Edward Maunde Thompson

“ In 1571 Camden left Oxford and returned to London. He had no regular employment, and for the next few years he was free to pursue his antiquarian studies. He now began to amass the materials which laid the foundation for his future work, the ‘Britannia.’ In the address ‘ad Lectorem,’ which he added to the fifth edition of that work, Camden has himself given us an interesting sketch of the way in which his studies were directed to antiquarian subjects, and how the ‘Britannia’ grew under his hand. ”

“ In the spring of 1387 he joined forces with the king of Portugal, who now married Philippa, Lancaster's daughter by his first marriage, and the combined army invaded Castile. But it met with little success, and under the heat of the climate sickness broke out among the troops. The conquests of the previous year were lost, and Lancaster himself fell ill, and was eventually forced to quit Spain and retire to Bayonne. However, he succeeded better by diplomacy than by war. The Duke of Berry had made overtures for the hand of Catharine, his daughter by his present wife, Constance. ”

“ The most learned of English Augustinians whom the soil of Britain ever produced, he was distinguished as a philosopher and theologian, practically rejecting in his writings the dreams of sophists, which lead only to strife and useless discussions. Fulfilling the mission of his order, ‘it was his wont to thunder against the wanton and arbitrary acts of prelates, who enlarge the borders of their garments beyond measure, catching at the favour of the ignorant herd; not shepherds, but hirelings, who leave the sheep to the wolves, caring only for the milk and fleece ”

“ The expulsion of Pedro the Cruel from Castile by Henry of Trastamare in the early part of 1366 led to the first active interference of the English in the affairs of that country, which was destined to have so great an influence on the fortunes of John of Gaunt. Pedro took refuge at Bordeaux, and was welcomed by the Black Prince, who urged his father to support the dethroned king. Accordingly, Lancaster was despatched from England, and took part in the final arrangements with Pedro, September 1366. ”

“ He at once became a moving spirit in the cause, eager to revive the feudal power which Henry had curtailed. The honour of Eye and the custody of Norwich Castle were promised by the young prince as his reward. But the king’s energy and good fortune were equal to the occasion. While he held in check his rebel vassals in France, the loyal barons in England defeated his enemies here. Robert de Beaumont, earl of Leicester (d. 1190) [q.v.] , landing at Walton, in Suffolk, on 29 Sept. 1173, had marched to Framlingham and joined forces with Hugh. ”

“ Smith and other biographers of Camden specially quote Selden's eulogy, who singles out Camden's 'Annals' and Bacon's 'History of Henry VII' as the only two books of their kind which reach a high standard of excellence, for, except them, 'we have not so much as a publique piece of the history of England that tastes enough either of the truth or plenty that may be gained from the records of the kingdom' (Letter quoted in Vincent's Discoverie of Errours, 1622) . ”

“ John of Castile, alarmed at the prospect of another future rival to his throne, hastened to open negotiations for the marriage of his son Henry with Catharine. A treaty was signed. Constance resigned her claim to the Castilian crown in favour of her daughter, who was taken by her mother to Spain in the following spring, and was married in September. Lancaster laid aside his assumed title of king of Castile, and received payment of two hundred thousand crowns to defray the cost of his expedition, and an annuity was settled upon him and his duchess for their lives. ”

“ The Black Prince's health had by this time so entirely given way that his physicians ordered his immediate return to England. To add to his troubles, his eldest son, Edward, died at the beginning of 1371, in his seventh year, while preparations were being made for the embarkation. The loyal barons of Aquitaine were summoned to receive the final instructions of the prince, who presented to them his brother Lancaster as his lieutenant, and was then carried on board his ship, leaving his son's funeral to the care of the duke. ”

“ The quarrel between the king and Archbishop Theobald in 1148 gave the next occasion for Hugh to come forward; he this time sided with the archbishop, and received him in his castle of Framlingham, but joined with others in effecting a reconciliation. Five years later, in 1153, when Henry of Anjou landed to assert his claim to the throne, Bigod threw in his lot with the rising power, and held out in Ipswich against Stephen’s forces, while Henry, on the other side, laid siege to Stamford. Both places fell, but in the critical state of his fortunes Stephen was in no position to punish the rebel. ”

“ BILFRITH (fl. 750) , anchorite of Lindisfarne, is referred to by Simeon of Durham as skilled in goldsmith's work, and as having, on that account, been employed by Æthelwold, bishop of Lindisfarne (724–40) , to adorn with gold and gems the famous manuscript of the Gospels known as the 'Durham Book,' now in the Cottonian Library (Nero D. iv.) ”

“ But Camden's impartiality was afterwards impugned in certain points, and particularly in the contradictions which appeared between his own account of the events in Scotland and concerning Mary Queen of Scots, and the information which he was said to have supplied to the French historian De Thou on the same subject. Gough points out that Camden writing in England could not use the same freedom as De Thou writing abroad. But, as a matter of fact, there is really no evidence to show that Camden supplied De Thou with the information which has been attributed to him. ”

“ In retaliation forces were collected and placed under command of Lancaster, who invaded Scotland, 11 April 1384. But the Scots, wasting their own country and burning their towns, retired before him, and Lancaster, after felling and destroying parts of their forests, was forced, from lack of provisions, to retreat to the border, where the Earl of Northumberland was left to hold the Scots in check. This, failure again raised popular feeling against the duke. ”

“ Firando was chosen, and eight Englishmen were appointed members of the factory. The chief, or cape-merchant as he was called, was Richard Cocks, whose diary has survived to give us the history of this early English settlement in Japan. Next in rank came Adams himself, who, postponing his long wished-for return to England, now entered the service of the company. When he accompanied Saris to court, he had at last got Iyéyasu's leave to return to his country. ”

