" (_vide_
_Notes and Queries_, Dec. 8, 1860, W. A. Leighton).
Much-mercy is characteristic:
"1598, May 22. Baptized Much-mercie Harmer, a child."--Warbleton.
This is but one more proof of Heley's influence, for he had baptized one
of his own sons "Much-mercy" in 1585.
Perhaps a sense of undeserved mercies caused the following:
"1589, Sep. 28. Baptized No-merit, dather of Stephen
Vynall."--Warbleton.
That babes are cherubs, if not seraphs, every mother knows; but it is not
often the fact is recorded in our church registers. Peculiar thankfulness
must have been felt here:
"On Dec. 11, 1865, aged seventy-eight years, died Cherubin
Diball."--_Notes and Queries_, 4th Series, ii. 130.
And two hundred years previously, _i.e._ 1678, _Seraphim_ Marketman is
referred to in the last testament of John Kirk. But was it gratitude,
after all? We have all heard of the wretched father who would persist in
having the twins his wife presented to him christened by the names of
Cherubin and Seraphim, on the ground that "they continually do cry."
Perhaps Cherubin Diball and Seraphim Marketman made noise enough for two!
But if the father of the twins was not as thankful for his privilege as he
ought to have been, others were. _Thanks_ and _Thankful_ were not unknown
to our forefathers. One of the earliest instances I can find is the
marriage lines of Thankful Hepden:
"1646, July 16. Thankfull Hepden and Fraunces Bruer."--St. Dionis
Backchurch.
In Peck's "Desiderata Curiosa" (p. 537) we read:
"Dec. M.D.CLVI. Mr. Thankful Frewen's corps carried through London, to
be interred in Sussex."
Thankful's father was John Frewen, Rector of Northiam, the eminent Puritan
already referred to. _Accepted_, the elder son's name, belongs to this
same class. _Thankful_ seems to have become a favourite in that part of
the country, and to have lingered for a considerable time. In the "History
of the Town and Port of Rye" we find (p. 466):
"Christmas, 1723. Assessment for repairs of highways: Mr. Thankful
Bishop paid 7{s} 6{d}."
Again, so late as 1749 we find the death of another Thankful Frewen
recorded, who had been Rector of Northiam for sixteen years, christened,
no doubt, in memory of his predecessor of a century gone by.[52] Thankful
Owen was brother to Gracious Owen, president of St. John's, Oxford,
1650-1660.
One more instance will suffice. The will of Thanks Tilden was proved in
1698. No wonder the name was sufficiently familiar to be embodied in one
of the political skits of the Commonwealth period:
"'O, very well said,' quoth Con;
'And so will I do,' says Frank;
And Mercy cries 'Aye,' and Mat, 'Really,'
'And I'm o' that mind,' quoth _Thank_."
Possibly the sentence "unfeignedly thankful" suggested the other word
also; any way, it existed:
"1586, April 1. Baptized Unfeigned, sonne of Roger
Elliard."--Warbleton.
The estate of Unfeigned Panckhurst was administered upon in 1656.
From every side we see traces of the popularity of Thankful. During the
restoration of Hawkhurst Church, a small tombstone was discovered below
the floor, with an inscription to the "memory of Elizabeth, daughter of
_Thankful_ Bishop, of Hawkhurst, gent., who died January 2, 1680" ("Arch.
Cant.," iv. 108). In the churchwarden's book of the same place occurs this
curious item:
"1675. Received by Thankfull Thorpe, churchwarden in the year 1675, of
Richard Sharpe of Bennenden, the summe of one pound for shouting of a
hare."--"Arch. Cant.," v. 75.
Several names seem to breathe assurance and trust in imminent peril.
Perhaps both mother and child were in danger. _Preserved_ is distinctly of
this class:
"Here lieth the body of Preserved, the daughter of Thomas Preserved
Emms, who departed this life in the 18th year of her age, on the 17th
of November, MDCCXII."--St. Nicholas, Yarmouth.
"1588, Aug. 1. Baptized Preserved, sonne of Thomas Holman.
"1594, Nov. 17. Baptized Preserved, sonne of Roger Caffe."--Warbleton.
Preserved Fish, whose name appeared for many years in the New York
Directory, did not get his name this way. A friend of his informs me that,
about eighty-five years ago, a vessel was wrecked on the New Jersey coast,
and when washed ashore, a little child was discovered secured in one of
the berths, the only living thing left. The finder named the boy
"Preserved Fish," and he bore it through a long and honoured life to the
grave, having made for himself a good position in society.
_Beloved_ would naturally suggest itself to grateful parents:
"1672, July 10. Buried Anne, wife of Beeloved King."--Warbleton.
This name is also found in St. Matthew, Friday Street, London.
_Joy-in-Sorrow_ is the story of Rachel and Benoni over again:
"1595. On the last daye of August the daughter of Edward Godman was
baptized and named Joye-in-Sorrow."--Isfield, Sussex.
_Lamentation_ tells its own tale, unless taken from the title of one of
the Old Testament books:
"Plaintiff, Lamentation Chapman: Bill to stay proceedings on a bond
relating to a tenement and lands in the parish of Borden,
Kent."--"Proc. in Chancery, Eliz.," i. 149.
We have already mentioned _Safe-on-high_ Hopkinson, christened at
Salehurst in 1591, and _Help-on-high_ Foxe, incumbent of Lydney,
Gloucester, in 1661. The former died a few days after baptism, and the
event seems to have been anticipated in the name selected.
The termination _on-high_ was popular. _Stand-fast-on-high_ Stringer dwelt
at Crowhurst, in Sussex, about the year 1635, as will be proved shortly,
and _Aid-on-high_ is twice met with:
"1646, June 6. Letters of administration taken out in the estate of
Margery Maddock, of Ross, Hereford, by Aid-on-high Maddock, her
husband."
"1596, July 19. Stephen Vynall had a sonne baptized, and was named
Aid-on-hye."--Isfield, Sussex.[53]
The three following are precatory, and we may infer that the life of
either mother or child was endangered:
"1618, ----. Married Restore Weekes to Constant Semar."--Chiddingly.
"1613, ----. Baptized Have-mercie, d. of Thomas Stone."--Berwick,
Sussex.
A monument at Cobham, Surrey, commemorates the third:
"Hereunder lies interred the body of Aminadab Cooper, citizen and
merchaunt taylor of London, who left behind him God-helpe, their only
sonne. Hee departed this life the 23{d} June, 1618."
Still less hopeful of augury was the following:
"1697, July 6. Weakly Ekins, citizen and grocer, London."--"Inquisit.
of Lunacy," Rec. Office MSS.
What about him? His friends brought him forward as a case for the
Commissioners of Lunacy to take in hand, on the ground that he was weak of
intellect, and unfit to manage his business. It might be asked whether
such a name was not likely to drive him to the state specified in the
petition.
While on the subject of birth, we may notice that the Presbyterian clergy
were determined to visit the sins of the parents on the children in cases
of illegitimacy. A few instances must suffice:
"1589, Aug. 3. Baptized Helpless Henley, a bastard."--Berwick, Sussex.
"1608, Aug. 14. Baptized Repent Champney, a bastard."--Warbleton.
"1599, May 13. Baptized Repentance, d. of Martha Henley, a
bastard."--Warbleton.
"1600, M{ch}. 26. Baptized Lament, d. of Anne Willard, a
bastard."--Ditto.
"1600, April 13. Baptized Repentance Gilbert, a bastard."--Cranbrook.
"1598, Jan. 27. Baptized Forsaken, filius meretricis Agnetis
Walton."--Sedgefield.
"1609, Dec. 17. Baptized Flie-fornication, the bace son of Catren
Andrewes."--Waldron.
This is more kindly, but an exceptional case:
"1609, Nov. 25. Baptized Fortune, daughter of Dennis Judie, and in sin
begoten."--Middleton-Cheney.
(_e._) _General._
There is a batch of names which was especially common, and which hardly
appears to be of Puritan origin; I mean names presaging good fortune.
Doubtless, however, they were at first used, in a purely spiritual sense,
of the soul's prosperity; and afterwards, by more worldly minds, were
referred to the good things of this life.
_Fortune_ became a great favourite:
"1607, Oct. 4. Baptized Fortune Gardyner."--St. Giles, Camberwell.
"1642, ----. Baptized Fortune, daughter of Thomas Patchett."--Ludlow,
Shropshire.
"1652-3, M{ch}. 10. Married Mr. John Barrington and Mrs. Fortune
Smith."--St. Dionis Backchurch.
"1723, April 8. Buried Fortune Symons, aged 111 years."--Hammersmith.
If Fortune meant fulness of years, it was attained in this last example.
