trans

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ILLIAM Camden, whose life I commence to describe in a few words, was born at London on the second day of May in the year of Christ 1551, in that street called in the vernacular The Old Bailey, in the parish of St. Sepulcher. For his father he had Sampson Camden, who in his youth was sent by the foresightful provision of his parents from Lichfield in the county of Staffordshire, where he was born, to that metropolis, the kindly nurse of all Englishmen, to be nourished at her bosom at a more adult age. He was a man of middling fortune, a painter by art and profession. It was by no means any source of embarrassment to his son, whose divine and entirely heroic genius elevated him far above the humble station of life to which he had seemed condemned, and placed him in the roster of the greatest men of this age, to refer to his origins, albeit humble. Rather, induced by affection both towards his father and towards that noble art he plied, after having received all those honors which other men would owe to their splendid birth, but that he could credit to his personal virtue and industry, as if he were a self-made man, when standing at death’s very threshold, mindful of his paternal stock, in his testament he bequeathed to the Guild of Painter-Stainers the sum of £16 sterling for the purchase of a gilded cup they might employ in their holiday banquets, with this inscription: GIVEN BY WILLIAM CAMDEN, CLARENCEUX, SON OF SAMPSON, A PAINTER OF LONDON. But those good upstanding citizens, more concerned for their own reputation than for his, to the end that, to the best of their ability, the name of so great a man, born from a fellow-artisan, might endure among their successors, set up a statue, employing every artifice to represent him to the life, in the inner chamber of their guild hall, which was finally consumed in that fatal fire which burned down nearly the whole city in the year 1666.
2. Our Camden was far more fortunate in the family of his other parent. For he, a sincere lover of the truth and most foreign to all pride if a man ever was, asserted that she derived her origin from the ancient and very noble family of the Curwens at Wirkington in Cumbria,

and that her descent could be traced directly from Gospatrick, Earl of Northumbria,

“both from ancient documents of Workington, and from the Book of Holmecultra.”
3. One may conjecture that he was deprived of his father while still an underage boy, inasmuch as according to some (with traditional report supporting them) he was enrolled among the graduates of the Christ’s Hospital, London, founded by King Edward VI of happy memory in the sixth year of his reign for the support and relief of poor orphans of London,

and I do not wish to contradict these men, although this is not known for certain whether he was admitted at all, nor can it be, inasmuch as the entrance records of those times were destroyed in that horrendous conflagration in which the whole house was ruined in the flames.
4. In the year 1563, the twelfth of his life, he was taken by the plague at Islington, a town near the city to the north. But by God’s merciful favor he emerged safe. Afterwards he resorted to St. Paul’s School, where under most watchful preceptors he throve in the discipline and cultivation of his natural talents, thence to be transplanted to the University of Oxford at a fit time, after he had carefully trained his mind in those arts with which youthful age is customarily inculcated.
5. But lest the seeds of such great virtues and talent, of a sort that offered the hope of excellent fruit, be stifled if he were to be obliged by want to abandon the literary studies for which he appeared to have been created and disposed by nature, and to take up some trade, by the joint efforts and counsel of his friends the precaution was taken of entrusting him, then in his fifteenth year,

to the benevolence and patronage of Dominus Thomas Cooper,

Fellow of the College of St. Mary Magdalene, Oxford, and Master of that school, who, being most worthy of a holy bishopric, was first promoted by Queen Elisabeth to the See of Lincoln, and then to that of Winchester. But since Camden could in no wise be included in the number of scholars of that most distinguished seminary of piety and learning appointed by its most revered founder (whose rich fruits I myself enjoyed for 28 years, which I recall with a grateful mind, and in which I propose to spend whatever remains of my life, as long as the unhappy times in which we live allow), at the invitation of Dominus Thomas Thornton, into whose clientage he gave himself, he migrated to Broadgates Hall (now called Pembroke College), to have leisure for the Muses under better auspices.

At the time were also living there as gowned students those noble gentlemen Sir George Carew (elevated by the most serene King James I to the title of Baron of Clopton in Warwickshire, and by the most serene King Charles I to that of Earl of Totney in Cornwall), Sir John Packington, Sir Stephen Powel, and Sir Edward Lucy, knights, whose lovingkindness Camden marvelously won by his most placid manners, talent and industry. While he was living here, content with his lot, albeit a modest one, and devoted himself entirely to good literature, he is reputed to have composed the Latin graces which those giving dinner say to this day. But after having completed three years there most creditably, when Doctor Thornton (whom Camden had found to be a kindly patron, but in his new and high dignity would find to be yet kinder) was created a Canon of the Cathedral College of Christ,

he was admitted to the same College.
6. While he was assiduously devoted to the study of letters, he was no less bent towards the profession of the true religion, which he imbibed together with is mother’s milk, insofar as it had been purged of the Papists’ corruptions in the reigns of Edward and Elizabeth, and by his zeal for its preservation, which he exhibited with an upstanding mind, he brought upon himself the unpopularity, mislike and disparagement of men who were bound by their oaths to demit their positions unless they were to observe the laws of the realm, by which it was provided that all academics and the rest of the clergy should, upon penalty of removal, take their oath to employ the sacred rites and subscribe to the Articles of Faith of the reformed Church of England, and who outwardly conformed but in their hearts retained an affection for the old superstitions which, by a shameful dissimulation, they had publicly and barefacedly abjured. It should strike no man as strange that Ardelios

of that ilk could lurk in the University, of a sort who preferred to do harm to their consciences rather than be deprived of their fortunes, perhaps striving to excuse themselves by sophistic twists and turns, lest they become self-denouncers entire, since, to the amazement of the entire Christian world, in the times of King Charles I we saw the same being done by many men who had been taught far better things, and adhered to the institutions of a holier religion “which stiffly condemns equivocation, dissimulation, excuse from the bond of oath frequently sought, and the rest of the Jesuits’ impious teachings.” By the fraud and backbiting of these crafty gentlemen, when he modestly applied to be enlisted in the number of the Fellows of All Souls’ College, for the sole reason that he was a sturdy champion of the teaching of the lawful Church of England Camden was frustrated in this legitimate hope and ambition, being as those of the Papist party (no matter how it was weakening) interfered with might and main to debar him from election, as he himself asserted

and produced for a witness that excellent knight Sir Daniel Dun, Doctor of both the laws and sometime Fellow of that most splendid College, whom for his prudence and skill in the handling of civil matters the University of Oxford twice elected Member of Parliament, who understood this business and very often gave his evidence as to the way things were.
7. It is indeed to be regretted that a young man of such great hope and ennobled with so many conspicuous endowments of mind did not experience a gentler and kinder fate in the University. But, God making a different disposition about his choice of life, and confronted by an irresistible force to which he was obliged to defer, he bethought himself about departing this most tranquil home of the Muses. And yet it frequently happens that those whom straightened circumstances do not allow long to enjoy leisure for letters, being destitute of the helps by which studies are fostered, and, as it were, having been driven out harbor onto a stormy sea, are enlarged by their adversities and have more resolute minds since they have not garnished from the University the due rewards of their merits, and are compelled to go elsewhere before their time; and, with divine Providence their guide and tireless industry their companion, having overcome their difficulties, in the end they gain the highest honors to the applause of all good men, and turn out great men well deserving of the Church and the nation, they who otherwise, in accordance with the vice of human nature, might have grown torpid in unworthy idleness. And I earnestly beseech those who, thanks to the lot of their birth, the help of their friends or their fortunes, or by some other happenstance prove to be more fortunate, to bear in that in the end they are someday destined to pay the forfeit for such great sloth (not to say folly) unless they show themselves worthy of the munificence of founders and benefactors, by which they are all but overwhelmed, and unless they understand how to make proper use of the helps (or rather the inspirations) for their studies, such as exist nowhere else in the world, all the libraries crammed with every manner of book, all the shelters from every disturbance and turmoil, and all the commodities of life, to the honor of God Almighty, to the good of the Church, and to the enhancement of literature.
8. Having consumed a space of five years, neglecting the baccalaureate degree for which he had supplicated the previous year in the customary way, or at least neglecting its completion by determination, as they call it, additionally held in the Schools during the Lenten holidays, possibly because he adjudged it of no use to himself, now determined on bidding the University his final adieu, he departed Oxford in the year 1571 and sought London, bent on dwelling here or elsewhere, where his virtue and good fortune might call him. And yet, lest it be lacking to his honor, in the year of Christ 1588, after about eighteen years, although by his repute for erudition he appeared to have far transcended the progress of a Master of Arts, a degree usually conferred upon the completion of a seven years’ curriculum, he petitioned the University for a grace, so that he might at length be promoted to the same. And indeed he obtained this under the usual condition, that he only need present himself at the next Comitia. And since this was not possible because of his occupations, in Convocation on March 30, 1613,

at the time when he was present at Oxford to attend the funeral of that excellent man Sir Thomas Bodley, founder of the public library, the University gladly and of its own volition granted this grace in actuality, since by the conferral of this title a far greater honor would be bestowed upon itself than upon Camden.
9. He came to maturity with the judgment of the age of adulthood, into which he had come, and the love of letters with which he was so often kindled infused his mind with new powers destined with their fiery power to break down all the obstacles which unkind fortune had cast before him: not to be deterred from this purpose, which had stricken roots deep in his heart, not to be deterred by any inconveniences, by tedium, by anxiety (that importunate attendant of slender means), with keener spirit Camden applied redoubled diligence, filled with optimism that divine kindness would ever look out for him, and that good men whose greatest praise is to patronize ill-treated virtue and with their friendly countenance, advice and generous hand to assist those cultivate it but are impeded by domestic circumstance, would not be lacking for his well-applied industry. And this the happy outcome confirmed.
10. Among those who were drawn to love Camden by his repute for industry and virtue stood out those right distinguished brothers Dominus Gabriel and Dominus Godfrey Goodman,

who received him in with most kindly interviews, very benevolently favoring his studies, and from time to time bestowing upon him money and books, lest out of a deficiency of both his mind, aspiring to the highest things, be diverted elsewhere, as occasion might dictate. The one of these, Sir Gabriel, the right worthy Dean of the Church College of Westminster, appointed him Second Master of the Royal School in that illustrious College, founded by the most serene Queen Elizabeth of happy memory (from which, as from a most fertile mother of talents, have issued forth innumerable men very notable for their piety, learning, and high dignities both civil and ecclesiastical), since as he was equal to that duty, being most learned in both the Greek and Latin languages, and with his nearly infinite reading had consumed all the books of antiquity written when Athens flourished and Rome triumphed, their poets, orators, and historians. Now he was destined henceforth to live comfortably and well, beyond the reach of adverse fortune’s every buffet. Camden honored the kindness and benevolence of this reverend gentleman, by whose auspices the foundations of his fortunes were so happily laid, with just and due praises, destined not to set aside the memory of such great benefices save with his life, and he adorned his most distinguished benefactor with this eulogy in his description of Westminster Abbey: “Over all these things the Queen appointed a Dean, which office Dominus Gabriel Goodman lately performed with great credit, an excellent and most upright man, most excellently deserving of of myself and my studies.”
11. Meanwhile his vigor, engaged in these daily school chores, did not flag. For although this great labor, this continual activity, proceeding in its yearly course as the terms of his office required for the shaping of tender boys’ minds, needed to be expended for imbuing them with letters and goodly morals, so that he appeared bound to exhaust his powers, yet, all care for his body neglected and the enticing allurements of pleasures refused, in his spare hours and those he stole from sleep, as if his mind were refreshed by a change in its effort, he had the time for severer studies. For neither the fruit or the praise of his tireless diligence could exist for himself alone, or remain within the narrow confines of a school. For, with his fame widespread in both Universities, this engendered a wholesome rivalry, free of envy and tending to procure affection, among the minds of his contemporaries striving towards the same goal with equal praise: for there was nearly nobody learned above the common run of University men who did not eagerly court his friendship, and thought it praiseworthy and honorable for himself to cultivate this with due friendship and duty. I can attest that Oxford men of flourishing reputation, Thomas Savile (cut short in the very flower of his life while performing the office of Proctor, who, had the Fates not begrudged him a longer life, would have been destined to be the equal of his great brother Henry, and no more lavish eulogy than this could be spoken), Thomas Allen, Henry Parrey (afterwards Bishop of Worcester), Richard Hakluyt, Milo Smith (afterwards Bishop of Glocuester), Henry Cuffe

