Popular Errours

Or the errours of the people in physick, first written in Latine by the learned physitian James Primrose Doctor in Physick. The Latin version was published in 1638, but the English translation came out in 1651 and featured this image. It was a defence of the arts of the learned physician against quack and untrained doctors written in an entertaining style, presumably so that he could reach the largest audience possible.

The picture shows a poor fellow in his sick bed, being ministered to by a doctor, but also a well meaning goodwife who is trying to help but is being restrained by an angel of mercy. She is wearing a petticoat, waistcoat, long apron, ruff collar and a wide brimmed hat over a linen coif. The doctor in a gown, cap and ruff and the ill fellow in his shirt and night cap.

Here is a closer image of the woman. I’m still not completely sure what she is wearing on her upper half. Perhaps her apron reaches to her chin and she has tucked it under her stiffened bodies? There is a lovely poem on the facing page which represents the busy body trying to take over:

Loe here a woman comes in charitie
To see the sicke, and brings her remedie.
You’ve got some grievous cold, alas! (quoth she)
It lies sore in your bones, no part is free.
His pulse is weake, his vrine’s colour’d high,
His nose is sharpe, his nostrills wide, he’le die.
They talke of Rubarb, Sene, and Agaricke,
Of Cassia, Tamarinds, and many a tricke,
Tush, give the Doctors leave to talk, I’ve brought
A pepper posset, nothing can be bought
Like this i’th ‘Pothecaries shoppe; alone
It cures the Fever, Strangury, and Stone;
If not there’s danger, yet before all faile,
Ile have a Cawdle for you, or Mace-ale:
And Ile prepare my Antimoniall Cuppe
To cure your Maladie, one little suppe
Will doe more good, and is of more desert
Then all Hippocrates, or Galens Art.
But loe an Angell gently puts her backe,
Lest such erroneous course the sicke doe wracke,
Leads the Physitian, and guides his hand,
Approves his Art, and what he doth must stand.
Tis Art that God allowes, by him ’tis blest
To cure diseases, leave then all the rest. 

John Tradescant the Younger with Roger Friend

..and a collection of exotic shells. Painted by Thomas de Critz in 1645, this picture is in the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford. Tradescant we have met before, but Roger was a local brewer. Nice still life of the shells, and some decent details in their clothes. I’m tempted to suggest that John is trying hard, but failing miserably not to look at Roger’s nose.

John is wearing a black doublet with a plain linen band, though most of it is obscured by the silk (possibly velvet) lined cloak he is wearing over the top. Roger is in a nice madder red coat, or doublet with plain shoulder wings and some neat cloth buttons. His band is ever so slightly on the skew, suggesting that he either got dressed in a hurry or that it’s imperfectly attached and has migrated to the right during the day. © 2011 University of Oxford – Ashmolean Museum

Sir Francis Acland 2nd Baronet

Painted by a follower of Gilbert Jackson in 1645 four years before his untimely death, Sir Francis was the son of John Acland the Devonian peer who was created first Baronet Acland of Colum John in 1644 by Charles I. The 2nd baronet’s peerage didn’t last long.

Here he is, still very much alive with his dog in an embroidered silk or wool worsted doublet with ribbon decoration at the waist and one of those falling bands that is entirely lace with some nice pom poms on his band strings. That’s Sir Francis in the doublet, not the dog. The picture is kept in the National Trust property Killerton House near Exeter.

Sir William Dugdale

Engraved by Hollar  and used as the frontispiece to The antiquities of Warwickshire illustrated from records, leiger-books, manuscripts, charters, evidences, tombes, and armes : beautified with maps, prospects and portraitures first published in 1656.

Sir William was an antiquary famed for his work recording church monuments, inscriptions and coats of arms which he undertook in the hope that they could be recorded before they were destroyed during the war. He also acted as King’s herald at Edgehill and in the summoning of Banbury, Warwick and Coventry to submit to royal authority.

Here he is seated amongst his books dressed in a long, fur lined coat  with furred cuffs on the sleeves over a doublet, wide brimmed hat and breeches. He has double ruffs on his shirt sleeves and a decorative tassel on his band strings.

Charles I and Sir Edward Walker

Painted by an unknown artist shortly after 1650, this is a study of Charles and his Secretary at War Edmund Walker, ostensibly on campaign. The poses are staged in a tableau of Charles dictating a despatch, or maybe a proclamation to go to the printers. It’s such a static scene that it almost looks like a wax work, though notice all the subtle differences, not just in the poses, but also the clothes they are wearing that mark Charles out as the leader and Sir Edmund as the follower

Both men are wearing the blue ribbon as members of the Order of the Garter. They are both also oddly colour coordinated with each other, wearing blue doublet and breeches embroidered with gold thread, though the King’s doublet is more finely figured. Their buff coats match, though again Charles’s is more highly decorated. Edmund’s linen is plain whilst the King’s is edged with lace. He is also sporting a gilded breastplate. The picture hangs in the NPG in London and is © National Portrait Gallery.

