Born: John Broughton,
noted pugilist, 1704, London; Mrs. Sarah Siddons (nee
Kemble), tragic actress, 1755; C. A. Stothard,
antiquarian draughtsman, 1786, London.
Died: Queen Magdalen of
Scotland, 1537; Cardinal Passioney, librarian of the
Vatican, 1761; Sir Robert Strange, the 'prince of
British line-engravers,' 1792, London; Mrs. Dorothea
Jordan (nee Bland), comic actress, 1816, St. Cloud.
Feast Day: St. Modwena,
virgin, of Ireland, 9th century; St. Edana or Edaene,
virgin, of same country; St. Peter of Luxemburg,
confessor, cardinal, and bishop of Metz, 1387.
JOHN BROUGHTON
That regulated system of
combat with the closed fists, which bears the name of
Boxing, and which may be said to be peculiar to
England, dates only from the earlier half of the
eighteenth century. The rules, including those notable
ones regarding rounds, and the interval of half a
minute between each, which give such a marked
character to the practice�a sort of humanity relieving
its barbarism �were the production of John Broughton,
who kept a booth for the exhibition of boxing in the
Tottenham Court Road; they are dated the 10th of
August 1743. It seems to have been on the decline of
sword-combat exhibitions in the reign of George I,
that the comparatively harmless amusement of boxing
arose. There appears to be no such thing known at an
earlier date.
Broughton was the first who
stood in the position of Champion�a distinction which
he held for eighteen years. It gives a curious idea of
the tastes of the English of his day, that his most
notable patron was the king's second son, the Duke of
Cumberland, so noted for his butcheries after the
battle
of Culloden. The duke probably attended
Broughton's boxing-booth within a week of his going
forth upon that famous expedition, in which the fate
of a dynasty was decided; probably, it was one of the
first places of amusement he went to after his
triumphant return. He once took Broughton with him on
a journey to the continent, and on shewing him the
grenadier guards at Berlin, asked the pugilist what he
thought of any of those fellows for a 'set-to;' to
which Broughton is said to have answered, that he
would have no objection to take up the whole regiment,
if he were only allowed a breakfast between each two
battles.
Broughton was admitted to have
a constant originality, as well as great power, in his
style of boxing, and he seems to have been a man of
sense and ability, apart from his profession. He was
at the very acme of his reputation, when he was so
unfortunate as to fall into a quarrel with a butcher
named Slack, who consequently challenged him. The
champion himself, and the whole circle of his friends
and admirers, regarded the challenger with contempt,
and when the combat commenced, the betting was ten to
one in Broughton's favour. But Slack contrived, at an
early period of the contest, to hit Broughton between
the eyes, and blinded him. The poor man had
undiminished strength, but he was not able to see his
antagonist. His royal patron, with characteristic
brutality, called out to him: 'Why, Broughton, you
can't fight�you are beat!'
['Proud Cumberland prances,
insulting the slain.']
It was too true. The fight
closed in fourteen minutes, with the defeat of the
hitherto unmatched hero. 'The faces in the
amphitheatre,' says the historian of the day, 'were of
all manner of colours and lengths.' The duke was
understood to have lost thousands on the occasion.
Slack, by his adroit blow, gained six hundred pounds.
Broughton survived in
obscurity, but in comparative affluence, for
thirty-nine years, dying on the 8th of January 1789,
at a very advanced age. The father, as he may well be
called, of this 'truly English art,' lies buried in Lambeth churchyard.
QUEEN MAGDALEN
The death of the French
princess, Magdalen, consort of James V of Scotland, is
a very affecting incident. The young Scottish monarch
had voyaged to France in the summer of 1536, to see
the daughter of the Due de Vendome, with a view to
marriage; but, not affecting her on intimate
acquaintance, he turned his thoughts to the royal
family as likely to furnish him a better bride. The
king, Francis I, received him with great kindness at
a place to the south of Lyon, and thence conducted him
to a castle where his family was residing. He found
the Princess Magdalen unable to ride on horseback, as
her mother and other ladies did, but obliged by
weakness of health to be carried in a chariot. 'Yet,
notwithstanding her sickness' �so the contemporary
Scottish historian Lindsay informs us�'fra the time
she saw the king of Scotland, and spak with him, she
became so enamoured of him, and loved him so weel,
that she weld have no man alive to her husband, but he
allenarly [only].'
Sage counsellors of both
countries discommended the union; but the young
princess easily induced her father to consent, and
the consent of the king of Scotland followed. On the
1st of January, the pair were united in the church of
Notre Dame, in the presence of seven cardinals and a
great assemblage of the French nobility, amidst
circumstances of great pomp and popular joy. 'Through
all France that day, there was jousting and running of
horse proclaimed, with all other manly exercise; as
also skirmishing of ships through all the coasts; so
that in towns, lands, seas, firths, castles, and
towers, there was no man that might have heard for the raird [uproar] and noise
of cannons, nor scarcely have
seen for the vapours thereof. There was also within
the town of Paris, cunning carvers and profound
necromancers, who by their art caused things appear
whilk wes not, as follows: fowls flying in the air
spouting fire on others, rivers of water running
through the town and ships fechtand therupon.'
With his young bride, and a
hundred thousand crowns by way of dowry, gifted
moreover with twenty war-horses, as many suits of
elegant mail, two great warships, and a vast quantity
of jewels and other minor articles, the young Scottish
monarch set sail for his own country. Landing at Leith
on Whit Sunday, the young queen, full of love for her
husband and his country, knelt on the shore, took up a
handful of sand, and kissed it, invoking God's
blessing upon Scotland. She was received in Edinburgh
with triumphs and shows of unexampled grandeur, with,
what was far better, the affectionate reverence of the
entire people. But the doom had already been passed
upon her. She withered like an uprooted flower, and
only forty days from her arrival, lay a corpse in her
husband's palace. The death of this beautiful young
creature in such interesting circumstances, made a
deep impression on the national heart, and it is
understood to have been the first occasion of a
general mourning being assumed in Scotland.
