at Canterbury, and many of them having so full of noises, we rather incline to think of London will arrive in Rome on Oct. 1, on an official visit of three or four days, during which he and his suite will be the Prince guests of the Governor of Rome, L'otenziani. This is the first official visit of a Lord Mayor of London to Rome. of the deed, drawn up in 1072 in the presence of William the Conqueror and signed by him with his mark, which assured to the See of Canterbury the Primacy of England. THE Savile Club, founded in 1868 and, since 1882, housed at 107, Piccadilly, is to move to new premises at 69, Brook Street, having acquired Lady Harcourt's house. The Times of Sept. 13 recapitulates the history of the club, with notes on its customs, and reminder of a few of its illustrious names. corres EXCAVATIONS in the Street of Abundance From MIST'S WEEKLY JOURNAL. SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 16, 1727. Cambridge, Sept. 10. On Friday night laft at a Place called Burwel, in this County, and three Miles from Newmarket, happen'd the moft dreadful Accident that perhaps has ever been known in Hiftory: The Story is as follows, about 8 a Clock at Night a PuppetShew was acting in a large Granery, wherein were about 100 Spectators, Men, Women, and Children; the Wall was about two Foot thick, and one little Door to go in at, of which the Merry Andrew of the Stage had the Key. Over the Granery was a Chamber full of Hay, Barley, and Straw, which took Fire, but by what Means is not known, though fome fay 'twas by the Negligence of a Servant, who left a Piece of Candle in a Lanthorn in adjoining Stable. The Company being thus lock'd in, they were, of a fudden, encompafs'd with the Flames, and the Ceiling falling in upon them, made all Efforts impracticable for their Prefervation, fo that their Destruction was inevitable. The Friends and Relations of the Deceafed an that can diftinguish their feveral Bodies by any Mark, or Remnant of Clothes, take them out of the Ruins, and bury them, The reft are fhot out from Carts into one common Grave. The Lofs that is yet difcover'd are thefe following, [List of names], alfo Mr. Sheppard the Mafter of the Shew, and his Wife, Daughter, Tumbler and Merry Andrew, this laft liv'd till Saturday Nine a-Clock, and then died in extreme Agonies P.S, The Puppet-Shew at Burwel was occafioned by a Petty Seffions held in the Village, by an ancient Statute for hiring of Servants, which brought fuch a Number of Spectators. f I have for some time been looking very carefully into the details of the King's execution, and have made prolonged search in connexion with the subject, not only at the Record Office and the British Museum in London, but also by visiting Libraries at Oxford and Cambridge, and by frequent inspections of the Banqueting House itself, where by the kind permission of Sir Arthur Leetham, until recently Secretary of the Royal United Service Institution, and of Captain Altham, his successor, I have examined the building very carefully, and made many measurements of doors and walls both inside and outside the house. to make this point sufficiently clear, somewhat lengthy references will be necessary to various early records and writings which have a bearing on the question at issue. As already mentioned, much of the controversy that has taken place during the last hundred years or more, in connexion with the execution of Charles I., has dealt with the question as to the way by which the King was conducted from the Banqueting House to the scaffold, which was erected on the western or Whitehall street front of that House. Various attempts have been made to explain two different statements made by writers of the seventeenth century, and later; one of these affirming that the King passed from the Banqueting House through an opening broken in a wall, the other that he went out through a window, which, according to some accounts, was enlarged, or had its frame removed. Two of those who referred to this subject were intimately associated with the events connected with the King's death. They left statements which have come down to us, and these will now be noticed. One of these writers was Sir Thomas Herbert, who, as groom of the bedchamber, was in close attendance on the King during his last hours, and until the moment that he passed out upon the scaffold. The other was Lieutenant-General Edmund Ludlow, one of the Commissioners of the High Court for the trial of the King, who attended every sitting of that Court at which the King was present, and was cne of the fifty-nine commissioners who signed the death warrant. In his Memoirs, Ludlow makes but few remarks concerning the execution, and in referring to the King's passage to the scaffold, he only says briefly, 'he was conducted to the scaffold out of a window of Being now able to state with certainty the hitherto doubtful and much discussed question as to