Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 3.djvu/147

 12 S. III. FEB. 24, 1917.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

141

LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1917.

CONTENTS. No. 61.


 * Some Uncanonized Saints, 141 Foreign Books

of Fortune, 144 Sunday Observance in the Eighteenth Century, 145 Sir John Fielding Thomas Gordon : Date of his Birth Negro named Othello in 1685, 146 Elizabeth Hopkins's Third Husband, 147.

QUERIES : Jacob or James, 147 Authors Wanted Author of Quotation Wanted St. Paul's School Sub- scribers to Knight's ' Life of Colet ' Notables born in 1809, 148 Two Schoolmasters : Pickenige and Towne Thomas Atkins, M.P. Albany Wallis Tennyson and Grindrod Balleny Island Music to Song of Christina Rossetti Clinton Maund of Merton College Archbishop of Canterbury buried in Switzerland St. Denis, Napo- leon's Librarian William Bullock, 149.

(.BEPLIES : Winchester College Chantry, 150 Argostoli : Cephalonia, 151 Heraldic Queries, 1 52 Isabella S. Stephenson Thomas Gray Gunners' Handbooks Pictures : where Exhibited English Prelates at the Council of Bale, 153 Indian Mounds, U.S.A. Derby Ram, 154 Lieut. -Col. Lewis (Bayly) Wallis Hans-Town or Cadogan-Land, 155 Ancient Irish Titles Stafford- shire, M.P.s Francis Baldwin, 1564, 156 "Decele- rate" Alderman Thomas Hoyle_, M.P., 157 To play " Crookern "- Authors of Quotations Wanted St. Bar- bara, 158 Curious Tavern Sign Portraits in Stained Glass, 159.

'NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Howth and its Owners' ' Calendar of Inquisitions Miscellaneous (Chancery), 1219-1307.'

'Notices to Correspondents.

SOME UNCANONIZED SAINTS.

.AFTER the remains of King Edward II. had Tjeen refused sepulture by the abbots of

Bristol, Kingswood, and Malmesbury, owing doubtless to their fear of Isabella and Roger

Mortimer, Abbot John Thoky, O.S.B., of

Gloucester (1306-28), who had often mag- > nificently entertained the king, received the

body with solemn ceremony, and interred tit in splendid state on the north side of the choir, near the high altar of his abbey church of St. Peter. The tomb of the

deceased monarch immediately became an

object of pilgrimage. Miracles were reported

to have been performed at the shrine, and the chronicler says that the crowds who flocked thither were so great that the city could scarcely contain them. Scenes of

extraordinary devotion were witnessed,*

>the shrine, and such are, I believe, still to be obtained.
 * I have seen pictures of pilgrims praying at

and the offerings were so costly and so numerous that the new work of the south transept, then in progress, was completed in 1335. It must not be supposed that the veneration of Edward II. was merely the hysterical fervour of a few years. The cult endured, and assumed marked proportions. In the time of Abbot Adam de Staunton (1337-51) the uninterrupted flow of trea- sure to the shrine had diminished not a whit, and the thank-offerings paid for the vaulting of the choir. No doubt the mis- fortunes of the hapless king, and especially his mysterious and horrible fate,* caused his weaknesses to be forgotten. Henry of Knighton, canon of Leicester Abbey, a bitterly prejudiced writer, after giving the usual account of the murder of Edward II., ' De Euentibus Angliae,' iii. xvi., says :

" De euros mentis an inter Sanctos annurne- randus sit, frequens in uulgo sicut quondam de Thoma Comite Lancastriae adhuc deceptatio est."

But he adds :

" Sed reuera nee carceris foeditas, nee mortis uilitas, cum ista sceleratis debeantur, nee eciam oblationum frequentia aut miraculorum simu- lacra, cum talia sint indifferentia, quemquam sanctum probant nisi correspondent sanctimonia uitae praecedentis,"

and he* continues to labour the fact that the gossip of gadabout housewives will often spread and exaggerate the report of miracles and sanctity. The malice of the man is so obvious that it defeats its own ends. Walsingham, who uses almost the same words| in- speaking of the cult of Edward II., wisely has no envenomed reflections.

Thomas of Lancaster, the first cousin of Edward II., was executed March 23, 1322, on a hill outside Pontefract. The king, not unnaturally, was unable to forgive him the murder of Piers Gaveston,J and retri- butive justice was satisfied. The opponents of Edward II., however, regarded Lancaster

Edward escaped from Berkeley Castle, and ended his life as a hermit in Lombardy. See ' N. & Q.,' 6 S. ii. 381, 401, 489 ; and Stubbs's ' Chron. Edw. I. and II. ii.,' ciii-cviii. This has also been more recently dealt with by other historians.
 * There is a long and detailed story that

f " De cuius meritis an inter Sanctos connu- merandus sit, frequens est in uulgo disceptatio ; sicut et de Thoma, Comite Lankastriae, quon- dam fuit."

t Piers Gaveston was beheaded by the lawless barons at a place between Blakelowe and Gaver- syk, June 19, 1312. The body was taken to the Dominican house at Oxford, where the friars guarded it with the greatest respect. Jan. 3, 1315, it was honourably buried in the Dominican church at Langley.