.- ~ ~ ~ vL Dw. u By THOMAS C. AMORr. 1-0' OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. BY THOMAS C. AMORY. BOSTON: DAVID CLAPP & SON, 334 WASHINGTON STREET. 1872. Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1872, BY THIOMAS C. AMORY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. IN explanation of the following pages, it may be well to state that with some slight modifications of form and arrangement as well as of substance, they were read in June, before the New-England HIistoric, Genealogical Society, and published in the October number of the IREGISTER.'With the consent of the Editor, a few copies are printed in a separate form for circulation among those who take an interest in the subject. It is the hope and expectation of the writer at some future day to continue it, rendering his essay of greater practical utility to genealogists by the additional matter alluded to towards its close. Boston, Oct. 16, 1872. OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. HIAVING occasion for others as well as for myself to recover various broken links of connection between our American and transatlantic progenitors, the difficulties encountered and successfully surmounted suggest a few considerations which may be of service to such as are engaged in similar researches. Whether the pursuit be regarded as idle and frivolous, excusable as gratifying a sentiment deeply rooted in our nature, or even praiseworthy as garnering up for other generations information they may value, there will always be sensible persons whose attention it attracts. Whatever concerns our European origin, those ever multiplying lines as they recede of venerable shades from whom proceeded the sturdy men that planted our infant states, has for all of us an especial charm, not only from what we know, but for what we hope to ascertain. The profound obscurity which settles down on times remote as those they inhabited is at first discouraging, but as we grope our way on and become wonted to the gloom, it is pleasant to find how much yet remains to be learned of them. For all of British descent the vast accumulation of books and rare manuscripts bearing on family history in England would prove an embarrassment, were it not that pioneers have opened up the paths, and shed thereon the light of their learning. That country is for most of us in America the father-land. Language and literature, laws and usages, common origin and history, constitute bonds of affection and fellowship with its people time can neither weaken nor political differences disturb.' This has been the frequent theme of orator and historian, and is too obvious to need any additional illustration. Nor is it intended to dwell on the social and religious condition of 6 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. England which influenced our ancestors to leave it, or on the inducements which led them to select this for their home. These likewise are sufficiently familiar. But there are other considerations grbwing naturally out of the fact that our New-Enmgland colonies were a swarm from the mother hive,; from a peculiar civilization of which the raciness and pungency to this day inodify taste and sentiment, habits of life and modes of thought, indeed whatever we possess of distinctive national character, which have a bearing on our subject, and to these we propose to allude. Noble qualities abound in other races entering largely into the composition of our community, of which those of English origin still form the principal part. "German and French, Celt and Italian, are blest with.admirable traits, among them many wherein the Anglo Saxon must be content to confess inferiority.-,'In musical genius, sensibility to art, grace of manner, wit and gaiety of social intercourse, some or all of them have an advantage.s But in sound common sense, in honesty and steadfastness of principle and purpose, in fidelity to truth and duty, in courage moral and physical, in warmth and depth and refifiement of affection, he equals if he does not easily surpass all other nationalities?. When in the seventeenth century our American colonies were planted, these virtues, with their reasonable alloy of what was less estimable, had become firmly fixed as the groundwork of English character. TUpon this solid foundation had been raised a superstructure of the adventurous spirit of the Norman, his chivalric sense of honor, dignity and self-reliance, and to them gradually attached the practical wisdom and poetic sensibility of the Scotch, the vivacity and persistency proof against discouragement of the Irish. If these characteristics trickled in the vein from sire to son, or spread infectiously through those hidden influences which shape a people, our British ancestors, tracing back their lineage to Pict and Dane, to the legionaries of Rome or the sea-kings of the Baltic, had gained strength from the fusion in their nature of various and opposing elements, and combined what was best of many races. This ancestral type, however variously compounded, exerted an all-powerful influence in moulding character, whether individual or national. But there were other circumstances which had also much to do with both. To explain what manner of men peopled New-England, we must allude to certain conditions in their rocial life at home, which helped to make them OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 7 what they were. In the tenure of land, in the different grades and ranks of society, in their military and maritime habits and training, religious culture and distribution of political power, there was much that was peculiar to shape their ideas and determine their lot in life, as it had for centuries those of their fathers, whom they left sleeping beneath the sod of their native country. England was then, as it still is, trammelled by the bondage of earlier days. Not only in church and state was government despotic and arbitrary, but the land, though not to the same extent as now, was in the ownership of few proprietors, constantly tending by intermarriage and the laws of inheritance to become less. The feudal system in its subordination of tenure had existed under Dane and Saxon longr before the Norman's brought over its later refinements, and the impression that the Conqueror, as he reduced England to subjection, parcelled it out among his followers by metes and bounds then first established, is far from being correct. "The first known Domesday survey dates back to King Alfred; and in that made twenty years after the battle of Hastings are constant references to the tenure under Edward the Confessor, the several manors and estates bearing the same designations and being subdivided and distributed among the actual tillers of the soil in different ranks and classes, as at that period.'' Dispossessing many of the large Saxon proprietors, though sparing such as gave in their allegiance, King William appropriated to his own use twelve hundred and ninety manors in different counties, assigning the rest to his Norman followers. The great mass of cultivators attached to the soil, or villains in gross, were left undisturbed, their services or rent charges being simply transferred to the new lords. The tenants in chief under the king enfeoffed their kinsmen, friends or adherents with such portions of their estates as they did not care to retain in their own possession or demesne, one obligation being the same for all, that of military service. In taking possession by force of England, as previously of Normandy, the feudal system naturally suggsested itself to the conquerors as the best method for retaining their hold, The whole number of tenants in chief mentioned in Domesday, as stated by Sir Henry Ellis, is fourteen hundred, of mesne tenants eight thousand, while of the gross aggregate of persons enumerated, 283,242, twenty-five 8 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. thousand were slaves, nearly as many socmen and 208,407 villains or farmers. The Saxon far outnumbered the Norman, and as they mingled in course of time in marriage with their conquerors or in other ways assimilated, they infused, as the more numerous, the prevailing tincture of race and trait in the common stock. Allowing five for each family and for the survey not embracing three of the northern counties then but partially reduced to tranquillity, the approximate population may be estimated at that time as a million and a half, about equal to that now of Massachusetts. Three centuries later it is rated at only two millions and a quarter, while in 1415 it is stated at three, in 1600 at five, in 1800 at nine, and now at twenty-six, all but the first number embracing Wales. As the survey is in Latin and with abbreviations, and the officers employed in the several counties were of different degrees of scholarship and dependent upon local and imperfect sources of information, its manifold discrepancies require explanation. Both family and christian names as they passed from Saxon or French into the law language, underwent considerable changes. It is often difficult to determine even to which nationality they belonged, whether those mentioned are the same under different forms, or whether distinct personages were intended. -Surnames were not by any means of universal use before the thirteenth centuryl, and many names of Saxon places attaching to Norman families who possessed them created still farther complications. Moreover so many changes had already