Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/127

 !2 8. III. FEB. 17, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

121

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 1017.

CONTENTS. No. 60.

NOTES : Sir Thomas Wyatt's Family, 121 Correspondence of Richard Edwards, 122 Statues and Memorials in the British Tsles. 125 Copthorne : its Derivation, 126 St. Burchard Watts's Charity, Rochester, 127.

'QUERIES : St. Paul's School : Edward Nelthorpe and Thomas Trenchfield-Rev. T. Orfeur Wagner : Hemans Rev. J. Bissett and the Duke of Cumberland Wm. Ougbtred, 128 Fountains Abbey Accounts Legend of the Magi Old Flemish Burial-ground Admirals Hood Author of Quotation Wanted Luke Hodges, M.P. Gilbert Memorial "A ring, a ring of roses" Jonas Han way, 129 Author Wanted George Cruikshank Capt. Mayne Reid, 130.

REPLIES : The Sir William Perkins School, Chertsey, 130 English Army List of 1740, 132 From Liverpool to Worcester, 133 Venetian Account of England, 135 Mrs. Anne Dutton St. Barbara, V.M, 136 -General Boulanger : Bibliography, 138 " Decelerate "Authors Wanted, 139.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Jataka Tales' '{Oxford Univer- sity Press General Catalogue ' ' The Burlington Magazine.'

Notices to Correspondents.

THE FAMILY OF SIR THOMAS WYATT.

THOMAS WYATT the Elder was born at Alington Castle, Kent, in 1503 ; in 1520 he married Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Brook, Lord Cobham, and by her had a son, afterwards the conspirator, the date of -whose birth has been disputed.

1. Nott, the poet's earliest biographer, writes that " his eldest son Thomas was born about 1523 or 1524" ('Memoirs of Sir Thomas Wyatt,' p. xi), but appends a ioot-note to the effect that his letters to his son " out of Spayne " were written in 1538 or the beginning of 1539, when that son was then 16, which would bring the date of his "birth to 1522-3. He further notes that in the inquisitio post mortem patris of 1542 the younger Wyatt is described as being then of age. A fourth alternative is found in the memoir of the younger Wyatt appended "to that of his father, in which Nott states that he " was born in 1520, or at latest in 1521," with a reference to the note on p. xi sftlready cited.

2. James Yeowell, in the excellent anony- mous ' Memoir ' prefixed to the Aldine edition of the poet, states that Wyatt " left an only son, Thomas, who must have been

born about 1521, as he was found of full age in October, 1542."

3. Sir Sidney Lee, in the ' Dictionaiy of National Biography,' speaks of Wyatt's " only surviving son, Sir Thomas Wyatt " a phrase probably due to Nott's " his eldest son, Thomas " and, again, of " the eldest and only surviving son," giving the year of his birth as 1521 (?) on the authority of the inquisitio post mortem ; but he further states that the letters " out of Spain " were ad- dressed to the younger Wyatt when he was 15 years old.

What are the actual facts about these letters ? They are written from " Barbastra beside Mountzon "(Balbastro, Moncon),and, according to the famous Egerton MS. 2711, in the British Museum, were addressed to his son, " aged xiv. yeres."* Brewer and Gairdner give the date of his being there as Oct. 16, 1537 ;t he was at Valladolid on June 26 ; arrived at Barcelona in December, and reached England on June 21, 1538. It is therefore obvious that the " letters out of Spayne," being dated from Balbastro, are not earlier than Oct. 16, 1537, and not later than December of that year ; probably we shall not be far out in placing them in November, after the bustle of his arrival and before 4 that of his departure. There is no reason to doubt the accuracy of the " xiv. yeres " of the Egerton MS. ; hence the younger Wyatt was 14 between October and December, 1537 : hence he was born in 1523. But what of the passage in the inquisitio of 1542, in which he is described as of age ? The answer is simply that the inquisitiones are notoriously inaccurate, and that little weight can be ascribed to their evidence if otherwise unsupported. The age of the elder Sir Thomas Wyatt, for instance, is given in the inquisitio at the death of his father Sir Henry as " 28 years and upwards," whereas he was at least 34. If the official inquiry can make a mistake of six years at least in the case of one Sir Thomas, it is easy to believe that a mistake of two years is possible in the case of the other, even though this would make the younger Wyatt under age in 1542. He must have married at 14, which was young even for a Tudor gentleman, since he is known to have married in 1537 ; we may hazard a guess that he did so while his father was out of England,

authority is quite impossible, as it would make the younger Wyatt's birth take place when his father was only 15, and still at College.
 * The reading " xix." in a MS. of inferior

t June, 1537, according to Miss Foxwell, ' Poems of Sir T. Wiat,' vol. i. p. xiv.