The story of the death of Robert Packington, mercer, of London, has
also provided Foxe with fertile soil for raising his usual crop of
calumny. The man was shot dead one very misty morning, in Cheapside,
according to most chroniclers in 1556, Foxe says in 1558, as he was
crossing the road from his house to a church on the opposite side,
where he intended to hear Mass. Many persons were suspected of the
murder, but none were found guilty. Hall, Grafton, and Bale all tell
the story, but the martyrologist added thereto an accusation against an
innocent person, which, although satisfactorily refuted by Holinshed,
remains in the pages of the Acts and Monuments to this day. Foxe says:--
"The murtherer so covertly was concealed, till at length by the
confession of Doctor Incent, Dean of St. Paul's, in his deathbed it was
known, and by him confessed that he was the author thereof, by hiring
an Italian for sixty crowns or thereabouts to do the feat. For the
testimony whereof, and also of the repentant words of the said Incent,
the names, both of them which heard him confess it, and of them which
heard the witnesses report it, remains yet in memory to be produced if
need required."*
* P. 525, edited 1563.
But Holinshed, a far more credible witness tells us that:--
"At length the murtherer indeed was condemned at Banbury, in
Oxfordshire, to die for a felony which he afterwards committed; and
when he came to the gallows in which he suffered, he confessed that he
did this murther [that of Robert Packington], and till that time he was
never had in any suspicion thereof."*
* Chronicle, fol. ed., 1586, p. 944. Answer to Foxes assertion. Also
Appendix to Gough's Narratives, pp. 296, 297.
There is another class of anecdote in the Acts and Monuments, the
errors of which do not lie so much in the facts of the story as in the
oblique vision of Foxe himself, in regarding the dramatis personae, as
heroes. Thus, a madman named Collins, who, entering a church during
Mass, seized his dog at the Elevation, and held it over his head,
showing it to the people in derision, is accounted "as one belonging to
the holy company of saints."*
* Acts and Monuments, vol. v., p. 25; Pratt's ed.
Cowbridge, who was burned at Oxford, was one who would in these days be
called a criminal lunatic, but Foxe regarded him as a holy martyr. The
horrible story of the " martyrdom " of three women of Guernsey rests
entirely on Foxes authority. It was immediately contradicted. Foxe
replied, and Father Persons refuted his reply. It transpired on
investigation that all three women were hanged as thieves, their bodies
being afterwards burned; one of them had led an openly immoral life.
Machyn and Wriothesley chronicle an outbreak of fanaticism on Easter
Sunday 1555. An ex-monk named Flower rushed into St. Margaret's Church,
Westminster, while the priest, Sir John Sleuther, was administering
Communion to his parishioners. Foxe tells the tale succinctly:--
"The said Flower, upon Easter Day last past, drew his wood knife, and
strake the priest upon the head, hand, and arm, who being wounded
therewith, and having a chalice with consecrated hosts therein in his
hand, they were sprinkled with the said priest's blood."*
* Ibid. vol. vii., p. 75.
The only mistake which Foxe here makes is in saying that the priest was
Sir John Cheltham. The would-be assassin harangued his victim before
dealing the blow, and then struck home so forcibly that the priest fell
as if dead. A tumult arose, the multitude thinking that the Spaniards
were attacking them. Flower was apprehended, tried, and burned for
heresy and sedition, on the spot now called the Broad Sanctuary. His
claim to swell Foxe's calendar of "martyrs" rests solely on the motive
of his murderous assault, namely, outrage of the Blessed Sacrament.
Another martyr of Flower's kidney was William Gardiner, who was living
at Lisbon in 1552 as agent of an English mercantile house.
Foxe describes his exploits and the consequences thereof as "The
history, no less lamentable than notable, of William Gardiner, an
Englishman suffering most constantly in Portugal for the testimony of
Gods truth." Gardiner's admiring biographer relates that his hero twice
entered a church (probably Lisbon Cathedral) with intent to do some
notable thing in the king's sight and presence. The first time was on
the occasion of a royal marriage, but the throng was so great that he
could not get near the altar. However, on the following Sunday, "the
said William was present early in the morning, very cleanly apparelled,
even of purpose, that he might stand near the altar without repulse.
Within a while cometh the king with all his nobles. Then Gardiner
setteth himself as near the altar as he might, having a Testament in
his hand, which he diligently read upon and prayed, until the time was
come that he had appointed to work his feat." This time was just before
the Communion of the priest, who was the Cardinal Archbishop of Lisbon.
Gardiner sprang forward, snatched the consecrated Host from his hand,
trod it underfoot, and overturned the chalice. The first effect of this
outrage was to strike the clergy and congregation dumb with amazement,
horror, and consternation. In Foxe's words, "this matter at first made
them all abashed." But on recovering their senses, the people gave vent
to their indignation in shouts and cries of vengeance. A dagger was
drawn, and Gardiner was wounded in the shoulder. The man who struck him
was about to deal another blow, when he was prevented by the king
himself. Gardiner thereupon, being in the hands of the guards,
impudently harangued the people, and told them that "if he had done
anything which were displeasant unto them, they ought to impute it unto
no man but unto themselves, who so irreverently used the Holy Supper of
the Lord unto so great idolatry, not without great ignominy unto the
church, violation of the sacrament, and the peril of their own souls,
except they repented."
The Portuguese, entirely inexperienced in this kind of fanaticism,
thought that Gardiner must be a political agent, with designs on the
safety of the realm. As he would confess nothing of this sort, they put
him on the rack, in order to extract from him secrets of a seditious
nature. At length, as it was clear that heresy and sacrilege were the
crimes in which he exulted, they burned him as a heretic, he
maintaining, according to Foxe, his "godly mind" to the end, declaring
even in the flames that "he had done nothing whereof he did repent
him."*
*Acts and Monuments, vi. 277; Cattley's ed.
Foxe incidently bears witness to the edifying manner in which the
Portuguese assisted at Mass, the people standing "with great devotion
and silence, praying, looking, kneeling, and knocking [beating their
breasts in token of compunction], their minds being fully bent and set,
as it is the manner, upon the external sacrament."*
* Ibid.
The story of Bertrand Le Blas, the silk-weaver of Dornick who
signalised himself in the same riotous manner in 1555, is said to have
ended in the same way, Le Blas declaring "that if it were a thousand
times to be done he would do it; and if he had a thousand lives he
would give them all in that quarrel."*
* Acts and Monuments, vi. 393.
But these are all ex pane statements of Foxe. He is thinking of nothing
but of pointing his own particular moral and of adorning his own tale.
Historically, his evidence is valueless unless supported by more
careful witnesses. He professes to chronicle the martyrdom at Newent,
on the 25th September 1556, of "John Horne and a woman"; but Deighton,
a friendly critic, pointed out that this story was nothing more or less
than an amplification of the burning of Edward Horne, which Foxe had
already recorded as having taken place on the 25th September 1558, and
that no woman suffered at either of these times. Such instances might
be pointed out ad infinitum.
The detestation in which most Englishmen hold the names of Stephen
Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, and of Edmund Bonner, Bishop of London,
is entirely owing to Foxe's calumnies.
Although Gardiner had been deprived of his see for his belief in
Transubstantiation in Edward's reign, and had been sent to the Tower by
a court presided over by Cranmer, it is certain that he bore the
archbishop no ill-will, but even did his best to save Cranmer's life
and that of the other reformers who refused to conform to the old
religion which Mary had brought back. It was his duty as chancellor to
enforce the law of the land, in the matter of exterminating heresy, as
in all else, but he only once sat on a commission, gave Cranmer ample
opportunity to escape if he had so minded, furnished Peter Martyr with
funds to take him abroad, shielded Thomas Smith, King Edward's
secretary, from persecution on account of his heretical opinions, and
even allowed him a yearly pension of 100 pounds for his support.* Of
Gardiner's kindness to Roger Ascham, the latter said, "Stephen, Bishop
of Winchester, High Chancellor of England, treated me with the utmost
humanity and favour, so that I cannot easily decide whether Paget was
more ready to commend me or Winchester to protect and benefit me; there
were not wanting some, who, on the ground of religion, attempted to
stop the flow of his benevolence towards me, but to no purpose. I owe
very much to the humanity of Winchester, and not only I, but many
others also have experienced his kindness."**
* Dictionary of National Biography, article, "Stephen Gardiner."
** Epis. p. 51; Oxford ed., 1703.
One of the "many others" was John Frith, whom Gardiner did his best to
save from a painful death;* and even Northumberland would have escaped
had Gardiner's voice prevailed in the council. Again, Gardiner's
patriotism prompted him to oppose boldly the project of the queen's
marriage with Philip of Spain, seeing that it was distasteful to the
bulk of the nation; yet, when he recognised that it was inevitable, he
did his best to make it more popular.
* Grenville, MS. 11,990; Letters and papers, 6,600.
For some reason known doubtless to himself, but quite unknown to
history, the martyrologist represents Gardiner as keenly desirous to
hear that the sentence passed on Latimer and Ridley had been carried
out. He says:--
"The same day, when Bishop Ridley and Master Latimer suffered at Oxford
[being about the 19 day of October], there came into the house of
Stephen Gardiner the old Duke of Norfolk, with the foresaid Master
Munday, his secretary, above named reporter hereof. The old aged duke,
there waiting and tarrying for his dinner, the bishop being not yet
disposed to dine, deferred the time to three or four o'clock at
afternoon. At length about four of the clock cometh his servant,
posting in all possible speed from Oxford, bringing intelligence to the
bishop what he had heard and seen; of whom the said bishop, inquiring
the truth of the matter, and learning by his man that fire most
certainly was set unto them, cometh out rejoicing to the duke. "Now,"
saith he, "let us go to dinner." Whereupon they being set down, meat
immediately was brought, and the bishop began merrily to eat. But what
followed? The bloody tyrant had not eaten a few bits, but the sudden
stroke of God's terrible hand fell upon him in such sort, as
immediately he was taken from the table, and so brought to his bed in
such intolerable anguish and torments, that . . . whereby his body
being miserably inflamed within (who had inflamed so many good martyrs
before) was brought to a miserable end."