(whose prodigious intellect proved fatal to himself and brought down an inglorious death); in the other right renowned University, John Beaumont, Henry Blaxton, Richard Thomson, William Alabaster, and other men of best esteem and note, and furthermore foreigners who resorted here either for the sake of religion or studies, for example the Italian Alberico Gentili, most renowned Professor of both Canon and Civil Law amongst the Oxonians, Jacques Hotman, who was secretary to Robert Leicester, and who after his return to his homeland performed an embassy to Germany under Louis XIII, and François Pithou, Frenchmen both, and famed for their learned writings, who enjoyed a close friendship and association with Camden, that would endure for a lifetime.
12. But he, in accordance with the suggestions and dictates of that prudence with which he was richly endowed, was well aware that a mind torn in different directions by various pursuits (which is the fault of a second-rate intellect which, while grasping after the reputation of a polymath, scarcely attains to mediocrity in any single one) grows weak as its strength gradually ebbs, and is able to bring nothing great or excellent to completion, seriously applied his own, entire, to the study of British history and antiquity, to which he was borne of his own will and in accordance with a certain natural impulse. For in very childhood, while as a boy he was learning his abc’s, this shone forth, and afterwards increased in his maturer years at University: bent on this thing, if not exclusively, at least for the most part, at the urging of the right noble Sir Philip Sidney, that prince of English youth spontaneously offered him his friendship so this man might not fail in such great great undertakings, which he saw would redound to the honor and use of his nation, since of all men he was most fit and suitable for its accomplishment. This, then, was the particular object and end of his labors and vigils, as if he believed this one province of learning remained to be adorned by himself alone. Here, placing before his eyes the examples of the most prudent artisans, who, preparing to make some well-wrought and excellent work destined to be celebrated by fair judges during their own lifetimes, or at least to engender an enduring fame after their ashes should be interred and envy be extinguished, after they have conceived in their mind the form of whatever kind of work they may be undertaking, become entirely preoccupied in procuring fit material and suitable tools; and, well aware that industry, no matter how great, progresses slowly and accomplishes little when deprived of a suitable and prudent method, before he girded himself for the work itself which he had at length undertaken in his very sublime and heroic imagination, he gave much thought both to his tools and to his method. Therefore, since it seemed scarcely to be hoped that the origins, manners, institutions, and arcane antiquities of the British race could be rescued from the thick shadows in which they had lain hidden for so many centuries, without the aid of the illumination which the knowledge of languages, both of those who were the first inhabitants and, as it were, aborigines of this island, and then of those who thrust them into the western parts of England and occupied their homes, casts on their careful investigator, he made himself familiar in the use of both the British and the Saxon tongue, and also with all printed works by Greek and Latin writers of all kinds of every age who have written since the discovery this “other world” and whose antiquity renders trustworthy, have written about Britain either as their main subject or in passing, consulted our own national writers, and with others who had not yet been brought to light out of archives, collections of records, or the nooks and crannies of libraries by any man’s industry or curiosity.

But above all else, since he was going to be obliged to describe the chorography of Britain, the cities, mountains, rivers, promontories, the lay of individual regions, and whatever noteworthy exists therein useful for the illustration of antiquity, he began to turn his particular attention to this subject and with diligently went through Ptolemy’s Geography, the Itinerarium Antonini, and the Utriusque Imperii Notiam, insofar as these pertain to Britain, with genealogies (with which he dealt in passing rather than professionally), and other matters of this kind to be relegated to incidental passages and appendices. Without these helps, to undertake this difficult and complex work even in a lightminded way would have been proof of intolerable boldness or folly. Next, since he discovered nearly countless errors in the published editions of that most distinguished Itinerarium, in which is contained the names of cities and other places along Roman roads, and the distance between them is recorded, he was greatly preoccupied with the collection of variant readings from the manuscripts, wherever they might be hidden, and for this reason by frequent letters he sought the advice of all his friends, either at home, or in France, Belgium, Germany, or elsewhere, so that by their aid an improved and more accurate understanding of Britain might be gained, which was a chief part of his purpose and, as it were, its foundation.
13. Camden was not to content to measure England by employing other men’s observations (the customary wisdom of some men), while standing among his pupils’ desks or employing the Muses for his compass. And therefore, just as before when he had abandoned Oxford, having no fixed home and hence independent, assisted by his friends’ kindness, so now, whenever he was able to enjoy the customary vacations, he would hurry out of the city into the shires, in enthusiastic and curious search for Roman roads, military stations, remains of encampments and towns, and antiquities, if such survived anywhere, until in the various journeys he undertook he had traversed nearly the all of England, and surveyed it with very great profit and pleasure both for his eyes and his feet. All men to whom this was known (and it was unknown to next to nobody) congratulated Camden for undertaking this work, these right praiseworthy efforts expended on illustrating his nation, long before its publication: for this was the wish of all men, even of foreigners, especially of Mercator and of Ortelius, that great reviver of ancient geography, who, when he met him at London obtained this of Camden, not just by his affection, but by the suasion of his judgment and authority. It was impossible for him to resist the wishes, the advice, the admonitions, the entreaties, and indeed the reproaches of this friends, that if he did not do so he would fail both himself and his nation.
14. As Camden’s reputation spread amongst his own countrymen, so it did amongst foreigners. I am not speaking of common writers who sit in the lowest benches of the learned theater, but those holding the front seats, such as are most conspicuous for their high dignity and most notable for their studies of polite letters conjoined with the law, and are promoted to the administration of public affairs, and these he gained as his friends and supporters. Among whom one who could not pass over without incurring guilt was the right distinguished Barnabe Brisson, President of the Senate of Paris, because Camden himself, in the memorial document about his life’s important occurrences he left behind him, and in the additions which he made in his own hand to his Annales of Queen Elizabeth after their careful revision, written long after the tragic and very deplorable death of that man of most eminent dignity, who deserved a far better fate, it seemed just to him to boast of his friendship. For when in the year 1581 a right splendid embassy was sent by King Henri III of France to settle a marriage between Queen Elizabeth and his brother the Duc d’Anjou (who was present in person), if such could be arranged, Brisson was included among the illustrious men who attended upon the royal suitor for the discharge of that mission to the greater honor and decorum for both nations, chosen to contribute no little weight to those consultations by his prudence and the gravity of his manners. But who would have imagined that a man constituted with such great dignity, who presided over the right of speaking in the Parliament of his countrymen, caught up in negotiations of such great moment, in which was contained the safety of peoples, a man accustomed to intercourse with princes, a man received with banquets and jousting, scarcely given any leisure by his own countrymen and the noblest Peers of England, would set aside the honors and pleasures of the Court, and desire to seek out the friendship of an academic man covered with chalk-dust, not yet entered into his thirtieth years, who because of his humble manner of life seemed scarce fit for receiving such a great guest in a manner suitable for his dignity and deserving? But this was permitted by Brisson’s most kindly nature, who out of his innate goodness habituated to cultivate and admire those excellent endowments of mind which he himself possessed, wherever he discovered them in other men; this, too, was deserved by Camden’s virtue and learning. So they entered into a competition (the one because of his kindness, the other because of his modesty) as to which was to play the leading rule concerning literature, inasmuch as, albeit they were most dissimilar in condition of life, yet they were rendered equals by the similarity of their studies, so they conversed on easy terms. Nor does it appear doubtful that Brisson acknowledged that, although the cause for which he had come into England had failed, he had reaped at least this profit from his journey, that he had been permitted to make the acquaintance of Camden and to deserve well of him.
15. Unswayed by praise-hunting, not by the favor of great men, nor the applause and lauds of his friends, being his own severest critic, he elected to make his debut upon the stage. For hitherto of doubtful mind whether he could, at least in some measure, equal the universal anticipation that had been conceived about himself, and act the part, if not of an excellent, at least of a good and industrious chorographer, as was his chief intention, and had in no wise hastened the publication of his Britannia. For in such a varied work, of almost boundless subject-matter, lengthy deliberation must be taken: while he pondered all things with that keen judgment with which he was amply endowed, many afterthoughts occurred to him which required a finer file; many things which had not previously been thought about arose out of other things, and these created a delay. Therefore new journeys had to be taken, library bookcases had to be ransacked anew, friends had to be consulted again again: Munsterus, Ortelius, Lipsius, Surita, Opsopaeus, Velser, and other men most learned in antiquities and geography, who gladly gave their assiduous help in accordance with their great love of good letters, and of Camden.
16. Finally, after the passage of ten years, this book, awaited by all students of antiquities, came forth in the year 1586, dedicated to that great man Sir William Cecil, Baron Burleigh, thanks to whose right prudent counsels England enjoyed the greatest of happiness under Elizabeth for so many years, ever to the envy of neighboring nations, with its enemies gnashing their teeth and striving against it in vain. Nor did he disappoint the expectation (advanced, as it were, as a loan) which all men had conceived, as not infrequently occurs. At what a price it was valued, with what most affectionate embraces it was received, with what eager eyes it was greeted, is sufficiently shown by a new edition in the following year, and then by others in the years 1594 and 1600 (in addition to those twice printed in Germany), and finally at London in the year 1607, which brought to consummation the perfection of the entire endeavor. For since a work of that kind, because of the variety of subjects treated therein, is capable of constant enlargement, and is crammed with a fund and store of things hitherto unknown, the origin of which is obscure or uncertain, nobody who has the ability to judge these studies fairly and aright ought to disapprove whatever errors might be discovered in the first edition, or express surprise (with an admixture of complaints) that it was not yet perfected in all its parts, and should recognize that they were not created by lightness and inconstancy of mind, nor out of a boldness in making rash, baseless conjectures, or because of a vain itch, but that they arose from a lack of due authority or the weariness of a mind not always attentive and distracted by a variety of thoughts, for they were errors which could elude even the most vigilant author. In this offspring of a fertile intellect its fair outlines indeed appeared, and its faultless structure, to which the author’s maturer age was destined to impart new colors and full vigor. For this was the business of more years and fuller experience, so that those thoughts, often revisited with renewed attention, polished by a finer file, would at length grow by means of new enhancements into a sound and handsome edifice.

Yet all men were astonished at Camden’s industry, which extended to ever manner of learning embraced in the ambit of the arts and sciences, to his lofty genius, his accurate method, his elegant and pure discourse, his detailed explanation of abstruse history, his most happy hunting down of antiquities, his incomparable modesty, not in the least besmirched by any taint of ostentation, but most of all by his skill and judgment, at no point found wanting, which imparted, as it were, the whole structure with a soul, infusing grace, power and life into its other ornaments. This was so to the extent that by the voices of the most eminent men of this and the preceding centuries he was celebrated with eulogies quite capable of attracting envy, yet ones that stood as true and correct, as the best illustrator of our forefathers’ antiquities and of British history. This indeed was Camden’s particular and, as it were, peculiar praise, that by his writings, destined to endure for all time, he had better served Britain than she him. This shines forth in nearly every letter which I now make public, and sets itself before the eyes of even the most casual reader: from these I shall transcribe and cite this single testimonial, which the most illustrious De Thou, himself also right worthy of the memory and fame of all the ages, whose incorruptible fidelity and acme of most abundant dignity rendered most foreign to sordid adulation, who was inspired, not by flattering affection towards a friend, but rather by his judgment and most exacting estimation of his merits:

I come to your Britannia, a work that surpasses my every prediction, in which one may at once admire your faith, diligence, judgment and candor, more than in anybody else who has undertaken a similar work.

Other testimonials which exist in the writings of the most learned men, lest they interrupt the sequence of my historical narrative by being introduced outside their proper place, are more conveniently reserved for its end.
17. Amidst all the lauds and gratulations he received from his friends, as if he had an impervious heart, Camden retained his mind’s innate modesty, scarce elated or conceiving great thoughts about himself: rather, not at all avid for honors, most eager to be of service to England’s youth, and content with the modest lot which he had enjoyed through so many years in the Westminster School, he still remained its Second Master, in no wise to be drawn away from that toilsome chore. But what power do bare and empty proclamations of praise have? Because of the peaceability of his mind, he was content to live out his life, carefree in that sanctuary of happiness, had other men allowed him, being stung by no gadfly of avarice or ambition, and being unreasonably negligent of his own welfare. His friends did not likewise think they could acquit their century in the eyes of posterity, were they to neglect those who deserved the best, among whom Camden had to be numbered. For two years after the publication of Britannia, namely in the year 1588, the right reverend Father John Piers, at that time Bishop of Salisbury advanced him to be soon installed in the prebendary of Ilfracombe in Devonshire, established within that Cathedral, to be installed soon by his Proctor on February 6, 1589, both so that his studies might be fostered by this additional income and so that this new dignity might be, as it were, a prelude and down payment on a greater one to follow. Camden retained this dignity until his death, equally subjected to the spiritual authority of that See through various successions of Bishops, just as if he had been an ordained priest. Hence in the year 1616, when the right reverend Father Robert Abbott, Bishop of Salisbury, was about to undertake a general visitation of that diocese during the Lenten season and Camden was bidden to accompany him along with the other Canons, by means of a letter full of pious submission written on May 5 stating that because of the infirmities of his advanced age (he was nearly a septuagenarian), that he could not undertake that journey without the greatest inconvenience, he readily obtained that the Proctor be taken in his place.
18. As the year 1592 was nearing its end, while his mind was stubbornly applied to his studies, his good health (which had hitherto continued good and sound) deserted his body, which was unequal to so many labors and sleepless nights and exhausted and all but worn out by his nocturnal lucubrations, and his body was taken over by a quartan fever, a lengthy and importunate companion, which, hiding deep within his marrow, which could not be banished and routed before eighteen months had wholly run their course (for, in accordance with its nature, it was often weakened by nostrums and remitted its attacks). When Camden was ailing, as if the health of the republic of letters were also endangered and England were bound to suffer an immense loss should death lay him low in the very vigor of his age, and now running the midcourse of his life’s race at a praiseworthy and decorous clip, far distant (as was to be hoped) from the finishing-line, his fearful friends grieved for his health, which they hoped would be rescued by all means, afraid lest he might die, and genuinely suffered along with him as he struggled against this threatening malady: the physicians, even those who were absent, assisted him by their advice (for this concern touched them too, particularly the most renowned Case of Oxford),

but all of them with their most ardent entreaties and importunate prayers to God Almighty. Afterwards they happily congratulated both Camden and the nation on his restored health, rejoicing if they had received a common blessing.
19. Upon the death of the right learned Edward Grant,

