Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 4.djvu/419

 iv. OCT. 28,1905.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 345 four years later. See Walcott, 'Wykeham and his Colleges,' 157, 207 ; Adams, ' Wyke- hamica,1 77 ; Kirby, ' Annals,' 281 ; Leach, 'History' (1899), 291, but he afterwards changed his opinion (vide infra). These are, no doubt, the authorities which MR. WAINE- WRIGHT followed when he spoke of the Queen's coming to the College in 1570. But these authorities notwithstanding, I share the scepticism about this visit expressed by Milner (' Hist, of Winchester,' i. 372, second edition); though I do not share with Milner (who thought that Elizabeth was at his city only once, in 1560) his view that she pur- posely avoided it as much as she could. My scepticism is not diminished by what I find in Nichols (iii. 99), who knew nothing of a personal visit by the Queen either in 1570* or in 1571, but who cites from the College accounts of 1571 another entry of a small gift to the Queen's players (lusores). My present idea is that these minstrels and players at times strolled away from the Court, and made independent tours upon their own account. But I should welcome further light upon this point. 4. The Queen came in person to the city in September, 1574. The Council sat at Salis- bury on 7 September, at Winchester on the llfch, and at Farnham on the 19th ('Acts of P.C.,' N.S. viii.). Nichols (i. 410) failed to trace the progress this year beyond Wilton and Salisbury; but the movements of the Council mark the Queen's subsequent course. See also ' Gal. S.P. Dom., Add. 1566-79,' p. 488. Among the entertainments provided in honour of this visit to Winchester, I think that we may safely include the display of scholarship which the above-mentioned histories of the College assigned to the imaginary visit of 1570. A copy of the Greek and Latin verses with which the boys greeted their sovereign has been preserved (Bodleian, Rawl. MSS. Poet. 187). I must add that Mr. Leach, in his later work for the 'Victoria History of Hampshire' (ii. 314), rejects 1570 as the date of these verses, on the ground that some oi them were by boys who were not admitted as scholars of the College until three years later. He therefore adopts 1573 as the date. But of any progress which brought Elizabeth into the heart of Hampshire in 1573 there seems to be no trace. 5. The Queen was at the city again in 1586. She came from Bishop's Waltham on Thursday, 1 September, and stayed at Win- chester until the following Monday, when e departed for Sir Richard Murton's (*tc> « Tisted ('Gal. Cecil MSS.,' iii. 178). Morton s, I suppose, a misprint for Norton. Nichols does not mention this visit to Winchester ; and Milner disbelieved in its occurrence, .hough in Wilkes's ' Winchester' (1773), 11. 99, the charter of 23 January, 1587/8 which Sir Francis Walsingham obtained for the city ' Confirmation Roll,' 23-30 Eliz., m. 18), had been treated as the fulfilment of a promise made by the Queen during a recent visit. 6. In 1591 Elizabeth was back in Hamp- shire She came via Chichester, was at Ports- mouth about the end of August, and was then expected to go to Basing ('Cal. ».r. Dom., 1591-4,' p. 97), as later she doubtless did (ibid., 504 f 'Gal. Cecil MSS.,' iv 142). According to Nichols (iii. 98-100, 121) her course from Portsmouth took her first to Titchfield and Southampton, afterwards to Farleigh (13 Sept.), and to Odiham and Elve- tham (20 Sept.), and thence to Farnham (24 Sept.). In going from Southampton to Farleigh she probably passed through Win- chester and possibly stopped there; for Nichols (iii. 99) quotes, as if from the city accounts of 1591, items for wine supplied to the Queen's servants(/um!tft)and for linen washed after the departure of the Court folk (aulici). 7. In June, 1596, Cecil received a letter from John Harmar, who had been head master at Winchester College since 1588, and was now candidate for the wardenship, which next month he obtained. In this letter ('Gal. Cecil MSS.,' vi. 237) Harmar states that when the Queen was last in Hants she had the scholars before her at Aberston. See Leach, ' History,' 318 ; ' Victoria History, ii 315. Aberston is Abbotstoue, near Itshen Abbas, and the manor of Aberston belonged to the Marquesses of Winchester (Woodward, 1 Hampshire,' ii. 39). Mr. Leach assigns the event in question to 1592, and Nichols throws no light upon the point. As the scholars went a journey to see the Queen, it may be thought that she was on a progress which did not bring her into the city. But how- ever that may be, 1591 is the real date of the Aberston episode; for Richard Powlett, writing in 1600 ('Gal. Cecil MSS.,' x. 220), says that he was sheriff "the year her Maiesty made her last progress into Hamp- shire." He was sheriff of Hants from Nov., • In his note at iii. 99, 1570 is clearly a slip for 1569. See i. 259-61. s,r ('Viet. Hist,'ii 315) mentions yet a later occasion upon which the scholars composed verses for the Queen (Bodleian MS.). From the names he mentions the verses must be assigned to a date within a year before February, 1601/2. He suggests