Papers of the Winthrop Family, Volume 1
1625-08-24
My true and vnfayned loue I commend to you, and to the Lady your wife,4 for whom I cordially desire, that her vertue and piety may exceed her honour, and then she is truly honourable every way. Good Isaak I haue received (partly by your letters, partly by your speech to my selfe, to Doctour Preston, and others) many smooth and good words: now is the time you are to manifest deeds aequivalent, and then I shall well pereceiue, that it was not a bare pleasing perfume that vanisheth. I cannot expresse to you how much I was greived at the hearing of your Grandfathers Will,5 yet (as god knoweth) not soe much for the littlenesse of legasies to your Father, and your Brothers, as for the blemmish of his reputation, who was soe eminent for wisdome and wealth. Sweet Isacke as you loue god, and the creditt of his gospell which you professe, and mee your true loving Grandmother, who doe desire your good every way, agree with your Father without suite in law, which will be both scandalous to others, and wastefull to yourselues. If I be put to it, I must, and will sweare truly to the articles of contract, and the note of inducement, by which I was drawne to accept of the match, which I had formerly denyed.6 But verbum sapienti satis.
324I haue sent you one doozen of gloves, and haue payd the glover, who hath abated of the price specified in his note viz: for two doozen of gloves with facing and fringe 50 s.: for two doozen of plaine gloves 20 s.: soe you owe mee 20 s., which you may give to Sam: for mee. My good will was to haue come to you with my husband, on purpose to be acquainted with my Lady your wife but some impediments haue put it of, but not taken it away: I waite for the next opportunity. And even soe, comending my selfe to your first and second selfe, I commend vs all to the gratious blessing of god in Christ Jesus, remayning while I am, or haue a beeing on earth Your loving Grandmother
Indorsed: “Gr: mother Chad: 24 Aug: 1625. Touchinge a pacification, with many and earnest pressings, etc.”
Cicely (Culverwell) Chaderton was the wife of Laurence Chaderton (1536?–1640), Master of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, one of the Puritan divines nominated by King James to attend the Hampton Court Conference in 1603, and one of the translators of the Bible. Abraham Johnson married, for his first wife, Anne Meadows (mother of Isaac), daughter of Robert Meadows of Stamford: his second wife was the sole child of Laurence Chaderton, and Cicely his wife; who, therefore, was indirectly ‘grandmother’ of Isaac Johnson, but directly of his half brothers and sister, children of Elizabeth (Chaderton) Johnson. 4
Collections
, VI. 28, note. Cf. B. Brook, Lives of the Puritans (London, 1813), II. 445–448; F. Peck, Desiderata Curiosa (London, 1735), bk. viii, p. 47, note; New England Historical and Genealogical Register, VIII. 359–362;
D. N. B.
, IX. 430–432; E. S. Shuckburgh, Emmanuel College (London, 1904), 24–56. Cicely Chaderton died in 1631.
W. 2. 12; 4
Collections
, VI. 28–29.
North Luffenham is a parish in the hundred of Wrangdike, co. Rutland.
Arbella, daughter of Thomas Fiennes or Clinton, third Earl of Lincoln, by his wife Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Henry Knevitt of Charlton, co. Wilts. Arthur Collins, Peerage of England, ed. Sir Egerton Brydges, II. 209.
Robert Johnson (1540–1625), archdeacon of Leicester and founder of the Oakham and Uppingham Schools, who had died in July. This passage is explained in a statement prepared by Abraham Johnson in 1638, printed in N. E. Hist. and Geneal. Register, VIII. 361.
The grandfather, Robert, had favored the match between Isaac and the Lady Arbella, but the father opposed it. The latter asserted that the marriage was clandestine and the parties had never dared tell him who had performed it. Ibid., VIII. 360–361.