Authors, English -- 18th century -- Biography; Fielding, Henry, 1707-1754
Another of the hitherto-unsolved difficulties in Fielding's life has
been the date of his first marriage (p. 38). Lawrence gave the year as
1735; and Keightley suggested the spring of that year. This, as Swift
would say, is near the mark, though confirmation has been slow in
coming. In a letter dated 18th June 1906, Mr. Thomas S. Bush announced
in the _Bath Chronicle_ that the desired information was to be found in
a register (not at Salisbury, where search had been fruitlessly made,
but) at the tiny church of St. Mary, Charlcombe, a secluded parish about
one and a half miles north of Bath. Here is the record:--"November ye
28, 1734.--Henry Fielding, of ye Parish of St. James in Bath, Esq., and
Charlotte Cradock, of ye same Parish, spinster, were married by virtue
of a license from ye Court of Wells." All Fielding lovers owe a debt of
gratitude to Mr. Bush, whose researches also revealed the fact that
Sarah Fielding, the novelist's third sister, was buried, not in Bath
Abbey, where Dr. John Hoadly [Footnote: Bishop Hoadly is sometimes said
to have written her epitaph. In this case it must have been (like Dr.
Primrose's on his Deborah) anticipatory, for Dr. Benjamin Hoadly, Bishop
of Winchester, died in 1761.] raised a mural memorial to her, but "in yr
entrance of the chancel [of Charlcombe Church] close to yr Rector's
seat," 14th April 1768. These are not the only fresh traces of the
connexion of the Fieldings with the old "Queen of the West." In June
last a tablet to Fielding and his sister was placed on the wall of Yew
Cottage, now Widcombe Lodge, Church Street, Widcombe, where they once
lived.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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