Richard Carew, 1st Baronet

Sir Richard Carew, 1st Baronet (* 1579 or 1580; † before March 14, 1643 ) was an English nobleman , politician and writer. He was elected twice as a member of the House of Commons .

Origin and education

Richard Carew came from a branch of the Carew family who acquired Antony in Cornwall in the late 15th century . He was the eldest surviving son of Richard Carew and his wife Juliana Arundell. Carew's educated father provided his son with a good upbringing, although it is unclear whether he attended school or was tutored by a private tutor. From October 10, 1594 Carew studied at Merton College in Oxford and from February 27, 1597 at the Middle Temple in London.

Service as a diplomat

In 1598 Carew accompanied his uncle George Carew when he was the envoy to King Sigismund III. Wasa was sent to Sweden and Poland. In Sweden, Carew took part in the Battle of Stångebro on September 25, 1598 , in which Sigismund was defeated. Carew noted that more soldiers drowned while fleeing in the swollen Stångån river than were previously killed in battle. As a result of this battle, Carew became an opponent of war. The next year, on the orders of his father, he accompanied Sir Henry Nevill when he traveled as an envoy to King Henry IV of France. In Orléans , a doctor prescribed a laxative that was too strong for him, which was the reason for Carew to distrust doctors and to self-medicate in the future. His father was also chronically ill and feared that he would die prematurely and that his underage son would become the king's ward. So he arranged for his son to marry Bridget, a sister of George Chudleigh from Ashton in Devon, at an early age . She married Carew in January 1601 and moved with his young wife to Sheviock, not far from Antony . With an annual pension of £ 60 from his father, he looked after his fruit trees and his studies of natural history. Sir Ferdinando Gorges offered him a place as a missionary on an expedition he organized that set out for North America in 1605. Carew initially agreed, but finally canceled his participation. The reason he gave for this was that he feared that too little attention would be paid to a pious life in the colony to be founded. After the death of his puritanically minded wife in 1611, Carew took care of a strictly religious upbringing for his children, he himself now also bred civet cats .

Political activity

Before 1613, Carew took over the management of Antony from his father, who was blind. This encouraged him, along with the support of his influential uncle John Arundell von Trerice , to run for Cornwall in the 1614 general election as Knight of the Shire . Carew was elected but made little appearance in the House of Commons and served on only three committees. Since John Arundell himself ran for Cornwall in the next general election in December 1620, he made sure that Carew was elected for Borough Mitchell in Cornwall. Although he had less prestige as a representative of a borough, Carew was much more active in the House of Commons than before. He campaigned for freedom of speech in the House of Commons, but also for locally important issues such as the maintenance of landmarks . In 1621 he campaigned for a ban on imports of tobacco, even from the Virginia colony . After the death of his father in 1620, he finally took over the management of the family's estates in Devon and Cornwall. A little later, on February 18, 1621, he married the seventeen-year-old Grace Rolle, a daughter of Robert Rolle from Heanton in Devon. In the general election in 1624 and also in the following elections, Carew no longer ran. In Cornwall, too, he held almost no local offices, which was unusual for a country noble of his position. The cause of this withdrawal is not known; like his father, he may have been ailing. Around 1633 he refused to be knighted by the king for a fee . However, when King Charles I sold hereditary baronet titles in 1641 to fill his war chest for the impending conflict with Parliament, Carew acquired this title despite his puritanical sentiments. On August 8, 1641 he was awarded the title of Baronet, of Antony in the County of Cornwall . His apolitical attitude in his final years alienated him from his eldest son Alexander , who belonged to the House of Commons from 1640 and took the side of Parliament in the beginning of the civil war .

Writing activity

Having developed an early aversion to the methods of contemporary doctors, Carew had a lifelong interest in medicine. He probably introduced gambadoes in England, gaiters that were supposed to keep legs warm and dry when riding. His warming stone was probably used when his first wife Bridget gave birth , a heated stone that slowly gave off heat. Such stones were sold in London from 1640, but it was not known until 1652 that the idea for this came from Carew. Like his father, Carew became an avid writer. In 1637 he published a book of medical advice. He had previously published his work Reflections , which mainly deals with his parentage. When the parish church of Antony was struck by lightning during the service on Pentecost Sunday 1640, Carew was absent from the church because of an illness. However, together with Pastor Arthur Bache, he collected the testimony, including that of his daughter Elizabeth, interpreted the lightning strike as a sign from God and published the text A Voyce in the Temple . In 1641 Carew announced a book on fruit trees, which he did not complete. The exact date of his death is not known. He was buried on March 14, 1643. He left behind his possessions the handsome sum of £ 400 in cash, while the value of his books is said to have been only £ 6.

It was only after his death that Carew's unconventional parenting guide was published. When Carew had accompanied his uncle to Poland and Sweden in 1598, he had served as an interpreter as an educated young man who knew Latin. Latin was understood by all parties at the time, but Carew found that he was not familiar with everyday words in Latin. During his subsequent nine-month stay in France, Carew said he learned French through contact with the French as well as he mastered Latin after thirteen years of learning. He later summarized his experience in an essay in which he demanded that students learn Latin by reading and writing rather than by memorizing. To this end, he pleaded for textbooks for Latin to be written in English. Students should be taught according to ability, not age, and grammar should only be taught to advanced students. This article was published in 1654. When a reform of pedagogy was discussed in the 18th century, his ideas were republished by Tanaquil Faber in the work A Compendious Way of Teaching the Learned Tongues .

progeny

From his first marriage to Bridget Chudleigh († 1611), a daughter of John Chudleigh, Carew had six children:

• Elizabeth Carew
• Martha Carew
• Nicholas Carew
• Mary Carew
• Sir Alexander Carew, 2nd Baronet (around 1608–1644)
• Gertrude Carew

From his second marriage to Grace Rolle († 1658) he had four children:

• John Carew (1622-1660)
• Wymond Carew
• Anthony Carew
• Sir Thomas Carew (1624-1681)

Since his eldest son Nicholas had died as a child, his second eldest son, Alexander Carew, became his heir.

Publications (selection)

• The warming stone, first found out by Sir Richard Carew, Baronet. Thomas Rooks, London, 1667
• Excellent helps really found out , Bartlet, London 1660
• The voyce of the Lord in the temple , London 1640
• The true and readie way to learn the Latine tongue , ed. by Samuel Hartlib, London 1654

Literature and web links

• LA Holford-Strevens: Carew, Sir Richard, first baronet (1579 / 80-1643?). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004
• Anne Duffin, Paul Hunneyball: CAREW, Richard (c.1580–1643), of Antony, Cornw. In: Andrew Thrush, John P. Ferris (Eds.): The History of Parliament. The House of Commons 1604-1629. Cambridge University Press, 2010 ( History of Parliament Online ).
• Sir Richard Carew, 1st Bt. On thepeerage.com , accessed May 16, 2017.

predecessor	Office	successor
New title created	Baronet (of Antony) 1641-1643	Alexander Carew