Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 1.djvu/485

 ii s. i. JUNE 11, 1910.] NOTES AND QUEEIES.

477

conclusive. He was not in England, but in Ireland, during 1694-5. He did not appear in public as an author until 1701, the reason being that his pecuniary circumstances pre- vented him from publishing at an earlier date. His biography has been written with such minute care that almost every week of his life can be traced, and the date of his various publications determined with cer- tainty. Yet none of his biographers has ventured to claim the 'History 1 of Mary II. as his.

Tnere were other authors about the same period who wrote under the initials " J. S.' Among these were John Sage and John Smith. Sage was a Scottish Episcopal divine, and was publishing in London about the time in question ; but his writings were chiefly theological. His life, like that of Swift, is tolerably well knpwn. No claim to the authorship of the ' Brief History has ever been advanced in his favour.

Conjecture, on the whole, inclines one to look in the direction of John Smith as the author. His period of literary activity extends roughly from 1684 to 1704. He wrote ' The True Art of Angling,' an ex tremely popular work ; ' Profit and Pleasure United ; or, The Husbandman's Magazine,* and probably other works as well. A man of literary taste and possessed of a ready pen, he was a suitable person to execute an extended obituary notice of departed great- ness. W. SCOTT.

STRETTELL-UTTERSON (11 S. i. 448). I wish to correct my query in one particular. I find that the ' Lyf of Saint Katherin * is duly quoted by Mr. de Ricci in his ' Census of Caxtons.' My apologies are due to him. .H. J. B. CLEMENTS. Killadoon, Celbridge.

GIFFARD =MILL (11 S. i. 429). MB. WALES asks which daughter of Sir Ambrose Hardinge Giffard married William Mill.

Sir A. H. Giffard was my father's uncle, and none of his daughters married a Mill. He had five daughters :

1. Jane Mary = Sir William Follett.

2. Sarah, died 1895, unmarried.

3. Harriet = Capt. W. Bayly.

4. Rose = Rev. G. Fagan.

5. Emma = Rev. G. Tate. They are all now dead.

Sir A. H. Giffard had also five sons, all of whom are dead.

I shall be glad to give any further infor- mation to your correspondent.

MAGDALEN G. LITTLE WOOD.

East Farleigh Vicarage, Kent.

TOUCHING FOR THE KING'S EVIL : "TOUCH- ING PIECE" (11 S. i. 389, 433). P. D. M. will find in ' Rariora,* vol. i. pp. 94-5, a list with full particulars of eleven specimens of original touch-pieces in my possession, and notes upon the ceremonies attending their presentation by the monarch.

J. ELIOT HODGKIN.

Illustrations of two touch pieces are in ' The Book of Days, 1 i. 85, and mention is made of several specimens in the British Museum. Much information on the subject has been gathered at 5 S. x. 53, W. C. B.

DUKE'S PLACE, ALDGATE : ST. KATHE- RINE CREE CHURCH (11 S. i. 326, 397, 437). The open space in the heart of the City of London known as Duke's Place was part of the precinct of the wealthy Augustinian Priory of the Holy Trinity within the Walls, which stood upon the large piece of ground now surrounded by Duke Street (site of City Wall), Bevis Marks, Bury Street, Creechurch Lane, Leadenhall Street, and Aldgate. The town house of the Abbots of Bury St. Edmunds was hard by in Bevis Marks, and gave Bury Street its name. It was said to be the most wealthy eccle- siastical establishment in the kingdom, and was for that reason the first priory dissolved by Henry VIII. It was granted to his companion Sir Thomas Audley, who demolished the priory church, and built a mansion on a portion of the site. Sir Thomas was one of the four persons, besides the civic officers, who witnessed the beheading of Queen Anne Boleyn in tha Tower. His daughter married Thomas, Duke of Norfolk, from whom the estate took the name of "Duke's Place. " The Duke was beheaded by Elizabeth on Tower Hill, almost within bowshot of his house, in 1572, for complicity in the plot with the followers of Mary, Queen of Scots. The mansion has long since disappeared, but a plate exists showing ' Audley House, the Priory of the Holy Trinity, Mitre Court, Duke's Place, Aldgate, as it appeared after the Fire in 1800,'- published by J. Sewell, Cornhill, 1802. The estate was sold by tha Duke's son Thomas Howard to the Corporation of the City of London, by whom it is to-day held.

The Jews were allowed to settle in Duke's Place by Cromwell in 1650, and the synagogue was rebuilt about a hundred years ago.

No tradition exists in the neighbourhood concerning the Duke of St. Albans, but Charles I., when Prince of Wales, probably