Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/161

 ii s. iv. AUK. 19, ion.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

155

I

<curred the King's displeasure, he was set upon while staying at Donibristle Castle, Fifeshire, and slain by Gordon of Cluny of royal connivance. His personal appear- ance, apart from the language of the ballad, is described by historians in general terms.
 * ,nd the Earl of Huntly, not without suspicion

S. S. W.

YEWS IN CHURCHYARDS (US. iv. 63). If my suggestion that the Ewecross wapeii- take of Yorkshire was originally named Yewcross will hold, there must have been in early times a conspicuous cross made of yew on some elevated place in the district ; see 11 S. iii. 464. W. C. B.

" FIVES COURT," ST. MARTIN'S LANE : TENNIS COURT, HAYMARKET (11 S. iv. 110). The exact site of the Fives Court, St. Martin's Street, is given in Lockie's (not Leckie's) ' Topography of London,' 1810, as " behind 26, four doors on the R. from Whitcomb-st. The wall of the Upper King's Mews is the eastern boundary of It." Not much information about it can be found in topographical works, and the sporting books quoted by Dr. SIEVEKING are more concerned with the events that took place within it* walls than with its site, which a hundred years ago was, of course, as well known as Lord's is at the present day. The following quotation from ' Doings in London,' a, once favourite book illustrated by Robert Cruikshank, gives a slight sketch of its history :

" Pigg erected in 1725 the first amphitheatre for sparring in England at the top of Wells Street, Oxford "Road, then called Marybone Fields. ... .In 1781, Pigg opened an exhibition-room for sparring in Catherine Street, Strand, which was -a favourite resort for many years, until the Fives' Court, St. Martin's Street, Leicester Square, was found more advantageous. It was here I wit- nessed the .sparring between Molineus and Cribb. 1 got into the gallery, commanding a fine view of the stage and all the proceedings of the day. So crowded was the court, so closely wedged together were the spectators, that when, on the cry of ' hats off,' all eyes were raised and directed to the stage, the va^t and crowded area below seemed thickly paved with human faces The Fives' Court rush the flash the rally, The noise of ' Go it, Jack ' the stop the blow, The shout the chattering hit the check the sally 1

But Fives' Court is no more I The improve- ments in the neighbour-hood caused its wall? to fee levelled to the ground ; and the amateurs and professors of boxing have since reverted to this Tennis Court, the first benefit being for the black, Richmond, on February 28, 1820." Pp. 1915,

It will be seen from this account that the

existence of the Fives' Court as an arena

for boxing was not of long duration probably

from twenty-five to thirty years. " This


 * Tennis Court," as we learn from the same

! work, was situated in Windmill Street, Hay-

! market. It seems to have been a different

I court from that situated in James Street,

Haymarket. W. F. PRIDE ATJX.

Some years ago about twenty I dealt with a wine merchant named Norris, whose premises stood where now stand Sir John Dewar's offices in the Haymarket. One day the son of the house took me into the wine vaults, and showed me one in particular which he said was one of the original courts where " fives " and " pell mell " were played. The courts at one time reached as far as Whitcomb Street, Pall Mall East.

S. J. A. F.

" J'Y SUIS, J'Y EESTE " (11 S. iv. 44,

94). Baron de Bazancourt in ' L' Expe- dition de Crimee,' Paris, 1856, deuxieme partie, p. 435, writes that MacMahon spoke truly when he replied the night before to General Niel, who had said that the winning of the day depended on the taking of the Malakoff, " J'y entrerai, et soyez certain que je n'en sortirai pas vivant."

In The Illustrated Times, vol. i. p. 287 (6 October, 1855), is an English translation of an account of the French attack on the Malakhoff (sic) and the Little Redan, wTitten by the correspondent of La Presse. " It is by far the best account of these brilliant assaults that has yet been penned." So says The Illustrated Times. It is dated " Before . Sebastopol, Sept. 15." In it I find:

" At 3 o'clock, General M'Mahon [sic] sent to General Pelissier, who was at the Green Mamelon, 500 metres distant from the Malakhoff, behind a parapet of earth-sacks, a letter thus worded : ' I am in the Malakhoff, and sure of maintaining myself in it.'

" He had, in fact, just overcome the last efforts of ^resistance on the part of the Russians. No sooner had they been driven out of the redoubt through the gorge that leads to huge barracks adjacent to the Malakhoff, and long supposed by us to be a fort, than they strengthened their numbers, brought up their reserves, and rushed back to the ramparts with a fury quite unusual on their part. Our soldiers drove them out headlong a second time.

" The Russians were not beaten yet ; they made another desperate attempt ; their prodigious efforts were foiled by the cool intrepidity of our soldiers

" Tt was after this double attack that Genera* M'Mahon wrote the note to General Pelissier."