| vant than I am. 
Appin 13. 1850. ] 
NOTES AND QUERIES. 
379 
of Cartwright, and the “inflexible animosity” of 
Whitgift. ‘The very reverse of all this is the 
truth. J. K. 
INEDITED LETTER OF THE DUKE OF MONMOUTH. 
Several notices of the Duke of Monmouth 
having appeated in “ Notes anp Querres,” you 
may be glad to have the following letter, which I 
copied literatim some years ago in the State Paper 
Office from the domestic papers of the year 1672. 
The letter was written to Lord Arlington, then 
Secretary of State. Monmouth was at the time 
commanding the English force serving under 
Louis XIV. against the Dutch, and was in his 
twenty-third year. Mr. Ross had been his tutor ; 
and was at this time, I believe, employed in the 
Seeretary of State’s oflice. 
‘“‘ffrom the Camp nigh 
“ Renalle the 29 Jun 
«“ Mr Ross has tolld mee how mutch I am obliged to 
you for your kindnes w‘® I am very sensible of and 
shall try to sho it upon all occations. I will asur you 
the effects of your kindnes will make me live within 
compas for as long as I receave my mony beforehand 
I shall do it wt? a greadell of easse. 
“JT wont trouble you wt* news becaus Mr. Aston 
will tell you all ther is. I will try to instrokt him all 
as well as I can. I wont trouble you no longer, only 
I doe asur you ther is nobody mor your humble ser- 
* Monmouru. ” 
C. 
LYDGATE AND COVERDALE, AND THEIR 
BIOGRAPHERS. 
Dan John Lydgate, as Warton truly observes, 
was not only the poet of his monastery, but of the 
world in general. Yet how has he been treated 
by his biographers? Ritson, in his Bibliographia 
Poeticu, says, “he died at an advanced age, after 
1446.” Thomson, in his Chronicles of London 
Bridge, 2nd edition, p. 11., says, “ Lydgate died 
in the year 1440, at the age of sixty ;” and again, 
at p. 164. of the same work, he says, “ Lydgate 
was born about 1375, and died about 1461!” 
Pitts says that he died in 1482; and the author of 
the Suffolk Garland, p. 247., prolongs his life (evi- 
dently by a typographical blunder), to about the 
ear 1641! From these conflicting statements, 
it is evident that the true dates of Lydgate’s birth 
and decease are unknown. Mr. Halliwell, in the 
reface to his Selection from the Minor Poems of 
ohn Lydgate, arrives at the conclusion, from the 
MSS. which remain of his writings, that he died 
before the accession of Edward IV., and there 
appears to be every adjunct of external proba- 
bility ; but surely, if our record offices were care- 
fully examined, some light might be thrown upon 
the life of this industrious monk. I am not in- 
clined to rest satisfied with the dictum of the 
Birch MS., No. 4245. fo. 60., that no memorials 
of him exist in those repositories. 
The only authenticated circumstances in Lyd- 
gate’s biography (excepting afew dates to poems), 
are the following : — He was ordained subdeacon, 
1389 ; deacon, 1393; and priest, 1397. In 1423 
he left the Benedictine Abbey of Bury, in Suffolk, 
to which he was attached, and was elected prior 
of Hatfield Brodhook ; but the following year had 
license to return to his monastery again. These 
dates are derived from the Reeister of Abbott 
Cratfield, preserved among the Cotton MSS. Tiber, 
B. ix. 
My object in calling the attention of your readers 
to the state of Lydgate’s biography is, to draw 
forth new facts. Information ofa novel kind may 
be in their hands without appreciation as to its 
importance. 
I take this opportunity of noticing the different 
dates given of Myles Coverdale’s death. 
Strype says he died 20th May, 1565, (Annals of 
Reformation, vol. i. pt. ii. p. 43., Oxf. ed.), al- 
though elsewhere he speaks of him as being alive 
in 1566. Neale (Hist of Pur., vol. i. p. 185.) says, 
the 20th May, 1567. Fuller (Church Hist., p. 65. 
ed. 1655.) says he died on the 20th of January, 
1568, and “ Anno 1588,” in his Worthies of Eng- 
land, p. 198., ed. 1662. 
The following extract from “The Register of 
Burials in the Parish Church of St. Bartholomew’s 
by the Exchange” sets the matter at rest. ‘* Miles 
Coverdall, doctor of divinity, was buried anno 1568, 
the 19th of February.” 
That the person thus mentioned in the register 
is Miles Coverdale, Bishop of Exeter, there can 
be no doubt, since the epitaph inscribed on the 
tomb-stone, copied in Stow’s Survey, clearly states 
him to be so. It is, perhaps, unnecessary to ob- 
serve that the date mentioned in the extract is 
the old style, and, therefore, according to our 
present computation, he was buried the 19th of 
February, 1569. 
Can any of your correspondents throw any light 
upon the authorship of a work frequently attri- 
buted to Myles Coverdale, and thus entitled, “ A 
Brieff discours off the Troubles begonne at Frank- 
ford in Germany, Anno Domini, 1554. Abowte 
the Booke off common prayer and Ceremonies, 
and continued by the Englishe Men theyre, to the 
ende off Q. Maries Raigne, in the which discours, 
the gentle reader shall see the verry originall and 
beginninge off all the contention that hathe byn, 
and what was the cause off the same?” A text 
from “Mare 4.” with the date mptxxv. Some 
copies are said to have the initials “ M. C.” on the 
title-page, and the name in full, ‘ Myles Cover- 
dale,” at the end of the preface; but no notice is 
taken of this impression in the excellent introdue- 
tory remarks prefixed by Mr. Petheram to the 
reprint of 1846. If the valuable work was really 
