Elizabethan England Part 1

Elizabethan England.

by William Harrison.

"FOREWORDS."

I am unwilling to send out this _Harrison_, the friend of some twenty years' standing, without a few words of introduction to those readers who don't know it. The book is full of interest, not only to every Shakspere student, but to every reader of English history, every man who has the least care for his forefathers' lives. Though it does contain sheets of padding now and then, yet the writer's racy phrases are continually turning up, and giving flavour to his descriptions, while he sets before us the very England of Shakspere's day. From its Parliament and Universities, to its beggars and its rogues; from its castles to its huts, its horses to its hens; from how the state was managd, to how Mrs. Wm.

Harrison (and no doubt Mrs. William Shakspere) brewd her beer; all is there. The book is a deliberately drawn picture of Elizabethan England; and nothing could have kept it from being often reprinted and a thousand times more widely known than it is, except the long and dull historical and topographical Book I.[2]--_The Description of Britaine_--set before the interesting account in Books II. and III., of the England under Harrison's eyes in 1577-87.

How Harrison came to write his book[3] was on this wise. Reginald Wolfe, the Printer to Queen Elizabeth, meant to publish "a universall Cosmographie of the whole world,[4] and therewith also certaine particular histories of every knowne nation." For the Historical part of the work, he engagd Raphael Holinshed, among other men; and when the work was nearly done, Wolfe died, after twenty-five years' labour at his scheme. Then the men who were to have borne the cost of printing the Universall Cosmographie were afraid to face the expense of the whole work, and resolvd to do only so much of it as related to England, Scotland, and Ireland.[5]

Holinshed having the History of these countries in hand, application was made to Harrison, who had long been compiling a Chronologie[6] of his own, to furnish the Descriptions of Britain and England. He was then Household Chaplain to the well-known Sir William Brooke, Lord Cobham (so praisd by Francis Thynne[7]), and was staying in London, away from his rectory of Radwinter in Ess.e.x, and his Library there. He had also travelld little himself, only into Kent, to Oxford and Cambridge, etc., as he honestly tells Lord Cobham.

Still, mainly by the help of Leland--"and hitherto Leland, whose words I dare not alter"--as well as of "letters and pamphlets from sundrie places & s.h.i.+res of England," and "by conference with diuers folk,"[8] and "by mine owne reading,"[9] together with Master Sackford's charts or Maps,"[10] Harrison--notwithstanding the failure of his correspondents[11]

and the loss of part of his material--"scambled up," what he depreciatingly calls "this foule frizeled Treatise of mine," to "stand in lieu of a description of my Countrie." But, he says, "howsoeuer it be done, & whatsoeuer I haue done, I haue had an especiall eye vnto the truth of things." And this merit, I think every reader will allow Harrison.

Though he swallowd too easily some of the stories told in old chronicles,[12] etc., though (in his 2nd ed. only) he put Chertsey above, instead of below, Staines, on the Thames,[13] etc., yet in all the interesting home-life part, he evidently gives both sides of the case, "speaks of it as it was; nothing extenuates, nor sets down aught in malice" (_Oth._, V. ii. 341). When he tells with pride, on the one hand, of the grand new buildings and the many chimnies put up in his day; on the other hand, he brings in the grumble:

"And yet see the change, for when our houses were builded of willow, then had we oken men; but now that our houses are come to be made of oke, our men are not onlie become willow, but a great manie, through Persian delicacie crept in among vs, altogither of straw, which is a sore alteration.

"Now haue we manie chimnies; and yet our tenderlings complaine of rheumes, catarhs, and poses. Then had we none but reredosses; and our heads did neuer ake. For as the smoke in those daies was supposed to be a sufficient hardning for the timber of the house, so it was reputed a far better medicine to keepe the goodman and his familie from the quacke or pose, wherewith, as then, verie few were oft acquainted."[14]

--when he describes the beauty, virtue, learning, and housewifery, of Queen Elizabeth's Maids of Honour, he yet acknowledges that as the men

"our common courtiers (for the most part) are the best lerned and indued with excellent gifts, so are manie of them the worst men, when they come abroad, that anie man shall either heare or read of."

Even the Papist Monks,[15] whom--as a marrid Protestant parson and vicar--he hates, he praises for their buildings. And when he does abuse or chaff heartily any absurdity, like Englishmen's dress,--"except it were a dog in a doublet, you shall not see anie so disguised as are my countrie men of England,"--we may be sure it was deservd; Shakspere does it too[16] (_Merchant_, I. ii. 80; _Much Ado_, III. ii. 36, etc.).

Harrison's book will inform and amuse the reader.

Besides writing the _Descriptions of Britaine and England_ for Holinshed's _Chronicle_, William Harrison also translated for it, from Scotch into English, Archdeacon b.e.l.l.e.n.den's version of Hector Boetius's Latin Description of Scotland. This work took him only "three or foure daies" he says: "Indeed, the trauell taken heerein is not great, bicause I tie not my translation vnto his [b.e.l.l.e.n.den's] letter." Harrison dedicated this translation--the _Description of Scotland_--to the Maister Sackford, or Secford, whose "cards," charts, or Maps, had been of such use to him in his account of the English rivers in his _Description of Britaine_.

Happily for us, William Harrison was not one of those dignified prigs who are afraid of writing about themselves in their books. He tells us that he was born in London[17]--"I will remember the fame of London my natiue citie."[18] Also that he was first at St. Paul's school, and then at "Westminster[19] school (in which I was sometime an vnprofitable Grammarian vnder the reuerend father, master Nowell, now deane of Paules)." And again of the Deans of the see of London (or St. Paul's), "I will deliuer in like sort the names of the deanes, vntill I come to the time of mine old master now liuing in this present yeare 1586, who is none of the least ornaments[20] that haue beene in that seat." He was at both universities.[21] When speaking of Cambridge and Oxford, he says--

"In all other things there is so great equalitie betweene these two vniuersities, as no man can imagin how to set downe any greater; so that they seeme to be the bodie of one well ordered common wealth, onlie diuided by distance of place, and not in freendlie consent and orders. In speaking therefore of the one, I can not but describe the other; and in commendation of the first, I can not but extoll the latter; and so much the rather, for that they are both so deere vnto me, as that I can not readilie tell vnto whether of them I owe the most good will. Would to G.o.d my knowledge were such, as that neither of them might haue cause to be ashamed of their pupill; or my power so great, that I might woorthilie requite them both for those manifold kindnesses that I haue receiued of them."[22]

He must have graduated at Oxford first, for in 1569 he proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Divinity at Cambridge under a grace[23] which calls him M.A. of Oxford of seven years' standing.[25] He was before this, Household Chaplain to Sir Wm. Brooke, Lord Cobham, to whom he dedicated, as we have seen, his _Description of England_, and who gave him the Rectory of Radwinter in Ess.e.x,[26] to which he was inducted on February 16, 1558-9, and which he held till his death. On January 28, 1570-1, he became a pluralist,[27] and obtaind the vicarage of Wimbish in Ess.e.x,[28]

but resignd it in 1581, his successor being appointed on the 16th of November in that year. Between 1559 and 1571 he must have marrid Marion Isebrande, "daughter to William Isebrande and Ann his wife, sometyme of Anderne, neere vnto Guisnes in Picardie, and whome" (he says in his Will, referring no doubt to the sometime suppos'd unlawfulness of priests'

marriages) "by the lawes of G.o.d I take and repute in all respectes for my true and lawfull wife." By her he left issue,[29] one son Edmund, and two daughters,--one, Anne, unmarried, and another the wife of Robert Baker. He tells us how his wife and her maid brewd him 200 gallons of beer for 20s., as he was "sca.r.s.e a good malster" himself, and a poor man on 40 a year (Goldsmith's sum too). And no doubt his kindly "Eve will be Eve, tho' Adam would saie naie," tho' said of widows, shewd that he understood the s.e.x, was "to their faults a little blind, and to their virtues very kind"--or however the old saw runs. At Radwinter he must have workt away at his _Chronologie_, collected his Roman coins, got savage with the rascally Ess.e.x lawyers, attended to his garden:

"For mine owne part, good reader, let me boast a little of my garden, which is but small, and the whole _Area_ thereof little aboue 300 foot of ground, and yet, such hath beene my good lucke in purchase of the varietie of simples, that notwithstanding my small abilitie, there are verie neere three hundred[30] of one sort and other conteined therein, no one of them being common or vsuallie to bee had,"

kept his eyes open to everything going on round him, and lookt after his paris.h.i.+oners, when he wasn't writing his _Description of England_ in London, or visiting at Lord Cobham's house in Kent.

On April 23, 1586, William Harrison was appointed Canon of Windsor, and was installd the day after. The Dean has kindly sent me the following extract from the Chapter Book, St. George's Chapel, Windsor--

Anni Canonici. Anni Install. obitus.

Gulielmus Harrison 24{to} Aprilis, loco Ryley, 1586. Theologiae Baccalaureus. Obijt, et Sepultus est 1593.

Windsoriae, et White Successit.--Rector fuit de Radwinter,[31]

but says there is no grave-stone or other notice of where Harrison was buried.[32] (I can't get a line from the now rector of Radwinter.)

For the following abstract of Harrison's Will, I am indebted to Colonel Chester--

(81 Nevell.) "William Harrison, Clerk, parson of Radwinter and Prebendary of Windsor--dated at Radwinter 27 July 1591--to be buried at Radwinter or Windsor, as I may die at either place. My goods to be divided into 4 equal parts 'of which one parte and an halfe shall remaine vnto Marion Harrison al_ia_s Marion Isebrande and the daughter of William Isebrande sometyme of Anderne, whome by the lawe of G.o.d, I take for my true and lawfull wife;'[33] another part and a half equally to my son Edmund and my daughter Anne--my son in law Robert Baker and his wife I remember not in this my will, as I have already given them their portion; to the quire in Windsor 40s.; to the poor of Radwinter 40s.; to the poor children of the hospital at London 20s.; to the poor of St. Thomas Apostle in London 20s.; to each child of my son Baker 10s.; to each child of my cousin Morecroft, Clerk 5s.--'I make & ordayne the sayed Marion Isebrande al_ia_s Marion Harrison, daughter to William Isebrande and Ann his wife, sometyme of Anderne neere vnto Guisnes in Picardie, and whome by the lawes of G.o.d I take and repute in all respectes for my true and lawfull wife,' and my son Edmund Harrison, my Executors.--Witnesses, Mr. Wm. Birde, Esq., Thos. Smith, yeoman; Lancelott Ellis, vicar of Wimbishe; & Thos. Hartlie the writer hereof."

His Will was proved on November 22, 1593, by the said Edmund Harrison, son and executor named therein, the relict and executrix Marion, being dead.

Letters of administration to the goods, etc., of Marion Harrison, late of New Windsor, in the county of Berks, were granted on December 12, 1593, to her son Edmund Harrison.

William Harrison had opinions of his own about public and social matters in his day, and also had often racy ways of expressing those opinions.

