Page:Notes and Queries - Series 10 - Volume 8.djvu/391

 io s. VIIL OCT. 26, loo:.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

321

LONDON, SATURDAY, OCTOBER S6, 1907.

CONTENTS. No. 200.

NOTES : The Mystery of Hannah Lightfoot, 321 Shake speare's School : _Some Early Masters, 323 Cornish Epitaphs The Lusitania and the Sirius Lysons : Sights in the Moon, 1794, 325 Hats worn in the Royal Presence Boulton & Watt in America in 1786 Burton's ' Anatomy of Melancholy,' 32ft " Westralia," 327.

QUERIES : Pageants Viscount Vane Authors of Quota tions Wanted Two Popular Refrains, 327 Assassination the Metier of Kings " Hanway "=Umbrella Vernon and Wentworth Families Mrs. C. da Costa Villa Reale Gamester's Superstition : Lizard with Two Tails Kitty Cocks, Countess of Stamford, 328 Telling the Bees- Charles II. 's Tutors "Down in the shires " " Umbre oton" Ebbin, a Christian Name Hamlet Fairchild 329 Constantius Chlorus and St. Maurice 'Into Thy Hands, O Lord,' an Oil Painting February 30 Welsh Heraldry Lord-Lieutenants in Scotland Edward and Mary Wardour, 330.

REPLIES : Peroun, 330 Wooden Cups in East Anglia, 331 Bacon's Apophthegms Latin Lines on Buxton,332 Mary, Queen of Scots, in Edinburgh Castle Sir William Treloar and B. L. Farjeon ' The Melton Breakfast,' 333 Court Leet : Manor Court Thaw as Surname William Hogsflesh, Cricketer "Mors janua vitee" The Sword of Bruce Palseologus in the West Indies, 334 "The Common Hangman," 335 J. Segalas Exeter Hall, 336 Election Sunday, Westminster School London Remains, 337 Panton Professorship, 338.

NOTES ON BOOKS :' Book-Prices Current '' Random Recollections of Hampstead ' Neales of Berkeley' The Pedigree Register' 'The Black Rood of Scotland' ' London's First Conduit System ' ' The Tribal Hidage.'

Notices to Correspondents.

THE MYSTERY OF HANNAH LIGHTFOOT.

<See 1 S. vii. 595 ; viii. 87, 281 ; ix. 233 ; x. 228, 328, 430, 532 ; xi. 454; 2 S. i. 121, 322; 3 S. iii. 88; xi. 11, 62, 89, 110, 131, 156, 196, 218, 245, 342, 362, 446, 484, 503 ; xii. 87, 260, 369 : 4 S. ii. 403 ; vi. 28 ; 5. S. iii. 6; iv. 162; v. 62; 6 S. ii. 221 ; iv. 164 ; 8 S. ii. 264, 334, 453, 531 ; iii. 76 ; 9 S. iv. 54 ; 10 S. vii. 289, 350 ; viii. 300.)

DURING the renaissance of historical criticism in the " silly sixties " JohnHeneage Jesse published three stout volumes entitled George the Third,' a work which displayed much elaborate research, and contained a great deal of important information. In Ms second chapter the author discussed the tory of Hannah Lightfoot, the reputed mistress of the chaste monarch before he ascended the throne. One version of the legend declares t that the young Prince fell in love with the " Fair Quaker " about the year 1753-4, while she was living with her uncle Henry Wheeler, who kept a linen-
 * Memoirs of the Life and Reign of King

draper's shop at the corner of Market Lane, St. James's, and that her mysterious dis- appearance soon afterwards was owing to the fact that she became the royal mistress. To this extent the conjectures of Mr. Jesse, who was careful not to hazard a final opinion, were supported by previous articles in these columes. Thus at 1 S. viii. 87 J. M. C. had related a similar narrative, which has never been disproved to this day, adding :

" A retreat was provided for Anna [Hannah] in one of those large hoitses surrounded with a high wall and garden, in the district of Cat-and-Mutton Fields, on the east side of Hackney Road, leading from Mile End Road; where she lived, and it is said died."

Again, on 19 April, 1856 (2 S. i. 322), Mr. G. STEINMAN STEINMAN had elaborated the story in the following contribution to these pages :

" Mrs. Philipps informs me, by letter dated 27th February last, that her late father, Henry Wheeler, Esq., of Surrey Square,* was the last of the family who saw her [Hannah Lightfoot], on her going to Keith [sic] Chapel to be married to a person of the name or Axford, a person the family knew nothing of ; he [Henry Wheeler] never saw her or heard of her after the marriage took place ; every inquiry was made, but no satisfactory information was ever obtained respecting her."

Two years previously, another corre- spondent, quoting from The Monthly Maga- zine, vol. Ii. p. 532 ; vol. Iii. pp. 109, 197, had given some further particulars of Hannah Lightfoot's wedding, asserting that she never cohabited with the man Axford after her marriage with him, and that her friends believed that " she was taken into keeping by Prince George " (1 S. x. 228).

Unfortunately, Mr. Jesse, not satisfied with the story of the princely liaison, and relying upon more questionable authorities, repeated the ancient scandal of a secret marriage between the heir apparent and the Fair Quakeress, and cited such spurious pro- ductions as the ' Authentic Records of the Court of England for the Last Seventy Years,' J. Phillips, 1832, and a similar book, attributed to Lady Anne Hamilton, entitled ' A Secret History of the Court of England
 * rom the Accession of George the Third to

Drought upon him the wrath of MB. W. J. THOMS, the editor and founder of this paper, who, on 2 Feb., 1867, commenced the first of his famous articles upon Hannah Light- 'oot (3 S. xi. 89). Undoubtedly MB. THOMS
 * he Death of George the Fourth.' This

819, son of Henry Wheeler, draper, of Market
 * Henry Wheeler, b. 8 March, 1747 ; d. 15 July.