George Buck
Sir George Buck (or Buc) (c. 1560 – October 1622) was an English
He served in the war against the
Buck's writings include a verse work, Daphnis Polystephanos: An Eclog.... (1605), an historical-
Early life and career
Buck was baptised on 1 October 1560 in Holy Trinity, Ely, Cambridgeshire. He was the eldest son and probably second of the four children of Elizabeth Nunn, née Petterill, of Brandon Ferry, Suffolk, and Robert Buck (d. 1580), a church official.[2][3] His great-grandfather, Sir John Buck, was executed after supporting Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth Field.[4]
Buck was educated by his half-sister's husband, Henry Blaxton, privately and then at Blaxton's school in
Master of the Revels
In 1597, the queen seems to have promised Buck the reversion (the right to succeed to an office when it next fell vacant) of the office of
The function of the Master of the Revels was to supervise the arrangements for entertainments presented
Buck wrote a treatise on the "Art of Revels", but the work is lost. He refers to it in another treatise, praising the state of drama in London and writing: "the Art of Reuels ... requireth knowledge in Grammar, Rhetorike, Logicke, Philosophie, Historie, Musick, Mathematikes, & in other Arts ... & hath a setled place within this Cittie. ... I haue discribed it, and discoursed thereof at large in a particular commentarie".[17]
Scholarly work
Buck was an historian and minor poet. His main verse work, ΔΑΦΝΙΣ ΠΟΛΥΣΤΕΦΑΝΟΣ (Daphnis Polystephanos): An Eclog Treating of Crownes, and of Garlandes... (1605), an historical-
His major prose work was The History of King Richard the Third, which he completed in 1619 and left in rough draft at his death, and which, in 1731, was burnt around the edges in the Cotton library fire.[21] Before that, the work had suffered more serious damage, coming into the hands of Buck's great-nephew, George Buck, who used it as he did others of Buck's works: he produced manuscript copies that he dedicated to various patrons from whom he sought advancement, passing them off as his own. Gradually he altered the History, cutting it, making it look like something written in his own time, rather than earlier, by deleting names of Buck's learned contemporaries who had shared sources and viva voce information with him, and altering or deleting documentation of sources, with the details of which, also, his copyist was careless. Finally in 1646 he published a version of the History that was slightly over half the length of the original. A second issue (usually referred to erroneously as a second edition) appeared the next year, leading to the assumption that Buck invented many of his sources.[22] This damaged Buck's scholarly reputation for centuries. The authentic text of Buck's History was not published until 1979; the editor, Arthur Kincaid, was able to find all but seven of the hundreds of sources that Buck had meticulously documented.[23]
Buck originated the pattern adopted by all later defences of Richard III, weighing the evidence impartially and pointing out that suspicion has no weight from a legal point of view. He first summarises Richard's life and reign, then discusses the accusations against him in turn, criticising sources of information about them on the basis of their reasons for bias, referring to original authoritative documents and oral reports. He also discusses the legality of Richard's title and surveys his achievements.[2] Buck discovered and introduced important new historical sources, such as the Croyland Chronicle and through it the petition in Parliament (Titulus Regius) that declared Edward IV's children illegitimate and justified Richard III's accession to the crown[24] – a document that King Henry VII tried, and almost managed, to suppress.[25] William Camden praised Buck's scholarship, calling him "a man learned in letters and who observed much in histories and shared it with me".[26]
Last years and death
The Exchequer delayed, from 1613, in paying wages to Buck and his Revels Office associates. Buck became unable to discharge his duties as Master of the Revels by March 1622, was declared insane the following month, and was succeeded in office by Sir John Astley. He died in October of that year, leaving a considerable estate. His "nephew Stephen Buck presented a will, either forged or made after Sir George became insane, designating himself and his son George the heirs".[2]
References
- ^ Buck, History (1979), p. 1. The text is transcribed from Buck's manuscript, A Commentary Vpon ... Liber Domus DEI, Oxford, Bodleian, MS Eng. misc. b. 106, f. 3v, where Buck reused the page.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Kincaid, Arthur. "Buck (Buc), Sir George (bap. 1560, d. 1622)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004. Online edn., May 2008, Retrieved 23 January 2012 (subscription required)
- ^ Eccles, pp. 418–19
- ^ Kincaid, Introduction, pp. xii–xiii, in Buck, History (1979)
- ^ "Henry Blaxton". Sussex People. Retrieved 23 October 2021.