_Wealthy_ is equally curious:
"1665 [no date]. Petition of Wealthy, lawful wife of Henry Halley, and
one of the Duke of York's guards."--C. S. P.
"1714, April 25. Buried Wealthy Whathing."--Donnybrook, Dublin.[54]
"1704, Aug. 18, died Riches Browne, gent., aged 62."--Scarning,
Norfolk.
The father of this Riches was also Riches, and was married to the daughter
of John Nabs! (_vide_ Blomefield, vi. 5).
Several names may be set in higgledy-piggledy fashion, for they belong to
no class, and are _sui generis_.
Pleasant[55] is found several times:
"1681, Nov. 8. Christened Pleasant, daughter of Robert Tarlton."--St.
Dionis Backchurch.
"1725, Dec. 18. William Whiteing, of Chislett, to Pleasant Burt, of
Reculver."--Cant. Cath.
"1728, Nov. 3. Buried Pleasant Smith, late wife of Mr. John
Smith."--St. Dionis Backchurch.
The following, no doubt, had a political as well as spiritual allusion. It
occurs several times in the New York Directory of the present year:
"1689, March 4. Petition of Freeman Howes, controller of Chichester
port."--"C. S. P. Treasury."
"1691, Sep. 21. Petition of Freeman Collins."--Ditto.
"1661. Petition of Freeman Sonds."--"C. S. P. Domestic."[56]
What a freak of fancy is commemorated in the following:
"1698, June 23. Examination of Isaac Cooper, Thomas Abraham, and
Centurian Lucas."--C. S. P.
"1660, June. Petition of Handmaid, wife of Aaron Johnson."--C. S. P.
"1661, August 29. Baptized Miracle, son of George Lessa."--New
Buckenham.
"1728. Married John Foster to Beulah Digby."--Somerset House Chapel.
The Trinity in Unity were not held in proper reverence; for _Trinity_
Langley fought in the army of Cromwell, while _Unity_ Thornton (St. James,
Piccadilly, 1680) and _Unity_ Awdley ("Top. et. Gen.," viii. 201) appear a
little later:
"1694, Jan. 8. James Commelin to Mrs. Unitie Awdrey."--Market
Lavington.
"1668, Feb. 15. Baptized Unity, son of John Brooks."--Banbury.
_Providence_ Hillershand died August 14, 1749, aged 72 (Bicknor,
Gloucester). Providence was a _he_.
"1752, Nov. 5. Buried Selah, d. of Ric. and Diana Collins."--Dyrham,
Gloucestershire.
"1586, April 10. Baptized My-sake Hallam."--Cranbrook.
Biblical localities were much resorted to:
"1616, Nov. 26. Baptized Bethsaida, d. of Humphrey Trenouth."--St.
Columb Major.
"1700, June 6. Buried Canaan, wife of John Hatton, 55
years."--Forthampton, Gloucestershire.
"1706, April 27. Married Eden Hardy to Esther Pantall."--St. Dionis
Backchurch.
"1695, Dec. 15. Baptized Richard, son of Richard and Nazareth
Rudde."--St. James, Piccadilly.
_Nazareth_ Godden's will was administrated upon in 1662. _Battalion_
Shotbolt was defendant in a suit in the eleventh year of Queen Anne
(Decree Rolls, Record Office). The following is odd:
"1683, Oct. 11. Buried Mr. _Inward_ Ansloe."--Cant. Cath.
V. A SCOFFING WORLD.
While these strange pranks were being played, the world was not asleep.
Calamy seems to have discovered a source of melancholy satisfaction in the
fact that the quaint names of his brethren were subjected to the raillery
of a wicked world. One of the ejected ministers was Sabbath Clark,
minister of Tarvin, Cheshire. Of him he writes:
"He had been constant minister of the parish for nigh upon sixty
years. He carried Puritanism in his very name, by which his good
father intended he should bear the memorial of God's Holy Day. This
was a course that some in those times affected, baptizing their
children Reformation, Discipline, etc., as the affections of their
parents stood engaged. For this they have sufficiently suffered from
Profane Wits, and this worthy person did so in particular. Yet his
name was not a greater offence to such persons than his holy life."
Probably Calamy was referring to the "profane wit" Dr. Cosin, Bishop of
Chester, who, in a visitation held at Warrington about the year 1643, is
said to have acted as follows:--
"A minister, called Sabbaith Clerke, the Doctor re-baptized, took's
marke, and call'd him Saturday."
That this was a deliberate insult, and not a pleasantry, Calamy, of
course, would stoutly maintain. Hence the above sample of holy ire.
Many of the names in the list I have recorded must have met with the
good-humoured raillery of the every-day folk the strangely stigmatized
bearer might meet. I suppose in good time, however, the owner, and the
people he was accustomed to mix with, got used to it. It is true they must
have resorted, not unfrequently, to curter forms, much after the fashion
of the now almost forgotten nick forms of the Plantagenet days.
Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith is a very large mouthful, if you come to try
it, and I dare say Mr. White or Brown, whoever he might be, did not so
strongly urge as he ought to have done the gross impropriety of his
friends recognizing him by the simple style of "Faith" or "Fight." Fancy
at a dinner, in a day that had not invented the convenient practice of
calling a man by his surname, having to address a friend across the table,
"Please, Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith, pass the pepper!" The thing was
impossible. Even Help-on-high was found cumbersome, and, as we have seen,
the Rector of Lydney curtailed it.
A curious instance of waggery anent this matter of length will be found in
the register of St. Helen, Bishopgate. The entry is dated 1611, just the
time when the dramatists were making fun of this Puritanic innovation, and
when the custom was most popular:
"Sept. 1, 1611. Job-rakt-out-of-the-asshes, being borne the last of
August in the lane going to Sir John Spencer's back-gate, and there
laide in a heape of seacole asshes, was baptized the ffirst day of
September following, and dyed the next day after."
This is confirmed by the burial records:
"Sept. 2, 1611. Job-rakt-out-of-the-asshes, as is mentioned in the
register of christenings."
The reference, of course, is to Job ii. 8:
"And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down
among the ashes."
This was somewhat grim fun, though. Probably _Job-rakt-out-of-the-asshes_,
during his brief life, would be styled by the curter title of "Ashes." It
is somewhat curious to notice that Camden, writing three years later, says
Ashes existed. Perhaps this was the instance.
A similar instance of waggery is found in the parish church of Old
Swinford, where the following entry occurs:--
"1676, Jan. 18. Baptized
Dancell-Dallphebo-Marke-Antony-Dallery-Gallery-Cesar, sonn of
Dancell-Dallphebo-Marke-Antony-Dallery-Gallery-Cesar Williams."
Allowing the father to be thirty years of age, the paternal christening
would take place in 1646, which would be a likely time in the political
history of England for a mimical hit at Puritan eccentricity.
(_a._) _The Playwrights._
There is a capital scene in "The Ordinary" (1634), where Andrew Credulous,
after trolling out a verse of nonsensical rhyme against the Puritan names,
says to his friends Hearsay and Slicer, in allusion to these new long and
uncouth names:
"Andrew the Great Turk?
I would I were a peppercorn, if that
It sounds not well. Doe'st not?
_Slicer._ Yes, very well.
_Credulous._ I'll make it else great Andrew Mahomet,
_Imperious Andrew Mahomet Credulous_.
Tell me which name sounds best.
_Hearsay._ That's as you speak 'em.
_Credulous._ Oatmealman Andrew! Andrew Oatmealman!
_Hearsay._ Ottoman, sir, you mean.
_Credulous._ Yes, Ottoman."
"Oatmealman Andrew! Andrew Oatmealman!" seems to have suggested to
Thomson that unfortunate line:
"O Sophonisba, Sophonisba O,"
so unkindly parodied into--
"O Jemmy Thomson, Jemmy Thomson O."
From this quotation it will be seen that it is not to the church register
alone we must turn, to discover the manner in which these new names were
being received by the public. Calamy might wax wroth over the "profane
wits" of the day, but one of the severest blows administered to the men he
has undertaken to defend, came from his own side; for Thomas Adams, Rector
of St. Benet, Paul's Wharf, must unquestionably be placed, even by
Calamy's own testimony, among the Puritan clergy of his day. His name does
not appear in the list of silenced clergy, and his works are dedicated to
pronounced friends of the Noncomformist cause. In his "Meditations upon
the Creed" (vol. iii. p. 213, edit. 1872), first published in 1629, he
says--
"Some call their sons _Emanuel_: this is too bold. The name is proper
to Christ, therefore not to be communicated to any creature. It is no
less than presumption to give a subject's son the style of his prince.
