xxii LIFE OF IZAAK WALTON. [1631, 



have removed to London ; and there is reason to beheve that she 

 resided with them until her decease. In the following passage in 

 the Life of Hooker, Walton thus speaks of his connection with the 

 Cranmer family ; ^ and the two sisters of William Cranmer, with 

 whom he says he had a " happy cohabitation," were probably his 

 mother-in-law, Mrs Floud, and the widow of Dr Spencer : 



" About forty years past (for I am now in the seventieth of my age) I 

 began -^ happy affinity with William Cranmer (novy with God), grand- 

 nephew unto the great archbishop of that name, a family of noted prudence 

 and resolution. With him and two of his sisters I had an entire and free 

 friendship : one of them was the wife of Dr Spencer, a bosom friend, and 

 some time corn-pupil with Mr Hooker in Corpus Christi College in Oxford, 

 and after president of the same. I name them here, for that I shall have 

 occasion to mention them in this following discourse ; as also their brother, 

 of whose useful abilities my reader may have a more authentic testimony 

 than my pen can purchase for him, by that of our learned Camden and 

 others. This William Cranmer and his two forenamed sisters had some 

 affinity and a most familiar friendship with Mr Hooker, and had had some 

 part of their education with him in his house when he was parson of 



9 The connections of the Cranmer family afford information about some of the persons 

 to whom Walton became known, and elucidate many points in his history. George, the 

 eldest son of Thomas Cranmer, and uncle of Mrs Walton, was born in 1578 ; he was 

 educated by Richard Hooker, the author of the Ecclesiastical Polity ; became a scholar 

 of Christ Church, Oxford ; and afterwards entered the service of his relation, William 

 Davison, secretarv of state to Queen Elizabeth. Upon the fall of that statesman, Cran- 

 mer became secretary to Sir Henry Killigrew in his embassy to France ; and, after 

 Killigrew's death, he accompanied Sir Edwyn Sandys in his travels into Germany and 

 Italy, and was at Florence and Vienna about November 1596. [See a letter from 

 Francis Davison, the eldest sqn of the secretary, to his father, printed in the memoir 

 prefixed to Davison's Poetical Rhapsody, ed. 1826, p. xxxii.J Soon after his return he 

 accepted the appointment of secretary to Lord Moiintjoy in Ireland, but was slain in an 

 action with the Irish at Carlingford on the 13th of November 1600, and died unmarried 

 [Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, I. ^foo]. Camden and Lloyd speak in strong terms of his 

 abilities and learning, and he is often mentioned by Walton. The second son, Thomas 

 Cranmer, was living in 1617. William Cranmer, the third son, who was a particular 

 friend of Walton's, was a merchant in London, and left a son, Sir William Crannier, 

 who was governor of the Merchants Adventurers of England, and died unmarrieiLin 

 his sixty-seventh year, on the 21st of September 1697. [Vide the inscription on phe 

 monument erected to his memory in the Church of St Mildred, Canterbury, by)his 

 nephew and executor, Mr John K^nrick.J The daughters of l^homas Cranmer were 

 Dorothy, born in 1575, married to an individual of the name of Field (possibly Dr 

 Richard Field, Dean of Gloucester, the friend of Hooker, who is mentioned as "tihat 

 great schoolman" in Walton's introductionto the collected edition of the Lives of Donne, 

 Wotton, Hooker, and Herbert), she was living in 1635. Rachel, the second daughter, 

 was born in 1577, married in 1597 John Blowfield, gentleman, and died in August 1600, 

 leaving one son of the name of George [M. I. in Margate Church, printed in CozSns' 

 Tour through the Isle of Thanet, p. 452], Elizabeth, the third daughter, was borii in 

 1574, married in 1592 Alexander Nonvood, gentleman, and was living in 1617 ; Susan- 

 nah, the fourth daughter, married Mr Floud ; Jane, the fifth daughter, was born in 

 1580 : the sixth daughter, Anne, married in 1581 John Sellar, had issue, and was living 

 in 1617 ; and Margaret, the youngest daughter, who was born in 1585, was living in 1604. 

 It is supposed that two of the daughters married persons of the names of Boote- and 

 Parry ; but it is certain that one of them was the wife of Dr John Spencer, president of 

 Corpus Christi College, Oxford, the bosom friend and fellow-pupil of Hooker, and" the 

 editor of his works. Dr Spencer died in 1614 [Athen. Oxon. ed. Bliss, II. I45],'^and 

 was probably the father of the Dr John Spencer who is described in the will orMrs 

 Floud in 163s as "Jier cousin." 



