THE DIARY OF WILLIAM CARNSEW II
By A. L ROWSE
S0 life passes for William Carnsew. He was anxious to do his best for his boys, writing to Lord Mountjoy, who seems to have been a family connexion, on behalf of Matthew. On October 20th "Matthew departed towards Lord Mountjoy with weeping tears. The wind south-east." Nine days later he came home again. He and his brother were to return to Oxford. "John Kenall with me for to have William go to Oxford, and lent me a sag, promised to write his letters for placing of him." William was a taking lad, and Dr. Kenall, who enjoyed the fat living of St. Columb Major along with much other preferment, was Archdeacon of Oxford, Canon of Christ Church, and a person of influence in the University.
He was as good as his word, and in November the two younger boys, "Matthew and William, went away towards Oxford." Shortly after the letters begin to come down from thence, and the Diary closes. The image of William Carnsew, so clear to us for just this year 1576, that tells us so much about that vanished life, withdraws into the shadows and so into silence. It is for his sons to speak.
It happens that we possess a few leaves of the diary which Richard and Matthew Carnsew kept, evidently on their father's instructions, for a part of the year 1573-4 at Oxford: a rare, perhaps a unique thing, for I do not know any other such diary from which we can reconstruct the life of an undergraduate of that time. In May, they "received letters out of Cornwall and with them 40d." Next day, "made definitions of homo by the five ways. Bought paper 4d." Then, "our Principal went to the Parliament; made exercises to Master Vice- Principal." At the end of the month they were reading Sallust; Richard's shoes were mended for 2d., and they bought Calvin, Melancthon, Calton on Logic, bound in one volume, for 12d.
In June they bought Foxe's Sermons and were engaged in translating them into Latin; Richard was polled for rd. and the cook's wages paid (8d.). August was mostly filled with exercises in logic; both lads were polled. They bought a pound of candle for 4d., two pairs of gloves for 12d., and Richard a pair of garters (12d.). In October the brothers parted; Matthew remained to hear Mr. Curry's public lectures in natural philosophy—presumably the Fellow of Exeter, who later became a Jesuit. In November the brothers were together again. John Goldsmith, the parson of St. Kew's son, fell sick: "We were with him all the time of his sickness, which was a cause of defect in reading as you willed us."
Next year Matthew entered into commons at Christ Church, from Broadgates Hall where they were entered. He began to translate Cebes' Table, for which he borrowed the book of John Goldsmith. "What needed that, sith you had one of your own?" is the careful father's comment in the margin.
They removed into "an higher chamber, the rent 13s. 4d."
After this extravagance they borrowed 14d. of John Cole, and began to read Peter Martyr on Aristotle's Ethics—" borrowed the book of Sir Matthew." In April, "my brother very sick "; then "we laid in 4od. to the common stock of the house because our manciple gave over his office."
So their education proceeded: any amount of logic—no won- der the Crown found the country gentlemen of England such tough nuts to crack in Parliament—Cicero and Aristotle's Ethics. the great Reformers. And all the while there are innumerable small expenses for "making of our gowns," fustian for the back, fur for the front, a pair of shoes, two dozen of points, a cap for 2s. 4d. We hear no more of Richard, the eldest boy, at the university; during the period of his father's diary he was living at home. William, the youngest lad, in whom Dr. Kenall took an interest, followed his brothers at Broadgates Hall—now Pembroke College. He was a bright and lively lad, and was successful at the university: he became a Fellow of All Souls in 1579, and, following in the Doctor's foot- steps, took his B.C.L. in 1588. He was M.P. for Camelford in the Parliaments of 1597-8 and 16ot.
The kind of fellow he was may be seen in his letters from his chambers in London home to Bokelly, particularly the affectionate, chaffing ones he wrote to his eldest brother, of whom he was fond. " Messor Richardo carissimo," he writes in October, 1583, "my father wrote to me by this bearer that you should come to London about Allhallowtide, which I think is called Christmas. I pray you forget not to bring £3 of good and lawful moneys of England with you, for I want it. And if you can speak to my father conveniently for it, you may do me a great pleasure; the like and greater pains must I do for you one day. If you bring more it must be welcome, if less, yet all is fish that comes to the net." He sends commendations to his friends, "Mr. Nicolls, of Penvose, that is to say as well friends as foes, my cousin Mr. Hill and his wife, all at Ros- carrock, Tregair, and every other where: all the good hurlers in St. Kew with whom perchance I shall hurl this next year."
Instead of Richard, his father came up to London. After he left, a Mr. Mordaunt showed young William great courtesy: insisting that William's father was a connexion of his wife's, he hired a horse for him and took him down to stay for a few days at his house near Oxford. "While I was there he used me with all kind of familiarity and at my departure thence he lent me one of his own geldings to come home to Oxford withal." Obviously William was an attractive young man, whom people took a fancy to. "By his means I spent nothing in London save i 2s., wherewith I bought a hat, a shirt and a pair of stockings, and a little book of law places entitled Topica Legalia." He complains that the books that his father left with him in London the carrier has forgotten, so that he could not send them down to Cornwall. His mother had sent him two shirts and a powder, with which "I have done wonderful cures for the green sickness and am much sought unto by divers, for they call me the best physician in England for that disease." Evidently there was a strong streak of his father in him.
Two years later there is a high-spirited letter to Richard, sending commendations to all the good friends at home: "to old and young Roche, to Bokelly, Tregair and by west the bridge though unacquainted and never thought on, generally to all your acquaintance wheresoever, not forgetting my very good friends of Roscarrock, their courteous guests and gentle frump. Oh, Heigh-ho: Why, Mathy, what occasion hadst thou to go &c. 0 love, love! I fear me, Richard, this whoreson love will kill us all. Sustine pro nunc. If there can be a letter to Braband, I pray let it be speedily delivered. Vale." Two years later, the summer of 1587—Drake is on the coast of Spain—William is writing: "Mr. Justinian and I have made such a league as that the one is bound to take the other's part in any indifferent cause. He hath given his promise and I my hand never to fail our friends in any just cause. Would Juno and you were such cater cousins as Pallas and I mean to be, then would I come home to sing a song to Hymen and would not doubt but to help to fill your new consort with good concord. My bow served my turn passing well and Will thanks you for him. God keep you."
And that is all. For all his merry chaff, the brothers did not marry until late, William himself setting an example by marrying Ann Anmdell of Trerice in 16to. His brother did not follow suit until 1619, Matthew not at all. The brothers were all childless, their sisters unmarried. So old William's line died out at Bokelly ; silence descends upon them and upon that house. And yet as one passes by on the roadside, the view of Rowtor opening out on the right, and looks left across the fields to that house among the trees, one seems to hear an echo of those long vanished voices: the dead place comes alive for a moment with the thought of all that happy crowded life, old William and his whims, Jane Penkivell and her boy running away with her purse, Richard Grenville coming over to discuss a match, the vicar sick, and young William in London longing to come home and hurl once again with all the good hurlers of St. Kew.
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