Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 10.djvu/313

 11 S. X. OCT. 17, 1914.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

307

ignored. Below Mons a flying allegorical figure blows on a trumpet, and holds in his other hand a branch of laurel or bay, over the name of Louis before mentioned. Below this a soldier on horseback occupies considerable space. This is, perhaps, the king himself. He is turned in his saddle to face the spectator, and is even more elabo- rate^ dressed than the other brave gentle- man. His raised hand holds a field-marshal's baton. The remaining space is entirely filled with a picture of NAMUR, also labelled. The town, rising steeply on the right, is divided by a broad river with two vessels on it, crossed by a bridge of boats. It is strongly walled with a double line of defence and forts. The church, several Gothic turrets, and one or two quaint chimneys may be distinguished.

As Namur, taken by Louis XIV. in 1692, was retaken by William III. in 1695, the date of the napkin is practically fixed ; and in the lack of evidence to the contrary, I have assumed it to have been brought as spoil by an ancestor who was certainly an officer in William's service.

When did Char adopt its lengthened form of Charleroi ? for I suppose it is the same place. And am I right in supposing that linen woven with the king's name and the royal arms was only used in the royal household ? I understand that Marl- borough's victories a few years later were commemorated in a similar manner. The Peasant Arts Society might consider the idea in relation to their hand-looms.

MARGARET LAVINOTON.

Chudleigh House, Bideford.

[Another tablecloth of " Louis XIIII." is described by MK. W. MEKCER at 10 S. xii. 408. See also 8 S. vi. 286; 9 S. vii. 446 ; 10 S. xii. 451.]

FOLK-LORE OF DEATH. (See 11 S. ix. 128, 196, 236, 278, 296, 350, 414.} There must be among sailors curious customs and superstitions connected with death and burial at sea. In ' The Life of a Sailor,' by a Captain in the Navy, vol. i., published 1832, we read :

" It is the business of the sail maker to sew up the corpse in a hammock, and consequently he goes to the disagreeable task unhesitatingly, as it is his duty. The canvas is cut to fit the body, and the head .... The body being shrouded in its last vestments, the canvass stitched tightly round, and two shot attached to the feet, is then left on a grating under the half-deck covered over with a Union-jack. I have heard it said that it was customary to run the needle of the last stitch through the nose of the corpse."

In the same volume there is an account of a captain who goes mad and cuts his throat.

The body is put into a cask, and this filled with rum. The sailors express fear at the doubling of the body, because " he looks as if he did not like it." They drink his safe passage to heaven ; and said Peter :

"'Now the Captain's dead and gone, you forgive him all the wrongs he did you ? ' ' O yes,' replied the coxswain, ' I forgive him, of course ; but ' ' But what ? ' said Peter. ' But,' con- tinued the coxswain, ' if the devil does not get him, he ought to lose his place.' "

We have often heard of a body preserved in a cask of rum on shipboard, and of queer stories of subsequent adventures.

In another account of a death in Jamaica a lad is shot through the brain

" the blacks [women] rushed to the body, and each endeavoured to get her mouth over the dying boy's ; and each, as she neared his lips, started up and cried, ' I have it I 1 have it ! ' meaning that she had caught his soul."

GEORGE WHERRY. Cambridge.

WHARTON FAMILY PORTRAITS. The fol- lowing interesting list of family pictures occurs in an inventory of the goods of Margaret, Lady Sulyarde (Add. MS. 34,784). Lady Sulyarde was the daughter of Philip, fourth Baron Wharton, by his second wife, Jane, daughter of Arthur Good- wyn of Upper Winchendon, co. Bucks. She married, first, Major Dunch of Pusey ; second, Sir Thomas Sulyarde ; third, William Ross :

" In my Lady's closet, seven small pictures don on pannels, viz. The Lord Wharton, my lady's father [Philip, 4th Baron] ; the Lady Wharton, my lady's mother ; Collonel Goodwin, my lady's grandfather ; Col. Goodwin's lady, my lady's grandmother ; Sr. Thomas Wharton, my lady's uncle ; the Lady Lindsey, my lady's half-sister [Elizabeth, daughter of Philip, 4th Baron, by his first wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Sir Rowland Wandesford, Kt., of Pickhay, co. York, and wife of Robert, 3rd Earl of Lindsey] ; Mr. Thomas Wharton, my lady's eldest brother [Thomas, 5th Baron] ; Lady Catherine Carr, in water colours ; Philip, Lord Wharton, my lady's father, in his Parlit. Robes, by Kneller ; Ld. Wharton's 2d. lady, my lady's mother ; present Lady Wharton [? Lucy, daughter of Lord Lisburn, and wife of Thomas, 5th Baron] ; Lord Wharton's 3d. lady [Anne, daughter of William Carr, and widow of Edward Popham, married, as his third wife, Philip, 4th Baron] ; Lord Willoughby, eldest son of Lord Lindsey, and my lady's nephew ; Mr. Thomas Wharton, my lady's eldest brother, and Mr. Thomas Wharton's lady, both by Kneller ; Mrs. Margaret and Mr. Wharton Dunche, my lady's youngest son and daughter [by her first husband] ; Sir Thomas Wharton, my lady's grandfather [d. 1622] ; Lady Wharton, my lady's grandmother [wife of Sir Thomas, and daughter of Robert, Earl of Monmouth] ; Ld. Cobham, in an