Yea, it seems to me not fit for Christian humility to call a man
_Gabriel_ or _Michael_, giving the names of angels to the sons of
mortality.
"On the other side, it is a petulant absurdity to give them ridiculous
names, the very rehearsing whereof causeth laughter. There be certain
affectate names which mistaken zeal chooseth for honour, but the event
discovers a proud singularity. It was the speech of a famous prophet,
_Non sum melior patribus meis_--'I am no better than my fathers;' but
such a man will be _sapientior patribus suis_--'Wiser than his
fathers.' As if they would tie the goodness of the person to the
signification of the name. But still a man is what he is, not what he
is called; he were the same, with or without that title or that name.
And we have known _Williams_ and _Richards_, names not found in sacred
story, but familiar to our country, prove as gracious saints as any
_Safe-deliverance_, _Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith_, or such like,
which have been rather descriptions than names."
I have quoted portions of this before. I have now given it in full, for it
is trenchant, and full of common sense. Coming from the quarter it did, we
cannot doubt it had its effect in throwing the practice into disfavour
among the better orders. But there had been a continued battery going on
from a foe by whose side Adams would have rather faced death than fight.
Years before he wrote his own sentiments, the Puritan nomenclature had
been roughly handled on the stage, and by such ruthless pens as Ben
Jonson, Cowley, and Beaumont and Fletcher. A year before little
Job-rakt-out-of-the-asshes was laid to rest, the sharp and unsparing
sarcasm of "The Alchemist" and "Bartholomew Fair" had been levelled at
these doings. The first of these two dramas Ben Jonson saw acted in 1610.
By that time the custom was a generation old, and men who bore the godly
but uncouth sobriquets were walking the streets, keeping shops, driving
bargains, known, if not avoided, of all men. In 1610 Increase Brown, your
apprentice, might be demanding an advance upon his wages, Help-on-high
Jones might be imploring your patronage, while Search-the-Scriptures
Robinson might be diligently studying his ledger to see how he could swell
his total against you for tobacco and groceries. In 1610 society would be
really awake to the fact that such things existed, and proceed to discuss
this serio-comic matter in a comico-serious manner. The time was exactly
ripe for the playwright, and it was the fate of the Presbyterians that the
playwright was "rare Ben."
In "The Alchemist" appears _Ananias_, a deacon, who is thus questioned by
Subtle:
"What are you, sir?
_Ananias._ Please you, a servant of the exiled brethren,
That deal with widows' and with orphans' goods,
And make a just account unto the saints:
A deacon.
_Subtle._ O, you are sent from Master Wholesome,
Your teacher?
_Ananias._ From Tribulation Wholesome,
Our very zealous pastor."
After accusing Ananias of being related to the "varlet that cozened the
Apostles," Subtle meets Tribulation himself, the Amsterdam pastor, whom he
treats with scant courtesy:
"Nor shall you need to libel 'gainst the prelates,
And shorten so your ears against the hearing
Of the next wire-drawn grace. Nor of necessity
Rail against plays, to please the alderman
Whose daily custard you devour; nor lie
With zealous rage till you are hoarse. Not one
Of these so singular arts. Nor call yourselves
By name of _Tribulation_, _Persecution_,
_Restraint_, _Long-patience_, and such like, affected
By the whole family or wood of you,
Only for glory, and to catch the ear
Of your disciple."
To which hard thrust Tribulation meekly makes response:
"Truly, sir, they are
Ways that the godly brethren have invented
For propagation of the glorious cause."
Every word of this harangue of Subtle's would tell upon a sympathetic
audience. So popular was the play itself, that a common street song was
made out of it, the first verse of which we find Credulous singing in "The
Ordinary:"
"My name's not Tribulation,
Nor holy Ananias;
I was baptized in fashion,
Our vicar did hold bias."[57]
Act iv. sc. 1.
This comedy appeared twenty years after "The Alchemist," and yet the song
was still popular. Many a lad with a Puritan name must have had these
rhymes flung into his teeth. _Tribulation_, by the way, is one of the
names given in Camden's list, written four years later than Ben Jonson's
play. This name, which has been the object of an antiquary's, a
playwright's, a ballad-monger's and an historian's ridicule (for Macaulay
had his fling at it), curiously enough I have not found in the registers.
But its equivalent, _Lamentation_, occurs, as we have seen, in the
"Chancery Suits" (1590-1600), in the case of _Lamentation Chapman_.
_Restraint_ is met by _Abstinence_ Pougher, and _Persecution_ by _Trial_
Travis (C. S. P. 1619, June 7).
Still more severe, again, is this same dramatist in "Bartholomew Fair,"
which was performed in London, October, 1614, by the retinue of Lady
Elizabeth, James's daughter. Pouring ridicule upon the butt of the day,
whose name of "Puritan" was by-and-by to be anagrammatized into "a
turnip," from the cropped roundness of his head, this drama became the
play-goers' favourite. It was suppressed during the Commonwealth, and one
of the first to be revived at the Restoration.[58] The king is said to
have given special orders for its performance. Whether his grandfather
liked it as much may be doubted, for it once or twice touches on doctrinal
points, and James thought he had a special gift for theology.
Zeal-of-the-land Busy is a Banbury man, which town was then even more
celebrated for Puritans than cakes. _Caster_, in "The Ordinary," says--
"I'll send some forty thousand unto Paul's:
Build a cathedral next in Banbury:
Give organs to each parish in the kingdom."
Zeal-of-the-land is thus inquired of by Winwife:
"What call you the reverend elder you told me of, your Banbury man?
_Littlewit._ Rabbi Busy, sir: he is more than an elder, he is a
prophet, sir.
_Quarlous._ O, I know him! a baker, is he not?
_Littlewit._ He was a baker, sir, but he does dream now, and see
visions: he has given over his trade.
_Quarlous._ I remember that, too: out of a scruple that he took, in
spiced conscience, those cakes he made were served to bridales,
maypoles, morrices, and such profane feasts and meetings. His
christian name is Zeal-of-the-land?
_Littlewit._ Yes, sir; Zeal-of-the-land Busy.
_Winwife._ How! what a name's there!
_Littlewit._ O, they all have such names, sir: he was witness for Win
here--they will not be called godfathers--and named her Win-the-fight:
you thought her name had been Winnifred, did you not?
_Winwife._ I did indeed.
_Littlewit._ He would have thought himself a stark reprobate if it
had."
All this would be caviare to the Cavalier, and it is doubtful whether he
did not enjoy it more than his grandparents, who could but laugh at it as
a hit religious, rather than political. The allusion to _witnesses_
reminds us of Corporal Oath, who in "The Puritan," published in 1607 (Act
ii. sc. 3), rails at the zealots for the mild character of their
ejaculations. The expression "Oh!" was the most terrible expletive they
permitted themselves to indulge in, and some even shook their heads at a
brother who had thus far committed himself:
"Why! has the devil possessed you, that you swear no better,
You half-christened c----s, you un-godmothered varlets?"
The terms godfather and godmother were rejected by the disaffected clergy,
and they would have the answer made in the name of the sponsors, not the
child. Hence they styled them witnesses.
In "Women Pleased," a tragi-comedy, written, as is generally concluded, by
Fletcher alone about the year 1616, we find the customary foe of maypoles
addressing the hobby:
"I renounce it,
And put the beast off thus, the beast polluted.
And now no more shall _Hope-on-high_ Bomby
Follow the painted pipes of worldly pleasures,
And with the wicked dance the Devil's measures:
Away, thou pampered jade of vanity!"
Here, again, is no exaggeration of name, for we have Help-on-high Foxe to
face Hope-on-high Bomby. The Rector of Lydney would be about twenty-five
when this play was written, and may have suggested himself the sobriquet.
The names are all but identical.
From "Women Pleased" and Fletcher to "Cutter of Coleman Street" and Cowley
is a wide jump, but we must make it to complete our quotations from the
playwrights. Although brought out after the Restoration, the fun about
names was not yet played out. The scene is laid in London in 1658. This
comedy was sorely resented by the zealots, and led the author to defend
himself in his preface. He says that he has been accused of
"prophaneness:"
"There is some imitation of Scripture phrases: God forbid! There is no
representation of the true face of Scripture, but only of that vizard
which these hypocrites draw upon it."
This must have been more trying to bear even than Cutter himself. Under a
thin disguise, Colonel _Fear-the-Lord_ Barebottle is none other than
Praise-God Barebone, of then most recent notoriety. Cowley's allusion to
him through the medium of Jolly is not pleasant:
"_Jolly._ My good neighbour, I thank him, Colonel Fear-the-Lord
Barebottle, a Saint and a Soap-boiler, brought it. But he's dead, and
boiling now himself, that's the best of 't; there's a Cavalier's
comfort."