taken place, since the invasion, from death, sale or confiscation, that it is not easy in all instances to connect and identify those who then held, with the knights and leaders mentioned by Wace in his Roman de Rou, or by Vitalis in his chronicles, as taking part in the subjugation. As many of the progenitors of Americans were no doubt not only on the roll of Battle Abbey, but mentioned as proprietors of land in Domesday, this precious record will be studied by them with more interest than ever, as it becomes better understood. Copies of it, thanks to the liberality of the British government, are to be found in most of our large cities, and the rich historical material which such writers as Palsgrave and Freeman have derived from it for the elucidation of their historical works on the period, they have been able generously to repay by their intelligent explanation of much in it that was obscure. OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 9 Under Saxon rule representative institutions and local self-government prevailed to some extent, but the feudal system unfavorable to popular liberty vested all power in the crown and an aristocratic class. As in case of treason or rebellion, neglect to pay rent or perform military service, fiefs were forfeited, or reverted in default of heirs to be again bestowed at the royal pleasure, the king retained a preponderating control over his subjects thus held through their fears and their cupidity in subjection. The magnates of the land before the invasion were the earls of the several counties, and these earldoms were given by William to his kinsmen and favored associates, who constituted with the greater barons, bishops and abbots, the parliament to advise with him and make the laws. Summons to parliament created with rare exceptions a barony of inheritance, and these baronies and earldoms descending to females, where there were no nearer male heirs, several of these honors with their attendant estates often vested in a single individual. The great lords, powerful by their alliances, accumulated honors and wealth, were thus able by combination where the sovereign was weak to overawe or dethrone him. Magna Charta, extorted in June 1215, from John, restricted the arbitrary authority of the crown, but operated rather to the advantage of the great landholders than of the people at large. But in the subsequent reign, Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, wresting the direction of affairs from his brother-in-law, Henry the Third, introduced into parliament the element of popular representation. This branch of the government, still further developed by Edward the great Plantagenet and fostered by the old Saxon love of liberty which had at last broken its shackles, has gained strength with each succeeding century, Jtill both King and Lords have become subordinate to the Commons as rulers of the realm. The process was slow and at times retrogressive, but through the persistent and vigilant antagonism of conflicting interests and opposing forces, civil and religious fieedom have reasserted their rightful supremacy, and both internal administration and foreign policy derived vigor and efficiency from the wisdom and ability engendered in the struggle. In the feudal days, King and Barons were not the harshest taskmasters of the people. The lesser landholders had under them tenants and villains, ploughmen and slaves, bound to predial servitude, to till the soil of their masters, and to perform many menial offices. Personal service extending 10 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. through all the social gradations was on that account less an humiliation, but it must have seriously affected the manliness of national character. Knighthood was obligatory upon every landed proprietor possessed of a certain amount of income, and he was required to serve in the wars and bring with him his retainers, the latter being forced to quit their homes and occupations at his bidding. — It was an immense relief from their degrading position when in the fourteenth century their rights in the land were recognized, and their duties compounded, money rents being substituted for feudal charges.: This was their first great emancipation from bondage, and retaining certain rights of common and pasturage, of which they since have been unfortunately deprived, the cultivators of the soil grew up over the land into an enlightened and independent class of yeomen, who had a small annual rent charge for their lands, but were to all intents the actual owners. They became a power in the state, and with the help of the citizens of the towns who rapidly grew in wealth and influence, were well able to keep government in check when it inclined to become tyrannical. \ On these two classes under the Stuarts England depended for its welfare and security, and their roofs sheltered a large share of its virtue and intelligence.' The strongholds of feudal days, rent and torn by civil strife and rendered useless by new means of warfare, no longer a menace, or curb on the popular liberty, mouldered where they stood, or divested of moat and battlement assumed the character of domestic habitations. Under Stephen it has been stated that there were eleven hundred castles in England. If not all as stately as Arundel, then already ancient, or Carnarvon erected a century later, their remains show they were spacious and well fitted to withstand assault. What is left of convent and baronial residence, what idea we can form of them from the pleasant sites they occupied, surrounded by park and forest, seated by the sea or on those pretty streams which constitute an especial charm of England, what we know by tradition or record of their inmates, encourage the belief that they were the abode of much domestic happiness, and that time within their walls or in the rural and sylvan pursuits of the period, flowed on with at least the usual average of enjoyment. In social development, diffusion of culture, refinement and comforts of life, England, under the Plantagenets, kept pace with the other civilized OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 11 portions of Europe, and though the climate was harsh, resources limited, and numberless contrivances now indispensable unknown, human nature was the same. Manners were dignified and decorous, and the order of life rational and varied.'Food and ale abounded./ Garments of cloth or skins, if not as conducive to personal neatness as our present abundance of linen and cotton admits, were warm, and in shape and ornament sufficiently in good taste. Forests overspread the land; they were for the general benefit of lord and peasant, and fuel was cheap and plentiful. \Intercourse at inns and manor houses as in the conventual establishments, was hospitable and convivial, and both for security and society all classes were gregarious. O Hunting and fishing, archery, wrestling and other sports of the village green, courts and fairs, religious ceremonials, including miracles and moralities, dramatic performances in the churches, brought people of all ranks and conditions into closer companionship, quickened their faculties, and fostered graces and accomplishments to inspire respect or win affection. The Canterbury tales of Chaucer afford an insight into the picturesque elements composing the social circles of middle life. History tells us of the manners and pleasures of the court, while the lesser barons who dwelt in moated halls possessed influence and power, and found useful and agreeable occupation in the management of their estates, in the performance of judicial functions, or in attending the king with their followers in his wars and crusades. Saxon and Norman were equally devout. Churches of architectural elegance, rites varied and interesting, of which music, as on the continent, formed a prominent part, kept alive the religious spirit, which was still further exhibited in numberless abbies and convents, amply endowed and crowded with acolytes.' To every principal household was attached its private chapel, and the chaplain possessed of the best culture of the period educated the children and afforded intellectual companionship for the older members of the family. Rectors of parishes, of which the lord had the appointment, regulars from neighboring monasteries planted or endowed by him or his ancestors for the salvation of their souls or as asylums for the infirm or scholarly of their kindred, relieved the monotony of country life, spreading around their own culture. Woman was respected and had her appropriate sphere in the household, but if unmarried or left unprotected in widowhood, found shelter and congenial companionship in the cloister. 