the way by which the King passed to his death, and also to explain various other circumstances which have been obscure and uncertain in connexion with that event, it is my intention to publish in book form some account dealing with these the Banqueting House." He makes no refermatters and to consider them at some length. This will entail the discussion of a number of erroneous statements that have found their way into print, as also the proving from records, and by the reproduction of plans and drawings, where it is these errors have arisen, and wherein the truth lies. Such a work would be quite outside the scope of N. & Q.', and it is now only proposed to state a few particulars connected with this subject, and especially to explain where the position was at which the King passed out from the Banqueting House on the day of his execution. In order, however, ence to a broken wall. Herbert is fuller in his general details, but, like Ludlow, he also is brief in what he says of the King's passing out from the House. He is the only contemporary authority we have who states that the King passed to the scaffold through a broken wall, while making no mention of his passing through a window. Thomas Pennant, writing in the eighteenth century, mentions a wall as having been broken through, and refers to Herbert as the source of his information; Sir Reginald Palgrave quotes Pennant, and so it has been with others, but the primary authority for the King's passage to the scaffold having been through a broken wall, without a window being mentioned, was Sir Thomas Herbert. Let us now see what Herbert says. In his original manuscript of 'Threnodia Carolina,' or Memoirs of the two last years of King Charles I., which is a folio of 37 pages, and was sent in the form of a letter to Sir William Dugdale, Garter, in 1678, Herbert writes, when describing the King's end, that having been brought from his chamber, through the gallery, and all along the Banqueting House, "his Maty past to ye scaffold through ye wall yt was purposely broken downe at ye north end of the roome. As stated above, he says nothing of the King having passed through any window. Dugdale made a copy of Herbert's original manuscript, and a transcript of Dugdale's copy, with the exception of the foreword and the last paragraph, was made, partly by Ashmole, and partly by another hand. These two copies are in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, but not Herbert's original. The latter, Dugdale deposited, as he says, "for the better preservation of so excellent a memoriall," in the Cotton Library at Westminster; it is now amongst the Harleian manuscripts at the British Museum (No. 7396). There is a foreword or title, in Dugdale's hand, on this original manuscript, being as follows: A true and Perfect Narrative of the most remarkable passages relating to King Charles the first of blessed memory, written by the proper Hand of Sr Thomas Herbert Baronet, who attended upon his Matie from Newcastle upon Tine, when he was sold by the Scotts, during the whole time of his greatest afflictions, till his death and Buriall; wch was sent to me Sr Willm Dugdale Knight, Garter principall King of Armes, in Michaellmasse Terme ao 1678 by the said Sr Thomas Herbert, from Yorke, where he resideth. A somewhat larger foreword is attached to the copy made by Dugdale of Herbert's original manuscript of 'Threnodia,' which copy is, as already mentioned, in the Bodleian Library, being one of the manuscripts in the Ashmolean Collection (1141). The foreword, in Dugdale's hand, on this copy, is thus: A true copie of the Answer to a Letter sent by me Sr William Dugdale Knt, Garter principall King of armes, unto Sr Thomas Herbert Baronet, now residing in the citty of Yorke: by wch Letter I did desire him to inform me of such materiall passages as he had observed, touching the late K. Charles of blessed memory, during the time he did attend upon his person; (vzt for the two last yeares of his life) wch have not as yet been exactly made publique by the presse. The originall of wch Answer wth the proper hand of the said Sir Thomas (written Herbert) I did thinke fitt (for the better preservation of so excellent a memoriall) to deposit amongst those choyse manuscripts at Westminster, belonging to Sr John Cotton of Conington in the county of Huntingdon Bart, grandson and heire to Sr Robert Cotton, Bart, the worthy founder of that incomparable Librarie. I I have compared, at Oxford, a copy made in London of Herbert's original manuscript of Threnodia Carolina' (Harl. 7396), with the two copies of the same manuscript, referred to above, which are in the Bodleian Library, namely the copy made by Dugdale, and the transcript partly made by Ashmole. In these three manuscripts the description of the King's passage to the scaffold is in identical terms, viz., "his Maty past to yo scaffold through ye wall yt was purposely broken downe at ye North end of the roome. It should be noted that Herbert says in this manuscript that the wall was broken down at the north end of the room, he does not say that the breaking down was in the north end of the room. The room referred to was the Banqueting Hall. In addition to Sir Thomas Herbert's original manuscript of Threnodia Carolina (Harl. 7396), there is another, and revised, manuscript of this Memoir, in the Harleian Collection (No. 4705). This second manuscript is bound in a small volume, with copies, in Sir William Dugdale's handwriting, of two letters and two short narratives relating to Charles I. 