CHAPTER XXIV. THOMAS SHEPARD'S MEMOIR OF HIMSELF. T. {MY BIRTH AND LIFE.} S. XXIV. Nov. In the year of Christ 1604,' upon the 5th day of CHAP. November, called the Powder Treason day, and that very hour of the day wherein the Parliament should 1604. have been blown up by Popish priests, I was then born; ~5. which occasioned my father to give me this name, Thomas; because, he said, I would hardly believe2 that ever any such wickedness should be attempted by men against so religious and good [a] Parliament. My father's name was William Shepard, born in a little poor town in Northamptonshire, called Fossecut, near Towcester; and being a 'prentice to one Mr. Bland, a grocer, he married one of his daughters, of whom he begat many children, three sons, John, William, and Thomas, and six daughters, Ann, Margaret, Mary, Elizabeth, Hester, Sarah; of all This is a singular anachronism, antedating the Powder Plot a whole year. It is well known that it was in 1605 that this plot was contrived. 2 An allusion to the skepticism of the Apostle Thomas, recorded in the Gospel of John, xx. 25. 500 SHEPARD'S PARENTAGE AND FAMILY. CHAP. which only John, Thomas, Anna, and Margaret, are XXIV. still living in the town where I was born, viz. Towcester,' in Northamptonshire, six miles distant from the town of Northampton, in Old England. I do well remember my father, and have some little remembrance of my mother. My father was a wise, prudent man, the peacemaker of the place ; and toward his latter end much blessed of God in his estate and in his soul. For there being no good ministry in the town, he was resolved to go and live at Banbury,2 in Oxfordshire, under a stirring ministry, having bought a house there for that end. My mother was a woman much afflicted in conscience, sometimes even unto distraction of mind; yet was sweetly recovered again before she died. I being the youngest, she did bear exceeding great love to me, and made many prayers for me; but she died when I was 1608. about four years old, and my father lived, and married a second wife, now dwelling in the same town, of whom he begat two children, Samuel and Eliza1614. beth, and died when I was about ten years of age. But while my father and mother lived, when I was 1607. about three years old, there was a great plague in the town of Towcester, which swept away many in my father's family, both sisters and servants. I being the youngest, and best beloved of my mother, was sent away the day the plague brake out, to live with my aged grandfather and grandmother in Fossecut, a most blind town and corner, and those I lived with also being very well to live, yet very ignorant. And 1 Towcester is a market town, eight miles from Northampton. Population in 1841, 2749. 2 Banbury is a borough and market town, 69 miles northwest from London. Population in 1841, 7366. HE IS SENT TO SCHOOL. 501 XXIV. there was I put to keep geese, and other such country CHAP. work, all that time much neglected of them; and afterward sent from them unto Adthrop, a little blind 1607. town adjoining, to my uncle, where I had more content, but did learn to sing and sport, as children do in those parts, and dance at their Whitson Ales ;' until the plague was removed, and my dear mother dead, who died not of the plague, but of some other disease, after it. And being come home, my sister Ann married to one Mr. Farmer, and my sister Margaret loved me much, who afterward married to my father's 'prentice, viz. Mr. Mapler, and my father married again to another woman, who did let me see the difference between my own mother and a stepmother. She did seem not to love me, but incensed my father often against me; it may be that it was justly also, for my childishness. And having lived thus for a time, my father sent me to school to a Welshman, one Mr. Rice, who kept the free school in the town of Towcester. But he was exceeding curst and cruel, and would deal roughly with me, and so discouraged me wholly from desire of learning, that I remember I wished oftentimes myself in any condition, to keep hogs or beasts, rather than to go to school and learn. 2 But my father at last was visited with sickness, having taken some cold upon some pills he took, and so had the hickets3 with his sickness a week together; 'These were the sports and dances usual in the country at Whitsuntide. They were attended with ludicrous gestures and acts of foolery and buffoonery, and commonly ended in drunkenness and debauchery; and of course were discountenanced by the grave Puritans. See the description of them in Brand's 2 Crusty, peevish, snarling. 3 502 HE RESOLVES TO BE A SCHOLAR. CHAP. in which time I do remember I did pray very strongly XXIV. and heartily for the life of my father, and made some covenant, if God would do it, to serve Him the better, as knowing I should be left alone if he was gone. Yet the Lord took him away by death, and so I was 1614. left fatherless and motherless, when I was about ten years old; and was committed to my stepmother to be educated, who therefore had my portion, which was a £100, which my father left me. But she neglecting my education very much, my brother John, who was my only brother alive, desired to have me out of her hands, and to have me with him, and he would bring me up for the use of my portion; and so at last it was granted. And so I lived with this my eldest brother, who showed much love unto me, and unto whom I owe much; for him God made to be both father and mother unto me. And it happened that the cruel schoolmaster died, and another came into his room, to be a preacher also in the town; who was an eminent preacher in those days, and accounted holy, but afterward turned a great apostate, and enemy to all righteousness, and I fear did commit the unpardonable sin. Yet it so fell out, by God's good providence, that this man stirred up in my heart a love and desire of the honor of learning, and therefore I told my friends I would be a scholar; and so the Lord blessed me in my studies, and gave me some knowledge of the Latin and Greek tongues, but much ungrounded in both. But I was studious, because I was ambitious of learning and being a scholar; and hence when I could not take notes of the sermon, I remember I was troubled at it, and prayed the Lord earnestly that he would help me to HE ENTERS EMMANUEL COLLEGE. 503 XXIV. note sermons; and I see cause of wondering at the CHAP. Lord's providence therein; for as soon as ever I had prayed (after my best fashion) Him for it, I presently, the next Sabbath, was able to take notes, who the precedent Sabbath could do nothing at all that way. So I continued till I was about fifteen years of age, 1619. and then was conceived to be ripe for the University; and it pleased the Lord to put it into my brother's heart to provide and to seek to prepare a place for me there; which was done in this manner. One Mr. Cockerill, Fellow of Emmanuel College in Cambridge, being a Northamptonshire man, came down into the country to Northampton, and so sent for me; who, upon examination of me, gave my brother encouragement to send me up to Cambridge. And so I came up; and though I was very raw and young, yet it pleased God to open the hearts of others to admit me into the College a pensioner; and so Mr. Cockerill became my tutor. But I do here wonder, and, I hope, shall bless the Lord forever in heaven, that the Lord did so graciously provide for me; for I have oft thought what a woful estate I had been left in, if the Lord had left me in that profane, ignorant town of Towcester, where I was born; that the Lord should pluck me out of that sink and Sodom, who was the least in my father's house, forsaken of father and mother, yet that the Lord should fetch me out from thence, by such a secret hand. 1620. The first two years I spent in Cambridge was in studying, and in much neglect of God and private prayer, which I had sometime used; and I did not regard the Lord at all, unless it were at some fits. The third year, wherein I was Sophister, I began to 1621. |