Foxe relates this story at third hand, as was his wont, but it fitted
in so admirably with his favourite theory in regard to the temporal
judgments of God on miscreants--and Gardiner to his way of thinking was
certainly a miscreant of the first rank--that he could not afford to be
fastidious as to its veracity. For he must surely have known that "the
old Duke of Norfolk could not have dined with Gardiner on or about the
19th October 1555, having been in his grave since August 1553; and as
for "the sudden stroke of God's terrible hand," by which the Bishop of
Winchester was "brought to a miserable end," the following extract from
a letter of the Venetian ambassador, resident in England, to the Doge
and Senate, written on the 16th September 1555, gives a totally
different account of the illness from which Gardiner died on the 12th
November:--
"After the chancellor's return from the conference at Calais," writes
the Venetian chronicler of current events, "he fell into such a state
of appilation [sic] that besides having become [as the physicians say]
jaundiced, he by degrees got confirmed dropsy, and had it not been for
his robust constitution, a variety of remedies prescribed for him by
the English physicians having been of no use, he would by this time be
in a bad way, his physiognomy being so changed as to astound all who
see him. The Emperor had sent him the remedy he used when first
troubled with dropsical symptoms, on his return from the war of Metz,
which remedy cured him, and should God grant that it take the same
effect on the Bishop of Winchester, it will be very advantageous for
England, he being considered one of the most consummate chancellors who
have filled the post for many years, and should he die, he would leave
few or none so well suited to the charge as himself."*
* Giovanni Michiel to the Doge and Senate, Calendar of State Papers,
Venetian, vol. vi., part. i., 215; edited by Rawdon Brown.
On the 21st October, the queen opened Parliament in person, and
Gardiner mortally ill, rose from the bed to which he had been for weeks
confined, in order to introduce a Bill for the granting of much needed
supplies to the Crown. Michiel, the Venetian envoy, continuing his
letter says:--
"After the Mass of the Holy Ghost, sung by the Bishop of Ely, and the
sermon preached by the Bishop of Lincoln, her Majesty proceeded into
the great hall, where, in the presence of all those officially
summoned, the Lord Chancellor, having rallied a little, choosing at
anyrate to be there, in order not to fail performing his office on this
occasion, made the usual proposal, stating the cause for assembling
Parliament, which was in short solely for the purpose of obtaining
pecuniary supply."
Mary had succeeded to a treasury rich only in debt, and her need of
money to carry on the government was urgent. Gardiner made a long and
effective speech, the result of which was, that Parliament at once
voted a million of gold to be levied in two years from the laity, in
four from the clergy. But exhausted by his effort, and so weak that he
was unable to return to his own house, the dying chancellor was
accommodated at Whitehall where he met his end peacefully three weeks
later. He desired during his last days that the Passion of our Lord
Jesus Christ might be read to him, and when the reader came to the
contrition of St. Peter, Gardiner exclaimed, "Negavi cum Petro, exivi
cum Petro, sed nondum flevi amare cum Petro!" alluding to his weakness
and fall in Henry VIII's reign.*
* Wardword, 43; Lingard, History of Fn,-land, vol. v., p. 243, note,
6th ed.
The view which Foxe presents of Bonner, Bishop of London, in the
administration of his office, is as distorted and malicious as his
libellous picture of Gardiner. The pages of the Acts and Monuments,
which describe Bonner's examination of those brought before him on
charges of heresy, teem with such picturesque epithets as "this bloody
wolf," the "Bishop was in a marvellous rage" or "in a great fury," but
when we read what Bonner really said, we find nothing to justify these
exaggerated expressions.
On one occasion, when Bonner was supposed by the martyrologist to be in
such "a raging heat" that he appeared "as one clean void of humanity,"
we read on, expecting to find some brutal and heartless words whereby
he crushed the meek spirit of the martyr before him. The scene was
Cranmer's degradation at Oxford, with which solemn and painful act
Bonner was charged; but the strongest words used by the bishop in
answer to Cranmer's continued protests and recriminations were,
according to Foxe himself, merely that " for his inordinate contumacy,
he denied him to speak any more, saying that he had used himself very
disobediently."*
* Acts and Monuments vol v., p 765; Cattley's ed.
By Foxe's own showing, when brought before the bishops, the "marytrs"
frequently twitted their judges, gave them homethrusts and "privy
nips," and behaved themselves generally in a very provocative and
irritating manner. It is surprising, nevertheless, to find how very
seldom the examiners lost their tempers, bearing with a considerable
amount of insolence in a singularly good-humoured spirit, doing their
best to give the accused a chance of escape. Of the six who came under
Bonner's examination on the 8th February 1555, Foxe affirms that the
Bishop of London sentenced them the day after they were charged, and
killed them out of hand without mercy, "such quick speed these men
could make in dispatching their business at once"--a terrible
indictment if there were a shadow of truth in it. But Bonner not only
knew all about the six heretics long before the 8th February, three of
them having been in prison for months, where he had again and again
reasoned with them; but after sentence had been passed, an interval of
five weeks was the shortest respite granted to them for reflection
before any one of them was executed. The others suffered consecutively
on the 26th, 28th, and 29th March, the last of the six on the 10th June.
With as little regard for truth did Foxe pen the remarkable distich,
which well served his purpose of villifying Bonner in the minds of his
confiding and credulous readers:--
This cannibal in three years' space three hundred martyrs slew,
They were his food, he loved so blood, he spared none he knew."
Lingard estimates that about two hundred persons suffered for their
religious opinions during the reign of Mary. The fact is no doubt an
appalling one, and horrifies us with a sense of the barbarism that
prevailed so recently as three and a half centuries ago in England. But
when we consider the outrages of which numbers of them were guilty, the
danger which they constituted to the realm, we cannot help agreeing
with Cobbett when he says that "the real truth about these martyrs is
that they were generally a set of most wicked wretches who sought to
destroy the queen and her government, and under the pretence of
conscience and superior piety, to obtain the means of again preying
upon the people."*
* History of the Reformation, edited by Abbot Gasquet, p. 207.
Moreover, portentous as the numbers appear to us, they are small
compared with those which represented Henry's ruthless severity after
the Northern Rising, when the whole country was covered with gibbets,
and with those of Elizabeth's victims who were hanged, cut down alive,
drawn and quartered, for practising the religion that had been taught
in England since it was a Christian country. Nor did the persecution of
Catholics cease at the death of Elizabeth, and the reigns of the Stuart
kings, the Commonwealth, and even the Hanoverian regime testify to the
cruel insistance with which Catholic priests were hunted to death, and
the Catholic laity imprisoned and impoverished for their loyalty to the
oldest faith of Christendom.
Bonner had had nothing whatever to do with the revival of the statute
De Heresia, but good or bad, it was the law of the land, and he could
no more help sitting on the bench in his own diocese to examine
offences against it, than could any other judge refuse to sit in any
court over which he had jurisdiction. Of the two hundred who were
condemned on this statute during Mary's reign, about one hundred and
twenty were sent to Bonner's court for judgment, the city of London
being the centre and hot-bed of the new, revolutionary doctrines. Thus,
Foxe's assertion that "this cannibal three hundred martyrs slew," must
be reduced to nearly onethird of that number. His supposed thirst for
blood was also as much a lie as that other figment of the
martyrologist's brain which represented both Gardiner and Bonner as
having a violent personal grudge against those who were brought before
them for examination. Bonner, as well as Gardiner, laboured, and not
unsuccessfully in many instances, in causing heretics to recant, upon
which they were restored to liberty.
A striking yet dispassionate portrait of Edmund Bonner, from the pen of
the late Dr. S. R. Maitland, one of the most scholarly and painstaking
historians of the last century, forms a vivid contrast to Foxe's
caricature of the Bishop of London.
"Setting aside DECLAMATION, and looking at the DETAILS OF FACTS left by
those who may be called, if people please, Bonner's victims and their
friends, we find very consistently maintained the character of a man,
straightforward and hearty, familiar and humorous, sometimes rough,
perhaps coarse, naturally hot-tempered, but obviously [by the testimony
of his enemies] placable and easily entreated, capable of bearing most
patiently intemperate and violent language, much reviling and low abuse
directed against himself personally, against his order, and against
those peculiar doctrines and practices of his church, for maintaining
which he had himself suffered the loss of all things, and borne long
imprisonment. At the same time, not incapable of being provoked into
saying harsh and passionate things, but much more frequently meaning
nothing by the threatenings and slaughter which he breathed out, than
to intimidate those on whose ignorance and simplicity, argument seemed
to be thrown away; in short, we can scarcely read with attention any
one of the cases detailed by those who were no friends of Bonner,
without seeing in him a judge who [even if we grant that he was
dispensing bad laws badly] was obviously desirous to save the
prisoner's life."*
* Essays on Subjects connected with the Reformation, by S. R. Maitland,
D.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., sometime librarian and keeper of the MSS. at
Lambeth, p. 423.
We have disposed at some length elsewhere of Foxe's shameless calumny
of Sir Henry Bedingfeld, Lieutenant of the Tower of London, and
custodian of the Princess Elizabeth at Woodstock when she was suspected
of connivance in Wyatt's rebellion. In espousing Elizabeth's cause, and
in casting aspersions on one who was responsible for her safe custody,
Foxe was but following his general plan of campaign, the not very
subtle plan of representing all those of his own party to be saints and
martyrs, the enemy deserving every abusive term that came to his facile
pen. This simple method attained its object probably beyond the wildest
dreams of its author. All along the ages the Protestant world has
believed implicitly in the fables invented by Foxe, and even in these
days of critical analysis, although innumerable experts have given him
the lie, the effect of his calumnies remain in the deeply rooted
prejudice of the nation.* Moreover, like every other succes de
scandale, the book brought a rich harvest to its author. He was almost
penniless when he returned to England in 1559, but the English version
of his work, first published in 1563, made his fortune. The Catholics
called it derisively Foxe's Golden Legend. In 1570 a second edition was
printed in two volumes folio, and Convocation decreed that the book,
designated by the canon as Monumenta Martyrum, should be placed in
cathedral churches, and in the houses of the great ecclesiastical
dignitaries. This decree, although never confirmed by parliament, was
so much in accordance with the Puritan tone of the whole Church of
England at that time, that even parish churches far and wide were
furnished with copies of the work, chained side by side with the Bible.
In the vestry minutes of St. Michael's Church, Cornhill, of 11th
January 1571-72, it is ordered "that the booke of Martyrs of Mr. Foxe,
and the paraphrases [of the gospel] of Erasmus [pace Erasmus] shalbe
bowght for the church and tyed with a chain to the Egle bras." A few
years ago, mutilated copies of the Acts and Monuments might still be
seen chained in the parish churches of Apethorpe (Northamptonshire),
Arreton (Isle of Wight), Chelsea, Eustone (Oxfordshire), Kniver
(Staffordshire), Lussingham (Norfolk), Stratford-on-Avon,
(Warwickshire) Waltham, St. Cuthbert (Wells);** also in that of
Lutterworth and many other places. At Cheddar not very long ago was a
great black-letter copy of the Acts and Monuments chained to the
reading desk, and it is stated in the Life of Lord Macaulay that as a
child, the sight of it used to fascinate him as he sat on Sunday
afternoons in the family pew, longing to get at the bewitching pages.
