409 



AUBREY, JOHN. 



AUBUSSON, PIERRE D'. 



410 



lezais. He was however in a little time again at variance with Henry, 

 embracing the party of the Huguenots, and openly preferring their 

 interests to court favour. Nevertheless, when it was necessary to 

 confide the cardinal of Bourbou to a trusty guardian, Henry selected 

 D'Aubigne", notwithstanding the expostulation of his counsellors, 

 adding, that D'Aubign<5's word was a sufficient guarantee for his 

 faith. 



From the period of Henry's desertion of Protestantism, D'Aubigue" 

 was one of the firmest supports of the Huguenot interests. He asserts 

 that the ruin of the Huguenots and the downfal of their cause were 

 owing to the corruption of their chiefs ; nor does he exempt Sully 

 himself from this charge. As to D'Aubigne' himself, one thing is 

 certain, that ho might have been rich, like his comrades, and that he 

 was almost the only one who remained poor. His voice was always 

 raised for Huguenot independence against the insidious proposals of 

 the court. It was during his residence at Maillezais that he wrote 

 his chief work, ' The History of his Own Times,' a valuable document 

 for the Huguenots of France. It is a lively picture of passing events, 

 feats of war, and intrigues of court, in which the characters of the 

 personages concerned are sketched by a satiric but lively pen. The 

 last volume was printed at Maillezais in 1619, and in the following 

 year it was condemned by the Parlement of Paris to be burned. 

 The publication increased the hatred of the queen to D'Aubigne'. 

 The ministry had made frequent overtures to purchase the possession 

 of his fortress ; and when at last he found it no longer tenable, he 

 gave it up, not to the court, but to the chief noble of the Huguenot 

 party, the Duke de Rohan. D'Aubigne" then retired to Geneva, where 

 he arrived in September 1620, and was most honourably received. 

 He lived in exile ten years, during which he employed his time in 

 study, in writing, and in directing the fortifications raised at that time 

 around Berne and Basle, and other Swiss towns, as bulwarks of the 

 Protestant interest. The French court ceased not to disturb and 

 persecute him : according to his own statement they procured in all 

 four judgments of death to be recorded against him ; but he seems 

 to have heeded them very little, and they were probably rather in- 

 tended to prevent his return to Paris than to affect his life. His last 

 years were emb ttered by the scandalous conduct of his eon Constant, 

 afterwards the father of the celebrated Mad. de Maintenou. D'Aubignd 

 died in 1 630, and lies buried in the church of St. Rend at Geneva : over 

 him is a Latin epitaph written by himself. 



The works of D'Aubigne' are numerous and various. They consist 

 of poems, dramas, controversial tracts, bis great history, memoirs of 

 himself, and various satirical writings against his contemporaries. Of 

 these the principal are the ' Histoire Univer^elle depuis 1550 jusquo 

 a 1'an 1601,' published in Paris 1616; the 'Histoire Secrete,' men- 

 tioned above ; the ' Confession Catholique de Sieur De Sancy,' which is 

 chiefly directed against De Sancy, finance minister, and Cardinal du 

 Perron; and 'Les Aventures du Baron de Fooneste.' 



AUBREY, JOHN, born at Easton Piers, in Wiltshire, on March 12, 

 1625-6. He was the eldest son of Richard, only son of John Aubrey 

 of Burleton, in Herefordshire. He received his education in the 

 grammar-school at Malmesbury, under Mr. Robert Latymer, who had 

 also been preceptor to Thomas Hobbes, with whom afterwards, not- 

 withstanding disparity of years, Mr. Aubrey formed a lasting friend- 

 ship. In 1642 he was entered a gentleman commoner of Trinity 

 College, Oxford. Here he formed an acquaintance with Anthony a 

 Wood, to whoje collections for the history of the university and its 

 writers he became a contributor (' Life of Wood,' prefixed to Bliss's 

 edit, of the 'Athenae Oxon.,' p. lx.), as well as to the ' Monasticon 

 Antclicanum,' then recently undertaken by Dodsworth and Dugdale. 

