Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 11.djvu/453

 10 s. XL MAY s, im] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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" Hell's Kitchen." Their sobriquets, in left- to-right order, were " Aud Judy," " Jenny Ballo," " Whin Bob." " Jacky Coxon," "Pussy Willy," "Cull Billy," "Donald," " Bugle-nosed Jack," " Hangy," " Bold Archy," "Blind Willy," "Shoe-tie Anty," " Capt. Starkey," and " Doodem Daddurn." Mr. Charles John Brandling, one of the M.P.s for Newcastle, bought the picture, and allowed it to be engraved. The plate had a great run, and is still to be seen in the houses of old Tyneside families.

In that picture Capt. Starkey figures as Parker saw and knew him. He appears as an old man of short stature, with flowing white hair, long coat, and shoes with buckles. In his right hand he holds a stick, and in his left, which is crossed over the right, he holds a hat the same to all appearance as in Ransom's etching, but with its lining turned towards the spectator, from which lining protrudes something, maybe a glove, a piece of rag, or possibly one of his ready- signed halfpenny I O U's.

In justice to the publishers of the miserable cut mentioned by E. G. B. it may be added that in 1891, when issuing an illustrated and enlarged edition of the songs, with lives, portraits, and autographs of the writers, they

process blocked " Parker's entire picture for a frontispiece, and as such it appears in the volume.

Capt. Starkey relates in his ' Memoirs ' (sm. 4to, 14 pp.) that he was born at the Lying-in Hospital, Brownlow Street, Long Acre, London, on 19 Dec., 1757, and that his father and mother were natives of New- castle. I find that his father, Benjamin Starkey, whose name he bore, was a member of the Newcastle Cordwainers' Company, though the cognomen does not otherwise or elsewhere appear in the locality.

Now the " freelage " of a town which returned two members to Parliament, at a time when none but free burgesses could vote and polls lasted several days, was of some value. Starkey the elder was brought down from London to vote at contested elections in 1774 and 1777, and in the election of 1780 his son, who had meanwhile acquired the freedom by patrimony, accompanied him. The old man had voted in 1777 against that unprincipled adventurer Andrew Robin- son Stoney Bowes (Thackeray's Barry Lyn- don), but in 1780 both he and his son plumped for him ! In 1784 they were brought down to oppose him, but Bowes shirked the poll. It was in this way that the Starkey connexion with Tyneside was kept up, and that a Cockney schoolmaster, non-native and non-

resident, was given a home in an institution founded for decayed Newcastle freemen.

After the articles by Hone and Charles Lamb appeared in the ' Every -Day Book,' a local journalist and poet, Wm. Gill Thompson, contributed some interesting reminiscences of Starkey's later days to that publication. They will be found in vol. i. under date 26 November, headed ' More Last Words respecting Capt. Starkey.'

RICHARD WEUTORD.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

RECUSANTS' MARRIAGES (10 S. xi. 290). There can be no question that marriages celebrated by Catholic priests were regarded as valid during the Tudor and Stuart times of persecution, but they were highly danger- ous for all the persons concerned. It is probable that in many cases the priests per- formed the ceremony, and that afterwards the contracting parties, though already man and wife, went to the Protestant church, and had the State service performed there. I have seen entries in parish registers which go a long way towards proving this. Some- times this seems to have been dispensed with. There is a curious example illustrating the custom in ' The List of Roman Catholics in the County of York in 1604,' edited by me twenty -seven years ago from a MS. in the Bodleian Library. There we find under Bransbie the following return :

" Secret mariage. Richard Cholmley Esquier maryed with Mary Hungate in the presence of John Wilson, William Martin, Hugh Hope & Christopher Danyell, in a fell with a popishe priest, as they hear."

This must have been a picturesque scene, though by no means unattended by danger to the priest. The lady and her lover, it is evident, dared not marry in her father's house for fear of spies, so an appointment was made to meet in some secluded nook in the wild moorlands ; a priest was found ready to risk his life by performing the rite, and the wedding party returned without discovery. EDWARD PEACOCK.

In a letter by Recorder Fleetwood to Lord Burghley in 1583 is an account of the mar- riage of a girl named Abraham, heiress of a small estate in Lancashire, in London by " an old priest " ; but this was a surprise or forced marriage, though all the parties were Catholics. See Ellis's ' Letters,' First Series, ii. 292.

In 1604 it was reported to the Bishop of Chester from Bleasdale in North Lancashire that Alexander Richardson and his wife were " suspect to be married by an old priest."