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Thomas Vicars

Mixed Ready evidence packet

Topic: Thomas Vicars

Source-Control Position

1. Verified Sourced Facts

“in the third edition of the manual, published in 1628, Vicars added a short passage in which he punningly alludes to Shakespeare’s name.”

“Istis annumerandos censeo, celebrem illum poetam qui a quassatione & hasta nomen habet, Ioan. Davisium, & cognominem meum, poetam pium & doctum Ioan. Vicarsium”

“To these I believe should be added that famous poet who takes his name from ‘shaking’ and ‘spear’, John Davies, and my namesake, the pious and learned poet John Vicars.”

“Thomas Vicars [1589 - 1638]”

“In later life he followed the career of clergyman, serving variously as chaplain to his father-in-law George Carleton, Bishop of Llandaff and latterly of Chichester”

“first printed in 1621”

“To these, I think, should be added that famous poet who takes his name from the shaking of a spear, John Davies, and a pious and learned poet who shares my surname, John Vicars.”

“TO THE SERVICE AND GOOD OF THE Church of God, vnder the Patronage and Protection of the thrice worthy and religious, his much honoured Friends, The Lady Anne Neuill, Wife to the Right Honourable, Lo. B. of Chichester ... T.V. Consecrateth himselfe, and his labours in this Translation.”

2. Ken Feinstein Twitter and Blog Information

3. Quoted Source Text

Schurink on the 1628 Shakespeare allusion

Thomas Vicars Shakespeare allusion image
Thomas Vicars Shakespeare allusion image

Philological Museum introduction

Philological Museum introduction to Thomas Vicars
Philological Museum introduction to Thomas Vicars

EEBO/TCP dedication to Anne Neville

3A. Direct Page-Image Collation, 2026-07-09

The 1628 Shakespeare circumlocution

The page confirms the Schurink transcription in its original context. Vicars cites Butler's list of Chaucer, Spenser, Drayton, and Wither, then adds:

Istis annumerandos censeo, celebrem illum poetam qui a quassatione & hasta nomen habet, Ioan. Davisium, & cognominem meum, poetam pium & doctum Ioan. Vicarsium.

The page proves that Vicars chose a Latin descriptive etymology for Shakespeare while naming Davies and John Vicars directly. It does not prove that he believed Shakespeare was a pseudonym; that is an interpretation requiring argument.

The 1622 Anne Neville dedication

The image directly confirms The Lady Anne Neuill, Wife to the Right Honourable, Lo. B. of Chichester and the closing T. V. Consecrateth himselfe, and his labours in this Translation. It is a direct publication/patronage connection to Anne Killigrew Neville Carleton, not a marriage record for Vicars.

Marriage identity: Anne Carleton, not Anne Neville

The former “conflict” formulation in this packet is superseded. It gave too much weight to a modern genealogical error and failed to use the contemporary family monument.

1. Contemporary monumental statement

J. H. Cooper transcribed the inscription on the monument of Guy Carleton at Holy Trinity, Cuckfield. The monument commemorates Guy, who died in 1628, and the infant children buried near him:

“Neere to His body lyeth George Vicars and Anne his sister, the children of Thomas Vicars B. of D. Vicar of this Church, and of Anne his wife, the daughter of Byshop Carleton.”

Cooper introduces Guy as Vicars's “brother-in-law.” The monument therefore identifies both sides of the relationship within the Carleton family's own memorial setting: Guy was the bishop's son; Anne, Vicars's wife, was the bishop's daughter; their children were Guy's nephew and niece. The monument survives in the north chapel at Holy Trinity and is independently catalogued as the Guy Carleton monument.

2. Pedigree identifies her mother and the step-relationship

Cooper's printed pedigree places Ann. b. 1605 among the children of George Carleton and his first wife Avis Weston, then joins her to Thos. Vicars. It separately records George's second wife as Ann, wid. of Sir H. Nevill.

