John Prince (biographer)
Rev. John Prince, vicar of Totnes and Berry Pomeroy in Devon, England, was a biographer. He is best known for his Worthies of Devon, a series of biographies of Devon-born notables covering the period before the Norman Conquest to his own era. He became the subject of a sexual scandal, the court records of which were made into a book in 2001 and a play in 2005.
Origins
John Prince was born in 1643 in a farmhouse on the site of Newenham Abbey, in the parish of Axminster, Devon. He was the eldest son of Bernard Prince by his first wife Mary Crocker, daughter of John Crocker, of the ancient Crocker family seated at Lyneham House in the parish of Yealmpton, Devon. Lyneham was, after Hele the second earliest known home of the Crocker family, one of the most ancient in Devon according to the traditional rhyme quoted by Prince himself which he called "that old saw often used among us in discourse":John Prince had a family connection to his great contemporary John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Prince's father Bernard Prince had married secondly to Jane Drake, a daughter of Philip Drake of Salcombe, third in descent from John Drake of Axmouth, father of John Drake of Ash, in the parish of Musbury. Jane was thus 3rd cousin of Sir John Drake of Ash, the father of Sir John Drake, 1st Baronet, whose sister was Elizabeth Drake, mother of John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough. Sir John Drake, 1st Baronet was John Prince's godfather, and one of Prince's Worthies was Sir Bernard Drake of Ash, son of John Drake.
Career
He was educated at Brasenose College, Oxford, and became curate of Bideford. He then became minister of St. Martin's Church in Exeter. He was vicar of St Mary's Church, Totnes from 1675 until 1681, when, at the invitation of the Duke of Somerset, he was made vicar of St Mary's Church, Berry Pomeroy, a post he held for over forty years. Here he seems to have authorised much building work, as the church and vicarage have several period features.''The Worthies of Devon''
While at Berry Pomeroy, Prince worked on his magnum opus: a biography of his home county's many notable figures, which he probably finished in 1697. The book ran to 600 pages, with woodcuts to illustrate the 191 biographies, and he struggled to get it published because most publishers able to handle such a large book were based in London or Oxbridge. Funding was also a problem, as a scandal had temporarily deprived him of his living. The printer was forced to advertise for subscribers, while the book languished for four years. It was first published in 1701 under the title,Danmonii Orientales Illustres: or, the Worthies of Devon. A work, wherein the lives and fortunes of the most famous divines, statesmen, swordsmen, physicians, writers, and other eminent persons, natives of that most noble province from before the Norman Conquest, down to the present age, are memorised, in an alphabetical order out of the most approved authors, both in print and manuscript. In which an account is given, not only of divers very deserving persons, but of several antient and noble families; their seats and habitations; the distance they bear to the next great towns; their coats of arms fairly cut; with other things, no less profitable, than pleasant and delightful.
The Dumnonii, Danmonii or Dumnones were a British Celtic tribe which inhabited Dumnonia, the peninsula now containing in its west the county of Cornwall and in its east Devon. Prince's Latin title signifies "Illustrious Eastern Dumnonii".
It is evident that Prince was over-ambitious in his work. The alphabetical entries from A to H fill half the book, while L to Z are squeezed into the final quarter, as money problems took their toll on his inclusions. A second volume, detailing 115 entries chosen by Prince to redress the balance, was never published, though a manuscript exists in the Devon Record Office. This manuscript was discussed, and its biographies listed, by J. Brooking-Rowe in an article in the 1900 volume of the Transactions of the Devonshire Association.