SOLDIERS-SEAMEN. 179 solemnly condemned for treason, though unheard, as absent in France; which was not only against Christian charity, but Roman justice; Festus confessing it was not fashionable amongst them, "to deliver any man to die, before he which is accused have the accusers face to face, and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him."* It was well for this lord that he was detained in France till his ransom was paid, and queen Mary dead, who otherwise probably had lost his life, if he had had his liberty. But queen Elizabeth coming to the crown, he found the favour, or rather had the justice, to be tried again; and was acquitted by his peers,† finding it no treachery, cowardice, or carelessness in him, but in Sir John Harlston and Sir Ralph Chamberlain, the one governor of Rise-bank, the other of Calais castle, for which they were both condemned to die, though their judgment was remitted. This lord was the only person I have read of, who thus in a manner played rubbers when his head lay at stake; and having lost the fore recovered the after-game. He died, a very aged man, 1590. SEAMEN. THOMAS CAVENDISH, of Trimley‡ in this county, Esquire, in pursuance of his generous inclination to make foreign discoveries for the use and honour of his nation, on his own cost victualled and furnished three ships (the least of fleets) as followeth : 1. The Desire, admiral, of 120 tons: 2. The Content, viceadmiral, of 40 tons: 3. The Hugh-Gallant, rear-admiral, of 40 tons; all three managed by 123 persons, with which he set sail from Plymouth the 21st of July, 1586. So prosperous their winds, that by the 26th of August they had gone nine hundred and thirty leagues to the south of Africa. Then bending their course south-west, January the 7th, they entered the mouth of the Magellan Straits; straits indeed, not only for the narrow passage, but many miseries of hunger and cold, which mariners must encounter therein. Here Mr. Cavendish named a town Port-famine; and may never distressed seamen be necessitated to land there! It seems the Spaniards had a design so to fortify these straits in places of advantage, as to engross the passage, that none save themselves should enter the southern sea. But God, the promoter of the public good, destroyed their intended monopoly, sending such a mortality amongst their men, that scarce five of five hundred did survive. On the 24th of February they entered the South Sea, and frequently landed as they saw occasion. Many their conflicts with the natives, more with the Spaniards; coming off gainers in most, and savers in all encounters, that alone at Quintero Acts xxv. 16. † Camden's Elizabeth, anno 1559. The substance of what followeth is taken out of Mr. Hackluit's Voyages, the last part, p. 803.-F. excepted, April 1,1587, when they lost twelve men of good account, which was the cause that the June following they purposely sunk the rear-admiral, for want of men to manage her. Amongst the many prizes he took in his passage, the St. Anne was the most considerable, being the Spanish admiral of the southern sea, of seven hundred tons. However, our Cavendish boarded her with his little ship (a chicken of the game will adventure on a greater fowl, and leap where he cannot reach), and mastered her, though an hundred and ninety persons therein. There were in the ship an hundred and two and twenty thousand pezos* (each worth eight shillings) of gold; the rest of the lading being silks, satins, musks, and other rich commodities. Mr. Cavendish's mercy after, equalled his valour in the fight, landing the Spaniards on the shore, and leaving them plentiful provisions. Surrounding the East Indies, and returning for England, the ship called The Content did not answer her name, whose men took all occasions to be mutinous, and stayed behind in a road with Stephen Hare their master; and Mr. Cavendish saw her not after. But he, who went forth with a fleet, came home with a ship, and safely landed in Plymouth, Sept. 9, 1588. Amongst his men, three most remarkable; Mr. John Way their preacher; Mr. Thomas Fuller, of Ipswich, their pilot; and Mr. Francis Pretty, of Eyke in this county, who wrote the whole history of their voyage. Thus having circumnavigated the whole earth, let his ship no longer be termed The Desire, but The Performance. He was the third man, and second Englishman, of such universal undertakings. Not so successful his next and last voyage, begun the 26th of August, 1591, when he set sail with a fleet from Plymouth, and coming in the Magellan Straits, near a place by him formerly named Port-Desire, he was, the November following, casually severed from his company, not seen or heard of afterward. Pity so illustrious a life should have so obscure a death. all things must be as being itself will have them to be. PHYSICIANS. But WILLIAM BUTLER was born at Ipswich in this county, where he had one only brother, who, going beyond sea, turned Papist, for which cause this William was so offended with him, that he left him none of his estate.† I observe this the rather, because this William Butler was causelessly suspected for popish inclinations. He was bred fellow of Clare Hall in Cambridge, where he became the Esculapius of our age. He was the first Englishman who quickened Galenical physic with a touch of * In English money, 48,000 pounds. + So I am informed by Mrs. Crane in Cambridge, to whose husband he left his estate.-F. PHYSICIANS-WRITERS. 