[Our authority for the date of Bishop Hesketh's death was Bishop
Hildesley's MS. list of the Manx bishops, which he presented to the
British Museum, and which appears to have been carefully compiled.
His words are, "Huan Hesketh died 1510, and was buried in his
cathedral of St. Germans in Peel." It is clear, however, there is
an error somewhere, which did not escape the notice of William
Cole, the Cambridge antiquary; for in his MS. Collections, vol.
xxvi. p. 24., he has the following entry:--"Huan Hesketh was living
13 Henry VIII., 1531, at which time Thomas Earl of Derby appointed,
among others, Sir Hugh Hesketh, Bishop of Man, to be one of his
executors. (See Collins's _Peerage_, vol. ii. p. 33.) Wolsey was
appointed supervisor of the will, and is in it called Lord
Chancellor: he was so made 1516, which proves that he was alive
after 1510. The will of Richard Hesketh, Esq.--to be buried in his
chapel at Rufford: executors, Hugh Hesketh, Bishop of Man, his
brother; and Thomas Hesketh, Esq.--was proved Nov. 13, 1520. (In
_Reg. Manwaring_, 3.) He continued bishop, I presume, forty-three
years, from 1487 to 1530. It is plain he was so thirty-four
years."]
_Form of Prayer for Prisoners._--
"It is not, perhaps, generally known, that we have a form of prayer
for prisoners, which is printed in the Irish Common Prayer-Book,
though not in ours. Mrs. Berkeley, in whose preface of prefaces to
her son's poems I first saw this mentioned, regrets the omission;
observing, that the very fine prayer for those under sentence of
death, might, being read by the children of the poor, at least keep
them from the gallows. The remark is just."--Southey's _Omniana_,
vol. i. p. 50.
What Irish Common Prayer-Book is here meant? I have the books issued by
the late Ecclesiastical History Society, but do not see the service
among them. Could the prayer referred to be transferred to "N. & Q.;" or
where is the said Irish Prayer-Book to be found?