CHARLES BUTLER 
A Likeable Hampshire Worthy 
Charles Butler earned a place in the annals of three contemporary historians : John Aubrey, Thomas Fuller, 
Anthony a Wood : and his five books were well received in University and Court circles in the reigns of 
James I and Charles I. These books dealt with logic, bee-keeping, theology, grammar, and music. His 
versatility was matched by the vitality of some of his forward-looking ideas, which still claim attention. 
In 1913 a book appeared in Germany on Butler’s philology. In 1925 the Musical Times drew attention to 
his unique bee-music. In 1952 a natural history journal in America is publishing instalments of a work 
on Butler and his descendant, Gilbert White, of Selborne. It is not given to many men to reach eminence 
in so many ways as did Charles Butler, author, schoolmaster, and devoted country parson. Thomas Fuller 
included him in “ The Worthies of England ” in 1662 : and fifty-four years of his long life were spent in 
and around Basingstoke. 
A Musician, Schoolmaster, and Country Parson. Ambrose Webbe, Vicar of St. Michael’s, Basingstoke 
(1597-1648), was probably responsible for bringing Butler to North Hampshire, because both were con- 
temporaries at Magdalen College, Oxford, both came to this neighbourhood in the same year, and both 
proved to be convinced Anglicans. Butler bade farewell to Thomas Pygot, Knight, in a note dated at 
Oxford in May, 1593. From 1579 onwards he had been a chorister at Magdalen, and an industrious student 
proceeding M.A. in 1587. He probably remained as a teacher, for he had written there a school-book, 
“ The Logic of Ramus,” although it was not published until 1597 in his Basingstoke days. It is not unlikely 
that Thomas Pygot was related to Richard Pygot, a musician-monk, pensioned at the dissolution of the 
monasteries and already a member of the Chapel Royal. If so, this may be a link in Butler’s musical 
interests. 
There is no record of Butler’s ordination either at Oxford or at Winchester; but the first see was vacant, 
and no ordinations are recorded in the Bishop’s registers at Winchester from 1593 for many years. He 
was appointed in 1593 Rector of Nately Scures, with its tiny 12th-century Church, four miles to the east of 
Basingstoke : and two years later he became Master of the Holy Ghost School on the north side of that 
town, with a stipend of ^12 a year. He was the most outstanding of all the Elizabethan Schoolmasters at 
Basingstoke, for his school-book, “ The Logic of Ramus ” became a “ best seller,” used in schools 
and the University of Oxford “ with love and liking.” Butler was the English Ramus, for he spread here 
the views on logic taught by Pierre de la Rame (1502-70) in France, whose breach with the accepted views 
of Aristotle aroused such hostility that his foes threw him from his window to the daggers of the mob below 
in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew’s night. It is fitting that Butler’s name is lifted high above old Basing- 
stoke, inscribed on the 13th-century Tower wall of the Holy Ghost ruins, for that wall is all that remains 
of his School. Its modern counterpart, Queen Mary’s Grammar School, is nearby; the Head Master like 
Butler is styled “ Chaplain of the Holy Ghost School ”; the badge includes “ The Dove,” and the motto 
is “ Spiritum Nolite Extinguere,” both dear to Butler. In 1600 he resigned his Rectory and School- 
mastership to become Vicar of Wootton St. Lawrence, which Anthony a Wood described as a “ poor 
Vicarage, God wot, for so worthy a scholar.” Butler retained a connection with Ambrose Webbe and 
St. Michael’s, for in 1622 the Basingstoke Churchwardens’ accounts record : “ received of Charles Butler 
for his wife’s seat to sit in the 8th seat in the south side range, where widow Edwards sat, 16d.” Butler 
proved to be a painstaking Vicar of Wootton in every way until his death forty-seven years later at the age 
of 88 or thereabouts, when he was buried in a nameless grave in the chancel. 
The Four Books, written at Wootton, on Bees, Theology, Grammar, Music (1609-36). 
1609. “ The Feminine Monarchy, or History of Bees.” Dr. H. M. Fraser, an authority on Butler, 
writes in the Bee World in 1950, “ no-one has ever tried to replace this classic bee-book; the author was a 
ripe scholar, who possessed one of the most powerful intellects, which have ever engaged in bee-keeping.” 
Mr. Gerald Hayes in the Musical Times in 1925 says : “ this is not only a manual for the bee-keeper, but 
is lifted far above that level with an insight and a beauty, which render it worthy of a place beside the famous 
work of a modern poet.” Chapter V contains the four pages of bee-music at swarming time, sounds of the 
bees set to their equivalent musical notes: and the amazingly patient observer, Butler, writes : “ I am sure, 
if I miss, I miss but little ” of these sounds. Chapters IV and VI give Butler’s discoveries of the male sex 
of the drones, and the wax scales which form into the comb. His cautious observations enabled him 
confidently to part company with the host of ancient bee-writers on various points : but this same caution 
hindered him from advancing suggestions, which might well have brought him to one of Nature’s astounding 
facts. This fact was that “ the queen-bee after a single traffic with a drone continues to produce fertile 
eggs for the rest of her three or four years of life ! ” The book “ travelled into the most remote parts of this 
great Kingdom of Great Britain, and was entertained of all sorts, both learned and unlearned.” In 1623 a 
second edition had a foreword in verse by Dr. John Hammond, Royal Physician to James I. In 1634 the 
third edition was boldly written in Butler’s new phonetic spelling (“ Feminin Monarki ”), with a foreword 
in verse by George Wither, of Bentworth, whose praise soars in the final lines, “ Butler, he’ll say (who 
hese thy writings sees) Bees counsel thee or else thou counselst Bees.” This edition was dedicated to Queen 
I lenrietta Maria : and so arose a custom whereby all great bee-books were dedicated to Queens and never 
> Kings (Warder’s to Queen Anne; T. Wildman’s to Queen Charlotte; Bevan’s to Queen Victoria). 