'Threnodia Carolina' is the first article in this manuscript volume, and is a small folio of 91 pages irregularly numbered, being described in the printed catalogue of the Harleian manuscripts (dated 1808) as are seemingly " in the hand of G. King, viz. Gregory King, Lancaster Herald. The writing has, however, little resemblance to that of King, and nineteen and a half pages of the manuscript, in two sections, clearly in Thomas Herbert's own hand. This copy of Threnodia' (Harl. 4705) embodies practically all that is in Herbert's original manuscript (Harl. 7396), with some additions. It alters many sentences of the original, without changing their meaning, such alterations being made, apparently, tion from a literary standpoint. This manuwith the object of improving the composiscript volume (Harl. 4705) is stated to have belonged to Peter Le Neve, Norroy, whose name is written at the commencement of it, where there is also a list in Le Neve's hand, of the five articles the volume contains. Preceding the first article, viz., Threnodia Carolina, there is a foreword in Dugdale's hand, resembling the forewords he wrote on Herbert's original manuscript of Threnodia,' and on his own (Dugdale's) copy of the original, the copy already mentioned as being in the Bodleian Library. Dugdale's foreword to this second manuscript of Threnodia' (Harl. 4705) is as follows::This Booke containeth a large Answer to a short Letter sent by Sr William Dugdale Knt. (Garter, principall king of Armes) unto Sr Thomas Herbert Baronet, residing in the Citty of Yorke. By wch Letter he did desire the sayd Sr Thomas Herbert to informe him of such materiall passages, as he had observed touching the late King Charles the first (of blessed memory) dureing the time that he the sayd Sr Thomas did attend him in person; vzt for the two last yeares of his afflicted life. Sir Thomas Herbert had a transcript of his original manuscript of Threnodia,' which original, as we have seen, he sent to Sir William Dugdale in 1678. Subsequently, in a letter dated from York Mar. 31, 1680, in answer to a letter from Dugdale, Herbert wrote to Ashmole, stating that the Archbishop (Sancroft) having expressed a wish that his narrative concerning Charles I. should be published, he had revised it, and desired that Ashmole, Dugdale, and Rushworth would read and correct it. The manuscript was not then published, but Anthony Wood, in the first edition of his Athenae' and Fasti Oxonienses,' 1691-2, printed large extracts from Threnodia Carolina.' These had been sent to him by Sir Thomas Herbert before the latter's death, which took place on 1 Mar., 1682. It was Herbert's revised version of Threnodia' that Wood used. He also made a transcript of the original Memoir, which is amongst his manuscripts at Oxford. ་ It was not, however, until the beginning of the eighteenth century that Threnodia Carolina' was wholly printed, in a small octavo volume, with some other papers relating to Charles I. This volume was published in 1702 by Dr. Charles Goodall, physician to the Charterhouse, a later edition being issued in 1711, and another in 1813. It was a revised copy of Threnodia Carolina that Goodall printed. I have compared this small volume with the second manuscript of Threnodia' mentioned above, which was in Le Neve's possession (Harl. 4705), and the In support of the suggestion that Le Neve's manuscript (Harl. 4705) was the manuscript that formerly belonged to the Bishop of Ely and was printed in 1702, is the fact that in the contents list of this manuscript volume (Harl. 4705), which list is in Le Neve's hand, there is added, after the entry of Threnodia Carolina,' printed." Further, the four letters and narratives copied in Dugdale's handwriting, which, in addition to Threnodia Carolina,' form part of Le Neve's manuscript, are also printed with Threnodia' in the small volume published by Goodall in 1702. The two manuscripts of Herbert's 'Threnodia' or Memoirs, viz., the original (Harl. 7396), and the revised version (Harl. 4705), have been considered here in some detail, as there is a point connected with them which it is desired to emphasize, being as follows : — In quoting Threnodia Carolina,' it is Goodall's printed volume of 1702, or its later editions, that most writers use. This volume, although