FABYAN, ROBERT, the historian, was descended from a respect able family of Essex. Bishop Tanner says he was born in London.
We have no dates of his early life, but he is known to have belooged, as a citizen, to the Company of Drapers. From records in the city archives, it appears that he was alderman of the ward of Farriugdon Without, and in 1493 served the office of sheriff. In 1496, in the mayoralty of Sir Henry Colet, we find him "assigned and chosen," with Mr. Recorder and certain commoners, to ride to the king " far redress of the new impositions raised and levied upon English cloths in the archduke's land," (that is, the Low Countries), an exaction which was desisted from in the following year. In 1502, on the plea of poverty, he resigned the alderman's gown, not willing to take the mayoralty, and probably retired to the mansion in Essex, mentioned in his will, at Theydon (lemon. That he was opulent at this period cannot be doubted, but he seems to have considered that the expenses of the chief magistracy, even at that time, were too great to be sus tained by a man who had a numerous family. He ordered the figures, as may be seen in his will, of sixteen children, in brass, to be placed upon his monument. Stow, in hie 'Survey of London' (edit. 1603, p. 198), gives the English part of the epitaph on Fabyan's tomb, from the church of St. Michael, Comhilh and says he died in 1511, adding that his monument was gone. Bale, who places Fabyan's death on February 28th, 1512, is probably nearest to the truth, as his will, though dated July 11, 1511, was not proved till July 12, 1513.
Fabyan's will, printed with the last edition of his Chronicle,' afforda a curious comment on the manners of the time of Henry VIII.
There have been printed five editions of Fabyan's 'Chronicle. The first was printed by Pynson in 1516, and is of great rarity, in a perfect state. Bale says that Wolsey ordered many copies of it (' exemplaria nonnulle) to be brunt. The second was printed by Bedell in 1533; the third in 1542 by Reynes; the fourth in 1559 by Kyugeston. The changes of religion gave rise to many alterations and omissions in the third and fourth editions; but all the editions, as well as a manu script of the second part of the book, were collated by Sir Henry Ellis for the fifth edition, 4to, London, /811, from the preface to which the present account of the historian has been principally taken. Fabyan, whose object was to reconcile the discordant testimonies of historians, named his book ' The Concordance of Histories,' adding the fruits of personal observation in the latter part of his ' Chronicle.' The first edition had no regular title; the latest is called New Chronicles of England and France, in two parte, by Robert Fabyan, named by himself the Concordance of Histories' The first edition, which may be considered as Fabyan's genuine work, extends from the time when "Brute entryd firsts the lie of Albion" to 1485 ; the second continued tho history to 1509 ; the third to 1541; and the fourth to the month of May 1559. The names of the several authors who were the con tinuators are unknown.