65- ) English Literature

65-) English Literature  

Thomas Bastard

The Reverend Thomas Bastard (1565/1566 – April 19, 1618) was an English clergyman famed for his published English language epigrams.Elizabethan epigrammatist and clergyman Thomas Bastard was born in Blandford, Dorchester, and educated at Winchester College and New College, Oxford, where he earned a BA and MA and was made a perpetual Fellow in 1588. The fellowship was retracted on charges of libel in 1601, after Bastard was suspected of authoring the anonymous tract An Admonition to the City of Oxford, or Marprelates Basterdine, which noted the sexual misdeeds of well-known members of the community.

Life

Satirist and divine. Thomas Bastard was rector of Bere Regis Dorset at St John the Baptist Church and finally Rector of St Mary Church Almer Dorset. He had a mental breakdown towards the end of his life, which, in turn, made him less careful and he became bankrupt. He ended his days in a debtors' prison in Dorchester, county town of Dorset. Bastard was married three times. He married on 10 February 1594 at St Marys Bere Regis. His son is Peter Bastard, b. c 1585, Dorset, and d. 1618, Blandford Forum, Dorset, England. He had a son, Thomas Bastard, b. c 1612, Blandford Forum, Dorset, who married Agnes Foster, b. 16 July 1620 in Dorset. They had a daughter, Deborah Bastard Hornet, aka Horlick, b. 1641, Blandford Forum, Dorset, and d. 1686 in Dorset. She married a Horlick, ancestor to the famous Horlicks beverages company and founders. The wife to the Reverend Thomas Bastard is Agnes Holmer Bastard, b. c 1574, Dorset, and d. 23 October 1678 in Dorset. Thomas Bastard (b. 1566) attended Winchester College, then New College, Oxford, in 1586, BA 1590 and MA 1606. He was made a Fellow at New College in 1591. He was a poet and writer, famed for his publication of epigrams in "Chrestoleros" (pub. 1598, a series of 7 books with over 300 poems). He was expelled from New College as a Fellow for writing the book "Admonition to the City of Oxford," regarding the sexual shenanigans of various Oxford clergy and academics. He retained his admirers, Sir Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy, who appointed him as chaplain and Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk, who appointed him rector of St John the Baptist at Bere Regis, Dorset, and later rector at Almer Dorset at St Marys, which is where he eventually had his mental breakdown.

Born in Blandford Forum, Dorset, England, Bastard is best known for seven books of 285 epigrams entitled Chrestoleros published in 1598.

He initially attended Winchester College. Subsequently he began studying at New College, Oxford, on 27 August 1586. By 1588, he was assigned as a perpetual Fellow of New College. Though later expelled from his Fellowship, Bastard still received a BA in 1590, and an MA 16 years later in 1606.

Bastard served as a chaplain and vicar for the Church of England and in 1615 published two collections of tracts: Five Sermons and Twelve Sermons.

Bastard became notorious for libeling the sexual doings of various Oxford clergy and academics via a published tract entitled An Admonition to the city of Oxford, &c. Despite disavowing authorship, he was nonetheless expelled from his Oxford fellowship in 1591.

He still maintained a few supporters and admirers, primarily, Sir Charles Blount, Lord Mountjoy who appointed him as a chaplain, and Thomas Howard, 1st Earl of Suffolk who appointed him vicar of Bere Regis and later, in 1606, Rector of Almer in Dorset.

 Death

He died impoverished in the debtor's prison at Allhallows parish, Dorchester, and was buried in parish churchyard.

After a mental breakdown, he died at the age of 52 in debtor’s prison in Dorchester and was buried in a churchyard there.

Works

Bastard’s poetry collection, Chrestoleros: Seven Books of Epigrames (1598), contains almost 300 of his epigrams. These brief poems, ranging in length from two to 16 lines, are primarily concerned with the events and people of his time and balance lively satire against bitter reflections of poverty. Bastard also published the three-volume Magna Britannia: A Latin Poem (1605).

Prior to Bastard's death, admirer Sir John Harrington said in a poem:

"To Master Bastard, a minister, that made a pleasant Book of English Epigrams:

You must in pulpit treat of matters serious;

As it beseems the person and the place;

There preach of faith, repentance, hope, and grace;

Of sacraments, and such high things mysterious:

But they are too severe, and too imperious,

That unto honest sports will grant no space.

For these our minds refresh, those weary us,

And spur out doubled spirit to swifter pace."

Epigram 9:

Age is deformed, youth unkind

We scorn their bodies, they our mind