Books: The Natural History of Wiltshire
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John Aubrey >> The Natural History of Wiltshire
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* [This should be "Charles II." who visited Avebury and Silbury Hill,
in company with his brother, afterwards James II., in the autumn of
the year 1663, when Aubrey attended them by the King's command. See
his account of the royal visit, in the Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845.
- J. B.]
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In the peacefull raigne of King James I. the Parliament made an act
for provision of rooke-netts and catching crows to be given in charge
of court-barons, which is by the stewards observed, but I never knew
the execution of it. I have heard knowing countreymen affirme that
rooke-wormes, which the crows and rookes doe devour at sowing time,
doe turne to chafers, which I think are our English locusts: and some
yeares wee have such fearfull armies of them that they devour all
manner of green things; and if the crowes did not destroy these
wormes, it would oftentimes happen. Parliaments are not infallible,
and some thinke they were out in this bill.
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Bees. Hampshire has the name for the best honey of England, and also
the worst; sc. the forest honey: but the south part of Wiltshire
having much the like turfe must afford as good, or little inferiour to
it. 'Tis pitty these profitable insects should loose their lives for
their industry.
"Flebat Aristĉus, quod Apes cum stirpe necatas
Viderat incoeptos destituisse favos."-OVID. FAST. lib. i.
A plaster of honey effectually helpeth a bruise. (From Mr. Francis
Potter, B. D., of Kilmanton.) It seemes to be a rational medicine: for
honey is the extraction of the choicest medicinal flowers.
Mr. Butler of Basingstoke, in Hampshire, who wrote a booke of Bees,
had a daughter he called his honey-girle; to whom, when she was born,
he gave certain stocks of bees; the product of which when she came to be
married, was 400li. portion.
(From -- Boreman, of Kingston-upon- Thames, D.D.)
Mr. Harvey, at Newcastle, gott 80li. per annum by bees. (I thinke
Varro somewhere writes that in Spaine two brothers got almost as much
yearly by them.- J. EVELYN.) Desire of Mr. Hook, R.S.S. a copie of the
modelle of his excellent bee-hive, March 1684-5; better than any yet
known. See Mr. J. Houghton's Collections, No. 1683, June, where he
hath a good modelle of a bee-hive, pag. 166. Mr. Paschal hath an
ingeniouse contrivance for bees at Chedsey; sc. they are brought into
his house. Bee-hive at Wadham College, Oxon; see Dr. Plott's
Oxfordshire, p. 263.
Heretofore, before our plantations in America, and consequently before
the use of sugar, they sweetened their [drink, &c.] with honey; as wee
doe now with sugar. The name of honey-soppes yet remaines, but the use
is almost worne out. (At Queen's College, Oxon, the cook treats the
whole hall with honey-sops on Good Friday at dinner. - BISHOP TANNER.)
Now, 1686, since the great increase of planting of sugar-canes in the
Barbados, &c. sugar is but one third of the price it was at thirty
yeares since. In the time of the Roman Catholique religion, when a
world of wax candles were used in the churches, bees-wax was a
considerable commodity.
To make Metheglyn:-(from Mistress Hatchman. This receipt makes good
Metheglyn; I thinke as good as the Devises). Allow to every quart of
honey a gallon of water; and when the honey is dissolved, trie if it
will beare an egg to the breadth of three pence above the liquor; or
if you will have it stronger putt in more honey. Then set it on the
fire, and when the froth comes on the toppe of it, skimme it cleane;
then crack eight or ten hen-egges and putt in the liquor to cleare it:
two or three handfulls of sweet bryar, and so much of muscovie, and
sweet marjoram the like quantity; some doe put sweet cis, or if you
please put in a little of orris root. Boyle all these untill the egges
begin to look black, (these egges may be enough for a hoggeshead,)
then straine it forth through a fine sieve into a vessell to coole;
the next day tunne it up in a barrell, and when it hath workt itself
cleare, which will be in about a weeke's time, stop it up very close,
and if you make it strong enough, sc. to carry the breadth of a
sixpence, it will keep a yeare. This receipt is something neer that of
Mr. Thorn. Piers of the Devises, the great Metheglyn-maker. Metheglyn
is a pretty considerable manufacture in this towne time out of mind.
I doe believe that a quantity of mountain thyme would be a very proper
ingredient; for it is most wholesome and fragrant [Aubrey also gives
another "receipt to make white metheglyn," which he obtained "from old
Sir Edward Baynton, 1640." I have seen this old English beverage made
by my grandmother, as here described.-J. B.]
Mr. Francis Potter, Rector of Kilmanton, did sett a hive of bees in
one of the lances of a paire of scales in a little closet, and found
that in summer dayes they gathered about halfe a pound a day; and one
day, which he conceived was a honey-dew, they gathered three pounds
wanting a quarter. The hive would be something lighter in the morning
than at night. Also he tooke five live bees and putt them in a paper,
which he did cutt like a grate, and weighed them, and in an hower or
two they would wast the weight of three or four wheatcornes. He bids
me observe their thighes in a microscope. (Upon the Brenta river, by
Padua in Italy, they have hives of bees in open boates; the bees goe
out to feed and gather till the honey-dews are spent neer the boate;
and then the bee master rows the boate to a fresh place, and by the
sinking of the boate knows when to take the honey, &c.- J. EVELYN.)
CHAPTER XIV.
OF MEN AND WOEMEN.
[THE following instances of remarkable longevity, monstrous births,
&c. will suffice to shew the nature of this Chapter. It must be
admitted that its contents are unimportant except as matters of
curious speculation, and as connected with the several localities
referred to.-J. B.]
A PROVERB: -
'Salisbury Plain
Never without a thief or twain.'
As to the temper and complexion of the men and woemen, I have spoken
before in the Prolegomena.
As to longĉevity, good aire and water doe conduce to it: but the
inhabitants are also to tread on dry earth; not nitrous or vitriolate,
that hurts the nerves. South and North Wiltshire are wett and dampish
soiles. The stone walles in the vale here doe also cast a great and
unwholsome dampe. Eighty-four or eighty-five is the age the
inhabitants doe rarely exceed. But I have heard my worthy friend
George Johnson of Bowdon, Esq., one of the judges in North Wales, say
that he did observe in his circuit, sc. Montgomery, Flint, and
Denbigh, that men lived there as commonly to an hundred yeares as with
us to eighty. Mr. Meredith Lloyd hath seen at Dolkelly, a great parish
in Merionithshire, an hundred or more of poore people at eighty yeares
of age at church in a morning, who came thither bare-foot and
bare-legged a good way.
In the chancell of Winterborn Basset lies interred Mr. Ambrose Brown,
who died 166-,aged 103 yeares. Old goodwife Dew of Broad Chalke died
about 1649, aged 103. She told me she was, I thinke, sixteen yeares
old when King Edward the sixth was in this countrie, and that he lost
his courtiers, or his courtiers him, a hunting, and found him again in
Falston-lane. In the parish of Stanton St. Quintin are but twenty-
three houses, and when Mr. Byron was inducted, 167-, here were eight
persons of 80 yeares of age. Mr. Thorn. Lyte of Easton-Piers, my
mother's grand- father, died 1626, aged 96; and about 1674 died there
old William Kington, a tenant of mine, about 90 yeares of age. A poore
woman of Chippenham died about 1684, aged 108 yeares.
Part of an Epitaph at Colinbourne-Kinston in Wiltshire, communicated
to the Philosophicall Conventus at the Musĉum at Oxford, by Mr.
