Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 4.djvu/360

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NOTES AND QUERIES. m s. iv. OCT. -28, 1911.

appears probable that the Alcaide's men effected it, Cabra, Marshal of Castile, being in supreme command. The authority men- tioned states (p. 44) that the troops which encountered the Moorish king, after he abandoned the siege of Lucena where the Alcaide had been shut up marched under the banner of the Count's town of Cabra, not that of (his lordship) Baena.

According to Washington Irving (' Con- quest of Granada,' cap. xv.), whose authority was, of course, Antonio de Agapida, departure from home, he had forgotten to bring the standard of Vaena, which for upwards of eighty years had always been borne to battle by his family.... He took, therefore, the standard of Cabra, the device of which is a goat and which had not been in the wars for the last half -century."
 * ' the Co\mt discovered that, in the hurry of his

According to this version also (cap. xvi.), it was to the young Diego Fernandez de Cordova, Alcaide of Los JJonceles (lord of Comares), that Boabdil surrendered.

This Count of Cabra died in 1487 ; the sig- nature of his eldest son, successor, and name- sake is among the first appended to the capitulation deed of the city of Granada at its fall in 1491. SICILE.

MILITARY EXECUTIONS (11 S. iv. 8, 57, 98, 157, 193, 237, 295). MR. CHARLES S. BTJRDON states that during the South African War, " although the death penalty was awarded several times by courts- martial to British soldiers .... this was invariably commuted by the G.O.C. to penal servitude," &c. It will, however, be re- membered that three officers of the Aus- tralian contingent were shot by sentence of a court-martial, held under the orders of Lord Kitchener, for the murder of a Boer prisoner.

The last execution of an English regular soldier for a military offence was that which took place in 1861 or 1862 shortly after the amalgamation of the local European force in India with the British Army. There was a good deal of discontent with the terms of re-enlistment, &c., and this at last cul- minated in open mutiny. Sir Hugh Rose, who was then Commanuer-in-Chief in India, thought the time had come to make an ex- ample, and an unfortunate soldier had to pay the penalty. I was then a young officer serving in India, and the incident naturally made a great impression on rne.

W. F. PRIDEATJX.

LEARNED HORSES (11 S. iv. 285). How did Banks's horse get to the top of St. Paul's to " override the vane " ? I imagine by means of inclined planes, which may have

been attached to the scaffolding used in rebuilding the spire ; for I think I am right in saying that the damage done by lightning to that lofty erection had not been made up for when Morocco was famous. How- ever, there is in Hone's ' Table Book ' (p. 540) a passage from Malcolm's ' Manners of Europe ' which makes me doubt my own rationalistic explanation of the marvel :

"On the last day of February, 1680 a pers9n

adorned in a tinsel riding habit, haying a gilt helmet on his head and holding in his right hand a lance, in his left a helmet [?] made of a thin piece of plate gilded, and sitting upon a white horse, with a swift pace ambled up a rope six hundred feet long, fastened from the quay to the top of St. Mark s tower [Venice]. When he had arrived half way, his tinsel coat fell off, and he made a stand, and, stoop- ing his lance submissively, saluted the doge sitting in the palace, and flourished the banner three times over his head. Then, resuming his former speed, he went on, and, with his horse, entered the tower where the bell hangs ; and presently returning on foot, he climbed up to the highest pinnacle ot the tower ; where sitting on the golden angel he nourished his banner again several times. This performed, he descended to the bell-tower; and there taking horse rode down again to the bottom in like manner as he had ascended," i.e., on the rope.

ST. SWITHIN.

A contribution from Pepys's Diary may be added to the information already given on 1 September, 1668 :

"To Bartholomew Fair, and there saw the

Mare that tells money, and many things to admira- tion."

On 7 September :

" Saw the dancing mare again, which to-day I find to act much worse than the other, she forgetting many things."

For the wonderful horse of the year 1595 with an illustration, see Chambers' s ' Book of Days,' i. 225. TOM JONES.

D' Israeli in the ' Curiosities of Literature ' (George Koutledge & Sons, 1865), vol. i. p. 169, states :

" A horse that had been taught to tell the spots upon cards, the hour of the day, &c., by significant tokens, was, together with his owner, put into the Inquisition for both of them dealing with the devil ! "

HUGH S. MACLEAN.

Bury.

" OLD CLEM " : ' GREAT EXPECTATIONS ' (11 S. iv. 289). The Folk-lore Journal, vol. ii. (1884), contains, pp. 321-9, a valuable paper by Mr. Frederick E. Sawyer on ' " Old Clem " Celebrations and Blacksmiths' Lore.' In it is a legend taken down by a Steyning doctor from the lips of a Sussex blacksmith, embodying the song of ' The Jolly Black- smith,' the words of which, says Mr. Sawyer