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.

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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.

In the British Museum (Additional MSS. 11331, 2, 3), are transcripts or drafts of letters to and from Sir William Brereton ; of 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.

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[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.

3 Viz., at the west end of the chapel.

William: the residue of whose bones were taken by the sexton, 1633, and laid carefully uppe, and this, as hee said, was done by the kings spetiall commaund. This man shewed us a rich gilt baseon and ewre and two faire bowles with plates to cover them guilt, these made use of when the sacrament of the Lords Supper is administred; and, as hee said, they cost the king 300 or 400t: Here is a draw-well called St. Peters Well, which the sexton much magnified:

A verye stately organ lately erected in the Minster quire under which is written: Benedictus Deus Patrum nostrorum qui dedit in corde regis ut adonaret4a domum suam:

On the north or northeast side of this Minster seated Sir Arthur Ingrams5 house and brave garden: whereof nott a third part furnished with flowers: butt disposed into little bedds whereon placed statues, the bedds all grass: verye faire high spatious walls round about this garden, and large faire trees, butt nothing well furnished with fruite. Here I observed a slopeing border a full yard high placed to the trees, which hath brought forth rootes out of the lowre part of the bodye of the tree; this border is kept green: butt the

William Fitz-herbert, commonly known as St. William, son of Count Herbert by his wife Emma, sister of King Stephen, was treasurer of York in 1130, and with it held other preferment. He was elected archbishop in 1142, but, the election being contested, he was not consecrated until 26 Sept., 1143. His opponents obtaining the upper hand, he was removed from his see in 1147; and it was not until 1154 that he was restored and re-entered the city and his cathedral on the 9th of May in that year. tenure was short, for he died on the 8th of June following, and was buried in the minster, at the first, near the south-west pillar of the lantern and afterwards translated to the choir. He was canonized by Pope Nicholas III. and he was commemorated on the 8th of June. Cf. Raine, Fasti Eboracenses, pp. 220-233.

His

4a Canon Fowler is of opinion that 'adonaret' should read adornaret, the passage being apparently suggested by 1 Kings III, 9, VIII, 17, 18; 1 Chronicles XXIX, 6-20, etc.

5 Sir Arthur Ingram was a son of Hugh Ingram of London, citizen and linen draper, a native of Thorp-on-the-Hill, Yorkshire. Having acquired a plentiful fortune as a mercer in Fenchurch street, London, he He was purchased Temple Newsam and other estates in Yorkshire. appointed comptroller of the port of London in 1604. Knighted 9th July, 1613, he was High Sheriff of Yorkshire in 1620 and sat in Parliament as M.P. for Stafford in 1609, for Romney 1614, Appleby 1621, York 1624, 1625, 1626 and 1628. Having acquired from the Archbishop of York a long lease of the decayed archiepiscopal palace situated on the north side of the minster, he repaired and beautified the house and laid out its gardens with so much taste that they were one of the sights of the city. In 1640 he built the hospital bearing the name of Bootham and died, circa 1642.

The lease granted by the Archbishop to Ingram was renewed again and again to his descendants until the year 1817, when the property was acquired by the Dean and Chapter and the lease surrendered (for a consideration) by Francis, second Marquis of Hertford, who had acquired the same with his second wife Isabella, daughter and coheir of Charlie Ingram, ninth Viscount Irwin. See Clay, Extinct and Dorman Peerages, p. 111. The Dean and Chapter cleared the site and on it built a new deanery and a house for the canon in residence.

gardiner conceaves itt noe advantage to the trees: which are now cutt, and dubbed, butt the gardiner dislikes that course: To keepe in order and to weede, and maintaine this garden, another spatious orchard, wherein are manye walkes, and to keepe a faire stately walke uppon the cittie walls, which doe bound and compass this orchard: to tend and dispose of his fish, to keepe which hee hath divers fishponds in this ground, and to breed, and bringe uppe young pheasaunds there is onely allowed him x1 per annum and Sir Arthur to bee att noe more chardge:

The pheasaunds are bred in this manner: when the pheasand henns begin to lay, their eggs are taken from them: kept in bran and sett, and hatcht under an hen: fed with pisimers and kept in an house:

Foure cisternes here are made of bricke about a yard deepe, and square, to keepe pikes: breames: tench and carpes: Water is pumped into these, butt I doe nott expect these to succeed well; they are placed in an open house, walled, butt the roofe sufficiently open. and yett under locke and key: This gardiner conceaves that mingleing muck with soile, and placeing itt to the tree rootes is verye good: butt nott muck alone:

Munday Junii 5. I went to see Sir Ti: Hob:7 with whom I had much discourse circa quendam nob: whom hee had found a most dangerous man to discourse with in private, and therefore this was allwayes his answer, when his opinion or advise was required: that hee would consider of itt, and returne his answer in writeing: Some things chardged and fathered uppon him which he never spoake:

Instaunce given of a most dishonest practise in P: W: unto whom was delivered in Channell-roe-houses a great booke of 2 sheetes of parchment subscribed by W: D: wherein were feoffees in trust: Com: Sarisburiens: Sir Gualter Cope9 and others: A fine there is still extant, leadeing to this booke which hee finding repaired presently ad Com: Sarisb: and said unto him: "You and some others are feoffees for such an estate: enquire I beseech you into

"Pisimers = pismire, an ant or emmet.

'This contracted name has been identified by Mr. J. W. Clay, whose knowledge of Yorkshire families of this period is unmatched, with Sir Thomas Posthumus Hoby of Hackness in Yorkshire, who was knighted 7 July, 1594, in Ireland by the Lord-Deputy. A transcript of Lady Hoby's diary, 1599-1605, from the original in the British Museum, is in the possession of Mr. Clay. One of the family seems to have been Sir William Brereton's companion in the expedition.

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Channell-row-house was at, or near, New Palace Yard, Westminster. 'Sir Walter Cope was grandson of Sir Anthony Cope of Hanwell in Oxfordshire, a well-known personage in Tudor times. He was a member of the Elizabethan Society of Antiquaries; was knighted by James I. at Worksop 21st April, 1603; was appointed Chamberlain of the Exchequer, where he helped to arrange the records, and Master of the Wards in 1613. In 1607 he built Cope Castle, now known as Holland House, and five years later purchased the manor of Kensington. He died 31st July, 1614.