Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 7.djvu/550

 454

NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s. vn. DEC. 4, 1920.

^eft (which has a ring on the little finger) rests on a table, the right arm on the arm. of the chair. A faithful likeness, but the arrangement of accessories is formal and unpleasing, and the light and shade inartistic. In spite of careful i restoration, the picture bears evidence of having suffered serious injury from the use of a bad medium.

I give the extract in full as it may help your correspondent to judge of the work we possess. Mr. Barnes held office 1813-1S58. I may add that if your correspondent is within reach of Exeter, he will be welcomed . as a visitor at our library, and the Librarian will gladly show the portrait.

H. STONE, Hon. Secretary. Devon and Exeter Institution,

Library and Reading Rooms, Exeter.

DOROTHY VERNON (12 S. vii. 409). Obviously MR. ACKERMANN must be un- aware of the vast amount of correspondence that has appeared in ' N. & Q.' for years past respecting the authenticity or other- wise of the romance of Dorothy Vernon's elopement from Haddon Hall with Sir -John Manners. Apart from that tlie biblio- graphy on the subject would alone cover a ten acre field. It seems sufficient to refer MR. ACKERMANN to two illuminating articles on the subject by Mr. F. H. CHEETHAM which appeared in ' N. & Q. ' in October and November, 1906 (10 S. vi. 321 and 382), and, I should say, cover the whole ground. If, after perusing these, he cares to delve further, he will find an instructive article in The Quarterly Review of January, 1890, and a critical examination of the legend by Mr. Le Blanc Smith in vol. xxx. of the Derbyshire Archce-ological and Natural History Scientific Journal. It is always rather painful to annihilate the superstructure of a pic- turesque romance, but it struck me, when I read Mr. Le Blanc Smith's article, that he very effectually discredited most of the details regarding the elopement that one writer or another had handed down to posterity. Here are just a few of the points emphasized by Mr. Smith of which I made a note when I read his article after visiting Haddon Hall some ten years ago. Dorothy Vernon's own mother died on Mar. 25, 1558. Dorothy is said to have slipped out of the ball-room on the night of her elder sister's wedding in the same year, descended those precious steps, and down the hill to the bridge over the Wye. Dorothy is stated to have been 20 years of age in 1565. If she was 20 in that year she was born in 1545 and consequently 13 only in 1558, and for a

child of that age to have ridden 60 miles to Aylestone in Leicestershire seems incredible. The steps shown to visitors were not built till 1650, sixty-six years after Dorothy's decease, and it is very doubtful whether the ball-room, reputed to have been built in 1570, existed at all at the date to which her flight is attributed. But without further trenching on ground already ploughed and harrowed, I think a persual of MR. CHEET- HAM 's articles will alone afford conclusive evidence that the generally accepted inci- dents of the romance are clearly susceptible of grave suspicion to say the least.

vVlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK.

It would seem that her romantic story has no foundation in fact, and that the first mention of it appeared in the pages of The London Magazine of 1822. MR. ACKERMANN will find an interesting paper on the subject by Mr. Le Blanc Smith in vol. xxx. of the Journal of the Derbyshire Archaeological and Natural History Society, pp. 97-102. G. F. R. B.

ELDER BREWSTER OF THE MAYFLOWER (12 S. vii. 407).- There seems to be no doubt whatever that the manor of Scrooby belonged to the Archbishopric of York. On the other hand there does seem to be a good deal of doubt as to Elder Brewster's parentage. The 'D.N.B.' says:

" It has been conjectured that his father was either William Brewster, who was tenant at Scrooby of Archbishop Sandys, or Henry Brewster, Vicar of Sutton-cum-Lound, or James Brewster who succeeded Henry." >._

Stow does not mention Duke Street in dealing with Aldgate and Bevis Marks ; but probably it was a respectable residential quarter in the sixteenth century. In the reign of James I. the Spanish Embassy was in Petticoat Lane, which was east of Duke Street, but outside the city.

JOHN B. WAINEWRIGHT.

THE BELFRY AT CALAIS (12 S. vii. 409). The ' ' witty Frenchman ' ' was M. Paul Deschanel himself, but his modesty pre- vented him mentioning the fact. It is generally understood that the clock was put up to commemorate the meeting between Henry VIII. of England and Francis I. of France in the " Field of the Cloth of Gold," in 1520. Its destruction was prevented by the Due de Guise, who greatly admired the clock, after his expulsion of the English garrison in 1558. The spot was from about