Born: Philip Augustus
II of France, 1165; Aim� Bonpland, distinguished
naturalist and friend of Humboldt, 1773, La Rochelle;
Thomas Tredgold, engineer, 1788, Brandon, near Durham;
John B. Gough, temperance orator, 1817, Sandgate,
Kent.
Died: Pope Nicholas
III, 1280; Philippe de Valois, king of France, 1350,
Nogent-le-Roi, near Chartres; Richard III of England,
killed at Bosworth Field, 1485; Guillaume Bud� (Budaeus),
scholar and author, 1540; Thomas Percy, Earl of
Northumberland, beheaded at York, 1572; Dominic
Bandius, jurist and philologist, 1613, Leyden; Pierre
le Moine, Jesuit and poet, 1672, Paris; Louis Francois
de Boufflers, duke and marshal of France,
distinguished commander, 1711, Fontainbleau; William
Whiston, celebrated divine and translator of Josephus,
1752, London; George, Lord Lyttelton, author of
Dialogues of the Dead, 1773, Hagley, near Stourbridge;
John Henry Tischbein, eminent painter, 1789, Cassel;
Warren Hastings, governor general of India, 1818,
Daylesford, Worcestershire; Dr. Franz Joseph Gall,
founder of phrenology, 1828, Paris; Richard Oastler,
'The Factory King,' leader of the 'Ten-hours'
Movement,' 1861, Harrogate.
Feast Day: St.
Symphorian, martyr, about 178. St. Hippolytus, bishop
and martyr, 3rd century. St. Timothy, martyr, 311. St. Philibert,
abbot of Jumi�ges, 684. St. Andrew, deacon
and confessor, about 880.
WILLIAM WHISTON
We are afraid that, except as
an affix to a translation of Josephus�a stock-book in
every ordinary library�the name of William Whiston
suggests very little to modern memories. Yet at the
beginning of the eighteenth century he�a restless,
indiscreet, and loquacious man of learning�was in
everybody's mouth, and by his heresies contrived to
keep the Church of England for years in a fidget.
He was the son of a clergyman,
and was born at Norton, near Twycross, in
Leicestershire, in 1667. At Cambridge, he greatly
distinguished himself by his mathematical attainments,
and won the friendship of
Newton, whose Principia he
studied and appreciated. In 1696, he published his
first work, the forerunner of a multitude, entitled A
New Theory of the Earth from its Original to the
Consummation of all Things, wherein the Creation of
the World in Six Days, the Universal Deluge, and the
General Conflagration as laid down in the Holy
Scriptures are shewn to be perfectly agreeable to
Reason and Philosophy; it ran through six editions.
The flood he accounted for by a comet, but the wits
objected, that while he had covered the earth with
water, he had provided no means for drawing it off.
Newton, in 1701, made him his deputy in the duties of
the Lucasian chair, and in 1703, resigned the chair
itself, and procured the election of Whiston as his
successor.
Gradually he began to broach
and promulgate Arian doctrine on the subject of the
Trinity, and the result was, that in 1710, he was
banished from the university, and the year after his
professorship was declared vacant. These penalties
only added fuel to his zeal; so that he provoked
Convocation to censure his writings, and for five
years to keep his case dangling before the public.
Meanwhile Whiston sought his living by teaching
mathematics in London, and Steele and Addison found
him an audience at Button's coffee-house for a series
of astronomical lectures. He tried to establish a
sect, and held a meeting for worship in his house in
Cross Street, Hatton Garden, but he could never get
beyond a dozen or score of disciples. Apparently
without any power of considerate reticence, he
published his fancies as quickly as they were formed.
He turned Baptist; he asserted the Jews would be
restored to Palestine and the millennium begin in
1766, and that an earthquake in London would swallow
up 7000 men, and the remainder would be converted. He
had a method for finding the longitude, by means of
signal-vessels moored at various points in the ocean,
which he held was everywhere fathomable. In fact, his
brain teemed with odd notions, theological, literary,
and scientific.
There was no lack of friends
who respected his honesty and learning, but his habit
of blunt, free speech and immovable self-will,
rendered it very difficult to assist him effectually.
His Arianism was shared by many ecclesiastics, who
regretted his retreat from the church as wholly
unnecessary. Whiston, one day talking with
Chief-Justice King, entered into a discussion about
signing articles which were not believed, for the sake
of preferment. King freely sanctioned the
latitudinarian practice, saying: 'We must not lose our
usefulness for scruples.' Whiston expressed his sorrow
to hear his lordship say so, and proceeded to inquire,
whether he permitted similar prevarication in the
law-courts. The chief justice said, 'No,' whereon
Whiston rejoined: 'Suppose God Almighty should be as
just in the next world as my lord chief-justice is in
this, where are we then?' King was silent. When Queen
Caroline heard the story, she said: 'No answer was to
be made to it.'