* The late Dr. Littledale lecturing at Liverpool on Innovations in 1868
said: "Two mendacious partizans, the infamous Foxe and the not much
more respectable Burnet have so overlaid all the history of the
Reformation with falsehood, that it has been well-nigh impossible for
readers to get at the facts," p. 16. And later on he refers to the Book
of Martyrs as "that magazine of lying bigotry," p. 21.
** Dictionary of National Biography, article "John Foxe,"
No more potent means could have been devised for saturating the
national mind with the principles of the Reformation than the diffusion
of the Book of Martyrs on this gigantic scale. In a few years there was
scarcely a parish church in England that did not possess a chained copy
of the work. The illiterate might frequently be seen standing in a
group round the lectern, while one among them better instructed than
the rest read to them aloud its graphic and lying legends. Added to
this, in many churches a chapter was read to the assembled
congregations every Sunday evening along with the Bible, and the clergy
constantly made its dubious martyrdoms the subject of their sermons. No
wonder that it assumed an importance equal to that of the Scriptures
themselves. One of the indictments against Archbishop Laud at his trial
was the fact that he had ordered it to be removed from some churches in
his diocese.*
* Dictionary of National Biography, article "John Foxe."
The secret of its charm for Puritan England did not altogether lie in
its Anti-Marian character, or in the partisanship of its garbled facts
and fictitious heroisms. The simplicity of its vigorous English, the
picturesque though minute circumstances which it detailed, the very
boldness with which it lied, in league with the primary passions to
which it appealed, made it one of the most powerful engines in the
revolution that gradually changed the face of the whole country. Its
deadly work of destruction has been effectually accomplished, and it is
almost useless to attempt to convince a people into whose frame and
tissue its stories have been woven, that the Protestant Reformation in
which they so implicitly believe is but a fairytale for the invention
of which John Foxe is mainly responsible. Gairdner, in his History of
the English Church in the Sixteenth Century, a book of the very first
importance for any serious study of the period, has again and again
expressed his opinion of the worthlessness of the Acts and Monuments as
history; and the Rev. John Gerard* has been at the pains of collecting
the learned historian's remarks on Foxes compilation. He says:
* In his pamphlet, John Fare and his Book of Martyrs, Catholic Truth
Society.
"But more damaging than any other is the criticism which Foxe receives
at the hands of Mr. James Gairdner, the fullness of whose knowledge is
matched only by the calm judicial manner in which he deals with the
martyrologist's stories as he encounters them in his own history.
Discussing each case on its merits, and giving full weight to the
evidence on either side, Mr. Gairdner finds charges of untruthfulness
and dishonesty established at every turn. Foxe, he declares, ignores or
misrepresents evidence that tells against him [p. 38]; he manipulates
it to suit his purpose [56]; he counts as martyrs offenders of all
kinds [129n]; he 'was above all things credulous' [131]; he tells
stories, the falsehood of which may be gathered from his own relation
[ibid]; he suppresses facts furnished by the authorities upon whom he
draws [133]; he insinuates what is utterly false [135]; he evidently
wishes his readers to understand what he does not venture openly to say
[220-21]; he prejudices readers by irrelevant gibes [271]; he has made
people believe what is untrue [333]; he was quite as prejudiced and
unfair as the notorious Bishop Bale [342]; his narrative has been
exposed as untrustworthy by reason of its bias, but has not even yet
been subjected to complete and thorough criticism [352]. In consequence
of all this, says Mr. Gairdner, Foxe has given a false colour to the
history of the times, and especially to the sentiments and motives of
the persecutors. ' It is quite untrue, as Foxe and his school have made
the world believe, that the authorities were savage or ferocious . . .
The burning of heretics was a barbarous old-fashioned remedy, but it
is not true that either the bishops or the government adopted it
without reluctance' [349, 355]. And again, a royal commission, issued
on 8th February 1557, is printed by Foxe with the title, `A bloody
commission given forth by K. Philip and Q. Mary to persecute the poor
members of Christ.' If we read the preamble, however, we find that it
was provoked by the assiduous propagation of a number of slanderous and
seditious rumours, along with which the sowing of heresies and
heretical opinions was merely a concurrent' [387]."
Nevertheless, that the influence of Foxe is not by any means extinct in
our own day, is proved by the successive republications of his book
during the nineteenth century. In 1836 the plea for a new edition was
put forward in a letter to the editor of the Record in these astounding
terms:--
"When we consider the high character of the work for accuracy of
detail; its full exhibition of the Gospel in all its holy and
triumphant efficacy; the bulwark it has proved to our Protestant faith;
its peculiar seasonableness to meet all the fresh dangers from Popery
in the present times; and its intrinsic value, as forming a sound
standard of Reformation divinity, we find it an exercise of Christian
charity to call the public attention to it. We might further adduce the
imprimatur of our own Church, by her act of Convocation appending it to
all the ecclesiastical establishments in the land, as giving to Foxe's
work, an additional claim of regard."
Between the years 1836-41, therefore, a new edition was published by
the Rev. S. R. Cattley, with a Life and Vindication of John Foxe, by
Prebendary Townsend of Durham.
The Rev. Josiah Pratt reprinted it in 1846-49; another edition,
purporting to be corrected by the Rev. Josiah Pratt, the younger,
appearing in 1853. But the Life and Vindication had been so greatly
discredited in the attack made upon it by Dr. S. R. Maitland, that when
the Religious Tract Society published an edition of the Acts and
Monuments in 1877, mainly from the stereotype plates of that of 1853,
they thought it prudent to omit that part altogether, Dr. Stoughton,
one of the honorary secretaries of the Society, substituting an
Introduction, a work which is, however, as much open to criticism as
Townsend's.
A cheap edition had already appeared in 1868 with a preface by the
Bishop of Carlisle in which his lordship said that:--
"The Convocation of the English clergy did wisely, when in the days of
Elizabeth, they enacted that every parish Church [sic] in this land
should be furnished with a copy of Foxe's Book of Martyrs."
There is also an illustrated edition published by Messrs Cassell; and
the Religious Tract Society still continues to make the Acts and
Monuments the subject of a quiet but active propaganda in evangelical
interests, offering the book at a reduced price to students, teachers,
and public libraries, sometimes even presenting it as a free gift.
IV. THE SPOILS OF THE MONASTERIES
The great, perhaps the sole repositories of the early historical and
topographical records of England, Scotland, and Ireland, from the
introduction of Christianity until the introduction of printing, were
the monasteries. Throughout the middle ages these libraries were the
homes, in many instances the birthplaces of treasures which would have
been hopelessly lost or destroyed in those rough times but for the
shelter thus afforded them. The monks were constantly employed in
writing, copying, and ornamenting manuscripts, while State papers and
parliamentary rolls were deposited in their archives for safety.
Moreover, as they were known to be rich, and to care for such things,
books were brought to them from time to time for sale by those in need
of money. There was scarcely any religious house but had a library, and
many of them were very good ones. Some data have come down to us by
which we can form an estimate of their bulk and value.
The books which St. Augustine brought with him from Rome, together with
those of Theodore, formed the nucleus of the well-known monastic
library at Canterbury. In the library at Peterborough there were no
fewer than 1700 MSS. That of the Grey Friars in London was 129 feet
long by 31 feet broad, and was well filled with books. That the Abbey
of Leicester and the Priory of Dover had no mean libraries appears from
the catalogues of their books yet remaining in the Bodleian. Ingulf
tells us that when the library at Croyland was burned in 1091, the
monks lost 700 books. The great library at Wells had twenty-five
windows on each side, a fact which gives us some notion of the space
required to contain all the volumes possessed by this monastery.*
* Tanner, Nolitia Monastica, preface, p. xl., edited 1744.
In the English preface to Dugdale's Monasticon mention is made of the
"incredible number of books written by the monks," and it would be easy
to multiply illustrations of this kind, and to collect notes of the
indiscriminate destruction that took place at the dissolution of the
monasteries under Henry VIII., when the contents of these libraries
were sold as waste paper.
"I know a merchant man," wrote Bale, Bishop of Ossory as quoted by
Leland, "which at this time shall be nameless, that bought the contents
of two noble libraries for forty shillings apiece. A shame it is to be
spoken. This stuff hath he occupied, instead of grey paper, by the
space of more than these ten years, and yet he hath store enough for as
many years to come. A prodigious example is this, and to be abhorred of
all men which love their nation as they should do. Yea, what may bring
our realm to more shame and rebuke than to have it noised abroad that
we are despisers of learning? I judge this to be true, and utter it
with heaviness, that neither the Britons under the Romans, nor yet the
English people under the Danes and Normans had ever such damage of
their learned monuments as we have seen in our time. Our posterity may
well curse this wicked fact of our age, this unreasonable spoil of
England's most noble antiquities."
Centuries had been spent in collecting that which a few short months
had sufficed to scatter abroad, and Bishop Tanner also mentions with
sorrow the loss of a great number of excellent books, to the
unspeakable detriment of the learned world.
For a time, this havoc of the monastic libraries went on unchecked, but
during the reign of Elizabeth a reaction set in, and there arose a
little knot of men who had the good sense to recognise the value of
these memorials of the past, and to treasure up what still remained;
and the next generation produced such men as Thomas Bodley, and Robert
Cotton. These were followed by others of kindred tastes, to whom more
golden opportunities of acquiring valuable treasure-trove were afforded.
We shall confine ourselves here to the most illustrious of these
collectors, Sir Robert Cotton, whose library now forms the basis of the
national collection in the British Museum.
The era of English libraries began with Matthew Parker's gift to Corpus
Christi College, Cambridge, a collection of books which has preserved
from destruction more materials relating to the civil and
ecclesiastical history of this country than had ever before been
gathered into one library. Fuller styled this munificent bequest "the
Sun of English antiquity, before it was eclipsed by that of Sir Robert
Cotton."
Sir Thomas Bodley was one of the first men in Europe to conceive the
notion of a great public library, and the rich collection of books
which he made at Oxford on the ruins of Duke Humphrey's library, and
which he bequeathed to the University, is not merely of European, but
of world-wide celebrity. Living as he did at Oxford in a learned
atmosphere, he naturally turned his chief attention to Latin
manuscripts, while Cotton made English history his special study, and
was ever on the alert for material to throw fresh light upon its
annals. Hence the numerous Anglo-Saxon MSS. in his library, and the
splendid collection of State papers, relating to England, Scotland, and
France, contained in the dress marked Caligula, and in many other
places.
