{9} Dated 30th August, 1882.
{10a} _Contributions to Natural History_, etc., p. 158.
{10b} I have commented on the assertion of Mr. Groome, that “John
Bunyan, from parish registers, does not appear to have had one drop of
Gipsy blood,” as if that could have been ascertained from parish
registers! I did not expect to find such a loose idea as that in the
_Encyclopædia Britannica_, taken from a casual or stray contributor to
_Notes and Queries_. But I find an English journal quoting it as a
_proof_ that Bunyan was not of the Gipsy race; and supporting it by Mr.
Froude’s ignoring the question in his highly conventional work on
Bunyan.—_The Scottish Churches and the Gipsies_, pp. 11, 52 and 59.
{11a} Mr. Brown objects to its being said that the English Bunyans could
have sprung from Bunyans that left Scotland fifty years before 1548, for
the reason that he finds men of that name in England, in 1219, 1257 and
1310. Thomas Bunyan, if he is correct in his information, says that the
Italian mason of the name of Bunyan was at Melrose in 1136. The name
might have had its origin in foreign masons called Bunyan, as there would
be families of that craft, continued from generation to generation,
during the middle ages, employed in church architecture all over Europe,
including England as well as Scotland. I have not seen Mr. Thomas
Bunyan’s information, as quoted above, called in question by any one.
{11b} Dated 6th September, 1882.
{11c} In an article in _Notes and Queries_, for the 27th March, 1875, I
said:—“In addition to the investigations made in church registers, I
would suggest that the records of the different criminal courts in
Bedfordshire (if they still exist) should be examined, to find if people
of the name of Bunyan (and how designated) are found to have been on
trial, and for what offences.”—_Contributions_, _etc._, p. 186.
{12} The language used by Bunyan in describing who and what he was, was
so comprehensive and graphic that by using the word “Gipsy” he would have
confused his reader, for in that case he would have had to explain its
meaning as applicable to himself. This would have been foreign to his
subject, and, in the face of the legal responsibility, would have
compromised his personal safety, and proved a bar to his usefulness, or
standing in society, as illustrated by the aversion on the part of so
many to investigate the idea to-day. He said that his “descent was well
known to many.” Did not that imply that he had been more precise to
_many in private_, but would not use a word in his _Grace Abounding_?
This heading was very expressive when we consider that many would almost
seem to think that the “Gipsy tribe,” or those possessing Gipsy blood,
are outside of “God’s covenanted mercies.” According to Mr. Brown,
Bunyan’s language, as we shall see, “_might_ simply mean that his father
was a poor man in a village!” and that in ascertaining who he was, “I
have really nothing to go upon but Bunyan’s own words” about himself
(which is not a fact), as if these had no bearing on the question, and
were not worth listening to, and possessed no meaning!
{13} Dated 8th September, 1882.
{14a} Mr. Borrow, in his _Gipsies in Spain_, gives a very graphic
account of the result of a marriage between a Spaniard and a Gipsy woman.
I have alluded to it, in the Disquisition on the Gipsies, as “a very fine
illustration of this principle of half-breed ultra Gipsyism,” that of “an
officer in the Spanish army adopting a young female Gipsy child, whose
parents had been executed, and educating and marrying her. A son of this
marriage, who rose to be a captain in the service of Donna Isabel, hated
the white race so intensely as, when a child, to tell his father that he
wished he (his father) was dead. At whose door must the cause of such a
feeling be laid? . . . This is certainly an extreme instance of the
result of the prejudice against the Gipsy race; and no opinion can be
formed upon it without knowing some of the circumstances connected with
the feelings of the father, or his relations, toward the mother and the
Gipsy race generally” (p. 372).
{14b} This Thomas Bonyon might not have been born till many years after
1502, as I have explained at page 18.
{15a} “Easily explained,” indeed, by his father having been “simply a
poor man in a village.”
{15b} Mr. Brown in his letter acknowledges having received these
pamphlets. I did not send them with the object of enlightening him on
the subject under review. I have not been able to see his book on the
Bunyan Festival. It is very likely that I would find matter in it for
comment.
{16a} It reads very candidly when it is said that “none of Bunyan’s
admirers would object to his being shown to be a Gipsy, if only
sufficient proof were adduced.” The real position is, that Bunyan’s
admissions as to what he was and was not, and his calling and
surroundings, show that he was of the Gipsy race; and “proof” should be
“adduced” to show that he was _not_ that, but of the _ordinary race_ of
Englishmen.
{16b} It would be interesting to learn from Mr. Brown, 1_st_. When, and
under what circumstances, he took up this question in regard to Bunyan;
_2d_. What regard he paid to the subject of the Gipsies in general, as
published; 3_d_. Whether he made any personal inquiries in regard to it;
4_th_. Whether he read anything, and what, in favour of Bunyan having
been of the Gipsy race; 5_th_. How he came to maintain that because the
name of Bunyan existed in England before the Gipsies arrived in it,
therefore Bunyan was not one of the race; 6_th_. Whether he knows of
Gipsies bearing native surnames, and even of one with a foreign surname;
7_th_. What reason he had for supposing that Thomas Bonyon, in 1542, had
no Gipsy blood in his veins, or that his descendants for several
generations did not pass into the Gipsy current in society, as explained;
8_th_. Where Mr. Brown resided before he settled at Bedford, and how long
he has been there. 9_th_. What traditions he found in the town and
neighbourhood bearing on Bunyan’s descent, and whether there are people
there averse to its being asserted that Bunyan was what might be called
of the _ordinary native_ English race; 10_th_. Are there none there who
object to its being said that Bunyan’s family was a broken-down branch of
the aristocracy, titled or untitled, that most probably entered England
from Normandy, under William the Conqueror? 11_th_. What are the reasons
for saying that Bunyan was _not_ of the Gipsy race? 12_th_. Might not
_any_ person be of the Gipsy race, notwithstanding it was not even
surmised, much less _proved_, by any one acquainted with the Gipsy
subject, and much more so by one apparently totally ignorant of it?