Doctor of Theology, who had long governed the Royal School of Westminster, in the month of March 1593 Camden was substituted in his place, for, even if his lengthy exertions in that academy for twenty years had not given him just right of succession, there was nobody more suitable. Here, this most modest man appeared to have attained the goal and end of his labors, the summit of his hopes. For what more glorious thing could be conceived or imagined for a man gifted with such as character, who had devoted himself wholly to benefitting others and to performing public services, than to employ precepts of the virtues and of learning to mold the characters and talents of right noble young men destined to enhance the glory of the nation with their prudence, their counsels, their bravery, and their distinguished deeds at home and abroad, and to preside over that seminary, most carefully developed by his personal care, which would turn out so many prelates and ministers for the good of the Church of England? Meanwhile his friends had far greater hopes and prayers: among who was the right reverend Father Dominus Tobie Matthew, Bishop of Durham (subsequently advanced to the Archbishopric See of York under James I),

who when he had received the news attested in a gratulatory letter to joy, affection and love he bore Camden, saying he “deserved this long ago, and indeed ten times over,” and furthermore voluntarily offered his assistance if he could be help in any way; and yet he did so timidly, as if he would retract the offer, since the thought had struck his mind that there are were men possessing great influence with the Queen who delighted in Camden, who could perform this service far better and more auspiciously.
20. In the year 1597 Camden fell ill again, far more dangerously, destined to enjoy health that was not steady and sound, but quite uncertain and interrupted by ailments, and those of the gravest kind.
21. Until now a Greek grammar,

composed by the venerable predecessor with whom he had lived for a number of years on harmonious and very affectionate terms, had been used in the School, but its rudiments were in great part faulty and defective, and did not provide a sufficiently easy and certain avenue to any profounder understanding of that language (without which Rome herself speaks barbarously, and by whose help ancient faith and religion, horribly oppressed by the torturous devices of the Schoolmen and debased by superstitious deceits, having achieved its liberty, is restored to its old-time integrity and purity). In this selfsame year Camden, thinking that this grammar was not to be revised, but rather to be written anew, on the basis of the observations which by his keen judgment and lengthy familiarity he had gleaned from Greek writers of every kind, subjected to severe scrutiny, published a new grammar, not only for the benefit of the school over which he presided, but henceforth to serve the need of all schools throughout England. He made this easy and compendious, filled with the best method and sure and necessary rules, so that uninitiated boys desirous of imbibing the first elements of that language with principles that have been worked out (such as have been compiled by one of his right learned successors some years thereafter, for the use of initiates in the mystery), would require no other helps. Thus with a foresightful mind, in case someday he should have to bid his adieu to the school in accordance with God’s disposition and the urgings of his friends, he desired to bequeath this excellent monument of his diligence in performing his office, which no day will obliterate. Camden, happy enough (as it seemed to himself) with this lot, by no means grasped after the favor of good men by flattering arts, nor did he wear down their thresholds by frequent visits in the company of their dutiful clients. Being at liberty for God, himself and the Muses, he was most preoccupied with literary business, designed to benefit posterity and devoted to public use, rather than on his domestic business, although this increased beyond his expectation. Yet, in the judgment of all men save his own, he was worthy of being placed in a loftier position outside the school in which he had been so long pent up, where, having obtained honorable and noble leisure, his endowments of genius, experience and judgment might be expended on solving weightier problems, if any there should be. Not long thereafter the convenient opportunity, which they had long sought, presented itself to his friends of showing how greatly they valued him and his studies.

For upon the death of the right distinguished Richard Leigh,

who had borne the title of Clarenceux King of Arms, that distinguished gentleman Sir Fulke Greville, Treasurer of the Royal Fleet and a man who was prompt in grasping at honors for others, interceded with Queen Elizabeth (in whose grace and favor he flourished particularly), that Camden be appointed in his place. Meanwhile Camden himself, wholly unconsulted and quite unaware,

out of modesty never conceived this thing in his mind while awake, nor in his dreams. The Queen, that excellent rewarder of merits, thoroughly convinced how well Camden had deserved of herself and of the nation, and who when dispensing and conferring offices was exceedingly canny in discerning who was best suited for appointment to what responsibility, gave her kind assent. But at first this caused no little displeasure for the right illustrious Lord Burleigh, all-powerful at Court,

whom Camden had previously experienced as most favorable to himself: not because that great man was angry at his Camden and, his affections alienated, begrudged him this new honor, but because his assistance had not been asked beforehand and he seemed neglected. As soon as Camden (a man unversed in the arts of Court) learned this and in a letter appeased him by purging himself of the suspicion that he had scorned and discounted his patronage out of mistrust, and had betaken himself to other men’s protection, Burleigh was mollified and embraced him with his wonted affection.
22. The College of Heralds

into which Camden was to be inducted, having pretty much the same form as it does today, was established by King Richard III by letters patent given at Westminster on March 2 of the first year of his reign.

Afterwards by a new charter signed at the honor of Hampton Court on the eighteenth day of July of the first and third year of their reigns,

Philip and Mary confirmed the perpetual use of Derby Place for themselves and their appointed successors. This College consists of three Kings, six Heralds and four Pursuivants, of which the individuals are distinguished by personal titles, after this order: the Kings of Arms are Garter, Clarenceux (who presides over the southern counties of England), and Norroy (who presides over the northern regions beyond the Trent), the Heralds are York, Lancaster, Windsor, Richmond, Somerset and Chester; the Pursuivants are Rouge Dragon, Bluemantle, Rouge Croix, and Portcullis. Sometimes extraordinary Heralds and Pursuivants are also appointed, likewise distinguished by individual titles, either to assist the others or to succeed them, should they in any manner vacate their office.
23. All of these are subjected to the authority and commandments of the Earl Marshal of England. This supreme authority was once conferred at the pleasure of our sovereigns: from Thomas de Brotherton, to whose heirs his brother Edward II assigned it, it descended by right of succession to Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham, and passed from the Mowbrays to the right noble family of Howard. But in the year 1572 Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk, was tried for treason, and forfeited his ancestral honors and dignities along with his life. After his sad ending, Elizabeth (who, because of the Duke of Norfolk’s attainder, was now free and lawfully entitled to dispose of the office at will) promoted to this dignity George Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, a man of right illustrious ancestors whose names will be celebrated in England’s annals in every age, as long as due honor is paid to virtue, be it moral, martial or civic. Yet she gave it to him alone, and did not make it hereditary. And after Talbot’s death towards the end of the year 1597, at this time a commission was delegated by royal authority and confirmed by the Great Seal of England that on the 22nd of October the aforesaid Sir William Cecil, Treasurer of England, and Charles Howard, Earl of Nottingham and Admiral of England should in the royal palace of Westminster first create Camden Herald with the title of Richmond (for by tradition, nobody should be inducted into the first rank of that College unless he belong to the number of its Heralds properly so-called, just as any man about to admitted to the venerable bench, unless already a Sergeant at Law, is created such first as a preliminary), and then on the following day, namely Sunday the 23rd of October of the year of Christ 1597, towards the end of the 39th year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth, they should create him Clarenceux, with the rites and solemn ceremonies performed punctually and according to tradition, although at the same time (as a certain malevolent fellow presently to be named vainly objected) he did not receive letters patent.

For of necessity (as not rarely wont to occur in this business) it required a few days to draw them up in proper legal form, which created a delay.
24. All good men congratulated Camden on this splendid dignity. He, now transported from shadow into sunlight, and from time to time to be seen at Court among the Peers and magnates of the realm on ceremonial occasions, in accordance with the function of his office, nevertheless remained the same man and true to himself: the same modesty of mind shone forth, corrupted by no honors and no flatteries, and a mind also keener and with more energy for studies. For thanks to this new manner of life he was immune from the worries and troubles of the school and, as it were, had been granted his freedom, and he accounted it his greatest profit that he was allowed to tarry longer in the temple of the Muses or in the countryside, able to spend his hours and the use of his time as he wished, now to indulge in and enjoy better correspondence with his friends, whether in England or elsewhere in the world, now to revisit the shires of England on diligent foot, and with curious eyes to survey them anew. With that envy which is the plague of small minds and the constant attendant on consummate virtue, Ralph Brooke, who held the title of York Herald, could not help looking askance on Camden’s dignity, for he was frustrated in his hope of obtaining that distinguished position which, out of excessive self-esteem, he regarded as owed to himself. And with his envy quickly transformed into rage and madness, he made up his mind, wounded by these ill dispositions, to avenge the imaginary disgrace which he fancied he had received by depriving another man of his praise. Camden’s reputation for merits, for virtue, for candor (which Brooke himself too had experienced) had no softening effect upon him. Lest he might seem to be mad without reason, or to be issuing slander with no shadow and show of truth, he spent two years on this most ungrateful work, disgraceful for a gentleman and an upstanding man, and finally, in the year 1559 (i. e., thirteen years after the first edition of the Britannia), furtively published a book in the vernacular, laden with illiberal and disgusting insults, with no license to print having been obtained, and with the names of the printer and bookseller suppressed on the title page.

25. For he was angry at Camden since, though not yet appointed to the dignity of Herald, in his Britannia he had dealt with genealogies, as if he had defiled these sacred things with his unwashed, profane hands, and he undertook A discoverie of divers errors published in print in the much commended Britannia, very prejudiciall to the discentes and successions of the auncient nobilitie of this realme (for such was the title of this infamous volume). And, not content with this, since he himself was most uninstructed in other antiquities beyond his own specialty, and of all polite literature (indeed he was ignorant of Latin), he leveled against Camden an accusation, as if with felonious hand he had rifled the desk of the right distinguished John Leland. And supported by Brooke’s authority alone, a certain writer of ours

(would that he were as commendable for the expertise of his mind and judgment as he was for his intellect and industry!), gullibly appropriated this same slander without having at all investigated the matter. Nevertheless Camden’s good esteem was built upon more solid foundations than to allow it to be taken by storm by this artillery, let alone to be harmed.
26. But that excellent and most learned man, lest he be deemed lest careful for his reputation than was proper, defended both himself and his innocence against the unjust recriminations of this egregious slander, and made haste to defend it in an appendix published at the end of the fifth edition of Britannia, in the year of Christ 1600, which he dedicated to Queen Elizabeth, his right indulgent patroness and, next to God, the author of his happiness. In very painstaking rebuttals, filled with manifold learning, embracing the origins and histories of our noblest families, rescued from pitch-darkness by new and more diligent investigation, he gave full satisfaction to all students of these matters, so that they congratulated Camden for this opportunity, or rather for this task which his adversary had mean-mindedly imposed upon him, of retrieving new treasures from the recesses of antiquity. For, as I have said above, although he had been specially intent on the chorography of Britain and illustrating other antiquities drawn from Roman histories, these matters had seemed to have small relevance and he had touched on them with a very light hand; but now that he had been taken into the senior rank of Heralds, he regarded it as part of his office and duty to handle heraldic matters more seriously, as is abundantly evident from this apologia and from the other collections of great importance now to be found in the College archives, which in his last testament he bequeathed to be used by his successors.
27. There is no need for me to deal with this in many words, since I may refer the curious reader to that apology. It will be enough, and possibly more than enough, for the vindication of Camden from these atrocious accusation, if I set forth a little taken both from that and from other sources.
28. Albeit irritated by these fictitious objections, in these vindications Camden elected not to depart from that mild nature which his sweet manners, granted by nature, and his religion had imparted, not assessing what his bold-faced rival had deserved (who was not to be distinguished by any other name but “Antiphilus”, since he nobly refused to dignify the gentleman by his own name), but rather what was fitting for himself and his own manners. Having been better advised, he gratefully acknowledged his misapprehensions, if he had entertained any such, which in this intricate and complex business was a thing very prone to happen and something scarce to be avoided by even the most vigilant. Likewise he showed that “Antiphilus” maliciously twisted many things into a different meaning. But by plentiful examples displayed the man’s tirelessness and quite amazing industry (had it not been forestalled by his rage against Camden, which is wont to becloud the mind), not with an eye to such an ill-willed censor, whom he might otherwise have held in silent contempt, but for the sake of satisfying the curiosity of others; and whatever was ambiguous and obscure he confirmed and illustrated by the evidence of original manuscripts, whose authority could in no wise be disputed. Brooke also leveled the reproach that Camden had seen the documents of certain Heralds, and had had no small help from them. What if this were so? Surely he did not steal the material for his triumph from booty gained by other men’s sweat? Surely he did not invidiously and ungratefully refuse to acknowledge those from whom he profited? This, if any misdeed ever was, was most foreign to Camden’s character and manners. Throughout his entire Britannia he treated with due honors the right distinguished gentlemen who had assisted him in any manner, and had cast any light on his genealogical researches, especially Thomas Talbot,

actuary in the registry of documents, and Robert Glover, Somerset Herald, men most skilled in genealogical pedigrees and successions, whom he held in the highest honor. For he called Glover “an excellent man and a Herald never sufficiently praised,”

as previously in the Britannia he wrote about “that most studious and learned gentleman in the College of Heralds, who has borne the title of Somerset, Robert Glover.”

