Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 8.djvu/540

 442 NOTES AND QUERIES. [i28.vin.jraB4.io2i. Dodd by that time had become " Dr." Dodd ; not, as one is apt to think, of divinity, but of laws. Queen Charlotte I was present at his opening sermon, and continued to attend the chapel until her death in 1818. She rented "successive rows of seats for her attendants in the galleries," and for herself she rented " four pews in the middle aisle." These pews, of course, were big and square, with a broad wooden seat running all round, and a table in the centre. Towering over the royal pews stood the " three-decker," of which I fear no present | example remains. On the bottom boxed-in ! seat sat the clerk, who led the hymns, gave out the opening lines of the (occasionally adapted) psalms : The Mountains skipped all like rams, The little Hills did hop, To welcome into this Our Town His Grace the Lord Bis-shopp, and shouted lusty Amens. Above the clerk sat the curate, who, at the opening of the chapel, and for some years later, was the Rev. Weedon Butler. And towering over all was the preacher's pulpit, of carved oak flanked by brass candelabra, and having a huge crimson cushion, from which depended "weighty golden balls," a Bible and an hour-glass. Dodd wore present-day Court dress, minus the sword. Over this was a " rustling gown " of voluminous folds and with huge sleeves. He wore a white -powdered wig. On a finger of his left hand blazed an enormous diamond ring, and from that hand dangled a lace pocket-handkerchief. In his right hand he carried a very big bouquet of flowers. It seems a pity that so outstanding a figure and so splendid a sportsman should have been hanged for forgery. Amongst his congregations were . . . Athol's Duke, The polished Hervey, Kingston the humane, -, Aylesbury, and Marchmont, Romsey, all revered ; our great friend Mr. Jonas Hanway ; most of the Court who preferred this spritely parson to the dull German services the King attended ; most of the Royal children from three years old upwards ; and of course the ubiquitous Horace Walpole. In the late eighteen-fifties the chapel was lent to the General Post Office. Later again, Henry Edward Manning made his last Anglican Communion here before 'verting to Rome. A fellow-com- municant that morning was William Ewart Gladstone. A graphic account has been written of their tense and laconic parting at the chapel door. M. E. W. GLASS-PAINTERS OF YORK. (See ante, pp. 127, 323, 364, 406.) V. JOHN WITTON. THE only information we have concerning this artist is that contained in his will. His name does not appear in the Freemen's Roll, and it is doubtful whether he even attained his majority so that he could take up his freedom. He was apprenticed with John Chamber the younger (free 1414, died 1451), whom he calls " my master," and for whom and for whose wife he evidently had an affectionate esteem and regard. With his master's son Richard, who was free in 1447 and who was probably there- fore three or four years senior to him, he likewise seems to have been on terms of close intimacy and friendship, which is the more probable seeing that the two would have served their time together. Witton's exact position is a little difficult to determine. He cannot have been in poor circumstances for he made a will in which he forgives debts due to him. leaves an annuity to one person, and gifts of money to others, as well as bequests to his parish church. As likely as not he was the son of a master glass-painter and following a practice which still obtains among old- fashioned business firms at the present day, whereby the son of the house is always sent to learn the business with a competitor rather than in the house which he will ultimately himself direct had been ap- prenticed by his father, who was evidently in failing health, with a friendly rival. John Witton made his will (Reg. Test. D. and C. Ebor. 1. 266d) on June 11, 1450, the day after Richard Chamber made his. The two wills, though differing in length, have evidently been drawn up by the same hand and at the same time, as they are largely expressed in exactly the same words. In Witton's will the testator describes himself as " John Witton of York, Glasyer." " To the fabric of the Cathedral Church of York " he bequeathed 3s. 4d., and " to the high altar of my parish church of St. Helen in Staynegate in York 3s. 4rf.