( 290 ) MINOR CORRESPONDENCE. Mr. KEMPE desires to rectify a misapprehension of Mr. W. S. HESLEDEN, (p. 200), that our former correspondent quoted William of Malmesbury, in a passage which makes mention of the Battle of Brunanburh, and in which the epithet yellow is applied to the sea. A. J. K. distinctly referred to the Saxon Chronicle, as literally translated into English by Miss Gurney, and printed at Norwich in 1819, for gratuitous and private circulation. "I am not aware (adds Mr. KEMPE) that any similar term in relation to the sea is employed by William of Malmesbury in his history; in citing which I merely said that he had imitated the compilers of the Saxon Chronicle by inserting in his work some verses in praise of the renowned monarch Athelstan; but I by no means intimated that the verses in Malmesbury and the Saxon Chronicle were the same. How far the appellation of the yellow deep may be intended as applicable to the Humber, is another consideration; but before any positive inference can be drawn from it as to the locality of Brunanburh, it must be shown that the poet intended something more than a natural epithet. When "the bright canIdle of God the Eternal" sank in the west, and the host of Anlaf sought refuge in their "nailed ships," the deep would be gilt with the rays of departing light, and therefore there appears to me nothing very extraordinary in terming it yellow." Q. says, "F. E. in your Supplement to the Magazine for the last year deserves the thanks of the country at large for his suggestion, in consequence of the late lamented accident of the destruction of Lewisham Church and Registers; and his caution and recommendation to the Clergy respecting the transmission of copies of the Parochial Registers is very judicious; but I am afraid it scarcely extends quite far enough; for I am informed, that in some instances little provision is made for the subsequent arrangement or even careful preservation of the documents when transmitted to the Registry of the diocesan. Some attention seems requisite in this particular; and being now so near to the point, it may not be amiss to suggest that, whatsoever security may be afforded for the preservation of Parochial Registers in iron chests (and by the bye, if the Lewisham Registers were so kept, what becomes of such supposed security from the effects of fire? and if they were not, what punishment do not the negligent parties deserve for the irreparable and incalculable mischief to which they have contributed?) -unless such chests are frequently opened and constantly kept from damp air, the writings, especially parchments, decay much sooner than when kept in a wooden or lat ticed safe; for this plain reason, that when the chest has been opened in a damp atmosphere, on closing the lid, such a quantity of humidity is kept in contact with the contents, that decomposition must ensue from mere want of ventilation." P. remarks that "Lord King, in his 'Life of Locke, has printed a letter of Dr. William Fuller, Bishop of Lincoln, in order to show that the celebrated Dr. Stillingfleet, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, received his first dignity' in the Church at the request of the Earl of Shaftesbury, and that he must therefore have originally belonged to that nobleman's party. A little inquiry would have shown Lord King that it was not the celebrated Dr. Stillingfleet that was Prebendary of North Kelsey, but John Stillingfleet, D.D. Rector of Beckingham in Lincolnshire (Willis's Cathedrals, ii. 230), and that therefore a charge of ingratitude was gratuitously advanced against that eminent prelate. It may be added, in further proof of the want of research manifested by Lord King, that, had Dr. Edward Stillingfleet been appointed to a prebend in 1674, it would not have been his first dignity,' since he was preferred to the prebend of Islington in the Church of St. Paul's in 1667, and to a canonry of the same Cathedral in 1670." AN OLD SUBSCRIBER remarks, "Lord Courtenay having established his right to the Earldom of Devon under the grant to Edward Courtenay, 28 Sept. 1553, it seems to remain a question whether the present Earl be entitled to the precedence of 1553 only, or to the original precedence of 1335 (which would constitute him premier Earl), there being a clause in the patent of 1553 granting to Edward Courtenay the same precedence any of his ancestors being Earls of Devon had heretofore enjoyed. Now the original grant to the Courtenays was dated 22 Feb. 1335.