Arthur Charlett, Fellow of Trinity College, Oxford:- "Pray for the
soule of Constantine Darrel, Esq. who died Anno Dni. 1400, and.......
his wife, who died A°. Dni. 1495." See it. I doe believe the dates in
the inscription are in numerical letters. [In this case the former
date was probably left unfinished, when the husband placed the
inscription to his wife, and after his death it was neglected to be
filled up, as in many other instances. The numerals would be in black
letter.- J. B.]
In the chancel at Milsham is an inscription of Isaac Self, a wealthy
cloathiers of that place, who died in the 92nd yeare of his age,
leaving behind him a numerous offspring; viz. eighty and three in
number.
Ella, Countesse of Salisbury, daughter to [William] Longespe, was
foundress of Lacock Abbey; where she ended her days, being above a
hundred yeares old; she outlived her understanding. This I found in an
old MS. called Chronicon de Lacock in Bibliotheca Cottoniana. [The
chronicle referred to was destroyed by the fire which so seriously
injured the Cotton MSS. in 1731. The extracts preserved from it do not
confirm Aubrey's statements, but place the Countess Ela's death on the
ix kal. Sept. 1261, in the 74th year of her age. See Bowles's History
of Lacock, Appendix, p. v. - J. B.]
Dame Olave, a daughter and coheire of Sir [Henry] Sharington of
Lacock, being in love with [John] Talbot, a younger brother of the
Earle of Shrewsbury, and her father not consenting that she should
marry him; discoursing with him one night from the battlements of the
Abbey Church, said shee, "I will leap downe to you:" her sweet heart
replied he would catch her then; but he did not believe she would have
done it. She leap't downe, and the wind, which was then high, came
under her coates and did something breake the fall. Mr. Talbot caught
her in his armes, but she struck him dead: she cried out for help, and
he was with great difficulty brought to life again. Her father told
her that since she had made such a leap she should e'en marrie him.
She was my honoured friend Col. Sharington Talbot's grandmother, and
died at her house at Lacock about 1651, being about an hundred yeares
old. Quaere, Sir Jo. Talbot?
[This romantic story seems to have escaped the attention of the
venerable historian of Lacock, the Rev. Canon Bowles. The late John
Carter mentions a tradition of which he was informed on visiting
Lacock in 1801, to the effect that "one of the nuns jumped from a
gallery on the top of a turret there into the arms of her lover." He
observes, as impugning the truth of the story, that the gallery
"appears to have been the work of James or Charles the First's time."
Aubrey's anecdote has an appearance of authenticity. Its heroine,
Olave, or Olivia Sherington, married John Talbot, Esq. of Salwarpe, in
the county of Worcester, fourth in descent from John, second Earl of
Shrews- bury. She inherited the Lacock estate from her father, and it
has ever since^ remained the property of that branch of the Talbot
family, now represented by the scientific Henry Fox Talbot, Esq.
-J. B.]
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The last Lady Prioresse of Priorie St Marie, juxta Kington St.
Michael, was the Lady Mary Dennys, a daughter of the Dennys's of
Pocklechurch in Gloucestershire; she lived a great while after the
dissolution of the abbeys, and died in Somersetshire about the middle
or latter end of the raigne of King James the first
The last Lady Abbese of Amesbury was a Kirton, who after the
dissolution married to..... Appleton of Hampshire. She had during her
life a pension from King Henry VIII.: she was 140 yeares old when she
dyed. She was great-great-aunt to Mr. Child, Rector of Yatton Keynell;
from whom I had this information. Mr. Child, the eminent banker in
Fleet Street, is Parson Child's cosen-german. [The name of the last
Abbess of Amesbury was Joan Darell, who surrendered to the King, 4
Dec. 1540. Hoare's Modern Wiltshire, Amesbury Hundred, p. 73. J. B.]
When King Charles II. was at Salisbury, 1665, a piper of Stratford sub
Castro playd on his tabor and pipe before him, who was a piper in
Queen Elizabeth's time, and aged then more than 100.
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One goodwife Mills of Yatton Keynel, a tenant of my father's, did
dentire in the 88 yeare of her age, which was about the yeare 1645.