The verdict that this praise was most true and most due to Glover’s erudition and virtues was also that of the right excellent Sir William Dugdale, chief King of Arms with the title of Garter (taken from the Order of St. George), whose whose memory will be dear and sacred to me as long as I live, not only because of the friendship with which he condescended to embrace me and fostered by his occasional letters, but also because of the indefatigable industry and experience, thanks to which he enriched the nation and indeed the entire republic of letters with his large tomes, because of the loyalty he displayed in difficult times as the Civil War raged during the reign of Charles I, and because of his excellent endowments of mind. When in a friendly conversation we were having in our wonted way about antiquarianism and history I said that I could not be sufficiently amazed (let alone scandalized) that none of the Heralds wished to undertake a history of the College and the lives of the distinguished gentlemen who have flourished therein from the time of its first foundation, and by transmitting to late posterity the fame of other men, plunged in dark night for want of an illustrator, to guarantee his own (which I hoped for with most ardent wishes a thousand times over, nor do I yet cease in this demand), he answered without delay, passionately but indeed in earnest, that out of this very great number he regarded only two as genuinely great, Glover and Camden. And it pleased him to soften this verdict with the following mollifying explanation, that the other Heralds, no matter how illustrious they should be reckoned in accordance with their merits, no matter how great they were, were in his opinion far inferior to those to right excellent gentleman who he was wont to admire.
29. Indeed, thanks to his incredible diligence and keen mind Glover surpassed all his predecessors in that kind of studies, yet when he died a premature death he left behind huge piles of notes which had not yet been assembled into an organized and perfected shape and sequence, and since the right illustrious William, Baron Burleigh (who had lent his great support to this most learned gentleman), understood that these were precious, he purchased them. But he kindly lent them to Camden, so that whatever could be useful in enhancing his work, now twice published and heading for a third edition, might be extracted. Hence those slanders, those outcries, those calumnies, as if Camden had appropriated for himself the praises due to Glover’s industry. Both Lord Cecil knew, and all the men who have seen Glover’s documents (subsequently deposited in the College archives) acknowledged, that this was pure slander and a bald-faced lie. Glover had started a book in Latin about the pedigrees of the English nobility, which his kinsman Thomas Mills of Canterbury published in English under his own name with the title A Catalogue of Honor, which in Camden’s opinion

was wretchedly corrupted and interpolated. Promoted to the dignity of Somerset Herald in the year of Christ 1571, 14 Elizabeth, after he had lived for 45 years, he died at London on 15 April 1588, and lies buried in the church of St. Giles Cripplegate.
30. Another part of the accusation (overthrown with the same ease) concerns an allegation that he had pillaged Leland’s unpublished manuscripts, a charge suggested only by zeal for casting aspersions that would have been altogether avoided had this most unfair Aristarchus

run even a quick and casual eye over them. But this was of small concern to him, as long as by broadcasting rotten lies and slanderous falsehoods he might damage Camden’s reputation, which was his sole wish. John Leland of London, impelled by his patriotism and strong-willed nature, had likewise girded himself for illuminating England’s antiquities by his devoted effort. King Henry VIII had supported his most laudable industry with an annual pension from the royal fisc, and bestowed upon him the title Antiquarian, in which Leland deservedly gloried. This is a position which has wholly lapsed since that time, albeit a couple of men (for scarce more can be counted) have enjoyed the name of Royal Historian; I know not whether they were fit for its dignity. Fortified by this royal authority, he undertook an arduous journey, bent on surveying the counties of England by circulating amongst the shires; he carefully investigated the ruins of antiquities wherever he found them, and he entered into the libraries of monasteries and colleges, thrown open to him by royal command, that he might scan the remains of ancient writings both foreign and domestic. On this journey, which he undertook out of his zeal for promoting good letters, he wrote in that A New-Years Gift given of him to K. Henr. 8

(for such he entitled his presentation manuscript) which he gave Henry VIII in the 37th year of his reign, and which John Bale subsequently published, that he had consumed six years. Here this gentleman, not at all vain and far removed from all ostentation, said he was working on many great projects (for example a book On the Topography of Early Britain, in which he intended to bring to light the ancient names of the places mentioned by Roman writers, now lost in thick darkness, fifty Books On British Antiquity, or On Civil History according to the division of England and Wales obtaining in his time, and likewise six Books On the Islands Adjacent to Britain, and finally three Books On the British Peerage, which give abundant testimony to his industry, experience, and loftiness of mind always aspiring to the greatest thing, and to his most excellent thoughts and understanding. This indeed I cheerfully concede, that this man, most learned and most industrious in the production of many things, would have made good and happy progress, at least according to his understanding and to the nature of those times, in which the light of letters had first begun to emerge and arise from the darkness of Scholastic theology and barbarism, had it been allowed him by his leisure, by the other conveniences of life, and by the munificence of King and Peers. But alas the sad turns of human affairs!

Alas the deplorable and most unfortunate fate of this excellent man! For not long after he had bound himself to this undertaking, as if by signing a contract, whether daunted by the difficulties of this promised work, or exhausted and broken by its immense labors, or possibly overwhelmed by great grief and melancholy because he had not yet reaped a fruit matching his industry and just expectation, or for some other cause, he suffered the disease of a distracted mind, not destined to be recalled to its erstwhile sane state by any remedies sought from religion and philosophy, or any of medicine, and at the same time leaving behind a huge mass of observations which he had gathered in his notes, chaotic and hastily written as they occurred to him. The right distinguished William Burton (of most distinguished reputation among our antiquarians for his published Description of the County of Leicestershire) donated four folio volumes and seven smaller ones, for the most part written in Leland’s own hand, to the Bodleian Library as his perpetual memorial. Another volume of Leland’s notes is also found in the Cottonian Library. I shall not provoke Leland’s shade if I say that the whole work (which I have often handled) is wonderfully confused, distracted, unarranged into any order, everywhere wanting the finishing file, and lies prostrate like a juiceless, bloodless, soulless corpse. Camden readily admitted he had seen these notes, and if anything useful accrued to his benefit from their reading, he gratefully acknowledged it. But long before he had seen Leland’s manuscripts, equipped for the undertaking of this same work with better helps, not to say a keener judgment and knowledge of languages (which Leland lacked), and also by his painstaking journeys in which with his own intelligence he investigated the traces of antiquity, crypts, mountains, dales, the sources, beds, courses and windings of rivers, gulfs of the ocean, the intervals and sites of his guidebook the Itinerarium Antonini, the resources of regions, the manners of their inhabitants, and county boundaries: disregarding the rivulets, he sought out the sources themselves, the writers of an early age, the archives and record-houses of the realm (especially those stored in the Tower of London), and finally that census-register called the Domesday Book, and, always having for a help his good nature, his industry, his intelligence, his judgment, penetrating understanding of profundities, love of the truth, and his exquisite zeal for its discovery, at length, having completing the work of thirty years, he brought his Britannia to completion.
31. Mistrusting the observations of other men, if such existed, he only credited his own eyes. He was thoroughly ashamed to steal from any man and snatch fame from other men’s labors. He did not approach such an arduous work endowed with such a mind. As he attacked no man, so he cheated none of his due praise, least of all Leland, who he often cited, never without a preliminary word of honor. But how great a man Leland was can be gathered, if not from his minor published works and his notes, at least from that notable work which he left in finished condition, On The Illustrious Writers of Britain,

a work very worthy of publication. I trust it will not displease the curious reader if I insert here what I copied out at the behest of the reverend, most distinguished and most learned Dominus Daniel Papebrochius S. J. whilst I was at Amsterdam four years ago:

32. So much for Leland. But Brooke (or rather Brooksmouth, for such was his name although he went by the other false one, being nobler)

is not to be let go thus. He, being full of himself, driven but I know not what distemper and boil of rage, irate not only against Camden but also against the other fellows of the same company, attacked their reputation, comfort and security by his shabby little deceits and evil arts, which I shall affirm by this splendid example. Brooke, his jealousy and ill-will bursting forth into unfriendliness and hatred, that he might do an injury to a right distinguished gentleman whom for honor’s sake I do not name,

laying a trap for his reputation, hired a man to claim by a plausible lie that an achievement of arms which he had with him needed to be conveyed immediately to a certain noble Londoner, Gregory Brandon, then living in Spain, on a convoy of ships just about to set sail, and that was needful to attest that this rightfully belonged to that Gregory by his affixing his signature and seal. When N. did not perceive that a fraud was being perpetrated against himself, he took his fee and, not consulting the registers and entirely failing to study the matter, complied without delay. Brooke handed this document, so signed, to Thomas, Earl of Arundel, one of the Commissioners who were then performing the office of Earl Marshall of England, pointing out that these were the arms of the realm of Aragon quartered with those of the province of Brabant, and that this Brandon, to whom N. had solemnly attested it belonged, as a disgraceful fellow of the lowest Commons, being a butcher of London. In accordance with his duty, the right illustrious Earl reported what he had just learned to King James on December 27, 1616, and the King, justly inflamed with indignation against N., said he would not deprive the man of office, for which he appeared unfit, but he wanted him to be haled before the Star Chamber, to be judged before the assessors of that severe court in the royal presence, and to be fined and punished for his atrocious crime and the insult he had inflicted upon the King of Spain. When the King had been pacified somewhat, the Earl of Pembroke interceded and obtained that the whole business be dealt with by the Commissioners who possessed the right and power of settling controversies of this kind and whatever pertained to the Peerage, which the King at length granted. Quickly N. and Brooke were cited to appear before those right illustrious gentlemen, viz. the Treasurer of England, the Keeper of the Privy Seal, the Admiral of England, the Seneschal of the Royal Household, the Chamberlain of the same, and the Earl of Arundel. The former confessed that a fraud had been perpetrated upon himself by a deceitful man, unknown to himself, by whose assistance his professed enemy Brooke, as he now suspected, had abused him, so that great danger, if not certain destruction, would be threatened and visited upon himself, and with his repeated importunate prayers had demanded that he agree to sign the drawn-up document he had with him upon the instant, since the business admitted not the slightest delay, but needed to be sent into Spain that very day, and he most humbly begged pardon for such great negligence.

The latter acknowledged that he had sent his friend Rackpole of London, now tending to his business in the countryside outside the city, especially to the end that by this conspicuous example he might show the right noble gentleman both N.’s incompetence and his avarice, being as he was a men who, enticed by hope of gain, did not shrink from performing such a deed as a favor to any old stranger. They, admiring the man’s boldness, could scarce keep from laughter, and the matter was held over for closer examination on Monday the 30th of December. At which time, the other Heralds also having being ordered to appear, N., as bidden, showed the Lord Commissioners letters patent in which, although there was no express mention of the right of bestowing and confirming the privilege to coats of arm, nevertheless it was agreed that these were lawfully included in these general words, with all preemenencies, rights, and emoluments pertaining to this ancient office, both from the Black Book of the Garter and from the decree of the Duke of Clarence. After much discussion back and forth, the Lords retired into an inner chamber to relate all these things to the King and he justly thought the one should receive deserved punishment for his rascality, and the other for his foolishness in allowing himself to be so foully deceived, so that, deterred by their penalties, others would abstain from the same misdemeanors. Meanwhile they were imprisoned until something more severe could be decided against them. On January 1 N. submitted a letter of supplication to the Commissioners, so that by their intervention he might experience the same grace and mercy as other men had. Also, his colleagues in the college, having pity on his sad misfortune, brought about by another man’s fraud and malice, wrote and subscribed their names that, save for this single mistake, in other matters he had conducted himself as befitted a righteous, upstanding gentleman. At length the King, touched by pity, forgave both men, all penalties abated, and after five days the Lord Chamberlain fetched them to Court and warned them that in future they should have a better care for themselves, the one man made wiser, the other more honest.
33. Brooke, still ill-disposed toward those of his colleagues who either took precedence over him in dignity or did not defer to him the governance and prerogative of honor in these genealogical studies, lest he be found wanting in his own self-opinion, published in English his work of fifty years adorned by this title, A catalogue and succession of the kings, princes, dukes, since the Norman Conquest, together with their armes (London 1619, folio).
34. Who would not imagine that a man swept away by an itch for contradicting and casting aspersions, who had sharpened his censorious pen against the mistakes of others, would have exercised the greatest prudence in taking precautions lest he become exposed to their just censures, and would have published a work in which not even Momus

could discover anything to be held against him? But this most unfair censor of Camden’s industry, quite heedless of human frailty, now proved by his own example how prone it is in matters of this kind, which ancient time has shrouded in its great darkness, to blind the sight of those involved therein, and of how deeply rooted in his mind was the error with which this self-willed man had so long pleased himself. Camden thought it was his part to demonstrate that nothing deserving of such great boasting had been produced by this braggart, who had strewn his compendium with errors created, not just by idleness and haste, but also by dense ignorance and dullness.

