Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/465

 12 s. vn. NOV. is, 19200 NOTES AND QUERIES.

381

LONDON, NOVEMBER 13, 1SHO.

CONTENTS. No. 135.

"3? OTES : Among the Shakespeare Archives, 381 Squanto, 384 Notes on Dorothy Osbprne's Letters, 385 London Insurance Companies : Bibliography Leonard Bilson "Desirable Bachelor": Epitaph, 388 The Empress Eugenie at Boulogne, 1854 Windmill Ties Uncollected Kipling Items, 389.

QUERIES : The Pipe of Peace 1871, 389 Snipe in Belgrave Square Gilbert Wakefield : John Watson Greek Letters on "Adam" Ceiling Great Baling School Michelangelo and Dante Pewter Basin for Baptisms, 390 Beauclerc Mayne and Graham " In grain" Will Proved before Burial of Testator Smith of Peterculter, 391 Cornish Acres in Domesday Parravacin Mawhood Sea-water and Madness James Forbes Church Litton -Col. Mordaunt's Cock Fight-H. Hainsselin, 392.

REPLIES : Thomas J. Wise. 392 Floor Coverings of the Tudor Epoch Sir Oscar Oliphant, 394 Mrs. O. K. Walton Etymology of " Liverpool " Corry Mrs. E. B. Mawr, 395-Beatster Hoathsr Elizabeth (Rundle) Charles - The Goose Club "Claudius Shaw, Royal Artillery, 396 Budseus Richard Elwell, Winchester Scholar Inscrip- tion on Bell Elizabeth Chudleigh, Duchess of Kingston Spencer Master Gunner Author Wanted, 397 ' New Exchange," London R. Dalton Barham. 398 Domestic History in the Nineteenth Century Dixons of Beeston Bigh Constables" You bet your bottom dollar " Author of Quotation Wanted, 399.

TSTOTES ON BOOKS:-' Four Plays of Gil Vicente'

'Johnson Club Papers.' OBITUARY : Louise Imogen Guiney. .Notices to Correspondents.

AMONG THE SHAKESPEARE ARCHIVES,

(See ante, pp. 301, 322, 342, 363.)

.JOHN SHAKESPEARE'S FELLOW TOWNSMEN AT THE CLOSE OF QUEEN MARY'S REIGN.

The Charnocks were out of New Place before Apr. 23, 1558, when William Clopton, junior, son of the old Catholic squire, was in possession, and was fined 4rf. for neglecting 'the gutter before the house and the stream in Chapel Lane. Young Clopton was twenty years of age and married to Anne, daughter of Sir George Griffith. The young couple were living at New Place when they buried 'their first child, Elizabeth (named after Mistress Clopton), in the Parish Church on Sept. 11, 1558. The great bell in the Chapel tower would be tolled and Roger Dyos would officiate. Father and son must have been deeply interested in the revival and maintenance of the Mass in the Gild Chapel, which the retired schoolmaster,

William Dalam, celebrated. Dalam died a few days before the burial of the infant Clopton and was interred on Aug. 31. The Clop tons were very influential in Stratford in Mary's reign.

The Cloptons were of the rank of esquire. Master Hugh Reynolds was only a gentle- man. He was a yeoman as lessee of a farm at Shottery, of Hales Close and Collis Farm in Old Stratford (w T here he lived), but had attained gentlehood by his wealth, his marriage with Joyce, daughter of Master Walter Blount of Glason Park near Ashley, and his Aldermanship. Collis Farm was not large but was comfortably furnished. It contained a hall, a parlour (which generally combined a bedroom and sitting-room and linen cupboard), a kitchen, two upper chambers (one of which was "ceiled"), a servant's chamber, a buttery and a wool- house. The last should be noticed, because Reynolds was a breeder of sheep and wool was a main source of his wealth. The rooms were supplied with tables, forms, benches, chests, cupboards, bedsteads, dressers, chairs, carpets, linen and bedding, painted-cloths and hangings, brass and silver. In the hall were two basins and ewers, probably of metal an indication that our forefathers were not so neglectful of washing arrange- ments as some scholars have rashly sup- posed. In the hall two brass pots stood in the window with herbs. In the upper chambers were " hangings of say " a kind of coarse silk, as in Cade's attack on Lord Say in 2 Henry VI., "Ah, thou say, thou serge, nay, thou buckram lord ! " (II. vii. 25). Among the silver were three salts, two mazers (cups of maple) bound with silver, a cup, a goblet and a nut; and "thirteen silver spoons of Christ and the Apostles," valued, with seven other spoons, at 51. Seventy-six quarters of grairi and peas were distributed in no less than seven barns three in Swine (or Ely) Street, one at the Waterside and one in Chapel Lane, the Old Town barn and the late College barn. Reynolds owned five cows, six carthorses, eight oxen, two steers, a bull, swine, and as many as 240 sheep (valued at 30Z). His total goods and cattells came to 227Z. He signed his will on Aug. 22, 1556, ordaining Avery Trussell of Billesley, esquire, and Henry Higford of Solihull, gentleman, executors. It was drawn up by Richard Symons the Town Clerk, and witnessed by Roger Dyos (Vicar), William Dalam (retired schoolmaster), William Minsky (the testator's fellow Alderman, to whom he bequeathed one of his gowns, furred