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The Composition of Thomas Habington’s ‘Survey of Worcestershire’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 September 2015

C. Don Gilbert
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Extract

Thomas Habington of Hindlip (1560–1647), a Catholic gentleman, was the first historian of Worcestershire. Had it not been for the English Civil War, his Survey of Worcestershire would probably have been published in the 1640s. In fact it was not published until the 1890s, and then in a form and order which was very different from what he had intended. Others who worked on the history of the county (William Thomas, Bishop Charles Lyttelton, Peter Prattinton and, most importantly, T. R. Nash, whose ‘Collections’ for a history of the county appeared in 1781–2) did so on the basis of Habington’s unpublished manuscripts. In this article the genesis of the ‘Survey’ will be examined, the way in which his conception of its scope altered, his method of gathering materials, the additions he made to the work up to the time of his death in October 1647, and the relevance of his Catholicism to the Survey.

Type
Research Article
Information
British Catholic History , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , May 2003 , pp. 415 - 425
Copyright
Copyright © Catholic Record Society 2003

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References

1 On the historians of Worcestershire see Cox, D. C. in English County Histories: A Guide (ed. Currie, C. R. J. and Lewis, C. P., Stroud, , 1994), pp. 423–32.Google Scholar

2 Habington’s Survey of Worcestershire (ed. John Amphlett, Worcs. Hist. Soc., in two volumes, 1895–99). Hereafter Survey. Habington probably intended to call it a ‘Description’ of Worcestershire, following William Burton. See e.g. Survey, i. pp. 27, 30; and n. 13 below.

3 On Dr T. R. Nash see D. C. Cox, ‘This Foolish Business’: Dr. Nash and the Worcestershire Collections, Worcs. Hist. Soc. Occasional Publications, no. 7 (1993).

4 See Survey, i. pp. 9–16. For Habington’s own account of the search at Hindlip, his trial and reprieve see C. Don Gilbert in Recusant History, 25, 3, 2001.

5 Gilbert, C. D., ‘Thomas Habington after the Gunpowder Plot’, Midland Catholic History, 2 (1992), pp. 37–41.Google Scholar

6 Survey, i. p. 34.

7 Ibidem. Whether Habington’s researches actually establish his claim is a question beyond the scope of this article. See, however, Heal, Felicity and Holmes, Clive, The Gentry in England and Wales, 1500–1700 (1994), p. 41.Google Scholar

8 The Archer-Habington correspondence (entirely letters from Habington to Archer) is in the Bodleian Library, Oxford, MS Eng. lett. b 1. This MS contains 157 letters, from Dugdale, Burton, Habington and others. There are a few letters from Habington to Archer in a MS volume at Oakly Park, Shropshire. I am most grateful to the Earl of Plymouth for allowing me to consult this volume and for his hospitality.

9 On Sir Robert Berkeley see Dictionary of National Biography (hereafter DNB).

10 Hamper, William, The Life, Diary and Correspondence of Sir William Dugdale (1827), p. 202;Google Scholar Survey, ii. p. 282.

11 On Archer see Styles, Philip, ‘Sir Simon Archer: “A lover of Antiquity and of the lovers thereof” in Styles, Studies in Seventeenth Century West Midlands History (Kineton, 1978), pp. 1–41 Google Scholar. Hereafter Styles.

12 Cf. Styles, p. 13.

13 On William Burton, whose Description of Leicestershire appeared in 1622, see DNB. On his influence see Styles, pp. 26f.

14 On Dugdale see DNB; Douglas, D. C., English Scholars (1939)Google Scholar; Styles, ‘Sir Simon Archer’.

15 The letter is in the Prattinton Collection held by the Society of Antiquaries at Burlington House, London.

16 The text of two of the Habington-Mucklowe letters is in Midland Antiquary, ii, (1883), pp. 46–7. I am grateful to Mr. and Mrs. W. Z. Lloyd, formerly of Areley House, for supplying me with a typescript version of the letters and for showing me the Mucklowe pedigree which Habington helped to draw up.

17 Nash, i. p. 55 (under ‘Bayton’).

18 Styles, p. 19.

19 Survey, i. pp. 238–9.

20 On Nathaniel Tompkins see Atkins, Ivor, The Organists of Worcester Cathedral (Worcs. Hist. Soc., 1918), pp. 37f.Google Scholar

21 Nash, i. p. 352: Nathaniel Tompkins wrote ‘Memoirs’ of Sir John Pakington (d. 1625), and also wrote ‘Observations’ on the Worcestershire section of William Camden’s Britannia (the 1610 English version).

22 For Wood’s enquiries about Habington and the replies to them, see Bodleian Library, MSS Wood, F. 43. See also The Life and Times of Anthony Wood (Oxford Hist. Soc.), ii. p. 342. For Wood’s entry on Habington see Athenae Oxonienses III, pp. 222–25.

