circuits for sixty-two years, and who died in 1845, remembered that in
every county on this circuit there was an assize ball on the commission
day of each assize. This ball was attended by the nobility and gentry
of the county and the Judges and Bar. The Judges used to wear to the
balls the black silk gown, band, and the two-curl bob-wig. They were
attended by the High Sheriff, wearing a full court dress, bag-wig, and
sword; and his chaplain, in his gown, cassock, and band. The Judges
did not dance, but they usually played at whist. The assize ball was
continued in Buckinghamshire within the memory of the Rev. Edward Owen,
one of the present magistrates of that county.
THE COURTS.--In the recollection of Mr. Bellamy, in every assize
town on the Oxford circuit the two Courts were held in the same
room, without any division or partition, so that one Judge could see
the other. This continued at Gloucester till the year 1816, and the
alteration was occasioned by this circumstance: Baron (then Judge)
Bayley was trying a man for murder, and his jury burst into a laugh at
one of Mr. Dauncey's jokes in a horse cause in the other Court. The
learned Judge thought it was time this was altered.
ASSIZE PRESENTS.--Formerly the Judges on their circuits had an immense
number of presents--venison, fruit, wine, &c.--which half kept
their house during the assizes; but in the year 1794, when so much
was subscribed for the defence of the nation against the threatened
invasion, the value of the different presents was subscribed, and the
presents discontinued, and never again renewed. About thirty years ago
a story was current in Worcester that the Mayor always sent the Judges
a present of a loaf of sugar, and that the Judges in return invited the
Mayor to dine with them; but that the Mayor being once uninvited, the
sugar was discontinued ever after. Till the passing of the Municipal
Reform Act the Corporation of Gloucester always sent each Judge in
spring a salmon and a house lamb, and in summer a salmon and a whole
sheep; and at present the Corporation of Oxford give to each Judge a
pair of white kid gloves, edged with gold lace, and ornamented with
gold tassels.
THE HIGH SHERIFF'S COSTUME.--Of late years, in Worcestershire, the
High Sheriff has dressed as any other gentleman. In Berkshire and
Oxfordshire the High Sheriff's costume is a court dress, and it was so
till lately in Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire; but as the present
court dress was first introduced in the early part of the reign of
George III, the bag-wig in the reign of George II, and as swords were
worn by all the gentlemen as part of their usual evening dress, within
the memory of Mrs. Hannah Shenton, of Stafford, who is now living at
the advanced age of ninety-seven, it is manifest that the High Sheriff
only appeared in the full dress of a gentleman of his time. And as a
further proof that the costume of the High Sheriff was the full dress
of the private gentleman of the period, there is a portrait of Francis
Goddard, Esq., High Sheriff of Wiltshire, in the reign of King William
III, now in the possession of Major Goddard, of the Wilts Militia, in
which the High Sheriff is wearing a full-bottomed wig.
JAVELIN MEN.--These, no doubt, were the vassals and retainers of
the High Sheriff, who attended to protect and guard the Judges, the
weapon they carried being the _partizan_, which is still carried by
the yeomen of the guard, which was introduced in the reign of Henry
VIII. Mr. Aubrey, the Wiltshire antiquary of Charles II's reign, in
a letter published by him in a work called "Miscellanies on several
Curious Subjects," says, from information obtained from his grandfather
(_temp._ Henry VIII)--"Lords had their armouries to furnish some
hundreds of men. The halls of Justices of the Peace were dreadful
to behold: the screens were garnished with corslets and helmets,
gaping with open mouths with coats of mail, lances, pikes, halberts,
brown-bills, batterdashers, bucklers, and the modern calivers and
petronels (in King Charles I's time turned to muskets and pistols).
Then an esquire, when he rode to town, was attended by eight or ten
men in blue coats with badges;" and it would seem that from the reign
of King Charles II the javelin men have continued to be much the same
as at present, as in the printed articles of agreement entered into in
that reign by sixty-four Wiltshire gentlemen, who were liable to serve
the office of High Sheriff, it is stipulated (_inter alia_) "That no
one of the said persons, when he is made sheriff of the said county,
have above thirty livery-men, nor under twenty, for his attendance at
the assize. * * * And that when any of the said subscribers shall be
made sheriffs of the said county, the livery shall be a plain cloth
coat or cloke, edged and lined through with sarge, a black hat, and
suitable javelin." This curious document, which was signed by one of
his ancestors, still remains in possession of Major Goddard.