Cotton and Bodley were good friends, and not only shared the same
tastes, but sympathised actively with each other's work. In 1595 Bodley
wrote to Cotton, asking him whether he held to his "old intention for
helping to furnish the Universitie librarie," and in 1601 he
acknowledges having received from Cotton a contribution of manuscripts
for that purpose. These manuscripts were eleven in number, the titles
of which may be seen in Smith's manuscript notes to his catalogue in
the Bodleian library.
Bodley on his part was no less generous. A folio volume on vellum,
containing the four Gospels, the four Dialogues of St. Gregory, and
some other articles, the whole in Saxon, and consisting of 290 leaves,
was a part of his contribution to the Cottonian collection.* The
contents of this volume, as described by Wanley, show it to have been
of exceeding great value, but since his time twenty-five folios have
been lost. When Planta compiled his catalogue he affixed a note to the
effect that the manuscript was so burnt and contracted as to render the
binding of it impracticable, and that it was preserved in a case. Later
on it passed through the restoring hands of Sir Frederick Madden.
* Otho, C. i. The notes furnished by Smith also prove the identity of
the Cotton MS. Otho, C. ix. with Bodley's gift.
Cotton was neither a great scholar, nor did he produce any original
work of special value, but he seems to have possessed the tact and the
taste to divine, and also encourage talents superior to his own,
thereby deserving no less well of his country than those who served her
with higher gifts. His friend Gondomar, the Spanish ambassador, once
called him an "engrosser of antiquities." If we add that he did not
merely "engross," but that he liberally shared his acquisitions with
others, we shall perhaps best describe his special place and work in
the world of letters. To judge by his correspondence it would seem that
all the learned men in the kingdom applied to him for the loan of some
rare manuscript or other, and that hardly a scientific, political,
historical, or heraldic work was produced in the early part of the
seventeenth century, but owed something to his labours as an antiquary.
Selden asks for a sight of his Peterborough books, his Book of Monies
his Historic Jorwallensis. Camden writes for a treatise on Heraldry,
and for a ledger of the Abbey of Meaux. George Carew, afterwards Earl
of Totness, needs his Chronicle of Peter the Cruel. Crashaw, the poet,
sends for volumes treating of the Council of Florence, and of the
excommunication of the emperor at the Council of Lyons. Sir John
Dodderidge, judge and antiquary, asks leave to keep Cotton's maps
(perhaps for his work "Of the Dimensions of the Land of England").
Speed requires a note of all the monasteries in the realm, as well as
the Book of Henry IV., and craves help in his Life of Henry V., signing
himself "Your loving friend, troublesome and troubled."
All these demands on Cotton's library and Cotton's liberality, together
with many more, may be seen in the collection of letters contained in
the volume, the press-mark of which is Julius C 3.
The fame of the Cottonian library was great among the learned at the
beginning of the seventeenth century; in 1612 it was spoken of with
enthusiasm. The following letter from Edmund Bolton, poet and
antiquary, is, despite its somewhat florid and inflated style, a proof
of the high estimation in which the collection was held.
"Sir,--The world sees that worthy monument of witt and learning* come
forth, but with honourable acknowledgements of special' helps from you.
But we that are somewhat privie to the truth of things, do also knowe
that without your assistance, it is in vain to pretende to weightie
works in the antiquities of
this kingdom. For your studie, if we respect the glories of saints
there carefully preserved in authentic registers, it is a Pantheon and
all Hallowes. If the memorials of the honourable deceased, it is a
mausolae. If the tables and written instruments of Empire, it is a
Capitol. If the whole furniture of Cyclopxdia, it is a mart. If matters
marine, it is an arsenal--if martial, a camp and magazine. Briefly it
is the Arck, where all noble things which the deluges of impious
vastitic and sacriligious furie have not devoured, are kept to bee the
seminaries of better plantations."
* Probably a reference to Bacon's History of Great Britain under the
Conquests of the Romans, Saxons, Danes, and Normans, published in 1611.
He goes on to compare Cotton's library with that of Paulus Jovius, the
pride and glory of Italy, which, he declares, "will seem perhaps little
better than a beauteous charnel-house, filled with skeletons, and the
rotten timbers of clay-built tenements dissolved into dust, by the side
of this exquisitely instructed studie."
Exaggerated as this praise may seem, the fact remains that the
Cottonian collection was unique, and that scholars owed more to it than
to any other sources of information. There is no account of any visit
of Cotton's to the Continent, although in one of his early pamphlets
mention is made of his having visited Italy; but people were busy in
different parts of Europe seeking for what was valuable in the shape of
parchments and old coins, to add to his treasures.
England was, however, at that time the best hunting-ground for
manuscripts, so short a time having elapsed since our great monastic
libraries had been scattered to the winds. Chronicles, chartularies,
State Papers, treaties, family pedigrees, documents of every kind were
floating about the country, often in the possession of strange owners,
almost always to be had for gold. To acquire these was Cotton's chief
delight from the age of eighteen; and as a natural consequence, this
taste surrounded him with learned friends. At his house at Westminster
the literati of the day were wont to meet. Josceline, Camden, Noel,
Speed, Sir John Davis, and others formed, together with himself, the
then Society of Antiquaries, which Matthew Parker had founded.
But James I., although so great an amateur of antiquities, did not
regard the society with a favourable eye. He was eminently cautious,
and fancied that these meetings might lead to a political association,
and he accordingly suppressed them.
In recognition, however, of Cotton's merit the king knighted him at his
coronation honours; he called him "cousin," and acknowledged his claim
to be descended from the Scottish family of Bruce. From that time
Cotton quartered the royal arms of Scotland with his own, and adopted
the name of Bruce, "not," says Collins in his Baronetage, "in arrogance
and ostentation, but in distinction to those of the name of Cotton of
other families . . . and in a grateful sense of the divine favour for
that extraction, and to excite an emulation in his issue to follow the
virtues of such glorious ancestors." His descent is clearly traced in
the history of Connington Castle in Huntingdonshire, which had been the
home of his family for centuries. The house had been rebuilt at various
times. When it came into Sir Robert Cotton's hands he completely
restored it, embellishing the north front with richly moulded arches
which he had purchased and brought from Fotheringhay Castle, together
with the room in which Queen Mary had been executed.*
* Neale. Views of the Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen, vol. ii, for
Cotton's pedigree, see Julius F 8, f. 58b.
Cotton's friendship with Camden began at Westminster School, where
Cotton was educated--Camden being at that time second master. In the
last year of the century, the two friends made an antiquarian journey
into the North, where they explored the old Roman wall, built to keep
out the marauding Picts, and returned to Connington laden with
trophies. These were afterwards presented to Trinity College,
Cambridge, where they are still preserved. Camden's Britannia contains
more than one allusion to this journey. His History of Queen Elizabeth
was long supposed to be their joint work; and it is probable that,
although he only acknowledged the loan of autograph letters, the part
relating to Mary Queen of Scots was at least inspired by Cotton. It is
certain that Camden obtained nearly all his materials from his friend's
library. In one of his letters he speaks of Cotton as "the dearest of
all my friends"; and in this profession he was constant till his death,
directing in his will that Sir Robert should have the first view of his
books and manuscripts; "that he may take such as I borrowed of him;"
and then he goes on to bequeath to him his entire collection, except
his heraldic and ancient seals, which he left to the Herald's College.
About the year 1614 it began to be whispered that Sir Robert Cotton had
unlawfully come by some of the State Papers in his library, and the low
murmurs soon grew into a loud argument to the effect that the Public
Record Office was injured " by his having such things as he hath
cunningly scraped together."* The general feeling of jealousy and
suspicion is expressed in the following extract from a contemporary
letter which was prompted by the fact that Arthur Agard, keeper of the
Public Records, had left his private collection to Cotton:
* J. Wilson to Ambrose; Randolph State Papers, Dom. James I., 1615; R.O.
"The late Mr. Agard has left some manuscripts, the labour of most of
his life, including a book on the exemption of the Kings of England
from the power of the Pope, abstracts of treaties, and other State
matters, which Sir Robert Cotton claims, on pretext that they were left
to him by will; but he eras at the making of the will. It is important
that such things be kept in possession of the King's officers, as
otherwise they may be suppressed when most wanted."*
* Dom. James I., vol. lxxxiii., 69; R.O,
After this, charge after charge was brought against Cotton, till the
life, that had so usefully been spent in the service of learning,
closed in sadness and gloom. James, however, whether he gave credence
to the accusations of enemies or not, never quite abandoned him. He
made him a member of the " new order of hereditary knights called
baronets," which Cotton had himself advised the king to create, as a
means of replenishing the State coffers, without burdening his subjects
with taxes. (The fee was fixed at 1000 pounds.)
Disraeli, in his Curiosities of Literature, quoting from a Lansdowne
MS., says that it appeared, "by the manuscript book of Sir Nicholas
Hyde, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, from the second to the third
year of Charles I., that Sir Robert Cotton had, in his library,
records, evidences, ledger-books, original letters, and other State
papers belonging to the King; for the Attorney-General of that time, to
prove this, showed a copy of the pardon which Sir Robert had obtained
from King James for embezzling records, etc."
James had the greatest regard for Cotton's historical acumen, and in
the last year of his reign he ordered that no more copies of the life
of his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, should be published till Sir Robert
Cotton had enlarged it, and made it more authentic by the aid of two
ample histories which had lately come out.* The similarity of their
tastes always ensured a certain sympathy between the antiquary who was
also in some sense a Scotchman, being descended from the Bruces, and
the first Stuart King of England. But James's successor never took him
into favour, and henceforth there was little in his worldly prosperity
to divert him from his beloved library--a perennial source of joy to
him-till his enemies turned it into a weapon for his destruction. He
never ceased to add to it while he lived, and casual contributions
continued to flow in from various sources.
* Secretary Conway to the Wardens, etc., of the Stationer's Company,
25th June 1624, Dom. James 1.; R.O.
Thus, in 1627, Sir James Ware sent a manuscript register of St. Mary's
Abbey, Dublin; and the year after Archbishop Ussher presented a
Samaritan Pentateuch (Claudius, B 8). Already in 1625 he had mentioned
this book in a letter to Cotton:
"Touching the Samaritan Pentateuch, the copye which I have is (as I
guess) about three hundred years old, but the work itself commeth very
short of the tyme of Esdras and Malachy. I have compared the
testymonyes cited out of it by the ancient Fathers, Eusebius, Jerome,
Cyrill, and others, and find them precisely to agree with my booke,
which makes me highly to esteeme of it."
