Talk:Sir Edward Greaves, 1st Baronet

Le Neve, etc.
Beware! Lengthy and involved analysis of information and sources (of almost minimal importance) follows!

Paragraph 2 of this article (as of 6 October 2016) contains the following sentences:
 * "Charles I is supposed to have created him a baronet 4 May 1645. Of this creation, the first of a physician to that rank, no record exists, but the accurate Le Neve did not doubt the fact, and explained the absence of enrolment."

I added the reference[1] to Smith's book myself some time ago having glanced at the DNB entry on Edward Greaves (I made the cite for the John Greaves article); but I didn't actually look for the relevant section, let alone read/translate it. Now, on randomly revisiting this page, I find that the reference to Smith's Vita quorundam is—mysteriously—doubly wrong. Since I have nothing better to do, here's why (or I could be just horribly mistaken):

1. The sentences quoted above come from Sir Norman Moore's DNB article on Greaves, Vol. 23, (1890) slightly abridged by a WP editor:
 * Arguments
 * "Of this creation, the first of a physician to that rank, no record exists, but the accurate Le Neve [q. v.] did not doubt the fact, and explained the absence of enrolment (Letter of Le Neve in Smith, Life of John Graves)."

Sadly, this is an untruth. 'Smith, Life of John Graves' (, in Latin) contains no such letter by Le Neve (in English), and Moore seems to be somewhat mistaken in citing Smith. The source is actually given by William Munk (, usually known as Munk's Roll), also cited by Moore:
 * "I have seen a letter from Mr William Le Neve, Norroy King-of-arms, wherein he says that, as Sir Edward Graves’s patent was dated at Oxford, 4th May, 1645, he was apt to think there was no enrolment thereof, which was the case of several persons of honour passed about that time, the rolls being taken into the possession of the parliament. Or, if the patent had not been seen, he should have thought he had only a warrant to be Baronet, as is the case of the great Courtney of the West. [ie he came from Devon]"

NB This needs adding with refs to the current WP article.

2. Now, William Munk (referenced by Moore) also says this:
 * "Dr Thomas Smith, who compiled his elder brother John Graves’s (Savilian Professor of Astronomy, Oxford) life in elegant Latin, and mentions all his brothers, towards the end thereof gives a different account of his promotion to that honour."

Sadly, this is also simply untrue. Smith's Latin is indeed "elegant", as Munk says: but the work he cites,, gives no account at all of Edward Greaves' promotion, and has merely this to say about him:


 * "Et denique Edwardus, Colegii etiam Omniam Animarum, & celeberrimi Colegii Medicum Londiniensum Socius, Medicus serenissimi Regis Caroli ordinarius, & Baronetti dignitate illustris, cujus elegantissima exstat oratio in Collegio Londinensi 25. Julii 1661. die Harvei memoriae dicato habita."
 * ("And lastly Edward, also of All Souls' College [ie like his brother Nicholas Greaves], & Fellow of the most celebrated College of Physicians of London, physician-in-ordinary to the most serene King Charles, & worthy and distinguished Baronet, whose most elegant Harveian Oration at the College in London on 25 July 1661 is still extant." [ie Sloane MS 302. This was only the fifth Oration since its establishment.]

3. It seems likely that Moore was able to read the elegant Latin of Smith's Vita quorundam eruditissimorum virorum: and if he did read it, he must have seen that Munk's claim was false, since there is no explanation about Greaves's baronetcy, merely a mention (see 2 supra). Moore then specifically cites Smith rather than Munk as being the source of Neve's letter. (This is possibly a genuine mistake, or possibly with academic tongue in cheek or even thumbing of nose - this volume of DNB was published in 1890 when Munk was still alive, he died in 1898.) M. R. James, provost of Eton College, said of Moore: "I have never met any man whose erudition was so varied, lay so ready to hand, or was so delightfully enlivened by human and humorous touches" (The Times, 8 Dec 1922). Moore himself was created a Baronet in 1919.

4. Furthermore, Moore's DNB entry  cites "Sloane MSS. in Brit. Mus. 225 and 279"; but unless I have been searching for the wrong MSS, they don't appear to relate directly (apart from medicine) to Edward Greaves. Moore also cites "Nash's Worcestershire", whose index is online: but there appears to be no mention of Edward Greaves/Graves in Amphlett's Index of Names of Persons of Nash's work, although the full text of Collections for the history of Worcestershire is not freely available online as of October 2016. Moore also cites the biography at "Wood's Athenæ Oxon. (Bliss) iii. col. 1256." This is volume III of Athenae Oxonienses : an exact history of all the writers and bishops, &c. Also in Volume II there is this: "1637: July 13. Edward Greaves of All-s. coll. — The time when he took the degree of batch. of arts, occurs not." ie Greaves gained his M.A. on 13 July 1637, although the date of his B.A. does not appear in the records.

Informative as it is about the life and works of (inter alia) John Greaves, Thomas Smith's Vita quorundam seems to be blamelessly free of any salient facts about Edward Greaves ascribed to it by two respected historians:
 * Summary
 * The source for Le Neve's letter is William Munk, who does Smith a disservice by claiming (unless there is another edition) that Vita further explains Greaves' promotion, which it doesn't.
 * Norman Moore, who cites both Smith and Munk in his DNB Greaves article, compounds the disservice to Smith by citing Vita as the source for the letter by Le Neve, although it apparently contains no such thing.

Re-write paragraph about Edward Greaves' baronetcy with info from Munk; add proper refs, and footnote summarising this somewhat trivial post. >MinorProphet (talk) 20:11, 6 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Proposal


 * Sources
 * (later volumes were published as Lives of the Fellows from Vol. III)

Recent edit
My alterations to the article are the result of reading the Exchequer bill that I have cited. In his answer he described himself as a Baronet and a Doctor of Physic. The proceedings related to an iron mill which was leased from the Crown, or rather the Queen Mother in c.1662. He said that the Forest of St Leonard had been sold at fee farm to trustees for Sir William Russell and were then vested in trustees for him. I would comment on the contribution above that a patent granted by the king at Oxford during the Civil War is indeed unlikely to have been enrolled in the Patent Rolls, which remained at Westminster. Whether a person holding such a title would use the title during the Commonwealth may the doubtful, but such reluctance would have disappeared at the Restoration. Peterkingiron (talk) 15:57, 5 August 2017 (UTC)