AND now having by a long and laborious search satisfied myself, and I hope my reader, by imparting to him the true relation of Mr. Hooker’s life: I am desirous also to acquaint him with some observations that relate to it, and which could not properly fall to be spoken till after his death; of which my reader may expect a brief and true account in the following Appendix.
And first it is not to be doubted, but that he died in the forty-seventh, if not in the forty-sixth year of his age; which I mention, because many have believed him to be more aged; but I have so examined it, as to be confident I mistake not; and for the year of his death, Mr. Camden, who, in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth, 1599, mentions him with a high commendation of his life and learning, declares him to die in the year 1599; and yet in that inscription of his monument set up at the charge of Sir William Cooper in Borne church, where Mr. Hooker was buried, his death is there said to be in anno 16031, but doubtless both mistaken; for I have it attested under the hand of William Somner the archbishop’s register for the province of Canterbury, that Richard Hooker’s will2 bears date Octob. 26th, in anno 1600, and that it was proved the third of December following3. And that at his death he left four daughters, Alice, Cicily, Jane, and Margaret; that he gave to each of them an hundred pound; that he left Joan his wife his sole executrix; and that by his inventory, his estate (a great part of it being in books) came to 1092l. 9s. 2d. which was much more than he thought himself worth; and which was not got by his care, much less by the good housewifery of his wife, but saved by his trusty servant Thomas Lane, that was wiser than his master in getting money for him, and more frugal than his mistress in keeping of it: of which will of Mr. Hooker’s I shall say no more, but that his dear friend Thomas, the father of George Cranmer, (of whom I have spoken, and shall have occasion to say more,) was one of the witnesses to it4.
One of his elder daughters was married to one Chalinor, sometime a schoolmaster in Chichester, and are both dead long since. Margaret his youngest daughter was married unto Ezekiel Chark5, bachelor in divinity, and rector of St. Nicholas in Harbledown near Canterbury, who died about sixteen years past, and had a son Ezekiel, now living, and in sacred orders, being at this time rector of Waldron in Sussex; she left also a daughter, with both whom I have spoken not many months past, and find her to be a widow in a condition that wants not, but very far from abounding; and these two attested unto me, that Richard Hooker their grandfather had a sister, by name Elizabeth Harvey, that lived to the age of 121 years, and died in the month of September, 16636.
For his other two daughters, I can learn little certainty, but have heard they both died before they were marriageable; and for his wife, she was so unlike Jephtha’s daughter, that she stayed not a comely time to bewail her widowhood; nor lived long enough to repent her second marriage, for which doubtless she would have found cause, if there had been but four months betwixt Mr. Hooker’s and her death. But she is dead, and let her other infirmities be buried with her.
Thus much briefly for his age, the year of his death, his estate, his wife, and his children. I am next to speak of his Books, concerning which I shall have a necessity of being longer, or shall neither do right to myself, or my reader, which is chiefly intended in this Appendix.
I have declared in his Life, that he proposed Eight Books, and that his first four were printed anno 1594, and his Fifth Book first printed, and alone, anno 1597, and that he lived to finish the remaining three of the proposed eight; but whether we have the last three as finisht by himself, is a just and material question; concerning which I do declare, that I have been told almost 40 years past, by one that very well knew Mr. Hooker, and the affairs of his family, that about a month after the death of Mr. Hooker, Bishop Whitgift, then Archbishop of Canterbury, sent one of his chaplains7 to inquire of Mrs. Hooker for the three remaining Books of Polity, writ by her husband; of which she would not, or could not give any account: and that about three months after that time the bishop procured her to be sent for to London, and then by his procurement she was to be examined, by some of her Majesty’s council, concerning the disposal of those Books; but by way of preparation for the next day’s examination, the bishop invited her to Lambeth; and, after some friendly questions, she confessed to him, “that one Mr. Charke, and another minister that dwelt near Canterbury, came to her, and desired that they might go into her husband’s study, and look upon some of his writings; and that there they two burnt and tore many of them, assuring her, that they were writings not fit to be seen; and that she knew nothing more concerning them.” Her lodging was then in Kingstreet in Westminster, where she was found next morning dead in her bed, and her new husband suspected and questioned for it; but he was declared innocent of her death.