But since Brooke scarcely seemed worthy to fall at the hand of so great a hero, and since his age was that of a retired soldier (he was about seventy), and demanded the wooden sword and a a release from the toilsome chore of fighting, that distinguished gentleman Augustine Vincent, Rouge Croix Pursuivant of Arms, afterwards deservedly appointed Windsor Herald and Custodian of the Tower Archive, took up the cudgels for Camden and injured truth with a book published in English entitled A discoverie of errours in the first edition of the catalogue of nobility, published by Raphe Brooke, Yorke Herald (London 1622, folio). How happily Vincent’s efforts turned out will be evident to anybody from the letters and testimonials of those distinguished gentlemen John Selden, Sir Richard St. George, Norroy King of Arms, and others, by which they are prefixed. Brooke paid his deserved penalties when he discovered he was being measured by his own yardstick, no matter how unwillingly, being destined to leave this memorial to posterity that it is a mark of impiety clownishly to inveigh against great men with foul slanders inspired by hate and envy, and also for a man blotched with the sores of folly to rage against other men’s moles and slight blemishes.
35. Now it is time to resume the narrative thread of Camden’s life, which has been interrupted by these digressions (which, I trust, were lacking in neither pleasure nor point). So that this noble leisure Camden had obtained might be spent to the greatest advantage to public letters and the national honor, he began seriously to ponder the investigation of those who had written on English matters. For he saw that savants of neighboring nations had with a wonderful consensus (which with an identical genius had simultaneously inspired them) invested strenuous and praiseworthy effort in the publication of writers of olden times, particularly of those who, albeit not gifted with the best of styles, yet had memorialized their forefathers’ deeds from their first origins with the greatest credibility, as much as the wasting power of time had allowed. Likewise the domestic examples of those right distinguished gentlemen Dominus Matthew Parker, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Sir Henry Savile, had stimulated him to this undertaking. Camden had regretted and complained (as we in our turn complain today) that suitable men had not yet shown themselves, who might digest into a single work the history of our most noble nation in chronological order, on the basis of the authentic records of ancient times, in a manner befitting the dignity of the subject. And lest any man should find his industry wanting in helping along such an effort (which seemed too much for any one individual, indeed for any one generation), he opened up his treasures, acquired by much expense, sweat, and many sleepless nights, and bestowed them upon the literary world with a generous hand. For from his library

there appeared at Frankfurt in 1603, if not all his authors, at least a number who bore good fruit and were not trivial: Asser Menevensis, Anonymous on William the Conqueror, Thomas Walsingham, Thomas de la More, William Gemeticensis and Girald of Cambrai, who cast much light on the affairs of England, Normandy, Ireland, and Wales, and these he was either the first to edit, or polished them with a finer file on the basis of manuscript evidence. He dedicated this excellent work to the illustrious Sir Fulke Greville, Treasurer of the English Fleet, a supreme sponsor of good letters and literary men, both for the sake of his duty and his gratitude, proclaiming that, in life or on his deathbed, while writing his genius’ everlasting monuments he would never allow the his kindnesss in procuring an unimagined dignity to depart his mind.

In the year 1604 he allowed a small book composed in the English language to see the light, comprising Disquisitions, or a Miscellany of More or Less Serious Work (for thus he called it in his holograph, which he originally intended to dedicate to Sir Fulke Greville, but, since he had very recently displayed his gratitude towards his right excellent benefactor, as if with senses overwhelmed, by a more illustrious proof and token, he published it under the title Remains Concerning Britain, dedicated to the right noble Sir Robert Cotton, knight and Baronet, signed only with the last letters of his name, M. N.

36. But Camden reckoned this among the diversions of his youthful studies, as he did other stuff of the kind with which he deserved well of the dead, retrieving their memory from oblivion. Wherever he visited places where the remains of great men were buried, in his notebooks he recorded their epitaphs and whatever was depicted on their tombstones,

particularly in Oxford college chapels and the Chapel of St. Peter’s at Westminster. For whatever men come to London from outlying regions, even those least curious about such matters, are wont to visit the Abbey, both because of the splendor and magnificence of its fabric and because of the tombs in which lie our Kings, Queens and Peers of high degree; for their sake (not to mention that of us Londoners), so what they have glanced at with a quickly-running eye might be deeper infixed in their memory, in a book published in the year of Christ 1600, issued without its author’s name, he published inscriptions in which are contained a bright summary of these men’s deeds, not bent on seeking the laurel wreath from this place where it is so easily garnered, which lay far beneath so great a man’s dignity, but only out of a straightforward enthusiasm for gratifying such readers.
37. Those men who, caught up in partisan zeal,

do not support the idea of the ancient foundation of the University of Oxford, although they may not have brought suit against Camden for bad faith and breach of contract, nevertheless complain that he dealt with less than full candor and honor, when in his edition of Asser Menevensis’ De Vita et Rebus Gestis Rebus Aelfredi he inserted a lengthy clause concerning “dissent between Grimald and those old Scholastics he had found at Oxford, who upon his arrival wholly refused to embrace the laws, manners and formulae for preaching instituted by the same Grimald,” which was entirely absent from Parker’s edition, so that by this testimony which (if only it were true and authentic) could in no wise be refuted, and would show that the study of good letters had thrived there long before the days of Alfred. At the moment, I do not desire to involve myself in this controversy, waged with great enthusiasm (not to say with pointless diligence) by learned men on both sides in favor of the antiquity and precedence of their Universities: the one side claims Dominus Parker had omitted that passage, to the detriment of their case, “out of hatred for charity or clarity,” whereas the other asserts that Camden had over-hastily inserted it out of excessive partisanship towards the University of Oxford, and as if minded to deceive, impolite insults being traded by both sides, such as it behooves polite men and zealous truth-seekers to hold at arm’s length. These kinds of bad and unjust suspicion neither can nor should fall on either writer. Whoever weighs in his mind their most pious morals, scarce to be sullied by accusations of dissimulating the truth or deliberately planting evidence, will readily concede that both followed the evidence and authority of their manuscripts. For Camden was not thus accustomed to tomfoolery, as certain men are rashly willing to babble, nor was he wont to injure the truth (to which he was most devoted), as if by breaking off and abandoning his effort so he might deceive the literary world. the expertise of his most sagacious mind and his consummate judgment, which shines forth at every point in his writings, forbade the one, the candor of his morals and the probity of his life excluded the other. Hence I cannot sufficiently wonder whence it entered the head of James Ussher of Armachan, that right reverend gentleman of amazing learning, and by what proofs, that he would roundly assert

“Camden never saw an exemplar of that kind but, following the evidence of the man from whom he received it” (but who was he?), “he arranged for it to be inserted his the Frankfurt edition of Asser’s De Rebus Gestis Aelfredi, a thing which I would prefer not to be done by a learned man, since in his following words he concedes that “an exemplar once existed in the possession of Henry Savile of York, and Twyne has seen it in the library of Lord Lumley,“

extending the controversy to include that gentleman in particular, and since in a discussion with that same Twyne, a very learned Oxford antiquarian, held not long before his death proclaimed

“that edition was based on a manuscript which, though not extremely ancient nor written on vellum, was nevertheless respected by himself as being sufficiently old and of proven reliability. It is to be wished that Camden had described the manuscript he had employed, stating in a brief note where he had gotten it and in what style of script is was written, which should have been done, and next that it had been better and more assuredly adjudged whether this fragment (for such they invidiously, not to say unfairly, call it) had Asser for its author, or whether it was subsequently patched into Asser’s pages by some evil-minded interpolator, taken from other men’s annals of lesser credit. But that exception which a certain right learned man raises against the authenticity of this passage, that it is manifestly incompatible with the historical truth of those times, since Gildas, Melkin, Ninn and Kentigern were not contemporaries with St. German, who is said there to have “wonderfully approved of their orders and regulations,” who are agreed to have lived many years after his death, is easily removed if we concede (and indeed we readily do concede it) that those old Scholastics have set aside the reckonings of chronology and claimed for themselves an antiquity which is entire lacking in self-consistency; but nevertheless, seizing from this an opportunity for defending themselves against newcomers and late arrivals, claim it they have. Nor is it anything new to put down one’s adversaries with false authority, especially when controversies heat up the truth of which cannot readily be ascertained, as is attested by the tales about Brutus and Joseph of Arimithea, closer to fables than the truth, advanced by our writers when they have imagined that no little praise and glory accrues to our nation and our Church by this falsely claimed authority.
38. After the death of the most serene Queen Elizabeth of most glorious memory, when King James ascended the throne of his ancestors with the greatest assent and acclaim of the English people, he embraced all his subjects with equal affection, as befitted a common and most kindly father; so that he might with a bond of inviolate loyalty perpetually bind them to himself and the Royal Family by this most generous kindnes, he somewhat loosened the reins on those men over whose stubborn and disobedient minds a previous needful rigor had been exercised to hold them to their loyalty (for the malign minds of Papists and Puritans alike, most different in other respects, were very alike in opposing the Church of England). But they, unswayed by this mercy, nor touched in their affections by such great kindnesses, which they found to increase day by day, as if weary of their personal happiness and of the royal indulgence, and bent upon fomenting revolution, consulted among themselves and entered into a horrendous conspiracy against his life. But this seemed to be of next to no value, unless along with him were destroyed the royal offspring and all the Peerage of the realm together with the minor nobility. So they mercilessly designed to destroy all of these, about to meet at a session of Parliament, with a sudden and unforeseen blast of gunpowder. It is quite clear from the history of these times (which I do not care to repeat here) how nearly miraculous it was that that these attempts were not put into effect, of whose success the conspirators were certain, being bound by a religious oath and the Eucharist to keep this horrible secret hidden in their breasts and not to shrink from this undertaking. But it was of great import, not just to England, but to the whole Christian world that, in books issued by royal authority, it be published everywhere in all parts of Europe as an everlasting memorial of that monstrous and wicked crime, at which all posterity shall stand amazed, which those impious men, inflamed by “their false and preposterous zeal for propagating the Catholic faith” would have committed, had not divine providence interceded, contrary to their hopes and expectation. Nor was any man found fitter than Camden to set forth the matter in Latin, with his easy and accurate style, and with a gravity altogether suitable for the subject-matter that had to be handled therein.

For as a result of his translation came forth that notable volume entitled Actio in Henricum Garnetum Societatis Iesuiticae in Angliae Superiorem, & Caeteros, in which , in colors not to be erased by any art or covered over by any pigment, are depicted all the circumstances of that crime, according to the rule of law and out of the mouths and most certain and voluntary confessions of the guilty parties, together with the circumstances, dogmas and morals of the assassins who made an attempt on the King’s life with horrendous slaughter, under a show of piety. So it should strike no man is strang, if this document greatly displeased the Papists, whose deceits and impious arts, concealed under zeal for the Catholic faith, are revealed there, and if, so it will be less read, his book is altogether prohibited in the Index Expurgatorius, where under the name of Camden (branded with the censure of being a “condemned author.”

And his Britannia partially suffered the same fate, which, since it contains a near-infinitude of observations worthy of reading and learning, the censors, lest they themselves be censured for begrudging those to seekers after good letters and British antiquities, employed their customary arts to expurgate the book, lest it shed the least beam of illumination and readers possessed of the freer kind of intellect and of a mind eager for the truth grow weary of remaining enveloped in the thick shadows of ignorance and superstition.
39. At the same time, i. e. in the year 1607, also came forth his Britannia, greatly increased by his final cares, and illustrated by interspersed maps, impressions of coins, and illustrations of monuments. Since I have already related in due order how this offspring of his fertile and admirable intellect came forth from its first cradle, on what juice it was fed, by what gradual degrees it grew up, and finally how it matured to a thriving adulthood, issuing from his brain in a constant series (with the printing press playing the part of midwife) lest any gap seem to occur, it would be quite superfluous and a work of almost infinite labor to repeat it again. It will suffice to indicate in a word that by this new edition Camden not only surpassed the expectation of his friends, whom he had already put into transports of admiration, but also surpassed himself. and now, with all fame in agreement and with Envy herself, if not falling silent entirely, at least not daring to make a noise save in corners in the company of obscure little gentlemen, by this immortal writing, had the other monuments of his skilled intellect and most keen judgment not existed, he would have deserved to be accounted among the greatest men of his century. Indeed he gained the name and title of the British Varro, the British Strabo, the British Pausanius.

