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Some New Light on the Career of Laurence Nowell the Antiquary

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 November 2011

Pamela M. Black
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Summary

It has long been thought that Laurence Nowell, Dean of Lichfield and Laurence Nowell, antiquary and tutor in the household of Sir William Cecil, were one and the same person. However, evidence embodied in a Court of Requests Case of 1571 has recently given rise to doubts as to whether the dean and antiquary were, indeed, one. A re-examination of evidence already known and the discovery of some new documents sheds further light on the career of Laurence Nowell, antiquary, and tends to substantiate the claim that the dean and antiquary should be ‘separated’. The evidence remains inconclusive but the reputation of Laurence Nowell, antiquary, as a scholar and cartographer suffers in no way from the possibility that he may not have been Dean of Lichfield.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Antiquaries Journal , Volume 62 , Issue 1 , March 1982 , pp. 116 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1982

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References

Summary

1 Flower, R., ‘Laurence Nowell and the discovery of England in Tudor times,’ Proc. British Academy, xxi (1936), 47–73.Google Scholar

2 Warnicke, R. M., ‘Note on a Court of Requests case of 1571, English Language Notes, xi (1974), 250–6Google Scholar. Dr. Warnicke has restated her case more recently in a paper entitled ‘The Laurence Nowell Manuscripts in the British Library’, British Library Journal, v (1979), 201–2Google Scholar. Among the manuscripts formerly ‘credited to the Dean of Lichfield’ and listed by Dr. Warnicke as being in the British Library, MS. Cotton Vespasian A.v. in fact contains only three transcripts by Nowell, albeit important ones, occupying fols. 93–202, while fols. 1–92 are made up of a series of transcripts by William Lambarde, all seemingly transcribed in the period 1568 to about 1576, that is, after Nowell had left for France. Dr. Warnicke's statement that MS. Cotton Domitian viii is a ‘Nowell manuscript’ would appear to be a repetition of a misprint in Flower's article where MS. Cotton Domitian viii is described as ‘a collection of maps and historical texts’, which it is not; ‘viii’ here is obviously a misprint for ‘xviii’. (See R. Flower, op. cit., p. 53.)

3 The exact date of Nowell's departure for France is recorded in Lambarde's diary. The entry reads: 1567. March 25. Anno a nato Saluatore 1567 in gallia ‘vehitur Laurentius Noelus, mei amantissimus’. The diary is still in private hands and Dr. Warnicke was able to obtain access to it. However, this entry is among extracts printed in Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica, ii (1876), 99–114.Google Scholar

4 P. M. Black, ‘Laurence Nowell's “disappearance” in Germany and its bearing on the whereabouts of his Collectanea 1568–1572’, English Historical Review, xcii (1977), 345–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5 R. M. Warnicke, ‘Note on a Court of Requests case of 1571’, … 254. Dr. Warnicke bases her conclusions on evidence presented in Grosart, A. B. (ed.), The Towneley Hall Manuscripts: the Spending of the Money of Robert Nowell of Reade Hall … 1568–1580, 2 vols. (Manchester, 1877). See especially a long note on Thomas Nowell of Runcton on p. 261.Google Scholar

6 A. B. Grosart, op. cit., p. 261.

7 The best known manuscript to have passed through Bowyer's hands was the Lindisfarne Gospels (See Brown, T. J., et al. (eds.), Codex Lindisfarnensis, 2 vols. (Lausanne, 1959–1960)Google Scholar, ii, pp. 25–26.) He is also known to have owned Oxford Bodleian Lib. MS. Bodl. Tanner 165, the fifteenth-century Register of Prior W. de Molash, of Christ Church, Canterbury; Cambridge Trinity College MS. R.5.33, fols. 77–87, a thirteenth-century inventory of chartters (temp. Henry III) from Glastonbury, and Brit. Lib. MSS. Harley 3776, 3766, the ‘Codex Ruber’ from Waltham Abbey, a fourteenth-century collection of miscellaneous religious, and historical tracts (See Davis, G. R. C., Medieval Cartularies of Great Britain (London, 1958), p. 22Google Scholar, no. 188, p. 50, no. 438 and p. 114, nos. 995–996.) For Bowyer's ownership of Brit. Lib. MS. Cotton Otho D.viii, fols. 8–173 and Cambridge Trinity College MS. 0.2.51, fly leaves, Tassionale Sancti Ignati primum’, see Ker, N. R., ‘Membra Disiecta, 2nd series’, British Museum Quarterly, xiv (1939–1940), 85.Google Scholar

8 I am also indebted to the late Dr. N. R. Ker for some of this information on Nowell at Christ Church and would like to acknowledge the many helpful suggestions he contributed to the writing of this article. I would also like to express my gratitude to Professor E. L. G. Stones for critically reading this article and suggesting numerous alterations and improvements.

