John Selden

In a small house in this quiet place of Salvington, was born John Selden in 1584. He was baptised at West Tarring, and lies in Temple Church, within a stone's throw of the bustle of Fleet Street. He was a farmer's son who lives in the history of the Commonwealth.

He was so proficient in his studies as a boy that he entered Oxford at 14, and at 18 was a law student of Clifford's Inn. There, to encourage his antiquarian bent, was Camden; and there, to remind him of minstrelsy, he met Ben Jonson, Michael Drayton, and other poets, and it is probable that he used to meet Shakespeare at the Mermaid Tavern.

Selden rarely appeared in the Courts as a pleader, but he became a profound lawyer, of studies so wide and various that on the Continent, while he was still young, he was styled " the dictator of learning of the English nation." His writings took him into the history of the nation, into its institutions, its honours, its customs, such as those in relation to duels, its tithes, which he said were legal but not of divine origin, an opinion that raised a hornet's nest about his ears.

In his attempt to enforce the doctrine of the divine right of kings James met a stem and learned opponent in Selden and so clapped him into the Tower. Released, the scholar entered Parliament, supported the nation against the royal prerogative, combated the autocratic lawlessness of Charles, and was again imprisoned in the Tower.

Denied the luxury of books, pen, and paper, Selden was offered his liberty at the end of eight months on the condition that he gave sureties for his good behaviour. The great scholar and earnest patriot knew that he had behaved correctly and as a right-thinking Englishman was bound to act, so he refused to give any such humiliating pledge, and remained a prisoner for two years, and even then was only liberated on bail.

He bore no grudge against Charles, but at his request published a book in defence of English rights at sea. In the later controversies between the Crown and the nation he grew weary of the extremists on both sides, and was happy to be appointed keeper of the records of the Tower, an ideal post for him.

His works were many, learned, and of importance to this day; while his Table Talk is a treasury of wisdom and good reading. He died in 1654, wealthy, leaving a magnificent collection of books to the Bodleian library, and he sleeps in Temple Church.

A famous society bears his name and carries on the researches in which he took delight.

 

 

 

 

 

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