CONDOVER: Geographical and Historical information from the year 1824.

 

"CONDOVER, a parish in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover, its vicarage discharged, in the diocese of Coventry and the deanery of Salop, and archdeaconry of Salop, 274 houses, 1,378 inhabitants, 6½ miles south of Shrewsbury.

Condover is the birth place of Thomas Owen, a learned judge, who was educated at Oxford; from whence he removed to Lincoln's Inn, where he became Lent reader to the society, in 1583. In 1590, he was made Serjeant at Law, and afterwards a judge of the Common Pleas. He died in 1598, reports were printed in 1654.

Richard Tarlton, or Tarleton, the earliest English comedian of celebrity, was also born at Condover. At what precise period he commenced actor is unknown. He was brought to London, and introduced to court, by a servant of Robert, Earl of Leicester, who found him in a field, keeping his father's swine. The Earl 'highly 'pleased,' says Fuller, 'with his happy unhappy answers,' took him under his patronage.

In 1583, Queen Elizabeth, at the suit of Sir Francis Walsingham, constituted twelve players, who were sworn her servants, allowing them wages and liveries, as grooms of the chamber, (a custom which lasted till Colley Cibber's time,) one of whom, was Tarleton.

Heywood, in his " Apology for Actors," says 'Here I must needs remember Tarleton, in his time, gratious with the Queene Soveraigne, and in the people's general applause.' And Hawes, the editor of Stow's Chronicle, observes, 'Among these twelve players, were two rare men; viz., Thomas Wilson, for a quicke, delicate, refined, extemporal wit; and Richard Tarleton, for a wondrous, plentiful, pleasant, extemporal wit, was the wonder of his tyme. He was so beloved that men used his pictures for their signes.'* Fuller asserts that, 'when Queen Elizabeth was serious ( I dare not say sullen) and out of good humour, he could undumpish her at his pleasure. Her highest favourites would in some cases, go to Tarleton, before they would go to the Queen; and he was their usher, to prepare their advantageous access unto her. In a word, he told the Queen more of her faults than most or her chaplains; and cured her melancholy, better than all her physicians.'

Sir Richard Baker in his Theatrum Redivivum, speaking of Pryane, says 'let him try it when he will, and come upon the stage himself, with all the scurrility of the Wife of Bath, with all the ribaldry of Poggins, or Boccace; yet, I dare affirm, he shall never give that contentment to beholders, as honest Tarleton did; though he said never a word.' Implying that the very aspect of Tarleton, delighted the spectators, before he uttered a syllable; and in his chronicle, Sir Richard, after giving due praise to Allen and Burbage, adds, 'and to make their comedies complete, Richard Tarleton, who for the part called the Clowne's part, never had his match,- never will have.'

Dr. Cave, De Politics, Oxf. 1588, 4to., says 'Aristotles suum Theodoretum laudavit quendam peritum tragrediarum actorem, Cicero suum Rosciam, nos Angli Tarletonum; in cujas voce et vultu onines jocosi affectus, in cujus cerebroso capite, lepidae facetae habitant.' Fuller says, 'much of his merriment, lay in his very looks and actions; according to the epitaph written upon him,

Hic situs est, cujus poterat, vox, actio, vultus, Ex Heraclito reddere Democritum.

Indeed the self same words, spoken by another, would hardly move a merry man to smile, which uttered by him, would force a sad soul to laughter.'

That he possessed the via comica in a supereminent degree, the following epigram assures us;

As Tarleton when his head was only seene, The Fire house door, and Tapistrie between, Set all the multitude in such a laughter, They could not hold for scarce an hour after; So, Sir, I set you, as I promised, forth, That all the world may wonder at your worth.

He for some time kept an ordinary in Paternoster Row; and then, the sign of the Tabor, a Tavern in Gracechurch street, where he was chosen scavenger; but was often complained of by the ward, for neglect: he laid the blame on the raker, and he again on the horse, which being blooded and drenched the preceding day, could not be worked: then said Tarleton, the horse must suffer; so he sent him to the compter; and when the raker had done his work, sent him to pay the fees, and redeem the horse. Another story is told of him, that having run up a large score at an alehouse in Sandwich, he made his boy accuse him, for a seminary priest. The officers came and siezed him in his chamber, on his knees, crossing himself; and they paying his reckoning, with the charges of his journey, he got clear to London. When they brought him before the Recorder, Fleetwood, he knew him, and not only discharged him, but entertained him very courteously.

In a very rare old pamphlet, entitled "Kind Hearte's Dream," by Henry Chettle, 4to., no date, but published in December, 1592, he is thus described. ' The next, by his suite of russet,- his buttoned cap,- his taber,- his standing on the toe, and other tricks, I knew to be either the body, or resemblance of Tarleton; who, living for his pleasant conceits, was of all men liked, and dying, for mirth left not, his like.'

In 1611, a book was published, called "Tarleton's Jeasts." It contains several specimens of the extemporary wit, so pleasing to our ancestors, of which the following is one.

' As he was performing some part at the Bull, in Bishopsgate street, where the Queen's players often times played, a fellow in the gallery, threw an apple at him, which hit him on the cheek; he immediately took up the apple, and advancing to the audience, addressed them in these lines.

Gentlemen, this fellow with his face of mapple,** Instead of a pippin, hath thrown me an apple, But as for an apple, he hath cast a crab, So instead of an honest woman, God hath sent him a drab.

The people,' says the relater, 'laughed heartily, for the fellow had a queen to his wife.'