I'll extract some. He calls Becket "the old c.o.c.ke of Canturburie;" notes how the Conferences of clergy and laity stirrd the parsons "to applie their books ... which otherwise ... would giue themselues to hawking, hunting, tables, cards, dice, tipling at the alehouse, shooting of matches, and other like vanities;" he complains of the subsidies and taxes that the clergy are made to pay, "as if the church were now become the a.s.se whereon euerie market man is to ride and cast his wallet;" also of "the couetousnesse of the patrones, of whom some doo bestow aduousons of benefices vpon their bakers, butlers, cookes, good archers, falconers, and horsekeepers," while others "doo sc.r.a.pe the wool from our clokes;" he notes how Popish "images ... and monuments of idolatrie are remooued" from the churches, "onelie the stories in gla.s.se windowes excepted," which are let stay for a while, from the scarcity and cost of white gla.s.s; he'd like to get rid of Saints' Days; he commends the decent apparel of the Protestant parsons, as contrasted with that of the Popish blind sir-Johns, who went "either in diuerse colors like plaiers, or in garments of light hew, as yellow, red,[34] greene, etc., with their shooes piked,[35] ... so that to meet a priest in those daies was to behold a peac.o.c.ke that spreadeth his taile when he danseth before the henne;" and then he denounces the cheating at elections for College fellows.h.i.+ps, scholars.h.i.+ps.

Harrison also tells us that he had for a time the "collection" (of MSS., maps, etc.) of "William Read,[36] sometime fellow of Merteine college in Oxford, doctor of diuinitie, and the most profound astronomer that liued in his time." He has a cut at the Popes' nephews--"for nephues might say in those daies: Father, shall I call you vncle?"--says that he knew one of the Norwich-diocese churches turnd "into a barne, whilest the people heare seruice further off vpon a greene: their bell also, when I heard a sermon there preached in the greene, hanged in an oke for want of a steeple. But now I vnderstand that the oke likewise is gone." After saying what England in old time paid the Pope, he asks, "and therevpon tell me whether our Iland was one of the best paire of bellowes or not, that blue the fire in his kitchen, wherewith to make his pot seeth, beside all other commodities."

In describing the Universities, Harrison dwells again on the packing and bribing practist at elections for fellows.h.i.+ps and scholars.h.i.+ps, and how "poore mens children are commonlie shut out by the rich," whose sons "ruffle and roist it out, exceeding in apparell, and hanting riotous companie which draweth them from their bookes[37] vnto an other trade." He also complains of the late-nam'd "idle fellows.h.i.+ps" that are still a disgrace to our Universities, tho' now their holders don't work for "eighteene or peraduenture twenty yeeres,"

"For after this time, & 40 yeeres of age, the most part of students doo commonlie giue ouer their woonted diligence, & liue like drone bees on the fat of colleges, withholding better wits from the possession of their places, & yet dooing litle good in their own vocation & calling."

And he repeats, in milder words, Ascham's[38] caution against sending young men to Italy, for "an Italianate Englishman is a devil incarnate,"

as the Italians themselves said.[39] "And thus much at this time of our two vniuersities, in each of which I haue receiued such degree as they have vouchsafed, rather of their fauour than my desert, to yeeld and bestow vpon me."

Of his chapter on "Degrees of the People of England" the most interesting parts to me are those on the evil of sending young Englishmen to Italy; the antic.i.p.ation of the modern J. S. Mill & Cooperative doctrine of the evil of too many middlemen in trade (the argument will cover distributors as well as importers), and lawyers in business; the improvement in the condition of yeomen; the often complaind-of evil[40] of "our great swarmes of idle seruing men;" and our husbandmen and artificers never being better tradesmen, tho' they sometimes scamp their work.

Harrison's chapter "Of the Food and Diet of the English" is very interesting, with its accounts of the dinners of the n.o.bility "whose cookes are, for the most part, musicall-headed Frenchmen and strangers,"

and who eat "delicates wherein the sweette hand of the seafaring Portingale is not wanting." Then it notices the rage for Venice gla.s.s among all cla.s.ses--as Falstaff says, A.D. 1598, in _2 Hen. IV._, II. i.

