On p. 500, Scot speaks of “his kinseman M. Deering”, Edw. Dering the divine, a writer on theological subjects and chaplain to her Majesty; but in what way they were kin I have been unable to discover.[*]

[*] My mother being a Dering, a daughter of the Thomas that was drowned in the West Indies, when trying to reach his vessel H.M.S. Circe, induces me to add, through the courtesy of Sir Edw. C. Dering, that a portrait of this worthy is still to be seen at Surrenden Dering, and that a family tradition has it, that preaching before her Majesty, he had the boldness to tell her, “that she had no more controul over her passions than an untamed heifer.” He was speedily unfrocked, and is said to have emigrated to America, where an Edw. Dering is at this moment the head of that branch, and a large landowner in Maine.

Returning now to Reginald’s father, Richard, the youngest of the three sons of that Sir John who died in 1533, we find that he married Mary, daughter of Geo. Whetenall, whose father was sheriff of Kent in 1527, and whose family had lived for three centuries at Hextall’s Place, near Maidstone. She survived her husband; and being remarried to Fulke Onslow, Clerk of the Parliaments, died before him, 8th October 1582, and was buried, as he afterwards was, in Hatfield church, Herts, where a brass to their memory is fixed in the north wall of the chancel. Of Richard himself nothing more is known. He probably died young, and certainly before December 1554, his death being mentioned in the will of his brother Sir Reginald, who died on the 16th of that month. In this will, failing his own issue—a lapse which did not occur—he left his real estate “unto Rainolde Scotte, son and heire of my brother Richard Scotte, dec^{d}”, and Rainolde’s issue failing, it was devised to a more distant branch. Hence, contrary to the table given on page xi, from “The Memorials”, “Rainolde” was either the only son of Richard, or the only son then living. The same conclusion follows from the Inquis. post mortem of Lady Wynifred Rainsfoord, taken the 20th March 1575/6, where Sir Thomas Scot and his brothers are said to be co-heirs with Reynold of the lands held by her in gavelkind, the sons having one moiety, and Reynold the other.

This Inquisition also gives Reynold’s then age as thirty-eight or more, the words “et amplius” being, as was, usually at least, done in these documents, attached to all the other ages mentioned. Hence he was born in or before 1538 (not in 1541), and as, according to Wood, he entered Hart Hall, Oxford, when about seventeen, he entered it circa 1555; the intention that he should do so having been probably entertained by Sir Reginald, his uncle, who died 16th December 1554, and his expenses borne by his cousin, Sir Thomas. I say probably, because we have seen that, failing his own issue, he was named by Sir Reginald as the next heir to the estate, and also because we know nothing of the circumstances in which his widowed mother was left, nor as yet of the date at which she was re-married to Onslow.

On the 11th of October he married Jane—not, as stated in “The Memorials”, Alice—Cobbe, the daughter of an old yeoman family long resident at Cobbe’s Place, in the adjoining parish of Aldington. The entry in the Registers of Brabourne is—

“M[*] Reignold Scott and Jane Cobbe were maryed the xi^{th} of October 1658.”

[*] To this upper portion of the “M” is added a character which may make it “Mr.” or “Married”; but I have not myself yet seen the entry.

The only issue of this marriage, the only issue (that at least survived) of both his marriages—for the Maria in the table of “The Memorials” was the daughter of his second wife by her first husband—was Elizabeth, afterwards married to Sackville Turnor; and the only issue of that marriage, prior at least to Reynold’s death in 1599, was Cicely. Elizabeth’s birth must have been in or before 1574, for in the Inquis. post mortem of Reg. Scot generosus in 1602, she is said to be “28 et amplius”. The Holy Maid of Kent (mentioned by Scot, p. 26) was servant to one of her maternal progenitors, probably to her grandfather.

In this year, 1574, was also published the first issue of his brain, his tractate on The Hoppe-Garden, the first work, I believe, in which not only was the culture of the hop in England advocated, both as having been successfully tried by him, and as against its importation from Poppering, in Flanders, where its mode of culture, etc., was endeavoured to be kept secret; but the whole subject of its growth, culture, drying, and preservation was gone into in a practical manner, and further explained by woodcuts. And here it may be worth noting that in this year Reynold was necessarily absent so far from London that the publisher inserted this apologetic note: “Forasmuch as M. Scot could not be present at the printing of this his Booke, whereby I might have used his advise in the correction of the same, and especiallie of the Figures and Portratures conteyned therein, whereof he delivered unto me such notes as I being unskilfull in the matter, could not so thoroughly conceyve, nor so perfectly expresse as ... the Author, or you ... the Reader might in all poyntes be satisfied [etc., etc.].” In the second edition, however, in 1576, it was: “Now newly corrected and augmented,” the augmentations increasing the book from fifty-three pages, exclusive of the epilogue, to sixty, and the corrections including one added and one emended engraving. As a matter of curiosity, and as showing that neither the publisher nor the author expected a second edition, it may be added that though only two years had elapsed, some at least of the wood engravings required to be re-cut in almost exact facsimile. A third edition was issued in 1578, and from these we can date the commencement of the hop harvests in Kent.

