Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 18.djvu/391

 Buckhurst and Master Edward Ferrys, for such doings as I have seen of theirs, do deserve the highest prize.’ There can be no question that in the first passage Puttenham refers to George Ferrers's court masques, and in the second to Ferrers's share in the ‘Mirror for Magistrates.’ Meres, in his ‘Palladis Tamia,’ 1598, enumerates ‘among our best for tragedy’ ‘Master Edward Ferris,’ and this name is immediately followed by the words ‘the author of the “Mirror for Magistrates,”’ positive proof that Meres was writing of George Ferrers. Wood in the first edition of his ‘Athenæ’ depended literally on Puttenham and Meres, and gave brief memoirs of both Edward and George Ferrers, ascribing to the former the share in the ‘Mirror for Magistrates’ which undoubtedly belongs to the latter. He identified his Edward Ferrers with a member of the Baddesley Clinton family of Warwickshire, of whom he knew nothing beyond the name [see ]. In the second edition Wood corrected some errors in his accounts of Edward and George Ferrers, but insisted that Puttenham and Meres made it plain that George Ferrers had a contemporary named Edward who excelled as a dramatist. Warton, however, after much hesitation, came to the conclusion that the only author of Edward VI's time bearing the surname of Ferrers was George Ferrers, and that the existence of Edward Ferrers as a dramatic author was due to Puttenham's and Meres's errors. Ritson contested this conclusion, but Joseph Hunter and Philip Bliss support Warton. The only alleged piece of evidence which has come to light since Warton wrote proves very delusive. In 1820 there was printed ‘Masques performed before Queen Elizabeth, from a coeval copy in a volume of MS. Collections by Henry Ferrers, esq., of Baddesley Clinton, in the co. of Warwick, in the possession of William Hamper, esq.’ There are three masques here, only one of which was printed before (in the ‘Phœnix Nest,’ 1593, and in Nichols's ‘Progresses,’ vol. iii.) The ‘British Museum Catalogue’ boldly ascribes them all to George Ferrers. But Henry Ferrers, to whose library the manuscripts are said to have belonged, was son of that Edward Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton upon whom Wood foists the designation of dramatist, and hence it might appear that William Hamper's volume supplies masques that may be attributable to the disputed Edward Ferrers. Internal evidence shows, however, that the three masques were written about 1591. George Ferrers had then been dead twelve years, and Edward Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton twenty-seven years. The authorship of the masques cannot therefore be assigned to either of them. There is better reason for assigning them to Henry Ferrers himself [q. v.], who is credited by Wood with poetical proclivities in youth.

[Cooper's Athenæ Cantabr. i. 386, 566; Literary Remains of Edw. VI (Roxburghe Club), clxxii–vi. 218, 382–3; Biog. Brit.; Collier's Annals of the Stage; Machyn's Diary (Camd. Soc.), pp. 327–8; Hall's Chronicle; Grafton's Chronicle; Mirror of Magistrates, ed. Haslewood, 1815; Returns of Members of Parliament, pt. i. Appendix xxx. xxxiii.; Wood's Athenæ Oxon., ed. Bliss, i. 443; Chronicle of Queen Jane and Queen Mary, (Camden Soc.), pp. 135, 188; Collier's Hist. English Dramatic Poetry, i. 146, 149; Warton's Hist. English Poetry (1871), iv. 164 et seq., 195, 214, 218; Ritson's English Poets; Hunter's Manuscript Chorus Vatum in Addit. MS. 24491, f. 377.]  FERRERS, HENRY (fl. 1086), Domesday commissioner, was the son of Walkelin, lord of Ferrières St.-Hilaire in Normandy, who was slain during the minority of William the Conqueror. Wace makes him, as ‘Henri le Sire de Ferriers,’ present at the battle of Hastings. He is found in ‘Domesday’ (1086) in possession of estates in fourteen counties, his chief possessions being in Derbyshire, where he held a hundred and fourteen manors. His principal seat was Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, which had been previously held by Hugh d'Avranches, earl of Chester ( ii. 222). He also had a grant of the lands of Godric, sheriff of Berkshire (Domesday Book). He is found acting in Worcestershire as one of the Domesday commissioners (, fol. 135). Shortly afterwards he founded, in conjunction with his wife Bertha, Tutbury Priory (Mon. Angl. iii. 391).

[Domesday Book (Record Commission); Heming's Cartulary of Worcester, ed. Hearne; Ordericus Vitalis (Société de l'Histoire de France); Monasticon Anglicanum, new ed.; Freeman's Norman Conquest, vol. iv.]  FERRERS, HENEY (1549–1633), antiquary, son and heir of Edward Ferrers [q. v.] of Baddesley Clinton, Warwickshire, by Bridget, daughter and heiress of William, lord Windsor, was born in that county on 26 Jan. 1549. He became a student at Oxford, probably as a member of Hart Hall, in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's reign, but it is not known whether he took a degree. Afterwards he retired to his patrimony, and devoted himself to the study of heraldry, genealogy, and antiquities. He was the earliest collector of materials for the history of his county, with the exception of John Rous, and he intended to publish a ‘Perambulation of 