Born: Edward I of
England, 1239; Sir John Cheke, learned writer,
promoter of the study of polite literature in England,
1514, Cambridge; Louis, Due de Saint-Simon, author of
Memoirs of the Court of France, 1675, Paris; Henrietta
Stuart, Duchess of Orleans, 1644, Exeter.
Died: Hugo the Great,
father of Hugh Capet, head of the third series of
French kings, 956; Sir Richard Fanshawe, accomplished
cavalier, ambassador to Spain, 1666, Madrid; Sir
Tristram Beresford, 1701; John Churchill, Duke of
Marlborough, 1722, Windsor Lodge; Bishop Joseph
Butler, 1752, Bath; Jean Baptiste Gresset, French
comic poet, 1777, Amiens.
Feast Day: Saints
Ferreolus, or Fargeau, and Ferrutius, martyrs, 211 or
212; Saints Quiricus, or Cyr, and Julitta, martyrs,
304; St. Aurelian, Archbishop of Arles, confessor,
552; St. John Francis Regis, confessor, 1640.
SIR TRISTRAM
BERESFORD�LEGEND OF THE BLACK RIBBON
Although Sir Tristram
Beresford was the direct ancestor of the Waterford
family, and did something for the Protestant cause at
the Revolution, he would not have been particularly
mentioned in this place but for his connection with an
uncommonly fascinating ghost legend�the foundation of
a passage in one of Scott's beautiful ballads:
'For evermore that lady wore
A covering on her wrist.'
The lady to whom Sir Tristram
was married, Nicola Sophia Hamilton, daughter of Hugh
Lord Glenawley, was educated along with John, second
Earl of Tyrone, and, according to the family legend,
they were so taught that a belief in a future state
was not among heir convictions. It was agreed,
nevertheless, between the two young people, that in
the event of one dying before the other, the deceased
should if possible return and give certainty to the
survivor on that solemn question. In due time they
went out on their respective destinations in life; but
still an intimacy and occasional visiting were kept
up.
The Earl died on the 14th of October 1693, in his
twenty-ninth year, and it was two or three days after
when Lady Beresford attracted her husband's attention
at the breakfast-table by a pallid and care-worn look,
and her wearing a black ribbon round her wrist. He
inquired the cause of these circumstances; but she
declined to give any explanation. She asked, however,
very anxiously for the post, as she expected to hear
of the death of her friend the Earl of Tyrone. Sir Tristram ridiculed the
possibility of her knowing such
an event beforehand. 'Nevertheless,' said she, 'my
friend died on Tuesday last at four o'clock.' The
husband was startled when a letter from Lord Tyrone's
steward was soon after handed in, relating how his
master had suddenly died at the very time stated by
Lady Beresford. 'I can tell you more,' said the lady,
'and it is a piece of intelligence which I know will
prove welcome: I shall ere long present you with a
son.' This prediction was likewise in due time
verified.
During the remaining years of
their union the lady continued to wear the black
ribbon round her wrist; but her husband died without
being made privy to the secret. The widow made an
imprudent second marriage with an officer named
Gorges, and was very unhappy during her latter years.
A month after the birth of a fourth child to Colonel
Gorges, the day being her birthday, her friends came
to congratulate her, and one of them, a clergyman,
told her with a blithe countenance that he had just
learned from parochial documents that she was a year
younger than she thought�she was only forty-seven.
'Oh, then,' said she, 'you have signed my
death-warrant. If I am only forty-seven today, I have
but a few hours to live, and these I must devote to
settling my affairs.' The company having all departed,
excepting one intimate female friend, Lady Beresford
told that person how it was that she was certain of
her approaching death, and at the same time explained
the circumstance connected with the sable wrist-band.
During the night preceding the
conversation with her husband Sir Tristram Beresford,
she awoke suddenly, and beheld the figure of Lord
Tyrone at her bedside. She screamed, and endeavoured,
but in vain, to awaken her husband. At length
recovering some degree of composure, she asked Lord
Tyrone how and why he had come there. He reminded her
of their mutual promise, and added, 'I departed this
life on Tuesday last at four o'clock. I am permitted
to give you assurance of another world. I can also
inform you that you will bear a son to Sir Tristram,
after whose death you will marry again, and have other
children, and will die in the forty-seventh year of
your age.' 'And how,' said she, 'shall I be certain
that my seeing you now, and hearing such important
intelligence, are not mere dreams or illusions?' The
spirit waved his hand, and the bed-curtains were
instantly raised and drawn through a large iron hoop,
by which the tester of the bed was suspended. She
remained unsatisfied, for she might, she said,
exercising the greater strength which one had in
sleep, have raised the curtains herself. He then pencilled his name in her
pocket-book.
Still she doubted�she might
imagine in the morning that she had written the name
herself. Then, asking her to hold out her hand, the
spirit laid a finger as cold as ice upon her wrist,
which was immediately impressed with a black mark,
underneath which the flesh appeared to have shrunk.
And then he vanished. Soon after completing her
recital, and having finally arranged her affairs, the
lady calmly expired in the arms of her friend. The
ribbon being then removed, the mark was seen for the
first time by any eye but her own. It has been stated
that the ribbon and also the pocket-book containing
the spiritual autograph were, nearly a century after,
in the possession of Lady Beresford's grand-daughter,
Lady Betty Cobbe, whose husband (son of Cobbe,
Archbishop of Dublin) died in his house in Marlborough
Buildings, Bath, so recently as 1814. The peerage
books inform us that Lady Beresford died on the 23rd
February 1713, and was buried in the Earl of Cork's
tomb, in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin.
The circumstance of the black
ribbon, equally picturesque and mysterious, is what
has mainly given this family tale the currency which
it has in the upper circles of British society. It is,
however, remarkable that in this particular it is not
without precedent in the annals of demonology. Mrs.
Grant, in her Superstitions of the Highlands, tells a
story of a widow in good circumstances who, going home
through a wood at dusk, was encountered by the spirit
of her deceased husband, who led her carefully along a
difficult bridge, but left a blue mark on her wrist,
which the neighbours had opportunities of seeing
during the week that she survived the adventure.
Calmet, in his well-known
work, The Phantom World, quotes a similar tale as told
by the reformer Melancthon, whose word, he says,
'ought not to be doubted.' According to this
narration, an aunt of Melancthon, having lost her
husband when she was far advanced in pregnancy:
'saw
one day towards evening two persons come into her
house; one of them wore the form of her deceased
husband, the other that of a tall Franciscan. At first
she was frightened, but her husband reassured her, and
told her that he had important things to communicate
to her; at the same time he begged the Franciscan to
pass into the next room, while he imparted his wishes
to his wife. Then he begged of her to have some masses
said for the relief of his soul, and tried to
persuade her to give her hand without fear; as she was
unwilling to give it, he assured her she would feel no
pain. She gave him her hand, and her hand felt no pain
when she withdrew it, but was so blackened that it
remained discoloured all her life. After that, the
husband called in the Franciscan; they went out and
disappeared.'
Richard Baxter relates, as
coming under his own observation, a circumstance which
involves the same kind of material phenomenon as the
story of Lady Beresford. A little after the
Restoration, when
the parliament was passing
acts
which pressed sore on the dissenters, a lady of good
quality and of that persuasion came to him to relate a
strange thing that had befallen her. While praying for
the deliverance of the faithful from the evils that
seemed impending over them, 'it was suddenly given
her, that there should be a speedy deliverance, even
in a very short time. She desired to know which way;
and it was by somewhat on the king, which I refused to
hear out, whether it was change or death. It being set
strongly on her as a revelation, she prayed earnestly
that if this were a true divine impulse and
revelation, God would certify her by some visible
sign; and she ventured to choose the sign herself, and
laid her hand on the outside of the upper part of her
leg, begging of God that, if it were a true answer, he
would make on that place some visible mark. There was
presently the mark of black spots, like as if a hand
had burnt it, which her sister witnessed she saw
presently, there being no such thing before.'
Dr. Henry More heard from one
Mrs. Dark, of Westminster, that her deceased husband,
when young and in good health:
'going out of' his house one morning with the intention of
returning to dinner, was, as he walked the streets, struck upon the thigh by
an invisible hand (for he could see no man near him to strike him). He
returned indeed about dinner-time, but
could eat nothing; only he complained of the sad accident that befell him, and
grew forthwith so mortally sick that he died in three days. After he was dead,
there was found upon the place where he was struck the perfect figure of a
man's hand, the four fingers, palm, and
thumb, black and sunk into the flesh, as if one should clap his hand upon a
lump of dough.'
SIR JOHN SUCKLING
One of the best specimens of
the gay and accomplished courtier of Charles the
First's time, ere the evil days of civil war fell upon
the land, is afforded to us by the poet, Sir John
Suckling. His father having been secretary of state to
James I, and comptroller of the household to Charles,
Suckling may be said to have been bred at court: yet
his education was not neglected, and such was the
precocity of his talent and facility in acquiring
knowledge, that he was able to speak Latin when only
five years of age, and to write it when no more than
eight. Ere he had attained the full period of manhood,
he had travelled over the greater part of Europe, and
been received as a welcome visitor at the principal
continental courts. He also served a short but
stirring campaign under
Gustavus Adolphus, in which
he
was present at three battles, five sieges, and several
lesser engagements.
On his return from travel, Sir
John at once took first place among the leaders of wit
and fashion; as an old writer observes, 'he was
allowed to have the peculiar happiness of making
everything he did become him.' When Charles marched
against the Scottish Covenanters in 1639, Suckling
raised 100 horsemen for the royal service, so very
splendidly equipped (the troop cost him the large sum
of �12,000), that Charles, not wisely undervaluing his
sturdy northern subjects, said that if anything would
make the Scotch fight well, it would be the prospect
of plunder exhibited by the rich dresses of Suckling's
men. This ill-judged expedition produced little
result, save a crowd of satirists to ridicule its
fruitless display; and, in the only skirmish that
occurred, near Dunse, the English cavalry, including
Suckling's troop, galloped off the field, pursued by a
smaller body of the enemy.
A satirical ballad was
composed on this affair and Suckling's part in it, to
a well-known and very lively old English tune, called
John Dory, which became exceedingly popular, and was
sung and printed with many variations. From its
peculiar style and manner, we suspect that the ballad
was composed by Suckling as a piece of good-humoured
banter against himself, and that subsequently the more
spiteful variations were added by others. A few verses
of the original are worth reprinting:
'Sir John he got him an
ambling nag,
To Scotland for to ride-a,
With a hundred horse more, all his own he swore,
To guard him on every side-a.
No errant knight e'er went
to fight
With half so gay a bravada,
Had you seen but his look, you'd have sworn on a
hook,
He'd have conquered a whole armada.
The ladies ran all to the
windows, to see
So gallant and warlike a sight-a,
And as he passed by they cried with a sigh,
Sir John, why will you go fight-a?
None liked him so well as
his own colonel,
Who took him for John de Wert-a;
Bat when there were shows of gunning and blows,
My gallant was nothing so pert-a.
The colonel sent for him
back again,
To quarter him in the van-a,
But Sir John did swear, he would not come there,
To be killed the very first man-a.'
Suckling's best poem is
certainly the celebrated ballad he composed on the
marriage of Lord Broghill with Lady Margaret Howard,
daughter of the Earl of Suffolk, commencing:
'I tell thee, Dick, where I
have been,
Where I the rarest things have seen,
Oh! things beyond compare.
Such sights again cannot be found
In any place on English ground,
Be it at wake or fair.'
The description of the bride
in this ballad has been universally admired; it must
be understood that the person speaking is supposed to
be a clownish countryman.
'Her finger was so small,
the ring
Would not stay on, which they did bring,
It was too wide a peck:
And, to say truth, (for out it must)
It look't like the great collar (just)
About our young colt's neck.
Her feet, beneath her
petticoat,
Like little mice stole in and out,
As if they feared the light;
But, oh! she dances such a way,
No sun upon an Easter day,
Is half so fine a sight.
Her cheeks, so rare a white
was on,
No daisy makes comparison;
(Who sees them is undone;)
For streaks of red were mingled there,
Such as are on a Katherine pear,
The side that's next the sun.
Her lips were red, and one was thin
Compared to that was next her chin;
Some bee had stung it newly;
But, Dick, her eyes so guard her face,
I durst no more upon them gaze
Than on the sun in July.'
The grace and elegance of
Suckling's ballads and songs were, in his own day,
considered inimitable. Phillips says that, 'They have
a touch of a gentle spirit, and seem to savour more of
the grape than the lamp.'
One trait in Suckling's
character must not be passed unnoticed; in language
and idea he was one of the purest, if not the very
purest poetical writer of his license-loving era.
Indeed, his writings are more unexceptionable in
expression, more fit to be read and circulated at the
present day, than the productions of many of the
so-termed Puritans, his contemporaries. Nor were all
Suckling's writings mere poetical trifles. He was the
author of a prose work, entitled An Account of
Religion by Reason. Its aim is to answer the
objections then made against admitting a belief in the
Christian faith as a matter of reason, This is a work
of considerable merit, written with great clearness,
ingenuity, and force, and in a manner evidently
indicating a sincere piety in the author.
In the short parliament of
1640, the gay poet was elected for Bramber in Sussex;
but he was not destined to live much longer in his own
country. Becoming engaged in a reactionary conspiracy,
he was obliged to fly to Paris, where he lived for
some time in great penury. There is in the British
Museum a copy of a printed brochure, containing a
ballad account of his distresses, as from himself,
which gives us the one certain date connected with his
life, 16th June 1641. It is believed to have been soon
after this time that the cavalier bard, in despair of
further happiness, put a period to his own life, when
he could not have been much more than thirty-two years
of age.
BATTLE OF STOKE
On the 16th of June 1487, the
last contest between the rival houses of York and
Lancaster �the last great battle on English soil�was
fought near Stoke, in Nottinghamshire. The fortunes of
the Red Rose prevailed, firmly securing the house of
Tudor on the throne of England; but the destruction of
life was lamentable, six thousand men being numbered
among the slain.
The Earl of Lincoln, Martin
Swartz, Lord Thomas Fitzgerald, and Francis Viscount
Level, commanded the Yorkist party. Henry VII, aided
by the choice of the English nobility, defended in
person his right to the throne. The battle commenced
by the Earl of Lincoln descending to the attack from a
hill still called 'The Rampire,' hoping by a furious
charge to break the first line of the king's army, and
thus throw the main body into confusion. But, after
fighting desperately for three hours, during which
the German auxiliaries under Swartz exhibited great valour, and the Irish under
Fitzgerald, armed only
with darts and knives, obstinately maintained their
ground, the royal troops prevailed, and the insurgents
were routed with immense slaughter.
Lambert Simnel, the puppet set
up by the Earl of Lincoln to clear his own way to the
crown, was taken prisoner, and by an artful stroke of
policy was made
turnspit in the king's kitchen. But
the dead bodies of the earl and all the other
principal leaders, save that of Lord Lovel, were found
where they had fallen sword in-hand on the fatal field.
Lord Lovel, as it has been often
told, was never seen,
living or dead, after the battle. Some assert that he
was drowned when endeavouring to escape across the
river Trent, the weight of his armour preventing the
subsequent discovery of his body. Another report was
that he fled to the north, where, under the guise of a
peasant, he ended his days in peace. Lord Bacon, in
his History of Henry the Seventh, says that 'he lived
long after in a cave or vault.' And this last account
has been partly corroborated in modern times.
William
Cowper, Esquire, Clerk of the House of Commons,
writing from Herlingfordbury Park in 1738, says:
'In
1708, upon occasion of new-laying a chimney at Minster Lovel, there was
discovered a large vault or room
underground, in which was the entire skeleton of a
man, as having been sitting at a table, which was
before him, with a book, paper, pen, &c.; in another
part of the room lay a cap, all much mouldered and
decayed. Which the family and others judged to be this
Lord Lovel, whose exit has hitherto been so
uncertain.'
