The "Hot Gospeller," most prominent of his party, was the eldest son of
Thomas Underhill of Wolverhampton and Anne Wynter of Huddington. He is
known in the pedigrees of his family as Edward Underhill of Honingham.
He was born in 1512, and at the age of eight succeeded to the family
inheritance on the death of his grandfather, having previously lost his
father (Harl. Ms. 759, folio 149). Underhill married, in 1545, Jane,
daughter of a London tradesman, whom the pedigrees call Thomas Price or
Perrins (Harl. Ms. 1100, folio 16; 1167, folio 10); but as Underhill
himself calls his brother-in-law John Speryn, I have preferred his
spelling of the name. The narrative of "the examynacione and
Impresonmentt off Edwarde Underehyll" (from August 5 to September 5,
1553) is extant in his own hand--tall, upright, legible writing--in
Harl. Mss. 424, folio 9, and 425, folios 86-98. Nearly the whole
narrative, so far as it refers to Underhill himself, has been worked
into the present story. Two short extracts have been printed from it,
in the Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary (pages 128, 170); and
Strype has made use of it also. The ballad given in chapter eight is
evidently not the one on account of which the author was imprisoned.
Underhill had eleven children;--1. Anne, born December 27, 1548 [query
1546]. 2. Christian, born September 16, 1548. 3. Eleanor, born
November 10, 1549. 4. Rachel, born February 4, 1552 [query 1551]. 5.
Unica, or Eunice, born April 10, 1552. 6. Guilford, born at the
Limehurst, July 13, 1553, to whom Lady Jane Grey stood sponsor as her
last regnal act; died before 1562. 7. Anne, born in Wood Street,
Cheapside, January 4, 1555. 8. Edward, born in Wood Street, February
10, 1556; the eventual representative of the family. 9. John, born at
Baginton, about December, and died infant, 1556. 10. Prudence, born
1559, died young. 11. Henry, born September 6, 1561, living 1563. Some
writers speak of a twelfth child, Francis; but this seems to require
confirmation. Underhill removed to Baginton, near Coventry, about
Easter, 1556. He appears to have lost his wife in 1562, if she were the
"Mistress Hunderell" buried in Saint Botolph's on the 14th of April. He
was living himself in 1569 (Rot. Pat., 10 Elizabeth, Part two); nothing
has been ascertained concerning him subsequent to that date, but
according to one of the Heralds' Visitations he returned to Honyngham.
Notices of his descendants are very meagre; Lord Leicester's "servant
Underhill," in 1585, is reported to have been one of his two surviving
sons, Edward and Henry; and Captain John Underhill, the Antinomian, who
figures in the early history of America, is said to have been the
grandson of the Hot Gospeller. The Ms. which has chiefly supplied the
dates given above was not found until too late to correct the text. The
dates of birth, therefore, of Anne and Edward, as given in the story,
are inaccurate. Underhill lent his "Narrative" to Foxe, who is said to
have returned it without making use of it. That he made no use of it is
certain, beyond recording the day of Underhill's committal to Newgate:
but whether he ever returned it is not so certain; for it is bound with
Foxe's papers at this day, to which fact we probably owe its
preservation. In Ainsworth's "Tower of London," a fancy portrait of
Underhill is given, precisely the opposite of that which I should
sketch. "He was a tall, thin man, with sandy hair, and a scanty beard
of the same colour. His eyes were blear and glassy, with pink lids
utterly devoid of lashes; and he had a long lantern-shaped visage" (page
43). Mr Ainsworth (who evidently regards him as a grim ascetic)
proceeds, with due poetical justice, to burn our friend on Tower Green,
in 1554. I imagine that the dry humour for which Underhill was
remarkable, would have been keenly evoked by perusal of the adventures
there mapped out for him. For many of these details I am indebted to a
distant relative of the Hot Gospeller.