Oxford Studies and Probable Studies at University of Leyden

A number of published sources contain biographical information about Richard Whitlock. Anthony à Wood and Joseph Foster both state that he was the son of a gentleman of London also named Richard, that he was born in London, and that he matriculated at Magdalen Hall at Oxford on 23 November 1632, aged 16.[2] Richard took a bachelor of arts degree at Oxford on 16 June 1635 and was elected a fellow of All Souls College in 1638. Two years later on 19 May 1640, he took a bachelor of common law degree.[3] According to Foster, Richard was also “called doctor of physic,” but Foster notes that he had not seen documentation of the M.D. degree, though when Richard published his work Zootomia in 1654 (about which more below), the title page of the book states that its author was “Richard Whitlock, M.D. Late Fellow of All-Souls Colledge in OXFORD.”[4] Regarding Zootomia and Richard’s title as doctor, Foster states,[5]

In the title of [Zootomia] he is stil’d doctor of physic, but it does not appear in our registers that he was so.

It might also be noted that when Richard’s aunt Margery Whitlocke of Yateley in Hampshire, England, made her will on 10 November 1657, she left a bequest “to my Cozen Doct^r Richard Whitlocke.”[6]  Margery was actually Richard Whitlock’s aunt, a sister of his father Richard Whitlock (abt. 1593 – 1642). As the Oxford English Dictionary notes, the term “cousin” was in the past very frequently used to “a denote collateral relative more distant than a brother or sister; a kinsman or kinswoman, a relative; formerly very frequently applied to a nephew or niece.”[7]

As Christopher Bentley notes, Richard Whitlock did, in fact, enroll at the University of Leyden, where he matriculated on 9 July 1643 and where it appears he studied medicine.[8] It might be noted here that Richard had family members to whom his branch of the Whitlock family appears to have had close ties, who were living in Europe at this point. Richard’s second cousin James Whitlock (b. 1601) was the son of yet another Richard Whitlock (1565-1624) who was a merchant living at Elbing, an East Prussian trading center in what was previously Sweden and is now Poland. Richard’s son James was born in Elbing in 1601, and was sent by his father to England to be educated by James’s uncle Sir James Whitlock (1570-1632), a London merchant. Sir James sent his nephew James to Magdalen College, Oxford, for an education — the same school at which the younger James’s cousin Richard Whitlock (1616-1666) was educated.[9]

Though Bentley thinks that Richard Whitlock may have enrolled at University of Leyden as a law student, he may then have switched to the study of medicine. As Bentley notes, Zootomia confirms his knowledge of the field of medicine and hints that he may also have had some contact with the faculty of medicine at University of Padua.[10] He concludes,

It seems very probable that Whitlock spent part of the Interregnum as a practicing physician; the mention in Zootomia of his “Vexations” and “Experienc’d Torture” in connection with the vagaries of patients can be taken in no other way.

He also thinks that Richard is likely the “Docter Whitlock” whose daughter Elizabeth was baptized at St. Dionis Backchurch in London on 18 April 1648 and buried at that church on 26 March 1649.[11]

Richard’s Inheritance of Manor of Beches, Wokingham, Berkshire, and Sale of Beches to His Brother Robert

In 1642, Richard collaborated with his brother Robert (1618-1670) and their mother Katherine in establishing a charity at the Whitlock family seat, Beches, in Wokingham in Berkshire.[12] Peter Whitlock provides important details about this charity, which was spearheaded by Robert and Katherine:[13]

In 1642 together with his mother Katherine (Brechette) Whitlock, Robert set up a charity in Wokingham as directed by his father’s Will. It was for the relief of the poor in Wokingham to be paid on St. Thomas’ day.

Originally the charity owned the following lands and properties: a cottage (5 tenements) in Langborough Lane or Down Street (now Denmark Street), a close in Little Langborough (11⁄2a) and 5a in Langborough Common Field. On inclosure in 1817 these lands exchanged for a close in Birchen Inhams (6a) and two in Langborough Common Field (3a). In 1856 all the land and property was sold and the proceeds invested.