Cutter turns zealot, and wears a most puritanical habit. To the colonel's
widow, Mistress Tabitha Barebottle, he says--
"Sister Barebottle, I must not be called Cutter any more: that is a
name of Cavalier's darkness; the Devil was a Cutter from the
beginning: my name is now _Abednego_. I had a vision which whispered
to me through a keyhole, 'Go, call thyself _Abednego_.'"[59]
But Cutter--we beg his pardon, Abednego--was but a sorry convert. Having
lapsed into a worldly mind again, he thus addresses Tabitha:
"Shall I, who am to ride the purple dromedary, go dressed like
_Revelation_ Fats, the basket-maker?--Give me the peruke, boy!"
I fancy the reader will agree with me that Cowley needed all the arguments
he could urge in his preface to meet the charge of irreverence.
(_b._) _The Sussex Jury._
One of the strongest indictments to be found against this phase of
Puritanic eccentricity is to be found in Hume's well-known quotation from
Brome's "Travels into England"--a quotation which has caused much angry
contention. The book quoted by the historian is entitled "Travels over
England, Scotland, and Wales, by James Brome, M.A., Rector of Cheriton, in
Kent." Writing soon after the Restoration, Mr. Brome says (p. 279)--
"Before I leave this county (Sussex), I shall subjoin a copy of a Jury
returned here in the late rebellious troublesome times, given me by
the same worthy hand which the Huntingdon Jury was: and by the
christian names then in fashion we may still discover the
superstitious vanity of the Puritanical Precisians of that age."
A second list in the British Museum Mr. Lower considers to be of a
somewhat earlier date. We will set them side by side:
Accepted Trevor, of Norsham. | Approved Frewen, of Northiam.
Redeemed Compton, of Battle. | Be-thankful Maynard, of Brightling.
Faint-not Hewit, of Heathfield. | Be-courteous Cole, of Pevensey.
Make-peace Heaton, of Hare. | Safety-on-high Snat, of Uckfield.
God-reward Smart, of Fivehurst. | Search-the-Scriptures Moreton,
Stand-fast-on-high Stringer, of | of Salehurst.
Crowhurst. | More-fruit Fowler, of East Hothley.
Earth Adams, of Warbleton. | Free-gift Mabbs, of Chiddingly.
Called Lower, of the same. | Increase Weeks, of Cuckfield.
Kill-sin Pimple, of Witham. | Restore Weeks, of the same.
Return Spelman, of Watling. | Kill-sin Pemble, of Westham.
Be faithful Joiner, of Britling. | Elected Mitchell, of Heathfield.
Fly-debate Roberts, of the same. | Faint-not Hurst, of the same.
Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith | Renewed Wisberry, of Hailsham.
White, of Emer. | Return Milward, of Hellingly.
More-fruit Fowler, of East Hodley. | Fly-debate Smart, of Waldron.
Hope-for Bending, of the same. | Fly-fornication Richardson, of
Graceful Harding, of Lewes. | the same.
Weep-not Billing, of the same. | Seek-wisdom Wood, of the same.
Meek Brewer, of Okeham. | Much-mercy Cryer, of the same.
| Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith
| White, of Ewhurst.
| Small-hope Biggs, of Rye.
| Earth Adams, of Warbleton.
| Repentance Avis, of Shoreham.
| The-peace-of-God Knight, of
| Burwash.
I dare say ninety-five per cent. of readers of Hume's "History of England"
have thought this list of Sussex jurors a silly and extravagant hoax.
They are "either a forgery or a joke," says an indignant writer in _Notes
and Queries_. Hume himself speaks of them as names adopted by converts,
evidently unaware that these sobriquets were all but invariably affixed at
the font. The truth of the matter is this. The names are real enough; the
panel is not necessarily so. They are a collection of names existing in
several Sussex villages at one and the same time. Everything vouches for
their authenticity. The list was printed by Brome while the majority must
be supposed still to be living; the villages in which they resided are
given, the very villages whose registers we now turn to for Puritanic
examples, with the certainty of unearthing them; above all, some of the
names can be "run down" even now. _Accepted_ or Approved Frewen, of
_Northiam_, we have already referred to. _Free-gift_ Mabbs, of
_Chiddingly_, is met by the following entry from Chiddingly Church:
"1616, ----. Buried Mary, wife of Free-gift Mabbs."
The will of _Redeemed_ Compton, of Battle, was proved in London in 1641.
_Restore_ Weeks, of Cuckfield, is, no doubt, the individual who got
married not far away, in Chiddingly Church:
"1618, ----. Restore Weeks espoused Constant Semer."
"Increase Weeks, of Cuckfield," may therefore be accepted as proven,
especially as I have shown _Increase_ to be a favourite Puritan name.
These two would be brothers, or perchance father and son. As for the other
names, the majority have already figured in this chapter. Fly-fornication
is still found in Waldron register, though the surname is a different one.
Return, Faint-not, Much-mercy, Be-thankful, Repentance, Safe-on-high,
Renewed, and More-fruit, all have had their duplicates in the pages
preceding. "_Fight-the-good-fight-of-faith_ White, of Emer," is the only
unlikely sobriquet left to be dealt with. Thomas Adams, in his
"Meditations upon the Creed," in a passage already quoted, testified to
its existence in 1629. The conclusion is irresistible: the names are
authentic, and the panel may have been.
(_c._) _Royalists with Puritan Names._
It may be asked whether or not the world went beyond scoffing. Was the
stigma of a Puritan name a hindrance to the worldly advancement of the
bearer? It is pleasant, in contradiction of any such theory, to quote the
following:--
"1663, Aug. Petition of _Arise_ Evans to the King for an order that he
may receive L20 in completion of the L70 given him by the King."--C.
S. P.
In a second appeal made March, 1664 (C. S. P.), _Arise_ reminds Charles of
many "noble acts" done for him as a personal attendant during his exile.
"1660, June. Petition of Handmaid, wife of Aaron Johnson,
cabinet-maker, for the place for her husband of Warden in the Tower,
he being eminently loyal.
"1660, June. Petition of Increased Collins, His Majesty's servant, for
_restoration_ to the keepership of Mote's Bulwark, near Dover,
appointed January, 1629, and dismissed in 1642, as not trustworthy,
imprisoned and sequestered, and in 1645 tried for his life.
"1660, Oct. Petition of Noah Bridges, and his son Japhet Bridges, for
office of clerk to the House of Commons."--C. S. P.
Thus it will be seen that, in the general rush for places of preferment at
the Restoration, there were men and women bearing names of the most marked
Puritanism, who did not hesitate to forward their appeals with the
Williams and Richards of the world at large. They manifestly did not
suppose their sobriquets would be any bar to preferment. One of them, too,
had been body-man to Charles in his exile, and another had suffered in
person and estate as a devoted adherent of royalty. We may hope and trust,
therefore, that all this scoffing was of a good-humoured character.
It was, doubtless, the prejudice against Puritan eccentricity that
introduced civil titles as font names into England--a class specially
condemned by Cartwright and his friends. At any rate, they are
contemporary with the excesses of fanatic nomenclature, and are found
just in the districts where the latter predominated. _Squire_ must have
arisen before Elizabeth died:
"1626, March 21. Petition of Squire Bence."--C. S. P.
"1662, Oct. 30. Baptized Jane, d. of Squire Brockhall."--Hornby, York.
"1722, July 28. Baptized Squire, son of John Pysing and Bennet, his
wife."--Cant. Cath.
_Duke_ was the christian name of Captain Wyvill, a fervent loyalist, and
grandson of Sir Marmaduke Wyvill, Bart., of Constable Burton, Yorkshire:
"1681, Feb. 12. Baptized Duke, son of Robert Fance, K{nt}."--Cant.
Cath.
_Squire_ passed over the Atlantic, and is frequently to be seen in the
States; so that if men may not squire themselves at the end of their names
in the great republic, they may at the beginning.
Yorkshire and Lancashire are the great centres for this class of names on
English soil. _Squire_ is found on every page of the West Riding
Directory, such entries as Squire Jagger, Squire Whitley, Squire Hind,
Squire Hardy, or Squire Chapman being of the commonest occurrence. _Duke_
is also a favourite, Duke Redmayne and Duke Oldroyd meeting my eye after
turning but half a dozen pages. But the great rival of _Squire_ is
_Major_. There is a kind of martial, if not braggadocio, air about the
very sound, which has taken the ear of the Yorkshire folk. Close together
I light upon Major Pullen, farmer; Major Wold, farmer; Major Smith,
sexton; Major Marshall, ironmonger. Other illustrations are _Prince_
Jewitt, _Earl_ Moore, _Marshall_ Stewart, and _Admiral_ Fletcher. This
custom has led to awkwardnesses. There was living at Burley, near Leeds, a
short time ago, a "_Sir Robert_ Peel." In the same way "Earl Grey" is
found. Sir Isaac Newton was living not long ago in the parish of Soho,
London. Robinson Cruso still survives, hale and hearty, at King's Lynn,
and Dean Swift is far from dead, as the West Riding Directory proves.
It was an odd idea that suggested "Shorter." I have five instances of it,
two from the Westminster Abbey registers:
"1689, March 3. Buried Shorter Norris."
"1690, July 9. Baptized Shorter, son of Robert and Ann Tanner."
_Junior_ is found so early as 1657:
"1657, ----. Christened Junior, sonne of Robert Naze."--Cant. Cath.
Little is similarly used. Little Midgley in the West Riding Directory is
scarcely a happy conjunction. In the same town are to be seen John Berry,
side by side with "Young John Berry," and Allen Mawson, with Young Allen
Mawson.
VI. BUNYAN'S DEBT TO THE PURITANS.
But if the Sussex jury was not visionary, except for the panel, neither
was that at Mansoul! What a text is this for the next biographer of
Bunyan, if he have the courage to enter upon it! To suggest that the great
dreamer was not a reprobate in his youth, and thus spoil the contrast
between his converted and unconverted life, was a perilous act on Lord
Macaulay's part. To insinuate that he had a not altogether unpleasant time
of it in the Bedford gaol, that he could have his friends to visit him,
and, on the face of it, ink, paper, and quills to set down his
meditations, even this is enough to set a section of political and
religious society about our ears. But to hint that his character names
were not wholly the offspring of his imagination, not thought out in the
isolation of his dreary captivity, and not pictured in his brain, while
his brain-pan was lying upon a hard and comfortless pallet--this, I know,
not very long ago would have brought a mob about me! In the present day, I
shall only be smiled upon with contempt, and condemned to a righteous
ignominy by the superior judgment of the worshippers of John Bunyan!
Nevertheless I ask, were the great mass of Bunyan's character names the
creation of his own brain, or were they suggested by the nomenclature of
his friends or neighbours in the days of his youth? It is the peculiarity
of the names in the "Pilgrim's Progress" and "Siege of Mansoul," that they
suggest the incidents of which the bearers are the heroes. But, in a large
proportion of cases, these names already existed. Born in 1628, Bunyan saw
Puritan character names at their climax. Living at Elstow, he was within
the limits of the district most addicted to the practice. He had seen
Christian and Hopeful, Christiana and Mercy, of necessity long before he
was "haled to prison" at Bedford. The four fair damsels, Discretion,
Piety, Charity, and Prudence, may and must have in part been his
companions in his boyish rambles years before he met them in the Valley of
Humiliation; and if afterwards, in the Siege of Mansoul, he turned Charity
into a man, he was only doing what godfathers and godmothers had been
doing for thirty years previously. The name and sweet character of
_Faithful_ might be a personal reminiscence, good Father _Honest_ a
quondam host on one of his preaching expeditions, and _Standfast_, "that
right good pilgrim," an old Paedo-Baptist of his acquaintance. The
shepherds _Watchful_, _Sincere_, and _Experience_, if not _Knowledge_,
were known of all men, in less pastoral avocations. And as for the men
that were panelled in the trial of the Diabolonians, we might set them
side by side with the Sussex jury, and certainly the contrast for oddity
would be in favour of the cricketing county. Messrs. Belief, True-heart,
Upright, Hate-bad, Love-God, See-truth, Heavenly-mind, Thankful,
Good-work, Zeal-for-God, and Humble have all, or well-nigh all, been
quoted in this chapter, as registered by the church clerk a generation
before Do-right, the town-clerk of Mansoul, called them over in court.
"Do-right" himself is met by "Do-good," and the witness "Search-truth" by
"Search-the-Scriptures." Even "Giant Despair" may have suffered
convulsions in teething in the world of fact, before his fits took him in
the world of dreams; and his wife "Diffidence" will be found, I doubt not,
to have been at large before Bunyan "laid him down in a den." Where names
of evil repute come--and they are many--we do not expect to see their
duplicates in the flesh. _Graceless_, _Love-lust_, _Live-loose_,
_Hold-the-world_, and _Talkative_ were not names for the Puritan, but
their contraries were. _Grace_ meets the case of _Grace-less_, _Love-lust_
may be set by "Fly-fornication," and _Live-loose_ by "Live-well" or
"Continent." _Hold-the-world_ is directly suggested by the favourite
"Safe-on-high;" _Talkative_, by "Silence."
That John Bunyan is under debt to the Puritans for many of his characters
must be unquestionable; and were he living now, or could we interview him
where he is, I do not doubt we could extract from him, good honest man,
the ready admission that in the names of the personages that flit before
us in his unapproachable allegory, and which have charmed the fancy of old
and young for so many generations, he was merely stereotyping the
recollections of childhood, and commemorating, so far as sobriquets were
concerned, the companionships of earlier years.
VII. THE INFLUENCE OF PURITANISM ON AMERICAN NOMENCLATURE.
Baptismal nomenclature to-day in the United States, especially in the old
settlements, bears stronger impressions of the Puritan epoch than the
English. Their ancestors were Puritans, who had fled England for
conscience' sake. Their life, too, in the West was for generations
primitive, almost patriarchal, in its simplicity. There was no bantering
scorn of a wicked world to face; there was no deliberate effort made by
any part of the community to restore the old names. To this day the
impress remains. Take up a story of backwood life, such as American female
writers affect so much, and it will be inscribed "Faith Gartney's
Girlhood," or "Prudence Palfrey." All the children that figure in these
tales are "Truth," or "Patience," or "Charity," or "Hope." The true
descendants of the early settlers are, to a man, woman, and child, even
now bearers of names either from the abstract Christian graces or the
narratives of Holy Scripture. Of course, the constant tide of immigration
that has set in has been gradually telling against Puritan traditions. The
grotesque in name selection, too, has gone further in some of the more
retired and inaccessible districts of the States than the eastern border,
or in England generally, where social restraints and the demands of custom
are still respected. If we are to believe American authorities, there are
localities where humour has certainly become grim, and the solemn rite of
baptism somewhat burlesqued by a selection of names which throw into the
shade even Puritan eccentricity.
Look at the names of some of the earliest settlers of whom we have any
authentic knowledge. We may mention the _Mayflower_ first. In 1620 the
emigrants by this vessel founded New Plymouth. This led to the planting of
other colonies. Among the passengers were a girl named _Desire_ Minter, a
direct translation of Desiderata, which had just become popular in
England; William Brewster, the ruling elder; his son _Love_ Brewster, who
married, settled, and died there in 1650, leaving four children; and a
younger son, _Wrestling_ Brewster. The daughters had evidently been left
in England till a comfortable home could be found for them, for next year
there arrived at New Plymouth, in the _Ann_ and _Little James_, _Fear_
Brewster and _Patience_ Brewster. Patience very soon married Thomas
Prince, one of the first governors. On this same memorable journey of the
_Mayflower_ came also _Remember_, daughter of Isaac Allerton, first
assistant to the new governor; _Resolved_ White, who married and left five
children in the colony; and _Humility_ Cooper, who by-and-by returned to
England.
A little later on, in the _Ann_ and _Little James_, again came Manasseh
Faunce and _Experience_ Mitchell. In a "List of Living" in Virginia, made
February 16, 1623, is _Peaceable_ Sherwood. In a "muster" taken January
30, 1624, occur _Revolt_ Morcock and _Amity_ Waine.
There is a conversation in "The Ordinary"--a drama written in 1634 or
1635, by Cartwright, the man whose "body was as handsome as his soul," as
Langbaine has it--which may be quoted here. _Hearsay_ says--
"London air,
Methinks, begins to be too hot for us.
_Slicer._ There is no longer tarrying here: let's swear
Fidelity to one another, and
So resolve for New England.
_Hearsay._ 'Tis but getting
A little pigeon-hole reformed ruff----
_Slicer._ Forcing our beards into th' orthodox bent----
_Shape._ Nosing a little treason 'gainst the king,
Bark something at the bishops, and we shall
Be easily received."
Act iv. sc. 5.
It is interesting to remember that 1635, when this was written, saw the
high tide of Puritan emigration. The list of passengers that have come
down to us prove it. After that date the names cease to represent the
sterner spirit of revolt against episcopacy and the Star Chamber.
In the ship _Francis_, from Ipswich, April 30, 1634, came _Just_ Houlding.