In 1628 he writes apologetically for his long silence and his delay in
returning books lent to him by Cotton:
"A farre longer time than good manners would well permitt, for which
fault yett I hope to make some kinde of expiation by sending you
shortlye, together with your own my ancient copye of the Samaritan
Pentateuch, which I have long since destinated unto that librarye of
yours, to which I have been beholden for so many good things no where
else to be found. I shall [God willing] ere long finish my collation of
it with the Hebrew text, and then hang it up ut votivam Tabulam at that
Sacrarium of yours."
A correspondent, signing his letter Jo Scudamore, gave him a whole
edition of Chaucer "in a fair ancient written hand." This manuscript
has unfortunately disappeared from the collection.
Nicholas Saunder sent a history by Helinandus, a Cistercian monk,
written in the time of William the Conqueror,* and many other donations
are recorded.
* Claudius, B 9. The donor of this MS. was not the Nicholas Saunders so
well-known in Elizabeth's reign.
Of the constant activity going on in the formation of this wonderful
library, and of the great generosity with which the books were lent the
following letters are eloquent. Archbishop Ussher writes thus:
"Worthy Sir,--I have received from you the history of the Bishops of
Durham, together with your ancient copies of the Psalmes, whereof that
which hath the Saxon interlineary translation inserted is the old
Romanum Psalterium, the other three are the same with that which is
called Gallicum Psalterium. But I have not yet received that which I
stand most in need of, to wit the Psalter in 8vo which is distinguished
with obeliskes and asteriskes. I pray you, therefore, send it unto me
by my servant, this bearer, as also the life of Wilfrid, written in
prose by a nameless author that lived about the time of Bede; the other
written in verse by Fredegodus I received from Mr. Burnett; together,
with William Malmsburiensis de vitis Pontificum Anglia et S. Aldhelmus.
Before you leave London I pray you do your best to get master Crashaw's
MS. Psalter conveyed unto me. I doubt not but before this time you have
dealt with Sir Peter Vanlore for obtaining Erpenius his Hebrew,
Syriach, Arabick, and Persian books, and the matrices of the letters of
the Oriental languages. If he interpose himself seriously herein, it is
not to be doubted, but he will prevayle before any other. But what he
doth he must do very speedilye, because the Jesuites of Antwerp are
already dealing for the Oriental presse, and others for the Arabick,
Syriac, Hebrew, and Persian bookes. It were good you took some order
before you went, how Sir Peter may signify unto you, when you are in
the countrye, what is done in this businesse. If he send to Mr. Burnett
at any time [who dwellith at the signe of the three swannes in Lombard
Streets he will finde some means or other to communicate what he
pleaseth unto me. I thank you very hartilye for the care which you have
taken in causing my Samaritan Bible to be so faire bound. I have given
order to Mr. Burnett to content the workman for his paynes, and so with
remembrance of my best affections unto yourself and the kinde ladye
your wife,* I committ both of you to God's blessed protection, and rest
your own most assured,
"Ja Armachanus."
* Sir Robert Cotton had married Elizabeth, daughter and co-heiress of
William Brocas of Thedingworth, Leicestershire, by whom he had several
sons, the eldest Thomas, alone surviving him.
Sir Edward Dering writes in 1630:
"Sir; I received your very welcome letter, whereby I find you abundant
in courtesies of all natures. I am a great debtor to you, and those
obligations likely still to be multiplied. As I confess so much to you,
so I hope to witnesse it to posterity. I have sent up two of your
bookes which have much pleasured me. I have here the charter of King
John, dated at Running Meade.* By the first safe and sure messenger it
is yours, so are the Saxon charters, as fast as I can copy them, but in
the meantime I will enclose King John in a boxe and send him. I shall
much long to see you at this place, where you shall command the heart
of your affectionate friend and servant,
"E. Dering."
Dover Castle, May 10, 1630.
* There are two original drafts of Magna Charta in the Cottonian
Library.
It would be extremely interesting were Cotton's own letters extant, to
have some account from his pen of the manner in which he came by many
manuscripts, the history of which is a blank to us from the time of the
dissolution of the monasteries till they found a safe haven in his
library. But his letters are very rare; two only have been preserved in
the Record Office. They are addressed to his brother, Thomas, in the
years 1623 and 1624, and they begin "Loving David," and end "Thy
Jonathon." One is much stained, and difficult to read; both treat of
political matters.
In 1629 the origin of a seditious pamphlet, entitled, "How to bridle
the impertinency of Parliaments," which was handed about in London,
causing some commotion, was traced to the Cottonian library. In spite
of all that Cotton could put forward to exculpate himself, an order was
issued by the Privy Council for the sequestration of his books, on the
ground that they were not of a nature to be exposed for public
inspection. And this was not all. Once before he had been deprived of
access to them for a time, and now again he was himself debarred from
entering his own library, a privation which affected him so seriously,
that from the moment of sequestration his health visibly declined, and
he declared to his friends that they had broken his heart, who had
locked up his books from him.
Disraeli, in his Amenities of Literature, says that, "Tormented by the
fate of a collection which had consumed forty years, at every personal
sacrifice to form it for 'the use and services of posterity,' he sank
at the sudden stroke. In the course of a few weeks he was so worn by
injured feelings that, from a ruddy-complexioned man, his face was
wholly changed into a grim blackish paleness, near to the resemblance
and hue of a dead visage."
Cotton made two separate petitions to have his rights over his own
property restored. In the first he signified to the Privy Council that
their detaining his books without rendering any reason for the same had
been the cause of the mortal malady from which he suffered. In the
second, in which his son joined, he merely complained that the
documents were perishing for lack of airing, and that no one was
allowed to consult them. The Lord Privy Seal was at last sent to him
with a tardy message from the king, but too late to avail him anything.
Within half an hour of his death the Earl of Dorset came to condole
with his son, now Sir Thomas Cotton, bearing the somewhat ambiguous
assurance that, "as his Majesty loved his father, so he would continue
his love to him." Sir Robert Cotton died on the 6th May 1631, and was
buried at Connington. Long afterwards it was discovered that the author
of the fatal pamphlet, that had done so much to kill him, was Sir
Robert Dudley, who had written it when in exile at Florence.
Before tracing the subsequent history of the Cottonian library we will
pause and consider some of the most important manuscripts which it
contained at the death of its famous originator.
It has been said that he turned his attention largely towards
collecting materials for every period of English history. Those
materials are particularly rich as regards the Anglo-Saxon period.
Beginning chronologically we find here (in Vitellius, A 15) the story
of Beowulf, the oldest monument of AngloSaxon literature, reaching back
into the ages of heathendom. It is a pagan war-song which, in being
handed down from minstrel to minstrel, has lost nothing of its wild,
exultant beauty, while it has received many Christian inflexions from
the bards of a better religion than that in which it was originally
conceived, through whose minds it passed before being committed to
parchment. When the Saxons had embraced Christianity they carefully
weeded out from their national poetry all allusion to personages of
pagan mythology, so that, in an antiquarian sense, their literature
suffered. But the forcible and picturesque imagery of half-barbaric
tribes still remained. The coarseness of the beer-hall is, however,
subdued by the gold and silken embroideries with which it is adorned.
In a vivid description of a battle, in the midst of lurid flames, of
blood and carnage, the enemy is "put to sleep with the sword." When a
hero dies in peace, "he goes on his way."
The poem of Beowulf has been variously edited. It was first noticed by
Wanley, in his catalogue of Saxon MSS. in 1705. It was printed with a
Latin translation by Thorkelin, at Copenhagen, in 1815. Conybeare, in
his Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry, points out several errors into
which the Dane, Thorkelin, and the Englishman, Turner fell; and Thorpe,
in his Anglo-Saxon Poems of Beowulf, differs from all preceding
editors, who considered the heroes as mythical beings of a divine
order, he suggesting that they were kings and chieftains of the North,
within the pale of authentic history.* This opinion had been shared by
Kemble, but under the influence of Grimmperhaps the greatest authority
on these matters--he ended by regarding the poem as mythic. Later
critics have, however, considered that it deals with historical persons.
* Preface, p. xvii.
Only secondary to the romance of Beowulf must once have been the
fragment of a poem on the death of Beorhtnoth.* It was printed by
Hearne in the appendix to his edition of Johannis Glastoniensis
Chronicon, but without a translation.
* Formerly Otho A 12, in the Cottonian Library; the original perished
in the fire of 1731.
"It constitutes," says Conybeare, "a battle-piece of spirited
execution, mixed with short speeches from the principal warriors,
conceived with much force, variety, and character; the death of the
hero is also very graphically described. The whole approximates much
more nearly than could have been expected to the war-scenes of Homer."
Of the poem of Judith, one of the finest specimens of Anglo-Saxon
songs, a fragment is preserved in the same volume which contains the
story of Beowulf.
The type of the Anglo-Saxon poets in Christian times is Caedmon, whom
Professor George Stephens called "the Milton of North England in the
seventh century," and who, according to the legend told by Bede, being
singularly unblessed with the power of song, received the gift
miraculously in sleep. He is represented in the Cottonian library only
by a few prayers in Anglo-Saxon (Julius, A 2) which Junius printed from
this MS. at the end of his edition of Caedmon's paraphrase. The
interesting collection, which goes by Caedmon's name in the Bodleian
library, is a series of pieces on Scriptural subjects, with beautifully
painted illustrations.
A manuscript of the tenth century (Cleopatra, B 13) contains a short
hymn on the conversion of the AngloSaxons; and in the same volume is a
life of St. Dunstan.
Two important volumes (Tiberius, B 5, and Titus, D 27), one of which
appears to have been written for the use of nuns, formed part of the
material for a history of mathematics in England, during the Middle
Ages.*
* Rara Mathematica from inedited MSS., by J. O. Halliwell.
Alcuin and Aldhelm were the chief Anglo-Latin poets. Some of Alcuin's
letters are to be found in this collection. St. Aldhelm, Abbot,
afterwards Bishop of Malmesbury, was regarded by King Alfred as the
prince of Anglo-Latin poets. His chief work, The Praises of Virginity,
is at Cambridge, but his metrical treatise on the monastic life and one
of his letters are here preserved.
Alfred is well represented in his Laws, and in his Saxon versions of
Augustine's soliloquies.
Of the works of the venerable Bede we have the Ecclesiastical History,
the Life and Miracles of St. Cuthbert, and nine other manuscripts.