9 Calendar of S.P. Foreign. Elizabeth (1558–9), no. 68, p. 22. This letter was noted by Christina Garrett in her biography of Laurence Nowell (Garrett, C. H., The Marian Exiles (Cambridge, 1938), pp. 238–9) where it is used to suggest that the ‘Mr. Noel’ mentioned is Laurence not Alexander, as the latter is known to have spent his years of exile exclusively in Frankfurt. Dr. Warnicke used Garrett's account to suggest that it was the antiquary and not the dean who was ‘a Marian exile’ in France but she does not seem to have noticed the significance of this letter for the antiquary's early career as a tutor to a family travelling on the Continent.Google Scholar

10 C. H. Garrett, op. cit., p. 239.

11 Ibid., pp. 177–8.

12 Grimble, I., The Harington Family (London, 1957). pp. 63–75Google Scholar

13 Hughey, R., John Harington of Stepney: Tudor Gentleman, his Life and Works (Columbus, Ohio, 1971)Google Scholar

14 Calendar of S.P. Foreign. Elizabeth (1561–62), no. 1051, p. 631. I quote the original as it supplies slightly more information than Dr.Warnicke gives and also corrects the misprint of ‘marshes’ for ‘marches’ which her article contains.

15 Calendar of S.P. Foreign. Elizabeth (1569–71), no. 875.

16 DNB and C. H. Garrett, op. cit., p. 267. Both quoting from p. 231 of the 1735 ed. of Melville's Memoirs.

17 DNB quoting from G. Buchanan, Opera Omnia ii. Appendix, p. 18.

18 C. H. Garrett, op. cit., p. 267. In fact Randolph's letter to Cecil mentioning Nowell's map-making skill is only a covering letter to a ‘secret’ report on the various plots and counter-plots rife at the Scottish court in the spring of 1562 and details of interviews Randolph had had with some of the main protagonists.

19 Tyake, S. and Huddy, J., Christopher Saxton and Tudor Mapmaking (Brit. Lib. Series, No. 2, London, 1980), pp. 14–5 and pp. 25–6, respectively. The maps are illustrated on pp. 14 and 26. The original of Cecil's ‘map’ is in P.R.O.S.P. 59/5. 403.Google Scholar

20 Calendar of S.P. Foreign. Elizabeth, xxv, no. 58, p. 211. (No. 59 is a rough draft of this letter.)

21 Calendar of S.P. Foreign. Elizabeth, xxvi, no. 19, p. 213. In a further letter, dated 28th December 1562. the problem of whether or not to visit Italy has still not been resolved, but both Windebank and his young charge wish they were in England. ‘Germany is not the place to acquire the accomplishments of a gentleman’. (Ibid., no. 26, p. 213.)

22 Brit. Lib. MS. Add. 35, 831, fol. 30.

23 Brit. Lib. MS. Add. 35, 831, fol. 36.

24 For some account of Thomas Windebank, see Barnett, Richard C., Place, Profit and Power: a Study of the Servants of William Cecil, Elizabethan Statesman (Chapel Hill, 1969), pp. 146–54. It may be significant that Windebank left Cecil's service on the return of the travellers to England, early in 1563.Google Scholar

25 For a description of this manuscript and a note on Nowell's connection with it, see Stones, E. L. G. and Simpson, G. G., Edward I and the Throne of Scotland 1290–1296 (Oxford, 1978), 1, pp. 67–72, especially p. 68 and 11, pp. 397–8. The authors also draw attention to Nowell as one of the annotators of P.R.O. E. 39/15/4, an instrument drawn up by the notary Andrew Tange at the beginning of the fourteenth century, containing a version of the historical precedents for the claims of Edward I in Scotland (ii, p. 25 and p. 297n.)Google Scholar

26 Rosier, James L., ‘A new Old English glossary: Nowell upon Huloet’, Studia Neo-philologica, xlix (1977), 189–94.Google Scholar

27 Ibid., p. 190. The list appears on one side of a page preceding Huloet's Forward.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid., p. 194.

30 Neve, J. Le, Fasti Ecclesiae Anglicanae 1541–1857, ii, Chichester Diocese, compiled by Horne, J. M. (London, 1971), p. 27 and footnote 2.Google Scholar

31 The Acts of the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral Church of Chichester, 1545–1642, ed. Peckham, W. D. (Sussex Record Society, lviii, 1959), pp. 70–1, no. 744.Google Scholar

32 R. Flower, op. cit., p. 55.