The Letters of Sir Cheney Culpeper, 1641–1657

M. J. Braddick; Mark Greengrass

doi:10.1017/S0960116300000373

^{page 115 note 1} Roper, H. R. Trevor, ‘Three Foreigners: The Philosophers of the Puritan Revolution’ in Religion, the Reformation, and Social Change (1967), p. 239.Google Scholar

^{page 116 note 2} Hasted, Edward, The History and topographical survey of the county of Kent, 4 vols (1778–1799), ii, 466Google Scholar. Cleggett, D. A. H., Hollingbourne and the Culpepers (privately published, Hollingbourne, 1988).Google Scholar

^{page 116 note 3} Foster, Joseph, Alumni Oxoniensis; the members of the University of Oxford, 1500–1714 …, 4 vols (1891–1892), i. 303Google Scholar. Sturgess, H. A. C., Register of Admissions to the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, 3 vols (1949), i. 66Google Scholar (admitted 15 May 1594).

^{page 116 note 4} [Sir Thomas Culpeper], A tract against usurie. Presented to the high court of Parliament (1621)Google Scholar, STC 6108. The treatise went through a further reprinting in 1621, a second edition in 1624, a third in 1641 and a fourth in 1668. It is reprinted in Thirsk, J. and Cooper, J. P. (eds.), Seventeenth-Century Economic Documents (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1972), pp. 6–12.Google Scholar

^{page 116 note 5} Gunnis, Rupert, Dictionary of British Sculptors (1964), p. 213Google Scholar, describes it as one of the finest surviving examples of Marshall's work.

^{page 116 note 6} Parish records of All Saints, Hollingbourne, Kent County Record Office.

^{page 116 note 7} Foster, , i. 303.Google Scholar

^{page 117 note 8} Robert Honywood was from a neighbouring gentry family to the Culpepers at Charing; he was admitted on 31 June 1620 (Sturgess, , i. 111Google Scholar). Edward Partridge (var: Partheridge) was a family friend, possibly even a distant family relative, of the Culpepers and gave ‘Greenewaye Court’, the Culpeper seat, as his residence when he was admitted on 17 January 1621 (ibid., 113). William Freke [var: Freake] was admitted on 12 October 1622 (ibid, 124). Sir Edward Partridge was involved much later on with the drainage of the Bedford Level and moved to live in Ely where he had an experimental farm. See Harris, L. E., Vermuiden and the Fens (London, 1953), pp. 97–9Google Scholar; 109–112 and Darby, H. C., Drainage of the Fens (Cambridge, 1958, reprinted 1968), p. 70Google Scholar. The editors are very grateful to Joan Thirsk for providing these references.

^{page 117 note 9} William Weston was the son of Richard Weston, the Surrey gentleman whose ‘Discourse of Husbandrie used in Brabant and Flanders’ would be published by Hartlib in 1652. The preface from Sir Richard, dated 1645, explains that he left it as a ‘Legacie’ to his sons. (A Discours of Husbandrie used in Brabant and Flanders (1652), Wing 1483, sig B (ir).) Henry Lyde was one of the partners in a saltpetre production company in whose affairs Hartlib and Worsley were interested.

^{page 117 note 10} Hopwood, C. H., ed., Middle Temple Records, 2 vols (1904), ii. 96Google Scholar. Metcalfe, W. C., A Book of Knights (1885), p. 189.Google Scholar

^{page 117 note 11} Allegations for Marriage Licences issued by the Bishop of Landon (1611–1828), ed. Armytage, G. J., Harleian Society, vol 26, (1887), p. 208.Google Scholar

^{page 117 note 12} Attree, F. W. T. and Booker, J. H. L., ‘The Sussex Colepepers’, Sussex Archaeological Collections, 2 parts, especially part II, 48 (1905), 65–98.Google Scholar

^{page 118 note 13} Cleggett, , p. 4.Google Scholar

^{page 118 note 14} PRO, Chancery, Close Rolls, C54/2538 No 30.

^{page 118 note 15} The charges are mentioned in PRO SP 23/188 – pp. 82–5.

^{page 118 note 16} Below 73 (1 April 1645); 111 (1 October 1646); 114 (21 October 1646).

^{page 118 note 17} Calculated from the properties listed as belonging to Sir Thomas Culpeper of Hollingbourne in the County of Kent in PRO SP 23/188 pp. 82–5.

^{page 118 note 18} Calendar of the Proceedings of the Committee for Compounding, ed. Green, M. A. E., 5 vols (1889–1892), ii. 1,235Google Scholar; 40 (n.d. – 1643–4); 59 (18 December 1644).

^{page 118 note 19} 59 (18 December 1644). On 6 December 1638, for example, Sir Cheney Culpeper was one of several who was cited by Anne, Viscountess Dorchester, the widow of Sir Dudley Carleton, whom he had met during his time at The Hague, for money which had been lent to him – CSPD (Addenda 1625–January 1649), p. 744. In 1639 he became embroiled in a dispute in Chancery over a deed he had signed in 1631. The other principal parties were his cousin, Sir Alexander Culpeper and Anthony St. Leger (PRO, C2/Chas 1/052/70). On 10 August 1639, he joined with his father and Edward Parteridge in the lease of some land in Shoreditch to Richard Briggenshawe, a cutler - Kent County Record Office, U23T63.

^{page 118 note 20} He was well again by September 1641 as the letter from John Dury (2 (27 September 1641)) makes clear.

^{page 119 note 21} 40 (1643/4).

^{page 119 note 22} CSPD (1641–3) p. 239.

^{page 119 note 23} See Woods, Tom, Prelude to Civil War 1642. Mr Justice Malet and the Kentish Petitions (Wilton, Salisbury, 1980).Google Scholar

^{page 119 note 24} 10 (September 1641–June 1642?) and 18 (19 April 1642).

^{page 119 note 25} 29 (Autumn 1643) and 40 (1643–4).

^{page 119 note 26} 40 (1643/4).

^{page 119 note 27} 43 (24 January 1644); 46 (21 February 1644); 50 (4 April 1644).

^{page 119 note 28} 67 (4 February 1645) [summarised in this edition].

^{page 119 note 29} 70 (7 March 1645) [summarised in this edition].

^{page 119 note 30} 80 (17 July 1645).

^{page 120 note 31} 94 (31 October 1645).

^{page 120 note 32} 100 (12 January 1646).

^{page 120 note 33} 123 (23 February 1647?).

^{page 120 note 34} 117 (11 November 1646).

^{page 120 note 35} Calendar of the … Committee for Compounding, ii. 1,289.Google Scholar

^{page 120 note 36} 100 (12 January 1646).

^{page 120 note 37} 116 (4 November 1646).

^{page 120 note 38} 114 (21 October 1646).

^{page 121 note 39} 115 (29 October 1646).

^{page 121 note 40} 116 (4 November 1646).

^{page 121 note 41} 124 (1 March 1647).

^{page 121 note 42} The works of the Honourable Robert Boyle, ed. Birch, T., 6 vols (1772), vi. 83Google Scholar (Hartlib, to Boyle, , 28 02 1653/1654).Google Scholar

^{page 121 note 43} Calendar of the … Committee for Compounding, i. 102Google Scholar; ii. 1235; 1289.

^{page 121 note 44} CSPD (1650), p. 290 (16 August 1650); CSPD (1651), pp. 197–8 (13 May 1651); p. 454 (30 September 1651).

^{page 121 note 45} Ibid., p. 487.

^{page 121 note 46} PRO Chancery Proceedings 06/102/31.

^{page 121 note 47} According to the Bill of Complaint the disputed will, in which Cromer Stede left all his property to his widow, Cicely (who had subsequently married Sir Thomas Peyton), her son William Swan (she had previously been married to Sir Thomas Swann) and to Ralph Weldoti, was a forgery.

^{page 121 note 48} Hence the reference in Hartlib's diary, or Ephemerides, for 1649: ‘Sir [Cheney] [Culpeper] is like to have the whole Island to himself which amounts to 18 [hundrad] [acres?] of excellent Chalky Lands for keeping of Conies, or a Warren’ – 28/1/22A. Elmley is an island in the middle of the river Swale on the Isle of Sheppey.

^{page 122 note 49} The loan was made by Edward Atkins, A Justice of the Court of Common Pleas, Sir Thomas Dacres, Sir Anthony Aucher and Edward Wright.

^{page 122 note 50} The mortgage was entered into by a nominee, Dudley Palmer of Grays Inn, London.

^{page 122 note 51} Kent County Record Office U23T11.

^{page 122 note 52} Ibid., U23T9. A further series of indentures from 1654 identify the same. John Peck as having acquired the lease of a water-mill and the rights to a water course from Sir Cheney Culpeper – U23T53.

^{page 122 note 53} Inderwick, F. A., A Calendar of the Inner Temple Records (1896), iii. 445.Google Scholar

^{page 122 note 54} There is an entry in December 1666 which names John Colvert as a creditor; a further entry in March 1691 names William Smith – PRO PCC Administration Act Books, Prob 6/41 fol 203; Prob 6/67 fol 40^r.

^{page 122 note 55} PRO Probate 11/345, fols 249^v–250^r.

^{page 123 note 56} 100 (12 january 1646).

^{page 123 note 57} Russell, C., Parliament and English Politics, 1621–1629 (Oxford, 1979)CrossRef Google Scholar, ch. 2.

^{page 123 note 58} The affair is referred to in a letter from Joseph Mede to Sir Martin Stuteville of 25 January 1622. Cf. Williamson, J. Bruce, The History of the Temple, London (1924), p. 275.Google Scholar

^{page 123 note 59} In a letter dated 9 July 1629, Abraham Williams reminded the secretary of state, Viscount Dorchester, that Sir Robert Carr had received a diamond worth £200 for a similar errand and that a similar gift for ‘this honest gentleman’ would also be appropriate PRO SP16/46, fol 51.

^{page 123 note 60} PRO SP 16/185, fol 5 (Sir Thomas Culpeper to Sir Francis Nethersole, The Hague, 15 February 1631); ibid., 18/36, fol 191 (the same, 20 February 1631).

^{page 124 note 61} PRO SP 84/144, fols 5–8; ‘the bearer hereof Sr Cheney Culpeper, whose affection to your Lordships person and service is well knowne unto me …’. See also Hervey, Mary, The Life, Correspondence and Colkctions of Thomas Howard (Cambridge, 1921), p. 309.Google Scholar

^{page 124 note 62} Calendar of Treasury Books, i (1660–1667), ed. Shaw, William A. (1904), p. 445.Google Scholar

^{page 124 note 63} 42 (9 January 1644); for Culpeper's subsequent solicitude for the Prince Palatine, see 132 (August 1647) and 147 (18 January 1648).

^{page 124 note 64} Elizabeth of Bohemia referred to him in later life as ‘a little high flowen, and in his old humour …’ - Baker, L. M., The letters of Elizabeth of Bohemia (1953), p. 239.Google Scholar

^{page 124 note 65} Culpeper forwarded money to him there through Hartlib – 92 (21 October 1645). In the Ephemerides for 1650, Hartlib recorded: ‘The 9 of February Sir Cheney Culpeper brought Mr Freck [Freke?] to my house the first time. Hee lived at Vtrecht and much commended for a good and excellent man’ – 28/1/45B.

^{page 124 note 66} 116 (4 November 1646).

^{page 125 note 67} See Turnbull, G., Samuel Hartlib. A sketch of his life and his relations to J.A. Comenius (Oxford and London, 1920)Google Scholar; HDC; GI.

^{page 125 note 68} Evoked in Greengrass, M., ‘Samuel Hartlib and International Calvinism’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, 25 (1993), pp. 464–475.Google Scholar

^{page 125 note 69} 99 (December 1645).

^{page 125 note 70} Gawden, John, The Love of Truth and Peace. A sermon before the House of Commons by John Gauden, (1641) Thomason, E.204 (10), p. 41Google Scholar. The text of the sermon was Zechariah 8:19 – ‘I will turn your fasts into feasts; therefore love the truth and peace’.

^{page 125 note 71} ‘The 13. of April acquainted with Sir Cheney Culpeper at one Dr Smith's house a Dr of Phyisick in Shoe Lane at that part of the lane towards Holborne’.

^{page 126 note 72} According to Hartlib's accounts — 23/2/13B.

^{page 126 note 73} 23/12/3B; 23/10A.

^{page 126 note 74} 2 (27 September 1641).

^{page 126 note 75} HDC, pp. 458–60.

^{page 126 note 76} For the background to Chelsea College see 10 (n.d., 1641).

^{page 126 note 77} Comenius' självbiografi [Comenius about himself], eds. Nordtröm, Stig G. and Sjöstrand, Wilhelm, (Stockholm, 1975), pp. 154Google Scholar (trans); 236 (Latin facsimile) — ‘Parliament also more than once admonished us (for the most part through the most noble gentleman, Cheneus Culpeper) to hold ourselves in readiness; a commission of prudent men from Parliament were to be appointed, who would take cognizance of the whole matter on either side and dispose thereof.’

^{page 126 note 78} A copy of the speech of 9 November 1640, famous for its passage against monopolists, survives amongst Hartlib's papers: ‘It is a Neast of Waspes, a swarme of Vermin which have overcrept the land I meane the Monopolers, the Polers of the [people?], These like the froggs of Egipt have gotten possession of our dwellings, we have scarce a roome free from them, They sip in our Cupp, they dipp in our dish, they sitt by our fire …’ 44/5/3A.

^{page 127 note 79} For Felton's engines, see the articles by Raylor, Timothy, cited in notes to 31 (22 11 1643).Google Scholar

^{page 127 note 80} 88 (late Autumn/December 1645).

^{page 127 note 81} The letters refer to his financial assistance to a scholar who lodged with Hartlib, a ‘mechanicall Glawberus’ who was impoverished by the expenses of his studies — 141 (10 November 1647). He approved of John Milton's treatise On Education and wondered if he could be persuaded to become a tutor in his household — 96 (12 November 1645). He almost certainly supported the Bohemian exile Georg Ritschel as a student at Oxford — in (24 May 1646).

^{page 127 note 82} 100 (12 January 1646), 87 (late autumn/December 1645).

^{page 128 note 83} 98 (27 November 1645).

^{page 128 note 84} 66 (28 January 1645).

^{page 128 note 85} 102 (17 February 1646).

^{page 128 note 86} 106 (11 March 1646).

^{page 128 note 87} 133 (7 September 1647).

^{page 128 note 88} 152 (24 March 1648).

^{page 128 note 89} 141 (10 November 1647).

^{page 129 note 90} Culpeper had his own copies of the works of Giovanni Battista della Porta, Hugh Plats and Gabriel Plattes.

^{page 129 note 91} 30 (4 October 1643).

^{page 129 note 92} 8/40/10A (November 1643) for the subscription; 30 (4 October 1643) and 33 (3 December 1643); also 50 (4 April 1644).

^{page 129 note 93} 16 (5 April [1642]) and the various letters concerning Wheeler's snail-wheel pump — 94 (31 October 1645) etc. He made the acquaintance of Lord Goring, known for his mechanical ingenuities. Hartlib's Ephemerides notes information from Culpeper on new clock-designs from the Netherlands (1658; 29/7/9B), new machinery for making gear-wheels from Northampton or Warwickshire (1649; 28/1/29A) as well as numerous references on new seed-drills and irrigation techniques.

^{page 129 note 94} 148 (25 Jan 1647 [?8]).

^{page 129 note 95} He was interested in the practicalities of the new design of coach by the projector John Lanyon (Ephemerides, 1653 – 28/2/69B). In 1658, Hartlib noted: ‘Mr Palmer is making one of the travelling charrets with some additions, and then Sir Cheney Culpeper will have one also adding his contrivances to make it the more perfect’ (29/7/9B).

^{page 129 note 96} 118 (1646?).

^{page 130 note 97} Hunter, M., Science and Society in Restoration England (Cambridge, 1981)Google Scholar, ch. 3.

^{page 130 note 98} 149 (11 March 1647 [?8]).

^{page 130 note 99} 168 (11 October 1648).

^{page 130 note 100} 169 (1 November 1648).

^{page 130 note 101} 103 (24 February 1646).

^{page 130 note 102} 102 (17 February 1646).

^{page 131 note 103} 150 (15 March 1648).

^{page 131 note 104} 31 (22 November 1643).

^{page 131 note 105} 88 (Late autumn/December 1645?).

^{page 131 note 106} 58 (20 November 1644).

^{page 131 note 107} 97 (n.d., November 1645?).

^{page 131 note 108} 88 (Late autumn/December 1645?).

^{page 131 note 109} 99 (December 1645).

^{page 131 note 110} 71 (18 March 1645).

^{page 131 note 111} 60 (Autumn 1644).

^{page 131 note 112} 166 (25 September 1648).

^{page 132 note 113} F&R, ii, 403.

^{page 132 note 114} For an appreciation of the role of Benjamin Worsley in the council of trade, see UR, pp. 230–2.

^{page 132 note 115} The item was listed in catalogue No. 270 of E. M. Lawson & Co of Kingsholm, East Hagbourne, Oxfordshire. The editors are very grateful to Professor Timothy Raylor for drawing it to their attention, and to Messrs W. J. and K. M. Lawson for kindly providing a photocopy of the title-page of the pamphlet.

^{page 133 note 116} 30/2/15A–16A.

^{page 134 note 117} CSPD (1635–1636), p. 349 (Grant to James Vandebrooke, Sir Thomas Culpeper and Nicholas Scandalarius of a patent for 14 years, 2 April 1636).

^{page 134 note 118} 29/5/64A.

^{page 134 note 119} 80 (17 July 1645). See, too, Culpeper's interests in compost for cereal cultivation and compost ‘barrows’ as well as rabbit breeding in various letters, references which are set in context by Thirsk, Joan in The Agrarian History of England and Wales (Cambridge, 1985)Google Scholar, vol V.ii (1640–1750: Agrarian Change), ch. 19, csp. pp. 551–2.

^{page 134 note 120} 156 (6July 1648) and 159 (19 july 1648).

^{page 134 note 121} 187 (post 16 May 1654).

^{page 134 note 122} 156 (6 July 1648); 158 (12 July 1648); 165 (30 August 1648).

^{page 134 note 123} 62/48/1A–2B (22 May 1649).

^{page 135 note 124} Samuel Hartlib his Legacy (1655), pp. 245–7.Google Scholar

^{page 135 note 125} He was particularly keen to find out more about Duty's method of analysing a text, developed for use in scriptural analysis. He hoped it would assist him in the critical appraisal of written material — see 41 (3january 1643[?4]) where he applies it to the text of the letters sent by Charles 1 from Madrid and 65 (21 January 1645).

^{page 135 note 126} The letter to him from Dury in German in the Appendix (197) suggests that Dury thought he was reasonably fluent in German. However, whilst referring to his translation of Glauber, he mentions that he had no knowledge of the language, 133 (7 September 1647).

^{page 135 note 127} Clucas, p. 154.

^{page 135 note 128} 99 (December 1645).

^{page 136 note 129} Clucas, p. 153.

^{page 136 note 130} 148 (25 January 1647[78]).

^{page 136 note 131} 150 (15 March 1648).

^{page 136 note 132} For the important part played by motion in the chemical texts on which Culpeper relied, see Alien Debus, ‘Motion in the Chemical Texts of the Renaissance’ in Chemistry, Alchemy and the New Philosophy, 7550–7700 (1987), ch. 5.Google Scholar

^{page 137 note 133} 88 (Late Autumn/December 1645).

^{page 137 note 134} Trevor-Roper, p. 257.

^{page 137 note 135} 34 (5 December 1643).

^{page 138 note 136} 20 (n.d. July–August 1642).

^{page 138 note 137} 2 (27 September 1641).

^{page 138 note 138} Philippians 2:1 ‘If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies’.

^{page 139 note 139} 75 (6 May 1645).

^{page 139 note 140} 146 (12 January 1647 [?48]).

^{page 139 note 141} 108 (30 April 1646).

^{page 139 note 142} 105 (4 March 1646).

^{page 140 note 143} 108 (30 April 1646).

^{page 140 note 144} 58 (20 November 1644).

^{page 140 note 145} 118 (n.d. [1646?]).

^{page 140 note 146} 65 (21 January 1645).

^{page 141 note 147} 153 (5 April 1648).

^{page 141 note 148} 76 (6 May 1645).

^{page 141 note 149} 134 (15 September 1647). He also pointed out that the powers enjoyed by the monarchs had been interrupted by the depositions of Richard II and Edward II. See also his views on the meaning of the coronation oath in 75 (16 April 1645).

^{page 141 note 150} 135 (22 September 1647).

^{page 141 note 151} 134 (15 September 1647).

^{page 142 note 152} 141 (10 November 1647).

^{page 142 note 153} 59 (18 December 1644).

^{page 142 note 154} 65 (21 January 1645). He also hoped for the extinction of the aristocracy (or at least its atrophy) by natural wastage and attainder, if new creations were halted: 54 (16 May 1644).

^{page 142 note 155} 159 (19 July 1648).

^{page 142 note 156} 42 (9 January 1644).

^{page 142 note 157} 169 (1 November 1648), 170 (31 January 1648[?9]).