It was probably between 1615 and 1621 that Sir Robert Cotton became
possessed of the celebrated manuscript known as the Utrecht Psalter.
Its early history is obscure, and experts have differed widely as to
its probable date and origin. Sir Thomas Hardy, who summarised its
contents, and drew up a report upon the intrinsic arguments in favour
of its remote antiquity, called attention to the fact that it could not
have been written in England, because it contains certain liturgical
pieces which were not in use in this country, at the time assigned for
its age by other internal evidence. He suggested that it was brought
into England by the Christian princess, Bertha, daughter of Charibert
the Frankish king, who became the queen of Ethelbert. He based this
supposition on the costliness of the manuscript which would point to
its having belonged to a royal personage. He next considered the
probability that this Psalter was presented by Queen Bertha to the
monastery of Reculver, in Kent, where the king had built a new palace,
and where Bertha attended the services of her religion, Hardy drew this
inference from the coincidence that at the time when the volume came
into Cotton's hands there was bound up with it a charter, recording the
gift of certain lands by Lothair, King of Kent, to Bercwald, Abbot of
Reculver, and to his monastery. The charter is dated Reculver, May 7,
679, and it seems to have been the custom in smaller monasteries to
place royal and other charters inside valuable books for preservation,
in default of any more suitable depository. This charter, which Cotton
took to be an original document, he separated from the Utrecht Psalter,
preserving it in another part of his library. It is still to be found
where he placed it (in Augustus, B 2).
Mr. Birch, however, disposed summarily of Sir Thomas Hardy's ingenious
theory, and pronounced Cotton's opinion that the charter was an
original document, as not worth much. After giving all the evidence for
and against the probability of Queen Bertha, having presented the
Psalter to Reculver Abbey, he showed reasons for the charter being a
copy of the original, and for its having been made at Christ Church,
Canterbury, a religious house very closely allied to Reculver, which
was secularised centuries before the dissolution of the monasteries by
Henry VIII.
But the most recent authority on illuminated manuscripts, Sir Edward
Maunde Thompson, considers that the actual date of the Utrecht Psalter
may be placed about the year 800, and he maintains with Sir Thomas
Hardy, judging by internal palaeographical evidence, that without
doubt, the manuscript is of Frankish workmanship, and he assigns its
origin to the north, or north-east of France.* This carries us back to
Queen Bertha and Cotton's suggestion that she brought the book over
with her.
* See a Paper on English Illuminated Manuscripts, A.D. 700-1066, by
Mr., now Sir Edward Maunde Thompson, Bibliographica, part ii., London
Kegan & Co.
Shortly after the suppression of Christ Church, which, in all
probability, inherited the treasures of Reculver, the Utrecht Psalter,
together with its incorporated charter, fell into the hands of the
Talbot family; and in Mr. Bond's report on the manuscript he said that
the name Mary Talbot could, with some difficulty, be deciphered on the
lower margin of folio 60b, in a sixteenth century hand. Various
suggestions have been made in regard to this name, but in Mr. Birch's
opinion--and here there is good reason for following him--it belonged
to the wife or daughter of "Master Talbot of Norwich, a most ingenious
and industrious antiquary." He made a collection of rare manuscripts,
most of which are now in Corpus Christi College at Cambridge, and it
was from this collection that the Utrecht Psalter passed into Sir
Robert Cotton's possession, but whether by gift or purchase is not
recorded.
The manuscript is entered in the catalogue of the library written by
Cotton himself in 1621, under the press-mark Claudius C 7, but it is
not to be found in any subsequent catalogue. An entry occurs among the
Notes of such books as haze been lent out by Sir Robert Cotton to
divers persons, and are abroad in their hands att this daye, the 15th
of January 1630, which entry is to the effect that the Psalter was lent
"to my lord the Earle of Arundel." Birch gave it up as lost to the
Cotton library from the time that it passed into Lord Arundel's hands;
but he must have been unaware of the existence of Smith's own copy of
his printed catalogue, which contains his manuscript notes of books
borrowed from the Cotton collection, and in which these words are
written "Borrowed by Mr. Ashmole, on the 17th February 1673, Claudius,
C. 7." Smith's folio catalogue, published in 1696, has the word Deest,
marking its absence from the library. Nothing further can be discovered
till 1718, when the book appears to have become the property of
Monsieur de Ridder, a Dutchman, who presented it to the University of
Utrecht where it still remains.* Sir Robert Cotton's signature is on
the first page.
*The History, Art, and Paleography of the Utrecht Psalter, by W. de
Gray Birch, F.R.S.L., Keeper of the Manuscripts in the British Museum.
The great charm of this manuscript, a facsimile of which is to be seen
in the Cottonian library, lies in its pen-and-ink illustrations, as
forcible and appealing as are the scenes of the Last judgment on the
walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa. Among the Harleian MSS., moreover
(No. 603), there is an illuminated Psalter so like it, that it seems
impossible that the artist should not have had the Utrecht Psalter
before him as he drew; unless, as Sir Edward Thompson supposes, the
older manuscript is itself a copy of a still more ancient one, which
leads him to infer that other versions of this Psalter were in
existence in England at an early date. This would account also for the
Eadwine Psalter at Cambridge, a twelfth-century imitation of the
Harleian manuscript. Neither of these Psalters can be described as an
absolute copy of the Utrecht Psalter.
We are here led to deplore the loss of another valuable manuscript of a
totally different kind, which, although not in the collection at the
time of Sir Robert's death, once belonged to this library, and was lost
in the same way. We refer to to the "Enconium Emmae" an eleventh
century MS. which Cotton sent to Duchesne, and which the latter used in
writing his Historiae Normanorum, but never returned. It has entirely
disappeared.
We now come to what is perhaps the noblest monument of Anglo-Saxon
times in the Cottonian library--namely, the famous Lindisfarne Gospels
also known as the Durham Book, a marvel of palaeographic art. It is
indisputably the finest production of the school of Lindisfarne. The
Latin text, written in double columns, was transcribed by Eadfrith,
Bishop of Lindisfarne, while still a simple monk, in honour, some say
for the use, of St. Cuthbert. It was finished after the saint's death,
at the end of the seventh, or beginning of the eighth century. This we
learn from intrinsic evidence, in the form of a brief note in
Anglo-Saxon at the end of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and a longer one
at the end of the volume. These notes have thus been translated by Mr.
Waring:--*
* Prolegomena, Lindisfarne, and Rushworth Gospels, part iv.
"Thou, O living God, bear in mind Eadfrith and Aethelwald, and
Billfrith and Aldred, the sinner. These four with God's help were
employed upon (or busied about) this book."
And--
"Eadfrith, Bishop over the Church of Lindisfarne, first wrote this book
in (honour of) God and St. Cuthbert, and all the company of saints in
the Island; and Aethelwald, Bishop of Lindisfarne, made an outer cover,
and adorned it as he was well able; and Billfrith, the anchorite, he
wrought the metal-work of the ornaments on the outside thereof, and
decked it with gold, and with gems, overlaid also with silver and
unalloyed metal; and Aldred, an unworthy and most miserable priest, by
the help of God and St. Cuthbert, over-glossed the same in English, and
domiciled himself with the three parts. Matthew, this part for God and
St. Cuthbert; Mark, this part for the bishop; and Luke, this part for
the brotherhood; with eight ora of silver (as an offering) on entrance;
and St. John's part for himself--i.e., for his soul; and (depositing)
four silver ora with God and St. Cuthbert, that he may find acceptance
in heaven through the mercy of God; good fortune and peace on earth,
promotion and dignity, wisdom and prudence through the merits of St.
Cuthbert.
"Eadfrith, Ethelwald, Billfrith, and Aldred have wrought and adorned
this Book of the Gospels for (love of) God and St. Cuthbert."
Old as it is, neither vellum nor illumination shows the least sign of
decay. The writing is exquisitely beautiful, and points to a degree of
refinement and cultivation which we do not usually associate with a
rough life, such as was led by the monks of sea-girt Lindisfarne. There
are to be seen wonderful initial letters, geometrical and tesselated
designs, like the most delicate and intricate mosaics, and above all,
beautifully devout representations of the four evangelists, all
evidently drawn by the same loving and reverent hand, and the whole
colouring as fresh now as if it had been painted yesterday.
The evangelists, each accompanied by the symbolic animal, usually
assigned to him, occupy nearly the whole of their respective pages.
They are taken from Byzantine models, of which, as Westwood points out,
nothing remains but the attitudes, the fashion of the dress and the
form of the seats. There can be little doubt that these illuminations
were copied from a MS. brought into England by the missionaries sent
from Rome by St. Gregory in the seventh century.
* Facsimiles of the Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish
Manuscripts. P. 35.
Sir Edward Thompson, following Dom Germain Morin,* shows that the
Capitula, or tables of sections which accompany each gospel are
according to the Neapolitan use, and that Adrian, the companion of the
Greek, Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury in his mission to Britain in
668, was abbot of a monastery in the Island of Nisita, near Naples.
* See his articles in the Revue Benedictine line, Nov. and Dec. 1891,
pp. 481 and 529.
Bede tells us that these missionaries were both at Lindisfarne, and Sir
Edward Thompson gives it as his opinion that the Neapolitan MS. from
which the Durham Book or Lindisfarne Gospel derived its text, had been
brought a few years previously from Naples by the Abbot Adrian.*
* English Illuminated Manuscripts," Bibliographica," part ii.
The interlineary Saxon gloss was a later addition by the monk, Aldred,
and Billfrith, as we have seen, made the sumptuous metal cover. This
binding, needless to say, has long since disappeared, and for many
years a shabby morocco covering replaced the gorgeous shrine in which
the monks of Holy Island had deposited their treasure. About sixty
years ago, Bishop Maltby of Durham, at the suggestion of Mr. John
Holmes, provided a worthy substitute, the design for which was copied
from one of the ornamented pages in the book itself.
This magnificent manuscript has been published by the Surtees Society,
together with the very inferior Rushworth Gospels, but only one
illumination has been reproduced.*
* The Lindisfarne Gospels or Durham Book is described in Planta's
Catalogue (Nero, D 4), as "Liber praeclarissimus, elegantissimis
characteribus et curiosissimus pro istius seculi arte picturis et
delineationibus ornatus." See also Wanley's Catalogue, Codd. MS.
(Anglo-Sax.) p. 250.