All students and good judges of these things acknowledged it to be a most rich and copious storehouse of British antiquities, collected and assembled with no less accuracy and judgment than care and method, with the sole exception of Dominus Simon Dewey,

who in the History of Great Britain upon which he was exerting himself claimed he would show that “scarcely a single page of Camden’s oft-celebrated Britannia lacks its errors.” But after fifty years neither he nor others have produced this heralded historical opus, nor is their the slightest fear from missiles hurled by that hand (to say nothing more serious or sharp).
40. Having brought this great work to completion after such great and lengthy efforts, Camden now sought an honorable solace for his sold age, and settled upon Chislehurst,

a town at the tenth milestone away from London, for no place seemed more agreeable, and there rented a house where he might retire when wearied by the occupations and troubles which daily crowded in on him more pressingly in the city, and more particularly that he might care for his health, affected and all but undone by his wakeful nights and immoderate studies, and that he might be wholly at leisure for God and for himself. But his pleasure in this suburban retreat was so great that during the year’s season of inclement weather and the the intervals his duties of office allowed, he might live a moderate manner of life, removed from the pomp and trouble of a numerous household, content with a philosophical frugality, yet stained by no meanness, which he abhorred as he did luxury, and that here he wished to live out the rest of his life and, God Almighty willing, die. Henceforth he was in no way to be drawn away from this most peaceful nest of his old age by his friends’ importunate entreaties, not even those of Savile himself, who, according to the rights of friendship, would have invited him to stay with him at Eton, not as a guest, but as a steady and constant life-companion and partner in his fortunes. For he had tarried here or in the house of his Heather, whose probity, diligence and loyalty he had by long experience found reliable in managing his household.
41. From this time, as the following letters will reveal, all men famed here or elsewhere by their repute for learning sought his friendship much more earnestly than heretofore. For there was next to no man possessed of a more cultivated mind, or to whose heart the love of study of letters was dear, who traveled here to England and did not hasten on quick foot to Camden’s house, as if to Apollo’s sacred home, to pay him his devotion, as if all men were of the opinion that the better fruit of a journey would be lost unless one had the opportunity to speak with him and gaze upon him with eager eyes. When certain courtiers belonging to the household of the right illustrious Prince Frederick, Palatine Elector, who had come to London to arrange a marriage with Elizabeth, that noble-minded daughter of King James, had omitted to do this, Gruter rebuked them for their great negligence,

saying that they had ill consulted for their honor inasmuch as they had tarried in England for so many months, “and had failed to consult his unique oracle, nor had taken the aspect of his prime star.” But gentlemen illustrious for the splendor of their birth and dignity acted far differently and better: François Pithou, Nicholaus Faber Piereskius [de Petrusco] and his brother Valavelius, Bongarsius, Hotman, Noaeus, the sons of Marquise La Musse of Brittany, and others whom it would take too long to enumerate here, or men conspicuous for their high office, the Count of Swartzenburg and Marcantonio Columna, the one performing an embassy in the name of the Emperor of Germany, the other in that of the King of Spain, who in the presence of a great bevy of noblemen, setting aside, as it were, their dignity, attested how greatly they esteemed him and his supreme learning in words full of kindly affection. And although Camden inwardly rejoiced with that inner peace conferred by the awareness of a life well lived, he did not in the least grasp at the breeze of popularity, being breathed upon by a diviner one, nor was he zealous for a reputation amongst the surrounding populace or in circles of men of mediocre fortune or understanding, yet he would have had to abandon human feelings and be transformed into a Stoic deserving of banishment without the boundaries of human society for his bestial manners, not to say be hardened into stone, if his mind (no matter how much it was not excited or puffed up by vainglory) should not have been touched by happiness arising from this kind of congratulations. Therefore he will readily be forgiven if, thinking nothing alien to himself, and (partially for his own sake, and partially for that of the right illustrious gentlemen who dignified him with such great honor), he recorded their visits in his diary.
42. Among the foreigners who enjoyed particularly great familiarity and friendship with Camden were Abraham Ortelius, Jacque Auguste De Thou, Peireskius, Hotman, M. F. Limerius, Petrus Putaneus, Jan Gruyter and the Jesuit Andreas Schott, who honored him with duty and constant, sincere affection. The former was engendered by their contemplation of his most deep learning, the latter was infused in their hearts by his most sweet manners and ready attempts to further their studies. And this Dominus Peiriskus especially perceived and experienced, who, born for the promotion of letters, being the tutelary spirit of France, and the common champion and patron of all learned men, wherever they might live, solicited Camden’s aid either in copying out ancient documents and manuscripts or sending them into France, and in his preface to Historiae Normannorum Scriptores Antiqui the right distinguished Andreas du Chesne acknowledged that he had received from Camden “the Praise of Emma, the writings of Guillaume of Picardy, and lists of Norman nobles who went over into England in the time of William the Conqueror,” with which he enhanced that excellent work. But constantly consulted both by most noble men of our nation and by men from elsewhere, from France, Spain, Italy and Germany, concerning historical and genealogical matters, which were pertinent to his official function, he never allowed his assistance to be requested in vain. They hung on his opinions as if on an oracle, thinking that no man but Camden alone could solve puzzles and problems rendered difficult by their extreme antiquity; to whom also resorted those right distinguished men most preeminent in this subject, as often as a point of doubt arose: Theodor Gottfried, Adrian de Meerbeck, first King of Arms in Flanders under the Archdukes of Austria and Burgundy, and Daniel Molineux, distinguished by this same dignity amongst the Irish under the title of Ultonian Herald.
43. In the year of Christ 1609, the seventh of King James, the reverend and right learned Matthew Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter Cathedral, determined to establish Chelsea College on the Thames bankside hard by Westminster, endowed with excellent revenues to subsidize theologians bent on writing against the Papists’ errors and corruptions. And in his wisdom our most serene King James I, judging that this would be most useful, and advantageous for the Reformed Religion, praised the pious proposal and promoted it by royal authority, having issued letters patents that, supported by subsidies contributed by all the clergy of England, a happy conclusion could be made to such a great work. And the King appointed Sutcliffe himself its Master, and seventeen other theologians of great name its Fellows.

But since in his mind he readily foresaw that many points of historical argumentation and which would pertain to the understanding of civil matters would arise in the course these holy disputations in support of truth and religion, he desired that Camden and John Hayward, Doctor of Laws, be coopted into their number, the two most men most knowledgeable in English history. But is irrelevant to the purpose I have set myself, and to this context, to describe the evil fate by which these things came to naught.
44. The accomplishments of the English during the reign of Elizabeth, who, emerging from such great dangers, attained the pinnacle of glory and happiness, constitute a matter most deserving of the memory of all the centuries, and, in accordance with his prudence, that right illustrious gentleman I have so often mentioned, William Cecil, Baron Burleigh, now almost done in by old age and on the point of bidding his farewell to the world, made it his concern that this be bequeathed to posterity, for he believed that, as it seemed, there was no more illustrious proof he could give of his loyalty and duty toward Queen Elizabeth, for whose fame he consulted for no less than her security. But out of thousands scarce one could be found who could handle this matter according to its dignity. Straightway Camden came to mind, recently promoted out of the school to the dignity of King of Arms, whom he knew could excellently play the role of historian.

Therefore he summoned Camden and commanded, exhorted, urged and ordered that he commit the beginnings of the reign to paper in a brief historical compendium, offering to place at his disposal the documents, memoranda, letters, and whatever was stored up in royal archives or is own which would be of assistance for the illumination of those times. And indeed Camden readily complied, a man for whom the sole remaining glory was to obey, lest he seem to have been failing out of modesty (in this case, blameworthy), intent on showing himself a good citizen and likewise a grateful man. Lord Cecil, the instigator and patron of this work, succumbed to the Fates in the following year, and hence Camden admits his industry greatly flagged and he was intent on setting aside this work aside, as if it were a burden greater than he could shoulder. Five years thereafter Queen Elizabeth, full of years and glory, likewise passed away, and he hesitated, more doubtful of mind and meanwhile having conceived the hope that some one out of that number of men whom the Queen had laden with rich revenues and splendid dignities would, at least out of a sense of gratitude, agree to undertake the handling of this subject. And when he awaited this long and in vain, the rest deprecating this work either out of sloth or mistrust of their own powers, infused with a new vigor with which his love of Elizabeth, of Cecil, and of the truth had filled him, he picked up the thread of this history he had begun, and attempted to strive anew with a strong and steadfast mind. With the royal archives thrown open, the bookcases of the Cottonian Library diligently ransacked, and with the parliamentary diaries, the registries of Chancellery, the Exchequer, and other courts, edicts and public acts, and authentic manuscripts in which were contained ambassadors’ documents and letters, the consultations of the Court of Assizes, the secrets of empire, and the rationales for war, peace, and the entry into other treaties all read, so that out of this huge mass of material he had assembled, selected by his architect’s mind and his artist’s hands, and arranged in fair order might finally arise this fair work, which he was now undertaking with seriousness, as a perpetual monument to Elizabeth’s fame.
45. Nevertheless, he proceeded slowly, as the dignity and difficulty of the task most rightly demanded. Finally, in the year of Christ 1615 there came to light Annales Rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum Regnante Elisabetha ad Annum Salutis MDLXXXIX, wherein are described with excellent fidelity and in an easy style most fit for the gravity of history, with all affectation of either intricacy or subtlety which either diminish or obscure the majesty of the facts cast aside, is set forth everything worthy of remembrance and momentous which occurred in England or elsewhere, insofar as they pertain to England, occurring within an interval of thirty years, narrated from their very beginnings and clothed with their due circumstances, which might lead the reader to a deeper understanding of affairs. How truly Camden deserved the praise and title of wisest writer and teacher of civic prudence will be abundantly clear from the testimonials of great men with which these annals were received to be found in these letters, not arising from their adulation or excessive courtesy of manners, but from their judgment and legitimate admiration. We may also learn what our own countrymen felt from that distinguished gentleman John Seldon, a most severe judge.

For he, while making light of the confused farragoes of unlearned men, scraped and bundled together out of popular traditions and low-down writings, or from elsewhere, with no care and judgment, indicates that this history suffers in no respect, but is perfect in all its numbers, saying “At this time no part of English history has existed among us which touches upon the truth and the rich supply of matter that can be gotten from our national archives, excepting only the annals of Queen Elizabeth and life of King Henry VII written by those right excellent and exquisitely learned men [Camden and Bacon] recently published.”
46. But a recent writer, agitated by a keen enthusiasm for laying low his foe (no matter how rightly or wrongly), asserts that Camden changed his mind and in his Annales wrote about matters, particularly Scottish ones, with quite different opinions than once he did in a private letter to De Thou, and that that illustrious gentleman, as if indignant, had objected. But no arguments by which some color of credibility can be imparted to this censure, not to say slander. But so that all suspicion that Camden dealt with bad faith in this respect might be removed, I shall treat the entire issue in a few words (for I am writing neither commentary notes nor a full-blown apology, but a summary of his life and brief defenses).
47. From the time in the year 1606 when Camden entered into friendship with De Thou, thanks to letters sent by means of Lord Lisle, a most learned gentleman and very adept at the Saxons’ language and antiquities, he advised that gentleman (not out of a carping spirit, far less a slanderous one, which was quite alien to a man of most candid manners, who had admired De Thou’s consummate learning, probity, and amazing mental endowments, and whom after his death he deservedly called “the light of France and leading historian of our age,” but according to his love of the truth and the right of friendship, and also invited to give his opinion) that certain stories about affairs in Scotland were based on a very slender foundation or on none at all, and that Buchanan, from whom De Thou had got them, had exerted all the sinews of his intelligence and his malice to damage Queen Mary’s reputation with most foul accusations, since that man could not hope to excuse the treachery and felonious crimes of her rebellious subjects than by a show and pretext of having taken up arms to champion religion and the violated laws of Scotland. Hence came those impious teachings,

all right of government derives from the people; sovereigns are to be compelled to obedience if they commit faults against the law; it is permissible for the people and lower magistrates to reform religion and the republic by force of arms, against the will of those vested with supreme authority, and the rest of this sort of thing, which destroy religion and bring down certain destruction upon the human race. Hence came the libels against Queen Mary to be found in his history of Scotland and most particularly in that infamous pamphlet entitled the Detection. De Thou did not only admit privately that his understanding of English, Scottish and Irish affairs had improved thanks to this exchange of correspondence, but also attested in short notes citing Camden prefixed to his volumes chronicling the histories of his times, since, having followed Buchanan too closely, he had trusted him overmuch, he seriously regretted incurring the censure and wrath of King James. And how much De Thou had erred in this matter will clearly be seen from the comments furnished him by royal command, to be found in an appendix. Which I think is in no wise to be regarded as prejudicial against a most excellent in the eyes of fair judges, since not even the most vigilant man’s diligence can exercise precaution in describing the affairs of a foreign realm, since, either out of a lack of resources, or being misinformed by partisan writers or in conversation with such men, it is all but necessary for him to introduce and intermix something dissonant with the truth.

Had De Thou had received this advice beforehand, he would have maintained a better balance and not been so sharply critical of Queen Mary’s life and morals, he would not have thus cleared Moray of accusations of treachery, hostility against his royal sister, vengefulness, and unbridled ambition, which that most canny artist of lies cloaked under a veil of religion, nor would taken refuge subsequently in excuses of that kind, which bear scarcely an weight at all. It will appear truer than true to the man who considers these things seriously that Camden once wrote to De Thou views no different than those he afterwards introduced in the Annales, no matter what is imagined to the contrary.
48. Other men (among whom is Lewis Du Moulin,

a troublemaker in English affairs from the start of the Civil War, an energetic supporter of Cromwell the tyrant, and after King Charles II’s right auspicious return a most malicious writer against the rites and discipline of the Church of England) lodge the accusation that “another hand made additions contrary to the author’s undoubted intention, for which reason this work was foully disfigured,” with these corruptions being introduced and brought in “with an eye to the flatters of the royal Court” (as he says with his normal candor and modesty). King James was indeed not unaware of the degree to which envy and hatred of his mother both alive and dead had inspired the accusations of Buchanan (an excellent poet, to be sure, but not an excellent historian or antiquarian), and, moved by his piety towards her and his love of the truth, although she was not free of suspicion from all accusations leveled against her, nor had led a life of the most innocent kind, nevertheless, bent on excusing her afresh, did as much as he justly could that she be freed from the most false exaggerations of those who, after having inflicted a thousand insults, finally deposed her from the throne in accordance with the instruction of the Presbyterian sect, by which she was oppressed and shamefully befouled, having to do with the history of that tragic murder, of the quarrel that had arisen between herself and her husband, and of the marriage that followed thereafter.

Nor should anybody rebuke the King or Camden (who learned many things from the King’s own mouth, and confirmed by authentic records), if, insofar as the truth allowed, they were zealous for this most serene Queen, swept away by the girlish emotions of her youth (for her unkind fortune would have rendered her more prudent at an older age), and by the evil arts of Moray her brother and other men, so that she did many things contrary to the laws of decorum and justice. In his prudence Camden refused to offend the King on the basis of uncertain and false rumors, yet in his piety he refused to curry favor with any man by means of falsehood or wrongdoings. As it is fair to believe, the supplement to his annals were not subject to the censure of the King, or of that right noble gentleman perhaps deputed by the King to whom he wrote (for I neither could nor should have held back or suppressed that letter, since I am, albeit concerned for Camden’s reputation, yet more concerned for the truth) for any other reason that the truth would be increasingly revealed, and if anything had crept in due to his carelessness or lack of proper instruction, it would be corrected by royal attention.
49. Many men were concerned about the documents and resources Camden had collected in preparing his Annales, that after his death they would remain safe and untouched. Among whom were Godfrey Goodman, afterward Bishop of Gloucester, a name surely dear to Camden for the sake of both his uncle sake and his father, who, as he himself tells it,

when he wrote a letter requesting that they be bequeathed to him, received the response that this could not be, for the issue was not undecided and this obstacle existed, that the right reverend Dominus Richard Bancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, had made the same request long before. He added that he had undertaken that these would eventually be published, and that those documents (as he heard from Archbishop Laud) were deposited in the chamber above the gate of Lambeth Place. I should be led by scarcely questionable arguments to restrict this remark to those documents concerning the establishment of religion in the first years of Elizabeth’s reign and to others in some manner pertaining to ecclesiastical affairs, which Camden treated sparingly and, as if it were, in passing, being most concerned with the civil history of the reign and leaving sacred to be treated more fully by Church writers, whom it more concerned, which have regretfully perished or by a quite unkind fate have until now been suppressed, while the rest survive in the Cottonian Library. Nobody except the stranger to English affairs does now know with what implacable hatred Presbyterians both English and Scottish burned against the right reverend Dominus Archbishop Laud when the Civil War erupted in the year of Christ 1641, with what very false and foul slanders they savaged his reputation, and with what thoroughly tyrannical violence they savagely dealt with him by subjecting him to capital punishment against all law and justice. For their vengefulness, avarice and zeal for revolution could not be sated save by the bloody death of the man we deservedly called the great pillar of the Church of England under the most pious King Charles I. But when he was thrust in prison, William Prynne (branded for his libellous books) maliciously rooted around in the Dominus Archbishop’s archives, to see if he could find anything from which he could extract something which would lend color to his false accusations, and also so he might remove anything which might have been useful to this most innocent man now to be brought before the court to plead for his life.

Afterward Thomas Scott, one of the parliamentary rabble-rousers, a man bold and daring of tongue and hand, and Hugh Petrie, an infamous and unclean little fellow (the both of whom suffered the just punishment of hanging for regicide twelve years thereafter) plundered his library. Books were stolen therefrom, documents either torn up or burnt, or removed elsewhere, and the sacred furniture became the booty of sacrilegious men. It was possible to rescue only a very little from such great ruins. For after the right reverend Father in Christ Father William Sancroft, Archbishop of Canterbury, had ascended the patriarchal throne of the Church of England at the command of the most serene King Charles II, out of his very devoted enthusiasm for such things he quickly surveyed the nooks and crannies of his library and palace, bent on carefully discovering anything that remained which could prove useful for the Church of England or the See of Canterbury, or for illuminating the history of our nation. And finally when he entered the aforementioned chamber he was confronted by huge piles of resources, as that very pious man, the great and good confessor, condescended to relate to me out of his consummate kindness, and when he had procured their movement to a fitter place, with each one carefully inspected, he discovered that nearly all pertained to the conferral of estates, with all documents by Camden or other men on historical subjects stolen and destroyed.
50. Five years after his history saw the light of day, Lord Maitland, concerned about the reputation of his father Baron Lidington, who by his authority and counsels contributed much of moment and authority while Scottish affairs were most turbulent under the reigns of Mary and James, created trouble for Camden, as if he had reproached this man’s reputation with some clauses introduced, not of his own personal volition and on his own, but suggested by the envy and malice of other men. So far, it is unknown to me whether Camden satisfied his demands or not, since I have not yet encountered his letter of response, but the fair and prudent reader may decide this for himself from his son’s letter, not to mention from the history of the Scots of those times.
51. Meanwhile his friends, having reaped great pleasure and profit from this part of his most noble history, fearing lest his annals be left uncompleted, if unexpected death were to oppress the old man (as not rarely occurs), advised him with their importunate entreaties that, while his health permitted as old age weighed upon him, and while his memory, while his judgment was free of every blemish such as failure mind often introduces in its customary way, and remained untouched and firm, that he seriously bethink himself of finishing it, and adjured him, all but bringing suit. I am not certain that he had not done so already, uninvited, nor does there appear to be much room for doubt that he had made up his mind to complete the work, since this appears probable from a letter De Thou in which courteously asks him to agree to bring down his history to include the beginnings of the reign of King James, to the tenth year of this century (in which the great Henri was taken away by abominable murder), the date to which he himself planned on carrying his own history; it is an anyway clear from a letter to the right distinguished Piet De Put

that he brought the work to conclusion in about the year 1617. But since he shrank from the trouble, unpopularity, criticism and odium that would be created by some malevolent fellows (the common fate of historians who strive for the truth), which he would encounter due to the vice and malice of his age, he set his mind against allowing the edition of a second volume to be extracted from himself by any devices during his lifetime. But that it be preserved complete for posterity, which is wont to form unprejudiced judgments, and that it not be destroyed by fire or any other unfortunate accident, or be suppressed by the ill-will of malicious men, he entrusted an exact copy to the care and loyalty of Piet De Put as if it were a sacred deposit

(with the original, now in the Cottonian Library, retained in his own possession), setting before his eyes the example of the great De Thou, the remaining portion of whose work was unpublished before his death, and would perhaps have perished, since it was not permitted the executors of his will to publish it, unless his prophetic mind had most prudently forestalled this by leaving a copy with that most upright and the right noble Georg Michael Lingelseheim.

But the books survives, protected by Camden’s genius, placed beyond all misfortune, indeed a monument of brass and far more enduring than marble, nor will it ever perish as long as the study of polite letters, as long as the love of truth, as long as the desire to inquire about the deeds of bygone times, and, in sum, as long as this world itself will survive. And, God willing, I shall someday ensure that this work may appear in more perfected condition, enhanced by the many additions made by Camden in his own hand, that I may be of service to the public commodity of literature.

52. But now, the course of his life near run, which he had run on firm and steady foot to the applause of the crowd, and he was nearing the finish-line, applying his mind harder to how he might deserve well of his nation, of posterity, and of letters down through the ages, so that he might fulfill his ambition, he seriously bethought himself of founding a Professorship of History at the University of Oxford. Consider the power of pious and highly praiseworthy rivalry between good men: for the illustrious Savile had recently anticipated him with his own example, thanks to whose generosity, excellently invested in the advancement of fostering and promoting the mathematical sciences at Oxford, for as long as the stars glitter, and the inhabitants of his world retain the employment of numbers or the compasses, and until this earth, knocked from off its foundation, goes a-reeling with unsteady motion, destined to spin into the primal chaos, and the circumambient sea lies still, deprived of its tide, traversable no longer by ships, just as the present age has gratefully acknowledged his generosity, so every coming age will wonder at it. Or rather, how much power was exerted by his observance of that vow which his most pious sense of the divine favor shown him, his concern for the public weal elicited from many years previously, namely that he would “consecrate a dedication to God Almighty and to venerable antiquity!”

So when he had ascertained that this thing would be most agreeable to the University, as if impatient of delay, he commanded that it be hastened along, so that during his lifetime it might be wholly completed according to the strictest terms of our municipal law.
53. Meanwhile there was a competition, not dishonorable, to determine who would be the first to occupy this chair soon to be created: but for this position Camden nominated the right distinguished Digory Whear, lately Fellow of Exeter College, commended by letters of the honorable Chancellor William, Earl of Pembroke, the reverend Dominus William Piers, Dean of Peterborough Cathedral and Vice Chancellor, Thomas Clayton, Regius Professor of Medicine, Thomas Allen, and others, retaining for himself (as was fit) the right of nominating Whear’s successors, with a salary of £140 sterling per annum after the third year (for he would earn only 20 £ in his first year, and £40 in the second).
54. Finally, in a great and crowded Convocation held on 17 May, 1622,

the Vice Chancellor declared that that the right distinguished and excellent William Camden, Clarenceux King of Arms, “the founder of the Professorship of History,” who had endowed the Professor of History with a very generous stipend, guaranteed by a document drawn up in legal form and guaranteed by his own seal and signature on the March 5 1621, the 19th year of the reign of King James,

and acknowledged by himself in the presence of Sir R. Rich, Master in Chancellery, on 14 April 1622, the 20th year of the reign of King James, had sent this document by the hand of Dominus Heather, and in it he had deeded all the rights he had acquired to the estate or manor of Bexley in the country of Kent, with all appertaining rights, profits, &c. to the Chancellor, Masters of Arts and students of the University of Oxford, and to their successors in perpetuity, beginning in the hundredth year after his death, under the inviolate and enduring condition that, in accordance with our national custom, this income be divided into two equal portions, to be paid every six months. But the enjoyment of the usufruct of this estate (which had grown to 400 £ per annum) he gave to William Heather, his wife and heirs, for a period of 99 years from the day of his death, albeit with this income of 140 £ reserved for the salary of his Professor under the very firm condition that this arrangement be undisturbed by any art, by no exceptions, and by no legal pettifoggers’ tricks. Since this very generous founder set forth no regulations, but left this wholly to the discretion of the University, in the same Convocations the delegates were appointed who would consult upon the statutes and rules governing the place,

time, auditors, fines, and the other things pertinent to the happy performance of this duty. At the same time, William Heather (who revered Camden as if he were his father and patron, and whom in turn Camden loved most dearly like a son and one of his closest friends), King James’ Master of Music in the Chapel Royal, and Orlando Gibbon, another of Camden’s friends, right skilled in the musical art, were promoted to the title, grade and dignity of Doctor of Music,

since the Vice Chancellor had spontaneously said that this would be gratifying to their benefactor Camden.

