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other side, which, though a little coarser, bears internal evidence of being all but contemporary. If the remaining part had had another v in it, we must infer that the top would have been curled as in the cited XVIII, and, consequently, rising above the line, a portion of it would have remained visible, as appears in the place of the second figure before mentioned: as, however, no such indication appears, it follows that the numeral v did not form any part of the remaining portion of the date in question. Hence it may be pronounced that it could not have been V-VI—VII—VIII— XV—XVI—XVII—or XVIII: in which series IV is not included, because, in the inscriptions of that time, four was represented under the more archaic form-IIII. We are thus limited to I—II—III —IIII—IX-X—XI—XII—XIII-and XIIII. Now, when measuring the space where the v of MV must have been, and the place where the first letter of the word following the date (on) must have been, there is abundant room for the greatest number of these numeral letters. We may therefore -by a modified exhaustion-without scowering the shield too closely, or making any untoward hesitation, accept of 1514 as the true date of this portion of the brass.

In my former communication to you this inscription, and not the sculptures, was my only object in writing; but, from a cause which will presently appear, I might as well have said that there is a little group of six sons by the side of the effigies of Thomas, and there are three daughters represented behind Agnes. From the number and evident respectability of the Gurneys formerly located in this vicinity, I inquired of my old and esteemed friend, Mr. Hudson Gurney— so long the popular Vice-President of the Society of Antiquaries—whether he was aware of there having been any connection between the Buckinghamshire and the Norfolk families of that ilk ? Though now in his 86th year, I received an immediate and cheerful reply, in which, after a few general details, he thus proceeds :

There is the grant of the manor of Wendover by Stephen to Hugh de Gournai-and a re-grant to the seventh Hugh Gournay 1180--whose end was unfortunate. Going over from King John to Philip Augustus, he was attainted and confiscated in England; and the French Chronicle says of him: "Hoc anno Hugo de Gurnay capite mulctatus est, ut planus et manifestus proditor."

Of the Gurneys of Stone there are five descents given in the Escheats of Stone and Aylesbury in the reign of Henry the Eighth. In Cole's Escheats and in Daniel Gurney's notes I find--" Joseph Gurney. a baker in Park Street, London, says his family are from Stone or Bishopstone, near Aylesbury, where they had been settled more than a century (June 1831)," or rather from time immemorial. If I find more I will send it to you by another post.

In due time, that is, after further inquiry, the other post did bring a letter, and one so illustrative of the mens sana at his advanced age, that, in justice to our venerable antiquary, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of here inserting it :—

MY DEAR SIR,

Keswick, March 13th, 1862.

First returning you a thousand thanks for the tracts you have had the kindness to send me, I have to make unnumbered apologies for not having thanked you for them before; but the truth is that, now being in my 88th year instead of the 86th, as when you did me the honour to mention me, I am come to so much weakness both of mind and body that everything about me gets into inextricable confusion, and just able to

walk, but not able to stand above a minute or two, losing my memory most inconveniently, and my eyesight becoming very dim, I am unable to move about and pull down books for reference.

To begin with your researches at STONE. It is not quite creditable to the race that Thomas Gurney's family should have stolen Christopher Tharpe's brass within eight years after his death in order to appropriate it to Thomas Gurney's monument; and, if you will allow me, may I ask you an heraldic question?

I find no existing evidence of the use of armorial bearings either in France or England earlier than our Henry the Second. They are extremely rare in the reigns of Richard and John, came more into use in that of Henry the Third, and were almost universal in England in that of Edward the First, but had not then got into Scotland. Now all the Norman Heralds give the arms of the Seigneuries de Gournay-De sable purement, simply black. All our MSS. and Rolls in England give them, Paly of six or and azure. Our Norfolk branch have, Argent, a cross engrailed gules, from Sir John Gurney who accompanied Edward the First when Prince of Wales to the Holy Land. The pales are given to Gerard, who married the Conqueror's grand-daughter, and to his son Hugh, said to have been made Earl Gournay by William Rufus.

I know no seal of the pales earlier than ours of the cross in the reign of Henry the Third; and what I would venture to ask is, in your minute researches in the Church of Stone did you anywhere see any traces of the shield of the Gournays?

The six sons and three daughters of Thomas and Agnes being as pleureurs on the monument, and all their thigh-bones turning up, is a most curious circumstance. Was there ever any rubbing or sketch of the whole monument taken?.

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Speaking of heraldry, the silphium in your arms set me to musing, and to making inquiries of everybody I thought might know about it. It appears so entirely unaccountable that so valuable a medicinal plant, making a great part of the commerce of the Cyrenaica, should be lost. Dr. Dalrymple, who had just come from Palestine, told me there was a plant greatly resembling the medal of it, extremely common in the Holy Land, which they called the wild onion; and Sir Henry Holland thought it of the nature of the plant producing assafoetida. Dr. Dalrymple said he would write to a friend at Beyrout to get him a specimen of this plant, but I do not know whether he succeeded.