Of absolutely authentic history there is little to relate concerning
this celebrated manuscript, but Simeon of Durham, or rather Turgot,
whose account he copied (and both men lived in the neighbourhood), is
responsible for a story which says that it remained at Holy Island till
the ravages of the Danes forced the monks to fly, carrying with them
their two greatest treasures, the body of St. Cuthbert, and this
volume. But in their flight across the narrow strip of sea which
divides the Island from the coast of Northumbria, their boat was thrown
so much on one side that the book fell overboard. They arrived safely
on the opposite shore, but could not make up their minds to continue
their journey till they had done what they could to recover the
precious relic. So they waited at the peril of their lives till the
tide went out, leaving, as it does to this day, a stretch of bare sand
between the Island and the mainland. To the inexpressible joy of the
monks, they then found the book lying unharmed on the sand.
Archbishop Eyre, in his Life of St. Cuthbert, following the story as it
is contained in the Rites of Durham,* places this incident in the sixth
or seventh year of their wanderings.
* Surtees Society.
"And so, the bishop, the abbot, and the rest, being weary of
travelling, thought to have stolen away, and carried St. Cuthbert's
body into Ireland, for his better safety. And being upon the sea in a
ship, by a marvellous miracle three waves of water were turned into
blood. The ship that they were in was driven back by the tempest and by
the mighty power of God as it would seem, upon the shore or land. And
also the said ship that they were in, by the great storm and strong
raging walls of the sea as is aforesaid, was turned on the one side,
and the Book of the Holy Evangelists fell out of the ship into the
bottom of the sea."
This account says that the monks found the volume about three miles
from the shore, and that their landing-place was Whithorn in Galloway,
opposite Belfast.
When Lindisfarne became a priory cell to Durham, this famous manuscript
still remained in the city of St. Cuthbert, and in the History of North
Durham by Raine, it is mentioned in the year 1637, as "the Book of St.
Cuthbert which had fallen into the sea." We, indeed, notice a brown
stain on several of its leaves, which might be accounted for by their
having been saturated with salt water, did we but know what would be
the effect of a sea-water mark after so long a period. At the time of
the dissolution it was still at Durham, and no record of what then
befel it has been preserved.*
* Brayley's Graphic and Historical Illustrator, 1834; article "The
Durham Book," by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson.
Sir Robert Cotton discovered it in the possession of Robert Bowyer,
clerk of Parliament under James I.
The resemblance between the artistic and palaeographic peculiarities of
the Book of Kells and the Durham Book is accounted for by the fact that
Lindisfarne was founded from Iona, which had been given to St. Columba
and his Irish companions in the sixth century. The monks, who settled
at Holy Island, continued the Scoto-Irish traditions which they had
brought with them, and perpetuated them in their manuscripts.
A brief notice of one other remarkable MS. may be made. It is to be
found in the press Claudius, B 4, and a careful description of it is
given by Westwood in his Palaeographia Sacra Pictoria, and in his
Miniatures and Ornaments of Anglo-Saxon and Irish MSS. An early
tradition declares it to be one of the volumes sent to St. Augustine by
Pope Gregory. However that may be, it is known as the Augustine
Psalter, and the style of its ornamentation is of Roman origin. This
ornamentation consists of initial letters in the Celtic manner; but
gold, which was hardly ever used in the Lindisfarne school, and never
in Irish MSS., is here seen in profusion, and this detail betrays a
foreign influence. It belonged to the Abbey of St. Augustine at
Canterbury, and may be a copy executed in that house of one of the
books sent from Rome.
The Paraphrase of the Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua, by Elfric, the
grammarian, in this collection, is the finest known copy of the work.
It is ornamented with 397 drawings, illustrating the text of the early
books of the Bible. The largest miniature represents the building of
the Tower of Babel.
The Psychomachia of Prudentius is very beautifully written in red and
black ink. There are 83 drawings. A replica of this manuscript, which
belonged to the monks of Malmesbury, is now at Cambridge.
Scarcely less interesting historically, than the Lindisfarne Gospels is
the Book of the Benefactors of Durham Cathedral. Their names are
written in alternate lines of bold and silver, the binding being also
originally of gold and silver, to which fact a Latin couplet in verse
testifies. As time went on it was carelessly kept by the monks of
Durham, but entries were made up to the eve of the dissolution of the
monastery. The book has been published by the Surtees Society under its
name of Liber Vitae, and edited by the Rev. Joseph Stevenson who also
wrote a preface. The meaning of Liber Vitae was that the fact of the
benefactor's name being inscribed in this book was coupled with the
hope and the prayer that the same name might at last find a place in
the Book of Life, in which those are enrolled, who shall be faithful
unto death.* Later on it became a sort of memorandum-book, in which
together with the names of benefactors, was entered a brief account of
the nature of their donations. Copies of charters were also inserted,
and other matters of an historical character.
* Preface to the published volume, p. 8.
As far as folio 42, it is written in a beautiful ninth century hand,
but from this point onwards, the gold and silver lines are omitted, and
it is continued in varied and less elegant writing. This manuscript
remained at Durham till the dissolution, and it is not known what then
became of it, nor in what manner it passed finally into the Cottonian
library. It is thus quaintly described:
"There did lie on the High Altar an excellent fine book, very richly
covered with gold and silver, containing the names of all the
benefactors towards St. Cuthbert's Church, from the very original
foundation thereof, the very letters of the book being for the most
part all gilt, as is apparent in the said book till this day. The
laying that book on the High Altar did show how highly they esteemed
their founders and benefactors; and the quotidian remembrance they had
of them in the time of Mass and divine service. And this did argue not
only their gratitude, but also a most divine and charitable affection
to the souls of their benefactors as well dead as living, which book is
yet extant, declaring the said use in the inscription thereof." *
* The Ancient Rites and Monuments of the Monastical and Cathedral
Church of Durham, collected out of ancient manuscripts about the time
of the Suppression.
These examples may suffice as a glimpse into the nature of this
treasure-house, but where so much is rare and costly, it is not easy to
make a selection that shall be fairly representative.
With regard to the peculiar designation of the places occupied by the
books, Sir Robert Cotton arranged them in fourteen presses, each press
being surmounted by a bust of one of the twelve Roman emperors, the two
last supporting those of Cleopatra and Faustina. The contents of each
press were placed in boxes or portfolios, or were bound up in volumes,
each box, portfolio, or volume being designated by a letter of the
alphabet, each document having a special number.
After the death of its founder the library remained for some time in
sequestration, to the great annoyance of the new baronet, Sir Thomas
Cotton, who complained bitterly that he was shut out from his study,
the best room in his house. A schedule was at length drawn up,
consisting of a large vellum roll still extant in the collection,
showing that it contained nothing that did not belong to him, and
ultimately he gained admission.
Sir Symond D'Ewes made no secret of his opinion that Sir Thomas was
"wholly addicted to the tenacious increasing of his worldly wealth, and
altogether unworthy to be master of so inestimable a library." We
cannot altogether agree with this verdict, since Sir Thomas avenged
himself by lending D'Ewes his father's collection of coins; and it is
but fair to add that he appears in general to have been no less
liberal, one might almost say careless, in lending than his father.
Rancour may, however, have set in later on, for Dugdale, writing to
D'Ewes in 1639 says, "I am in despair to obtain the books of Sir Thomas
Cotton which you desire." Richard James, librarian, fell under the same
condemnation as his master, for D'Ewes describes him as "a wretched
mercenary fellow."
Sir Thomas Cotton died in 1662, and was succeeded by his eldest son,
John, who was somewhat of a scholar. Some respectable Latin verses
written by him occur among Smith's MSS. at Oxford. He married Dorothy,
daughter and coheiress of Edmund Anderson, of Stratton in Bedfordshire,
and it appears that during the civil war the library was removed to
that place for greater safety. This was the beginning of its wanderings
and vicissitudes, which lasted nearly a hundred years.
The first regular catalogue of the Cottonian library was made and
printed at Oxford by Dr. Thomas Smith in 1696. This catalogue is
defective in many ways, especially as regards State Papers and detached
tracts, of which there are no fewer than 170 volumes, which are here
severally entered under one head only, although they each contain on an
average as many as a hundred separate documents on different subjects.
Dugdale, who was allowed to make what use he liked of the library,
discovered 80 of these volumes in loose bundles, and had them bound.
But they were still practically useless for want of proper descriptions
and indices, till Planta, keeper of the MSS. in the British Museum,
published his descriptive catalogue in 1802. Although not without
faults, it has never been superseded.
It is to the third baronet that we are mainly indebted for the
magnificent project of bequeathing the Cottonian library to the nation.
He died in 1702, before the final steps had been taken in this
direction; but his grandson and immediate successor carried out his
wishes which had also been those of his father and grandfather.
The statute, drawn up in the year 1700 (12 and 13 William III.) is
entitled, "An Act for the better settling and preserving the library
kept in the house at Westminster, called Cotton House, in the name and
family of the Cottons for the benefit of the public."
The next step was to have the books carefully inspected, and compared
with Smith's catalogue, now found to be inadequate. Many of the
manuscripts were reported to be in a state of decay, the place where
they were kept not being suitable. In 1706, Sir Christopher Wren was
commissioned to fit up the study for public use, but he declared that
Cotton House was in a ruinous condition; and in consequence of his
report, in the following year, another Act of Parliament decreed that
to increase the public utility of the library, Cotton House should be
purchased of Sir John Cotton for 4500 pounds, and a new building
erected for the collection of books. Still, nothing was done, till the
house, actually threatening to tumble down, the books were removed to
Essex House, in the Strand, where they remained for twenty-eight years.
In 1730, Ashburnham House, Westminster, was purchased by the nation for
the reception of the Cottonian, together with the Royal library. It was
here, in 1731, that the terrible fire broke out in which so many
valuable manuscripts were destroyed.
At about 2 o'clock in the morning of the 23rd October, Dr. Bentley, the
librarian, and his family, who lived at Ashburnham House, were roused
from sleep by a suffocating smoke which soon afterwards burst into
flames. The outbreak was caused by a wooden mantelpiece taking fire, in
the room immediately under the two libraries. It was at first hoped
that the flames might be extinguished by throwing water upon the
woodwork of the room actually on fire, so that they did not begin to
remove the books as soon as they should have done. But seeing that this
was useless, Mr. Casley, deputy librarian, hastened to rescue the
famous Alexandrian MS. in the Royal library, and the books in the
Cottonian press named Augustus, as being considered the most valuable.
These are principally charts, maps, grants, and papal bulls, all
relating to early English history. Several of the presses were then
removed bodily, but as the fire spread with alarming rapidity, and
there was a delay in the arrival of the engines, it was discovered none
too soon, that the backs of some of the presses were on fire. Then the
books were seized and thrown out of windows, after which they were
carried into Westminster School and the Little Cloisters. By permission
of the Dean and Chapter they subsequently found a temporary home in a
new building that had been erected as a dormitory for the school.
