Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/149

 9>s.x.Auo.23,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

141

LONDON, SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1903.

CONTENTS. No. 243.

NOTES : Charles II. in West Dorset, 141 Portrait of Harriett Powell. 145 Russian and Slavonic Jews and the 'Encyclopedia Britannic*,' 146 Portrait Superstition- Crooked Usage, Chelsea, 147.

QUERIES : Sir C. Aldis, 147 Court or Semi-Court Dress Gordons of Rochester Shetland Song Scottish College C. Doyle Lacy or De Lacv Fees and Parish Registers- Esquires, 148 Wine in Public Conduits English Families in Russia Glisson Ancient Confectionery Dryden's Brothers Capt. T. Morris Branstill Castle Grattan's Portrait " But ah ! Maecenas" "After wearisome toil" Burial-places of Peers, 149' The Soul's Errand,' 150.

REPLIES : 'Aylwin,' 150 Arms on Fireback Cardinal Allen "Only too thankful," 151 *- " Utilitarian" - Baronets of Nova Scotia "Ganges "Trinity Monday- Bishop Sanderson's Descendants, 152 Barbadian Register " Autocrat, "in Russian Duchy of Berwick, 153 Price of Eggs" Rock-bottom prices " Chocolate, 154 Mourn- ing Sunday " Harry Dick hat": "Adelaide waistcoat" Honoriflcabilitudinitas, 155 " Keep your hair on" Dutch East India Company Napoleon's First Marriage Bicycle Bibliography Iron Duke, 156 Rockall Cuck- ing Stool English Gladiators, 157 Hebrew Incanta- tion, 158.

NOTES ON BOOKS : Merriman's 'Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell' Kitten's 'Charles Dickens' 'Con- gregational Historical Society Transactions ' ' Trans- actions of the Hampstead Antiquarian and Historical Society.'

Notices to Correspondents.

CHARLES II. IN WEST DORSET.

WEST DORSET was recently the scene of a very interesting ceremony, namely, the un- veiling of three memorial tablets affixed to certain old houses which had established their claim to the honour of having sheltered the prince afterwards Charles II. during the three eventful days he spent there in his hurried, but fruitless endeavour to escape to France from the coast of Dorset after his decisive defeat at the battle of Worcester on 3 September, 1651. This ceremony was the complement of an earlier one which took place on the outskirts of Bridport on 23 Sep- tember last, the 250th anniversary of the king's visit to that town, and which is re- ferred to in detail later.

There is, it seems to me, special reason why these proceedings and the history of the movement which led up to them should be recorded permanently in the pages of ' N. & Q.,' for it was in great measure what had previously appeared there upon the subject, now nearly twenty years ago, that led to the carrying out of the present memorial.

At that time there was an interesting dis-

cussion in ' N. & Q.' (6 th & v. and viii. as to what old houses now exist in the coun- try that had formed hiding - places for Charles II. between the battle of Worcester in September, 1651, and the time when the king at last effected his escape from Bright- helmstone on the 15th of the following October. It was then that I put forward the claim of the old manor-house at Pilsdon, in West Dorset, at that time the property of those staunch royalists the Wyndhams, to rank as one of those entitled to this honourable dis- tinction, basing the claim upon a local tradi- tion that I had heard. This claim, however, having been challenged by one of your corre- spondents, I went more deeply into the ques- tion of Charles II.'s wanderings in Dorset, and after consulting the principal authorities at my disposal I was constrained to admit that the claim I had put forward rested upon tradition only, and had no historical founda- tion. This I did in a somewhat lengthy paper which I read before a meeting of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club upon Pilsdon Pen itself, the highest hill in the county of Dorset, in September, 1886, I think from which meeting I date my acquaintance with Thomas Hardy, the Wessex novelist. This papeVwas reproduced in the annual volume (viiiO of the society's Pro- ceedings for the following year, and also reprinted in pamphlet form. In it I traced in considerable detail the wanderings of Charles from the time he left Trent manor, another seat of the Wyndhams, on the borders of Dorset and Somerset, on 22 September, till he returned there on the 24th, after his abor- tive attempt to quit the Dorset coast at Char- mouth on the night of the 22nd. 1 mainly followed the narrative given by Mr. J. Hughes in his 'Boscobel Tracts' (first published in 1830, a second edition of which appeared in 1857) from the authorities there cited, taking my former contributions in 'N. & Q.' as the basis, and confining myself, of course, to those incidents which happened on Dorset territory alone.

A very interesting feature of Mr. Hughes's book was the description he gave of the houses and buildings which had sheltered the king as he found them in 1830. To the Dorset portion of them I added in my paper a de- tailed description of the condition in which I found them some fifty years later.

In 1897 was published Mr. Allan Fea's most interesting work, 'The Flight of the King,' in which appeared many excellent illustra-

[* The discussion as to Charles's hiding-places ranged from 6 th S. iv. to xi.]