Izaak Walton

What do we here in Stafford make of Izaak Walton, arguably one of, if not the most celebrated son of this town.  Well apart from the bust of Izaak Walton here in this church, and the statue by the River Sow in the park, what do we have to remember him by.  True we have his farm at Shallowford, which he left for the benefit of the town and is now a museum to him, but if we did a straw poll of people in Market Square next Saturday asking them who Izaak Walton was, I doubt if many had even heard of him.  Now that may sound rather provocative but talking to visitors who come here to this church, many have never heard of him.

And yet he was famous during his lifetime for writing a series of excellent biographies on the great Anglican reformers of the day, people like, John Donne, the Dean of St Paul’s, who was a celebrated writer in his own right, Sir Henry Wotton, a member of the Court, secretary to the Earl of Essex, and Ambassador to the court of Venice, and also a writer of great influence in Pre-Commonwealth England.  Wotton wrote ‘An Ambassador is an honest man, sent to lie abroad for the good of his country’, things don’t change. Richard Hooker, the great Anglican Divine who argued for a Via Media between the old Catholic order and the developing Protestantism which was spreading across Europe, and who with Thomas Cranmer laid the foundations of the Anglican Church we know today, and George Herbert, the great Anglican Priest and writer, another great influence in the developing Anglican Church.  Not insignificant people in their day, all leaving a lasting legacy through their work and writings, even if we don’t immediately recognise them, and crucially like Izaak Walton, all Royalists. Indeed Walton’s biographies were, and are still considered to be the definitive biographies of these famous men. 

But we remember him mainly for his treatise on fishing, ‘The Compleat Angler’, first published in 1653 and largely re-written in 1655.  A practical guide to fishing combined with folklore, quotations from writers he knew, pastoral interludes of songs and ballads and glimpses of an idyllic rural life which had almost been destroyed in the Civil War, and the subsequent Commonwealth under Oliver Cromwell.

Izaak Walton was born in Eastgate Street in 1593, the exact date is not known, but the 9^th August has become the date associated with his birth, what we do know for certain is he was baptised in the font in this church on 21^st September, 1593, and probably attended the Free Grammar School in St Bertelin’s Chapel adjoining St Mary’s.  When he was 17 he went off to London apprenticed to his wealthy brother in law to learn a trade. Walton was very successful in this and by the time he was 31 had his own business premises as a linen draper.  Now people have claimed he was an ironmonger because he was a member of the Ironmongers Company, but he had family connections to the Ironmongers Company and so it was natural for him to become a freeman of that particular livery company rather than the Drapers.

He lived in the parish of St Dunstan’s-in-the-West, where he married his first wife, Rachel Floud in 1626, and met John Donne, who was the priest there.  Donne was to become a powerful influence on Walton’s life, his thinking and his philosophy. Rachel and Izaak Walton had six children who all died at an early age, and in 1640 Rachel died also, but despite all this tragedy, Izaak played a full part in the life of the local community and the parish, which of course in those days was the centre of the community.  He served on juries, was a sidesman and a vestryman, held the post of Constable in the parish, and overseer for the poor.

But Walton also moved in other circles which undoubtedly influenced his life and his writings, and produced friendships that lasted throughout his long life. He became a member of the ‘Great Tew Circle’, which consisted of intellectual, learned men, mainly Anglican clergymen, and other men of great influence at the Royal Court at the time, who met informally to debate the problems of the age, and to discuss philosophy. One of these was Dr George Morley, Canon of Christ Church Oxford, who was to play a significant part in Izaak Walton’s later life. This group practised a sense of community and tolerance, and dispute and controversy were avoided, and that’s how they tried to live their lives, truly following the teachings of Christ. That was what they hoped for from the Anglican Church which had blossomed under Elizabeth I, James and Charles I. Sadly such a way of life was soon threatened by the next very turbulent years which were to propel England into the devastating Civil War in 1642.

It’s difficult for us to understand how devastating and destructive the Civil War was, families forced to take sides either for the King or for Parliament, great bloodshed and turmoil.  Walton was deeply distressed by this war and he wrote, “He regretted That Almighty God hath appointed me to live in an age in which contention increases and charity decays”.  The City of London had come out on the side of Parliament and was no place for a staunch Royalist and a devote Anglican to live, so he moved to the comparatively safer, more rural Clerkenwell, which was free of the fines and levies imposed by Parliament to fight the King.

