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All About History Books
The Chronicle of Geoffrey le Baker of Swinbroke. Baker was a secular clerk from Swinbroke, now Swinbrook, an Oxfordshire village two miles east of Burford. His Chronicle describes the events of the period 1303-1356: Gaveston, Bannockburn, Boroughbridge, the murder of King Edward II, the Scottish Wars, Sluys, Crécy, the Black Death, Winchelsea and Poitiers. To quote Herbert Bruce 'it possesses a vigorous and characteristic style, and its value for particular events between 1303 and 1356 has been recognised by its editor and by subsequent writers'. The book provides remarkable detail about the events it describes. Baker's text has been augmented with hundreds of notes, including extracts from other contemporary chronicles, such as the Annales Londonienses, Annales Paulini, Murimuth, Lanercost, Avesbury, Guisborough and Froissart to enrich the reader's understanding. The translation takes as its source the 'Chronicon Galfridi le Baker de Swynebroke' published in 1889, edited by Edward Maunde Thompson. Available at Amazon in eBook and Paperback.
Robert Smythson 1570-1634 is in Sculptors.
Around 1570 Robert Smythson was born.
On 13th February 1608 Bess of Hardwick (age 81) died. She was buried in All Saints Church, Derby [Map]. Her monument, which she had constructed before her death, was designed by Robert Smythson (age 38). She left nothing in her will for her 'bad son' Henry Cavendish (age 57). He did, however, inherit Chatsworth House, Derbyshire [Map] which he subsequently sold in 1609 to his brother William Cavendish 1st Earl Devonshire (age 55) for £10,000.
The date of her funeral somewhat complicated. Rawsons 1910 book "Bess of Hardwick and her Circle" quotes Simpson's National Records of Derby for 1608: "The old Countess of Shrewsbury died about Candlemas this year, whose funeral was about Holy Thursday. A great frost this year. The witches of Bakewell hanged." Holy Thursday, the Feast of the Ascension, is thirty-nine days after Easter. Easter in 1608 was on the 6th of April, putting Holy Thursday on the 15th of May.
Ethel Carleton Williams "Bess of Hardwick", 1959, has a note: "9. The date of Bess of Hardwick's funeral is uncertain. The date on the coffin plate is said to be February 1608 (Cox and Hope, Chronicles of the Collegiate Church of All Saints, Derby), but on 31 March 1608 Gilbert Talbot wrote to Robert Cecil, excusing himself for not attending St George's Feast on the ground that his mother-in-law's funeral was to be on St George's Day (23 April). Later, on 3rd of April, the Earl of Arundel wrote to Gilbert (his father-in-law), 'the funeral at Derby is appointed to be either on the fourth or fifth of May, which Garter yet knoweth not, but rather thinketh on the fourth because the other is a holy day'".
Neither of which provide a definite answer. The former being around the 15th of May, the latter 'rather thinketh' the 4th of May. Are there any other contemporary sources available?
In 1634 Robert Smythson (age 64) died.
[his son] John Smythson was born to Robert Smythson.