13_th_. Since Bunyan was an Englishman under any circumstances, why
should anyone claim him to have been entirely of the native or ordinary
blood, till it is proved that part of his blood belonged to the Gipsy
race, that entered Great Britain not later than 1506—no regard being
shown to what he said he “was and was not, and his calling and
surroundings”? 14_th_. Has Mr. Brown’s object, from first to last, been
exclusively that of proving Bunyan _not_ to have been of the Gipsy race?
15_th_. In that case, should he not, while occupying the pulpit of
Bunyan, look upon his “mission” as most sacred, and “laying aside every
weight and the sin which doth so easily beset him,” “give no sleep to his
eyes or slumber to his eyelids” till he was satisfied who Bunyan really
was, and acknowledge him accordingly?
{17} Dated 13th September, 1882.
{18} There may be some doubt that Towla Bailyow, mentioned in a writ of
the Scots’ parliament in 1540, was a Baillie according to the modern
spelling of the word. In that case, the first Gipsies mentioned
officially in Great Britain with full native names, seem to have been
John Brown and George Brown, as found in a writ of the Scots’ parliament
of the 8th April, 1554. In the _History of the Gipsies_ I find the
following:—
“I am further inclined to think that it would be about this period,
and chiefly in consequence of these bloody enactments, the Gipsies
would, in general, assume the ordinary Christian and surnames common
at that time in Scotland. And their usual sagacity pointed out to
them the advantages arising from taking the cognomens of the most
powerful families in the kingdom, whose influence would afford them
ample protection as adopted members of their respective clans. In
support of my opinion of the origin of the surnames of the Gipsies of
the present day, we find that the most prevailing names among them
are those of the most influential of our noble families of Scotland,
such as Stewart, Gordon, Douglas, Graham, Ruthven, Hamilton,
Drummond, Kennedy, Cunningham, Montgomery, Kerr, Campbell, Maxwell,
Johnstone, Ogilvie, McDonald, Robertson, Grant, Baillie, Shaw,
Burnet, _Brown_, Keith, etc.” To that I added that “the English
Gipsies say that native names were assumed by their race in
consequence of the proscription to which it was subjected.”—(p. 117.)
{19} Perhaps I admitted too much when I said that “William Bonyon and
his wife were apparently ordinary English people,” for they need not
necessarily have been that, as I have shown. Had they been such, the
tradition of it would soon have died out in their Gipsy descendants of
mixed blood but for the little property that remained in the family; for
the associations of descent from the native race are not pleasant to the
tribe when they consider the hard feelings which it has entertained for
their Gipsy blood.
James IV. of Scotland, when introducing “Anthonius Gawino, Earl of Little
Egypt, and the other afflicted and lamentable tribe of his retinue,” to
his uncle, the King of Denmark, in 1506, said that they “had lately
arrived on the frontiers of our kingdom”; so that it is uncertain at what
time before 1506 some of the tribe had made their appearance without
being recorded in a public document. The Scottish king believed that as
“Denmark was nearer to Egypt than Scotland,” a greater number of the
Gipsies sojourned in it; and that his uncle would know more about them
than he did. If this style of reasoning was correct, England must have
received Gipsies before Scotland, for it was “nearer to Egypt than
Scotland.”—_History of the Gipsies_, p. 99.
Speaking of the “standing” of the leading Gipsies in Scotland between
1506 and 1579, the author of the History wrote as follows:—
“It is evident that the Gipsies in Scotland at that time were allowed
to punish the criminal members of their own tribe according to their
own peculiar laws, customs and usages, without molestation. And it
cannot be supposed that the ministers of three or four succeeding
monarchs would have suffered their sovereigns to be so much imposed
on as to allow them to put their names to public documents, styling
poor and miserable wretches, as we at the present day imagine them to
have been, ‘Lords and Earls of Little Egypt.’ . . . I am disposed to
believe that Anthonius Gawino in 1506, and John Faw in 1540, would
personally as individuals, that is, as Gipsy ‘Rajahs,’ have a very
respectable and imposing appearance in the eyes of the officers of
the Crown” (p. 107).
Although he says that “the English government had not been so easily nor
so long imposed on as the kings of Scotland, and the authorities of
Europe generally” (p. 91), we can easily imagine that the principal
Gipsies at least occupied a pretty good position among the English people
generally. If Bailyow in 1540 represented the native name of Baillie (as
it is believed to have done), we could have William Bonyon, who died in
1542, one of the original Gipsies, most likely of mixed blood; and we
certainly had “John Brown and George Brown, Egyptians,” before 1554.