-In what way is the Earl Compton (see Promotions for March) to bear the designation of Kirkness ?" ANTIQUARIUS will be obliged by being informed if there is any other copy extant of the Parliamentary Surveys made after the death of Charles the First in the time of the Commonwealth or of Cromwell, than the one in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth. P. 82, for Massareene read Massereene, passim. P. 268. The late Lord Rivers's Christian names were William Horace, not 'Horace William;'-on succeeding to the title he took the surnames of Pitt-Rivers for himself, but his children to be Pitt only, during his life-time; but the heir succeeding him in the title to be then Pitt-Rivers. THE GENTLEMAN'S MAGAZINE. APRIL, 1831. ORIGINAL COMMUNICATIONS. ORIGINAL LETTER OF KING CHARLES I. Dalby Terrace, MR. URBAN, City Road, March 1. I INCLOSE you a copy of an original Letter in my possession from the unfortunate Charles to the Marquis of Ormond. The Letter is in perfect preservation, and the copy is exact in every particular. The commencement and conclusion are particularly striking. Indeed, the forlorn and melancholy situation in which the unhappy Monarch was placed by his adverse fortunes, is depicted throughout in language well calculated to draw 66 iron tears down Pluto's cheek." Nay, even down the cheeks of that stern republican John Milton himself. The Letter is indorsed in the handwriting of the time thus :-" His Maties 31 July, 1645."-Rec. 18 August. By Rob Smith." In all probability, therefore, it was intercepted. Yours, &c. ORMOND, J. BAKER. Cardif, 13 July, 1645. Ir hath pleased God, by many successive misfortunes, to reduce my af faires, of late, from a verry prosperous condition, to so low an eb, as to be a perfect tryall of all mens integrities to me; and you being a person whom I consider as most entyrly and generously resolved to stand and fall with your King, I doe principally rely upon you, for your utermost assistance in my present hazards: I have com'anded Digby to acquaint you at large, with all particulars of my condition; what I have to hope, trust too, or feare; wherin you will fynde that, if my expectation of Relife out of Irland be not in some good measure and speedely answered, 1 am lykely to be reduced to great extremities. I hope some of those Expresses I sent you since my misfortune, by the Battaile of Nazeby, ar come to you, and am therfor confident that you ar in a good forwardness, for the sending over to me a considerable supply of men, artillery, and amunition; all that I have to add is, that the necessity of your speedy performing them is made much more pressing, by new disasters; so that I absolutly Comand you, (what hazard soever that kingdome may run by it,) personally to bring me all the Forses, of what sort soever you can draw from thence, and leave the Governement there (during your absence) in the fittest hands, that you shall judge, to discharge it; for 1 may not want you heere to Comand those forces wch will be brought from thence, and such as from hence shall be joyned to them: But you must not understand this as a permission for you to grant to the Irish (in case they will not otherwais have Religion, then what I have allowed a Peace) any thing more, in matter of you alreddy; except only in some convenient parishes, where the much greater number ar Papists, I give you power to permitt them to have some places, we they may use as Chapells for theire Devotions, if there be no other impediment for obtaining a Peace; but I will rather chuse to suffer all extremities, then ever to abandon my Religion, and particularly ether to English or Irish Rebells, to wch effect, I have com'anded Digby to wryt to their Agents that were imployed hither, giving you power to cause, deliver, or suppresse the letter, as you shall judge best, for my service: To conclude, if the Irish shall so unworthily take advantage of my weake condition, as to press me to that weh I cannot grant with a safe conscience, and, without it, to reject a Peace; I com'and you, if you can, to procure a further Cessation; if not, to make what devisions you can So in the original. 292 Petition of Mr. Hickman to Charles II. among them, and rather leave it to Your constant reall faithfull CHARLES R. The Marquis of Ormond. MR. URBAN, Mere, April 6. I SEND you a copy of an old paper in the possession of one of my neighbours. It is the counterpart of a petition to King Charles the Second, from a Mr. Hickman; whose family had suffered from its adherence to the King in the civil war. "To the King's Most Excellent Mastie. "The humble Petition of Nathaniell Hickman, of West Knoyle, in ye county of Wilts; most humbly sheweth: "Dread Soveraigne, That in ye late usurpation your Maties poore petitioner's father, Thomas Hickman, was invested of a parsonage in Upton Louell, in ye county aforesaid, and dureing the same did wholy imploy him selfe at his owne proper charges in providing horses and armes and sending forth of his sones and servants in vindication of your Maties sacred Father of blessed memory, and in restoration of youre most sacred person, for which your poor petitioner's father was throwne out of worth one hundred and twenty his parsonage, pounds p' ann.; plundered of his goods, and divers times and in severall places imprisoned, and constrained to purchase his life at great cost, and to borrow a hundred pounds to satisfie the avaritious Com'itte; all which losses amounting to one thousand eight hundrd pounds and upwards. And yor poore petitioner's father, after fourteen years expulsion from his liveing, departed this miserable life, leaving your poore petitioner two hundred pounds indebted, and hardly anything wherewithall to subsist. "Youre petitioner