- ^ Eccles, pp. 419–421; Kincaid, Introduction, pp. xxvii and xxx, in Buck, History (1979). As to his attendance at Cambridge, see "The Third Vniversite of England", sig. Nnnn 2–4, confirmed by manuscript of Sir George Buck, A Commentary Vpon ... Liber Domus DEI, Oxford, Bodleian, MS Eng. misc. b. 106, f. 179
- ^ Pipe Rolls, E 351/542, f. 94v, cited in Eccles, p. 424
- ^ Eccles, pp. 428–30
- ^ Eccles, pp. 435–37
- ^ Letter from Charles Howard of Effingham, quoted in Eccles, p. 426
- ^ Tilney's cousin was the husband of Buck’s aunt. See Eccles, p. 416
- ^ Letters from Lyly to Robert Cecil, 22 December 1597 and 27 February 1601, and a letter to the queen, probably in 1598, among other letters and petitions, quoted in Chambers (1923), pp. 96–98 and Chambers (1906), pp. 57–58
- ^ Dutton, pp. 146–151, argues that, contrary to the belief of earlier scholars, there is no evidence that Buck acted as Tilney's assistant prior to Tilney's death in 1610.
- ^ Eccles, pp. 440–45
- ^ Buck was granted "a portion of the powers previously vested" in the church's Court of High Commission, to license plays for publication. Dutton, p. 149. "The inference must be that [Buck] became impatient to profit from the reversion he held, and hit on this scheme, which a superior was able to get permission for." Dutton, p. 149. See also Eccles, p. 459.
- ^ Shakespeare remembered only that the play was written by "a minister". See, Nelson, Alan H. "George Buc, William Shakespeare, and the Folger George a Green", Shakespeare Quarterly, vol. 49, 1998, pp. 74–78
- ^ Kincaid, Introduction, p. xxi, in Buck, History (1979), quoting Buck, George. "The Third Vniversite of England", sig. Oooo 3v
- ^ Buck, George (1605). Daphnis Polystephanos: An eclog treating of crownes, and of garlandes, and to whom of right they appertaine, London: Printed by G. Eld for Thomas Adams, sig. E4v
- ^ Buck, George. "The Third Vniversite of England", passim
- ^ Maitland, vol. 2, p. 811
- ^ Kincaid, Introduction, p. cxxxvi, in Buck, History (1979)
- ^ Kincaid, Introduction, pp. lxiv–lxxxvi, in Buck, History (1979); and Kincaid, Arthur. "George Buck Senior and George Buck Junior: a Literary-Historical Mystery Story" in Richard III: Crown and People, James Petre (ed.), Gloucester: Alan Sutton, 1985, pp. 245–54
- King Edward IV's daughter, Elizabeth of York, to John Howard, 1st Duke of Norfolk. Buck's summary says that Elizabeth asks Norfolk to be a "mediator for her in the cause of [the marriage] to the King" (the brackets in Kincaid's reconstruction indicate a lacuna caused by damage to Buck's original manuscript, filled in from an early manuscript copy, and the two words are not in serious dispute) and expresses her hope that the queenwill soon die. See Kincaid, Introduction (1979), pp. xc–xciv; Kincaid, "Buck and the Elizabeth of York Letter: a reply to Dr. Hanham", The Ricardian, Vol. 8, No. 101, pp. 46–49, June 1988; and Baldwin, p. 138
- ^ Buck, History (1979), p. 46
- ^ Bryce, Tracy. "Titulus Regius: The Title of the King" Archived 1 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine, Richard III Society of Canada, Retrieved 31 October 2014. See text of the repealing Act of Parliament, ordering that all copies be destroyed: "Rotuli Parliamentorum, A.D. 1485, 1 Henry VII" Archived 2 September 2013 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Camden, William (1600). Britannia, London, 1600, p. 726. (Translation from Latin)
Sources
- ISBN 0752468979
- Buck, George. The History of King Richard the Third (1619), Gloucester: Alan Sutton, (ed.) Kincaid, Arthur (1979; 2nd edition 1981) ISBN 0904387267
- Buck, George. "The Third Vniversite of England", printed as an appendix to Stow, John (1615). The Annales or Generall Chronicle of England, London
- Chambers, Edmund(1906). Notes on the History of the Revels Office under the Tudors, London: A. H. Bullen
- Chambers, Edmund (1923). The Elizabethan Stage, Oxford: Clarendon Press, vol. 1
- Dutton, Richard (1991). Mastering the Revels: The Regulation and Censorship of English Renaissance Drama, London: Palgrave Macmillan ISBN 0-87745-335-7
- Eccles, Mark (1933). "Sir George Buc, Master of the Revels", in Sisson, Charles Jasper. Thomas Lodge and Other Elizabethans, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 409–506
- Maitland, William (2nd ed. 1756). The History and Survey of London, London: Osborne, Shipton & Hodges