————
Except that they add the names of some who have opposed his views, or
some such trifling matters, all the writers of biographical notices
of Scot have drawn their information from the account given of him in
Wood’s _Athenæ Oxon._ Nor, indeed, until lately, unless original search
had been made, were other sources available. Hence I, in the first
place, give his words verbatim from the edition of 1691.
“_Reynolde Scot_, a younger Son of Sir _John Scot_ of
_Scots-hall_, near to _Smeeth_ in _Kent_, by his Wife, Daughter
of _Reynolde Pimp_ of Pimps-court Knight, was born in that
County, and at about 17 years of age was sent to _Oxon_,
particularly, as it seems, to _Hart_ hall, where several of
his Country-men and name studied in the latter end of K. _Hen.
8._ and in the Reign of _Ed. 6. &c._ Afterwards he retired to
his native Country without the honour of a degree, and settled
at _Smeeth_, where he found great incouragement in his studies
from his kinsman Sir _Thos. Scot_. About which time taking to
him a Wife, he gave himself up solely to solid reading, to
the perusing of obscure authors that had by the generality of
Scholars been neglected, and at times of leisure to husbandry
and gardening, as it may partly appear from these books
following.
“A perfect platform of a Hop-garden, and necessary instructions
for the making and maintenance thereof, with notes and rules
for reformation of all abuses, &c. _Lond._ 1576. qu. the 2.
edit. as it seems.
“The discovery of Witchcraft; wherein the leud dealing of
Witches, and Witchmongers is notably detected, the knavery of
Conjurers, the impiety of Inchantors, the folly of Southsayers,
&c. With many other things are opened, which have long been
hidden, howbeit very necessary to be known. _Lond._ 1584. qu.
in 16 books.
“Discourse upon Devils and Spirits.—In this, and the former,
both printed together, it plainly appears that the author was
very well versed in many choice books, and that his search into
them was so profound, that nothing slip’d his Pen that might
make for his purpose. Further also in the said _Discovery_ and
_Discourse_, though he holds that Witches are not such that
were in his time and before, commonly executed for Witches; or
that Witches were, or are not; yet they, which were written
for the instruction of all Judges and Justices of that age,
(being the first of that nature that were published in the
Mother tongue,) did for a time make great impressions in the
Magistracy and Clergy, tho afterwards condemned by _James_
King of _Scots_ (the same who succeeded Qu. _Elizabeth_ in the
Monarchy of _England_) in his Preface to _Dæmonology_, printed
under his Name at _Edinburgh_ in 1597. qu. and by several
others since, among whom was _Rich. Bernard_ of _Batcomb_,
in his Epist. Ded. before his _Guide to Grand Jury-men_, &c.
Lond. 1627. in oct. What else our author _Scot_ hath written,
I cannot yet tell, nor anything else of him, only but that he
dyed in _Sept._ or _Oct._ in fifteen hundred ninety and nine,
and was buried among his Ancestors in the Church at _Smeeth_
before-mentioned.
“In the time of the said _Reynold Scot_ and before, have been
conversant among the Muses in _Hart_ hall, the _Sackviles_
of _Sussex_, the _Colepepers_ of _Kent_ and _Sussex_, the
_Sedlies_ of _Kent_, and the _Scots_ before mentioned, with
others of inferiour note of the said Counties.”
_Notes added in Bliss’s Reprint._
“7. The learned author in his _Discovery_ is as vehement
against Popery as against witchcraft, and quite indecent in his
abuse of the saints of the Romish church.”—COLE. [His indecency
being for the most part a narrative of, and obvious reflections
on, their indecency. And this I say understanding the sense in
which he uses the word.]
“8. See a full account of this curious book, as Mr. Oldys calls
it, in his _British Librarian_, p. 213. All the copies of the
first edit. 1584, that could be found were burnt by order of
K. James I. an author on the other side of the question.”—Vid.
_Hist. Dictionary_, sub voce “Scot”.
[“REGINALDUS SCOTUS, _Anglus_, _tractatum de Incantamentis_
scripsit, in quo plerasque traditiones de Magia Melancholiæ, &
morbis variis, aut artibus histrionicis adscribit.”] “Hunc in
Anglia publica auctoritate combustum, sibi autem nunquam fuisse
visum refert Thomasius de crimine magiæ § 3.”—Vide [J. V.]
Vogt., _Cat. Libr. rar._, p. 617 [1713].
“Liber in folio scriptus Anglica lingua a Reginaldo Scoto in
quo plurima occurrunt contra magiæ existentiam argumenta. Est
ille etiam in Belgicam linguam conversus: sed plenior editio
est ultima Anglica.”—_Morhof._, ii, 459.
