Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/33

 10-8.U.JCLY9.UM.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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LONDON, SATl'HDAV, Jl'LY 9, 190k.

CONTENTS.-No. 28.

NOTES : Pardons, 21 History of Proverbs, 22 Talented, 23 Ainsty, 25 Tyburn Dialect : "Chunnerin"' " It's a very good world "-Bee Superstitions, 26-Vaccination and Inoculation, 27.

QUERIES : Wolfe and Gray's Elegy 'Roberto Valentine Royal Carver Lord Bothwell, 21-Bnglish Cardinals' Hats "Bumper" Butcher Hall Street Rebecca of Ivanhoe ' " Get a wiggle on" Phillipps MSS., 28- Early Drama in Chester-Waterton : Walton : Watson- Benbow Lassa Largest Private House in England, 29.

REPLIES -.Martyrdom of St. Thomas, 30" Go anywhere and do anything" Who has "improved" Sir Edward Dyer? 32 Name for a University Women's Club Children of the Chapel' Ropemakers' Alley Chapel, 33 The English Channel Armstrong Gun, 34 Astwick : Austwick Richard Stevens "A past" Was Kean a Jew ? Magna Charta Moon and the Weather, 35 Tides- well and Tideslow, 36 Arms of Lincoln Proverbs in the Waverley Novels Wolverhampton Pulpit, 37 Stamp Collecting Literature Major-General Eyres-Step-brother Guncaster, 38.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Calverley's 'Verses, Translations, and Fly-leaves ''Great Masters 'Chaucer modernized by Prof. Skeat ' Burlington Magazine 'Magazines.

Notices to Correspondents.

PARDONS.

that which the' king, in some special regard of the person or other circumstance, affordeth upon nis absolute prerogative." It was usually granted by letters patent under the Great Seal, as it still may be, but sometimes, AS in the case of Humphrey de Bohun, Earl of Hereford in the time of Edward I. (25 Ed- ward I.), a Statute of the Realm was the means by which it was effected. The prac- tice of granting pardons became so frequent that in the second year of Edward III. (1328) pardons for felonies were, by the Statute of Northampton, restricted to those cases only where the felony was committed in self- defence or by misfortune. In spite, however, of this Act, pardons seem to have been so freely granted that two years later it was necessary to enact that the Statute of North- ampton should be kept and maintained in all points (4 Edward III., c. 13). In 1339, how- ever, during the French war, Edward III. was so greatly in need of money that he empowered the Duke of Cornwall (afterwards the Black Prince), the Archbishop of Canter- bury, and others to grant pardons and raise
 * PARDON ex gratia recfis," says Cowell, "is

money by that and other means to enable him to continue the war ( Longman's * History of Edward III.,' vol. i. p. 153, quoting Rymer's 'Fcedera,' vol. ii. p. 1091). It seems that anciently the right of pardoning offences within certain districts was claimed by the Lords of the Marches and others who had "jura regalia" by ancient grants from the Crown or by prescription ; but by the statute 27 Henry VIII., c. 24, it was provided that no one but the king should have that power (Bacon's * Abridgment, 5 s.v. * Pardon ').

In the Parliament which was held at Leicester in April, 1414, severe penalties were enacted against all suspected of ** heresy," and it was provided that those who relapsed after pardon had been granted them should first be hanged for treason against the king, and then burnt for heresy against God (T. H. S. Escott's * Gentlemen of the House of Commons,' 1902, vol. i. pp. 51-2). In the year 1416 we have a record of " Letters Patent of Grace and Pardon " being granted by the king (Henry V.) to a certain Richard Surmyn (or Gurmyn), who was accused of heresy, " to have as well his life as his goods and chattels ' ; (Riley's ' Memorials of London,' p. 630).

About the same time Lord March obtained a pardon for any crime he might have com- mitted (Rymer's 'Foedera,' vol. ix. p. 303). This seems to have been a not infrequent practice ; a general pardon was obtained "ex abundanti cautela " to some extent. Lingard says that "such pardons were frequently solicited by the most innocent, as a measure of precaution to defeat the malice and pre- vent the accusation of their enemies " (' His- tory of England,' vol. v. p. 16). This has, however, been questioned by others, who say that it would be difficult to show an instance in which a pardon was granted in favour of a person who was not at least strongly suspected, or who had not purchased it at the expense of his accomplices (Nicolas's ' History of the Battle of Agincourt,' second edition, p. 45 and note).

Although pardons were undoubtedly pur- chased in many instances, they were at times granted without being sought for ; but such were not always free pardons, but merely mitigations of sentences. A notable instance is that in the case of Sir Thomas More, who had been convicted of high treason, the punishment for which at that time was "to be hanged, drawn, and quar- tered " ; but by the king's pardon the sen- tence was mitigated into "only beheading," so that he was spared the indignities prac- tised upon many other martyrs at that time.