William Camden was born on May 2, 1551 in London, England. He was seventy-two when he died on November 9, 1623. He was buried among many other notable persons in Westminster Abbey. His parents were Sampson Camden and Elizabeth Curwin. His mother belonged to the very prominent Cumberland family. His father supported his family as a painter. Camden first attended school at Christ's Hospital and later attended St. Paul's school. Camden entered Oxford University when he was fifteen years old and spent five years there.
Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster, encouraged Camden to devote a few years to travel. Camden traveled abroad for several years and studied topography and collected many archaeological materials. He was an antiquarian and historian and found great value in travelling and studying other places. He took a position of Second Master of Westminster School after he returned in 1575 from his travels.
Camden began his work on his publication entitled Britannia in 1577. He was greatly encouraged to write the book by Abraham Ortelius, a fellow antiquarian. The writing of Britannia took ten years. It proved to be so well received that he wrote six more editions by 1607. Camden had observed in his research and wrote in Britannia that a great plague was in London whenever Saturn was in capricornus. When the Great Plague of 1625 and in the last Great Plague of 1665 struck London, Saturn was indeed in capricornus.
William Camden wrote all of his texts in Latin. Only the Britannia Editions were translated into other languages by Phileman Holland. In 1593 Camden became the Headmaster of Westminster school. He received the title of Clarenceux King-at-arms that same year. Camden was accused of plagiarism and inaccurate information in his Britannia books by Ralph Brook, a man who had not been chosen the title. So Camden clarified in the appendix of his fifth edition that his text was not a work of geography or heraldry but was history and topography.
Camden began writing about the the history of Queen Elizabeth's reign, when in 1608, injuries received during a riding accident kept him bedfast for nine months. It was not until 1615, after a serious illness, that he finally completed and published Annales rerum Anglicarum et annum. He completed the second part in 1617, though he did not want it published until after he died.
A paralysis immobilized Camden in 1622 and he died one year later. John Hacket, Bishop of Coventry and Linchfiel, was at Camdens' deathbed and was accused of stealing Camden's two page memoirs about Camden's life, but it was never proven. All the manuscripts and books Camden wrote are in the library of Westminster Abbey, where he is buried.
Trevor-Roper, Hugh redwald. Queen Elizabeth's 1st Historian: William Camden and the Beginnings of English Civil History. (Neale lecture in English hst. 1971).
Demolen R.L. The Library of William Camden.
Hoffmann, Ann. Lives of the Tudor Age. 1485-1603.
Kunitz, Stanley Jasspon, and Haycraft, Howard eds. British Authers before 1800.
Written by: Leigh Lawrence
Edited by: Lillian Dolentz, 2008