Simonds d ewes autobiography books

Simonds d'Ewes

English politician

Sir Simonds d'Ewes, 1st Baronet (18 December 1602 – 18 April 1650) was an English antiquary and politician. He was bred for the bar, was a member of the Long Parliament and left notes on its transactions. D'Ewes took the Puritan side in the Civil War. His Journal of all the Parliaments of Elizabeth is of value; he left an Autobiography and Correspondence.

Early life

Simonds d'Ewes was born on 18 December 1602 at Coaxdon Hall, Dorset (now in All Saints, Devon), the eldest son of Paul d'Ewes, of Milden, Suffolk, one of the Six Clerks in Chancery, and his first wife Cecelia, daughter and heiress of Sir Richard Simonds of Coaxden. His father's family came originally from Gelderland: Simonds' great-grandfather emigrated to England about 1510. He inherited a fortune from his maternal grandfather while still young; his other grandfather, Gerard d'Ewes, of Gaynes, Upminster, Essex, who married Grace Hynde, was a printer.

After his mother's death in 1618, his father remarried the widowed Elizabeth Isham, Lady Denton, who was only a few years older than her stepson: Simonds approved of the marriage and may have played a part in arranging it. His relations with his father, a difficult and quarrelsome man, were never good. After some early private teaching, including time at the school of Henry Reynolds (father of Bathsua Makin, who impressed d'Ewes much more), he was sent to the grammar school at Bury St Edmunds. At Bury St Edmunds, he wrote 2,850 verses of poetry in Greek and Latin.

D'Ewes then went to St John's College, Cambridge, and studied under Richard Holdsworth. At St John's, he was exposed to and influenced by a strong college tradition of Puritanism.

He was admitted to the Middle Temple in 1611, and in 1623 was called to the Bar. Being independently wealthy, he did not pursue a legal career, preferring instead to follow up antiquarian interests, which took him to the record

  • The Autobiography and Correspondence of Sir

    • An Industrious Mind

    This is the first biography of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, a member of England's Long Parliament, Puritan, historian and antiquarian who lived from 1602–1650. D'Ewes took the Puritan side against the supporters of King Charles I in the English Civil War, and his extensive journal of the Long Parliament, together with his autobiography and correspondence, offer a uniquely comprehensive view of the life of a seventeenth-century English gentleman, his opinions, thoughts and prejudices during this tumultuous time.

    D'Ewes left the most extensive archive of personal papers of any individual in early modern Europe. His life and thought before the Long Parliament are carefully analyzed, so that the mind of one of the Parliamentarian opponents of King Charles I's policies can be understood more fully than that of any other Member of Parliament. Although conservative in social and political terms, D'Ewes's Puritanism prevented him from joining his Royalist younger brother Richard during the civil war that began in 1642. D'Ewes collected one of the largest private libraries of books and manuscripts in England in his era and used them to pursue historical and antiquarian research. He followed news of national and international events voraciously and conveyed his opinions of them to his friends in many hundreds of letters. McGee's biography is the first thorough exploration of the life and ideas of this extraordinary observer, offering fresh insight into this pivotal time in European history.

    "J. Sears McGee, Professor History at the University of California, has turned the lens on Sir Simonds D'Ewes, the Puritan MP for Sudbury, whose journal of the Long Parliament is the most extensive record we have of that revolutionary moment when MPs stood, in D'Ewes's words, 'upon the brink of saving or ruining this distracted kingdom' . . . As a study of lay religiosity at a time of politicized

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    Additional books from the extended shelves:

    • D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650: The autobiography and correspondence of Sir Simonds D'Ewes, bart., during the reigns of James I. and Charles I. (R. Bentley, 1845), also by J. O. Halliwell-Phillipps (page images at HathiTrust)
    • D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650: The bill of foure subsidies for the reliefe of the Kings army, was disputed on by a grand committee, and upon the debate, made choice of Sir Symon Dewes. Who speake as followeth. March 9th. 1641. (London : Printed for John Thomas, 1641 [i.e. 1642]) (HTML at EEBO TCP)
    • D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650: The Greeke postscripts of the Epistles to Timothy and Titus cleared in Parliament : and, an occasional speech touching the bill of acapitation, or poll-money. ([publisher not identified], 1641) (page images at HathiTrust)
    • D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650: The Greeke postscripts of the epistles to Timothy and Titus cleared in Parliament. And an occasional speech touching the bill of acapitation, or poll-money. By Sir Simonds D'Ewes. ([London : s.n.], Printed in the yeare, 1641) (HTML at EEBO TCP)
    • D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650: The journal of Sir Simonds D'Ewes from the beginning of the Long Parliament to the opening of the trial of the Earl of Stafford (Yale university press; [etc., etc.], 1923), also by Wallace Notestein (page images at HathiTrust)
    • D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650: The journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth both of the House of Lords and House of Commons / collected by Sir Simonds D'Ewes ... Knight and Baronet ; revised and published by Paul Bowes ..., Esq. (London : Printed for John Starkey ..., 1682), also by Paul Bowes (HTML at EEBO TCP)
    • D'Ewes, Simonds, Sir, 1602-1650: The primit
  • The Autobiography and Correspondence
  • The Autobiography And Correspondence Of
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