xii The Complete Angler 



wrote, though John Marriott signed, an Address to 

 the Reader, printed, in 1646, with Quarles's Shep- 

 ^erd's Eclogues. The piece is a little idyll in prose, 

 "'and " angle, lines, and flies " are not omitted in the 

 description of "the fruitful month of May," while 

 Pan is implored to restore Arcadian peace to 

 Britannia, "and grant that each honest shepherd 

 may again sit under his own vine and fig-tree, and 

 feed his own flock," when the King comes, no doubt. 

 *' About" 1646 Walton married Anne, half-sister 

 of Bishop Ken, a lady " of much Christian meek- 

 nesse". Sir Harris Nicolas thinks that he only 

 visited Stafford occasionally, in these troubled years. 

 He mentions fishing in " Shawford brook " ; he was 

 likely to fish wherever there was water, and the 

 brook flowed through land which, as Mr. Marston 

 shows, he acquired about 1656. In 1650 a child 

 was born to Walton in Clerkenwell ; it died, but 

 another, Izaac, was born in September 1651. In 

 1651 he published the Reliquiae Wottonianae^ with 

 a Memoir of Sir Henry Wotton. The knight had 

 valued Walton's company as a cure for " those 

 splenetic vapours that are called hypochondriacal ", 

 Worcester fight was on September 3, 1651; the 

 king was defeated, and fled, escaping, thanks to a 

 stand made by Wogan, and to the loyalty of 

 Mistress Jane Lane, and of many other faithful 

 adherents. A jewel of Charles's, the lesser George, 

 was preserved by Colonel Blague, who intrusted 

 it to Mr. Barlow of Blore Pipe House, in Stafford- 

 shire. Mr. Barlow gave it to Mr. Milward, a Royal- 

 ist prisoner in Stafford, and he, in turn, intrusted 

 it to Walton, who managed to convey it to Colonel 

 Blague in the Tower. The colonel escaped and 

 the George was given back to the king. Ashmole, 

 who tells the story, mentions Walton as " well 

 beloved of all good men". This incident is, perhaps, 



