This same year, William Prynne first began to make a noise in England. A learned young gentleman ‘from Swainswick, near Bath,’ graduate of Oxford, now ‘an Outer Barrister of Lincoln’s Inn’; well read in English Law, and full of zeal for Gospel Doctrine and Morality. He, struck by certain flagrant scandals of the time, especially by that of Play-acting and Masking, saw good, this year, to set forth his Histriomastix, or Player’s Scourge; a Book still extant, but never more to be read by mortal. For which Mr. William Prynne himself, before long, paid rather dear. The Book was licensed by old Archbishop Abbot, a man of Puritan tendencies, but now verging towards his end. Peter Heylin, ‘lying Peter’ as men sometimes call him, was already with hawk’s eye and the intensest interest reading this now unreadable Book, and, by Laud’s direction, taking excerpts from the same.—
It carries our thought to extensive world-transactions over sea, to reflect that in the end of this same year, ‘6th November
- Elizabeth; baptised 2d July 1629. Mrs. Claypole, 1645-6. Died at 3 in the morning, Hampton-Court, 6th August 1658,—four weeks before her Father. A graceful, brave, and amiable woman. The lamentation about Dr. Hewit and ‘bloodshed’ (in Clarendon and others) is fudge.
- James; baptised 8th January 1631-2; died next day.
- Mary; baptised (at Huntingdon still) 9th February 1636-7, Lady Fauconberg, 18th November 1657. Dean Swift knew her: ‘handsome and like her Father.’ (Journal to Stella, ‘13th Nov. 1710.’) Died 14th March 1712 (1712-3? is not decided in Noble). Richard died within a few months of her.
- Frances; baptised (at Ely now) 6th December 1638. ‘Charles ii. was for marrying her’: not improbable. Married Mr. Rich, Earl of Warwick’s grandson, 11th November 1657: he died in three months, 16th February 1657-8. No child by Rich. Married Sir John Russel,—the Checquers Russels, Died 27th January 1719-20.
nearer Wicken, in Cambridgeshire. Foolish story of Charles ii. and the ‘stablefork’ there (Noble, i. 212). Died 23d March 1673-4; buried in Wicken Church. A brave man and true: had he been named Protector, there had, most likely, been quite another History of England to write, at present!
In all, 5 sons and 4 daughters; of whom 3 sons and all the daughters came to maturity.
The Protector’s Widow died at Norborough, her son-in-law Claypole’s place (now ruined, patched into a farmhouse; near Market-Deeping; it is itself in Northamptonshire), 8th October 1672.
