Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 3.djvu/461

 ii s. ni. JUNE 10, mi.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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thus indicating that it was not known to the public at the two latter dates. There is no difficulty in supposing that Udal added a few lines to his play even later than 1553. The queen can hardly have been any one else than Mary. We must remember that in 1554 an Act was passed " declaring that the regall power of this realme is in the quenes majestie [Mary] as fully and absolutely as ever it was in any of her moste noble pro- genitours Kinges of this realme." There is surely no insurmountable obstacle to believ- ing that Udal, moved by a similar spirit of loyalty, may have added, in 1554, a few lines to his play, in honour of the Queen.

w. s. s.

JUNTOS AND THE HOBSEWHIPPING OF THE

DUKE OF BEDFORD (US. iii. 227, 292, 375, 410). Happening to be at Somerset House recently, I consulted the will of Gertrude, Duchess of Bedford, as suggested by MB. O. W. E. RUSSELL at the last reference. It is dated 16 November, 1786, and was proved 1 1 July, 1794. The reference number is P.C.C. 384 Holman. It is very short, and contains no reference of any sort to the alleged assault on the Duke, nor is there any specific bequest of plate to anybody.

ALAN STEWABT.

ROEITES OF CALVEBTON : WBOEITES OF AUSTBALIA (11 S. iii. 385). Beyond a similarity in the names of their founders there is no doctrinal or historical connexion between these sects. The Wroeites or Christian Israelites emanated originally from the followers of Joanna Southcott. See Blunt's * Dictionary of Sects,' p. 107, the notice of John Wroe in the ' D.N.B.,' and the late J. Fitzgerald Molloy's ' Faiths of the Peoples,' vol. i. p. 102. Blunt says : " The sect has a larger body of adherents in Australia than in England." During my boyhood in Australia they were fairly numerous, but now I believe they are practi- cally non-existent there as an organized body. Their popular nickname was " Beardies," as it was an article of their faith never to cut their hair. Wroe made several missionary tours in Australia, and he was most successful in the eastern suburbs of Melbourne. The ' D.N.B.' says he died at Collingwood, Melbourne. That is not strictly accurate. He passed away in the house attached to the Christian Israelite Sanctuary in Fitzroy, a Melbourne suburb adjoining Collingwood. Wakefield, York- shire, is, or was, the head-quarters of the Cliristian Israelites, and there Wroe built

himself a handsome residence, which he christened " Melbourne House," in compli- ment to his Australian adherents in that city, who provided most of the funds for its erection. As the sect is supposed to have vanished, or nearly so, in England as well as in Australia, it would be interesting to know who now claims the ownership of Melbourne House, who occupies it, and whether the law concerning valuable pro- perty left by departed sects has ever been authoritatively or judicially declared in this country. J. F. HOGAN.

Royal Colonial Institute,

Northumberland Avenue.

The Wroeites were the followers of John Wroe, who was born at Bowling, in the parish of Bradford, Yorkshire, in 1782, and died in Australia in 1863. The best account of him that I know is in Mr. Baring-Gould's 'Yorkshire Oddities,' 1890, pp. 28-58. Many publications by and about him were issued at Wakefield, 1834-8. Of Daniel Milton, who claimed to be his successor, some particulars are furnished in The Yorkshire Post, 26 Nov., 1898. See more in Boase, ' Mod. Engl. Biog.,' iii. 1524.

W. C. B.

The full notice of John Wroe, 1782-1863, a native of Bowling, Bradford, Yorks, to be found in the ' D.N.B.,' vol. Ixiii. p. 158 (1900), seems completely to negative the idea that he, or his followers, had anything in common with the fanatics of Calverton. No mention of John Roe is in the ' D.N.B.'

W. B. H.

Communications that have reached me since the appearance of my note convince me that the imagined discovery is a mare's nest. It seems that John Wroe was born at Bradford in 1782, and associated cir- cumstances, so far as I have been made acquainted with them, afford no ground for presuming any sort of association between Roe and Wroe, or between the respective sects.

One correspondent has brought to my notice the writings of John Ward, a con- temporary prophet of the same class, whose advertised writings run into 16 volumes, whereof the sixth is described as an ' Address to the Wroeites.' I am told that a small body of this sect continues to meet in the present day, at or near Wakefield.

A. STAPLETON.

39, Burford Road, Nottingham.

[Some particulars of John Ward will be found at 10 S. xi.354.]