[Then a short note on the three editions.]
In 1874 there were privately printed, _Memorials of the Scot Family_,
by Jas. Renat Scott, Esq., and from them I extract the following tables:
Rich. Scott==Mary Whetenhall.
|
+---------+-------------+------------+-------------------+-+
| | | | |
Reginald Richard _ancestor of the Edward==May, d. of [2 d.]
author. Scotts of Shrewsbury | John Warren.
and elsewhere._ |
+----------------------------------------+
|
_À quo_ the Scotts of Glemsford Suffolk _and afterwards of
Ohio and Massachusetts in America_.
Reg. Scott, b. 1541,==Alice Cobbe, d. of Th. Cobbe of Cobbes
mar. 11 Oct. 1568, | Place, Aldington, Kent.
died Oct. 1599. |
+---------+-----+
| |
Collyar==Marie. Elizabeth==Sackville Turnor of Tablehurst,
Sussex.
But as the first part of the ancestry given in this book is not
supported by anything beyond possibility and legend, so this latter
portion is incorrect in various particulars. Instead, however, of
taking each inaccuracy item by item, it will be simpler to give a
consecutive account of such facts as to his ancestry, and as to
Reginald Scott himself, as can be proved by documentary evidence or
rendered probable by deductions therefrom.
John Philipot, Rouge Dragon and Somerset Herald, who died in 1645,
set forth the pleasant and picturesque, but slightly supported origin
of the family. I say pleasant, because the Scotts in the times of
Elizabeth, James, and Charles, were a family of large possessions,
wealth, and influence, influence so great that it is said that
Elizabeth refused the request made by Lord Buckhurst, or the Earl of
Leicester, that Sir Thomas Scott should be ennobled, saying that he
had already more influence in Kent than she had. She seems also to
have had from this, or from some other reason, a personal dislike to
them, for in her Progress in 1573, she having passed three days at
his father-in-law’s, Sir John Baker, of Sissinghurst Castle, declined
to visit Scotts-hall, saying she wished to proceed to her own house,
though on her way thither she had to pass Sir Thomas’s gates. In his
_Villare Cantianum_, p. 313, Philipot has these words: “_Scotts-hall_,
which is now and hath been for divers Descents the Inheritance of
eminent Gentlemen of that Sirname, whom I dare aver upon probable
Grounds were originally called _Balioll_. _William Balioll_, second
brother to _Alexander de Balioll_, frequently writ his Name _William
de Balioll le Scot_, and it is probable, that upon the Tragedy of
_John_, Earl of _Atholl_, who was made prisoner by _Edward_ the first,
and barbarously executed, in the year 1307. (whilst he endeavoured
more nobly than successfully to defend the gasping Liberty of Scotland
against the Eruption of that Prince;) this Family to decline the Fury
of that Monarch, who was a man of violent passions, altered the name
of _Balioll_ to that of their Extraction and Country, and assumed for
the future the Name of _Scot_. That the Sirname of this Family was
originally _Balioll_, I farther upon these Reasons assert. First, the
ancient Arms of Balioll Colledge in Oxford, which was founded by _John
Balioll_, and dedicated to St. Katharine was a Katherin-Wheele, being
still part of the paternal Coat of this Family. Secondly, _David de
Strabogie_, who was Son and Heir to the unfortunate Earl above-said,
astonished with an Example of so much Terror, altered his name from
_Balioll_ to Strabogie, which was a Signory which accrued to him the
Right of his Wife, who was Daughter and Heir to _John Comin_, Earl of
Badzenoth and Strabogie, and by this Name King _Edward_ the second,
omitting that of _Balioll_ restored _Chilham-castle_ to him for Life,
in the fifteenth year of his reign. Thirdly, the Earls of _Buccleugh_,
and the Barons of Burley in Scotland, who derive themselves originally
from _Balioll_, are known at this instant by no other Sirname, but
Scot, and bear with some inconsiderable Difference, those very Arms
which are at present the paternal Coat of the Family of _Scots-hall_.”
This tradition excluded, we find that Sir William Scot of Braberne, now
Brabourne, in Kent, is the first of whom we have historical mention.
He was knighted in 1336, when the Black Prince was created Duke of
Cornwall, and died in 1350: a brass to his memory, being in Weever’s
time (1631), the first of the memorials of the Scot family in Brabourne
church. According to Philipot, this Sir William was the same with Sir
William Scot, then Chief Justice of England; but if Mr. Foss be right
in stating that this latter died in 1346, the year of the Black Death,
this view cannot be upheld.
