Lansdowne 213, folio 332 verso
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The British Library has graciously contributed the above images to Shakespeare Documented under a Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.
Copyright status of the manuscript and unpublished Materials: The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (as amended) states that unpublished literary and artistic works remain in copyright in the UK until at least 31 December 2039. Therefore important parts of the library’s collection remain in copyright, including very old manuscripts. However for unpublished material created many centuries ago and in the public domain in most other countries, the Library believes this material to be very unlikely to offend anyone. As an institution whose role it is to support access to knowledge, we have therefore taken the decision to release certain digitised images technically still in copyright in the UK under the Public Domain Mark.
Document-specific information
Title: A Relation of a short Suruey of 26 Counties, breifly describing the Citties and their Scytuations, and the Corporate Townes, and Castles therein. Obseru’d in a Seuen Weekes Iourney begun at the City of Norwich and from thence into the North. On Monday August 11th 1634 and ending att the same Place. By a Captaine, a Lieuten{au}nt, and an Ancient. All three of the Military Company in Norwich.
Date: 1634
Repository: The British Library, London, UK
Call number and opening: Lansdowne 213, fol. 332v
View online bibliographic record
From the collections of: THE BRITISH LIBRARY
Terms of use
The British Library has graciously contributed the above images to Shakespeare Documented under a Creative Commons Public Domain Mark.
Copyright status of the manuscript and unpublished Materials: The 1988 Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (as amended) states that unpublished literary and artistic works remain in copyright in the UK until at least 31 December 2039. Therefore important parts of the library’s collection remain in copyright, including very old manuscripts. However for unpublished material created many centuries ago and in the public domain in most other countries, the Library believes this material to be very unlikely to offend anyone. As an institution whose role it is to support access to knowledge, we have therefore taken the decision to release certain digitised images technically still in copyright in the UK under the Public Domain Mark.
Document-specific information
Title: A Relation of a short Suruey of 26 Counties, breifly describing the Citties and their Scytuations, and the Corporate Townes, and Castles therein. Obseru’d in a Seuen Weekes Iourney begun at the City of Norwich and from thence into the North. On Monday August 11th 1634 and ending att the same Place. By a Captaine, a Lieuten{au}nt, and an Ancient. All three of the Military Company in Norwich.
Date: 1634
Repository: The British Library, London, UK
Call number and opening: Lansdowne 213, fol. 332v
View online bibliographic record
On Monday, August 11, 1634, a small military contingent consisting of a captain, a lieutenant, and an ensign left Norwich on a seven-week inspection tour through twenty-six counties of England. Their full report, including notes about monuments in parish churches, survives in British Library MS Lansdowne 213, ff. 315-46. On fol. 332v occurs their report on “Stratford Towne”:
In that dayes trauell we came by Stratford vpon Auon, where in the Church in that Towne there are some Monuments, which Church was built by Archbishop Stratford; Those worth obseruing and which wee tooke notice of were these.
Monuments.
A Monument for the E. of Totnes, & his Lady, yet liuing.
The Monument of Sir Hugh Clopton, who built that strong stone Bridge of 18 fayre Arches, ouer yat Riuer; He was Lord Mayor of London.
A neat Monument of that famous English Poet, Mr Wm Shakespeere; who was borne heere.
And one of an old Gentleman a Batchelor, Mr Combe, vpon whose name, the sayd Poet, did merrily fann vp some witty, & facetious verses, which time would nott giue vs leaue to sacke vp.
In order, the monuments are for:
George (b. 1555-1629) and Joyce (d. 1637) Carew-- she was still alive in 1634. He was promoted Earl of Totnes in 1626. She was the daughter of William Clopton of Clopton near Stratford-upon-Avon. He was an active soldier and administrator, but also an Oxford graduate, a collector of manuscripts and books, an antiquary friend of William Camden, Sir Robert Cotton, and Sir Thomas Bodley, a defender of Sir Walter Raleigh, and a promoter of the Virginia Colony.
Sir Hugh Clopton (ca.1440-96), Lord Mayor of London, donor of the great bridge over the River Avon, and also the original builder of New Place, purchased by William Shakespeare in 1597.
Mr William Shakespeare (1564-1616), “famous English Poet,” born in Stratford. Received a bequest in the will of John Combe.
Mr John Combe (d. 1614), elderly gentleman and bachelor at the time of his death, was the target of verses attributed to the “sayd Poet” that the surveyors did not have time to copy down into their records. He left £5 to William Shakespeare in his will. His nephew Thomas received a bequest in the will of William Shakespeare.
Hammond confirms that William Shakespeare the poet was a famous native son of Stratford-upon-Avon. A similar notice occurs in a 1630 jestbook, which was re-printed in ca. 1632.
While the author of the 1634 military report is not specifically named, a second report in the same manuscript (fols. 347-84) twice calls a Mr. Hammond of Malden (Essex) the author’s “name-sake” (fols. 349v-50). Presumably, therefore, the author was surnamed Hammond. One candidate is Captain Francis Hammond, who composed a report on Denmark in 1629. Documents from The National Archives listed below refer either to him or to a namesake.
Except for John Combe, all of the townspeople described in these lines have entries in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (Joyce Carew is included in her husband’s entry), cited below.
[...]
In that dayes trauell we came by Stratford vpon Auon, where in the Church in that Towne there are some Monuments, which Church was built by Archbishop Stratford; Those worth obseruing and which wee tooke notice of were these.
Monuments.
A Monument for the E. of Totnes, & his Lady, yet liuing.
The Monument of Sir Hugh Clopton, who built that strong stone Bridge of 18 fayre Arches, ouer yat Riuer; He was Lord Mayor of London.
A neat Monument of that famous English Poet, Mr Wm Shakespeere; who was borne heere.
And one of an old Gentleman a Batchelor, Mr Combe, vpon whose name, the sayd Poet, did merrily fann vp some witty, & facetious verses, which time would nott giue vs leaue to sacke vp.
Written by Alan H. Nelson
Print Sources
E. K. Chambers, William Shakespeare: A Study of Facts and Problems, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1930): 242-3.
L. G. Wickham Legg, A Relation of a Short Survey of 26 Counties...of the Military Company in Norwich, (London, 1904).
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. "Carew, George, earl of Totnes (1555–1629)," by Ute Lotz-Heumann, accessed May 19, 2016, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/4628.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Clopton, Hugh (c.1440–1496),” by M. R. Macdonald, accessed May 16, 2016, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/5700.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, s.v. “Shakespeare, William (1564–1616),” by Peter Holland, accessed May 16, 2016, doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/25200.
Manuscript Sources
Captain F. Hammond - on King of Denmark's debt, with notes, 1633 Feb., SP 75/13/26, The National Archives, Kew.
Papers of and relating to William Wilkinson, of Woodhall [in Pinner, Harrow, Middlesex], Depositions 1655, SP 46/173, The National Archives, Kew.
Receipt from Francis Hammond for £31 from Captain [Edward] Boys for Marly Wood, SP 28/210/109, The National Archives, Kew.
Touching the services of Captain Francis Hamond to the King of Denmark [1629], SP 75/10/411, The National Archives, Kew.
Will of Francis Hammond, Mariner and Gunner of Saint Katherine, Middlesex, October 30 1667, PROB 11/325/262, The National Archives, Kew.
Last updated November 29, 2022
