THE HISTORY

OF

SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON.

BY T. H.

EDITED, WITH AN INTRODUCTION,

BY

HENRY B. WHEATLEY, F.S.A.

LONDON:
PRINTED FOR THE VILLON SOCIETY.
1885.[Pg i]

INTRODUCTION.

LIST OF VERSIONS, EDITIONS, &c.

THE HISTORY OF SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON.

THE STORY OF WILLIAM THOMPSON.

THE FAMOUS AND REMARKABLE HISTORY OF SIR RICHARD WHITTINGTON.

Introduction.

The popular story of Whittington and his Cat is one in which a versionof a wide-spread folk-tale has been grafted upon the history of the lifeof an historical character, and in the later versions the historicalincidents have been more and more eliminated. The three chief points inthe chap-book story are, 1, the poor parentage of the hero; 2, hischange of mind at Highgate Hill by reason of hearing Bow Bells; and, 3,his good fortune arising from the sale of his cat. Now these are allequally untrue as referring to the historical Whittington, and thesecond is apparently an invention of the eighteenth century. When theRev. Canon Lysons wrote his interesting and valuable work entitled TheModel Merchant he showed the incorrectness of the first point bytracing out Whittington's distinguished pedigree, but he was loath todispute the other two. It is rather strange that neither Mr. Lysons norMessrs. Besant and Rice appear to have seen the work which I now presentto my readers, which is the earliest form of the life of Whittingtonknown to exist. This is[Pg ii] printed from the copy in the Pepysian Library,a later edition of which, with a few typographical alterations, will befound in the British Museum library. This History will be found todiffer very considerably from the later and better-known story, whichappears to have been written early in the eighteenth century. Acomparison between the latter which I print at the end of this Preface(p. xxix.) with T. H.'s earlier text will not, I think, be foundunprofitable. The Famous and Remarkable History here reprinted isundated, but was probably published about 1670; the later edition in theBritish Museum is dated 1678. One passage on page 7—"The merchant wentthen to the Exchange, which was then in Lumber-street, about hisaffairs"—seems to show that it was originally written quite early inthe century, and it is just possible that T. H. stands for thevoluminous playwright and pamphleteer Thomas Heywood. The Exchange wasremoved to its present site in 1568, and therefore our tract could nothave been written before that date, but must have appeared when thememory of the old meeting-place was still fresh in public memory. Onpage 11 it will be seen that Whittington, w

...

Chap-Books

and

Folk-Lore Tracts.

Edited by

G.L. Gomme, F.S.A.

and

H.B. Wheatley, F.S.A.