"Referring to your letter of April 21st, the monument to Sir Thomas Rich formerly stood at the east end of the chantry on the south side of the chancel of Sonning Church, the said chantry being then the property of the Rich family. In the year 1880 the monument was moved under a faculty granted by the chancellor of the diocese, with the consent of the present owners of the chantry, after a vote of the vestry taken and six weeks' notice on the church door. It should be added that the Rich family became extinct in the legitimate line early in the present century. His monument is still in perfect condition, and is placed in the western tower of the church. All the persons who were responsible for the removal-vicar, churchwardens, and lay impropriator-are dead. Everything was done in due legal form. The faculty is dated March 8th, 1880. The monument could not be again removed without another faculty and very considerable expense.”

Lysons's Magna Britannia (1806), vol. i., p. 381, merely states that "the monument of Sir Thomas Rich, the first baronet of that family, who died in 1667, is very heavy." A desire had been expressed by some for the transfer of this memorial to Gloucester, the Blue Coat Hospital there having been founded by Rich, who, as recorded on his monument, was a native of that city ("Glocestriæ natus"), and therefore a letter was addressed to Archdeacon Pott upon the subject.

The inscription, of which the Rev. Edward L Gillam, of Sonning, has kindly supplied a copy, has not been given by the late Canon Pearson in his Memorials of the Church and Parish of Sonning (Reading, 1890), but we may find these not very flattering details of the monument itself, p. 30:

The monument is to Sir Thomas Rich, Bart., a great benefactor to Sonning, who died in 1667. He enlarged the Blue Coat School at Reading, providing that there should be always three boys from Sonning parish educated in it. . . . The monument is, I believe, of Italian workmanship, of black and white marble, and must have cost an immense sum of money. The pavement on which it stands, is of marble, and it is raised on black marble steps. The monument itself consists of four colossal naked cherubs or cupids, shedding tears, and supporting on their wings a vast black marble slab, on which stand two large white marble urns. The inscription, in Latin, is on the urns, and is an extravagant panegyric on the charities of Sir Thomas Rich. Lysons in his Magna Britannia may well say, "the monument of Sir Thomas Rich is very heavy." It is really difficult to conceive anything in more deplorable taste than this monument. It is in the very worst style of the worst age, and it is lamentable to think that a sum of money which might more than have sufficed to raise such a beautiful memorial as the sculptured arch in the chancel, or have filled the church with painted windows, should have been

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XX

thrown away upon what is so utterly worthless, when viewed as a work of Christian art.

Gloucester would certainly not gain by the proposed transfer of such a memorial. GLOUCESTRENSIS.

1946.- GLOUCESTERSHIRE SIGNBOARDS. (See No. 883.) A correspondent of the Whitehall Review writes: "Concerning curious inn signs, I have just had a tour over the Cotswold Hills, and, passing through a pleasant but dormant village, found the following inscription on the sign :

'Ye weary travellers that do pass by,
With heat and scorching sunbeams dry,
Or be benumbed with snow and frost,
With having these bleak Cotswolds crossed,
Step in and taste my nut-brown ale,
Bright as rubies, mild and stale,
'To make your laging trotters dance
As nimble as the sons of France;
And ye will say, ye men of sense,

That neare was better spent sixpence.'

I read the words on the quaint, time-worn, and weather-beaten signboard, and accepted the invitation of the landlord of the Plough Inn of the peaceful village of Ford. I found the inside clean, warm, cosy, and comfortable. The ale was as bright as

rubies, and was very exhilarating and wholesome."

There was

an old coaching inn at Witcomb which had a protruding signboard. On the side towards Gloucester, under the sign of "The Talbot," appeared the invitation:—

"Before you do this hill go up
Stop and drink a cheerful cup."

And on the side towards Birdlip :

"You're down the hill, all danger's past,
Stop and have a cheerful glass."

This old inn and its sign have departed.

converted into a private residence.

The inn has been

A sign with a similar inscription swings in front of a publichouse at the foot of the hill at Longhope, and bears representations of the cup and glass, instead of the words.

