The Curious Papers of the Curious Dr. Stukeley

During my visit to the Folger Shakespeare Library last summer, a few curious items belonging to William Stukeley (1687-1765) captured my interest. One of them was a heavily annotated copy of Robin Hood’s Garland, a collection of ballads about England’s most famous outlaw. Stukeley cut out pages and plates from the original book, as well as from two other books (The English Archer and A True Tale of Robin Hood), and pasted them onto new sheets, interspersed with handwritten notes. He also drew a view of an unidentified town and added a handwritten introduction and a folded pedigree (family tree) of Robin Hood. The other items belonging to Stukeley were a similarly personalized copy of the play The famous historye of the life and death of Captaine Thomas Stukeley (1605), three broadsheet ballads on the same story, another ballad called ‘Robin Hood rescuing Will. Stukly’, and an 18th-century engraving entitled ‘Robin Hood and William Stukley’.

Henry Folger purchased these items in 1924 from the London antiquarian bookseller Maggs Bros. They had been auctioned at Sotheby’s on July 15th that year, along with other books and manuscripts from Stukeley’s collection. A few days later, Maggs Bros. wrote to Mr. Folger and informed him about a rare copy of the play about Thomas Stukeley or Stucley, a recusant who had conspired with several Catholic rulers against Queen Elizabeth. In 1878, Richard Simpson had claimed that Shakespare had been involved in writing the play. Mr. Folger had recently purchased another copy of the play from Maggs Bros. But this copy was different because it was annotated by a supposed descendant of the protagonist, William Stukeley. The bookseller also sold Folger the other items based on this connection. For example, Robin Hood’s Garland was said to have come ‘from the library of William Stukeley (…) a descendant of the celebrated Captain Thomas Stukeley (…) (Shakespeare was supposed to have had a hand in writing the famous Play on this Thomas Stukeley)’.  It is not clear whether there was actually a family connection between these three men, but William Stukeley probably believed there was.

William Stukeley was an English physician, clergyman, and antiquarian, born in Holbeach, Lincolnshire in 1687. He is best known for his proto-archaeological work on Stonehenge and Avebury and his now discredited theory that they were temples of the ancient British Druids. But, Stukeley, who once described himself as ‘a person of curiosity’, also published works on many other subjects, including medicine, theology, and earthquakes.

He also is notorious among Robin Hood scholars for fabricating a family tree of the outlaw in his Palaeographia Britannica (1746), claiming that he was Robert Fitzooth, Earl of Huntingdon. The item at the Folger contains what appears to be a much earlier version of the pedigree he would publish in 1746. The manuscript was signed in 1720, although it includes a drawing of one of Robin Hood’s men dated 1719, and a fragment of an invitation to ‘all Gentlemen who are Lovers of the Ancient and Noble Exercise of Archery’ to shoot at a target at Mr. John Smith’s on May 16th, 1722. R. B. Dobson, who was a Folger Visiting Overseas Scholar in 1974, examined the book and said that the family tree was an even more preposterous version of the one that was eventually published.

In his Commentarys, an autobiographical account written also around 1720, Stukeley recalls that, as a child, ‘one of my Fathers men had got the collection of old songs made on Robin Hood, & among the rest of his company my Name sake, which he used to sing over to us in a winters evening.’ Those stories got young Stukeley into archery, but he also appears to have remained interested in his namesake, a companion of Robin Hood called William Stukly. He kept a copy of the ballad about him mentioned above (which was also edited in Robin Hood’s Garland) and Robin Hood’s pedigree includes a draft of Stukly’s family tree on the side, showing him descending from a Lord Herbert de Styvecle in Huntingdon ca. 1160. In fact, in another note, the antiquarian writes that ‘Stukley was of an antient Family from a Town of the same Name near Huntington, related to the Earls of Huntington & therefore to Robin Hood.’ It should also be noted that Huntingdonshire was relatively close to Lincolnshire, where Dr. Stukeley was born and raised. Stukly is probably also the one depicted in the 18th-century engraving, though one can only wonder whether the antiquarian Stukeley saw something of himself in the depiction of Robin Hood’s companion in 18th-century attire.

