Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 7.djvu/507

 9*8. VII. JUNE 22, 1901.] NOTES AND QUERIES.

499

Hastings FitzOsbern, "son cheval tot covert de fer," with Roger Montgomery, commanded one of the three divisions of the Norman army. In the Morris, is spoken of as " col cuer hardi." After his death in battle near Cassel, as titular Count of Flanders, the estate passed to his third son, Roger de Breteuil, Earl of Hereford. It is impossible to describe all the vicissitudes which the goodly lands experienced. In her opening sentence Lady Russell quotes with approval a quaint saying of Thomas Fuller concerning the " skittishness " of Berkshire lands, which "often cast their owners." This holds specially true of Swallowfield, which in the time of Henry II. was in the hands of the St. Johns, whence by marriage it passed into those of the Le Despencers, Emma de St. John being lady-in- charge of Princess Katharine, the deaf and dumb daughter of Henry III. Sir John le Despencer built in 1256 the church of All Saints, which was restored in 1869-70 by Sir Charles Russell. After being in the possession of Baron Roger de Leybourne, Swallowfield came back into that of the St. Johns. Following them came the De la Beches and Beaumys, the widowed Lady Margery de la Beche, a great heiress, having been carried off and forcibly married to Sir John de Dalton.
 * Roman de la Rose ' FitzOsbern, like Sir Ozana in

Many particulars of historical and antiquarian interest, including wages, prices for haymaking, &c., are supplied. Swallowfield Park was used by the Crown in the latter part of the four- teenth century for the breeding of horses. Edward III. was extravagant in horseflesh, and we find a complaint of prodigality. One "great horse" must have at least one groom at l^d. a day, which, with the price of hay, 2d., and straw, Id., will make the daily expenses for horse and groom tyd. Swallowfield was given by Edward III. in 1372 to his daughter Isabella de Coucy, Countess of Bedford. One of the most romantic chapters in the book is occupied with an account of the nego- tiations for her marriage with various princes, some of them sufficiently coy and recalcitrant. Royal dukes then held it, and it became the dowry of Tudor queens until, in 1582, it was bought by Samuel Backhouse, a wealthy merchant of London. Quite impossible is it to deal at length with all the matter of highest interest which attaches to the manor. Sir John Backhouse, the Royalist, and William Backhouse, the Rosicrucian, are both interesting figures. During the tenure of the Backhouses the estate was connected with the murder by the Countess of Essex of Sir Thomas Overbury. On 19 October, 1670, the manor passed by marriage to Henry Hyde, Viscount Cornbury, eldest son of the great Lord Clarendon. That the historian wrote his history at Swallow- field has often been stated, but is not true. By the second Earl of Clarendon the house was re- built in 1690. In 1719 it was bought by Thomas Pitt, known as "Governor" Pitt, the owner of the famous Pitt diamond, grandfather of the great Earl of Chatharn, who frequently visited Swallowfield in 1724. John Dodd became owner in 1737. Through Bevans and Earles it passed in 1820 by purchase into the hands of the Russells, its present possessors.

For years Lady Russell has " dotted down " all the information she has been able to obtain. This she has turned, according to her own account, into an olla podrida intended, as she says, for her own family and neighbours. This may be accurate ; it is cer-

tainly modest. She has at least produced an admir- ably interesting and readable book, which, with the addition of portraits and pedigrees, will be a treasure-house to antiquaries and genealogists. The portraits are especially numerous and attractive. Among them are those of Queens Elizabeth Wood- yille, Elizabeth of York, Catharine of Arragon, Anne Boleyn, Anne of Cleves, Catherine Howard, Catha- rine Parr, and Anne, Henry VI., John Planta- genet (Duke of Bedford), Robert Devereux (Earl of Essex) and his Countess, Sir Thomas Overbury John Evelyn, Lord Chatham, Horace Walpole Charles Kingsley, and many Pitts, Dodds, and Russells. Perhaps the only complaint that can be made is that, though the frontispiece consists of a reproduction of Romney's picture of the Lady Russell of 1786-7 and her son, there is among the portraits none of the author of the book. Views are supplied of the churches at Swallowfield and Shinfield ; of interiors, monuments, &c. ; of the Pitt diamond ; and of the Frost Fair on the Thames. How many copies of this work are issued we know not. Those, however, who by favour or by pur- chase obtain a copy will be entitled to think them- selves fortunate.

The Token Money of the Bank of England, 1797 to 1816. By Maberley Phillips. (Newcastle-upon- Tyne, Dickson; London, Effingham Wilson.) MR. PHILLIPS, whose work on ' The Bankers and Banking of the North of England' has won an assured place among those who are interested in finance, has added to the debt we owe him by writing a most useful book on the token money issued by the Bank of England. Our English currency has all along been a source of trouble; but strange as it may seem to those little acquainted with the subject, it was not until the sixteenth century that affairs became especially serious. The mediaeval coinages, here as elsewhere, were com- monly honest. They were what they professed to be ; but as time went on it occurred to the rulers of many states that to depreciate the currency would be a most beneficial arrangement. It would, they thought, put money into their own pockets, and no one would be a penny the worse for it. Henry VIII. , in the latter part of his reign, was much taken with this idea. He issued pieces which, though of the same weight and nominal value as his good money, were half silver and half alloy. We perhaps ought not to be too severe on acts of this Kind, fraudulent as we know them to have been, for questions of currency are intricate sub- jects at all times, and in those days they were understood by no one. As trade grew, and our own countrymen had dealings with the whole world (so far as it was then known), it became more and more necessary to put the coinage on a sound footing. The Act of 1696 was a strenuous endeavour in that direction. The old clipped and hammered money was called in, and its place supplied by a new coinage. A great mistake, however, was made by those who were responsible for calling in the old money and supplying its place by the new. Whether it arose from ignorance or neglect it is impossible to say ; but the results were disastrous. In many districts no money whatever was to be had ; and if we may trust Abraham de la Pryme the diarist, and other contemporary authorities, great and quite unmerited suffering was the con- sequence. For a time after this drastic change all went on well, but at last the authorities grew care!