Memoir of John Aubrey, F.R.S.; embracing his autobiographical sketches, a brief review of his personal and literary merits, and an account of his works, with extracts from his correspondence, anecdotes of some of his contemporaries, and of the times in which he lived / By John Britton ... Published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society [with its 5th Annual Report, 1845].
- John Britton
- Date:
- 1845
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Memoir of John Aubrey, F.R.S.; embracing his autobiographical sketches, a brief review of his personal and literary merits, and an account of his works, with extracts from his correspondence, anecdotes of some of his contemporaries, and of the times in which he lived / By John Britton ... Published by the Wiltshire Topographical Society [with its 5th Annual Report, 1845]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
67/158 page 45
![One of his notes runs thus :— “I have the Deed of Entaile of the Lands in Brecon. and Monmouth. South Wales, by my great-grandfather William Aubrey, LL.D. w*? lands now of right belong to me.”* And in his Life of Dr. Aubrey he more fully states his claim to the estates in question, as follows :— “He [Dr. A.] purchased Abercunvrig (the ancient seate of the family) of his cosen Aubrey. He built the great house at Brecknock ; his studie lookes on the river Uske. He could ride nine miles together in his owne land in Breconshire. In Wales and England he left 2500 Jb. per ann. whereof there is now none left in the family... ... He made a deed of entaile (36 Eliz.) w is also mentioned in his will, whereby he entailes the Brecon estate on the issue male of his eldest son, and in defailer, to skip the 2d son (for whom he had well provided, and had married a great fortune) and to come to the third. Edward the eldest had seaven sonnes, his eldest son, Sir Will. had also seaven sonnes, and so I am heere the 18** man in remainder, w*? putts me in mind of Dr. Donne, “ For what doth it availe “ To be the twentieth man in an entaile?” fF Entangled in such a net of litigation, it is not surprising that Aubrey was ultimately in fear of his creditors, and apprehensive not only of legal proceedings during his life but of the seizure and destruction of his literary labours after his death. As early as 1661 and 1662 he sold his two estates in Herefordshire. The manor of Burleton near Hereford, which had belonged to his father, he disposed of to Dr. F. Willis, and an estate, the name of which he writes as Stratford, or Strafford, [meaning perhaps Stretford, a small parish near Leominster,] to Herbert Croft, Bishop of Hereford.t Some letters from the reverend prelate respecting this pur- chase are in Aubrey’s collection at Oxford. In one he states that “he has made inquiries respecting it, and is assured that, together with the copyhold, the utmost value is a hundred a year; that scarce any improvement can be made in it by the * MS. slip at the end of Aubrey’s Faber Fortune. + Lives of Eminent Men, vol. ii. p. 215. { Consecrated 21 Jan. 1662, and continued bishop of that see till his death in 1691. He is very highly spoken of by Browne Willis, and by Wood in Athene Oxonienses.](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b33522169_0067.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