12 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. The statement that thirty thousand young men were at one time in the schools of Oxford, seems difficult to credit, but education in the humanities, such as it was, appears to have been more generally diffused before the reformation than afterwards. The church ritual, pleadings in court made indispensable for many a knowledge of Latin, and this and other learning were not confined to the scions of nobility, to children of the affluent, or youth in training for religious life, which then absorbed large numbers of the better sort, but the moderate cost of instruction brought it within the reach of very limited means. As printed books cheap enough for general use were not available before the middle of the sixteenth century for educational purposes, it must have been restricted in range and pursued at disadvantage. College buildings, apart from ecclesiastical institutions, of any pretension, were unknown before 1250, but under the Edwards were greatly multiplied, and castle and convent shared in the growing taste in architecture. Windows of exquisite tracery, in stone elaborately carved, with bible stories in brilliant colors painted on their glass, lead to the belief that private dwellings at the period were not only substantial, but richly adorned. Where means permitted, they were of stone, crenellated, flanked by towers for defence and surrounded by moats, gardens and outbuildings, protected by walls that added to their strength. Some were of timber, filled in with brick and clay, which after exposure for centuries to the weather, still stand in good preservation. Lands descending to the oldest representative, unless in the case there were only daughters, when they shared alike, these abodes continued for generations in the same families. The pedigrees preserved in visitations, court and parish records and county histories, greatly facilitate the labor of American genealogists, who thus can trace back their lines of ancestors to the days of the Plantagenets. Most of those abodes have mouldered, and few remain that have preserved their original form dating earlier than Queen Bess. Even of that period little is left unmodernized but outer walls. If any part retains its pristine condition it is the hall, then forming the gathering place of the family, and on which was lavished the chief decoration. All who have been in England must well remember many such apartments. They are the more impressive to us from their novelty, since they rarely form part of an American OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 13 mansion, and even in England are passing out of use. From' what we know of mediaeval days from poet and novelist, it is easy to people them again of summer mornings or winter nights with their wonted groups. The yule log again blazes on the ample hearth, mail traditional from Crecy hangs from the wall, helm and shield battered at Bosworth or Edgehill. Antlers suggest the chase; fishing gear, that Lady Berners or Isaac Walton might have envied, the streams and brooks. Upon the dais sits the baron as the judge or presiding at the banquet. Minstrels sing Chevy Chace to the harp, or hunting glees awaken the echoes. The bridal dance, the funeral solemnity, men in complete steel parting for the war or in Kendal green for a merry day in the forest. Time was too social for books, too busy for studies banished to the cloister, but by open lattice which reveals sunny spread of wood and dale, young men and maidens whisper pleasant truths or interchange the vow to which thousands of happy mortals since have owed the boon of life. Last summer on the Severn, with a companion who had some special quest there, we visited an ancient mansion with such a hall. The edifice extended fifty yards in front with projecting bays, their vast lattices purpled with painted panes. The hall door stood invitingly open, and there was every indication the place was inhabited, but our knocks, though repeated, failed to summon either dog or wardour. Not disposed, having come so fiar, to abandon our purpose, we sought another side of the dwelling and there under an arched portal, on a flight of stone steps, stood a lovely maiden in white attire, who when our object was stated expressed her regret tihat her uncle, the master of the house, was absent, but said that her aunt and mother would be glad to receive us. We found them in such a hall as those alluded to, fifty feet square and twenty high, its dark wainscot hung with portraits of many garbs and generations. The side, towards the court-yard of this noble apartment, consisted mainly of one of the projecting bays all aglow with painted panes of gold and ruby, too subdued to dazzle. After the invariable hospitality of tea, anything more substantial being declined, we were carried over the mansion, above and below, and certainly not Bracebridge Hall as Irvincg so happily describes it, or the abode of Sir Roger de Coverly, had Addison condescended to tell us what it was, possessed more exquisite apartments. Nor could be easily conceived a 14 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. pleasanter combination of what was picturesque and quaint in the past with modern elegance and comfort. It had been the home of the family for six or seven generations; but constructed centuries before, under its roof had come and passed all their shifting phases of social life, had been brought home to its inmates all their varied political changes and vicissitudes. The, hall itself dated back beyond the wars of the Roses, Stuarts and Tudors, five centuries or more, to the reign of Edward the Second, but the whole edifice is ancient. Few survive more venerable than this, but there are numberlessinteresting dwellings in England that existed before our colonies were planted, and it would be hard for an American inclined to link his existence with that of his English progenitors, if he could not occasionally find one which they called their own. Shattered castles their mouldering walls mantled with ivy, old farm houses picturesque in their dilapidation, ancient parish churches where some of his innumerable ancestors were baptized, married or interred, fields they tilled, or oaks that sheltered them, forests in which they hunted, or covers they drew, br, where these have perished, the lay of the land with its hills and streams, give a realizing sense of them and their habitations. From spots sacred with such associations whoever takes an interest in genealogical lore derives an innocent enjoyment, and should improve every reasonable occasion of communicating by description a large share of this enjoyment to kinsfolk and descendants of similar tastes. Many such experiences are fresh from recent explorations both in Ireland and England. NAt long after our above mentioned visit to Clievedon Court, being at Oxford, such a pilgrimage to Bicester, ten miles distant, where, according to tradition, generations of the olden time had been buried and where their commemorative brasses long survived, proved too great a temptation to resist, and an hour passed in the venerable abbey church, now handsomely renovated, was the best of preparation for a bolder venture, that of visiting their abode for nearly three centuries though a longer period than that had elapsed since they had passed away from it. The landlord of tile inn who kept vehicles to let, when the destination was mentioned, said that the proprietor of Bucknell, Buck Hall or Bochen Hall as it was originally designated, was then in the town, and that his carriagre was on the opposite side of the square. Repairing thither with the OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 15 intention of soliciting permission to visit the place, the impression so far as related to the lord of the manor himself being present proved erroneous, but a lady was seated in the carriage and evidently noticed my disappointment. The intended request was consequently courageously made to herself, with suitable explanation. She instantly understood and appreciated the object, expressing her acquaintance with the traditions of Bucknell, and graciously offered to take me over. This seemed at the moment more than was warranted for a stranger to accept; and for this and other reasons, promising to follow her, a pleasant drive through a well cultivated but not densely inhabited country terminated at the portal of a large and spacious manor house, venerable with age and shaded by abundant foliage. The door was thrown open as if intimation had been given of an expected visitor, and being ushered through a hall of ample dimensions, lined with polished oak black with time, but its sombre tints relieved by pictures and other decorations, from seats under lofty trees, on the side of a wide spreading lawn, upon which children were playing, the lady of the mansion, and her husband who had done good service in the Crimea, came forward to extend a cordial welcome. They were both well acquainted with the works of our American authors, especially those of our own neighborhood, and pleased to hear what could be said of them. They also took an interest in the simple relation of what fortunes had chanced the descendants of their predecessors in the property with whose record as judges and knights of the shire, barons of the realm or high sheriffs of the county, they were familiar. The apartments above and below were inspected, and though there were few remains of the original edifice, the views from the windows were unchanged. The church, one hundred feet in length by thirty in breadth, stood near the house, and its fine chancel window and imposing tower spoke well for the taste of the thirteenth century from which period it dated. For hundreds of feet in either direction stretched the old moat, broad and deep, still brimming with water, and the out-buildings looked venerable enough to have existed when this was needed for defence. In the long library were works giving full historical details of the successive families who had occupied the place, and from them its present generous proprietor made subsequently copious extracts for my benefit. Dunkins's Oxfordshire was 16 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. one of the