^{page 142 note 158} 135 (22 September 1647).

^{page 142 note 159} 171 (28 February 1649).

^{page 142 note 160} 42 (9 January 1644).

^{page 143 note 161} 127 (21 April 1647). This letter suggests unease about the use of any coercion except that of the spirit.

^{page 143 note 162} 20 (n.d. July–August 1642).

^{page 143 note 163} 76 (6 May 1645).

^{page 143 note 164} 78 (13 June 1645).

^{page 143 note 165} 71 (18 March 1645).

^{page 143 note 166} 40 (n.d. [1643–4]). He also suggested that resistance would not be necessary if parliament were properly reformed: 47 (n.d. [February 1644?]).

^{page 143 note 167} 76 (6 May 1645).

^{page 143 note 168} Hobbes, , Leviathan, ed. A. D. Lindsay (Everyman edition, 1914), p. 49Google Scholar. See also p. 30: ‘For there is no such thing as perpetuall Tranquillity of mind, while we live here; because Life it selfe is but Motion, and can never be without Desire, nor without Feare, no more than without Sense’.

^{page 144 note 169} 88 (Late autumn/December 1645?).

^{page 144 note 170} 26 (16 June 1643).

^{page 144 note 171} 58 (20 November 1644).

^{page 144 note 172} 102 (17 February 1646).

^{page 144 note 173} 108 (30 April 1646).

^{page 145 note 174} 145 (5 January 1648).

^{page 145 note 175} 152 (24 March 1648).

^{page 145 note 176} 90 (n.d. [Autumn 1645]).

^{page 145 note 177} ‘Who should be the judge’.

^{page 145 note 178} 23 (9 April [1643]).

^{page 145 note 179} 147 (18 January 1647[?8]).

^{page 145 note 180} 108 (30 April 1646).

^{page 146 note 181} 124 (1 March 1647).

^{page 146 note 182} 150 (15 March 1648).

^{page 146 note 183} 90 (n.d. [Autumn 1645]).

^{page 146 note 184} 160 (25 July 1648).

^{page 147 note 185} 108 (30 April 1646).

^{page 147 note 186} He frequently noted, for example, how corruption in the supply of the parliamentary war effort cost support for the cause: 65 (21 January 1645), 76 (6 May 1645).

^{page 147 note 187} 18 (19 April 1642).

^{page 147 note 188} Underdown, David, ‘“Honest Radicals” in the Counties, 1642–1649’ in Pennington, D. H. and Thomas, K., eds., Puritans and Revolutionaries. Essays in Seventeenth-Century History presented to Christopher Hill (Oxford, 1975), pp. 186–205.Google Scholar

^{page 147 note 189} 116 (4 November 1646) 117 (11 November 1646), 130 ([5?] August 1647), 131 (11 August 1647), 144 (n.d. [March 1647?]), 145 (5 January 1648), 151 (22 March 1648), 152 (24 March 1648).

^{page 147 note 190} 143 (22 December 1647), 159 (19 July 1648), 163 (16 August 1648).

^{page 147 note 191} 169 (1 November 1648).

^{page 147 note 192} 88 (Late autumn/December 1645?). See above, p. 130.

^{page 148 note 193} 99 (December 1645).

^{page 148 note 194} The myth was supported by, for example, the late sixeenth-century alchemist, Alexander von Suchten, many of whose writings were circulated by Haitlib around his acquaintances. See Pagel, Walter, ‘The Paracelsian Elias Artista and the Alchemical Tradition’ in Medizinhistorwhes Jahrbuch, xvi (1981), 6–19.Google Scholar

^{page 148 note 195} In a letter from Edward Parteridge to Clodius of 18 November 1658, he says that he is staying at Sir Cheney Culpeper's lodgings at the ‘Sign of the Black Boy’ in the Old Bailey, a lodging house often used by lawyers.

^{page 148 note 196} Boyle, , Works, vi. 99Google Scholar (Hartlib — Boyle, 7 January 1658). See also the earlier letter of 8 December 1657 — vi. 97.

^{page 149 note 197} The pamphlet was reproduced by Thomas Birch in his edition of The Oceana of James Harrington; and his other works (Dublin. 1737)Google Scholar. It was published, along with a hostile response in An Answer to a Proposition … (1659)Google Scholar Thomason, E.986 (24) — dated by George Thomason to 17 June 1659.

^{page 149 note 198} Ashley, J., John Wildman (1957), p. 121.Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 199} Pocock, J G. A., The Political Works of James Harrington (Cambridge, 1977), p. 111.Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 200} See Scott, Jonathan, ‘The rapture of motion: James Harrington's political thought’ in Philippson, N. and Skinner, Q. (eds), Political Discourse in Early Modern Britain (Cambridge, 1993), pp 139–163.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 149 note 201} F&R, ii. 1290.

^{page 151 note 1} At this date, John Dury was resident in Hamburg. He alluded to the delicacy of his proposed short visit to the Netherlands in a letter to Sir William Pelham of 25 June 1641 (2/4/1A). He had arrived in Rotterdam, by 5 July [NS] – see 2/5/1A–2B.

^{page 151 note 2} Dury returned to England in August 1641 – Batten, p. 90.

^{page 152 note 3} Genesis 28: 20–21 – ‘And Jacob vowed a vow, saying, If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat, and raiment to put on, So that I may come again to my father's house in peace; then shall the Lord be my God’.

^{page 153 note 4} Jan Amos Comenius arrived in London from Leszno on 21 September 1641 HDC, p. 354. For an account of Comenius's visit to England see Young, R.F., Comenius in England (Oxford, 1932)Google Scholar, passim; HDC, pp. 349–70.

^{page 153 note 5} The mathematician John Pell (1611–85) wrote an early version of his ‘Idea of Mathematics’ and sent it to Hartlib in 1634. It was subsequently printed and published in a single folio sheet in 1638 ([An Idea of Mathematics] STC 19564.5). Culpeper is referring either to this printed tract or to a manuscript copy which Hartlib had despatched to him. A title-page copy of such a copy, written in Hartlib's hand, is to be found amongst his papers in 14/1/6A. In 1650, Pell's ‘Idea’ was published as an appendix to john Dury's Reformed Library Keeper (1650), Wing D2882, pp. 33–46. See also P.J. Wallis, ‘An Early Mathematical Manifesto – John Pell's Idea of Mathematics', Durham Research Review, 18 (1967), 139–48; HDC, p. 88.

^{page 155 note 6} At least nine works were published by Dury in 1641. This may perhaps refer to his Summary Discourse concerning the work of Peace Ecclesiasticall (Cambridge, 1641)Google Scholar, Wing D2889.

^{page 156 note 7} Ecclesiastes 5:2 – ‘Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few’.

^{page 157 note 8} This and succeeding correspondence with Culpeper resulted in Dury's published treatise A Motion Tending to the Publick Good of This Age, And of Posteritie (1642), Wing D2874.

^{page 158 note 9} It is not clear to which of Duty's numerous treatises from 1641 Culpeper here refers.

^{page 159 note 10} Comenius' Pansophiae Prodromus had been published in London in 1639 with a preface by Samuel Hartlib. His Janua linguarum reseratae vestibulum, a grammar book arranged as a small encyclopaedia of useful knowledge, had been first published at Leszno in 1631, and had been popularised in England by a pirated edition, published in London in 1632 – see HDC, pp. 88–9.

^{page 159 note 11} Although the copy is undated it is clearly by John Dury and follows the preceeding letter in subject-matter and should be assigned to the last months of 1641 – see HDC, p. 224.

^{page 160 note 12} Sir John Temple (1600–1674) was created master of the rolls in Ireland in 1641. He had been instrumental in the offer to Dury of a post as household chaplain to the Earl of Leicester, Lord Lieutenant in Ireland in May 1641. Dury explained to Hartlib that his principal duties were ‘that I am called to order & have an inspection over the family in matters concerning Religion & Gods private worship therein’, which was doubtless the issue of the letter relating to household religion which had been sent to Culpeper for comment – 9/1/147A–150B.

^{page 160 note 13} See above, p. 156 note 7.

^{page 162 note 14} According to the surviving fragments of Hartlib's accounts, Culpeper had subscribed regular monthly amounts in support of his philanthropic endeavours during 1641. £5 was received on 13 April (23/2/12B), a further £5 on 11 May (23/12/3B), and £10 on 14 May (23/10A).

^{page 162 note 15} Chelsea College was founded in 1607 as a divinity college. Its provost and 19 fellows were endowed through the bequest of Matthew Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter. During his visit to England, Comenius attempted to gather the support of various MPs for the establishment of a Universal College, modelled (perhaps) on ‘Solomon's House’, the research institution of Bacon's New Atlantis. Chelsea College was considered as a possible location for such a foundation, which was to be re-endowed with 12 fellows. For Comenius' recollections of Culpeper's involvement, see Introduction, p. 126. A later, better known, suggestion for reforming Chelsea College was published by John Dury in his Reformed Spiritual Husbandman (1652), Wing D2885. He proposed to convert it into a college for international protestant correspondence – see Young, , pp. 43, 54–5Google Scholar; The Diary and Correspondence of John Worthington, ed. Crossley, James, Chetham Society, Vol. 13 (Manchester, 1847), pp. 69–75Google Scholar; GI, pp. 49, 71; HDC, p. 361; Purver, M., The Royal Society: Concept and Creation (1967), pp. 214–15.Google Scholar

^{page 164 note 1} Culpeper clearly alludes to the arrest of the five members of the House of Commons and one member of the House of Lords on 3 January 1642. Although charged with high treason for their complicity in the Scottish invasion and for declaring war against the king they were escorted back to Westminster on 11 January. See CDPR, pp. 236–37; SRP. ii, 757–58; CSPD (1641–43), p. 236; and Forster, J., Arrest of Five Members by Charles the First (1860).Google Scholar

^{page 164 note 2} Published by Samuel Hartlib in A Motion tending to the Publick Good of This Age, and of Posteritie (1642), Wing D2874, sigs. C4^r–D4^r. It is edited and republished in part in SHAL, pp. 103–06.

^{page 165 note 3} Published hy Hartlib in A Motion … (1642), Wing D2874, sigs. d4^r–E1^v. It is edited and repubhshed in full in SHAL, pp. 106 10.

^{page 165 note 4} Crompton, Richard, L'authoritie et jurisdiction des courts de la roygne: nouelment collect & composeGoogle Scholar (1594), STC 6050; another edition (1637), STC 6051.

^{page 166 note 5} Culpeper is probably referring to a now lost manuscript treatise on the perpetuum mobile, penned by Comenius under the pseudonym of Johannes Nicomeus. At this time, several figures amongst Hartlib's acquaintance were exploring the possibilities of perpetual motion. In his correspondence with Hartlib, the German alchemist Johann Morian first mentioned perpetual motion on 7 March 1639 (37/10). Although eventually critical of Comenius's ideas on the subject (see Moriaen to Hartlib, 10 February 1642, 37/102), he attempted to build a model based on Comemius's principles (3 July 1642, 37/110). As late as 1657 he was still commenting on the Comenian treatise (30 November 1657, 42/2/26). See HDC, p. 444. See also Monatshefte der Comenius-Gesellschaft (Berlin and Munster, 1892 etc.)Google Scholar, v. 245; vi. 65; Kvačala, J., Korrespondenz Jana Amona Komenského (Prague, 1897), 245–46Google Scholar; Kúmpera, Jan, Jan Amos Komenský (Ostrava, 1992), pp. 219–29Google Scholar; also Ord-Hume, A. W., Perpetual Motion: The History of an Obsession (1977).Google Scholar

^{page 166 note 6} Jacobus Acontius (Giacomo Aconcio) (1492–1520?) was an Italian diplomat, logician and inventor who devised a well-known analytical method. Culpeper is referring either to Acontius's lacobo Acontius Tridentini de Methodo. hoc est de recta investigandarum tradendarumgue scientarium ratione (Basel, 1558)Google Scholar or to his Satanae Strategemata. Libri Octo (Basel, 1565)Google Scholar. On Acontius, see Rossi, Paulo, Giacomo Acanzio (Milan, 1952)Google Scholar and O'Malley, C. D., Jacopo Acanzio (Rome, 1955).Google Scholar

^{page 166 note 7} Culpeper is here referring to the proposed inventions of the exiled John Christopher De Bergh, Lord of Wahanzig in Moravia. Hartlib promoted a number of De Bergh's designs, including a pump which is described in a Latin memorandum in 8/63/1A–2B with the attached letter to obtain a patent for it (8/63/10A–11B). John Pym considered employing it in 1639 to drain some flooded mines in which he had an interest. (65/17A–B – undated memorandum but evidently in Pym's hand and related to his letter of 14 November 1639 to Hardib (31/3/11A–12B)). Although Culpeper's prime interest in the pump was evidently its congruence with the idea of perpetual motion, he was no doubt also attracted to its possibilities for use on his own lands at Appledore on the Romney marshes which were subject to periodic flooding.

^{page 167 note 8} Culpeper is probably referring to the recent English edition of 1641 (Wing C5511).

^{page 167 note 9} The imminent outbreak of civil war in 1642 led Comenius to doubt the possibilities for universal reformation in England in the immediate future. After some debate, he accepted an invitation to Sweden from the wealthy Dutch patron, Louis de Geer, and left England in July 1642 – HDC, pp. 364–66.

^{page 167 note 10} Princess Mary, the daughter of Charles I, was betrothed to William of Orange in 1641 and moved to take up residence in The Hague in the spring of 1642. Dury secured a post as chaplain to her through the good offices of the Prince Elector Palatine, who apparently interceded with King Charles on his behalf. Dury was appointed on 7 April 1642 and left for The Hague sometime in May – HDC, pp. 225–26.

^{page 167 note 11} Culpeper believed that Parliamentary support was essential if the proposed plans for the advancement of learning, particularly a reformed Chelsea College, were to succeed – SHAL, p. 36.

^{page 168 note 12} Dury had decided to take up the appointment at The Hague and arrived there by 30 May – HDC. p. 226.

^{page 168 note 13} Comenius left England on 21 June and arrived in Amsterdam on 26 June – HDC, pp. 365–66.

^{page 169 note 14} John Dury, His discourse about his method of meditation’ – see below, Appendix, 197. Although undated, the discourse was probably extracted from a letter to Culpeper and should be assigned to the middle of 1642. The discourse is listed by George Turnbull in his ‘Writings by John Dury’ – HDC, p. 309.

^{page 169 note 15} I Corinthians 10:23 – ‘All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but all things edify not.’

^{page 170 note 16} Elizabeth of Bohemia, who had appointed Dury chaplain to Princess Mary at the Hague in March 1642 – HDC, p. 225.

^{page 170 note 17} The Moderate Intelligencer is not identified for this year in N&S.

^{page 170 note 18} The following three extracts have every appearance of being copied out of Culpeper's letters by Hartlib for passing on to Dury. They were clearly attached to the preceeding letter amongst the papers and they are on the subject of the discussion referred to in it.

^{page 170 note 19} corrected from ‘eithbound’ – i.e. ‘gentle constraint’ [?].

^{page 171 note 20} i.e. the law of retribution as applied in the Roman lawcodes.

^{page 172 note 21} 2 Timothy 2:24 – ‘And the servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient’.

^{page 172 note 22} The dating of this letter is based principally on the slender reference to Culpeper's doubts about Duty's ‘presente cowrse’, which is taken to mean his departure for The Hague, doubts already echoed in 18 (19 April [1642]).

^{page 172 note 23} Sir Henry Vane (1594–1655) – DNB.

^{page 172 note 24} John Pym (1584–1643) – DNB.

^{page 173 note 1} Not identified.

^{page 173 note 2} i.e. The Hague, where the court of Elizabeth of Bohemia then resided. Culpeper had visited the exiled Palatine court himself before the Civil War — see Introduction, p. 117.

^{page 173 note 3} Loosen.

^{page 173 note 4} With the Assembly summoned to Westminster in June to draw up a religious settlement, this was an apparently auspicious moment for Dury's presence – Batten, pp. 96–7.

^{page 173 note 5} See Hartlib, Samuel, A Faithfull and Seasonable Advice, or, The Necessity of a Correspondence for the Advancement of the Protestant Cause (1643)Google Scholar, Wing H986 Thomason, E.87 (14), given by Hartlib to George Thomason, 6 Feb. 1642[/3].

^{page 173 note 6} It is unclear whether Culpeper refers to the court of Charles I or that of Elizabeth.

^{page 174 note 7} A term redolent of arbitrary government, current among courtiers and churchmen at this time – see also The Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir Symonds D'Ewes in the Reigns of James 1 and Charles I, ed. J. O. Halliwell, 2 vols (1845), ii. 132.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note 8} Acts 17: 10–13.

^{page 174 note 9} Conservative-minded bishops had supported the King's edict enforcing Sunday and holiday recreations, which was greeted with dismay by Puritan reformers see Underdown, David, Revel, Riot and Rebellion (Oxford, 1985), ch. 3.Google Scholar

^{page 174 note 10} ‘Noe Bishop noe King’ — Kingjames's outburst at the Hampton Court Conference. The power of bishops, and the appropriate relationship of temporal and spiritual authority, were currently subjects of intense debate. A Bill for the abolition of Episcopacy had been accepted by Parliament in January 1642 Gardiner, i. 84.

^{page 174 note 11} Articles of cessation had been presented to the King on 1 March 1643, to which he replied on 6 March – Gardiner, i. 95–6.

^{page 174 note 12} The petition from the Common Council of the City of London on 11 March 1643 for the formation of an association of the kind originally proposed by Pym in October 1642 – Gardiner, i. 39, 99.

^{page 174 note 13} The Queen returned to England from the Low Countries towards the middle of February and set up headquarters at York — Clarendon, ii. 467 68.

^{page 174 note 14} Sir William Waller (1597?–1668), Parliamentary General and a supporter of Hartlib, Dury and Comenius. At this time he was conducting a successful campaign in Wales and the Marches — DNB; HDC.

^{page 175 note 15} The prolific pamphleteer William Prynne (1600–1669). Culpeper was anticipating his important constitutional work, commissioned by Parliament in defence of its soveraignty, The Fourth Part of the Soveraigne Power of Parliaments (1643)Google Scholar, Wing P3962. See DNB and Lamont, William, Marginal Prynne (1963), ch. 5.Google Scholar

^{page 175 note 16} ‘Who should be the judge’.

^{page 175 note 17} Parliament passed ordinances for weekly assessments 24 February 1643 and 7 May 1643 — F&R, i. 85–100, 145–55.

^{page 175 note 18} The Solemn League and Covenant was passed by Parliament on 9 June 1643 – F&R, i. 175–76.

^{page 175 note 19} According to the ordinances of 4 March and 3 May 1643 those who refused to pay contributions were branded delinquents — F&R, i. 100, 139–41.

^{page 175 note 20} Robert Devereux, third Earl of Essex (1591–1646), had taken Reading on 27 April and was marching on the King's stronghold of Oxford by 10 June — DNB; Gardiner, i. 129, 150.

^{page 176 note 21} The Westminster Assembly, created by a Commons resolution of 12 June 1643 to settle questions of church government and liturgy. Dury was not initially a delegate to the Assembly. See Batten, pp. 97–8; and HDC, p. 237.

^{page 176 note 22} Dury remained chaplain to the princess Mary at The Hague until May 1644 — HDC, pp. 236–40.

^{page 177 note 23} Dury was appointed to the Westminster Assembly by a Commons resolution of 28 June 1643 — Batten, pp. 97–8.

^{page 177 note 24} The dating of this letter is reasonably secure. The 13 August was a Sunday in 1643.

^{page 177 note 25} Dury refers to his discourse with André Rivet and responds explicitly to Culpeper's criticism in an undated letter to Hartlib (2/9/17A–18B) which Turnbull dates to early September 1642 but which must be a year later HDC, p. 231.

^{page 178 note 26} A reference to the loss of Reading to the Royalists on 3 October 1643 Gardiner, i, 238.

^{page 179 note 27} The treaty was signed by the Commissioners at Edinburgh on 29 November, but not ratified till 3 January 1643/4 — CSPD 1641–43, pp. 502; 505; LJ, vi. 364–6.

^{page 179 note 28} Captain Lee, ‘a hatter vpon Ludgate hill’ (62, 5 January 1645).

^{page 179 note 29} Light leather guns had been used successfully by the Swedish army in the Thirty Year War, and the idea was imported to Britain by gunners who had served with the Swedes. A version was patented by the Scottish gunner James Wemyss (1610?–1667), who set out with his guns from London to join Waller on 3 October. The guns had little effect and were shortly captured. See DNB; Young, P. and Holmes, R., The English Civil War (1974), pp. 161. 187Google Scholar; Firth, C.H., Cromwell's Army (1962), pp. 147–48, 156Google Scholar; The True Informer 28 Oct. 4 Nov. (1643), N&S 629.07, Thomason, E.74. (21).

^{page 179 note 29} Waller, having tried and failed to take Basing House, was troubled by massive desertions and by an increasing powerful royalist force — see Young and Holmes, pp. 159–72.

