Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/201

 11 S. X. SEPT. 5, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

195

is thus afforded of Walpole'a wonderful memory. In the ballad after which MB. I'ACIOT TOYNBEE inquires, Walpole made a whimsical variation. The ballad was popu- larly known as ' Queen Eleanor's Fall,' but its mil title was

"A Warning Piece to England against Pride and Wickedness : Being the Fall of Queen Eleanor, Wife to Edward the First, King of England ; who, for her pride, by God's Judgments, sunk into the Ground at Charing-cross and rose at Queenhithe." It was originally published in ' A Collection of Old Ballads' (1723), i. 97, and will be found in several subsequent collections, the best of which is Prof. Child's earlier book, ' English and Scottish Ballads,' in which (vii. 291) it is shown that the beloved queen, Eleanor of Castile, has been confounded by the balladmonger with her unpopular mother- in-law, Eleanor of Provence,wife of Henry III. The pertinent stanzas are the following, it being understood that the queen had very vilely entreated the wife of the Mayor of London, and tortured her to death :

A judgment lately sent from heav'n,

For shedding guiltless blood. Upon this sinful queen, that slew

The London lady good ! King Edward then, as wisdom will'd,

Accused her of that deed ; But she denied, and wioh'd that God

Would send his wrath with speed, If that upon so vile a thing

Her heart did ever think. She wish'd the ground might open wide,

And she therein might sink ! With that, at Charing-cross she sunk

Into the ground alive, And after rose with life again,

In London, at Queenhithe.

It is plain that there is here a confusion between Eleanor of Castile and the cross i in her honour at Charing and Eleanor of Provence, who rendered herself odious to tin- City of London by her endeavours to compel all vessels to unlade, and pay the port dues, at her quay at Queenhithe.

W. F. PRIDEATJX.

In TJeorge Peele's ' Famous Chronicle of

King Edward the First ' (1593) several most

fxt raordinary violations of history and pos-

s:!)ility appear to have been taken from a

ballad called ' A Warning Piece to England

t Pride and Wickedness,' in which

Queen Eleanor of Castile, Edward's consort,

! held up to contemporary prejudice as a

pattern of Spanish sin and vindictiveness.

is possible, however, that the ballad

follows the play, instead of preceding it.

See Dyce's ' Peele,' pp. 373-4.

A. R. BAYLEY.

This ballad is printed by A. H. Bullen in his edition of the ; Works of George Peele,' vol. i., in connexion with Peele's play of 'King Edward I.,' which is founded on the same story as the ballad. M. H. DODDS.

[MR. A. COLLINGWOOD LEE also thanked for reply.]

BURIAL-PLACE OF ELEANOR OF PROVENCE (11 S. x. 150).

" She died at the nunnery of Ambresbury, during the absence of her son in Scotland. On the king's return, he summoned all his clergy and barons to Ambresbury, where he solemnly com- pleted the entombing of his mother, on the day of the Nativity of the Blessed Mary, in her conventual church, where her obsequies were reverently celebrated. But the heart of his mother King Edward, carried with him to London indeed, he brought there the hearts of both the queens ; and on the next Sunday, the day of St. Nicholas, before a vast multitude, they were honourably interred, the conjugal heart in the church of the Friars Preachers, and the maternal heart in that of the Friars Minors, in the same city." Latin Chronicle of Thomas Wikes.

S. B.

NAPOLEON AND WELLINGTON : TOLD THEY ONCE MET (11 S. vi. 349). Apparently this never happened, since Lord John. Russell, in a full report of a conversation with Napoleon at Elba, 25 Dec., 1814, stated : " Speaking of Lord Wellington, he said he had heard he was a large strong man " (' Lady John Russell,' by MacCarthy and Russell, p. 53).

NAPOLEON AS HISTORIAN (11 S. vii. 70, 156). Query evidently relates to what, in the English edition, is ' Napoleon's Notes on English History,' edited by H. F. Hall, London, 1905.

NAPOLEON'S DIVERSIONS AT ST. HELENA (11 S. ix. 188). Apparently the design and exhortation should be classed with the pious forgeries formerly ascribed to Napoleon. Can any one with access to the recent bibliography of the 80,000 Napoleon books state whether Napoleon's real position re- garding religion has ever been fairly treated ? I know of no item thereon more interesting than that in Lord Rosebery's ' Last Phase,' p. 172 (1900), as to Napoleon's "ante-library " having been found by Louis XVIII. to be chiefly theological. On Grenville's asking if Napoleon was a believer, Talleyrand replied : " Je suis porte a croire qu'il etait croyant, mais il avait le gout de ces sujets."

ROCKINGHAM. Boston, Mass.