books which had most to say. The estate is of the same dimensions as when Gilbert held it, as set down in Domesday. His predecessor, its earliest known occupant, was the Saxon Thane Thorold, believed to have been Earl of Chester under the Confessor. It has been but in few families since, the present having held it for many generations. Gilbert had several manors in Oxfordshire and many more in other counties, and his descendants are occasionally mentioned by Dugdale and Kennett, as also in the unprinted records and documents of the first five centuries after Hastings, one branch being still in possession of land that he held as late as the seventeenth century. These references to memorials of the past in Enguland, serve to show how much genealogical labors there are facilitated by the durability of its monuments and institutions. The interest taken by our people in their progenitors when able to ascertain who they were, is displayed by their eagerness, as soon as they reach the shores of the old world, to visit their abodes when living, or resting places when dead. This is often subject of remark and sometimes of amused surprise to Europeans. They do not reflect how much the sentiment, in their own case, has lost strength, by familiarity fiom childhood with their family traditions, from which the attraction of novelty, for the most part, has exhaled. For us, in; many instances, it proceeds from satisfaction in identifying our own origin with a race we respect, in others from having successfully worked out a problem, the difficulties of which gave a zest to the effort; while for many, it is simply an extension of our veneration for parents we have known and loved, through the several links of a relation similar, but more remote. In all, whether vanity or pride, affection or reverence, it is an inheritance natural and almost universal, only awaiting circumstances peculiar, like our own, to give it shape and development. This is a digression from our more immediate subject, which was intended to be general, and to its consideration the attention of the reader is recalled. That our British ancestors were fond of fighting, when provoked, regardless of personal safety or private advantage, cannot be denied. For the five centuries following the conquest, wars at home and abroad succeeded with little cessation. lMilitary duty was incumbent on all who could bear arms. Every landed proprietor, in proportion to his knight fees, furnished OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 17 hobblers or mounted men, and in the crusades, Scotch or French wars, so brilliantly described by Froissart and Monstrelet, numbers were in the field. Gunpowder, first employed at Crecy, darkened but little the battle grounds of Europe till a much later period, and personal encounters of knight and squire in mail with lance and battle-axe, the rest in quilted doublets with pike and bow, made men indifferent to danger, induced habits of hardihood and daring. \From her insular position, the mariners of England were early afloat on every known sea; trade and free-booting went hand in hand; and whether off Sluys with King Edward the third in 1340, as buccaneers in the Spanish main, or under Raleigh in defeating the armada, English knights and yeomen fought bravely, gaining glory by their prowess. Continual warfare, not always after Azincourt accompanied by victory, the unseemly scramble for the throne, bringing to block or dagger every male Plantagenet, for nearly a century drenched the land with its best blood, making sad havoc alike of the yeomanry of England and of its nobility and gentry.' Whoever is familiar with Dugdale and the early genealogical writers recognizes the frequent extinction of families or transfer of their estates through females to other names.t Expenses attending military preparation, ransom of the unfortunate captured in war, enforced loans and forfeitures for taking the wrong side in rebellion, exhausted their property, and the representatives of the proudest names of Battle Abbey, five centuries later, if not extinct, had sunk into comparative obscurity.' New men who had won their spurs in the field, or fortune from court favor or professional success, occupied their places. Very few families of wealth or distinction in England, when the Mayflower crossed the ocean, dated back an uninterrupted prosperity to the days of the crusades. The peerage, which had dwindled after Bosworth to twenty-three, then numbered in all little more than a hundred, and the rank of baronet was created in 1611. Uniider the commonwealth, fortunes both of roundhead and cavalier were laid low, and names till then almost unknown became familiar. Thus though rank and social condition have been at all times in England barriers, well defined and not easily surmounted, there as in other countries families possessing them have undergone vicissitudes, been compelled to succumb to the caprices of fortune. What essentially weakened the stability of family prosperity was the want 18 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. of that patriarchal system of clans or septs which prevailed among the Irish and Scotch." Kinship was little regarded. It ensured neither allegiance to the chief nor his aid and protection to younger branches.'Younger sons left without inheritance were forced to become architects of their own fortune. Three centuries ago there were fewer chances in army or navy, fewer prizes in civil life. MIany when impoverished retired to the cloister, while others thrown on their own energies for subsistence fought out an inheritance on the continent or in Ireland. That unfortunate country, since 1172, had been the coveted prey of her neighbors. Without any efficient central government, she was placed at disadvantage, but the courage of her chiefs and loyalty of her septs for centuries kept at bay the better disciplined and better armed forces sent over to subdue them. Partly through intrigue, partly through marriage, a foothold was eventually gained beyond the pale, and more and more of the territory appropriated. r For young Englishmen without other opening, the island was an unfailing resource, and after the catholic wars under Elizabeth and wholesale confiscation under Cromwell, many made it their abode! Americans in search of some clue to their progenitors may often find them settled for a while in Ireland before venturing further west, for which it was a good preparation. Invasion and ruthless war had reduced it nearly to a wilderness, and the red men of the forest were hardly more to be feared than its exasperated people. In order more thoroughly to effect the work of subjugation, it was thought necessary to divest the proprietors of all interest in the soil, and one mode adopted to accomplish this was religious persecution. IIHad no other pretext equally plausible been discovered for the purpose, and the Irish been less staunch adherents to the faith of their fathers, they might have saved their property from confiscation. But the cruelties of bloody DMary and her bigoted husband, as later of Alva, gave the excuse of retaliation, the sanction of public opinion to force and fraud. It was a poor plea for spoliation, but toleration or freedom of conscience were then little understood by either protestant or catholic: Notwithstanding these occasional inconsistencies, our English progenitors both before and after the reformation were devout and conscientious. The religious sentiment under the druids never degenerated into fetichism, and christianity when accepted rose early to a high type. Vast appropriations OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 19 of land to pious uses, mouldering remains of fane and cloister, cathedrals and parish churches, the admiration and despair of modern architects, antedating the Plantagenets and still in good preservation, show how little there was at any time of indifference or infidelity, how deep and universal was the sense of dependence,'how close the relation between man and his God. Blind subservience to authority found little place among an intelligent people. The slaughter of Becket was an early protest against papal thraldom. The banishment of the Legates, suppression of the Templars, rise of the Lollards, the breaking up under the Tudors of the monastic establishments, religious wars and persecutions, if indicating the prevailing intolerance of the age, proved that less superstition existed among them than among their continental neighbors, that they valued liberty of conscience, were unwilling to submit to priestly rule, and before Luther had commenced the reformation. Early translations removing the seals from the sacred volume dispelled error and loosened the hold of Rome, which then kept ignorance in bondage. If differences of interpretation engendered controversy, its effect was diffusion of knowledge which quickened faith, finding expression in religious observance, obedience to precept and moral life. It was especially fortunate for our fathers embarking in their perilous enterprise of founding a new world amidst many discouragements, that they should have had the support of a religion they could understand, inculcating self-sacrifice and trust. Had they ventured without its aid across the deep, hardships and uncertainties would have speedily disheartened mere love of adventure or pursuit of gain. Relying on divine guidance they persevered, and whatever defects of character may justly be imputed to pilgrim