 By the death of his father, in 1652, he succeeded to several estates in 

 the counties of Wilts, Surrey, Hereford, Brecknock, and Monmouth ; 

 and in his ' Miscellanies,' he acquaints us that he had also an estate in 

 Kent. In 1656 he became one of the club of commonwealth-men, 

 formed on the principles of Harrington's 'Oceana,' printed in that 

 year. (Wood, ' Athen. Oxon.,' edit. Bliss, voL iii. coL 1119.) The club 

 however was broken up in 1659. In 1660 Mr. Aubrey went into 

 Ireland, and upon his return, in the month of September that year, 

 he narrowly escaped shipwreck near Holyhead. His notes inform us 

 that he afterwards suffered another sort of shipwreck. He says, " On 

 November 1, 1661, I made my first addresses in an ill hour to Joan 

 Sommer." When he married is uncertain ; but from this remark we 

 gather that in that state he enjoyed no great felicity. In 1662 he 

 became a Fellow of the Royal Society. In 1 664 he was in France. 

 His estates, between lawsuits and mismanagement and perhaps, as 

 Wood intimates, his own expensive habits now became encumbered, 

 and about 1666 he seems to have disposed of several. In the space of 

 four years he was reduced not only to straits, but to indigence. Yet 

 his spirit remained unbroken. "From 1670," he says, " I thank God 

 I have enjoyed a happy delitescency." This obscurity, which he calls 

 happy, consisted in following up the bent of his genius, while he 

 owed his subsistence to the kindness of his friends ; and in labouring 

 to inform that world in which he knew not how to live. His chief 

 benefactress was the then Lady Long, of Draycot, in Wiltshire, in 

 whose house he had an apartment, and by whom he was generously 

 supported as long ag he lived. Dr. Rawlinson says ('Mem.,' p. xii.), 

 " that he was on his return from London to Lady Long's house, when 

 his journey and life were concluded at Oxford, where it is presumed 



he was buried, though neither the time of his obit nor his place of 

 burial can be yet discovered." The date of his death is variously 

 stated at 1697 and 1700. 



Anthony a Wood gives a peevish character of Aubrey, and says, 

 " he was a shiftless person, roving and magotie-headed, and sometimes 

 little better than erased ; and being exceedingly credulous, would 

 stuff his many letters sent to A. W. with folliries and misinformations 

 which sometimes would guide him into the paths of errour." (' Ath. 

 Oxon.,' Bliss's edit. ' Life,' p. lx.) Hearne informed Baker, the Cam- 

 bridge antiquary, that it was Aubrey who gave Wood that account of 

 the lord chancellor Hyde, which chiefly occasioned the prosecution 

 against him. Wood used to keep his vouchers. ('Ath. Oxon.,' iii. 644.) 

 Aubrey was doubtless both credulous and superstitious ; but he was 

 honest and diligent, and if his anecdotes require to be read with 

 critical distrust, there can be little doubt that he faithfully recorded 

 what he heard, and his very credulity has caused him to preserve 

 much which, if of no great value in itself, is curious as characteristic 

 of the age, and often not devoid of interest on its own account. He 

 was, it is said, regarded as one of the best naturalists of the day, but 

 much of his natural history reads very oddly now ; and he was for 

 the time a not unskilful antiquary. His collections have proved of 

 much service to antiquaries and literary commentaries. 



Aubrey's published works are I. ' Miscellanies,' Svo, London, 1696; 

 reprinted with additions, Svo, London, 1721 ; and Svo, London, 1784. 

 II. 'A Perambulation of the County of Surrey,' begun 1673 ended 

 1692. Published by Dr. Richard Rawlinson, under the title of ' The 

 Natural History and Antiquities of the County of Surrey,' begun in 

 the year 1673, by John Aubrey, Esq.. F.R.S., and continued to the 

 present time, 5 vols., Svo, London, 1719. 



