Notes and Queries, Number 47, September 21, 1850

    H.C.

Bowden, Manchester.

Thomson of Esholt.—In the reign of Henry VIII. arms were granted to Henry Thomson, of Esholt, co. York, one of that monarch's gentlemen-at-arms at Boulogne. The grant was made by Laurence Dalton, Norroy. The shield was—Per fesse embattled, ar. and sa., three falcons, belted, countercharged—a bend sinister. Crest: An armed arm, embowed, holding a lance, erect. Families of the name of Thompson, bearing the same shield, have been seated at Kilham, Scarborough, Escrick, and other places in Yorkshire. My inquiries are,—

1. Will any of your readers by kind enough to inform me where any mention is made of this grant, and the circumstances under which it was made?

2. Whether any ancient monuments, or heraldic bearings of the family, are still extant in any parts of Yorkshire?

3. Whether any work on Yorkshire genealogies exists, and what is the best to be consulted?

    JAYTEE.

Replies to Minor Queries

Pension (Vol. ii., p. 134.).—In the Dictionnaire Universelle, 1775, vol. ii. p. 203., I find the following explanation of the French word Pension:—

"Somme qu'on donne pour la nourriture et le logement de quelqu'un. Il se dit aussi du lieu où l'on donne à manger."

May not the meeting of the benchers have derived its name for their dining-room in which they assembled?

    BRAYBROOKE.

Execution of Charles I. (Vol. ii., pp. 72. 110-140. 158.).—In Lilly's History of his Life and Times, I find the following interesting account in regard to the vizored execution of Charles I., being part of the evidence he gave when examined before the first parliament of King Charles II. respecting the matter. Should any of your correspondents be able to substantiate this, or produce more conclusive evidence in determining who the executioner was, I shall be extremely obliged. Lilly writes,—

"Liberty being given me to speak, I related what follows: viz., That the next Sunday but one after Charles I. was beheaded, Robert Spavin Secretary to Lieutenant-General Cromwell at that time, invited himself to dine with me, and brought Anthony Pearson and several others along with him to dinner. That their principal discourse all dinner time was only who it was that beheaded the king. One said it was the common hangman; another, Hugh Peters; others were also nominated, but none concluded. Robert Spavin, so soon as dinner was done, took me by the hand, and carried me to the south window. Saith he, 'These are all mistaken; they have not named the man that did the fact: it was Lieutenant-Colonel Joice. I was in the room when he fitted himself for the work; stood behind him when he did it; when done, went in with him again: there is no man knows this but my master, viz. Cromwell, Commissary Ireton, and myself.'—'Doth Mr. Rushworth know it?' saith I. 'No, he doth not know it,' saith Spavin. The same thing Spavin since has often related to me, when we were alone."

    R.W.E.

Cheltenham.

Paper Hangings (Vol. ii., p. 134.).—"It was on the walls of this drawing-room (the king's at Kensington Palace) that the then new art of paper-hangings, in imitation of the old velvet flock, was displayed with an effect that soon led to the adoption of so cheap and elegant a manufacture, in preference to the original rich material from which it was copied."—W.H. Pyne's Royal Residences, vol. ii. p. 75.

    M.W.

Black-guard.—There are frequent entries among those of deaths of persons attached to the Palace of Whitehall, in the registers of St. Margaret's, Westminster, of "–, one of the blake garde." about the year 1566, and later. In the Churchwarden's Accompts we find—

"1532. Pd. for licence of 4 torchis for Black Garde, vj. d."

The royal Halberdiers carried black bills. (Grose, Milit. Antiq., vol. i. p. 124.) In 1584 they behaved with great cruelty in Ireland. (Cornp. Peck's Des. Curios., vol. i. p. 155.) So Stainhurst, in his Description, says of bad men: "They are taken for no better than rakehells, or the devil's blacke guarde."—Chap. 8. Perhaps, in distinction to the gaily dressed military guard, the menial attendants in a royal progress were called black-guards from their dull appearance.

I remember a story current in Dublin, of a wicked wag telling a highly respectable old lady, who was asking, where were the quarters of the guards, in which corps her son was a private, to inquire at the lodge of Trinity College if he was not within those learned walls, as the "black guards were lying there."

    M.W.

Pilgrims' Road (Vol. ii., p. 237.).—Your correspondent S.H., in noticing the old track "skirting the base of the chalk hills," and known by the name of the "Pilgrims' Road," has omitted to state that its commencement is at Oxford,—a fact of importance, inasmuch as that the Archbishops of Canterbury had there a handsome palace (the ruins of which still exist), which is said to have been the favourite residence of Thomas à Becket. The tradition in the county thereupon is, that his memory was held in such sanctity in that neighbourhood as to cause a vast influx of pilgrims annually from thence to his shrine at Canterbury; and the line of road taken by them can still be traced, though only portions of it are now used as a highway. The direction, however, in which it runs makes it clear (as S.H., no doubt, is aware) that it cannot be Chaucer's road.

While on the subject of old roads, I may add that a tradition here exists that the direct road between London and Tunbridge did not pass through Sevenoaks; and a narrow lane which crosses the Pilgrims' road near Everham is pointed out as the former highway, and by which Evelyn must have been journeying (passing close, indeed, to the seat of his present descendant at St. Clere) when he met with that amusing robber-adventure at Procession Oak.

    M(2).

Pilgrims' Road to Canterbury.—In the Athenæum of Nov. 2nd, 1844, there is a notice of Remarks upon Wayside Chapels; with Observations on the Architecture and present State of the Chantry on Wakefield Bridge: By John Chessell and Charles Buckler—in which the reviewer says—

"In our pedestrianism we have traced the now desolate ruins of several of these chapels along the old pilgrims' road to Canterbury."

If this writer would give us the results of his pedestrianism, it would be acceptable to all the lovers of Chaucer. I do not know whether PHILO-CHAUCER will find anything to his purpose in the pamphlet reviewed.

    E.S. JACKSON.

Combs buried with the Dead.—In Vol. ii., p. 230., the excellent vicar of Morwenstow asks the reason why combs are found in the graves of St. Cuthbert and others, monks, in the cathedral church of Durham. I imagine that they were the combs used at the first tonsure of the novices, to them a most interesting memorial of that solemn rite through life, and from touching affection to the brotherhood among whom they had dwelt, buried with them at their death.

    M.W.

The Comb, concerning "the origin and intent" of which MR. HAWKER (Vol. ii., p. 230.) seeks information, was for ritual use; and its purposes are fully described in Dr. Rock's Church of our Fathers, t. ii. p. 122., &c.

    LITURGICUS.

Aërostation.—C.B.M. will find in the Athenæum for August 10th, 1850, a notice of a book on this subject.

    E.S. JACKSON.

St. Thomas of Lancaster (Vol. i., p. 181.).—MR. R.M. MILNES desires information relative to "St. Thomas of Lancaster." This personage was Earl of Leicester as well as Earl of Lancaster; and I find in the archives of this borough numerous entries relative to him,—of payments made to him by the burgesses. Of these mention is made in a History of Leicester recently published. The most curious fact I know of is, that on the dissolution of the monasteries here, several relics of St. Thomas, among others, his felt hat, was exhibited. The hat was considered a great remedy for the headache!

    JAYTEE.

Smoke Money (Vol. ii., p. 120.).—"Anciently, even in England, were Whitsun farthings, or smoke farthings, which were a composition for offerings made in Whitsun week, by every man who occupied a house with a chimney, to the cathedral of the diocese in which he lived."—Audley's Companion to the Almanac, p. 76.

Pentecostals, or Whitsun Farthings, are mentioned by Pegge as being paid in 1788 by the parishioners of the diocese of Lichfield, in aid of the repairs of the cathedral, to the dean and chapter; but he makes no allusion to the word smoke, adding only that in this case the payment went by the name of Chad-pennies, or Chad-farthings, the cathedral there being dedicated to St. Chad.

    C.I.R.

Robert Herrick (Vol. i., p. 291.).—MR. MILNER BARRY states that he found an entry of the burial of the poet Herrick in the parish books of Dean Prior. As MR. BARRY seems interested in the poet, I would inform him that a voluminous collection of family letters of early date is now in the possession of William Herrick, Esq., of Beaumanor Park, the present representative of that ancient and honourable house.

    JAYTEE.

Guildhalls.—The question in Vol. i., p. 320., relative to guildhalls, provokes an inquiry into guilds. In the erudite and instructive work of Wilda on the Guild System of the Middle Ages (Gildenwesen im Mittelälter) will be found to be stated that guilds were associations of various kinds,—convivial, religions, and mercantile, and so on; and that places of assembly were adopted by them. A guild-house where eating and drinking took place, was to be met with in most villages in early times: and these, I fancy, were the guild-halls. On this head consult Hone's Every-day Book, vol. ii. p. 670., and elsewhere, in connexion with Whitsuntide holidays.

    JAYTEE.

Abbé Strickland (Vol. ii., pp. 198. 237.).—The fullest account of the Abbé Strickland, Bishop of Namur, is to be found in Lord Hervey's Memoirs (Vol. i., p. 391.), and a most curious account it is of that profligate intriguer.

    C.

Long Lonkin (Vol. ii., pp. 168. 251.).—This ballad does not relate to Cumberland, but to Northumberland. This error was committed by Miss Landon (in the Drawing-room Scrap-book for 1835), to whom a lady of this town communicated the fragment through the medium of a friend. Its real locality is a ruined tower, seated on the corner of an extensive earth-work surrounded by a moat, on the western side of Whittle Dean, near Ovingham. Since this period, I have myself taken down many additional verses from the recitation of the adjacent villagers, and will be happy to afford any further information to your inquirer, SELEUCUS.

    G. BOUCHIER RICHARDSON.

Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Sept. 7. 1850.