Another Sir William, apparently a grandson of the above, acquired
through his mother the manor of Combe in Brabourne, and through his
first wife and her relations—modes of increase in which the family seem
to have been fortunate—that of Orlestone, as well as other places;
and in 1420 he built Scotshall, in the manor of Hall in Smeeth, and
was in 1428 sheriff of the county, and in 1430 knight of the shire in
parliament. He died 1433. Scotshall, from time to time enlarged or
rebuilt, and especially so by Sir Edward Scot, in the reign of Charles
I, became the family seat for twelve generations. Evelyn, under date
August 2, 1663, records his visit to it (soon after the young knight’s
marriage), and calls it “a right noble seate, uniformely built, with
a handsome gallery. It stands in a park well stor’d, the land fat and
good. We were exceedingly feasted by the young knight, and in his
pretty chapell heard an excellent sermon by his chaplaine.” It was
sold, with the remaining possessions of the family, at the close of the
last century, and destroyed in 1808. Some undulations in a field on the
north side of the road from Ashford to Hythe, about half a mile to the
east of Smeeth church, alone mark its site.
The son of this second Sir William, named Sir John, being connected
with the Woodvilles, and therefore with the wife of Edward IV, and
being a staunch Yorkist, and apparently a man of intelligence, was
employed in special embassies to Charles, Duke of Burgundy, especially
in 1467, when he went to treat of the marriage of the king’s sister
with the duke. He had also various other and more substantial favours
conferred upon him from time to time, from 1461 onwards, including that
of Chilham Castle for life, as somewhat oddly, and I think wrongly,
noted in the extract from Philipot. He died in 1485, and probably
intestate, as no will is recorded.
To him succeeded his son, the third Sir William in this account, and
he dying in 1524, was succeeded by his son, a second Sir John. This
last, by his marriage with Anne, daughter of Reginald Pympe, had three
sons, and died on the 7th October 1533. The eldest, William, followed
his father on the 5th June 1536, and leaving no offspring, his next
brother, Sir Reginald, took his place. Of the third brother, Richard,
the father of our Reginald, I shall speak presently. Meanwhile,
returning to the main line, I would say that Sir Reginald, dying on
the 16th October 1554, was succeeded by his son, Sir Thomas, the
“cousin” to whom Reginald was much indebted, and one of the four to
whom he dedicated his _Witchcraft_. He was, in his day, a man of note,
intelligence, and action. Finding his estate in debt, he yet kept one
hundred at his table, was most hospitable, and died owing nothing,
though, of course, to provide for the younger of his very numerous
progeny, various portions of his estate were by his will sold after
his death. He was deputy-lieutenant of his county, sheriff of Kent in
1576, knight of the shire for the Parliaments of 13 and 28 Elizabeth,
chief of the Kentish forces at Northbourne Downs, where they were
assembled to repel any landing from the Armada; and it may be added,
as showing his promptness, readiness, and decision, that 4,000 of
these were there, equipped for the field, the day after he received
his orders from the Privy Council. He was one of the Commissioners to
report on the advisability of improving the breed of horses in this
country, and either before or after this, is said to have published a
book on the subject. He was a Commissioner for draining and improving
Romney Marsh, and afterwards Superintendent of the improvements of
Dover harbour. Various letters to and from him in reference to Dover
harbour, as well as to the Kentish forces, are to be found in the
State Calendars. Having been the parent of seventeen children by his
first wife, Emmeline Kempe, a relative by maternal descent, he died
on the 30th December 1594, and Ashford parish offered to pay the
expenses of his funeral if only they were allowed to bury him in their
church. Most of these facts are noted in the following verses, which
I give, chiefly because there are some probabilities that they were
by Reginald. A copy of them seems to have been found among the family
papers, in his handwriting. That he made some of the verse translations
given in his _Witchcraft_ is extremely probable, from the want in these
cases of marginal references to the translator’s name; hence a second
probability. The verses themselves render it likely that they were
one of those memorial elegies then affixed επι ταϕον by affectionate
friends and relatives, and not what we now call an epitaph; and the
third verse clearly shows that they were written at least some little
time after Sir Thomas’s decease, and therefore were not improbably
written to be affixed to the handsome tomb erected over his remains.
Hence a third probability; but beyond the accumulated force of these we
cannot go.
_Epitaph on Sir Thomas Scott, as given in the “Memorials of the Scott
Family”, and also in Pick’s “Collection of Curious Pieces in the
World”, vol. 3._
Here lyes Sir Thomas Scott by name;
Oh happie Kempe that bore him!
Sir Raynold, with four knights of fame,
Lyv’d lyneally before him.
