Kitabı oku: «Notes and Queries, Number 46, September 14, 1850», sayfa 2

JAMES THE SECOND, HIS REMAINS

The following curious account was given to me by Mr. Fitz-Simons, an Irish gentleman, upwards of eighty years of age, with whom I became acquainted when resident with my family at Toulouse, in September, 1840; he having resided in that city for many years as a teacher of the French and English languages, and had attended the late Sir William Follett in the former capacity there in 1817. He said,—

"I was a prisoner in Paris, in the convent of the English Benedictines in the Rue St. Jaques, during part of the revolution. In the year 1793 or 1794, the body of King James II. of England was in one of the chapels there, where it had been deposited some time, under the expectation that it would one day be sent to England for interment in Westminster Abbey. It had never been buried. The body was in a wooden coffin, inclosed in a leaden one; and that again inclosed in a second wooden one, covered with black velvet. That while I was so a prisoner, the sans-culottes broke open the coffins to get at the lead to cast into bullets. The body lay exposed nearly a whole day. It was swaddled like a mummy, bound tight with garters. The sans-culottes took out the body, which had been embalmed. There was a strong smell of vinegar and camphor. The corpse was beautiful and perfect. The hands and nails were very fine, I moved and bent every finger. I never saw so fine a set of teeth in my life. A young lady, a fellow prisoner, wished much to have a tooth; I tried to get one out for her, but could not, they were so firmly fixed. The feet also were very beautiful. The face and cheeks were just as if he were alive. I rolled his eyes: the eye-balls were perfectly firm under my finger. The French and English prisoners gave money to the sans-culottes for showing the body. They said he was a good sans-culotte, and they were going to put him into a hole in the public churchyard like other sand-culottes; and he was carried away, but where the body was thrown I never heard. King George IV. tried all in his power to get tidings of the body, but could not. Around the chapel were several wax moulds of the face hung up, made probably at the time of the king's death, and the corpse was very like them. The body had been originally kept at the palace of St. Germain, from whence it was brought to the convent of the Benedictines. Mr. Porter, the prior, was a prisoner at the time in his own convent."

The above I took down from Mr. Fitz-Simons' own mouth, and read it to him, and he said it was perfectly correct. Sir W. Follett told me he thought Mr. Fitz-Simons was a runaway Vinegar Hill boy. He told me that he was a monk.

PITMAN JONES.

Exeter, Aug. 1850.

FOLK LORE

The Legend of Sir Richard Baker (vol. ii., p. 67.).—Will F.L. copy the inscription on the monument in Cranbrook Church? The dates on it will test the veracity of the legend. In the reign of Queen Mary, the representative of the family was Sir John Baker, who in that, and the previous reigns of Edward VI. and Henry VIII., had held some of the highest offices in the kingdom. He had been Recorder of London, Speaker of the House of Commons, Attorney-General and Chancellor of the Exchequer, and died in the first year of the reign of Queen Elizabeth. His son, Sir Richard Baker, was twice high-sheriff of the county of Kent, and had the honour of entertaining Queen Elizabeth in her progress through the county. This was, most likely, the person whose monument F.L. saw in Cranbrook Church. The family had been settled there from the time of Edward III., and seem to have been adding continually to their possessions; and at the time mentioned by F.L. as that of their decline, namely, in the reign of Edward VI., they were in reality increasing in wealth and dignities. If the Sir Richard Baker whose monument is referred to by F.L. was the son of the Sir John above mentioned, the circumstances of his life disprove the legend. He was not the sole representative of the family remaining at the accession of Queen Mary. His father was then living, and at the death of his father his brother John divided with him the representation of the family, and had many descendants. The family estates were not dissipated; on the contrary, they were handed down through successive generations, to one of whom, a grandson of Sir Richard, the dignity of a baronet was given; and Sivinghurst, which was the family seat, was in the possession of the third and last baronet's grandson, E.S. Beagham, in the year 1730. Add to this that the Sir Richard Baker in question was twice married, and that a monumental erection of the costly and honourable description mentioned by F.L. was allowed to be placed to his memory in the chancel of the church of the parish in which such Bluebeard atrocities are said to have been committed, and abundant grounds will thence appear for rejecting the truth of the legend in the absence of all evidence. The unfortunately red colour of the gloves most likely gave rise to the story. Nor is this a solitary instance of such a legend having such an origin. In the beautiful parish church of Aston, in Warwickshire, are many memorials of the Baronet family of Holt, who owned the adjoining domain and hall, the latter of which still remains, a magnificent specimen of Elizabethan architecture. Either in one of the compartments of a painted window of the church, or upon a monumental marble to one of the Holts, is the Ulster badge, as showing the rank of the deceased, and painted red. From the colour of the badge, a legend of the bloody hand has been created as marvellous as that of the Bloody Baker, so fully detailed by F.L.

