Havergal College - Magazine Yearbook (Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada)

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Havergal College Magazine Sir Richard Baker travelled on the Continent, was knighted by King James in 1603, and became sheriff for Oxfordshire. Here his good fortune ended. When he married he generously, but foolishly, made himself responsible for some debts contracted by his wife ' s family. He was never able to pay them, the burden of them increased, and he became debtor to the Crown. At last in 1635 his estates were confiscated, he was penniless, and he had to seek refuge in the Fleet — the debtors ' prison. There he stayed till his death in 1645, but life there was not unbear- able. He turned his mind to Literature and, at the age of 67, began to write. The storm of his estate, says Fuller, the Jacobean divine, forced him to flye for shelter to his studies and devotions. In prison he wrote poetry, meditations on the Lord ' s Prayer and the Psalms, and what chiefly concerns us here, compiled his Chronicle. How he gathered his materials, we do not know. The Chronicle is prefaced by a most formid- able list of authorities — 93 in all — but it is most improbable that Sir Richard had access to, or any first hand acquaintance with half of them. The book, however, wiled away the hours in prison, and he believed he was doing a great piece of work. In fact in the Epistle to the Reader the author states quite frankly his belief that if all other of our Chronicles should be lost, this only would be sufficient to inform Posterity of all Passages memorable or worthy to be known. Poor Sir Rich- ard ! He little dreamed of the disparaging remarks and damag- ing criticisms that would pursue his valuable Chronicle later; nor could he foresee that it would at last be the subject for an article in a School Magazine. The History was well received in his own day, and four years after his death was translated into Dutch. The narrative was carried on to 1658 by Edward Philipps, Milton ' s nephew, and the book passed through several editions, and was con- stantly brought up-to-date, till it was discarded altogether. The volume possessed by Havergal was printed and published in 1679 at Ye Golden Ball in Hosien Lane. From the middle of the seventeenth century to the middle of the eighteenth century Baker ' s Chronicle was part of the equipment of every country gentleman ' s library. Sir Roger de Cover- ley kept a copy of it in his hall window; he studied it a whole summer, and it was the source of all the knowledge he dis- played when he went with the Spectator to see the tombs in Westminster Abbey. Fielding tells us that it was part of the furniture of Sir Thomas Booby ' s country house. We do well to respect a book that had such worthy patrons in its life-time. Sir Richard Baker ' s Chronicle differs in every respect from a modern History book. Its very size suggests the difference, and a glance at any page within accentuates it. There are two 24

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Havergal College Magazine several chairs on the platform for this piece and he played the part of each lady in turn, screaming and jumping on chairs and doing all the things that a lady is supposed to do on the ap- proach of a mouse. A certain dear old visitor, Hannah Cadbury, was a great favorite. She was little and plump and pink-cheeked, and she wore eye-glasses attached by a cord ; she laughed constantly, and every time off would drop her glasses ! We liked her to come round the classes and we liked to show her our work, because she invariably aside, Very nice, dear, very nice, to all and sundry. It is a far cry from Winnipeg, The Queen of the Prairie, to the quiet little Ackworth village. But if any Havergalian ever finds herself in Yorkshire and visits the school, she will be able to see for herself the same old gray stone buildings, and the splendid playing fields, and will further realise the place that Ackworth must hold in the hearts of all who know her. G. M. S. A BURIED TREASURE. Among the treasures of Havergal is a calf-bound volume which looks like an office ledger, or a complete English Dic- tionary. Its title, Baker ' s Chronicle, is not very illuminat- ing, its cover is not attractive, and its size is most certainly against it, but anybody whose courage or curiosity is sufficient to carry them beyond dull brown leather and faded red edges, will be rewarded by much that is interesting and, indeed, by much that is entertaining within. The book came to us three years ago — the gift of Mr. G. W. Baker, whose ancestor was the author of the Chronicle, and such has been our respect for its age and worth that it has ever since been carefully preserved among volumes of cor- responding size, bulk and apparent dullness, on the bookshelves of the Staff Sitting Room. It is not a book that can be easily circulated, and it is too valuable to trust to what might possibly be careless hands, and this may account for the seclusion in which it has lived so long. At the same time it is worthy of much more attention than it now receives ; hence — this article. There are few books that we do not like the better for knowing something of the authors, and of the circumstances under which they wrote. The story of Sir Richard Baker is somewhat pathetic (though Sir Richard might resent our pity!). He was born in Kent in the days of Queen Elizabeth, probably in 1568, and in due time went up to Oxford. There he shared rooms with Sir Henry Wootton, whom we know as the author of two charming little poems included in our Golden Treasury. 23

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Havergal College Magazine columns on every page, with marginal notes and dates. The pages are plentifully besprinkled with capital letters; every pro- per name, either of a person or a place, is written in italics, and every quotation is printed in the same way. Added to this the type is set up with the old long s, which always tempts one to read it as f, and with the c and t linked to- gether. There can be no doubt as to the genuine age of the book ! The Publisher has inserted two curious front pages ; on the left hand page is a picture of Charles II. ; on the right — a frontispiece of rather elaborate design. In the centre is the full title of the book — A Chronicle of the Kings of England, From the Time of the Romans Government unto the Death of King James, containing all Passages of State and Church, with all other observations proper for a Chronicle. Faithfully col- lected out of Authours Ancient and Moderne ; and digested into a new method hy Sr. Richard Baker Kt. The rest of the page is adorned with pictures of Charles I. — inter Reges ut Lilium inter Flores — (among Kings as the Lily is among flowers), and Archbishop Laud; four little pictures of the cities of Verulam, Lincoln, London and York — as they never could have been ; and four more representing a Roman, a Saxon, a Dane and a Norman, none of them in the least like any soldier that ever existed. There are many pages to be turned before the anxious reader can begin the History. There is a Preface, a Catalogue of Writers, a table showing the descent of Charles II, in a literally straight line from Egbert, a Catalogue of the Nobility, Arch- bishops, Bishops, Privy Councillors, Judges and Baronets of England (and there are 700 baronets!) and then at last the Chronicle. Sir Richard may have been qualified by nature to write a very pleasant and readable book, but he was not a scientific historian. One of the most difficult tasks for the historian is the distinguishing of fact from fable ; of discovering the sub- stratum of truth under the masses of fiction. Sir Richard Baker appreciated this difficulty, as the opening sentences of his his- tory show: As the first writers were poets, so the first writ- ings have been fictions. And nothing is delivered to Posterity of the most ancient times but very Fables. . . . And when we are once gotten out of Fables, and come to some truth, yet that truth is delivered in such slender draughts, and such broken pieces, that very small benefit can be gotten by the knowing of it. But the labour of separating fable from fact proved too great for the seventeenth century historian, and the History is a positive storehouse of amusing and improbable stories. Some- times Sir Richard seems conscience stricken, as for example, when he has quoted a somewhat improper story, he adds — But writers perhaps had been more compleat, if they had left this 25