Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/355

 us. v. AFRO, is, 1912.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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or Nottingham, was met by " the Devil,'' whose appearance was that of a horned giant, hairy, and with fire flashing about him. The apparition turned into an animal, on whose back was a goblin boy, face to the tail, which he held in his hand. Is anything known of this " devil -tale," and was it in chapbook form hawked by pedlars ?

THOS. RATCLIFFE.

Miss Buss AND Miss BE ALE. In the seventies possibly later also there was current at Cheltenham College a string of rimes purporting to be a dialogue, ' Said Miss Beale to ivjiss Buss.' Can any one give a complete version ? HYLLARA.

THE LEGEND OF THE LAST

LORD LOVELL.

(11 S. v. 167.)

THERE is no evidence in favour of connecting this story with the village of Upton Love 11 in Wiltshire, but there is abundant evidence to connect it with Minster Lovell in Oxford- shire. The Lovell family were lords of Upton Lovell, but Minster Lovell was their resi- dence. Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the historian of Wiltshire, in his 'Modern Wiltshire,' 1822 (Heytesbury Hundred, pp. 191-2), gives an account of Upton Lovell, but dissociates the story of the disappearance of Lord Lovell with that place, and connects it with Minster Lovell. He gives a fairly full pedigree of the Lovells, and adds that "in the church [viz., Upton Lovell] is an effigy of a knight, in armour, with hands uplifted and a dog at his feet. Tradition attributes this to one of the Lords Lovell here bxiried, but there is nothing on the tomb whereby this fact [? state- ment] may be ascertained."

Now the connexion of the Lovells with Minster Lovell is well known, and the story of the skeleton as well. I give in chrono- logical order various evidence with regard to this connexion, and the evidence, also, as to the finding of the skeleton. Although it will probably never be known for certain whether the bones found were those of Francis, Lord Lovell, yet from the autho- rities quoted there is much reason to suppose that they were. In the Inquisitio Post Mortem, 26 Henry VIII. (1534-5), No.' 110, the jurors found that Lord Lovell had died in foreign parts ; but let it be borne in mind that neither these jurors nor any one else

at that time had any knowledge of the finding of the skeleton, which discovery was not made until 1708, as will be seen below. Since 1708 the story has been generally believed that the body found in the vault was that of Lord Lovell.

1190-7." Of William, the first of this line [i.e., Lords Lovell], very little is said ; but it appears he was lord of Minster, Com. Oxon, and that he was dead before the 8th of Richard I., for in that year his son was possessed of the inheritance. Who the lady was that he married cannot be affirmed ; although it is certain her name was Maud, and that she was living the 8th of John, being then a widow." Banks 's ' Dor- mant and Extinct Baronage,' 1808, ii. 316.

Banks gives the story of the skeleton and says he believes it.

1540 (circa}. " Thens about a myle to Mynster village havynge the name of Lovell somtyme lorde of it. There is an auucient place of the Lovels harde by the churche." Leland's ' Itinerary ' (ed. Toulmin Smith), v. l'\.

1622. Bacon publishes his ' History of Henry VII.,' in which he says that after the battle of Stoke-on-Trent, " of the Lord Lovel. there went a report that he fled, and swam over Trent on horseback, but could not recover the farther side by reason of the steepness of the bank, .and so was drowned in the river. But another report leaves him not there, but that he lived long after in a cave or vault." Bacon's ' Henry VII.,' ' Works,' vol. iii. (Pickering ) 1825.

This last sentence is most important, because it shows that there existed in Bacon's time, a hundred years before the skeleton was found, a report that Lord Lovell had died in hiding and had not been drowned.

1644. Richard Symonds refers in his ' Diary ' to the " ancient howse of the Lord Lovel " at Minster Lovell, and he gives a list of tombs in the church and the heraldry of the same. Symonds's ' Diary ' was issued by the Camden Societv, 1859 (see pp. 15-17).

1729. Buck's ' View of Minster Lovell ' engraved and issued. From this it will be seen that the house was then in a perfect state. J. A. Giles, in his ' History of Witney and Neighbourhood.' says (in 1852) : " The 120 years which have passed since the date of Buck's engraving have made a great alteration in the appearance of the ruins."

1737 (9 August). William Cowper, " clerk of the Parliaments," writes a letter from Hertingfordbury Park (on this date) to Francis Peck printed in Peck's ' Col- lection of Divers Curious Historical Pieces,' 1740, p. 87. It is headed

" Part of a letter written to the publisher [Peck \yas his own publisher] by William Cowper./...