Page:Notes and Queries - Series 12 - Volume 9.djvu/498

 408 NOTES AND QUERIES. [12 s.ix. NOV. 10,1021. &c. (see Campbell), also used for the C.J. I of Common Pleas, Chief Baron of the Exchequer, and the lord keeper when he i had no peerage ? Or was it reserved for the C.J. of King's Bench ? I shall be I grateful for any information. RESTORATION. JAMES II. 's PRIVATE SECRETARY was | named Payne. Can any reader of ' N. & Q.' I give me genealogical or personal particulars j about him ? His sister Barbara married j Jeremiah Symes, of an old Wexford family ; j and there are Paynes in Kerry, one of j whom, Capt. William Payne, married Jane ; Fuller of my family. Tradition says that ; these southern Paynes were related to ! this secretary; but tradition "isn't good enough " for me. The ' D.N.B.' has a long memoir of Henry Neville Payne, who may ! have been the same man ; but, if so, it seems strange that no mention is made of his having filled the post of Secretary to King James, though he suffered for his activity in the interests of that monarch. J. F. FULLER. Dublin. CONSTANCE KENT AND THE ROAD MURDER. As every criminologist is aware, Con- stance Emilie Kent, on the night of June 29, 1860, murdered her infant half-brother, | Francis Saville Kent, at Road Hill House, | Wiltshire, the motive being revenge on ! her step -mother for speaking in disparaging ! terms of her own deceased mother. In j 1865 she confessed the crime to the Rev. ! A. D. Wagner, perpetual curate of St. | Paul's Church, Brighton, by whom she was | brought to Bow Street on April 25 of that j year, and committed for trial by the Trow- 1 bridge magistrates. In July, 1865, at the Salisbury Assizes, she pleaded guilty and was duly sentenced to death by Mr. Justice Willes. The capital sentence was commuted j to penal servitude for life, and she was i liberated from Millbank Prison on licence ] on June 18, 1885. The Rev. Evelyn Burnaby, in his * Memories of Famous j Trials,' after narrating the history of the case, concludes by saying, " I believe she died the very same year that she was liberated." Numerous people tell me they distinctly remember reading in the newspapers a report of her death, and the consequent | revival of the whole circumstances of the tragic affair, but all my efforts to ascertain the date and place of her decease have so ! far proved abortive. I shall be grateful to any reader of ' N. & Q.' who can enlighten me on the subject. WlLLOUGHBY MAYCOCK. 80, St. George's Square, S.W.I. SEVENTEENTH -CENTURY MILITARY SER- VICE : DRAX FAMILY. I shall be glad to be put on the track of information as to the military records of Sir James Drax (d. 1662), and of his son, Colonel Henry Drax (d. 1682), each of whom attained to the rank of Lieutenant -Colonel, the former possibly in the Parliamentary Army. I have sought in vain in the ' Domestic State Papers ' and in Peacock's ' Army Lists.' I have materials for a fairly complete biography of either, apart from this. WM. McMuRRAY. DR. ROBERT GORDON, " COUL GOP- PAGH." Gordon, who succeeded Lever at Port Stewart, wrote a great deal over the pseudonym of " Coul Goppagh " to The Dublin University Review. In addition to verse, he wrote a curious prose sketch en- titled 'Laudanum and Rum: A Vision of Negro-land and Havanah ' (Dub. Univ. Rev., Dec. 1838, xii. 632-659), from which W. J. Fitzpatrick ('Life of Charles Lever,' 1879, p. 210) thinks it " inferrible " that he was an opium-eater. He died Sept. 16, 1857,. leaving "little behind him unless his orphans.'* What is known of his origin and his " orphans " ? Was he a graduate of Edin- burgh University in 1834 ? Who was the " Theban in the North " who objected to his pseudonym as " barbarous " ? J. M. BULLOCH. 37, Bedford-square, W.C.I. DR. BIRD, AMERICAN NOVELIST. Where could I obtain a copy of a story by Dr. Bird (probably deceased), an American novelist, the scene of which is laid in Mexico during the Spanish conquest ? I should be- glad also to have a list of Dr. Bird's books and the names of the publishers. The only book whose name I recollect is ' Nick of the Woods,' a tale of Indian warfare. C. L. S. BURIAL REGISTERS : ST. KATHARINE'S, LONDON. Can any reader tell me where the old Burial Registers of St. Katharine'* Church, London, E., are to be seen ? The ground whereon the church stood is now the St. Katharine Dock. E: EL. S. QUINTIN. Ulverscroft, Eagle-field CJreen.