or puritan, the deep sense of religious obligation which sustained them in their sore trials and arduous toil long continued unabated, and to this day has left its mark upon their descendants. No extended analysis of character is intended. Such infinite individual diversities exist in the fatherland as everywhere else, that there are few traits which can safely be pronounced as national. But one has been so generally conceded, that it must not be passed without comment. " Home, a term common to Teutonic tongues and nations, in its full force is peculiarly English. Family affections have ever there been deep and enduring, the choicest pleasures of life centering round the domestic hearth.' Loyalty 20 OUR ENGLISH AN-CESTORS. filial and parental, fraternal and conjugal, have been.alike based on principle and habit, deriving strength and nourishment from race hardy and healthy under favoring circumstances, among which is a profound regard for what is respectable, and a climate invigorating the moral as well as the physical tone, tending of itself to elevate the standard of what is pure and of good repute.''The pyramidal structure of society without, with its ranks and gradations, draws closer within the family sympathies, beyond the reach of what is artificial and conventional. The adage that a man's house is his castle, is true, not alone as regards the myrmidons of the law or lawless depredation, his sway is there recognized as supreme, and its threshold held sacred from unwelcome intrusion. Within its enclosure develope the highest types of what is genuine, of all that ennobles and dignifies humanity, its serenity undisturbed by comparisons of condition which humiliate and often exercise a pernicious influence in debasing and degrading it.! But no people better understand or more graciously or gracefully practise the rites of hospitality, and the stranger once admitted under the roof as a guest, enjoys while he remains the consideration of a privileged inmate. These virtues were not left behind by our fathers. They have ever been characteristic of their descendants, and if more marked in the agricultural regions of the southern and middle states have been frequently subject of commendation where means and opportunity permitted here in New England. With facilities of intercourse and increasing density of population both the habits of hospitality and the family relations undergo a change. As we retain no social grades recognized by law and people mingle more freely for common objects and interests in crowded centres or in summer resorts, as education becomes more public andSyouth throws off earlier parental control and assumes the duties and privileges of maturity, the American of to-day is less domestic in his habits than in preceding generations, and family ties have lost something of their strength. Not only in religious culture and domestic tastes, but in courage, fidelity to principle and dignity of character was the Englishman fitted for colonization. The best criterion of what he in reality was three centuries ago, both as regards his merits and defects, is to be found in the dramatists of the period, in Shakespeare and Jonson. If fairly described in their day by Fielding and Smollet, he had then degenerated, and the extremes of wealth and OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 21 poverty, of intelligence and dulness, of arrogance and servility, painfully portrayed by Thackeray and Dickens, have grown out of the combined influences later of primogeniture, of the spirit of trade and redundant population. For the medikeval period with which our own transatlantic ancestors were connected we owe much to Scott and Lytton, James and Ainsworth, whose descriptions were derived from a careful study of their materials. These materials are constantly becoming enriched by later discoveries among heaps of manuscript, in strange language and chirography not easy to decipher, now first made accessible. What Lytton and Tennyson have accomplished for the days of King Arthur by bringing to bear what is known to explain what is obscure, modern historians are doing for the first four centuries after the conquest. With that period, its wars and legislation, its personages and modes of life, we are becoming as well acquainted as with those described by Macaulay, Stanhope or Alison. The publishers of Palsgrave, Freeman and Froude, find a large sale for their works in our country, showing how deep an interest is taken by Americans in the land of their fathers. The enlightenment accompanying the reformation was not confined to the affluent, learned or powerful, but extended through all classes, and we may well feel proud that our fathers emanated from a people of whom Shakespeare, Spenser and Jonson, Bacon, Sydney and Raleigh, were but representative types. Knowing what material prosperity existed, what opportunities for growth of intelligence and principle and how generally they were improved, among its independent yeomanry, merchants, manufacturers and mechanics we may well be contented to find progenitors. Rank is but the guinea's stamp, and the manly and social virtues that constitute worth are not confined to any condition. It should be no discouragement to a right thinking man in retracing the vestiges of his ancestors to discover that they shared the common lot, contributing by industry or ingenuity to the general welfare. However pleasant to be above the necessity of work, it cannot be denied that it is the best stimulus in developing faculty and character. No one is happy idle, or happier than he who has his daily tasks. We may covet wealth as commanding what we wish to possess, but it is dearly bought at the cost of strength and ability acquired in employments which in supplying the wants of other men provide for our own. All honor 22 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. to him, who with no obligation to labor, devotes his gratuitous service to the public. But if fortune compels a useless existence,"better poverty with occupation than princely revenues without.' Happily the greater part of mankind must depend upon their own exertions, and in every family and of every name there will be some poor as well as rich. If we trace back the progenitors of those now most conspicuous in social, political or professional life, we shall find them three centuries back among those who toiled, and probably among the descendants of historic personages this day are many engaged in humble walks. Names as proud as deck the pages of Burke may be seen on the workshops of English cities. When a late duke of Norfolk proposed to gather all the Howards descended from Dickon, "be not too bold," two thousand were found in every social position.' But whether derived from peer or peasant, the American who claims England for his fatherland cannot but glory in his birth-right.''No other nation boasts a nobler history.' Struggles ever since Runymede for civil and religious freedom, wisdom in the cabinet and courage in the field, giving ascendancy over nations superior in territory, wealth and numbers, proudest achievements in literature and science, justice well administered, professions well sustained, crowds of men of genius not England's but the world's. And this natal soil of our ancestors, not surpassed in luxuriance of growth, in the treasures beneath its surface or beauties above by the fabled Ilesperides, its remains of other days encrusted with associations sacred or historic, its present wealth of art and utility, well may be called the island of the blest. In its tempered clime, joust and chase have yielded to other pursuits as manly, and to their influence may be ascribed that energy and indomitable courage which have asserted British supremacy till its morning drum-beat circles the earth. With its history thus unusually eventful, with its political organization permanent and complicated, its literature ancient and vigorous as the oak of its forests, religious controversies and constant warfare rendering conspicuous hosts of individuals; hereditary rank and title the guerdon of desert in arms and civil service, constituting a recognized caste of many degrees and heraldic distinctions; long connection of names and families with particular localities and ownership; usages and traditions, social and domestic, peculiar and interesting; chronicles and monuments, muniments OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 23 and records, which to a degree elsewhere unprecedented have escaped the havoc of time; these, with the enlightened, liberty loving, enterprising character of a people of strong will and highly educated in its more favored classes, have tended to generate and feed a fondness in England for historical inquiry, and also for genealogical, which is its handmaid. Springing from the same stock, not dissimilar in trait, it ought not to astonish if we share the corresponding proclivities, are both historical and genealogical in our taste, that we have produced Irving, Prescott and Motley, and many more well-known historians; or that we take a lively interest in ascertaining who were the English progenitors to whom we owe our existence and origin; and, after more than two centuries have passed, that we are still proud to remember the land from which they came. Such a home our fathers left no doubt with heavy hearts. Recent experience in our own day and generation in the migration to the west of the courageous and enterprising from our towns