discharged themselves by such references to proper vouchers, as might satisfy those readers it is my ambition to please; I have esteemed the number of such writers no discouragement to the revival of his story.

And first for the name of Ralegh, otherwise written Rale and Ralega in some old deeds I have formerly seen a; it is certainly of great antiquity in this kingdom; since there are some villages and towns in the west, as well as other parts, so called, which might at first receive their denomination from some, as well as afterwards give it to others, who were natives or possessors thereof. And since we are credibly informed, that one of those districts belonged anciently to noble lords of the same name, as also that several of them were so called from the very family we are to speak ofd, and as the Raleghs of Devonshire will appear to have flourished there before the Conquest; they might be the progenitors of those in other counties; as it is expressly intimated out of the records they were of those in Warwickshire. But as we are also told of no less than five knights of this name, at one time differently situated in that western county before mentioned f; and that there were three great families so named also there, contemporary with sir Walter Ralegh's, who bore arms different from those of his paternal coat 5; we may conclude they were not all of one lineage; and at the same time, that it is owing to the eminency of this great man, that a distinction of the several houses, and his in particular, when all but his were in a manner extinct, has been so elaborately endeavoured by the antiquaries and genealogists of his own time.

As to the family of sir Walter Ralegh therefore in parti

Among the numerous collections of Richard Gascoigne, esq. a skilful and famous antiquary in the middle of the last century.

Ralegh in the parish of Pilton, near Barnstaple; Street-Ralegh, in the parish of Ailesbeer, eight miles east of Exeter; Comb Ralegh near Honiton; also Widdycomb-Ralegh, and Coliton-Ralegh, all in Devonshire: besides Nettlecomb-Ralegh in

Somersetshire; Ralegh in Essex, a market-town, thought to be the same called Raganeia in Doomsday-Book,

&c.

c Camden's Britannia in Devon. 4 John Prince's Worthies of Devon, fol. 1701. p. 531.

Dugdale's Antiquities of Warwickshire, fol. 1656. p. 412. f Prince's Worthies, fol. 517. * Ibid. fol. 516.

cular, it is generally agreed on, that Smalridge in the parish of Axminster, in the county of Devon, was one of their most ancient seats. But sir William Pole, who is said to have been one of the greatest searchers into the antiquities of that country, has been singularly short in the time of their first settling there. However, if we should agree with him upon that person for sir Walter Ralegh's direct ancestor, who first removed thither out of Nettlecomb-Ralegh in Somersetshire, in the reign of king Henry III. from whom there is a successive descent of those six knights, sir Wimondh, sir Hugh, sir John, sir Peter, and two sir Johns more; besides others, who were either of the same degree themselves, or married into families distinguished with it, even down to Wimond the grandfather of sir Walter Raleghi: I know not but it may be also allowed, that the honours of this pedigree were sufficient to have been boasted of by some of his traducers. For though, in the eye of heraldry, many titles are accounted more noble than knighthood; though native and patrimonial dignities, or such as descend necessarily from father to son, may in the eye of the common lineal claimant appear most legitimate; and such as are venal be esteemed in that of the wealthy most valuable; yet those which are personal, the individual acquisition or recompense of every man's proper merit, will, in the eye of reason, be held most honourable.

But however grateful it may seem in that author, who has characterised the aforesaid sir William Pole as the first and best antiquary of his county k; though none of his

h In a visitation-book, made anno 1623, of the counties of Wilts, Dorset, and Somerset, among the MS. collections of Browne Willis, esq. of Whaddon-hall, in Bucks, there is a pedigree of sir Walter Ralegh's family from the reign of king John; with a copy whereof that worthy antiquary having obliged me, I find this Wymond, in the time of king Henry III, is therein called lord of Coliton and Nettlecomb: so it may seem, the estate in Somersetshire was of later accession to the family, and

works were ever printed, or perhaps now remain sufficient to prove him so to the public'; yet we are at liberty to observe, that John Hooker, another famous antiquary and historian of the same county, appears to have been his seniorm; whose actual publications, several years before sir William Pole is said to have privately applied himself to these studies, had established his character, through the applauses of the best judges in his own timen; and who, with respect to sir Walter Ralegh in particular, being related to and acquainted with him, had not only the greatest opportunities to be expert in his genealogy, but withal publicly addressing an account thereof to sir Walter himself, when this knight was in the very meridian of envy and detraction, had the greatest obligations upon him to be strictly accurate in displaying it. Now this author, in one of his performances, gives us to understand, that Smalridge was in the possession of the Raleghs before the Norman conquest; and that one of the family, being taken prisoner by the Gauls, did, for his deliverance upon St. Leonard's day,

Many of sir William's MSS. miscarried in the civil wars so effectually, that the very titles and arguments of them are likewise perished, as Prince tells us in the same page; and those four or five volumes this author appears to have had some view of, having been since lent about, are thought, and have been reported by some of the family, to be now also irretrievably lost. See the English Baronets, 12mo. 1728. vol. 1. p. 323. Yet I have been told by a person of great honour and knowledge in curiosities of this kind, that he had heard one volume of those collections, if not more, is somewhere in being.