Dr. Bliss, in a note to Wood's Life prefixed to the ' Athense," p. lx., 

 gives a detail of the manuscripts which Aubrey deposited in the 

 museum at Oxford. Most of the letters addressed to Anthony b, Wood 

 have been printed in ' Letters transcribed from the Originals in the 

 Bodleian Library and Ashmolean Museum,' 2 vols., Svo, Oxford, 1813. 

 Appendix, No. IT. 



(Biographia, Britannica; Chalmers, Blog. Diet. ; Gough, Brit. 

 Topog. ; Manning, Hist, of Surrey ; Britton, Memoir of John Aubrey, 

 printed for the Wiltshire Topographical Society.) 



AUBUSSO'N, PIERRE D', grand master of the order of St. John 

 of Jerusalem, was born in 1423 of a noble French family, descended 

 from the old viscounts of La-Marche. He served while yet very young 

 in the imperial army in Hungary against the Turks, and from that 

 time the prevailing idea of his mind seems to have been that of 

 fighting the Mussulmans, who then threatened to overpower Christian 

 Europe. D'Aubusson, having returned to France, was presented at 

 court by his cousin Jean d'Aubusson, chamberlain of Charles VII., 

 and became a favourite of the dauphin, afterwards Louis XI., whom 

 he accompanied in his expedition to Switzerland in 1444, and was 

 present at the battle of St. Jacob, near Basle. After some years he 

 proceeded to Rhodes, when he entered the order of St. John of Jeru- 

 salem. He obtained a comrnandery, was afterwards made grand prior, 

 and in 1476, on the death of the grand master Orsini, D'Aubusson 

 was elected to succeed him. In May, 1480, a large Turkish army, 

 said to be 100,000 strong, commanded by a Greek renegade of the 

 family of Paljeologi, landed on the island, and soon after invested the. 

 town, the fortifications of which D'Aubusson had previously strength- 

 ened in every practicable way. The greatest bravery was displayed 

 on both sides. The Turks made the first assault on the 9th of June, 

 but were repulsed. A second and general assault was made on the 

 27th of July, after the greater part of the fortifications had been 

 levelled by a previous cannonade. Seven Turkish standards were 

 already planted on the ramparts, and the Turks were pouring into the 

 town, when D'Aubusson, attended by a chosen band of French knights, 

 rushed to the spot, and after a desperate contest, in which he received 

 five wounds, the Turks were driven out of the breach, and were pur- 

 sued by the knights and the Rhodians towards their camp. The 

 invaders soon after sailed away from the island. This, which was the 

 first siege of Rhodes, lasted 89 days ; the Turks lost 9000 killed, and 

 carried away, it is said, 15,000 wounded. Mahomet II., greatly 

 irritated at the failure of the expedition, was preparing to renew the 

 attack in person, when he died at Nicomedia, in May, 1481. The 

 Turkish succession was disputed between his two sous, Bajazet and 

 Zizim ; and the latter being worsted in fight, took refuge at Rhodes, 

 where D'Aubusson received him with great honour, and afterwards 

 sent him for safety to Bourgneuf, a commandery of the order in 

 France. Bajazet made peace with the knights, and agreed to pay a 

 yearly sum for his brother's maintenance. Pope Innocent VIII. 

 demanded that Zizim should be intrusted to his guardianship ; and 

 D'Aubusson being obliged to comply, though unwillingly, the Turkish 

 prince went to Rome in 148,8, where he was treated with all atten- 

 tion. D'Aubusson, in reward for his compliance, was made a cardinal. 

 It had been a long cherished object of D'Aubusson's to bring about a 

 general league of the Christian princes against the Sultan, aud the 

 project seemed to be on the eve of accomplishment D'Aubusson him- 

 self, despite his great age, having been appointed commander of the 

 forces when the mutual jealousies and discordant ambitions of the 

 princes caused the frustration of the design. An ill-concerted attack 

 on Mitylene failed. Other objects of vexation, both abroad and at 



