Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 12.djvu/209

 9* s. xii. SEPT. 12, iocs.]! NOTES AND QUERIES.

201

LONDON, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 190S.

CONTENTS. No. 298.

NOTES: General Francis Nicholson, 201 The Trade- Winds, 202 MS. Journal of a London Citizen, 203 Par- liament of 1626, 20-t Westcott and Vivisection "Sacca- winkfe " Donhead St. Mary Shakespeares at Romford "Squire Gawkie," 205 "Scoggan" or " Scoggin " Swal- lows predicting a Storm "Zauber-Kessel" in Essex, 206.

QUERIES : Latin Entry in Register, 206 Royal Artillery

Bden Family Bland, Actor " We only live when we are happy " Kimpton Family St. Peter's, Chester, 207 Geology of Kurland Glastonbury Walnut Queen Eliza- beth and New Hall. Essex Throgmorton Inscription- Vicars of Twerton Jenkins's Hen Radulphus de Georges, 208 Midland Registers E. E. Hopkins, 209.

REPLIES :O- Words in the 'N.E.D.,' 209 Shakespeare's Sonnets : a New Theory, 210 " Sur le Pont d'Avignon" Ash : Place-name Mayors' Title and Precedence Flats, 211 Premier Prudent Lewis Thackeray's Moustache, 212 Peter the Great in England Aitken " Crying down credit," 213 Marriage in a Sheet Breaking Glass at Jewish Weddings Drayton's Poly-olbion 'John Harris, Publisher, 214 Imaginary Saints Roscommon and Pope

Banns of Marriage Mineralogist and Botanist co George III. Lushington Longfellow's 'Wreck of the Hesperus,' 215 More Church, Shropshire Mico Family

" Wake "= Village Feast-Riming Epitaph, 216 John Gilpin's Route Bridge Chantry, 217 Fountain Pens, 218.

NOTES ON BOOKS: 'Love of an Uncrowned Queen' Sally Wister's Journal ' Three Days' Tournament ' 4 Vita Nuova of Dante ' * Minor English Poems of Milton '

'Short History of the Ancient Greek Sculptors' 'Poems and Verses of Dickens ' Booksellers' Catalogues.

GENERAL FRANCIS NICHOLSON, GOVERNOR OF SOUTH CAROLINA, 1719-28. THE memoir in the 'Diet. Nat. Biog.' of this distinguished soldier and able adminis- trator is inadequate and misleading in several essential points. The same remarks equally apply to the article on this general in Appleton's ' Cyclop, of American Biog.' Having lately found Nicholson's will at Somerset House, I am able to supply some details which I feel sure will interest both British and American readers. In the first place, Fras. Nicholson was born in 1655, and not in 1660 as heretofore stated ; and secondly he was never knighted. In his will he describes himself as " esquire "; and, with a view to a monumental inscription, says : " I was born at Downham [Downholme] Park, near Richmond, in Yorkshire, 12 November, 1655." Here we get a clue to Nicholson's parentage, which has always remained a mystery. Even that astute genealogist Dr. Whitaker, the Richmondshire historian, confessed he could never find out anything about Fras. Nicholson, the native of Down- holme, beyond the fact that Gale, in his ' Registrum Honoris de Richmond,' dedicated a view of Richmond, in 1722, to General Nicholson. The dedication is somewhat pompous and fulsome, but that was the style of the period. Downholme Park was the old seat of the Scropes, and on the death,

in 1630, of Emanuel Scrope, eleventh Baron Bolton and first Earl of Sunderland, without legitimate issue, the extensive Scrope estates were divided between the late earl's three natural daughters. Downholme Park fell to the share of Mary, the eldest of the three children. She married for her second husband, 12 February, 1655, Lord St. John, son and heir of the fifth Marquis of Winchester, who became possessed of the Bolton estate in North Yorkshire, and was created, in 1689, Duke of Bolton. This nobleman has been represented by such well-known contem- porary writers as Sir John Reresby and Bishop Burnet as one of the most extravagant livers of his time, and "a man who took all sorts of liberties to himself." Putting two and two together, and comparing several lead- ing points of resemblance in the characters of the Duke of Bolton, surnamed "the proud," and General Nicholson, I fully believe that the child born at Downholme Park on 12 November, 1655, was the natural son of Lord St. John, as he was then known. Nicholson may or may not have been the mother's surname; Francis was a name in thePaulet family. Unfortunately the Down- holme parish registers only commence in 1736 ; and Nicholson's will, a lengthy docu- ment, makes no mention of relatives or kinsfolk. But sidelights are not wanting to bear out my theory. In a letter from Lady Fauconberg (Cromwell's daughter) to Sir William Frankland, a Yorkshire neighbour, written on 5 May, 1683, her ladyship says : "Capt. Nicholson, who was Lady Winches- ter's page, has been twice through Mora- tania [sic] as far as Mount Atlas, and is now returning again thither." Now this ex-page was undoubtedly Francis Nicholson, who, after serving three years in the 3rd Buffs as an ensign, had been appointed, in 1680, to an ensigncy in the newly raised regiment com- manded by the Earl of Plymouth, subse- quently known as the 4th King's Own. This corps embarked for Tangier three months after being raised for service against the Moors. Col. Kirke, the governor of Tangier, took special notice of young Nicholson, and appears to have employed him as a personal A.D.C., which doubtless obtained for him the local rank of captain. This explains Nicholson's missions to the interior of Morocco as well as his being sent with despatches to Lord Preston, British Ambassador in Paris, in 1682 and 1683.* Home interest and a well- filled purse accompanied Nicholson through

Hist. MSS. Commission.
 * ' Graham and Verney Papers,' published by the