Sir William Pole, who was high sheriff of Devonshire, and honoured by king James with knighthood in 1606, when Ralegh was in discredit with him, seems to have been a writer chiefly in his reign; for though he might apply himself twenty years to these studies, according to Prince, fol. 506. we yet find one of his largest volumes written ann. 1616, in the same page. But Mr. Hooker, who was the first chamberlain of Exeter

about 1554, and twice member of parliament for that city, as we find in the Notitia Parliamentaria, by Brown Willis, esq. vol. ii. 1716. p. 272; as also for Athenry in Ireland about 1570, as I find by his own words; did actually set forth in print his tracts about the government of Exeter, and bishops of that see; besides his augmentations of the English and Irish Chronicles, with other pieces, before, or by the year 1587; and, having lived to near eighty years, died in 1601, according to Anthony Wood, and my said author Prince, in his life; though the former of them quotes from Hooker's own words, that he was living in 1605, (if it is not a mistake of the press,) and the latter has made no boggle at the blunder.

n As bishop Godwin, Richard Carew, esq. the Cornish antiquary, and Mr. Camden, whose words in one place are, vir eruditus, et de antiquitatis studio optime meritus D. Joannes Hookerus. Britan. 8vo. Franc. 1616. p. 138.

build, at his return home, a chapel there, consecrated to that saint; and therein, as a grateful monument, hung up his target: the records of which foundation are said to have been given by a priest of Axminster to sir Walter Ralegh3, as their most rightful owner. So much for the antiquity of the family in Devonshire and as for its derivation, the said Hooker, even in a printed dedication to sir Walter Ralegh, as I hinted, (which he repeatedly confirms in the aforesaid performance,) not only avouches his alliance to the Courtenays, earls of Devon, and other illustrious houses; but traces the stream of consanguinity up to the kings of England: where he says, "that one of his ancestors in the "directest line, sir John de Ralegh, of Fardel, (another seat "of their ancient inheritance in the parish of Cornwood, "eight miles east of Plymouth,) espoused the daughter of "sir Roger d'Amerei, who married Elizabeth, daughter of "Gilbert earl of Gloucester, by Joan d'Acres, daughter "of king Edward I. which Gilbert was descended of Ro"bert earl of Gloucester, son of king Henry I." So goes up to the conqueror: and farther adds, "That in like man66 ner he may be derived by his mother also out of the same "house." But since these two authors, the likeliest we have in print to have confirmed us in the truth of this matter, vary thus from each other; since sir William Pole thought it rather another family of the Raleghs, which was thus royally descended; since also five or six ancient pedigrees of this family, which I have seen in manuscript, by the heraldical visitors, and antiquaries of those western parts, also differ, not only from Hooker, but in several points both from sir William Pole and from one another; and lastly, since it will be considered, that I have not undertaken to

:

Hooker's Synopsis Chronographical or historical record of Devonshire, a MS. as quoted by Prince, fol. 530. A copy whereof, in this author's time, was in the custody of Mr. John Eastchurch of Wood in that county; still extant, as I have heard, in those parts: and pity it is, that it has not yet seen the public light; since above a hundred years ago it

was revised by so able a judge of its worth as sir John Doddridge, and had his recommendation to the press.

P Tristram Risdon's Description of Devon, in Axminster.

a Hooker's Epistle Dedicatory to sir Walter Ralegh, before his translation and continuation of the Chronicles of Ireland, printed in Holinshed, vol. ii. 1587.

account for the whole race of the Raleghs, but only one select person of the name, bere let the truth, as to these remote ancestors or alliances, hover for me: for I am not moved, on the wings of conjecture, to make myself a party with any of those antiquaries, nor shall endeavour to compromise the difference between them, unless such prevailing authorities had occurred as would enable me to do it with certainty. Besides, as those whose virtues have adorned them with a sufficiency of personal honours are ever least anxious about such as are relative; so it might well argue but little weight in the judgment of a historian, to shew himself contentious about these feathers for his worthy, especially such a one as shall be found to have thought so justly light of them himself.

However, as all accounts allow him a very honourable extract, let us prefer which we please, the freedom some great courtiers took in calling him Jack and Upstart, upon his advancement to queen Elizabeth's favour, is thought to have somewhat reflected rather on themselves, in suffering their sprightly parts to take such advantage of their noble principles. One of these sarcasms I find recorded by lord Bacon, in his little book of Apophthegms', where he says, "That when queen Elizabeth had advanced Ralegh, she

66

was one day playing on the virginals, and my lord of Ox"ford with another nobleman stood by; when it happened "that the ledge before the jacks was taken away, so that "they were seen; whereupon that lord and the other "nobleman smiled, and whispered a little: the queen marked "it, and would needs know, What was the matter? His "lordship answered, They laughed to see, that when jacks "went up, heads went down." Though the application of this reflection particularly to Ralegh, if such was made, is disputable, notwithstanding lord Bacon's allusion, yet it is plain that sir Robert Naunton, who was secretary of state at the time of Ralegh's death, and whose Observations on

I mean the only genuine and uncorrupted edition of them, published by the author himself, in small 8vo.

1625. It is the first apophthegm in the book.