Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 19.djvu/287

 Fawside, and received during her lifetime a grant of part of the crown lands of Clackmannan; (2) Lady Eva, who married John of Ramsay, and with her husband received from the king the thanage of Tannadice.

[Wyntoun's Chronicle, bk. viii. chaps. xxvii. xxviii. xl.; Fordun à Goodall; Rymer's Fœdera; Hailes's Annals, ii. 185, 186, 239, 267, iii. 110; Robertson's Index of Missing Charters; Registrum Magni Sigilli; Exchequer Rolls of Scotland, v. 43.]  FLEMING, MARGARET (1803–1811), called, born 15 Jan. 1803, was daughter of James Fleming of Kirkcaldy, by Elizabeth, daughter of James Rae, and sister of Mrs. Keith of Ravelston, the friend of Sir Walter Scott. Scott frequently saw Margaret Fleming at the house of her aunt, Mrs. Keith, became attached to the child, and delighted in playing with her. She showed extraordinary precocity; she read history when six years old, and wrote diaries and poems, which were preserved by her family. They show singular quickness, vivacity, and humour, while there is no trace of the morbid tendencies too often associated with infant prodigies. She composed an historical poem upon Mary Queen of Scots, Who fled to England for protection (Elizabeth was her connection); an excellent epitaph upon three young turkeys, A direful death indeed they had, That would put any parent mad; But she [their mother] was more than usual calm, She did not give a single dam; and made many quaint remarks upon various lovers, including a gentleman who offered to marry her with his wife's permission, but failed to carry out his promise, and sundry religious reflections, especially upon the devil. That her talents were limited is proved by her statement: ‘I am now going to tell you the horrible and wretched plaege that my multiplication table givis me; you can't conceive it. The most devilish thing is 8 times 8 and 7 times 7; it is what nature itself can't endure.’ No more fascinating infantile author has ever appeared, and we may certainly accept the moderate anticipation of her first biographer, that if she had lived she might have written books. Unfortunately she had an attack of measles, and when apparently recovering was taken ill and died after three days of ‘water on the brain,’ 19 Dec. 1811. Her father could never afterwards mention her name. Her life is probably the shortest to be recorded in these volumes, and certainly she is one of the most charming characters.

[Pet Margarie; a Story of Child Life Fifty Years Ago, Edinburgh, 1858. This was reviewed in the North British Review for November 1863 by Dr. John Brown, who had the original diaries, &c., before him, and gives details not recorded in the previous account. His very pleasing article has been republished with Rab and his Friends; Scotsman, 6 July 1881 (notice of death of her elder sister, Elizabeth Fleming).]  FLEMING, PATRICK (1599–1631), a Franciscan friar of the Strict Observance, was born on 17 April 1599 at Bel-atha-Lagain, now the townland of Lagan, in the parish of Clonkeen and county of Louth, Ireland. His father, Gerald Fleming, was great-grandson of Christopher Fleming, baron of Slane and treasurer of Ireland. His mother was Elizabeth, daughter of Robert Cusack of Cushinstown, a baron of the exchequer, by Catharine Nugent, daughter of Christopher, heir to the barony of Delvin. He was baptised by Father William Jacson, and received the family christian name of Christopher. At the age of thirteen he was sent by his parents to Flanders, and placed under the care of his uncle, the Rev. Christopher Cusack, who was administrator of the Irish colleges for the secular clergy in that country. Having studied humanities at Douay he removed to the college of St. Anthony of Padua at Louvain, where, on 17 March 1616–17, he took the probationary habit of St. Francis from the hands of Anthony Hickey, the superior; and on the same day in the following year he made his solemn profession, assuming in religion the name of Patrick. In 1623 he journeyed to Rome in company with Hugh Mac Caghwell, then definitor-general of the Franciscan order, and afterwards archbishop of Armagh. In passing through Paris, Fleming contracted a close friendship with Father Hugh Ward, to whom he promised a zealous co-operation in searching out and illustrating the lives of the early saints of Ireland. He completed his philosophical and theological studies in the Irish college of St. Isidore at Rome (, Scriptores Ordinis Minorum, ed. 1806, p. 185), and afterwards he was sent to teach philosophy at Louvain, where he continued to lecture for some years. He removed to Prague in Bohemia on being appointed the first superior of, and divinity lecturer in, the college of the Immaculate Conception, recently founded in that city for Irish Franciscans of the Strict Observance. When the elector Palatine invaded Bohemia, Fleming fled from the city, in company with Matthew Hoar, a deacon. On 7 Nov. 1631 they were suddenly attacked near the small town of Beneschau, by a party