His wieves were Baker, Heyman, Beere;
His love to them unfayned.
He lyved nyne and fiftie yeare,
And seventeen soules he gayned.
His first wief bore them every one;
The world might not have myst her![*]
She was a very paragon
The Lady Buckherst’s syster.
His widow lyves in sober sort,
No matron more discreeter;
She still reteiynes a good report,
And is a great housekeeper.
He (being called to special place)
Did what might best behove him.
The Queen of England gave him grace,
The King of Heav’n did love him.
His men and tenants wail’d the daye,
His Kinne and countrie[†] cryed;
Both young and old in Kent may saye,
Woe worth the day he dyed.
He made his porter shut his gate
To sycophants and briebors,
And ope it wide to great estates,
And also to his neighbours.
His House was rightly termed Hall
Whose bred and beefe was redie;
It was a very hospitall
And refuge for the needie.
From whence he never stept aside,
In winter nor in summer;
In Christmas time he did provide
Good cheer for every comer.
When any service shold be doun,
He lyked not to lyngar;
The rich would ride, the poor wold runn,
If he held up his fingar.
He kept tall men, he rydd great hors,
He did write most finely;
He used fewe words, but cold discours
Both wysely and dyvinely.
His lyving meane,[‡] his charges greate,
His daughters well bestowed;
Although that he were left in debt,
In fine he nothing owed.
But dyed in rich and happie state,
Beloved of man and woman
And (what is yeate much more than that)
He was envied[§] of no man.
In justice he did much excell,
In law he never wrangled:
He loved rellygion wondrous well,
But he was not new-fangled.
Let Romney Marsh and Dover saye;
Ask Norborne camp at leyseur;
If he were woont to make delaye
To doe his countrie pleasure.
But Ashford’s proffer passeth all—
It was both rare and gentle;
They would have pay’d his funerall
T’ have toomb’d him in their temple.
[*] Though a paragon, she lived, he would say, a quiet, retired life,
obedient and loving to her husband.
[†] “Countrie”, seems not unlikely to be used here, as in the
_Discoverie_ not unfrequently, and twice in Wood’s notice just given,
and, as then, for county.
[‡] “Meane”, that is, moderate, midway between the very rich and the
poor.
[§] “Envied”, most probably in its then frequent sense of hated.
Before returning to Richard and Reginald, we may conclude this short
notice of their ancestors by mentioning the very probable circumstance
that the former were, by the female line, descendants of John Gower,
the poet, as explained in the following table:
Sir John Pashell==Elizabeth, d. of Richard Wydeville, sister of Earl
| Rivers, aunt of Edward IV’s wife.
+---------+
|
John Pashell,==1. Ludovic (Lowys), d. of Th. Gower, ob.
ob. _circa_ 1472. | _circa_ 1458.
+-------------+------------+
| |
William, Elizabeth, or Isabel,==Reg. Pympe.
ob. _ante_ 1485, _s.p._ ob. _ante_ 1485. |
+------------------------------------+
|
Anne = Sir John Scot, father of Richard Scot.
The Pashells, or Pashleys, were descended from Sir Edmund de Passelege,
a Baron of the Exchequer, who purchased a manor in Smeeth in 1319; he
died 1327. The family resided at Iden, Sussex; and the house there,
and the manor in Smeeth, devolved on the Scots, Anne Pympe being
her father’s only child. It is true that John Gower, the poet, does
not mention any children in his extant will, but he was probably
seventy-eight when he died; and, what is more to the purpose, his
published will was probably only his testament, the will or declaration
of uses of the land being commonly at that time a separate instrument.
Th. Gower, of Clapham, given above as the father of Lowys, was probably
the son or grandson of John Gower (see Sir Harris Nicolas in _The
Retrosp. Rev._, 2 Ser., ii, 103-17). Also Gower the poet is known to
have had property in Southwark; and Th. Gower, of Clapham, refers in
his will (1458) to his tenement called The Falcon, in Southwark, near
the hospital; and in Manning and Bray’s _Surrey_, iii, 623, there is
noticed a deed of conveyance dated 22nd November 1506, of part of the
site of St. Thomas’s Hospital, in Southwark, made by John Scot, of
Iden, and Anne his wife, daughter and heir of John Pashley, who was
cousin and heir of John Gower. It may be added as curious that Sir
Robert Gower, who is believed to have been uncle to the poet, was
buried in Brabourne church in 1349; his monument, now destroyed, being
noticed in Weever.
