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CUCKING STOOL AND SCOLDING CART, LEICESTER. From the numerous references to the Cucking Stool in the ancient records of this borough, we have abundant proof that here, as well as in many other towns, the ladies were in former times, very frequently subject to visitations of ill-tongue, and that their lords and masters were sufficiently ungallant to consider no remedy so effectual for preventing a recurrence of the disorder, as the cold-water cure, applied by means of the Cucking, or Ducking Stool.

So early as the reign of King Henry the Third, it is shown to have been in use here, although it was not at that period restricted to the fair sex, for we learn, from the early regulations for the government of the town, contained in "the Vellum Book" of the Corporation, that a brewer, breaking the assize of ale, was to be amerced for the first, second, and third offence, and for the fourth, without redemption, he was to suffer the judgment of the cucking stool (tumbrellum).

The punishment was not always by immersion, the offender being frequently exposed seated upon the cucking stool, during a certain period of time. Thus, at a Common Hall, held on the Thursday before St. Simon and St. Jude's day, 1467, it was ordered

"That scoldes be punished by the mayor, on a CuckStool before their own door, and then carried to the four gates of the town."

The prevalence of this practice is further shown by the following extract from the Orders and Laws of the town of Neath, enacted in 1542.

"Item-If any person do scolde or rage, any burgesse or hys wyfe, or any other person and hys wyfe, if she be found faulty in the same by sixe men, then shee to be brought at the first defaulte to the Cooking stoole, and there to sit one houre; at the second defaulte, twoe houres; and at the thirde defaulte, to lett slipp the pynn, or els pay a good fyne to the king."

During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, charges for making or repairing the Cucking Stool, are of constant occurrence in the Chamberlain's accounts of this town. Thus we have

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A new Cuckstool was provided in 1646, and in the following year we again have,

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"Item-Paid for making the Cookestoole showing that more than one must have been in use at the same time.

In 1744-5, payment was made for bringing out the Cuck-Stool, Ol. Ós. 6d.

The accompanying illustration

represents an ancient Cucking Stool, that has long been_preserved at the Town Hall, but it is now deposited in the Town Museum. Under the arms, it will be seen, are grooves, constructed for the pur

pose of receiving and retaining in their proper position, the cords by which it was suspended, and the fair culprit secured, when, in extreme cases immersion was the consequence; for which occasion, the seat was so constructed, as to be remova

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ble at pleasure, in order that it should offer no obstruction to the passage of the chair through the water.

The latest notice of the Cuck-Stool, that I have met with in the accounts, is the following, so recent as 1768-9.

"Paid Mr. Elliott, for a Cuckstool, by order of Hall 21."

But, as I learn from two aged inhabitants of the town, the Cuck-stool is known to have been in use at a still later period. One of them, now upwards of eighty years of age, distinctly remembers the Cuckingstool being placed as a mark of disgrace, in front of the residence of a notorious scold, who, it appears, had twice done penance in her parish church, for slander; whilst, the other, has heard a neighbour relate, she had seen a woman ducked for scolding, near the West Bridge, about eighty years since. He also states, that he had formerly seen another Cucking-stool at the xijd. Town Hall, that he describes as a kind of chair without ijd. legs, fixed at the end of a long pole. This has now xiiijs." disappeared.

sijd.

Item-Paid to William Yates for ij long iron pynns with cotters for the same Cookstole Item-Paid for nails for the same Cookstole 1578-9. Item-Paid for a newe Cuckstoole We learn by the account for 1602, that when the fair offender was punished by immersion, the Cucking Stool was placed on, or by the side of the West Bridge, as a payment was made for carrying it there. Charges occur at various periods "for rope to draw the Kuckstoole-for iron worke used abowte ytt-for two staples for the Cuckstoole, etc."

References are, I find, made to another instrument of popular punishment-the Scolding Cart, that has not been noticed, I believe, by writers on the subject. It seems to have differed from the Cucking-stool only, in being provided with wheels, and in the culprit being seated upon it, and drawn through the town. Thus, in the account for 1629, the following charge appears—

"Item - Paid to Frauncis Pallmer for making two wheels and one barr for the Scolding-Cart ijs.

Whilst, in that for 1602, the two instruments are mentioned in the same entry, a payment," for the charges of the Cucke-stool, the Carte, and the Stocks."

Leicester.

WILLIAM KELLY.

NEAPOLITAN INNKEEPER'S ANNOUNCEMENT. When last at Naples, I copied verbatim et ad literam, the following amusing advertisement, from the printed form suspended in the salle à manger of an hotel at Salerno

Restorative Hotel kept by FRANK PROSPERI
Facing the Military quarter
AT POMPEII.

D.

That hotel open since a few days is renowned for the cleanness of the linen, for the exactness of the service, and for the excellence of the true French cookery. Being situated at the proximity of that regeneration it

CUCKING OR DUCKING STOOLS IN IRELAND. As a proof that in Ireland there was a community of manners and customs with their neighbours across the channel, in their deeming it necessary to restrain "the noisy nuisance of woman scolding," the following extract is given from the Corporation records of Carrick-will fergus:

October, 1574, Ordered and agreede by the hole Court, that all manner of Skolds which shal be openly detected of Skolding or evil wordes in manner of Skolding, and for the same shal be condemned before Mr. Maior and his brethren, shal be drawne at the sterne of a boate in the water from the ende of the Peare rounde abought the Queene's majesties Castell, in manner of ducking; and after, when a cage shal be made, the party so condemned for a Skold, shal be therein punished at the discretion of

the Maior.

It further appears from these records that a cage was soon after procured, and delinquents punished in the manner noticed; and that a regular list was kept of all scolds, and their names laid before the grand juries. The cage, or ducking-stool, stood on the quay; and in a deed granted to John Davys, July 6, 1671, occurs the following notice in the description of the site:

One small plot of land, or house stead, situated upon the
Key, on the north-east, adjoining to the Ducking Stool, on
said Key, now standing.
JAMES A. PILSON.

Recorder Office, Downpatrick.

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HOT-POT.-What is the meaning of this phrase? or of what was it composed? M. M.

Brandy and ale mixed. Mrs. Pilkington, in her Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 159, speaks of a woman who was induced "to drink plentifully of Hot-pot, that soon left her stupid in the alehouse."

STRULDBRUGG.-Mrs. Pilkington, in her Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 161, says of Dean Swift, "he lived to be a Struldbrugg, helpless as a child, and unable to assist himself. An explanation of this word is requested?

Dublin.

A. S.

be propitious to receive families whatever, which will desire to reside alternately into that town and to breathe thither the salubrity of the air. That establishment will avoid to all travellers, visitors, of that sepult city, and to the artists (willing draw the antiquities) a great disorder, occasioned by the tardy and expensive contour of the iron whay. People will find equally thither, a complete Sortment of stranger wines, and of the kingdom hot and cold baths, Stables and coach-houses, the whole with very moderate prices. Now all the application and endeavours of the hoste, will tend always to correspond to the taste and desires of their customers, which will require without doubt to him into that town, the reputation whome he is ambitious.

ENGLAND, EUROPE'S GLORY.
There is a land amidst the waves,
Whose sons are fam'd in story,
Who never were, nor will be slaves;
Nor shrink from death and glory.
Then strike the harp, and bid it swell,
With flowing bowls before ye;
Here's to the land in which we dwell,
To England-Europe's glory!
Bless'd land, beyond all lands afar!
Encircled in the waters,

With lion-hearted sons in war,

And beauty's peerless daughters.
Go ye! whose discontented hearts,
Disdain the joys before ye;
Go seek a home in foreign parts,

Like England-Europe's glory!
Whether in sultry climes ye rove,

A solitary stranger,

Or seek the foreign fair one's love,
Fraught with deceit and danger;
Where will ye find domestic bliss,
Such social sweets before ye;
A land in aught renown'd like this,
Like England-Europe's glory!

Waller's recently published "Victorious Calendar," is an opportune record of England's valorous deeds in To the reference in note, to Blomefield's "History of all ages and climes; it is indispensable to all readers of Norfolk," add vol. ii.-EDITOR. English history.

THE AWAKENING MALLET.

In many Colleges, both at Cambridge and Oxford, it is a custom for the Bible Clerk to knock at every room door with a key to waken the students in a morning before he begins to ring the chapel bell. This, as it should seem, is a vestige of an ancient monastic custom; for we are informed by Bingham, that before the invention of bells, this was the method of convening religious assemblies in monasteries. The monks were called to the chapel by the knock of a hammer at their cells. The instrument was called the night signal, and the awakening mallet. Spelman, in his very learned glossary, article campana, has preserved two Monkish lines, in which all the ancient offices of bells seem to be

included

Laudo deum verum, plebem voco, congrego clerum,
Defunctos ploro, pestem fugo, festa decoro.

We praise the true God, call the people, convene the clergy, lament the dead, dispel pestilence, and grace festivals.'

CHURCH BELL INSCRIPTIONS.

ON some of the bells in St. Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin, are the following inscriptions—

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Sterne died on Friday, March 18, 1768. He was buried at Marybone, but afterwards his corpse was taken up by persons employed by surgeons for this purpose, and, being sent to Cambridge, was known by the Professor of Anatomy, as it lay on the table ready for dissection. The Rev.

Green, of Ferring, told me, that being at Cambridge a short time after, he saw the skeleton, and had the anecdote, that was in the public papers, confirmed to him by the Professor.

The facts are not very widely different from the substance of the note, but reliance may be placed on the following:

*

Sterne died on the first floor of No. 41, New Bond Street, at four in the afternoon of the day above stated. On Tuesday, the 22nd, he was buried, no one attending as a mourner, and in the most private manner, not at Mary-le-bourne, but in the graveyard of St. George's, Hanover Square, in the Bayswater Road; and on the AN. night of Thursday, the 24th, "on the second day after the interment of poor Yorick, he was sacrilegiously stolen from his grave. His body was taken inclosed in a case

First. DVRET ILLESA AD PRECES EXCITANS VSQVE
AD SONITVM SVPREME TVвÆ. 1724.
Fifth. HENRY PARIS MADE ME WITH GOOD SOVND
TO BE FIFT IN EIGHT WHEN ALL RINGE ROVND
Sixth. IOHANNES DODSON. IOHANNES PREENE.
DOM. 1670.

NON CLAMANS SED AMANS SONAT IN AVRE DEI.

Seventh. FEARE God and Honner THE KING [| Pet. ii. 17] to Cambridge, where a gentleman, who loved him while

FOR OBEDIENC IS A VERTVOVS THING. ANNO DOMINI 1670. W. P. R. P. I. P. The initials after the date, are probably those of a family named Pardue, who were bell-founders.

The Seventh Bell was recast in 1809, by James Wells of Aldbowen, Wiltshire, and the inscription retained.

A. S.

THE PALL INN.- An anonymous writer, in the "Western Flying Post," a paper published in Yeovil, has rendered the following most satisfactory reply to my query, in reference to the origin and designation of the Pall Inn. See Current Notes, vol. iv. p. 13.

Behind the inn there are almshouses, both being erected on one and the same property; at these almshouses was long deposited a pall for funereal purposes, and let out for the benefit of the charity. Mr. Peter Draper, half a century since, one of the chief drapers and undertakers in Yeovil, on all occasions when a funeral was placed in his management, referred them to these almshouses for the pall, hence, the inn being the same property with the almshouses, was named "The Pall Inn." The pall was so long retained in use, that, completely worn out, it was used up, and suffered the fate of its users, having been some years since consigned to its last resting-place.

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living, and lamented him when dead, was asked by the Anatomical Professor to attend a dissection. He went, and saw the body of his friend produced, and his senses instantly forsook him. This interruption was however merely temporary. That heart whose pulsations were benignity itself, and the hand never extended but in the act of benevolence, were each laid open to the gaze of inhuman curiosity. Each fibre of the heart, it was remarked, seemed relaxed and wrung with sorrow. What became of the mangled corpse the writer cannot say."

Those were the particulars stated at the time. The Professor, C. Collignon, B.M. of Trinity, who lectured

* The Quarterly Review, just issued, has an admirable estimate of the qualities of Sterne as a man and a sentimentalist; but unluckily, some historical errors, certainly not expected from the excellence of the writer, have escaped him; he speaks of Sterne as the great grandson of Roger, Archbishop of York, and states he died in Old Bond Street.

The exposed situation of the burial-ground in the Bayswater Road, and the almost constant nightly despoilments of the graves by the body-snatchers, frequently excited painful notices in the journals. One, the St. James's Chronicle, of November, 1767, immediately presents itself

in illustration:--

"The burying-ground in Oxford Road, belonging to the

on the corpse, knew nothing of the identity of Sterne till after the dissection-he had received it as a nameless body, and the intimation that it was the corpse of the author of Tristram Shandy was only made known to him by his friend after the dissection was effected, hence the care in retaining his skeleton. Qu. Is it now at Cambridge?

It may be asked, why Sterne's widow or daughter did not interfere the circumstances could only be known when all was over, and their poverty would have prevented any interposition on their part; unhappily, too, they had long been estranged, and were absent when he died in London. No sooner was he dead than his widow, to raise means, sold his books to Todd and Sotheran, booksellers at York, and their shop-catalogue, printed in 1768, ostentatiously announced in the title, it contained "the library of Laurence Sterne, M.A, Prebendary of York, and author of Tristram Shandy.""

Sterne, in the autobiography, as printed, notices his amusements at Sutton were "books, painting, fiddling, and shooting;" for fiddling read fishing, he was no musician.

THE QUEEN AND THE ITALIAN OPERA. ELIZABETH, Duchess of Orleans, in one of her letters relates, that during her abode in Paris, Christina, the abdicated Queen of Sweden, who was as peculiarly eccentric in her nightdress as she was in almost every thing else, and instead of some display of elegancy in her nightcap, made use of a most unseemly linen wrapper; having spent a restless day in bed, at length ordered a band of Italian musicians from the Opera, to attend and approach the curtains of the bed, which were closely drawn, and endeavour to amuse her. Their attempts were for some time unavailing, until the excellence of one of the singers arrested her attention and afforded her so much delight, that loudly exclaiming, "Mort Diable! comme il chante bien!" she on the instant suddenly arose, and thrust her strangely attired head from between the curtains, to the astoundment of the submissive Italians, who, not hitherto accustomed to such a mode of royal applause, were struck mute, and, unable to recover their surprise and terror of the object before them, were wholly silent for several minutes.

VCRIMDR.-On the reverse of some few of the third brass coins of Aurelian, is the legend VABALATHVS VCRIMDR. Will any reader of Current Notes kindly explain what this word implies? E. H.

parish of St. George's, Hanover Square, having been lately robbed of several dead bodies, a watch was placed there, attended by a large mastiff dog; notwithstanding which, on Sunday night last, the 26th, some villains found means to steal out another dead body, and carried off the dog." Under these circumstances, the corpse of a peer, or an author, was of no consequence to persons who were commissioned, or knew where to dispose of a subject; it was forwarded to its destination, and no questions asked, as to what cognomen while living the clay-cold-clod had borne.

CHRISTMAS TREE.-The contributor of the excellent article on "The Early Signification of the Christmas | Tree,” Current Notes, p. 11, might have added that the sigillaria are still manufactured at Rome, and used under the name of Agnus Dei. They consist in oval cakes of wax of various sizes from one inch to six or seven inches broad, and are uniformly an eighth of an inch thick. The figure of a lamb is stamped on one side, emblematic of our blessed Lord, and on the other side is the image of some saint, most commonly St. Mary the Virgin, or St. John Baptist. These wax medallions are in great numbers consecrated by the Pope alone, every seventh year of his pontificate, with a ceremonial of the greatest pomp and intricacy, in which there are many ablutions with blessed water, and anointings with the holy chrism. Liverpool, March 19. T. A. T. C.

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No. XLI.]

"Takes note of what is doneBy note, to give and to receive."-SHAKESPEARE.

CORONATION OATH OF KING EDWARD THE FIRST.

FROM AN EARLY MANUSCRIPT.

THE Oath which Edward the First, sonne of kinge Henry, tooke when he was anointed kinge of England, by the hands of Robert Kelwarby, a prior and Archbishop of Canterberry, on St. Magnus the Martir's day [August 19] in the church of Westminster, where hee was Crowned in the presence of the lords and nobles of all England, anno 1274.