154, "Gla.s.ses, gla.s.ses, is the only drinking." This is followd by capital accounts of the diet of the gentlemen and merchants, and the artificers; the bread[41] and drink of all cla.s.ses; and how Mrs. Wm. Harrison brewd the family beer, "and hereof we make three hoggesheads of good beere, such (I meane) as is meet for poore men as I am, to liue withall, whose small maintenance (for what great thing is fortie pounds a yeare, _Computatis computandis_, able to performe?) may indure no deeper cut;" with touches like _Theologic.u.m_ being the best wine of old, because "the merchant would haue thought that his soule should have gone streightwaie to the diuell, if he should haue serued them [the monks] with other than the best;" and this kindly opinion of working-men, for which one can't help liking the old parson[42]:--

"To conclude, both the artificer and the husbandman are sufficientlie liberall, & verie freendlie at their tables; and when they meet, they are so merie without malice, and plaine without inward Italian or French craft and subtiltie, that it would doo a man good to be in companie among them.... This is moreouer to be added in these meetings, that if they happen to stumble vpon a peece of venison, and a cup of wine or verie strong beere or ale ... they thinke their cheere so great, and themselues to haue fared so well, as the lord Maior of London, with whome, when their bellies be full, they will not often sticke to make comparison, because that of a subject there is no publike officer of anie citie in Europe, that may compare in port and countenance with him during the time of his office."

Chapter VII.[43] is the amusing one on the "Apparell and Atire" of English folk already referrd to (p. xiii. above); and though it's not so bitter as Stubbes's or Crowley's, yet it's fun, with its "dog in a doublet," and its beard bit, if a man "be wesell becked [beakt], then much heare left on the cheekes will make the owner looke big like a bowdled hen, and so grim as a goose, if Cornelis of Chelmeresford saie true."

In the chapter on the Parliament the only personal bit is Harrison's saying that he copies from Sir Thomas Smith,[44] "requiting him with the like borrowage as he hath vsed toward me in his discourse of the sundrie degrees of estates in the commonwealth of England." But in the next chapter, "Of the Laws of England," after a dull account of the Trial by Ordeal, etc., we get Harrison breaking out again against the Lawyers, their prosperity and rascality, and taking fees (as barristers often do still) and doing nothing for 'em, with a good bit about Welshmen's love of law-suits. We also find a pleasant notice of John Stow, the hard-working chronicler so shamefully neglected in his own age: "my freend _Iohn Stow_, whose studie is the onelie store house of antiquities in my time, and he worthie therefore to be had in reputation and honour."

The chapter "Of Prouision made for the Poore," notes the weekly collection made in every parish for the deserving poor, and gives Harrison's opinion on the Malthusians of his day:--

"Some also doo grudge at the great increase of people in these daies, thinking a necessarie brood of cattell farre better than a superfluous augmentation of mankind. But I can liken such men best of all vnto the pope and the diuell, who practise the hinderance of the furniture of the number of the elect to their vttermost, to the end the authoritie of the one upon earth, the deferring of the locking vp of the other in euerlasting chaines, and the great gaines of the first, may continue and indure the longer. But if it should come to pa.s.se that any forren inuasion should be made, which the Lord G.o.d forbid for his mercies sake!--then should these men find that a wall of men is farre better than stackes of corne and bags of monie, and complaine of the want when it is too late to seeke remedie."

The sham beggars, he says, "are all theeues and caterpillers in the commonwealth, and by the word of G.o.d not permitted to eat." Then he makes extracts from Harman about the rogues, among whom, by statute, are "plaiers and minstrels," Shakspere and his fellows, etc.

In the chapter on the "Punishments appointed for Malefactors," our author notes that "our condemned persons doo go ... cheerfullie to their deths, for our nation is free, stout, hautie, prodigall of life and bloud;" that the punishment for "robbing by the high waie" (like Sir John Falstaff's), "cutting of purses," "stealing of deere by night" (like Shakspere's, if he ever stole deer from Sir Thomas Lucy, who had no park in his time), was death; and that the punishment for adultery and fornication was not sharp enough:--

"As in theft therfore, so in adulterie and wh.o.r.edome, I would wish the parties trespa.s.sant, to be made bond or slaues vnto those that receiued the iniurie, to sell and giue where they listed, or to be condemned to the gallies: for that punishment would proue more bitter to them than halfe an houres hanging, or than standing in a sheet, though the weather be neuer so called."