Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 5.djvu/22

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[12 S. V. JAN., 19J9

tories for Queen Elizabeth, " his lodging was at Limehouse." There "he sat among his maps and instruments," and his dwelling " was at this time a resort of voyagers and venturers ; Frobisher and Davis were part- ners in his researches, and Raleigh, we may be sure, the aptest of learners." There is a local point of significance in the leading journal's reminder that the royal charter of 1578 granted to Sir Humphrey Gilbert, Raleigh's half-brother (under whom Raleigh served against the Spaniards in the Low Countries in 1577, and with whom he sailed in the first and less unfortunate expedition to Newfoundland), descended as by in- heritance to the younger man whom Gilbert helped to form. On March 25, 1584 a pregnant date in the history of the New World and the Old Walter Raleigh, now in the first stages of his greatness and high in favour with Queen Elizabeth, obtained a new charter of discovery and colonization in place of the old. He was to send many more expeditions to Virginia before his fortunes fell, to lose all, and still to hope. Like the Scottish hero of a later day, he deemed that

He either fears his fate too much,

Or his deserts are small, Who dares not put it to the touch

To gain or lose it all.

For Sir Walter Raleigh, whatever his faults (and, under present-day conventions and environments, they were doubtless many), was a patriot who believed, as, indeed, he wrote, " that man not worthy to live at all who for fear of danger or death ehunneth his country's service or his own honour, since Death is inevitable and the fame of Virtue immortal."

There are few who will dissent from Sir Sidney Lee's considered judgment that Raleigh, as an explorer no less than in his numberless other spheres of activity, was the victim of great ideas and great speculations beyond his power to bring to fruition :

" Judged, however, by the influence of his work on the future, his endeavours in the fields of exploration and colonization towered above the rest of his achievement, and more rightly than any other Englishman may he be hailed as the prophet and pioneer of the British Empire."

And so, sooner or later, we shall eee Sir Walter Raleigh high on that Roll of Honour in enduring bronze (or gun-metal ?) which the London County Council design to upraise at Ratcliff Cross ere King Edward's Memorial Park at Shadwell close by comes into being, at the instance of our Sailor King. Me.

In his interesting note Me. mentions that Raleigh stayed at Blackwall. He also quotes the words of "a Poplar antiquary, writing nearly seventy years ago," with reference to an ancient house near Globe Stairs and opposite the Artichoke Tavern, which, according to tradition, " was suc- cessively occupied by Sebastian Cabot and Sir Walter." The antiquary's description of the building, which follows, quite agrees with the appearance of a picturesque old tenement of which I possess a view taken in 1873. It is described on the back as ' Sir Walter Raleigh's House, Blackwall.' I will add that it has two gables of wooden board- ing, and two lower stories of lath and plaster. Each projecting story is supported by massive carved brackets, those above having grotesque heads on them. I should think it was a good deal later than the time of Raleigh. Can any one give me the precise address of this house, which in all probability was destroyed before 1880 ?

PHILIP NORMAN.

HENRY I. : A GLOUCESTER CHARTER. (12 S. iv. 149, 223, 279.)

MAY I express my regret that for a con- siderable period * N. & Q.' has been a sealed volume to me ? Hence I was unaware of MB. SWYNNERTON'S note on the (to me familiar) Henry I. (1127) charter, which I copied myself two or three years back, and was enabled to date to the above year, to which I think it certainly belongs, for the reason that its more perfect duplicate occurs in the Cambridge MS. of William of Malmes- bury's * Gesta Regum,' dated " ab Incarna- tione Domini MC O XXVII O " (apud Win- toniam).

The editor ( W. H. Hart) of the * Hist, et Cart. S. Petri Glouc. ' has treated the charter even more badly than MR. SWYN- NERTON describes, for, in addition to omitting the highly important witnesses, he has miswritten " Willelmus " for Gisle- bertus (de Mineriis*), and printed "affuerunt" for affiuerunt as to Adam de Port and William Fitz Otho a ruinous change (cf. also " monachos " for monachis). So much for j the date ; but is there any reason why the i modern spelling of Mynors should be adopted for magnates who certainly never


 * Les Minieres, Department of Eure in Nor-
 * mandy.