Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/268

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [ii a iv. SEPT. so, 1911.

was sold at Canons in 1747, and uncovered in Leicester Square in 1748.

In the ' Dictionary of National Biography ' I find, s.v. Brydges, James, first Duke of Chandos :

" The statue of George I. helped, till 1873, to make Leicester Square hideous."

As far as I know, there is no evidence of this until after the removal of Wyld's Great Globe and the mutilation of the statue. Any one reading the extract who knew no- thing about the state of Leicester Square forty years ago would believe that the statue was originally hideous.

Besides the references given above, there are some twenty-five to thirty in ' N. & Q.,' beginning with the First Series, ii. 21 1. They or most of them are to be found s.v. ' Leicester Square,' ' George I. statue in

and ' Baron Grant.' ROBERT PIERPOINT.

CROMWELLIANA.

(See 11 S. iii. 341 ; iv. 3, 103.) V. CROMWELL'S MONUMENT AND ITS FATE.

THE destruction of Cromwell's monument in Henry VII. 's Chapel at Westminster Abbey is an event described by modern writers as having taken place " at the Restoration." This is quite wrong : it was destroyed, at the end of May, 1659, by order of the restored Rump Parliament. William Younger published his ' Brief View of the late Troubles ' in August, 1660, stating that he first began this chronicle in the register book of his parish. After describing the downfall of Richard Cromwell and the restoration of the Rump in May, 1659, he continues :

" And now all mouthes are open in an instant against the late protector Oliver, reproaching him as the worst of Tyrants and Usurpers, tearing his hearse or statue in pieces, defacing and pulling down his sumptuous monument that was, but a few weeks before at a most vast charge, set up in Westminster."

The " Calendar of the MSS. of the Marquis of Bath at Longleat,'" vol. ii., published in 1907, sets out a letter from T. Ross at Brussels on 4 June (i.e. 25 May, O.S.) to Col. Gervase Holies, in " which the writer states that the Rump " with all voted old Cromwell a tyrant, and caused his statue to be demolished in West- minster, and sent Dick (with a promise of 10,000 per annum) to grass in the country."

The licensed newsbooks having been restored by the Rump, The Weekly Post, No. 5, for 31 May-7 June, 1659, p. 37, gives the following account of what took
 * >lace :

" The stately and magnificent monument of the late lord protector, set up at the upper end of the chancel in the Abbey at Westminster, is taken down by order of the Council of State, and publick sale made of the Crown, Scepter and other Royal ornaments after they were broken. The nscription set upon the wall is said to be this, Great in policy, but matchless in Tyranny.' [t was put up by one of the Royall party, but pull'd down by one of the soldiery."

Finally, a pamphlet entitled * Twenty- seven Queries relating to the general good of these nations. Which will neither please madmen nor displease rational men ' (6 June, 1659) inquires :

" Whether they that caused the great Engine set up in Henry the Seventh's Chappel to be baken down did not do better and more to the liking of all the good people of the Land than they that caused it to be set up ? "

The effigy was not destroyed, according to Winstanley's ' Worthies,' probably be- cause it had been deposited in the wainscot press previously mentioned, and "saved from the mob."

VI. A FRAUDULENT VERSION OF CROMWELL'S PRAYER PRINTED BY CARLYLE.

On 9 June, 1659, according to Thomason two or three weeks after the destruction of Cromwell's monument the following pam- phlet was published :

" A collection of several passages concerning his late highnesse, Oliver Cromwell, in the time of his sickness. Wherein is related many of his expressions upon his deathbed. Together with his prayer within two or three dayes before his death. Written by one that was then Groom of his Bedchamber. Entered according to order. London. Printed for Robert Ibbitson, dwelling in Smithfield near Hosier Lane end, 1659."

Ibbitson entered this tract, under this title, in the Stationers' Register on 7 June a fact which bears witness to the accuracy of Thomason' s dates.

Robert Ibbitson was the publisher of the " newsbooks," " relations," and other writings of Henry Walker, the ironmonger, from March, 1648, to September, 1655, when Cromwell made Nedham sole journalist. The date of the commencement of Walker's arrangement with Ibbitson, a sort of partner- ship, is shown by Walker's statement in his Perfect Occurrences, No. 65, for 24-31 March, 1648 :

" Reader ! I have now contracted with Robert Ibbitson, from whom I have assurance satisfactory