Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 2.djvu/61

 12 s. ii. JULY 10,1916] NOTES AND QUERIES.

"that can bo found for our use ; and those who carried it off shall be held to mainprise until the yre of the justices ; and if our justices can convict the eloiners of malice, they shall be punished by imprisonment and fine, but if malice be not found, they shall be punished by amerce- ment only."

The anonymous writer Fleta wrote his ' Com- mentary of the English Law ' in Latin in 1290, a Jew years later in date than ,. Bracton's work. Fleta was probably the treatise of a clerk or lawyer employed in the household of King Edward I., and was composed in the Fleet (Debtors') prison. Fleta describes the duties of the -Coroner more fully and accurately than any of his contemporaries, owing, possibly, to a personal acquaintance with the work of the Coroner of the King's household or Verge of his day. In ed. 1st, 1647, Bk. I., chap, xxv., on ' The Office of Coroner,' p. 38, fol. 11, Fleta says : " On the Coroner and Sheriff gaining knowledge of the finding of treasure they ought to inquire diligently about the finding and who were the finders, as to the nature and amount of the treasure, whether any of it has been carried away, and all particulars with regard to those in possession of the find, and whether there is any concealment by any one. The Coroner must then attach all those having knowledge of the treasure, and hold to mainprise any one having carried off the treasure until the coming of the Justices." See also Fleta, chap, xxv., p. 36 ; chap, xviii., on Coroners, p. 22, foL 20 ; and chap, xliii., on Liberties, p. 61, fol. 2.

EDITOR ' N. & Q.'

LARGEST BAG OF GAME FOR A DAY'S SHOOTING (12 S. i. 510). The Prince of Lichtenstein, of course, was not a German, but an Austrian. In the eighteenth century Jarge bags were more common in Austria than they were at that time in England. It would be interesting to find out how, with their primitive flint guns, Austrian hunters ^managed to achieve what they did.

Here is an authentic instance of a bag that was made in Austria (it took two days, it is true) nearly half a century before the one that seems fabulous and unbelievable, mentioned by MR. GLADSTONE. As will be noticed, it mentions only hares, no birds :

Extract from letter of small tall: The Count v. Aldenburg-Bentinck to N. N. Vienne, 31 Dec bre 1749.

Le petit Prince de Lichtenstein que vous avez vu ti Leyden et qui est souvent venu ;'i Sorgvliet,* &c.

P.S. J'oubliois quasi de vous dire que chez le Prince de Lichtenstein nous avons tud en deux jours deux mille cincq cent* et quatorze lie'vre*. s(Bentinck correspondence, Br. Mus. Eg. 1746, f. 220.) W. DEL COURT.

47 Blenheim Crescent, VV.

Bentinck. It was situated between the Hague and Scheveningen.
 * Sorgvliet was one of the country seats of Count

RICHARD WILSON (12 S. i. 90, 158, 213, 277, 437, 516 ; ii. 34). One point which seems to be tolerably clear is that the Richard Wilson who was .M.I', for Barn- staple (1796-1802) and a magistrate in Tyrone did not marry a daughter of Lord Rodney in 1789. This Richard Wil-<m married at St. George's, Hanover Square, on March 23, 1779, Anne, the only daugh Charles Townshend, who had died, while Chancellor of the Exchequer, in September, 1767 ('D.N.B.,' Ivii. 117), and his wife Caroline, who had been created Baroness of Greenwich in August, 1767 (G. E. 'Peerage,' iv. 91). In 1796 he obtained judgment, with damages assessed at 500/., in an undefended action for crim. con. against John Thomson, his neighbour and tenant at Datchworth ; and on July 11, 1797, he obtained a sentence of divorce a mensa et thoro against his wife in the Con- sistory Court of the Bishop of London. In 1798 he was promoting in the House of Lords a Bill for the dissolution of his marriage. After the evidence had been heard, the Bill received a second reading, passed safely through the committee stage, and on report was " ordered to be engrossed." But it never became an Act of Parlir.ir.ent : it succumbed so it would seem to opposition from Lord Loughborough and the Bishop of Rochester (Dr. Horsley).

The foregoing statements are be-sed on 'Marriage Register of St. George's, Hanover Square' (Harl. Soc.), i. 297; 'Annual Register,' xxii. 241, where Wilson is de- scribed as " of Aytone, in Ireland," but " Aytone " may possibly be a mi-print for " Tyrone " ; ' House of Lords' Journr.!-. xli. 549, 551, 553 ; Gentleman's M<i- Ixviii. pt. ii. 1132 ; Clutterbuck's ' Hertford- shire,' ii. (1821), 314-15, where it is further stated that Wilson bought the manor of Datchworth in 1792 and sold it in 1802; and Burke's ' Dormant and Extinct Peer- ages ' (1866), 536, where it is further stated that W T ilson's wife had for a second husband " John Tempest of Lincolnshire." As tli.- divorce did not dissolve her marriage with Wilson, her marriage with Tempest can have occurred only after Wilson's death.

By his marriage with Anne Townshend, Richard Wilson had a son, Charles Towns- hend Wilson, who married Hanfet, daughter of Hugh Owen, the historian of Shrewsbury, who was Archdeacon of Salop from 1821 to 1827 ('D.N.B.,' xlil 415), and -i-t.r of the Rev. Edward Pryce Owen, tin- .-tHi-r (*/., 405). There were two sons of thfe last- mentioned marriage, the elder of tl-n.