Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 9.djvu/161

 us. ix. FEB. 2i, 1911] NOTES AND QUERIES.

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for he leaves the land he had reclaimed from the sea in trust for his family. To his wife he leaves 150Z., jewels, and household effects, including " our ffustian Bed which is not yet finished, part of which she herself e hath wrought." His wife was enceinte at the time of his death, and he directs that " if the child my wife now goeth with be a sonne," he is eventually to enjoy two -thirds of the estate, but if a girl the property is to be divided equally between her and his daughter Katherine. To each of his servants he leaves forty shillings, and a like sum to the poor of St. Martin's. To his sister Willmott, to his nephew William Quartermain, to his father- in-law Sir Thomas Dyke, and to Sir Stephen Foxe, " Clerke of the Green Cloth," he leaves five pounds each. He makes Mary Quartermaine his wife executrix of his will ; but he appoints Sir Thomas Dyke, Sir Stephen Foxe, and Francis Branston trus- tees of his estate (the reclaimed land) at Portsea. The will is dated 4 June, 1667, that is, a few days before his death.

S. D. CLIPPINGDALE, M.D.

' MEMOIRS OF SIB JOHN LANGHAM, BART.' (11 S. viii. 281, 351, 463 ; ix. 16, 53). Dr. Simon Ford, Vicar of St. Laurence's, Read- ing, dedicated to his " noble and learned friend, Sir James Langham, Knight and Baronet," a collection of Latin poems en- titled :

" Poemata Londinensia, jam tandem consummata, et in unum volumen redacta. Carmen funebre, ex occasione Northampton* conflagrate cqropositum Opera S. Ford, S.T.D. auctoris poematis de con- flagratione Londini, &e. Londini, 1676," 4 to. Charles Coates, LL.R, F.S.A., p. 209 ;
 * History and Antiquities of Reading,' by Rev.

and at p. 213 the sermon referred to at 11 S. viii. 352 :

" Christian acquiescence, preached at the inter- ment of Lady Elizabeth Laugham, wife of Sir James Langham, on Acts xxi. 14. London, 1665,"

Sandgate.

R. J. FYNMORE.

EDWARD WETENHALL, BISHOP OF Kn> MORE (US. ii. 88, 372, 434). There was an inquiry at the first of the above references about the first wife of Bishop Weterihall. It went unanswered, and I believe it is not known who she was. Perhaps the following may give a clue.

In looking over some old English letters preserved in my mother's family, I notice the following passage in a letter from Helen {Wolseley) Sprat, widow of Bishop Thomas .Sprat, to her great-niece, Mrs. Alicia (Arnold)

Ross, at Annapolis, Maryland, who was daughter of Michael and Anne (Knipe) Arnold of St. Margaret's, Westminster. The letter is dated 15 Jan., 1724/5.

"As to Mrs. Rosier [RozerJ her grandfather

and gran have been often at the palace at

Bromley and she was a woman and a fine one too and Mr. Whettenall one of the handsomest men I ever saw. I was then a girl of about 15 and she was about 24 and going to a monastery but was like to so staid not a year, then Mr. Whetnall married her when she came back and a happy couple they were."

Mrs. Rozer was Elizabeth Wetenhall sister of Dr. John Wetenhall of St. Mary's County, Md., and a genealogist here tells me a daughter of Edward Wetenhall, son of Bishop Wetenhall by his first wife. As Mrs. Helen (Wolseley) Sprat was probably living with her father, Col. Devereux Wolseley, at Ravenstone, in Leicestershire, when she was 15 (i.e., about 1661), and knew so well of this marriage, the Bishop's first wife was probably of that county or Derbyshire, close adjoining, and, it would seem, of Catholic descent.

MCHENRY HOWARD. 901, St. Paul Street, Baltimore, Maryland.

A JUSTIFICATION OF KING JOHN (US. ix. 63). I am not able to justify King John, but I can supply the reprint from Berrow's Worcester Journal of 20 July, 1797 (which I preserved in 1897), of the account of the investigations of that year in the tomb. This is evidently by an eyewitness, and Green's account was probably cut down from it. The most likely explanation is that the cap was buckled tightly to keep the jaw in place. My great-grandfather was one of those who viewed the remains.

A HUNDRED YEARS AGO. " The public curi- osity in this city and neighbourhood was excited to a very considerable degree on Monday last, from the circumstance of King John's remains, which were interred in our Cathedral in the year 1216, being discovered on opening the tomb in the choir, for the purpose of removing it to a more con- venient place (as the Cathedral is now undergoing a complete repair), it not being supposed to cover the body. The remains of the King were found in an open stone coffin under the tomb, but from their appearance it is conjectured they must have been removed heretofore from some other part of the Cathedral ; the body was wrapped in what seemed to be, or might b3 supposed to have been, a crimson damask robe, as, though so much perished by time, it seemed to indicate that colour ; the cuff visible on the left arm, which had probably held his sword, a fragment of which lay on his left thigh, and parts of the leather scabbard down the side of the left leg ; the robe had been tied across the ankles, part of the knot remaining on that of the left ; the robe perished, and the tips of the toes visible : the right leg seemed to have been contracted,