Your account of the old church of Constantine and your correspondence with Sir Richard Vyvyan, and Stonehenge being the burial-place of the succession of British Kings, is excessively curious, and what I am very much inclined to believe: and your lines on the double stars are excellent, and their philosophy not to be refuted. I can conceive nothing more absurd than the hypothesis * *that sun, moon, and stars were all created merely as lamps *

I dined with the Royal Society's Club in its commencement. Its point of failure must have been that you had no time to talk of things before you broke up for the Society's meeting. I belong to only one dinner club, which I shall never see again. To my great astonishment I was elected to Johnson's Club, modestly calling itself "The Club." Every one presides in the order of the letters of the alphabet. The form enouncing the election is said to be the only short sentence that Gibbon ever wrote, which is, " Sir,— I have the pleasure to inform you that you have the honour to be elected to the Club." This came to my house on the Tuesday evening, signed "BROUGHAM, President." The next day I went to the Levée, and before I could recover the perpendicular from a profound reverence to his most sacred Majesty King William, Brougham, standing in his robes and wig as Chancellor, and holding the Seals, seized me by the collar, and dragged me across the Duke of Gloucester into the circle of the ministers to ask me if I had received his letter. I conceive as singular a proceeding in a chancellor has not often been witnessed in a Court. The Club consists of from 30 to 35 members. The greatest number that ever dined there was 19, on the

admission of Sir Walter Scott, and the smallest number was ONE, when, on the day of the great run on all the banks of London in 1825, when Huskisson said the whole country was within half-an-hour of coming to barter, Lord Liverpool, Prime Minister, came to the Club as he was accustomed to do, dined alone, and signed his name for a bottle of Madeira. A singular historical anecdote.

I am, my dear Sir,

Yours most truly,

HUDSON GURNEY.

Admiral Smyth, &c. &c. &c.

To Mr. Hudson Gurney's account I may as well add that a very old charter among the archives of the Duchy of Lancaster is signed by Hugh de Gurnai, as one of the witnesses; and there is both internal and presumptive evidence that this same document was drawn up A.D. 1190, in the commencement of the reign of Richard the First. Moreover, in the Rotuli de Oblatis et Finibus there are to be found, in the years 1384, 1393, 1395, 1402, and 1462, fines on the messuages, lands, and rents of Stone and Bishopstone, which thereby confirmed the rights and established the position of the Gurneys. Among the early records preserved in the evidenceroom at Hartwell House, is a curious rent-roll dated on the 30th day of November, 1459 (38th Hen. VI.) in favour of D. Witts Gurney, de Bysshoppeston.

It is plain that the family of the Gurneys was pretty numerous in this vicinity, for the name constantly occurs in the records of marriages, baptisms, and deaths; and it still exists around, though not in the same consideration. In endeavouring to trace when such a decadence might have occurred, a sad hiatus of 350 years comes to light; that is, between the time above cited and that of Henry VIII., in whose reign the laudable parish records were instituted. Numerous documents may have been preserved by the monks: but though monasteries were the safe-guards of religion and literature in the dark ages, they were also the strong-holds of superstitious bigotry and spiritual despotism, under which influence many of their manuscripts were garbled. I was therefore confined to the parish registers, the wading through which may not be deemed at all entertaining reading.* But those who view them only as a dry and dull series of insignificant names and dates are certainly not of that archaic taste which calls upon the grave to render up its still occupants, and re-animate them for the moment, thereby to throw a light upon circumstantial evidence-genealogical testimony which is still to be held in trust for future investigations

They whisper truths in Reason's ear,

Would human pride but stoop to hear.

The earliest mention of this family in the parish register, nor could it well be earlier in such a record, is Francis Gurney, "sonne of Hen. Gournay the Younger," who was christened on the

* Under the date November 29th, 1763, is the curt entry-"A woman, name unknown, cook to the late S Thomas Lee." This uncouth record of the once most important personage in the household staff, may be imputed to her having been always addressed by the title of her calling. Just before this, in the same registry, when a daughter of Elizabeth Griffin was baptized, there is a revolting memorandum—“ the father was hanged at Aylesbury some little time before, and the mother was traveling (tramping) on ye road." Ill-starred infant!

7th of October, 1538; and a "Margarett Gourney" was married in the following month. These entries are, of course, on the first leaf, for it was the same year in which the practice was ordered; and there is inferential testimony that they were then a family "well to do," as there are in·scriptions and an altar-tomb of some of them; although it must be confessed that Francis Gurney only placed his mark to a Bishopstone deed, dated 1 August, 36 Eliz. (1594). They are entered repeatedly afterwards-ladies as well as gentlemen-as being buried according to that unpopular act of parliament (18 Car. II. cap. 4; and 30 Car. II. cap. 3) which was passed and practised upon in 1678, in woollen grave-clothes only-which a payment would have evaded. Pope has recorded the agitation that the decree occasioned in the dying moments of a fair one

"Odious! in woollen! 'twould a saint provoke!"