^{page 179 note 31} Raylor, Timothy, ‘Providence and Technology in the English Civil War: Edmond Felton and his Engine’, Renaissance Studies, 7 (1993), 338–414CrossRef Google Scholar; also ‘New Light on Milton and Hartlib’, Milton Quarterly, 27 (1993), 19–29.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 180 note 32} Giovanni Battista della Porta, Magia naturalis libri viginti, (Naples, 1589; Frankfurt, 1597). p. 484.Google Scholar

^{page 180 note 33} Felton's invention was a mobile structure designed to protect infantry during artillery bombardment.

^{page 180 note 34} ‘Blind your eyes with the smoke. This may much profit, when enemies come to storm a City. But first we must consider the wind, that it may be on the backs of our men, and may carry the smoke into the faces of our enemies. Let there be measures made like lanthorns, so wide that they with Power of Euphorbium, Pepper, quick Lime, Vine-Ashes, and Arsnick sublimate; and put them into the hollow of it, after the Gunpowder for by the force of the fire, will these paper-frames break; and the smoke of the Powder, if it come at the eyes of the enemies, will so trouble them, that casting away their weapons, they can hardly save their eyes.’ (Translation from Natural Magick by John Baptista Porta (1658), Wing P2982, p. 302).Google Scholar

^{page 181 note 35} William II of Nassau. For the background to his disputes with the estates of Holland see Geyl, P., Orange and Stuart (1969), ch. 1.Google Scholar

^{page 181 note 36} Cardinal Richelieu had died on 4 December 1642 [N⁵].

^{page 181 note 37} Revelation 19: 17–18: ‘And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven. Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God’.

^{page 182 note 38} The Scots did not enter England until January 1644 Gardiner, i. p. 294.

^{page 182 note 39} Sir William Brereton (1604–1661) was a parliamentary commander operating successfully in Cheshire and the Midlands — DNB; cf Morrill, John, ‘Sir William Brereton and England's Wars of Religion’, Journal of British Studies, 24 (1985), 311–32.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 182 note 40} Colonel Edward Massey (1619?–1674?), governor of Gloucester, successfully withstood a royalist siege there in the summer of 1643, during which a version of Felton's engine of war was employed by the attackers — DNB.

^{page 182 note 41} Current military practice dictated that an infantry company should comprise two-thirds musketeers and, for their defence, one-third pikemen; Young and Holmes, p. 46. Culpeper's suggestion that musketeers should carry their own version of a pike addresses the problem of how to defend musketeers cheaply. This was the difficulty which underlay both Culpeper's interest in light armour and Felton's engine: it was not resolved until the invention of the bayonet towards the end of the century; Firth, pp. 91–2.

^{page 182 note 42} Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven (1580?–1661), commander of the Scottish forces in the First Bishops' War — DNB.

^{page 183 note 43} James Wemyss (1610?–1667), master gunner of England and general of the artillery in Scotland see above, p. 179, note 29.

^{page 183 note 44} A small defensive fieldwork.

^{page 183 note 45} ‘Breech’ i.e. the tail end of the cannon – OED.

^{page 184 note 46} Perhaps a reference to Endymion Porter (1587–1649) – DNB.

^{page 184 note 47} Culpeper here advocates the compilation of an epitome, similar to those promoted by Dury to promote ecclesiastical agreement as a means of resolving political disputes.

^{page 185 note 48} This proposed oath is similar to that eventually adopted for use against delinquents in 1644.

^{page 189 note 1} In one of the crucial legal disputes of the period, the House of Commons overturned on 12 December 1640 the Exchequer's decision on Rex v. Hampden 1638 (which had cemented the legality of the ship money levy) — see Gill, A. A. M., ‘Ship Money during the personal rule of Charles I: politics, ideology and the law’, (Ph.D. Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1991), chs. 1, 2 and 4.Google Scholar

^{page 189 note 2} ‘That there should he an end to litigation’.

^{page 190 note 3} ‘Whether the [King] when in receipt of justice be not inferior or as ono of his meaner subjects’.

^{page 190 note 4} Culpeper refers to the Appellant triumph and supsequent repression of 1388–89. Parliament had impeached Richard II's chancellor (Michael de la Pole) and established a commission to oversee the king's activities. When Richard declared this an act of treason, his opponents responded by rallying parliament to outlaw and execute some of his closest associates. Richard was forced to submit to his opponents the ‘appellants’. On 3 May 1389 Richard declared that, at the age of twenty-two, he would rule as an independent monarch. See Jones, R. H., Tiie Royal Policy of Richard 11, Absolutism in the later Middle Ages (Oxford, 1968), pp. 47–65Google Scholar; Tuck, A., Richard II and the, English Nobility (1973), pp. 121–38.Google Scholar

^{page 190 note 5} Dury had outlined the importance of textual analysis (‘Analyticall meditation’) in educational terms in A Motion Tending to the Publick Good of This Age, And of Posteritie (1642)Google Scholar, Wing D2874, sig. D1^v. The concern for ‘right method’ amongst Hartlib and his associates is stressed in S. Clucas, ‘In search of “The True Logick”: methodological eclecticism among the “Baconian reformers”’ in UR, ch. 2.

^{page 190 note 6} While seeking the hand of the Infanta in Madrid in 1623, Charles had written several conciliatory letters to the Pope see The Letters, Speeches and Proclamations of Charles I, ed. Sir Charles Petrie (1935), p. 15Google Scholar. Their disclosure caused much outcry. A copy of one of them appears amongst Hartlib's papers (43/1).

^{page 191 note 7} Covent Garden.

^{page 191 note 8} The astrologer John Booker (1603 67). Culpeper probably refers to Booker's 1643 Almanac (Wing A1330). See Capp, Bernard, English Almanacs 1500–1800: Astrology and the Popular Press (New York, 1979).Google Scholar

^{page 191 note 9} I Corinthians 14:40 ‘Let all things be done decently and in order’.

^{page 191 note 10} Matthew 18:17 — ‘And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican’.

^{page 192 note 11} Culpeper had been awarded an annuity of £400 per annum for a period of thirty-five years for his services to Elizabeth of Bohemia since the early 1630s — Calendar of Treasury Books i (1660–1667), ed. William A. Shaw (1904), p. 445.Google Scholar

^{page 192 note 12} A cryptic allusion to the plan, advanced by John Pym and his associates, to depose Charles I in favour of his nephew, Charles Louis the Prince Elector Palatine Caroline Hibbard, Charles I and the Popish Plot (Chapel Hill, 1983), pp. 131, 177, 207 08.Google Scholar

^{page 193 note 13} Waller took Arundel Castle from Hopton on 6 January, and subsequently retired to winter quarters Gardiner, i. 254.

^{page 193 note 14} Mede, Joseph, Clavis Apocalyptica (Cambridge, 1627)Google Scholar, STC 17766; Culpeper is no doubt requesting the new English translation by Richard More, The Key of Revelation (1643), Wing M1600.Google Scholar

^{page 193 note 15} The King had summoned a ‘parliament’ of his supporters to Oxford on 22 December 1643 in response to the invasion of the Scots — Gardiner, i. p. 219; SRP, ii. 987–89. Supporters of the Westminster parliament dismissed the gathering as illegal. Hartlib's papers contain a squib on the subject, written in Hartlib's hand (50/17).

^{page 194 note 16} Exodus 7:10–14.

^{page 194 note 17} William Cavendish, Marquis of Newcastle, the royalist commander in the north, was at this date hard-pressed by the Scots and forced to retreat with his forces from around Newcastle.

^{page 194 note 18} Hopton's new army had threatened to take Plymouth towards the end of November 1642. The town had resisted, however, and continued to hold out against Charles's attempts to capture it. See Gardiner, i. 71, 139, 195; ii. 32.

^{page 195 note 19} For Sir John Culpeper, see Introduction, p. 118, 121. By the time of the royalist Parliament at Oxford, Sir John Culpeper had made enemies at court but was still held in high regard by the king. His peerage apparently the reward for his services during the siege of Oxford in the following year.

^{page 195 note 20} Sir John Culpeper was Master of the Rolls — DNB s.n. John Colepeper.

^{page 195 note 21} Esther 4:13–14 ‘Then Mordecai commanded to answer Esther, Think not with thyself that thou shalt escape in the king's house, more than all the Jews. For if thou altogether holdest thy peace at this time, then shall there enlargement and deliverance arise to the Jews from another place; but thou and thy father's house shall he destroyed: and who knoweth whether thou art come to the kingdom for such a time as this?’. Hebrews 11:25–6 — ‘Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt: for he had respect unto the recompence of the reward.’

^{page 197 note 22} This has not been identified.

^{page 198 note 23} The Dutch had offered to mediate between the king and parliament. The king's intermittent attempts to establish a Dutch alliance caused the Parliamentarians great concern — Gardiner, i. 328–9.

^{page 198 note 24} The call for frequent parliaments was regularly voiced by parliamentary thinkers. Culpeper's thoughts on the subject predate the proposals for annual or biennial elections advanced by the Levellers in 1648. See Croft, Pauline, ‘Annual Parliaments and the Long Parliament’, Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research, 59 (1986), pp. 155–87CrossRef Google Scholar; The leveller Tracts, 1647–1653, ed. Haller, W. and Davies, G. (New York, 1944), p. 112Google Scholar; Leveller Manifestoes of the Puritan Revolution, ed. Wolfe, Don M. (New York, 1943), pp. 317–18Google Scholar.

^{page 198 note 25} The consitution of Venice, with its complex system of balloting, designed to curb private interest, was much admired by republican thinkers of this period Skinner, Q., The Foundations of Modern Political Thought, 2 vols (Cambridge, 1978), i. 141.Google Scholar

^{page 199 note 26} Eager, vehement.

^{page 199 note 27} This substance was obtained from various sources, notably the swim bladders of fish, for use as finings in the brewing of beer and in the manufacture of glue.

^{page 199 note 28} Breech.

^{page 199 note 29} John Dury's account of ‘an Engin of warre’, designed by a Frenchman named Fermin and consisting of an armoured ‘cariadge of 2 peeces of Canon’, survives amongst Hartlib's papers (67/2/1A–3B). The engine is remarkably similar to that of Edmund Felton. The surviving copy of Dury's account omits the diagram requested by Culpeper.

^{page 199 note 30} Culpeper here replies to the dubious claim made by Felton in his printed tract Engins Invented to save much Blood and Moneyes (1644)Google Scholar, Wing F660, that his engine will save 5/6ths of an army's pay by obviating the need for pikemen to defend the musketeers (p. 2). The typical regiment comprised 1/3 rather than 1/2 pikemen, as Felton claims — see Young, and Holmes, , pp. 46–7Google Scholar. Hartlib was involved in the editing and distributing of this tract.

^{page 200 note 31} The Oxford ‘Parliament’ passed a motion declaring the Westminster Parliament to be traitors on 26 January 1644 – Clarendon, , iii. 308.Google Scholar

^{page 200 note 32} Culpeper had already been involved in the proposed reform of Chelsea College as an instrument for the advancement of learning in 1641 2 see 10 ([September 1641 – June 1642?]) and 17 (13 April [1642]).

^{page 201 note 33} Gardiner, , i. 342 3.Google Scholar

^{page 201 note 34} The Grand Case of England (1642)Google Scholar, Wing G1487. Thomason, E.88 (27).

^{page 202 note 35} i.e. dawn.

^{page 203 note 36} Gabriel Plattes liad sent Hartlib a copy of The Profitable Intelligencer (Wing P2414) in May 1644, asking him to arrange for its publication; C. Webster, Utopian planning and the puritan revolution. Gabriel Plattes, Samuel Hartlib, and ‘Macaria’, Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, Oxford, Research Publications Number 11 (Oxford, 1979), p. 58.

^{page 203 note 37} Plattes, Gabriel, The Profitable Intelligencer (1644)Google Scholar, Wing P2414; Webster, Utopian Planning, PP 58 9.

^{page 203 note 38} Plattes's great unpublished (and perhaps unfinished) work, ‘Arts Mistress, or the Treasure House of Nature Unlocked’ — Webster, , Utopian Planning, p. 58.Google Scholar

^{page 203 note 39} The Fallacies of Mr W. Prynne (Oxford [London], 1644)Google Scholar. See Lamont, , Marginal Piynne, ch. 5.Google Scholar

^{page 204 note 40} The Profitable Intelligencer see 57 (13 November 1644).

^{page 204 note 41} ‘Arts Mistress’ – ibid.

^{page 205 note 42} A further reference to the judgement given in the Exchequer Chamber on the case of Rex v Hampden, concerning the legality of ship money — see 41 (3 January 1643).

^{page 205 note 43} An attack on the royalist belief that the law was an expression of kingly power, the king being himself a living law, or lex loquens. Culpeper may have read a number of contemporary pamphlets on the relationship between law and prerogative, including Rutherford, Samuel, Lex Rex: the Law and the Prince, A dispute for the just prerogative of King and People, In which a full answer is given to Sacro Sancta Regum Majestas by Jo. Maxwell (7 10 1644)Google Scholar, Wing R2386 Thomason, E. 11 (5); and also Prerogative Anatomized; an examination of the professions whereby she hath attempted to preferre herself above the Parliament (4 12 1644)Google Scholar, Wing P3219 Thomason, E.20 (4).

^{page 205 note 44} The vote at the end of the debate of 9 December on the motion, later known as the self-denying ordinance, ‘That during the time of this war no member of either House shall have or execute any office or command, military or civil, granted or conferred by both or either of the Houses of Parliament, or any authority derived from both or either of the Houses’ – Gardiner, ii. 90.

^{page 206 note 45} The Act Against a Forcible Dissolution of the Parliament, passed in 1641, had declared that the present Parliament could not be dissolved without the consent of its members (i.e. could not be dissolved at the monarch's pleasure).

^{page 206 note 46} The Kingdomes weekly intelligencer (Jan.1643 – Oct.1649), N&S 214.001 214.332, and Parliament Scout (Jun.1643 – Jan.1645), N&S 485.01 485.84.

^{page 206 note 17} This letter is difficult to date with precision. The reference to the possible seizure of Newcastle, however, probably relates to its siege and subsequent capture on 19 October 1644. The remainder of the letter is not inconsistent with an approximate ascription to Autumn 1644.

^{page 206 note 48} A proposal to unite the two Houses emerged in public debate in January 1645 – see Gardiner, ii. 106.

^{page 208 note 1} Plattes died ‘in the street for want of food’ according to Cressy Dymock; Legacy, pp. 183–84Google Scholar; Webster, , p. 34.Google Scholar

^{page 208 note 2} Plattes's engine, a seed-drill, was first publicised in 1639 and remained of considerable interest to agricultural reformers; Webster, p. 50. For its development by others see 65 (21 January 1644/5).

^{page 208 note 3} Felton, Edmund, Engins Invented to save much Blood and Moneyes (1644)Google Scholar, Wing F660.

^{page 208 note 4} Henry Oxinden of Dene in Kent, eldest son of Sir James Oxinden; he was much involved in the county organisation of Kent for the Parliament.

^{page 209 note 5} On 13 January, the House of Lords voted with only four votes to the contrary to reject the Self-Denying Ordinance – Gardiner, , ii. 118.Google Scholar

^{page 209 note 6} ‘Dissolving’.

^{page 210 note 7} Francis Rous (1579 1659) was John Pym's half-brother and MP for Truro in the Long Parliament. At this time, Dury regarded him as a potential patron of Hartlib and wrote to him, urging him to be the worthy successor to Pym, not only Lin temporal but rather in spiritual purchases' by recommending Hartlib to Parliament – DNB and HDC, p. 27.

^{page 210 note 8} James Wemyss (1610?–1617), see 30 (4 October 1643) and 36 (20 December 1643).

^{page 213 note 9} A reference to Cressy Dymock, the agricultural inventor and enthusiastic correspondent of Hartlib. He claimed to have perfected Gabriel Plattes's invention for setting corn, mentioned by Culpeper in 61 (4 January 1644/5); see also Legacy, pp. 183, 189Google Scholar. Dymock presented the device as a form of perpetual motion machine: Cressy Dymock, An Invention of Engines of Motion lately brought to perfection (1651)Google Scholar, Wing D2971. On Dymock see GI and HDC passim; Fussell, G. E., The Old English Farming Books: From Fitzherbert to Tull, 1523–1730 (1947), pp. 44–47.Google Scholar

^{page 213 note 10} For the interest in chemical fertilisers sustained by Hartlib and his associates, see GI, pp. 377 80; [Cressy Dymock], A Discovery for Division or Setting out of Land (1653)Google Scholar, Wing H985, pp. 12-|25](‘12’)]; cf. Gabriel Plattes, ‘Mercurius Lætificans’, in Legacy, pp. 173–216.Google Scholar

^{page 213 note 11} This was a familiar trope of Christian alchemy, expounded at length in one of Culpeper's favourite chemical works, Jacques de Nuysement, Traittez de l'harmonie et constitution généralle du vray sel … (Paris, 1621)Google Scholar, a little-known French text with a Hermetic/Paracelsian bias. An English translation by Robert Turner of a Latin version of Nuysement's work was published in 1657, testifying to contemporary English interest in the work: Sal, Lumen, & Spiritus Mundi Philosophici (1657), Wing N1469. On Nuysement, see Ferguson, John, Bibliotheca Chemica, 2 vols (reprinted, London, 1954), ii. 147–8.Google Scholar

^{page 214 note 12} Nuysement, , Traittez, pp. 165–66Google Scholar. ‘It was therefore necessary, that the subtle substance should be mixed with the gross dregs: for whore nothing but purity is, there is no action; because there can be no action, where there is no patient’; Sal, Lumen …, p. 132Google Scholar. (Clucas, , p. 154Google Scholar).

^{page 214 note 13} ‘It shall be thus: many shall seek and few shall find’ – the author has not been identified but the implicit reference is to Luke 13:24.

^{page 214 note 14} ‘What this may be (saythe another author) many seek but very few find. A thirde writes thus: After the Supreme Creator saw that evil had been added to the good which he had created, he resolved in his goodness (marke) not to abolish it, but to keep wickedness of this kind in check for as long as he saw fit, thereupon subjecting good to evil; in order that what evil might attempt through corruption might be transformed into good, that is, into procreation, not through his [its?] endeavour but through the restraint of his [its.?] endeavours.’

^{page 214 note 15} The German chemist Johann Rudolf Glauber (1604–70) – DSB; Clucas, , pp. 150–54Google Scholar; Partington, , ii. 343–47Google Scholar; Great Chemists, ed. Farber, E. (New York, 1961), pp. 115–34.Google Scholar

^{page 214 note 16} ‘Helps’.

^{page 215 note 17} This is perhaps a reference to an early draft of Hartlib's tract on poor relief and workhouses, The Parliaments Reformation (1646)Google Scholar, Wing H995A; repr. SHAL, pp. 111–19. For Hartlib's involvement in the promotion of such matters, see GI, esp. pp. 360–69.

^{page 216 note 18} Jan Amos Comenius, A Reformation of Schooles (1642)Google Scholar, Wing C5529.

^{page 217 note 19} The two statutes tor annual Parliaments passed under Edward III: 4 Edward III c 14;36 Edward III c 10.

^{page 217 note 20} Annual parliaments had become, by this date, cherished by ‘honest radicals’ as a vehicle for controlling royal prerogative and guaranteeing the virtue of the state. See, for example, ‘A dialogue between Phileuteros or a parliament man, and Philopolites a lover of his country: or reasons to induce an annual parliament’, BL MS Harl. 305, fols 255–73; also ne Short Parliament (1640): The, Diary of Sir Thomas Aston, ed. Judith D. Maltby (1988), pp. 10, 12, 58, 59.Google Scholar

^{page 218 note 21} Culpeper is alluding to Sir Hugh Plats (1552–1611?), author of The Jewell House of Art and Nature (1594)Google Scholar, STC 19991.

^{page 219 note 22} Brandon, John, The Reformed Army (4 04 1645)Google Scholar, Thomason, E.276 (14).

^{page 219 note 23} Bellamy, John, A Plea for the Commonalty of London; Or a Vindication of their Rights in the Choice of City Officers; and also in the making of By-Laws (24 02 1645)Google Scholar. This publication caused an immediate outcry in London and was answered by Bellarmius Enervatus, to which Bellamy replied with Lysimachus Enervatus in July – Thomason, E.1174 (3); 281 (3); 1179 (3).

^{page 219 note 24} Culpeper refers here to the intense contemporary debate over the meaning of the King's coronation oath. The dispute centred around whether the Latin text ‘quas vulgus elegerit’ meant those laws which the people shall determine in the future, a meaning more clearly carried in the French text ‘que la Communaute de vostre Royaume aura esleu’.

^{page 220 note 25} Valerius Magnus was a Capuchin monk living in Prague. He was an opponent of the Jesuits and an adviser to King Vladislav IV of Poland, much trusted for diplomatic purposes by Emperors Ferdinand II and II. He also became an adviser to King Vladislav IV of Poland – see The Catholic Encyclopaedia (ed. Charles G. Herbermann, 15 vols, 1907–1912). ix. 537.Google Scholar

^{page 220 note 26} A reference to Dury's Parliamentary petition of 1642 on the subject of the necessity of ‘a correspondence in spirituall matters betwixt all Protestant Churches’ and his subsequent pamphlet: Certaine Considerations, Shewing the Necessity of a Correspondencie in Spirituall Matters betwixt all Protestant Churches (1642)Google Scholar, Wing D2839.