humbly prays your sacred Maties commisseration of his sad and deplorable condic'on in some releife as shall seeme good to your princ'ly mercy, and yor [April, petitioner as in duty bound will for ever pray, &c." Underneath this petition, in the same handwriting, but written at a different time, is this observation : "This petition was presented att London severall times, but to no purpose, about ye yeare 1688." And in the margin, this "His eldest son he took from y University (his name being Samuell), and made him captaine of a troop of horse which was all maintained at his owne proper charge. He was killed at Newbery first fite by a cannon ball, as he was waiting on y King's person, &c." On the back of the paper are some verses, written by the petitioner's "brother Edmund," to the memory of his father, who died ye 19th day of Septm'. 1703, aged 77." These verses are written in a quaint style; but, as they express generally only the most common sentiments, I shall forbear to transcribe more than a few lines which refer to his pedigree. "All that I hear shall mention of his line Is that 'twas noble, loyall, and divine [clerical] "Tho's father's line was not so high in Yet 'twas devine [clerical] and loyall, just 1831.] Families of Hickman, Pilkington, and Mey. Walker's "Sufferings of the Clergy." It is there in the name of Elizabeth the widow of the ejected Divine, and addressed to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, Walker adds: "I am loth to tell the reader what success, or rather what disappointment this moving petition met with, from the hands of that great person to whom it was presented; and have only to add that Mr. Hickman had a temporal estate of about 201. per annum, on which his wife and four or five children subsisted during the Usurpation; and that his immediate successor was one Bradish, an Irishman, of whose ridiculous preaching (not to give it the worse name which it deserveth) I could let the reader have a very particular instance, if modesty would permit me to relate the story." Thomas Hickman was instituted to the rectory of Upton Lovel as early as 1619, on the presentation of the Crown. It might, perhaps, be difficult to trace further the history of his family; but the statement made in the verses regarding their episcopal descent, will admit of a few observations. The family of Pilkington was a very numerous one, as will be seen by reference to the pedigree in the first volume of Surtees's History of Durham, p. lxxix, and to that of another branch in Nichols's History of Leicestershire, vol. 111. p. 650. But the " great doctor of Hambledon," whose name was Richard, and who was also Archdeacon of Leicester, does not occur either among the Bishop's children, or his numerous nephews. The particulars preserved of Bishop Pilkington's domestic history are, that he married late in life, and at first, perhaps from the prejudices of Queen Elizabeth and her times against a married clergy, concealed the connection; that he had four children, whom, after the taste of families inclined to puritanism, he named Joshua, Isaac, Deborah, and Ruth; that the sons died young; and that he saved such large fortunes for the daughters as to provoke the jea 293 lousy of Queen Elizabeth, who in consequence deprived the Bishopric of 1000l. a year, which she settled on the garrison of Berwick.* In the Bishop's epitaph this wife and the four children already enumerated are alone named ; and the executors appointed by his will, were " Alice Kyngsmill, my now knowne wife, and Deborah and Ruth my daughters." His two sons had died in infancy. This evidence might be considered sufficient to disprove the accuracy of Mr. Hickman's poetical genealogy, did not he claim so immediate a descent from the Bishop. The precision of his statements, however, aided by the mystery which involves the prelate's early domestic history, may justify the belief that they present some adumbration of the truth. His other episcopal descent, from Bishop Mey of Carlisle, is corroborated by several authorities, as will be seen hereafter. He Wood gives, in his Athenæ Oxonienses, a short article on Dr. Richard Pilkington. He states him to have been descended from the ancient family seated at Pilkington in Lancashire, which was that of the Bishop; and adds, somewhat remarkably, "but where born (unless in the County Pal. of Durham) I cannot justly say.' was sent to St. John's College, Cambridge, "at about 17 years of age,' and took the degree of M.A. in 1598. These dates would fix his birth hardly before 1578, and the Bishop died in 1575-6, which forms another reason for discrediting the genealogical poet. However, he was instituted to the rectory of Hambledon in Buckinghamshire, on the presentation of Lord Scrope of Bolton, May 27, 1596. In 1597 he was collated by his father-inlaw, Bishop Mey, to the Archdeaconry of Carlisle; but he resigned it about the end of the next year. The Bishop was then dead, and Mr. Pilkington was probably no longer anxious to retain a preferment so distant from his living. In 1599 he removed to Queen's College, Cambridge, and was incorpo "I have heard that Queen Elizabeth, being informed that Dr. Pilkington, Bishop of Durham, had given ten thousand pound in marriage with his daughter, and being offended that a Prelate's daughter should equal a princess in portion [i. e. herself by Henry the Eighth's will], took away one thousand pound a year from that Bishoprick, and assigned it for the better maintenance of the garrison of Berwick."