CHAPTER XXII. DOMESTIC LIFE. Grindal's horticultural tastes.-His present of grapes to the queen.False report of the plague in his household.-Offence at court occasioned thereby.-Grindal's vindication of himself.--His controversy with Bishop Sandys.-His wish to do the queen due honour at York.— His friendship with Spenser.-His misfortunes described in the 'Shepheard's Calender.'-Grindal's 'Dialogue between Custom and Verity. His doctrine of the Real Presence.-List of his works.-His kindness to foreigners and to many English divines-His patronage of the art of music.-His gifts to various schools and colleges.-His improvement of and care for his episcopal residences. His will and testament. He retires to Croydon. His death, July 6, 1583.-His effigy in Croydon church.-Various portraits of Grindal. CHAP. XXII. Edmund Or the private life of the archbishop we have hitherto had little to say. He has had few biographers, and we have had to gather our private facts from general Grindal history and from instances casually related. Henceforth, 1575-6-however, we are by degrees admitted into an insight into his domestic concerns, and private employments and pleasures. 1583. Grindal's blindness, a grievous calamity to any one, was peculiarly so to him, for his was a refined mind, and he found especial pleasure in observing the various interesting objects of nature. He was inclined to be a florist, Grindal's if not a botanist; and it is evident that he must have ral tastes. found peculiar enjoyment in all that related to horticulture in an age which was, in all respects, an age of horticultu XXII. Grindal. 1583. His present to the queen, 1569. CHAP. advancement. When he was Bishop of London, he was celebrated for his grapes at Fulham, which he cultivated Edmund with great care, and he sent an annual present of them to 1575-6 the queen. How dangerous it was in those days to indulge even in an act of kindness, may be seen from what of grapes happened on one of these occasions. The season being backward, he was obliged to delay the transmission of the grapes. Eight days passed in September, and they were not yet fitted to become a royal present. In a postscript of a letter to Cecil, Grindal mentioned this circumstance; but withal expressed a hope, that in the following week the queen's majesty would have the grapes. Grindal sent them by one of his servants as soon as they were ripe. A report was immediately raised that one of his household lay dead of the plague, his house and that three more were sick. Great indignation was expressed at the danger to which the queen and her court were exposed. Had there been any foundation for this false report, it would have fared ill with the poor prelate. He thought it necessary to vindicate himself, which he did in a letter to Cecil: False report of the plague in hold. Grindal's vindica tion in a letter to Cecil. "I hear that some fault is found with me abroad, for sending my servant lately to the court with grapes, seeing one died in my house of the plague (as they say) and three more are sick. The truth is, one died in my house the 19th of this month, who had laid but three days; but he had gone abroad languishing above twenty days before that, being troubled with a flux; and thinking to bear it out, took cold, and so ended his life. But I thank God there is none sick in my house; neither would I so far have overseen myself, as to have sent to her majesty, if I had not been most assured that my man's sickness was not of the plague; and if I suspected any such thing now, I would not keep my household together, as I do. Thus much I thought good also to signify unto you. God keep you. CHAP Edmund Grindal. "From Fulham: September 20th, 1569. "To the Honourable Sir William Cecil, knight, secretary to the queen's majesty." * troversy on tions with Although Archbishop Grindal was a man of mild His contemper and of easy access, he was nevertheless very dilapidasturdy in maintaining his own rights; and we are sorry Sandys. to find him engaged in a controversy on dilapidations with his old friend Sandys, who succeeded Grindal in London when the latter was translated to York. He was also, as we have seen in the life of Parker, determined to maintain the rank, dignity, and status of the hierarchy. His misunderstanding with the queen, within a year of his translation to Canterbury, prevented him from giving those splendid entertainments in which Parker and Whitgift delighted, as a means of showing their gratitude to her majesty; but when the queen designed, in one of her progresses, to visit him at York, he was so anxious to have all things done with proper splendour that he entered into a correspondence on the subject with Parker, which has been duly noticed in the life of that primate.† Grindal may be distinguished from his immediate predecessor and from his successor by his attention to the niceties of polite literature. They were all three learned Grindal's divines, deeply read in the "Fathers;" but in addition to with patristic studies, we find Grindal regarded as the friend of Edmund Spenser, and as one to whom Spenser looked for the conso *Remains, p. 312. † See above, p. 79, Vol. iv. (New Series), p. 570. friendship Spenser. 66 CHAP. lations of friendship. The great poet, as his manner was, XXII. gave to him a new name, reversing the syllables of Edmund Grindal, and speaking of him as Algrind." In the 1575-6- Shepheard's Calender' for May, Spenser, speaking of pastors, observes : Grindal. 1583. Mentioned in the "Shepheard's Calender." His mis fortunes But shepheards (as Algrind used to say) Mought not live ylike men of the laye. The quotation implies the existence of much social intercourse and conversation. And again, in the "Shepheard's Calender" for July : : In this eclogue the elevation and misfortunes of Grindescribed dal are described-the eclogue being a pastoral dialogue allegorically commending meek and lowly pastors. One of the shepherds inquires who Algrind is : therein. But say mee, what is Algrind, hee That is so oft bynempt? To whom the following reply is given: Hee is a shepheard great in 'gree But hath bene long ypent: One day hee sat upon a hill, As now thou wouldest mee; For sitting so with bared scalp; An eagle sored hye, That, weening his white head was chalke, A shell-fish downe let flye; She weend the shell-fish to have broke, CHAP. But therewith bruzd his brayne; So now, astonied with the stroke, It is supposed that the eagle has reference to Queen Grindal may be regarded rather as a patron of literature than as an author. What works he wrote and published were professional. He delighted to read the poetry of Spenser; but he devoted all the powers of his own mind to the affairs of his diocese. I am about to present the reader with a list of Grindal's works; I am indebted for that list to the learned editor of Grindal's Remains,' who generally gives the authorities on which he relies; and, for what I suppose may be called a revision of the list, to the learned editor of the Athenæ Cantabrigiensis,' which work may be placed among the foremost of its kind. The only other book that I have attentively gone through besides those already quoted, as presenting us with the facts connected with Grindal's life, is that which was one of the earliest of his publications on his return to England -"A Fruitful Dialogue between Custom and Verity, declaring these words of Christ, 'This is my Body.'” may mention in passing that Grindal had the pen of a ready writer, and that whenever Parker desired to produce an early and accurate statement on the controversies of the day, he applied to Grindal. I XXII. Edmund Grindal. 1575-6 1583. 'Dialogue and The perusal of this little work by any who would Grindal's really know the state of feeling in the Church on some between important doctrines at this period of its history, will amply Custom recompense them for the time spent in the study of it. Truth' It was published by Foxe, and is an imaginaryDialogue between Custom and Truth.' |