MEMORIALS OF THOMAS FULLER. CHAPTER I. Dr. Fuller's Father and his Friends. T was to be expected that the age which has revived so many of Dr. Fuller's works, should also be curious to know more of himself. These notices, such as they are, will at least unfold more of his character, and will tend to confirm that reputation which his integrity, benevolence, indefatigable industry, and cheerful piety, long since acquired for him. The mention of his numerous friends here briefly memorialized may facilitate further investigation; and may, peradventure, furnish hints for the elucidation of other topics than those which bear especial relation to our author. If indeed, anywhere, the minutest details are interesting, it is in biography, by which we form, as it were, friendships with the dead; and to friendship nothing is unimportant that regards the objects of it. Dr. Thomas Fuller, the laborious antiquary and B church-historian, was born at Aldwinckle, St. Peter's, (between Thrapston and Oundle,) in 1608, and baptized on the 19th of June that same year, being the elder of the two sons of Thomas Fuller, B.D. Rector of St. Peter's, Aldwinckle, Prebendary of Sarum, and sometime Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Of his birth-place, Dr. Fuller in his Mixt Contemplations, observes, "God in his providence fixed my nativity in a remarkable place. I was born at Aldwinckle, in Northamptonshire, where my father was the painful preacher of St. Peter's. "This village was distanced one good mile west from Achurch, where Mr. Brown founder of the Brownists did dwell, whom, out of curiosity, when a youth, I often visited. It was likewise a mile and a half distant east from Lavenden,* where Francis Tresham, Esquire, so active in the Gunpowder Treason, had a large demesne and ancient habitation. "My nativity may mind me of moderation, whose cradle was rocked betwixt two rocks. Now, seeing I was never such a churl as to desire to eat my morsel alone, let such who like my prayer join with me therein. "God grant we may hit the golden mean, and endeavour to avoid all extremes; the fanatic Ana * Liveden, a manor house in a wood. It stood in the parish of St. Peter's, Aldwinckle, and formed part of a hamlet of four houses in as many parishes; Aldwinckle St. Peter's, Brigstock, Pilton, and Oundle. baptist on the one side, and the fiery zeal of the Jesuit on the other, that so we may be true Protestants, or, which is a far better name, real Christians indeed.'"* The villages of Aldwinckle, St. Peter's, and All Saints, stand upon a gentle slope, south of the River Nene, which winds northward between rich pastures and well wooded fields to the right, and the picturesque and diversified acclivities to the left, upon which stand the village and church of Wadenhoe. The spire of Achurch rising out of the thick trees is seen on the east side of the river. The church of Thorpe Achurch consists of a body, chancel, and two cross aisles. Some of the windows present specimens of simple flowing or decorated tracery; others are entirely plain. The spire+ is of the earlier kind, as is that of the neighbouring church of Thrapston. The rectory is a very spacious and venerable gabled pile, and the views from the *Fuller's Good Thoughts in Bad Times, &c. Pickering, 1841, p. 254. Of the Treshams, see a notice in his Ch. Hist. b. vi. p. 360. + There are several fine spires in this county as at Oundle, Wellingborough, Thrapston, Kettering, Kingsthorpe, Higham Ferrars, Denford, Aldwinckle St. Peter's, and many others. Hence Dr. Fuller's observation upon Northamptonshire in his British Worthies, "It is as fruitful and populous as any in England, insomuch, that sixteen several towns with their churches have at one view been discovered therein by my eyes, which I confess none of the best; and God grant that those who are sharper-sighted may hereafter never see fewer!" he adds in a note "other men have discovered two and thirty." grounds adjacent, owing to the unevenness and parklike character of the immediate vicinage, are extremely picturesque. Between these villages and Thrapston stand the Aldwinckles, All Saints to the east, and St. Peter's to the west. In the rectory of All Saints was born the famous Dryden. The church has been far handsomer than it now is, the chancel roof having been lowered, and the finely decorated head of the east window filled up, and in the interior cut off from sight. With the too common tastelessness of our rural churchwardens, the arches of the nave have been yellow-washed. It has also had the misfortune of being meanly re-pewed. In the windows are some panes painted with clusters of the vine, a very common device in the later period of painting in glass, and lately adopted throughout the nave and aisles of Cockayne Hatley Church, in the county of Bedford. At the end of the south aisle is a chantry-chapel, entered by a very acute arch from the aisle. Its east window is a very elegant union of the decorated and the perpendicular style. The piscina in this chapel is ogeed and embattled, much like that in the chancel of Great Gransden. * Fuller in his History of Abbies, contained in his Church History, † says of this chapel at Ald In Huntingdonshire. Amongst the former vicars of Great Gransden, was the Rev. Barnabas Oley, also Archdeacon of Ely, the friend of George Herbert, and the editor of his Poems and Remains. + B. vi. p. 357. winckle," the village of my nativity, a chantry in the parish church of All Saints was endowed with house and land for a priest at the cost of Sir John Aldwinkle, Knight, about the reign of King Henry the Sixth."* Of this Church, Dr. Haweis, one of the first promoters of the London Missionary Society, was for some years incumbent. The tower is a very beautiful composition of the fifteenth century, and in a purer style than the more imposing one of Titchmarsh, seen on an eminence to the southeast. The Church of St. Peter's carries with it a more venerable air, and has suffered less injury. It has a spacious chancel lighted with long and well decorated windows, with a very large east window of five principal compartments, and many smaller above. Under an altar-tomb on the south-east side is buried Margaret Davenant, sometime wife of John Davenant, Esq. citizen of London. She departed this life March 30, 1613. Upon the tomb is the following epitaph: Many and happy years I lived a wife, This Margaret was daughter and co-heir of John Clerke, of Farnham, in Surrey; her husband John * In the chancel is a brass to William Aldwinkle, Knt. August 28, 1463. |