23 Habington refers to Tompkins at Survey, i. p. 378 (Staunton church) and ii. p. 447 (a monument in the cathedral). See also MS 143 in Soc. Antiq. Library, where Habington sends ‘Proofes out of Mr Salwey’s Evidences’ to ‘the worshippful my approved good friend Mr. Nathaniell Tompkins.’ Cf. Survey, ii. p. 286.

24 Survey, i. p. 34; i. p. 255. For the Red Book, see the edition by Marjory Hollins (Worcs. Hist. Soc., 1934).

25 Survey, i. p. 29; ii. p. 106; Worcester Record Office (WRO), B.A. 4380/35.

26 Banbury cheeses were proverbial for their thinness: at Shakespeare, Merry Wives of Windsor, I. i. 118 (Arden Edition), Bardolph calls Slender ‘You Banbery Cheese’.

27 On the Beauchamp Cartulary (now BL, Add. MS 28024) see Mason, Emma (ed.), The Beauchamp Cartulary Charters, 1100–1268 (Pipe Roll Soc., 1980).Google Scholar

28 Hamper, p. 198; Broadway, Jan, William Dugdale and the Significance of County History in Early Stuart England, Dugdale Soc. Occasional Papers 39 (1999), p. 15.Google Scholar

29 Shakespeare Birthplace Record Office, Stratford, Archer MSS, box 87. The two ‘tables’ are at Survey, i. pp. 27–32.

30 For Amphlett’s reasons for omitting this material, see Survey, ii. pp. iv-v. Of these families only the Talbots were established in Worcestershire by the end of the fifteenth century.

31 Ibidem, ii. p. 207–8 (Blount); i. p. 289 (Wintour); i. p. 429 (Throckmorton).

32 Ibidem, ii. pp. 113–4.

33 Ibidem, ii. pp. 226–7.

34 Bodleian Library, MS Don b 8.

35 WRO, B.A. 1359/1. There is a letter of 6 May 1647 from John Pooler of Waresley in Hartlebury (writing from London) to his father-in-law Richard Bourne which refers to the case between Bourne and John Barnaby. Pooler calls Barnaby ‘a suttle felow and unconsionable.’

36 Survey, i. p. 34.

37 Ibidem, ii. p. 50, note; ‘rovers’ is an archery team indicating elusive moving (as opposed to fixed) targets.

38 See Nash, i. p. 55 (William Meysey to Matthias Meysey); Prattinton Collection (Society of Antiquaries), Worcs. Parishes xviii, f. 54, under Hindlip: letter of Habington to John Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury, dated 8 June 1643, and letter of 1634 from Habington to Sir Thomas Lyttelton; references in the Archer-Habington correspondence to the evidences of Sir Walter Blount; and the typescript of Habington’s letters of 1634–6 to William Mucklowe.

39 Survey, i. p. 399; ii. p. 286; ii. p. 160.

40 Shirley, E. P., Hanley and the House of Lechmere (1883), pp. 51–2Google Scholar; Survey, i. p. 270. Cf. Jan Broadway, ‘Dugdale’, pp. 1–2 (Erdeswicke to Comberford).

41 Survey, i. pp. 17–18, and ii. pp. 106–7. Hall’s 1661 will and inventory are at WRO. See also Wanklyn, M. (ed.), Inventories of Worcestershire Landed Gentry, 1537–1786 (Worcs. Hist. Soc., 1998), pp. 180–82.Google Scholar

42 Writing to Archer in April 1635, Habington remarked that Shirley, Sir Thomas ‘assisteth me with recordes from London’ (Oakly Park MS, f. 71)Google Scholar. On Shirley (c. 1590–1654) see Cust, Richard, ‘Catholicism, Antiquarianism and Gentry Honour: the Writings of Sir Thomas Shirley’ in Midland History, xxiii, (1998), pp. 40–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

43 Styles, pp. 30, 35.

44 Ibidem, p. 12.

45 Survey, i. p. 428.

46 There are some eight pedigrees, most of them showing only a single line of descent.

47 Jan Broadway, ‘Dugdale’, p. 3. Cf. also Williams, Daniel, ‘William Burton’s 1642 Revised Edition of the “Description of Leicestershire”’ in Trans. Leics. Arch, and Hist. Soc. 50 (1974–5), pp. 30–36.Google Scholar

48 Richard Cust, ‘Catholicism, Antiquarianism etc.’ (see note 42); Survey, ii. p. 18, ii. p. 131 (Francis Throckmorton), i. p. 240 (John Lyttelton). Both men are praised for their ‘undaunted spirit’.

49 The quotation comes from Habington’s letter of 27 November 1642. See note 29 above.

50 See Styles, pp. 20, 30.

51 John Amphlett decided to use the Hagley Hall MS for his volume i, possibly because it contains a high proportion of material in Habington’s own hand. However, it is generally of earlier date (though additions were made to it) than Soc. Antiq. MS 143, which he made the basis of his volume ii. The result is that the reader who wants to discover what Habington has to say on certain Worcestershire parishes has to consult both volumes.