THE TRUMPETERS.--These were part of the state of every Nobleman,
Bishop, and High Sheriff. Mr. Aubrey, in his letter before cited,
says--"The Lords kept trumpeters, even to King James;" and as late as
the reign of George II there were trumpeters in the establishment of
the Archbishop of Canterbury. At ancient banquets, trumpeters were
always in attendance. At the Peacock Feast given by Robert Braunche,
Mayor of Lynn, to King Edward III, and represented on the tomb of
that magistrate, in Lynn Church, the sonorous blast of the trumpets
accompanies the introduction of the viands; and at the Lord Mayor's
Dinner at Guildhall, on the 9th of November, every toast is announced
with a flourish of trumpets, at the top of the hall, which is answered
by another flourish from the bottom.
JOHN TALBOT, ESQ., OF SALWARPE.
John Aubrey, Esq., F.R.S., in his Natural History, written between
the years 1656 and 1691, says (p. 70)--"Dame Olave, a daughter and
co-heire of Sir Henry Sharington, of Lacock, being in love with John
Talbot, a younger brother of the Earle of Shrewsbury, and her father
not consenting that she should marry him, discoursing with him one
night from the battlements of the Abbey church, said shee, 'I will
leap downe to you.' Her sweetheart replied he would catch her then,
but he did not believe she would have done it. She leapt down, and the
wind, which was then high, came under her coates, and did something
breake the fall. Mr. Talbot caught her in his armes, but she struck
him dead. She cried out for help, and he was with great difficulty
brought to life again. Her father told her that since she had made
such a leap she should e'en marrie him. She was my honoured friend,
Colonel Sharington Talbot's grandmother, and died at her house at
Lacock, about 1651, being about a hundred yeares old." To this passage
the veteran antiquary, John Britton, Esq., F.A.S., has added this
note: "Olave, or Olivia Sherington married John Talbot, Esq., of
Salwarpe, in the county of Worcester, fourth in descent from John,
second Earl of Shrewsbury; she inherited the Lacock estate from her
father, and it has ever since remained the property of that branch of
the Talbot family, now represented by the scientific Henry Fox Talbot,
Esq." Sir Henry Sherington was the son of Sir William Sherington, one
of the ecclesiastical commissioners for Wiltshire on the dissolution
of the Chantries; and to him Henry VIII granted the possessions of
Lacock Abbey, and a good deal of other monastic property in Wiltshire.
Mr. Aubrey was one of the original members of the Royal Society. He
attended Charles II and his brother, afterwards James II, on their
visit to the Druidical Temple, at Avebury, in 1663; and dined with
Oliver Cromwell, the Protector, at Hampton Court, in 1657 or 8, as is
stated in his work before cited, pp. 97 and 103.
KING'S NORTON LIBRARY.
An interesting relic of the seventeenth century exists in the old
Theological Library in the School in King's Norton churchyard,
founded by Thomas Hall, the ejected Puritan of 1662. Hall is well
known to literary men as the author of "Funebriæ Floræ, or Downfal of
May-day Games," the "Treatise against Long Hair," and other works. An
interesting sketch is given of him by Calamy, in his account of the
ejected ministers, affixed to his life of Baxter; and also by Wood,
in his "Athenæ Oxonienses." The library consists of from six to eight
hundred volumes, of all sizes, ranging from about 1580 to 1645 or
1650, and the books contain the name of the donor on the title-page.
All the works are devotional, and many of them controversial. There
are discoveries of and safeguards against the subtleties of Jesuitism,
and against the then recently propounded notions of the Quakers, as
well as treatises on doctrinal points, commentaries on the Scriptures,
translations from Ovid, and sermons preached before Parliament. The
entire collection shows strikingly how, even in the stirring times
of civil war, a minister could devote himself to the duties of his
sacred calling; and, judging from the evidence presented by his choice,
how completely he could isolate himself from the seductions even of
theological polemics, for the grand old truth held by all orthodox
Christians. It is to be regretted that the library is so little known.
It is said that a similar library was established at the little village
of Sheldon, near Yardley.
OLD ENGLISH RATS.
The old English black rat (_Mus rattus_), which has been nearly
superseded in this country by the brown Norway rat, still lingers at
retired farmhouses in this county, as, for instance, at Grimsend,
Alfrick, Clay Green, and Wick, near Worcester. The brown rat was
unknown in England till 1730. It is said that the great numbers of
these intruders in the Isle of France drove the Dutch from that
settlement.
PAPER.
The earliest mention of the purchase of paper in England is believed to
be in an original computus roll of the 43rd year of Edward III (nearly
five centuries ago) relative to the receipts and disbursements of
Halesowen Abbey; it is as follows: "Et in paper empt. pro literis et
aliis necessariis domus, 12_d._"
ANCIENT SEAL OF WORCESTER.