and villages, gives us some idea how the chosen seed was sifted from the old England to plant the new. Prosperous men engaged in lucrative employments or raised above the need of them by ample inheritance, staid for the most part at home. Now and then one of the more adventurous took stock in the companies and sent over colonists. But it was chiefly those without occupation and with scanty means, for whom no cover was laid among their own kinsfolk and acquaintance, who were instigated by love of independence to brave the discomforts and perils of the ocean and wilderness to provide for themselves and families here. To break away from the familiar scenes of childhood, with little prospect of again beholding father, brother or friend, demanded a resolute spirit, such as animated the brave hearts and vigorous frames ready to cope with the difficulties and hardships awaiting them in this waste of wood and water, till then unfrequented but by beast and savage. The hurry of departure, engrossing cares attending preparation, the connection still unsevered with correspondents at home, prevented their realizing in how few generations would be lost all trace, even of their places of birth, of those ties of consanguinity which, growing weaker as they became more remote, would eventually pass out of mind. The frequent instances this has chanced in the history of American families, even where the original patriarchs were possessed of means and culture, is of common 24 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. observation. To reunite these lost links, and ascertain from whom our patriarchs descended, is one of the problems this society was organized to solve. If at one time usual to ridicule this curiosity to know who our ancestors were, it is so no longer. It is now generally acknowledged that the inquiry is fraught with instruction in fixing in the memory historical epochs and events, in affording us an insight into the habits of life and social ways of periods long past. So long as it tends neither to foster pride nor vanity, to produce neither mortification nor envy, sense of humiliation that our ancestors were not famous or undue respect for those whose ancestors were, it deserves indulgence if not encouragement. Our early planters were from all classes and conditions. With lawyers but few, clergymen in greater number, men of estate who had enjoyed the advantages of Oxford and Cambridge, came off-shoots from families still in affluence or become reduced, yeomen such as constituted the strength and glory of England, merchants from her marts and sailors from her marine. Among the four thousand names in Savage, borne by the forty thousand individuals supposed by Palfrey to have come over before 1700, are many well known in her annals, constantly recurring in her county histories and ancient records. Many are now extinct. But of those mentioned in 1685 by Bishop Kennett in his history of a few places in Oxfordshire, a large number are borne by persons we know. In the appendix to these pages are given a few most extensively multiplied in our community, for the benefit of any one seeking to discover the neighborhood in England from which his progenitors emanated. It cannot be justly disputed and it is abundantly borne out by the records that the settlers in America were a fair representation of' the six millions they left at home. Fortunes like those of the Marquis of Winchester, who lost with Basing House during the civil war half a million sterling, were the exception there, and those brought over must be compared with what were usual at the time, not with modern standards. But not only in birth and breeding, but in less intrinsic claims to consideration, the planters were by no means the dregs of society, but well up in the social scale. Many we know to have been connected with families of great prosperity and influence. The frequent escutcheons, plate transmitted as heirlooms from generation to generation, wills that mention relatives OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 25 at home of position, go to prove that in the atcidents of birth and social condition they were equal to the best. And this is no disparagement to those not so distinguished. For by our American standards and ideas, fortunately, no man is estimated more or less for the rank or condition of his ancestors. We do not of course mean to profess that a long line of honored ancestry is not to republicans or monarchists an agreeable subject of contemplation; but in America a truer value is attached to it, and bringing in its train neither rank nor fortune, it enters little into the estimate of social position or individual consequence. Wealth, political influence, literary celebrity, personal qualities, affect the degree of respect entertained for our neighbors, but little importance is attached to birth, which is oftener a hindrance than a help. Not even among savage tribes do we find perfect social equality. Differences of constitution mental and physical, opportunity, accidents of birth and connection, affect the promise of the start, influence progress, control results. This is manifestly part of the providential scheme for developing faculty and character, and glittering generalities insisting on social levels are utopian and delusive. Equality before the law is recognized in both countries as a right, inherent and universal, and with us at the polls, though there is a growing conviction that the franchise should be so regulated as to be exercised with honesty and intelligence and without prejudice to liberty. An American citizen acknowledges no superior in rank, but there exist here, as everywhere else, differences of education, means and usefulness, of endowment and acquirement, circumstances intrinsic or adventitious which govern the relations of each of us to his neighbors, and which it would be absurd to ignore. These social distinctions have been more marked in England in consequence of the legal sanctions to rank growing out of a government under which"plitical power vests in an aristocratic class. If the system be artificial and repugnant to the common sense of nations more advanced in enlightenment, it is deeply rooted in the whole social fabric. Her people have become not only accustomed but attached to it, and it is beyond the reach of radical reform unless by revolution. Its hereditary law-givers, its various orders of nobility and gentry, the law of primogeniture and consequent consolidation of wealth and power in a privileged few, give it a 26 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. stability which must yield slowly to any pressure brought to disturb it from the growing sense of its injustice or impolicy. The geographical position of Great Britain towards the continent of Europe, the peril to social order were ignorance and want to dictate legislation, lessons of experience from past times and present, discourage changes which instead of bettering the general condition might bring in their train calamities unnumbered and unforeseen. It is the boast of the national constitution that it yields to pressure. If the social load line is badly adjusted, this must be retrimmed till again safe. If an aristocracy, from wealth, alliances and privilege the most imposing the world has ever known, becomes a menace or offence to the masses who have the numerical superiority, primogeniture, rank, political supremacy must in turn be surrendered till it has accommodated itself to the spirit of the age. Such has been the course heretofore, and the like good sense will long preserve it from violence and overthrow. It would be idle to resist social development. If arrogance offends or power crowds, something must give way, and whatever blocks the steady advance towards political or social equality, so far as it is based on what is reasonable and just, must be trampled down. Power which in 1688 passed from the throne to the landholders, will soon by recent changes of legislation be transferred to the people, who it is hoped will be wise enough to effect every needed reform without revolution. When our colonies were planted, England was waking up from her long lethargy. Pym and Hampden were battling with prerogative against ship money and illegal assessments. Society was agitated to the centre by religious controversies, but the old aristocratic notions prevailed. Social degrees, wide differences of culture and refinement, monopoly by rank and wealth of official and political positions, separation at school of different conditions, firail dependence of tenants upon their landlords, of labor upon its employers, stern severity of the law and its rigid but unequal administration, if engendering in the few discontents bordering on insubordination, accustomed the many to passive submission to rule, subserviency to real or fancied superiority. They also fostered among the more enlightened of the middle classes with something to lose, respect for law and order, regard for social decorum, reverence for the church and its ministers. These sentiments received a rude shock as property and position for the most part OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 27. sided with the parliament against the King, reasserting their supremacy with the restoration. They became modified in crossing the sea, and with greater equality of condition and more general diffusion of education, set free from trammels derogatory to personal dignity and independence, they still retained