2

In about three weeks Dee received a reply to this considerate letter, evidently not entirely satisfactory, for on June 3 he paid Antony Cowley 20s. and discharged him. Next day "Antony went forth early from my house, I know not whither."

Dee now began to direct his whole attention to his charge: the college and the college lands. A royal commission was appointed to sit and examine its internal affairs. On June 18 "the commission for the college was sent to London to be engrossed inthe Duchy office." Dee was a layman; he had always stipulated he should have no cure of souls attached to whatever benefice he might hold. For the daily services at Manchester he employed a succession of curates (mostly unsatisfactory), to whom he paid "wages 50s. for three months." He was far more interested in the temporal than the spiritual welfare of his college, and indeed his desire for such an appointment seems rather to have been solely prompted by the selfish, if necessary, wish for an income and means to pursue his own studies in peace. He was to find neither in Manchester.

In June he received a visit from Mr. Harry Savile, the antiquary, of the Bank, Halifax, and by him he sent a request to Christopher Saxton, of Dunningley, near Halifax, to come and arrange a survey of the town of Manchester, and consult about the parish boundaries. Saxton was a well-known character of the time, the holder of a patent from the Queen, whose arms appear upon the maps he made of the three counties of Chester, York and Lancaster. They were the first maps of Britain made from actual survey, and had been issued as an atlas in 1579, most of the maps having been engraved in 1577. His visits to Dee lasted over three weeks; notes are entered of his measuring the township and visiting Hough Hall, the seat of Nicholas Mosely, the Lancashire clothier who, two or three years later, became Lord Mayor of London and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth. The boys, Arthur and Rowland; the two faithful assistants, Crocker and Walkden accompanied Dee and Mr. Saxton on the peregrination. Harry Savile seems to have made one of the party also. Unfortunately, Saxton's Manchester survey is not now known to be in existence.

A surprise visit was paid to the Warden on June 26 by his landlord, the Earl of Derby, and a large party of ladies and gentlement, including Lady Gerard, wife of the Master of the Rolls; her daughter Frances, and her husband, Sir Richard Molyneux, of Sefton, a former member for the county of Lancaster. Their son-in-law, Mr. Richard Hoghton, of Hoghton Towers, and others, also accompanied the Earl. The Warden says: "They came suddenly upon me after three of the clock. I made them a skoler's collation, and it was taken in good part. I browght his honor and the ladyes to Ardwick Green toward Lyme, to Mr. Legh his howse, 12 myles off." Mrs. Legh was Lady Gerard's second daughter, so it was altogether a family party that descended so unexpectedly on the Warden, and no doubt ate merrily of his "scholar's collation." The only absence from Manchester recorded by the Warden (except the two years in London) was on August 13 this year, when he says that he "rid toward York and Halifax, returning from York on the 20th."

On September 1, Mary Goodwyn came "to govern and teach" the two younger children, Madinia, aged six, and Margaret, one year old. There was a field or two let with the College House, and the Warden now turned farmer, getting a small drove of seventeen head of cattle up from his kinsfolk in Wales to graze the pasture. They were brought up by the "courteous Griffith David, nephew to Mr. Thomas Griffith, and were a present." Dee had to visit Sir John Byron about the college tenants.