Following the death of their father Richard Whitlock (abt. 1593 – 1642) in London sometime before 5 November 1642 when he was buried at St. Peter le Poer church, as the oldest son in his family, Richard (1616-1666) received the manor of Beches as an inheritance. His father’s will, written 15 August 1642, states that his son Richard was to have “my Mano^r of Beaches:” the bequest to Richard opens by stating,[14]

Imprimis I give unto my Sonne Richard Whitlocke during his usual life All that my Mano^r of Beaches….

Then the will goes on to specify other houses, mills, tenements, and land in Wokingham and Sonning bequeathed to Richard as the first son of the family.

Evidently preferring to continue his academic life instead of being lord of a manor, on 29 April 1644 Richard deeded Beches to his brother Robert, who had continued the London mercantile life of their father.[15] The indenture states:

Richard Whitlock, Gent of All Souls College, Oxford in consideration of £300 and in consideration with Robert Whitlock merchant to levy a….of the Manor of Beaches, Holt House and other lands and premises therein mentioned to the use of the said Robert Whitlock and his heirs and assigns forever.

Christopher Bentley notes that Richard Whitlock was still at All Souls College, Oxford, on 24 February 1642 when he signed the Protestation Returns on that date.[16]

On 24 February 1648, Richard’s mother Katherine Burchett Whitlock made her will in London (Prerogative Court of Canterbury 11/207, pp. 320-1). Katherine named her son Richard, along with his brothers Robert and John and sister Katherine Jordan in the will. Her will left to her son Richard £400, stipulating that this money was to be held in trust by Robert and John, along with Thomas Jordan (husband of Katherine’s daughter Katherine) and Richard Palmer, with yearly payments made to Richard Whitlock. As Peter Whitlock states in offering a transcript of the will in Whitlock Family Newsletter (“Will of Katherine [Burchette] Whitlock 1648,” Whitlock Family Newsletter 35,1 [March 2016], pp. 4-5), several years after Richard had deeded his inheritance of the manor of Beches to his brother Robert, their mother remained

concerned enough about her eldest son’s lack of financial ability that while she leaves all her sons £400, the legacy to Richard is not outright but rather an annuity to be paid in semi annual installments for his life and the legacy then goes equally to Richard’s children.

These were uncertain times. Three weeks before Katherine wrote her Will King Charles I was executed on January 30, 1648. Bulstrode Whitelocke, cousin to her late husband Richard Whitlock wrote in his diary that day: 30. Wh[itelocke] went not to the house [. Parliament] Butt stayed all day att home, troubled att the death of the King this day, & praying to God to keep his judgements from us. Katherine’s eldest son, Richard Whitlock (1616-1666) was a supporter of Oliver Cromwell and her other sons were fairly successful London merchants and most of London was for Cromwell. Both parents left substantial funds to their children and Katherine obviously felt she needed to keep capital out of the hands of her eldest son to ensure his wife and children would be provided for after his death.

Publication of Richard’s Book Zootomia, 1654

In 1654, Richard Whitlock’s book Zootomia, or, Observations of the Present Manners of the English: Briefly Anatomizing the Living by the Dead, With an Usefull Detection of the Mountebanks of Both Sexes was published.[17] As noted previously, the title page of the book identifies Richard as holding an M.D. degree, and states that he was a “Late Fellow of All-Souls Colledge in OXFORD.” As Bentley notes, it does not appear that Richard was ejected from All Souls by the parliamentary visitors who purged Oxford of Royalists in the 1640s, but the title page of Zootomia indicates that he had ceased to be a Fellow of All Souls by 1654.[18]

Bentley reads Zootomia as “a detailed and eloquent apology for the universities and established learning arising directly out of the Purtian criticism of the universities in the sixteen-fifties” which borrows largely (and plagiarizes) from Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy (Bentley, “The Anatopmy of Melancholy and Richard Whitlock’s Zootomia,” Renaissance and Modern Studies 13,1 [1969), p. 89; and Bentley, “The Rational Physician,” p. 181).

