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Eric wrote,
I discuss this map and
Burghley's atlas (Royal MS
18 D III) as a whole in a
chapter of my doctoral
dissertation, but I don't
think it would be very useful
or interesting to you since
the chapter engages the
material principally with
respect to arguments about
whether Saxton's maps helped
foster a sense of nationalism
in the late 16th century (in
brief: I am skeptical that
they had such an impact).
I wonder if there's another angle here: namely, upper-class concern
with the way patrimony and social status were being (re)presented in
English atlases?
I'm thinking here of Ralph Brooke's (the York herald, d. 1625) early
debate with Camden over Brooke's "Discoverie of certaine errours
published in print ..." in Camden's _Britannia_ of 1594.
The "errours" were found in Camden's (verbal) account of family
pedigrees, which many thought Camden had treated far too casually (or
as some like Margaret Cavendish, duchess of Newcastle argued later,
too partially).
In his _Anecdotes of British Topography_ (1768), Richard Gough
described the ongoing brouhaha over Camden's _Britannia_ in detail,
concluding:
"... Thus Brook's splenetic attack on the Britannia produced
great advantages to the public, by sifting and bringing to
light a good, perhaps a better and more authentic, account of
our nobility than had been then given of any in Europe. The
Duchess of Newcastle, above fifty years after, took up the
quarrel. In her _Unnatural Tragedy_ (which strictly answers
its title) is a whole scene against the Britannia. Three or
four *sociable* virgins and matrons criticizing on the
speeches in the antient historians, the third proceeds
charging 'our later chronologers, such writers as Camden, and
the like, with writing not only partially, but falsly. As
for some particular families, some Camden hath mistaken; and
some he hath falsly mentioned, to their prejudice; and some
so slightly, as with an undervaluing, as if they were not
worth the mentioning, *which is far worse than if he should
rail or* disclame *against them*. To follow the practice of
his profession, he hath sweetened his pen as towards his
scholars and their families: and it is likely most towards
those scholars that were more beneficial to him: but to such,
whose parents had tutors for them at home, not suffering them
to go to common schools, he hath passed over, or lightly
mentioned, their families; of hath dipped his pen in vinegar
and gall.' The first suggests, 'it is likelyer that he might
take some pett at those that did not entertain him at their
houses when he went his progress, to inform himself of the
several parts of the country, before he writ of them.' The
second observes, 'when he mentions such places and houses, he
says, the antient situation of such a worthy family, when to
her knowledge many of those families he mentions bought those
houses and lands, some one descent, some two descents, and
some three before; which families came out of other parts of
the kingdom or the city, and not to the antient and
*inheritary* families: but he leaves those antient families
unmentioned.' The fourth surmises, 'he thought it fit, that
the memories of those families, that were so ill husbands, or
had so ill fortunes, as they were forced to sell their
antient inheritance, should be buried in their ruins.' Sir
Simon D'ewes, in his letter to Archbishop Usher, pretends
there is not a page in the Britannia without faults, which he
threatened to correct. He had better have arranged his own
collections relating to the three Eastern counties, Suffolk,
Norfolk, and Essex, and by publishing them saved us the
trouble of hunting for them with little prospect of success."
Margaret Cavendish's _The Unnatural Tragedy_ (1662), themed around
acts of rape and incest, was very much about family honor, and so "a
geographic satire in the middle of a play" was not so bizarre as C18
critics of Cavendish's plays, such as Horace Walpole, portrayed it.
(In his _Discoverie of Certaine Errours ..._ of 1599, Brooke argued
that, among other things, the errors in Camden's genealogies produced
"incestious and unnaturall mariages" for some noble families.)
Moreover, like many older royalists returning from exile with the
restoration of Charles II -- and having their own dreams of
restoration dashed when faced with the reality of permanent exclusion
from the new centers of political power, continuing financial
insecurity, and ruined estates -- Margaret Cavendish was obsessed with
any loss of hereditary privilege:
"Why, should I that am Intituled with True Honour, and
Princely Dignity, which Titles were created from an Absolute
and Divine Power, give place to mock Honours, and feigned
Dignities?"
(as spoken by the character Lady True Honour, in Cavendish's
play, _A Comedy of the Apocriphal Ladies_, printed with _The
Unnatural Tragedy_, and 12 more plays, in 1662)
I don't know anything about Burghley's collection of maps, but I do
know that Burghley was directly involved in the Brooke-Camden debate
(e.g., other heralds petitioned Burghley about the irascible Brooke on
multiple occasions).
I'm sure this is old news to many of you MapHisters, but couldn't at
least some of Burghley's cartographic interpolations have had
psychosocial motivations?
Burghley may have had different concerns about inaccurate genealogies
and altered perceptions of noble status & families than did Margaret
Cavendish when re-hashing all of this half a century later, but still,
I would think that a similar interest in the personal (and
self-aggrandizement), as well as the political, would have factored
into it.
Deborah
_____
Deborah Taylor-Pearce
[email protected]
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