FLEETWOOD; MARTYN. 91 A noted Broadgates jurist was WILLIAM FLEETWOOD, natural son of Robert, of Hesketh, who, leaving Oxford without a degree, 'retired to the Middle Temple, where by continual industry, advanced by good natural parts, he attained to the name of an eminent Lawyer. In 5. of Eliz. he was elected Autumn or Summer-Reader of that house.' Some years later (1571-91) he became Recorder of London, in 1580 Serjeant at Law, and in 1592 Queen's Serjeant. 'He was a learned Man and a good Antiquary; but of a marvelous, merry, and pleasant conceit : And as touching his Learning, Justice, and Eloquence I cannot better describe them than a Poet1 of those days hath done in certain Verses.' He left a number of legal writings. He died Feb. 28, 1598, and his body lies (à Wood believes) in the Church of Great Missenden, Bucks, where he had purchased an estate. 'He left behind him two Sons, whereof Sir Will. Fleetwood, Knight [M.P. for Poole and for Bucks], was one, and the other was Sir Thomas of the Middle-Temple, afterwards Attorney to Prince Henry. He had also divers Daughters, one whereof was married to Sir David Foulis, Knight and Baronet, and another to Sir Tho. Chaloner, Tutor to the said Prince, Son of the learned Sir Tho. Chaloner Knight.' WILLIAM MARTYN (son and heir of Nicholas), was born and educated in Grammar learning within the City of Exeter. Where making early advances towards Academical learning, was sent to Broadgates hall (now Pemb. Coll.) an. 1579 [circa 1581, Foster], aged 17. In which place falling under the tuition of a noted Master, laid an excellent foundation in logick and philosophy. 'Afterwards going to the Inns of Court he became a Barester, and in 1605 was elected Recorder of Exeter in the place of John Hele Serjeant at Law. But his delight being much conversant in the reading of English Histories, he composed a book of the Kings of England, as I shall tell you anon. Upon the publication of which K. James (as 'tis said) taking some exceptions at a passage therein, either to the derogation of his family or of the Realm of Scotland, he was thereupon brought into some trouble, which shortned his days.... He was buried in the Church of S. Petrock in the City of Exeter 12 Apr. in sixteen hundred and seventeen.' Wood says that Martyn was a severe puritan. One of his books is called Youth's Instruction (1612), and seems to have been dedicated to his son Nicholas, then a Broadgates Student, afterwards knighted, sheriff of Devon 1639, and a member of the Long Parliament, till secluded in 1648. He died on Lady Day in 1653. His cousin RICHARD (great-grandson of Sir William) MARTYN, born at Otterton, Devon, entered Broadgates in 1585, 'where by natural parts and some industry he proved a noted disputant. But he, leaving the said house before he was honoured with a degree, Tho. Newton in Illustrium Aliquot Anglorum Encomia, Lond. 1589, p. 121. 92 MARTYN; SWINBURNE. went to the Middle Temple, where, after he had continued in the state of Inner Barrester for some years, was elected a Burgess to serve in Parliament [for Barnstaple 1604, Christchurch 1604-11], was constituted Lent Reader of the said Temple, 13. Jac. 1. and upon the death of Sir Anth. Benn [also of Broadgates, B.A. 1587], was made Recorder of the City of London in Sept. 1618. There was no person in his time more celebrated for ingenuity than R. Martin, none more admired by Selden, Serjeant Hoskins, Ben. Johnson, etc. than he; the last of which dedicated his Comedy to him called The Poetaster. K. James was much delighted with his facetiousness, and had so great respect for him that he commended him to the Citizens of London to be their Recorder. He was worthily characterized by the vertuous and learned Men of his time to be Princeps amorum1, Principum amor, legum lingua, lexque dicendi, Anglorum alumnus, Praeco Virginiae ac Parens, etc. Magnae [sic] orbis os, orbis minoris corculum. Bono suorum natus, Extinctus suo, etc. He was a plausible Linguist, and eminent for several Speeches spoken in Parliaments, for his Poems also and witty discourses. . . . He died to the great grief of all learned and good men, on the last day of Octob. in sixteen hundred and eighteen, and was buried in the Church belonging to the Temples. Over his grave was soon after a neat Alabaster Monument erected, with the Effigies of the Defunct kneeling in his Gown, with 4 verses engraved thereon, under him, made by his dear Friend Serjeant Hoskins. This Monument was repaired in 1683 when the Choire and Isles adjoyning, belonging to the Temple Church, were new wainscoted and furnished with seats". Aubrey however says he died of excess of drinking. There is a scarce portrait of Martin by Simon Pass, engraved 1620. An Epistle from him to Sir Henry Wotton is in Coryat's Crudities, p. 237. Fuller styles him 'one of the highest Witts of our Age and his Nation.' THOMAS SANDERSON (brother of Viscount Castleton and cousin of Bishop Sanderson), who entered in 1587, was treasurer of Lincoln's Inn 1628 and 1633. THOMAS BARKER, entered 1581, was treasurer of the Middle Temple 1623. HENRY SWINBURNE, son of Thomas Swinburne of York, where he was born, 'spent some years in the quality of a Commoner in Hart hall, whence translating himself to that of Broadgates, took the Degree of Bach. of the Civil Law, married Helena daughter of Barthelm. Lant of Oxon, and at length retiring to his native place, became a Proctor in the Archbishops Court there, Commissary of the Exchequer, and Judge of the Prerogative Court at York. He hath written :-Brief Treatise of Testaments and 1 Athenae, i. 374. Martyn had been ‘Prince D'Amour of the Middle Temple in time of Christmas. 2 It seems since the last 'restoration' of that once noble church to have vanished. OTHER LAWYERS. 