persons whom they appointed to fulfil certain trusts belonged to thelatter county. These facts establish, that if the possessor of Kentwell and the poet were not identical, they were of the same family; and it is right to inquire in what way they could have been related. That they were not father and son is almost certain, from the dates which have been referred to; nor is it likely that they were brothers, for though instances of two sons bearing the same baptismal name sometimes occur, they are but rare. It is possible that they may have been first cousins ; but some slight difference would, in that case, probably have been found in their arms. Another argument in favour of their identity arises from the circumstance of there being no other John Gower mentioned in the various records of the reign of Edward III., Richard II., and Henry IV, which have been consulted, with the exceptions of the merchant of Dorsetshire, the lord of Pudeleston, and the person connected with Reading, the two latter of whom wrote their names Gour, than the individual who held the manor of Kentwell; and if the poet had not been the same person, it is difficult to believe that he would not once be mentioned as having been concerned in some official or legal proceeding, during the long period of sixty years. Against their identity may be urged, that the poet does not mention the manor of Kentwell in his will, or once allude to any church in Kent or Suffolk, or even to the one in which his supposed relation, Sir Robert Gower, was buried. To the first it may be answered, that it is unquestionable that he does not speak of all his property in his will; that the notice of Southwell and Multon merely arose from their having been assigned for the provision of his widow; and that the omission of any charitable bequest to the church near the manor of Kentwell is not more extraordinary than that the churches of Southwell and Multon should not have been remembered. Very few words will be sufficient to set aside the claim which Mr. Todd and other writers have advanced on the part of the Gowers of Stitenham, in Yorkshire, to the honour of being of the poet's family. The solitary document adduced by that learned gentleman in favour of the hypothesis, is a deed of a Robert de Ranclif, of Stitenham, granting to John his son, and Emma his wife, and the heirs of their bodies, certain messuages and lands in Stitenham, after the decease of Christian his wife, dated at Stitenham, on Wednesday next after Easter, 19th April, 1346, and witnessed by a John Gower; which deed is indorsed" in the hand writing" according to Mr. Todd, "of at least a century later, "1346, Joh❜es Gower, wittnes only. St John Gower the Poet '." It does not appear whether the remark, that," at the date of this deed, in 1346, Gower was upwards of twenty years of age," is founded upon evidence afforded by his writings, or upon any other proof; but it must not be forgotten that if he was twenty-one in 1346, he must have been eighty-three at his decease, an age to which few men attain. It is true, that about the year 1400 he de Illustrations, p. 92. scribes himself "senex et cæcus," but no other circumstance, that we are aware of, supports the idea that he was so very aged at his death. Conceding, however, that the poet was born as early as 1325, it is infinitely more probable, that the John Gower who was a witness to the deed of 1346, was a member of a family which was then resident in the very county' in which it was dated, than that it should have been a man who held lands in Kent and Suffolk. The strongest evidence against the opinion that the poet was of the Yorkshire family of Gower yet remains to be adduced-the entire difference of their arms. The one having borne Argent on a chevron Azure three leopards' heads Or; and for their crest, on a chapeau, a talbot passant; and the other Barry, Argent, and Gules a cross patee flore Sable; and as their crest, a wolf passant, Argent, collared, and chained, Or. To contend that individuals, living in the reign of Edward the Third, were related, who bore arms so radically distinct, would be absolute nonsense, "unlesse," as Thynne justly observed on this very question, "you canne prove, that beinge of one howse they altered their armes uppon some juste occasione, as that some of the howse maryinge one heyre did leave his owne armes, and bare the armes of his mother." Mr. Todd has cited Leland, Bale, Pitts, and Holinshed, in favour of the opinion, that "the poet was a Gower of Stitenham," but