Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 5.djvu/253

 10*" S. V. MARCH 17, 1906.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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On the Princess Victoria's accession to the throne Mrs. Browning contributed two poems to The Athenceum. The first, entitled 'The Young Queen,' appeared on the 1st of July, 1837; the second, * Victoria's Tears,' the fol- lowing week. On the death of Wordsworth in 1850 The Athenceum suggested that the Laureateship should be conferred on her ; and on the 30th of November of the same year a long review of her poems, in quoting Poet's Vow,' states that "the intensity of love was never expressed in a sublimer pic- ture than these last lines present " :
 * the words of Rosalind's scroll " from * The

I charge thee, by the living's prayer,

And the dead's silentness,

To wring from out thy soul a cry

Which God shall hear and bless !

Lest Heaven's own palm droop in my hand,

And pale among the saints I stand,

A saint companionless.

C. FRANCIS.

(To be concluded.)

CROMWELL'S BURIAL-PLACE. (See 9 th S. xii. 486 ; 10 th S. i. 72.) There is apparently yet another place which tradition claims as Oliver's tomb. As I have not seen it men- tioned before in this connexion, I venture to send to * N. & Q.' the quotation recording it. It is contained in an article taken from a recent number (date uncertain) of The Christian World, and sent to me by a friend. The article is written by Lizzie Alldridge, and entitled 'In Search of Dr. Watts.' In referring to Abney Park Cemetery the writer says :

" The thirty acres of this great cemetery include the site of another large old house and its grounds, Fleetwood House, once the residence of General Fleetwood and his wife, who was Bridget, the daughter of Oliver Cromwell. This site is to the right of the avenue, and there one summer day, among older and plainer tombstones than those on the Abney, or opposite side, I saw men mowing the long grass, and presently came upon a mound enclosed with an iron rail. The mound itself was covered with ivy, but trimmed so that one could read on a red granite slab the words 'This mound was a favourite retirement of the late Isaac Watts, D.D.' Tradition says he loved that mound because from it he could see the open country. It is now hemmed in by houses but the mound is still solitary. Another tradition tells of a rumour current soon after Cromwell's death, to the effect that the Protector's body was not in the coffin that was buried with regal pomp in the Abbey, but had been secretly brought down to his daughter's house and laid to rest where now is the mound."

Since writing the above I find that the tradition is recorded in * Old and New London,' v. 542, and is also mentioned by the Rev. James Bran white French in his

Walks in Abney Park ' (1883). On p. 13 he- says :

"In recent researches in the Nonconformist Memorial Library of New College, by the courtesy of the Principal, I came across the record, It is said to contain the bones of Oliver Cromwell. I know of no means of verifying this statement.

JOHN T. PAGE.

ST. WILGEFORTIS. (See * Female Cruci- fixes,' 10 th S. iv. 230, 395, 517.) -In 1885 I transcribed and annotated for the Clifton Antiquarian Club a curious deed which I had just discovered among the charters of St. Mary-le-Porr, Bristol. In it I found mention of " the Chappell of mayden Un- combre, otherwise called Seynt Wilgefort,. lately [1508] builded within the Pisstu Church."

Failing at that time to find any sufficient account of the saint, I applied to Bishop Clifford, of Clifton, the then President, who- wrote me the letter of which I enclose a transcript. It was printed in full as a note to my paper in the Proceedings of the Club (vol. i. p. 139), but appears worthy of mom extensive publication.

I was not then aware of any other English example of the cult, but in * Chapters in the History of Old St. Paul's,' p. 85, and in 4 St. Paul's and Old City Life/ p. 247, Canon Sparrow Simpson refers to the image of St. Wilgefort as being in the fourth ambu- latory on the left as you enter, and gives various particulars of the saint, and of the image being ordered to be taken down in 1538. It does not appear whether there was an altar.

There was an altar dedicated to this saint at Chew Stoke (near Bristol), Somerset (Proc. Som. Arch. Soc. t xlvii. 54).

Prior Park, Bath, Nov. 15, 1884.

DEAR COL. BRAMBLE, In answer to your in- quiry about 'Saint Wilgefort or Mayden Un- combre,' I find that her name appears in the Roman Martyrology as a Virgin and Martyr on. July 20. She was honoured in Belgium, Holland,. Germany, Normandy, and England, under the- name of Wilgefort or Oncommer (Outcommene, Outcommer, Ohnkummerus), in the tifteenth^and sixteenth centuries. The name occurs in the Salis- bury Ordo printed at Paris, 1533, in the litany of the saints, and the same Ordo contains an antiphon and prayer in her honour. She was also (after 1590) called Liberata, and was confused with a saint of that name honoured in Spain, Portugal, Italy, and other parts of France besides Normandy ; but this- was an error. She was said to have been martyred in Portugal, but the legends about her are late and spurious.

This I gather from the Bollandists. There also I find that " the German name Ohnkummer is com- posed of the preposition ohn without, and the substantive Kummer, which signifies sadness or