A committee was at once appointed by the House of Commons to inquire
into the amount of injury sustained. It was found that a great number
of manuscripts had suffered from the engine-water, as well as from
fire, and the report of the commissioners stated, that out of 958
volumes of MSS. 746 were unharmed, and 98 partially injured.
The press named Otho had suffered the most. In the table drawn up by
Casley in his appendix to the Royal library, not one volume in Otho is
seen to be intact; 16 are marked defective, 55 as lost, burnt, or
defaced so as not to be distinguishable. Vitellius was the next
greatest sufferer, 46 volumes being preserved, 28 defective, and 34
seriously damaged. Vespasian, with its fine collection of historical
materials for the history of England and Scotland, its dramas in Old
English verse, and the famous Coventry Mystery Plays and others happily
escaped altogether.* Casley's figures differ slightly from those of the
commissioners: out of a total of 958 volumes, he notes 748 as
uninjured, 99 as defective, and 111 as lost, burnt, or defaced.
* Narrative of the Fire which happened at Ashburnham House, 23rd
October 1731. Report of the committee appointed by the House of Commons.
On the 1st November the work of restoration began, and was carried out
by Bentley, Casley, three clerks from the Record Office, a bookbinder,
and others. The Speaker of the House of Commons was frequently present.
Some of the MSS. inclined to mildew were dried before a fire. Some
would have rotted if they had not been taken out of their bindings, so
thoroughly had the water permeated. The paper books which had received
stains were taken to pieces and plunged into the softest cold water
that could be procured, and when the stains disappeared they were put
into alum and water, and then hung upon lines to dry.
The best means of stretching vellum to its original dimensions, after
it has been shrivelled and contracted, had not at that time been
discovered, but the restorers did what they could. It was first
softened in cold water, then those leaves, which had become glued
together by the heat melting all kinds of extraneous matter, were
separated by means of an ivory cutter, and the glutinous substances
carefully removed with the fingers, the parchments smoothed with the
palm of the hand, and their backs pressed with a clean flannel.
Fragments were also carefully cleaned and preserved, and upon many of
these with which the original restorers could do nothing, Sir Frederick
Madden afterwards worked wonders. By his method, 100 volumes were
repaired on vellum, and 97 on paper.
Among these mutilated fragments was the priceless fourth century
manuscript of Genesis, Otho, B 6, which was thought to have been taken
abroad as it could not be found after the fire. For a while it was
given up as irrevocably lost, but Sir Frederick Madden discovered the
much burnt remains and pieced them together. This Book of Genesis was
at one time thought to be the oldest Greek MS. in England. It is now
known that the four leaves of the gospel in Greek, Titus, C 15, are as
old or even older. The Oxford librarian, Thomas James, wrote in the
beginning of the volume that it was brought into this country by two
Greek bishops as a present to Henry VIII. They told him that according
to an old tradition it had belonged to Origen, and there was nothing in
the text to make the supposition incredible. This, if true, would carry
the manuscript back 1500 years at least, with a possibility of its
being much more ancient. It had been the subject of a dispute in the
time of the first Sir John Cotton, when it was supposed to have been
lost. All at once it was discovered in the possession of Lady Stafford,
who stoutly maintained that it had belonged to the late earl, her
husband, who had lent it to Sir Thomas Cotton; and that while it was in
his hands he caused it to be newly bound, and his coat of arms fixed
upon it. She said, however, that Sir John might have it for 40 pounds,
but that she would not take a farthing less, adding that he had already
offered her 30 pounds in her own house, but that she had refused the
sum. Mr. Gilbert Crouch, who was negotiating for Sir John, in
explaining the matter to Dugdale, said that if Sir John Cotton had "so
great a mind to the book, he were better give this other 10 pounds than
run the charge and hazard of a suit."*
* Life, Diary, and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale.
All that now remains of this uniquely beautiful MS., painted on every
page, are eighteen melancholy scraps of no use but as a monument of the
ingenuity with which they have been pieced together, mended, and
preserved.
The Chronicle of Wendover, which was also believed to have perished,
was found and repaired in the time of Sir Frederick Madden.
A fragment of another MS., marked as missing in Planta's catalogue, has
found its way to the Bodleian library. It consists of ten folios of the
Life of St. Basil, and a note by Hearne says that it came from a
Cottonian MS.
Grand and imposing as the Cottonian library still is, it is painful to
consider how incomparably finer it must have been during the life of
its founder, before it suffered from the ravages of the fire, and from
the carelessness or dishonesty of so many borrowers. Sir John Cotton
avowed that many books lent to Selden were never returned; the Duke of
Buckingham was also guilty in the same respect. A manuscript now in the
Bodleian library (Barlow 49) was borrowed from the Cottonian by Dr.
Prideaux, and never returned. It was afterwards exposed for sale at
Worcester, and bought by Dr. Barlow, who presented it to the Bodleian.
Parliamentary rolls often suffered a like fate, and instances of
similar losses could be largely multiplied. The loss of the Utrecht
Psalter is, however, perhaps the most grievous that the library has
sustained from borrowers.
Some of the manuscripts, injured by the fire at Ashburnham House, were
further mutilated by another fire which occurred on the premises of a
bookbinder on the 10th July 1865.
In 1753 the government purchased the large Natural History and Art
Collection of Sir Hans Sloane, together with a library of 50,000
volumes, which were deposited in Montague House, Bloomsbury, on the
site of the present British Museum Buildings. Hither the Cottonian and
Royal libraries were brought, forming, together with the Sloane
manuscripts, the nucleus of the great national collections of which we
are justly proud, and which, under their present efficient and
courteous management, are rendered so useful to students.
The British Museum was formally opened to the public at Montague House
in 1759. But it grew so rapidly that soon more space was needed, and in
1823 the eastern wing of the present building was erected to receive
the library of George III. presented to the museum by George IV. The
whole building was completed in 1847.
V. THE ROYAL LIBRARY
The Royal library is in many ways the most splendid of our national
manuscript collections. Had it been fortunate enough, like the Harleian
library, to number a Wanley among its custodians and biographers, the
history of its formation would read like a fairy-tale. But, unhappily,
we have to depend for our chief data on what Casley, the "dry as dust"
pay excellence of librarians could tell us, and though his knowledge of
the age of MSS. was admirable, he was remarkably uncommunicative
regarding their pedigree, meagre in his descriptions, and apparently
insensible to paleographic beauty. There is scarcely, in the whole
British Museum, a less satisfactory book than his catalogue of the
Royal library. Thus, the student is hampered by the want of a guide,
and must hew paths for himself through the luxuriant growth and
accumulations of many centuries. In point of mere size, the Royal
library ranks third among the four great collections acquired by the
British Museum at the time of its foundation--the Harleian numbering
7639 MSS.; the Sloane, 4001; the Royal, 1950; the Cottonian, 900.
Of the three others we have ample details; their hoards have been
thoroughly ransacked, and there are scarcely any surprises for the
student. We can, without much trouble lay our hands on any fact,
beauty, or excellence to be found in them, for there are hardly any
hidden gems. But with the Royal library it is different. Each student
is his own pioneer, and must make voyages of discovery if he would know
something of the riches which it contains.
Its history is scarcely more complete than its catalogue; although the
nucleus of the collection must be almost coeval with the monarchy.
Before the reign of James I., however, there were no records except the
strangely anomalous ones contained in the Privy Purse Expenses, and in
the Wardrobe and Household Accounts of the various English kings who
have added to the library. It is curious to light, among the sums
disbursed for such items as feather-beds and four-post bedsteads, on
the price paid for a rare manuscript, or for the binding of a choice
codex. Queen Elizabeth's "Keeper of the Books" was also "Court
Distiller of Odoriferous Herbs," and received a better salary as
perfumer than as librarian. But in times when books were more costly,
the office of custodian was considered an honourable one, and a Close
Roll of the year 1252 makes mention of the Custos librorum Regis.
Impossible though it be to fix the exact date or even reign when the
English kings began to collect books, we shall not be wrong if we infer
that the Royal library had already a very real existence in the reign
of Henry II., when a great literary revival took place. Although the
movement originated in the cloister, the court followed in its wake,
and William of Malmesbury had his secular counterpart in Alfred of
Beverley. A favourite of the king's, Walter de Map, who had been a
student in Paris, and Gerald de Barri (Giraldus Cambrensis) divided the
honours between courtly and popular themes, while a number of poets and
romanticists sprang up and wove fantastic myths and legends out of such
material as the Crusades, the Arthurian traditions, and the feats of
Charlemagne. King John, with scarcely a quality which men cared to
praise, was, strangely enough, fond of books and of scholars. A taste
for learning was gradually leavening the barbarous Normanic lump,
spreading downwards from monarch to people. Two years before John's
death Roger Bacon was born, whose opus Majus embraced every branch of
science, and whose life is the whole intellectual life of the
thirteenth century. Matthew Paris, the last of the great monastic
historians, was the intimate friend of Henry III., who delighted in his
scholarship, and loved to visit him in the scriptorium at St. Alban's
where he himself contributed to the famous chronicle, which would alone
have sufficed to make the reputation of the learned Benedictine. Thus,
indirectly, we are led to the Royal library.
In 1250, a French book is mentioned in a State Paper as belonging to
the king, but being actually in the keeping of the Knights Templars,
who are commanded to hand it over to an officer of the Wardrobe, with
the apparent object that the king's painters might copy from it when
painting a room called the Antioch Chamber.
In the reign of Edward I. a part of the Royal library was kept in the
Treasury of the Exchequer, and a few of the books are mentioned in the
Wardrobe Accounts of the year 1302. These included Latin service books,
treatises on devotional subjects, and romances. One book is described
as "Textus, in a case of leather on which magnates are wont to be
sworn."
All through the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries there are
occasional allusions to the king's books in the Wardrobe Accounts, and
the Exchequer Inventory of Edward II. enumerates "a book bound in red
leather, De regimine Regum; a small book on the rule of the Knights
Templars, De regula Templariorum; a stitched book, De Vita sancti
Patricii; and a stitched book in a tongue unknown to the English which
begins thus: Edmygaw dorit doyrmyd dinas," and other books and rolls
"very foreign to the English tongue," the scribe, not knowing Welsh
even by sight, whereas, although he might not be able to read them, he
would probably know the look of Greek or Hebrew manuscripts. The list
closes with the Chronicle of Roderick de Ximenez, Archbishop of Toledo,
"bound in green leather."*
* Stapleton's exchequer Inventory, Edward II.