^{page 220 note 27} At this date, Dury was minister to the Merchant Adventurers in Rotterdam. He would return to England in August 1645.

^{page 220 note 28} Hugh Plats (1552–1611?) – see 72 (26 March 1645).

^{page 221 note 29} Dury married Dorothy Moore, a cousin by marriage to Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, sister to Robert Boyle, The marriage took place in February 1645 (Dorothy Moore indicated her consent to the proposition in her letter to Lady Ranelagh of 11/21 February 1645 (3/2/95A and B); Dury writes of his recent marriage in his letter to Hartlib of 2 March 1645 (3/2/98A and B)).

^{page 222 note 30} Philippians 2:1 – ‘If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies’.

^{page 222 note 31} Dionysius Zacharius [Zachary], ‘Opusculum Philosophiae Naturalis Mettalorum’ in Theatrum Chemicum, ed. Lazarus Zetzner, (orig. edition IV vols., Strasbourg, 1613) (enlarged edition, VI vols, Strasbourg, 1659–1661), i. 729 (in the enlarged edition).

^{page 222 note 32} Ibid, i. 733, ‘Et haec est ratio cur sit perfectius omnibus aliis metallis, tum quo videamus naturam illud in melius ultra non transmutare.’

^{page 223 note 33} Clement Cotton published several biblical concordances in the period 1622–1638; see STC 5842–46.7.

^{page 223 note 34} Fontani, Joannis, ‘epistola, in qua lapide, quem Philosophorum vocant, agitur’ in Theatrum Chemicum (1659 – 1661 edition), iii. 734 36.Google Scholar

^{page 224 note 35} Trevisanus, Bernardus, ‘De Chemico Miraculo’Google Scholar, Ibid., iii. 683–709.

^{page 224 note 36} Culpeper probably refers to the motion, agreed by the House of Commons on 10 June, to appoint Cromwell as Lieutenant-General – Gardiner, , ii. 238.Google Scholar

^{page 225 note 37} ‘Memorandum for the Conversion of the Indians’ – 3 03 1644Google Scholar (40/4/1A–2B).

^{page 225 note 38} See 57 (13 November 1644).

^{page 225 note 39} Barton was an inventor whom Hartlib hoped would stay in England and join his Office of Address G1, p. 68. According to 97 ([November 1645?]), Barton was at the ‘signe of the boule in the bell ally ouer againste the middle Temple gate’; he is probably the Mr Bartne who is reported in 1648 as living at Sittingborne – see 150 (15 March 1648).

^{page 226 note 40} The City Alarum of the Weeks of our Miscarriages Whereunto is annexed a Treatise of the Excise (7 07 1645)Google Scholar, Thomason, E.292 (12).

^{page 226 note 41} For the administration of the excise in this period see Braddick, M. J., Parliamentary taxation in seventeenth-century England: local administration and response, Royal Historical Society Studies in History, 70 (Woodbridge, 1994), ch. 4.Google Scholar

^{page 226 note 42} The Parliamentary Ordinance of 1 July for raising £20,000 for ‘the reducing of Oxford’ – F&R, i. pp. 723–25.

^{page 226 note 43} Culpeper refers to The Parliaments Reformation (1646)Google Scholar, Wing H995A, Hartlib's tract on poor relief and workhouses. See also ‘The proposal for employment of poor immigrants to the city’, undated, 53/13/1A–2B; also the scribal copy of the petition concerning maintenance of the poor, undated, 53/2/35A–38A.

^{page 226 note 44} Saltpetre (potassium nitrate) was the important constituent element in gunpowder. Its powerful medicinal possibilities and potential as a fertiliser were also highly regarded by Hartlib and his associates. The shortage of saltpetre was exacerbated by a ban on its exportation to England imposed by various European states. The Parliamentary ordinance of 23 October 1643 licensed saltpetre-men to search for and commandeer the necessary supplies throughout the kingdom – F&R, i. 320. This was renewed on 3 April 1644 under Parliamentary scrutiny for a period of two years and again on 7 February 1646 F&R, i. 418–20; 828 30. Hartlib estimated in 1645 that the state paid £90 per ton for saltpetre, of which £20 went to the ill-regarded saltpetre-men (53/26/1A–B).

^{page 227 note 45} Culpeper refers to Pierre Le Pruvost, a French protestant who, with Hugh l'Amy, was encouraged by John Dury to present Hartlib and his associates in 1645 with ambitious proposals for English economic revival through colonising and associated endeavours. Several copies oi the proposition are in the archive and although they differ slightly from one another all subscribe to a system of economic improvement which was most fully delineated in a French copy at 12/93A–98B. The proposition was later presented to Parliament and English translations are at 12/04, 12/89 and 55/10. See also GI, pp. 371–2Google Scholar; 375–6. The family background of Le Pruvost remains, despite research in the Bibliothèque de l'histoire du protestantisme français and the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, entirely obscure. Hugues L'Amy, sieur de Mohum may be connected to the family of merchants and pastors of that name from the area around Dieppe.

^{page 227 note 46} Culpeper is commenting on Hartlib's proposal to assist the poor by employing them in the digging and carting of saltpetre from pigeon-lofts, the abolition of useless pigeonlofts, and the distribution of revenues saved by the more efficient production of saltpetre to hospitals and almshouses in parishes throughout the kingdom – 53/26/7A–B.

^{page 227 note 47} Dury resigned his pastorate in Rotterdam and returned to London during August 1645 – Batten, p. 104. Turnbull suggests that Dury was thinking of coming to England as early as 25 July 5 August 1645 HDC, p. 249. On 12 August 1645 Dury appeared at the Westminster Assembly of Divines for the first time HDC, p. 250.

^{page 228 note 48} Johann Heinrich Bisterfeld was the former pupil and (eventually) the son-in-law of the German encyclopaedist and professor at the Herborn Academy, Johann Heinrich Alsted. Bisterfeld's treatise on logic circulated among Hartlih's acquaintances. At this date he was reportedly ‘one of the Prince [of Translyvania's] Cabinet Councel’ – see the extract from the letter of John Rulice, Amsterdam, 12/22 February 1644 in 43/21A–22B.

^{page 228 note 49} Johan Baptista van Helmont (1579–1644). Only four of van Helmont's works had been published by the time of his death in December 1644 (Partington, ii. 213). These were: De Magnetica Vulnerum Naturalis et Legitima Curatione (Paris, 1621)Google Scholar; Supplementum de Spadanis Fontibus (Liège, 1624)Google Scholar; Febrium Doctrina Inaudita (Antwerp, 1642)Google Scholar; Opuscula Medica Inaudita (Cologne, 1644)Google Scholar. Hartlib had evidently lent him his copy of the last of these. See generally Pagel, Walter, Johan Baptista van Helmant: Reformer of Science and Medicine (Cambridge, 1982).Google Scholar

^{page 228 note 50} ‘Tractus de febribus’ in Febrium Doctrina Inaudita. Reprinted in Ortus medicinœ, (Amsterdam, 1648), pp. 11–12 etc.Google Scholar

^{page 228 note 51} Helmont, , Opuscula (Amsterdam, 1644), p. 22Google Scholar (‘De Lithiari’).

^{page 229 note 52} His surviving manuscripts passed mainly to his son, Francis Mercurius van Helmont (1614 1699), who himself studied and practised medicine and chemistry. See Ortus medicinœ, preface; Partington, ii. 242–3.

^{page 229 note 53} Sir James, Lord Carmichael (1578? 1672). His medical and chemical interests are several times alluded to by Hartlib. He had been resident in London in the early 1640s but it was through Hartlib that Culpeper knew about him.

^{page 229 note 54} These have mostly been identified as part of the published corpus of Helmont's writings by the time of his death. They correspond to components of the Ortus medicinœ as follows: 1. ‘Causae et initia naturalium’ p. 33Google Scholar. 3. ‘Ignotus hydrops’ p. 508. 4. ‘Venatio scentiarum’ p. 20. 5Google Scholar. ‘Tractus de morbis’ p. 529.

^{page 229 note 55} See 80 (17 July 1645).

^{page 231 note 56} Anglo-Scottish relations were in turmoil during the summer of 1645 – Gardiner, , ii. 285–86, 339–40, 368–69.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 57} Culpeper refers to the exclusions of Royalist members of the House of Commons which were made at this time, amongst whom was his distant cousin and brother-in-law John Culpeper, one of the county MPs for Kent – CJ, iv. 272.Google Scholar

^{page 231 note 58} On 13 September 1645 the English Parliament was informed that the Scots' forces had to withdraw because of the threats posed to the Covenanters by Montrose. See Divers Papers Presented, Thomason, E.307 (4.), p. 11; CJ, iv. 273.

^{page 231 note 59} Parker, Henry, Jus Regum Or, a Vindication (1645)Google Scholar, Wing P404.

^{page 232 note 60} The Royalist cause was in disarray Clarendon, , iv. 42–128.Google Scholar

^{page 232 note 61} Peace proposals were being proposed by the Scots to the King, and also from the English Presbyterians to the King Gardiner, ii. 337 56.

^{page 232 note 62} Sir John Culpeper, Cheney's distant cousin and brother-in-law, was master of the rolls to Charles I. In September 1645, far from supporting any peace initiative, he was proposing a bold military offensive to secure London for the Royalists – Gardiner, , ii. 341.Google Scholar

^{page 232 note 63} In the Newcastle Propositions, the period of time during which the authority over the militia would, following the conclusion of a peace, be vested in the hands of Parliament was 20 years; but this was evidently the subject of negotiation over the summer of 1645.

^{page 233 note 64} See 75 (16 April 1645).

^{page 233 note 65} The dating of this letter to Autumn 1645 is conjectural and depends on its being, on internal grounds, closely antecedent to 88 (n.d. [late Autumn/December 1645?]), whose dating is discussed below.

^{page 233 note 66} For Le Pruvost, see 80 (17 July 1645) above. For his claims for the better dressing and preserving offish, see 12/9A–B and the proposed ordinance: 12/181A.

^{page 234 note 67} This is alluded to in Hugh Plats, The Jewel House of Art and Nasture (1594), pp. 1–6.Google Scholar

^{page 234 note 68} Nuysement, , pp. 54–5; 65.Google Scholar

^{page 234 note 69} This letter must, on internal grounds, precede 88. It is apparently written at an early stage of the preparations for the discussion of Le Pruvost's scheme before the Committee of Petitions of Parliament in or around September 1645.

^{page 234 note 70} Dury's vision of himself was as a ‘peacemaker without partiality’ see Milton, Anthony, ‘“The Unchanged Peacemaker”? John Dury and the politics of irenicism in England, 1628–1643’Google Scholar in UR, p. 95.Google Scholar

^{page 235 note 71} Galatians, 6:10 – ‘As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith’.

^{page 235 note 72} Eccles, 11:6 ‘In the morning sow the seed, and in the evening withold not thine hand: for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that, or whether they both shall be alike good’.

^{page 238 note 73} The dating of this letter to the Autumn of 1645 is conjectural. However, Le Pruvost's proposal was presented before the Committee of Petitions of Parliament, meeting in the Exchequer Chamber, in September 1645 (55/10/124). Hartlib drew up a preliminary version of the venture and probably sent a copy of it to Culpeper since the surviving example of it has ‘Sir Ch. [Culpeper]’ inscribed on the top of it (53/31/1A–5A). So Culpeper's involvement in Le Pruvost's proposal, of which he had some knowledge from July 1645, may have strengthened from around September 1645. Worsley's proposition for saltpetre production is also to be assigned to the months between September and December 1645. Dury had arrived back from Rotterdam in August 1645 and it was thanks to his contacts that Le Pruvost was encouraged to present his petition to Parliament. Various efforts were made upon his return to secure a lectureship or living for him. Charles Webster dates the letter tentatively to ‘Autumn and probably December’; UR, p. 216.Google Scholar

^{page 238 note 74} ‘Ne plus ultra’ was the ascription on the mythical Pillars of Hercules. The frontispiece to Francis Bacon's Great Instuaration (1620)Google Scholar, depicted a ship sailing through a set of pillars with the inscription: ‘Plus ultra’.

^{page 238 note 75} See Appendix 197 for Dury's rational basis for scriptural analysis.

^{page 239 note 76} Culpeper refers to Worsley's saltpetre project, described in GI, pp. 378–80Google Scholar. Worsley's proposition for a chemical method for its composition is based on his treatise ‘De Nitro quaedam’ in 39/1/16A–20B. For Benjamin Worsley's career, see Charles Webster, ‘Benjamin Worsley’ in UR, ch. 11.

^{page 239 note 77} Cited by Nuysement, ch. 6 (p. 38 of the English edition) from which chapter Culpeper draws all the following passage.

^{page 239 note 78} See the comments of John Dury in 87 (n.d. [Autumn 1645]).

^{page 240 note 79} Probably Bernard Palissy, Le moyen de devenir riche ou la manière véritable par laquelle tous les hommes de France pourront apprendre à multiplier et à augmenter leurs trésors et possessions (new edition: Paris, 1636). Hartlib's copy may well have been that sent by Mersenne to Theodore Haaek — see Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, ed. de Waard, Cornelis, XVI vols (Paris, 1945–1986), viii. 636Google Scholar; 684. Copies of these letters are to be found amongst Hartlib's papers: 18/2/3A–4B.

^{page 240 note 80} Possibly extracts from Nuysement, Traittez see 65 (21 January 1645).

^{page 241 note 81} The name given to the particular land-tenure system prevalent in Kent involving male partible inheritance.

^{page 242 note 82} ‘Then Isaac sowed in that land, and received in the same year an hundred-fold: and the Lord blessed him.’

^{page 242 note 83} For Culpeper's familiarity with the works of Sir Hugh Platt see 72 (26 March 1645), 75 (16 April 1645), 86 (n.d. Autumn 1645).

^{page 243 note 84} ‘All action is between qualities’.

^{page 243 note 85} Giovanni Pontano [Pontanus] (1426–1503). The passage has not been identified from amongst Pontanus' considerable published writings.

^{page 243 note 86} A copy of this example of Duty's method of scriptural analysis is to be found at 9/1/153.

^{page 243 note 87} Romans 12:4 ‘For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office’.

^{page 243 note 88} Probably Worsley's memorandum ‘Proffits humbly presented to this Kingdome’ – published in GI, pp. 539–546Google Scholar (NB: this is from 15/2/61 and not 15/2/23 as stated).

^{page 245 note 89} Thomas Harrison was a poor London school-master whose method of indexing, using transferable slips of paper, much excited Hartlib. See Clucas, S. ‘In search of “The True Logick”’Google Scholar in UR, pp. 65–6.Google Scholar

^{page 246 note 90} John Sadler (1615–1674). Culpeper sent a copy of some (possibly chemical) work to Sadler; he replied, forwarding a copy of a treatise in return, on 30 October 1645 (46/9/1A) — it is not clear to whom the letter is addressed but it would appear to be Culpeper. Along with Culpeper and Dury he would become a trustee for the projected ‘Office of Address’ in 1646 — DNB; GI, p. 72.Google Scholar

^{page 246 note 91} William Wheeler, the drainage engineer, projector and inventor — see GI, pp. 372–74Google Scholar. He was in the Netherlands from 1638 onwards and patroned by Sir William Boswell in the promotion of his snail-wheel drainage mill. The progressive souring of his relationships with Boswell's servants (amongst whom Culpeper's neighbour, Sir Robert Honywood, figures prominently), and, eventually, Boswell himself, during his residence in the Netherlands is outlined in Mr William Wheelers Case from his own Relation (Jan.18 1649) Wing P408 Thomason, E.25 (8).

^{page 246 note 92} 91 (n.d. [before 22 October 1645]).

^{page 247 note 93} Sir Robert Honywood, a neighbour of Culpeper's and a relative of Sir Thomas Honywood (1586–1666), had, like Culpeper, also served at the court of the exiled queen of Bohemia. It was through Thomas's influence that Sir Robert would be appointed to the Council of State in 1659. In 1650 Sir Robert would serve with Culpeper on the Council of Trade.

^{page 247 note 94} In A description of the famous kingdome of Macaria (1641)Google Scholar, Wing P2409A, Plattes urged the state to remunerate inventors. Culpeper believed that the principle should ‘bee to aduance the publicke aime’ – see 95 (5 November 1645). He proposed a system in which inventors should voluntarily surrender their invention to a committee which would direct the implementation of the design – see ‘Culpeper's Comments on Wheeler's Patent’, 13/119.

^{page 247 note 95} Probably a reference to Duty's wife, Dorothy Moore, and to Katherine, Lady Ranelagh.

^{page 248 note 96} Culpeper here addresses a central problem for Hartlib and his associates as they became more involved in the environment of innovation around the ‘projectors’ with whom they had become more associated. How was individual initiative, skill and investment to be rewarded whilst, at the same time, maintaining the primacy and importance of the public weal? See SHAL, pp. 39–40Google Scholar; GI, p. 370.Google Scholar

^{page 248 note 97} This may refer to the printer's ink, whose blackness and permanency Culpeper evaluates in 71/2/3A–B.

^{page 249 note 98} i.e. ‘model’.

^{page 249 note 99} Turnbull suggests that Culpeper may be referring to the possibility of Dury's appointment, on 3 February 1645/6, as one of three ministers to preach and officiate at Winchester HDC, pp. 252–53.

^{page 249 note 100} See 56 (6 November 1644).

^{page 250 note 101} Milton, John, Of EducationGoogle Scholar ([1644]), Wing M2132.

^{page 250 note 102} See 90 (n.d. [Autumn 1645]).

^{page 251 note 103} This is probably the same Latin manuscript to which Culpeper refers in 96 (12 November 1645).

^{page 251 note 104} Helmont, , Opuscula medica inaudita (1644)Google Scholar, sig *2 ‘explicatio aliquot verborum artis’ provides a definition of the ‘liquor alkahest Paracelsi’.

^{page 251 note 105} Nuysement, Part II, ch. 4, p. 182 (of the English edition).

^{page 251 note 106} Helmont, , ‘Tractatus de febribus’ in Opuscula (1644), p. 118Google Scholar (last page).

^{page 251 note 107} Francis Joyner was a speculative projector who, together with Sir William Luckin and William Hyde had formed a partnership which offered to form a ‘Corporation of Saltpeeter-makers’ which would lake up the production and supply of saltpetre in the kingdom – see the draft bill (undated) in 71/11/2A.

^{page 252 note 108} A further reference to Dury's possible appointment to a living at Winchester.

^{page 252 note 109} Joseph Webbe, catholic physician and teacher, with interests in linguistics and universal language – HDC, p. 302.Google Scholar

^{page 252 note 110} Hartlib had proposed to Sir William Waller a complete reformation of the educational and welfare provisions of Hampshire. In ‘S. W. Wallers Colledge at Winchester or Plantation of Hampshire’ (47/9/33A–B) the changes included the establishment of a new workhouse at Winchester, the foundation of parochial schools in every parish in the county, a complete overhaul of Winchester school and the foundation of a new Academy/University there. The latter was to include departments for learned correspondency, practical divinity and experimental philosophy. A complementary paper (47/9/1A) sketches in those who would be its first scholars as well as its foundation professors (Dury for divinity, Pell lor mathematics and Worsley for ‘experimentory philosophy’). This thorough reformation would be funded from the sequestrations of catholic property in the county, the revenues of the deans and bishops of Winchester, the tithes of the diocese, the followships of the former school and additional contributions from the local gentry. The appointment of Dury to a Winchester living was presumably seen as part of this development.

^{page 253 note 111} Roger Bacon (1214?–1494).

^{page 253 note 112} Nuysement, , pp. 165–6.Google Scholar

^{page 253 note 113} Ibid., pp. 32–3.

^{page 253 note 114} Zacharius, , Opusculum in Theatrum chemicum, i. 733.Google Scholar

^{page 254 note 115} Gauden's sermon of 29 November 1640, preached at St Margaret's Westminster, was ordered to be printed by the House of Commons early in 1641. See The love of Truth and Peace. A sermon before the House of Commons by John Gauden (1641)Google Scholar, Thomason, E.204 (10). It was in this sermon that Gauden recommended in an aside: ‘the noble endeavours of two great and publique spirits, who have laboured much for truth and peace, I mean Commenius and Duraeus, both famous for their learning, piety and integrity, and not unknowne, I am sure, by the fame of their works, to many of this honourable, pious and learned Assembly’ (pp. 40–1). Gauden went on to give Hartlib's address in London as the place to contact Dury and Comenius (p. 43).

