Life
1551-1623; ed. Oxford, but not awarded a degree; became a schoolmaster,
Westminster School, 1575; travelled through Britain to pursue his antiquarian
interests; learned Welsh and Anglo-Saxon; Britannia sive florentissimorum
regnorum, Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae, chorographica descriptio (London
Radulphum Newbury 1586), with two further editions up to 1590; described
Ireland as “Ogygia”, or ‘Ancient Isle’, compared with
which all other nations were young; also a de luxe folio edition in the
translation of Edmund Gibson (1695), published by himself; also issued
a Greek grammar for schools; became headmaster of Westminster, 1593; Clarenceux
king-at-arms, 1597, an appt. that caused some bad feeling; attacked by
Ralph Brooke for plagiarism and genealogyical inaccuracy in Britannia,
replying in appendix to fifth edn, 1600; enlarged edn. 1607; also published
Giraldus’s Topographia and Expugnatio in 1602; Annales
rerum anglicarum et Bhibernicarum regnante Elizabetha ... ad annum 1589
(1615), said to reflect an account of the reign of Mary altered to
please James I and at variance with his account given to Jacques de Thou;
fnd. Oxford Chair of Ancient History, 1622; issued Actio in Henricum
Garnetum, Societatis Jesuiticae in Anglia superiorem in caeteros,
an official account of trial of Gunpowder Plot conspirators; d. Chislehurst,
9 Nov.; friend of Ussher, Cotton, and other notables; Britannia first
trans. in English by Philemon Holland (1610); other translators incl.
Richard Gough, 3 vols. 1789 (4 vols. 1816); Annales ed. Thomas
Hearne, 1717; French and English trans. 1635, 1675, and 1688. DNB FDA
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Works
Britannia sive florentissimorum regnorum, Angliae, Scotiae, Hiberniae,
et insularum adjacentium ex intimo antiquitate chorographica Descriptio
(London Radulphum Newbury 1586); Instituio Graevae Grammatices
Compendaria [q.d.]; Anglica, Hibernica, Naomranica, Cambrica, a
veteribus scripta (1602, 1603); Reges, Reginae, Nobiles et alii
ecclesias collegiata beati Westmonasterii sepulti (enl. 1603, 1606);
Remains Concerning Britain (1605, & edns.), anthol. from Britannia.
[see Encyc. Brit., 1949 edn.]
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Criticism
Rudolf B. Gottfried, ‘The early development of the section on Ireland
in Camden’s Britannia’, in ELH, 10 (1943),
pp.117-130; R. F. Foster, Modern Ireland (London: Allen Lane 1988) p.4, ftn.iv.
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)