scarce, can be consulted with comparative ease, and, being printed from a revised copy of the original manuscript, is satisfactory. The original can only be seen in London, and Dugdale's, Ashmole's, and Wood's copies of it at Oxford, and to inspect these manuscripts, being perhaps, inconvenient for many, they use instead the printed volume. Amongst the lesser differences between and the revised version of it which was in Herbert's original manuscript (Harl. 7396), Le Neve's possession (Harl. 4705), and was bert's original it is stated, as we have seen, printed in 1702, is the following. In Herconcerning the King's passage from the Banqueting House: his Maty past to ye scaffold through ye wall yt was purposely broken downe at ye North end of the roome, whereas in the revised manuscript and its printed copy, the same event is thus described : : There was a passage broken through the wall by which the King pass'd unto the Scaffold. Herbert must have known exactly where it was the King passed from the Banqueting House, and we have the statement in his own hand, that it was "at ye North end of the roome. Dugdale would also, it cannot be doubted, have known where it was the King left the building. He added some dates in the margin of Herbert's original manuscript, after he received it, and made a few corrections on minor points, but in his copy of the original, he entered what Herbert says, unaltered, where the latter describes the King's passage through the wall to the scaffold. Herbert accompanied the King on his way to execution, as far as the outlet from the Banqueting House, but did not himself go upon the scaffold. He states in his original manuscript that while the execution was taking place, Mr. Herbert all that tyme stood mourning at the doore near ye Scaffold." This sentence, in the revised and printed version of Herbert's manuscript (Harl. 4705), is altered to: "Mr. Herbert during this was att the doore Lamenting.' Where this "doore" that led to the scaffold was situated, we shall see presently. He Sir Thomas Herbert wrote his Threnodia Carolina,' from memory, about thirty years subsequent to the events he records. sent the narrative, as we have seen, in the form of a letter to Sir William Dugdale, who had asked him for some information concerning the time he was in attendance on the King. At the commencement of the Memoir Herbert tells Dugdale : I am willing to satisfy you therein, so farr forth as my memory will assist, some short notes of occurrences I then took (when I waited upon the King) being in this long intervall' of time, and severall remoues wth my family, either lost or so mislaid, as at present I cannot find ym wch renders this Narrative not so large as Otherwise I would, and probably by yow may be expected. There are a few errors in these Memoirs, which is not surprising, in consideration of the length of time that had elapsed between the occurrence of the many events connected with the King's last years, and the writing of the narrative that records them. Nevertheless, the correctness of many particulars related by Herbert can be corroborated from other sources, and Dugdale thought so highly of the work that he described it in the fore word he wrote on it, as A true and perfect Narrative of the most remarkable passages relating to King Charles the First," also refers to it as being "so excellent a memoriall." London, W.1. and CHARLES HERBERT THOMPSON. (To be continued). O'CONNOR OF SYLAN, CO. (See ante pp. 112, 133, 168). THE following items form an appendix to the articles on O'Connor of Sylan at the references above. Exchequer Bills. 1686. O'CONNOR v. O'MORAN. Dermot O'Connor of Tuam, Co. Galway, Gent., exor. of the last Will of Lauglen O'Connor, late of Tuam aforesaid Merchant, deceased, says that Dermott O'Moran of Tuam, Co. Galway, in February, 1650, being with his sister Margaret Trehy als Moran obliged to pay 201. as a marriage portion did with Lucas O'Moran bind himself in a bond for 40l. to Edmond Trehy and Lauglen O'Connor.-Dated 27 May, 1686. 1747. CONNOR v. DIGNAM. Hugh Connor of Garden Lane, Dublin, weaver, says that he sent 50l. worth of serge to be pressed to Barth Dignam.-Dated 23 June, 1747. Chancery Bills. 1728. LYNCH v. O'CONNOR. eldest son and heir of Thomas Lynch Esq., Isidore Lynch of Drimcong, Co. Galway, says that the said Thomas Lynch in 1700 purchased the lands of Sellybane and Trinibane, Co. Galway from Loughlin and Hugh Connor of Beagh, Co. Galway Gent., who jointly levied fines of said lands unto said Lynch and his heirs. Shortly after Loughlin's death said Hugh pretended a title to said lands, to settle matters it was agreed that the said Hugh his brothers and mother should levy a fine on said lands to said Lynch and his heirs who was to perfect a bond for 8001. Said sum of 8001. has been paid off, but Hugh O'Connor threatens that he will sue for the recovery thereof.Dated 27 Feb., 1728. |