Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/153

 10 s. XL FEB. is, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

121

LOXDOX, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 1-1, 1909.

CONTENTS. No. 268.

NOTES : Judge Gascoigne and Prince Harry, 121 ' Englands Parnassus," 123 Kingsland Almshouses, 124 Copyright in letters" Aro-setna " in the ' Nomina Hidarum,' 126 Pewter Marks : Posie Rings Booksellers in the Provinces, 127.

QUERIES : Macaulay's ' Frederick the Great' : Pelletier Rev. \V. Cox Cobhett on Shakespeare and Milton, 127 Pym and Jephson Families Falcon Court, Shoe Lane King's Printers Gray and King Osric O'Hara Portraits Jones=Francis Chester Corporation Records French Ambassador in London, 1560 Early Victorian Songs- Doge's Palace at Venice T. South of Bossington Ball, 128 Lady in the House of Lords : Mrs. Eliz. Robinson <3reen Dragon Hesse-Danish Alliance Church Towers and Smuggled Goods Rev. Henry Yonge W. Arden John Ambrose Henry Astley Authors of Quotations Wanted Womack Family. 129' The Story of my Heart Parish Beadle" Hoggling-Money '' Corunna : Bearer of the News Episcopal Scarf or Tippet, 130.

REPLIES: The Tyburn, 130 " Shoe " Pimlico, 133 Bruges : its Pronunciation Egg good in Parts' The Bride of Lammermoor ' : Wolf's Crag Lady Honoria Howard, 134 Rattlesnake Colonel George Prior, Watch- makerAbb^ de Lubersac Lascar Jargon, 135 Bride and Bridegroom at Church Oxen drawing Carriages Waddington as a Place-Name, 136 Joanna Southcott's Celestial Passports -Joanna Southcott and the Black Pig "Raised Hamlet on them," 137 "Psychological moment " Northiam Church, 138.

NOTES ON BOOKS : The Oxford Edition of Lamb' A Century of Archaeological Discoveries 'Foster's ' Shake- speare Word- Book.'

Booksellers' Catalogues.

Notices to Correspondents.

JUDGE GASCOIGNE AND PRINCE HARRY.

So far as is known, there is only one writer who professes to have discovered upon in- vestigation that the well-known story of the committal of Henry, Prince of Wales, by Chief Justice Gascoigne, is absolutely un- true who claims to have disproved it. I refer to the late Mr. F. SoUy Flood, Q.C., Attorney-General of Gibraltar, who some twenty years ago read a paper before the Royal Historical Society entitled ' Henry of Mon- mouth and Chief Justice Gascoigne,' in which he claimed to prove that the story was impossible and absurd. This paper was in due course published in the Pro- ceedings of the Society, and the writer has been quoted as an authority by others who have evidently not set themselves to verify Mr. Flood's references or to examine his arguments in detail. The result of this has been that the story has lost ground has <5ome to be considered a myth, or, to quote a recent biographer of Henry V., "a pretty tale eminently suitable to two historical characters."

An anonymous editor of the ' Savoy Shake- speare ' has even gone further, and in a note prefixed to the play of ' Henry IV.' boldly states that the story of the committal of the Prince is fictitious, as also the incident related in the play as to the confirmation of the Chief Justice in his office at the Corona- tion.

I have no hesitation in saying that such a statement is altogether unwarranted : the story has never been disproved ; and if an editor thinks it should be rejected, he should give his reasons. As I have said, the story of the committal never has been, nor do I see how it ever can be, disproved, though I fear I must add that it has never been proved, and probably never will be. Stubbs and Hallam think the story probably untrue, but do not appear to have investigated it at all. Luders in 1813 thinks it not well authenticated. Tyler in 1841, Mr. Crofts in 1880, and Mr. Solly Flood six years later are the authorities given against the story by subsequent writers, who with the exception of the more important among them are unanimous in its rejection.

Mr. Crofts thinks that Sir Thomas Elyot copied the story from some monkish chronicler whom no one else has seen, and that the same imaginary writer wilfully adapted it from an allusion in a judgment in a contempt- of -court case in Edward I.'s reign. This allusion is to the fact of Edward II., when Prince of Wales, having been banished from Court by his father for using insulting words to one of his ministers. Mr. Crofts also states that the story is mentioned in only two law books, properly so called, and that there is no mention made of it in the Rolls or Year- Books.

Mr. Solly Flood calls Elyot a romancer who was not aware of the practice in Henry IV.'s time, and says that

" the non-existence of any record of a commit- ment of the Prince will be conclusive proof to every one conversant with legal procedure that the story of his misconduct in Court and im- prisonment is absolutely untrue."

Mr. Flood, not content with having dis- proved the story, goes on to recount how the story of Edward II. has been applied to Henry V. by whom, or at what time, he does not say ; but both Mr. Crofts and Mr. Flood speak as if they were the original discoverers of this allusion in the Rolls, whereas it is referred to by Lord Coke, and is told by all the chroniclers, Edward's disagreement with the Bishop of Chester, Walter Langton, the minister concerned, being well known. Where the chroniclers