Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 12.djvu/68

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io s. XIL JULY 17, im

direction of the battlefield. In this alcove the following lines, written by Dr. Bennet, Bishop of Cork, have been placed :

Where yon blue field scarce meets our streaming

eyes

A fatal name for England, Naseby, lies. There hapless Charles beheld his fortunes cross'd, His forces vanquished, and his kingdom lost. There gallant Lisle a mark for thousands stood, And Dormer sealed his loyalty in blood ; Whilst down yon hill's steep side with headlong

force

Victorious Cromwell chased the Northern horse. Hence Anarchy our Church and State profaned, And tyrants in the mask of freedom reigned. In times like these, when party bears command, And faction scatters discord throjigh the land, Let these sad scenes an useful lesson yield. Lest future Naseby s rise in every field.

H. PAGE.

Leicester.

I was on Bosworth Field in September last. " Dickon's Well " as it is called locally was then in a good state of preserva- tion. It bore a tablet with a Latin inscrip- tion, which was affixed in 1812, when the well was restored and cleaned out by Dr. Pau. Unfortunately, the tablet is much defaced by 'the carved initials and names of foolish visitors. It is about time that a short Act of Parliament was passed making this wanton mutilation of public monuments a penal offence. JOHN B. TWYCROSS.

Streatham Hill.

There is a remarkable pedestal, as it is called, near Leominster, commemorating the battle of Mortimer's Cross in 1461, in the Wars of the Roses, and celebrated by Shakespeare ; see ' Henry VI.,' Part III. Act. II. Sc. i.

It is curious that no monument or column commemorates the battle of Towton, one of the greatest battles ever fought in England.

MR. JOHN T. PAGE would find much in- formation concerning battlefields and com- memorative monuments in England in 'Visits to Fields of Battle,' by Richard Brooke, F.S.A., which has also excellent plans. JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

LYNCH LAW (10 S. xi. 445, 515). The case of the Irishman Lynchy, mentioned by M., cannot possibly have any relation to " lynch law, ' or be the progenitor of the term. Indiscriminate murder out of revenge is as old as the world, and never was called " law." Lynch law is a formal though extra-legal trial the lynchers professing to represent for the time society itself, freed from artificial restraints which hamper its proper action on the alleged ground of

offences recognized as felonies by the very law which they supplant, though not perhaps chargeable with the same penalties. I am of course not excusing lynch law, but simply defining it. This is the original and genuine meaning : the later development, where a mob simply seize an alleged offender and murder him without even the form of trial, often after he has been legally sen- tenced to death and with the avowed purpose of substituting a mob murder for a legal execution often, too, for trivial offences punishable lightly or not at all by law is not lynch law at all, but merely mob violence, though it usurps the name of the former. Even this is legitimate compared with the action of a band which simply perpetrates a wholesale massacre of innocent people in revenge for what no society ever made even a legal offence. Whatever the origin of the term, it sprang from no such event as this.

FORREST MORGAN. Hartford, Conn.

MR. ALBERT MATTHEWS is positive, but not convincing. The practice of inflicting summary punishment upon hated or suspected persons is not peculiar to America, but was known in Great Britain many centuries ago in England under the names " Lydford Law " and " Halifax Law," and in Scotland under the names " Cowper Law " and " Jedburgh Justice." It hardly helps, then, to tell us, as MR. MATTHEWS does, that in America there was formerly another name. The only points are : (1) When did the equivalent expression " Lynch Law " come in ? and (2) What was its origin ? The 'N.E.D.' answers the first point with the date 1817, from an American book, but leaves the second point unanswered. The 'Annual Register' for 1816, with its account of the treatment of Lynchy in Ireland, gives a possible clue, to which, in my opinion, the attention of the readers of the ' N.E.D.' should have been called ; for, having regard to the stream of emigra- tion from Ireland to America, which had then begun, there would be nothing sur- prising in finding that an American writer was early in possession of the facts of Lynchy's case. MR. MATTHEWS cites two writers on the origin of the expression, but shows them to be mutually destructive.

M.

LTJMLEY FAMILY (10 S. xi. 508). The descent of the Earls of Scarborough from Uchtred, son of Liulf by Aldgita, daughter of Earl Aldred and sister of Elfleda, wife