sufficient strength to prove of much practical utility in organizing and preserving social order. Americans have ever appreciated the importance of obedience to constituted authority, and when its abuse has compelled resistance and the right has been vindicated to substitute another of their own election, they have invariably invested it with all the power needed to insure its stability and effect its objects. The long period of pupilage during which our American colonies remained in subjection was the best preparation for their subsequent independence, and accelerated their emancipation from political thraldom. It also served to deepen and strengthen the sentiments and modes of thought derived from the mother country. Constant intercourse, frequent accessions to theirnumbers from over the sea, intimate commercial relations, kept warm their attachment to the land they all still regarded as home, fostered respect for the standards that there prevailed. They also tended to bring into closer conformity the social and political condition of the two countries. Our colonial and provincial governments were shaped on the home model. The common law of Enlland was considered as their especial right and privilege by the colonists as British subjects; legislation, if accommodated to their, peculiar needs, took its form and pressure from hers. It was not surprising that rank and position, thus interwoven with the whole social and political structure, should have seemed the natural law of society. These notions slowly yielded to a more enlightened sense of human rights, when bitter experience of a political oppression beyond their reach to control, arrogance and assumption in officials sent over to govern them, led to the discussion of the fundamental principles on which government and society rested. Neither independence nor social changes were contemplated when the struggle began; both grew naturally and almost necessarily out of it. But in withdrawing our allegiance from the government of England, we did not forfeit our inheritance in her traditions, nor can we forget that if no longer one nation, we are still of the same origin and stock. If the English race at home long clung with tenacity to their old organi 28 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. zation working for the benefit of a few to the disadvantage of the'many, they deserve credit for adopting, when circumstances favored, one founded on liberty and equality. Our fathers, in separating from the mother country, rejected the hereditary principle in government as well as rank in society, all titles and special privileges, and abolished primogeniture which had existed in a mild form in some of the colonies, together with entails, as prejudicial to equal rights. They constructed their new system upon the basis of general education, diffusion of knowledge, good manners, good principles and entire freedom of conscience, and these have been constantly tending not to bring down, but to elevate up all to a social level. If distinctions exist, they are recognized without jealousy. Deference is paid to worth, other usual claims to consideration respected, and individuals left to their own preferences and opportunities in selecting their associates. But there is little arrogance to offend or over-sensitive pride to be wounded, and only the frivolous are inclined to claim, and no one who is honest and courteous is compelled to brook superiority. Should it be asked what direct bearing this has on our subject, the importance attached to ideas of better or worse, higher or lower, rank and consequence, enter so largely into genealogical inquiry that it seems worth while, now and then, to re-examine the grounds on which they rest. An American, believing in his birthright to equality with the best, is sensitive about seeking amid the pride and circumstance of English social life for progenitors in a position of inferiority, not always reflecting, as he should, that if our scale of comparison as to respectability among the living be perverted by adventitious considerations of wealth or rank, the memory of the dead depends for its halo on character and worth. Such fallacies should not be permitted to chill our interest in our progenitors beyond the sea, nor in their native land. The tender associations that cluster around England, the romantic incidents and heroic achievements in its annals, its natural beauties and noble monuments, even the picturesque varieties of its social structure, are an inheritance too precious to be lost or undervalued. This we share with its present inhabitants, rich and poor, gentle and simple, and most of those who occupy the heights of its social pre-eminence would find, should they count over their ancestors three or four centuries ago, the same variety of condition as ourselves. OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 29 What is intrinsically respectable is confined to no class, but graces alike the poor man's house and the rich man's palace. Among the monarchs of England there has been little for praise or pride. Neither son of the Conqueror inherited his capacity in field or council. The second Henry, like the third and sixth, was feeble and dull. Richard the lion-hearted was a brave crusader but sorry king. Edward the great Plantagenet and his grandson were wise and vigorous rulers, and the fifth Henry gallant in war. But not all the talent and learning of Froude can make the eighth Henry much better than a brute, or his daughter Elizabeth other than a woman in whom every feminine trait was turned to acidity.' The Stuarts evinced a marvellous unfitness for the throne, and the merciless pen of Thackeray has described the Georges. In the ranks of nobility there have been few instances of extraordinary genius or power, though many advantages favor their development. Now and then Stanleys and Howards, Russells or Stanhopes have been well endowed by nature and justly distinguished. But in arts and arms, in the cabinet, senate and professional careers, the great minds that have done good service and made their names remembered have been from the middle walks of social life and often from the lowest. As one price for intellectual superiority, not only it rarely descends, but the race itself, exhausted by its extraordinary yield, tends to extinction. Lineal descendants disappear after a few generations. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Bacon and Newton, and the most brilliant stars that stud the firmament of English genius, live only in their works. Ten generations ago, if there have been no intermarriages, a case hardly supposable, one thousand individuals bearing as many differen't names stood in the like decree of ancestry to the present; twenty back, over a million. In this multitudinous array, bIy the doctrine of chances we should probably all of us be equally fortunate in discovering persons of worth and usefulness, of eminent ability and social consequence, of health and wealth, and all other blessings that we value ourselves, or should be glad to find they possessed. Here and there one of their number, like MSacaenas in the Ode, may have proceeded ex atavis regibus, from royal blood. But if the larger part of them were the rude forefathers of England's hamlets, such as Gray describes in his immortal elegy, it would be still a satisfaction to learn their names and occupations, and from what little 30 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. can be ascertained or conjectured, form some notion of those homely joys, the destiny obscure that constituted their short and simple annals. If by chance are found in our diverging lines persons of more note and wider culture, to reconstruct their career from what we know of them and the times they lived in, to become familiar with their traits of character, peculiarities of temper and disposition, the incidents of their lives, trials and enjoyments, reveals a new world of hidden treasures, abounding in objects of affection and attachment around which is encrusted all we know that they knew, all that they experienced of events of historical importance, of far more absorbing interest to us than the stately inanities of kings and courtiers, of Tudors or Stuarts, extending our horizon of thought, adding a new zest to existence. Such knowledge has other uses. As the child is father of the man, so descend ancestral traits. Through the mysterious germ that links us with the past, come not only similarity of gait and voice, of form and function, susceptibility to disease, proclivities to evil, but aptitudes and capacity for work. Who has not recognized as heirlooms in his blood, skill or taste not of his own acquiring, and guiding the helm or rein, wielding the sword or pen, been conscious that some ancestral salt or jehu, knight or scribe has done the like before. Who has not met about the world namesakes, the common ancestor in centuries remote, whose manner, tone and lineaments recalled his nearest kinsfolk, and not in mere marks external only, but in trains of thought, likes and dislikes, common to both, found proof of common stock. If this view be just, unconscious cerebration, puzzling with memories undefined of mental states or combination of events inexplicably recurring, instead of wraiths of dreams forgotten, as Miss Cobbe suggests, may be actual experiences of foregoing generations. Old England has ever been " fons gentium," a prolific mother of colonies; so also the new. Whilst the parents mind the sterile farm, or croon in winter over the iron substitute for the once ample hearth, the children carry over the land the four great institutions of New-England, church and school, town meeting and training field. When prospered they freshen up the homestead, and gather hundreds or thousands of the name and blood from all parts of the continent, to renew their associations with the ancestral abode. From old Tristram Coffin, patriarch of Nantucket, OUR EN'GLISII ANCESTORS. 