Robert Hues

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Robert Hues
The title page of a 1634 version of Hues' Tractatus de globis in the collection of the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal
Born1553
Little Hereford, Herefordshire, England
Died24 May 1632 (aged 78–79)
Oxford, Oxfordshire, England
Alma materSt Mary Hall, Oxford (BA, 1578)
Known forpublishing Tractatus de globis et eorum usu (Treatise on Globes and their Use, 1594)
Scientific career
FieldsMathematics, geography

Robert Hues (1553 – 24 May 1632) was an English

latitudes and at the Equator
. Cavendish died on the journey in 1592, and Hues returned to England the following year.

In 1594, Hues published his discoveries in the Latin work Tractatus de globis et eorum usu (Treatise on Globes and Their Use) which was written to explain the use of the terrestrial and celestial globes that had been made and published by Emery Molyneux in late 1592 or early 1593, and to encourage English sailors to use practical astronomical navigation. Hues' work subsequently went into at least 12 other printings in Dutch, English, French and Latin.

Hues continued to have dealings with Raleigh in the 1590s, and later became a servant of Thomas Grey, 15th Baron Grey de Wilton. While Grey was imprisoned in the Tower of London for participating in the Bye Plot, Hues stayed with him. Following Grey's death in 1614, Hues attended upon Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland, when he was confined in the Tower; one source states that Hues, Thomas Harriot and Walter Warner were Northumberland's constant companions and known as his "Three Magi", although this is disputed. Hues tutored Northumberland's son Algernon Percy (who was to become the 10th Earl of Northumberland) at Oxford, and subsequently (in 1622–1623) Algernon's younger brother Henry. In later years, Hues lived in Oxford where he was a fellow of the University, and discussed mathematics and related subjects with like-minded friends. He died on 24 May 1632 in the city and was buried in Christ Church Cathedral.

Early years and education

Van Dyck's portrait of Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland, with whom Hues was associated

Robert Hues was born in 1553 at

Anthony à Wood (1632–1695) wrote that when Hues arrived at Oxford he was "only a poor scholar or servitor ... he continued for some time a very sober and serious servant ... but being sensible of the loss of time which he sustained there by constant attendance, he transferred himself to St Mary's Hall".[3] Hues graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree on 12 July 1578,[4] having shown marked skill in Greek. He later gave advice to the dramatist and poet George Chapman for his 1616 English translation of Homer,[5] and Chapman referred to him as his "learned and valuable friend".[6] According to the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, there is unsubstantiated evidence that after completing his degree Hues was held in the Tower of London, though no reason is given for this, then went abroad after his release.[1] It is possible he travelled to Continental Europe.[7]

Hues was a friend of the geographer Richard Hakluyt, who was then regent master of Christ Church. In the 1580s, Hakluyt introduced him to Walter Raleigh and explorers and navigators whom Raleigh knew. In addition, it is likely that Hues came to know astronomer and mathematician Thomas Harriot and Walter Warner at Thomas Allen's lectures in mathematics. The four men were later associated with Henry Percy, the 9th Earl of Northumberland,[1][8] who was known as the "Wizard Earl" for his interest in scientific and alchemical experiments and his library.[9]

Career

An engraving of Thomas Cavendish by Willem and Magdalena van de Passe from Holland's Herōologia Anglica (List of English Heroes, 1620),[10] titled "Thomas Candish, Armiger. Animum fortuna sequatur [The soul follows chance]". Hues circumnavigated the globe with Cavendish between 1586 and 1588.

Hues became interested in geography and mathematics – an undated source indicates that he disputed accepted values of variations of the compass after making observations off the Newfoundland coast. He either went there on a fishing trip, or may have joined a 1585 voyage to Virginia arranged by Raleigh and led by Richard Grenville, which passed Newfoundland on the return journey to England. Hues perhaps become acquainted with the sailor Thomas Cavendish at this time, as both of them were taught by Harriot at Raleigh's school of navigation. An anonymous 17th-century manuscript states that Hues circumnavigated the world with Cavendish between 1586 and 1588 "purposely for taking the true Latitude of places";[11] he may have been the "NH" who wrote a brief account of the voyage that was published by Hakluyt in his 1589 work The Principall Navigations, Voiages, and Discoveries of the English Nation.[12] In the year that book appeared, Hues was with Edward Wright on the Earl of Cumberland's raiding expedition to the Azores to capture Spanish galleons.[1]

Beginning in August 1591, Hues joined Cavendish on another attempt to circumnavigate the globe. Sailing on the Leicester, they were accompanied by the explorer

John Davis on the Desire. Cavendish and Davis agreed that they would part company once they had cleared the Strait of Magellan between Chile and Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, as Davis intended to sail to America to search for the Northwest Passage. The expedition was ultimately unsuccessful, although Davis did discover the Falkland Islands.[13] In the meantime, delayed in small harbours in the Strait with crew members dying from the cold, illness and starvation, Cavendish turned back eastwards to return to England. He was plagued by mutinous crewmen, and also by natives and Portuguese who attacked his sailors seeking food and water on shore. Increasingly depressed, Cavendish died in 1592 somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean, possibly a suicide.[7][14]