And Heather repaid such great kindness and honor with one of his own, for afterwards he arranged for a Lecturership in Music with an annual income of £16 8 d. Immediately by a letter sent to Camden the University acknowledged his munificence, and the great boon it had acquired, which I regret to say I have yet to find, since it is retained neither among Camden’s documents nor in the registers in the Oxford archive, unless somebody can persuade himself that the college of Christ Church undertook this responsibility, whose gratulatory letter I exhibit.
55. Afterwards, for the sake of Dominus Whear, lest any man raise a controversy over his right, not sufficiently confirmed by the pure and simple fact of his nomination, Camden transmitted to the University a bond of

ure, legally drafted in this verbal formula:

I, William Camden, have established and appointed Digory Whear, a man recommended me by letters of the honorable Chancellor, Vice Chancellor, and a number of right learned gentlemen, and afterwards thoroughly familiar to me by personal intercourse and thanks to his dissertations on historical subjects, as first Professor of History, and that I desire that he first read Lucius Annaeus Florus to the students, and whichever authors he sees fit.

56. But when the delegates charged with the authority to establish the statues of the Professorship of History adjudged that it would be more advantageous if the Camden Professor should devote his effort and study to Church History, with the Professor being granted a sabbatical and be excused from his ordinary lectures so he might make himself more suitable and fit for this duty, and since Whear shrank from entering to this new method and purpose of study, with which he was quite unfamiliar, at an adult age, for his sake, in a letter written 6 January 1622/3, Camden attested that he had established this Professorship for the study of secular history exclusively. It appears regrettable that thus far none of the clergy has set himself up as an emulator of Camden, for that part of history concerned with the study of holy and ecclesiastical matters lacks its illustrator and champion. Although it is clearer than daylight that since the beginning of the reformed Church we have had, and still do have, many clerics eminent in this branch of studies, which they ought to study by force of the canons, the fair-minded reader will nevertheless grant me this, that it would redound no small amount to the splendor and glory of the University, or to the utility and advantage of the students of letters therein, if (as I have so very often hoped with my most ardent prayers) a professorial position of that kind could be established, supported by a generous, or at least a moderate stipend. But that I might return to the highway from this diversion, Whear had much more to fear from a rival who was greatly chagrined that this academic province did not come to him, for he would have been deposed from his office by the man’s arts and craftiness, had he not been opportunely on his guard. For Brian Twyne, most learned (as Envy herself will admit) in English antiquities, whom Camden had settled upon as Whear’s successor should anything befall him according to humanity’s common lot, doing so either because he was captivated by the man’s dutifulness, or out of affection for him and his studies, so that he would not flag in them, as if neglected. By means of his friends’ importunate entreaties he got these words to his advantage inserted in the same document signed 21 March 1622/23: “the next bestowal, conferral or appointment of the Professorship of History after the death, resignation or demission of Digory Whear,” undertaking to pay a sum of sum to Whear, should he resign. And when Camden learned of this from certain courtiers who were Twyne’s partisan advocates, in a letter to Whear he most grievously complained that a fraud had been perpetrated upon himself. Yet although he was offended he refused to revoke this letter extorted by unseemly canvassing, which were produced by Twyne after Camden’s death, and read and ratified by the University in Convocation on 8 January 1624.

But upon Twine’s death (to whom the founder’s letter gave the right of succession, had he survived) the University, now at liberty and not bound to any other man, claimed the right of appointing the Professor for all future time.

And so that Whear might show his diligence and gratitude, in the year 1623 he published his maiden work, De Ratione et Methodo Legendi Historias, dedicated to his patron and benefactor, a book which, subsequently enriched by large additions, has appeared here among us Englishmen and abroad. This is indeed a most useful book, and worth the handling by the young men of the University.
57. Now, the burden of his estates being set aside, the divine old man’s mind was freer and yearned for heaven more eagerly and ardently, and, as if weary of having gained his wish of long life, he composed himself for death, for he had been warned both by his old age and by infirmities increasing day by day that it was imminent, and he devoted himself wholly to duties of piety, as a good man and a Christian should; he consoled his mind by contemplation of the divine goodness he had experienced throughout his life, and by the pleasant hope of achieving a better life and happiness through Christ. And, being concerned lest anything earthly interfere with his holy meditations and hold back his soul at its point of departure, he took an interest in disposing of what little which he had held back for himself, and he drew up a testament in his own hand, with nobody else aware of it, on 21 May 1623,

at the outset of which was this mention of divine mercy, as if prefixed as a title, in this solemn verbal formula, “God have mercy on me, a sinner,” and he professed, as he should, his faith that that “all his hope reposed in the infinite mercy of Jesus Christ his Savior and Redeemer.” Next he wrote a little about the disposal of his body at whatever place he chanced to die, and inserting a number of sums to men of slender means, to others of even his moderate acquaintance, and for the use of the poor, lest even at the threshold of his death-agony he seem forgetful of the friends he had cultivated with consummate duty and affection, as legacies or tokens of a friendship that would have been immortal, had this been allowed by Fate’s laws. It will perhaps not displease the reader if I itemize them in detail. First, he bestowed a silver tankard of the value of £10 on Sir Fulke Greville, Baron Brooke and Chancellor of the Exchequer, “by whose freely offered kindness,” his words ran, “he was promoted to the office and dignity of King of Arms.” He left money to the London Guild of Painter-Stainers with which to buy two tankards to be inscribed with his name; sixteen pounds to his very old friend Thomas Allen of Gloucester Hall, Oxford; five to Jan Gruter, Librarian to the Palatine Elector at Heidelberg; four to Sirs Francis Leigh and Peter Manwood, four to Sir William Pitt, all knights, and five to John Seldon of the Inner Temple for the purchase of rings; next, he bequeathed four to each Herald and two to each Pursuivant as a token (albeit a small one) of his affection and charity.

And he left all his books both printed and manuscript, and whatever was included in the furniture of his library, with the exception of all the ancient seals and manuscripts pertaining to heraldry and genealogy (which he bequeathed to his successors to be a help for them) to the right noble Sir Robert Cotton, knight and Baronet. But since (as the right noble Sir John Cotton, Baronet, son of Thomas and grandson of Robert, heir to the ancestral glory and virtue of his illustrious ancestors, told me) at the urging of Dominus John Williams, Dean of Westminster Abbey, Bishop of Lincoln and Keeper of the Great Seal of England, threatened to take advantage of bringing suit because of an English homonym in Camden’s will, or more likely at the urging of his own love of good letters, Cotton afterwards donated to them to the new library in Westminster Abbey. He wished as much or as little that remained after these legacies had been paid to be belong to William Heather by full right of possession. And for the better execution of what he had ordained in this signed document, he appointed Sir Robert Cotton and John Wise executors, whose trust and friendship he had enjoyed for many years, with a bequest of £10 left to each, so they might dress in black on the day of his funeral.
5 8. At length, worn out by old age, he awaited his death (to which he had long become accustomed) in a very courageous and Christian manner, as if in his eagerness for eternal happiness it seemed to be delaying, and at his well-beloved manor at Chislehurst on the ninth day of November 1623 he have up the ghost to God Almighty, having not completed the seventy-third year of his life,

most peaceful in death, as he had been in life.
59. Out of love for the deceased, the executors of his will went against his injunctions in this one respect, that his body was to be taken from the countryside to Westminster, to buried in that most august Abbey among the heroes of bygone centuries, to the applause of his friends, since they thought that would be the will and expectation of excellent men. This was demanded by his dignity, and by their piety, that he be given public honors.
60. On the nineteenth day of the same month his funeral was celebrated with great estate. First twenty-six needy old men clad in long gowns processed, then in their order noblemen dressed in mourning, armigerous gentlemen, knights, Sir Henry Bourchier, afterwards Earl of Bath by right of succession, Sir Francis Leigh K. B., Sir Robert Cotton, knight and Baronet, Heather, Doctor of Music (whom Camden had appointed his executor), Sutton, Doctor of Theology and Prebend of the Abbey, soon to deliver the sermon.

His kinsman Wyatt carried the banner, followed by Philip Holland, Portcullis, and Augustine Vincent, Rouge Croix, dressed in their tabards like the other members of the College of Heralds. John Philipot, Rouge Dragon, bore the deceased’s helmet and crest, and Samuel Thomson, Windsor Herald, carried in his hands a shield upon which his achievement of arms was painted. The body followed next, over which was a pall of woven black silk, and his tabard and the crown he had worn on his head on the day of his inauguration placed next to it, and it was supported on either side by Sampson Leonard, Bluemantle Herald, Henry Chitting, Chester Herald, Henry St. George, Richmond Herald, and William Penson, Lancaster Herald. After the bier marched Sir William Segar, Garter, the principal King of Arms, flanked by Sir Richard St. George, Norroy King of Arms, and Robert Treswell, Somerset Herald. In most splendid and fair order also processed the right honorable Keeper of the Great Seal, with the officials bearing the insignia of his great dignity going on before, the Earl of Leicester, Viscount Grandison, the Bishops of London, Winchester and Durham (what great men) and other venerable prelates, Lords Paget and Carew and other right noble Barons, who were followed by a bevy of knights and gentlemen, closing this procession. In the Abbey narthex the canons, vicars and singing-men met the body and escorted it into the nave, and then when Sutton had preached his very pious and elegant sermon, with solemn rites they committed it to earth in the south apse, outside the choir to the west side, hard by that great man Isaac Casaubon, in the general vicinity of the tomb of Chaucer, in the certain hope of an easy resurrection. A number of commoners also came flocking in dense throngs, both in the streets along the processional route and in the Abbey, whom Camden’s reputation for dignity and virtue had enticed to this funereal show. For nearly no man of more upright probity or reputation for erudition had lived, or had died with greater praise for his piety, and, finally, no man had been buried with more solemn estate.

His friends, having performed this last duty of piety and friendship, now bidding a final farewell (until eternity’s dawning should begin to shine) to this excellent man, who deserved most excellently of his nation and of letters, did not attend him with womanly tears or unseemly weeping, but with praise and admiration, determined, even if he had been taken from their sight, never to allow him to escape their memory.

61. After the Oxford men had learned that Camden had removed to the home of the blessed, since he had lived long enough for himself, long enough for them, they thought it their part not so much to grieve as to testify as to what veneration they bore towards a man who had lived an excellent life, touched by a just sense of gratitude. For it seemed a small thing that Whear had celebrated Camden’s memory in front of his auditors in the School of History on the second day of September, when the circumstances of his private duty seemed to require this, unless public honor was also shown to Camden’s shade in the name of the University. This task was delegated to that gentleman of most elegant wit, Zouch Townley of Christ Church, a solemn assembly was appointed, to which the Doctors, Masters and student body strove to come, bent on hearing the praises of no other man with more avid ears or louder applause. The right eloquent orator did not fail either Camden or himself. But in accordance with prudence and piety, the University did not think its duty was thus performed fully, being bent on consecrating a more enduring monument to Camden’s fame. And so a little, at the bidding of its higher officers, it pleased the University that verses composed in Camden’s praise by sons of the Muses be collected in a volume and published at the beginning of the year 1624 under the title Camdeni Insignia, and at length

in a great and solemn Convocation held on 18 December, scarce a month after his funeral, by unanimous vote it was decreed by the Academic Senate that “because of his immense generosity to the University of Oxford” Camden was added to the number of benefactors along the rest, i. e., that on appointed days of celebration that Camden’s memory (together with that of his friend Savile, who, although unalike in origins and fortune, was his equal in virtue and learning, both of them being supreme) would be celebrated, his name being expressly mentioned along with those of the most serene Kings and Queens, right reverend Archbishops and Bishops, and most distinguished Peers and great men of the realm. Camden’s memory thrives among the Oxford men, and will never be abolished. lndeed it will thrive among all men forever, as long as letters endure.
62. He was possessed of a vigorous body, just stature, and handsome countenance upon which sat gravity, which his surviving portraits show. For, overcome by the importunate requests of Piereskius and other friends, who asked this of him so they might better contemplate his endowments of mind by daily keeping his image before their eyes, he at length consented to have himself painted. For the colleagues in his College wished to have have a part of him, although a most imperfect one, present and present in their consultations as somebody they might imitate. Likewise, since Camden was the son of a painter, so they might consult for the honor of their art, the London Guild of Painter-Stainers possessed a lifelike portrait of him in their headquarters. Both perished in the fire. But before that fatal blaze wrought its most deplorable ruin on the city, Sylvanus Morgan (a painter by profession, but excellently trained in the liberal arts and very learned in genealogies, as his books The Sun-dial and The Sphere of Gentry show)

took care to represent him as well as artistic hand could. And, not content with this, he ordered another to be made, which he has as a sign at his door, embellished by many curious details. But a better fate awaits the other originals (as they say) of Camden: one that Marcus Gheeraerts painted,

which was Whear’s own property, and that, lest it be deprived of such an ornament, he dedicated to the School of History with a solemn speech on 26 November 1626 in the presence of the senior officials of the University, with his coat of arms and the motto he was wont to use, PONDERE NON NUMERO, painted at the top, with these verses placed underneath: