Replies.

CLARENCE.

(Vol. ix., p. 85.)

Clarence is beyond all doubt the district comprehending and lying around the town and castle of Clare in Suffolk, and not, as some have fancifully supposed, the town of Chiarenza in the Morea. Some of the crusaders did, indeed, acquire titles of honour derived from places in eastern lands, but certainly no such place ever gave its name to an honorary feud held of the crown of England, nor, indeed, has ever any English sovereign to this day bestowed a territorial title derived from a place beyond the limits of his own nominal dominions; the latest creations of the kind being the earldoms of Albemarle and Tankerville, respectively bestowed by William III. and George I., who were both nominally kings of Great Britain, France, and Ireland. In ancient times every English title (with the exception of Aumerle or Albemarle, which exception is only an apparent one) was either personal, or derived from some place in England. The ancient earls of Albemarle were not English peers by virtue of that earldom, but by virtue of the tenure of lands in England, though, being the holders of a Norman earldom, they were known in England by their higher designation, just as some of the Barons De Umfravill were styled, even in writs of summons, by their superior Scottish title of Earl of Angos. If these earls had not held English fees, they would not have been peers of England any more than were the ancient Earls of Tankerville and Eu. In later times the strictness of the feudal law was so far relaxed, that in two or three instances English peers were created with territorial titles derived from places in the Duchy of Normandy.

As to the locality of Clarence, see Sandford's Genealogical History, 1707, p. 222. There is a paper on the subject in the Gentleman's Magazine for November, 1850. The king of arms called Clarenceux, or in Latin Clarentius, was, as it has been very reasonably conjectured, originally a herald retained by a Duke of Clarence. (Noble's History of the College of Arms, p. 61.) Hoping ere long to send you some notes respecting certain real or seeming anomalies amongst our English dignities, I reserve some particulars which may, perhaps, farther elucidate the present question.

Goldencross.

Your correspondent Honoré de Mareville has wandered too far in going to the Morea to search for this title. Clare in Suffolk was one of the ninety-five manors in that county bestowed by the Conqueror upon Richard Fitzgilbert, who (as well as his successor Gilbert) resided at Tunbridge, and bore the surname of De Tonebruge. His grandson Richard, the first Earl of Hertford, fixed his principal seat at Clare, and thenceforth the family took the surname of De Clare; and in the Latin documents of the time the several members of it were styled Ricardus (or Gilbertus), Dominus Clarensis, Comes Hertfordiensis. The name of the lordship thus becoming the family surname, it is easy to see how in common usage the formal epithet Clarensis soon became Clarence, and why Lionel, the son of Edward III., upon his marriage with Elizabeth de Burgh, the grand-niece and heiress of the last Gilbertus Clarensis, should choose as the title for his dukedom the surname of the great family of which he had now become the representative.

Vokaros.

MILTON'S WIDOW.

(Vol. viii., pp. 12. 134. 200. 375. 452. 471. 544. 594.)

Garlichithe is again on the wrong scent. In his first communication on this subject, he allowed himself to go astray by mistaking Randle Minshull the grandfather for Randle Minshull the son; and now, with the like fatality, he fails to discriminate between Richard Minshull the uncle, and Richard Minshull the brother, of Elizabeth Milton. A second examination of my Reply in Vol. viii., p. 200., will suffice to show him that Richard Minshull, the party to the deed there quoted, was named by me as the brother, and not the uncle, of Milton's widow, and that therefore his argument, based on disparity of age, &c., falls to the ground. On the other hand, Richard Minshull of Chester, to whom the letter alluded to was addressed, was the brother of Randle Minshull of Wistaston, and by the same token, uncle of Elizabeth Milton, and of Richard Minshull, her brother and co-partner in the deed already referred to.

Garlichithe, and all others who have taken an interest in this discussion, will now, I trust, see clearly that there has been nothing adduced by either Mr. Marsh or myself inconsistent with ages or dates; but that, on the contrary, all our premises and conclusions are borne out by evidence clear, irreproachable, and incontestable.

All objections being now, as I conceive, fully combated and disposed of, the substance of our investigations may be summed up in a very few words. The statement of Pennant, adopted by all succeeding writers, to the effect that Elizabeth, the widow of John Milton, was a daughter of Sir Edward Minshull of Stoke, is clearly proved to be a fiction. It has been farther proved, from the parish registers, as well as from bonds and other documentary evidence, that she was, without doubt, the daughter of Randle Minshull of Wistaston, a village about three miles from Nantwich; that she was the cousin of Milton's familiar friend, Dr. Paget, and as such became entitled to a legacy under the learned Doctor's will, and that she is expressly named by Richard Minshull as his sister in the deed before quoted.

T. Hughes.

Chester.

THREE FLEURS-DE-LYS.

(Vol. ix., pp. 35. 113.)

Devoniensis is informed that an example of this occurs in the arms of King James's School, Almondbury, Yorkshire. The impression, as taken from the great seal of the school, in which however the colours are not distinguished, may be imperfectly described as follows: Three lions (two over one) passant gardant ——, on a chief ——, three fleurs-de-lys ——.

As it is not unlikely that some other of King James's foundations may have the same arms, it would be considered a favour if any reader of "N. & Q." possessing the information would communicate the proper colours in this case, or even the probable ones.

Camelodunensis.

Devoniensis is quite right in supposing that the bearing of three fleurs-de-lys alone, horizontal, in the upper part of the shield,—in other words, in chief, fess-ways,—is a very rare occurrence. I know of no instance of it in English blazon. Coupled with another and principal charge, as a fess, a chevron, a lion, &c.; or in a chief, it is common enough. Nor have I ever met with an example of it in French coat-armour. An English family, named Rothfeld, but apparently of German extraction, gives: Gules, two fleurs-de-lys, in chief, ermine. Du Guesclin bore nothing like a fleur-de-lys in any way. The armorial bearings of the famous Constable were: Argent, a double-headed eagle, displayed, sable, crowned, or, debruised of a bend, gules.

John o' the Ford.

Malta.

P.S.—Since writing the above, I have read three replies (Vol. ix., p. 84.), which do not appear to me to exactly meet the Query of Devoniensis.

I understand the question to be, does any English family bear simply three fleurs-de-lys, in chief, fess-ways—without any additional charge? And in that sense my reply above is framed.

The first example given by Mr. Mackenzie Walcott would be most satisfactory and conclusive of the existence of such a bearing, could it be verified; but, unfortunately, in the Heraldic Dictionaries of Berry and Burke, the name even of Trilleck or Trelleck does not occur. And in Malta, I have no opportunity of consulting Edmondson or Robson.

Your correspondent A. B. (p. 113.) has mistaken the three white lilies for fleurs-de-lys in the arms of Magdalen College, Oxford. Waynflete, the founder, was also Provost of Eton, and adopted the device from the bearings of that illustrious school; by which they were borne in allusion to St. Mary, to whom that College is dedicated.

Mackenzie Walcott, M.A.

BOOKS BURNED BY THE COMMON HANGMAN.

(Vol. viii., pp. 272. 346. 625.; Vol. ix., p. 78.)

The well-known law dictionary, entitled The Interpreter, by John Cowel, LL.D., was burned (1610) under a proclamation of James I. (D'Israeli's Calamities of Authors, ed. 1840, p. 133.)

In June, 1622, the Commentary of David Pare, or Paræus On the Epistle to the Romans, was burned at London, Oxford, and Cambridge, by order of the Privy Council. (Wood's Hist. and Antiq. of Univ. of Oxford, ed. Gutch, vol. ii. pp. 341-345.; Cooper's Annals of Cambridge, vol. iii. pp. 143, 144.)

On the 12th of February, 1634, Elenchus Religionis Papisticæ, by John Bastwicke, M.D., was ordered to be burned by the High Commission Court. (Prynne's New Discovery of the Prelates' Tyranny, p. 132.)

On the 10th of February, 1640-1 the House of Lords ordered that two books published by John Pocklington, D.D., entitled Altare Christianum, and Sunday no Sabbath, should be publicly burned in the city of London and the two Universities, by the hands of the common executioner; and on the 10th of March the House ordered the Sheriffs of London and the Vice-Chancellors of both the Universities, forthwith to take care and see the order of the House carried into execution. (Lords' Journals, vol. iv. pp. 161. 180.)

On the 13th of August, 1660, Charles II. issued a proclamation against Milton's Defensio pro Populo Anglicano, his Answer to the Portraiture of his Sacred Majesty in his Solitude and Sufferings, and a book by John Goodwin, late of Coleman Street, London, Clerk, entitled The Obstructors of Justice. All copies of these books were to be brought to the sheriffs of counties, who were to cause the same to be publicly burned by the hands of the common hangman at the next assizes. (Kennett's Register and Chronicle, p. 207.) This proclamation is also printed in Collet's Relics of Literature, with the inaccurate date 1672, and the absurd statement that no copy of the proclamation was discovered till 1797.

In January, 1692-3, a pamphlet by Charles Blount, Esq., entitled King William and Queen Mary, Conquerors, &c., was burned by the common hangman in Palace Yard, Westminster. (Bohun's Autobiography, ed. S. W. Rix, vol. xxiv. pp. 106, 109. 113.; Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. i. p. 179 n.)

The same parliament consigned to the flames Bishop Burnet's Pastoral Letter, which had been published 1689. (Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. i. p. 179.)

On the 31st of July, 1693, the second volume of Anthony à Wood's Athenæ Oxonienses was burned in the Theatre Yard at Oxford by the Apparitor of the University, in pursuance of the sentence of the University Court in a prosecution for a libel on the memory of Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon. (Life of Mr. Anthony à Wood, ed. 1772, p. 377.)

On the 25th of February, 1702-3, the House of Commons ordered De Foe's Shortest Way with the Dissenters to be burned by the hands of the common hangman on the morrow in New Palace Yard. (Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. ii. p. 62.)

In or about 1709, John Humphrey, an aged non-conformist minister, having published a pamphlet against the Test, and circulated it amongst the members of parliament, was cited before a committee, and his work was ordered to be burned by the common hangman. (Wilson's Life of De Foe, vol. iii. p. 52.)

The North Briton, No. 45., was on the 3rd of December, 1763, burned by the common hangman at the Royal Exchange, by order of the House of Commons. The following account is from Malcolm's Anecdotes of London, 4to., 1808, p. 282.:

"The 3rd of December was appointed for this silly ceremony, which took place before the Royal Exchange, amidst the hisses and execrations of the mob, not directed at the obnoxious paper, but at Alderman Harley, the sheriffs, and constables, the latter of whom were compelled to fight furiously through the whole business. The instant the hangman held the work to a lighted link it was beat to the ground, and the populace, seizing the faggots prepared to complete its destruction, fell upon the peace-officers and fairly threshed them from the field; nor did the alderman escape without a contusion on the head, inflicted by a bullet thrown through the glass of his coach; and several other persons had reason to repent the attempt to burn that publicly which the sovereign people determined to approve, who afterwards exhibited a large jack-boot at Temple Bar, and burnt it in triumph, unmolested, as a species of retaliation."

I am not aware that what Mr. Malcolm terms a "silly ceremony" has been repeated since 1763.

C. H. Cooper.

Cambridge.

I know not whether you have noticed the following:

"Droit le Roy; or, A Digest of the Rights and Prerogatives of the Imperial Crown of Great Britain. By a Member of the Society of Lincoln's Inn. 'Dieu et Mon Droit.' [Royal Arms, with G. R.] London: printed and sold by W. Griffin, in Fetter Lane, MDCCLXIV."

Lord Mahon (History of England, vol. v. p. 175.) says:

"It was also observed, and condemned as a shallow artifice, that the House of Lords, to counterbalance their condemnation of Wilkes's violent democracy, took similar measures against a book of exactly opposite principles. This was a treatise or collection of precedents lately published under the title of Droit le Roy, to uphold the prerogative of the crown against the rights of the people. The Peers, on the motion of Lord Lyttleton, seconded by the Duke of Grafton, voted this book 'a false, malicious, and traitorous libel, inconsistent with the principles of the Revolution to which we owe the present happy establishment;' they ordered that it should be burned by the hands of the common hangman, and that the author should be taken into custody. The latter part of the sentence, however, no one took any pains to execute. The author was one Timothy Brecknock, a hack scribbler, who, twenty years afterwards, was hanged for being accessary to an atrocious murder in Ireland."

A copy of the book (an octavo of xii. and 95 pages) is in my possession. It was apparently a presentation copy, and formerly belonged to Dr. Disney; at whose sale it was purchased by the late Richard Heber, as his MS. note testifies. Against the political views which this book advocates, I say not one word; as a legal treatise it is simply despicable.

H. Gough.

Lincoln's Inn.

The following extract is at the service of Balliolensis:

"In the seventh year of King James I., Dr. Cowel's Interpreter was censured by the two Houses, as asserting several points to the overthrow and destruction of Parliaments and of the fundamental laws and government of the kingdom. And one of the articles charged upon him to this purpose by the Commons, in their complaint to the Lords, was, as Mr. Petyt says, out of the Journal, this that follows:

"'4thly. The Doctor draws his arguments from the imperial laws of the Roman Emperors, an argument which may be urged with as great reason, and with as great authority, for the reduction of the state and the clergy of England to the polity and laws in the time of those Emperors; as also to make the laws and customs of Rome and Constantinople to be binding and obligatory in the cities of London and York.'

"The issue of which complaint was, that the author, for these his outlandish politics, was taken into custody, and his book condemned to the flames: nor could the dedication of it to his then grace of Canterbury save it."—Atterbury's Rights, Powers, and Privileges of Convocation, p. 7. of Preface.

Wm. Fraser, B.C.L.

Tor-Mohun.

I possess a copy of The Case of Ireland being bound by Acts of Parliament in England stated, by William Molyneux of Dublin, Esq., which appears to have been literally "plucked as brand from the burning," as a considerable portion of it is consumed by fire. I have cut the following from a sale catalogue just sent to me from Dublin:

"Smith's (Matthew) Memoirs of Secret Service, Lond. 1696. Written by Charles, Earl of Peterborough, and is very scarce, being burnt by the hangman. MS. note."

James Graves.

Kilkenny.

A decree of the University of Oxford, made July 21, 1683, condemning George Buchanan's treatise De jure regni apud Scotos, and certain other books, the names of which I do not know, was on March 25, 1710, ordered by the House of Lords to be burned by the hangman. This was shortly after the trial of Dr. Sacheverel.

W. P. Storer.

Olney, Bucks.

DIFFERENT PRODUCTIONS OF DIFFERENT CARCASES.

(Vol. vi., p. 263.)

Up to a very recent period, it was held, even by philosophers, that each of the four elements, as well as every living plant and animal, both brute and human, generated insects; but of all sources of this equivocal generation, none was considered more potent than the putrefaction or corruption of animal matter: as Du Bartas says:

Pliny, after giving Virgil's receipt for making bees, gives similar instances:

"Like as dead horses will breed waspes and hornets; and asses carrion, turne to be beetle-flies by a certaine metamorphosis which Nature maketh from one creature to another."—Lib. xi. c. xx.

And soon after he says of wasps:

"All the sorte of these live upon flesh, contrarie to the manner of bees, which will not touch a dead carcasse."

This brings Shakepeare's lines to mind:

The Belfast News Letter of Friday, Aug. 10, 1832, gives one of these rare occurrences:

"A few days ago, when the sexton was digging a grave in Temple Cranney (a burying-place in Portaferry, co. Down), he came to a coffin which had been there two or three years: this he thought necessary to remove. In this operation, he was startled by a great quantity of wild bees issuing forth from the coffin; and upon lifting the lid, it was found that they had formed their combs in the dead man's skull and mouth, which were full. The nest was made of the hair of the head, together with shavings that had been put in the coffin with the corpse."

This quotation is given in an interesting work of Mr. Patterson's, Letters on the Natural History of the Insects mentioned in Shakspeare's Plays: London, 1838.

Your correspondent R. T. shows that serpents were supposed to be generated by human carcases. Pliny says:

"I have heard many a man say that the marrow of a man's backebone will breed to a snake."—Hist. Nat., x. 66.

The story of the "fair young German gentleman" reminds me of one of a gentle shepherd and his beloved Amarante, told in De Britaine's Human Prudence, 12th edit., Dublin, 1726, Part I. p. 171. The corpse of the "Cæsar," seen by St. Augustine and Monica, was most probably that of Maximus, Emperor of the West, slain by the soldiers of Theodosius, A.D. 388.

Sir Thos. Browne—"treating of the conceit that the mandrake grows under gallowses, and arises from the fat, or οὖρον, of the dead malefactor, and hence has the form of a man—says:

"This is so far from being verified of animals in their corruptive mutations into plants, that they maintain not this similitude in their nearer translation into animals. So when the ox corrupteth into bees, or the horse into hornets, they come not forth in the image of their originals. So the corrupt and excrementitious humours in man are animated into lice: and we may observe that hogs, sheep, goats, hawks, hens, and others, have one peculiar and proper kind of vermin."—Works, Bohn's edit., vol. i. p. 197.

The editor furnishes the following note:

"The immortal Harvey, in his De Generations, struck the first blow at the root of the irrational system called equivocal generation, when he laid down his brief but most pungent law, Omnia ex ovo. But the belief transmitted from antiquity, that living beings generated spontaneously from putrescent matter, long maintained its ground, and a certain modification of it is even still advocated by some naturalists of the greatest acuteness. The first few pages of the volume entitled Insect Transformations (in The Library of Entertaining Knowledge) are occupied by a very interesting investigation of this subject."—See also Sir T. Browne's Works, vol. i. p. 378., vol. ii. pp. 523, 524.; and Izaak Walton's Complete Angler, passim.

The equivocal generation of bees is copiously dwelt on in Bochart's Hierozoicon, London, 1663, fol., Part II. p. 502. Instances of their attaching themselves to dead bodies, in spite of their ordinary antipathy, are given at p. 506.

Eirionnach.

VANDYKE IN AMERICA.

(Vol. viii., pp. 182. 228.)

To your correspondent C. I would say, that his observation—that the Query was as to an engraving, whilst my answer was as to a picture—is not true; as I am sure, from memory, that Mr. Westmacott used the word "portraits." But I plead in extenuation of my pretended grave offence, 1. That the Query was not propounded by C., but by a gentleman to whom the information given might be, as I supposed, of some interest; more particularly as I referred to the Travels of an Englishman, both of which, author and work, were accessible. 2. That, in common with the American readers of "N. & Q.," I regarded it as "a journal of inter-communication," through whose columns information might be asked for, the request to be treated with the same consideration and courtesy as though addressed to each individual subscriber. I may add that Lord Braybrooke and Mr. Wodderspoon (Vol. iv., p. 17.) have urged "the necessity for recording the existence of painted historical portraits, scattered, as we know they are," &c.

Now, as to the expression "worthies, famous in English history." I presume I need do no more concerning its application to Lord Orrery, Sir Robert Walpole, &c., than say, it was used as signifying "men of mark," without intending to endorse their "worth" either morally, mentally, or politically; its application to Colonel Hill and Colonel Byrd, as meaning "men of worth," might, did your limits permit, be defended on high grounds.

Then as to the possibility of Vandyke's having painted the portraits. If C. will have the kindness to look at C. Campbell's History of Virginia, he will find,—

"1654. At a meeting of the Assembly, William Hatchin, having been convicted of having called Colonel Edward Hill 'an atheist and blasphemer,' was compelled to make acknowledgment of his offence upon his knees before Colonel Hill and the Assembly."

I have occupied much more space than I intended, but I have said enough I hope to show, 1. That it is possible, from dates, from the character, wealth, and position of Mr. Byrd and Mr. Hill, together with the length of time the pictures have remained in the respective families, for Vandyke to have painted these portraits. 2. That as men who directed the energies, developed the resources, of our infant settlements, who brought hither the products of science, literature, and art, who exhibited the refinements of birth, the graces of good breeding, yet were always ready to serve their country in the field or in the council, Mr. Byrd and Mr. Hill are vastly more worthy of commemoration and reverence than all the Earls of Dredlington that ever sat at his majesty's Board of Green Cloth.

J. Balch.

Philadelphia.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CORRESPONDENCE.

Cyanide of Potassium.—It may be interesting to our photographic friends to know that cyanide of potassium is capable of replacing hyposulphite of soda in all collodion processes. If used of the strength of five grains to one ounce of water, no danger need be apprehended from it. Its merits are cleanliness, quickness of operation, and the minute quantity of water required for washing the picture fixed therewith.

J. B. Hockin.

Mode of exciting Calotype Paper.—I forgot inserting this plan of exciting in my paper: it is very clean and convenient, simple and sure. Obtain a piece of plate glass, two or three inches larger than your paper, level it on a table with a few bits of wood, pour on it your exciting mixture (say aceto-nitrate and gallic acid, solution of each 20 minims, distilled water 1 ounce), and spread it evenly over with a scrap of blotting-paper. Float your paper two minutes, remove and blot off; this ensures perfect evenness, especially if the paper is large. You may thus excite half a dozen papers with little more trouble than one.

Thos. L. Mansell.

The Double Iodide Solution—Purity of Photographic Chemicals.—The observations of Mr. Leachman upon the solvent powers of iodide of potassium (Vol ix., p. 182.) are perfectly correct, but I believe our photographic chemicals are often much adulterated. The iodide of potassium is frequently mixed with the carbonate. Dr. Mansell writes me word, in a comment upon your note upon his communication, "What I used was very pure, having been prepared by Mr. Arnold with great care: it was some that had gone to the Great Exhibition as a sample of Guernsey make, and obtained a medal." I have this day used exactly seven ounces avoirdupois to make a pint of the iodizing solution, which, within a few grains, agrees with my former results. Nitrate of silver, I am informed upon a most respectable authority, has been adulterated thirty per cent., and without careful testing has eluded detection; but I am inclined to think our cheapest article has come in for its largest share of mixture. I have lately perfectly failed in the removal of the iodide of silver with a saturated solution of what I purchased as hyposulphite of soda, but which could have been little else than common Glauber's salts; for upon applying a similar solution of some which was made by M. Butka of Prague, and supplied me by Messrs. Simpson and Maule, the effect was almost immediate, demonstrating how much we are misled in our conclusions, from believing we are manipulating with the same substances, when in fact they are quite different.

Hugh W. Diamond.

Hyposulphite of Soda Baths.—Is there any objection to using the same bath (saturated solution of hyposulphite) for fixing both paper calotype negatives and positives printed on albumenized paper from glass collodion negatives?

C. E. F.