Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 10.djvu/197

12 S. X. FEB. 25, 1922.] NOTES AND QUERIES. 159 (12 S. ix. 354).—On Sept. 14, 1789, the Rev. George Mangles was appointed one of the Chaplains-in-Ordinary to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales. He may have been the father of one of the boys referred to as having been admitted to Westminster School in 1787 and 1810 respectively.

(12 S. x. ill). 3. My copy of the lines beginning "What silences we keep year after year" was cut out of a newspaper about 20 years ago. There is no author's name attached. The title is 'Too Late!' and in the tenth line the word is "loneliness." There are also other six lines:—

This is the cruel cross of life—to be Full visioned only when the ministry Of death has been fulfilled, and in the place Of some dear presence is but empty space. What recollected services can then Give consolation for the 'might have been'?"

(12 S. x. 94.) The late Sister Xavier (of the Convent, Liver- pool ?) was the author of ' Just for to-day,' the correct version of which will be found in the * Westminster Hymnal ' and other collec- tions of Catholic hymns. Other versions have been adapted by other denominations, who have, in some cases, taken great liberties with the hymn altering the teaching and missing out the verses dealing with purgatory, supreme unction and sacramental teaching. J. FAIRFAX-BLAKEBOROUGH. Grove House, Norton-on-Tees. JSote* on JSoofe*. The Grey Friars of Chester. By J. H. E. Bennett. From the Chester Archaeological Society's Journal. THE Grey Friars came to Chester in the reign of Henry III. The Black Friars had preceded them and seem to have seen their arrival with un- favourable eyes. Alexander de Stavensby, bishop of Coventry and Licb field, to whose diocese Chester then belonged, received from Robert Grosseteste, always the friend of Franciscans, a letter of remonstrance and appeal on their behalf, which yet remains to us. In 1240 Henry sent an injunction to the " Custodes " of Chester to be serviceable to the Friars Minors in the building of a house in Chester, and from that date their permanent establishment in the city was assured. Three grants in the years 1245 and 1246 show us that the settlement was not yet complete : they wanted the removal of a lane which disturbed their peace ; and stone from the fosse of Chester Castle for their building, and a door pierced for them in Chester wall to enable them the more conveniently to bring in stone and wood. The site allotted to them was close under the city wall by the Water Gate, north of Watergate Street, and west of Linen Hall Street. For three hundred years they lived there, and departed at the Disso- lution, leaving little trace behind them. What we know of their history is very largely comprised in the record of gifts and bequests made to them. In 1331 the King gave them permission to grind their own corn and malt. In 1 392 two of the friars were imprisoned for having too briskly taken possession of gold and silver goods, probably left them as a legacy, when the testator's estate was indebted to the Crown. Richard II. pardoned them. The Franciscans, it may be noted, were staunch friends to Richard. Later on, they took the Yorkist side. When the Dissolution came this Chester house was in no very flourishing state. But seven brethren were dwelling there and the plea of poverty, with which the surrender of a religious house was usually bound up, came here not very far from the truth, as may be seen by the inventory of their goods. William Wall, the Warden, who took his degree of Doctor of Divinity at Oxford in 1516 or 1518, had an interesting but not wholly admirable career after his expulsion from the convent. He became a prebendary of Chester Cathedral, and conformed and reconformed as religion in England changed. Just before the Dissolution he had been active in building a conduit at Boughton for conveying water from the springs in that neighbourhood to the city. When the Grey Friars were gone the site and the buildings they had occupied were delivered to one Richard Hough, a connexion of Cromwell's, and from him they passed succes- sively into the hands of Cocks, Dutton, War- burton and Stanley. The church was transformed into dwelling-houses. Towards the end of the eighteenth century a body of Irish linen mer- chants acquired the property and erected their Linen Hall upon it. A few relics, mostly in the shape of tiles and grotesque carvings, yet remain, together with an impression of the conventual seal attached to a deed granting part of the friary church to merchants and sailors of the city. Excavations have brought to light some part of the founda- tions of the church and other buildings : while the inventory taken at the Dissolution and a deposition taken in a dispute as to the right to bear certain arms supply some details as to the interior. Mr. Bennett has collected and arranged his material with admirable care and skill. He has neglected no line of research, and puts his readers into complete possession of what he has found. The record is somewhat meagre, nor does it present unusual features : but it has its rightful place in the history of English Church life and, thanks to this monograph, fills that place in some suffi- cient clearness and relief. The undistinguished constitutes the most important part of history after all. A New English Dictionary on Historical Prin- ciples. Vol. x. (TI. Z) X ZYXT. By C. T. Onions. (Clarendon Press. 10s. net.) ALTHOUGH the Great Dictionary still lacks a few sections belonging to the later letters of the alphabet, the final section is now before us. It is