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Brief Lives, Vol. 1

Chapter 177: Notes.
By John Aubrey
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BiographiesHistory - Early Modern (c. 1450-1750)

About This Book

A collection of concise biographical sketches compiled from the author's manuscript notes, offering anecdotal portraits of a wide range of literary, scientific, political, and social figures across several generations. Entries blend remembered quotations, learned citation, personal recollection, and occasional gossip, producing uneven but vivid character sketches. Material is presented alphabetically and supplemented by antiquarian notes, a short theatrical piece, and facsimiles of manuscript drawings and plans. An introduction outlines editorial principles and reproduces the manuscript spellings and citations where appropriate, preserving the informality and immediacy of the original notes.

Elizabeth Danvers.

[716]His[CY] mother, an Italian, prodigious parts for a woman. I have heard my father's mother say that she had Chaucer at her fingers' ends.

A great politician; great witt and spirit, but revengefull[717].

Knew how to manage her estate as well as any man; understood jewells as well as any jeweller.

Very beautifull, but only short-sighted. To obtain pardons for her sonnes[718] she maryed Sir Edmund Carey, cosen-german to queen Elizabeth, but kept him to hard meate.

Smyth of Smythcotes—Naboth's vineyard—digitus Dei[CZ].

The arcanum—'traditio lampadis' in the family of Latimer[DA] of poysoning king Henry 8—from my lady Purbec.

Notes.

[CY] i.e. Henry, earl of Danby's. She was Elizabeth, daughter of John Nevill, the last lord Latimer. 'An Italian' may mean that she knew that language, among her other accomplishments. I can make nothing of a note added by Aubrey here, which seems to read '... Cowley, crop-ear'd.'

[CZ] I do not know to what circumstance, in the history of the Danvers family, Aubrey here applies 1 Kings xxi. 19.

[DA] Catherine Parr, last consort of Henry VIII, was widow of John, 3rd lord Latimer; and step-mother of John, 4th lord Latimer, the father of this Elizabeth Danvers, whose grand-daughter ('viscountess Purbeck') was Aubrey's informant.