On p. 500, Scot speaks of “his kinseman M. Deering”, Edw. Dering the
divine, a writer on theological subjects and chaplain to her Majesty;
but in what way they were kin I have been unable to discover.[*]
[*] My mother being a Dering, a daughter of the Thomas that was drowned
in the West Indies, when trying to reach his vessel H.M.S. _Circe_,
induces me to add, through the courtesy of Sir Edw. C. Dering, that a
portrait of this worthy is still to be seen at Surrenden Dering, and
that a family tradition has it, that preaching before her Majesty,
he had the boldness to tell her, “that she had no more controul over
her passions than an untamed heifer.” He was speedily unfrocked, and
is said to have emigrated to America, where an Edw. Dering is at this
moment the head of that branch, and a large landowner in Maine.
Returning now to Reginald’s father, Richard, the youngest of the three
sons of that Sir John who died in 1533, we find that he married Mary,
daughter of Geo. Whetenall, whose father was sheriff of Kent in 1527,
and whose family had lived for three centuries at Hextall’s Place,
near Maidstone. She survived her husband; and being remarried to Fulke
Onslow, Clerk of the Parliaments, died before him, 8th October 1582,
and was buried, as he afterwards was, in Hatfield church, Herts, where
a brass to their memory is fixed in the north wall of the chancel. Of
Richard himself nothing more is known. He probably died young, and
certainly before December 1554, his death being mentioned in the will
of his brother Sir Reginald, who died on the 16th of that month. In
this will, failing his own issue—a lapse which did not occur—he left
his real estate “unto Rainolde Scotte, son and heire of my brother
Richard Scotte, dec^{d}”, and Rainolde’s issue failing, it was devised
to a more distant branch. Hence, contrary to the table given on page
_xi_, from “The Memorials”, “Rainolde” was either the only son of
Richard, or the only son then living. The same conclusion follows from
the Inquis. post mortem of Lady Wynifred Rainsfoord, taken the 20th
March 1575/6, where Sir Thomas Scot and his brothers are said to be
co-heirs with Reynold of the lands held by her in gavelkind, the sons
having one moiety, and Reynold the other.
This Inquisition also gives Reynold’s then age as thirty-eight or more,
the words “et amplius” being, as was, usually at least, done in these
documents, attached to all the other ages mentioned. Hence he was born
in or before 1538 (not in 1541), and as, according to Wood, he entered
Hart Hall, Oxford, when about seventeen, he entered it _circa_ 1555;
the intention that he should do so having been probably entertained
by Sir Reginald, his uncle, who died 16th December 1554, and his
expenses borne by his cousin, Sir Thomas. I say probably, because we
have seen that, failing his own issue, he was named by Sir Reginald as
the next heir to the estate, and also because we know nothing of the
circumstances in which his widowed mother was left, nor as yet of the
date at which she was re-married to Onslow.
On the 11th of October he married Jane—not, as stated in “The
Memorials”, Alice—Cobbe, the daughter of an old yeoman family long
resident at Cobbe’s Place, in the adjoining parish of Aldington. The
entry in the Registers of Brabourne is—
“M[*] Reignold Scott and Jane Cobbe
were maryed the xi^{th} of October 1658.”
[*] To this upper portion of the “M” is added a character which may
make it “Mr.” or “Married”; but I have not myself yet seen the entry.
The only issue of this marriage, the only issue (that at least
survived) of both his marriages—for the Maria in the table of “The
Memorials” was the daughter of his second wife by her first husband—was
Elizabeth, afterwards married to Sackville Turnor; and the only issue
of that marriage, prior at least to Reynold’s death in 1599, was
Cicely. Elizabeth’s birth must have been in or before 1574, for in the
Inquis. post mortem of Reg. Scot generosus in 1602, she is said to be
“28 et amplius”. The Holy Maid of Kent (mentioned by Scot, p. 26) was
servant to one of her maternal progenitors, probably to her grandfather.
In this year, 1574, was also published the first issue of his brain,
his tractate on _The Hoppe-Garden_, the first work, I believe, in which
not only was the culture of the hop in England advocated, both as
having been successfully tried by him, and as against its importation
from Poppering, in Flanders, where its mode of culture, etc., was
endeavoured to be kept secret; but the whole subject of its growth,
culture, drying, and preservation was gone into in a practical manner,
and further explained by woodcuts. And here it may be worth noting that
in this year Reynold was necessarily absent so far from London that the
publisher inserted this apologetic note: “Forasmuch as M. Scot could
not be present at the printing of this his Booke, whereby I might have
used his advise in the correction of the same, and especiallie of the
Figures and Portratures conteyned therein, whereof he delivered unto me
such notes as I being unskilfull in the matter, could not so thoroughly
conceyve, nor so perfectly expresse as ... the Author, or you ... the
Reader might in all poyntes be satisfied [etc., etc.].” In the second
edition, however, in 1576, it was: “Now newly corrected and augmented,”
the augmentations increasing the book from fifty-three pages, exclusive
of the epilogue, to sixty, and the corrections including one added and
one emended engraving. As a matter of curiosity, and as showing that
neither the publisher nor the author expected a second edition, it
may be added that though only two years had elapsed, some at least of
the wood engravings required to be re-cut in almost exact facsimile.