The Lord Chancellour Bacon speakes of the like of the old Countesse of
Desmond, in Ireland.
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Mr. William Gauntlett, of Netherhampton, born at Amesbury, told me
that since his remembrance there were digged up in the churchyard at
Amesbury, which is very spacious, a great number of huge bones,
exceeding, as he sayes, the size of those of our dayes. At Highworth,
at the signe of the Bull, at one Hartwells, I have been credibly
enformed is to be seen a scull of-a vast bignesse, scilicet half as
big again as an ordinary one. From Mr. Kich. Brown, Rector of
Somerford Magna, (At Wotton in Surrey, where my brother enlarged the
vault in which our family are buried, digging away the earth for the
foundations, they found a complete skeleton neer nine foot in length,
the skull of an extraordinary size. - J. EVELYN.)
George Johnson Esq. bencher of the Middle Temple, digging for marle at
Bowdon Parke, Ano. 1666, the diggers found the bones of a man under a
quarrie of planke stones: he told me he saw it. He was a serious
person, and "fide dignus".
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At Wishford Magna is the inscription, "Hic jacet Thomas Bonham,
armiger, quondam Patronus istius Ecclesiĉ, qui quidem Thomas obiit
vicesimo nono die Maii, Anno Domini MCCCCLXXIII (1473); el Editha uxor
ejus, quĉ quidem Editha obiit vicesimo sexto die Aprilis, Anno D'ni
MCCCCLXIX. (1469). Quorum animabus propitietur Deus.- Amen." They lye
both buried under the great marble stone in the nave of this church,
where is the above said inscription, above which are their
pourtraictures in brasse, and an escucheon now illegible. Beneath this
inscription are the small figures of nine young children in brasse.
This Mr. Bonham's wife had two children at one birth, the first time:
and he being troubled at it travelled, and was absent seven yeares.
After his returne she was delivered of seven children at one birth. In
this parish is a confident tradition that these seven children were
all baptized at the font in this church, and that they were brought
thither in a kind of chardger, which was dedicated to this church, and
hung on two nailes, which are to be seen there yet, neer the bellfree
on the south side. Some old men are yet living that doe remember the
chardger. This tradition is entred into the register booke there, from
whence I have taken this narrative (1659). [See the extract from the
register, which is signed by "Roger Powell, Curate there," in Hoare's
Modern Wilts. (Hundred of Branch and Dole) p. 49.-J. B.]
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On Tuesday the 25th day of October, Anno Dni 1664, Mary, the wife of
John Waterman, of Fisherton Anger, neer Salisbury, hostler, fell into
travell, and on Wednesday, between one and two in the morning, was
delivered of a female child, with all its parts duly formed. Aboute
halfe an hour after she was delivered of a monstrous birth, having two
heades, the one opposite to the other; the two shoulders had also
[each] two armes, with the hands bearing respectively each against the
other; two feet, &c. About four o'clock in the afternoon it was
christened by the name of Martha and Mary, having two pretty faces,
and lived till Fryday next. The female child first borne, whose name
was Elselet, lived fourteen days, and died the 9th of November
following: the mother then alive and in good health.
[This narrative is accompanied by a description of the internal
structure of the lusus naturĉ, as developed in a post mortem
examination; which "accurate account," says Aubrey, "was made by my
worthy and learned friend Thorn. Guidot, Dr. of Physick, who did
kindly communicate it to me out of his collection of medicinall
observations in Latin."]
Dr. Wm. Harvey, author of the Circulation of the Blood, told me that
one Mr. Palmer's wife in Kent did beare a child every day for five
daies together.
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A wench being great with child drowned herself in the river Avon,
where, haveing layn twenty-four houres, she was taken up and brought
into the church at Sutton Benger, and layd upon the board, where the
coroner did his office. Mris. Joane Sumner hath often assured me that
the sayd wench did sweat a cold sweat when she lay dead; and that she
severall times did wipe off the sweat from her body, and it would
quickly returne again: and she would have had her opened, because she
did believe that the child was alive within her and might bee saved.