During the voyage, Hues made

John Smith, who founded the first permanent English settlement in North America at Jamestown, Virginia, listed Hues' book among the works that a young seaman should study.[22]

A drawing of Molyneux's terrestrial globe from Tractaet ofte Handelinge van het gebruyck der Hemelscher ende Aertscher Globe, the 1623 Dutch version of Hues' Tractatus de globis

Tractatus de globis begins with a letter by Hues dedicated to Raleigh that recalled geographical discoveries made by Englishmen during Elizabeth I's reign. However, he felt that his countrymen would have surpassed the

secants.[29]

In the 1590s, Hues continued to have dealings with Raleigh – he was one of the executors of Raleigh's will

Thomas Percy
was among the conspirators.

In 1616, following Grey's death, Hues began to be "attendant upon th'aforesaid Earle of Northumberland for matters of learning",[30] and was paid a yearly sum of £40 to support his research until Northumberland's death in 1632.[1][15] Wood stated that Harriot, Hues and Warner were Northumberland's "constant companions, and were usually called the Earl of Northumberland's Three Magi. They had a table at the Earl's charge, and the Earl himself did constantly converse with them, and with Sir Walter Raleigh, then in the Tower".[31] Together with the scientist Nathanael Toporley and the mathematician Thomas Allen, the men kept abreast of developments in astronomy, mathematics, physiology and the physical sciences, and made important contributions in these areas.[32] According to the letter writer John Chamberlain, Northumberland refused a pardon offered to him in 1617, preferring to remain with Harriot, Hues and Warner.[33] However, the fact that these companions of Northumberland were his "Three Magi" studying with him in the Tower of London has been regarded as a romanticisation by the antiquarian John Aubrey and disputed for lack of evidence.[1][34] Hues was tutor to Northumberland's sons: first Algernon Percy, who subsequently became the 10th Earl of Northumberland, at Oxford where he matriculated at Christ Church in 1617; and later Algernon's younger brother Henry in 1622–1623. Hues lived at Christ Church at this time, but may have occasionally attended upon Northumberland at Petworth House in Petworth, West Sussex, and at Syon House in London after the latter's release from the Tower in 1622.[32] Hues sometimes met Walter Warner in London, and they are known to have discussed the reflection of bodies.[1]

Later life

Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, the burial place of Robert Hues

In later years, Hues lived in Oxford where he discussed mathematics and allied subjects with like-minded friends.[1][35] Cormack states he was a fellow at the University.[18] Under the terms of the will of Thomas Harriot, who died on 2 July 1621, Hues and Warner were given the responsibility of helping Harriot's executor Nathaniel Torporley to prepare Harriot's mathematical papers for publication. Hues was also required to help price Harriot's books and other possessions for sale to the Bodleian Library.[1]

Hues, who did not marry, died on 24 May 1632 in Stone House,

bequests to his friends, including a sum of £20 to his "kinswoman" Mary Holly (of whom nothing is known), and 20 nobles to each of her three sisters. He was buried in Christ Church Cathedral, and a monumental brass to him was placed in Christ Church with the following inscription:[1]

Depositum viri literatissimi, morum ac religionis integerrimi, Roberti Husia, ob eruditionem omnigenem [sic: omnigenam?], Theologicam tum Historicam, tum Scholasticam, Philologicam, Philosophiam, præsertim vero Mathematicam (cujus insigne monumentum in typis reliquit) Primum Thomæ Candishio conjunctissimi, cujus in consortio, explorabundis [sic: explorabundus?] velis ambivit orbem: deinde Domino Baroni Gray; cui solator accessit in arca Londinensi. Quo defuncto, ad studia henrici Comitis Northumbriensis ibidem vocatus est, cujus filio instruendo cum aliquot annorum operam in hac Ecclesia dedisset et Academiae confinium locum valetudinariae senectuti commodum censuisset; in ædibus Johannis Smith, corpore exhaustus, sed animo vividus, expiravit die Maii 24, anno reparatae salutis 1632, aetatis suæ 79.[37] [Here lies a highly lettered man, of the highest moral and religious integrity, Robert Hues, on account of his erudition in all subjects, both Theology and History, and Rhetoric, Philology, and Philosophy, but especially Mathematics (of which a notable volume [i.e., his book] remains in print). He was most closely associated with Thomas Cavendish, in whose company he explored the world by sail; then with Lord Baron Gray, for whom he came as consoler in the Tower of London. When Gray died, he was summoned to study in the same place with Henry Earl of Northumberland, to teach his son, and when he had worked for some years in this Church [i.e., Christ Church Cathedral], and had decided that the place next to the School [i.e., Christ Church, Oxford] was suitable for his health in his old age, he breathed his last at the house of John Smith, his body exhausted, but with a lively spirit, on 24 May, in the year of our salvation 1632, at the age of 79.]

