The last of
these was the father of the poet.
Erasmus Driden married Mary, the daughter of the reverend Henry
Pickering, younger son of Sir Gilbert Pickering, a person who, though in
considerable favour with James I., was a zealous puritan, and so noted
for opposition to the Catholics that the conspirators in the Gunpowder
Treason, his own brother-in-law being one of the number,[17] had
resolved upon his individual murder, as an episode to the main plot;
determined so to conduct it, as to throw the suspicion of the
destruction of the Parliament upon the puritans.[18] These principles,
we shall soon see, became hereditary in the family of Pickering. Mr.
Malone's industry has collected little concerning our author's maternal
grandfather, excepting, that he was born in 1584; named minister of
Oldwinkle All-Saints in 1647; and died in 1657. From the time when he
attained this preferment, it is highly probable, that he had been
recommended to it by the puritanical tenets which he doubtless held in
common with the rest of his family.
Of the poet's father, Erasmus, we know even less than of his other
relations. He acted as a justice of peace during the usurpation, and was
the father of no less than fourteen children; four sons and ten
daughters. The sons were John, Erasmus, Henry, and James; the daughters,
Agnes, Rose, Lucy, Mary, Martha, Elizabeth, Hester, Hannah, Abigail,
Frances. Such anecdotes concerning them as my predecessors have
recovered, may be found in the note.
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