Tarleton's wife, (whose name was Kate,) is said to have been unfaithful to him. Being with her in a storm, in his passage from Southampton, when every man was compelled to throw all his baggage overboard, he offered to throw his wife over; but the other passengers prevented him.

So great wss his privilege with the audience, and his power over them, that he would enter between the acts, nay, sometimes between the scenes, on the stage, and excite merriment by any spacial of buffoonery that occurred to him; as in this whimsical instance.

'At the Bull, in Bishopsgate street, was a play of Henry the fifth, (the performance which preceded Shakespeare's,) and because he was absent that should take the blow, Tarleton himself, ever forward to please, tooke upon him to play the sane judge, besides his owne part of the clowne; and Knel, then playing Henry the fifth, hit Tarleton a sound box indeed, which made the people laugh the more because it was he; but anon the judge goes in, and immediately Tarleton, in his clowne's clothes comes out, and asks the actors- What news? O, saith one, hadst thou been here thou should'st have seen Prince Henry hit the Judge a terrible box on the eare! What, man, strike a Judge! It is true i'faith, said the other! No other like, said Tarleton, and it could not but be terrible to the Judge, when the report so terrifies me, that methinks the blowe remains still on my cheeke, that it burns again. The people laught at this mightily; and to this day I have beard it commended for rare: but no marvel, for he had many of these. But I would see our clowns in these days doe the like. No, I warrant ye; and yet they think well of themselves too.'

After the play was finished, theames were given to him by some of the audience, which, to their great entertainment, he would descant upon. In his "Jeasts" we find the following:-

"I remember once I was at a play in the country, when, as Tarleton's use was, the play being done, every one so pleased threw up his theame: amongst an the rest, one was read to this effect, word by word:

Tarleton, I am one of thy friends, and none of thy foes, Then I pr'y'thee tell me, how thou cam'st by thy flat nose,

Tarleton very suddenly returned this answer:

Friend or foe, if Wilt nteds know, marke me well; With parting dogs and bears, then by the ears, this chance fell; But what of that? though my nose be flat, my credit to save, Yet very well, I can by the smell, scent an honest man from a knave.'

Ben Johnson, in " The Induction" to his comedy of Bartholomew fair, makes the stage keeper speak thus of him:

'I kept the stage in Master Tarleton's time, I thank my stars. Ho ! an' that man had lived to have played in Bertholomew fair, you should ha' seen him ha' come in, and ha' been cozened i' the cloth quarter so finely.'

He was the author of a drumstick piece, the schethe or plant only, of which is now remaining, called "The Seven deadly sins." Gabriel Harvey, in his four letters, &c. 4to. 1592; stiles it 'a famous play:' he also adds, 'which most deadly but lively playe, I might have seen in London, and was very gently invited thereunto at Oxford, by Tarleton himself.'

After an eccentrick and too free life, he died a penitent in 1588, and was buried in St. Leonard's, Shoreditch, September 3, of that year; as appears by the parish register. About this period were licensed, as we learn front the entries in the books of the stationer's company: 'A sorrowfull newe sounette, intitled Tarleton's Recantation, upon this theame given him by a gentleman at the Bel Savage, without Ludgate, being the last theame he songs, (Now or else never,') and 'Tarleton's repentance, or his farewell to his friends in his sickness a little before his death, &c.'

In "Wit's Bedlam" Svo. 1617, it the following epitaph on Tarleton.

' Here, within this sullen earth, Lies Dick Tarleton, lord of mirth. Who in his grave still laughing gapes, Syth all clownes have been his apes; First he of clownes to learn still sought, But now they learn of him they taught By art far past the principall, The counterfeit is,- so worth all.'

The orthography and phraseology of these anecdotes, no doubt, appear uncouth; and some of Tarleton's jokes, witticisms, and mummeries, flat and insipid to the modern reader and auditor; but it must be remembered that when this celebrated Buffo flourished, that humour was but in embryo, to which Shakespeare afterwards gave birth, and which was afterward reared to maturity by Jonson.

* At that time it was common for every tradesman's shop to have its sign:- a custom which has become almost obsolete; or is at least, confided to inns and tippling houses.

** i.e. rough and carbuncled."

" BAYSTON, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 2½ miles south of Shrewsbury."

" CHATFORD, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 4½ miles south of Shrewsbury."

" CONDOVER HAMLETS, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover."

" DORRINGTON, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. The residence of William Cross Curtis, Esq."

" GREAT LYTH, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 2 miles south- west of Shrewsbury."

" GREAT LYTH, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 4 miles south- west of Shrewsbury."

" GREAT RYTON, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 6 miles south of Shrewsbury."

" LITTLE LYTH and WESTLEY, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 4 miles south- west of Shrewsbury."

" LITTLE RYTON (and HAMLETS), a township in the parish of Condover, and in the hundred of Condover."

" LYTH WOOD, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 3 miles south- west of Shrewsbury. The residence of Thomas Parr, Esq."

" NORTON, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 4 miles south of Shrewsbury. The seat of Miss Oakley."

" RYTON. (Great) A township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 6 miles south of Shrewsbury."

" ST. LYTH and WESTLEY, a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover. 4 miles south-west of Shrewsbury."

" WHETTALL (or WHEATHILL, or WHEATHALL), a township in the parish of Condover, and in the Condover division of the hundred of Condover.

[Transcribed information from A Gazetteer of Shropshire - T Gregory - 1824](unless otherwise stated)

[Description(s) transcribed by Mel Lockie ©2015]