In the _Elizabeth_, landed April 17, 1635, _Hope-still_ Foster and
_Patience_ Foster. From the good barque _James_, July 13, 1635, set foot
on shore _Remembrance_ Tybbott. In the _Hercules_ sailed hither, in 1634,
_Comfort_ Starre, "chirurgeon." In 1635 settled _Patient_ White. In a book
of entry, dated April 12, 1632, is registered _Perseverance_ Greene, as
one who is to be passed on to New England.
Such names as Constant Wood, Temperance Hall, Charity Hickman, Fayth
Clearke, or Grace Newell, I simply record and pass on. That these names
were perpetuated is clear. The older States teem with them now; American
story-books for girls are full of them. _Humility_ Cooper, of 1620, is met
by an entry of burial in St. Michael's, Barbados:
"1678, May 16. _Humility_ Hobbs, from ye almshous."
The churchwardens of St. James' Barbados, have entered an account of
lands, December 20, 1679, wherein is set down
"Madam _Joye_ Sparks, 12 servants, 150 negroes."
_Increase_ Mather is a familiar name to students of American history. His
father, Richard Mather, was born at Liverpool in 1596. Richard left for
New England in 1635, with his four sons, Samuel, Nathaniel, Eleazar, and
Increase. Cotton Mather was a grandson. About the same time, Charles
Chauncey (of a Hertfordshire family), late Vicar of Ware, who had been
imprisoned for refusing to rail in his communion table, settled in New
England. Dying there in 1671, as president of Harvard College, he
bequeathed, through his children, the following names to the land of his
adoption:--Isaac, Ichabod, Sarah, Barnabas, Elnathan, and Nathaniel. Both
the Mathers and the Chaunceys, therefore, sent out a Nathaniel. Adding
these to the large number of Nathaniels found in the lists of emigrants
published by Mr. Hotten, no wonder Nathaniel became for a time the first
name on American soil, and that "Nat" should have got instituted into a
pet name. Jonathan was not to be compared to it for a moment.
But we have not done with the Chaunceys. One of the most singular
accidents that ever befell nomenclature has befallen them. What has
happened to Sidney in England, has happened to Chauncey in America, only
"more so." The younger Chaunceys married and begot children. A grandson of
Isaac Chauncey died at Boston, in 1787, aged eighty-three. He was a great
patriot, preacher, and philanthropist at a critical time in his country's
history. The name had spread, too, and no wonder that it suggested itself
to the authoress of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" as a character name. She, however,
placed it in its proper position as a surname. It may be that Mrs. Stowe
has given the use of this patronymic as a baptismal name an impulse, but
it had been so used long before she herself was born. It was a memorial of
Charles Chauncey, of Boston. It has now an average place throughout all
the eastern border and the older settlements. I take up the New York
Directory for 1878, and at once light upon Chauncey Clark, Chauncey Peck,
and Chauncey Quintard; while, to distinguish the great Smith family,
there are Chauncey Smith, lawyer, Chauncey Smith, milk-dealer, Chauncey
Smith, meat-seller, and Chauncey Smith, junior, likewise engaged in the
meat market. Thus, it is popular with all classes. In my London Directory
for 1870, there are six Sidney Smiths and one Sydney Smith. Chauncey and
Sidney seem likely to run a race in the two countries, but Chauncey has
much the best of it at present.
Another circumstance contributed to the formation of Americanisms in
nomenclature. The further the Puritan emigrants drew away from the old
familiar shores, the more predominant the spirit of liberty grew. It was
displayed, amongst other ways, in the names given to children born on
board vessel.[60] It was an outlet for their pent-up enthusiasm.
Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Pericles--
"We cannot but obey
The powers above us. Could I rage and roar
As doth the sea she lies on, yet the end
Must be as 'tis. My gentle babe, _Marina_ (whom,
For she was born at sea, I've named so) here
I charge your charity withal, leaving her
The infant of your care."
Act iii. sc. 3.
The Puritan did the same. _Oceanus_ Hopkins was born on the high seas in
the _Mayflower_, 1620; _Peregrine_ White came into the world as the same
vessel touched at Cape Cod; _Sea-born_ Egginton, whose birth "happened in
his berth," as Hood would say, is set down as owner of some land and a
batch of negroes later on (Hotten, p. 453); while the marriage of
_Sea-mercy_ Adams with Mary Brett is recorded, in 1686, in Philadelphia
(Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia," 1. 503). Again, we find the
following:--
"1626, Nov. 6. Grant of denization to Bonaventure Browne, born beyond
sea, but of English parents."--C. S. P.
No doubt his parents went over the Atlantic on board the _Bonaventure_,
which was plying then betwixt England and the colonies (_vide_ list of
ships in Hotten's "Emigrants," pp. vii. and 35).
We have another instance in the "baptismes" of St. George's, Barbados:
"1678, Oct. 13. Samuel, ye son of Bonaventure Jellfes."
Allowing the father to be forty years old, _his_ parents would be crossing
the water about the time the good ship _Bonaventure_ was plying.
Again, we find the following (Hotten, p. 245):--
"Muster of John Laydon:
"John Laydon, aged 44, in the _Swan_, 1606.
"Anne Laydon, aged 30, in the _Mary Margett_, 1608.
"Virginia Laydon (daughter), borne in Virginia."
All this, as will be readily conceived, has tended to give a marked
character to New England nomenclature. The very names of the children born
to these religious refugees are one of the most significant tokens to us
in the nineteenth century of the sense of liberty they felt in the
present, and of the oppression they had undergone in the past.
If we turn from these lists of passengers, found in the archives of
English ports, not to mention "musters" already quoted, to records
preserved by our Transatlantic cousins, we readily trace the effect of
Puritanism on the first generation of native-born Americans.
From Mr. Bowditch's interesting book on "Suffolk Surnames," published in
the United States, we find the following baptismal names to have been in
circulation there: Standfast, Life, Increase, Supply, Donation, Deodat,
Given, Free-grace, Experience, Temperance, Prudence, Mercy, Dependance,
Deliverance, Hope, Reliance, Hopestill, Fearing, Welcome, Desire, Amity,
Comfort, Rejoice, Pardon, Remember, Wealthy, and Consider. Nothing can be
more interesting than the analysis of this list. With two exceptions,
every name can be proved, from my own collection alone, to have been
introduced from the mother country. In many instances, no doubt, Mr.
Bowditch was referring to the same individual; in others to their
children. The mention of _Wealthy_ reminds us of Wealthy, Riches, and
Fortune, already demonstrated to be popular English names. _Fortune_ went
out to New England in the person of Fortune Taylor, who appears in a roll
of Virginian immigrants, 1623. Settling down there as a name of happy
augury for the colonists' future, both spiritual and material, she
reappears, in the person of Fortune the spinster, in the popular New
England story entitled "The Wide, Wide World." Even "_Preserved_," known
in England in 1640, was to be seen in the New York Directory in 1860; and
_Consider_, which crossed the Atlantic two hundred and fifty years ago, so
grew and multiplied as to be represented at this moment in the directory
just mentioned, in the form of
"Consider Parish, merchant, Clinton, Brooklyn."
Mr. Bowditch adds "_Search-the-Scriptures_" to his list of names that
crossed the Atlantic. This tallies with Search-the-Scriptures Moreton, of
Salehurst, one of the supposed sham jury already treated of. He quotes
also _Hate-evil_ Nutter from a colonial record of 1649.[61] Here again we
are reminded of Bunyan's Diabolonian jury, one of whom was _Hate-bad_. It
is all but certain from the date that Hate-evil went out from the old
country. The name might be perfectly familiar to the great dreamer,
therefore. _Faint-not_ Wines, Mr. Bowditch says, became a freeman in 1644,
so that the popularity of that great Puritan name was not allowed to be
limited by the English coast. In this same year settled _Faithful_
Rouse--one more memorial of English nonconformity.
English Puritanism must stand the guilty cause of much modern humour, not
to say extravagance, in American name-giving. Puns compounded of baptismal
name and surname are more popular there than with us. Robert New has his
sons christened Nothing and Something. Price becomes Sterling Price;
Carrol, Christmas Carrol; Mixer, Pepper Mixer; Hopper, Opportunity Hopper;
Ware, China Ware; Peel, Lemon Peel; Codd, Salt Codd; and Gentle, Always
Gentle. It used to be said of the English House of Commons that there were
in it two Lemons, with only one Peel, and the Register-General not long
since called attention in one of his reports to the existence of Christmas
Day. We have, too, Cannon Ball, Dunn Brown, Friend Bottle (London
Directory), and River Jordan, not to mention two brothers named Jolly
Death and Sudden Death, the former of whom figured in a trial lately as
witness. The _Times_ of December 7, 1878, announced the death of Mr.
