CAMDEN, William

(1551-1623)

William Camden was important both as an antiquarian and a historian, as exemplified, respectively, by his topographical survey Britannia and his Annales rerum Anglicarum et Hibernicarum regnante Elizabetha (Annals of English and Irish History in the Reign of Queen Elizabeth). Born in London on 2 May 1551 to painter Sampson Camden and his wife Elizabeth, he was educated at Christ's Hospital, St. Paul's School (1564-66), and Oxford University (1566-71)—at Magdalen, Broadgates Hall (Pembroke), and Christ Church—though without receiving the bachelor of arts. Returning to London in 1571 and devoting him­self to antiquarian studies, he became second master at Westminster School in 1575 and headmaster in 1593, where Ben Jonson* and other notables were his students. Queen Elizabeth* appointed him Clarenceux king-of-arms in 1597, prompting a scholarly feud with York Herald Ralph Brooke. His publications include Britannia (1586), a Greek grammar (1597), a list of Westminster Abbey epitaphs (1600), an edition of early English chronicles (1603), assorted Remains (1605), an account of the Gunpowder Plot trial (1607), and the first part (to 1588) of Annales (1615); the latter part appeared posthumously, as did a short history of James I's* reign, various Society of Antiquaries papers, and his cor­respondence. He died on 9 November 1623 and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Camden knew many contemporary scholars, including Sir Robert Cotton,* John Selden, and Sir Henry Spelman in England and Isaac Casaubon,* Abraham Ortelius, and Jacques-Auguste de Thou on the Continent. His Britannia contin­ues a tradition including the ancients Strabo and Varro, the Renaissance Italian Flavio Biondo, and Englishmen John Leland and William Lambarde. The first edition addresses only Roman Britain, but Camden gradually enlarged subse­quent editions to include the Anglo-Saxon and Danish periods. Though not directly challenging Geoffrey of Monmouth, Camden rejected the more fantastic elements of British legend. Camden traveled extensively but relied more on secondary sources than Leland. Camden's Annales, which Cotton may have helped write, represents a second tradition including Polybius, Tacitus, and the Renaissance scholars Leonardo Bruni, Francesco Guicciardini,* and de Thou. Camden revived the previously abandoned project in 1608 for King James, who was dissatisfied by George Buchanan* and de Thou's accounts of his mother, Mary Stuart* (Mary Queen of Scots). A continuous, complex narrative based on primary sources, it avoids fictional speeches, recognizes the contingent (as opposed to teleological) nature of history, defends the Anglican establishment, and praises Elizabeth's, and by implication James's management of Parliament and diplomacy. The Camden Society, founded in 1838, honors him with quality editions of primary sources.

Bibliography

H. Trevor-Roper, Queen Elizabeth's First Historian: William Camden and the Begin­nings of English "Civil History," 1971.

D. R. Woolf, The Idea of History in Early Stuart England: Erudition, Ideology, and "The Light of Truth" from the Accession of James I to the Civil War, 1990.

William B. Robison