With Caroline, wife of George
II, Whiston was somewhat of a favourite. She allowed
him �50 a year, and usually sent for him every summer
when she was out of town, to spend a day or two with
her. At Richmond, on one occasion, she asked him what
people thought of her. He told her that she was
esteemed as a lady of great abilities, a patron of
learned men, and a kind friend of the poor. 'But,'
said she, 'no one is without faults, what are mine?' Whiston begged to be
excused, but she insisting, he
informed her majesty that she did not behave with
proper reverence in church. She pleaded in excuse that
the king would talk to her. He asked her to remember,
that during worship, she was in the presence of One
greater than kings. Confessing her fault, she went on:
'Pray tell me what is my next?' With fine tact Whiston
evaded the dangerous topic with the promise: 'When
your majesty has amended the fault of which we have
spoken, we shall then proceed to the next.'
Another good story is told of
his frank speech. A party, in which Addison,
Pope,
Walpole, and Secretary Craggs
were included, was
debating whether a secretary of state could be an
honest man, and Whiston was appealed to for his
opinion, which may be imagined. Craggs said: 'It might
do for a fortnight, but not longer.' With much
simplicity Whiston inquired: 'Mr. Secretary, did you
ever try it for a fortnight?'
Whiston lived till he was
eighty-five, dying in London in 1752. His long life
was one of great literary activity, but his
multitudinous publications, amongst which was an
autobiography abounding in injudicious revelations,
have long been neglected. Vain yet sincere, sceptical
yet credulous, insensible alike to fear and favour,
where he thought the interests of truth concerned;
many laughed at Whiston's eccentricities, but those
who knew him most intimately, were those who held him
in highest honour for substantial virtue and
uprightness.
WARREN HASTINGS: THE GREY GEESE OF ADDLESTROP HILL
The brilliant but mud-streaked
history of Warren Hastings has been made familiar to
the present generation by a masterly pen. It is not
necessary here to repeat the tale of him who was the
subject of a ruthless, though futile party prosecution
of ten years by the House of Commons, and lived to
enjoy the unexampled honour of having that House to
rise to him on his entering it, an act of
unpremeditated veneration. He enjoyed a long
retirement from the cares of office at his seat of
Daylesford, in Worcestershire, those paternal acres,
to recover which for his family had been the great
impulse and inspiration of his early life. There he
died at the advanced age of eighty-five.
We find a simple circumstance
in the private latter life of Mr. Hastings, which has
come into a curious connection with modern literature.
It will be remembered that the first of the Tales of
My Landlord opens with the description of a moor on
the Scottish border, which was encumbered with a
number of huge blocks, called the Grey Geese of Mucklestane Moor, and connected
with which was a
legend, to the effect that a noted witch was driving
her geese to market, when, losing patience with their
waywardness, she suddenly exclaimed: 'Deevil! that
neither they nor I ever stir from this spot more!' and
instantly she and her flock were transformed into
blocks of stone, as they had ever since remained,
until the Black Dwarf appropriated them for the
building of his lonely cottage.
In the annotated edition of
his novels, Sir Walter fails to tell that he took up
this idea from a communication to the Gentleman's
Magazine of April 1808. In this paper it is stated
that, on the top of an eminence in the parish of
Addlestrop, in Gloucestershire, there was a number of
blocks of stone, which had stood there from time
immemorial, under the name of 'the Grey Geese of
Addle-strop Hill', until they had lately been taken by
Mr. Warren Hastings, and formed into a rock-work for
the decoration of his grounds at Daylesford. There was
added a ballad which had been composed evidently for
the amusement of the circle at Daylesford�as follows:
'Beneath the gray shroud
of a wintry cloud
The day-star dimly shone;
And the wind it blew chill upon Addlestrop Hill,
And over the Four-shire Stone.
But the wind and the rain
they threaten'd in vain;
Dame Alice was up and away:
For she knew to be healthy, and wealthy, and wise,
Was early to bed, and early to rise,
Though never so foul the day.
0 foul was the day, and
dreary the way;
St. Swithin the good woman shield!
For she quitted her bower in an evil hour
To drive her geese a-field.
To rival this flock,
howe'er they might mock,
Was never a wight could aspire;
The geese of Dame Alice bred envy and malice
Through many a bordering shire.
No wonder she eyed with
delight and with pride
Their plumes of glossy gray:
And she counted them o'er, and she counted a
score,
And thus to herself 'gan say:
"A score of gray geese at
a groat a piece,
Makes six-and-eightpence clear;
Add a groat, 'tis enow to furnish a cow,
And I warrant, we'll make good cheer."
But ah! well-a-day, no
mortal may say
What fate and fortune ordain;
Or Alice, I ween, had her loss foreseen,
Where most she look'd for gain.
And didst thou not mark
the warnings dark?
'Twas all on a Friday morn
She tripp'd unawares as she hurried down stairs,
And thrice was her kirtle torn.
And thrice by the way went
the gander astray
Ere she reach'd the foot of-the hill;
And the raven's croak from a neighbouring oak
Proclaim'd approaching ill.
And now and 0 now had she
climb'd the steep brow
To fatten her flock on the common,
When full in her path, to work her scath,
She met with a weird woman.
This hag she was foul both
in body and soul,
All wild and tatter'd in trim,
And pale was the sheen of her age-wither'd cen�
Was never a witch so grim.
And "Give me," quoth she,
"of thy fair poultry�
Or dear shalt thou rue this day."
So hoarse was the note of the beldam's throat,
That the geese they hiss'd with dismay.
But the dame she was
stout, and could fleer and could flout:
"Gramercy! good gossip," she cried,
"Would ye taste of my fry, ye must barter and buy,
Though weal or woe betide.
"'Twere pity in sooth,
'gin ye had but a tooth,
Ye should lack for a giblet to chew:
Belike of the claw, and the rump, and the maw,
A hell-broth ye mean to brew."
0 sour look'd the hag; and
thrice did she wag
Her hoar head scatter'd with snow:
And her eye through the 'gloom of wrath and of
rheum
Like a comet predicted woe.
And anon she began to
curse and to ban
With loud and frantic din.
But the spell which she mutter'd must never be
utter'd,
For that were a deadly sin.
Then sudden she soars in
the whirlwind, and roars
To the deep-voic'd thunder amain;
And the lightning's glare envelops the air,
And shivers the rocks in twain.
But Alice she lay 'mid the
wrack and the fray
Entranc'd in a deathlike swoon,
'Till the sheep were in fold, and the curfew
toll'd.;
She arose by the light of the moon.
And much did she muse at
the cold evening's dews,
That reflected the pale moonbeam;
But more at the sight that appeared by its light�
And she counted it all a dream.
0 what is yon heap that
peers o'er 'the steep,
'Mid the furze and the hawthorn glen!
With trembling and fear the dame she drew near,
And she knew her own geese again!
But, alas! the whole flock
stood as stiff as a stock;
And she nuinber'd them one by one.
All grisly they lay, and they lie to this day
A flock, as it were, of gray stone!
"Thy birds are not flown,"
cried a voice to her moan;
"0 never again shall they fly,
Till Evenlode flow to the steeple at Stow
And Oddington mount as high.
"But here shall they
stand, forlorn on dry land,
And parch in the drought and the blast,
Nor e'er bathe a feather, save in fog and foul
weather,
'Till many an age be past.
"More fetter'd and bound
than geese in it pound,
Could aught their bondage atone;
They shall ne'er dread the feast of St. Michael at
least,
Like geese of flesh and bone.
"But pitying fate at
length shall abate
The rigour of this decree,
By the aid of a sage in a far-distant age;
And he comes from the East country.
"A pundit his art to this
seer shall impart;
Where'er he shall wave his wand,
The hills shall retire, and the valleys aspire,
And the waters usurp the land.
"Then, Alice, thy flock
their charm shall unlock,
And pace with majestic stride,
From Addlestrop heath, to Daylesford beneath,
To lave in their native tide.
"And one shall go peep
like an isle o'er the deep,
Another delighted wade,
At the call of this wizard, to moisten her gizzard
By the side of a fair cascade.
"This sage to a dame shall
be wedded,
whose name Praise, honour, and love shall command;
By poets renown'd, and by courtesy crown'd
The queen of that fairy-land! "
Here ceased the high
strain�but seek not in vain
To unravel the dark record:
Enough that ye wot, 'twas traced to the spot
By a clerk of Oxenford.'
THE BATTLE OF BOSWORTH: WELSH TALES CONNECTED
THEREWITH
The 22nd of August 1485 was an
important day for England, not merely in putting an
end to the reign and the life of a usurper and
murderer, whose rule was a disgrace to it, but in
finally freeing it from the civil contentions
comprehended under the title of the Wars of the Roses.
It must, after all, be admitted that the atrocious
Crookback somewhat redeemed his life by the way he
ended it. It was worthy of his brave race, and of the
pretensions he had set up, that he should perish in
the thick of a fight which was to conclude his
dynasty.
On the other hand, the gallant
adventure of Henry of Richmond in landing with only
two thousand Frenchmen to fight his way to the English
crown, his stout struggle at Bosworth, and the
picturesque incident of Stanley picking up Richard's
crown, and placing it on the brows of Henry on the
battle-field, raise expectations with which the
subsequent events are somewhat out of harmony.
It should be more borne in
mind than it is, that the first of the Tudor
sovereigns was a Welsh noble, and owed much to the
friendship of his warm-blooded countrymen. He was
particularly indebted to the men of Pembrokeshire, his
native county. At the time of the battle of
Tewkesbury, Henry was a boy at Pembroke Castle, but
this place not being thought one of safety, he was
removed by his uncle, Jasper, Earl of Pembroke, to
Tenby. Here he was received with much hospitality by
the mayor, John White, who secretly conveyed him to
Britanny in one of his own vessels. Afterwards, when
he returned, it was at Milford he landed, marching
thence to meet 'the bloody and usurping boar' at
Bosworth-field.
Henry, upon coming to the throne, was
not unmindful of the assistance he had received. He
rewarded the mayor of Tenby with a lease, at a nominal
rent, of all the crown-lands about that town; 'a good
recompense,' says the historian of Pembrokeshire, 'to
one man for a good deede done to the whole realme.' It
is a rather curious circumstance, that Mr. George
White, the present mayor of Tenby (1863), is a
descendant of him who aided Henry in his escape; is,
like his ancestor, a wine-merchant; and resides on the
spot occupied by his family more than four centuries
ago.
The treacherous Stanley may
have placed the crown upon Richmond's head on Bosworth
field, but the hand that virtually crowned him was
that which dealt the gallant Richard his deathwound.
According to Welsh tradition, the deed was done by
Rhys ap Thomas, commonly called 'the valiant
Welshman.' This hero of the principality came of a
warlike stock. His grandfather fell fighting for the
white rose, at Mortimer's Cross; his father was
murdered as he lay spent and wounded by the side of
the corpse of David Gough, whom he had killed in
single-combat. Rhys himself was brought up at the
court of Philip of Burgundy, and did credit to his
knightly training. The death of his two elder
brothers, killed in some petty border skirmishes, left
him the representative of his race, and lord of the
greater part of Carmarthenshire. During the latter
part of Edward IV's reign, and
through the minority of
his successor, the Welsh chieftain occupied himself
in training his tenantry in the art of war, that he
might be ready for the troublous times he foresaw must
come.
When Richard III became aware
of the intention of the Earl of Richmond to dispute
his right to the English throne, he wished to assure
himself of the support of Rhys ap Thomas. To that end
he sent commissioners to Carmarthen, to administer the
oath of allegiance to Rhys, and demand the surrender
of his son and heir, a boy of four years old, as
hostage for his fidelity. Not caring to defy Richard's
anger, the Welshman took the oath, though much against
his will, but declined to give up his child. To
mollify the king for this disobedience, he (or rather
the abbot of Talye for him) wrote a letter to Richard,
asserting his loyalty, and promising to obey his
majesty's commands by preventing the landing of
Richmond at Milford Haven. He says he 'deems it not
unseasonable to annex this voluntary protestation:
that, whoever, ill affected to the state, shall dare
to land in those parts of Wales, where I have
employments under your majesty, must resolve with
himself to make his entrance and irruption over my
belly!' As for the delivery of his heir, he pleads his
infancy, 'more fit to be embosomed in a mother's care,
than exposed to the world; nature as yet not having
the leisure to initiate him in that first lecture of
feeding himself;' concluding significantly by
declaring that if the king persisted in depriving him
of the sole prop of his-house, the better part of
himself, 'I were then divided in my strength, which,
united, might perhaps, serve as most useful were I
called to some weighty employments for the good of
your service.'
Not long after the despatch of
this politic letter, the abbot of Talye and the bishop
of St. David's employed all their influence with Rhys
to persuade him to join the party of the Earl of
Richmond. The latter promised him full absolution for
breaking his oath, a matter which did not trouble the
soldier's conscience so much as violating the promises
he had given under his hand and seal. The wily
ecclesiastic set him at ease on that point, by showing
that Richmond could not be looked upon as ill
affected to the state, seeing he came to relieve it
from an unrighteous ruler, while it would not be
difficult to keep to the letter of the remaining
clause of his voluntary protestation. While Rhys was
debating with himself, a letter arrived from Richmond
soliciting his assistance, and promising great rewards
in the event of success. This decided the Welsh
captain's course of action. He at once took the field
with two thousand men, kinsmen and friends flocked to
his standard, and setting out for Milford Haven, he
welcomed Richmond ashore, and tendered his services to
him, at the same time satisfying his own scruples by
lying down on the ground and allowing the earl to pass
over his body.
Of the part he played in the
battle of Bosworth, his biographer gives the following
account:
'While the avant-guards were in hot chase,
the one of the other, King Richard held not his hands
in his pockets; but, grinding and gnashing his teeth,
up and down he goes in quest of Richmond, whom, no
sooner espying, than he makes at him, and, by the way,
in his fury, manfully overthrew Sir William Brandon,
the earl's standard-bearer, as also Sir John Cheney,
both men of mighty force and known valiancy. In Wales
we say, that Rice ap Thomas, who from the beginning
closely followed the earl, and ever had an eye to his
person, seeing his party begin to quail, and the
king's to gain ground, took the occasion to send unto
Sir William Stanley, giving him to understand the
danger they were in, and entreating him to join his
forces for the disengaging of the earl, who was not
only in despair of victory, but almost of his life.
Whereupon for it seems he understood not the danger
before) Sir William Stanley made up to Rice ap Thomas,
and joining both together, rushed in upon their
adversaries and routed them, by which means the glory
of the day fell on the earl's side; King Richard, as a
just guerdon for all his facinorous acts and horrible
murders, being slain on the field. One Welsh tradition
says that Rice ap Thomas slew Richard, manfully
fighting with him hand to hand, and we have one strong
argument in defence of our tradition, to prove that he
was the man who in all likelihood had done the deed;
for from that time forward, the Earl of Richmond, as
long as he lived, did ever honour him with the title
of Father Rhys.'
Be this as it may, Rhys ap
Thomas was knighted on the field, and was afterwards
employed in the war with France and the rebellions at
home. He was made a
knight of the Garter and privy-councillor,
and appointed constable and lieutenant of Brecknock,
chamberlain of Carmarthen and Cardigan, seneschal and
chancellor of Haverfordwest, Ross, and Builth,
justiciar of South Wales, and. governor of the
principality. At the end of Henry VII's reign, the
recipient of so many honours retired to Wales, where
he practised the national virtue of hospitality in a
style of great magnificence till his death, at the
good old age of seventy-six. His tomb, although sadly
ruinated, may still be seen in St. Peter's Church,
Carmarthen; while his memory is preserved in the
poetic literature of his countrymen, whose bards have
delighted to sing of Rhys-ap-Thomas as the sword and
buckler of his country, the champion of Cambria, the
shield of Britain, the scourge of the obstinate, the
protector of the innocent, and the flower of Cambro-Britons.
RICHARD WATTS'S
BEQUEST
The tendency of Englishmen to
follow out the instincts of the individual character
has been strikingly shewn in what may be called odd
and whimsical bequests. It is no unusual thing amongst
us, to see some singularity of opinion or fancy thus
carried out, in the case of some obscure citizen, for
hundreds of years after he has ceased to breathe.
Richard Watts, recorder of
Rochester in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, was a man
of large property, who had represented his city in
parliament, and entertained his sovereign in his
house. It is said that, on Elizabeth taking leave of
him as a guest, he expressed regret that his house had
not been larger and more commodious; when she replied.
'Satis' (enough); in consequence of which royal
laconism, the house was afterwards called. Satis
House. Part of the old building, standing on Bully
Hill, still retains the name.
By his will, dated August 22,
1579, this house, with its furniture, was left to be
sold for the maintenance of some almshouses in the
High Street, and especially to provide:
'six good
matrices or flock-beds and other sufficient furniture,
to harbour or lodge poor travellers or wayfaring men,
being no common rogues, nor proctors, and they, the
said wayfaring men, to harbour and lodge therein no
longer than one night, unless sickness be the further
cause thereof; and these poor folk there dwelling to
keep the same sweet, and courteously intreat the said
poor travellers; and every one of them, at their first
coming in, to have fourpence; and to warm them at the
fire of the resident within the said house, if need
be.'
It is said that the objection made in the above
will to proctors, thus fixing a lasting stigma on the
legal profession, arose from the fact that when Mr.
Watts was travelling on the continent, he was seized
with a serious illness, and calling in a proctor to
make his will, he found, on his recovery, that the
traitorous man of law had conveyed all the estates to
himself, instead of writing the wishes of his client.
Another author has, however, suggested. that the word
proctor or procurator was applied to those itinerant
priests, who in the reign of Queen Elizabeth travelled
secretly about England, with dispensations from the
pope to absolve her subjects from their allegiance.
A few years after the death of
Mr. Watts, his widow, who married a second time,
disputed the will, and was allowed to retain Satis
House, on condition of paying over land to the value
of twenty pounds a year; an immense increase has since
arisen in the value of the property, so that the
annual income is above �1000: one large estate which
was then a marsh in Chatham, is now drained and
covered with houses. The almshouses are of brick,
three stories high, with large square windows and
projecting centre. They were fully repaired in 1771,
by Nathaniel Hood, then mayor of Rochester, and an
inscription, describing the nature of the bequest,
engraved on a tablet in front; but now, alas! a poor traveller will knock in
vain for admittance, the
wishes of the hospitable founder having been
altogether set aside though the four pennies maybe
obtained on application to the mayor. Among the file
of orders retained by the provider, or man who
distributes this money, is one dated 1677, as follows:
'Brother Wade: Pray relieve these two gentlemen, who
have the king's letters recommendatory, and give them
twelve pence a man, and foure a piece to the other
five.'
The remainder of the income is
appropriated to the payment of the poor's rates. Over
the monument in the cathedral to the memory of Watts
is a bust taken during his lifetime, and representing
a man with a bald head, short hair, and a long flowing
beard. It will be remembered by many of our readers
that our distinguished countryman, Charles Dickens,
has chosen this house at Rochester as the groundwork
of one of his Christmas stories.
THE
HYDES�CURIOSITIES OF THEIR GENEALOGY
Alexander Hyde, who died
bishop of Salisbury, August 22, 1667, was son of Sir
Lawrence Hyde, of the Close of Sarum. He had been, at
the
Restoration, made dean of Winchester, 'through the
recommendation of his kinsman, Lord Chancellor
Clarendon.'
This is nearly all that can
now be learned regarding Bishop Hyde, of whom we may
fairly presume that he would never have risen to great
prominence but for the power and influence of his
eminent nephew, the chancellor.
The fact of two queens-regnants
of England being granddaughters of the Chancellor Earl
of Clarendon, has made the genealogy of the Hydes of
some interest to poking antiquaries. It appears beyond
question that the paternal ancestry was respectable,
Lawrence Hyde, the grandfather of the chancellor, and
father of the bishop of Salisbury, being a younger son
of Robert Hyde of Norbury and Hyde, in Cheshire, a
family which had been settled there from the time of
Henry III.
There is, however, a sort of legendary
account of a humble ancestress, which has several
times been adverted to in print. In a manuscript note
of apparently a century old, now in our possession, it
is stated that the common ancestor of the chancellor
and bishop 'married a tub-woman, and retired to Dinton,
in the county of Wilts [the birthplace of the
chancellor].' If this were true, it would be a curious
consideration that the grandfather's grandmother of
the queens Mary and Anne was of such plebeian origin.
Some years ago, there was a discussion of this subject
in the Notes and Queries. The fact alleged was, that
Lord Clarendon, when a young lawyer, had married a
wealthy brewer's widow, who had originally come into
her future husband's employment as a tub-woman, 'to
carry out beer from the brew-house.' And it was
conclusively shewn that this could not be true, as
both of the chancellor's wives were women of family.
There was, however, nothing brought forward on that
occasion at issue with the old genealogical note in
our possession, which makes the alleged tub-woman the
mother of the bishop, and consequently grandmother of
the chancellor. Nor in that version of the tale is
there anything difficult to be believed. A younger son
of Sir Robert Hyde of Norbury might very fairly have
married a rich brewer's widow, and that widow might
very fairly have risen from the humble condition
ascribed to her by the tradition. Generally, where a
story of this kind has taken root, there is some
foundation for it.
Another genealogical
particular connected with the two queens is equally
remarkable, and can be better authenticated�namely,
that a cousin of their mother, the Duchess of York,
died in Emanuel Hospital, Tothill Fields, Westminster,
so recently as December 1771. She was named Mrs.
Windymore, or Windlemore, and stated to be 108 years
of age at the time of her death. The Gentleman's
Magazine and Annual Register both notice her demise,
and her connection with royalty, and our old
genealogical note enters her as next in descent from
the son of the bishop of Salisbury.
THE FATE OF RUTH
OSBORNE
It is a curious proof of the
ignorance in which the English populace was allowed to
rest down to very recent times that, so lately as the
22nd of August 1751, a man was executed at Tring for
being concerned in the murder of a poor woman
suspected of witchcraft.
It was in the year 1745 that
this poor woman, Ruth Osborne by name, having vainly
besought one Butterfield for a little milk, went away
muttering, that she wished the Pretender would soon
come and carry off his cattle. He soon after fell into
ill health and adversity, and it became impressed on
his mind that the ill-will of Mrs. Osborne was the
cause of all his misfortunes. To counteract her evil
influence, a renowned wise-woman or white-witch was
fetched all the way from Northamptonshire. This
sagacious female, on her arrival at Tring, confirmed
the general opinion, and at once took measures to
remove the spell; and as a preliminary step, she
appointed six able men, armed with pitchforks, to
guard Butterfield's house night and day; taking care,
as a necessary precaution, to hang certain charms
round the watchers' necks, to prevent them from being
bewitched also.
The wise-woman's mode of treatment
proving expensive, and not producing the desired
effect of improving Butterfield's health and
circumstances, it was determined to try another plan;
one that, by a severe punishment, would deter the
assumed witch from her evil courses, as well as, at
the same time, produce a profit to Butterfield and the neighbouring publicans,
by collecting a mob of thirsty
beer-drinkers. Accordingly, the public-criers of the
adjoining towns of Hemel-Hempstead, Leighton-Buzzard,
and Winslow, were employed to make the following
announcement on their respective market-days:
'This is
to give notice, that on Monday next a man and woman
are to be publicly ducked at Tring, in this county,
for their wicked crimes.'
The parish overseer of Tring,
learning that John Osborne and his wife Ruth, both
upwards of seventy years of age, were the persons
alluded to in the above notice, determined to protect
them as far as he could, and for their better safety,
lodged them in the workhouse. The master of the
workhouse, to make the poor creatures more secure,
secretly removed them, late on Sunday night, to the
vestry of the parish church, vainly hoping that the
sacred character of the edifice might have some effect
in restraining their lawless persecutors.
On the
Monday, however, a mob, consisting of more than five
thousand persons�not all of the lowest class, for
about one half were well mounted on horseback, assembled, and, proceeding to the
workhouse, demanded
that the Osbornes should be delivered up to them. The
master assured the crowd that the persons sought for
were not in the house, but the rabble disbelieving
him, broke open the doors, and searched all parts of
the building, looking into drawers, trunks, and even
the salt-box, supposing, in their dense ignorance,
that the alleged witch and wizard could conceal
themselves in the same space as would contain two
cats.
Disappointed of their victims, the mob, becoming
infuriated, proceeded to demolish the workhouse; and
having collected a quantity of straw, they lighted
fire-brands, threatening to murder the master, and
burn down the whole town of Tring, if their demand
were not instantly complied with. Thus threatened, the
master told where the Osbornes were concealed, and
then the mob, with yells of fiendish delight, broke
open the church-doors, seized their helpless victims,
and carried them off to a neighbouring pond. Decency
and humanity imperatively forbid any description of
the horrible scene of brutal cruelty that ensued.
Suffice it to say, that the woman was murdered in the
pond, and the man, still breathing, was tied to the
dead body of his wife, and expired soon afterwards.
Neither the clergyman of Tring,
nor those of the adjoining parishes, interfered to
save these wretched victims of superstition. But the
legal authorities determined to punish some, at least,
of the perpetrators of the brutal crime. A coroner's
inquest was held on the body of Ruth Osborne, twelve
of the principal gentlemen of Hertfordshire being
summoned as the jury. For at an inquest held a short
time previously on a similar case of murder at Frome,
in Somersetshire, the jurors, selected, as is usual,
from the lower middle class, would not convict the
prisoner. The Hertfordshire gentlemen, however,
brought in a verdict of wilful murder against one
Thomas Colley and
twenty-one other known and unknown persons.
At the ensuing county assizes,
Colley being tried and found guilty, was sentenced to
be executed, and hung in chains at the place where the
murder was committed. To prevent a rescue, and impress
on the ignorant minds of the country-people the power
of the law, and an idea of the crime that had been
perpetrated, the arrangements for the execution were
conducted with military display and unusual solemnity.
In the Universal Magazine of that year, we read as
follows:
'Thursday, August 22d.�About
ten in the morning, Mr. Thomas Colley, condemned for
the murder of Ruth Osborne, as a supposed witch,
received the sacrament at Hertford, administered to
him by the Rev. Mr. Edward Bouchier, when he signed a
solemn declaration of his faith relating to
witchcraft; which he desired might be carried to the
place of execution, and was there publicly read at his
earnest request, just before he was turned off, by the
Rev. Mr. Randall, minister of Thug, who attended him
in his last moments.
He was escorted by one hundred
and eight men belonging to the regiment of Horse
Guards Blue, with their officers and two trumpets; and
the procession was slow, solemn, and moving. Friday
night he was lodged in St. Alban's jail, and at five
the next morning, he was put in a one-horse chaise
with the executioner, and came to the place of
execution about eleven; and after half an hour spent
in prayer, he was executed, and immediately after hung
up in chains on the same gibbet he was hanged on.
The
infatuation of the greater part of the people in that
country was so great, that they would not be seen near
the place of execution, insisting that it was a hard
case to hang a man for destroying an old wicked woman,
that had done so much damage by her witchcraft.