Peter Whitlock offers the following notes about Zootomia:[19]

This book was written by Richard Whitlock (1616-1666) and was published in 1654. The book is written in 17th century vernacular and contains quotes in Greek, Latin and French so is interesting but not easy reading. Richard was obviously not in favour of women becoming doctors and refers to them as “Quacking Dalilahs”. “I am confident a practicing Rib shall kill more than a jaw-bone of an Asse; and a Quacking Dalilah, than a valiant Sampson.”

Christopher Bentley sums up Richard Whitlock’s medical approach in Zootomia as follows:

In his attitude to unorthodox medical practitioners, Whitlock, though in no sense an official spokesman, largely represents the views of that influential and quasi-governmental body, the College of Physicians, “founded in London, with the avowed purpose of ridding England of quacks and raising the standards of practicing physicians,” and at this period still “a stronghold of Galenism’ and conservative medicine generally” (Bentley, “The Rational Physician,” p. 183, citing Phyllis Allen, ‘Medical education in 17th Century England,” Journal of the History of Medicine 1,1 [January 1946)], pp. 116-7; and R.F. Jones, Ancients and Moderns: A Study of the Rise of the Scientific Movement in Seventeenth-Century England, 2nd ed. [Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1961), p. 213).

As George Williamson concludes,

The intellectual bearings of Zootomia are perhaps best discovered by its informal relation to the attack upon learning and academies which broke out around the middle of the century (George Williamson, “Richard Whitlock, Learning’s Apologist,” Philological Quarterly 15,3 [July 1936], p. 259).

Richard’s Ordination by 1656

According to Anthony á Wood, Richard may well have taken the side of the Parliamentarians during the English Civil War, only to have chosen the Royalist side when he decided to seek ordination: Wood says,[20]

After Mr. Whitlock had run with the times of usurpation, he wheel’d about at the restoration of king Charles II. took holy orders, and had a small parsonage in Kent conferr’d on him by archbishop Sheldon….

As a previous posting here notes, both Richard’s brother John, an Anglican parson in Nottinghamshire ejected from his living due to his nonconformist sympathies, and his highly placed cousin Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke appear to have had Parliamentarian sympathies during the Civil War, so it would not be surprising if Richard Whitlock had had similar leanings. If so, then Wood may be telling Richard’s story accurately when he maintains that Richard “wheel’d about” after supporting the usurpation and got himself ordained.

Richard’s ordination occurred at some point prior to 20 June 1656, since a letter he sent to Sir Bulstrode Whitelocke on that date shows him thanking his cousin for obtaining a benefice (i.e., a parson’s position) for him.[21] By 1660 Richard had an appointment as vicar at Foxton in Cambridgeshire.[22] In 1661, he was presented with the living of the parish of Stowe in Buckinghamshire.[23]

Final Years of Richard’s Life as Anglican Parson

On 13 September 1662, the Dean and Chapter of Rochester presented him with the living of St. Mary’s parish at Ashford in County Kent.[24] Richard Whitlock ended his days as an Anglican pastor at Ashford and was buried there on 24 October 1666, having, it seems, encountered difficulties with his parishioners that caused him to inscribe sharp observations about them in Latin and Greek on the glass of his parsonage windows. In his history of Ashford and its church, William Warren writes,[25]

This Mr. Whitlock was a man of wit & learning: He was a Strenuous Church of England man. I have heard that there were unhappy differences between Him & His Parishioners; and indeed several of those Sentences which he wrote upon the Glass windows in the Parlour of the Vicarage-House do plainly enough intimate as much: There are other sentences that do not much look that way, but seem design’d as good Hints to the Reader to be Retain’d in mind on the common occasions of Life.

