Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 2.djvu/540

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [io* s. IL DEC. 3, 1904.

an ignominious defeat at the hands of the English archers.

The cross-bow was always in greater use on the Continent than in England, where it wa chiefly employed in naval battles and in sieges. In 1314 Edward II. required the Mayor and Sheriffs of the City of London to find 300 arbalesters, or as many of that number as possible, for the defence of Berwick-upon-Tweed, each to be provided with haketon, bacinet, " colorette," arbalest, -and quarels, and both men and arms to be .ready by the Feast of St. Nicholas then next. Of the number of men requisi- tioned the City seems to have been able to raise only 120, for in the December following we find the king requiring, in pursuance of his previous demand, this number of arbalesters and their arms to be delivered to John da Luka, to be by him conducted to Berwick. The records of the time furnish some interesting particulars as to the wages of the men, the cost of their arms, and the mode by which the latter were conveyed to their destination. The price paid for each haketon was 6s. Q^d., for each bacinet with iron "colorette" 5s. Id, for each arbalest 3s. 5d, for a baldric 12d ; each ^quiver cost 5d, and for every thousand quarels
 * 20s. was paid. Each man was paid per day

4d, whilst every commander of twenty men received Qd. The arms were wrapped in hempen cloths, and packed in tuns, which were loaded into three carts, each drawn by four horses ; to each cart there were two carters. The journey occupied seventeen days, and the expenses per day of each cart, with its horses and carters, were 2s. 2d

In the reign of Henry VII. the cross-bow was found to be superseding the long-bow ; to check this a statute was enacted pro- hibiting the use of the cross-bow by the people, under heavy pains and penalties. In the ensuing reign a similar prohibition was enacted ; but this too failed to effect its purpose, even in the face of the knowledge that the possession of a cross-bow entailed a iine of IOL But where kings failed, time succeeded, and the cross-bow ultimately be- came obsolete. T. W. TEMPANY.

STEWARD MONUMENT AT BRADFORD-ON- AvoN. The statue of Charles Steward in Holy Trinity Church is almost a typical sample of what we know as the " Queen Anne " style. It was, in fact, set up before the reign of that monarch commenced, being dated 1701 : King William did not die till 8 March, 1702, so that it anticipates the style by about three months ; but if all the monu-

ments erected in Westminster Abbey and other English churches during the next fifteen years had been as characteristic and as meritorious we should be able to recognize a great school of sculpture. We may compare it, for instance, with the well-known monu- ment of the Duke of Newcastle, of which the architectural part was designed by Gibbs and the figures by Bird. The almost exactly contemporary monument of Sir Cloudesley Shovel is still more to the point. The bewigged figure, the columns, the weeping cherubs, are in both, but Steward's figure is manly and dignified, the costume is rather that of the time of Charles II. than that of the eighteenth century ; it has, so to speak, what must have seemed in 1701 a slightly old- fashioned appearance. The cherubs do not sprawl, as in the Shovel monument, nor is their grief denoted by any extravagance of gesture. The architectural features are strictly subordi- nated to the central figure, and there is, on the whole, much to be admired in the sculpture and in the artistic aspect of the monument. His- torically, however, the figure, the name, the heraldry all have given inquirers much employment without so far any very tangible result. There was a Northamptonshire family of the same name and similar arms. One of its members, Richard Steward, was chaplain to Charles I., and having been named successively Provost of Ebon, Dean of St. Paul's, and Dean of Westminster, he died in exile in 1651, during the Commonwealth. Several authorities mention the Dean as the father of Charles Steward, of Cumberwell, near Bradford, and one (Herald and Genea- logist, ii. 67) asserts that Cumberwell came to him through his mother, the sister of Sir Robert Button, of Tockenham, an old manor-house a few miles off, between Ohippenham and Swindon.

Although " Cummer well " is mentioned in his epitaph, we cannot easily identify Steward with the son of the Dean. In the first place, f the arms are much alike this Charles Steward bears a crest which is believed to be unique in English heraldry. The Stewards of Pateshull, in Northamptonshire, had for crest a stag ; but over the Bradford monu- nent the crest is a royal crown. It stands, like an ordinary crest, " on a wreath of his colours " ; but there can be no doubt what it represents "on a wreath of his colours, a royal crown proper." Moreover, the case is 'urther complicated by the fact that in two ong inscriptions (one on the monument and ihere is no mention either of the Dean or of the Tockenham baronets ; but the deceased,
 * he other on the tombstone in the chancel)