A very
odd accident happened in Tring town; which was, that
just as the prisoner's wife and daughter were
permitted to speak to him, one of the trooper's
pistols in his holsters went off, occasioned by his
handkerchief accidentally getting into the holster,
which he pulling out, drew the trigger, and the ball
went into the ground; but no other damage ensued than
putting the corps in some disorder, it being at first
imagined to have been fired out of a window.'
THE
ROYAL TELEGRAM ACROSS THE ATLANTIC
Once, and once only, has a
royal telegraphic message crossed the Atlantic from
Europe to America. In 1854, the colonial government of
Newfoundland offered certain terms, in the form of
guarantee, to a company undertaking to lay a
submerged telegraph beneath the Atlantic from that
colony to Ireland. This offer was followed, during
that and the next two years, by elaborate experiments
on the best form and size of cable, and by soundings
to determine the depth of the Atlantic at various
places. The greatest depth plumbed reached the vast
amount of 25,000 feet (about five miles).
A company
was then definitely formed, and a cable manufactured.
The cable weighed about one ton per mile, and was 2500
miles long - 1700 miles for the direct distance from Valentia in Ireland to Cape
Race in Newfoundland, and
800 miles for bendings, deviations, and unforeseen
contingencies; there were 350,000 miles of wire
altogether in the cable, taxing the wire-drawers of
the United Kingdom to the utmost to produce it in
time. The British government lent the war-ship
Agamemnon to take out half the cable, while the
American government lent the Niagara to take out the
other half.
All being ready, operations commenced on
the 5th of August 1857. The two magnificent ships,
attended by the Susquehanna, Leopold, Willing Mind,
and Advice set forth from Valentia. The portion of the
cable on board the Agamemnon was uncoiled; and by
means of central blocks, grooved-sheaves,
friction-rollers, cramps, breaks, grips, and other
mechanical appliances, it was lowered into the ocean
as fast as the ship progressed. But disaster was
impending. By the morning of the 11th, the engineer
found that the cable had too much 'slack '�that is,
too much of it had run out in proportion to the
straight line traversed; it lay at the bottom of the
ocean in too serpentine or zigzag a way. He therefore
caused the grip-machinery to be tightened; this was unskilfully done, and the
cable snapped. Thus, at a
distance, in a straight line, of 350 miles from
Ireland, the broken end of the cable sank to the
bottom in 12,000 feet depth of water�more than forty
times the height of St. Paul's Cathedral!
One whole year was lost, in
addition to a large sum of money. During the winter
and spring months, many attempts were made to raise
the broken end of the cable, splice it to the unused
portion, and pursue the voyage to America; but the
cable broke again and again, chiefly owing to the
uneasy movement of the ship in stormy weather. At
length the Agamemnon and the Niagara made another
attempt under better auspices.
They steamed out to
mid-ocean, spliced together their two portions of the
cable, and then parted company�the one returning to Valentia, the other
proceeding onward to Cape Race. It
was on the 29th of July 1858 that this parting of the
two ships commenced; and as the distance between them
increased, the officials on board the two ships
interchanged telegraphic messages with each other,
through the submerged portion of cable.
Notwithstanding the perils and obstacles afforded by a
tremendous sea, both vessels reached their
destinations on the 5th of August�the Agamemnon having payed-out 1020
nautical miles of cable, and the
Niagara 1030�equal altogether to about 2400 English
statute miles. Each ship sent a telegraphic message to
the other through this wonderful length of submerged
cable; but the actual connection from shore to shore
could not be made, because the land ends of the cable
were not yet adjusted.
At length the necessary
attachments were made; and the submarine cable was
placed in unbroken connection with the whole
telegraphic system of England at one end, and with
that of America at the other. The directors of the
company in London exchanged compliments with their
agents and coadjutors in New York; the lord mayor of
London did the same with the mayor of New York.
On the
20th, the cable communicated the first commercial news
from the New World to the Old, in the form of a
telegram announcing a collision between the Arabia and Europa mail-steamers near
Cape Race. On the 22nd, Queen
Victoria and President Buchanan exchanged compliments.
The Queen sent the following message:
The Queen
desires to congratulate the President upon the
successful completion of this great inter-national
work, in which the Queen has taken the greatest
interest. The Queen is convinced that the President
will join with her in fervently hoping that the
electric cable, which now connects Great Britain with
the United States, will prove an additional link
between the two nations, whose friendship is founded
upon their common interests and reciprocal esteem. The
Queen has much pleasure in thus directly communicating
with the President, and in renewing to him her best
wishes for the prosperity of the United States.'
This message occupied about
two hours in transmission from London to Washington.
The President replied to it in a suitable strain.
The bright hopes thus raised
were destined to be cruelly damped. On the 3rd of
September the submarine cable refused to 'speak,' and
it has never spoken since. New breakages and faults
occurred, and a sum of �400,000 was virtually lost.
