Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 1.djvu/275

 i. MAWH 19, i9(M.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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reason, he in a manner makes his appeal to the world, alleging that neither high birth, to which he makes no pretensions, nor high station, upon which he does not value himself, but virtue alone, is true nobility."

He adopts a motto quite appropriate for one born as described, " Manners rnakyth Man," and round his coat of arms is the motto of the Garter, " Honi soit qui mal y pense."

In the Patent Rolls 6 Edward II., noticed by Dr. Barnes in his history of King Ed- wai'd III. and by other writers, we read :

" For so pleasing to his father King Edward II. was the birth of this hopeful prince on 13 Nov., 1312, that on 16 December following he gave to John Launge, valet to the qiwen, and to Isabel his wife, and to the longest liver of them, twenty -four pounds per annum to be paid out of the farm of London."

As valet to Queen Isabella John Launge was doubtless a Frenchman.

Miss Strickland, in her ' Lives of the Queens of England,' states

" that King Edward II. gives to John Lounges, valet to the queen, and to Isabel his wife an annual pension of '201. for life."

" In 1322 Queen Isabella obtains a reprieve from death of her lover Roger Mortimer. In 1323 Mortimer was again condemned to suffer death, and once more a mysterious influence interposed between him and the royal vengeance, and on the first of August of the same year Mortimer escaped from the Tower and got safely to France. During the year 1324 there was a fierce struggle between the queen and the Despencers, which ended in the discharge of all her French servants."

William of Wykeham is said to have been born at Wykeham, in Hampshire, between 7 July and 27 September, 1324.

I think that John Launge or Lounges, valet to the queen, and Isabel his wife are the same persons as the John Longe and Sibilla given in the chart pedigree by Bishop Lowth as the parents of Bishop Wykeham ; and from the various incidents recorded of Wykeham's early career and rapid advance- ment, the fact that his actual parents were something more than of humble station, the position of John Launge and his wife about the queen, and granting his identification with John Longe, the reputed father of Wyke- ham, it does not appear to be a very desperate speculation to conclude that Wykeham was the base half-brother of Edward III., and the son of Isabella and Roger Mortimer, given into the care of John Launge when the French servants left the Court.

"The particular of Edward III.'s meeting with Wykeham first at Winchester is destitute of proof. Archbishop Parker says he was made known to the king at Windsor, which is equally uncertain. The most ancient authors only say that he was brought to Court and taken into the king's service." Lowth.

King Edward III. visited his mother at stated periods during her long imprisonment, and it may have been during one of these visits that Queen Isabella informed her son the king that his base-born half-brother had been brought up by her faithful valet John Launge and his wife as their child, and that he was living at Winchester. This would account for the king sending for the young man and placing him at Court. His be- coming a cleric would remove the ill feeling the king might entertain towards him, ana- would give the king an opportunity of fur- thering his interests in the Church, where- Wykeham might assist the king in return. This could be done without any relationship being revealed between the parties, or the relationship could be kept secret between them. This would also explain the cause of the rapid promotion and the many clerical preferments conferred upon William of Wyke- ham, culminating in his appointment to the rich see of Winchester, and afterwards to the Chancellorship.

At the end of the reign of King Edward III. a quarrel took place between John of Gaunt and Bishop Wykeham, which is said to have originated in a report supposed to have been circulated by the bishop concerning the illegitimacy of John of Gaunt. The accounts are very conflicting, and the truth might bave been the reverse of what was reported, and John of Gaunt may have taunted the bishop on his illegitimate birth. However that may be, there is nothing in the idea have here set forth to diminish the fame attached to the name of Bishop Wykeham :: but if the suggestions I have made could be more fully substantiated from the public

records or other sources, a little mite of truth would be added to our histories.

R. C. BOSTOCK.

JONSON'S 'ALCHEMIST.' I have just been reading the sumptuous edition of this comedy published by the De La More Press. It has been eloquently reviewed and its many merits pointed out in these columns (9 th S. xii. 478), Mine is the less pleasant duty of drawing attention to a defect. My complaint is that, although several of the alchemical terms with which this play abounds have been cleared up in ' N. & Q.,' Mr. Hart has not discovered this, and consequently gives a wrong account of them in his glossarial notes. The follow- ing are his remarks on heautarit :

" Perhaps the same as ' Hyarith, a word used by some of the affected chemical writers for silver.' Rees's Chambers's ' Cyclop.' Another suggestion is ' Hetalibit est Terebinthina.' ' Lexicon Chymicum. r