Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 17.djvu/395

 topographical arrangement. That in the British Museum (Harl. MS. 1990) belonged to the second Randle Holme; another in the library at Wrottesley, Staffordshire, seems to have been Camden's (Hist. MSS. Comm. 2nd Rep. app. p. 49). In 1844 William Salt, F.S.A., printed twenty copies of ‘A List and Description of the Manuscript Copies of Erdeswick's Survey of Staffordshire, which have been traced in Public Libraries or Private Collections, 1842–3;’ it had previously appeared in Harwood's 1844 edition of the ‘Survey,’ pp. lxxix–ci. Erdeswicke had intended to include Cheshire in the ‘Survey.’ His collections for that county are Harl. MS. 506, ‘Mr. Erdeswicke's Booke of Cheshire,’ with additions by Laurence Bostock and Ralph Starkey; Harl. MS. 338, genealogical notes and extracts from charters, and Harl. MS. 1990, which contains three leaves of description. An excellent abstract of the deeds of the barons of Kinderton by him is preserved in the College of Arms. Another copy, marked as liber H. in Sir Peter Leycester's collection, is yet in the library at Tabley (, Cheshire, i. xvii). ‘Excerpta ex stemmate baronis de Kinderton,’ by his kinsman, Sampson Erdeswicke of London, is in the British Museum, Addit. MS. 6031, f. 165. Other miscellaneous collections among the Harl. MSS. are in those numbered 818, extracts from his Staffordshire collections 5019, notes taken out of the registers of various places 1985, ex chartis S. Erdeswicke; while pedigrees of his family are to be found in Nos. 381, 1052, and 4031. Addit. MS. 6668, f. 317, has also a pedigree with deeds. Addit. MS. 5410 is a large vellum roll nearly 12 feet in length by 2 feet 2 inches in breadth, entitled ‘Stemmata et propagines antiquæ familiæ de Erdeswick de Sandon,’ and written and emblazoned by Robert Glover, Somerset herald, for Erdeswicke in 1586. It was presented to the Museum by Thomas Blore [q. v.] in 1791. There is also in the Harleian collection (No. 473) a thin octavo book which once belonged to Sir Simonds D'Ewes, and described by him as ‘Certaine verie rare Observations of Chester, and some parts of Wales; with divers Epitaphes, Coats Armours, & other Monuments. … All taken by the Author, who seems to me to have been Sampson Erdeswicke, A.D. 1574.’ The writer gives an account of an antiquarian ramble taken with Edward Threlkeld, LL.D., chancellor of Hereford and rector of Great Salkeld in Cumberland, whom he styles ‘one of my old acquayntance syns K. Edward his tyme.’ The handwriting is certainly not his, and Erdeswicke, a strict catholic, would not have been in familiar intercourse with a protestant clergyman. Threlkeld makes no mention of Erdeswicke in his will (registered in P. C. C., 9, Leicester). The portion relating to Cumberland, Northumberland, &c., was printed in 1848 by M. A. Richardson of Newcastle, in his series of reprints of rare tracts.

Erdeswicke died in 1603, on 11 April, say Fuller and Wood, but his will is dated 15 May of that year. He was buried in Sandon Church, ‘which church was a little before new glazed and repaired by him’ (, loc. cit.). He was twice married, first to Elizabeth, second daughter and coheiress of Humphrey Dixwell of Church-Waver, Warwickshire, and secondly, 24 April 1593, to Mary, widow of Everard Digby of Tugby, Leicestershire, and second daughter of Francis Neale of Prestwold-in-Keythorp in the same county. He had issue by both marriages. Against the north wall of the chancel in Sandon Church is a colossal monument erected by himself in 1601, representing his own figure, 6 ft. 10½ in. in length. In two niches above are seen his two wives kneeling. The monument, which bears an inscription giving the descent of the family from 20th William I, was tampered with about 1756, when the chancel was repaired; originally it must have stood nearly twenty feet. An engraving of it in its first state faces p. 41 of Harwood's 1844 edition of the ‘Survey.’ From his will, or rather indenture, of 15 May 1603, made between him and four Staffordshire gentlemen, proved in P. C. C. 6 Oct. 1603 (registered 82, Bolein), it would seem that Erdeswicke died insolvent. Two children only are mentioned, his daughters Mary and Margery Erdeswicke. He is said to have been a member of the Society of Antiquaries, founded by Archbishop Parker about 1572 (Archæologia, i. ix).

Contemporary allusions to Erdeswicke attest the value and thoroughness of his work. In a well-known passage Camden celebrated him as ‘venerandæ antiquitatis cultor maximus’ (Britannia, ed. 1607, p. 439). William Burton writes in a similar strain in a Latin preface evidently intended for his ‘Leicestershire,’ first printed by Stebbing Shaw in the ‘Gentleman's Magazine,’ vol. lxviii. pt. ii. p. 1011. Many years later Fuller acknowledged the assistance he had derived from the ‘Survey’ (Worthies, ed. 1662, ‘Staffordshire,’ p. 46). The ‘Survey,’ with Degge's letter, was first printed by Curll, entitled ‘A Survey of Staffordshire. … With a description of Beeston Castle in Cheshire; publish'd from Sir W. Dugdale's transcript of the author's original copy. To which are added, Observations on the possessors of monastery-lands in Staffordshire: by Sir S. Degge,’ 8vo, Lon-