Читать книгу: «Notes and Queries, Number 05, December 1, 1849», страница 3

PRISON DISCIPLINE AND EXECUTION OF JUSTICE

Sir,–I am glad that you devote some part of your columns to the good work of bringing forward facts and anecdotes which, though not generally known, your readers individually may have happened to notice, and which illustrate the manners of our ancestors. I dare say few of your correspondents have met with the London Magazine for the year of 1741. An imperfect copy fell into my hands when a lad; ever since which time I have been in a state of great wonderment at the story contained in the leaf which I enclose. I need hardly say that the italics are mine; and perhaps they are hardly necesssary. Yours, etc.,

BETA.

"TUESDAY, 21 [June].

"A very extraordinary Affair happen'd at the County Gaol in Hertford, where four Highwaymen, very stout lusty Fellows, viz. Theophilus Dean, Charles Cox (alias Bacon-Face), James Smith, and Luke Humphrys, lay under Sentence of Death, pass'd on them the last Assizes, and were intended to have been executed the following Day; Mr. Oxenton, the Gaoler, who keeps an Inn opposite to the Prison, went into the Gaol about four a Clock in the Morning, as was his Custom, attended by three Men, to see if all was safe, and, having lock'd the outward Door, sent one of his Men down to the Dungeon, where the four Felons had found means to disengage themselves from the Pillar and Chain to which they had been lock'd down, and one of them, viz. Bacon-Face, had got off both his Hand-Cuffs and Fetters; on opening the Door, they disabled the Man and all rush'd out; then coming up Stairs they met the Gaoler and his other two Men, of whom they demanded the Keys, threatening to murder them if their request was not immediately comply'd with: they then forced his men into the Yard beyond the Hatchway, and a Battle ensu'd, in which the Gaoler behav'd so manfully, tho' he had but one Man to assist him, that he maintain'd the Possession of his Keys till he was heard by his Wife, then in Bed, to call out for Assistance, who fortunately having another Key to the Gaol, ran to rescue him; the Fellows saw her coming and demanded her Key, threatening to murder her if she offer'd to assist her Husband: By this Time the Neighbourhood was alarm'd, and several Persons got to the Gaol Door, when Mrs. Oxenton, notwithstanding their Threats, at the utmost Hazard of her Life, open'd the same and caught hold of her Husband, who was almost spent, and with the Assistance of some Persons, got him out and lock'd the Door without suffering the Fellows to escape: They continued cursing and swearing that they would murder the first Man that attempted to enter the Gaol. In the mean Time Robert Hadsley, Esq., High-Sheriff, who lives about a Mile from the Town, was sent for, and came immediately; he parley'd with them some Time to no Purpose, then order'd Fire-Arms to be brought, and, in case they would not submit, to shoot at them, which these Desparadoes refusing to do, they accordingly fired on them, and Theophilus Dean receiving a Shot in the Groin, dropt; then they surrender'd, and the Sheriff instantly caus'd Bacon-Face to be hang'd on the Arch of the Sign Iron belonging to the Gaoler's House, in the Sight of his Companions and great Numbers of People; the other three were directly put into a Cart and carried to the usual Place of Execution, and there hang'd before seven a Clock that Morning."–Lond. Mag. July, 1741, p. 360.

SATIRICAL MEDAL OF THE PRETENDER

I am well acquainted with the medal described by Mr. Nightingale, and can confirm his statement of the difficulties which numismatists have experienced in attempting to explain the circumstances allueded to by the lobster which is the badge of "the order of the pretended Prince of Wales," and upon which, on the other side of the medal, Father Petre is represented as riding with the young prince in his arms. Upon other medals also the Jesuit appears carrying the prince, who is decorated, or amsing himself, with a windmill. There is likewise a medal on which a Jesuit is represented concealed within a closet or alter, and raising or pushing up through the top the young prince to the view of the people, while Truth is opening the door and exposing the imposition. Similar representations of the Jesuit's interference occur upon caricatures and satirical prints executed in Holland. Upon one, entitled, "Arlequin sur l'Hippogryphe, a la croisade Lojoliste," the lobster, on which the Jesuit is mounted, carries a book in each claw; the young prince's head is decorated with a windmill. All these intimate the influence of Father Petre upon the proceedings of James II, and of the Jesuits in general in the imposition, as was by many supposed, of the pretended prince. The imputation upon the legitimacy of the young child was occasioned in a great degree, and almost justified, by the pilgrimages and superstitious fooleries of his grandmother, increased by his mother's choosing St. Francis Xavier as one of her ecclesiastical patrons, and with her family attributing the birth of the prince to his miraculous interference. This may have provoked the opposers of popery to take every means of satirising the Jesuits; and the following circumstances related in the Life of Xavier probably suggested the idea of making the lobster one of the symbols of the superstitions and impositions of the Jesuits, and a means of discrediting the birth of the prince by ridiculing the community by whose impositions they asserted the fraud to have been contrived and executed.

The account is given by a Portuguese, called Fausto Rodriguez, who was a witness of the fact, has deposed it upon oath, and whose juridical testimony is in the process of the Saint's canonization.

"'We were at sea,' says Rodriguez, 'Father Francis, John Raposo, and myself, when there arose a tempest which alarmed all the mariners. Then the Father drew from his bosom a little crucifix, which he always carried about him, and leaning over deck, intended to have dipt it into the sea; but the crucifix dropt out of his hand, and was carried off by the waves. This loss very sensibly afflicted him, and he concealed not his sorrow from us. The next morning we landed on the Island of Baranura; from the time when the crucifix was lost, to that of our landing, it was near twenty-four hours, during which we were in perpetual danger. Being on shore, Father Francis and I walked along by the sea-side, towards the town of Tamalo, and had already walked about 500 paces, when both of us beheld, arising out of the sea, a crab fish, which carried betwixt his claws the same crucifix raised on high. I saw the crab fish come directly to the Father, by whose side I was, and stopped before him. The Father, falling on his knees, took his crucifix, after which the crab-fish returned into the sea. But the Father still continuing in the same humble posture, hugging and kissing the crucifix, was half an hour praying with his hands across his breast, and myself joining with him in thanksgiving to God for so evident a miracle; after which we arose and continued on our way.' Thus you have the relation of Rodriguez."–Dryden's Life of St. Francis Xavier, book iii.

EDW. HAWKINS.

JOHN AUBREY

As the biographer and editor of that amiable and zealous antiquary JOHN AUBREY, I noticed with peculiar interest the statement of your correspondent, that the date of your first publication coincided with the anniversary of his birthday; but, unhappily, the coincidence is imaginary. Your correspondent has, on that point, adopted a careless reading of the first chapter of Aubrey's Miscellanies, whereby the 3rd of November, the birthday of the Duke of York, afterwards James the Second, has been frequently stated as that of the antiquary himself. See my Memoir of Aubrey, 4to. 1845, p. 123. In the same volume, p. 13, will be found an engraving of the horoscope of his nativity, from a sketch in his own hand. So far as his authority is of any value, that curious sketch proves incontestably that "the Native" was born at 14 minutes and 49 seconds past 17 o'clock (astronomical time) on the 11th of March, 1625-6; that is, at 14 minutes and 49 seconds past 5 o'clock A.M. on the 12th of March, instead of the 3rd of November.

Few things can be more mortifying to a biographer, or an antiquary, than the perpetuation of an error which he has successfully laboured to correct. It is an evil, however, to which he is often subjected, and which your valuable publication will go far to remedy. In the present case it is, doubtless, to be ascribed to the peculiar nature of my Memoir of Aubrey, of which but a limited number of copies were printed for the Wiltshire Topographical Society. The time and labour which I bestowed upon the work, the interesting character of its contents, and the approbation of able and impartial public critics, justify me in saying that it deserves a far more extensive circulation.

After this allusion to John Aubrey, I think I cannot better evince my sympathy with your exertions than by requesting the insertion of a Query respecting one of his manuscripts. I allude to his Monumenta Brittanica, in four folio volumes–a dissertation on Avebury, Stonehenge, and other stone circles, barrows, and similar Druidical monuments–which has disappeared within the last thirty years. Fortunately a large portion of its contents has been preserved, in extracts made by Mr. Hutchins, the historian of Dorsetshire, and by the late Sir Richard Colt Hoare, Bart.; but the manuscript certainly contained much more of great local interest, and some matters which were worthy of publication. In the Memoir already mentioned, p. 87, the history of the manuscript down to the time of its disappearance is fully traced. Referring such of your readers as may feel interested in the subject to that volume, and reserving for the future numbers a long list of other interesting Queries which are now before me, it will gratify me to obtain, through your medium, any information respecting the MS. referred to. I remain, Sir, yours truly,

JOHN BRITTON.

[Our modesty has compelled us to omit from this letter a warm eulogium on our undertaking, well as we know the value of Mr. Britton's testimony to our usefulness, and much as we esteem it.]