“ The popular discontent at the ill-success of the renewed war with France had manifested itself in the parliament of 1371, when the clerical party was driven from power, the clergy compelled to contribute heavily to the cost of the war, and new ministers chosen from the feudal party of which Lancaster was the head. ”

“ Lancaster, Richard, and the Duke of York successively lost their wives. Constance of Castile, duchess of Lancaster, died in June, during her husband's absence in France, and was buried at Leicester. The death of the queen opened the path to Richard's marriage with Isabella of France in 1396 and to the extension of the truce with France for twenty-eight years. This foreign policy was supported by Lancaster, although the negotiations which directly led to these results were carried on while he was in Aquitaine. ”

“ The English force traversed the kingdom of Navarre, and, entering Castilian territory, occupied Salvatierra, and thence advanced towards Vittoria. During this march Tello, the brother of Henry of Trastamare, made an unexpected attack on Lancaster's camp in the early morning. The duke appears to have acted with presence of mind, drawing up his men in a good position to resist the enemy; but a detachment of his troops was destroyed almost to a man. ”

“ The pagan chief Radbod—the same who had at first consented to be baptised, but who, on learning that the souls of his unbelieving forefathers must necessarily he among the damned, drew back, preferring ‘to be there with his ancestors, rather than in heaven with a handful of beggars’—was in the midst of one of those struggles with the Franks in which his life was passed. ”

“ At the end of July he landed with the Duke of Brittany at Calais, in command of three thousand men-at-arms and some eight thousand archers and other troops. With such a force, well appointed in every way, a commander of genius would have struck some decisive blow. But Lancaster had no capacity as a general and failed disastrously. He appears to have had no plan beyond accomplishing a march across a hostile country from Calais to Bordeaux ”

“ The name of Boniface has been said to have been given to him by Pope Gregory II at his consecration as bishop; but as it occurs earlier it was more probably assumed when he became a monk. When quite a child, influenced by the discourse of some monks who visited his father‘s house, he expressed an earnest desire to devote himself to a monastic life, and, the opposition of his father being at length withdrawn, he entered a monastery at Exeter. ”

“ By the advice, it is said, of the Gascon barons, Lancaster married the elder, Constance, while his brother, the Earl of Cambridge, at the same time married the younger, Isabella, both ceremonies taking place at Roquefort, near Bordeaux. The two brothers, with their wives, appear to have returned to England in the spring of 1372, apparently about May. The form of marriage was probably gone through a second time in this country, for on 25 June Lancaster appears to have first styled himself, in right of his wife, king of Castile. ”

“ Peace was scarcely restored when, on 16 May 1620, Adams died. A little more than three years after, in December 1623, the English factory was dissolved and our countrymen withdrew from Japan. There is no record of Adams's age at the time of his death, but it was probably more than sixty years, as he could hardly have been under forty when he landed in Japan. He left about 500l., which he bequeathed in equal portions to his wife and daughter who survived him in England, and to his son and daughter in Japan. ”

“ He notes under the year 1581, the commencement of his friendship with Brisson, the distinguished French jurist, who, being on an embassy in England, singled out the poor Westminster master, the ‘umbraticus vir et pulvere scholastico obsitus’ (Smith) , for special attention; and still earlier, in 1577, a visit of Abraham Ortelius, the ‘universæ geographiæ vindex et instaurator,’ to England brought the two men together. Camden, urged and encouraged by his new friend, undertook the systematic preparation of the ‘Britannia.’ For this work Camden's labours were enormous. ”

“ No man in a high position, such as is, can altogether avoid mistakes, and he may sometimes have failed in his judgment of men. But small blemishes cannot detract from the high character of Boniface as one who followed without deviation and with unflagging energy the path of duty in difficult times. ”

“ Boniface might have taken advantage of such an opportunity to push his fortunes in the church of his own country; but he was imbued with the zeal of the missionary, and his whole mind was bent upon continuing the work of preaching the gospel in Frisia, the country in which the Englishman Willibrord had already been labottring since 692, and had established his see at Wittaburg, or Utrecht.
In 716 Boniface crossed the sea, accompanied by only two monks, but he found the Frisians in no condition to receive his teaching. War had broken out. ”

“ In 1616 Adams's patron Iyéyasu died and was succeeded by his son Hidétada, who soon gave proof of hostility to foreigners; and although Cocks states that Adams was in favour with this Shogun also, his influence was evidently of no great weight. The privileges of both English and Dutch were curtailed, and the persecution of Christians, which for some time had practically ceased, now broke out with renewed violence. The English venture in Japan had also by this time proved a failure, and to make matters worse the Dutch declared war and took English shipping and attacked our factory at Firando. ”

“ When the barons formed the confederation for redress of grievances in 1268, the Earl of Hereford was of their number, and had a share in the settlement of the government under the Provisions of Oxford, being one of the original commissioners, and subsequently one of the council of fifteen. ”

“ He was next appointed one of the ambassadors to Philip of France to arrange for the crusade, and during Richard's absence from England on that expedition he supported the king's authority against the designs of Prince John. On the pacification of the quarrel between the prince and the chancellor, William Longchamp, bishop of Ely, on 28 July 1191, Bigod was put into possession of the castle of Hereford, one of the strongholds surrendered by John, and was one of the chancellor's sureties in the agreement. ”

“ Camden's mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Giles Curwen of Poulton Hall, Lancashire, and came of the ancient family of Curwen of Workington in Cumberland, a descent of which he speaks with modest pride in his 'Britannia.' At an early age he was entered at Christ's Hospital, probably as a 'town child' or 'free scholar,' but the year is unknown. His biographer, Dr. Smith, infers, from the fact of the hospital having been founded for the benefit of orphans, that he had then already lost his father; and Bishop Gibson disregards the story of his admission. ”