Walton’s friends in the ‘Great Tew Circle’ were mainly Anglican clergy or court favourites, and they suffered severe hardships, the clergy being thrown out of their parish’s, some thrown into prison and then exiled.  A few remained firm and risked all to try and keep their church alive in what had now become virtually an underground church, their places in the parish’s being given to supporters of Parliament.  The Anglican Church was on the brink of being destroyed, which was what Cromwell and his followers wanted.  They wanted a Puritan Protestant Church without the trappings of Bishop’s, and clerical apparel.

Walton married again in 1647 and had three children, one of which died after 4 months, and is buried in Clerkenwell Churchyard.

Charles I was tried in January 1649, with Bradshaw, MP for Stafford acting as Judge, together with other MP’s, and was beheaded.  Parliament had won and it seemed impossible for Charles’s son to ever return. Walton managed to live quietly away from the turmoil in Clerkenwell, often making the journey back to Staffordshire where he had many friends, but he became involved at great personal risk, when Charles II attempted to regain the throne and was defeated at the Battle of Worcester in September 1651, making his escape into Shropshire and Staffordshire, where he spent the night in the oak tree at Boscobel House and eventually escaped to France to continue the struggle for the throne.

The story is that Charles had to disguise himself and get rid of the Lesser George, the badge of the Order of the Garter which hung round his neck, this was entrusted to Colonel Thomas Blague for safekeeping, but the Parliamentary force caught up with Blague and his fellow Royalists, Blague managed to escape and reached Blore Pipe farm in North West Staffordshire where the farmer hid the jewel. Blague was arrested and put in the Tower of London.  Stafford lawyer Robert Milward retrieved the jewel from its hiding place and handed it to someone who was used to travelling to and from London, Izaak Walton.  Walton passed to jewel to Blague’s wife who smuggled it into the Tower of London, Blague escaped taking the jewel to France and handed it back to the King.  Now it all sounds rather like a James Bond Film but it happened and at no small risk to those involved.  There was a £1000 reward on the head of anyone caught assisting the King, and several were arrested and executed.  Walton was in extreme danger supporting his King.

After Charles II was restored to the throne, Dr George Morley, who had been expelled by Parliament as Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, was reinstated to the post, Morley appointed Walton to be his business agent.  Morley was then appointed Bishop of Worcester, and even though Walton was 67 years old, he took him with him to Worcester as his Bishop’s Steward.  It was here that Walton’s second wife died and is buried in the cathedral. Morley then became Bishop of Winchester and again Walton accompanied him as his steward.  He died at Winchester in 1683 aged 90 years and laid to rest in the cathedral.

Walton left the Corporation of Stafford Halfhead Farm, Shallowford, and his generosity meant that each year two boys from poor families were apprenticed to learn a trade, a maid or young girl was given £1 on her wedding day, and £5.10 shillings was used to buy coal for the needy during the winter. 

Our readings today tell us about Abraham, chosen by God to be the father of many nations, who was a stranger in a foreign country, but who’s faith in God was so strong that he never gave up hope of finding the promised land. That’s how Izaak Walton must have felt when the King was defeated and be-headed and his beloved Anglican Church almost destroyed, Walton must have felt a stranger in his own country, which now seemed very foreign to him, and we can see that in his book The Compleat Angler, where he writes of a lost age, an age of growing spirituality, and human kindness, of order, tolerance and humility, “You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it”.  The Great Tew Circle may have thought life in England was like that, but in reality it was far from it, still struggling with religious dissent from Henry VIII split with the Pope.

In those wilderness years Walton turned to fishing to escape from the turmoil around him, “I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing”. He and his friends prayed for the restoration of the Monarchy and the Anglican Church, which had become so dear to them. Walton and his friends could not predict if and when this would happen, but they kept the faith in those wilderness years at great personal cost to ensure that when the time came they would be ready, just as our Gospel reading tells us we must be.  “Be dressed for action and have your lamps lit...You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected hour”.  So we remember Izaak Walton, and give thanks to God for his gentle piety which was so much part of the Anglican Spirituality of his time, and for those committed Anglican’s who helped shape his life, and left for us such a rich legacy of faith, poetry, literature and music. After his death, someone wrote, “Of this blest man, let his just praise be given.  Heaven was in him, before he was in heaven”. Amen.