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In September 1661 a grave was digged in the church of Hedington for a
widow, where her husband was buried in 1610. In this grave was a
spring; the coffin was found firme; the bodie not rotten, but black;
and in some places white spotts; the lumen was rotten. Mr. Wm. Scott's
wife of this parish, from whom I have this, saw it, with severall of
her neighbours.
Mrs. Mary Norborne, of Calne, a gentlewoman worthy of belief, told me
that Mr.... White, Lord of Langley's grave was opened forty years
after he was buried. He lay in water, and his body not perished, and
some old people there remembred him and knew him. He was related to
Mrs. Norborne, and her husband's brother was minister here, in whose
time this happened.
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Mrs. May of Calne, upon the generall fright in their church of the
falling of the steeple, when the people ran out of the church,
occasioned by the throwing of a stone by a boy, dyed of this fright in
halfe an hour's time. Mrs. Dorothy Gardiner was frightened at Our Lady
Church at Salisbury, by the false report of the falling of the
steeple, and died in... houres space. The Lady Jordan being at
Cirencester when it was beseiged (anno atatis 75) was so terrified
with the shooting that her understanding was so spoyled that she
became a child, that they made babies for her to play withall.
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At Broad Chalke is a cottage family that the generation have two
thumbes. A poor woman's daughter in Westminster being born so, the
mother gott a carpenter to amputate one of them with his chizel and
mallet. The girl was then about seven yeares old, and was a lively
child, but immediately after the thumb was struck off, the fright and
convulsion was so extreme, that she lost her understanding, even her
speech. She lived till seventeen in that sad condition.
The Duke of Southampton, who was a most lovely youth, had two
foreteeth that grew out, very unhandsome. His cruel mother caused him
to be bound fast in a chaire, and had them drawn out; which has caused
the want of his understanding.
[This refers to Charles Fitzroy, one of the natural sons of King
Charles II. by his mistress, Barbara Villiers, Duchess of Cleveland.
He was created Duke of Southampton in 1674; became Duke of Cleveland
on the death of his "cruel mother "in 1709; and died in 1730.-J. B.]
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Mdm. Dr. W. Harvey told me that the biteing of a man enraged is
poysonous. He instanced one that was bitt in the hand in a quarrell,
and it swoll up to his shoulder, and killed him in a short time. [That
death, from nervous irritation, might follow such a wound is not
improbable: but that it was caused by any "poison" infused into the
system is an idea too absurd for refutation.- J. B.]
CHAPTER XV.
DISEASES AND CURES.
[SEVERAL passages may have been noticed in the preceding pages,
calculated to shew the ignorance which prevailed in Aubrey's time on
medical subjects, and the absurd remedies which were adopted for the
cure of diseases. In the present chapter this topic is further
illustrated. It contains a series of recipes of the rudest and most
unscientific character, amongst which the following are the only parts
suited to this publication. Aubrey describes in the manuscript an
instrument made of whalebone, to be thrust down the throat into the
stomach, so as to act as an emetic. He states that this contrivance
was invented by "his counsel learned in the law," Judge Rumsey; and
proceeds to quote several pages, with references to its advantages,
from a work by W. Rumsey, of Gray's Inn, Esq., entitled, "Organon
Salutis, an instrument to cleanse the stomach: with new experiments on
Tobacco and Coffee." The work quoted seems to have been popular in its
day, for there were three editions of it published. (London, 1657,
1659, 1664, 12mo.)-J. B.]
THE inscription over the chapell dore of St. Giles, juxta Wilton, sc.
