THE ESSEX REVIEW: A Quarterly Journal for the County. No. 32.] OCTOBER, 1899. [VOL. VIII. JOHN STRYPE, F.S.A. BORN 1643-DIED 1737. BY ALFRED P. WIRE. OHN STRYPE was undoubtedly one of our greatest antiquaries, and may be classed with such men as Stow and Camden. His voluminous works remain a monument of his patience, erudition and skill as a collector. Born in Houndsditch, London, on 1st November, 1643, in the troublous time of the struggle between Charles I. and his Parliament, John Strype, during his long life, saw this country pass through some of the greatest vicissitudes that our history records. When he was about six years old, Charles I. lost his head. Then came the Commonwealth, with the military despotism of Cromwell; after which, when 18 years old, he saw the restoration of the Stuarts in the person of Charles II. Strype was contemporary with the great Plague and Fire of London; lived to see the downfall of the Stuarts and the Revolution of 1658, with the entry of William III. into London; lived all through Anne's reign; saw the accession of the Hanoverian Family in the person of George I.; and survived until the eleventh year of the reign of George II. Yet in all this excitement, in all this revolution, this clashing of minds and swords, he took no active part. Like most great students, he led a quiet, uneventful life, collecting materials for the great works in which he vindicates the righteousness of that great religious reformation which in these days some are so zealously endeavouring to abrogate and discredit. John Strype came of a family who left the Continent to seek refuge in England from religious persecution. His father's uncle, Abraham van Stryp, or Strijp, Strijp, was one of the founders of the Spitalfields silk industry. His father, John van Strype, came over to this country when a young man, joined his uncle in the silk trade, and after his uncle's death became the head of the business, in which he appears to have been very successful. He was naturalized as a British subject under the "Broad Seal," obtained his freedom of the City of London, and was several times master of the Silk Throwsters, or Throwers, Company. He died in 1647, leaving a competency to his widow. John, the youngest of the family, was then a weakly boy of four years of age. His father had destined him for the Church, and he was educated accordinglyfirst at St. Paul's School, whence he went to Jesus College, Cambridge, where he matriculated on July 5th, 1662. Afterwards, for some reason probably connected with his well known adhesion to the Protestant settlement, he migrated to St. Catherine's Hall, graduated B.A. in 1665, M.A. in 1669, and was afterwards incorporated M.A. at Oxford. After taking holy orders, he was appointed to the perpetual curacy of Theydon Bois, Essex, in July, 1669. In November of the same year he became minister of Low Leyton, Essex, having, it appears, been invited by the inhabitants. It is thought that the patron of the living did not interfere because the stipend was then so small-from 16 to £20 per annum. This post John Strype retained till his death in 1737, a long period of sixty-eight years-but he was never instituted or inducted into the living. Five years after accepting the appointment, he was licensed by Dr. Henchman, Bishop of London, to officiate during the vacancy of the Vicarage. This duty he discharged with conscientious assiduity, and it appears he enjoyed, until increasing age brought infirmity, marvellously good health. For in a letter to the Rev. Thomas Baker, dated Leyton, October 31st, 1717, he says This I write on the eve of my birthday, being seventyfour complete to-morrow, and in good health, I thank God—a kind of miracle of God's goodness to me, who in my younger days was very weak and sickly." Again in another letter to the same gentleman, dated Low Leyton, January 7, 1719, he says "This last Christmas was the fiftieth Christmas I have been at Leyton, and preached and administered the Holy Sacrament each Christmas Day without any omission." While executing the duties of vicar of Leyton, he obtained from Archbishop Tenison the sinecure of West Tarring, Sussex, and he was also Lecturer at Hackney till 1724. In the later years of his long life he became very infirm, and went to reside at Hackney, with Thomas Harris, a surgeon who had married his grand-daughter, Susan, daughter of his elder daughter Susannah, married to James Crawford, a cheesemonger. He died on December 11, 1737, aged 94 years. He was buried in Leyton Church. A stone slab in the floor recorded the death of his second daughter Hester, who died, aged 23, in 1711, the death of his wife Susanna (Lowe) in 1732, aged 68, and his own death on December 11, 1737. This has now disappeared. In the Gentleman's Magazine (1737, p. 767) and in Ogborne's History of Essex the date of his death is given as December 13. This date is undoubtedly wrong, the Dictionary of National Biography giving the correct date. In the wall of the south porch at Leyton, facing the door, is a simple incised slab of stone 19in. by 15in., with the words : JOHN STRIPE VICAR 1696 What this date refers to I do not know. I believe the stone was removed from the chancel floor in a later renovation of the church, and placed in its present position to preserve it. HICKES' MONUMENT, LEYTON CHURCH. During his long life Strype was an energetic collector of original MSS. and other papers illustrating the history of the Reformation, and the lives of the great men connected with it. We find him consequently in correspondence, and personal contact with, the chief authorities of the day. It also seems more than probable that Daniel Defoe in his tour through the Eastern Counties in 1722 saw Strype at Leyton, and obtained from him the information about the " great stone Causeway" through the marshes. Contemporary with Strype there lived at Ruckholt (a large mansion formerly situated not far from Leyton church, but now no longer in existence) the Hickes family. From Sir William Hickes he obtained access to, and also possession of, papers originally belonging to Lord Burghley, Queen Elizabeth's Secretary of State, to whom Sir Michael Hickes, his great grandfather, was private secretary. From many other sources he obtained papers to add to his grand collection, which at one time Lord Harley unsuccessfully attempted to buy to add to his own unrivalled store. It is said that Strype defaced many MSS. in order to obtain autographs for his friends. He used this mass of information in compiling his voluminous works, written as I have before said, with the intention of giving an accurate account of men and matters connected with the Reformation. Besides these works his edition of Stow's London is simply invaluable as a large storehouse of information. In this work he was assisted by the great printer, Bowyer the younger, and by the eminent antiquary, Mr. Browne Willis. The article in the Encyclopædia Britannica says that "the greater part of his (Strype's) materials are included in the Lansdowne Manuscripts at the British Museum." It is explained in the Dictionary of National Biography that they were purchased in 1772 by the Marquis of Lansdowne from Strype's representatives. John Strype also kept an exact diary of his own life, which was once in the possession of Mr. Harris, his son-in-law, but this diary has never been brought to light, although enquires have been made about it (cf. Notes and Queries, 7th ser. iv. 49). John Strype outlived his wife and all his family, and there is, I believe, no lineal descendant alive. From various published letters we get most interesting glimpses of the kindly old antiquary. Dr. Samuel Knight visited him about 1733, and says, in writing to a friend :— “I made a visit to old Father Strype (at Hackney) when in town last; he is turned of 90 years yet very brisk, and with only a decay of sight and memory. He would fain have induced me undertake Archbishop Bancroft's life, but I have no stomach for it, having no great opinion of him on more accounts than one. He had a greater inveteracy against the Puritans than any of his predecessors. Mr. Strype told me he had great |