[564]Mr. William Camden, Clarencieux—vide Fuller'sHoly Statewhere is something of his life and birth, etc.: videEngland's Worthies: quaere at the Heralds' Office when he was made Clarencieux.
Mr. Edward Bagshawe (who had been second schoole-master of Westminster schoole) haz told me that Mr. Camden had first his place and his lodgeings (which is the gate-house by the Queen's Scholars' chamber in Deanes-yard), and was after made the head schoole-master of that schoole, where he writt and taughtInstitutio Græcae Grammatices Compendiaria: in usum Regiae Scholae Westmonasteriensis, which is now the common Greeke grammar of England, but his name is not sett to it. Before, they learned the prolix Greeke Grammar of Cleonard.
He writt hisBritanniafirst in a large 8º.
Annales reg. Elizabethae.
There is a little booke in 16mo. of his printed, viz.: A Collection of all the Inscriptions then on the Tombes in Westminster Abbey.
'Tis reported, that he had bad eies[565](I guesse lippitude) which was a great inconvenience to an antiquary.
Mr. Nicholas Mercator has Stadius'sEphemerides, which had been one of Mr. Camden's; his name is there (I knowe his hand) and there are some notes by which I find he was astrologically given.
In hisBritanniahe haz a remarkable astrologicall observation, that when Saturn is in Capricornus a great plague is certainly in London. He had observed it all his time, and setts downe the like made by others before his time. Saturn was so posited in the great plague 1625, and also in the last great plague 1665. He likewise delivers that when an eclipse happens in ... that 'tis fatall to the towne of Shrewsbury, for....
He was basted by a courtier of the queene's in the cloysters at Westminster for ... queen Elizabeth in his history—from Dr. John Earle, dean of Westminster.
My honoured and learned friend, Thomas Fludd, esq.,
a Kentish gentleman, (
He lies buried in the South cross-aisle of Westminster Abbey, his effigies ½ on an altar, with this inscription:—
Qui fide antiqua et opera assiduaBritannicam antiquitatem indagavitSimplicitatem innatamhonestis studiis excoluitAnimi solertiam candore illustravitGulielmus Camdeniusab Elizabetha regina ad regis armorum(Clarentii titulo) dignitatem evocatusHicSpe certa resurgendi in ChristoS.E.Qui obiit anno Domini 1623, 9 Novembris,Aetatis suae 74:
in his hand a booke, on the leaves wherof is writt BRITANNIA.
Mr. Camden much studied the Welsh language, andkept a Welsh servant to improve him
[566]Sir William Dugdale tells me that he haz minutes
of King James's life to a moneth and a day, written by
Mr. William Camden; as also his owne life, according to
yeares and daye, which is very briefe, but 2 sheetes,
Mr. Camden's owne hand writing. Sir William Dugdale
had it from
[XXXVI.]☞ Quaere Sir William Dugdale. Vide how bishop Hacket came by it.
[XXXVI.]☞ Quaere Sir William Dugdale. Vide how bishop Hacket came by it.
[567]Quaere Mr. Ashmole to retrive and looke out Mr. Camden's minutes (memorandums) of King James I from his entrance into England, which Dr. Thorndyke[XXXVII.]filched from him as he lay a dyeing. 'Tis not above 6 or 8 sheetes of paper, as I remember. Those memoires were continued within a fortnight of his death.
[XXXVII.]He (Dr. Th.) told Sir Wiliam Dugdale so, who told me of it.
[XXXVII.]He (Dr. Th.) told Sir Wiliam Dugdale so, who told me of it.
[568]Quaere Dr. Buzby if Mr. Camden ever resigned the schoolmaster's place[569]? And if he did not dye at Westminster at the schoole house—vide bishop Hackett's life, which is printed before his sermons.
[570]Memorandum:—Mr. Camden's nativity is in his Memoires of King James, which gett.
[571]William Camden: quaere Sir William Dugdale who haz his papers?
Anthony Wood's lettre sayth that some of them are in Sir Henry St. George's hands[572], 'written and tricked with Mr. Camden's owne hand': ergo quaere ibidem.
[573]When my grandfather[574]went to schoole at Yatton-Keynell (neer Easton-Piers) Mr. Camden came to see thechurch, and particularly tooke notice of a little painted-glasse-windowe in the chancell, which (ever since my remembrance) haz been walled-up, to save the parson the chardge of glazing it.