Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 10.djvu/161

 9*s.x.AuG.23,i902.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

153

BARBADIAN REGISTER (9 th S. x. 28). The state of the Barbadoes records was reported by the Colonial Secretary at Barbadoes, for which see 1 N. & Q.,' 7 th S. xii. 173. They appear to be in a very dilapidated condition.

EVERARD HOME COLEMAN. 71, Brecknock Road.

"AUTOCRAT " IN RUSSIAN (9 th S. x. 6, 55). As an illustration of this expression, and of a sovereign crowning himself, let rne quote the following passage, with the hope that it may not trespass too much on the space of ' N. & Q.' It is from the first volume of the ' History of Napoleon,' by George Moir Bussey, which was published in 1840, and contains many excellent vignXtte wood en gravings after Horace Vernet :

" The coronation [i.e., of Napoleon] took place on the 26th of May [1805] in the cathedral of Milan, which, next to St. Peter's at Rome, is the most magnificent ecclesiastical edifice in Italy, and which, after remaining unfinished for two or three centuries, had been completed by Napoleon. The diadem used on the occasion was the celebrated iron crown of the ancient kings of Lombardy, which had rested, undisturbed for ages, in the church of Monza, and which, as is generally known, is a circlet of gold and gems, covering an iron ring, formed of a nail said to have been used at the Crucifixion, and to have been taken from the true cross by its discoverer, the Empress Helena, mother of Constantino. The Cardinal Caprara, Archbishop of Milan, officiated, and Napoleon, at this, as at his Imperial inauguration, took the crown from the hands of the priest, and placed it on his own head, at the same time repeating the haughty motto which had been used by its former owners, Dio me V ha data, giuti a chi fa (occhera (' God hath given it to me, woe to him that touches it'), an expression which, translated into French, became the legend of the Order of the Iron Crown, which was instituted immediately afterwards to commemorate the event, and which, in formation, design, and object, was similar to the more cele- brated Legion of Honour."

A small vignette, signed H. V., represents Napoleon placing on his head the iron crown, whilst the Archbishop of Milan stands by his side, wearing his mitre and cope, and having his right hand raised in the act of benediction. At his coronation in Notre Dame in the preceding year Napoleon first received the crown at the hands of Pope Pius VII., and placed it on his own head and then on the head of Josephine.

JOHN PicKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

THE DUCHY OF BERWICK (9 th S. viii. 439, 534 ; ix. 130, 258, 295, 433). The last reference seemingly indicates that Nest became the mistress of Stephen, Constable of Cardigan, during or after the year 1136, and also a mistress of Heury I. about the same time.

This could hardly have been so, for both Stephen and Nest are ' said to have" died during that year, and are stated to have had

"besides several daughters one son," and

it is probable that the date of death is correct in one case at least. Henry I. also died in the November of the previous year. Appa- rently Debrett is about correct in stating that Nest's husband, Gerald of Windsor, died in 1118. This would leave sufficient time for

the birth of "several daughters [and] one

son " to Nest and Stephen before one or both of them died in 1136.

Robert le Fitz le Roy, Earl of Gloucester, died in 1146-7, and, considering the turmoil of the times and the constant fighting he was engaged in, it is probable that he was rather less than more tnan forty-seven year? of age at the time of his death. All the Gloucester family" died young. Henry I. succeeded to the throne in 1100, and so it seems likely that Robert was born in Eng- land, and not in France. In any case, Henry also had been often in England before his succession, and could well have known Nest before then. It is stated by some authorities that Nest married Gerald of Windsor imme- diately after the birth of Robert of Gloucester. If Robert was born not later than 1100, which is very probable (as fe fought his first fight at Brenneville in 1118), Nest would probably have married Gerald of Windsor in that year. We are fairly certain that she remained Gerald's wife for more than fifteen years. If Gerald died in 1118 she would probably have been his wife for seventeen or eighteen years. At the time of her marriage and the birth of Robert of Gloucester she may have been seventeen years of age, and, if so, would have been born in 1083. When Gerald died she would be thirty-five years of age, and, with her reputed great charm and beauty, she might well have attracted the atten- tion of Stephen, Constable of Cardigan, at that age, and have become the mother of

his "several 'daughters [and] one son"

by the time she was forty. In 1136, the date of her reported death, she would thus have been fifty-three.

It is, of course, possible that Nest was not the mother of Robert, and at this distance of time it is not possible to prove the point for certain one way or the other. The one or two modern historians who give Robert another maternal ancestry do not produce any very conclusive evidence in favour of their point of view. Considering how power- ful the descendants of Robert of Gloucester and of Stephen of Cardigan were at the time Giraldus Cambrensis compiled his account of