^{page 256 note 116} Bombast von Hohenheim [Paracelsus], Archidoxorum Aureoli Ph. Theophrasti Paracelsi de secretis naturae mysteriis libri desem … His accesserunt libri De tinctura physicorum. (Basileae, 1570)Google Scholar. BL 1507/1820.(2). See also Pagel, Walter, ‘The Paracelsian Elias Artista and the Alchemical Tradition’, Medizinhistorisches Journal, 16 (1981), 6–19.Google Scholar PubMed

^{page 256 note 117} ‘in the fifty-eighth year; he says his theory will blossom and then everyone will adhere to it – so that his theory might spread through the common people at large and the lower orders and be proved – now (meaninge his own age) such are the times, that it is brought down to the level of whoredom, all the while until the third part of the world is slain by the sword, a third taken off by the plague and a third scarce remaining; then the state will be restored to its proper position and made whole; but in present circumstances that cannot come about; Even the orders must perish and be altogether removed from the world, otherwise time and time again it may fail to come to pass.’

^{page 257 note 1} CSPD (1645–47), p. 119.

^{page 257 note 2} Turnbull suggests that Culpeper refers here to Comenius's Pansophiae Diatyposis (Danzig, 1645)Google Scholar HDC, p. 371.Google Scholar

^{page 258 note 3} The grammarian Joseph Webbe who had invented a method for analysing language as well as an artificial language — see DNB and S. (Clucas, , ‘In search of “The True Logick”Google Scholar, in UR, pp. 55, 72.Google Scholar

^{page 259 note 4} On Comenius' schemes for universal language, developed in the mid-1640s and more fully expressed in print later, see Knowlson, James, Universal language Schemes in England and France (Toronto, 1975)Google Scholar; Blekastad, M., Comenius. Versuch eines Umrisses von Leben, Werk und Schicksal des Jan Amos Komensky (Oslo, 1969), pp. 422; 685–89.Google Scholar

^{page 259 note 5} i.e. Arabic.

^{page 259 note 6} ‘as things stand’.

^{page 259 note 7} i.e. ‘short-hand’. Hartlib had been particularly interested in developing an efficient short-hand for taking down and distributing sermons. In a letter of 2 February 1640, he comments on the subject: ‘Cartes [Descartes] I heere is very busy in it in the Low Countryes; Torellus & de la Maire in ffrance Champagnola in England & Mr Johnson in Ireland. But this latter is preferred before all the rest as having studied this subject these many yeares over & over …’ (7/43A).

^{page 259 note 8} Dury was appointed by Parliament the tutor to the royal children Prince Henry, Princess Elizabeth and, later, Prince James. In addition, he was, at about this time, finally appointed to the ministry at Winchester Batten, pp. 113–14.

^{page 259 note 9} See 94 (31 October 1645).

^{page 260 note 10} Contarini, Gasparo, The common-wealth and government of VeniceGoogle Scholar, Tr. out of Latin by L. Lewkerior, 1599. De Republica Venetorum libri quinque (Lugd: Batavorum [Leiden], 1626).Google Scholar

^{page 260 note 11} [Sir Thomas Culpeper], A tract against usurie. Presented to the high court of Parliament (1621)Google Scholar STC 6108. See the Introduction, p. 116.

^{page 261 note 12} Culpeper's views here reflect the particular Kentish custom of gavelkind, which favoured male, partible inheritance.

^{page 261 note 13} i.e. The Westminster Assembly.

^{page 262 note 14} ‘Captain’ John Shaw (1620–1680) had just published his treatise Brief discoveries of divers excellent wayes … manuring (1646), Wing S45B. This edition was published under the author's initials; two further editions of 1650 and 1657 were subsequently issued under the name J. Sha[w] (Wing S3020A and S3021).

^{page 262 note 15} Kynaston, Francis, The Constitutions of the Musaeum Minervae (London, 1636)Google Scholar, STC 15099. Kynaston established his ‘Musaeum Minervae’ in Bedford Street, Covent Garden. See Turnbull, G. H., ‘Samuel Hartlib's connection with Sir Francis Kynaston's “Musaeum Minervae”’, Notes and Queries, 197 (1952), 33–37.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 263 note 16} For the disputes in the Netherlands between Wheeler and his opponents, who included Robert Honywood, see 94 (31 October 1645).

^{page 263 note 17} ‘An Ordinance enabling Saltpeter-men to make Gun-powder’ (7 02 1646)Google Scholar – F&R, i. 828–30.

^{page 264 note 18} This somewhat obscure reference almost certainly refers to claims made by the mistress of Francis Joyner to have a share in the profits from the saltpetre venture by virtue of an invention which she will divulge upon payment of a sum — see ‘A Coppie of the Propositions of loyner's Mistresse’ in 71/11/13B.

^{page 264 note 19} Culpeper approved of Hartlib's proposed ‘Offiee of Address’ although he was concerned about the possiblity of opposition to it from monopolists and presbyterians — see SHAL, p. 44.Google Scholar

^{page 264 note 20} Culpeper's enquiry aboul the realism of Shaw's claims is answered in ‘Shaw's Invention for manuring and improving the land’ (6 May 1646) 67/21/1A-2B.

^{page 264 note 21} London and the Scots drew closer together as the English Parliament became divided between Presbyterian and the Independent factions. The City authorities continued to be enthusiastic in their support both for the Covenant and for a Presbyterian settlement, renewing the Covenant on 14 January 1646 – see the two published sermons entitled The Great Danger of Covenant refusing and Covenant breaking (by Edmund Calamy), Thomason, E.327 (6); and Religious Covenanting Directed (by Simeon Ash), Thomason, E.327 (5). London's petition against religious toleration was published on 16 January 1646 and the Scots sent congratulations directly to the city for its fidelity in the service of God. Gardiner, , iii. 28.Google Scholar

^{page 265 note 22} See 101 (11 February 1646).

^{page 265 note 23} Harrison, apparently a London schoolmaster, had developed a system of indexing which was much commended by Hartlib.

^{page 265 note 24} For Joseph Webbe, see 100 (12 January 1646).

^{page 265 note 25} Shaw's reply is located in 67/21/1A-2B. In 1649 Culpeper commissioned William Tampon to draw the earliest known map of the Leeds Castle estate (Kent County Record Office, U825P6).

^{page 266 note 26} See above, 101 (11 February 1646) and note.

^{page 266 note 27} This doubtless refers to Thomas Edwards, Gangraena: or a Catalogue (1646)Google Scholar, Wing £228–230.

^{page 266 note 28} I Corinthians 14: esp. 26–7 — ‘How is it then, brethren? When ye come together, every one of you hath a psalm, hath a doctrine, hath a tongue, hath a revelation, hath an interpretation, Let all things be done unto edifying. If any man speak in an unknown tongue, let it be by two, or at the most be threc, and that by course; and let one interpret’.

^{page 266 note 29} ‘speaking the first thing that comes into their heads’ (Cicero).

^{page 266 note 30} See note 27 above; the passage cited (p. 53) refers to the Leveller, John Lilburne and the pamphlets produced at the time of his imprisonment.

^{page 267 note 31} Henry Robinson (C1605 C1664) — DNB; cf Jordan, W. K., Men of Substance (Chicago, 1942).Google Scholar

^{page 267 note 32} Hugh Peters (1598–1660) - DNB.

^{page 267 note 33} Culpeper is perhaps suggesting here that Dury republish his A Memoriali Concerning Peace Ecclesiasticall Amongst Protestants (1641), Wing D2872.

^{page 268 note 34} This refers to A Letter of the Minister of the City of London, presented to the Assembly of Divines, against Toleration, Thomason, E.314 (8), and to Several Letters from the Parliament and General Assembly of the Kirk of Scotland to the Houses of Parliament of England, the Lord Mayor and Common Council of London and the Assembly of Divines, Thomason, E. 344.(12). Both of these were published in January 1646 as part of the controvesy on religious toleration and the proposed Presbyterian church settlement.

^{page 269 note 35} Culpeper was responsible lor some cautious negotiations to promote Hartlib's Office of Address' amongst various members of the Long Parliament. He encounted opposition but was able to secure the support of the Independents Robert Andrews, Francis Rous, and Oliver Cromwell SHAL, p. 44.

^{page 270 note 36} GI, p. 77.Google Scholar

^{page 270 note 37} i.e. The ‘Committee of Kent’, meeting by this date in Maidstone — see Everitt, Alan, The Community of Kent and the Great Rebellion, 1640–60 (Leicester, 1966)Google Scholar, ch. 5, esp. p. 131.

^{page 270 note 38} 1 Corinthians: 14.

^{page 271 note 39} A further reference to the mistress of Francis Joyner who wanted to receive £50 per annum ‘till there be profit arising’, in addition to the initial down-payment, in return for her discovery of an invention or intelligence relative to the saltpetre venture — see 71/11/13B and 102 (17 February 1646).

^{page 271 note 40} See letter 103 (24 February 1645/6).

^{page 271 note 41} Graswinkel, Dirk, T.I.F. Graswinckelii Dissertatio de Jure Praecedentiae inter Serenissimam Venetam Rempublicam et Serenissimae Sabaudiae Ducem; opposita dissertationi jussu Serenissimi Sabaudiae Ducis evulgatae (Lugduni Batavorum [Leiden], 1644)Google Scholar, BL 596.a.35.

^{page 271 note 42} Charles I had been reluctant to accede to the Newcastle Propositions, which had assigned the control of the militia to Parliament for a period of 20 years after the conclusion of a peace. He eventually offered in negotiations a maximum period of 10 years — see Carlton, C., Charles I: the Personal Monarch (1983), pp. 310–15Google Scholar; Letters, Speeches and Proclamations of King Charles I, ed. C. Petrie (1968), pp. 172–75.Google Scholar

^{page 271 note 43} SHAL, p. 41Google Scholar; GI, p. 6.Google Scholar

^{page 272 note 44} Lewis Roberts published two books. This is either his The Merchants mappe of Commerce (1638)Google Scholar, STC 21094; or The Treasure of traffike (1641)Google Scholar, Wing R1602.

^{page 272 note 45} A reference to the efforts of the Queen to negotiate with the Scots and communicate the results to the Royalists at Oxford through her agent, William Murray, who had been arrested as he passed through Canterbury on 5 February. He was interrogated on the orders of the Parliament — Gardiner, , iii. 69–70.Google Scholar

^{page 272 note 46} The Last Warning to all the Inhabitants of London [1645]Google Scholar. Thomason, E.328 (24).

^{page 273 note 47} Exeter had surrended on 13 April, whilst Barnstaple held out till 20 April — Gardiner, , iii. 92.Google Scholar

^{page 275 note 48} Questions Propounded to the Assembly of Divines By the House of Commons, … Touching the Point of JUS Divinum in the Matter of Church-Government (22 04 1646)Google Scholar, Wing 2692 Thomason, E.335 (11). The preface states that “…all persons guilty of Notorious and Scandalous Offences shall be suspended from the Sacrament of the Lords Supper…” (sigs. A2^r–v).

^{page 275 note 49} See 105 (4 March 1645/6).

^{page 275 note 50} See 101 (11 February 1645/6).

^{page 276 note 51} This is probably referring to Richard Gosling's single sheet, Artificial fire or Coal for Rich and Poore … an excellent new invention by Mr. R. G. … (late deceased.) … (1644)Google Scholar, Wing G623.

^{page 277 note 52} This allusion was picked up again by Comenius in a further letter of encouragement to his friends in England (possibly addressed to Theodore Haack's cousin, Friedrich Schloer) of 15/25 May 1646 (7/73/5A).

^{page 277 note 53} George Ritschel (1616 1683) was a Bohemian who took up refuge in England in the 1640s DNB. It is quite likely that Ritschel received some material assistance from Cheney Culpeper and Nicholas Stoughton in response to Comenius' request. He dedicated his Contemplationes Metaphysicae ex Natura Rerum et Rectœ Rationis lumine deductœ (Oxford, 1648)Google Scholar, Wing R1543, to them as ‘Amplissimis, Generosissimis … Faventissimis Patronis’.

^{page 278 note 54} Comenius continued to hold Culpeper in high respect. In a letter of 9 September 1654 to Hartlib he referred to him in glowing terms: ‘Qui si literatus et sapiens fuerit, cum quo de Pansophiae adornandae editione agi possit, tanto melius: (Qualis cordatus Vir, D. Geneus Kulpeper, si vivit, et non ad maiora adhibitus, etc.)’ Kvačla, J., Korrespondence J.A. Komenského, 2 vols. (Prague, 1897–1902), i. 191.Google Scholar

^{page 281 note 55} See 110 (24 May 1646) from Comenius.

^{page 281 note 56} The original letters were sent from Dury to Hartlib on 18 and 25 August 1646 (3/3/27 and 3/3/30). The copy extracts, to which Culpeper is probably referring, are at 1/15/1A–4B and 47/14/1A-8B. This paper was published as The Reformed Librarie-Keeper (1650)Google Scholar, Wing D2882.

^{page 281 note 57} The physician Aaron Gurdan, at this date attached to the Savoy Hospital in the city of London – GI, pp. 296–97.

^{page 281 note 58} Glauber, J. R., Furni novi philosophici oder Beschreibung einer Newerfundenen Destillirkunst (Amsterdam, 1646–1649)Google Scholar. Culpeper wanted transcripts of the chapters on furnace (i.e. stills) construction contained in the four unpublished parts (which were subsequently printed in 1647–49). Hartlib had a manuscript copy of Glauber's treatise entitled ‘Delineatio singularis cuiusdam recensque inventi furni philosophici distillatorii’ from 1643 (16/8/1A-4B); Clucas, , p. 151.Google Scholar

^{page 281 note 59} Platt, Hugh, ‘A vesell of Wood, to brew or boile in’ — in The Jewell House of Art and Nature (1594)Google Scholar, STC 19991, sigs. ²I3^v–2I4^r.

^{page 281 note 60} Glauber, J. R., De Auri Tinctura, sive Auro Potabili Vero (Amsterdam, 1646).Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 61} Sir John Culpeper had served as county MP for Kent until he was excluded in January 1643 – DNB s.n. John Colepeper; CJ, iii. 374.Google Scholar

^{page 282 note 62} Hartlib had suffered from the stone since 1642 – HDC, pp. 21–2.Google Scholar

^{page 283 note 63} Francis Rous, MP for Truro. Like Culpeper, Rous had been at the Middle Temple — DNB.

^{page 283 note 64} Elizabeth (1640– [post] 1682). She married Christopher Miles.

^{page 284 note 65} Théophraste Renaudot's Parisian Bureau d'adresse served as a model for Hartlib's ‘Office of Address’ — GI, pp. 68–9, 375; Solomon, H. M., Public Welfare, Science and Propaganda in Seventeenth Century France: The Innovation of Theophraste Renaudot (Princeton, 1975)Google Scholar — see also 125 (9 April 1647).

^{page 285 note 66} The Parliamentary Committee for Compounding set the fine for Sir Thomas Culpeper's delinquency on 4 November 1646 at £1,318 – see Introduction, p. 120.

^{page 286 note 67} Dury, John, Considerations tending to the Happy Accomplishment of Englands Reformation in Church and State (1647)Google Scholar, Wing H981.

^{page 286 note 68} Culpeper refers to Dury's suggestion that Oxford was the most appropriate location for the ‘Agent for Communications’. After discussion with members of the circle it was decided that London would be its more suitable location — Dury, Considerations tending to the Happy Accomplishment of Englands Reformation in Church and State (1647)Google Scholar, Wing H981, p. 53, PP 70–72, 374–75; see also 129 (22 July [1647?]).

^{page 286 note 69} The ‘Office of Address’ was to function in two separate sections. The ‘Office of Address for Accommodations’ would serve as an agency for labour exchange, whilst the ‘Office of Address for Communications’ was designed to promote research and innovation — GI, pp. 69–70.Google Scholar

^{page 286 note 70} Challoner Chute, father to Challoner Chute Junior — DNB.

^{page 288 note 1} See 123 (23 February [1647]).

^{page 288 note 2} The suspicion in which Dury was increasingly held at the Westminster Assembly in 1647, partly as a result of his irenicist tendencies, was doubtless behind Culpeper's concern - HDC, p. 259; Batten, p. 110.

^{page 288 note 3} Culpeper probably refers to Francis Lodowyck, A Common Writing (1647)Google Scholar, Wing L2814. which Hartlib published and which Culpeper commented on further in letter 124 (1 March 1646/7).

^{page 289 note 4} Sir John Sedley, appointed deputy lieutenant for Kent by the House of Lords in April 1642 – Woods, T. P. S., Prelude to Civil War 1642 (Salisbury, 1980), pp. 65–6Google Scholar. He was an active participant in the political affairs of Kent — Everitt, Kent, pp. 70–74, 80–82, 149–51.Google Scholar

^{page 289 note 5} Nicholas Gibbon the younger. Culpeper had probably been sent by Hartlib his ‘Medium ad componendas controversias ecclesiae Christianae oblatum a Doctore Gibbono; quod jam approbatum a certis aliquot e Synodo selectis Arbitras, et publico consulto ordinatum ab illustrissimis Regni Paribus, solum adhuc assensum manet Illustris Domus Communium’ (20/11/47–48). Gibbon wrote further on this subject and published a broadsheet: A Summe or Body of Divinitie Real (1651)Google Scholar, Wing G656 — HDC, p. 258.Google Scholar

^{page 291 note 6} Philip Sidney, Viscount Lisle, the eldest son of the Earl of Leicester (1619–1698). He was sent to Ireland as Lieutenant-Général under Ormonde after the outbreak of the Irish Rebellion. The English Parliament made him Lord-Lieutenant on 9 April 1646, but he did not leave for Ireland until February 1647 — DNB.

^{page 291 note 7} Charles I was under the guardianship of the Commissioners of the English Parliament. On 10 February a letter from one of the commissioners was read in the House of Commons reporting the king as saying that, if he waited six months, things would be in such confusion that he would obtain his ends without difficulty — Gardiner, iii. 215.

^{page 292 note 8} Thomas Westrow, MP for Hythe and a friend of Sir Cheney Culpeper, with whom he served on the Kent Committee. Culpeper hoped to utilize Westrow's parliamentary position to promote foreign correspondency through John Dury and Hartlib's ‘Office of Address’ – GI, p. 73; SHAL, p. 26; see 124 (1 March 1646/7).

^{page 292 note 9} Culpeper counted on support in the Long Parliament from the Independent MPs Robert Andrews, Francis Rous and Thomas Westrow. On 20 February Westrow wrote to Culpeper reporting the support of Oliver Cromwell for the ‘Office of Address’ — SHAL, p. 45Google Scholar. See 122 (20 Feb 1646/7).

^{page 293 note 10} Philippians 3:6 – ‘Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless’.

^{page 293 note 11} Dury wrote a letter to Oliver St John on 31 March 1646 in which he discussed the differences between the dissenting members of the assembly and their brethren (3/3/7). There is a copy of this letter amongst Hartlib's papers to which Culpeper may refer 13/3/8).

^{page 293 note 12} Dury had been invited in 1646 to educate the younger children of the king at St James's Palace — Batten, , p. 113.Google Scholar

^{page 293 note 13} Katherine, Lady Ranelagh?

^{page 294 note 14} Francis Lodowyck, author of A Common Writing (1647)Google Scholar, Wing L2814, which was published by Samuel Hartlib — see letter 120 (3 February 1646/7).

^{page 294 note 15} Arnold Boate wrote to Hartlib from Paris on 16/26 July 1648, promising to send further copies of Renaudot's treatise of his Bureau d'Adresse and reported that he had already forwarded to Hartlib all the material printed on the subject that he could find. Culpeper may therefore be refering to two French pamphlets which had been sent to Hartlib by Boate. They were probably L'usage et commoditez des Bureaux d'Adresse dans les Provinces (n.p., 1639) and Inventaire des addresses dv bureau de rencontre … (Paris, 1630)Google Scholar. The former is not listed amongst the works by Renaudot cited in Solomon, , Public Welfare pp. 239–51.Google Scholar

^{page 294 note 16} Hotton, Godefroy, Gotthofr. Hottonis de Christiana inter Europœos Evanglicos concordia, sive tolerantia in charitate stabilienda tractatus, nudam … majoris operis delineationem exhibens. Editio secunda … emendatior (Amstelaedami, 1647), BL 847.h.20.Google Scholar

^{page 294 note 17} See letter 121 (16 February 1646/7).

^{page 295 note 18} Dury, John, A Model of Church Government (1647)Google Scholar, Wing D2873.

^{page 296 note 19} D. T., The Popes Nuntioes (1643)Google Scholar, Wing T4B.

^{page 297 note 20} The dating of this letter is in no great doubt. Although the reference to Gilbert Sheldon would suggest the year 1648, the letter does not sit well with the other surviving correspondence for July 1648 and the allusion to the possibility of a place at Oxford for the Office of Address makes 1647 almost equally possible. On 31 March 1647, Sir William Waller had proposed to Parliament, and it had been accepted, that Hartlib be given a sum of £300 in recognition of his services and that ‘settling you in a way of future subsistence is recommended to the Committee for the University of Oxford’ — see Arthur Annesley to Hartlib, 1 April 1647 (66/3/1A-2B).

^{page 297 note 21} Dury had proposed the Bodleian Library at Oxford as the possible center for the ‘Office of Address of Communication’ in Considerations tending to the Happy Accomplishment of Englands Reformation in Church and State (1647)Google Scholar, Wing H981, p. 53.