Were the last words that poor Narcissa spoke.*

The observance of this compulsory enactment was strictly enforced, under the plea of thereby lessening the importation of linen from abroad and increasing the consumption of wool: and all the parish registers which I have examined bear ample proof of the carrying out of this law. Though no authentic notice has met my eye of the custom having been practised after the year 1789, the formal repeal was not obtained till 1814. While in full operation it was a most unpalatable regulation for submitting to: and as no corpse could be interred, nor any funeral ceremony be entered upon without the qualifying affidavit-which it was sometimes very difficult to procure-inconvenient delays often occurred, to the annoyance of domestic feeling. That all the provisions of the act had been complied with, had then to be certified by the minister; in default of which a fine of five pounds was to be levied on the goods and chattels of the deceased, or failing those, on the goods of the person in whose house the death occurred, or of any person concerned in the enshroudment of the defunct. The registration then-with the clergyman's ita esse test.—was placed under the occasional inspection of the local magistrates, who signed the entries to attest their having duly examined the details. There is ample evidence before us, that these conditions were strictly observed: and to a record of the Gurneys in 1693, I observed three signatures of so remarkable a tenour, that I took a tracing of them thus:

Here we have the sign-manuals of Sir Thomas Lee of Hartwell, son of the friend of Hampden and Ingoldsby; of Colonel Richard Beke, the favourite of Cromwell, and husband of Sir Thomas's

* This was Mrs. Oldfield, the celebrated actress, who died in 1731. She, however, escaped the "odious woollen;" and was buried in Westminister Abbey, in a Brussels lace head-dress, a holland shift

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third daughter; and of Simon Mayne, whose autograph-save in the i for y—singularly resembles that of his father the regicide, as shown on the death-warrant of Charles the First. He was permitted to enjoy the lands in Dinton, though they had escheated to the Crown. Beke, it will be recollected, was knighted by Oliver, but on the restoration of royalty he thought it prudent to drop his title, in order to facilitate his application for special indemnity under the great seal.* The pardon thus obtained is in Dr. Lee's possession:† in its general provisions it follows not only the public act of indemnity and oblivion, but also enters into several particulars not provided for even by the wordy statute of 12 Car. II.; and it is drawn up with such point and precision as, apparently, to meet every possible case. An instance will show this:

Know ye, therefore, that we of our special grace & of our certain knowledge & mere motion, have pardoned, remitted, & released, & by these patents do pardon, remit, & release, to Richard Beke, of Haddenham, in our county of Buckingham, Esquire, or by whatsoever name or surname, or addition of name or surname, office, or place, the same Richard Beke be deemed, called or named, or lately was deemed, called, or named, all & all manner of treasons, crimes of lese majesty, levyings of war, rebellions, & insurrections, & conspiracies & misprisions of the same treasons, crimes of lese majesty, levyings of war, rebellions and insurrections, & all & singular murders, and killings, & slayings of men per insidias (by lying in waite), by assault or of malice aforethought, homicides, felonies, robberies, burnings of houses, depredations piratical, offences, crimes, contempts, misdemeanours, & transgressions, counselled, commanded, attempted, done, perpetrated, or committed by the aforesaid Richard Beke before the 10th day of June last past, &c. &c.

Three years after the date of these signatures, Sir Thomas Lee and Simon Mayne had the severe contested election for Aylesbury, upon which the House of Commons resolved that persons deriving benefit from Bedford's Charity in that town are thereby disabled from voting; which right was to be confined to householders not receiving alms.

This decision was equally unexpected and annoying to the vested birthright men, since they had been led to regard the Bedford bounty as a largess independent of all other charitable institutions of the town; and much dissatisfaction was evinced on thus reducing a number of freemen— pot-wallopers, in electioneering parlance-to the condition of mere paupers. But before the Reform

with tucker, double lace ruffles, and new kid gloves. (Gentleman's Magazine for March, 1731.) The fine was, of course, paid by somebody. It seems tyrannical to fulminate grave enactments for funeral habili

ments.

Near the communion-rails of Chetwode church, in this county, some coffins-apparently of ecclesiastics-were opened, the bodies in which were found to be wrapped in leather.

As the only representative of the ancient Beke family, I cannot but cite Dr. Beke, the spirited and persevering Abyssinian traveller; one who, from his Nilotic investigations, may yet force the mighty and mysterious river to yield up its source. Indeed appearances indicate that one of the great geographical problems of all ages, the Caput Nili, is on the very point of being settled.

There are epitaphial inscriptions to the Bekes both in Haddenham and Dinton churches, but as those given by Lipscomb are not quite accurate, Dr. Lee had rubbings made from them.

†This very circumstantial document, perhaps the longest of its kind that is known, was printed at length in The Topographer and Genealogist, 1858, vol. iii. p. 164.