181 Paracelsus, trading in chemical receipts with great success. His eye was excellent at the instant discovery of a cadaverous face, on which he would not lavish any art. This made him, at the first sight of sick prince Henry, to get himself out of sight. Knowing himself to be the prince of physicians, he would be observed accordingly. Compliments would prevail nothing with him, entreaties but little, surly threatenings would do much, and a witty jeer do anything. He was better pleased with presents than money, loved what was pretty rather than what was costly; and preferred rarities before riches. Neatness he neglected into slovenliness; and accounting cuffs to be manacles, he may be said not to have made himself ready for some seven years together. He made his humorsomeness to become him, wherein some of his profession have rather aped than imitated him, who had morositatem æquabilem, and kept the tenor of the same surliness to all persons. He was a good benefactor to Clare Hall; and dying 1621, he was buried in the chancel of St. Mary's in Cambridge, under a fair monument. Mr. John Crane, that expert apothecary and his executor, is since buried by him; and if some eminent surgeon was interred on his other side, I would say, that physic lay here in state, with its two pages attending it. WRITERS. HUMPHREY NECTON was born (though Necton be in Norfolk) in this county; and, quitting a fair fortune from his father, professed poverty, and became a Carmelite in Norwich. Two firstships met in this man, for he hanselled the houseconvent, which Philip Warin of Cowgate, a prime citizen, (and almost I could believe him mayor of the city), did, after the death of his wife, in a fit of sorrow give with his whole estate to the Carmelites. Secondly, he was the first Carmelite, who in Cambridge took the degree of doctor in divinity; for some boggled much thereat, as false heraldry in devotion, to superinduce a doctoral hood over a friar's cowl, till our Necton adventured on it. For, though poverty might not affect pride, yet humility may admit of honour. He flourished, under king Henry the Third and Edward the First, at Norwich; and was buried with great solemnity by those of his order, anno Domini 1303. JOHN HORMINGER was born of good parents in this county,t and became very accomplished in learning. It happened that, travelling to Rome, he came into the company of Italians (the admirers only of themselves, and the slighters-general of all other nations), vilifying England, as an inconsiderable country, whose ground was as barren as the people barbarous. Our * Bale, Cent. iv. num. 24. † Bale, de Scriptoribus Britannicis; and Pits, Ætat. 14, num. 450. Horminger, impatient to hear his mother-land traduced, spake in her defence, and fluently epitomized the commodities thereof. Returning home, he wrote a book "De Divitiis et Deliciis Angliæ," (of the Profit and Pleasure of England ;) which, had it come to my hand, O how advantageous had it been to my present design! He flourished 1310. THOMAS of ELY was born in this county; for, though Cambridgeshire boasteth of Ely (so famous for the cathedral), yet is there Monks-Ely in Suffolk, the native town of this Thomas, who followed the footsteps of his countryman Necton, being a Carmelite (but in Ipswich); and afterwards doctor in the university of Cambridge, saith my author,* of both divinities. But the same hand which tieth untieth this knot, giving us to understand that thereby are meant scholastical and interpretative divinity, seeming to import them in that age to have been distinct faculties; till afterwards united, as the civil and common law, in one profession. Leaving his native land, he travelled over the seas, with others of his order, to Bruges in Flanders, and there kept lectures and disputations, as one Gobelike (a formidable author) informeth my informer,† till his death, about 1320. RICHARD LANHAM was born at a market town well known for clothing in this county, and bred (when young) a Carmelite in Ipswich. He made it his only request to the Prefect of his convent, to have leave to study in Oxford; which was granted him, and deservedly, employing his time so well there, that he proceeded doctor with public applause. Leland's pencil paints him pious and learned; but Bale cometh with his sponge, and in effect deletes both, because of his great antipathy to the Wickliffites. However his learning is beyond contradiction, attested by the books he left to posterity. Much difference about the manner, and place of his death; some making him to decease in his bed at Bristol,‡ others to be beheaded in London (with Sudbury archbishop of Canterbury, and Hales master of St. John's of Jerusalem) by the rebellious crew of Wat Tyler, who being a misogrammatist (if a good Greek word may be given to so barbarous a rebel) hated every man that could write or read, and was the more incensed against Lanham for his eminent literature. He died anno Domini 1381. JOHN KINYNGHAM was born in this county ;§ bred a Carmelite, first in Ipswich, then in Oxford, being the 25th Prefect of his Order in England and Ireland, and confessor to John of Gaunt and his lady. He was the first who encountered Wickliffe in the schools at Oxford, disputing of philosophical subtilties, and Polydore Vergil. Bale, Cent. iv. num. 65. § Bale, Cent. vi. num. 4. Bale, ut prius. that with so much ingenuity, that Wickliffe, much taken with the man's modesty, prayed heartily for him that his judgment might be convinced. But whether with so good success wherewith Peter Martyr besought God on the same account for Bernard Gilpin,† I know not. He died a very aged man, anno 1399, and was buried at York; far, I confess, from Ipswich, his first fixation. But it was usual for Prefects of Orders to travel much in their visitations. JOHN LYDGATE was born in this county at a village so called, bred a Benedictine monk in St. Edmund's Bury. After some time spent in our English universities, he travelled over France and Italy, improving his time to his great accomplishment. Returning, he became tutor to many noblemen's sons; and, both in prose and poetry, was the best author of his age. If Chaucer's coin were of a greater weight for deeper learning, Lydgate's was of a more refined standard for purer language; so that one might mistake him for a modern writer. But, because none can so well describe him as himself, take an essay of his verses, excusing himself for deviating in his writings from his vocation.§ "I am a monk by my profession, In Berry, call'd John Lydgate by my name, (Although my life agrees not with the same) At his command whom I could not refuse, I humbly do beseech all those that read, Because I know the verse therein is wrong, He lived to be 60 years of age; and died about the and was buried in his own convent with this epitaph: Mortuus sæclo, superis superstes, Bale, Cent. vi. num. 4. Camden's Britannia, in Suffolk. See the Life of Bernard Gilpin. History of the Life and Death of Hector, p. 316 and 317. || King Henry IV. year 1444, |