A third edition was issued in 1578, and from these we can date the
commencement of the hop harvests in Kent.
In 1575 he succeeded to one moiety of such part of Lady Winifred
Rainsford’s estate as was held in gavelkind. Possibly, indeed, we may
place his enjoyment of it earlier, for Lady Rainsford was declared
insane; and to this, by the way, I am not disinclined to attribute
Reynold’s prolonged absence from London in 1572, the attendance of some
one of the family being required, and he, being older than the sons of
Sir Thomas, and of a junior branch, and a man of business, having been
chosen or requested to go. And I think we may place his loss of that
estate between this date and that of 1584, the date of the publication
of the _Witchcraft_. At least, in this _Discoverie_ occur two passages
which, taken together, seem to point to this. In his dedication to
Sir Th. Scot he says: _A_ vi, “My foot being [not, having been] under
your table, my hand in your dish, or rather in your pursse”—and, _A_
viii: “If they will allow men knowledge and give them no leave to
use it, men were much better be without it than have it; ... it is,
as ... to put a candle under a bushell: or as to have a ship, and to
let hir lie alwaies in the docke: which thing how profitable it is, I
can saie somewhat by experience.” Though it may be said that Reynold
was a man of business, and, as appears from his writings, a man of
decision and of unusual intelligence, still circumstances may combine
to bring disaster as a shipowner on such a one, and more especially if
he be new to the business. That he did in some way lose his “moiety”
is shown by the words of his will, for, speaking of his second wife,
he says, “whome yf I had not matched w^{th} all I had not dyed worth
one groate.” Not, improbably, I think, it was to the time of his first
marriage, or to his widowership, or to both, that Wood more especially
refers when he speaks of his giving himself up to solid reading, etc.
When his first wife died and when he re-married is as yet unknown to
us. But this latter could hardly have taken place until the latter
end, at earliest, of 1584, since in that year he, as already quoted,
describes himself as, “having his foot under your [Sir Th. Scot’s]
table”, etc., or in other words, as being a dependant not worth one
groat. Nor do we know more of this second wife beyond these slight
particulars that we gather from Reynold’s will: that her Christian name
was Alice—given in “The Memorials” instead of Jane, to Cobbe, the first
wife—that she was a widow with a daughter by her former husband; and
that she had some land, either in her own right or derived from her
former husband. That she was a widow at the time of her remarriage is
shown by Reynold’s bequest of “six poundes thirteene shillings foure
pence to my daughter in Lawe Marie Collyar for apparell [? mourning]
desiring that her mother’s hand be not anie thinge the shorter towards
her in that respect.” Whether Collyar were this daughter’s maiden name,
and therefore the name of her mother’s first husband, or whether it
were the name of her own husband, is doubtful, though from the words
just quoted I rather incline to this second supposition, and that the
husband was not a man of much means. With regard to what I have said
as to the mother’s possession of property, it has been suggested to me
by one of good judgment, and a solicitor, that Reynold’s expression
as to not dying worth a groat was merely an excuse for leaving the
bulk of his property to his wife; as also that these concluding words
of the will, and the resistance of probate to it made by Elizabeth,
his daughter by his first wife, indicate the existence of family
differences, probably attributable to this second marriage having been
entered into with one of a social rank inferior to his own. I cannot,
however, deduce this latter supposition from anything we know, neither
can I thus interpret the last words of his will, nor believe him guilty
of such a perversion of the truth. Reading his will attentively, I
think we find that Scot, with his usual fine sense of justice, gives
all the lands in “Aldington, Ruckinge, and Sellinge”, which had become
his by his marriage with Alice, “to her and _to her_ [not to his]
heires”, while he only gives his lands in Romney Marsh and his lease
of Brabourne Rectory to her for _her life_, and then the lease at
least, which had come to him “from his Cozen Charles”, to his daughter
Elizabeth. Reading the last words of his will verbatim, I think it
consistent with justice to hold, that though he may have obtained these
lands in Romney Marsh through the use of what had been his wife’s
former property, but was during his marriage his own, he was entitled
to leave them to his wife only for her life, they then proceeding not,
as did the others, to her heirs, but to his. I strongly suspect, also,
that his casual omission of any directions as to whom these Romney
Marsh lands were to go after her death was the real cause of the
probate of the will being resisted by his daughter Elizabeth, so as to
definitely raise this point.
