The Editor desires to express his great obligation to Mr. Welford, and Mr. H. M. Wood, B.A., for reading the whole of his proofs; and to the Rev. J. J. M. L. Aiken, B.D., Mr. Robert Blair, F.S.A., Mr. William Brown, F.S.A., and Mr. William Maddan for reading portions of the same. To the following gentlemen he is indebted for valuable suggestions and information: Mr. Farnham Burke, Norroy King of Arms. The Rev. Henry Gee, D.D. The Rev. Canon Fowler, F.S.A. Professor Haverfield. Mr. George Neilson, LL.D. Mr. J. W. Clay, F.S.A. Mr. William Chamney. Mr. Edwin Dodds. The Rev. E. G. Cull, and others. He is also obliged to the Proprietors of the Newcastle Journal for the loan of the file of the Newcastle Courant for 1760, in which are reported the proceedings arising out of the Hexham Riot; and also to Miss M. T. Martin for making careful transcripts at the British Museum and Record Office of Brereton's, Gibson's, and Pococke's MSS. The Editor desires also to express his obligation to the Bishop of Durham for Bishop Warburton's letters; to Sir Philip H. B. Grey-Egerton for the use of the original diary of Sir William Brereton; to General Surtees, for the use of the original MS. of Jacob Bee; and to the Rev. Thomas Stephens, for the use of the original diary of John Dawson. At Mr. Welford's request the Akenside entries have been printed with capital letters and contractions exactly as they appear in the Registers of the Church of the Divine Unity, Newcastle. In the other documents, contractions-save in cases of doubt-have been treated as matters of caligraphy and have been extended, the prodigal capital letter being reduced to modern practice. J. C. HODGSON. ALNWICK, 12 May, 1915. THE JOURNAL OF SIR WILLIAM BRERETON, 1635 INTRODUCTION. Sir William Brereton of Handforth, Cheshire, was son and heir of William Brereton of that place, the representative of a younger branch of the family of Brereton of Brereton and Malpas, by his wife Margaret, daughter and coheir of Richard Holland of Denton in Lancashire. Born circa 1604, he was baptized at the Collegiate Church of Manchester, and educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, where he matriculated 2nd November, 1621: he was admitted to Gray's Inn 29th January, 1622/3, was created a baronet 10th March, 1626/7, was Knight of the Shire for Chester in 1628, and twice in 1640. In the Civil War he took a prominent part on the side of the Parliament, being made Commander-in-chief in 1642 of the Cheshire forces, in which capacity he greatly distinguished himself. Sir William Brereton married circa 1627, Susan, daughter of Sir George Booth, first baronet, of Dunham Massey, who died in 1637, leaving issue an only son, Thomas, who succeeded his father as second and last baronet. He married, secondly, Cicely, widow of Edward Mytton, and daughter of Sir William Skeffington, first baronet. He died at Croydon Palace-which had been granted him by the State on the 7th of April, 1661, and was carried thence for burial in his parish church at Cheadle. His will, dated 6th April, 1661, was proved on the 27th of July following. In the year 1634—in the months of May and June-Sir William Brereton travelled in Holland and the Seventeen Provinces: his journal for that period occupying thirty-nine pages. In the following year, leaving his home at Handforth on the 11th of June, he travelled through Yorkshire, Durham, and Northumberland, to Edinburgh, then by Glasgow to Port Patrick in Wigton-shire, where he embarked for Ireland on the 4th July, and landed at Carrickfergus on the following day. To Ireland he gave twenty days, and having secured a passage for himself, his servants, and horses on board the Ninth Whelp, a vessel belonging to the Royal Navy, manned with sixty men, commanded by Sir Beverley Newcomen, he sailed from Waterford on the 25th of July and landed at Kings-road, near Bristol, apparently on the following day. Visiting Minehead, Bridgewater, Glastonbury, Wells, Bath, Gloucester, Hereford, Ludlow, Shrewsbury, and Chester, he reached his own home at Handforth. on the 5th of August in the year 1635. The journal throughout is in Brereton's clear, small, regular and very close handwriting, very few words being altered or cancelled.. In size it is