It is also probable that the antiquarian thought that Captain Stukeley was connected to Stukly. In a note on The famous historye he writes: ‘Thomas Stukeley was of the Devonshire family which sprung from the original one in Huntingdon shire.’ He also records talking to a Mrs. Prior, née Stukeley, from Devonshire, who claimed that there was a picture of Thomas in her house, and that as a girl she used to prick its eyes with pins.

The fact that over 20 years would pass before he published Robin Hood’s pedigree is not unusual for Stukeley. The first few years after he received his MD from the University of Cambridge, in 1709, were times of intense intellectual work and enthusiasm, some of which provided him with material for much later work. In the 1710s and 1720s, he began making summer trips around England, visiting several archaeological sites, such as Stonehenge and Avebury. During this time he gathered information and made dozens of drawings. Some of these were published in his Itinerarium Curiosum (1726), but his most important works on the subject appeared much later: Stonehenge. A Temple Restor’d to the British Druids (1740) and Abury. A Temple of the British Druids, with Some Others Described (1743).

It was also during these early years that he became a member of several learned societies. While living in Boston, Lincolnshire, he joined the Spalding’s Gentlemen Society. In 1717, he moved to London where he soon became a Fellow of the Royal Society, befriended his countryman Isaac Newton, and was elected secretary to the newly refounded Society of Antiquaries. In 1720, he became a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and, in 1721, was initiated a Freemason. Finally, in 1722, he founded the Society of Roman Knights to study Britain’s Roman past.

Around 1726, Stukeley’s life took a turn. He married Frances Williamson and they moved back to Lincolnshire, where he was ordained as a minister of the Church of England and became the vicar of All Saints, Stamford. It was there that he would eventually get to write and publish most of his books, based on material collected in the 1720s.

If the dating of his copy of Robin Hood’s Garland in the early 1720s is correct, he would have begun collecting this material during this period of intense research and intellectual networking. His copy of The famous historye appears to be from only a few years later, as it contains an ink drawing of a ‘View of brother Williamsons house’ dedicated to Stukeley’s wife and dated January 29, 1727-28.

Both of these books may reflect Stukeley’s interest in building up his own pedigree in order to enhance his reputation in London’s society. Although none of this information appears in his Commentarys (1720), where he describes his most immediate family, another manuscript dated ca. 1720 and included in the same Sotheby’s auction in 1924, shows Stukeley’s interest in his ancient lineage. The auction catalogue described it as a ‘Pedigree of the Stukeley family, with its alliances, from the 12th to the 18th Century […] tracing descent from Walter de Styvecle, of Great Styvecle, Co. Huntigdon, 1180, to William Stukeley, with numerous shields and arms finished in colours.’ The Bodleian Library has a similar manuscript, dated ca. 1730, which traces the family tree back to the 9th century (MS. Eng. misc. d. 452). Unfortunately, I have not been able to examine either of these, but Walter de Styvecle is recorded in Robin Hood’s pedigree.

Stukeley’s papers at the Folger deserve further study. For example, it is not clear where the 18th-century engraving came from. A note on the back states that it was removed from STC 23405 Copy 2 (i.e., the play on Thomas Stukely) in 1969, but after consulting with Dr. Erin Blake, Senior Cataloguer for Art and Manuscripts at the Folger, this does not appear to be the case.

More importantly, although Stukeley’s Garland is known to Robin Hood scholars, it has not been taken into account by the antiquarian’s biographers. This is probably due to the fact that it is separated by an ocean from the bulk of Stukeley’s manuscripts which remain in England, particularly in the British Library and the Bodleian Library.

A study of these materials would help to better understand Stukeley’s interest in Robin Hood, William Stukly, and Captain Thomas Stukely. More interestingly, it might shed light on how Stukeley presented himself in English social and intellectual circles, and on his research process as an antiquarian.