After being lost for half a century, the seal of the Corporation of
Worcester has been found at Rouen, in Normandy. The antiquity of this
seal is not so curious, perhaps, as the locality where it has been
found. The device is a church, surrounded by a wall, having battlements
on it, and round the device is the inscription--"SIGILLUM COMMUNE
CIUIVM WIGORNIE," with something like the date "952." The figures,
however, are very indistinct, though it is supposed by a writer in the
"Worcester Herald" that they may refer to the date of King Edgar's
reign, who was a great friend to the city of Worcester, and might
have fortified it about that era; but then the use of figures was not
adopted in England, or in Europe generally, till some centuries after
the date assigned.
DESTROYING AN IMAGE AT WORCESTER.
In Macaulay's "History of England," vol. iv, p. 461, it is stated, that
when the Dutch army was marching from Torbay towards London, in 1688,
Sir Edward Harley, of Brampton Brian, and his son Robert (afterwards,
as Earl of Oxford, Queen Anne's minister, and a high churchman)
declared for the Prince of Orange and a free parliament, raised a large
body of horse, took possession of Worcester, and evinced their zeal
against Popery by publicly breaking to pieces, in the High Street, a
piece of sculpture which, to rigid precisians, seemed idolatrous.
EAST WINDOW OF ST. JOHN'S CHURCH.
"A Stranger," writing to one of the local newspapers a few months ago,
drew the attention of antiquaries to some painted glass in the great
east window of the above church which is not noticed by Dr. Nash or
Mr. Green, the Worcester historians. There is (he says) a head with
long flowing hair and a forked beard, and another head with the face
close shaven and a coronet. The first of these, I should suggest, was
painted in the reign of Richard II; on his tomb in Westminster Abbey
there is his effigy with a forked beard; and on the tomb of Edward III,
in the same place, his effigy has the long flowing hair. The head with
the coronet is exactly like one in the great church in Cirencester,
of which there is a coloured engraving in Mr. Lyson's Gloucestershire
Antiquities: that is supposed to be the head of Edward IV's father,
whose "feodary" (an official something between an English steward and
an Irish middleman), built this part of the church. Dr. Nash mentions
two circumstances connected with St. John's which coincide with these
dates. He says that in 1371, only six years before the reign of Richard
II, William de Lynne, Bishop of Worcester, suppressed the Chapel of
Wyke and constituted St. John's a vicarage; and that in the first
year of the reign of Edward IV, the Prior of Worcester granted to the
Corporation the privilege of attending Divine service at the Cathedral
with their officers, but if any officer should arrest, or do any act
in the monastery sanctuary, _or St. John's_, he should "forfeit his
mace and office without any hopes of restitution." This grant is
witnessed by John Carpenter, then Bishop of Worcester; Sir Thomas
Littleton, Serjeant-at-Law (the very celebrated Judge who was buried,
in the Cathedral); and others. There is also a figure kneeling. This
is a Saint, as he has the nimbus round his head, and from his young
and beardless face it is probably St. John. There is also between this
figure and the coroneted head a grotesque head with the mouth open and
the tongue protruded. This I never before saw in a window, or inside a
church, though it is very common in carving on the outside of churches.
These grotesques are by some supposed to represent the deadly sins--the
evil passions and the like. May not this device be founded on _Isaiah_
ch. lvii, v. 4?
BISHOP THORNBOROUGH'S MONUMENT.
The Rev. O. Fox, incumbent of Knightwick-cum-Dodenham, late head master
of the Worcester College School, has advanced the following ingenious
theory to account for the remarkable epitaph on the above monument in
the Lady Chapel of Worcester Cathedral, which has long puzzled our
local and other antiquaries. The epitaph (he says) was prepared by the
Bishop himself fourteen years before his decease in 1641, at the age of
94. He was addicted to alchemy, and published a book in 1621, entitled
#Dithotheôrikos#, _sive, Nihil aliquid, omnia, &c._ In the course of
some recent studies in the Pythagorean philosophy, my attention was
accidently engaged by this inscription; and it at once struck me that
it was thence that the explanation was to be derived. The epitaph is as
follows: on one side,
"Denarius Philosophorum, Dum Spiro Spero."
on the other
"In Uno, 2o 3o 4or 10. non Spirans Sperabo."
The two latter letters are now effaced.
It is well known that the Pythagoreans found all the modes of space in
the relations of numbers.