The correct relationship is therefore:

George Carleton + Avis Weston -> Anne Carleton (b. 1605) = Thomas Vicars

After Avis Weston's death, George Carleton married Henry Neville's widow, Anne Killigrew Neville. Anne Neville Carleton became Anne Carleton's stepmother. Anne Carleton did not become Carleton's stepdaughter. A modern Chichester-diocese thesis reverses that relation when it calls Vicars's wife “Carleton's step-daughter,” even though its footnote cites Cooper, whose pedigree says the opposite.

3. Anthony Wood distinguishes the two Annes in one entry

Anthony Wood's Athenae Oxonienses (1691) says Vicars was taken into Bishop Carleton's household and preferred:

“after he had married his Daughter Anne”

Later in the same entry Wood describes Vicars's 1622 book as carrying a dedication:

“to Anne the Wife of Dr. Carleton B. of Chichester.”

Wood's wording is internally unambiguous. “His Daughter Anne” is Vicars's wife, Anne Carleton. “Anne the Wife of Dr. Carleton” is the bishop's second wife, Anne Killigrew Neville Carleton.

4. Later biographical and county-history statements agree

Thomas Cox wrote in 1720 that Bishop Carleton took Vicars into his family and, “having marry'd his Daughter to him,” preferred him to Cuckfield. The old Dictionary of National Biography states: “In that year [1622] he married Anne, daughter of George Carleton.”

The precise day and place of the marriage remain to be recovered. The identity does not. Wood says the episcopal preferment followed the marriage, and Vicars was collated to Cuckfield on 19 December 1622; the marriage had therefore occurred by that date. The old DNB's statement that it occurred “in that year” is consistent with this sequence.

5. How the modern confusion arose

Two same-named women occupied the same household:

  1. Anne Carleton — George Carleton's daughter by Avis Weston; wife of Thomas Vicars.
  2. Anne Killigrew Neville Carleton — widow of Sir Henry Neville; second wife of George Carleton; stepmother of Anne Carleton; Vicars's 1622 dedicatee.

The modern ODNB life of Sir Henry Neville assigns one of Neville's six daughters, “Anne,” to Thomas Vicars. That statement conflicts with the Cuckfield monument and the early biographies. The likely mechanism is conflation of Vicars's wife with his dedicatee and stepmother-in-law. The Chichester thesis makes a different but related inversion by calling Anne Carleton the bishop's stepdaughter. Neither modern formulation supplies evidence capable of displacing the named contemporary monument.

4. Citations

5. Notes on Access

Additional Fact-Source Notes

2026-07-15 Marriage-Identity Correction Audit

Corrected conclusion: Thomas Vicars's wife was Anne Carleton, daughter of Bishop George Carleton and Avis Weston. The prior “identity unresolved” conclusion is withdrawn because it omitted the contemporary Cuckfield monument.

A modern thesis on the Chichester diocese says:

Vicars married Carleton’s step-daughter, became an episcopal chaplain and was collated to a canonry and the rich living of Cuckfield.

Its footnote cites J. H. Cooper’s 1902 article. Cooper’s printed Carleton pedigree places an Ann, born 1605, under George Carleton and his first wife Avis Weston, and joins that Ann to Thos. Vicars. The thesis has reversed the step-relationship: Anne Carleton was the stepdaughter of the bishop's second wife, Anne Neville, not the stepdaughter of George Carleton.

The 1622 Keckermann dedication proves that Vicars addressed Lady Anne Neville, wife of the Bishop of Chichester. It does not call her Vicars's wife. Wood makes the same distinction within a single biography, separately naming Vicars's wife as the bishop's daughter Anne and the dedicatee as the bishop's wife Anne.

The contemporary monumental wording closes the question:

“Anne his wife, the daughter of Byshop Carleton”

Source chain now controlled

Remaining documentary targets

The marriage licence or parish register would still establish the exact day and place, and Carleton/Vicars probate material may add settlement or inheritance detail. These are chronology and household-history questions, not an unresolved identity question. The packet should consistently say Anne Carleton, daughter of Bishop George Carleton and Avis Weston; stepdaughter of Anne Killigrew Neville Carleton.