^{page 297 note 22} Gilbert Sheldon (1598–1677) — DNB. He was ejected from the Wardenship of All Souls College, Oxford, on 30 March 1648, and on the 12 April he was placed in custody, having refused to surrender his lodgings.

^{page 298 note 23} See 149 (11 March 1647 [?8]) and Clucas, , p. 151.Google Scholar

^{page 300 note 24} Culpeper had at last received the copy of Glauber's Furni Novi concerning ovens which he had requested — see letters 111 (1 October 1646) and 130 ([5?] August 1647).

^{page 300 note 25} Charles Louis, Prince Elector Palatine, had been in frequent contact with Cromwell earlier in 1647 with a view to organising an expeditionary force to Germany. The force was to be based on the New Model army and was to have as its objective the assertion of the rights of worship of Calvinists in Germany, rights which were apparently being negotiated away among the plenipotentiaries meeting at Münster.

^{page 300 note 26} Culpeper's difficulties in making sense of Glauber's arcane Latin continued until the end of October — see 137 (20 October 1647).

^{page 301 note 27} Virgil, , Aeneid, VII, 312Google Scholar (‘flectere si nequeo superos, Acheronta movebo’) i.e. ‘If I cannot influence the gods above I will stir up Hell’.

^{page 301 note 28} Murrough O'Brien, first Earl of Inchiquin (1614–1674) — DNB.

^{page 302 note 29} The Petition of Right (1628) had declared all loans, aids and benevolences raised without consent of Parliament to be illegal. During the Short Parliament of April–May 1640 the House of Lords requested the House of Commons to grant supply to the King before securing the redress of grievances; but this had been resented as a breach of the privileges of the lower house.

^{page 302 note 30} This is the first occasion when Culpeper reflects the debates about franchise reform current in 1647 during the Leveller agitations. See Woolrych, A., Soldiers and Statesmen (Oxford, 1987).CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 302 note 31} Culpeper here responds to a series of questions, relevant to contemporary political debate, from Lady Ranelagh and forwarded to him by Hartlib — 26/13/1–2. They included:

— ‘Whether if the Spaniards had come in by the Sword in [15]80. And the People of this Land should have sworne Obedience and Fidelitie unto them whilest they had the power, the people could honestly have by force beaten them out in 89 … ?

— ‘Whether the Oaths of Allegence and Supremacie taken by the People of this Land, have not put it out of their power to doe those things by their representative the Parliament without the Assent of the King, which they might before those oaths according to the Law of nature have donne justly?’

— ‘Whether according to the Fundamentalls of this Kingdome the two Houses of Parliament have power to declare the Law without appeale, without the King joyne with them to make a Declaration of the Law indisputable points by an Act of Parliament?’

— ‘Whether upon any Occasion the two Houses have power to make a Law binding to the People without the Royall assent, and whether they bee to judge of the occasion?’ — ‘Whether that Clause of the oath formerly administered to the Kings of England whereby they are bound as well to make such Law's as the People shall desire In Parliament as to keepe those made, ever remitted by any act of the People or only neglected thorough the Corruption of Our Kings and those that should have administered it, which not having beene administered to this King?

— ‘Whether the People can justly clayme it [the authority remitted to a king] from him?’

— ‘And lastly; Whether indeed both Houses may Legally levy mony and sequester the Estates of their Opposers, as they have done during this Warr, without and against the Kings Consent or whether that fast power confest by the Law's of this Land to belong to their Parliaments, doe not belong to them only as the Parliaments consist of the 3 States, and so as the King is a part of them and Ioynes with them having power by Interposing his Negative voyce to keepe them from Proceeding without Him?’.

^{page 303 note 32} Prescriptive right — or the ‘uninterrupted use or possession from time immemorial, or for a fixed period by law as giving a title or right acquired by virtue of such use or possession: sometimes called positive prescription.’ — OED.

^{page 303 note 33} i.e. The Grand Duke of Muscovy, where (according to seventeenth-century perceptions) all his subjects were ‘kholops’ (or slaves) to the Tsar.

^{page 303 note 34} The Kings of France had the title Most Christian King as well as a long-standing alliance with the Turks.

^{page 304 note 35} There was a dispute about the role of Parliament during the process leading to the depositions of Edward II and Richard II. Some of the important statutes taken as guarantors of the subject's liberty and the privileges of Parliament dated from those reigns.

^{page 305 note 36} Revelation 19:17–18 – ‘And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together into the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, …’. This takes place during the great struggle against the armies of the Beast.

^{page 305 note 37} See 149 (11 March 1647 [?8]).

^{page 307 note 38} See 134 (15 September 1647).

^{page 307 note 39} Revelation 21:1 – ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.’

^{page 308 note 40} Culpeper refers to that part of the Le Pruvost/l'Amy proposal which was to establish a state-sponsored American colony. Objections to the proposal arose from the land-tenure system based on leases directly from the state. Le Pruvost himself was stringently opposed to monopolies but Culpeper feared that his proposals would entail an eventual return to authoritarian monopoly. See GI, p. 371–72.Google Scholar

^{page 308 note 41} Culpeper was evidently working through a draft translation of Glauber's Furni Novi into English. In early 1647, ‘probably late February’ (Webster, Charles in UR, p. 223Google Scholar), Benjamin Worsley left England for the Netherlands. Culpeper here clearly ventured (despite his later protestations) to assist Worsley financially if he would undertake a visit to Glauber and purchase one of his furnaces. The trip would not achieve what Culpeper had anticipated — see 169 (1 November 1648) below.

^{page 308 note 42} Peters, Hugh [var: Peter], (1598–1660)Google Scholar — DNB.

^{page 309 note 43} In his petition to Charles II Hartlib wrote that he had given support ‘to the godly ministers and scholars who were driven in those days out of the Palatinate and other Protestant churehes then laid waste …’ - HDC, p. 3. The scholar in question is probably Adolphus Speed, who lodged with, and was supported by, Hartlib at this time. The hypothesis is strengthened by further references to promises made to Speed by Culpeper in 141 (10 November 1647) and 142 (17 November 1647).

^{page 309 note 44} News-books.

^{page 309 note 45} This is presumably a reference to the forthcoming publication by Ritschel, George, Contemplationes Metaphysicœ ex Natura Rerum et Rectœ Rationis lumine deductœ (Oxford, 1648)Google Scholar, Wing R1543, with its dedication to Culpeper and Nicholas Stoughton — see 110 (24 May 1646) from Comenius.

^{page 310 note 46} The dating of this letter is more than usually problematic. From the references to Petty and Worsley, it would appear to be datable to no earlier than the Autumn of 1647; but his wife's recipe-book, which was reported as lost on 15 September 1647 (137, above) must have been found - and some elements of the letter would fit better in the late summer of 1648.

^{page 310 note 47} See 94 (31 October 1645).

^{page 310 note 48} Culpeper had presumably given up hope of completing his corrections of the translation of Glauber and had returned the transcript (bar half a sheet) to Hartlib. This translation was doubtless put to good use by John French, however, whom Hartlib approached to complete the work. It appeared as A description of new Philosophical Furnaces, or A new Art of Distilling, divided into five parts (1651)Google Scholar, Wing 0846, Thomason, E.649 (3). In his preface, French says that the second and largest part of the treatise was ‘in private hands already translated into English by a learned German’ [Hartlib?] — sig. A4¹. Cf GI, p. 387Google Scholar; Clucas, , p. 152.Google Scholar

^{page 310 note 49} Shakespeare, , Macbeth.Google Scholar

^{page 311 note 50} Dury, John, Considerations tending to the Happy Accomplishment of Englands Reformation in Church and State (1647)Google Scholar, Wing H981.

^{page 311 note 51} It is not clear to whom Culpeper refers.

^{page 312 note 52} GI, p. 372.Google Scholar

^{page 312 note 53} See 143 (22 December 1647), 146 (12 January 1647[?8]).

^{page 312 note 54} See 138 (27 October 1647).

^{page 313 note 55} Katherine, Lady Ranelagh, Robert Boyle's eldest sister.

^{page 313 note 56} Robert Boyle (1627–1691) — DSB, DNB.

^{page 313 note 57} Culpeper evidently put his proposal directly to Robert Boyle and it elicited a wry endorsement from him: ‘However, I am more than resolved to continue in this kind of folly, to serve the good of many; and worthy Sir Cheney professes himself to be one that will join with me in running this race: for in his last he used these very words unto me - ‘I offer, if others of our acquaintance will come, and according as my condition in these tottering times shall prove, to allow, towards the maintaining of one clerk, the sum of 20l. per ann. and shall (as God shall bless me) be ready to increase it, till we can invite the public to take notice of its own interesting in the business.’ (Boyle to Hartlib, 16 Nov. 1647, in Birch, , The works…Boyle, vi. 76).Google Scholar

^{page 313 note 58} Adolphus Speed — DNB and 139 (27 October 1647).

^{page 314 note 59} See 146 (12 January 1647[?8]).

^{page 314 note 60} ‘Stroking’ for the relief of illness was one aspect of curative physic which interested Hartlib and his associates. See the Ephemerides for 1643 (30/4/88A-B) and 60/4/78 where stroking was recommended for the cure of toothache and the stone.

^{page 314 note 61} Relations between the Army and the City of London continued to be strained during the autumn and early winter of 1647; Woolrych, , Soldiers and Statesmen, pp. 198–99, 200–03.Google Scholar

^{page 315 note 62} This letter is difficult to date with any degree of precision. The reference to Captain Westrow suggests, however, that it might belong to the period in March 1647 when Culpeper was actively soliciting Westrow's support and the rest of its brief contents tends to support this hypothesis.

^{page 317 note 1} i.e. William Petty (1623–1687) — DNB, DSB; Henry Robinson — see 104 (26 February 1646); and George Goring, Earl of Norwich (1583?–1663) — DNB. Goring had been a leading monopolist and was renowned for his mechanical contrivances in court entertainments. He had returned to England from the royalist court in late 1647 and would lead the Kentish rebellion in 1648. See the following letter for the context to this particular allusion.

^{page 317 note 2} Charles had signed ‘The Engagement between the King and the Scots’ on 26 December 1647 — CDPR, pp. 347–53Google Scholar; Gardiner, , iv. 39–41.Google Scholar

^{page 317 note 3} On Christmas Day 1647 there had been a riot at Canterbury which was the first overt sign of the unrest which culminated in the rebellion in the county in 1648 — Everitt, , Kent, pp. 231–34Google Scholar; Gardiner, , iv. 45.Google Scholar

^{page 318 note 4} ‘Mr Dawson’ was an arborist to whom Hartlib had despatched the query from Culpeper ‘how trees planted in a pasture grounds might be preserved from the brushe and rubbing of cattel’ (51/150). Dawson's reply was to counsel the use of ‘dogge dunge, and lyme steeped in water, wash the body of the tree, and with a squirt cast the water vpon the end bowes of any fruite trees’. In Hartlib's Ephemerides of 1651, he noted a manuscript of Dawson on tree planting, then in Worsley's possession and ‘worth the publishing’ (28/2/2B). In 1659 John Beale planned to publish a work on forestry to be entitled ‘The True Interest of the Commonwealth of England’. This was to include a memorandum between Culpeper and Dawson on protecting young trees from damage by cattle — GI, p. 481; HDC, p. 107; 51/82–92 and 8/26/1; also see 141 (10 November 1647) and 143 (22 December 1647).

^{page 318 note 5} This letter carries the date 1647, but Culpeper generally indicates a double year-date for the period from January to March and this letter does not. It may therefore, in fact, belong to this, the following year; internal evidence for its dating does not decide the issue.

^{page 318 note 6} William Petty see 145 (5 January 1647/8).

^{page 319 note 7} Culpeper here returns to a subject which he had already touched on in 94 (31 October 1645) and 95 (5 November 1645).

^{page 319 note 8} i.e. the town regents in the Dutch Republic.

^{page 319 note 9} The plan for an agency to sponsor innovation was fundamental to the Office of Address — GI, p. 370Google Scholar. The ‘Office of Address for Communications’ aimed to establish registers of patents, an idea which had already been advocated by, amongst others, Gabriel Plattes in his ‘College of Experience’ — GI, p. 69.Google Scholar

^{page 320 note 10} [Edward] Herbert, [Earl] of Cherbury, De Veritate ([Paris], 1624)Google Scholar. Culpeper had most probably access to the third edition, the first to be published in England, of 1645 (Wing H1501).

^{page 320 note 11} As with 147 (18 January 1647[?8]), this letter also carries no double year-date and it is possible that it should be dated to this, the following year.

^{page 320 note 12} In 1647, Petty patented the design for his double-writing invention, or pantograph. In essence, the device was a pantograph equipped with two or more quills with continuous ink-feed. The first prototype machine was produced by William Petty and tested before nine witnesses on 22 December 1647 (71/7/3A). The witnesses watched Petty transcribe the first chapter of St Paul to the Hebrews with it. The chapter had doubtless been chosen because it was not very long, and perhaps also because it contained the significant verse (v.6): ‘That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Jesus Christ’. In 1648 his Declaration concerning the newly invented art of double writing (1648)Google Scholar, Wing P1917 Thomason, E.437 (23), was published. In the pamphlet Petty defended his design patent from its critics and expounded its potential advantages. A manuscript copy of this pamphlet is to be found amongst Hartlib's papers at 71/7/1–6. The device was seen as a potentially valuable means to cut the costs of using scriveners. The innovation was intensively developed by William Petty. With the help of Henry Morris, he presented a lengthy ‘Remonstrance’, dated to 22 August 1649, before the Council of State. In this document, in return for £1,500, he promised to divulge all the secrets of the ‘Double-Writing’ invention to the state — PRO SP 18 vol. II, fols 156–159. It was later taken up by the London instrument-maker Ralph Greattrakes; but the difficulties in securing a steady ink supply and robust, accurate joints to the pantograph led to its eventual abandonment.

^{page 322 note 13} As with letters 147 (18 January 1647[?8]) and 148 (25 January 1647[?8]), this letter carries only the single year-date and it is possible that it should be assigned to this, the succeeding year. The reference to the incomplete Glauber treatise, on which Culpeper was working through later 1647, would make more sense if written in 1648.

^{page 323 note 14} Robert Andrews, MP for Weobley, Herefordshire.

^{page 323 note 13} Benjamin Worsley left for the Netherlands in c.February 1647 — see Webster, , ‘Benjamin Worsley’, in UR, p. 223Google Scholar. In Mr. William Wheelers Case from his Own Relation (1644/1645)Google Scholar. Wing P408, Wheeler gives an autobiographical account of the time he spent at The Hague where “…[i]n all places…[he] had quarrels urged upon” him (sig. A3¹). He was attacked by the Prince of Orange's guards (sig. A2¹), and believed that Robert Honywood and William Boswell were instrumental in excluding him from the Queen's court in order to advance claims to his engineering innovations (sigs A3^r – A4^v) and the resulting profits.

^{page 323 note 16} Sir William Boswell (d.1649) was English Resident at The Hague from August 1632. He financed Wheeler's operations — DNB; GI, p. 372.Google Scholar

^{page 323 note 17} In particular, Wheeler's snail wheel drainage mill, for which he had been granted an English patent in 1642 — GI, pp. 372–73.Google Scholar

^{page 323 note 18} Culpeper had evidently received a copy of Glauber's De Auri Tinctura, sive Auro Potabili Vero (Amsterdam, 1646)Google Scholar which he had requested from Hartlib in 111 (1 October 1646) above. He had worked on a translation but was apparently hoping to pass the task on to William Petty — see 130 (5 August 1647), 132 (August 1647), 133 (7 September 1647), 137 (20 October 1647) and Clucas, p. 151.

^{page 324 note 19} See 94 (31 October 1645).

^{page 324 note 20} Francis Rous (1579–1659). See 113 (14 October 1646).

^{page 324 note 21} Robert Child (c.1613–1654) was an agricultural reformer who was educated at Cambridge before receiving an MD in 1638 after studying at the Universities of Leiden and Padua. At some time between 1638 and 1641 he left for New England, but by May 1641 he was back in England. He moved to France, went back to New England, and only returned to England in 1647. Child was the author of the ‘Large Letter’ in Hartlib's Legacy, pp. 1–96Google Scholar. See Turnbull, G. H., ‘Robert Child’, Colonial Society of Massachusetts Publications, 38 (1959), 21–53Google Scholar; Kitteredge, G. L., ‘Dr Robert Child, the remonstrant. Alchemy in early New England’Google Scholar, ibid., 21 (1919), 1–146; GI, pp. 66–7.Google Scholar

^{page 324 note 22} In alchemy the elixir was a preparation used to change metals into gold. It was sometimes identified with the ‘philosopher's stone’ – OED.

^{page 324 note 23} Zacharius in Chemicum Theatricum, i. 733Google Scholar. For Dionysius Zachary (1510–1556), see ‘The Autobiography of Denis Zachaire. An Account of an Alchemist's Life in the Sixteenth Century’, Isis, 8 (1926), 287–99.Google Scholar

^{page 325 note 24} Zacharius, , Chemicum Theatricum, i. p. 729.Google Scholar

^{page 325 note 25} Although this work is not listed in Wing or the STC it was cited by Robert Child in his ‘Large Letter’, published by Hartlib in his Legacy, p. 6.Google Scholar

^{page 325 note 26} Plats, Hugh, The New and Admirable Arte of Setting Corne (1600)Google Scholar, STC 19993.

^{page 325 note 27} Probably the optical lens-grinder and instrument-maker, Richard Reeves, who was working from Kingston-upon-Thames at around this time, and who had impressed Hartlib with the ambitious claims that he made for his telescopes — see Simpson, A.D.C., ‘Richard Reeve — the ‘English Campani’ — and the origins of the London telescope-making tradition’, Vistas in Astronomy, xxviii (1985), 357–65.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 326 note 28} i.e. Bristol.

^{page 326 note 29} In which work, entitled ‘Nuntius Inanimatus’, Culpeper had found this reference is unclear and his memory on the matter failed him on a later occasion. In Ephemerides, 1656Google Scholar, Hartlib notes: ‘Dee vndertooke to give intelligence what 12 a clock things done at London they should know it before 12 at Bristol. But wither this is expressed in Nuncius Inanimatus of Dees or Bishop Goodwin or Dr Wilkins Nuncius Inanimatus Sir Cheney Culpeper could not tell’ — 29/5/101B.

^{page 326 note 30} See 80 (17 July 1645).

^{page 326 note 31} Culpeper's confidence on this point was to prove misplaced. On 11 April 1648, the Scottish Parliament voted to abandon the treaty between the two kingdoms — Gardiner, iv. 111.

^{page 327 note 32} On 24 February 1648, an English translation of Acontius's Satanae Strategemata (Basel, 1565)Google Scholar had been published. A member of the Assembly complained about a passage in the book and a committee was appointed to consider the work. The translation — Satans Stratagems (1648)Google Scholar, Wing A443 — was prefaced by commendations from John Goodwin and John Dury. The passage to which Culpeper refers is on pp. 124–130 (sigs. R2^v-S1^v). See HDC, pp. 261, 312Google Scholar; also The Diary and Correspondence of John Worthington, ed. Crossley, James, Chetham Society, vol 36 (1855), 143–46Google Scholar; Minutes of the Sessions of the Westminster Assembly, eds. Mitchell, A. F. and Struthers, J. (Edinburgh, 1874), p. 505Google Scholar (28 February 1648); Batten, , pp. 110–11.Google Scholar

^{page 327 note 33} Oliver St John (1598?–1673) – DNB.

^{page 327 note 34} See 134 (15 September 1647).

^{page 327 note 35} Sir Thomas Roe had died in 1644.

^{page 327 note 36} Hartlib's fear that the Scots Parliament were about to break the treaty uniting the two kingdoms or demand the establishment of a presbyterian church settlement in England proved to be correct on 11 April — Gardiner, iv. 115.

^{page 328 note 37} Hartlib had forwarded to Culpeper the description which he had received from John Dury of the ‘Bathes of the King of Denmark’ — 8/32/1A. ‘There was a box made of fine wood wherein hee would sit conveniently naked, which did shut very close upon him to enclose his Body, soe that his Head only did stand in the aire: the opning was before with a doore to goe in to sit upon a seat: and above to shutte under his chin about his necke’. Steam was then pumped through the box and the resulting sauna was particularly commended for sobering up after prolonged heavy drinking. Culpeper clearly followed the matter up because a reference in Hartlib's Ephemerides, datable to June/July 1648, refers to ‘A Chirgeon in Wood street not far from Goldsmith hall … being an old acquaintance of Sir Cheny's hath such a sweating or bathing Chaire as Mr Worsly and Mr Dury describe’ – 31/22/18B.

^{page 328 note 38} John Sadler (1615–1674) — DNB. He was a considerable supporter of Hartlib and his enterprises and secured him some of his pensions from the Parliament. See also 93 (22 October 1645). This may refer in some way to the scheme of Mr Sadler's ‘for transacting the exportation of a certain wondrous vnknown rich commodity’ from Asia through Muscovy which apparently promised to raise £2,000 and in pursuit of which John Sadler left for the Netherlands in the summer of 1648 — Ephemerides (1648)Google Scholar, 31/22/14A; 15A.