"The Catherine Wheel" was formerly a very common sign. Richard Flecknoe tells us, in his Enigmaticall Characters (1658), that the Puritans changed it into "The Cat and Wheel," under which name it is still to be seen on a public house in Castle Green, Bristol (Hotten's History of Signboards, p. 299).

Some years ago there was a Cock and Bottle public-house in Bristol kept by a man named John England, who added to his sign the well-known words:" England expects every man to do his duty" (Ib., p. 209). Cock and Bottle Lane has not as yet disappeared from Bristol.

G. A. W.

1947. THE TRIAL AND PUNISHMENT OF KYD WAKE, 1796.— (See No. 1734.) The following report of the sentence passed upon Kyd Wake is locally curious from having appeared in the tenth and last number of The Watchman-the Bristol periodical published by Coleridge:

Court of King's Bench, Saturday, May 7 [1796]. Insult to His Majesty. Kyd Wake, who was convicted at the sittings after last Hilary Term of having, on the first day of the present sessions of Parliament, insulted His Majesty in his passage to and from Parliament, by hissing, and using several indecent expressions, such as, "No George, No War," &c., was brought up to receive the judgment of the Court. Mr. Justice Ashhurst pronounced sentence. [Commently severely on the prisoner's conduct, he concluded thus:] It now becomes my duty to pronounce the sentence of the Court, which is, that you be committed to the custody of the Keeper of the Penitentiary House in and for the County of Gloucester, and be kept to hard labour for the space of five years; and within the first three months of that time that you stand in and upon the Pillory for one hour in some public street in Gloucester on a market day, and that you give sureties in £1000 for your good behaviour for the term of ten years, to be computed from the expiration of the said five years, and that you be further imprisoned till you find the said sureties.

J. L.

1948. JERNINGHAM FAMILY: DAME MARY KINGSTON.(See No. 1918.) I have a brief note of the will of Dame Mary Kingston, 12 July, 1546. She willed to be buried at Painswick, where her husband Sir William Kingston, kt, was buried; and mentions her sons in law Sir Anthony Kingston and Sir John Jernyngham, kts, daughter in law the Lady Anne Grey, sister the wife of Sir John Seyntclere, sister Bruce, cousin Sir Water [sic] Stonor, kt. To the vicar of Painswick xx. To the poor inhabitants of Somerleyton in Suffolk xl. My sonne Henry Jernyngham to be sole executor. Will proved 25 Jan. 1548, and registered at Somerset House, in "Populwell," folio 23.

THOMAS P. .WADLEY.

1949. THE CORONATION OF KING HENRY III. IN GLOUCESTER ABBEY.-There are few events of more interest in the history of Gloucester Cathedral than the coronation there of the boy, King Henry the Third, on October 28, 1216; and yet the subject has not, so far as we know, been treated by any of the local antiquaries. This is the more remarkable from the fact that the late Sir William V. Guise, Bart., vice-president of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archæological Society, and a learned antiquary, selected the coronation as the subject of a fine memorial window to one of his ancestors, which he caused to be placed in the cathedral. The explanation of this reticence of writers is, probably,

that books of reference of any great value are few and far between in Gloucester. No doubt much of interest on the subject might be disinterred at our national libraries and great MSS. treasuries. But until this is done we must be content with what can be gleaned in the home harvest-field, and by persons who have not the leisure for very diligent and exhaustive investigation. At the recent 673rd anniversary of the coronation the editor of the Gloucestershire Chronicle published the following article on the subject, the materials having been collected by him in the few leisure moments which the newspaper life of the present day affords* :—

