Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 1.djvu/107

 128. I. FEB. 5, 1916.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

101

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 5, 1916.

CONTENTS.-No. 6.

NOTES; Contributions to the History of European Travel, 101 Materia Medina in the Talmudic Age, 102 Huntingdonshire Civil War Tracts, 105 Elizabeth Daughter of Sir Philip Sidney The Black Hole o Calcutta Thomas Seward, lO-'.

QUERIES : Was Keats a Christian? 108 Sticking Plaster Portraits Allan Ramsay De Peauly of Kallen bach, 109 Bushton The Mother of George Frederic" Cooke, Tragedian Author Wanted Statue of Maxi milian Stuart, Count d'Albanie John Price Pete joye Col. John Campbell of Shankston in Ayrshire The Shades, London Bridge, 110 Jousterant, Miniatur Painter Sources of Southey's 'ThaKba' A Fellow Lodger of Benjamin Franklin Isabel Heywood an Prince Leopold Female Novelists, 1785-1815 E. Cashi 'The Final Toast,' 111

fREPLIES : Death Warrants, 111 The Effect of Opening a Coffin, 113 Frodsham -Papal Insignia" Staig," 116 Village Pounds Authors Wanted Clockmakers : Cam pigne General Sir Robert Wilson Francis Meres anc John Florio, 117 J. B. Braithwaite Life of Johnson in the 1825 Oxford Edition of his Works Tigers' Whiskers 118.

TfOTES ON BOOKS: The Oxford Dictionary The Fortnightly Review' 'The Nineteenth Century' 'The Cornhill.'

Notices to Correspondents.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HISTORY

OF EUROPEAN TRAVEL.

(See ante, p. 61.)

II. SIR GEORGE CHAWORTH.

SIR GEORGE CHAWORTH, afterwards Viscount Chaworth, travelled to Brussels in 1621 as special Ambassador from James I. to the Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess of Austria, daughter of Philip IT. of Spain, to condole with her on the death of her husband, the Archduke Albert. This was the ostensible cause of his journey, but the real object was to solicit her Highness for a cessation of arms in the Palatinate until a treaty of peace could be concluded. Chaworth' s own account of the journey and the preparations for it is printed in A. J. Kempe's .' Loseley Manuscripts,' London, 1836, pp. 418-87. For his travels Chaworbh furnished himself with " a cassack, breeches and cloak of black cloth called ffrench blew, verie fyne, and a stuff doblett of black perpetuana. ' ' These were to be his ' rydeing ^loathes, w th slyvers of welch cotton ov' ye

breeches and a ryding coate w th wyde sleeves ov' ye doblett " when he journeyed. The cloak and cassock, being handsomely folded up and put into a black cotton bag, were to be carried by one of his pages. He suited his son Gilbert also, for riding like himself in all points, but " dyd not buye him a syde cloake of cloth, but only ye ryding sute " like his own. He is careful to record all his bills and expenses, and on Thursday, Oct. 4, 1621, he begins his journey. He carried with him 10 servants, including his interpreter, and 3 gentlemen voluntaries who travelled with their servants, in all 18 persons.

An entry at the commencement of the journey is interesting as showing the addi- tional and unlooked-for expenses to which travellers at this time were constantly subjected. At Dover a servant was dis- patched to hire a boat to carry them to Calais. The price worked out at 41. , but " for carrying me and my companie to y e shipp " an additional 19s. 6d. was extracted. At Calais the procedure was even more expensive :

" Before I could get to Calais it was lowe water and I could not gett neare w th my shipp to land, and (after long staye in bargaining) was forced to give ye ffrench skippers for a long boate to Jande me and my companie w th me, leaving my stuff aboard until y e tyde arose, I say they wold have 44s. And after to carye me over the creke 3s."

The crossing was usually made in four, five, or six hours. Chaworth' s boat took six hours, but owing to calm and mist it was sixteen hours before he could land. Calais did not please him ; it was a

' beggerly extorting towne, ill effected to y e English, monstrose deere and sluttish, verie incivil ; the garrison there turneing dyrect )eggers of all ambassadors. The best is (in y e cource it ys in) it will not long be a towne, being so neglected at both ends (for ye sea almost com- passeth it) that y 6 sea (it ys to be hoped) will ^evendge our quarell and regaine it and swallowe fc, being alreadic on y e too ends at high tydes unaccessible."

From Calais he travelled post to Bruges >y way of Gravelines, Dunkirk, Nieuport,

and Ostend. Ghent was reached next, and hen Alost, where he was robbed of about !50 in English gold by one of his servants,

Oliver, "my theefe," who broke open a runk and decamped. The trunk, however, yas repaired at a cost of Is. 9cZ. ; and in due ourse the party reached Brussels and Chaworth had his first audience with the nfanta. Some ten days or so were spent n audiences and courtesies, and on Oct. 30 haworth departed for Antwerp by water,