Reserving all notice of his Witchcraft till I speak of it under its bibliography, I would say that we know little more of his life. The Rev. Jos. Hunter, in his Chorus Vatum, states that he was “a Collector of subsidies to Q. Elizabeth in 15..., for the county of Kent.” Urged to inquiry by this, my friend, Jas. Gairdner, Esq., kindly examined for me the Exchequer documents in the Public Record Offices, and it appears from them that he was collector of subsidies for the lathe of Shepway in the years 28 and 29 of Elizabeth (1586–87). It may be added that, as appears from a previous document, 125/299, in the same class of papers, that Sir Reynold Scot and other Commissioners for the collection in the lathe of Shepway, of the first payment of the subsidy granted by the Parliament, 37 Henry VIII, had appointed a high Collector. Thus we learn the mode of his appointment; and on looking through the lists we find that many such were “generosi”, though the payment was but small. For Scot, forty shillings was deducted from the incomings; and this not as a percentage, but as salary.

From the same documents we find that he is twice designated “armiger”, a word agreeing with his 1584 title-page, “by Reginald Scot, Esquire”, though in the editions of his Hoppe Garden his name alone is given. This was for myself an important find; but it will suffice here to say that it confirms Hunter’s supposition that this esquireship was due to his having been made a justice of the peace, though as to the date it can only as yet be said that this dignity was probably granted between 1578 and 1584.

In an Accompt of Sir Th. Heanage, knight, Treasurer at Warr, in the Public Record Offices, and printed by J. Renat Scott in the Arch. Canti., vol. xi, p. 388, we find the following entries:

“S^r Thomas Scott knighte Collonel generall of the footemen in Kent for his Entertainment at xiij^s iiij^d p^r diem for xxij dayes begonne the xxix^{th} of Julye and endinge the xix of Auguste the summe of xiiij^{li} xiij^s iiij^d.”

• • • • •

“Reinalde Scotte Trench mayster for his Enterteinment at iiij^s p^r diem, and due to him for the same tyme iiij^{li} viij^s.”

• • • • •

“S^r Thomas Scott knighte for Thenterteynem^t of lxiij Wachemen & Garders appointed to watche & warde at Dongenesse for xxij dayes begonne [etc., as above] at viij the pece p^r diem xlvi^{li} iiij^s.”

From the Muster-roll taken on the 25th Jan. 1587–8, and now in the possession of Mr. Oliver, it appears that the county had then furnished 8,201 footmen and 711 horsemen, and that Sir Thomas was captain of the 309 trained foot raised in the lathe of Shepway, with four hundreds of the lathe of Scraye and Romney Marsh. Hence his office as Colonel-General was not given him—indeed, this is shown by the Accompt—until the men had been assembled in camp on the 29th July. In like manner the Muster-roll gives Sir Jas. Hales as Captain of the Lances; but in the pay list Th. Scott (a son of Sir Thomas) is Captain both of the Light Horse and Lances. With regard to “Reinalde”, who, under the name of Reginald, appears in the Muster-roll as one of the thirteen captains over 1,499 untrained foot, Mr. J. Renat Scott, in a note, states that he was a son of Sir Thomas Scott; but though sons of Sir Thomas were also captains, this assertion is a guess, unsupported by any known evidence.

He made his will on the 15th September 1599, and died twenty-four days thereafter, on the 9th October. Some say that he was either taken ill at Smeeth or died there, probably misinterpreting the words of his will; some also say that he was buried there; while some think that he was buried by the side of and close to Sir Thomas Scott’s tomb in Brabourne church; but all these, like the supposition of Philipot in his Kent Notes, Harl. MS. 3917, fol. 78_a_, that he erected that tomb, are mere guessings, and as such we leave them.

To the few particulars thus gathered together we are obliged, with the exception of two small points, one probable, and the other, I think, certain, to confine ourselves. The first or probable point is, that as his name appears five times as a witness to family business documents between 1566 and 1594, his signature appearing in this last year in Sir Thomas’s will, he must have kept up familiar intercourse with the latter, and was not improbably, in some measure at least, his man of business, and possibly his steward. The second point, which also goes to confirm this first one, as also to confirm the belief that he was made a justice of the peace, as being a person whose attainments, if not his position, would render him useful in such a post, is one to which I was independently led by his writings, and which is, I find, borne out by almost contemporary testimony.

He who in his Hoppe Garden showed such practical thought and foresight, and in his Witchcraft such independence of thought, was not a man, especially when married and a father, to live in dependence on a cousin. The wording, as well as the tone of his writings, agree with this. We find in them traces of legal study, a habit of putting things, as it were, in a forensic form, and noteworthy and not unfrequent references to legal axioms or dicta, quoted generally in their original Latin. The Dedication before his Hoppe Garden, and the first before his Witchcraft, are to men of high legal rank, judges, in fact, to whom he acknowledges his obligations. Referring the reader to these, and to the ambiguous sentence in the latter commencing “Finally” (sig. A ii), I would also give the words in the latter, where he says, A. v: “But I protest the contrarie, and by these presents I renounce all protection”; and in the former the legal phraseology is carried on throughout in—“and be it also knowne to all men by these presentes that your acceptance hereof shall not be any wyse prejudiciall unto you, for I delyver it as an Obligation, wherein I acknowledge my selfe to stande further bounde unto you, without that, that I meane to receyve your courtesie herein, as a release of my further duties which I owe,” A. iii. v. And in B. v.: “neither reproove me because by these presents I give notice thereof.” So also he would seem to have been an attendant at the assizes; and if we look to the story, told at page 5, of Marg. Simons, we find that he was not only present at the trial, but busied himself actively in the matter, talking to the vicar, the accuser, about it, advertising the poor woman as to a certain accusation, he “being desirous to heare what she could saie for hir selfe”, and inquiring into the truth of her explanation by the relation of divers honest men of that parish. In like manner, his Will is written “w^{th} myne owne hande” twenty-five days before his death; and, on inquiring from a lawyer, I find that it is drawn up in due legal form, and by one who had had a legal training. Lastly, Thomas Ady, M.A., in A Candle in the Dark, 1656, alias, A Perfect Discovery of Witches, 1661, a book, like Scot’s, against the reality of witchcraft, distinctly tells us, p. 87, that Scot “was a student in the laws and learned in the Roman Laws”, the latter being exactly what such a man would be if he had turned towards the law as a profession. These considerations appear to me conclusive, even though it be added as an argument per contra that his name has not been found among the rolls of the Temple, Inner or Middle, or in those of Lincoln’s or Gray’s Inn.

And in taking leave of this portion of my subject, I cannot but reiterate the obligations both the reader and the literary world generally are under to Mr. Edmund Ward Oliver. The suppositions as to the cause of Scot’s loss of his moiety of the estates of Lady Winnifred Rainsford—not, it is believed, a large sum—and as to his law-studentship, based as they are on facts stated by Scot or derived from his writings, and those of Th. Ady, are my own; while in one or two instances I have put forth opinions not quite in accord with that gentleman’s. But nearly all the biographical facts regarding Scot himself and his marriages, in contradistinction to the supposed facts hitherto set forth, are due to the intelligent research of Mr. Oliver, and are not unfrequently stated in his own words.

The following table will bring into one view the pedigree of Reginald Scot given in the previous pages: