[Footnote 1: On this monument is a bust of Hooker, representing him in
his cap and gown.]
AN APPENDIX
TO THE
LIFE OF MR. RICHARD HOOKER.
[Sidenote: Other details]
And now, having by a long and laborious search satisfied myself, and I
hope my Reader, by imparting to him the true relation of Mr. Hooker's
life, I am desirous also to acquaint him with some observations that
relate to it, and which could not properly fall to be spoken till
after his death; of which my Reader may expect a brief and true
account in the following Appendix.
[Sidenote: Date of death]
And first, it is not to be doubted but that he died in the
forty-seventh, if not in the forty-sixth year of his age: which I
mention, because many have believed him to be more aged: but I have so
examined it, as to be confident I mistake not: and for the year of
his death, Mr. Camden, who in his Annals of Queen Elizabeth, 1599,
mentions him with a high commendation of his life and learning,
declares him to die in the year 1599; and yet in that in of his
Monument, set up at the charge of Sir William Cowper, in Bourne
Church, where Mr. Hooker was buried, his death is there said to be
in anno 1603; but doubtless both are mistaken; for I have it attested
under the hand of William Somner, the Archbishop's Registrar for the
Province of Canterbury, that Richard Hooker's Will bears date October
26th in anno 1600, and that it was proved the third of December
following. [And the Reader may take notice, that since I first writ
this Appendix to the Life of Mr. Hooker, Mr. Fulman, of Corpus Christi
College, hath shewed me a good authority for the very day and hour
of Mr. Hooker's death, in one of his books of Polity, which had been
Archbishop Laud's. In which book, beside many considerable marginal
notes of some passages of his time, under the Bishop's own hand,
there is also written in the title-page of that book--which now is
Mr. Fulman's--this attestation: Ricardus Hooker _vir summis doctrinæ
dotibus ornatus, de Ecclesia præcipue Anglicana optime meritus, obiit
Novemb. 2, circiter horam secundam post-meridianum_, Anno 1600.]
[Sidenote: His daughters]
And that at his death he left four daughters, Alice, Cicely, Jane and
Margaret; that he gave to each of them an hundred pounds; that he left
Joan, his wife, his sole executrix; and that, by his inventory his
estate--a great part of it being in books--came to £1,092 9_s_. 2_d_.,
which was much more than he thought himself worth; and which was not
got by his care, much less by the good housewifery of his wife, but
saved by his trusty servant, Thomas Lane, that was wiser than his
master in getting money for him, and more frugal than his mistress in
keeping of it. Of which Will of Mr. Hooker's I shall say no more, but
that his dear friend Thomas, the father of George Cranmer,--of whom
I have spoken, and shall have occasion to say more,--was one of the
witnesses to it.
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