The monad, or unit, was not only the _point_ whence all extension
proceeds, but it further symbolised the First Principle, the origin of
all. The decad represented the line, as being bounded by two points
or monads. The triad stood for surface, as length and width. The
tetrad for the perfect figure--the cube, length, depth, and width.
The decad, or denarius, indicated comprehensively all being, material
and immaterial, in the utmost perfection: hence the term _decas_, or
_denarius_, was used summarily for the whole science of numbers, and
in the title of Meursius's tract, "De Denario Pythagorico," which
was published four years after the date of the inscription, and when
the philosophy was attracting much attention among European scholars.
To be as concise as possible, then, I presume that the old bishop
intended that the tomb on which his effigy lies was his access to
that perfection of existence which philosophers had designated by the
_decas_, or _denarius_. During the present life he was hoping for it.
"_Dum Spiro Spero_."--On the other side: "In Him, who is the source,
the beginning, the middle, and the end of all existence and perfection
(in _Uno_, 2o. 3o. 4or 10. _non Spirans Sperabo_), though I breathe no
more, yet shall I hope."
Such is probably the meaning of his pious conceit, and I offer it as
a solution of what has long served for a riddle to the visitors of
our Cathedral. Beyond this, your readers and myself may be equally
indifferent to such cabalistical quaintness. But let us treat it with
charity, as the devout consummation of an aged alchymist.
VINEYARDS.
Traces of ancient vineyards are abundant in this county. At Great
Hampton is a place called "Vineyard Hill," where a vinery was
established in the Conqueror's time. ("_Et vinea novella ibi_,"
Domesday.) In South Littleton is "Vineyard Orchard," "Vine Street"
in Evesham, and "Vineyard Hill" near that town. At Pensax is a field
called "The Vineyard," and there is a tradition that a Mr. King,
about a century ago, endeavoured to establish there a vineyard of
considerable extent, and created an artificial atmosphere by means
of flues spread over the piece of land. The appearance of the field
justifies the tradition. Is there any allusion to this wild scheme in
the archives of the Dean and Chapter, to whom the land belonged? In the
rector's garden at Fladbury is the supposed site of the "Vineyards,"
which in the time of Henry III were cultivated there--(_Item
percepit duas paries decimarum terrarum quondam ubi vineæ fuerunt
apud Fladbury_: Priory Ledger.) Vines still flourish and ripen well
in that garden. To the south of Astley church, across the road, lies
the "Church-bank," whereon, tradition says, the monks of Astley
Priory were wont to cultivate the vine; and traces are still visible
of terraces whereon probably the vines were planted. Documents exist
relative to vineyards at Ripple, Leigh, Sedgberrow, and Elmley Castle;
and at Droitwich is a place called "The Vines;" "Vine Hill" and the
"Vineyards," at Doddenham; "The Vinne," "Vinne Orchard," "Big Vinne,"
"Little Vinne," and "Great Viney," at Abberley; "Vineyard," in Stoke
Bliss; "The Vineyard," Powick (belonging to St. Martin's parish, and
appropriated to the repairs of the church); "The Vineyard," Lower
Mitton, &c. Some writers have supposed that the Romans planted vines in
Britain. Tacitus intimates that the olive and the vine were deficient
here; but it is clear from Bede and others that they were cultivated
at a subsequent period, and perhaps were neglected only when the
inhabitants found they could purchase better wines at a low price from
France, or employ their lands to greater advantage by growing corn.
(See also the chapter on Bishop Swinfield's Roll, p. 146.)
ECHOES.
Mr. Allies, in his "Antiquities and Folk-lore," mentions a remarkable
echo at the Upper House, Alfrick, which is so distinct that it will
allow about ten syllables to be uttered before it begins to repeat
them. A pointer-dog in the neighbourhood used to resort to the spot,
and bark till he was tired at his supposed antagonist. Nash records
that in the parish of Bromsgrove were several echoes--one at the white
gate, between Dyer's bridge and the turnpike; another in the Crown
Close behind High Street; a third at the east and west corners of the
church; a fourth at Woodcot; and a fifth on the east side of High
Street, near the Presbyterian meeting-house, opposite New Barn. Whether
any of these mocking nymphs have left their cells since the days of
Nash, the writer is unable to say. There is a good echo in the Bath
Road, about two miles from Worcester Cross, and another on Lansdowne
Terrace. In the garden of Chaddesley Corbett vicarage an echo is
produced by the tolling of the great bell of the church, which, after
an interval of two or three seconds, returns distinctly upon the ear,
as though it were the tolling of the bell of Stone church, which is two
miles distant.
THE LAST FOOL.
