Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 3.djvu/192

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. in. MAR. n, m

London until some ten years later. His trials are recounted in his life by^W. J. Linton. The later James Watson's imprisonments were mainly due to his selling unstamped news- papers and his public non-compliance with the observance of a fast day. He and his friends were of opinion that it was the Government who ought to fast, and not the people, who had not half enough to eat.

G. J. HOLYOAKE.

LONDON WATER SUPPLY. The Daily News, in its report of the sitting of the Water Commission in the Guildhall, Westminster, on 27 February, well calls the following " ancient history ":

" Mr. Clayton stated that in 1722 the Chelsea Water Company took water from the Thames near Chelsea Hospital. They had one reservoir in the Green Park, opposite the house since occupied by Lord Palmerston, and another in Hyde Park, opposite the house since occupied by Lord Beacons- field. In 1739-40 their plant and works were broken up by frost. They were the first company to intro- duce filtering, and in 1829 they had filtering beds at Thames Bank. During the early part of the cen- tury they were under no obligation to supply water, and had no restriction as to charge."

N. S. S.

SIMON THEOBALD, ARCHBISHOP OF CANTER- BURY. At St. Gregory's Church, Sudbury, Suffolk, in a nook in the wall of the vestry, is preserved the reputed skull of Simon Theo- bald, Archbishop of Canterbury. It is said that the headless body is buried at Canter- bury, and tradition states that upon examina- tion of the remains, a cannon-ball was found in place of the head. Beneath the skull at St. Gregory's, upon the door of the cupboard containing it, is nailed a parchment (now becoming rather ragged) having the following inscription in old English characters :

" The head of Simon Theobald, who was born at Sudbury, and thence called Simon of Sudbury. He was sent when but a youth into foreign parts to study the Civil Law. Whereof he was made Doctor. He visited most of the Universities of France, and was made Chaplain to Pope Innocent, and Auditor Rota or Judge of the Roman Court. By the interest of this Pope he was made Chancellor of Salisbury. In the year 1361 he was consecrated Bishop of London, and in the year 1375 was translated to the see of Canterbury, and made Chancellor of England. While he was Bishop of London he built the upper part of St. Gregory's in Sudbury; and where his lather's house stood he erected a College of Secular Priests, and endowed it with the yearly Revenue of One Hundred Twenty-two Pounds Eighteen Shillings. And was at length barbarously be- headed upon Tower Hill in London, by the Rabble in Wat Tyler's Rebellion in the Reign of Richard II., 1382.

The gateway of the college referred to still exists in good preservation. St. Gregory's

Church also possesses a magnificent specimen of tabernacle work in its font cover, about twelve feet in height. THOMAS ELLISTON. Sudbury.

' OLD ST. PAUL'S.' I have heard that this romance by W. Harrison Ainsworth was originally issued weekly in the columns of the Sunday Times about 1841, and that for it the author received 1,000/. Are these facts ? Soon afterwards it was published in book form, i. e., three volumes, and illustrated by Franklin with some most weird engrav- ings in a kind of chiaroscuro style. They certainly add very considerably to the horrors of the story. Ainsworth, who had been edu- cated at the Manchester Grammar School, presented a complete set of his novels, twenty- seven in number, to the Chetham College Library, and in the librarian's room is a fine full-length portrait of him in oils, when in the prime of manhood. My friend the late Mr. James Crossley, an old contributor to the columns of * N. & Q.,' told me that the novelist was at one time " the handsomest man in London next to Count D'Orsay," and the portrait quite bears out his remark.

JOHN PICKFORD, M.A.

Newbourne Rectory, Woodbridge.

MURAL TABLET. In the church dedicated to St. Martin, just outside the village of Cheriton, near Sandgate, there is a mural tablet to the memory of one Joan Brodnax who died in 1592, aged thirty-nine, leaving a family of eightsons and sixdaughters ending with these curious lines :

Lyve well and dye never,

Dyee well and ly ve ever.

HAROLD MALET, Col.

RUTABAGA. This is the name (put into that form, I believe, by De Candolle) of the Swedish turnip, usually considered to be a variety of Brassica campeslris. The 'Encyclopaedic Dictionary' says that its etymology is un- certain ; but I presume there is no room for doubt that (as stated in the * American Cyclo- paedia') the word is derived from Swedish rota, a root, and bagge, a ram, so that it means ram-root. W. T. LYNN.

Blackheath.

A CENTENARIAN AT EVERSDEN, 1600. Let loyalty to the memory of our first Editor, the late Mr. Thorns, plead for the insertion of this note. Andrew Willet, in his 'Hexapla in Genesin,' Cambridge, 1605, p. 66, writes :

" I haue seene my selfe an old man of 124 years of

je, at Euersden in the countie of Bedford, who

died about ann. 1600. or, 1601. he could remember

Bosworth field at the comming in of Henrie the 7.

beeing then as he affirmed some 15. yearea old."