John Owen
Charles Butler1623The Feminine Monarchie is an early and remarkable work of English naturalhistory, first published in 1609, and written by a scholarly country parson ofwide ranging interests. Like the later Gilbert White of Selborne, a distant relation,Charles Butler had a deep curiosity about the natural world and recorded hisdiscoveries methodically, in keeping with the growing scientific mood of theseventeenth century.Butler was the author of several books on subjects as diverse as music,grammar, logic, and church law. He was also a noted beekeeper and TheFeminine Monarchie is the classic English beekeeping text, earning Butler thetitle ‘father of English bee-keeping’. The book explores the world of the honeybee with a keen intelligence, and makes implicit reference to Elizabeth I’s longreign as England’s female monarch.This is the first new edition of The Feminine Monarchie to be publishedfor over three hundred years, and contains a new introduction, as well asannotations and a glossary of the more obscure words used by Butler. Thespelling and grammar have been modernised throughout. This edition has beenprepared from the 1623 edition, which includes Butler’s famous ‘Bees Madrigal’.John Owen is vicar of two rural parishes in Hampshire, in the South DownsNational Park, thirty miles from Butler’s parish of Wootton St Lawrence in thesame county. He keeps bees, poultry and goats and is rural advisor in theDiocese of Portsmouth.
