Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/40

 NOTES AND QUERIES. in s. t JAN. g, mo.

vol. iv. pp. 306-8, where he will find further information about Medmenham Abbey.

HORACE BLEACKLEY. Fair Oak, Walton-on-Thames.

The monks were called Franciscans after the founder, Sir Francis Dashwood, and it would be interesting if MB. SHORTER would give reasons for his opinion that the Club was purely political. There was, of course, a similar Club which met weekly at the top of Co vent Garden Theatre, and "the members were virtually the same. Was this political ? See Walpole's ' Memoirs of the Reign of King George III., 1 1845, p. 313.

That Wilkes was probably a member may be inferred from his notes on Churchill's poem ' The Candidate/ where he says : " Sir Francis Dashwood, Sir Thomas Stapleton, Paul Whitehead, Mr. Wilkes, and other gentlemen to the number of twelve, rented the Abbey, and often retired there in summer n ; and then he gives a description of the Abbey, &c. Wilkes also only printed twelve copies of the 'Essay on Woman,' presumably as presents to the twelve mem- bers. If the Club was political, it is rather strange that the members numbered twelve and each bore the name of an apostle.

Wilkes's description of West Wycombe, the villa of Lord le Despencer, might also be looked at in ' Letters between Various Persons and John Wilkes, Esq., 1769,* vol. i. pp. 42-8.

About thirty years ago The Saturday Review had a good notice of Johnstone's 'Chrysal.' J. CARTON.

Dublin.

Under the title ' Monks of St. Francis,' Chambers, ' Book of Days,' i. 608, gives a brief account of the Medmenham fraternity. His authority is Lipscomb's ' History and Antiquities of the County of Buckingham/ vol. i. p. 481, and vol. iii. p. 615. " When Dr. Lipscomb published his elaborate work," says Chambers, " he could hear of but one surviving member of the Order of St. Francis, and he in extreme old age, together with a gentleman who had been admitted to a few meetings while yet too young to be made a member." The name of John Wilkes occurs among the members mentioned by Chambers. It is not, however, asserted that he was one of the founders of the society.

In Cunningham's edition of * Walpole's Letters,' i. 58, the editor states in a foot- note that

"Lord Le Despencer, Chancellor of the Ex- chequer during Lord Bute's administration is

now chiefly remembered for his share, with Wilkes and Paul Whitehead, in founding a dissolute and blasphemous association called the Hell-Fire Club or the Monks of Medmenham Abbey."

If the Club, as asserted, was founded in 1742, Cunningham's statement is mani- festly absurd. Wilkes was then a boy of only fifteen. Three years afterwards Dr. Carlyle of Inveresk met him, a student at Leyden, and was much interested in his appearance and conversation, as indeed were most people who came in contact with Wilkes. See Carlyle's * Autobiography,' pp. 168-70. But while Wilkes was not one of the founders of the Medmenham Club, there can be little doubt that he was a member. The odium theologicum which has pursued his memory cannot altogether account for the universal testimony to his connexion with the society. Even so sane and discriminating an historian as Sir George Trevelyan, in his ' Early History of Charles James Fox,* admits the validity of that testimony. WALTER SCOTT.

Stirling.

WALTHEOF, EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND (10 S. xii. 447). Will these considerations help to solve the question as to the parentage of Half de Toeni's wife ?

1. In Domesday Book Essex, LV., the land of Countess Judith, Beventrue (Becon- tree) Hundred is the entry : " Wilcumestou (Walthamstow) was held by Earl Wallef in King Edward's time as a manor and as x hides."

2. In Morant's ' History of Essex * (vol. i. p. 32) the authorities for the statements that Half de Toni, son of Half de Toni, standard-bearer to the Conqueror, married Alice or Judith, daughter of Earl Waltheof, and that they had two sons, Roger and Hugh, and several daughters, are given as " Will. Gemmeticen. (William of Jumieges), 268, 312 ; Orderic Vital. 501,813."

3. Morant cites (I.) the ' Testa de Nevill ' as proof that a Half de Toni held Walt- hamstow Manor by service of attending the king in his wars ; and (II.) " Placita 25 Hen. III. crast. Mic. rot. 21, in dorso," as evidence that this Half's wife, Petronilla, claimed one- third of Walthamstow as her dower, no dbubt.

4. Essex Domesday shows that Half de Toeni, presumably the standard-bearer, held lands in Harlow Hundred, and it is certain that the head of his barony was at Flamstead in Herts whether Flamstead near Dunstable or Flamstead End, near