Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 9.djvu/494

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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9 th s. ix. JUNE 21, 1902.

and dated four months before Bannocfeburn, which established that of Scotland, it runs from start to finish with the great struggle between king and Parliament for the control of taxation, which deposed four English monarchs and consigned three to violent deaths, coming in at its close as a living factor in the fight. For it was aliened for value with its other charters by the borough of Portsmouth in 1683, to avoid the surrender of them to the Crown by the hands of the infamous Jeffreys, sent round to " bring them in " by fine and imprisonment, actually en- forced in some places.

The "governing" charter of Charles I., 1627. was sold to Louise de Querouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth (whose drafts on the English Exchequer were 150,000^. in one year only), for two massive loving cups, 175 oz., and as this controlled Parliamentary elections, it was repurchased after the Revolution. But the corporation cared not for the others, and refused to purchase this when offered to them in 1864, through Sir Frederick Madden, and they refused again in 1891 and 1898. One more point : the proclamation of 20 July, 1683, called in also the charter of Massa- chusetts Bay, and the king's messenger, Randolph, carried 200 copies for dispersal in New England. Do any of these exist ]

A. E. C.

ST. EDWARD'S SHRINE : * TEXTUS SANCTI EDWARDI.' By writ of liberate of 28 October, 1241, Henry III. ordered to be paid,

" Ricardo Abel aurifabro 3(K pro quodam saphiro citrino empto per precept um nostrum et liberate eidem E[dwarao filio Odonis, clerico nostro], ad feretrum sancti Edwardi" ('Liberate Roll,' Exch. of Receipt, No. 5,* m. 1).

What sort of stone was this ?

In MS. Tanner, 197, ff. 61b-62, is a list of " the jewels remaining in the Wardrobe on the retirement of Robert de Wodehouse, late cofferer at the end of the month of Janu- ary [1331]," including "liber rubeus qui vocatur textus sancti Edwardi." Is it known when this MS. of the Gospels disappeared 1 It seems not to have been the 'Royal MS.' (Bibl. Reg. I. A, xiv.), as the latter dates from about the time of Stephen and belonged at

a brand-new list inserted in the P.R.O. catalogue of the Exchequer of Receipt the other day, which had not even a note of the old references appended to the entries, so I am not able to give the present one. If it is necessary to recast such lists in order to provide occupation for junior assistants, they could fill up their time still further, and avoid causing needless irritation and waste of the time of the studious, if their instructions included the addition of the old press-mark in every case.
 * This was the reference a few weeks ago. 1 saw

one time to the abbey of St. Augustine, Canterbury, and afterwards to Archbishop Crarimer, whose name, "Thomas Cantua- rien./' is on the first page.

One could wish it were in existence, and could be used for the Coronation oath on 26 June, instead of the "Great Bible," hot from the presses of Oxford and Cambridge. ROBERT J. WHITWELL.

Oxford.

LORD FREDERICK MARKHAM. Can any of your readers throw light upon the following passage from Mr. Montgomery Carmichael's 4 Life of John William Walshe, F.S.A.' (Mur- ray, 1902)? "My name is Markham, and I am called Lord Frederick Markham because my father was Marquis of Clitheroe " (p. 70). The book professes to be the life of a real person, and deals with a period within the recollection of persons still living, although no dates are given with reference to the sub- ject of the biography or mentioned in it. Who was Lord Frederick Markham, whose death is described with great detail 1

L. C. R.

J. H. EYRE left Westminster School in 1809. I should be glad to obtain any infor- mation about him. G. F. R. B.

GILLESPIE GRUAMACH. Can any of your readers give me proof that this sobriquet was applied to the Covenanting Marquess of Argyll 1 I have proof that it was applied to his father, the seventh Earl of Argyll, whose portraits represent him as somewhat stern and " grim." The marquess, in spite of the cast in his eye, is by no means forbidding in expression, in some, at any rate, of his por- traits. J. WILLCOCK.

Lervvick.

WILLIAM BAXTER, OF AUSTRALIA. Is any- thing known of the descendants of this William Baxter 1 He was one of the three sons of John Baxter (b. 1768, m. 1797, d. 1855), of Findo-Gash (co. Perth), and Janet Din, his wife, and after he emigrated to Australia nothing seems to have been heard of him.

RONALD DIXON.

46, Marlborough Avenue, Hull.

J. QUANT, 23 MAY, 1791. This name is stamped on the cover of an old Prayer Book, dated at Oxford, 1787. Any clue to his family will oblige. A. C. H.

"MALLET" OR "MULLET." In '2 Henry IV.,' Act II. sc. iv. line 263, Falstaff says of Poins, " There 's no more conceit in him than is in a mallet." Schmidt in his 'Shakespeare- Lexicon ' defines conceit here as " mental