The Dramatic Life of Sir Richard Lane’s Eldest (and Only Surviving) Son

Sir Richard Lane had a large family – 12 children.  But as I am discovering, many children did not survive to adulthood in the early 1600’s.  Although he had 4 sons in total (Richard, Parvulus, Bryan and one unnamed) only one  – Richard – lived beyond his first year.  What I have found out about Richard Lane the younger tells a dramatic story, but one that may explain some of the historical obscurity of his father, Sir Richard Lane.  I recently discovered the will of Richard Lane the younger, and it appears he was the last in his line to carry his father’s name…

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Kudos to the Magic of the Interlibrary Loan Program!

I really wanted to understand more about the 1600s Jersey diarist, Jean Chevalier.  His journal (a legacy gift to his own familial descendants) has become an unmatched window into his times.  It is also the crown jewel of the Société Jersiaise, and the only credible historical document to tell of Sir Richard Lane’s fate while in exile with King Charles II during the English Civil War.  But who was Jean Chevalier? How credible were his observations?  I finally found a book that promised to tell me…

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Update on the Trial of Strafford Painting

“Proving” is an ambitious word.  How do you “prove” that a mid-1800s painter depicting an important historical scene was aware of and attempting to portray specific actors and their inter-relationships in a drama that was already more than 200 years old at the moment he first stood before his empty canvas? Clearly, Thomas Woolnoth went to pains to realistically portray the principals of the scene in “The Trial of Strafford”, but was he aware of Richard Lane and his  role? How much research did he do? How can we assert that he would have been aware of historical research that was being done in his own time?  Without  corroborating evidence, such assertions must be considered a hypothesis – one based on raw speculation…but, I think we can do better! Continue reading “Update on the Trial of Strafford Painting”

Jean Chevalier’s Diary – An Amazing (and largely unknown) Historical Document!

Have you ever spent a moment thinking about the word “journalist”? Because of modern media, we think of a journalist as someone who reports on news for the public media.  But in mid 1600s, a local Jersey man named Jean Chevalier was a journalist in the most basic sense of the word – he began a diary, capturing events in Jersey during the Period of the English revolution – starting in 1643 and continuing until parliamentary forces finally captured the island in 1651.  What is so remarkable about this journal is the level of penetrating detail it captured about people and events on the island – providing singular and often quite personal insights into day-to-day and historically significant events alike.  I’ve never seen anything like it…

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A discovery! The UK Parliament’s circa 1844 painting “The Trial of Strafford”…

The grounds of history around Sir Richard Lane are simply full of rabbit holes!  While doing some research into the 1641 Trial of the Earl of Strafford – an event that included the day the historical biographer Lord John Campbell called “the most memorable day in the life of Richard Lane” – I came across a wonderful painting of that trial in the UK parliament’s art collection. What makes it so wonderful is that the painter had endeavored to accurately portray all of the primary actors in the drama of that trial…

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Discovery – Regnal Dating Conventions of the 1600s Legal World…

Like any of the great professions, the domain of law is it’s own world within the larger world. Its interesting how often I had looked at the odd notations at the top of each page within Lane’s Reports without realizing what I was looking at…

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An Important Find! A 1953 Academic Analysis of “Lane’s Reports”

The “billiards-like” trajectory of progress in this quest continues! Somehow, surprising outcomes seem to regularly come about when one line of inquiry turns up a thread leading down some new path…  I’ve been “offline” for a few weeks now because I have been back in research mode – following up on an important new lead I was given by a law professor at the University of Richmond.

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The First Special Exhibition of National Portraits of 1866 – Richard Lane’s Last Public Appearance?

One key artifact gives a clear account that a portrait of Sir Richard Lane once existed – a copy of a “catalogue” of the portraits available to visitors of the 1866 Special Exhibition of National Portraits in London.  Interestingly, I have recently come across evidence indicating this “catalogue” wasn’t originally planned to be provided by the organizers of the event!  If it hadn’t been, I suspect his portrait (and with it any chance of knowing what the man looked like) would have been truly lost to the larger world…

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The “Lost” Portrait of Sir Richard Lane

The satisfying thing about Richard Lane as a subject of historical research is that although his early life was one of obscurity, the political drama he was swept into brought about a fair number of useful historical artifacts related to him.  Perhaps in the end, those bits and pieces will yield a rich and tangible sense of who he was.  But, this isn’t Hollywood – history is about building knowledge based on facts, very much like building a legal case. And sometimes, the facts you need simply may not exist. What can really be known about a man who lived 400 years ago?  Who was he really? What was important to him?  And if you could have met him, what would he have looked like?

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