The last country gentleman who kept a fool--that is, a professional
jester--in his house, was said to have been Mr. Bartlett, of
Castlemorton. Jack Havod, or Hafod, was the name of "the squire's
fool," and his tricks and drolleries were remembered by the inhabitants
of Castlemorton long after his death, and are related even in the
present day. It is still a common saying there--"As big a fool as
Jack Havod;" and it is also told of him that on one occasion he was
assisting in storing peas in a barn, and there being insufficient room
for the crop, Jack very coolly shovelled them out of a window into a
pool of water underneath, saying, "We've got a vent for them now;" and
to this day it is a proverb in the neighbourhood--"We've got a vent for
them, as Jack Havod said."
NOTES ON ELMLEY LOVETT.
The only doctor of medicine known to have resided in this parish for
the last 200 years was John Aaron, Esq., of the Moat House, Cutnal
Green, who died in 1767, aged 83. He was descended from an ancient
family of Little Drayton, near Shiffnal, Salop.--Dr. Wanley, of Elmley
Lodge, who died in 1776, aged 69, was the only "D.D." that has held
that rectory for the last two centuries.--Between the river Salwarpe
and Bury-hill Estate, near Droitwich, is some meadow land belonging
to the parish of Elmley Lovett. This land is more than two miles
distant from the nearest boundary of the parish, and there runs some
part of three other parishes between it, viz., Elmbridge, Hampton,
and Salwarpe. The area of this land is about five acres, and is the
property of Mr. Roberts, and rented by a gentleman at Droitwich, who
pays the rates to Elmley Lovett.
COUNTY MAGISTRATES' WAGES.
By a statute as old as the time of Richard II, County Magistrates were
allowed to make a charge of 4s. per day, and the Clerk of the Peace
2s., as wages for attending Quarter Sessions. That charge has been
regularly made and allowed by the Sheriff up to the close of last
year (1855), when the ancient statute was repealed by the passing of
the Criminal Justice Act, 18th and 19th Victoria, chap. 126. In this
county these wages were clubbed together as a dinner and wine fund for
the magistrates, but the old practice is now discontinued, and the
magistrates will henceforth be thrown upon their own resources. In the
year 1810 a long and bitter controversy, at one time wearing a serious
aspect, arose among the magistracy of this county, in consequence of
Mr. Welch, the chairman, having been charged by Mr. Johnson, a fellow
magistrate, with misappropriating a part of these "justice wages" that
had been intrusted to him. The Bench acquitted Mr. Welch.
ROYAL VISIT TO KING'S NORTON.
There is a common tradition at King's Norton that Queen Elizabeth
came thither, and was entertained at an ancient house adjoining the
churchyard, probably the residence of the Manorial Bailiff; but the
name of the Queen has perhaps been mistaken for that of Henrietta
Maria, wife of Charles I, she, according to Dugdale's Diary (p. 52),
having come to King's Norton from Walsall on July 10, 1643. The manor
was part of the Queen's dower.
CROMWELL'S PARLIAMENT.
Names of the members for Worcestershire returned for Cromwell's second
Parliament, July, 1654: Sir Robert Rouse, Knt. and Bart., Edward Pitt,
Esq., Nicholas Lechmere, Esq., John Bridges, Esq., Talbot Badger,
Esq., (Worcester City), William Collins, Esq. (ditto), Edward Elvines,
Alderman (ditto). The names of the gentlemen returned to Parliament
on September 17, 1656, are--Major-General James Berry, Colonel of
Horse, and Major-General of the counties of Worcester, Hereford, and
Salop, and also North Wales; Sir Thomas Rouse, Bart., Edward Pitt, of
Kiere Park, Esq., Nicholas Lechmere, Esq. (Attorney of the Duchy of
Lancaster), John Nanfan, Esq., Worcester City.--Edmund Giles, Esq.,
one of the Masters in Chancery, who married a relation of the Lord
Protector; William Collins, Esq.
WORCESTERSHIRE ROYALISTS COMPOUNDING.
By an ordinance of the Parliament[10] made on the 31st of March, 1643,
it was ordained that the estates of the two Archbishops and twelve of
the Bishops, including the Bishops of Worcester, Hereford, Gloucester,
and Coventry and Lichfield, and of all persons ecclesiastical and
temporal as had raised arms or been in active war against the
Parliament, or had voluntarily contributed any money, horse, plate,
arms, munition, or other aid or assistance, towards the maintenance of
any forces against the Parliament, should be sequestered.
[10] This ordinance will be found in extenso in Scobell's Collection of
Acts and Ordinances of Parliament (a work in the Worcester Law Library)
p. 37.