Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/392

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii s. i. MAY u, 1910.

when making abstracts from old wills fo genealogical purposes, I have noted lists o books. Here is one. Nathaniel Brading son of William Brading, of Godsall, Isle o Wight, made

An Inventory of what Adventures & necessarie I carrie to the East Indies with me in the Rebecc Mr. Buckham Master, primo ffebruary Anno

BOOKES. A large Bible : The Soules pro

fresse : Sincere Convert, Mr. Lockers workes ractice of pietie, Historicall meditations, young mans Warneing yeere, heaven and earth, Judge ment of humane actions, Quarles his Emblemes God and Man, Emblemes of light : A treatise o Melancholy: The History of man. A psahni Booke, Naturall philosophic : Dou Bartus o: all siluesters workes. Innocency and truth triumphing. A triangular Canon. Ovid De tristibus English, East India trade, Lysande and Calista, Exemplary Novells, 2 sermon bookes written: 2 table bookes large, 5 large j bookes, A booke of musicke: Essayes ypon the five Sences, Experience Historie and divinity the language of the hand : The Compleat gentleman

The testator was heir of his uncle Richarc Kent of New England. The will was datec in Augustine Bay in Isle of Madagascar, 16 Nov., 1645, and proved in London 1 July, 1648, by his father William Brading (116 Essex). I have carefully copied it, but the punctuation is obscure. A. RHODES.

A HERTFORDSHIRE NELL GWYN : ELIZA- BETH CULLING. Upon the south-east side of Hertingfordbury Churchyard is an altar- tomb, enclosed within iron railings. The .inscription thereon reads :

"F 1 f 1

Obiit ye 27th of November 1703

Above this is a coat of arms upon a lozenge - shape shield, enclosed in an oval panel of arabesques the arms being a griffin segreant, on a canton a fleur-de-lis.

The tradition current in the village and neighbourhood is that the tomb covers the remains of Nell Gwyn, the famous actress and mistress of King Charles II., the initials E. C., which are easily read E. G., lending colour to the story. No less a person than the Rev. John Skinner, who kept an illus- trated diary in the early part of the last century (preserved among the Add. MSS. in the B.M.), visited the place on 26 March, 1810, while staying at Hertford, and made a sketch of the tomb, underneath which he has written : " Nell G win's Tombstone in Hertingfordbury Ch'yard. Ji

Now the ashes interred beneath the altar- tomb are those of Miss Elizabeth Culling of Hertingfordbury Park, who died on 27 Nov., 1703 ; but and this shows the value of

historical tradition if for Charles II. we insert Lord Cowper, and for Nell Gwyn, Elizabeth Culling, the resemblance is estab- lished. For to be frank, she was that nobleman's mistress, and the fact is set forth in ' A New Description of all the Counties in England and Wales/ by R. R., 1744, where at p. 315 we are told :

" The Seat of the Earl Cowper, here called Hertingfordbury Park, was the estate of Mrs. Elizabeth Culling, who lies buried in the church- yard. This Lady having two natural Children by that Lord, a son and a Daughter, the former dying soon after he came of age, the young Lady his sister sold this Estate in the year 1720 to her Father's Brother, the late Judge Cowper, for fifty years' Purchase at least, and he again dis- posed of it to his Brother, the late great Lord Cowper, Lord High Chancellor of England."

None of the county historians make any allusion to this mesalliance. Chauncy (1700) gives an engraving of the house, which he calls " The Parke, iJ and states that it was built by John Culling, a merchant of London, about 1650.* He informs us that Culling had issue John and Elizabeth, and he dying in 1687, his son John became the owner thereof.

Clutterbuck (1814) says that upon the death of John Culling the estate came to his sister Elizabeth, whose heirs conveyed it to Spencer Cowper, Esq., Chief Justice of Chester. W. B. GERISH.

Bishop's Stortford.

THE HORSE IN VENICE. The Venetians

are held by certain of their writers to have

Deen the first to employ (in modern times)

' light cavalry." This took the form of

militia composed of Stradiotti, or Greeks

and perhaps Albanians), subject to the

Republic after the capture of the Pelopon-

nessus, where, apparently, the pasture -lands

till raised abundance of horses (as in

Strabo's day), which were remarkably fleet

of foot. To this quality, as well as to the

dexterity of their masters, were owing so

many victories on land that Guicciardini

does not hesitate to call these Greek mer-

enaries the nerve of the Venetian army.

t is even probable that horses were more

amiliar animals at Venice in the days of

]dward III. than were cows in those of

Ictoria f; though the animals kept there

y various nobles were probably of a larger-

>oned and showier breed than those of the

f Bayfordbury, who had purchased the estate.
 * It was pulled down in 1813 by William Baker

f In 1879 the writer was taken to visit an ancient enetian lady who had never left the city, and oasted that she had never seen a cow.