a small folio, and it is in its original plain vellum binding. In the fly leaves are some notes from which the following details are obtained : The MS. belonged to Dr. Percy, Bishop of Dromore, and by him. was given to Mr. Cooper Walker, a gentleman of some literary eminence at that period.' After the death of the latter it was sold by his sister-in-law to Mr. Christopher Bentham, a cultivated Birkenhead Quaker, who lent it to Sir Walter Scott. The latter was much interested in the journal and strongly urged its publication, going so far as to offer his services as an editor. The proposal dropped through, and ultimately the MS. was presented by Mr. Bentham to Sir Philip de M. Grey-Egerton of Oulton, tenth baronet, a Trustee of the British Museum, in the hands of whose grandson, Sir P. H. B. Grey-Egerton, it still rests. of In the British Museum (Additional MSS. 11331, 2, 3), are transcripts or drafts of letters to and from Sir William Brereton; whom there is also a portrait, in line engraving, by G. Glover, representing him on horseback in armour, with truncheon in right hand, an army in background. The manuscript has been already printed, having been edited by the late Mr. Edward Hawkins, Keeper of the Antiquities in the British Museum, in 1844, for the Chetham Society, from which edition the sections dealing with the North of England and with Scotland have been reprinted respectively by Richardson in his Imprints and Reprints, and by Mr. Hume Browne in Early Travellers in Scotland. Mr. Hawkins seems to have thought it unnecessary to print the journal verbatim, therefore what is now presented to the Surtees. Society is printed from a new transcript of the original made with. the ready permission of Sir Philip H. B. Grey-Egerton by Miss M. T. Martin. The text has been followed literally, although the Diarist's liberal use of capitals has been modified to fit modern usage. THE JOURNAL.1 [1635] Junii 11. Wee came from Handf2; and tooke horse about 8 in the morneing, and came to Wakefield about 7; wee baited att Bostockes att Woodhead where wee paid two-pence a pint for ale and 3s. 8d. pro victualls; and att Wakefield att the Bull, where wee lodged, wee paid 5s. for supper and breakefast. Itt is an honest, and excellent house: Here next morning I gave my bay mare garlyck and butter for hir cold butt itt wrought nothing with hir; nor did the drench, which I usually give, which I gave hir att Yorke next morneing; butt by the way I observed a connie-warren walled about with stone containeing about one or 2 acres of land; and nott farre from Yorke I went about half a mile out of the way to take a view of Bishopps-thorpe, the arch-bishopps palace which is about a mile or two distant from Yorke, placed sweetly uppon the banckside of the river Owes Itt is the poorest and least capacious house, which I have found in Engl: belonging to any bishopricke: a verye little poore hall, and noe faire roomes in the whole house. In the chapple I observed the table, representing the altar, placed in the lower end of the chapple3: A stone building which seemes to have been an old chapple, converted into a dovehouse which hath two tunnells : : The church, which is the pareish church, called Bishops-thorpe church, is the least and poorest church I have mett withall in England; here is onely a curate maintained to say service. The bishopps cellar here well furnished with 32 hoggsheades of good stronge beere and 8 pipes of the same; wee tasted of itt. [June] 12. Wee lodged on Friday att Mris Keyes in Cuniestreete in Yorke where wee had excellent entertainment, and verye reasonable, and, next morneing, takeing another view of the Minster and chapterhouse I observed the round roofe hereof (for which itt is most famous) to bee framed of wood and boards painted: In the chapple wherein the bishopp is enstalled sitting in St. Peters Chaire, which is an old, little, decayed chaire, and famous for nothing butt the antiquitie thereof, there was a decayed monument for St. 1Some portions of this journal were reprinted, from the Chetham Society's volume, in Richardson's Imprints of Rare Tracts, Newcastle, 1848. 2 Hanf = Handford, now Hanforth, in the parish of Cheadle, Cheshire, where the Diarist's property and home were. |