The Journey So Far #WaterPoet2017
John Taylor the Water Poet (1578-1653) is now firmly on his way to Wales after two weeks of traveling.
He set off from London on July 13th 1652 via Edgware and stayed in Ruislip outside London with an 'acquaintance', then Stokenchurch, and then Abingdon. He stays in Abingdon for five nights so it's quite possible that he lodged with family relations. Bernard Capp explains that:
Another brother kept the King's Head inn at Abingdon. Taylor spent several nights there in the summer of 1641, and stayed for two enjoyable weeks in 1643 on his way to Oxford. When passed through again in 1649 he mentioned only a nephew, so the brother had probably died. The nephew, John, was to become a very successful portrait painter in Oxford. (The World of John Taylor the Water-Poet, 1578-1653 [Clarendon Press, 1994], p. 38)
Confusingly, John Taylor was the name of both the nephew (c.1630-c.1714) and the nephew's son (c.1650-1716). It appears that it was the latter John Taylor who became the Mayor of Oxford. You can see the nephew's self-portrait and his posthumous portrait of the Water Poet below. These are paintings held by the Bodleian Gallery (BOD000101-01 and BOD000052-01) and they have been watermarked on the website. Clicking on the images will take you through.
John Taylor, Water Poet
John Taylor's nephew
After Abingdon, John Taylor goes on to stay the night at an inn called The Swan at Great Tew, where he describes his host as being blind in one eye and 'a right good fellow'. He then stops at another inn called The Swan (possibly at Kineton). It's not exactly clear from his account how the day transpired. But it was probably with one Master Venner there that he got fairly tipsy before falling off his horse a couple of times on his way into Warwick. He apparently recovered in a draper's shop in Warwick thanks to the owner, Jacob Harmer.
The next day he visits two ladies and stays for four nights:
On July’s two and twentieth day I came
Unto an ancient house call’d Hunningham.
There were two ladies of good worth and fame,
Whom for some reasons I forbear to name:
Their son and grandson (John) I’ll not forget,
He’s nobly minded as a baronet;
Four days they kept me with exceeding cheer
and gave me silver because travel’s dear.
He clearly stayed with a grandmother and her daughter, with the daughter's son, whom he names John. Exactly who he stayed with is a bit of mystery, but it was probably a fairly well-to-do family. I will share my best guess, but I'd love to hear other suggestions.
It's possible that John Taylor stayed with the grandmother Elizabeth Swift (1607-1656) and her daughter Dorothy Horsey (1630-1679). Dorothy's father, Elizabeth's husband, was James Horsey, who died in 1630 and owned property in Hunningham. In 1650, just before John Taylor visited, Dorothy married the Royalist George Fane (1616-1663). Their connection with a house in Hunningham (sometimes called Honnington) is explained in A History of the County of Warwick:
Horsey was succeeded by his son James in 1622, who left an infant daughter Dorothy at his death in 1630. She later married George Fane, a Colonel of Horse and younger son of the 1st Earl of Westmorland, and they dealt with the manor in 1653. Their son Sir Henry Fane, with Elizabeth (Southcott) his wife, conveyed it in 1690 to Robert Waring and John Cropper, and in 1695 sold the manor to Thomas, 2nd Baron Leigh, whose son Edward was lord in 1730.*
Of course the spanner in the works is that the grandson/son Henry Fane (c.1650-1706) wasn't called John, as Taylor specifies. However, the Water Poet may have forgot, or lied to protect the identity, or there may have been some other reason.
What all this brings up is the issue of John Taylor staying in a house for four nights with two respectable younger ladies while the husband was away. It seems probable that Taylor was grateful for his entertainment there but either tactfully thought he wouldn't say who he visited or was requested not to include his hostesses by name in his travel account.
John Taylor went on from Hunningham to visit Coventry and Lichfield, as he explains in his account. He mentions the 'fair cross of ancient high renown [which ] / Stands firm, though other crosses all are down': this cross is marked on John Speed's map of Coventry. And he notes the ruin of the church in Lichfield, where he stayed at an inn called The George, possibly on the site of the historical George Hotel, an inn with other literary connections.
Today John Taylor is on his way to Stone. Soon he will head to Chester where Taylor stops for a different reason, and moves from verse to prose.
Thank you for all the feedback and comments so far. Do read Taylor's account for yourself in my online modern spelling edition.
Follow live updates on twitter @DrJ_Gregory #WaterPoet2017
*'Parishes: Hunningham', in A History of the County of Warwick: Volume 6, Knightlow Hundred, ed. L F Salzman (London, 1951), pp. 117-120. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/warks/vol6/pp117-120 [accessed 27 July 2017].
