Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 12.djvu/366

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NOTES AND QUERIES. rn s. xn. NOV. 6, 1915.

SIR THOMAS TRESHAM'S HOUSE- HOLD : " OTHER NECESSARIES."

SIB THOMAS TBESHAM (1543-1605), though brought up a Protestant, became a Roman Catholic in 1580, and in the following year was committed to the Fleet Prison for har- bouring Edmund Campion. He was confined for seven years, the latter part of the time at liis own houses at Hoxton and at Ely. After being released in 1588, he was again imprisoned in 1597 and 1599, and had to pay enormous annual fines. Some of the entries in an Account Book (1593-4) prob- ably kept by George Levens, steward to Sir Thomas, are very quaint ; moreover, they show how carefully even the smallest sums were noted. The household was a large one. There were six children and five servants : " Mawdlyn, the Frenchwoman ; Isabell Brokes ; the coke ; Elizabeth Turner ; and Anne Parker ; not counting Samuell the turkey man and the boye with hym." Here are one or two extracts :

" Three knives for Miss Marie, Miss Anna, and .Mistress Bridgett, and 6 yards of crewell for garters for them, ijs."

" To Morgan's maid bringing strawberries for the children, iijrf."

" Pins, half a thousand for the children, vjrf."

Also from another small private account >y the steward :

" Ten pence for soling of a pair of shoes, and d. ]for ' footing' a pair of stockings." " lost at cards, 15d."

In Lady Tresham's " accompte booke " i(1589) among necessaries are mentioned " needles, pynnes, starch, waxe light es," &c. ; and among " other necessaries," " lute stringes, virginall wyer, mending of musicall
 * instruments." This is very interesting, for it

shows that music was not regarded by the Treshams as a luxury, but as a necessary part of the children's education. The family then was musical, and it is by no means unlikely that, through Edmund Campion, Thomas Campion, the celebrated poet, dramatist, composer, and writer on music, visited the family ; for the two Campions are supposed to have been related. J. S. S.

CLARENDON AND SWALLOWFIELD. In Mr. Henslowe's ' Anne Hyde, Duchess of York ' a book in which I have been much in- terested, dealing as it does incidentally with Swallowfield there is an inaccuracy of i
 * ome importance. On p. 235 the author |

says : " Clarendon wrote the ' History of the Rebellion ' at a house in Swallowfield in Berkshire." This is not the case. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, died four years after his son Henry, Lord Cornbury, had married Flower, Lady Backhouse (not Buckhouse as Mr. Henslowe has it), and those four years were spent in exile in France. Lord Clarendon himself tells us that he commenced his ' History ' in Scilly during his six weeks' stay there with Prince Charles in 1646 that he continued it in Jersey, where he remained two years, and finished the first four books " at St. Hillarys " (St. Heliers).

In 1671 Lord Clarendon wrote to the king, informing him of the completion of his ' History,' and, being anxious to visit his son at Swallowfield, entreated

" that an old man who had served the Crown above 30 years in some truth and with some acceptation might be permitted to end his days in his own country " ; but his request was not granted.

CONSTANCE RUSSELL. Swallowfield Park, Reading.

EPIGRAM ON CARDINAL BONA. I have lately come across the following excellent epigram, which your readers will appreciate, if unknown to them, as it was heretofore to myself. It was written by a Jesuit, Dangieres, with reference to the candidature of Cardinal Bona for the Popedom in 1670 :

. Grammaticas leges plerumque Ecclesia spernit, Forte erit ut liceat dicere Papa Bona. Vana Soloecismi ne te conturbet imago, Esset Papa bonus, si Bona Papa foret.

S. R. C.

THE MAKING OF FOLK -POETRY. The following note seems to me to present real evidence concerning the manner of compo- sition of primitive folk-poetry and to lend colour to the theory of its spontaneous origin. Except for some doubt as to the order of the last two couplets (the four syllables at the end ought rather, perhaps, to come at the beginning), I am fairly certain as to the accuracy of the statement of facts. Two of the boys were of New England stock. I should be interested to learn something of the origin of the word " vance."

Four boys were playing marbles in Urbana Illinois. One boy, about to shoot at the marbles within the ring, shouted " Vance ! " (New York boys say " Fens !") by way of claiming special privilege of removing ob- stacles. The other boys danced about him to jar his nerves and spoil his aim. " Vance,