Emperor Adrian, a Local Government Board member. Nevertheless, the
practice prevails much more extensively across the water, and the reason
is not far to seek.
Mr. Bowditch seems to imagine, we notice, America to be a modern girl's
name. He says administration upon the estate of America Sparrow was
granted in 1855, while in 1857 America C. Tabb was sued at law. America
and Americus were in use in England four hundred years ago (_vide_
"English Surnames," 2nd edit., p. 29), and two centuries ago we meet with
"America Baguley, 1669, his halfpeny,"
on a token. _Amery_ was the ordinary English dress.
EPILOGUE.
DOUBLE CHRISTIAN NAMES: THEIR RISE AND PROGRESS.
I. ROYAL DOUBLE NAMES.
"But two christian names are rare in England, and I only remember now
his Majesty, who was named Charles James, as the Prince his sonne
Henry Frederic: and among private men, Thomas Maria Wingfield and Sir
Thomas Posthumus Hobby."--Camden.
If we take this sentence literally, the great antiquary, who knew more of
the families and pedigrees of the English aristocracy than any other man
of his day, could only recall to his mind four cases of double Christian
names. This was in 1614.
At the outset, therefore, there is significance in this statement. Mr.
Blunt, in his "Annotated Prayer-Book," says of "N. or M." in the
Catechism--
"N. was anciently used as the initial of Nomen, and 'Nomen vel Nomina'
was expressed by 'N. vel NN.,' the double N being afterwards corrupted
into M."
If this be a correct explanation, "M." must refer to cases where more than
one child was brought to the priest, N. standing for an occasion where
only one infant was presented. In a word, "N. or M." could not stand for
"Thomas or Thomas Henry," but for "Thomas or Thomas and Henry." If this be
unsatisfactory, then Mr. Blunt's explanation is unsatisfactory.
Camden's sentence may be set side by side with Lord Coke's decision. In
his "First Institute" (Coke upon Littleton) he says--
"And regularly it is requisite that the purchaser be named by the name
of baptism, and his surname, and that special heed be taken to the
name of baptism; for that a man cannot have two names of baptism, as
he may have divers surnames."
Again, he adds--
"If a man be baptized by the name of Thomas, and after, at his
confirmation by the bishop, he is named John, he may purchase by the
name of his confirmation.... And this doth agree with our ancient
books, where it is holden that a man may have divers names at divers
times, but not divers christian names."
This is all very plain. Even in James I.'s days thousands of our
countrymen had no fixed surnames, and changed them according to caprice or
fancy. But the christian name was a fixture, saving in the one case of
confirmation. Lord Coke is referring to an old rule laid down by
Archbishop Peckham, wherein any child whose baptismal name, by accident or
evil thought, had a bad significance is advised, if not compelled, to
change it for one of more Christian import.
The chief point of interest, however, in this decision of Lord Coke's, is
the patent fact that no thought of a double christian name is present in
his mind. Had it been otherwise, he would never have worded it as he has
done. Archbishop Peckham's rule had evidently been infringed, and Lord
Coke upholds the infringement. A child with such an orthodox name as
Thomas (a name with no immoral significance) might, he lays it down,
become John at confirmation. Even in such a case as this, however, John is
not to be added to Thomas; it must take its place, and Thomas cease to be
recognized.
Lord Coke, of course, was aware that Charles I.'s queen was Henrietta
Maria, the late king Charles James, and his son Henry Frederic. It is
possible, nay probable, that he was not ignorant of Thomas Maria
Wingfield's existence, or that of Thomas Posthumus Hobby. But that these
double baptismal names should ever become an every-day custom, that the
lower and middle classes should ever adopt them, that even the higher
orders should ever go beyond the use of "Maria" and "Posthumus," seems
never to have suggested itself to his imagination.
There is no doubt the custom came from France in the first instance.
There, as in England, it was confined to the royal and aristocratic
circles. The second son of Catharine de' Medici was baptized Edward
Alexander in 1551. Mary Stuart followed the new fashion in the names of
her son Charles James. The higher nobility of England slowly copied the
practice, but within most carefully prescribed limits.
One limitation was, the double name must be one already patronized by
royalty.
Henrietta Maria found her title repeated in Henrietta Maria Stanley,
daughter of the ill-fated James, Earl of Derby, who for his determined
loyalty was beheaded at Bolton, in Lancashire, in 1651. She was born on
the 17th of November, 1630, and was buried in York Minster on the 13th of
January, 1685. Sir Peter Ball, attorney to the queen of Charles I.,
baptized his seventeenth child by the name of his royal mistress,
Henrietta Maria. He followed her fortunes after as before the king's
execution (Polwhel's "Devon," p. 157). These must both have been
considered remarkable cases in their day. The loyalty of the act would be
its sanction in the eyes of their friends.
But while some copied the double name of the queen (also the name of the
queen's mother), other nobles who had boys to christen mimicked the royal
nursery of James I. Henry Frederick, Earl of Arundel, was born in 1608,
and Henry Frederick Thynne, brother of Lord Weymouth, was created a
baronet in 1641. No one need doubt the origin of these double forms. Again
loyalty would be their answer against objections.
But side by side with these went "Maria" (used for either sex) and
"Posthumus," or Posthuma--the only two instances recalled by Camden as in
use among "private men." There seems good reason to believe that, for two
or three generations at least, these were deemed, by some unwritten code,
the only permissible second names outside the royal list.
The case of Wingfield is curious. Three generations, at least, bore a
second name "Maria," all males. The first was Edward Maria, of Kimbolton,
who received the female title in honour of, and from, the Princess Mary,
daughter of Henry VIII., his godmother; the second was Thomas Maria,
adduced by Camden; and the third is referred to in the following document:
"1639, April. Bill of complaint relative to the sale of the manor of
Keyston, Hunts, by Edward Maria Wingfield."--C. S. P., 1639.
Maria had long been common in Italy, France, and Spain, as a second name,
and still is, whether for a boy or girl, the child being thereby specially
committed to the protection of the Virgin. The earliest instances in
England, however, were directly given in honour of two royal godmothers,
who happened to be Mary in one case, and Henrietta Maria in the other.
Hence the seeming transference of the foreign second name Maria to our own
shores. Thus introduced, Maria began to circulate in society generally as
an allowed second name:
"1610, July 10. Baptized Charles Maria, sonne of Charles Chute,
Esquire."--St. Dunstan-in-the-West.
"1640, ----. Died Gulielma Maria Posthuma Springett."--Tablet,
Ringmer, Lewes, Sussex.
This last was a bold procedure, three names being an unheard-of event. But
the sponsor might reply that he was only placing together the two
recognized second names, Maria and Posthuma. Later on, Maria is again
found in the same family. In the year 1672, William Penn, the Quaker,
married Gulielma Maria, daughter of Sir William Springett.
Posthuma (as in the above instance), or Posthumus, is still more
remarkable. The idea of styling a child by this name, thus connecting its
birth with the father's antecedent death, seems to have touched a
sympathetic chord, and the practice began widely to prevail. The first
example I have seen stands as a single name. Thus, in the Canterbury
Cathedral register, is recorded:
"1572, Feb. 10. Christened Posthumus, the sonne of Robert Pownoll."
The following is the father's entry of burial:
"1571, June 8. Buried Robert Pownoll."
This is the earliest instance I have seen. Very soon it was deemed right
to make it a second name:
"1632, Sept. 18. Baptized Henry Postumus, son of James
Gamble."--Doncaster.
Sir Thomas Posthumus Hoby, Knight, lord of the manor of Hackness, died in
1641. He bequeathed the greater portion of his estates to "his dearly
beloved and esteemed cozen John Sydenham," of Brimpton, Somerset, who,
being baroneted in July, 1641, died in 1642, and was succeeded by his son
Sir John Posthumus Sydenham. Posthumus, possibly, in this case was
commemorative of Sir Thomas, and not of Sir John. William Ball, son of Sir
Peter Ball, already mentioned, married Maria Posthuma Hussey. This must
have occurred before the Commonwealth, but I have not the exact date.
The character of all these names is sufficient proof of their rarity. All
belong, with one exception, to the higher ranks of society. All were
called after the children in the royal nursery, or Maria or Posthuma was
the second component. Several formed the double name with both. It seems
certain that at first it was expected that, if people in high life were to
give encouragement to the new fashion, they must do so within certain
carefully defined limits. As for any lower class, it was never imagined
that they would dream of aspiring to such a daring innovation. The
earliest instance of this class, I find, still has Mary for its second
component, and commemorates two English queens:
"1667, Jan. 12. Baptized Elizabeth Mary, being of the age of 18 and
upwards, daughter to John Allen, and Emm his wife, both of them being
pro-baptists."--Cant. Cath.