Richard Whitlock was buried by the north door of St. Mary’s church in Ashford.[26] According to Bentley, an administration of his estate was filed 1 April 1668, with his estate being settled on his widow Joan(e), with Thomas Risden, a clerk of the Ashford parish, giving bond with her for her handling of the estate.[27] I have not seen this document. Bentley notes that, according to John Walker, Richard’s estate may have been sequestered, though Bentley thinks this is unlikely.[28] Walker states that Richard’s heirs experienced financial difficulties that eventually caused them to sue for charity from the Sons of the Clergy Corporation. Bentley surmises that the financial difficulties were perhaps due to Richard Whitlock’s loss of his fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford.

I have not found the maiden surname of Richard Whitlock’s wife Joan(e). Joan(e) appears as Richard Whitlock’s wife in the 12 March 1651 baptismal record of their son James.[29] The 2 March 1670 will of Richard Whitlock’s brother Robert Whitlock (1618-1671) also makes a bequest to Joane Whitlock, naming her as the widow of his brother Richard.[30] Joan is also named as Richard Whitlock’s wife in the baptismal record of their daughter Ann, who was baptized 4 February 1647 at St. Margaret’s church, Westminster, London.[31] The date of Ann’s baptism suggests to me that Richard Whitlock and Joan(e) married by about 1645.

---

[1] The baptismal entry in the register of St. Peter le Poer parish is abstracted in the FamilySearch database “England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975.” The original spells Richard’s surname and that of his father as Whetlocke, and gives his mother’s given name as Catern.

[2] Anthony à Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, An Exact History of All the Writers and Bishops Who Have Their Education in the University of Oxford, vol. 3 (London: F.C. and J. Rivington, 1817), p. 984; and Joseph Foster, Alumni Oxonienses 1500-1714: The Members of the University of Oxford, 1500-1714, vol. 4(Oxford University: Oxford UP, 1891), p. 1620. The date of matriculation is in Foster. Wood states that Richard Whitlock entered Magdalen College during Michaelmas term an. 1632, aged 16.

[3] Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, p. 984; Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, p. 1620. Wood gives the precise dates of the two degrees.

[4] Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, p. 1620; and Richard Whitlock, Zootomia, or, Observations of the Present Manners of the English: Briefly Anatomizing the Living by the Dead, With an Usefull Detection of the Mountebanks of Both Sexes (London: Tho. Roycroft, 1654).

[5] Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, p. 1620.

[6] Prerogative Court of Canterbury PROB 11/275, pp. 253-4.

[7] Oxford English Dictionary, second edition (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1989), online at website of Oxford English Dictionary.

[8] Christopher Bentley, “The Life of Richard Whitlock,” English Language Notes 10 (December 1972), pp. 112, citing Album Studiosorum Academiae Lugduno Batavae 1575-1875 (Hagae Comitum, 1875), col. 342; and R.W. Innes Smith, English-Speaking Students of Medicine at the University of Leyden (Edinburgh, 1932), p. 249. Bentley speaks of Richard Whitlock enrolling in the Faculty of Law at University of Leyden, but Smith’s book indicates that he studied medicine at Leyden. See also Christopher Bentley, “The Rational Physician: Richard Whitlock’s Medical Satires,” Journal of the History of Medicine 29,2 (April 1974), p. 180, which proposes that Richard Whitlock may have enrolled in hte Faculty of Law at Leyden and then have transferred to medicine.

[9] See James Whitlocke, Liber Famelicus of Sir James Whitlocke, etc., ed. John Bruce (London: Camden Society, 1858), p. 88.

[10] Bentley, “Life of Richard Whitlock,” p. 113; and Bentley, “The Rational Physician,” p 180.

[11] Ibid., citing The Register of St. Dionis Backchurch (Harleian Society, 1878), pp. 109, 226.

[12] P.H. Ditchfield and William Page, ed., The Victoria History of Berkshire, vol. 3 (London: Victoria County History, 1923), p. 234.

[13] “Will of Robert Whitlock 1670,” Whitlock Family Newsletter 31,4 (December 2012), pp. 4-5.