The manner and form of the Arch-bishops Tryal in the House of Peers

An engraving appended to the end of A breviate of the life, of VVilliam Laud Arch-Bishop of Canterbury: extracted (for the most part) verbatim, out of his owne diary, and other writings, under his owne hand. / Collected and published at the speciall instance of sundry honourable persons, as a necessary prologue to the history of his tryall, for which the criminal part of his life, is specially reserved by William Prynne of Lincolnes Inne, Esquier, published in 1644. The engraving is by Wenceslaus Hollar.

As ever though, the best part of these crowd engravings is the little details that come out when you zoom in.

 

 

At the back of the hall, in the foreground an splendid selection of coats and cloaks, showing the reverse side that you don’t often get in portraits. One or two caps being worn too and a dog seems to have sneaked in on the left hand side.

 

 

An annotated group here. A marks the Archbishop in his gown and a black day cap. Unusual not to see him in his bishop’s robes, the rocket with white sleeves would have stood out had he been wearing it. B is black rod, C the Lieutenant of the Tower, D the council for Laud and E the clark who reads the evidence, looking very pleased with himself in a short cloak and laced band. F is a table.

 

 

 

A small group of women here against the tapestried wall on the right hand side. G is the area reserved for members of the Commons, H is Henry Burton who had had his ears removed for criticising Laud in a pamphlet. Henry looks like he might be wearing a ruff. I marks various witnesses, one of whom was  Susannah Bastwick, smartly attired in linen kerchief and a coif. Susannah was the wife of John Bastwick who had also lost his ears in the pillory.

 

 

 

Mercurius Democritus

Communicating many strange wonders, out of the world in the moon, the Antipodes, Maggy-land, Tenebris, Fary-land, Green-land, and other adjacent countries; published for the rightunderstanding of all the mad-merry-people of Great-Bedlam. One of those “believe it or not” publications, still popular today that was published periodically in the 1650s. This edition is from February 1654 and the picture shows a ghost that was seen in Smithfield by the local butchers, dressed in the clothes of a Lawyer called Mallet: pulling the meat off the Butchers Tainters; many have adventured to strike at him with Cleavers and Chopping-Knives, but cannot feel anything but Ayre,

Here is the ghost in a  short tabbed doublet and breeches, falling band and an odd kind of bonnet, over which garb he is wearing a lawyer’s gown. He also has high heeled shoes over which have been stuffed what look like ram’s horns, possibly to mark him out as a ghost. Usually ghosts are depicted in their winding sheets.

Mercurius Civicus

Londons intelligencer, or, Truth really imparted from thence to the whole kingdome to prevent misinformation …A parliament propaganda newsletter produced roughly once a week from 1643 to 1646 which gave all the news from a London perspective, a bit like the seventeenth century Evening Standard. This is the front page from the April 4th-11th 1644 issue. The bye line at the top was:

The general Rendezvouz, the Oxford Junto frighted.

Waltham house taken by the London Brigade.

The Hamlets and the Southwarke Regiment advanced.

Several Speeches made at the Common Hall on Tuesday last

It’s not obvious however to which story in the text that the image depicts. It is particular to this edition, but doesn’t really correspond to any of the reports. It may be the Oxford Junto story, as there were several Digbys on the Royalist side, but I can’t be sure nor why they were so keen for help.

Anyway, it’s a nice image, (though not particularly detailed) of a group of men sat around a table in doublet and breeches with the ubiquitous wide-brimmed hats and those funny little triangles that look like falling bands but which I believe are the linings of their cloaks as they hang back off the shoulders. In the right hand side, there is a gentleman and a lady seated in a balcony. Although it’s a rough woodcut, you can see they are finely dressed and the lady is wearing a black hood or chaperone tied at her throat. Possibly the King and Queen? Who knows?

Elizabeth, Lady Coventry

Painted by Cornelius Janssens van Ceulen in the 1630s, Elizabeth was wife to Sir Thomas, first Baron Coventry who was a career lawyer and involved in several high profile legal cases through the years before the wars, though treading a politic central line between the King and parliament, he managed to keep his position for many years.

Elizabeth is wearing a black dress, presumably bodice and petticoat skirt, though it is tricky to see any details, a black coif on her head, with a triple-layered kerchief around her neck and matching lace on her cuffs.

The painting is in the collection of the Sheffield Museums

 

Elizabeth Murray, Countess of Dysart

with her first Husband Sir Lionel Tollemache and her sister, Margaret Murray, Lady Maynard, painted by Joan Carlile in 1648. Elizabeth was a royalist sympathiser and a prominent member of the Sealed Knot during the Commonwealth but also numbered amongst her regular house guests the Protector Oliver Cromwell. Suffice to say, Elizabeth was a formidable woman, Countess Dysart in her own right and a regular traveller to the continent to visit exiled royalists, including Charles II.

Elizabeth and her sister are wearing the wide sleeved, low cut bodices with attached petticoat skirts that were popular in the late 1640s whilst Sir Lionel (who is characteristically in the background) is dressed in a long coat with a pair of long boots over matching black hose.

The picture hangs in the National Trust property Ham House, in Richmond-upon-Thames