^{page 329 note 39} See the preceeding letter.

^{page 329 note 40} This is not mentioned elsewhere amongst Hartlib's surviving papers.

^{page 329 note 41} For Nicholas Gibbons, see 121 (16 February 1646/7). In his Ephemerides of 1648, Hartlib recorded that ‘Dr Gibbon affirmed to mee that his divinity-designe was nothing else but the perfecting or performing of one grand desideratum of the Lord Verulam in Divinity’ — 31/22/3B.

^{page 330 note 42} The letter from Le Pruvost to which Culpeper refers is probably that dated 5 January 1648 in Latin (12/22A–B) which presents a luminescent prospectus of progress in return for Parliamentary support for the scheme. By the end of March 1648, no further progress had been made, however, on securing Parliamentary backing for the ambitious project.

^{page 330 note 43} Culpeper's scepticism towards any degree of public (i.e. Parliamentary) support for the Office of Address was to prove entirely justifiable — see Turnbull, G. H., Samuel Hartlib; a sketch of his life and his relations to J.A. Comenius (1920), pp. 48–9.Google Scholar

^{page 330 note 44} Benjamin Worsley had undertaken an extended research trip to the Netherlands from which he would return in 1650 – see Webster, ‘Benjamin Worsley’, in UR, pp. 219–20.Google Scholar

^{page 330 note 45} For Sir James, Lord Carmichael, see 80 (17 July 1645).

^{page 330 note 46} For Giovanni Pontano, see 89 (n.d.). The passage comes from his treatise De ignis.

^{page 331 note 47} On Michael Sendivogius [Sedziwoj] (1566–1636/46), an alchemical authority much cited by Culpeper, see Partington, , ii. 426–29Google Scholar; DSB; Clucas, , pp. 154Google Scholar–56. His principal work, of which Culpeper had a Latin copy, was the Novum Lumen Chymicum (Paris, 1608Google Scholar; Cologne, 1614 etc). This passage appears in his supplementary work, the Novi luminis chemici, his treatise ‘De sulphure’ Musœum Hermeticum reformatum (Frankfurt, 1678), p. 615.Google Scholar

^{page 331 note 48} ‘This element is the most quiescent of all, and like a cart, it runs when it is drawn and stands at rest when it is not drawn; it is in all things, though not perceptible; & in another place, Fire is the most quiescent element and it is kindled by motion and that kindling is known to the philosophers; & in the same page, In all its workings nature has to kindle that fire which has been put in secret by the Creator at the centre of each and every thing. Such kindling is done at nature's will, at times through the nature of the wise Creator, who disposes of nature itself’. The passage is taken from p. 618 of the treatise ‘De sulphure’ in Musœum Hermeticum.

^{page 332 note 49} Nuysement, , Traittez, pp. 108–9Google Scholar [trans: ‘It should not be thought … that the celestial Sun alone warms the earth, For we see that in winter, when the Sun is furthest from us that its core is hotter than in the warmest periods of summer because of the heat retained by the cold air which surrounds it – with the result that the metals remain hot and, one may say that it is at that time that they reach their highest temperature’].

^{page 332 note 50} Sendivogius, , Novum Lumen Chymicum in Musœum Hermeticum, p. 576.Google Scholar

^{page 332 note 51} On Johann Siebert Küffeler and his family, see GI, pp. 388–89Google Scholar. His wife was a sister of Cornelis Drebbel. By this date, they were living in the Netherlands close by Johann Rudolf Glauber.

^{page 333 note 52} Sendivogius, , p. 618.Google Scholar

^{page 333 note 53} Nuysement, , pp. 165–6.Google Scholar

^{page 333 note 54} For Worsley's activities during his stay in the Netherlands, see Webster, , ‘Benjamin Worsley’, in UR, pp. 224–25.Google Scholar

^{page 334 note 55} Nicholas Flammel, his exposition of the hieroglyphicall figures … (translated by ‘Eirenæus Orandus’) (1624), pp. 68–9.Google Scholar

^{page 335 note 56} His wife's recipe-book.

^{page 335 note 57} For the treatise on clovergrass 15/5/26; cf a letter defending its agricultural use in 20/87/1A–4B.

^{page 335 note 58} William Petty was becoming interested in the problem of setting corn by means of a seed-drill. Hartlib recorded in the Ephemerides for 1648 that: ‘He [Petty] hathe also scanned and corrected Plats his Calculations about the encrease in Corne. The benefit of this new kind of Agriculture will bee 1. for saving so much in that which is otherwise sowen. 2. in getting of that lesser quantity so much the more of increase.’ – 31/22/31B. Petty remained to be convinced. Later that same year, Hartlib recorded: ‘Of setting Corne Petty thus writes – I see no great reason why the setting of Corne although it might bee done in perfection should doe any thing more then save seed. Wherfore I should bee glad to bee assured for what end wee trouble ou'r braines’ — 31/22/22A.

^{page 335 note 59} i.e. Cressy Dymock, who was also developing a machine for setting corn – see GI, pp. 226 and n. 365–66, 473.

^{page 335 note 60} This is probably ‘An abstract of Mr Demmocks Husbandry-Designe’ which is in Petty's hand amongst Haitlib's papers — 62/50/17A–18B.

^{page 336 note 61} Johann Moriaen (?1591– post January 1662) had been born in Nuremberg and, having served as pastor to the reformed church in Cologne (1619–27), had taken up residence in Amsterdam, where he was visited by Worsley who assisted his investigations into saltpetre and metallurgy. See John Young, ‘Godly Intelligence: intellectual contact between England and the Netherlands (1638–1662). A study of the correspondence of Johann Moriaen’ (Unpublished PhD Thesis, University of Sheffield, 1995).

^{page 336 note 62} i.e. Michael Sendivogius [Michal Sedziwoj].

^{page 336 note 63} See 156 (6 July 1648).

^{page 337 note 64} Ibid.

^{page 337 note 65} Possibly a reference to The Advice of W.P. to Mr Samuel Hartlib for the Advancement of Some Particular Parts of Learning (1648)Google Scholar, Wing P1914, which Hartlib published in 1648. If so, then Culpeper may be the author of the undated and unascribed commentary on it, entitled ‘A Remonstrance of the feasibility of the Designes described by W. P. in his Advice to Mr. Samuel Hartlib, concerning the Advancement of Learning and Arts’ — 53/36/1A–2B. The remonstrance welcomes Petty's proposals. Although vast sums would be needed to complete the task outlined by Petty, this should not prevent a modest start being made upon some institutional foundations.

^{page 337 note 66} John Lambert (1619–1683) had been sent to the north in the expectation of a Scottish invasion. On 8 July the Scots army marched into England led by James Hamilton, first Duke of Hamilton — Gardiner, iv. p. 165.

^{page 338 note 67} A. Fromentil, a Dutch optical instrument-maker and lens-grinder. Culpeper refers to the letter from Worsley dated 22 June 1658 [NS?] in which he describes his meeting with Fromentil and the comparisons he undertook between his products and other microscopes. Fromentil was apparently open about his research into improving the optical quality of his lenses — 42/1/1A.

^{page 338 note 68} Benjamin Worsley had apparently taken Culpeper's offer in 137 (20 October 1647) at its face value. In that letter, Culpeper offered to ‘become a marchante venturer in the busines’ and, in partnership with others, to underwrite the costs of his research trip to the Netherlands. See also 153 (29 March 1648)

^{page 339 note 69} Philip Skippon (d. 1660) — DNB. He was appointed commander-in-chief of the London militia at the outbreak of the second civil war on 18 May 1648. When he was commissioned by the House of Commons to raise a regiment of horse to forestall a royalist rising, there was much disquiet amongst presbyterian elements in the City of London and in Parliament.

^{page 339 note 70} i.e. the ‘corn engine’ or machine for sowing seed.

^{page 340 note 71} Colchester was held under seige by the army of Lord Fairfax and surrendered in late August — CSPD (1648–9), p. 260Google Scholar; Gardiner, , iv. 153, 198, 201–02.Google Scholar

^{page 340 note 72} The Prince of Wales was expected to sail from the Netherlands where he had been joined by some of the ships which had mutinied at The Downs — Capp, B., Cromwell's Navy; The Fleet and the English Revolution 1648–1660 (Oxford, 1989), pp. 32–5CrossRef Google Scholar. For the mutiny see 160 (25 July 1648).

^{page 340 note 73} Cromwell and his forces had been in Wales and were currently in the West Riding of Yorkshire — The Writings and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell, ed. Abbott, W. C., 4 vols (Cambridge, Mass., 1939–1947), i, 609–28.Google Scholar

^{page 340 note 74} Hamilton's army had crossed the border and moved into Lancashire — CSPD (1648–1649), p. 192Google Scholar; Abbott, , Speeches of … Cromwell i. 630–32.Google Scholar

^{page 340 note 75} John Boys, MP for the county of Kent.

^{page 340 note 76} Culpeper may have been hoping to succeed Henry Oxinden as MP for Winchelsea. Oxinden was eventually secluded at Pride's Purge.

^{page 341 note 77} Disbanded soldiers, who petitioned the Lords in June 1648 about arrears of pay and neglect by the Parliament — LJ, x. 301, 347, 351Google Scholar; CSPD (1648–1649), pp. 248–49.Google Scholar

^{page 341 note 78} 1 Corinthians 13:13.

^{page 341 note 79} i.e. Philip II of Spain.

^{page 342 note 80} Bernhardus, Count of Trevigo [Trevisanus], (1406–1490) — Ferguson, , Biblotheca Chemica, i. 100–105.Google Scholar

^{page 342 note 81} [Sendivogius, M.], Novum Lumen Chymicum e naturae fonte et manuali experientia depromptum in duos partes divisum … (1628), p. 158.Google Scholar

^{page 342 note 82} Colonel Blunt was an agricultural inventor who lived not far from Blackheath. Hartlib was not entirely convinced of the altruism behind his endeavours: ‘…hee is all for himself and not the Publick’ — Ephemerides (1649) – 31/22/39B.

^{page 342 note 83} Much of Dymock's proposal was contained in his letter to Hartlib of 15 August 1648 — 62/50/1A–B. He proposed to conduct a controlled experiment of the success of his new methods of arable cultivation. Three parcels of land, each over 20 acres would be chosen close by the farm chosen for the experiment. These three parcels would be sown with identical grain in the usual way and their yield compared with that obtained on the experimental farm where Dymock's methods would be applied for a season. Dymock stipulated that the farm in question had to be a minimum of 160 acres and that Dymock would be allowed to keep half the difference in the yield as the reward for conducting the experiment, the remainder being left to the farmer who would conduct the experiment and invest in the new machinery.

^{page 343 note 84} The pamphlet Culpeper here refers to is probably An Experimental Essay Touching the Reformation of the Lowes of England (17 August 1648), Wing Thomason, E3880 E.549 (20), which Hartlib was clearly sufficiently interested in to enquire further of its author. Sir Balthazar Gerbier, writing from Paris on 24 October 1648 [NS], had evidently read it too: ‘I have scene the printed Essay touching the reformation of the Lawes of England’ – 10/2/19A.

^{page 343 note 85} Culpeper refers to the compromise agreement between the House of Lords and the House of Commons on the question of negotiations with the king, agreed on 1 August, and the presbyterian dissension within the City of London, evident in a petition to the Commons asking for the liberation of the king and an immediate cease-fire — Gardiner, , iv. pp. 172–73.Google Scholar

^{page 343 note 86} Culpeper refers to the terms drawn up by the Chambre St Louis of the parlement of Paris in July 1648. The Rubicon for the Fronde would, in reality, be the Day of Barricades, 26–28 August 1648 [NS].

^{page 344 note 87} Hartlib had evidently reported to Culpeper the contents of Pierre Le Pruvost's letter to him of 11 August 1648. In it, Le Pruvost explained that his attempt to interest the Duke of Brandenburg in his schemes for economic regeneration had completely failed: ‘II semble quil veult tenir nos gens et corne ses vilageois en Esclauage Et continuer sa nourriture de sanglier par miliers [ … ] a la destruction de son pays Tout son peuple est pour nous mais son grand veneur[s] auec deux ou trois fauoris le tiennent en leurs mains comme nostre Cardinal [Richelieu] tenoyt Loys 13me’. Le Pruvost looked to Sir William Waller as the leading instrument to press the case for his scheme before the English Parliament — 7/119/1A–B.

^{page 344 note 88} i.e. a hoy, or small coastal sloop, from the small harbour on the Thames estuary at Milton.

^{page 345 note 89} Dury was once more a key figure in the efforts to attract Pierre Le Pruvost to come to England again. He translated his letter of 11 August 1648 and was involved in various efforts to persuade individual members of Parliament to lend their support to the proposed Parliamentary ordinance to invite him to return — 7/119/3A–B.

^{page 346 note 90} Katherine, Lady Ranelagh?

^{page 347 note 91} Ibid.

^{page 347 note 92} Ibid.

^{page 348 note 93} The negotiations for the Treaty of Newport began in September 1648 — Gardiner, , iv. 214.Google Scholar

^{page 349 note 1} Culpeper had returned some of Dymock's work to Hartlib with 156 (6 July 1648) and provided some comments on it in 164 (23 August 1648). He is probably referring to a list of queries on Dymock's ideas for agricultural innovation to which Dymock wrote replies in a letter to Hartlib of 11 June 1649 — 64/14/1–3.

^{page 349 note 2} ‘It is for the founder to give the interpretation’.

^{page 350 note 3} Probably Hartlib's Londons Charitie …, (1649), Wing H992.

^{page 350 note 4} On Culpeper's millenarianism, see GI, pp. 6, 77, 509.

^{page 350 note 5} Salmon, Joseph, A Rout, A Rout; or some part of the Armies Quarters beaten up, by the Day of the Lord stealing upon them, ([10 02] 1649)Google Scholar, Wing S416 Thomason, E.542 (5). Culpeper wants the pamphlet shown to Lady Ranelagh.

^{page 351 note 6} Somerset House on the Strand was the first Renaissance palace in England and had been built for Lord Protector Somerset in 1547–50. In 1625, the house had been given to Henrietta Maria and named Denmark House; but, in 1645, she left for the Netherlands and it was taken over by the Parliamentarians and once more renamed Somerset House. (The London Encyclopaedia, eds. Weinreb, B. and Hibbert, C. (1983), pp. 795–97).Google Scholar

^{page 351 note 7} Charles II's acceptance at The Hague of Ormond's invitation to lead the Irish Royalists and, possibly, Montrose's agreement with Denmark for material support of a royalist invasion — Gardiner, , CW, i. 18–19Google Scholar; 67–68.

^{page 351 note 8} In Hartlib's Ephemerides for 1649 there are various allusions to Antimony cups — e.g. 28/1/25B. In this case, Culpeper seems to have wanted it for the cure of his horse. Antimony cups were especially developed by German monks in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries — Friend, J. Newton, Man and the Chemical Elements: from Stone-Age Hearths to the Cyclotron (1951), pp. 82–87.Google Scholar

^{page 352 note 9} Like Culpeper, Johann Siebert Küffeler also had problems with Glauber's glassware — Clucas, , p. 152Google Scholar; GI, pp. 78, 388–91Google Scholar;, O'Brien, J. J., ‘Samuel Hartlib's Influence on Robert Boyle's Scientific Development — Part II, Boyle in Oxford’, Annals of Science, 21 (1965), 266Google Scholar; Webster, C., SHAL, p. 62Google Scholar; Turnbull, G. H., ‘Oliver Cromwell's College at Durham’, Durham Research Review, 3 (1952), 17Google Scholar. For descriptions of Küffeler's distillation procedures see 39/2/18–20, 37–38, 43–44).

^{page 352 note 10} Glauber's instructions on grinding glass stoppers were in the fifth part of the Furni novi philosophici oder Beschreibung einer Newerfundener Destillirkunst (Amsterdam, 1646–1649), published in 1649, pp. 18–32Google Scholar. The English translation, begun by Culpeper, was not completed and published until 1651.

^{page 352 note 11} See Clucas, , p. 152.Google Scholar

^{page 352 note 12} de Vigenère, Blaise, Traité du feu et du sel (Paris, 1618)Google Scholar. This had been translated by Edward Stephens and published in 1649 under the title A discourse of Fire and Salt, discovering many secret mysteries; as well philosophicall, as theologicall (1649)Google Scholar, Wing B3128.

^{page 352 note 13} i.e. ‘verre’.

^{page 352 note 14} This treatise is referred to in Vigenère, , p. 52Google Scholar (English edition). It is perhaps on account of a confusion that Hartlib wrote in the Ephemerides, 1649Google Scholar: ‘Blaise de Vigenere’ Treatises besides of fire and salt Sir Cheney Culpeper said hee hath his 2 others of Gold and Glasse wherein hee confesseth to bee many excellent things’ — 28/1/20B.

^{page 353 note 15} The term ‘regulus’ was used by early chemists to refer to the metallic form of antinomy, apparently on account of its ready combination with gold. — OED.

^{page 353 note 16} In fact, Charles II did not arrive in France until February 1650 — Gardiner, , CW, i. 194.Google Scholar

^{page 353 note 17} Culpeper briefly envisaged the foundation of a British confederation similar to that between the Swiss cantons.

^{page 353 note 18} Worsley would not, in fact, return to England from the Netherlands until the close of 1649 – He was evidently in London by 29 January 1650 according to the letter from Henry More to Hartlib in 18/1/25A.

^{page 354 note 19} ‘Nature does nothing in vain’.

^{page 354 note 20} Possibly citing [Zacaire, Denys], Opuscule tres-eccellent de la vraye Philosophie naturelle des metaulx, traictant de l'augmentation & parfection d'iceulx (Anvers, 1567 and later editions)Google Scholar — but this work was apparently never published in Latin and so Culpeper may be referring to another work attributed to Zacaire.

^{page 354 note 21} This reference has not been precisely located.

^{page 355 note 22} See 94 (31 October 1645); 147 (18 January 1647[?8]); 151 (22 March 1647/8).

^{page 355 note 23} Pierre le Pruvost had, by this date, retired to Rotterdam and was staying with M. Ancelin at the ‘Wyn strate’. Some sense of his disappointment at the lack of success of his endeavours in England is apparent from a brief memorandum of 20 July 1649, explaining that his partner Hugh l'Amy had spent three months in London in 1645 in search of authorisation for their project. He himself had succeeded him some two months later and spent ten months there to no great effect (12/110A–B). As he wrote to John Dury on 10 September 1649: ‘On dit que les francois se hastent trop et que les anglois sont trop longtemps a consulter et a s'apprester …’ – 12/27A.

^{page 355 note 24} By mid-June 1649 the Royalist forces under Ormond were advancing on Dublin but on 26 July the parliamentary forces were reinforced with the arrival of troops from England. Rumours of Cromwell's imminent landing forced Ormond to detatch contingents of his army towards Munster. Being reduced in size, the remainder of his forces suffered defeat at Rathemines on 2 August and as a consequence Cromwell arrived in Ireland on 15 August unopposed – Gardiner, , CW, i. 102, 106Google Scholar; A New History of Ireland: iii Early Modem Ireland 1534–1691, eds. Moody, T. W., Martin, F. X. and Byrne, F. J. (Oxford, 1976), pp. 336–53.Google Scholar

^{page 355 note 25} James Butler, twelfth Earl and first Duke of Ormond, (1610–1688) — DNB. Presumably a reference to his defeat at Rathmines.

^{page 356 note 26} Oliver St John.

^{page 357 note 27} ‘An Act for drayning the Great Level of the Fens, extending itself into the Counties of Northampton, Norfolk, Suffolk, Lincoln, Cambridge, and Huntingdon, and the Isle of Ely. or some of them’ was passed by Parliament on 25 May 1649 — CJ, vi. 219; F&R, ii. 130Google Scholar. Culpeper's interest was no doubt due to his possession of lands in Romney marshes.

^{page 358 note 28} In 1649 the fifth and final part of Glauber's Furni novi philosophici oder Beschreibung einer Newerfundener Destillirkunst (Amsterdam, 1646–49)Google Scholar was published. However Culpeper more probably refers to the second edition of Furni novi philosophici published in Amsterdam from 1648 to 1650 in three volumes.

^{page 358 note 29} As Clucas suggests, Culpeper began to take exception to Glauber's chemistry on philosophical grounds — Clucas, pp. 152–54.

^{page 358 note 30} esp. Psalms 67:6 — ‘Then shall the earth yield her increase; and God, even our own God, shall bless us’.