-Strype's Church History, book v. p. 253; compare with book ix. p. 109. + Langley's Desborough Hundred, p. 270. Willis's Cathedrals, vol. 1. p. 307. In Hutchinson's Cumberland the name is misprinted Pickington, 294 Preservation of St. Saviour's Church recommended. [April, rated Master of Arts in that University, Oct. 30. He proceeded B.D. 1600, and D.D. 1607. In 1618 he published "Parallela: or, the grounds of the new Roman Catholic and of the ancient Christian Religion, out of the holy scriptures, compared together; in answer to a late Popish pamphlet, entitled A Manual of Controversies, &c. by A. C. S." On the 16th of August, 1625, he was collated to the Archdeaconry of Leicester; and on the 19th of September 1631, he was buried in the chancel of his church at Hambledon, in the midst of a violent tempest, on which Anthony à Wood enlarges from the account given to a subsequent rector by Dr. Pilkington's servant; thus concluding: "certain it is that that most unusual storm did occasion certain odd reports concerning the said doctor to be made by the R. Catholics, to whom in general he had been a bitter enemy in his preaching and writing." No epitaph appears to have been put over his grave. are not Regarding the marriage of Dr. Pilkington with the daughter of Bishop Mey, the connection is traced not only in the preferment of our “great doctor" to the Archdeaconry of Carlisle; but in an entry in the parish register of Hambledon, which records the burial, Dec. 20, 1620, of Amey Mey, widow to the Bishop of Carlisle.* It is also mentioned by Anthony à Wood, in his memoir of William Crompton, the author of several works in divinity, and preacher of the word of God at Little Kimble in Buckinghamshire." Being acquainted with Dr. Rich. Pilkington, rector of Hambleton in the said county, he married one of his daughters, begotten on the body of his wife the dau. of Dr. John Mey, sometime Bishop of Carlisle, part of the Church is in the same style of architecture as the choir se lately restored with so much effect by Mr. Gwilt; it was a part of the Church built in the reign of Henry III. by Bishop de Rupibus; and, as in all perfect Churches the Lady Chapel forms a complete and tasteful finish to the edifice, more especially so does the elegant structure which forms the eastern extremity of St. Saviour's. To destroy it would be to inflict on the Church an injury equal to the removal of the head from the body of a statue, and without it the Church will appear an unfinished, half-destroyed, awkward pile of building. It is true that considerable sums of money have been raised by the parish for the repairs of the choir and the transepts, and now, the nave being declared dangerous, a large sum must necessarily be expended upon it; 20,000l. it is said; but if the parish funds are not sufficient, or considered applicable to the purposes of the repairs of the Lady Chapel, why is not a subscription solicited? Let the diocese of Winchester be appealed to; for this portion of the building has an especial claim on the diocese at large, being the spiritual court for the deanery of Southwark. To the public it has claims of an extensive nature; as a beautiful specimen of ancient architecture it would interest the antiquary and the man of taste, and as the scene of the trials of some of the martyrs of the Reformation, it has claims upon all who cherish an object on account of historical recollections connected with it. But the expense of the reparations necessary for the stability and decency of appearance of the structure, is not the only reason for its destruction. The London Bridge approaches, which are peculiarly inimical to Churches, are said to interfere with it, and that the Committee which directs these works has decreed its destruction; for what reason I cannot tell, as a carriage road now passes between it and the Bridge, and which will become useless when the Bridge is finished. and received from him instructions to proceed in his theological studies, and withal an inveterate averseness popery, or any thing that looked that way." to I therefore take this opportunity of appealing, through your pages, to all interested in the preservation of a structure so elegant, with the confident hope that when it shall be known that this wanton act of mischief and barbarity is to take place, that a degree of interest commensurate with the imof the structure, will be ex Mr. URBAN, March 30. THE altar-screen of York Minster has been saved from destruction by the exertions of the press. I have now to call for the aid of the same power to avert the threatened demolition of the Lady Chapel of St. Saviour's Church, Southwark. This * Willis, 1. 299. + Athenæ (edit. Bliss), vol. 111. col. 23. |