he has omitted to notice the assertion of Weever, who, speaking of Sir Robert Gower who was interred at Brabourne, expressly says, "From this familie John Gower the poet was descended." Mr. Todd's authorities stand wholly unsupported by proofs, but Weever's remark derives no slight corroboration from Sir Robert and the poet having borne the same arms. Thus the statements of Mr. Todd's witnesses are not only without similar proof to that possessed by Weever, but, before their testimony can be useful, they must satisfactorily explain why they are destitute of it; and establish that it is more probable that two men, in the fourteenth century, were of the same family, whose arms were as different as black and white, than that there should be a near relationship between two, whose arms were precisely the same? Against such facts it would be a waste of words to argue; and we shall briefly insert all that is known of a family of Gower, with which it is probable the poet was connected, from the time of his death until its extinction in the male line. He does not mention any child in his will, whence Mr. Todd has made this solemn deduction, "Yet Gower, as represented to us in that document, was of too pious and considerate a temper to omit the notice of offspring, if, at the time when he bequeathed his considerable property, the endearing name of father belonged to him." Such an omission certainly renders it unlikely that he had issue; but it is not conclusive. It is manifest from the probate, that he had other property than is spoken of in his will, and if he had only one son, or if he had female issue only, he or they would have succeeded to it; hence it was not requisite that he should haye specially provided for them by legacies. It is also remarkable In the 9 Hen. V. 1421 (and 14 Hen. VI. 1435-6), a Walter Gower is expressly described" of Stitenham."-Collins' Peerage, ed. 1779, vol. v. p. 139. 2 Funeral Monuments, p. 270. that he does not leave any other bequests than to priests, hospitals, and for other pious or charitable purposes, excepting to Agnes his wife. His will certainly proves that he was possessed of considerable property, and the omission of any title after his name tends to establish that he was not a knight, a point on which some comments have been made', notwithstanding that in the inscription which is said to have been placed on the ledge of his tomb, he is called an " Esquire." Although the degree of relationship which existed between the poet and Sir Robert Gower cannot be determined, they must have been nearly connected in blood; and a reasonable opinion is, that the former was his nephew. That he was not Sir Robert's son is proved by his daughters being his heirs, as well as from the one sister having been found heir to the other. The dates render it very improbable that they were brothers, for allowing that the poet was born in 1326, there would be at least a difference of twelve years in their ages, and which supposes that Sir Robert was only twenty-one when he obtained the grant of Kentwell from the Earl of Atholl, in 1335, though the presumption is that he was then much older. Sufficient evidence that Gower was "well born," is to be found in the fact that he used coat armour; and it is further supported by the proofs which have been here adduced, that the same arms were borne by a knight of his name in the early part of the reign of Edward the Third; a period when the assumption of armorial ensigns, without ample authority, would have been punished with considerable severity. Every effort to obtain information with respect to the manor of Southwell, which the poet says in his will he possessed, has wholly failed, for it has not been discovered how or when he acquired it; nor can its descent be traced from that time. To the preceding observations, notices will be added of such persons of the name of Gower as have been considered descendants of the poet 2, or who, from local circumstances, may be thought to have been related to him. A John Gower was vicar of the church St. Stephen, alias Hackington, in Kent, and died there on the 27th December, 14573, and it may have been the same person who, by the title of " John Gower, Clerk, of the parish of St. Dunstan's near Canterbury, was a feoffee of the lands of William Spycer in Hackington, on the 9th September, 20 Hen. VI., 1442*.” In the 33 Hen. VI. 1454, Thomas Gower, of Clapham in Surrey, Esquire, was bound for his son Richard, and the other bondsman was John Gower, of the same place, Esquire. The said Thomas 1 Biographia Britannica. 