Reserving all notice of his _Witchcraft_ till I speak of it under
its bibliography, I would say that we know little more of his life.
The Rev. Jos. Hunter, in his _Chorus Vatum_, states that he was “a
Collector of subsidies to Q. Elizabeth in 15..., for the county of
Kent.” Urged to inquiry by this, my friend, Jas. Gairdner, Esq., kindly
examined for me the Exchequer documents in the Public Record Offices,
and it appears from them that he was collector of subsidies for the
lathe of Shepway in the years 28 and 29 of Elizabeth (1586–87). It may
be added that, as appears from a previous document, 125/299, in the
same class of papers, that Sir Reynold Scot and other Commissioners for
the collection in the lathe of Shepway, of the first payment of the
subsidy granted by the Parliament, 37 Henry VIII, had appointed a high
Collector. Thus we learn the mode of his appointment; and on looking
through the lists we find that many such were “generosi”, though the
payment was but small. For Scot, forty shillings was deducted from the
incomings; and this not as a percentage, but as salary.
From the same documents we find that he is twice designated “armiger”,
a word agreeing with his 1584 title-page, “by Reginald Scot, Esquire”,
though in the editions of his _Hoppe Garden_ his name alone is given.
This was for myself an important find; but it will suffice here to say
that it confirms Hunter’s supposition that this esquireship was due to
his having been made a justice of the peace, though as to the date it
can only as yet be said that this dignity was probably granted between
1578 and 1584.
In an _Accompt of Sir Th. Heanage, knight, Treasurer at Warr_, in the
Public Record Offices, and printed by J. Renat Scott in the _Arch.
Canti._, vol. xi, p. 388, we find the following entries:
“S^r Thomas Scott knighte Collonel generall of the footemen in
Kent for his Entertainment at xiij^s iiij^d p^r diem for xxij
dayes begonne the xxix^{th} of Julye and endinge the xix of
Auguste the summe of xiiij^{li} xiij^s iiij^d.”
• • • • •
“Reinalde Scotte Trench mayster for his Enterteinment at iiij^s
p^r diem, and due to him for the same tyme iiij^{li} viij^s.”
• • • • •
“S^r Thomas Scott knighte for Thenterteynem^t of lxiij Wachemen
& Garders appointed to watche & warde at Dongenesse for xxij
dayes begonne [etc., as above] at viij the pece p^r diem
xlvi^{li} iiij^s.”
From the Muster-roll taken on the 25th Jan. 1587–8, and now in the
possession of Mr. Oliver, it appears that the county had then furnished
8,201 footmen and 711 horsemen, and that Sir Thomas was captain
of the 309 trained foot raised in the lathe of Shepway, with four
hundreds of the lathe of Scraye and Romney Marsh. Hence his office
as Colonel-General was not given him—indeed, this is shown by the
_Accompt_—until the men had been assembled in camp on the 29th July.
In like manner the Muster-roll gives Sir Jas. Hales as Captain of the
Lances; but in the pay list Th. Scott (a son of Sir Thomas) is Captain
both of the Light Horse and Lances. With regard to “Reinalde”, who,
under the name of Reginald, appears in the Muster-roll as one of the
thirteen captains over 1,499 untrained foot, Mr. J. Renat Scott, in a
note, states that he was a son of Sir Thomas Scott; but though sons of
Sir Thomas were also captains, this assertion is a guess, unsupported
by any known evidence.
He made his will on the 15th September 1599, and died twenty-four days
thereafter, on the 9th October. Some say that he was either taken ill
at Smeeth or died there, probably misinterpreting the words of his
will; some also say that he was buried there; while some think that
he was buried by the side of and close to Sir Thomas Scott’s tomb in
Brabourne church; but all these, like the supposition of Philipot in
his Kent Notes, _Harl. MS._ 3917, fol. 78_a_, that he erected that
tomb, are mere guessings, and as such we leave them.
To the few particulars thus gathered together we are obliged, with the
exception of two small points, one probable, and the other, I think,
certain, to confine ourselves. The first or probable point is, that as
his name appears five times as a witness to family business documents
between 1566 and 1594, his signature appearing in this last year in
Sir Thomas’s will, he must have kept up familiar intercourse with the
latter, and was not improbably, in some measure at least, his man of
business, and possibly his steward. The second point, which also goes
to confirm this first one, as also to confirm the belief that he was
made a justice of the peace, as being a person whose attainments, if
not his position, would render him useful in such a post, is one to
which I was independently led by his writings, and which is, I find,
borne out by almost contemporary testimony.