I EDWARD, Sonne and heire to kinge Henry, professe, protest and prommise before God and his angells, from this time forward to keepe withoutt respect, the law, justice and pease, vnto the holy church of God, and the people subject vnto me, so farre forth as wee can deuise by the counsell of our leige and loyall ministers; also to exhibitt condigne and canonicall honour vnto the Bishopps of God's church, to preserue inuiolably whatsoeuer hath beene bestowed by Emperors and Kings vppon the church comitted vnto Them, and to yeelde due honnor vnto abbotts, and the Lord's vessells accordinge to the aduise of our lieges, etc. So helpe mee God, and the holy Gospells of the Lord.

.

With the exception of substituting 'the' for 'ye,' the orthography has otherwise been retained.

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King Henry the Third died on the feast of St. Edmund the Confessor, Wednesday, Nov. 16, 1272; so that King Edward the First, who was then abroad, was not crowned till nearly two years subsequently. The Close Rolls of the second year of his reign attest the fact of his return to England,- Memorandum quod Edwardus Rex Angliæ applicuit apud Dover' die Jovis proxima post festum Sancti Petri ad vincula [August 2nd] 1274, et die Dominica post festum Assumptionis beatæ Mariæ proximo sequente [August 19th] solempniter coronat' fuit in ecclesia beati Petri Westm' anno Domini supradicto, et anno regni ejusdem Regis Edwardi secundo."Rot. Claus. 2 Edw. I., m. 5. The arrival of Edward in England is erroneously stated by Matthew of Westminster, p. 407, to have been on the 25th of July; but by Wikes, p. 101, and in the Annals of Waverley, p. 229, the true date is correctly recorded.

VANE. It is an extraordinary fact that the attainder of the celebrated Sir Henry Vane, convicted of high treason, in "keeping King Charles the Second, out of possession of the Government, and levying war against his Majesty," on June 6, 1662, and executed on Tower Hill, on the 14th following, has never been reversed, though his son was created a Baron, his great-grandson, a Viscount and Earl; and his great-great-greatgrandson a Marquess.

VOL. IV.

[MAY, 1854.

GAUDEN v. KING CHARLES THE FIRST.

WITHOUT wishing to derogate from the merited literary celebrity of Mons. Guizot, or to question his critical acumen, I must still refuse him the honour of having pronounced the final verdict in the cause Gauden v. King Charles the First. All that the eminent French writer has done is to confirm an opinion that competent judges had long since arrived at, and upon which all well-read men are now pretty well agreed-that Ganden was the author of the Eikon.

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In 1821, Sir James Mackintosh declared the famous controversy of the Icon Basiliké to be at length decided; and Archdeacon Todd, in his Life of Bryan Walton,' by producing Gauden's correspondence with the Earl of Bristol, has placed for ever beyond a doubt the fact of the Bishop of Exeter having been the author of the "Kingly Portraiture."

Even before the publication of the private letters of Gauden, the majority of historical inquirers had pronounced the Eikon to be spurious; the only writers of great acuteness who maintained the contrary opinion, such as Hume and Warburton, did so in a tone that neither showed a desire others should believe, or that they had a firm conviction in their own minds.

Milton, so early as 1650, in his 'Iconoclastes,' questioned its genuineness. Godwin and Lilly were alike convinced of its spuriousness. Gauden, at the Restoration, in 1660, laid claim to the authorship, and in letters to Lord Chancellor Clarendon, asked for promotion in the Church, on the ground of the great service he had done to the memory of the late king. So far from this claim having been disputed, it was acknowledged by his preferment from the vicarage of Barking to the Bishopric of Exeter. Nor does the proof depend upon the fact alone; it is confirmed by a series of letters addressed to Clarendon and the Duke of York, and by a Memorial to King Charles the Second, in which Gauden, on the score of the eminent services he had rendered, again asks to be nominated to the see of Worcester, the infirmities of Duppa promising a speedy vacancy in that great bishopric. A letter from Sir Edward Nicholas, Secretary of State, is still extant, in which, besides expressing his belief that Gauden was the author of Eikon, he allows no doubt to remain on the mind of any one, that King Charles the Second was of the same opinion. Clarendon, in a letter to Gauden, dated March 16, 1661, fully admits his knowledge of the secret; and Bishop Burnet says he was surprised to hear from the Duke of York, that "the book was not of his father's writing-he said Dr. Gauden wrote it."

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