93 last Wills. In 7 parts. Lond. 1590 etc. Treatise of Spousals, or Matrimonial Contracts, etc. Lond. 1686. qu. In which two books the author shews himself an able Civilian and excellently well read in authors of his Faculty. He paid his last debt to nature at York, and was buried in the North Isle of the Cathedral there. Soon after was a comely Monument fastened to the wall near to his grave, with his Effigies in a Civilians Gown kneeling before a deske, with a book thereon, and these verses under : "Non Viduae caruere viris, non Patre Pupillus, Dum stetit hic Patriae virque paterque suae. (Ath. Ox. i. 386.) The handsome gilded and painted monument, in excellent preservation, bears several coats of arms. Dr. Tobias Swinburne, his son, was an eminent advocate. ROBERT HALE, father of Sir Matthew Hale, the great Chief Justice, entered Broadgates in 1580. He retired from Lincoln's Inn through 'tenderness of conscience,' holding for immoral the barrister's duty of making the 'worse cause appear the better.' Lord Keeper Littleton's brothers, WILLIAM LITTLETON (1609; serjeant at law), JAMES LITTLETON (B.A. 1618; a master in Chancery, chancellor of Worcester), and JOHN LITTLETON (M.A. 1624; Master of the Temple; ejected in 1644 for being in the King's army), were, with others of the same name, members of this House. CHAPTER IX. POETS AND DRAMATISTS. ONE result of the dissolution of the Religious Houses upon the fortunes of Broadgates Hall was its transference to royal ownership. In 1522 Wolsey persuaded the priory to surrender their house and its belongings into the hands of the King, who gave it to the Archbishop himself. Clement VIII had issued a bull for the suppression of Frideswyde's on condition that Wolsey should establish in room of it a college of secular canons. In 1525, out of the priory revenues (less than £300 a year) and those of other of the smaller monasteries, was begun the 'Collegium Thomae Wolsey Cardinalis Eboracensis.' But before the foundation was actually in law completed the Cardinal fell. All the revenues he had collected passed to Henry, who in 1532 refounded Cardinal College as 'King Henry the Eighth's College,' dedicated to the praise and honour of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, the most blessed Virgin St. Mary, and the holy virgin St. Frideswyde. In 1545 however, the King, having formed an entirely new plan, required the surrender of the College once more into his hands, and finally founded the mixed cathedral and academic House known as 'the Cathedral Church of Christ in Oxford of the foundation of King Henry the Eighth.' To this noble establishment were granted the following parts of the present Pembroke College:-'A house called the Almes House with the appurtenaunces in the p'she of saincte Aldat,' 'certene chamberes within Brodyats latlie belonginge to the late monasterye of Abendon,' and a parcelle of lands within Brodyats, parcelle of the possessione of the late colledge of Frideswids '.' Without being actually an annexe of the magnificent foundation across the road 2, it is probable that Broadgates was found a con 'Dugdale's Monasticon, ii. p. 167. 2 Fitzherbert (1602) says of the existing Halls: 'hae singulae a singulis fere 'A SCHOLAR AND A GENTLEMAN.' 95 venient receptacle for many young men of position who could not be received at Christ Church. This appears from the number of names assigned either to Broadgates Hall or Christ Church or to both. The matriculations vary greatly from year to year. But it is noticeable that in 1583 there were as many entries (38) at Broadgates as at Christ Church and Exeter put together. In 1581, when all the numbers were much larger, there were forty-eight. At the close of the sixteenth century a new class of undergraduate was largely attracted to Oxford. Residence in a University was becoming the mark of a gentleman, and the attainment of a degree was made easier to men of birth by special statutes. Huber considers that the Elizabethan and Stuart connexion with the gentry class did the Universities no good. The young squires had little taste for learning, and the poorer scholars became a dependent race of tutors and trencher-chaplains, a class described by Bishop Hall in his second Satire. The Inns of Court were surrounded by a nebula of unpractising lawyers from Oxford and Cambridge, whose spirit and doings lent to life in London some of its boldest features, its gayest colours, its most lusty intellectual movement. On the other hand the capital influenced the academies, and lettered tastes, for which no midnight wick burned, usurped the place of paler and severer studies. Youths liberally nurtured, and more likely to play a part in the world than the oldfashioned poor scholar of the middle ages, now received the benefit of University life and training. These would especially be drawn to the Halls, for the Colleges were still chiefly eleemosynary, disciplinary, and religious. Halls have alternately served, it would seem, as the refuge of the luxurious and of the economical. The threadbare 'clerk of Oxenforde' passed away to a great extent with the Old Learning. The twenty books at the bed's head, clothed in black and red, of Aristotle and his philosophy, were by the Elizabethan student no longer always more prized than garments rich, fiddle and psaltery, nor, if money was ' of his frendes hent,' was it laid out on nothing but learning. Sir Vincentio in the Taming of the Shrew, beating his student son's man, Biondello, cries, 'O immortal gods! O fine villain! A silken doublet! A velvet hose! A scarlet cloak! And a copatain hat! O, I am undone! I am undone! While I play the good husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the collegiis pendent & ad earum exemplum se plane comparant: in eo solum dissimiles, quod hae, quam illa, legibus disciplinae laxioribus paulo liberioribusque teneantur' (Nicolai Fierberti Oxoniensis Academiae Descriptio, Romae. Elizabethan Oxford, O. H. S., p. 16). |