In 1575 he succeeded to one moiety of such part of Lady Winifred Rainsford’s estate as was held in gavelkind. Possibly, indeed, we may place his enjoyment of it earlier, for Lady Rainsford was declared insane; and to this, by the way, I am not disinclined to attribute Reynold’s prolonged absence from London in 1572, the attendance of some one of the family being required, and he, being older than the sons of Sir Thomas, and of a junior branch, and a man of business, having been chosen or requested to go. And I think we may place his loss of that estate between this date and that of 1584, the date of the publication of the Witchcraft. At least, in this Discoverie occur two passages which, taken together, seem to point to this. In his dedication to Sir Th. Scot he says: A vi, “My foot being [not, having been] under your table, my hand in your dish, or rather in your pursse”—and, A viii: “If they will allow men knowledge and give them no leave to use it, men were much better be without it than have it; ... it is, as ... to put a candle under a bushell: or as to have a ship, and to let hir lie alwaies in the docke: which thing how profitable it is, I can saie somewhat by experience.” Though it may be said that Reynold was a man of business, and, as appears from his writings, a man of decision and of unusual intelligence, still circumstances may combine to bring disaster as a shipowner on such a one, and more especially if he be new to the business. That he did in some way lose his “moiety” is shown by the words of his will, for, speaking of his second wife, he says, “whome yf I had not matched w^{th} all I had not dyed worth one groate.” Not, improbably, I think, it was to the time of his first marriage, or to his widowership, or to both, that Wood more especially refers when he speaks of his giving himself up to solid reading, etc.

When his first wife died and when he re-married is as yet unknown to us. But this latter could hardly have taken place until the latter end, at earliest, of 1584, since in that year he, as already quoted, describes himself as, “having his foot under your [Sir Th. Scot’s] table”, etc., or in other words, as being a dependant not worth one groat. Nor do we know more of this second wife beyond these slight particulars that we gather from Reynold’s will: that her Christian name was Alice—given in “The Memorials” instead of Jane, to Cobbe, the first wife—that she was a widow with a daughter by her former husband; and that she had some land, either in her own right or derived from her former husband. That she was a widow at the time of her remarriage is shown by Reynold’s bequest of “six poundes thirteene shillings foure pence to my daughter in Lawe Marie Collyar for apparell [? mourning] desiring that her mother’s hand be not anie thinge the shorter towards her in that respect.” Whether Collyar were this daughter’s maiden name, and therefore the name of her mother’s first husband, or whether it were the name of her own husband, is doubtful, though from the words just quoted I rather incline to this second supposition, and that the husband was not a man of much means. With regard to what I have said as to the mother’s possession of property, it has been suggested to me by one of good judgment, and a solicitor, that Reynold’s expression as to not dying worth a groat was merely an excuse for leaving the bulk of his property to his wife; as also that these concluding words of the will, and the resistance of probate to it made by Elizabeth, his daughter by his first wife, indicate the existence of family differences, probably attributable to this second marriage having been entered into with one of a social rank inferior to his own. I cannot, however, deduce this latter supposition from anything we know, neither can I thus interpret the last words of his will, nor believe him guilty of such a perversion of the truth. Reading his will attentively, I think we find that Scot, with his usual fine sense of justice, gives all the lands in “Aldington, Ruckinge, and Sellinge”, which had become his by his marriage with Alice, “to her and to her [not to his] heires”, while he only gives his lands in Romney Marsh and his lease of Brabourne Rectory to her for her life, and then the lease at least, which had come to him “from his Cozen Charles”, to his daughter Elizabeth. Reading the last words of his will verbatim, I think it consistent with justice to hold, that though he may have obtained these lands in Romney Marsh through the use of what had been his wife’s former property, but was during his marriage his own, he was entitled to leave them to his wife only for her life, they then proceeding not, as did the others, to her heirs, but to his. I strongly suspect, also, that his casual omission of any directions as to whom these Romney Marsh lands were to go after her death was the real cause of the probate of the will being resisted by his daughter Elizabeth, so as to definitely raise this point.