Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/278

 272

NOTES AND QUERIES.

[11 S. X. OCT. 3, 1914.

the execution of the third Earl, his widow conveyed all these things to Louvain, in Belgium, where she resided until she died. They were afterwards placed for security in a secret vault in Hesse-Darmstadt, and there they lay till 1866, when they followed the claimant to Blaydon, having suffered much injury from damp during their incar- ceration. There were portraits and pictures attributed to Kneller, Vandyke, Teniers, Rubens, Titian, Rembrandt, Velasquez, Paul Potter, and others less notable. She had also antique cabinets and chests of drawers, fine old armour, curious inlaid guns and pistols, with reliquaries and other things, said to be from the chapel at Dilston, old mirrors, iron-bound coffers, old china, and a miscellaneous heap of articles that suggested a Wardour Street establishment. Some of them, it was thought, might be genuine ; others were undoubtedly faked.

It is not possible to narrate in ' N. & Q.' all the remarkable proceedings of this extra- ordinary woman. She gained friends and supporters in the Northland in September, 1868, took possession of the ruins of Dilston Castle. There she squatted under a rough, tarpaulin -covered shelter until, on 1 Nov., she and her belongings were removed by the authorities to a ditch by the roadside. Then she appealed to the Queen's Bench against a decision of the magistrates con- victing her of obstruction, and failed ; served notices upon the tenants to pay their rents to her, and carried on a vigorous campaign for months. Eventually, in March, 1871, she was adjudicated bankrupt in Newcastle County Court, and the Regis- trar of the Court took possession of her " heirlooms " and other effects, which were sold by auction in a three days' sale, and realized over 1,OOOZ. She refused to plead in the Courts, and defied the law like a militant Suffragette. Finally, in November, 1871, she was committed to Newcastle Gaol, where she lay till July, 1873, and then, refusing to leave, was forcibly expelled from the prison.

Who the lady was has never been ascer- tained. It was thought she might have been a governess in, or perhaps an irregular member of, a family abroad who possessed some Radcliffe souvenirs, and that she collected the rest from dealers in real or assumed antiques. She was a highly accom- plished woman and an artist of no mean capacity, and could converse in three or four languages, while her manners, when not in arms against the law, were gentle and winning. She appeared to have neither

kith nor kin, and to be alone in the world fighting for her own hand, and supported only by her Tyneside followers. For, al- though she wrote and published letters addressed to the " Graffin Maria Mouravkff," "My dear Augusta," "My dear Eleanora," "My dearest Theresa," "My very dear Charlotte," "My sweet Flora," and other supposed dear friends, she took care never to publish any of their replies, yet frequently referred to their assumed answers, as "I thank you and the Prince most heartily ; your idea is heavenly," and so on. In 1880 she died in a cottage near Shotley Bridge, and was buried in Benfieldside Cemetery, followed to her grave by a few of her humble local friends. Her coffin-plate bore the inscription : " Amelia Marj' Tudor Rad- clyffe, Countess of Darwentwater. Died Feb. 26, 1880, aged 49 Years."

RICHARD WEI-FORD. Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

"CHATTERBOX" (11 S. x. 128, 196). I ought to have noted at the latter reference that in 1785, when Grose first published his ' Dictionary,' he was 54 years old, and Pyne, the author of ' Wine and Walnuts,' was aged 16.

If we grant that it takes only five years for a slang word to be recognized in a dic- tionary as current, Pyne was 11 years old when " chatter box " meant a chattering person. ROBERT PIERPOINT.

Is not the derivation clear on the surface? Why is any subtlety needed ? It corresponds exactly to "saucebox": a magazine of chatter, as the latter of defiant impudence. Was the carriage named first ? It sounds a later jest, and may have been merely printed first. FORREST MORGAN.

Hartford,lConn.

ARMS OP THE DEANS OF LICHFIELD : WARNER CAPELL OR ABBOTT (11 S. iii. 228, 276, 314: iv. 174; x. 230). COL. FYNMORE has kindly drawn my attention to the correspondence at the earlier refer- ences, but further research tends rather to deepen than elucidate the mystery of the parentage of Dean Warner's wife. Simms's ' Bibliotheca Staffordiensis ' states that he " married the widow of Bishop Abbot of Salisbury," who, according to the ' D.N.B./ was twice married ; " the second time to a widow lady, Bridget Cheynell, mother of Francis Cheynell, an eminent presbyterian divine in the time of the Commonwealth." If we now turn to the account of Cheynell