King John had just died a wretched death in Newark Castle, and his remains had been buried in Worcester Cathedral. Queen Isabella was a visitor to Gloucester Abbey, with all her children, except, seemingly, the heir-apparent; and the country was rent asunder by commotion. In this crisis the earl of Pembroke marched to Gloucester with the royal army and the young prince, arriving there on October 27th. The same day Henry was proclaimed in our streets; and on the morrow, the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude, he was crowned in the abbey. There were present Gualo, the papal legate, the bishops of Winchester, Bath, and Worcester, the earls of Pembroke, Chester, and Ferrers, four barons, and some of the abbots and priors of the district, including no doubt the chief ecclesiastics of the great religious houses of St. Oswald (Gloucester), Deerhurst, Tewkesbury, and Winchcomb. Queen Isabella, though her husband had been dead only ten days, had herself, from the exigencies of the times, to assist at the coronation of her child. The regal diadem of John had been buried by the waves in the sands of the Lincolnshire Wash; London was too distant, and the emergency too great, to admit of the delay which would have been occasioned by sending for the crown of Edward the Confessor; and therefore the little king, who was only ten years old, was crowned by Gualo placing on his head a gold throat-collar belonging to his mother. High Mass was no doubt said by the abbot of Gloucester; the monks sang the "Gloria in excelsis" and the "Hosannas" according to the rude plain-song of the period; and then the boy that was to be king, with at most only a faint understanding of the ceremonies in which he was the chief actor, knelt on the steps of the altar, and the relics having been produced, took the usual oaths "upon the Gospels and the relics of saints." Neither force nor persuasion, we are told, was required to induce him to consent to do homage to the Roman pontiff for England and Ireland, and to swear to pay the thousand marks a-year which his wretched father John

With deep regret we record the death of Mr. James Kingston Billett, which took place at his residence in Gloucester, on Monday, 14th July, 1890, while this article was passing through the press. He was born at Devonport in 1826, and early in life removed to Gloucester. For many years he was editor and one of the proprietors of the Gloucestershire Chronicle, with which journal, in one capacity or another, he was closely identified for more than forty years. A full obituary notice appeared in the Chronicle on the Saturday after his death.-Ed.

had promised that John into whose mouth Shakspeare has put the world-known defiance

"Thou canst not, Cardinal, devise a name

So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous

To charge me to an answer as the Pope.

Tell him this tale; and from the mouth of England

Add thus much more,-That no Italian priest

Shall tithe or toll in our dominions."

According to one of the chroniclers the earl of Pembroke had brought the young prince into the presence of the assembled nobles and ecclesiastics, and setting him before them, spake this "short and sweet oration," of which we modernise the ancient quaint spelling:

"Behold, right honourable and well-beloved, although we have persecuted the father of this young prince for his evil demeanour, and worthily, yet this child whom here you see before you, as he is in years tender, so is he pure and innocent from those his father's doings. Wherefore, insomuch as every man lies charged only with the burthen of his own works and transgressions, neither shall the child (as the Scripture teacheth us) bear the iniquity of his father. We ought, therefore, of duty and conscience, to pardon this young and tender prince, and take compassion of his age as you see. And now, for so much as he is the king's natural and eldest son, and must be our sovereign king and governor, let us remove from us this Lewis, the French king's son, and suppress his people, which are a confusion and shame to our nation; and the yoke of their servitude let us cast from off our shoulders."

The chronicler adds that when the barons had heard the earl's words, after some silence and conference had, they allowed of his sayings; and immediately, with one consent, proclaimed the youth to be the King of England, whom the bishops of Winchester and Bath did crown and anoint with all due solemnities, in presence of the legate.

At first only a small part of England recognised the claims of Isabella's son. Even here in Gloucester there were warm divisions; as at the present day, men belonged to two parties; and as next week the donning of blue and yellow favours will give emphasis to our existing differences, so after the coronation of Henry those of the Gloucester men who recognised in him their lawful sovereign, wore on their breasts the cross of Aquitaine, made of white cloth, while on the day after his coronation Henry issued a proclamation forbidding anyone to appear in public without a white fillet worn round the head in honour of the king. The clergy of Westminster and Canterbury, who considered their rights invaded by the hurried and informal ceremony in Gloucester, appealed to Rome. high-handed Gualo at once excommunicated the appellants for contumacy; they, however, persevered in spite of him, and great national trouble ensued in reference to this matter until, on

The