Mathematical notes of Robert Payne

This series largely comprises the notes of Robert Payne on mathematical and scientific subjects. It includes Payne's notes on other authors' works with page references as well as his own problems in geometry, optics, proportion, geometry of the circle, duplication of the cube and chronology. It includes notes on weights, coins and astronomy. There are some notes of Payne's on works by Hobbes (HS/C/3/5 and HS/C/4/2) which show the connection between the two and how Hobbes relied on Payne to improve his work.

Apart from the two items listed above and HS/C/2/1, HS/C/7/10, HS/C/7/11 which are in Hobbes's hand and HS/C/1/6 which is a scribal manuscript probably acquired by Hobbes, all other items in this collection are in Robert Payne's hand and represent a sizeable collection of primary source material left by Payne illuminating his interests, influences and exposure to other scholars as well as his way of working and note-taking in the field of mathematics and physics.

For a long period, Payne's notes were assumed by scholars to be the work of Hobbes on account of the similarity in hand between Hobbes and Payne. However, when Hobbes scholar K. Schuhmann consulted some of this material in the 1990s he noted to Peter Day, then keeper of Chatsworth Collections, that much of HS/C/7 was not like any of Hobbes' published works. Schuhmann believed the notes not to be in Hobbes's or Charles Cavendish's handwriting. And indeed later Noel Malcolm, identified the notes in this series as Robert Payne's and laid out the reasonings for this in a chapter of "Aspect of Hobbes" (2002, pp. 80-145).

For discussion on the attribution of these notes to Robert Payne see: Malcolm, Noel, 'Robert Payne, the Hobbes Manuscripts, and the 'Short Tract', in "Aspects of Hobbes", (Oxford University Press) 2002, pp.80-145.

The current arrangement is based on the listing in the 1977 RCHM report which largely arranges these papers according to subject matter. The series is recorded in the 1977 RCHM report as: "Mathematical notes and fragments by Hobbes. These are arranged as far as possible according to their subject", and was likely arranged in its current form by 1936.

HS/B/2, HS/B/3, HS/B/5, HS/E/1, HS/E2 and HS/E/5 are all notes written by Robert Payne and likely arranged in other series according to subject matter and the past assumption that all Payne's notes were the work of Hobbes.

Robert Payne, (1596 1651), Church of England clergyman and natural philosopher, was born in Abingdon, Berkshire, the son of Robert Payne (d. 1628), a wealthy woollen draper and four times mayor of the town, and his wife, Martha, daughter of William Branch, also of Abingdon. After attending the local Roysse Grammar School, Robert matriculated a gentleman-commoner at Christ Church, Oxford, on 5 July 1611, graduating BA on 4 July 1614 and proceeding MA exactly three years later. In 1612 he contributed a poem to Iusta Oxoniensium, a university volume grieving the death of Henry, prince of Wales, and another poem in 1619 to Funebria sacra, lamenting the death of Queen Anne. His surviving notebooks from this period attest to his developing interest in natural philosophy, in particular the philosophy of Roger Bacon, as well as to his embarking on the study of Hebrew.

Like many other scientifically minded scholars of the time Payne was reluctant to take holy orders and proceed with a clerical career, and he thus migrated in 1624 to the newly created Pembroke College where he became second foundation fellow. Two years later he stood candidate for the Gresham professorship of astronomy, vacant following the death of Edmund Gunter, but lost to another Oxford hopeful, Henry Gellibrand. An unpublished facetious poem also suggests his being, in 1626, an unsuccessful candidate for a Christ Church proctorship. However, he achieved some financial security when, after the death of his father in February 1628, he inherited a sizeable property. By 1630 Payne's scientific accomplishments had recommended him to the mathematician Sir Charles Cavendish and his brother William, successively earl, marquess, and duke of Newcastle, and the latter conferred on him the rectorship of Tormarton, Gloucestershire, that was in his gift. The living was certainly intended to serve as a sinecure for Payne, who was employed as the earl's chaplain and secretary. Consequently, his absence from Tormarton nearly resulted in his suspension in 1632. One of the delicate tasks with which Payne was charged was negotiating Ben Jonson's gratuity for the two masques he wrote on the occasion of the visits of Charles I in 1633 and 1634 to Welbeck Abbey and Bolsover Castle respectively. Jonson was effusive in praising Payne, his 'beloved friend' further intimating to Newcastle his joy in 'the good friendship and fellowship of my right learned friend Mr Payne' (Ben Jonson, 1.212 13).

For almost a decade Payne served as a key figure in the intellectual and scientific circle around the Cavendish brothers that extended to include other practitioners, such as William Oughtred, Walter Warner, John Pell, and Thomas Hobbes. Indeed, Payne was an intimate friend of the philosopher of Malmesbury and appears to have played a significant role in the development of the latter's optical theories, as well as his mechanistic philosophy more generally. It is quite likely that 'Short tract on first principles', usually attributed to Hobbes, was actually written by Payne certainly the manuscript is in his handwriting. On similar grounds, another short treatise traditionally attributed to Hobbes, 'Considerations touching the facility or difficulty of the motions of a horse', should likewise be credited to Payne. During the mid-1630s Payne translated, for the benefit of Sir Charles Cavendish, Galileo's Della scienza mecanica and Benedetto Castelli's 'Della misura dell'acque correnti', both from manuscripts communicated to Sir Charles by Mersenne. He was also engaged in a variety of chemical experiments with the earl of Newcastle.

In 1638 Newcastle was entrusted with the education of Charles, prince of Wales, and with his move to London the Welbeck group dispersed. Payne returned to Oxford as canon of Christ Church, retaining contacts with Sir Charles and Hobbes through correspondence. Thus, for example, Payne was among those who circulated copies of Hobbes's Elements of Law. With the outbreak of the civil war and the removal of the court to Oxford, Payne was appointed royal chaplain, and on 1 November 1642 the degree of DD was conferred on him. In 1646 Payne was deprived of his Tormarton living and two years later he was not only expelled by the parliamentary visitors from Christ Church (whose treasurer he then was) but briefly imprisoned in London while a search was made of his property. Following his release Payne retired to his sister's house in Abingdon, occasionally visiting Sir William Backhouse at Swallowfield, Sir George Stonehouse at Radley, Berkshire, and the third earl of Devonshire at Latimers, Buckinghamshire. Payne's surviving correspondence with Gilbert Sheldon attests not only to the modest role he played in keeping the royalist cause alive following the execution of Charles I, but also to his continued intellectual activity. He was instrumental in the diffusion of the ideas of Hobbes, Descartes, and Gassendi in Oxford and elsewhere in England, but his efforts to defend Hobbes in the face of the growing hostility towards him from the Anglican establishment some members of whom Payne actually accused of provoking Hobbes to embrace a hostile attitude towards the church ended in failure.

Payne drew up his will on 16 May 1649, apparently during a serious bout of sickness, making his sister Martha executor and chief beneficiary of his estate. Though Payne recovered his health remained frail. By summer 1651 he had moved to Swallowfield where he died, unmarried, in early November. George Morley's eulogy of his friend is indicative of the high esteem in which Payne was regarded by contemporaries. No one, Morley wrote to Sheldon, was: 'better made for a friend at all parts and to all purposes than he was. His Moralls were as good as his Intellectualls, and his Intellectualls such as I knew noe man had better: and both accompanied with a modesty allmost to an excesse.' (Walker rev., 176).

[Source: Feingold, Mordechai, 'Robert Payne, 1596-1651', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008). https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/37837. By permission of Oxford University Press.]