Works

The Hakluyt Society's reprint of the English version was itself published as:
The title page of a 1623 Dutch version of Hues' Tractatus de globis

The following works also are, or appear to be, versions of Tractatus de globis et eorum usu, though they are not mentioned by Markham:

Notes

  1. ^
    doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/14045. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  2. OCLC 222963720
  3. fellows
    of the University in exchange for free accommodation and some meals, and exemption from paying fees for lectures.
  4. OCLC 5574505
    , vols. 1–2. Hues is listed under the name "Hughes".
  5. OCLC 216610936
  6. ISBN 978-0-521-83187-1
  7. ^ a b Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, p. xxxv.
  8. OCLC 531838
  9. ^ David Singmaster (28 February 2003), BSHM Gazetteer: Petworth, West Sussex, British Society for the History of Mathematics, archived from the original on 25 May 2009, retrieved 7 February 2008. See also David Singmaster (28 February 2003), BSHM Gazetteer: Thomas Harriot, British Society for the History of Mathematics, archived from the original on 25 May 2009, retrieved 7 February 2008
  10. OCLC 6672789
  11. ^ MS Rawl. B 158, Bodleian Library, Oxford.
  12. OCLC 77435498
  13. ^ Margaret Montgomery Larnder (2000), "Davis (Davys), John", Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, archived from the original on 8 June 2009, retrieved 9 June 2009
  14. ISBN 978-1-57958-425-2
  15. ^ a b c d Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, p. xxxvi.
  16. OCLC 55576175 (in Latin
    ).
  17. JSTOR 1791852
  18. ^
    S2CID 145588853
  19. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/50911. (Subscription or UK public library membership
    required.)
  20. ^ Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, pp. xxxviii–xl.
  21. The Huntington Library) in San Marino, California. Accidence is the branch of grammar that deals with the accidents or inflections of words. The term came to mean a book about the rudiments of grammar, and was extended to the rudiments or first principles of any subject: see "accidence2", OED Online (2nd ed.), Oxford: Oxford University Press
    , 1989, retrieved 23 July 2016
  22. S2CID 178295770
  23. ^ Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, p. xli.
  24. ^ Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, pp. xli–xlii.
  25. ^ Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, pp. xlii–xliii.
  26. ^ a b Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, p. xlii.
  27. ^ Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, pp. xlii and xlvi.
  28. S2CID 164132753
  29. ISBN 978-0-8018-7397-3
  30. ISBN 978-0-19-822901-8
  31. OCLC 8166998, archived from the original
    on 16 July 2011, retrieved 10 November 2008
  32. ^ a b Kargon, "The Wizard Earl and the New Science" in Atomism in England, pp. 5–17 at 16.
  33. OCLC 221477966
    : see Kargon, "The Wizard Earl and the New Science" in Atomism in England, pp. 5–17 at 16.
  34. Bibcode:1995QJRAS..36...97C
  35. ISBN 978-0-521-25133-4
  36. OCLC 84810015
    . See Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, p. xxxvii, n. 1.
  37. ^ Historia et antiquitates universitatis Oxoniensis, vol. 2, p. 534. The brass is also referred to at p. 288: "In laminâ œneâ, eidem pariati [sic: parieti?] impactâ talem cernis inscriptionem" (On the copper plate, driven to the same wall, one sees such an inscription). See Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, p. xxxvii, n. 1.
  38. OCLC 42811612
    ). According to Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, pp. xxxvii–xxxviii, the title of this version is Tractaut of te handebingen van het gebruych der hemel siker ende aertscher globe, and it was printed in Antwerp.
  39. ^ J.J. O'Connor; E.F. Robertson (August 2006), Pierre Hérigone, The MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, archived from the original on 31 October 2007, retrieved 7 November 2008
  40. OCLC 8909075
    ) suggests that the 1624 version was in Latin, not Dutch.
  41. OL 7015375M, retrieved 10 November 2008. According to Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, p. xxxix, although the title page of the work states that the translator was "John Chilmead", this is generally believed to be an error as no such person was known to have lived at the time. Instead, the translator is believed to be Edmund Chilmead (1610–1653), a translator, man of letters and music teacher who graduated in 1628 and was a chaplain of Christ Church, Oxford
    .
  42. ^ Markham, "Introduction", Tractatus de globis, pp. xxxix–xl.
  43. Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 7 August 1995, archived from the original
    on 2 May 2008, retrieved 11 November 2008
  44. ^ HUES, Robert, 1553–1632. Tractatvs de globis coelesti et terrestri eorvmqve vsv, Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal, 2002, archived from the original on 9 June 2011, retrieved 11 November 2008

References

Further reading

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert Hues.
Articles
Books
  • Hutchinson, John (1890), Herefordshire Biographies, being a Record of such of Natives of the County as have Attained to more than Local Celebrity, with Notices of their Lives and Bibliographical References, together with an Appendix containing Notices of some other Celebrities, Intimately Connected with the County but not Natives of it, Hereford: Jakeman & Carver,
    OCLC 62357054
    .


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