would, before Easter next, assume the habit of a black nun, or that of the convent of Semperingham. No hint is given of the offence she had committed, nor of her relationship to her manucaptors, but on turning to the assize roll for this county of nearly even date, a clue will be found to the solution of both questions. Under the head of "Hundred of Agmead," it is set forth in the presentment of the (grand) jury, that Richard Butler, of Acton, was wounded in his own house, it is unknown by whom, although his wife Matilda accused William Rous, formerly his servant. On being examined, she stated that she had gone to walk in the garden at night with her maid, whilst her husband was having his feet washed by her daughter Amice; that she heard a noise, and on going to the house door saw William and another man with swords drawn near her husband; that they ran after her, but she escaped, and hid herself until they went away; her maid, however, being caught and bound. The jurors evidently disbelieved her story, denying that Richard ever had such a servant, and alleging that she and her husband were perpetually at strife, and that he sometimes beat her because he accused her of light behaviour; that she often went off to the house of her father, Elyas de Colewey, or to the house of Robert Wayfer, who had married her aunt; and furthermore that the said Robert and William Wayfer, and John of Fuestone, often came to the house of the said Richard, bringing her back with them, and threatening him. Wherefore the jurors of Agmead firmly believed that the aforesaid William and John slew him by the counsel and wish of Matilda herself and bribed by her thereto. The jurors of Grumboldsash hundred concurred in this opinion. On being asked by the court whether she was willing to be tried before a jury of her neighbours, she flatly refused, on the plea that many of them were probably prejudiced against her. Judgment was thereupon deferred till one month after Michaelmas (that is, till the king's court sat at Westminster), bail being meanwhile exacted for Amice, the daughter of Matilda. The reason of this last order is not very obvious. The girl can hardly have been suspected of complicity in her father's murder, but she may possibly have given false evidence at her mother's dictation. What became of the perpetrators of the outrage does not appear. Probably they were suffered to "abjure the realm," and sought perchance to expiate their crime by a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Matilda herself doubtless remained in the custody of the sheriff, though perhaps not committed to Gloucester gaol till judgment was pronounced. In any case she is not likely to have been hardly dealt with, for the sheriff, Ralph Musard, was connected by marriage with her uncle. Seclusion in a nunnery for the rest of her life was the severest punishment inflicted on her; perhaps the severest such a woman could receive. The bearing of this case on the early administration of criminal justice is left to be discussed by others more competent to do so. It is well worthy of record, if only for the light it throws

on the domestic life of the period. Looking at the high standing of the Giffard family, attested on this occasion by the fact that their co-sureties were the Earl Marischal, whose father, just deceased, had been guardian of the kingdom, and the Earl of Salisbury, the famous Longsword, son of King Henry II. by Rosamond Clifford, two of the chief nobles of England; it is impossible to come to any other conclusion than that the manners and customs of the English aristocracy at the time were coarse and brutal; such, in fact, as would now be deemed disgraceful in the lowest class of the community.

J. G.

1563.-LECHLADE CHURCH.-(See No. 1529.) In the notice of Lechlade Church, ante, p. 25, there is a slight mistake which you may wish to correct. It is there stated that "a handsome stained glass window, representing Faith, Hope, and Charity, has been erected as a memorial of the Edwards family." The window was erected by Mrs. Hudd, of Clifton, to the memory of members of her family, many of whom are buried in the churchyard within a few feet of the window; and the inscription is "This window is erected by Catherine Bowles Hudd, née Edmonds, in loving memory of deceased members of the Edmonds and Gearing families, late of Lechlade. July, 1882." It was executed by Messrs. Heaton, Butler, and Bayne, of London. There was not, so far as I am aware, any Edwards family ever settled at Lechlade; but the Edmonds and Gearing families are well known, the latter seeming to have been there for a considerable period. In the Record Office there is a MS., entitled "Book of Compositions for not taking the Order of Knighthood at the Coronation of King Charles I., 16301632," part of which has been printed in the Transactions of the Bristol and Gloucestershire Archaeological Society (1884-85), vol. ix., pp. 351-3; and in it the sum of £14 is stated to have been paid by "John Geringe, of Leachlade."

You do not refer in your notice of the locality to the interesting fact, that Lechlade is the place where Shelley wrote his poem, "A Summer-Evening Church-Yard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire" (misprinted "Lechdale" in some editions). ALFRED E. HUDD, F.S.A. Clifton.

Some of our readers may be glad to have before them Percy Bysshe Shelley's early poem, entitled "A Summer-Evening ChurchYard, Lechdale [recte Lechlade], Gloucestershire," from his Poetical Works (London, 1857), edited by Mrs. Shelley, vol. ii., p. 215:—

The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
that obscured the sun-set's ray;

Each vapour

And pallid evening twines its beaming hair

In duskier braids around the languid eyes of day:
Silence and twilight, unbeloved of men,

Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.

They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.

Thou too, aërial Pile! whose pinnacles

Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
Obeyest in silence their sweet solemn spells,

Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose lessening and invisible height
Gather among the stars the clouds of night.

The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:

And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,
Half sense, half thought, among the darkness stirs,

Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around;
And mingling with the still night and mute sky

Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.

Thus solemnised and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night:

Here could I hope, like some inquiring child

Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep

That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.

Mrs. Shelley has appended a note, p. 224, of which this is a part:-The summer evening that suggested to him the poem written in the churchyard of Lechdale [Lechlade], occurred during his voyage up the Thames, in the autumn of 1815. He had been advised by a physician to live as much as possible in the open air; and a fortnight of a bright warm July was spent in tracing the Thames to its source. He never spent a season more tranquilly than the summer of 1815. He had just recovered from a severe pulmonary attack; the weather was warm and pleasant. He lived near Windsor Forest, and his life was spent under its shades, or on the water, meditating subjects for verse. EDITOR.

1564.-MOCK MAYORS.-Although the following quotation relates to a parish three or four miles outside the south-eastern border of Gloucestershire, its insertion is solicited with a view to gaining information in reference to similar celebrations in this county, which were probably not uncommon. The paragraph appeared in one of some papers entitled "Rambles about Bath," written by James Tunstall, M.D., and published in a local newspaper about forty years ago. Speaking of "the secluded" parish of Weston, near Bath, Dr. Tunstall said :-"In this village a mock election of

mayor is sometimes celebrated. The inauguration in 1834 took place as follows. After a sumptuous dinner, the mayor of the 'ancient city of the seven streams' entered the hall in full procession, with mace-bearers, aldermen, and recorder, attended by the ambassadors of foreign countries, music, &c. He then had a burlesque oath administered to him by the town-clerk, by which he bound himself to protect the rights, luxuries, and comforts of the corporation; to maintain peace with Twerton and all foreign countries; to protect the streams and water-courses, and to steal water when required for corporation purposes, and to use his authority exclusively for its benefit. An armed champion then threw down a gauntlet, defying to mortal combat all who should impugn the privileges of the ancient city; the civic dignitaries then did homage, and the town-clerk opened the charter chest, and among other authentic documents read Julius Cæsar's original charter, granted in consequence of services rendered in providing billets for his army when encamped on Lansdown. The mayor then addressed the citizens, and said that Bath had usurped the rights of this ancient city, not only in regard to corporate privileges, but also in its medicinal springs. The Weston springs had, indeed, wonderful qualities: one of them was of a petrifying nature, while a gouty gentleman, having fallen into a brook, had never suffered from any disorder since. His tomb might be seen in the churchyard.”

Elections of mock mayors are believed to have ceased after the year above mentioned-1834-the Municipal Reform Act having passed in the following session. It would be interesting to collect any local reminiscences of the custom.

J. L.

1565. THE BERKELEY MEMORIAL CASE.-This law case, which was heard before Lord Penzance, in the Court of Arches, on Monday, July 28, 1884,* is curious, and may fitly find a resting-place in these pages :

LADY CAROLINE MAXSE v. LORD FITZHARDINGE.

There were two petitions, one by Lord Fitzhardinge and the other by Lady Caroline F. Maxse, each of whom, independently of the other, sought a faculty for the erection of a tablet in the church of Berkeley in memory of the late Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge Berkeley, commonly known as "the Honourable Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge Berkeley," who died on the 27th of August, 1882. Mr. Bayford appeared for Lord Fitzhardinge, and Mr. Jeune for Lady Caroline Maxse.

Mr. Bayford was first heard, his client being the first petitioner. He said that the question really was who should erect a memorial to the deceased, and what the inscription should be. He would

This was an appeal, on the part of Lady Caroline Maxse, from the decision of Mr. Monk, M.P., Chancellor of the Diocese, in the Consistory Court of Gloucester, as reported in the Gloucester Journal, May 17, 1884.

speak of the deceased by his simple name of Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge Berkeley, without reference to any title which Lady Caroline Maxse would seek to confer upon him, and without reference to any distinctive title of courtesy. The deceased died and was buried at Cranford, Middlesex. Upon his coffin there was placed an inscription of the same character as that which Lord Fitzhardinge now sought to put up in Berkeley Church, and there had been put up in Cranford Church a brass embodying the same inscription. There were family estates belonging to the Berkeleys in Gloucestershire and Middlesex. As deceased was not buried at Berkeley, it was within the discretion of his lordship whether any, and if so, what memorial should be erected in the church at that place. It was admitted that the fifth Earl and 18th Baron of Berkeley, who died in August, 1810, was the father of this gentleman and of several sons and daughters. Four of the sonsWilliam, Maurice, Augustus, and Francis Henry-were born before a certain date, which was a material date in the case; and three sons- -Thomas Moreton, the deceased, Charles Grantley, and Craven-were born after that date, as were also three daughtersMary Henrietta, Caroline, and Emily Elizabeth. The second of these, Lady Caroline Fitzhardinge, was now Lady Caroline Maxse, and she was opposing the contention which he (the learned counsel) was now bringing forward on behalf of Lord Fitzhardinge. This gentleman was the son of Maurice Fitzhardinge, and grandson of the fifth earl by descent. One question which had been raised in the family and in the world was whether the present Lord Fitzhardinge was legitimately entitled to be called the grandson of the fifth earl. The tablet which he sought to erect was a memorial brass containing the following inscription :-"To the glory of God, and to the memory of the Honourable Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge Berkeley, fifth son of the fifth Earl of Berkeley, born October 19, 1796; died at Cranford, August 7, 1882, where he is buried." Lady Caroline Maxse suggested that there should be erected a tablet, which, from a photograph, was apparently a marble one, and which was surmounted by an earl's coronet and contained the words :— "Sacred to the memory of the Right Honourable Thomas Moreton Fitzhardinge, sixth Earl of Berkeley, and 19th Baron," &c. The inscription concluded as follows:- "This tablet was erected by his sister, the Lady Caroline Fitzhardinge Maxse, of Effingham Hall." As to the position in which the memorial should be placed, it appeared in the affidavits filed on behalf of Lord Fitzhardinge that a proper place in the church had been selected by him, but nothing had been placed before the court on behalf of Lady Caroline Maxse to show that a suitable position had been chosen for the tablet. Her contention was that there was an old family pew in Berkeley Church, and that the memorial should be placed close to that. Lady C. Maxse, however, was not a parishioner of Berkeley,