He who in his _Hoppe Garden_ showed such practical thought and
foresight, and in his _Witchcraft_ such independence of thought, was
not a man, especially when married and a father, to live in dependence
on a cousin. The wording, as well as the tone of his writings, agree
with this. We find in them traces of legal study, a habit of putting
things, as it were, in a forensic form, and noteworthy and not
unfrequent references to legal axioms or dicta, quoted generally in
their original Latin. The Dedication before his _Hoppe Garden_, and
the first before his _Witchcraft_, are to men of high legal rank,
judges, in fact, to whom he acknowledges his obligations. Referring
the reader to these, and to the ambiguous sentence in the latter
commencing “Finally” (sig. _A_ ii), I would also give the words in
the latter, where he says, _A._ v: “But I protest the contrarie, and by
these presents I renounce all protection”; and in the former the legal
phraseology is carried on throughout in—“and be it also knowne to all
men by these presentes that your acceptance hereof shall not be any
wyse prejudiciall unto you, for I delyver it as an Obligation, wherein
I acknowledge my selfe to stande further bounde unto you, without
that, that I meane to receyve your courtesie herein, as a release of
my further duties which I owe,” A. iii. v. And in B. v.: “neither
reproove me because by these presents I give notice thereof.” So also
he would seem to have been an attendant at the assizes; and if we look
to the story, told at page 5, of Marg. Simons, we find that he was not
only present at the trial, but busied himself actively in the matter,
talking to the vicar, the accuser, about it, advertising the poor woman
as to a certain accusation, he “being desirous to heare what she could
saie for hir selfe”, and inquiring into the truth of her explanation by
the relation of divers honest men of that parish. In like manner, his
Will is written “w^{th} myne owne hande” twenty-five days before his
death; and, on inquiring from a lawyer, I find that it is drawn up in
due legal form, and by one who had had a legal training. Lastly, Thomas
Ady, M.A., in _A Candle in the Dark_, 1656, alias, _A Perfect Discovery
of Witches_, 1661, a book, like Scot’s, against the reality of
witchcraft, distinctly tells us, p. 87, that Scot “was a student in the
laws and learned in the _Roman_ Laws”, the latter being exactly what
such a man would be if he had turned towards the law as a profession.
These considerations appear to me conclusive, even though it be added
as an argument _per contra_ that his name has not been found among
the rolls of the Temple, Inner or Middle, or in those of Lincoln’s or
Gray’s Inn.
And in taking leave of this portion of my subject, I cannot but
reiterate the obligations both the reader and the literary world
generally are under to Mr. Edmund Ward Oliver. The suppositions as
to the cause of Scot’s loss of his moiety of the estates of Lady
Winnifred Rainsford—not, it is believed, a large sum—and as to his
law-studentship, based as they are on facts stated by Scot or derived
from his writings, and those of Th. Ady, are my own; while in one
or two instances I have put forth opinions not quite in accord with
that gentleman’s. But nearly all the biographical facts regarding Scot
himself and his marriages, in contradistinction to the supposed facts
hitherto set forth, are due to the intelligent research of Mr. Oliver,
and are not unfrequently stated in his own words.
The following table will bring into one view the pedigree of Reginald
Scot given in the previous pages:
[The 2nd] Sir William Scott,[*] d. 1433.==
|
+---------------------------------+
Sir John Scott, d. 1485.==
|
+------------------+
|
Sir William Scott, d. 1524.==
|
+--------------------+
|
Sir John Scott, d. 7 Oct. 1533.==Anne, d. of Reginald Pympe.
|
+-----------------+-------+---------+
| | |
Wm. Scott, Sir Reginald Scott, Richd. Scott.==Mary Whetenall.
d. _s. p._ 5 June d. 16 Dec. 1554. |
1536. | |
+----------------+ +---------+
| |
Sir Th. Scot, (1) Jane Cobbe.==Reginald Scott.==(2) Alice [Collyar?].
d. 30 Dec. 1594. |
Elizabeth.==Sackville Turnor.
|
Cicely.
[*] It is noteworthy that, notwithstanding the memorial inscription
to the first Sir William, Reginald, or whoever was the author of
the verses to Sir Thomas, only traces the pedigree to this fourth
knight after Sir Reginald. Either then the first Sir William was then
accounted somewhat mythical, or not being a knight of fame, he was not
recognised as the same with Sir William Scott, the Chief Justice of
England.
————————————