"1624. This hospitall of St. Giles was re-edified by John Towgood,
Maior of Wilton, and his brethren, adopted patrons thereof, by the
gift of Queen Adelicia, wife unto King Henry the first." This Adelicia
was a leper. She had a windowe and a dore from her lodgeing into the
chancell of the chapell, whence she heard prayers. She lieth buried
under a plain marble gravestone; the brasse whereof (the figure and
inscription) was remaining about 1684. Poore people told me that the
faire was anciently kept here.
At Maiden Bradley, a maiden infected with the leprosie founded a house
for maidens that were lepers. [See a similar statement in Camden's
"Britannia," and Gough's comments thereon.-J. B.]
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Ex Registro. Anno Domini 1582, May 4, the plague began in Kington St.
Michaell, and lasted the 6th of August following; 13 died of it, most
of them being of the family of the Kington's; which name was then
common, as appeared by the register, but in 1672 quite extinct.
[The words "here the plague began," and "here the plague rested,"
appear in the parish register of Kington St. Michael, under the dates
mentioned by Aubrey. Eight of the thirteen persons who died during its
continuance were of the family of the Kingtons.-J. B.]
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May-dewe is a very great dissolvent of many things with the sunne,
that will not be dissolved any other way; which putts me in mind of
the rationality of the method used by Wm. Gore of Clapton, Esq}. for
his gout; which was, to walke in the dewe with his shoes pounced; he
found benefit by it. I told Mr. Wm. Mullens, of Shoe Lane, Chirurgion,
this story; and he sayd this was the very method and way of curing
that was used in Oliver Cromwell, Protectour. [See "Observations and
Experiments upon May-Dew," by Thomas Henshaw, in Philosophical
Transactions, 1665. Abbr. i. 13.-J. B.]
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For the gowte. Take the leaves of the wild vine (bryony, vitis alba);
bruise them and boyle them, and apply it to the place grieved, lapd in
a colewort-leafe. This cured an old man of 84 yeares of age, at
Kilmanton, in 1669, and he was well since, to June 1670: which account
I had from Mr. Francis Potter, the rector there.
Mr. Wm. Montjoy of Bitteston hath an admirable secret for the cure of
the Ricketts, for which he was sent to far and neer; his sonne hath
the same. Rickettie children (they say) are long before they breed
teeth. I will, whilst 'tis in my mind, insert this remarque; viz.
about 1620, one Ricketts of Newbery, perhaps corruptly from Ricards, a
practitioner in physick, was excellent at the curing children with
swoln heads and small legges; and the disease being new and without a
name, he being so famous for the cure of it they called the disease
the ricketts; as the King's evill from the King's curing of it with
his touch; and now 'tis good sport to see how they vex their lexicons,
and fetch it from the Greek {Gk: Rachis} the back bone.
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For a pinne-and-webbe* in the eye, a pearle, or any humour that comes
out of the head. My father laboured under this infirmity, and our
learned men of Salisbury could doe him no good. At last one goodwife
Holly, a poore woman of Chalke, cured him in a little time. My father
gave her a broad piece of gold for the receipt, which is this:-Take
about halfe a pint of the best white wine vinegar; put it in a pewter
dish, which sett on a chafing dish of coales covered with another
pewter dish; ever and anon wipe off the droppes on the upper dish till
you have gott a little glassefull, which reserve in a cleane vessell;
then take about half an ounce of white sugar candie, beaten and
searcht very fine, and putt it in the glasse; so stoppe it, and let it
stand. Drop one drop in the morning and evening into the eye, and let
the patient lye still a quarter of an hour after it.
I told Mr. Robert Boyle this receipt, and he did much admire it, and
tooke a copie of it, and sayd that he that was the inventor of it was
a good chymist. If this medicine were donne in a golden dish or
porcelane dish, &c. it would not doe this cure; but the vertue
proceeds, sayd hee, from the pewter, which the vinegar does take off.
* [The following definitions are from Bailey's Dictionary (1728):-"
Pin and Web, a horny induration of the membranes of the eye, not much
unlike a Cataract." "Pearl (among oculists), a web on the eye."- J.B.]
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