Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 8.djvu/258

254 to a deed, 6 April, "in the year from the beginning of the reign of Henry VI. 49, and in the first year of his recovery of royal power." (Deeds for this short term, 9 Oct., 1470-April, 1471, are rare.) An isolated instance of Daniel Gary's name occurs 7 April, 2 and 3 Philip and Mary. In Letters Patent, 20 June, 1665, exemplifying a charter concerning the boundaries of Holmere Heath, the name of Walter Gary Appears:—

There is no doubt that the Gary family occupied an important position in the county of Buckingham, and that it was one of the chief families of High Wycombe up to the end of the sixteenth century, and perhaps a little later. Branches of the family were found in Bucks at Quainton, near Aylesbury, and Easington, near Thame. Lipscomb gives a short pedigree of the Easington branch, connecting them with the Carys of Castle Gary, Somerset. I find that in 1546 there was a grant to Sir Maurice Berkeley:—

There must have been a connexion between the Carys of Bucks and those of Castle Gary and Lytes Gary, but precisely what the connexion was I am not able to say. The name of Walter Gary (of Castle Gary) occurs twice in the will of John Capper of Almsford, Somerset, dated 23 Oct., 1619 (Soame, fo. 12).

Here let me say something as to 's allusion to 'A Boke of the Propreties of Herbes,' which, it is true, has passed under Walter Gary's name, and also under that of Walter Copland, the printer. It bears on the title-page the initials W.C.," which may stand either for Copland or Gary. This was one of the several editions of Banckes's 'Herball,' then very popular, and, although it may have been edited or promoted in some way by a Walter Gary, it could not have been by the one who wrote 'The Hammer for the Stone.' The 'Herball' was issued somewhere about 1550, and various editions of it exist, Thomas Petyt issuing one, Copland another, and John Kynge another. But all these appeared when the Walter Gary we are considering (author of 'The Hammer for the Stone') was a child. There is, however, a connexion between the Carys and herbals, because it is Well known that Henry Lyte (1529-1607) of Lytes Gary was the famous translator of Dodoens's 'Herball,' 1578, and he had a herbal garden at Lytes Gary.

I have no definite information as to when the Cary family left High Wycombe, but somewhere between 1653 and 1689 they became possessed of Everton Manor in Bedfordshire, and Walter Cary retained it until 1714, when it was alienated to William Astell. The arms of this Walter Gary included a swan (cf. Harl. MS. 1405, f. 15). Now Henry Lyte (1529-1607) drew up an heraldic roll: "A description of the Swannes of Carie that came first from Caria in Asia to Carie in Britain." This is, I believe, now in the possession of Sir H. Maxwell Lyte. In the 'Visitation of Bedfordshire' by Bysshe, in 1669, there is a pedigree of Cary of Everton, but this Visitation has, I think, never been printed. It is in the College of Arms' MSS. (D 24), and it is, I believe, the only existing means of verifying the connexion between the Carys of High Wycombe and those who later went to live at Everton, a house which has now disappeared. There is a Walter Cary Charity there still.

For copies of Gary's books elsewhere than in the British Museum, see 'Catalogue of Surgeon-General's Library' (U.S.), Second Series. It seems certain that 'The Hammer for the Stone' and 'The Farewell to Physick' were written by Walter Cary of High Wycombe, M.A. of Magdalen; but, from the dates, it is impossible that the same Walter Gary could have written the Herbal, and most improbable that he wrote 'The Present State of England.' I believe that