3 Hasted's Kent, ed. 1790, vol. iii. p. 601. tion on his tomb: 2 Ibid. article GOWER. Weever has given a copy of the inscrip "Hic jacet Dominus Johannes Ecclesie qui obijt Decemb' xxvii M.CCCC.LVII. cujus anime," &c.-P.260. 4 Ancient Charters, 80. D. 43. 5 MS. collections of the late Francis Townsend, Esq., Windsor Herald, apparently from the Clause Rolls, 33 Hen. VI. m. 27 do. This John Gower was probably the brother of Thomas, and uncle of Richard. He could not have been the John Gower, of Clapham, Esq., who was killed at the battle of Tewksbury, and will be hereafter spoken of; for made his will on the 11th of July, 1458, by which he ordered his body to be buried in the church of the Holy Trinity of Clapham in Surrey. He bequeathed to his wife Joan his tenement in Southwark called the Falcon, in the parish of St. Mary Magdalen, near the hospital of St. Thomas the Martyr, with remainder after her death to his sons Richard and John. To his eldest son Richard he gave his house in Clapham; to his son John his lands in Chingford in Essex ; and he was also possessed of lands in South Lambeth. He directed that, notwithstanding these bequests, all the rents and profits of his estates, during the life of his wife, should be divided into three parts between her and his said sons. If his sons died without issue, he devised all his property to William Passele and Isabel Passele, children of John Passele and Lodovice Passele, his daughter deceased; and if the said William and Isabel died issueless, he directed that all his lands should be sold to support three chaplains: one at Clapham; one at St. Peter's, under the tower of London; and one at the hospital of St. Thomas in Southwark aforesaid. The residue of his effects, whether in England or in parts beyond the sea, he gave to his wife and two sons, they to distribute the same for the health of his soul, and constituted his wife the principal, and his sons his other executors. He died in the same year, as his will was proved by his executors, on the 24th of December, 14581. John Gower, of. Clapham, Esquire, who by one writer is said to have been the poet's grandson, was a zealous adherent to the Lancastrian interest, and for his services to Henry the Sixth, was attainted of high treason in the 4 Edw. IV., 14643, when his lands in Surrey and Essex', in which county he possessed Shyngilforth-hall, and 280 acres of land and 50 of meadow, were granted to Thomas Garnet, Esquire, by letters patent, dated the 26th Sept. 6 Edw. IV., 14666, and he was slain at the battle of Tewksbury, 4th May, 1471 7. The petition of Anne Pympe, in the 1 Hen. VII., 1485, for the reversal of the said John Gower's attainder, contains much information on the pedigree of that family. She describes herself as Anne that person is proved by the petition of Ann Pympe, in 1485, which will be agair noticed, to have been the son of Thomas Gower, the testator in 1458, and brother of Richard, who was bound to a trade in 1454. It is therefore certain, that in 1454 there was a John Gower living at Clapham, in Surrey. A William Gower was one of the "Squiers of attendaunce" on King Henry VI. in the 33rd year of his reign, Ao 1454-5. Ordinance of his Household, p. *17. Record in Doctors' Commons, marked 14, Stockton. 2 "A very ingenious and indefatigable writer," cited in the Biographia Britannica, article GowER; but a comparison of dates renders it much more likely that, if descended from the poet, he was his great-grandson. 3 Rolls of Parliament, vol. v. pp. 511-12. 4 Ibid. p. 589. 5 lbid. vol. vi. P: 85. 6 Ibid. p. 309. 7 MS. in the College of Arms, marked Philpot's A, whence it appears that John Pashley and Lewis Gower had issue besides Elizabeth who married Reginald Pympe, a son William, two daughters who were both called Joan, and one of whom was the wife of Philip Cecill, and a daughter Isabel. As the daughter of the said Elizabeth Pympe calls herself the heiress of John Gower, neither of the other children of John Passele and Lewis Gower could have left issue that survived until the year 1485. The subjoined genealogical table of such branches of the family of Gower of Suffolk, Kent, Essex, and Surrey, as are spoken of in the text, may be useful. VOL. 11-PART I. 1 JOHN GOWER, of Clapham in Surrey, LEWYS GOWER died JOAN PASSELE. before July, 1458. ISABEL PASSELE, living JOHN GOWER, vicar of St. Stephen's, ELIZABETH PASSELE,: REGINALD 1st wife. SIR JOHN SCOTT,ANN PYMPE, heir to her mother: petitioned 1st husband. |