The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700
John Burton, Dr. (1710 - 1771)
Physician and Antiquary. He purchased some of Thoresby's collection, including several "Humane Rarities," sometime between Thoresby's death and 1764 when Rev. Ralph Thoresby (Thoresby's son and heir) auctioned off the remainder of his father's collection (Atkinson, 2.435. Cf. Whitaker).This Dr. Burton is the same who acquired the Constable collection and author of Monasticon Eboracense, confirmed by both Burton/Raine and the old DNB entry, as well as Lancaster (142n). See Connell and Boyd:
[Burton] is known beyond doubt to have transferred ownership of his collection of Yorkshire manuscripts to William Constable in September 1769. A printed catalogue of these manuscripts" survives at Burton Constable, bearing - at the foot of the final page - a written agreement, signed by Burton himself, stating that, in return for the documents, William Constable was to pay 'an Annuity of Fifty five pounds' to Burton's widow. In view of the fact that many of the ex-Thoresby specimens which came to Burton Constable are known to have been acquired by a Dr Burton following Thoresby's death, and that the manuscript collection of Dr John Burton of York (almost certainly the same personage) was also acquired by that wide-ranging dilettante William Constable, it seems reasonable to assume that Dr John Burton ... did, indeed, represent the intermediary by whom part of Thoresby's collection arrived at Burton Constable (36).Correction: Connell and Boyd give Burton's life dates as 1697-1771, apparently conflating John Burton (1696–1771), Church of England clergyman and tutor, and John Burton (1710–1771), antiquary and physician.
A "distinguished antiquary," "a vehement political and a Jacobite," who sold Woodhall to his "particular friend" John Graham in 1747-8 (Burton and Raine, 205-6). Married a Mary Henson at York Minster on 2 January 1744-5.
Dictionary of National Biography entry: https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/4134 Other biography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Burton_(antiquary) Collector (minor)
Relevant locations: Birth place in Colchester, Essex
Residence at York, Yorkshire
Relationships: John Burton was a associate or acquaintance (general) of William Constable (1721-1791)
John Burton was a friend of John Graham (-c. 14 Jan 1773)
John Burton was a unspecified to Ralph Thoresby (1658-1725)
Linked print sources: as Mentions or references - Ducatus Leodiensis; or the topography of the town and parish of Leedes and parts adjacent ...
as Mentions or references - Letters Addressed to Ralph Thoresby, F.R.S.: Printed from the Originals in the Possession of the Yorkshire Archaeological Society .
as Mentions or references - Material from the 'Museum' of Ralph Thoresby (1659-1725) Preserved at Burton Constable Hall, East Yorkshire.
as Mentions or references - Ralph Thoresby, the Topographer: The Town and His Times.
as Mentions or references - The History and Antiquities of the Parish of Hemingbrough in the County of York.
References in Documents:
As to the Name of that Roman-Station upon the Moor near
-Adel
Mill, I am now enclined to think it was
, because thatBurgo-dunum
having lately by the Favour of my honoured Friend
Peter le NeveEsq
Norroy, had the Perusal of that famous Record,
Domesday-Book, in
her Majesty's Court of
Exchequerat
, I find nearWestminster
, beAdele
twixt
andCucheric
, a Place calledEchope
. Of theBurghedunum
, bothRoman
Burgi
Burgi
. make frequent mention, and the SiCamden , Burton , &c
tuation of the Place upon a Hill, sufficiently accounts for the Termi
of
Burden-head.
NOTICE OF A HUMAN HAND AND FOREARM, PIERCED WITH NAIL
HOLES, AND A BASKET-HILTED SWORD, FORMERLY PRESERVED
IN THE FAMILY OF GRAHAM OF
RELICS OF
MORKILL
In the middle of last century there lived at
of Hemingbrough
who treasured as the most precious heirlooms of his house a
withered arm, asserted to have been taken from the body of the famous
sword said to have belonged to the same nobleman. At his death in
Elizabeth Graham
with the bulk of her property, including her estate of
middle life, in
1834 the latter sold
arm and sword, and these, with other relics of the Graham family, afterwards
came into the hands of his daughter,
Ellerfleld House,
purchased them in
the portraits of
A statement in the handwriting of
this document is unfortunately missing, but the remaining portion reads
as follows:—
"The Noble
which he wrote the famous epitaph
I had a present made of the arm by
had purchased it amongst other Cu
to
made me a present of it that the
together.
The Mr Throsby mentioned above was
occurs the following entry:— "But the most noted of all the Humane
Curiosities is the Hand and Arm cut off at the Elbow, positively asserted
to be that of the celebrated
disposed of to several cities of
hath never been interred, has a severe wound in the wrist, and seems
really to have been the very hand that wrote the famous Epitaph
(Great, Good, and Just) for
dreading it should be lost in his absence, he presented it to this
where it has more than once had the same Honour that is paid to
the greatest ecclesiastical Prince in the world."
The arm in my possession is identified with the one described above
not only by the deep gash in the wrist,Memoirs of Montrose, by Mark
Napier (1856), vol. ii. p. 770.
it, upon which is written the following in
"
identified as
acquainted with it. Moreover, it may be inferred from
of evidence that the
The limb (figs. 1 and 2) is in a mummified condition, and has
evidently never been interred: a hole through the centre of the hand,
and a second one through the fleshy part of the arm near the elbow,
suggest that it has been fastened by two nails. Two joints of the forefinger
which are missing, were stolen by a person to whom it was exhibited
some years ago.
