Helen Andrews Kaufman

Bullen Reymes kept a voluminous diary and account book from January 1632, at which time he was already in Paris in the suite of Sir Isaac Wake, the English ambassador. Helen Kaufman has drawn an occasionally over-coloured account of his life from this with very few transcriptions of the original text. His subsequent involvement in diplomatic missions took him to Venice, Florence and Rome before his return to England in 1637. Reymes was primarily a courtier but his family's finances were less than secure and it was the returns of an estate, West Chelborough in Dorset , closest to Yeovil, that for many years supplied his monetary needs. As a staunch Royalist, his support for the king's party put even greater strains on the family finances, and their final defeat was ruinous. Much of the domestic details of the journal involve money, as does the reply of his mother to his suggestion that he might take a mortgage on some family property.

Queeres to be considered: whether if you had benn a singleman you had ever binn jealous of ye carefull love of yr Mother. And wts become of yt consayt you had and profes’d to me at ye return from yr travels, yt of wt soe ever I had, you desired, nor looked for ye least mite, nor anything, for you would stand on yr owne leggs, but desired ye matches of yr Sisters. See whether I omitted any ye least occation on all turns to show my Love and diligence for yr good & profitt. And now shew me when & wher I gave you ye least cause of this yr jealousy. Did I not take ye deed [?] from my nephew Coker in Chelborough & made it conferd on you, for ye grace then & for ye proiitt since? I must live on my oune ye wch you would have yr owne presently. Tell me..... how I have merrited this ... having in all things .....complyed to yr desires to my oune great folly ... Soe you see ...sonn yt neither of yr uncles dy’d possessed of one [ac]er of land, ye younger never had any, and ye Elder sold all ....… (mais)