Even to the close of the seventeenth century, if a middle-class man gave
his child a double name, it must be to commemorate royalty:
"1696, June 4. Baptized William Henry, son of Mr. Jacob Janeway, and
Francis his wife."--Cant. Cath.
William III. was christened William Henry.
Speaking of Mary's husband, we may add that two of the most familiar
conjunctions of the present day among the middle and lower classes, that
of Anna Maria or Mary Ann, arose similarly. In Italy and France the two
went together a hundred years earlier, in connection with the Virgin and
her mother. In England they are only found since 1700, being used as
commemorative of the sisters Anne and Mary, both queens. Like William
Henry, the combination has been popular ever since:
"1717, Feb. 15. Christened Anne-Mary, d. of James Hebert, mercer.
"1729, March 30. Christened Anna-Maria, d. of Thomas and Mary Hoare,
pewterer."--St. Dionis Backchurch.
The clerk of Finchley Church could not understand this conjunction--not to
add that his education seems to have been slightly neglected:
"1715, Feb. 26. Baptized Anammeriah, d. of Thomas and Eliz. Biby.
"1716, M{ch}. 17. Baptized Anameriah, d. of Richard and Sarah Bell."
These are the first double names to be found in this register.
The Latin form represents the then prevailing fashion. There was not a
girl's name in use that was not Latinized. Goldsmith took off the custom
in his "Vicar of Wakefield," in the names of Sophia, Olivia, and Carolina
Wilhelmina Amelia Skeggs. The latter hit at the new rage for double and
treble baptismal names also; for the day came when two names were not
enough. In 1738 George III. was christened George William Frederic. Gilly
Williams, writing to George Selwyn, December 12, 1764, says--
"Lord Downe's child is to be christened this evening. The sponsors I
know not, but his three names made me laugh not a little--John
Christopher Burton. I wish to God, when he arrives at the years of
puberty, he may marry Mary Josephina Antonietta Bentley."--"Memoirs of
George Selwyn," by Jesse, quoted by Mr. Waters in "Parish Registers,"
p. 31.
I need scarcely add that three do not nearly satisfy the craving of many
people in the nineteenth century, nor did they everybody in the
eighteenth:
"1781, April 29. Bapt. Charles Caractacus Ostorius Maximilian Gustavus
Adolphus, son of Charles Stone, tailor."--Burbage, Wilts.
In Beccles Church occurs the following:
"1804, Oct. 14. Bapt. Zaphnaphpaaneah Isaiah Obededom Nicodemus
Francis Edward, son of Henry and Sarah Clarke."
Only Francis Edward could be got in the ordinary place, so the rest had to
be furnished in a note at the foot of the page.
"On Oct. 8th, 1876, in the revision of the parliamentary list at
Preston, a claimant appeared bearing the name of Thomas Hill Joseph
Napoleon Horatio Bonaparte Swindlehurst Nelson. The vote was allowed,
and the revising barrister ordered the full name to be inserted on the
register."--_Manchester Evening News_, October 11, 1876.
II. CONJOINED NAMES.
Returning to the first half of the seventeenth century, we find strong
testimony of the rarity of these double names, and a feeling that there
was something akin to illegality in their use, from our registers,
wherein an attempt was made to glue two names together as one, without a
hyphen or a second capital letter. Take the following, all registered
within a generation or two of Camden's remark:
"1602, May 24. Baptized Fannasibilla, d. of Thomas
Temple."--Sibbesdon, Leicestershire.
Here is a palpable attempt to unite Francis (Fanny) and Sybil.
"1648, Jan. 25. Baptized Aberycusgentylis, son of Richard Balthropp,
gent."--Iver, Buckingham.
Here the father has been anxious to commemorate the great Oxford
professor, the father of international law, Dr. Abericus Gentilis. He has
avoided a breach of supposed national law by writing the two names in one.
"1614, Aprill 16. Buried Jockaminshaw Butler, wife of James Butler,
potter, in Bishopsgate Street."--St. Peter, Cornhill.
The surname of "Shaw" has done service hundreds of times since then as a
second baptismal name.
"1640, May 7. Baptized Johnamaria, ye son of Frances Ansloe, and Clare
his wife."--Cant. Cath.
Here again is the inevitable Maria, but so inwoven with John, that Lord
Coke's legal maxim could not touch the case. It is the same in the
following example:--
"1632, ----. Married John Pell to Ithamaria, d. of Henry Reynolles, of
London."--Lower, "Worthies of Sussex," p. 178.
One of the most strange samples of conjoined names is this:
"1595, April 3. Joane, whome we maye call Yorkkooppe, because she was
ye basterd daughter, as yt is comonlye reported, of one John York and
Anne Cooper."--Landbeach.
Here is a double conjunction; John and Anne forming Jo-ane, and York and
Cooper, Yorkkooppe. The first is neat, the second clumsy: but, doubtless,
the clerk who wielded the goose-quill deemed both a masterpiece of
ingenuity.
The following is interesting:--
"1616, July 13, being Satterday, about half an hour before 10 of the
clocke in the forenoon, was born the Lady Georgi-Anna, daughter to the
Right Hon. Lady Frances, Countess of Exeter; and the same Ladie
Georgi-Anna was baptized 30th July, 1616, being Tuesday, Queen Anne
and the Earl of Worcester, Lord Privie Seal, being witnesses: and the
Lorde Bishop of London administered the baptism."--_Vide_ R. E. C.
Waters, "Parish Registers." 1870.
III. HYPHENED NAMES.
It will be noticed that so far the two names were both (saving in the case
of Aberycusgentylis and Jockaminshaw) from the recognized list of
baptismal names. About the reign of Anne the idea of a patronymic for a
second name seems to have occurred. To meet the supposed legal exigencies
the two names were simply hyphened. We will confine our instances to the
register of Canterbury Cathedral:
"1721, Jan. 20. Baptized Howe-Lee, son of Lee Warner, Esquire, and
Mary his wife.
"1728, July 4. Baptized Francis-Gunsby, son of Dr. William Ayerst,
prebendary of this church.
"1746, Sep. 28. Baptized James-Smith, son of James Horne, and Mary his
wife."
I need not say that at first these children bore the name in common
parlance of Howe-Lee, or Francis-Gunsby, or James-Smith. The two were
never separated, but treated as one name. To this day traces of this
eighteenth-century habit are to be found. I know an old gentleman and his
wife, people of the old school, dwelling somewhat out of the world, who
address a child invariably by all its baptismal titles. The effect is very
quaint. In all formal and legal processes the two or three names have to
be employed, and clergymen who only recite the first in the marriage
service, as I have heard some do, are in reality guilty of misdemeanour.
How odd all these contrivances to modern eyes! We take up a directory, and
every other registration we look on is made up of three names. The poorer
classes are even more particular than the aristocracy upon the point. The
lady-help, describing her own superior merit, says--
"Do not think that we resemble
Betsy Jane or Mary Ann,
Women born in lowly cottage,
Bred for broom or frying-pan."
And yet, in forty-nine church registers out of fifty, throughout the
length and breadth of England, there will not be found a single instance
of a double christian name previous to the year 1700. Mr. Maskell has
failed to find any instance in the register of All-Hallows, Barking, and
the Harleian Society's publication of the registers of St. Peter,
Cornhill, and St. Dionis Backchurch only confirms the assertion I have
made.
Many stories have arisen upon these double names. A Mr. Gray, bearing the
once familiar Christian name of Anketil, wanted the certificate of his
baptism. The register was carefully searched--in vain; the neighbouring
registers were as thoroughly scanned--in vain. Again the first register
was referred to, and upon a closer investigation he was found entered as
Ann Kettle Gray.
Not very long ago a child was brought to the font for baptism. "What
name?" asked the parson. "John," was the reply. "Anything else?" "John
_h_only," said the godparent, putting in an "h" where it was not needed.
"John Honly, I baptize thee," etc., continued the clergyman, thus thrown
off his guard. The child was entered with the double name.
In Gutch's "Geste of Robin Hode" (vol. i. p. 342) there is a curious note
anent Maid Marian, wherein some French writers are rebuked for supposing
Marian to be composed of Mary and Ann, and the statement is made that it
is from Mariamne, the wife of Herod! Marian or Marion, of course, is the
diminutive of Mary, the other pet form being Mariot. Nevertheless the
great commonness of the double christian name Mary Ann is consequent on
the idea that Marian is compounded of both.