31 thousands of descendants are spread broadcast throughout the union. In their old home at Newbury, erected more than two centuries ago and ever since dwelt in by their name, more than a score of college graduates have been born to be of good service to society. At Alwington in Devon also there has been a long succession of their race from Saxon days, in every generation honored and respected. This instance is but one of many where the posterity of our immigrant fathers would derive a special pleasure from learning the details of their family history in England. Sordid motives sometimes mingle with and debase the sentiment. Expectation of inheritance has often collected crowds of aspirants to some old estate left without heirs to claim it; but as great hopes are chilled by frequent disappointments, this weakness has grown less. Genealogical inquiry has been pursued with so much ardor of late in NewEngland, that individuals at a loss to trace back to the earliest immigrant ancestor are the exception. The Genealogical Dictionary of Mr. Savage, a monument of patient industry in which he gives some account of those who came over prior to 1692, and two succeeding generations, family bibles, town and family histories and probate records, ancient correspondence and the vast accumulation of family lore in our REGISTER, render it comparatively easy to construct pedigrees from all of our American progenitors. Realizing as we must the danger of procrastination, how much precious information has already been lost forever out of mind by neglecting so simple a precaution, we cannot too forcibly impress upon whoever have not yet availed themselves of its pages, the wisdom of transplanting their family trees to an enclosure where they are sure to be preserved. When, however, we seek to gather up the broken thread beyond the sea and ascertain the early abodes of those who came over, and their ancestral lines, we find the task less easy. Some families go back for many generations, even to the Conquest. Others, and often among the most distinguished in our colonial annals, are lost in an impenetrable cloud after a step or two, in the host of the same patronymic then existing, or perhaps in the utter extinction there of the race; whilst others again only know their ancestors were English from their names. It is hardly a misfortune, should not certainly be regarded as any humiliation, to be ignorant; in some instances ignorance may be preferable to learning what is disagreeable. Still the 32 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. truth, pleasant or otherwise, may be of use in chastening pride or correcting false views of life and its obligations. If the inquiry involves waste of time or means needed for other duties, it is not worth pursuing; but where researches can be made at little cost, and with fair promise of success, there is generally some one in every family group with leisure and taste to collect names and dates and whatever else can be known. No country is better provided with facilities for genealogical inquiry than Great Britain. Her record offices are now kept in good order and made reasonably accessible. Documents from suppressed ecclesiastical establishments and family muniment rooms, state papers and private correspondence, visitations, pedigrees and collections of genealogists, are constantly drifting towards the national archives, British Museum, and similar repositories. In the Birmingham Tower at Dublin are an immensity of papers in card boxes assorted and calendared under the supervision of Sir Bernard Burke, and in the Bodleian Library, at Oxford, there are rooms lined with ponderous volumes of manuscript full of material for the elucidation of family history. Conveyances are not recorded as with us, but probate archives, court files, parish fegisters, if some of them are difficult to decipher, contain for experts special treasures. The registers beginning with the Reformation are not easy to read, the hands being often cramped and the ink faded, but when gathered up and systematized as they possibly may be at some future day, and births, deaths and marriages of names not too extensively multiplied up to the period of emigration brought together and indexed, a larger proportion of the ancestry of American settlers will be ascertained. But if unrivalled in her manuscript treasures, the printed books on family history in England largely exceed in number, variety and interest anything to be found elsewhere in the world. One of the earliest is Dugdale's RB:ronage, of which we have a copy in our public library. But the peerages and similar works of Collins, Burke, Bankes, Sharpe, Lodge and Betham, the Beauties of England, Camden's Magna Britannia and Lysons's, county histories and family annals, biographies and biographical dictionaries, the Archaeolocia, and that admirable work while it recorded what concerned families, the Gwntlemanz's liayazine, by Sylvanus Urban, now unfortunately perverted from its original character, embrace an immense extent of information about old times and those that livel in them. While with OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. 33 us no life is considered so valueless as not to be entitled to remembrance and record, in England such a privilege is reserved for wealth and rank. Of its one to two hundred millions constituting the thirty or more generations in the eight centuries since the iNormans took possession, the greater number have melted into oblivion and left no sign. Whole names and families have utterly perished. Publications on the subject of family history date for the most part since the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and illustrate families still flourishing, not those once in prosperity which have become reduced. This is true, also, of documents, records and brasses, which have been suffered to perish where no one remained with any special interest or influence to have them preserved. History has been written, historical incidents distorted to flatter the pride or prejudice of the powerful at the expense of many with a better title to consideration but without advocates to defend it. Humble worth has never stood, in the mother country, much chance of. memorial or monument, and, unless for some vague tradition among descendants, or brief entry in the parish books of baptism, marriage or burial, has been ever speedily forgotten and passed out of mind. The very superabundance of material is an embarrassment to the American inquirer. The public offices are accessible for any useful purpose only to experts, and dependence must be mainly placed upon professed genealogists, well enough acquainted with all the sources of information to economize effort. There are now many who make it a profession, and so general is the desire of our people to know whatever is to be known of their family history, that an adept is sure of lucrative employment. There are, also, accomplished devotees to the work, such as Mr. Savage, Col. Chester and Mr. Somerbv once were, and others, who, from taste for such researches and a generous wish to be useful to the public devote their timeand means without stint or recompense, where the occasion is fit. We are still on the threshold of our subject. But our limits admonish us to defer or leave for those better informed, what should be known to all seeking to learn whatever can still be ascertained of their transatlantic progenitors, about the Heralds' College and coats of arms, the public and prerogative record offices and their several departments, the Birmingham Tower, College Libraries, and British Museum, with their genealogi 34 OUR ENGLISH ANCESTORS. cal treasures. We had also intended to give some account of the principal works likely to be useful to whoever makes such inquiries an occupation or is interested in their results; but this, too, must be postponed for the present. APPEND IX. Ox page 24 of the text we have alluded tco the names in Bishop Kennett's volumes, extensively multiplied -in New-England. Among them we find-Ashurst, Aston, Bacon, Baldwin, Baker, Bassett, Bentley, Blake, Bond, Butler, Bradley, Briant, Brown, Brun, Carpenter, Carter, Cheney, Crocker, Clifford, Colyns, Crawford, Dale, Devreux, Dudley, Elyot, Elys, Foster, Francis, Goddard, Gray, Green, Gardner, Gibbs. Gifford, Hall, Hamond, Hardy, Horton, Hunt, Ingram, James, Jeffrey, Ilamb, Lee, Lloyd, Lovell, Marshall, Newton, Perkins, Parsons, Park, Payne, Phillips, Potter, Prescott, Preston, Rede, Richards, Robbins, Russell, Ryvere, Standish, Thornton, Travers, Torry, Vernon, Warren, WVebster, Welles, Wilcox, Woods, Worth, and Winslow, and many more almost as familiar. Others well remembered, though only known to us through the historian and the poet-Audley, Avenel, Beauchamp, Beaumont, Beaufort, Beche, Berkeley, Beverly, Blount, Camville, Chandos, Chaucer, Clare, Clavering, Courcy, Courtney, Ferrersr Marmyon, IMortimer, Montague, Nelville, Raleigh and Vere, are also mentioned in the volumes.