Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/249

 10 s. xii. SEPT. 11, 1909.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

201

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 1009.

CONTENTS. No. 298.

NOTES : Original Letters of Sir John Fastolf, 201 Signs of Old London, 203 Bibliographical Technical Terras, 204 Bank of England : Suspension of Specie Payment, 205 Giraffe : Camelopard Sneegum Surname" Stew in their own juice" Bishop Heber: "Only man is vile," 206 " Rag -proud and saucy" John Owen's Epigram on Drake, 207.

QUERIES i Burial-Places of Notable Englishwomen Viner Memorial Brass, 207 Sir Theodore Janssen, Paper Merchant Lytton's Novels in French Court of Requests Crucifix of Mary, Queen of Scots Triple Chancel Arches Authors Wanted Usher of the Green Rod, 208 Rowan Tree Witch Day: St. Helen's Day Moses Amyraut - John Fulf ord Portrait of Turner Arms on a Brass Tertullian : Jerome Fair Rosamond, 209 Dr. John Lamy "Twas Bonaparte the Corsican" James II. 's Last Words Joanna and the Westmorland Hills : Quietists in England Augustinian House at Steeple Pronty : Bronte Strode's Regiment, 210.

REPLIES : Cotton's Waterloo Museum, 210 Holderness Families, 211 Hanging Alive in Chains, 212 Cockburns- path : Maxwell, 213 Hocktide at Hexton Bruges Margaret of Richmond "Hen and Chickens" Sign, 215" Noli altum sapere " " Entente Cordiale " St. Barbara's Emblems The "Strawberry Hill" Catalogue, 216 Scottish Market Customs Freeman on Gladstone- Westminster Abbey Towers Seventeenth - Century Quotations, 217 " Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John" Shields Fretty and Ordinaries Byron and Capt. Crawley Yorkshire Similes Jacob Cole "Shot at the rook " Hengler's Circus, 218.
 * ' The King of France with forty thousand men," ~214

NOTES ON BOOKS : ' English Heraldic Book-Stamps ' Reviews and Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

ORIGINAL LETTERS OF SIR JOHN FASTOLF.

THE two letters of which transcripts are here given have been in my possession for some years, but I have no memorandum as to whence they were obtained. The first and longer comes between Nos. 125 and 130 in the * Paston Letters ' (ed. Gairdner, 1904, pp. 152, 160) ; the second between Nos. 166 (a fragment only) and 171 (an abstract). They are in good, condition, written upon one side of the page, and endorsed. The dates at the top of each letter have been added in a late seventeenth- century hand. The fourth and sixth para- graphs in the first letter, and the first in the second, have the letter " a " in the margin. Possibly the writer may have intended thereby to call special attention to the passages thus indicated. As so many of Sir John's letters, numbering 66, are given only in abstracts, it is thought that these holographs will prove an interesting addition to the Paston collection. They may be in the handwriting";of William Worcester,

Fastolf's private secretary ; but the two signatures are no doubt in the knight's autograph.

" Piers Plowman " sounds strange. One J. Perse or Piers occurs frequently in the Paston letters, a servant first of John Berney, afterwards of the Paston family. He may have been Fastolf's messenger to Howes on this occasion, but why call him Plowman ? It seems more likely that some person is intended well known to Fastolf and Howes, who favoured the liberal opinions with which this age was familiar enough through Langland's ' Vision ' (c. 1362) or his later imitator's ' Crede ' (c. 1394). Reading between the lines, we may conclude that Fastolf, with all his shrewdness and keen business instincts, was not a methodical person. His evidences and accounts were frequently mislaid, and so important a document as the draft constitution of his proposed Caistor College, with the royal signature, had gone astray.

To understand properly the drift of these letters the reader must needs refer to Gairdner' s ' Paston Letters,' either the edition of 1872 or the library edition of 1904. A few references only have been given in foot-notes.

LETTER I. [Endorsed :] To my trusty welbelovyd fiende

sir Thomas Howys, Stuard of Castre. 24 June, 1450.

Ryght trusty frend, I grete you well. And forasmoch as the next terme ys ryght short but of xiiij dayes, Wherfor I pray you and charge you that ye sende upp to me in all goodly haaste by such commers betwene as be of your knoulege, that such maters as most be avysed or remedied heere may be doon be tyme, soo as none damage or Inconvenient fall in the vacacion tyme of the processe for Beyton & Bradwell or the atteynt, for yt ys to deme that my adversaries wolle wyrk all the untreuth that they can ayenst me.

It m sendyth me wrytyng of all my wrytts sent home, how they been executed and the namys of hem, that ye have for to be put in processe for arr. [arrears or arrest ?] & debt thys terme, and such as make ende wyth you there that yee take upp the costs of the processe, whych Baulyns myne atorney can sey yow.

It m as for the wryt I sent you by Piers Plowman for Hygham ys lands in Suffolk,* ye most see that the Shyreff of Suffolk recover the wryt and keep the day of recovery to be sent upp and not lost [left ?], for at the next wryt hyr lond shall been extented [= assessed], but yff she make ende wyth me and hyp goody also, for now the Shyreff may


 * over, but that he ys deede [dead],

[" a " in margin.] Itm. y hafe well understand that ye sent me A rolle of papier of certeyn chargeable costs that I have exspended and payd, for the deffence of the greete yniuries [injuries] don to me thys x or xii yeer day, but ye most


 * See ' Paston Letters,' ii. 178, 254.