[14] Prerogative Court of Canterbury PROB 11/190, pp. 294-5. Ditchfield and William Page, Victoria History of Berkshire, p. 234, notes that Richard Whitlock (1616-1666) was in possession of Beches by 1644.

[15] This indenture is found in a collection of documents entitled “Schedule of the writings relating to the Manor of Beaches and the other estates which were purchased by Mr. Richard Hawe of the family of the Whitlocks.” A catalogue and transcript of these documents is filed in the References section of the Whitlock Family One-Name Study website, file X0535, “Schedule of documents relating to Manor of Beaches, Wokingham, Berkshire 1617-1698 from Jim Whitelock.” According to Rosemary Lea in an article entitled “The Holt Estate and Its Owners — Part 1” which is archived in the References section of the Whitlock Family One-Name Study, file R3097, this schedule of documents is found in the Berkshire Record Office, and was compiled about 1760. Lea states that the documents themselves are missing, but the listing and partial transcript of them held by the Record Office are extant. Lea’s article was evidently published somewhere, but there is no indication of its source at the Whitlock Family One-Name Study site.

[16] Bentley, “Life of Richard Whitlock,” p. 112, citing Oxford Protestation Returns 1641-2 (Oxfordshire Record Society, 1955), p. 114.

[17] See supra, n. 4.

[18] Bentley, “Life of Richard Whitlock,” p. 113.

[19] Whitlock Family Newsletter 31,4 (December 2012), p. 2.

[20] Wood, Athenæ Oxonienses, p. 984.

[21] See The Diary of Bulstrode Whitelocke 1605-1675, ed. Ruth Spalding (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990), p. 442.

[22] Church of England, Diocese of Ely, Ely Episcopal Records: A Calendar and Concise View of the Episcopal Records Preserved in the Muniment Room of the Palace at Ely (Lincoln: Williamson, 1891), p. 302.

[23] Foster, Alumni Oxonienses, p. 1620; and Bentley, “Life of Richard Whitlock,” p. 113, citing G. Lipscomb, The History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham (London, 1847), vol. 3, p. 108.

[24] Bentley, “Life of Richard Whitlock,” p. 113, citing E. Hasted, The History and Topographical Survey of the County of Kent (Canterbury, 1788), vol. 2, p. 265.

[25] William Warren, Some Account of The Church, College (now the Vicarage House), Free School, &c., of Ashford, in Kent (1712; published at Ashford in 1895), p. 69. Philip Parsons reproduces a portion of Warren’s commentary about Richard Whitlock in The Monuments and Painted Glass of Upwards of One Hundred Churches: Chiefly in the Eastern Part of Kent, etc. (Canterbury: Simmons, Kirkby, and Jones 1794), p. 537, noting that Warren “copies upwards of thirty sentences of Latin Greek and English, some expressive of much vexation indeed, adding ‘that there are many more.’”

[26] Bentley, “Life of Richard Whitlock,” p. 114, citing A.J. Pearman, Ashford: Its Church, Vicars, College, and Grammar School (Ashford, 1886), p. 100; and Warren, Some Account of The Church, pp. 69, 73.

[27] Bentley, “Life of Richard Whitlock,” p. 114, citing Act Book of the Canterbury Archdeaconry Court at County Hall, Maidstone, Kent (PRc 3/37, f. 257^v).

[28] Bentley, “Life of Richard Whitlock,” p. 114, citing John Walker, An Attempt towards Recovering an Account of the Numbers and Sufferings of the Clergy (London, 1714), p. 399.

[29] Brightwell Baldwin parish register, 1546-1704, Oxfordshire, England, in Anglican Parish Registers, Oxfordshire Family History Society and Oxfordshire History Center, available digitally in Ancestry database Oxfordshire, England, Church of England Baptism, Marriages, and Burials, 1538-1812.

[30] Prerogative Court of Canterbury PROB 11/336, pp. 240-1.

[31] See the extracted record in the FamilySearch database “England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975.”