^{page 359 note 31} i.e. the monthly assessment on property, imposed as an expedient during the civil war. When the old assessment expired in March 1649, the Rump Parliament imposed a new one of £90,000 per month. See Worden, B., The Rump Parliament, 1648–1653 (Cambridge, 1974), pp. 167–68.CrossRef Google Scholar

^{page 359 note 32} The allusion is to the proposal for a land bank, made by Robinson, Henry in Briefe Considerations concerning the Advancement of Trade and Navigation (1649)Google Scholar, Wing R1666. It was subsequently taken over and developed by William Potter, one of Hartlib's correspondents. Through the bank, Potter proposed that bills could be issued on the security of the registered land, and that these bills would then be payable at sight to the bearer. He subsequently published his scheme in The Key of Wealth (1650)Google Scholar, Wing P3034 and then remodelled it in The Trades-man's Jevvel (1650)Google Scholar, Wing P3O36. Potter's scheme was criticised in an anonymous essay printed at the end of Dymock's A Discoverie for Division (1653), Wing H985, sigs. E1^r-F1^r. Potter wrote further on a Bank of Lands and Hartlib published one of his essays in the Legacy, ‘A Bank of Lands … by Mr. William Potter … on Improvement of Land’, pp. 289–99. In 1649, both Culpeper and Dury had become interested in the operation of public banks through Henry Robinson's proposal – see Ephemerides, 1649 – 28/1/26A and 29B. Culpeper himself compared the operation of the banking system of Amsterdam with aspects of the Robinson/Potter proposal — 30/2/15–16.

^{page 360 note 33} Sir Balthazar Gerbier had proposed to Hartlib in the summer of 1649 on his return from Paris the cataloguing and classifying of the Rolls series, as had also been proposed by the parlement of Paris. Hartlib suggested the use of Harrison's indexing system — Ephemerides, 1649Google Scholar (28/1/20A–B). However, this, and the other allusions by Culpeper are probably to proposition emanating from Henry Robinson.

^{page 360 note 34} The abandonment of the monthly assessment was rumoured through the summer of 1649 by the Moderate Intelligencer and other newspapers. The ‘Act for the speedy raising and levyiung of Moneys by way of New Impost or Excise’ of 14 August 1649 declared ‘the Impost of Excise to be the most equal and indifferent levy that can be laid upon the People’ – F&R, ii. p. 213.Google Scholar

^{page 360 note 35} Revelation 19:12–13 — ‘The merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple, and silk, and scarlet, and all thyine wood, and all manner vessels of ivory, and all manner vessels of most precious woods, and of brass, and iron, and marble. And cinnamon, and odours, and ointments, and frankincense, and wine, and oil, and fine flour, and wheat, and beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men.’

^{page 361 note 1} George Stirke [Starkey] (1628?–1680) — DSB, DNB. Starkey arrived in London from New England in November 1650 and met Hartlib for the first time in December. By 1653, Hartlib was actively collecting material for his miscellany of writings on beekeeping, The Reformed Common-wealth of Bees (1655)Google Scholar, Wing H997. Starkey contributed two letters to the publication, giving information about the natural history of the Bermudas of relevance to apiculture (pp. 15–40). The small collection of Culpeper's surviving letters from the 1650s indicate his developing interest in bee-keeping — see, especially 26/29/49–50, which is a series of queries concerning the experimental bee-hive designed by William Mewe. See Timothy Raylor, ‘Samuel Hartlib and the Commonwealth of Bees’ in Culture and Cultivation in early Modern England, eds. Leslie, Michael and Raylor, Timothy (Leicester, 1992)Google Scholar, ch. 5.

^{page 361 note 2} There are numerous undated extracts amongst Hartlib's papers which report the success of the merchants in Hamburg in making and trading in saltpetre — see, e.g. 39/1/25–7.

^{page 362 note 3} Thomas Brown, minister. Brown had told Hartlib of his experiments with bees in September 1652 and his work is mentioned in numerous notes made by Hartlib on beekeeping — Ephemerides, 22 09 1652Google Scholar (28/2/346; 26/29/43B and 58A). Culpeper is evidently referring to Brown's discourse which was published in The Reformed Commonwealth of Bees (1655)Google Scholar, Wing H997, pp. 3–8.Google Scholar

^{page 362 note 4} Robert Child (ca. 1613–1654) was the author of the ‘Large Letter’ in Hartlib's Legacy – see 150 (15 March 1647/8). The enlarged second edition of the Legacy [(1652), Wing H990], had recently been published and included Arnold Boate's ‘Annotations upon the Legacie’, pp. 103–18Google Scholar, and the anonymous ‘Interrogatory relating … to the Husbandry and Natural History of Ireland’, pp. [121]–[143] (sigs. R1^r–V1^r). Culpeper refers here to Child's discussion of beekeeping in his ‘Large Letter’ (Legacy (1652)Google Scholar, Wing H990, pp. 46[49]–52).Google Scholar

^{page 362 note 5} ‘A Querie upon the description of Dr. Brown, 's new invented Bee-HiveGoogle Scholar. Whether the square Figure may not prove the best, in that there may be placed a bill or drawer in the bottome of the Hive, into which (being drawn forth) there may from time to time be food laid for any particular Hive, without any disturbance to or from the rest of the Hives, where every particular Hive may (if occasion require) shut up and feed by it self, which in the ordering of Bees may prove many times of good concernment.’ The Reformia Common-wealth of Bees (1655)Google Scholar, Wing H997, p. 11Google Scholar[9] (sig. C1^r).

^{page 363 note 6} Timothy Raylor suggests that Culpeper's dislike of the elaborate, and potentially divisive, allegorical possibilities of bee-keeping reinforced Hartlib's own evasiveness and helps to explain why he was careful not to include such material in his eventual publication — Raylor, , ‘Commonwealth of bees’, p. 112.Google Scholar

^{page 363 note 7} The making of experimental hives to new designs, and incorporating glass observation panels, was an important feature of Hartlib, 's The Reformed Common-wealth of Bees (1655)Google Scholar, Wing H997. In an undated note amongst Hartlib's papers there is an enthusiastic list of questions posed by Culpeper about the new hive of William Mewe, which had glass panels in it. Culpeper's first question is: ‘A full description of the transparent hyue, in every parte of it; & (yf Mr Mewe haue anye to spare) that he will sende one to London by the Carrier which comes from his partes.’ – 26/29/49A–50B. Raylor, , ‘Commonwealth of bees’, pp. 101–05.Google Scholar

^{page 363 note 8} Hartlib had sought to promote honey as an alternative to sugar. In his ‘Large Letter’ in Hartlib's Legacy Robert Child suggested that honey could be used to make wines and liquour – Legacy (1652)Google Scholar, Wing H990, p. 52)Google Scholar. Culpeper is echoing this hope which Raylor suggests dates back to the rise of English sugar consumption in the early Renaissance. Raylor, Timothy, ‘Commonwealth of bees’, p. 100).Google Scholar

^{page 363 note 9} By this date, Benjamin Worsley was in Ireland. The ‘Discourse’ to which Culpeper refers survives only in an undated copy of it made by Cressy Dymock (42/1/26–27B) and which may have itself have been a response to an earlier (unascribed) letter forwarded to him for his comments from Culpeper. The argument in Worsley's ‘Discourse’ is required to make sense of Culpeper's reply, and to appreciate the vigour of the chemical discussions which were taking place within Hartlib's circle at this time.

Worsley begins with a disquisition on chemical nomenclature, pointing out that the use of terminology was particular imprecise, and particularly when it came to the uses of the term ‘mercury’.

Worsley accepts the vegetative principles as applied to the chemical composition of metals: ‘there is a participation of the same lyfe blessing vegitative & multiplicative virtue, as was given in the creation to plants & other seeds bearing boddyes’.

Worsley further accepts that, at the heart of the chemical composition of metals there was an inward and spiritual mercury, sometimes called ‘Sperma or Anima cuius libet Mettali’. When metals putrify or decay, the important constituent changes are within this spiritual mercury. Further, nothing transmutes by itself and it a complex and fundamental transformation involving sulphur in which new substances, ‘sol’ and ‘luna’ are formed.

So, when chemists claim to have extracted the ‘mercury [symbol] currens’ from a particular metal, they are deluding themselves if they think they have extracted the ‘principium seu prima Materia Metallorum’. In particular, it is mistaken to imagine that Helmont's Alkahest, or universal solvent, can abstract the ‘prima material’ or ‘principium Metallorum’. What he writes may suggest otherwise, but this is the problem of nomenclature and terminology.

The problem for chemists remains a fundamental one; ‘noe man knowes or discernes this [symbol: mercury] & how to gett itt out of the Metalls vnlesse hee be first filius Artis Because alsoe this [symbol: mercury] is not to bee had without a prævious Colliquation, or Philosophicall putrifaction of the body out of which itt is to be extracted, This putrifaction is the great secret for this beeing not to bee made by any such thing as distroyes the crasis of the metall mutch less itts spiritt, or virtue of vegetation’. If ever located, this way will constitute the Menstruum Philosophorum, but it will only be made open to those who are pure of heart.

^{page 364 note 10} The fundamental direction of Culpeper's critique is to question the degree to which what he propounded about the nature of the ‘sperma’ or ‘prima materia’ in the chemical composition of metals can properly be held to describe the observable properties and behaviour of metals within nature.

^{page 364 note 11} George Ripley, Canon of Bridlington (1415–1490) — DNB. A complete edition of his works had appeared most recently from Kassel in 1649: G. Ripiad … Opera omnia chemica, ed. Combachius, L. H., (Cassellis, 1649).Google Scholar

^{page 364 note 12} ‘Thy water must be seauen times sublimate,

Else shall no kindly Dissolution bee,

Nor putrifying shalt thou none see;

Like liquid pitch, nor colours appearing

For lack of fire within the glasse working.’

Ripley, George, The Compound of Alchemy, or the ancient hidden Art Archemie … set forth by R. Rabbards, (1591)Google Scholar, STC 21057, sig. E1^r.

^{page 365 note 13} Azoth was another term employed by alchemists for the mercurial first principle in all metals. It was also the name given by Paracelsus to his universal remedy.

^{page 365 note 14} i.e. Hamel, Nicholas — Nicholas Flammel, his exposition of the heiroglyphicall figures … (1624), pp. 80–1.Google Scholar

^{page 365 note 15} ‘as occasion demands’.

^{page 366 note 16} These references are to the 1602 edition of the Theatrum Chemicum which appeared in Ursel in 1602.

^{page 366 note 17} Sendivogius, , ‘De sulphure’ in Musœum Hermeticum (1678), p. 618.Google Scholar

^{page 366 note 18} ‘Therefore at the beginning our stone thou take,

And burie each one in other within their graue,

Then equally betwixt them a marriage make,

To ligge together sixe weekes let them haue,

Their feede concerned, kindly to nourish and saue,

From the ground of their graue not rising that while,

Which secreat point doth many a one beguile.’

Ripley, The Compound of Alchemy, sig. F1^r.

^{page 367 note 19} ‘In Sublimation first beware of one thing,

That thou sublime to the top of the vesseli:

For without violence thou shalt it not down bring

Againe, but there it will abide and dwell,

So it reioyceth with refrigeration I thee tell,

Keepe it therefore with temperate heate adowne,

Full fortie dayes, till it wexe blacke and browne.

For then the soule beginneth to come out

From his owne veynes, for all that subtill is

Will with the spirite ascend withouten doubt,

Beare in thy minde therefore, and think on this,

How here eclipsed been thy bodies,

As they doe putrifie subliming more and more

Into water, vntill they be all vp ybore.’

Ripley, , The Compound of AlchemyGoogle Scholar, sigs. H3^v–H4^r.

^{page 367 note 20} 2 Corinthians 7:11 — ‘For behold this selfsame thing, that ye sorrowed after a godly sort, what carefulness it wrought in you, yea, what clearing of yourselves, yea, what indignation, yea, what fear, yea, what vehement desire, yea, what zeal, yea, what revenge! In all things ye have approved yourselves to be clear in this matter.’

^{page 367 note 21} This letter is printed in the Legacy, pp. 248–9Google Scholar. It is possible that the letters printed on pp. 245–6 and 247 may also be from Culpeper.

^{page 368 note 22} There are various allusions to continental fertilizers amongst Hartlib's surviving papers, many of them based around the nitrogenous elements of saltpetre. This may relate to the entry in the Ephemerides for 1658 where Hartlib notes: ‘There is a vniversal fructifying Compost of Lime of certain efficacy (for which a great price hath beene given by the Danish Ranzau) deservedly most highly to bee valewed, and by Sir Cheney Culpeper, to bee fully made out …’ — 29/7/14A.

^{page 368 note 23} ’To make Saltpeter. Take quick lyme, and pour water upon it, and let it stand six dayes, stirring it once or twice a day: take the cleere of this, and set in the Sunne untill it be wasted, and the Saltpeter will remain in the bottom.’ – Bate, John, The Mysteryes of Nature and Art: conteined in Joure severall tretises, 2nd edition (1635), STC 1578, p. 261Google Scholar (sig. 2L3^r).

^{page 369 note 24} Legacy, p. 110.Google Scholar

^{page 369 note 25} See 182 (18 February 1652/3).

^{page 370 note 26} According to a memorandum on Italian grain amongst Hartlib's papers, Lady Hilliard had planted enough grain in her garden at East Florsley in Surrey to sow an acre of land. The only difficulty was apparently ‘how to scare away the birds which for the most part devoure it.’ (‘Memorandum on Italian Grain in Scribal Hand’, 12 June 1657 – 62/50/13); Ephemerides, 1657 – 29/6/14A.

^{page 370 note 27} i.e. ‘suitor’.

^{page 370 note 28} There are several suggested remedies and palliatives for piles, from which Hartlib had long been a sufferer, amongst Hartlib's papers. Those referred to in Hartlib's Ephemerides for this year involve red cabbage and boiled cream – 26/6/3A, 10A, 13B. Cf 191 (20 July 1657).

^{page 370 note 29} Arthur Standish (fl. 1611–1615), an agricultural author – DNB. Standish's published works were: The Commons Complaint (1611) STC 23200.5 (further edtions 1611 and 1612); New Directions of Experience of the Authour for the Planting of Timber and Firewood (1613), STC 23204 (further editions 1613, 1614, 1615 and 1616); A Second Direction, for the Increasing of Wood, and the destroying of vermine (1613), STC 23206.4, (further editions 1613 and 1614). In 1659 Beale proposed to publish a work on forestry which was to include the memorandum between Culpeper and Dawson on protecting trees from cattle as well as sections of Standish's The Commons Complaint (Beale to Hartlib, 22 March 1659, 51/99–101).

^{page 370 note 30} In the Ephemerides for 1657 Hartlib notes that there was a descendant of the English alchemist Robert Fludde, a Mr Flood ‘heire to all Robert de Fluctibus not far from Maidstone [who] hath a MS. of Husbandry which hee promised to give to the Publick by Sir Cheney Culpeper.’ – 29/6/13B.

^{page 371 note 31} This particular remedy is detailed in an undated fragment which was apparently given to Hartlib by John Dury. He had it from ‘Colonel Baxter or Barkestead’ – i.e. Sir John Barkstead (d.1662), a goldsmith from London who became a military officer and was one of the regicides. ‘For the piles. Take one Ib of piece Grease, and boyle it in a Pipkin with one Gallon of Tanners wose in which there must be no Lime, but as it comes from the Oake barke. Let them boile together, untill they come to two quarts, then set it by untill it be Cold, and then take of the Cake of Grease and scrape of the dreggs that you will find on the lowest side of it, then melt it together, and so keep it vntill you make use of it as followeth. Take halfe a lb of sheeps dung very fresh, pick it so that there be no gravell in it, take 4 ounces of the grease aforesaid prepared, beate them well together in a stone Morter, untill they come to a perfect paste. Rolle it up into suppositers …’.

^{page 371 note 32} Barkstead claimed that his condition was completely cured by the ointment.

^{page 371 note 33} Culpeper refers to a discourse on heaths by Thomas Bates. Bates concluded that beer brewed from heath was more advantageous to the body than that brewed with hops. He also dismissed the claim of the Objection of madnesse’, to which Culpeper alludes – 63/3/28. Hartlib also notes the ‘[objection] against Heath,…whither it will not breed some other diseases it being vsed so long as Hops.’ (Ephemerides, 1657Google Scholar, 29/6/17A).

^{page 371 note 34} For SirParteridge, Edward, see Introduction, p. 117.Google Scholar

^{page 372 note 35} George Dalgarno, (ca. 1626–1687) – DNB. Culpeper refers to Dalgarno, 's Character universalis … A new discovery, (Oxford, 1657?)Google Scholar, Wing D128A.

^{page 372 note 36} On 1 May 1658, a printed testimonial was prepared on behalf of George Dalgarno to advertise the potential of his ‘universal character’. At its head it carried the recommendation of Richard Love, Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge. A further declaration of support beneath it carried the names of 31 backers, headed by ‘the University of Oxford’. The subscribers are a roll-call of Hartlib's associates and it is impossible to conceive that the printed testimonial had not been prepared with his assistance. Amongst the 31 signatories was that of Sir Cheney Culpeper – 49/1/3A–B. For George Dalgarno's ‘universal character’, see Salmon, V., The study of language in seventeenth-century England (Amsterdam, 1979)Google Scholar, ch. 9.

^{page 373 note 37} i.e. the soaking of gram in fertilizer prior to its planting.

^{page 373 note 38} i.e. Hamburg.

^{page 373 note 39} i.e. Harderwijk in the Dutch Republic.

^{page 373 note 40} This is almost certainly Mr Bedloe, from the Netherlands, about whom Hartlib had a report in 1653 through a friend of Mr Williams, a gentleman-farmer from Norfolk who was an enthusiast for agricultural improvement. According to the Ephanerides, 1653, he ‘promiseth to furnish Husbandmen with a Liquor for imbibing of seed-corne wherby the seed being sown in the most barren ground (soe it bee fresh) shal produce as rich a crop, as the same quantity of seed would have done in the best prepared land according to the vsual course of Husbandry’ – 28/2/79A.

^{page 373 note 41} See also 179 (1 September 1649).

^{page 374 note 42} 26/70/1a (‘Anthony Pierson his universal compost’). Similar Suggestions appear in Shaw, John, Certaine plaine and easie demonstrations of divers easie wayes (1657)Google Scholar, Wing 83021, which Hartlib may have published – (‘Title page in scribal hand’, 62/21/3).

^{page 374 note 43} 26/70/1A.

^{page 374 note 44} Ibid.

^{page 374 note 45} See 56 (6 November 1644) and 61 (4 January 1645).

^{page 375 note 46} ‘down to the last jot’.

^{page 375 note 47} See 80 (17 July 1645).

^{page 375 note 48} ‘not placed according to whim’.

^{page 375 note 49} Lodowyck, Francis, author of A Common Writing (1647)Google Scholar, Wing L2814, whom Culpeper had previously mentioned in the letters of 120 (3 February 1646/7) and 124 (1 March 1646/7).

^{page 376 note 50} Culpeper refers to his two surviving daughters, Elizabeth and Cecilia.

^{page 376 note 51} Jeremiah Rich (d. ca 1660) – DNB. Rich was also responsible for popularizing a short-hand writing which had been originally invented by his uncle, William Cartwright. It was first published in his Semography, or Short and Swift Writing, being the most easiest, exactest and speediest Method of all others that have berne yet Extant (1642), Wing C717.

^{page 376 note 52} Frederick Clodius, Hartlib's son-in-law. Hartlib's eldest daughter Mary had married Clodius probably in the late summer of 1653 – HDC, p. 8; on Clodius's work as an alchemist see GI, pp. 302 ff.Google Scholar

^{page 377 note 53} Colonel Monk's success with lime is reported in an undated anonymous memorandum on Antony Pierson's universal compost – 26/70/1–2.

^{page 377 note 54} See 187 (13 October 1656).

^{page 378 note 55} In the Ephemerides of 1657 Hartlib wrote of a ‘Mris Iackson widdow to Dr Iackson once dwelling in Gardiners lane got from her Husband vpon his death-bed the vniversal compost for enriching of the most barren Ground whatsoever.’ – 29/6/216.

^{page 379 note 1} This is an undated copy which is headed ‘Extract: Culpeper & Mr Durie aboute the spiritual Analysis’. ‘Cheney’ has been erased after ‘Sir’ on the first line and the original was apparently a letter addressed to Culpeper. Its date remains problematic. Turnbull ascribed it to ‘1641?’ (HDC, p. 309)Google Scholar. 1642 is more likely – see 14 (13 July [1642]). The Biblical references are accurate and refer to the Authorized King James version. They have not, therefore, been expanded in footnotes.

^{page 379 note 2} A fragment of an apparently larger treatment of this subject is also to be found amongst Hartlib's papers in a manuscript treatise of John Dury entitled ‘A DISCOURSE Shewing a Method of spirituall meditation in Holy Matters … Presented to Sir Will. Waller by I.D.’ – 26/4/1A–10B. Turnbull dates this to ‘1640?’ (HDC, p. 309).Google Scholar

^{page 390 note 3} NB The common German endings which are abbreviated in the manuscript have been silently expanded in this transcription. The substance of the letter suggests that it is a covering letter to the preceeding treatise.

^{page 391 note 4} This is presumably referring to Dury's correspondence both with Hartlib and Culpeper at this time.

^{page 391 note 5} The editors are grateful to John Young for providing this translation.

^{page 391 note 6} Lit: ‘be virtually felt with the hands’.

^{page 392 note 7} Lit: ‘be helped to its feet’.

^{page 392 note 8} ‘Certain’ retains the ambiguity of ‘gewiss’ which can mean either ‘particular’ or ‘infallible’. ‘Level’ is used in the sense of a modern ‘spirit level’.

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