It appears from Whitaker's edition
published in
in inter edict, by
Burton
of Mr
I also received from
later date than
It is in great part a copy of the older one, and was probably written by
first instance by the
Graham
to be the very one with which the
well-known lament
—
the sword in his time, but it is not confirmed by the biographers of
apparent. He first mentions the gift of the sword to
secondly, the purchase and presentation to himself of the arm by
Burton
Graham
"that the (two relics might be kept) together."
The sword (fig. 3) bears its own marks of authenticity; for on either
side of the blade, immediately below the hilt, the quartered coat of
one), with the date
edged, with a double groove running down the centre; it is encased in
a leathern scabbard, which has been richly embossed. In the hollow of
either groove, on both sides of the blade, is engraved the maker's name,
"
unusually small size. On the front of it are roughly scratched two letters,
an "I" and either an "S" or a badly made "G". If the latter, they
would be the
for
if not the hilt, must have been made for an ancestor of the
From the date, then, of the descent
in
arm is sufficiently clear; but the scant and rather contradictory accounts
of the disposal of the
to trace.
The order of the Scottish Parliament
directed his head to be fixed at the prison-house of
legs and arms to be fixed at the ports of the towns of
the evidence of a second eye-witness, Sir Edward Walker.
of
two years of the
adds, "but all of them (the limbs) were taken down afterwards by the
English, or their permission,"
areis confirmed as regards one of the limbs by the records of the
city of
The first Parliament held in
honourable burial to the dismembered body of
a public funeral took place at
a contemporary account of the collection and interment of the
remains on this occasion we are indebted to the reports of a popular
daily newspaper, the
the same Thomas Saintserf who has been mentioned as the probable
author of
trose
Under date Friday,
"that his (
On
other his divided and scattered members may be gathered together and
interred with all honour imaginable."
given of the removal of the trunk from the Burgh Moor
head from the Tolbooth at
announced the disinterment of a "member" (an arm, according to Sir
Edward Walker) at
the remaining limbs, of which, indeed, the ultimate fate is unknown to
history. It is true that, in his account
in "all that belonged
to the body of this great hero was carefully re-collected, only
the heart,"
found. The municipal records of only one of the four towns to which
limbs were allocated contain reference to their restoration,—those,
namely, of "The said day, the Counsell haveing informatione, &c., that it was the
desyr of ane noble and potent Earle,
&c. (
to the probability of the others having fallen into private hands. But
even in the latter case we should equally have expected to find some
notice of their recovery in the pages of the
previously is, as already shown, in one instance fully confirmed, and there
is no reason to question its accuracy in other cases. That being so, the
theory that one of them was carried across the border is not improbable.
On the other hand, if any of the genuine limbs had been wanting, their
place could have been easily supplied, and in that way the full complement
of bones might have been actually buried.
It will be remembered that
whom he calls Dr Pickering, seeming, by the omission of any further
description, to imply that he was a person well known in the neighbourhood.
A Cromwellian officer, one Captain Pickering,"John Pickering of
In it are named his three married daughters, Mrs
Lister, Mrs Elston (wife of Thomas Elston of West Ardsley, minister of the Gospel),
and Mrs Sykes (wife of Sykes of
stood high in the esteem of his chief, was in
Hall
He lived later at Tingley Hall, in the same parish, where he died in
April
known to have been on friendly terms with the officers in local commands
in
and a
presence of the arm in the neighbourhood of
in identifying Dr Pickering, nor, indeed, in determining the
qualification which entitled him to be styled Doctor.
While on a visit to
the arm to the opinion of the eminent anatomist, Sir William Turner,
who was good enough to write the following report upon it:—
The right hand and forearm in the possession of J. W. Morkill, Esq., are
dried and mummified. They bear evidence of having at one time been impaled.
In the palm of the hand is a hole such as would be made by driving a
nail through it, and on the inner side of the forearm is an appearance which
could have been produced by pinching up the skin when soft and flexible and
driving a nail through it.
The hand is small and well proportioned,"of a middle stature, and most exquisitely
proportioned limbs."
man, or of one accustomed to manual labour.
There is nothing in the appearance of the hand irreconcilable with the view
that it may be the hand of the
Professor of Anatomy.
I append also a letter on the subject of the relics from Lord Napier
and Ettrick to Canon Murdoch, the joint editor of Deeds of Montrose,
written upon the occasion of my having offered to deposit them in the
Montrose Chapel in
—The fact that an arm or hand of Montrose was preserved somewhere
was familiar to me, but I cannot at this moment recall the source of my
information, private or public. I will endeavour to trace it. Meanwhile, I
hasten to thank you, and return the paper, which is extremely interesting.
There is nothing whatever improbable in the preservation of these relics, and
their authenticity seems to be very fairly established by the evidence adduced.
Should the relics be presented to the
an inscription on the flag above. It is not decent to have morsels of a Christian
man handed about as a curiosity above ground. Just so, the head of Darnley
should be restored to Holyrood Chapel. It would indeed have been deeply
gratifying to my dear cousin Mark if he could have lived to see the splendid
monument to the memory of his hero, and the restoration of these remains to
his tomb.
NAPIER AND ETTRICK.