ST. JOHNS.

[Will our correspondent favour us by communicating the Aston Legend of the Holt Family to which he refers?]

Langley, Kent, Prophetic Spring at.—The following "note" upon a passage in Warkworth's Chronicle (pp. 23, 24.) may perhaps possess sufficient interest to warrant its insertion in your valuable little publication. The passage is curious, not only as showing the superstitious dread with which a simple natural phenomenon was regarded by educated and intelligent men four centuries ago, but also as affording evidence of the accurate observation of a writer, whose labours have shed considerable light upon "one of the darkest periods in our annals." The chronicler is recording the occurrence, in the thirteenth year of Edward the Fourth, of a "gret hote somere," which caused much mortality, and "unyversalle fevers, axes, and the blody flyx in dyverse places of Englonde," and also occasioned great dearth and famine "in the southe partyes of the worlde."

He then remarks that "dyverse tokenes have be schewede in Englonde this year for amendynge of mannys lyvynge," and proceeds to enumerate several springs or waters in various places, which only ran at intervals, and by their running always portended "derthe, pestylence, or grete batayle." After mentioning several of these, he adds—

"Also ther is a pytte in Kent in Langley Parke: ayens any batayle he wille be drye, and it rayne neveyre so myche; and if ther be no batayle toward, he wille be fulle of watere, be it neveyre so drye a wethyre; and this yere he is drye."

Langley Park, situated in a parish of the same name, about four miles to the south-east of Maidstone, and once the residence of the Leybournes and other families, well-known in Kentish history, has long existed only in name, having been disparked prior to 1570; but the "pytte," or stream, whose wondrous qualities are so quaintly described by Warkworth, still flows at intervals. It is scarcely necessary to add, that it belongs to the class known as intermitting springs, the phenomena displayed by which are easily explained by the syphon-like construction of the natural reservoirs whence they are supplied.

I have never heard that any remnant of this curious superstition can now be traced in the neighbourhood, but persons long acquainted with the spot have told me that the state of the stream was formerly looked upon as a good index of the probable future price of corn. The same causes, which regulated the supply or deficiency of water, would doubtless also affect the fertility of the soil.

EDWARD R.J. HOWE.

Chancery Lane, Aug. 1850.

MINOR NOTES

Poem by Malherbe (Vol. ii., p. 104.).—Possibly your correspondent MR. SINGER may not be aware of the fact that the beauty of the fourth stanza of Malherbe's Ode on the Death of Rosette Duperrier is owing to a typographical error. The poet had written in his MS.—

 
"Et Rosette a vécu ce que vivent les roses," &c.,
 

omitting to cross his t's, which the compositor took for l's, and set up Roselle. On receiving the proof-sheet, at the passage in question a sudden light burst upon Malherbe; of Roselle he made two words, and put in two beautiful lines—

 
"Et Rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses,
L'espace d'un matin."
 

(See Français peints par eux-mémes, vol. ii. p. 270.)

P.S. KING.

Kennington.

Travels of Two English Pilgrims.—

"A True and Strange Discourse of the Travailes of Two English Pilgrimes: what admirable Accidents befell them in their Journey to Jerusalem, Gaza, Grand Cayro, Alexandria, and other places. Also, what rare Antiquities, Monuments, and notable Memories (concording with the Ancient Remembrances in the Holy Scriptures), they sawe in the Terra Sancta; with a perfect Description of the Old and New Jerusalem, and Situation of the Countries about them. A Discourse of no lesse Admiration, then well worth the regarding: written by one of them on the behalfe of himselfe and his fellowe Pilgrime. Imprinted at London for Thomas Archer, and are to be solde at his Shoppe, by the Royall Exchange. 1603."

A copy of this 4to. tract, formerly in the hands of Francis Meres, the author of Wit's Commonwealth, has the following MS. note:—

"Timberley, dwellinge on Tower Hill, a maister of a ship, made this booke, as Mr. Anthony Mundye tould me. Thomas, at Mrs. Gosson's, sent my wyfe this booke for a token, February 15. A.D. 1602."

P.B.